[0:00] O God, beyond the praising, we worship you today, and sing the loud amazing, the songs that are with me.
[0:25] For we can only wonder that every thing to say And mercy's without no power, and mercy's without end We lift our hearts before you and wait upon your will We honour and adore you, O praise and mighty Lord For for you to follow in Exodus chapter 12.
[1:07] Exodus chapter 12. And those of you who've been here regularly on the Sunday morning will know that we've been looking at Exodus and looking how God has been working out his plan to rescue and to save his people who were slaves in Egypt.
[1:28] And in doing that, God had been sending plagues against the Egyptians because they were unwilling. Pharaoh the king was unwilling to let the people go. And again and again, nine times God sent a plague and then ultimately sent the tenth plague.
[1:45] And we read about verse 29, what happened when that plague struck. God had warned, God had said, if you don't obey me, then these things will happen.
[1:57] And this is what happened. So Exodus chapter 12, we pick up the story as what happens then. At midnight, the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on the throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon and the firstborn of all the livestock as well.
[2:19] Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night and there was loud wailing in Egypt for there was not a house without someone dead. During the night, Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, up, leave my people, you and the Israelites.
[2:36] Go, worship the Lord as you've requested. Take your flocks and herds as you've said and go and also bless me. The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country for otherwise they said, we will all die.
[2:52] So the people took their dough before the yeast was added and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and for gold and for clothing.
[3:08] The Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed towards the people. They gave them whatever they asked for so they plundered the Egyptians. The Israelites journeyed from Ramesses to Succoth.
[3:20] There were about 600,000 men on foot besides women and children. Many other people went up with them as well as large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds.
[3:33] From the dough they had brought from Egypt they baked cakes of unleavened bread. The dough was without yeast because they'd been driven out of Egypt, did not have time to prepare food for themselves.
[3:45] Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of the 430 years to the very day all the Lord's divisions left Egypt because the Lord kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt.
[4:01] On this night all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honor the Lord for the generations to come. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, these are the regulations for the Passover.
[4:13] No foreigner is to eat of it. Any slave you have bought may eat of it after you have circumcised him. But a temporary resident and a hired worker may not eat of it.
[4:24] It must be eaten inside one house. Take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones. The whole community of Israel must celebrate it.
[4:34] An alien living among you who wants to celebrate the Lord's Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised. Then he may take part like one born in the land.
[4:45] No uncircumcised male may eat of it. The same law applies to the native born and to the alien living among you. All the Israelites did just what the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.
[4:58] And on that very day the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions. We're thinking about how that applies to us. What it means for us in a few moments.
[5:13] If you have a Bible to hand then Exodus 12 where we read just a few moments ago will be helpful. Just as Kathleen and Daniel were talking it struck me just how appropriate in one sense or how like this passage the events they've been talking about about people fleeing their homes and having to run out in the night.
[5:37] And as you'll see as we've read there in Exodus 12 the leaving of God's people from Egypt was very much like that. Thrust out.
[5:47] Sent out. And my illustration to begin with was talking about moving home. And moving home is nothing really. It is actually a very stressful thing in life but compared to what happens to these people in Nigeria it's nothing is it?
[6:07] The thought of leaving everything behind. Not just leaving your home at least when we move home we can take our possessions with us stick them in a lorry or a van and take them off. But for these people having to leave everything is unbelievably stressful.
[6:23] and going on foot 500 miles in the night over the mountains to yes another part of the country but somewhere completely different. Different culture no doubt.
[6:35] Different way of doing things. Unfamiliar places. All these things are stressful and disruptive. And we do need to continue to remember God's people there and all people there in Nigeria.
[6:50] And again as I say there's such a likeness isn't there here between what happened to the Hebrews who were moving house in Exodus 12. It must have been again a traumatic thing. They had to leave in the early hours of the morning.
[7:02] There verse 31 tells us in the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron said up leave my people go and the Egyptians themselves urged them to hurry and leave.
