Podcasts about suddenly god

"SUDDENLY GOD WILL ANSWER YOUR PRAYERS!" So you may have been praying for God to answer some specific prayers for a long time. God's timing and His will for our lives as Christians is perfect! So join us to see how SUDDENLY your prayers will be answered by our Lord as He brings forth the perfect answer for your situation! Don't lose hope! Help is on the way!!! Suddenly God will answer your prayers! Praise the Lord!  Please give us a 5- Star rating and share with your friends!   

REJOICE AND BE GLAD- you're about to get a visit from our Heavenly Dad!!! BE STRONG AND DO NOT FEAR- a "Suddenly GOD", is on the way my dear!!! Keep your eyes on the hills!!!

Miracles can happen suddenly. The Spirit can move suddenly. Deliverance can happen suddenly. And Suddenly God Will Move.

Even though, as Mary Ann says in this episode, Moses could've been featured on “America's Most Wanted,” God knew this fugitive had the right stuff to lead His people to the Promised land, so He spoke to Moses, gave him his marching orders, and the rest, as they say, is history. Moses is just one character Luanne and Mary Ann talk about in this episode as they remind us that because nothing is impossible with God, no situation or relationship in our lives is hopeless.  (NOTE: The ladies are hoping to be able to record some new episodes again very soon, but while Mary Ann's husband is still recovering from a serious head injury, they're sharing some of their past favorite episodes. )  Luanne's newest book, “Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God,” is available for order through her website (see below) and on amazon.com, as is Mary Ann's book, “Live. Learn. Laugh!” You can learn more about Luanne and Mary Ann, order the books they've written, and read Mary Ann's newspaper columns on their websites: www.luannebotta.com and www.maryanncrum.com . Also check out their podcast Facebook page: “Unquenchable Hope.” You can contact the ladies at luannebotta@gmail.com and maryanncrum@gmail.com .

So often, we feel like God has forgotten about us. We feel like we are spending all our time taking care of everyone else's dreams, wondering if God is ever going to bring our own dreams to pass. Can I tell you that if you'll be like Joseph, never give up. Keep your attitude right. Trust God. Wait for God. Never stop believing. In fact, instead of getting more discouraged day after day, you decide to be more encouraged. Knowing that with the passing of every day, it just means you are one day closer to God bringing you into your God-given purpose.

Come join us as we celebrate this HOT new artist whose ministry is blessing many churches, stages, and tent revivals and now set to bless the airways. God gave him the song “A Prepared Place” one day while he was going through a rough time in his life. He was depressed with how life was going even though He is a Pastor's kid, we still have everyday struggles regardless of the way it may seem. Johnny was leading worship every Sunday and encouraging others, but he needed encouragement deep within himself. On top of that Johnny and his Wife lost their unborn child and that added more stress and depression. Johnny was outside of his home pacing back & forth one day talking to God. Suddenly God told him to open his bible and it opened to John 14:1. He started reading and immediately tears began to roll down his cheek. We all know the verse, so he began to sing it to himself not knowing what God was placing in his spirit at that moment. Johnny began to write the verse and started worshipping God because his promises are Yes and Amen! Johnny is happy to say that God has rejuvenated his spirit and ready to let the world hear what God has birthed inside of him to give the world! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gv-hot-97/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gv-hot-97/support

Hot new artist whose ministry is blessing many churches, stages, and tent revivals and now set to bless the airways. God gave him the song “A Prepared Place” one day while he was going through a rough time in his life. He was depressed with how life was going even though He is a Pastor's kid, we still have everyday struggles regardless of the way it may seem. Johnny was leading worship every Sunday and encouraging others, but he needed encouragement deep within himself. On top of that Johnny and his Wife lost their unborn child and that added more stress and depression. Johnny was outside of his home pacing back & forth one day talking to God. Suddenly God told him to open his bible and it opened to John 14:1. He started reading and immediately tears began to roll down his cheek. We all know the verse, so he began to sing it to himself not knowing what God was placing in his spirit at that moment. Johnny began to write the verse and started worshipping God because his promises are Yes and Amen! Johnny is happy to say that God has rejuvenated his spirit and ready to let the world hear what God has birthed inside of him to give the world! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gv-hot-97/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gv-hot-97/support

Even though, as Mary Ann says in this episode, Moses could've been featured on “America's Most Wanted,” God knew this fugitive had the right stuff to lead His people to the Promised land, so He spoke to Moses, gave him his marching orders, and the rest, as they say, is history. Moses is just one character Luanne and Mary Ann talk about in this episode as they remind us that because nothing is impossible with God, no situation or relationship in our lives is hopeless.   Luanne's book, “Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God,” is available for order through her website (see below) and on amazon.com, as is Mary Ann's book, “Live. Learn. Laugh!”You can learn more about Luanne and Mary Ann, order the books they've written, and read Mary Ann's newspaper columns on their websites: www.luannebotta.com and www.maryanncrum.com . Also check out their podcast Facebook page: “Unquenchable Hope.” You can contact the ladies at luannebotta@gmail.com and maryanncrum@gmail.com .  

"Suddenly God" By Pastor Jason Sides

This episode talks about the Japanese tradition Setsubun. Setsubun is the day before risshun, the first day of spring in the old calendar. According to the new calendar, setsubun falls on February 3rd or 4th. It is Japanese tradition to scatter roasted beans on this day to chase way evils and troubles. People toss beans around inside and outside their houses chanting, “Demons out, good luck in!” Tradition holds that you will be healthy for the rest of the year if you eat the same number of beans as your age. On setsubun, shrines host bean-scattering events, archery demonstrations, and other ceremonies to drive away evil. In contrast, there are some areas in Japan that have shrines dedicated to a demon god, or that have legends of demons helping humans. In these areas, people may scatter their beans chanting, “In with demons!” The tradition of tossing beans on setsubun is a popular form of the ceremony of tsuina, a court ceremony that began in the Heian era (794-1185 CE). Cee Bee also talked about the book Hermetica, The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs, chapter 7.  In this chapter Hermes teaches us how to see God by contemplating his creation. When we look at the world only with our physical eyes, God is nowhere to be seen. But if we look with our thoughts, we see with spiritual understanding. Suddenly God is everywhere. In this ecstatic state everything we see and touch is known to be a part of God, and we understand that God's whole purpose in creating the world was so that through it we could see him. Ask Atum to flash a ray of his illumination into your awareness, giving you the power to grasp in thought his sublime Being. For the invisible may only be seen with thoughts — which are themselves invisible. I read only three of four lines on the next time.  The sun is the greatest god in the heavens — a king to whom all the others pay homage.  Yet, this mighty god humbly submits to have smaller stars circle above him. Who is it that he obeys with awe? Each star travels its appointed range of space. Why don't all stars run the same course? Who is it who has assigned to each its place? The Bear revolves around herself and carries around with her the whole Cosmos. Who is it that appointed her this task? Who is it that fixed the Earth, and confined the sea within its shores? Someone must be the maker and master of all this It couldn't just happen. All order must be created. It is only that which is out of measure which is accidental. Yet even disorder is subject to the Master, who has yet to impose order upon it. Read, and Read... have a clear mind and may you receive the knowledge of our ancient ancestors.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ceebee710/message

