Biblical Anthropology - Identification - Part I

All right. Like we say, this is the one place where we're glad that you look for a handout, OK? And so please make sure you get one. We have this week and next week, we're talking about identification. All these topics are in preparation for the Biblical counseling that we're going to be having starting in April, continuing on for two quarters through September, should the Lord allow us that long. We would not be disappointed if the Lord interrupted this whole topic. That would be fine. I'd be happy with that. But assuming the Lord allows us that long, we'll continue through September. on the biblical counseling.

And this identification will cover part one today, part two next Sunday, and then we're going to have two more, kind of two weeks on one topic following that. So identification, this is part one. We're not going to cover the whole thing today. But a key thing comes up here in part one.

We get this question in the first paragraph, who gets credit for letting us know and how was it accomplished? Identification is a principle taught in Scripture, there's no question about it, principally to the believers in the body of Christ. That's the place where it's shown mostly. It's explained most fully by the Apostle Paul.

Now, I say explained, but that's not the only place where it shows up. It also shows up, for example, towards the last part of the Gospel of John, especially chapters 15 and 17. It shows up as well in Peter's writings in more than one place. And it shows up in a few other places but not quite as prominently.

The key point we have here is we can take no credit. It is God's revelation. It's something we would not know about had it not been God's revelation. We can have no pride in knowing it because it's Him who has revealed it, deliberately revealed it. And so as we look at these truths here, it's accomplished entirely by God.

Our identification in Christ is accomplished entirely by Him. We can find examples of identification applying to other people groups. The teachings that we're going to focus on here, and the primary teaching of the Bible regarding identification, is with the body of Christ. And so from Acts 2 to the rapture, to the time when the Lord takes us home, and I hope it's today, then Christ will come for his bride, the church. It is all to the Lord's credit and to his honor and glory entirely, completely.

Okay, some synonyms. Interesting, if you look it up in the concordance for the word identification, I don't think you'll find it. unless it's an unusual concordance. I don't think you're going to find it. It is one of these handles that we use. And I think handles are okay as long as we explain them. We use them as a means to communicate but not as a means to isolate ourselves from other people or to leave people in the dark.

So that's one of the things we want to do this morning is make sure that we understand it. Here are the words that are used in scripture, and that's one reason why we use the word identification, is because it summarizes other words easily. That's one of the reasons why we use it.

It's easier for me to say the identification truths than the truths about in, with, together with, united with, and baptized into. And those are the words that we have here in bullets. Being in. is a part of identification, being with, together with, united with, and baptized into. Those are the terms that you will find in scripture.

We're going to also look at other words that result from identification, but that's next week. So the outcome or the results of that identification we're going to get to next. Let's go through these bullets one at a time. being placed entirely in so as to share an identity.

It's not just a locationally in with no particular significance to it. If I say to you, you are in the garage, does that mean that you're a car? No. And so in does not automatically mean that, but We see that specifically showing up in scripture, where in has that significance. Particularly one of the common ones, and we'll see this shortly, is in Christ.

With, and that means more than just, you know, you're here with me in this room, but this is a with that is an intimate connection, intimately joined in action and consequence. Together with. as above, with together underscoring the same identity in action. The next one, united with, united, it implies a oneness. And so a spiritual oneness is communicated. And then finally, baptized into. By the way, we love for people to ask for handouts or to come ask, expecting them, so feel free.

Later on, we're going to address the terms that God's Word uses to describe the outcomes and consequences of identification. All right, now, the next part we have, first the bad news. We're going to give you the bad news first. God's Word says that when Adam sinned, and of course that's something we've been looking at and we'll look at again here this morning in studying through the book of Genesis, We were in Adam in that sense, or identified with fallen Adam, including the consequences that God said would come from the sin. What did God warn Adam would take place if he ate of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

Surely die, okay? And not a you probably, not a you might, okay? Or if you don't watch out, you could. But you will certainly, it's absolutely certain, that you will die. And what did he mean by that? You're going to drop dead instantly? No. It was a spiritual separation that took place.

And that in word, remember that's one of the words that we had on the top of the bullet list there, that in word there comes out in 1 Corinthians 15.22, just the first phrase there, for as in Adam, all die. As in Adam, all die. As we explained on pages 7 and 8 of this study previously, death means spiritual separation. And that's something we'll look at even more next week. Being in Adam means spiritual separation from God and all the ghastly and earthly consequences and eternal consequences that go along with it.

