Theology and Practice of Evangelism - Lesson 2

Dr. Robert Tuttle, Jr.
Theology and Practice of Evangelism
TH610-02
The Core of the Gospel Biblically
Lesson Transcript

[00:00:01] You know. I cannot tell you. What incredibly good sense it means to be a Christian. I teach world religions. Trust me when I say we're the only religion in the world that understands grace. I never diss anyone else's religion. Do you understand? And don't you let me catch you doing it. I don't dis anyone else's ministry. And I think, quite frankly, some of them are out of their minds. But in the open assembly, I do not address someone else's religion. Do a never diss another person. But I try to teach and I don't do it adequately, I'm sure. But I try to teach the religion in many times. I have them come in. I have an imam come in or I have a Hindu guru come in or a rabbi to represent that religion as they would teach it, you see. And when I don't have someone like a Zoroastrian or a Husayn, I try to teach that religion as I think they would teach it. Emphasizing their strength, but also trying to give you an understanding of how I read the Koran every year. Is it for hundred pages, folks? You can do it. You need to know. People come to me and say what the Koran says, and I say, That's not in the Koran. What do you mean? Show me where. And they can't because I read it. You sit by people and they well, the Bible says I say, that's not in the Bible. What do you mean? That's Confucius, for crying out loud. Grow up. Don't mess with me. I've read. The thing is that you need to read it. You need you need to read all the sacred scriptures, for that matter. It's taken me years and years to be able to pull that off, so I don't expect you to be able to do that.

[00:01:40] But you can read the Koran. It's really important to understand the other person's point of view. But anyway, I am so happy to be a Christian. We understand. We talk about Grace. I have a book in my briefcase called Sanctity without Starch. It's Wesley's theology. Right hip. You ever heard of called the impious walk? Well, I wrote the clergy talk for that. 30 years ago, I took the Christian Catholic theology and flipped it to a Wesleyan understanding of grace. So if you've ever been to a two and a minus walk or a or a Christmas for that matter, you'll hear privileged grace justified gratitude. That's my contribution. But anyway, it makes in sense to be a Christian. I mean, it really is good news. I mean, somebody comes into your church and they're naked. What are you going to do unless you just a brick. You're going to what? Them? Somebody comes into your church and they're starving. What are you going to do? Unless you just a stone, you're going to feed them. Somebody comes into your church and they're in bondage to the stuff that would attempt to swallow them whole. What do you do unless you just don't understand the principles? You tell them about the power of the Holy Spirit available through personal faith in Jesus Christ so they can overcome the stuff that would attempt to swallow them whole. I said, You don't have to die to go to hell. I'm really learning lessons every day. I remember when I was teaching, starting my teaching career. I came home one day and my wife is doing a Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Fuller School of Psychology came home. She was in bed with a woman. And she's no more lesbian than I am.

[00:03:29] She got confused, really confused. And I'm saying, Whoa, my son's in the next room. So she invited us to leave. So we did. Yeah, I am. I am. What have I done? You know, it's got to be my fault. And so I'm one of those self-righteous joggers. You know, we don't want to be anywhere near me for at least 30 minutes. That Rob jog. I think I'm the most wonderful thing in the world. Oh, it's too bad we're like that. But we are, aren't we? I'm jogging around the Rose Bowl, the three mile circuit around the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. My son is on a bicycle next to me. I'm depressed. You don't understand depression. I know that because you just have to imagine what this is like. But I'm depressed. I'm saying, God. You love me thinking God probably should not. And boom, I don't hear voices. I envy people who do. I got an insight that when something like this. Tuttle, don't you know why I love you? I don't love you because I'm a god of love the way I am. And I don't love you because that's what I do best, though it is. And I don't love you because I'm supposed to, though I am. The reason I love you is there is just something about you that flat out turns me on. Yeah, I got the Holy Grail. I finished that three miles lickety split. I got delivered in an instant. My name was no longer Legion. Right. Then I realized, Whoa, her something about me. God likes. And you know what? If I'm good enough for God, I ought to be good enough for you. What do you think of that, huh? I'll tell you something else.