Slideshow for this message is available Introduction 1 John 4 We are in a series leading up to Christmas entitled, Unto Us a Life is Given. There are three meanings packed into that title. Unto us, a life is given. The life is the little life in the manger. Unto us, a life is given. The life is Jesus' life given to us on the cross. Unto us, a life is given. The life is what we receive as a result of Jesus' work. Well today we want to kind of bring these three ideas together in Christmas itself. When we think of Christmas for many the first thing that comes to mind is gifts. Now the best gifts are always the ones we really need. And that's why what Jesus gives us in Christmas is the best gift of all. Because it's something we really, really need. Now to illustrate why we need this Christmas gift so badly, let's imagine a situation in which you are applying for a job for which you have no business applying. Let's say lead test operations Engineer at SpaceX. And by some fluke, quirk oversight in their process you get the job. Your first day on the job, your boss says, “Hey before we fire this next rocket can you run some models that demonstrate the relationship between hoop stress and longitudinal stress in a cylindrical pressurized vessel. You know, our last models were incorrect and it caused the entire rocket to explode which of course was multi-million dollar mistake. That's why we hired you.” How do you feel? You're a fraud. You're a fake. And so you do everything you can to hide your incompetency. You answer in vague terms. You stall so you can do a quick google search: What is hoop stress? You're anxious because you can't control when your weakness is going to be exposed. Now here's the nightmare of nightmares. Imagine if someone shows up on the job site who has all the experience, connections, degrees, skils, expertise that you know is necessary to do the job. And they setup in the desk right next to you. What's your emotion? Fear. The closer they get to you, the more you are revealed as an imposter. Their competence reveals your incompetence. Their knowledge reveals your ignorance. The smallest, most innocent questions are incredible threats. Your insecurities skyrocket. You feel naked. It's a terrifying thought. It's just terror to be found out. That exactly describes the problem we face with God. When God is far away, we are all okay. If God is just out there somewhere, I can manage well enough. But the closer God gets to us, the more we realize what we ought to be. What is Christmas. Immanuel. God with us. Is that a good thing? His perfection reveals our inadequacies and shortcomings. His adequacy reveals our inadequacy. His power reveals our weakness. His holiness reveals our corruption. It's why the shepherds in the field were terrified when the angels announced the birth of Messiah. Suddenly God was here. God was punching his omnipotent fist through the fabric of history and he's suddenly upon us. It's terrifying. I'm an imposter. I'm going to be exposed. I'm going to be found out. Every person in the Bible who has an encounter like this with God has the same reaction. They are flat on their faces in abject fear. Moses. Isaiah. The great problem of the human race is that we cannot coexist with God. When we even get close, we instantaneously recognize our inferiority and our hearts are filled with terror. We melt. We are unclean. You want to know what Christmas is? It's solving that problem. It's making a way for you to be in the presence of God without fear. What's the first thing that the angels say to the shepherds. Do not fear. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. I am making a way for you to be in the presence of God without fear. It's what Zechariah says in his proclamation, “that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear.” That's the great gift of Christmas! It's the inexpressible GIFT that Paul describes. How is that possible? How does Christmas accomplish this? Let's take a look. The passage of Scripture that will be instructing us today is 1 John chapter 4. Here we have the Gift of Christmas distilled into two verses. And we are going to start in verse 9. John is writing to help people understand what it is that really makes a Christian a Christian. And he begins by saying, being a Christian begins with something God does. Becoming a Christian is something that has its beginning outside of anything we chose to do. Being a Christian begins with God breaking into history and giving us a gift. The giver here is God and the gift here is his only Son, Jesus. And the gift tells us something about the giver, doesn't it. The gift reveals something about what is in the mind and heart of God. Christmas is about God sending his only Son into the world that we might stand before God without fear. Now for our outline, we are going to think about the gift giving process. There's three stages to every Christmas gift: there's the moment when the gift is pulled out from under the tree and it's REVEALED that you are being given a gift and then there's the moment you open it and then thirdly there's a decision a point when everyone goes home when you decide if you are going to keep it. Different things are discerned in those different stages. Let's start with the REVELATION. The Gift Revealed. When you received a wrapped gift, before you ever open it, intent is communicated. It's an act of kindness. It's a gesture of affection. In giving a gift you reveal an otherwise unknown disposition toward a person. I've had several experiences in my life, during the holidays, when all of the sudden out of nowhere, I receive a gift from someone. Out of the blue, I get a wrapped present and a card. I mean wow, I wasn't expecting that!? Without even opening the present, I appreciate something about them. I sense their disposition toward me. And in a similar way, when God gives us this Christmas gift we learn something about his disposition toward us. It reveals something about God. And what does it reveal? That God LOVES us. Notice what the text says. In THIS [in what? In the sending of his Son] the love of God was manifest. We did not know of God's love in this way and then the love was manifest. It went from being unknown to known. That's what manifest means. It went from being hidden to being seen. He reveals that he loves us by giving us His Son. So, when the shepherds see the baby laying in a manger. When the wise men see the child and lay down their gifts. They are sensing the special love of God. God is among us in his Son. Now I want to camp on that thought. Could we have known that God was loving without him revealing himself to us in this way? Could we deduce that God is loving by, let's say, merely looking at the known world? The answer is no. It's actually an emphatic no. You cannot look at the cosmos and deduce that God is loving. Now you might say, "What do you mean. I can look at the created order and see all sorts of evidences that God is loving. Look at these beautiful tulips. Look at the gorgeous African Safari. Look at a beautiful sunset. These are all expressions of a loving God. Okay that's one way to interpret the evidence. But is that conclusive evidence? Just because a being loves beauty does not mean he is good or loving. Hitler loved good art. His headquarters were filled with beautiful paintings. So just because a person chooses to create beautiful things or enjoys beauty does not mean that they are loving. Additionally, isn't it the case that the tulips, sunset and safari are cherry picked examples? Why didn't you pick the example of the antelope hanging out of the lions mouth? Why didn't you pick the example of the entire population of fish that died at the bottom of a dried up polluted lake because it was sucked dry by greedy industry? Why didn't you pick the example of the sex trafficked child who has no defender? You see the world is full of horrific evil. In fact, the strongest argument against the existence of a loving God is the presence of evil in the world. What do you mean God is loving? What world are you living in? And maybe you are here today with that exact same objection. If God were loving why would he allow my mom and dad to divorce? If God were loving why would he allow my spouse to mistreat me so badly Maybe you have a hunch that God exists (because the created order CERTAINLY evidences that) but you are struggling with the question of the love of God. I see that God is powerful. But is he good? Does he love me? This is the point of Chirstmas. This gift comes crashing in upon us. In THIS, the LOVE of God was manifest, that God sent his Son into the world. You don't send your one and only Son to just anyone. There's the GIFT. There's something in this gift that EVIDENCES love. That baby in the manger says something. Now we still haven't opened that gift. What's inside? In other words, what is this Son going to do? Let's open the gift. When you are handed a gift at Christmas you are certainly thankful and feel loved but there's still a lot you don't know. Inside that gift could be $5 gift card to Starbucks or a $500,000 check to pay off your mortgage. That's a pretty big difference. We know that we are given the gift of God's only Son? But what is he here to do? Is he going to do a touch and go? Is he here to give us a one time spiritual stimulus check? What's his reason for coming to earth? We know it's an act of love but love can take on a lot of different forms and exists in vastly different degrees. What's the Son here to do? Well the next verse tells us: So much is made clear here. The wrapping paper is falling off. We are starting to see the essence of the gift. What is the Son doing? The Son is being sent to be the propitiation for our sins. Now that's a word that is used only in religious contexts. Let's break it down. Remember Trent covered this word last week and he gave us some great insights into understanding the word. This is the second time John uses it. Do you remember the definition? What is propitiation? It's the turning away of the anger of God by the offering of a gift. It describes the change in disposition of the one who has been offended. Now, in antiquity the word propitiation was used to describe the way pagans would relate to their gods. They envisioned their gods as moody and unpredictable. They imagined their gods easily angered by small missteps. And when the gods were displeased they would retaliate with volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. And so you had to make some sacrifice to appease them. You know the classic, throw the virgin into the volcano as a propitiation. The idea was that the displeasure was averted because of an appropriate gift. The ANGER was turned to SATISFACTION because of SACRIFICE. That's what the word propitiation means. Now when we get to our Bible's we tend to choke when we see that word. Many modern theologians have reacted against using the term in reference to the God of the Bible. Why? Well because obviously God is not like one of these temperamental moody beings who can be bribed into being favorable. Give him enough candy and he'll be happy. That's so offensive. And so when these theologians get to the word PROPITIATION they translate it expiation or atonement or sacrifice. They try to find a word that is stripped of this idea that God is angry. But the problem is, that's not the root idea behind the word. We must ask the question. Why is the word propitiation in the Bible? Why is it here in 1 John? Because God IS ANGRY at sinners. We want so much to win people to Christ (which is a wonderful thing) but we do it the wrong way. We try to hide them from the wrath of God. Why? Because we know that our modern world is embarrassed at this idea. The whole idea that God is angry at sinners is an idea that is seriously on decline in our society. Here's a graph that represents the decline of the word propitiation in our English literature over time. You can see that over the last 150 years, our society has grown very uncomfortable with an idea of an angry God that needs appeasing. We have no use for this word as a society. And because of that we don't tell people what the Bible states clearly: We don't tell people that every moment they refuse to repent they are heaping up wrath for the day of judgment. That our sin has drawn down the anger of God. People aren't afraid of God because we are out there telling them that God is a cosmic Mr. Rogers. Now let's be sure to paint an accurate picture of what that means that God is angry. We need to be VERY careful not to map the sinful anger of man upon the righteous anger of God. Maybe you have experience with a man in your life who has demonstrated sinful, selfish anger. That's not God. We are told that God is slow to anger. He is not irrational. He is not out of control or moody as is often the case with us. His anger is the certain, settled opposition of his holy nature against everything that is evil. He has a righteous anger, which means his anger is justified. In other words it's appropriate and right. Let me attempt to illustrate. If we switch this into financial terms you will likely understand much more readily. Who recognizes this? This is what a title looks like for a car in the state of Idaho. Now when the time comes for you to sell the car, at the bottom there's this little tear off section called the release of liability. And you're supposed to fill it out and write a check for $3.50 and mail it in. I mean talk about a pain. Well this summer, I sold one of our old minivans and I threw that little piece of paper on top of my refrigerator and promptly forgot about it. Well, just this week I got this letter in the mail from a collections agency. It was from Nesmith Towing for $1621.19. Merry Christmas. Apparently what happened was the guy I sold it to never registered it in his name. Immediately after he bought it from me, he dumped the car on the side of the road and the car was towed and then stored for 4 months with interest. And because it was in my name during the time of towing, I get the bill. Now how do I feel? I'm frustrated. I didn't do that? Is that fair that I have to pay the fee? I could either buy myself a brand new mountain bike or I could pay the penalty for another man's infraction. I have to pay the fine because of what someone else did? That's not fair. Would you say to me, “You have no business being frustrated at that. How dare you feel that way?” No that is a justified feeling. Now you see, in a similar way, the anger of God is justified. We are talking about something infinitely more serious that a bill. We are talking about a direct assault against the maker of all things. Notice in Psalm 7 how the RIGHTEOUSNESS of God is linked to his ANGER, his indignation.

