Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast.
If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.
Thank you for joining us today.
So this message can be a tough one sometimes, you know, these verses.
Some of you will know what I mean as soon as you start looking at them.
But they're very controversial, so I don't take going through these verses lightly.
That's for sure.
And it's controversial, really, because a lot of times people use this to create doubt, you know.
Can I lose my salvation?
You know, am I even saved?
What do I have to do to stay saved?
You know, a lot of these things.
And like I said, it's very controversial.
And, you know, what do you do with verses like this in the Bible that talk about, you know,
warning you about falling into too much sin.
And I just want to go through a few of them before we get started.
Because let's just get it out of the way, okay?
Let's create the tension in the room, okay?
Right here, right now, okay?
And then once we look at it, then we can progress and just rest in the Lord, okay?
But I want to bring up some stressful verses, okay?
Do you mind?
Can we do that?
Did we pray yet?
I think we didn't pray for the message.
Father, God, I'm going to just ask you, Lord, that your Spirit would use these verses in your Scripture
to really settle in each one of us, Lord, and help us reconcile disobedience in our lives
with the assurance of hope to the end, Lord God.
Help us reconcile these things.
And, Lord, I most of all ask you to bypass me or anything I can say that isn't directly from your Spirit,
that you would say what you're supposed to say, Lord, and I would get out of the way.
In Jesus' name, amen.
So, in fact, later in Hebrews, okay, we're going to read Hebrews 10, 26, and 27.
For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth,
there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
but certain fearful expectations of judgment and fiery indignation,
which will devour the adversaries, okay?
That's a little, that probably gets your hair to stand up on the back of your neck a little bit,
because we all sin, don't we?
Okay, so we're going to attempt to reconcile that a little bit.
More about sin, 1 John 2.4 says, he who says, there's kind of an echo here.
Is that something we can tweak?
And he who says, I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar,
and the truth is not in him.
Tough, right?
Tough.
And of course, moving into works, what do I have to do to be saved?
Don't worry, we're going to address all these things.
Some people are getting ready to walk out.
What's he talking about?
But faith without works is dead.
James says this three times in the same chapter, okay?
Faith without works is dead.
So there's going to be evidence of our faith, right?
In works.
Jesus himself said, and a lot of people use this verse to really create angst, okay?
But Matthew 7, 21 to 23, not everyone who says to me,
Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven,
but he who does the will of my Father in heaven,
many will say to me on that day,
Lord, Lord, we have not, have we not prophesied in your name,
cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name?
And then I will declare to them, I never knew you,
depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.
Again, we're going to, you know, there's a,
you can challenge every one of these verses in context,
but still they're here, you know?
And I say to this one, the Lord has always known me.
If you're in Christ, he's always known you too, you know,
because we are foreknown, right?
We are foreknown, predestined to be the image of God.
We are called, justified, and glorified, right?
So he's always known you.
So, but in a sense, we can read this and say, like, I never knew you.
So there'll be people that don't grasp where they're at with the Lord.
So we're going to talk about that.
And then finally, just one more,
when Paul kind of encourages the Corinthians in his second letter,
he says, examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith.
Test yourselves.
Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you,
unless indeed you are disqualified?
Okay, so, so that's the last one.
Are we good?
All right, we can take a big deep breath,
because these verses are here.
And so what we're going to talk about today is a little more of that, okay?
But then we're going to really reconcile it.
And, you know, it's okay sometimes to have some tension.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, some tension in life is good.
I'll give you an example.
There was a lot of tension up here when we were worshipping.
There was a guitar.
You know, those strings have tension, right?
When they're strummed, they release a tune,
that we were all worshipping to, right?
And Vernon on the bass, right?
And Andrew on the electric guitar,
we were worshipping in tension, right?
Because tension, some tension can be good, okay?
I was bouncing on a trampoline two days ago with haze,
and it wasn't good for my knees, but it was good.
We had a good time.
I'm still feeling a little bit of it right now, but it's good.
Trampolines use tension to operate, right?