[00:05:27] If you're good enough for God, you ought to be good enough for the one next to you. What do you think of that? And I'll tell you something else. You're listening. If you're on sabbatical, come on back this late in the evening. Our brains take a sabbatical every 90 seconds. Don't mess with me. If you're good enough for God, you ought to be good enough for yourself. You hear me? Your most important ministry will be helping people understand how much God loves them. Because I'm telling you the God's honest truth, whether you're a Nigerian or a mexican or French or a Brit. Or if a Swede or an Arab. The most difficult thing to convince people is that God loves them, that most of your ministry is going to be helping people understand God love them. If you can get that right, everything will fall into place. But that's the most difficult thing, is getting people to know that God loves them and Islam. I'm not dissing Islam, but teaches nothing about love and forgiveness. It says that Allah's merciful. But that's a different kind of mercy. And a different understanding of God. And if there's this revenge thing in Islam by Sharia law, you're bound by Sharia law to exact revenge in perpetuity. It never goes away. Talking to somebody on the plane about Ahmadinejad. He's just kind of the puppet and he's a pet, a little dictator. But Columbia University invited him to lecture at Columbia University about three years ago, and the president of Columbia got up and called him a petty little dictator. What in the hell was he thinking? Ahmadinejad got up and said, You come to Iran. I won't I won't insult you. I may not agree with you, but I won't insult you.

[00:07:27] Don't you realize Sharia law? Means that insult is already in the loins of his great, great, great, great, great grandchildren. Will come back to haunt us 100 years from now. You don't need to decide. You talk about Jesus. Talk about love and forgiveness. I cannot tell you how important it is. To love and forgive people. In Islam, there's no forgiveness. It never goes away. You're bound by law to exact revenge in perpetuity. Okay. Let's talk about let's talk about a God of love. God created you because the void was not enough, despite what reform theology wants to teach you. I'm not saying I'm right and they're wrong. I say we can't both be right. We disagree on this issue. I believe that God's God of love and the void was not enough. And God created because God wanted someone something to love. I'm not making a case for literal Adam, and they don't get your noses out of shape. This whole world has grown from, like, 2 to 3 billion years old to like. 18 to 20 billion years in my lifetime. Old. It's amazing. So I'm not making a case for a literal Adam and Eve. I'm just simply saying this is the way the Bible teaches an incredibly powerful truth. And if there was a literal Adam in need to serve me Right. I have a friend. Who is the senior pilot for United Airlines. He spends ten days a month now flying purple, savage back and forth from Chicago to Shanghai. One of smartest people I know. Barbara Kapoor from Rice. Good school. He believes in a literal six day creation, 24 hour day. You idiot. What do you think it. Aren't you personally? What are you thinking? This guy is so smart.

[00:09:38] I invited him to Northwestern University in Illinois to teach. Six day creation. And no one laughed at him. No one believed him. But no one laughed at him. He made a pretty good case. You could understand what he was thinking. And how it could be. God did it in six days. Now, if God did it in six days, you'll serve me right. I can show you a three toed eel headpiece and resume a natural history which evolved into a horse. You have the size of a dog. It evolved into a horse. Makes sense to me. I think God created each after its own kind and the kinds evolved. What are. What do I know? What do I care? My problem with evolution is not the Bible. It's with science. I mean, there's a huge missing link, folks. It's an ugly missing link. And no one has come close. You know, I've met Lucy in Nairobi. Dick Leakey, Richard LEAKEY'S little. My museum there in. Not if you've just a bone fragment here and a bone fragment here, so don't be particularly impressed. His book, People The Lake. Written about 30 or 40 years ago, said between one point to 1.5 million years ago, four strains of humankind evolved simultaneously. And the theory was that the one that's the strain that survived evolved into modern humankind with the macho strain, the ones that ran around smiting themself on their breath. But you know what he discovered? They were the first to become extinct. You know why they were loners when they got picked off? That's why we go to church. The only strand that survived to evolve into modern humankind was Homo sapiens. Would you like to know why? Homo sapiens was the only strain that dared to become community.