That's the bad news. And if God had left things there, we would just be totally hopeless. Imagine if there was no good news. Ever seen these sort of sadistic jokes? Life is hard, then you die. This is kind of the situation without redemption, isn't it? This is the circumstance that people find themselves in without the Lord's salvation. It is hopeless. All right, now let's get on to the next page there, top of page 20. How in the heavenlies did we get here? No, that's not the right one. At first the news only gets worse, much worse.

In John 8.24, here's Jesus talking to the Jews.

He says in John 8.24, Therefore I said to you, that you will die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." Why did Jesus say that twice? Why was it so significant?

Because sins are important. Sins matter. Okay? Alright? What was He telling them? Is there a room called sins and they're going to die there no matter what they try to do? What does he mean by dying in your sins? Isn't that something? Yeah. You are identified. You're in Adam, right?

And unless something changes that God's doing, you're stuck there. And the sin nature that Adam had when he sinned against God, which is trying to seek life hopelessly apart from God, that sin nature and all the sins that go with it. You're going to die on it all. You're stuck in that box of the sin nature and sins. All the stuff that the sin nature does, both of them, it says you're in them. You're in Adam by identification and character, but also, even the things that the sin nature does, what it lives out, you're in them. You're there. You're stuck. Jesus was not the only one to put that forth. Look at Ephesians chapter 2. We quote there verses 1 and 2 and the first part of 5. For you were dead in, and what does he mean by dead? Pardon? Separated, right? You were separated from God in your trespasses and sins. Paul and Jesus are entirely consistent. In which you formerly walked, you walked, you lived and ordered your life step by step in those sins.

In them. According to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, And then in verse 5, even when we were dead in our transgressions. So Paul even puts himself as an unbeliever right there. Colossians 2.13a, when you were dead in your transgressions in the uncircumcision of your flesh. Paul and Christ are entirely consistent here.

It's not just sort of a hypothetical positional thing, but it is in fact even the acts of sin. You're in those two. So the unbelievers are in a pretty desperate spot. That's why I say the news gets even worse before it gets better. And thank the Lord, it gets a lot better.

But to God's eternal praise and glory and honor, he did not leave us there in Adam and dead in our trespasses and sins and transgressions. He didn't do that. Yes, Jeremy. into proper distinction, that you don't necessarily die. Let me say this with me.

Mankind puts so much emphasis on the amount of sin you do or the amount of good you do that there's the balance there. But God sees it not as, oh, you sin this much or this much, but the fact that you're in sin. And regardless of how much or how little you sin, because of your identification with that, that's the reason why you're condemned.

Ultimately, if you look at it, it is those whose names are not on the Book of Life, that's why they're at the White Throne Judgment, Revelation chapter 20, verses 11 through 15. That's why someone shows up there. It's their names are not in the Book of Life. It's because they didn't believe, that's why they're there.

Now, what's the issue with the sins? the issue with the sins, you're in them, and that's also just, it goes right along with it. It goes right along with, you didn't believe, and that's why you're still in them. Because look at the top of the page, John 8, 24, the last part of what Jesus said, unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins. Belief is the door out. But if a person doesn't believe, even though Christ has paid for the sins of every person on the planet, whoever lived or will live, if a person does not believe, they're just stuck in that mode.

They're there at the white throne judgment showing up because they didn't believe, wrapped up in all their sins as well. It's unbelief that ends up being the determining issue as to why they show up. And now the good news. Identification with Christ, and we mentioned this is not to just throw a handle and leave people there. What does that mean? It means in. It means together with. It means with. It means baptized into. And we gave the definitions of those.

But now the good news. is expressed in several ways as listed in the bullets on the prior page, in the middle of the prior page. One of the frequent ways in which that truth is conveyed is that the believer is in Christ as opposed to remaining in Adam. That truth is conveyed primarily in the letters of Paul, but not entirely. We can find an example of it frequently in the book of Ephesians that we studied a few years back, 36 times in 6 chapters. And how does it show up? In Christ, just in chapter 1, verse 3, verse 7, verse 10, that the believer is in Christ. And the very first place it shows up, verse 3.