One thing I was thinking about when Ben goes down to Nashville.
We've been to Nashville so many times
because all our kids lived down there at one time.
And when you go down there, one thing you'll see across the whole city are cranes.
You've never seen so many cranes.
I mean, they are just built.
I don't know if they still are, but this was only a couple of years ago.
They are building like crazy.
Cranes everywhere.
Construction.
Well, cranes operate on tension, right?
So some tension produces something good, okay?
And we can go through so many more examples.
You know, a bow and arrow, you know?
It depends where the arrow is pointing.
But a bow and arrow is good.
David Sling, you know, when he had to create tension in that thing
before he released the rock, it took down Goliath, right?
Because some tension is good.
So we're going to look at some things that can bring tension,
but what are we going to do with it?
Not allow doubt, worry, fear, condemnation to set in.
Instead, we're going to let it propel us to something greater, right?
We're going to use tension not to have doubt and say,
well, maybe I'm not, or any of this nonsense, right?
Instead, it's going to propel us forward, amen?
Right?
We got to be propelled forward to believe more
because the Lord is going to produce fruit in your life.
He promises that, amen?
So is that a good enough kind of intro and preparation before we get started?
So Hebrews chapter 6 verse 4,
for it is impossible, I'm going to read these slow so we can really grab on,
for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened
and have tasted the heavenly gift
and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit
and have tasted the good word of God
and the powers of the age to come
if they fall away to renew them again to repentance
since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God
and put him to an open shame.
So let's just stop there for a second.
So when you read these credentials, to me,
this looks like someone who's a believer, wouldn't you think?
I mean, like they've tasted the heavenly gift,
they were partakers of the Holy Spirit,
tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.
I mean, this is someone who's in it, right?
I mean, partakers of the Holy Spirit, not just some kind of ricochet of it,
they partook in the Holy Spirit.
So they were in, okay?
And it says, if they fall away.
Now, I wish that word fall away,
the Greek word is parapypto, okay?
Aren't you glad I said that?
I'm glad that you didn't sit up close as I was saying it here.
I'd be spitting on you right now.
But parapypto, it means fall away,
but that's the only place in the Bible you'll find that word.
So I wanted to find that word somewhere else so I could say,
what exactly do you mean by fall away, right?
But that's the only place that word is located.
Now, there's other times the word says fall away,
but they don't use that word, you know?
So, but it says, if they fall away.
Now, the word is if, okay?
But you see this Christian who is partaking in all these things
and then they fall away, okay?
You say, well, has anyone ever fallen away in the Bible,
like they were saved?
Well, they partook in the Holy Spirit.
In fact, Paul spoke about a guy named Demas.
Now, assuming he's the same Demas,
I don't know how many people walked around with that name back then,
but he talked about a Demas in his first two letters like,
yeah, this guy Demas, you know, he welcomes you,
he says hello in the Spirit and all that.
And then by 2 Timothy, the last letter Paul ever wrote
was to Timothy saying, yeah, Timothy,
he forsook me while I was in prison
and he left to follow the world, okay?
So there's that.
He talks about a guy named Alexander,
which he once spoke highly of.
Suddenly, the Alexander and his buddy, Humanius,
I gave over to Satan to have his way.
So, you know, he was, they were in the early church
in when all of it was starting to happen and boom, you know?
The Spirit's doing all kinds of amazing things.
So there's no things that you could see people fell away.
Maybe they came back, you know,
the Lord doesn't finish the whole package for us,
but it's a warning, it's tension, okay?
It's okay to have tension
because it's not gonna compel us backwards,
it's gonna compel us forward, right?
There's gonna be something beautiful
that comes out of tension, right?
And so we see this tension,
but it starts off with, for it is impossible.
It is impossible for someone to be returned to repentance
after they've tasted all this.
Now, the word impossible,
we're just gonna take a look at three verses in Hebrews,
and it says it is what?
The word adunatos means not powerful.
Remember dunamis means power, miracles.