[7:14] They were thrust out into the night and all they could take with them was what they could carry. We're told there that the people took their dough before the yeast was added and carried it on their shoulders and later on they all went by foot so it wasn't like they had a big wagon or they may have had a few carts we don't know but most of the time it was just what they could carry.
[7:34] All the furniture that they'd stored up or built over the years and so forth all left behind. And added to their concern again I'm sure in some ways like the folk in Nigeria they didn't know where they were going.
[7:49] They didn't know where they were headed. They didn't know how long it would take them to get there and they didn't know what would be there when they arrived. They just were thrust out from Egypt into the desert on the way to Ramesses and Sukkot.
[8:01] They didn't know what was happening and to cap it all we've talked about the many millions in one sense who have been refugees in Nigeria. Well we're told that there were 600,000 men verse 37 besides women and children and if you do a little bit of math you're talking over 2 million people.
[8:20] All at one time leaving. Can you imagine the bedlam? Imagine the noise. Imagine all that was going on. The chaos. The children crying. In every way it must have been an awful situation for them.
[8:35] There was a situation back in 1971 where the entire population of the Chagos Islands were expelled from their home and sent to live in Mauritius and Seychelles.
[8:47] The Chagos Islands went to a British territory about 300 miles south of the Maldives. They had to leave because the British government kicked them out so that they could rent the islands to the United States to build a long haul airstrip and there's still an ongoing situation between the people and the government.
[9:08] They still haven't been let back to their homes. But this expulsion again by God's people, of God's people, the Hebrews, was something that took place not because of financial gain and not politics but they were sent out nonetheless by the government.
[9:26] The king ordered go. They were driven out by the state in that sense with fear. And although they must have gone with foreboding and I'm sure they went with anxiety and as we've said with a little bit of chaos, there wasn't any regret at this point anyway.
[9:42] They were willing to go. They were glad to go. They'd been slaves 400 years. They'd been in this position of oppression and persecution in one sense for generations. And now this leaving was actually an act of freedom.
[9:56] This going out with all the necessary difficulties was actually a time of rejoicing because they were being brought out by God to a place of liberty.
[10:10] We see that there in verse 42. This was God's work. The Lord kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt. And at the end of the chapter as well, that very day, the Lord brought the Israelites out.
[10:22] Though Pharaoh had made the declaration they were to go, this was God's doing. And it had been a long process, those of you who have been with us in the last months, of looking at the plagues, those ten plagues that God brought upon the Egyptians.
[10:36] But it started with God simply saying to them, let my people go. And Pharaoh refusing, hardening his heart, saying, no, I won't let them go. And again and again God sent a plague, increasing damage, if I can put it that way.
[10:52] One was just some frogs and then some flies, things like that. But then it became the death of the livestock. And then ultimately this final, terrible, awful plague that the Lord brought upon Egypt because Pharaoh continued to rebel and harden his heart against God.
[11:09] At last, the people were going. And for Moses it must have been a great relief as well because all of his life had been building towards this great goal. God had been preparing him to be this one who would lead the people out.
[11:23] And to begin with, when he went to Pharaoh, things got worse and Pharaoh was angry with him and made the people make their bricks without straw and persecuted them harder. But God is faithful and God moves them out.
[11:38] So important and so climactic is this event that this is the time that God says is the beginning of your new year. This is a new start for you. Right at the beginning of verse 12 he said this is going to be the first month of your first year.
[11:51] It's a new beginning, a new start and I'm going to move you out. Now that new beginning God was laying down for his people a principle, a truth which they needed to understand then and there and that we need to understand today.
[12:10] A new foundation in their minds, a new understanding in their thinking about God that's so imperative for every group of God's people and for all people as well. It's a foundation upon which our lives have to be built and it's something that we must understand and to understand is the key to liberty and freedom.
[12:31] and it's simply this, God keeps his word. Simple as that, God keeps his word. By this incredible event of the exodus, God was proving to his people and to the Egyptians, to all people and to us, he is faithful to do everything he says he will do.