[00:11:32] Margaret Mead says We know community was in place. Civilization was in place, at least in the date of the earliest discovered human fossil with a healed broken femur. On the way, you're going to survive a broken femur. Someone else has to feed you. That's what church is all about, folks. We don't go to church for the pain. A lot of what happens in the churches I attend is incredibly boring. I walked into a church the other day. It was like a Quonset hut. 500 people in there. It was so dark, I fell over a chair. And the worship. This charismatic stuff had me on my feet, wouldn't let me sit down for 25 minutes. Just tell I'm going like this. Lord have mercy. Let me sit down. I am tired. 25 minutes of this worship called that The Brits call it a happy clappy. Let me tell you, don't leave me here. I'll tell you what happened 25 minutes into this worship. I looked around and suddenly it occurred to me. Out of 500 people, give or take. I was the only one in the room not getting it. Sitting right in front of me. In front of me was a grandfather, a father and a grandson. Every one of them were. I mean, they were getting it. They were worshiping God. I was the only one in the building with an attitude. I need to grow up. Don't wanna. I haven't had all that soup may necessarily. I think most of most of worship focuses on the sacrament, the internal incarnate word. Every time I go into a church, I want to devour. And so every time I see a center pulpit, what does that say to you? God Bless the Baptist is that I dispense with the preliminaries and get on with the meat of the service, which is the sermon.

[00:13:29] No self-respecting preacher wants full responsibility for what takes place in the service of worship. Half the people could leave after the anthem because that's what they came to hear. You get the Levites. You want to turn the nation around a generation. Let me tell you a story. I've only had two visions in my life and I don't remember the other one, but I do remember this one. I'm reading through two Chronicles. Are you into this book? Old Testament book. Right, Right. Chronicles. Wondering how. Here's a kayak. Turn a nation around in one generation. I'm saying, well, shoot, I want to turn the nation around in one generation. How do you do that? So I go to bed. Living in Lake Forest, Illinois. I go to bed. I dreamt all night. Remember? Nothing in my dreams. But I remember the sights, the sounds, and I think the smells of this vision. Suddenly in this vision, I'm on the streets of Jerusalem. If you've not been to Jerusalem, you've got to go. They've and they've uncovered the steps, the very steps ten years ago where Jesus preached in my vision. I'm standing after that stood and taught on those steps many times myself. I'm standing on the steps. And I'm listening to the mothers wailing. You know why? Because Ahaz, who did more, more evil and all the kings before him were sacrificing their babies to the God. Malika. Natalia. Ben. Hannah. How the word hell was coined during a has his reign out of the ban in Ghana? Out of the ban in on the garbage heap that there's. You know and Jerusalem. There's a. Jerusalem is kind of like this is the old city. This is what the West city and the city of David kind of comes like this.

[00:15:13] And there's a valley that comes down here and there's a valley that comes here. And the terminal at the Mount of Olives is here. This is Gahanna. This is the Kidron Valley. This goes all the way down to in Gati empties end of the Dead Sea. David went down the Kidron Valley, fleeing from Saul. Hey, has this out here sacrificing Jewish babies. End of the valley. Been in a valley and I'm listening. I'm standing right here. This is the Western Wall. This is the Temple. Temple Mount. This is the pinnacle. This is the chapel gate. These are the steps. Here's the temple here. It's the Dome of the Rock now. And I'll oxes right here, right now. And these tribal gates are walled off. But I'm standing there. You can see the impression of them. By the way, on the wall, I'm standing there listening to the mothers wailing down here. And I suddenly I see an old man leaving a small boy. He has a lantern in one hand, walking toward the Temple Mount, and I'm standing right here. He slips by me with the boy, goes up through the triple gate. Only the Temple Mount. And as he approaches the steps to the temple, there are the columns here. Boaz and J. Bastion. Remember the giant bronze pillars, right? Boaz one of these. He has an iron bar stashed right there. And what she put there that day and he has did what he does that created the temple that the pagan gods let the lamps go out and eventually nailed its door shut. All eyes. They now realize the old man is Isaiah and the young boys Hezekiah, before he was co-written with his dad. Old Isaiah, get this iron bar and he's working on this door.