Well, dunatos is kind of a form of that word,
it means power, right?
Well, adunatos means no power, right?
So it's impossible.
So the word in Hebrew says it is impossible for God to lie.
We believe that, don't we? Okay.
Also, it says it is impossible
for all those sacrifices of the Old Testament
when they slipped the throats of the animals
and drained it out.
Did that take away sins?
No, right?
It just covered over,
but it was all a picture of Jesus Christ
who had shed his blood from all mankind, right?
It's impossible, right?
The next verse,
but without faith, it is impossible to please God.
We believe that, isn't it? Don't we?
I mean, you have to please God in faith, right?
So these are all the same words.
Adunatos means impossible.
So what does he mean by it's impossible
to restore someone to repentance
after they've experienced the good things of God?
Well, is it impossible?
Is it really impossible for God to do anything?
No, it's not.
It's impossible for us.
We can't muster up repentance.
We can't say, all right, I'm gonna change my mind again,
but God can.
Nothing's impossible for God.
I love when he was speaking to that rich young ruler,
remember, and he said, you know, give it all away.
And it wasn't about what he had.
It was about that stuff had him, right?
And he said, sell it all and follow me.
And he went away sad.
And they're all watching like, wow, that guy,
he had everything.
He was religious.
He was a ruler.
He was young and he had money.
What else do you need in life, right?
And he wouldn't follow Jesus, right?
And he went away and Jesus starts saying,
yeah, how hard it is for a rich guy
to enter the kingdom of God.
Now, he wasn't saying no one rich can enter.
He's saying how hard it is because those things
have possessed the person.
And then his disciples said, well, then who can be saved?
You know, and then he said, well, with man,
it is adunatos, impossible.
But with God, all things are possible.
All things are possible with God.
He can do it, can he?
Right, even when we can't, he can.
He does the impossible.
He makes the impossible possible.
He takes the I am out of possible, impossible.
That makes it possible.
Does that make sense?
Anyway, but do you remember when Jesus was up
on the Mount of Transfiguration
and he appeared in a miraculous way
before Peter, James, and John,
and they're like, wow, you know,
and they were walking in
and they got to the bottom of the mountain
and all of a sudden this demoniac,
the dad's demoniac,
they couldn't cast out the demon out of the sun
and everyone's trying and everything.
And then suddenly the Lord just turns to him
and the guy says, please, please, please, can you,
can you cast out this demon out of my son?
And he said, and then he said that next verse,
with man, it is impossible.
All things are possible for those who believe.
So this word impossible is impossible with man,
but nothing's impossible for God, amen?
He can do anything.
He can restore people to repentance.
You know, some people feel like, oh, I let them down again.
I just burned my bridge to God, okay?
As if it's your bridge that you can burn, right?
You didn't build that bridge.
God built the bridge, right?
And with his cross, he built the bridge.
You ever see that graphic
when they show everybody walking across into heaven
across the bridge,
but some people want to find another way,
they just dropping off, you know?
Well, that's the picture, you know?
We didn't build the cross.
It's Christ, he provided the bridge to him, right?
So he can do all things.
So anyway, so let's move on from there
because all things are possible.
Let's read the next couple of verses in here,
which is verse seven.
For the earth which drinks in the rain
that often comes upon it
and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated
receives blessing from God,
but if it bears thorns and briars
it is rejected and near to being cursed
whose end is to be burned, okay?
So now we're getting into fruit.
Someone who, that rain is a picture
of everything those people have received,
the tasting that the word is good,
partaking of the Holy Spirit,
all these amazing things, the heavenly gift,
they were in the body of Christ.
They experienced all of it.
The rain was coming down, you know, in the Word,
quite often the Spirit is a picture of the rain, you know?
And so they were receiving all of it
and instead of bearing good fruit,
they were bearing thorns and briars,
thorns and briars.
You ever remember when a kid used to run through the woods
or something and all of a sudden you're like,
ah, you're like stuck in the middle of just bushes
and they're ripping your,
and they're just ripping your skin off
and you have shorts, you're dumb enough
to wear shorts into the woods, right?