[12:51] Now that's an incredible concept for us because we live in a world of people, including ourselves, who do not do all that we say that we will do. We like to point the finger of course at politicians and of course there's all great debate now, will the party who've won, keep the promises they made before to Scotland and to other places, will they do all the things they said they would do?
[13:14] I don't know. But I do know this, that it's not just the politicians but it's us ourselves and those around about us, every one of us makes promises or says we'll do something and we just don't do it.
[13:26] We don't keep our word. That's what sets God apart in one of the many ways that makes him different to us. He's not a God who sins. He's not a God who gets it wrong. He's not a God who lies.
[13:39] And though we may intend to keep our words and have every intention that when we make the promise that we'll keep it, whether it be the promise in marriage or whether it be the promise to our family or maybe the promise to our work colleagues or the promise to ourselves or however it may be, when we fail and fall, we do.
[13:57] No matter how much we want not to, that's the difference between us and God, you see. We sin and we can't help it. We sin, in one sense we can't help it because our natures are sinful and corrupt.
[14:10] We want to do the good things but we don't do them. It goes to show that it's not something that we can do to change ourselves or make ourselves right with God. There's sin within our hearts and it's evidenced every time we break our word.
[14:25] But God keeps his word and there's two simple things, two simple things that come out here that we need to grasp, two clear truths that come out from this. If God keeps his word, the first thing that's true is this, that he keeps his promises.
[14:40] He keeps his promises. The deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt didn't happen by chance. It wasn't just some sort of thing that happened without any planning and neither was it the planning of a human mind.
[14:52] It wasn't Moses who planned or Pharaoh who planned. The only reason that God's people came out of slavery into freedom was because God had promised to do it and he was fulfilling and being faithful to his promise.
[15:09] When God had spoken to Moses way back when he met with him in the burning bush, the first thing that God said to Moses was this, I have come down to rescue my people from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
[15:28] But God had made this promise to bring his people out of Egypt hundreds of years earlier to Abraham, their ancestor. In Genesis chapter 15, when God met with Abraham and spoke with him, he told him what would happen hundreds of years later.
[15:45] He said this, Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and ill-treated for 400 years.
[15:56] But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves and afterwards they will come out with great possessions. And God didn't just give that promise once to Abraham but he gave it also to Abraham's grandson, Jacob.
[16:12] In Genesis chapter 46, God promises Jacob and says to him that he will bring the people out as well. Genesis 46 and verses 3 and 4.
[16:27] God says, Do not be afraid to go down into Egypt for I will make you a great nation there. I will go down to Egypt with you and I will surely bring you back again.
[16:38] He's not just talking about Jacob but talking about his descendants and his family. I'll bring them back again. And that promise was passed on to Jacob's son Joseph so that at the end of his life he had the assurance and confidence to say, I'm about to die but God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
[17:03] So God's plan here in bringing the people out of slavery after 400 years wasn't some cobbled together sort of idea. It wasn't just something that he made up as he went along.
[17:14] It wasn't like Hannibal Smith in the A-team of the 80s. Remember? At the end he'd always say on his cigar, I love it when a plan comes together. But he had no plan, did he? That was the thing. They just sort of put it all together as they went along and B.A.
[17:27] Baracus and Mr. T used to build something and they all used to escape and fire hundreds and hundreds of bullets and nobody ever got shot. It was amazing. They were the most lousiest shots I've ever known.
[17:40] That isn't how God did it. God didn't do it in that way. He didn't just sort of make it up as he went along. He isn't the God who doesn't know what he's doing. He said God has a plan and makes promises and keeps his promises.
[17:54] The culmination, the climax of the promises and all that was going on throughout this time was God bringing his people out of Egypt. He made the plan even before they needed rescuing.
[18:07] He made the plan even before all of them were born. You see the wonderful thing about the Bible is this. It teaches us and tells us that's exactly how he goes about rescuing men and women, boys and girls today.