Thanks be to our God and Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. A few, some, a couple of them. Every, right? Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, where? In Christ, okay? And by the way, that thanks be to God, that little phrase there, that comes out of Genesis, by the way. Okay.

In Him. Basically focused on Christ and just using the the pronoun in him several times in that chapter by the way in him We show there is verses 4 9 10 and 13. We've mentioned previously that in the Greek Ephesians 1 verses 3 through 14 is all one sentence so far as anyone can find Paul holds the record first and second place that verse 3 through 14 is the longest and Greek sentence in all of Greek literature of any time of which we have record. And verse 15 to the end of the chapter gets second place. Okay? So Paul is emphatic and he also sticks to the theme.

In the Beloved. In the Beloved. Now think about this. Christ is called the Beloved. Where are we? Yes? Are we in Him? Yeah, we are in the Beloved. How about that? The one Beloved of God. In whom? There's one that gets used in chapter 2 and chapter 3. Another pronoun there, but basically the message is conveyed again and again and again, a total of 36 times just in that one book of Ephesians with six chapters. It shows up repeatedly.

A person who has placed his or her faith in Christ for salvation is in Christ, meaning that the believer has been placed entirely in Christ, spiritually speaking, so as to share an identity with Him. So as to share, and this is going to be important as we get into the next stage, so as we share a history with Him in these aspects. As we talk about next week, and we'll talk about a lot more when we get into the biblical counseling section. This is really good news. And as Nancy and I sit down with couples and individuals and counsel, we rejoice in being able to share this with people.

Because people come with all kinds of histories. Lots of different kinds of histories. But to be able to tell people, you know, you told me that history that you had. And a lot of times it's stuff to cry with. Sometimes it's horrifying. Some of the histories can be very sad.

And yet there's always for the believer this good news to be able to share, marvelous news to be able to share, that the history that the believer has in Christ has now replaced that history that you had. Sometimes as we listen to people, it's a history of the things that they've done. Sometimes it's a history of the things that they failed to do. Sometimes it's a history of things that have been done to them. And sometimes they're just awful.

But for every single believer to be able to look at and say, you know, you have a new history. Oh, that's just fantastic. That's fantastic. Because your history is now in Christ. Your personal history is now in Him. This is wonderful news. And we can share that with every single believer. It's phenomenal good news.

There is not the slightest indication from Scripture that this placement in Christ is something that varies over time. or that it's ever undone or even threatened to be undone. The authors of scripture don't write, you be careful what you do. You don't want to fall out of Christ. You don't want to slip out of there. Paul doesn't write about any banana Christians. No banana peels. None of that. Every indication from scripture is that once a person has been placed in Christ, that's where they remain.

Now here's something real interesting. How many of you remember being placed in Christ? Do you have a recollection of that? Yeah? Mike says yes. And why is that? Okay, but basically it's a truth revealed. It's not something that we necessarily have a universal experience of in terms of, well, I remember when that happened. When we walked in here, you know, probably most of us remember we walked in here. We usually don't come in, why am I here, you know? So there's a recollection of that. We can look back on it and say, yeah, I came in the room. But this being placed in Christ is not something that would particularly have an experiential resurrection.

As Mike pointed out, we believe it based on the revealed facts. That's how we know it. Then the experience may follow. Yeah, experience may follow, and as a matter of fact, there may be even a multitude of experiences. things that you begin to realize, and there may even be emotion associated with it, there may be drama associated with it, and just to realize and recognize that this is true because God said it is true, and that I can take that on faith. But it's still marvelous good news, and in fact if it does impact us emotionally, that's just fine. That's just great. There's nothing in scripture that says you're not allowed to experience emotions. You may well indeed.

And I think we can look at numerous instances in scripture where there was emotional expression and response. Paul was not blasé when he was suddenly blinded on the road to Damascus, right? He was profoundly impacted. This truth is an important answer to the question, can a believer's salvation be lost? It's only one of the answers.

We talk about in Christ, there is no out of Christ explained. We talk about being seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Nobody gets a Teflon chair. It is something that scripture describes as one way, and there is neither an expression and a description of someone falling out of their heavenly chair or throne, nor is there even a threat of that. No believer can be taken out of Christ. Alright, now, the top of page 21. This is, how in the heavenlies did we get here?

We who believe in Christ for salvation were placed in Christ by being baptized, that is, immersed into Christ, with the consequence that we are permanently changed in fundamental character by the immersion into Christ that God alone accomplished. There are a couple of examples that the word baptism was used for, just in the general culture, and one of those is when they would die a cloth.