Dreams of Heaven and the Underworld  Preface   Is Jesus real? Does God exist? Is the Bible true? Is there really a heaven? Although these are questions people have asked for centuries, they are also relevant questions today because people of every generation continue to ask them.   What is the Truth? I once heard a story that illustrates this. When Hudson Taylor, a pastor from England, came to China to preach, he met a Chinese man named Ni Yongfa. After hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, Ni Yongfa became very happy and accepted it. Ni Yongfa asked Hudson Taylor how long people in England have known about Jesus. Taylor replied, “hundreds of years.” At that moment, the Chinese man became upset with Taylor. Holding him accountable, Yongfa said, "My father sought the truth from Buddhism, Taoism, and other religions all his life, but never found it. Thus, he died in regret. You have known about Jesus Christ for hundreds of years and you have only now come to preach it to us?"[1] It is obvious from this story that only few Chinese people had heard about Jesus Christ at that time.   Times are different now. We live in a digital age, an age of information explosion and information overload. Most people around the world can utilize internet search engines like Baidu or Google to find stories about Jesus Christ, God, and the Bible. It is not so much that people have never heard of Jesus Christ, but rather, they do not know whether Christ is a Western myth, religion, or the Truth. The problem nowadays is that people do not know what information is credible and what is false. They are not sure if there really is a God and a heaven.   Throughout the ages, however, a lot of people have reported witnessing heavenly scenes like that which was seen by John in the book of Revelation. Many have recorded their prophetic visions, and some are readily available in book format. The world's disbelief in Christ is no longer a matter of ignorance to the name of Jesus Christ or the concept of God and heaven; rather, people don't know what is real and what is not, and they are not willing to blindly follow just anything.   My Encounters In 2001, I went to the UK to study and there I encountered the gospel. In 2002, I moved to the United States. I was baptized and saved in the Local Church Movement (LCM), and I became a Christian. In 2015, I was introduced to the Pentecostal Movement and the Prophetic Movement. Through these movements, I was filled with the Holy Spirit and God activated a prophetic gifting inside me to the point that I began having dreams of heaven. In my dreams, I often see what appear to be parts of heaven or another world. Not only have I seen Jesus, angels, and evil spirits, but I have also encountered Chinese people who have passed away. In fact, some of the Chinese people in my dreams died without knowing Christ. I know this because some of them were my dead relatives, and I knew that they did not believe in the Lord before their departure.   Some Christians may think my prophetic dreams and visions are not from God. Maybe they are from evil spirits and, therefore, unreliable. It is understandable to think this way. Readers can make their own judgements. I am just being faithful to record what I believe is from the Lord. If one day I feel that these are not from the Lord, I will revoke what I've shared. For the time being, I am inviting my readers to judge what I've said and pray to the Lord about it. Please know that I am not recording these to conjure up theological controversy. Rather, I wish to record what I saw so that those who don't know whether the Christian God and heaven are genuine, understand that heaven, Jesus, and the underworld are real.   Heaven and Hades The title of this article is, “Dreams of Heaven and the Underworld.” In between heaven and hell, I found a grey area that I term an ‘underworld' for lack of a better word. I've seen people living there. I do not know if this is an underworld, a place in the heart of the earth, or another spiritual realm, but I know that this place is not heaven or hell. Some people may call this place an extension or part of Hades. I was taught in my denomination that the Bible says that there are two parts to Hades: Paradise and hell. In Luke 16, the Lord mentions that Lazarus was sent to a place of blessing while the rich man was sent to a place of torment. A great chasm exists between the two.   Where is Hades? Is it under the earth or in another dimension? Could it be in the bowels of the earth? Numbers 16 records that the earth opened its mouth and swallowed Korah and those with him that rebelled against Moses. They went down alive into Sheol. Some conclude from this verse that Sheol (Hebrew) or Hades (Greek) is within the earth. I have no way of knowing. However, I have heard others refer to these places as valleys, and in my prophetic dreams, this seems to be the case. For now, I have chosen to call them the edge or grey area of ​​heaven.   Once, the Holy Spirit took me to a deep valley wherein we traveled for a long time to meet some people. In this extremely deep valley, there were people who claimed to have lived there since the Han Dynasty (206 BCE- 220 CE). Although the Chinese people I met that day were in the darkest valley, I did not see a lake of fire or sulfur anywhere around. In two other trips, I met different Chinese people in varying depths of valleys. People in the shallower valleys had houses and green spaces. They socialized and had gatherings. In the deeper valleys, I saw houses in cold weather and snow.   Some other people who have experienced visiting heavenly realms, such as Lai Wang Xiulan, mention these valleys too. According to Xiulan's book, “Get Closer to God 2,” hell exists in some valleys.[2] Sinful and nominal Christians who live in the valleys are awaiting judgement. After judgement, some of these people go to heaven while some go to hell. These valleys are on the road to hell.[3] Some sinful Christians who live in the valley will return to Paradise after repentance. Xiulan states in her book that the Lord said, “The people in this valley are those who are bitter, who criticize, judge, and disobey the shepherd. They are here to study the Bible in order to know me better. After they learn their lesson, they can return to Paradise.”[4] If these statements are true, then some people do not go to hell immediately. They await their judgment, and or continue to repent.   For centuries, Christians have believed and preached that those who do not believe in the Lord while they are still alive go directly to hell after they depart earth. However, as I mentioned before, I have met relatives in my dreams whom I knew didn't believe in the Lord before dying. I don't know how to explain this theologically. There is no doubt that preaching someone will go to hell if he/she doesn't accept the Lord will produce a sense of urgency to believe in the Lord; it also gives evangelists their reason to evangelize. But what about the many relatives who have died that we loved so much? Chinese people have a habit of worshiping their dead ancestors, and I do not promote ancestor worship. But the Bible tells us that God has prepared something far beyond what we can ask or think (1 Corinthians 2:9). Perhaps one day when we arrive in another world, we'll find that someone we never thought of was there to welcome us. Perhaps we will still have a chance to be in contact with our loved ones. Mind you, I know this is a theologically controversial topic.   Let's consider a few examples. Let's take the example of Confucius. Where is he now? It is not theologically correct to say that Confucius is in heaven because no one can go to heaven except through faith in Jesus. I assume that Confucius never heard the gospel. But it is also wrong to say that Confucius is definitively in hell. First of all, according to the Bible, Paul says that those who heard the gospel will be judged according to the gospel, and those who have not heard the gospel are judged according to their conscience, because their conscience is their law (Rom. 2:14). If Confucius and others who did not know Christ, lived by their conscience only because they had not heard the gospel, would they be bound to hell? This does not conform to God's righteous nature and to what Paul says. Maybe they are awaiting a final judgement to which after judgment, some people will enter Paradise and others go to the lake of fire.   Now, I can't say with 100% confidence that Confucius is or will be allowed to enter Paradise, but I hope he will be there. Not only do I hope that he is there, but I also hope that Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, and all other famous Chinese poets will be there. I hope that one day I can meet them and discuss ancient Chinese poetry. I once thought that everything apart from Christ was dung, including culture. My current notions have been revised. I believe culture will remain in heaven. On the last day of 2017, when the Lord took me to heaven, believers there sang me a hymn of four meters in Chinese. Perhaps the languages we speak on earth may not be abolished in heaven even though there may be heaven's language too.   My encounter with my father-in-law is another example I will share. I never met my father-in-law on earth because he died of a cerebral hemorrhage before my wife and I got married. In one of my prophetic dreams, my wife and I were brought to a place where my father-in-law and other people were gathered. My wife was brought inside a building to see her father. I had the opportunity to chat with an old Chinese lady sitting at the door. She showed me a large print edition of the Chinese version of the Bible that she was studying. To my knowledge, my father-in-law did not believe in the Lord before he died, but in my dream, he had the opportunity to study the Bible. The place they were living may be considered the Paradise part of Hades, or a valley on the road to Hades. My wife had misunderstandings with her father before he died and never got the chance to apologize because her father died suddenly. She felt regretful, even indebted. She was worried that her father would go to hell and she would never have the chance to see him. This caused immense pain in her heart. However, after I had this prophetic dream and upon sharing it with her, my wife received great comfort in her soul. The pain in her heart healed.   In one of Xiulan's testimonies about heaven, she also described how she saw her father and mother-in-law reading the Bible in Paradise. She said that when the Lord took her to visit them, they told her that there's an angel in every household in Paradise that teaches them the Bible.[5]   My aunt is another example. My fourth aunt died of breast cancer, and I don't believe she knew the Lord either. In another prophetic dream, I was taken to a small house where she lived. She received me with fruit grown by her house. This piece of fruit looked like a mulberry, but it was as big as a mango. Her house was very small. Beside her house were many other people's houses. They were very similar to the small townhouses in downtown Baltimore, but not so high. The Bible clearly mentions that there are fruit trees and fruit in heaven (Rev. 22:2), but I have seen many times that one can also grow vegetables in heaven. Xiulan also mentions that people can grow vegetables in heaven.[6] American prophetess Kat Kerr even mentions in her book seeing some angels in heaven prepare a house with a garden for an old lady. One angel had specially prepared and tilled a piece of land for her to grow vegetables.[7] This should not be surprising—if one can plant fruit trees so naturally, one can also grow vegetables. Chinese people in the United States especially like to grow vegetables in their backyard. Christians who like to grow vegetables may also continue to grow them after they go to heaven.   I've had this experience of meeting my fourth aunt more than once. This reminds me of a testimony I heard from an Australian prophet named Neville Johnson.[8] He mentioned that once he was brought by an angel to a place where he saw some small houses. It felt strange that these were different from the big houses in heaven, so he asked the angel, “What are these houses?” The angel told him that when some people who hadn't heard the gospel passed away, Jesus would appear to them, giving them the opportunity to choose. If they chose Jesus, they would live in these small houses.   