[18:21] When anybody becomes a Christian, when they begin that new start in their lives, Paul calls it becoming a new creation, it's not because of anything that they've done. It's because God has promised and is keeping his promise and being faithful to his promise to save people.
[18:36] A promise that he made long, long ago. In fact, in one of Paul's letters to his friends Titus, he says to him and assures him that this is the case.
[18:52] Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of God's elect and the foreknowledge of the truth that leads to godliness. Listen to this. A faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life which God who does not lie promised before the beginning of time and at his appointed season he brought his word to light through the preaching of the gospel.
[19:19] The incredible thing is this, that long before anybody was born, long before we had sinned and needed saving, in fact long before the world was made, God made a promise to save men and women and boys and girls through Jesus Christ, his son, coming into the world.
[19:35] Another letter of Paul, he writes this, for God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world. So if you're a Christian this morning, you're a Christian because God promised and has kept his promise and been faithful to fulfill his promise in your life.
[19:52] That should amaze you. That should make you feel wonderful. Because whatever you may think about yourself, whatever people may say about you, the fact of the matter is that you are special to God.
[20:07] You're not an accident, however your birth came to be. You're not in this world by chance or by fate. And you're certainly not simply a collection of molecules that have developed and evolved over millions of years from slime.
[20:22] You are here in this world because God has made a promise to save. And you are important to him. And do you notice the details of that promise that God made all those hundreds of years before to Abraham?
[20:40] He promised him that the people would come out with great riches. Do you see that? They will come out with great possessions. Well if you turn back to that passage in Exodus 12 you'll find that's exactly what happened, didn't they?
[20:53] The Egyptians were favorably disposed towards them. Verse 36, they gave them what they asked for so they plundered the Egyptians. God said that's what happened and that's what happened. God said there'd be 400 years in slavery and so they came out in 400 years.
[21:09] In fact 430 years we're told in verse 40 and 41. Just different times of starting. That's all it is. But the same period. God knew the details. God knew what he was doing.
[21:21] And therefore what God's people were to understand here is this. God keeps his promises. You can trust him. He's faithful.
[21:31] He's dependable. He's reliable. So even as they went out and didn't know where they were going and they didn't know when they would get there, they could be certain that they were in God's timetable.
[21:44] That his plans would be fulfilled. They didn't need to know all the details but they knew him. And his word. And his faithfulness.
[21:56] Dear friends, that's so important for us today. God will not let you down when you put your faith and trust in him. God will not fail to keep one of his promises.
[22:06] He will fulfill them all. And one of those promises that he's made is a promise that for Christians is of great joy to us. A promise that Jesus Christ is coming again. For many people it's a promise that people mock and laugh and ridicule the thought that Jesus is coming again.
[22:23] In fact they did when the apostle Peter was alive. He says this, first of all you must understand in his letter, in the last days scoffers will come scoffing and following their own evil desires.
[22:35] They will say, where is this coming? He promised. The world in which we live is full of people who say God never keeps his promises. We don't need to put our trust and faith in him.
[22:46] He's not dependable. He's not reliable. But the truth of the matter is, is that he is. So the question I've got to ask you is, do you believe God?
[23:00] Do you believe that he's faithful to do what he says he will do? Do you believe he's faithful to keep his promises? He's made promises to you, dear Christian, again and again. And if those Hebrews who were in slavery, if they had known those promises, if they had confidence in those promises, it would have kept them and sustained them through those years of difficulty and hardship.
[23:21] If they'd been able to say to one another, I know that God has promised to bring us out of slavery and to rescue us, so I'm going to keep trusting him in spite of what's going on around about me, it would have given them great help and encouragement as they waited for that day.
[23:35] We often rob ourselves of comfort and peace in times of difficulty because we don't know God's promises or we don't trust his promises. That's why God gave them the Passover, the meal that each year they were to have and that week of eating unyeasted bread.