And you're like, ah, you know?
Because it's just, it's a horrible place to be
and yet people who have the Lord
and their life looks like thorns and briars.
In fact, they have a picture of these thorns and briars.
How would you like your bare leg to run through that, okay?
It's gonna do some damage.
Well, a lot of people,
they've tasted things in the church
but they still are living a life of thorns and briars
and, you know, thorns are really always a picture of a curse,
you know?
They're always a picture of barrenness
because, you know, thorns still grow in barren wastelands
where there's like no water.
The thorns and weeds,
somehow weeds always are able to survive everything.
What is that?
You know, it's the things you don't want growing.
They can survive anything, right?
But the things that you're cultivating
and all they die so quick sometimes.
But that's a different story.
But thorns and briars, you know, sometimes our lives,
we could just be living really in this cursed life
even though we've been blessed
and set free from all that.
You know, it's just a, I love the picture
that Christ wore a thorn, thorny cross,
a cross of thorns so that we can wear a crown of life.
Did you ever think of that?
Like when they embedded that thorn,
that thorny crown into his scalp
and they hit him with a reed.
It wasn't good enough just to put it lightly
on top of his head.
They had to bang it into his scalp.
He wore a thorny, a crown of thorns,
a life that all of us would live apart from him
so that we can wear the crown of life.
You see in scripture over over the crown of life,
the crown of glory, you know, that glorious crown
that we can all wear.
We don't have to have a life
that continues to produce thorns and briars.
We can produce good things in life
because we've been blessed so much, amen.
And so he's saying, look,
that he's moving now into like this idea of fruit,
what your life looks like as a result
of what God has done in your life.
And there's so many examples of this,
but the Lord, he tells us that we were appointed
for good fruit.
John 18, 15, 16, sorry.
He says, you did not choose me,
but I chose you and appointed you
that you should go and bear fruit
and fruit that should remain,
that whatever you ask the Father in my name,
he may give you.
I mean, does that give you some confidence?
Like, Lord, I just wanna produce your fruit.
You know, scripture tells us about asking amiss
for our own selfish things.
But when we ask to do the Lord's will,
he always gives.
You know, he's the father of every good gift
where there's no shadow of turning.
He's a perfect father who always gives.
Not all of us grew up with a perfect father, but he is.
He always knows what we need before we even ask for it.
And the things we shouldn't have,
he knows enough not to give us.
Sometimes he does it just to give us,
see, I gave you that, you shouldn't have had it, right?
And I've experienced that too, and probably you have too.
But he's a good, good father
who just gives perfect gifts, right?
And so this idea that like, he wants to give us fruit.
He wants us to produce fruit in our lives.
Also, Jesus talks about a tree bearing good fruit.
You know, it's always planted near the waters,
the living waters.
And he says in Luke 6 43 to 44,
he says, for a good tree does not bear bad fruit,
nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.
For every tree is known by its own fruit.
For men do not gather figs from thorns,
nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush.
I don't know exactly what a bramble bush,
but it sounds bad, okay?
But the idea is that he will produce fruit in your life.
We don't have to strive to like,
God, I gotta be productive for you.
When you're walking with him, fruit just finds you.
There's low hanging fruit everywhere.
It really is, it's just, you know,
if you say, Lord, I'm yours, what do you want me to do?
Do what you wanna do through me.
There's always so much at our disposal.
It's just laying out there, low hanging fruit
that you don't have to strive.
Sure, if you wanna go to Honduras with Jamie,
you can go there and there'll be fruit there
and there'll be fruit when you get home.
There's fruit everywhere.
No matter where you turn, there's always something,
but Lord says, hey, why don't you go get that?
You know, that's there for you.
You've produced that.
And that's what he wants to do in our lives.
That's the kind of trees we are.
He produces the fruit.
You know, fruit is not, good works and fruit
is not how we get saved.
Fruit and good works is because we're saved.
It's a product of who we are in Christ.