Kerr also shared a similar vision. She saw Jesus appearing to those who rejected him during their lifetime, and he asked them if they wanted to know Him now. Almost everyone cried and said “yes.” Jesus told them that He would not be righteous if he did not appear to them to give them a choice since their relatives had faithfully prayed for them and decreed that they would be saved in Jesus' name. Kerr encourages people to pray and intercede for their family members even though they do not seem to be open to the Gospel. She states that people will be surprised that many relatives made it to heaven although they thought they did not make it.[9]   I recall praying for some of my family members to receive salvation, and I especially prayed for my fourth aunt after I found out she was sick. I guess people like my fourth aunt are awaiting judgement or already in the peripheral of Paradise as Neville Johnson mentioned. Whether they will have the opportunity to continue to know God and become God's children, and have bigger houses in heaven in the future, I have no way of knowing. I personally hope that these people will have the opportunity to know God and to mature spiritually. Maybe even Li Bai, Du Fu, and other famous Chinese poets are also in similar places learning about God. If you are equipped with the Word of God, maybe it will be you that God uses to teach them in this intermittent time. There are many gatherings and activities happening in the valleys, even people preaching. Or, if you become co-rulers to rule with Christ, you may have five or ten cities to rule (Luke 19:17-18). Why isn't it possible for you to rule cities in different realms instead of earth? Considering the total number of cities on earth right now compared with the total numbers of Christians throughout the earth, there is definitely not enough cities for everyone to rule 5 or 10 cities.   Only A Shadow There are also countless means of transportation in heaven, which may be something you haven't thought of. I have seen carriages in heaven (the Bible records the chariot of fire and the horses of fire that took Elijah away). I have also seen trains and even transportation that uses trains and horses together. Maybe these surprise you, but don't forget that even Jesus is expected to return riding on a white horse. Many people also doubt that there will be animals in heaven. If there are no animals, where did the Lord get the white horse? We cannot spiritualize all biblical records. Some of the things recorded are things the prophets actually saw in heaven. We should remember that the Bible tells us that things on earth are only shadows of things in heaven (Heb. 8:5). If there are no real things in heaven, how can things on earth be shadowed? There are buildings, animals, plants, trains in heaven, and even coal, as I once saw. All the beautiful things on earth can all be found in heaven. It's as if heaven is a version 2.0 of everything we see on earth.   In another dream, the Holy Spirit drove me in a car type vehicle to a place in heaven where I saw a lion and a horse resting leisurely on a hillside. People were swimming there. Suddenly God came to visit, and simultaneously, there was a rainbow and rain. Kerr says only from the Father comes the rainbow.[10] In another prophetic dream, the Holy Spirit drove me and a Christian couple who attended our Bible study, to heaven. He showed us the house of his wife in heaven. The house was huge. The vines and wall had grown together as one. There was a music box on the wall beside the front door. You could open the music box and music would play automatically. The lady had a great passion for music. After listening to my testimony, she was very encouraged that God had installed a music box on the wall of her house in heaven so that she could play music at any time. The wife said she had a dream at the same time as me, and she saw the Lord. But since she thought she might have been dying, she cried out to the Lord and woke up. Perhaps this was not just a dream and we had traveled there together.   The Necessity for Dreams and Visions The Bible tells us that we are sitting together with Christ in the Spirit, but this is something that many people don't understand. They have never experienced sitting together with Jesus on the throne. My understanding is that if God did not allow prophetic visions and dreams to be known and experienced by the soul, we may not have a way of perceiving what we are experiencing in the Spirit during the moments we are taken in the Spirit somewhere.   I live in the United States. I have been to Orlando, Florida, and I have visited Disneyland. Many people have never been there. If I say there is a city in Florida called Orlando, and that there is a Disneyland in Orlando, you might believe it, right? Why do many people believe this place exists without having been there? It is because many other people have been there and have testified to its existence. If, however, only a few people had been there and testified, it may be more difficult for everyone to believe that Disneyland exists. My experiences include meetings and conversations with Jesus Christ; conversations with angels and activities together; the appearance of saints who have passed away; houses and buildings in heaven; children in heaven; attacks by evil spirits; spiritual warfare; and the deceased's location, especially dead Chinese people. Unfortunately, I lost some details of my prophetic dreams due to blurred memories. Sometimes I dreamt of being in one place for a long time and participating in many activities there, but I only recalled a few of the dream's details upon waking. The records you see are not complete pictures, but they are bits and pieces like bricks and tiles of an archaeological discovery. My limited comprehension also leaves room for inaccuracies. In the end, my goal is not to describe exactly what heaven looks like, but to surprise many people who have thought that heaven is not real.   Nowadays, there are more people testifying that they have been to heaven. God has revealed heavenly scenes to many people in recent decades, and these people have recorded them. Countless videos will appear if you search for testimonies of heaven on video sharing sites like YouTube. I know that many Koreans and Chinese people have similar testimonies. They are very encouraging to read. I believe if everyone shares their encounters with heaven, it may draw a larger witness to the gospel. There are a lot of travel guides available online. Don't simply trust all the guides you read because they are not always reliable. My heavenly travels may not be completely reliable, but I share them to encourage and challenge you to test what is good. As the Bible says, “Do not despise prophecies, but test everything” (ESV, 1 Thess. 5:20-21). Use this article for your reference, for brainstorming use, and not for theological debate with other Christians.   Although you still may not be sure if God, heaven, and Jesus Christ are real, I carry the conviction that they are because I have seen Jesus Christ. He has appeared to me many times. I know there is another world outside this world. It is even more beautiful knowing that there is a heaven waiting for people. The Local Church Movement (LCM) to which I was a part, spiritualized heaven into a concept of a "spiritual new Jerusalem." They teach that there is a spiritual place where God and man dwell together, but they do not believe there is a material aspect to heaven. This is inconsistent with my prophetic dreams and many other people's testimonies.[11] My dreams have freed me from many beliefs I accepted while partaking in the LCM. Although the LCM teaches this way to discourage some believers' overly material pursuit of heaven, they are excessively denying the material side of heaven.   Heaven, Version 2.0 On the last day of 2017, a mysterious person brought me to heaven wherein we traveled for a long time. After arriving, this mysterious female took me behind a piece of glass in a building. There I saw people going up to heaven as though they were taking an elevator. I initially did not perceive that the lady guiding me was a disguise for the person of Jesus. On other occasions, Jesus has also appeared to me as an old Chinese lady. After I realized who I was with, the lady's appearance changed to Jesus, and I even saw a cherub flying towards me. Surely, I was in the presence of the Lord. I was shocked—there is glass in heaven! Perhaps Paul had already known this. He said, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (ESV, 1 Cor. 13:12). Some theologians say that the word “mirror” represents some kind of glass-like object.   Kerr mentions in an interview that heaven is round and a very big planet far away from the earth; the size of heaven is bigger than our galaxy. She specifically says that heaven is round and not flat as many people may think.[12] If her statement is true, heaven is indeed a version 2.0 of the earth, or better! Many good things that we enjoy on earth today will be found in heaven including our pets, according to Kerr.   Of course, we don't know whether material in heaven is the same as material on earth. That is, the Lord was able to walk through walls after he was resurrected, but he could also eat fish when it was given to him by the disciples. Jesus' state of being was obviously altered because it is recorded that the disciples were initially startled when they saw him because they thought He was a spirit or a ghost. It was then that the Lord said to them, “Do you have any fish?” The Lord proved he was not only of spiritual essence, but that he could still consume material things as they did. We may not be able to explain how Jesus' resurrected body maintained both aspects of carnality and spirituality, but perhaps this is part of the mystery of heaven 2.0.   When these prophetic dreams happened, I was in my bed sleeping, Although I was asleep, my spirit was brought to these various places by the Holy Spirit. While I am not certain if I was having an out-of-body experience, they point to a reality that we cannot perceive or see without spiritual eyes. I hope that you will continue to take these dreams seriously as I do. I hope that you will be open to the possibilities that may exist beyond us while also not neglecting to acknowledge that everything in creation exists because of God and it is all for His glory. Heaven may be different from what you have imagined!   There is a phrase that says, “Poverty limits our imagination.” If our imagination is limited, it will make us poor, not only materially, but spiritually. Perhaps if more people knew that heaven existed, their life's endeavors would be largely rewritten. Even for Christians who vaguely believe in a heaven, maybe they will be awakened to believe with fervor in the greater things to come. Once we are sure that heaven is real and there are many lessons to be learned there, we will not waste so much time on earthly things. Interestingly, the first thing that many people in heaven regret is wasting their opportunities to learn to serve the Lord and love God and others while on earth. They deeply regret seeing that others are closer to God. Although there is no jealousy in heaven, people may still feel regret for not having seized their opportunities.   Some people say that the more you learn to love and serve the Lord on earth and are filled with God's light, the closer you are to Him in heaven and the closer you live to Him in the heavenly realm. On the contrary, the less holy you are, the farther you will be from God. In the end, the farthest you'll be is probably hell. I hope these dreams provoke you and cause you to draw closer to Christ now.   [1] http://production.lifejiezou.com/node.php?nid=15279 [2] Only available in Chinese. Title translation is mine. Page 27. [3] 130. [4] Lai Wang Xiulan, Jehovah-jireh, 160. [5] Lai Wang Xiulan, Jehovah-jireh, 45. [6] Lai Wang Xiulan, Through Eyes of Faith, 142. Only available in Chinese. [7] Kat Kerr, Revealing Heaven II, 62. [8] From Neville Johnson's sermon on Youtube. No link available. [9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Het_gU1nYCI [10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Het_gU1nYCI [11] Website for Contending for the Faith: https://cftfc.com/?s=%E5%A4%A9%E5%A0%82. The website is in Chinese. [12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Het_gU1nYCI