[23:53] They were to do that because and to eat the lamb and so on as we looked last week to remind them of what God did for them, to remind them how he provided for them, to remind them that he keeps his promise to them. That's why we do the things that we do as Christians.
[24:07] That's why we meet on a Sunday. That's why we share in communion or the Lord's Supper from time to time. We do these things to remind ourselves that God keeps his promises. No matter what the bad times, no matter what the situational circumstances, God is faithful.
[24:28] Have you put your faith in him? Are you trusting him? He's promised forgiveness for sins for those who will trust in him. He's promised life everlasting for those who trust in him.
[24:39] He's promised that he will be a father to those who put their trust in him and he will surround them with his love and meet their needs and all these things, but we have to put our faith in him, put our trust in him.
[24:51] It's no good us just hearing those things and ignoring them. But there's something else, isn't there? If God keeps his word, if he's faithful to keep his word and that means he keeps his promises, it must mean this, that God is faithful to keep his threats as well.
[25:10] His promise is to keep his threats as well. See, the death of those children, those, well, not just children, firstborn means any age, the firstborn child in any of these families.
[25:21] This was also, strikingly, the hand of God. Verse 29, at midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn.
[25:31] You can't say that. We can't say that about God. Surely that God killed. That'll turn people right away from God.
[25:46] If we say that, that God kills, and he does, and he did. God is not a sterilized God, put it that way.
[25:59] He's not a God who is nice and neat and tidy. He's not a God who fits in with our understanding. He's not a God who is willing to be made it a small and anemic.
[26:12] He is God and he does exactly as he chooses to do. See, this striking of the firstborn, it wasn't some plague, if I can put it that way, well, it was a plague, but it wasn't like the Black Death that sort of swept through Europe in the 14th century.
[26:26] It wasn't some sort of terrible disease like Ebola, sadly, in Western Africa. It was a plague which points out that one group of people, boys and girls, young and old, all sorts of people die from diseases.
[26:39] No, here it was, the first born of the Pharaoh on the throne, the first born of the prisoner. It was them and them only. And why was it them and them only? It's because God had threatened and said it was them who would die if Pharaoh did not let the people go.
[26:53] Once again, God had promised earlier through Moses that that's exactly what would happen back in chapter 11, verse 4 and 5. Moses said, this is what the Lord says about midnight, I will go throughout Egypt.
[27:08] Every firstborn son in Egypt will die from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, sits on the throne to the firstborn of the slave girl who is at the hand mill. God warned.
[27:22] And accurate as well at midnight. At midnight we're told, verse 29, everything was as God intended. But, this is the thing, God does not make idle threats.
[27:35] God is not a schoolboy bully who sort of threatens to do something, who enjoys intimidating people and putting fear into them. God threatens because he warns people to continue in rejection of him, continue to go our own way, to continue to sin against God, brings horrific and terrible consequences.
[28:00] Pharaoh never ever took God's word seriously. He never took God's threats seriously. In spite of the fact, again and again, as I said, God laid down him, plague after plague after plague, starting with that which was not harmful in that sense, just some frogs or flies or whatever.
[28:16] But as Pharaoh continued, so the thing got worse and worse and worse. God warned again and again to Pharaoh, if you continue to harden your heart, if you do not do as I teach, if you do not do what I obey, you can't muck about with God.
[28:34] You can't muck him about. He isn't going to be mucked about by people who say, well, I'll go along with you for a while and then I'll do my own thing. That's what Pharaoh did. Pharaoh said, take away this plague of flies, I'll let the people go.
[28:47] And then he changed his mind. And we must have said to God, yes God, if you only get me through this bit of problem, then I'll become a Christian or I'll follow you or I'll turn my life around.
[28:58] And then we got through the problem and then we forget about it. God threatens because he warns. Warns. We know the importance of warning.
[29:13] We know the importance of being persuaded to turn away from danger. We see it every day on the road signs which tell us not to go too fast into this road because it's slippery.