You can't not bear fruit.
I know sometimes when we go through a dry season,
and I'm starting to produce a lot of thorns,
and I'm starting to scratch Jill a lot
and prick her with briars.
I don't wanna be near you
because I'm getting scratched up near you, right?
And sometimes we could start to question,
you know, like, what's going on with me?
Now, I can just tell you this.
I haven't questioned my salvation in 30 plus years.
I got saved only like 33 years ago only, right?
But I've never, I have not questioned my faith
in over three decades
because there's so much evidence of my faith.
It's just the proof just keeps coming out, everything.
Like, I look around, like, how can I ever question
that everything I'm reading about
and the God who lives in me is true?
Not only the feelings, and he does really,
when he really just moves in you.
I mean, do you ever just start bawling your eyes out
because you're just like so,
there's something so tender going on inside your heart.
It's like, your heart is like putty.
You're like, you're just like,
man, God is just so like wonderful.
The way he takes care of me and my future
and relationships, you suddenly love people more.
Like, there's that.
But there's the fact that everything he says comes true.
We can see it all around the world.
It's all true.
But sometimes when we have these times
that we feel like our lives look a bit briary
and thorny, if you're not trusting God,
you could start questioning your own salvation.
You know, fruit does not dictate salvation.
It's a result of it, right?
It's because we're saved that we produce fruit, right?
So let's finish up in verse nine to 12.
But beloved, we are confident of better things
concerning you.
See, that's that tension that like,
you know, he's creating tension.
Like, don't be apathetic.
Don't be sluggish.
Don't be just resting in your past laurels.
Don't be resting in things that once you did
or you saw or experienced, strive for more.
It's like that tension.
He's pulling back and he's like, come on.
Don't like live in the past.
Let the Lord take you into the future.
Let him continue to produce in your life.
You want rewards in heaven to be piling over, don't you?
I mean, this is what he's encouraging them to do,
to just embrace what he wants to do for them
rather than just being apathetic, sluggish,
and ambivalent.
So there's so much more to do, okay?
So he says, beloved, we are confident
of better things concerning you.
Yes, things that accompany salvation.
Though we speak in this manner,
for God is not unjust to forget your work
and labor of love which you have shown toward his name
in that you have ministered to the saints
and do minister.
But verse 11, and we desire that each one of you
show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope
until the end that you do not become sluggish
but imitate those who through faith and patience
inherit the promises.
You know, sometimes, you know, we,
it's okay, especially when we're newer in our faith,
to imitate people, you know,
to see what they're doing, how they're doing it.
You know, that's okay, but like as the Lord starts to work
and you, you're unique.
You're different than anybody else.
You realize that?
You are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus
for good works, works which God prepared in advance
for you to do.
So you are unique and special with special gifts,
special connections, spheres of influence,
talents, gifts, there's things about you
that are unlike me or anybody else, right?
So in the beginning, you start to imitate people
in maybe the way they do things, but you realize,
well, you know what?
The more you're walking with God, you're like,
well, actually, He has me doing something a little different.
It's still great.
It's amazing because He's using you
in that unique and special way.
But when we're first start walking with the Lord,
it's okay to imitate people, you know?
It's so funny sometimes, I don't know if you've ever been
in a Christian setting, but when suddenly a saying
becomes a thing, have you ever been there?
Like suddenly, like, and a lot of times it is scriptural,
like I'll never forget we were praying,
and suddenly we're all praying for a hedge of protection.
Every single person.
Well, Lord, we pray for a hedge of protection.
We're just a hedge of protection suddenly.
It's mentioned once in Job, and suddenly everybody's praying
for a hedge of protection, right?
But it's cool, you know?
They heard somebody they respect say it,
somebody else heard them, and all of a sudden,
we're all saying the same thing, right?
Well, remember the prayer of Jabez?
I can't even quote that to you.
But that was the big thing, you know?
Because everybody wants more, you know?
And we're just, and we're clothing it in scripture, right?
But there's all these things.