In this teaching Flunda talks about how after God's people humble themselves, fast and pray He intervenes and changes the events that were about to take place.

Suddenly, God changed my story - from barren to a mother of two What do you do when the doctors have said that it is medically impossible? When friends and family have given up hope, where do you turn? When men and women of God begin to suggest that your situation is dead and it's time to let it go, where do you find the encouragement to go on? Pastor Mrs. Valerie Charles Chike Nezianya joins us this week to share her own experience of being childless for almost 8 years after marriage. She recounts enduring the shame of being called barren and the physical pain for which doctors could not identify the cause. Until, suddenly, God changed her story. Psalm 113:9 says "He gives the childless woman a family, making her a happy mother. Praise the LORD!" Our prayer is that your faith will be stirred as you listen, and that you will be encouraged to trust the God who is able to make the impossible, possible.   About Our Guest: Pastor Valerie is an ordained minister of the gospel. She has an evangelistic calling over her life and a burden for raising godly women, marriages and children. She is a certified accountant, by profession, and a published author. She is also the visionary  of the Chosen To Give Life Ministries, an inter-denominational ministry dedicated to stirring the hearts of women back to the Lord.   Pastor Valerie is the wife of Pastor Charles Chike Nezianya. Together, they pastor The Cornerstone African House of Praise in Singapore. Their marriage is blessed with their double-portion children, Zachary and Juanita, who actively support them in ministry.   Pastor Valerie has a special burden to stand with and support women who are waiting on the fruit of the womb. To avail such support, you may connect with her via chosentogivelife@gmail.com Stay Connected with Us Do subscribe to this show, Couch Conversations, leave a review and be a blessing by sharing with others. You can also connect with us on Instagram and Facebook @hummingbirdjourneys and via our website www.hummingbirdjourneys.com

Acts 2On Father's Day, Jon's dad joins us to teaches on the "Suddenly God"! CCLI Church Licence #: 6078 CCLI Streaming Licence #:72908Other places you can find us:Website: https://bit.ly/Bethel-WebsiteFacebook: https://bit.ly/Bethel-FacebookInstagram: https://bit.ly/Bethel-InstagramInquires: Please contact office@bethelcardiff.org.uk 

Abby Mida shares her very personal journey to motherhood.  Over four years she experiences the recurring highs of pregnancy and lows of heartbreaking loss.  After 6 miscarriages her physicians advise attempting IVF (in vitro fertilization) .  Abby clearly felt God calling her to wait.  She leaned into her faith and was obedient with what she felt God was leading her to do.  She and her husband follow God's prompting and wait.   They embark on a 10 month cross country adventure that landed them in beautiful Breckenridge where God had a plan that would change everything!  Suddenly God's whisper has changed, "for such a time as this."