They would take a cloth that was typically whatever color it was or even sometimes first made white and then dyed. Dyeing things in the color of a red or purple or anything in that shade was extremely expensive. They would take a shell, a Murex shell, and would grind that shell up and get a die from that. The cost of that die was something on the order of five to ten times the cost per ounce of that of gold. So it was like many times more valuable than gold to buy this die.

The cloth would be dipped and immersed completely into this dye and then come out completely changed. In those days, with the technology they had available, once you had that dye on the cloth, there was no way with the technology that they had then to make it white again. It was dyed permanently. When they would take the cloth and put it into the dye, they would say they were baptizing the cloth into the dye.

So that's how that word was used. Another way that the word was used was the making of the Roman soldiers' swords. They would heat the sword as hot as they could get it and then plunge it quickly into cold water. And that would heat treat or harden the surface of the sword so that it wouldn't just dent up and and it dulled easily, but instead would have an enduring hardness. And that shoving of the sword quickly from the heat into the cold water, they would say, I'm baptizing the sword.

So it's that word that was in people's minds when Paul wrote this, when we talk about baptism, because we typically gravitate towards what we do here behind the screen. We think about just getting a person wet. But that was what they had in mind. A change that makes a radical difference in the form and appearance and character of what's being baptized. And with the implication of permanence. And being completely placed into, not just a little sprinkly stuff, So that's the picture that they had in mind, being placed into Christ.

That's what we find in the teaching in Romans 6, 3 and 4, been baptized, been placed into, immersed into Christ, and Galatians 3.27. So we looked at it when we studied in Galatians chapter 3. The multiple spiritual outcomes from our baptism into Christ are important, impacting our eternity and our present daily life.

So here's the key thing. Just like the dye changed the character of that cloth from then on, and just like shoving the hot sword, heated very hot, into the cold water, changed that sword's character from then on, so our being baptized, placed into Christ, changes us from then on.

Now how about the rest of these terms here? With, together with, and united. These terms tell how we were identified with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, and seating in the heavenlies, as a number of the verses testify. Here's this Romans 6 passage here, verses 4 through the first part of verse 6. Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death.

Let me ask the question, why is that good news? I mean, a person might even say that sounds morbid. Why is that good news? Oh, oh, okay, wow. Heavens. Oh, yeah. Alright, then let's read the rest of the verse. Okay. So that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

By the way, the word newness is not just new in sequence. It's new in kind. A new kind of life. The Lord is not just intending that we just kind of walk a little different, and it's newer than the last, but a new kind altogether. Yeah, Jeremy? to take care of those, but it's still us. To understand, like you say, new and kind, something drastically different than old Adam, makes an enormous difference in your faith and how that's going to come out in your Christian life. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is an amazing thing.

This is a new kind of life. It's not just The old life, just kind of the old life's best efforts. It's not, you know, we're just kind of putting our best foot forward. It's not that. This is new and kind. Unlike the old kind. Not having the old character.

Verse 5, For if we have become united with Him, and here's another interesting word, united with Him, in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be, and in the implication, united with him in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him, all of who we were, going back to the term, in Adam, all that we were, having been previously identified with Adam, is crucified. What happens to people who get crucified? They die, and the Romans made sure of it. They had the soldiers stand around and make sure that these guys went all the way to death, no matter how long it took.

Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ. This is a remarkable thing for Paul to claim.

We brought up previously that this word crucified was a foul language. It was such foul language that the governors or emperors, whoever was the Roman official that made the legal declaration, this person is to be crucified, that they were allowed to use alternate terminology in order to avoid being crude.

It was something he didn't say. And yet, here's Paul, he just comes out and says this very thing. It was awful. It was that bad. That even pagans didn't want to say the word. And Paul just comes out and says it. We preach Christ and Christ, you know, boop! Okay? This was an awful thing. And yet, this was good news that he declared. I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who does the living. But Christ does the living in me.