Another thing I remember at our old church,
I don't know where it came from, but sweet.
Sweet.
It was a sweet time of worship, sweet.
And I never felt good about being a man saying sweet.
Sweet, sweet.
And then they would say, that was a sweet, sweet time.
And I'm like, geez, that was awesome, that was cool.
But sweet, sweet, I'm not into that.
Sweet, sweet.
I don't know.
But it was a thing.
It suddenly became a thing.
That was a sweet, sweet.
I'm like, you know, I don't know.
But it's like, but they're, you know, it's fine.
It's fine, and there's nothing wrong with it,
because people are imitating other people
who they respect and admire, okay?
And let's not overget, analyze things like that,
which sometimes I get caught into, like,
oh, I hate that word, you know?
But anyway, but so it's okay to imitate in the beginning,
but the Lord has a special work for you to do.
You realize that?
He's working in you to do something amazing.
You know, as the worship team comes up,
well, it's a little early,
but if you want to start meandering up, it's fine.
But I just want to share,
do you remember the parable of the four soils?
Because we're talking about fruit and producing fruit, right?
And I love the parable of the four soils
because it's Jesus talking,
and then He actually explains the whole thing
to His disciples, you know?
Like, they're still not getting it.
And it's funny, sometimes it's a little,
like, you still don't get this?
I don't know the tone of it,
but it sure sounds a little, you know?
But He's telling, He says, you know, seed.
Of course, that's the word of God.
Some seed fell on the wayside, right?
And you remember what happened on the wayside, the road?
The seed that fell on the road, what happened?
You remember?
The birds, right?
The birds came and snatched it up, right?
They snatched it right off the hard soil
because the seed landed and it just stayed there, okay?
And a lot of people are like that.
They'll continuously hear the word spoken all over the place.
They'll walk by someone on the corner even preaching.
You know, we're more of a metropolitan urban areas.
There's people preaching.
And I remember when I went to Penn State,
I'd walk by here, the same guy preaching, right?
Right, Dan? You know his name, don't you?
But anyway, we'd go by and I'd hear it.
I'm like, what a loser.
What's he doing out here?
You know, talking, you know, doom and gloom.
But that was because my heart was the road,
was the hardened wayside.
It just, it sat and I didn't listen at all
and the bird just came and just kept snatching it up, you know?
And then he talked about the seed that's planted in the rocky soil.
You remember that?
And by the way, those birds, that was the agents of the enemy,
just snatching it right off your heart, right?
But then there's the stones and he says,
some seed fell among soil that wasn't very deep
and there was rocks in there, right?
And as soon as it started to sprout the seed,
there's no room for the seed, had no roots in it.
So it couldn't go deep, okay?
It just hit rocks, right?
And he said, those are the people who through fear of man,
persecution, tribulation, whatever it is, they're fearful
and they don't want to let those roots dig deep in their lives, right?
And that's really a picture of like, you know,
we can all have rocky soil at times.
Perhaps we're letting fear, fear of our past,
fear of disappointment, fear of being let down,
fear of whatever, you know?
We don't really get persecuted in this country right now, okay?
So we can't relate to that, but there's other fear of men that can arise,
you know, our friends, our circles of influence or whatever,
all of a sudden, like, I can't be too bold about this.
And that, as soon as it started to sprout,
the sun just burned it up because there's no roots, right?
And that's just a warning to us to like, say,
don't let that happen, you know?
Get the rocks, those rocks out of your soil.
Don't let things get in the way of you embracing what God is speaking to you.
And then the third soil, if you can recall,
was it grew up among thorns, right?
And those thorns just wrapped around.
We were talking about thorns.
As soon as it started to grow,
the thorns just wrapped around and just choked it out.
Nothing could come out.
Nothing could grow on those plants, you know?
And that was really a picture of the cares of the world,
the things in this world that we value more than God.
And we can all fall into that.
You know, we really can.
Suddenly, I want my career more than I care about what God wants for my life.
I want this girl.
I can't tell you how many romances started
and that it just pulled them right out of the church.