Moses lists the lineages of Noah's sons to help us understand how God repopulated the entire world after the worldwide (not local) flood. You can read his account in the reference below. Seemingly out of nowhere, God spoke to Abram ( a pagan) and called him out in a way that changed history forever... Genesis 11: 26 - 12: 4 desperatemen.org

Today we continue our series on Christmas as we talk about what happens when God surprises us. We will look at what happens when our lives are suddenly redirected when we encounter God.

2 Corinthians 1:5 NLT 'For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ.' In the style of Christian expression I embraced as a new disciple, all talk of suffering was either excluded or buried. I got the impression my friendship with God was about love, joy and peace. I mistakenly assumed I had drunk from the elixir of life and I was indestructible now I was filled with God’s Spirit. No one deliberately deceived me; however, it was what the shelves of church were stacked with. I don’t remember encountering anyone with a physical or learning disability in those early years. My faith was built on encouraging promises. So when difficulties arrived I was unprepared to meet them. Had I truly read the gospel with eyes wide open, I would have seen it is built around the Suffering Servant. He experienced all of life’s trials and tribulations. This is the basis of the trust he requests and we give. We have a Messiah who does not pass unscathed through life’s traumas, but one who suffered persecution, injustice, torture and death. Suddenly God is approachable, for these are realities we all fear, and will encounter in some form or another. I needed to retain my youthful exuberance, but have it shaped by the resilience that pain nurtures. That pain is merely an expression of the sufferings of Christ in this mortal life. It is a source of determining how we perceive God, and the nature of the faith we develop. Yet, it also offers hope to others in that they observe that our testimony to serving God is not based upon a life free from pain. Katey was inspirational as she practised her faith even as her mortality was twisted out of shape by her MS. Jayne, who I married after Katey’s death, manages life while dealing with a chronic pain condition. These are people we can trust, for they speak from common human experience of a God who is present in pain, not falsely promising to remove all pain from this side of death. QUESTION: Has your experience in life removed you far from the benefits you assumed were yours when embracing God? PRAYER: Thank you, Jesus, for sharing in our humanity and our suffering, and bringing hope and freedom.  

This sermon was preached by Rev. Edward E. Cantu on June 04, 2017. Visit our website at www.myworshipcenter.com

..."When God shows up in a second. In a situation that's impossible where we're waiting on God and we feel that there's no way out but then SUDDENLY God comes.