[00:16:56] Go buying gangbang Coming up the Bible I'm lying on starts to shake bang As the doors are breached I can hear their feet shuffling across the dusty floors and see all sorts of eerie shadows reflecting off these pagan gods. And I can smell the scent of incense, long scents going out. And then I watch the old man take the little boy to the only place not yet desecrated. Where was that? Behind the veil. And the old man puts the little boy prostrate before the Ark of the Covenant and teaches him how to worship. Say, Hezekiah. Just look. Don't touch. And the first month of the first year of Hezekiah's reign. What did he do? He opened the temple. He clinched it. And get this. He raised up the Levites, the tribe that was responsible for teaching the nation how to worship. You want to turn a nation around in one generation. Teach that people had to saying. Teach the people. And you can't do it like I like to do it all the time. I had to go to church to figure that out. I need to grow up. Thanks to all different kinds. Now some of it is a bit happy clappy, quite frankly. And I've said, you know, these little tech worshipers, that which gives you an awareness of God's presence in your myth. And if it doesn't leave it out of the worship service, I'm talking you can't you can't collect that. I take the offering to the glory of God. Leave it out, Put your bushel basket at the door and let people bring their ties to the warehouse. Don't mess with people. Life's too important. Worship too important. We can't play games. We can't afford the time for playing games.

[00:18:43] It's too late. We can't do that anymore. That's why you go to seminary. Billy Graham once said to me. It's a tunnel. If I knew for sure Jesus was going to wait for years to come back. I spent three of those years in seminary. The point is, we ought to be able to save you 30 years. 53 years old, for crying out loud. You need some help? We can save you 30 years. We can get you into stuff you couldn't get in 30 years on your own. That's what Simone is all about. Not all of us do it well. I'm ashamed of some of the stuff I've taught. I've taught people I know life stuff I no longer believe. But you would expect me to learn something in 40 years, wouldn't you? At least I'm honest enough to tell you the truth. We want to better prepare you for life in ministry. We want to give you a heads up on some things. We remind you of what most of you know already. It really is important to help people know that God loves them. That's the heart of the Gospel. Jesus is Lord. That's the heart of the gospel. Whatever it takes to communicate Jesus as Lord is the core of the gospel. What does it take? Okay. Genesis didn't take Adam and Eve long. Haven't you heard of Paul Tillich? Most of us were taught Paul Tillett was a heretic. Well, I met Part Elk once. At Northwestern. We invited him. To an auditorium to speak. And. If you have a big old auditorium. And there was there was a piano stand up there and a chair on a big stage, prop stage, probably 100 square feet. Big stage. No bigger than that.

[00:20:38] No much bigger than that. No big stage like where plays take place, you understand? And he was alone on the stage, one chair and and and a little, little podium, little pianist and tight podium. He got up and lectured. I thought it was terrible after he lectured. A student jumped to his feet and said, Dr. Tiller. I don't think. I don't think you're a Christian. You know what Kelly did? Would you like to know what you did? Till I looked at the man. He turned around. He went back to his chair, he sat down and he put his hands and his head and his hands and wept. The man wasn't always right, but occasionally he got things right. This is one thing he got right. He said the beginning of sense when we attempt to become autonomous from God. Till he got that right. Thing happens when we attempt to live as if there is no God. Adam and Eve. The old apple. Seven eight of the fruit and you'll become like, God, I didn't become like God. It just became aware of their own nakedness. And sand cannot bear the light last off in my life. I'm particular death you don't know about. And I'm kind of feeling lonely here because. But I suspect the stuff in your life, you're too soon I didn't know about. Yes, please. Yes. Help me. Thank you. I don't know if you want to go far enough to praise God, but thank you for thank you for. For identifying with me here, brother. But we don't hide anything from God. Sin cannot bear the light. That's why John Wesley had held the creation of God's love, not God's wrath, because he imagined someone presuming to plead their own case, showing up in heaven with their sins hanging out.