It's so sad.
It's like, all I want is God, except for this guy.
And suddenly, whatever he's into, I'm into.
Or vice versa.
A girl, like, wow, what happened to that zeal, you know?
But it's that the thorns just wrap around and just choke it out, you know?
And he's saying, look, keep your seat away from those thorns.
Don't get caught up in that curse,
that curse of riches,
the curse of cares of the world,
of paranoia of things, you know, that might happen.
Instead, just let the soil fall on the deep, rich,
I'm sorry, let the sea fall on the deep, rich soil.
Let the roots grow so, so deep.
And Jesus said, and you'll grow 30, 60, 100 full of whatever was planted.
You know, I once read in Kings is cool,
the Assyrians were coming upon Judah.
They had already taken away Israel out of their land.
They had already exiled them, you know, the story of the north and the south.
And so, Israel was taken away to exile to Assyria, okay?
And now they're on the, knocking on the door of Judah.
They're like right there.
And King Hezekiah is like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do?
I mean, they're huge, they're so powerful.
Like, we can't stop them. Nobody stops Assyria.
They just consume every other nation, right?
And so he reaches out to Isaiah,
and Isaiah gives him a word of encouragement.
This king will not take Judah.
He will spare a remnant of Judah.
And this is a promise.
And when I was reading this,
it just reminded me of this idea of roots digging deep.
He says, and a remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah
shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.
You know, the deeper your roots are,
the higher and more abundant your fruit will grow.
You need deep roots, you know.
Deep roots produces high fruit, you know that?
The deeper you just are rooted in the truth of God,
the more fruit that just grows in your life.
When you get rid of the rocks,
get rid of the thorns of life and just say,
Lord, I just need you.
I'm going to be rooted in the love.
Ephesians talks about being rooted in the love of God,
that deep, rich root.
You know, some of you might be here today saying,
well, it's kind of late for me.
I've already screwed this up, that up,
and the other thing up.
Nobody trusts me anymore.
I don't trust them anymore.
They don't forgive me, I don't forgive them.
I mean, I'm just, I got all kinds of stones
and thorns in my soil.
You know, it's too late.
You know, that's the thing.
What's impossible for man is possible for God.
He can, he can erase that I am
right out of your impossible and make it possible.
He can do it, and he can produce so much fruit in your life.
Regardless of your age, some people came to age
when they're in their 60s, 70s, 80s.
Look at Moses, right?
He didn't do anything good doing his 80, okay?
I hope the Lord, I don't want to wait that long,
but, you know, but he can do so many things in your life
if you just say yes to him now.
Yes to him now.
I love this Psalm I came across,
Psalm 92, verses 12 to 15.
The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree.
He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish
in the courts of our God.
And watch this.
They shall still bear fruit in old age.
They shall be fresh and flourishing.
You know, I'm just going to look better and better
until I'm in the coffin.
I'm convinced.
I'm going to look better and better.
I'm going to be, there's going to be fruit just hanging off of me.
I might have, I might have bad posture
because all the fruit I'm just carrying around.
But I'm going to be, I'm going to be, how about you?
I want to be fruitful to my last breath.
Nothing's going to stop me.
And nothing's going to stop you
if you just say yes to the Lord.
And then he says to declare that the Lord is upright.
He is my rock.
And there is no unrighteousness in him.
Isn't that beautiful?
You're going to be bearing fruit until your last breath
if you say yes to the Lord.
It never stops.
All we have to do is show up and say yes, Lord, send me.
Just like our brother David from Pakistan
was sharing two weeks ago.
Just say yes.
Here I am, Lord, send me.
Let's all stand up and let's give the Lord a round of applause
because his word is mighty large and he is in charge.
Amen.
Father God, we thank you for your word, Lord.
Thank you for the mighty work you're doing in our lives.
We thank you that we don't have to worry
about where you're bringing us to
because you have sealed us to the day of our redemption.
We thank you in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Praise the Lord.
Thank you.
Amen.