And the life which I now live in the flesh, in this body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. It is by faith, the point that Mike made earlier, it is by faith in what God has revealed. that we know these things, that we can live in this new way, in this newness of life. Ephesians 2, 4-6, But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, there's the dead end, right? Made us alive together with, there's the together with word pair. with Christ. By grace you have been saved. And raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

With Him. As we look at these verses, it is key for us to grasp. This is not just some sort of religious lingo. Because he repeatedly, and using these sets of words, in, and with, and together with, and united with, and baptized into, using these set of words, he repeatedly comes back to this message. And it's a message that impacts, you know, it's not just something where you can kind of get a concept, but it impacts how we live, it impacts our eternity. your history, regardless of what it looks like here on planet Earth. Because each of us can say, well, I was born here, and my home life was like so-and-so. And we can describe those things. But these are eternity-changing truths from the day that we understand them forward. And that's why he keeps presenting them. Think about the people that he was writing to. We've quoted substantially here from Rome and the letter to the Romans. We've quoted from the letter to the Ephesians here several different times.

What was the typical pagan life like in Ephesus? Yeah, idol worship. Remember one of the things, if you went into the marketplace, there was a huge industry in buying statues of the pagan goddess. Massive. Pardon? Fairly lascivious. And what do you mean by that? things that are sexually taboo in our culture weren't in theirs. Yeah, that's right.

They had four different kinds of prostitutes, different categories of prostitutes. And I'm talking just the females. If you went to the theater after theater events, most of the women on the stage were for rent. At the exit, they would have a group of boys that you could rent to take home. In the marketplace, they had a slave market and you could buy anything there and do what you like. Yeah, it was a rank, raunchy culture.

When Paul was writing these truths. He wasn't writing to people who had lived real nicely and didn't have much to deal with. Imagine if you, for as long as you could remember, were a young girl who had been bought in the slave market and used as your master pleased. Imagine if you had been a boy that had been rented at the amphitheater.

One of the reasons why the qualifications for elders that Paul gave included the elders must be hospitable, all the inns, what we would call motels, were brothels. And so for Christians to offer other Christians a place that wasn't so morally degraded was a necessity. Yes, Norm.

It's still not uncommon in the Arab countries have white slavery. And several years back when I was working for the Department of Energy, I had the opportunity to go over for six months work in Saudi Arabia. And I did some research and found out that blondes and redheads were a great commodity. Expensive. And therefore, having a redhead for a wife, I decided to take a different path and stay back and send a Jewish friend of mine over. Yes.

The thing is, as we read these things, it's important that we not have an antiseptic view of what Paul was dealing with. He was dealing with issues every bit as serious as the worst that our culture has, and worse still. We would at least have something in place that would avoid the abuses that were common in those days.

There was no child protective services. There wasn't anything in place to stop, for example, spousal abuse. Nothing. Zip. It was a raunchy, rank, gross culture. And in the midst of that, in the midst of that kind of a culture, In many of the major cities, probably estimates are somewhere around half the people were slaves, that is they were owned. And not universally the case, but at least vulnerable to all kinds of abuses.

And I think as you look at it, what Paul was talking about here, I think it's important that we recognize it's extremely relevant. extremely relevant. And we're going to talk about this more in the main service. These truths are wonderful truths because as people look back and they say, you know, the things I did, the things I didn't do, the things that have been done to me, the things that I saw done to somebody else, all those things, as we look at them, the Lord has a real and eternal way to deal with those histories. And his manner of doing so isn't just some little, you know, pixie dust sprinkled over the top. But this impacts us at the very deepest part of who we are. So here would be these people who had come up with gross histories terrible things they'd either done or had been done to them.

And they could look at these truths and they would read these things and just be in awe, rejoicing. Look at what I was and look what the Lord made me. Look what He did. Look at how He has changed my history. This is marvelous stuff. This is wonderful stuff. Imagine the person who had spent as long as they can remember being abused by their master in one form or another. Suddenly hearing that old life has been crucified with Christ. And believe it or not, yeah, do believe it, you've been seated with Christ in the heavenlies. And you're not just waiting for it. But it's now, right now, a done deal.

Yeah, Gail? That's right. A lot of times, a lot of times the abuse went on. The difficulty continued. because there wasn't an easy way to get out of it. Yeah. The contrast between staying there and yet having this. Yeah. To be able to say, even with the abuse continuing, I have been identified with Christ.

I now share His history. And that's why Paul could write to the church at Corinth And he said, and you were this and you were that. And he listed some terrible things. And sometimes they were participators, sometimes they were perpetrators. And even being in a place of, I allowed this to go on. Sometimes that can be haunting. I was telling Roger and Mike just earlier this week.