[00:22:42] And West is that God, out of God's love, created the darkness of hell to give this just such presumption a place to escape the awful exposure. Evan would be the worst kind of help or an unrepentant center stand before the Blazing Holiness of God with your sins hanging out for the rest of eternity. Don't you preach some center into heaven? You're not doing him any favors. Sin cannot bear the light. And if you know what God does, listen to that. You won't believe what God does. When Adam and Eve send God with trials beyond the veil because he knew they could not bear the light. He did not want them to suffer. They didn't become like God became aware of their own nakedness. I couldn't even hear the voice of God without covering themselves with the fig leaf. In first words, out of the mouth of God after the fall or what? Where are you at? Evangelism. Where are you guys? The first Avenger. First words out of the mouth of Got out. Where are you? God withdrawals beyond the veil. And so spirituality for the rest of eternity will have a nose pressed against the glass darkly, trying to catch a glimpse of the tree of life. I mean, suddenly Adam and Eve were mortal and sin prone after being born, but created righteousness prone. Now they're moral and sin problem. You don't want to eat the tree of life and be mortal, and then I'll be happy to die. I've got about 20 more more years. So most of you are still in your prime. Don't mess with me. I'm too old. I'm in the ground in 20 years. Happily. So now you get to be 70 years old, Donny. No big deal.

[00:24:30] Bring it on. I'm not going to rush it. I'll try to take care of myself. But I'm not afraid of it. Bring it on. I'm going to heaven. I don't want to eat that tree of life. Not this. Not this side of the grave. I want to eat that tree of life. Soon as I get to heaven. Bring it on. So God withdraws. There's a veil. It's not a veil. It's is dimension. Where is heaven? It's right here. Didn't someone warn you not to sit on the front row in my glasses? They should have. They should have done that. Are you okay? Are you okay? I'm okay. God. Since the fall has done everything God can do to reestablish a relationship. I'll take that to the Koran. God wants to establish a relationship, a loving relationship. Where are you? But then generations of the fall, humankind had nearly perfected its own evil and was about to destroy itself. The only way to save the save the remnant was the flood. That's what I'm not making a case for a literal flood. Don't get your noses out of shape. All it would serve all of us, right, if there really was. I think there probably some kind of a flood. I think that's been fairly well proven. The flight West Coast right back to the root to preserve the remnant. But within generations of Adam and Eve, we did it all over again, just about perfect our own evil and destroy ourselves. We even built built this tower thinking we don't need God to get to heaven. We'll build a tower to heaven. And humankind and community. There's nothing we cannot do for good or ill. We were about to destroy the RAM. The only way God can preserve the remnant was to confuse us.

[00:26:43] Break us out of community. That's the last paragraph of what we call primeval history. What's primeval history. We have no approximate date. Which introduces the first paragraph of patriarchal history. We have an approximate date for Abraham 1820 200 B.C.. I've done the research, trust me on that. So what does God do? God wants to establish Abraham. His father believed in the worst of the sun, in the moon. Abraham had apparently evolved the place where he could understand the concept of one God. Why is God a jealous God? Because God is the only God that is God, for crying out loud. You're worshiping a god. What's the most important thing in your life daily, Jones said. That's your God. What has your attention? Has you? What's the most basic common denominator that supplies the ruling force for your life? That's your God. And if you're worshiping a God that's less than God. If you're worshiping Mega God, that makes horrible demands but gets precious little in return, you worship the God that is God. You're worshiping a God that makes horrible demands but gives back pressed down, shaken together, running over said that in the opening prayer. Abraham could understand the concept of one God. So what's God do? Abraham We're going to cut a covenant if you and I are. We're going to do it. Took the animal divided. Abraham, The fire pot. Vowing that if either of us portrays this come to, might the same fate befall us? There was even a provision for covenant renewal when you messed up. What was that? How did you renew the covenant? This is all important. Sacrifice. Blood. Sacrifice. After several generations of sacrifice, no longer read the heart. I'm sorry. It just became write. It became religion.