Pastor Andy Davis begins a new series in the Book of Galatians and unfolds the dangers of an unbiblical gospel. - Sermon Transcript - I. One Question: What must I do to be saved? Many times in my mind I go back to that incredible account in Acts Chapter 16 when Paul and Silas were in the Philippian jail and they were in chains and being persecuted for preaching the Gospel of Christ, and they were singing praise songs to Jesus, giving glory and praise to God. I think to myself, how much I long for that kind of faith, to be able to face any trial in my life with that kind of supernatural joy, and to be able to understand the root of their joy. It was in the Gospel of Jesus Christ that Paul and Silas knew that even if they were executed for preaching the Gospel, they were going to go to heaven and that they would be perfectly happy. They had every reason to sing and rejoice and delight in the Gospel, but there were also other people listening to them. There were other prisoners that were listening to them and especially there was the Philippian jailer. Suddenly God sent this incredible earthquake and the ground shook and the doors were opened and the chains fell off. The jailer called for lights. He was just about to kill himself because he thought all of his prisoners had run away. And Paul called out a message of life, "Don't harm yourself, we're all here." The jailer called for lights and rushed in and brought Paul and Silas out and fell trembling before them and asked this one question, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Does that question stand over you today? Do you understand the significance of that question? What must I do to be saved? Can you understand the basic underpinnings of that question? There must be something I can do to be saved. There must be some action I can do. There must be some array of good works I can do to stop feeling so guilty before God, and to stop being so terrified of death and of judgment. Is there something I can do about this? Paul and Silas spoke the Gospel message of liberation, of freedom, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” You will be rescued! There's nothing you can do to save yourself. There's nothing you can do to rescue yourself, just believe in Jesus and you will be saved. How powerful is that? How liberating is that message? And that is what I get to preach today, the liberating message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Story of Martin Luther Now, jump ahead almost 15 centuries to the story of Martin Luther, one of my favorite characters from church history. He was an incredible man, but he was, similar to the Philippian jailer, terrified to die. He was a lawyer. He was law student in route to go back to school, when he was caught in the middle of a thunder and lightning storm, and the lightning flashed all around, and he fell down into the mud. He was terrified to die. He was afraid that these lightning bolts were sent by Almighty God to kill him and to usher him into hell. The only thing he had to answer those terrors were the errors of medieval Catholicism. So he cried out in the midst of that mud, rain, lightning, and thunder, "Help me, Saint Anne, I shall become a monk." He cried out to a saint to save him. He made her a promise, that he would become a monk if she would just intercede with God to save his life, and he was good to his promise. He entered a monastery, and there he tried to earn his salvation by extended fasting, by labors, by meditations and long prayers, and by endless confessions to his father confessor. He was just trying to find some way to be delivered from a guilty conscience and from his terror of death, his terror of the wrath of God, that when he died he would be sent to hell and there he would suffer forever and ever in extreme torment. And so he was terrified by these things, and the only thing he could do was try to earn his forgiveness by good works, and he became the most extremely zealous monk there was in Germany. Scrubbing floors like no floors have ever been scrubbed before or probably since. He refused the meager blanket that was assigned to him in his monk's cell there and laid on a cold floor in the midst of a German winter, shivering, thinking that somehow his physical torments there would be a path of escape from the judgments of God. But no matter how hard he worked, no matter how hard he tried, he could not stop the accusations of a guilty conscience and the terror of God behind all that. Just when things were blackest, Luther was entrusted with the responsibility of teaching the Bible at the University of Wittenberg and it saved his life, it saved his soul. For in that Bible, he discovered the Gospel. He realized that the medieval Catholic system, that barter, that exchange of doing good works to pay for bad, the whole thing was corrupt, it was not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He found in the Book of Romans the way out, that the Gospel pointed to the work of Christ crucified and resurrected and a righteousness that is ours by faith in Christ. Now, the Book of Romans was a centerpiece of that discovery, but the Book of Galatians became a treasured and precious source of truth and strength to him. In this brief Epistle, the Apostle Paul is fighting against some people (we'll call them the Judaizers), false teachers, who are trying to mingle the work of Jesus Christ on the cross with law. They're trying to add to the work of Christ. It was Christ plus law equals salvation, that's what they were doing. And in refuting them, the Apostle Paul has given us a timeless message, refuting works righteousness in favor of a Gospel of grace, a Gospel of forgiveness, simply by faith and by the grace of God and by the work of Jesus Christ. Luther delighted in this brief, clear, simple, powerful message of Galatians. He loved it. He said, "The epistle to Galatians is my epistle. It's mine." I'm grateful he's let all of us use it too, amen? But it was his. “It's my epistle.” He said, "To it I am, as it were, in wedlock. I'm married to this book, it is my Katie." That was the name of his wife, "Galatians is my Katie." He loved this message, he loved the simplicity, he loved the liberation from legalism, from thinking that somehow our law-keeping can pay for our sins. He loved that liberation. And Luther said, "There is no middle ground between Christian righteousness and works righteousness. There is no other alternative to Christian righteousness than works righteousness. If you don't build your confidence on the work of Christ, you must build your confidence on your own works, and there's no middle ground between the two of them." Amen. So what must I do to be saved? Believe in Jesus, trust in Jesus. So we come to the liberating message of the Book of Galatians. II. The Liberating Message of Galatians We are going to find in this what some scholars have called "The Magna Carta of Christian freedom." Or others, "The battle cry of the Reformation," "The Christians' Declaration of Independence." We come in the Book of Galatians face-to-face with the Gospel, that's what we have here, the Gospel. Many people wrongly assume or think that the Gospel is just for unbelievers or beginner Christians. They think that, as Tim Keller put it beautifully, the Gospel is the ABCs of the Christian life. Well, he says, it is that, but it's also the A to Z of the Christian life. So again and again we are going to come back to the Gospel message and see how powerful it is for we who are Christians. One of the central observations that Keller makes is one of the most obvious things, Galatians was written to Christians. It was written to people who already believed in Jesus Christ, but they were straying from the simplicity and the clarity of the Gospel message, and they needed to come back again and understand the Gospel. Gospel is for us. The Gospel is the Power of God for Salvation All over the world sin has enslaved people in its power. They are in the chains, just like Paul and Silas were in physical chains, they are in spiritual chains. They are in bondage to sin, in bondage to Satan's power. They are in chains they cannot see and chains they cannot break. The only liberation from this enslavement is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the power of God. Romans 1:16-17 says the Gospel is "the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew then for the Gentile. For in the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed, a righteousness that is from faith to faith. Just as it is written, ‘The righteous will live by faith.’" Picture in your mind Paul and Silas in those physical chains. Then picture sinners, apart from the grace of Christ, at this point not having believed in the Gospel, in the same kind of chains. They are enslaved, they are in prison. Charles Wesley pictured it this way in the hymn And Can It Be, and I just love that verse that talks about salvation in those kinds of terms, that enslavement, the chains, "Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye, [Jesus' eye] diffused a quickening ray. I woke, the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off. My heart was free, I rose, went forth and followed thee." That's liberation, Amen. And only the Gospel can set you free. Now, this is not an escape story, we are not talking about an escape story. I love escape stories. I've watched a number of movies that are about great escapes, like The Great Escape, that's one. Seventy-six POWs escaping from a German POW Camp through a 102 meter tunnel. That's a great movie. That's a great story. I've watched a movie about an escape from Alcatraz, how this one guy cleverly finds a way how to get off that island and makes his escape. Clint Eastwood was in that one. Moving on. Then there's Harry Houdini, I watched a movie about him, how he used to do the Chinese water torture thing upside down in a cell of water. But here is the thing with an escape story. In every case, the escape artist is celebrated. Galatians Emphasizes the Liberation by Christ. It is the Epistle of Freedom The Gospel is not about escape, it's about rescue! It's about rescue. And it's right here in Galatians 1 in the verse that you just heard read, in verse 4, Christ "gave himself for our sins to rescue us." Amen. We're going to get into that verse but I just want you to see it's a rescue mission. And the whole thing with rescue is the one being rescued can't deliver themselves. And to God alone be the glory for the deliverance. To God alone be the glory, to Jesus alone. We cannot save ourselves. Self-salvation through law-keeping is no Gospel at all. It does not work, and even if it did we would spend eternity insufferably praising ourselves and glorifying ourselves for our own great escape. Instead we're going to be glorifying Christ for His great rescue of us, His deliverance of us. It's a rescue. And so, we are going to celebrate this Gospel of rescue, this Gospel of liberation for many weeks together in the Book of Galatians. "The Gospel is not about escape, it's about rescue! " Context: The Churches of Galatia, Infiltration of False Teachers Now, let me set some historical context, the Apostle Paul wrote this book. He was an apostle, we are going to talk about his apostleship. He was a church planting missionary who went through various regions, including what we now consider modern-day Turkey, and he went through that area and he planted churches. The name “Galatians” is linked to the word Gaul, linked to the history of France. So there were some Gauls that came apparently from that area and settled in Asia Minor. After terrorizing the Greeks and the Romans they settled there and the Roman Empire made Galatia, the place of the Gauls, a subset of Asia Minor, part of the Roman Empire. Paul visited this region with Barnabas on his first missionary journey. Acts 13 and 14 tells the story of how he planted these churches in Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, it tells the whole story about all of that. He was stoned and left for dead by hostile Jewish leaders who followed him from Antioch and Iconium to Lystra and they stoned him and left him for dead. But he wasn't dead. God raised him up out of that pile and he continued to preach. And at the end of that first missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas revisited the small churches they had planted. They showed that shepherding heart and that concern for the works that they had done. It was out of that concern that he writes this epistle, because some time after Paul and Barnabas left, some other teachers came along, some false teachers. They were Jews who claimed to believe in Jesus and they believed that a combination of trusting in Christ plus obedience to the laws of Moses equaled salvation. They are who we will call the “Judaizers,” and they were preaching a false Gospel. In so doing, they also undermined the Galatians' confidence in the Apostle Paul as a faithful teacher of the Word. And so they said negative things about Paul. We'll get into what those negative things were, but it seems to me that they were saying that he got his message and his mission from the Apostles in Jerusalem, but he messed it up. They were saying that he didn't get the whole thing correct and so he himself had to be corrected. And they were adding to the message the rest of the ingredients of the recipe of how it is sinners get saved. So they are questioning Paul, undermining him, and saying he is, to some degree, a second hander. That he's not a first-generation leader and his authority is less than that of the Apostles in Jerusalem, and that he wasn't teaching accurately the Gospel. So these Judaizers came and they were telling these Gentiles, these recent converts to Christ, these things and they (the Galatians) had no means with which to fight back. They didn't understand the law of Moses as well as these Jewish people did, and they couldn't resist. So pretty soon after Paul and Barnabas left, they started believing this false Gospel and going off in a wrong direction, and so Paul writes this epistle. So look at Paul's Apostolic greeting. He’s writing to correct their false understanding of the Gospel. He begins in 1:1-2, "Paul, an apostle--sent not from men nor by a man but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead--and all the brothers with me, to the churches in Galatia." So it's not written to just one church, like Corinthians (which I think was written to just one church), or one individual, like 1 and 2 Timothy, or Titus. This is written to a region of