[29:25] Or to watch out for the cliff edge or whatever. All these things warn us. They aren't there to threaten us in the sense of saying, I'm going to throw you off. No, stay away. Turn away.
[29:36] Don't go that way. And what we read about God here in Exodus is not just the God of the Old Testament. That's the God of the whole of the Bible. When Jesus Christ came into this world, what did he preach about?
[29:52] Yes, he preached about love. Yes, he preached about forgiveness. Yes, he preached about heaven. But the reality is he preached more about hell than he did about heaven. Here's Jesus.
[30:04] Jesus in Mark in chapter 9 and verse 43 to 47, talking about the reality of hell. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.
[30:17] It's better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands and go into hell where the fire never goes out. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell.
[30:30] If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It's better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes be thrown into hell. Jesus spoke about hell.
[30:41] He warned about hell. Now when he talks about cutting off your hand, your foot and your eye, he's not talking about literally doing that. What he's saying is this. Those things that are most precious to you that lead you into sin, they're the things you need to get rid of.
[30:53] But what he talked about hell, he meant hell. When he talked about a fire that never quenched, he meant it. There is heaven and hell. They are two real places, more real than even this world in which we live.
[31:10] The Bible in every place is full of God warning us, warning us to turn away from our sin, to turn back to God, the creator who made us, to receive the forgiveness for our sins and to be right with him that we might have life now and everlasting.
[31:28] Hebrews chapter 9. Every person is destined to die once and then face judgment. Doomsday. Judgment day.
[31:40] It's a reality. We can't escape from it. We can't, by pushing it to the side of our minds and thinking that it's not going to happen, isn't not going to make it happen. By blocking it out, it's not going to make it happen.
[31:52] It's got to happen. And God keeps his promises and God keeps his threats. Are you willing to risk that for some reason God is not going to keep his threats?
[32:06] Are you willing to risk the possibility that you will stand before God and that somehow, just for you, you're going to find a loophole to get into heaven? You're not. God says these things not to frighten us so that we behave ourselves.
[32:22] That's completely wrong. People say, oh well, you only preach about hell to make people good and so they'll be good people. No. We don't behave ourselves. We can't behave ourselves. We can't be good people.
[32:35] God warns us so that we will run to that place of safety. So like those dear folk in Nigeria up in the north when the danger came, when the machine gun was firing, dear Pastor Daniel didn't say, oh that's fine, there's a machine gun firing, I'll just stay here.
[32:52] He ran. And so did those others with him because they heard the warning shots and they ran to a place of safety. That's what God wants us to do as well, wants you to do as well, dear friends.
[33:07] Jesus Christ came into the world. Why? One Thessalonians letter tells us, Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath. God is right to be angry with sin.
[33:17] He's right to be angry with wickedness, with slavery. He's right to be angry with Boko Haram. He's right to be angry with you and I, for the way that we live our lives, serving ourselves, pleasing ourselves, rejecting his loss.
[33:31] He's right to be angry with us and he is angry with us. But, here's the wonderful thing and isn't it marvelous that Kath mentioned it, people like those who fought with Boko Haram are now finding forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
[33:47] You say, well I'm not as bad as them. No, you're not. In some ways you're worse. Because you'll still harden your heart against God.
[33:57] You still want to do your own thing. You still want to serve yourself. God warns us because he loves us.
[34:08] He warns us because he knows the consequences of our sin must end badly for us. He warns us because he's holy and just. And he warns us that we might flee, that we might run to him, a heavenly father who's only waiting and welcoming to receive us.
[34:25] We mustn't treat God's warnings lightly. We can't just put them to one side. We can't just ignore them. How many of us, if we were out in the country, saw a pylon, an electricity pylon and had a big warning with a man being electrocuted like that, go and say, oh let's play tag with the electric wires.
[34:45] Of course it's not going to electrocute me. Of course I'll be alright. It doesn't matter how much you believe you're going to be alright. It doesn't matter how much you believe you're going to be safe. You're not.