When Nancy and I lived in Carson City, there was a fellow who came to town to visit. His name was Bernard Nathanson. And he had been at the head of the organizing of some of the abortion clinics and a lot of the right to choose organizations. And he had later become a believer. And he said, you know, here I was, I was in the top end and the inner circle of the right to choose camp. He says, I was one of the leaders.

And he said, once Roe versus Wade went through, he said, I either personally performed or had supervisor authority over 60,000 abortions. And he said, how can you possibly deal with that guilt? How could you possibly deal with that guilt once you recognize what it is about Jesus Christ? He said, there's no way. He says, I was personally responsible, either hands on or as a supervisor, for the murder of 60,000 infants. He says the only way to deal with that guilt is Jesus Christ.

And that's the magnitude of what we're seeing here. That some people have some really awful things to contend with. Some people have some really horrible things and it's either it's things that they've done and even things that they didn't do that they should have done. It's being a victim or it's standing by while somebody else that you know and are close to becomes a victim. Whatever the circumstance, and those things can haunt people. They can be nightmares that are hard to clear from the mind.

But to have this wonderful news that we're in Christ, that my history has changed, but not only that, my future has now changed too. This is a phenomenal piece of good news to be able to share with people. and to be able to say it personally, too. Not just to say, hey, isn't this good news for you? But this is marvelous good news for me. Because every single one of us has something.

If I say the word guilt, if I say anger, probably something comes to mind. And you know there are some things It's pretty heavy in this world, and it's pretty easy for us to have some kind of contact with those things. And sometimes there might even be things where I should have said something and I didn't, or I should have done something and I didn't. I imagine that went through Adam's mind a whole bunch of times.

But to have these understandings revealed to us, to begin to ponder the difference this makes. Not just, you know, it'll be real nice when we go home to be with the Lord. Yeah, that's true. But right now, I've got something real and eternal and fixed that just changes who I am and changes my history and changes my future. This is amazing good news. Phenomenal good news. And it is extremely relevant. for all the different things that go on in people's lives. Yeah, Jeremy?

It's amazing to think that your future history is secure in Christ. So that means you don't have to worry about, well, what if I make a mistake tomorrow? We don't have to live our lives constantly worrying about what we're going to do, knowing that our future is secure in Christ.

Our only, if you want to call it responsibility, our only task is to behold Christ. There's nothing we can do to please Him more. That's secure. All we have to do is simply behold Christ and not worry about what's going to happen to us, how we're going to live and what that's going to look like. We're secure in Christ.

You know, I think that's a key thing. We'll meet here week after week, month after month, even year after year, and we'll study God's Word, and that's a good thing. But it's also a very good thing to be able to look at these things and to realize how simple the basic truths are. To look at it, and what the Lord has required that I believe, and it's only what he's accomplished in order to be saved is really very simple. I try to say it from time to time, but it really only takes seconds. Do you believe that Christ died for your sins and was buried and rose again? Do you believe that? I don't think it took me ten seconds to say it. That's the gospel. Believe that?

Then all these other things that we study for months and years on end are true of you, But you didn't need to understand all that to be saved. What's required to be saved is real simple. And then, just to recognize that, yeah, we're studying all these things, and there's certainly things that we can study for a long time, and you can study Greek and Hebrew and history and all that, but in the bottom line, our walk with the Lord is real simple.

I'm in Christ. That's where I am. That's who I am. That's now my history. I can walk in fellowship with Him. I can believe Him. And that's real simple. And that also is marvelous good news. There's a lot to study and a lot to talk about, but in the end, It's Him. In the end, what I have to believe to be saved and what I need to know to walk with Him is not all that difficult or complicated. Thank the Lord it's real simple. Other thoughts? Let's call it. Lord, we do thank you.

We do have marvelous good news after what certainly for many Even horrifying bad news. What for many is an unending nightmare. Waves of horror even can pour over their minds and hearts. What wonderful good news. Eternally good news. And eternally settled news we have. And it's not simply a waiting for some future event. Not waiting to get out of here. but it is right now relevant, and it impacts our lives, and that's exactly what you intend. Thank you for these marvelous truths, and we look forward to what you have to unfold in the days and weeks ahead. We just pray in Jesus' name. Amen.