[00:28:40] I never liked religion, quite frankly. And finally, Guy says, Folks, I'm up to here are your sacrifices. Obedience is sacrifice. I'm sick to death of your sacrifice. I want to cut you a new covenant. Remember Plato's Cave? Just reading that. Reading about that in a book on the plane. Plato's Cave. You have a cave, you have a fire in front of the cave. A figure walk in front of the fire. Casting a shadow on the back wall. So you this. And Plato says if you're so situated in the cave that you cannot see that which is casting the shadow, you begin to after several generations, you begin to confuse the shadow with reality. The Jews were confused. Confused. A shadow. The Old Covenant. Old Testament. New Covenant. New Testament. They began to confuse the shadow with reality. It was always only a precursor. And so got Jeremiah Wright down Jeremiah 31 3134. All of salvation history pivots on that passage. Those those verses. You know what Addington did when I wrote that book on the story about Angela? They wrote me and said, How come it takes you 150 pages to get to Jesus on a book on evangelism? I say because evangelism begins in the garden. Where are you? You don't understand evangelism. If it were not for the covenant, there would be no cross. Once you buy into the concept, you have to be faithful to the principle. There is no forgiveness of sins without shedding a blood. God could have done it differently. God chose not to. God wanted to make himself known in a way that humankind would understand. God is like that. God wants to make himself known to you in a way that you can understand. There's no fine print in the Bible.

[00:30:42] God's not the great, the divine concealer. God's the divine Revealer. It's all in bold print. Do this and you shall live. I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sins no more. Don't you love it? I had a little aside. I had an experience. I told you my Ph.D. was in Roman Catholic mysticism and reading these old mystics, you know, four months, ten, 12 hours a day, seven days a week for six months. Does it works on you? I stumbled on a little girl, 12 year old girl in Spain at the height of the Inquisition, height of the anti monastic movement. And the little girl had visions of Jesus. And of course, the inquisitors thought only that the priest should read the Bible because we wouldn't understand it, would misunderstand it and hurt ourselves. Inquisition and summon this little girl before them. Can you imagine their robes and or how hats this little girl looked like? 12 year old girl. The chief inquisitor, the little girl. Next time you see Jesus, ask him what sin I confessed at my last confessional. And she said, I'll do that. So I sent her home to call her back the next week. Little girl, did you say Jesus? Yes, I saw Jesus. Did you ask him what sin I confessed at my last confessional? Yes. I asked him what shame you confessed at your last confessional. Well, what did he say? Little girl looked at the man and said. Jesus said. Tell the man I forget. She liked that. Forgive their inequity. And remember their sins no more. It's a real story. Was told the truth. One of the stories out of the Middle Ages. I don't know whether it's true, but. You get the point. Old Testament, Old Covenant.

[00:32:55] There are different words to describe what happens. The old covenant sent is appropriated. Pro a proportionate. It means literally, it means covered over like sleeping skin under the rug. You know what the word is for them, for the new covenant. Sin is not perpetuated. It is expiate it. You know what? EXPIATE made exile the Greek word out. Speak to root, to root out. It's gone. Most of my theology from the ninth chapter of Hebrews, my covenant theology. Read it. It'll bless you. There are 300 Old Testament prophecies predicting. Jesus. Matthew takes those prophecies and tries to prove that Jesus fulfills all of those. That's what Matthew is all about. You do understand that, don't you? Matthew is about proving that Jesus fulfills all of the Old Testament scriptures. Sometimes when I read the Bible through, I like to put off by a lot of the statements in the Bible. You know what it means. It's about prophecy fulfilled. You all see maps in the Book of Matthew or a ton of Piaf's prophecy for prophecy. Fulfilling prophecy fulfilled. Prophecy fulfilled. What's the first prophecy Out of the mouth. Mouth out of the mouth of Jesus to open his ministry at Nazareth? Isaiah 61. Good news to the poor. Blind. And I just like Jesus. Man. He's a good Jesus. He's a great messiah. He's a piece of work. Human sacrifice without sin. He was then prone and mortal. But remain. Get this. Are you listening? Remain centers with less advantaged than Adam. That doesn't get to you. You're just a brick. Jesus, the son of the living God remains sinless, with less advantage than Adam. Fully human. As human as you are, son. Understand the Old Testament. How many of the Christian churches in Africa, Nigeria, for example, really have their base in the Old Testament? Because you understand tribes, you know you and you understand tribal religion.