[34:57] And you may believe that you're good enough to get to heaven. You may believe that you're okay. You may believe whatever you like. But this is what God says and what God said is true. No matter what we believe or think, it doesn't change what God has said.
[35:11] And what God has said is this. There's a day of judgment coming and there is going to be condemnation and there's going to be hell. For those who like Pharaoh continue to harden their hearts against him.
[35:23] See God doesn't lie. We read that there in Titus and chapter two. God does not lie. He doesn't make empty threats. And he doesn't make empty promises.
[35:36] What he says he will do. Don't be deceived, dear friends, by what is being said in the world around about you today.
[35:48] There's lots of rubbish being talked about, isn't there? Everybody's going to go to heaven. It's one thing. It's rubbish. Jesus never said that. We just heard what Jesus said. If you sin, you're going to go to hell.
[36:02] There's a lot of rubbish going on about the fact that there is no God. or that this is all there is. And when we die, we die. There's annihilation. There's nothing else. That's a lie.
[36:14] You're going to die. I'm going to die. And we're going to stand before God. It's appointed for every single person to die once and face judgment. God doesn't lie.
[36:26] We've got to act upon these things. We've got to move. We've got to take God's promises and God's threats together. We've got to take him upon his word and ask him to be faithful to do what he's promised to do.
[36:39] What is he promised to do? He's promised. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. He's promised. Come to me, you who are heavy laden and burdened. I'll give you rest. He's promised.
[36:51] Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. He's promised. He's promised. We've all got to move on one day. We've all got to move on from this world into the next.
[37:06] From this present world into eternity. We don't know when that's going to happen. None of us. But we can know where we're going.
[37:19] We can know what waits before us. Jesus has promised. Trust in God. Trust also in me. In my Father's house there are many rooms.
[37:31] I go there to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you I will come back to take you to be where I am. Christian friends, trust the promises of God.
[37:45] He's dependable and reliable. non-Christian friends, please, please, don't play fast and loose with God. Don't treat him as a fool.
[37:59] You've got an opportunity and you don't know how long that opportunity will be open to you to come to Christ with your sin saying Jesus forgive me. Save me.
[38:11] Bring me into that newness of life and eternal life that you died on the cross for me to have. And he will do it. I can guarantee you, not because I say it but because he says it, if you put your faith in Christ, if you call on him to save you, he will do it.
[38:27] He won't fail you. He won't let you down. There's several dozen of us here who can say that he keeps his word. Let's pray together now, shall we, and ask for his help.
[38:39] Amen. We thank you, God, that you're not like any of us.
[38:52] You never lie. You always speak the truth and you always keep your word. We thank you that for those of us who are Christians, that's a wonderful comfort, a wonderful joy.
[39:03] And we can, each of us say, Lord, over the months and years that we've known you, you've done that again and again through times of difficulty and trial. You've kept your word and you've been faithful and you've provided for us.
[39:16] And so, Lord, we ask that you give us greater faith to trust you day by day, trust you with those things that worry us still, Lord, if we're honest, and help us, Lord, again. We pray, Lord, for those of us here who don't know that faithfulness and don't know that love and don't know that forgiveness.
[39:37] And perhaps some of the things that have been said are just so strange, alien, and even obnoxious to us. Oh, Lord, help us to see just where we stand before you.
[39:50] Help us, Lord, to see just how much we need your forgiveness and grace and how willing you are to give it. Help us, Lord, not to be so stubborn like Pharaoh that we just will not, not yield and keep hold of our self-trust and reliance until it's too late and we lose everything.
[40:09] Please have mercy upon us, Lord. And hear us and draw us to yourself that we may enter into the wonderful liberty and freedom and joy that Jesus has bought and paid for at the cross.
[40:21] Thank you for loving us so much that you died for us. Oh, that you died for us, Lord Jesus. And we thank you that you've done everything, everything necessary that we can have life everlasting and peace enduring.
[40:36] We give you our praise in his name. Amen. Amen. Amen.