[00:35:22] It's almost time to quit. We got to get serious here. I've covered about one third of today's The night's lecture. That's all right. Don't panic. We'll be all right. We know that there was a corpus of teaching common to the. New Testament. The Court We're still talking about the Court. At least you can believe it will be a question. If you take the five patrons services, for example, and analyze them. You see, there was a basic core of teaching common to all of the biblical preaching. A core. S.H. Dodd. Perhaps not like preaching. So you can summarize the gospel under about five or six headings. So you're ready. Then we'll quit. Honest to goodness, we will. Beginning of a new age. Number one, this is a beginning of a new age. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of that new age. His conception. I really do believe in the virgin birth. Makes marvelous sense to me. Hi. Mary was conceived of the spirit. It's like me believing in the resurrection. James. One rose from the dead. What to do with the body? Don't mess with me. Where to go on the was not going to take the Jews aren't going to tell you the disciples aren't going to take it. And then all the disciples were martyred except for John. Do you realize one in 60 Christians were martyred for the first 300 years of the life of the church? Did you know that? One in 60 Martyr died for their fight. For the first 300 years. How many people you have come into church on that big server? 6001 in 60. Do the numbers. Jesus was the fulfillment of that new age. His conception, His birth. His early life. His baptism. His temptation. His ministry.

[00:37:39] I keep harping on this. Go to the Galilee. Do you realize you can ride on a bicycle from Capernaum to Masada, Julius to charism and a half day on a bicycle? And 70% of the miracles that Jesus worked, we worked with in that triangle. And there's no one there. I mean, it's just. Just. Less people there now. And that wasn't Jesus this day. I mean, if you can just walk and feel, I'll stay in a monastery there for two months and we'll see whether they nestle with the see a guy lapping up against the side of the building. During the Gulf War, I watched the Scuds go over and didn't see a tour bus for two months. Not one. You go there now and you see parking lots filled with a dozen tour busses. All the time. But just. I just walk. They've just uncovered the gate and persuaded Julius the very gate. Peter and James and John Andrew from. From Buffalo Julius. They walked through that gate. I mean, you're right there through that gate. What? Jesus had to walk through that gate to heal the blind man. First time I went there, there was nothing there. It was just there was a wall. I got up on top, it fell and I destroyed something that had been there for 2000 years. I did it in 5 minutes. There was nothing there. Just I found a sign, a little sign on a tree where the blind man was healed. But now it's. You have to pay to get in. PA Thanks, James. His death, I've told you, fulfills. There's no forgiveness sustained without the sharing a blood. His resurrection. Folks, I beg you to believe that. I'm not sure what what came out of the tomb, but I know what went in.

[00:39:38] And when it came out, it never left. Never left nothing behind. I got locked in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher one night. I spent the night there, slept on a bench with a bunch of nuns. Had 30 minutes in the garden tomb. I mean the tomb by myself. You get 30 seconds now. Have you ever been there? I mean, can you. 30 minutes in the tomb. I fell asleep on the tomb of Jesus. His death. Your man really did. Don't give me a no. Tell me he didn't die. Muslims don't believe he died. Gnostics don't believe that because they've got this old Greek body and soul business where the soul is God within you and the body is evil created by some demiurge and so salvation to come out of the body so big to be absorbed in some kind of divine blob. There's a lot of world religions Buddhism, Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism, Theravada, but about 60% of budget. They're about it. But they don't have a transcendent God. But Mahayana Buddhist. Do you believe in a transcendent God? And that's that's the Tibetan God. Chinese Buddhism is Mahayana Buddhism. But you could you realize if you're if you're if you have any kind of religious affiliation, you cannot be a communist. Well, I think it. His death. He really did die and resurrection. He was raised, I believe it was in my life on it. That didn't happen. I'm a dead man. Bring it on. Happily. I am a fool. I have been preaching a lie all of my ministry for 50 years. I believe the body was transformed into a glorified body. The first fruits, first fruits and won't happen to you, he returns. When you die, you may have some kind of spirit of sensual awareness of people have died.

[00:41:34] You may not have. It's time. It's time to go. Okay. I love you guys. I'm glad God brought us across each other's paths. I am really praying that you will get from this clash what you need to get in this class in order to be more effective in life, in ministry. We're just building these foundation blocks. We're doing the theology. Do the history tomorrow morning. But we're doing the theology. We should understand, are good reasons for believing the way you believe. So I want to start with a story tomorrow that you're going to tell me about from Temptation. We're over a little bit. You want to stand up, grab on. That's got to give us a good night's sleep.