churches. So he meant for this letter to be read to all of these churches. He calls himself an Apostle here, he's asserting his authority. The Apostle Paul Apostle literally in the Greek means 'sent ones,' an emissary and an ambassador, someone sent out with a mission. Sometimes in the New Testament, the word is used of people like Barnabas or others that were basically the equivalent of missionaries, and so you do see that use. That would be an apostle with a lower case “a.” Then there is this kind of use; Paul is an Apostle we could say, with an upper case “A.” And he is one of those original pillars on which the church was built, or the foundation on which the church was built as it testified to Jesus Christ, eyewitnesses and authoritative teachers of doctrine, that's what Apostle with capital A means. And so he wants them to know that his role as an Apostle, as a teacher of the Gospel, was given him by God Himself. Now, there's nothing wrong with pastors receiving a commissioning from other people to serve. As a matter of fact, that's all we have these days. Churches like you give people like me the right to preach and to teach, generally by a congregational vote. But Paul didn't get his authority and his right to teach or his ministry from any congregational vote or from anybody at all. He got it directly from God through Jesus Christ, and so he has the authority to teach the Gospel, that's what he's claiming here. He was called into his ministry directly by Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. Saul, Paul had been a bitter enemy of the Gospel and of Jesus Christ. He makes his appearance in the Bible as a young man who is consenting to the martyrdom, the killing of Stephen at the end of Acts 7. He then (in Acts 8) begins a career or bitterly persecuting the church, dragging off men and women and throwing them in prison. There are implications that he perhaps may have even killed some of them. He was a violent man, and he at least consented to their deaths, if he didn't actually himself do it. That's the kind of man he was. Meanwhile, he was also an excellent law-abiding Jew who was climbing the ladder of careerism and Judaism. He was getting greater and greater as a Jew and being recognized by the authority figures, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, all of these audiences seeing his greatness and Judaism and his law-keeping. And then he became an emissary from them to persecute the church, even getting letters from the authorities in Jerusalem to go to synagogues in Damascus to persecute the Christians there. And it was while he was on his way to Damascus that suddenly a blinding light from heaven flashed. We're going talk more about this, God willing, next week. But he fell to the ground and he heard a voice saying to him (Acts 9:4-5), "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked. "I am Jesus." Oh, those words changed his life. "I am Jesus. I am the resurrected one. I am the savior. I am the God of the universe." "Who are you, Lord?" "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Now, get up and go into the city and you'll be told what you must do." So from the very beginning his own salvation is linked with his calling to work for Jesus as an apostle. So he did not get his commission from any human beings or from any human source at all. The Lord told Ananias who was sent by Him to baptize Paul, the Lord said to Ananias, "Go! this man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer from my name." So he's going to be a messenger to the Jews, but especially to the Gentiles. III. Paul’s Apostolic Greeting And notice what he says. "Paul, an apostle--sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead." And so the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is central to this message, how fitting is it? Do you see how fitting it is for us to finish the Gospel of Matthew and go right over into Galatians. Amen. For us to go right from the account of Jesus' death, burial, resurrection and commissioning of the Apostles into Galatians, which very accurately teaches what message it is that should be preached to the ends of the earth. What Gospel message is it that these Apostles should preach, and that is still with us today. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is central to everything, and it is God the Father who raised Him from the dead. It was a living Christ, it was a living Jesus that appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus and changed his whole life. The resurrection of Christ from the dead was the centerpiece of the Gospel and it was Paul's own joy and hope. Grace and Peace To You Then he says, "Grace and peace to you," it's a standard apostolic greeting. But in Galatians, I think it takes on an extra significance. Later he's going to say that they had fallen away from grace, and we'll talk about that difficult phrase. Basically there's a principle of grace by which we are saved and it's over against law or works, self-righteousness. We are saved by grace. We can't say it enough. We're saved by grace. What is grace? Grace is a disposition in the heart of God toward us. Start there, it's in the heart of God. It's God's attitude toward us. A disposition of love and benevolence and generosity toward us, to lavish on us, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, to us who deserved eternal condemnation because we'd broken His laws. So to understand grace, it's in the heart of God. It results in gifts and good things flowing out from God to us. It comes to us through Jesus Christ. We receive it by faith and it's directly contrary to what we deserve. Now, the last part is probably one of the more famous aspects of the definition of grace, unmerited favor. That is so weak and pale compared to the full-blooded understanding of grace. Unmerited favor is when you go find a total stranger and give him a $20 bill. Alright. Friends, eternal life is no $20 bill, and we were not total strangers. We were enemies. We were murderers. We were law breakers and we deserve condemnation, and God is giving us a river of blessings by grace. “Grace and peace to you.” Not by works but by grace we are saved. And in direct opposition, throughout this book they are going to be in direct opposition. You're either going to be saved by grace or you're going to be saved by works/law/self-righteousness. So in Galatians 2:21, he says, "I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, then Christ died for nothing." And later he says in Galatians 5:4, "You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace." The Deliverance of the Gospel Then he gives us a marvelous quick synopsis of the Gospel message. If you know what to look for, these are sweet, sweet words and they're in the hymn, one of the verses of the hymn that we just sang. I leaned over to Christy, I said, "Do you realize that the rescue theme and Christ interposed his blood?" That's right from Galatians 1:3-4, it's beautiful. Look what it says, "Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," verse 4, "Who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father to whom be glory forever and ever, amen." That's a very brief, quick summary of the Gospel message. It focuses on Jesus Christ. Jesus is the one who gave Himself for our sins. This is the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. Jesus interposed His precious blood. He stepped in between us and the lightning strike of the wrath of God. He took that strike for us. On the cross He died in our place. He interposed His precious blood, He laid down his life, He gave Himself. Why? For our sins. The Gospel is incredible. The Gospel tells us it was far worse than you could've possibly imagined about yourself and the answer is far more glorious and the future is far brighter than you possibly could have imagined for yourself. It's really, really bad news and really, really good news. The really bad news is we were sinners, we were violators of the law of God and God's wrath was against us because of that written code that stood against us and was opposed to us. Jesus took that guilt on Himself. He took the condemnation that those sins deserve. He died in our place. He did it, it says, “to rescue us from the present evil age.” As I've said very plainly, we could not save ourselves. This is about rescue. We could not rescue ourselves, and so God sent His Son with deliverance and He rescued us, it says, from this present or the present evil age. Well, this is something that can only really be seen by faith, you can only see it with eyes of faith, this evil age that we live in. But many verses talk about it, don't they? Colossians 1:13, says, "He, God the Father, has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us or brought us into the Kingdom of the beloved Son." That's a rescue mission. Jesus was sent by the Father to take us up out of Satan's dark kingdom and bring us into the beloved Kingdom of Christ. And so Ephesians 2:1-3 talks about how it was for us before we were Christians. It says, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live." You were living dead spiritually. You were the living dead. You were dead in your transgressions and sins as you lived. As you walked, it says, "And followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air." That's Satan. He is "the ruler of the kingdom in the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath”. But God, because of His great, rich mercy and grace to us in Christ, delivered us and rescued us by Jesus' blood. Amen? Hallelujah. That's the rescue. We were enslaved to Satan's kingdom and could not save ourselves. So God sent His Son to rescue us from this present evil age. We are free now, we're free! We are free sons and daughters of the living God. We are free. We're free from sin, we're free from the law and its power to condemn us and send us to hell. We're free from hell itself, we're free from condemnation. But that freedom is not to be used for lust. It's not to be used for evil. We are now free to serve God as Jesus did. And Paul is going to get into that in Galatians 5. It's not freedom in the libertarian sense, it's a freedom to please God, and now we can do it by the Spirit. That is not a message of self-salvation, is it? That's a rescue in which Jesus has freed us, and so, therefore, to God be the glory, amen? "We were enslaved to Satan's kingdom and could not save ourselves. So God sent His Son to rescue us from this present evil age. We are free now, we're free!" To God be the Glory Look what it says, "According to the will of our God and Father to whom be glory forever and ever, amen." In self-salvation, you get the credit, you get the glory. You rescued yourself. But in salvation by grace, God gets the glory and we are going to go up there in Heaven when we're done and we're going praise Him forever and ever for saving us. It's good to do it now, don't you think? Just thank Him, say, "Thank you for saving me. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your grace. I didn't deserve it. Thank you." Then Paul turns and it's like night and day here, or really day and night, praising God for the glory and then we go into bitter astonishment here. IV. Paul’s Bitter Astonishment Verses 6-7, "I am astonished that you were so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different Gospel, which is really no Gospel at all." Paul's usual pattern is warm thanksgiving and greetings. He thanks God for the Ephesians. He thanks God for the Philippians, richly and warmly thanks God for them. He thanks God for the Thessalonians and all the ways that God worked in their lives. He even thanks God for the Corinthians, for goodness' sakes. They were a messed up church. They had all kinds of problems, every problem you can have in pastoral ministry, the Corinthians had. They were all there and yet he thanks God. Listen to this, 1 Corinthians 1:4-6, "I always thanked God for you because of His grace given to you in Christ Jesus, for in Him you have been enriched in every way in, all your speaking, in all your knowledge, because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you." Galatians didn't get that. Galatians didn't get any box with a ribbon handed. No gift. They get, "I am astonished at you." Why? Why so different? Why does he treat the Galatians so differently than everyone else? Well, because they're turning away from the Gospel itself and he is in deep concern about them. He's not sure if they genuinely, finally turned away from the Gospel of grace. If so, he says, "Then you aren't really Christians," and this is incredibly grievous to him. He is astonished. He says that they are so "quickly deserting the one who called them by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different Gospel, which is no Gospel at all." There's two issues here. There's a sense of sadness, a sense of shock for him, a sense of bitter disappointment. You could say, "Well, it's personal. He did all that work and it's turned out so badly." I don't deny that that might have been in his mind, but that's not what's motivating him to write here. Oh, it is personal, but it's not about Paul. It's about God. You're abandoning God, the one who called you. You're turning your back on Him. And what's so amazing is that it's happened so quickly. This isn't second and third generation now. This isn't your grandkids. This is you. I don't get the sense of decades here. I get the sense of months, if not a couple years. After such a short time they have turned their backs on God and on the Gospel of grace. And they're turning to what he calls "a different Gospel which is no Gospel at all." What does he mean by that? The word 'gospel' means good news. How is it good news that you can save yourself if you're perfectly obedient to the law of God? How is that good news? That's bad news. As a matter of fact, it's a yoke, that it says at the Jerusalem Council neither we nor our ancestors were ever able to bear. No one can bear it. You must be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Can you bear that yoke? It's a crushing burden. It's no good news, it's no Gospel, it's no good news here, it's no Gospel at all. Grace and law are opposites. The law couldn't save. We looked at that in the Book of Hebrews a year or so ago. The law held no salvation. There was no cleansing of the conscience from law. There was no way it could deliver anyone from sin. And so Paul then utters a curse on the false teachers in verses 7-9. Look at verse 7, "Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion, are trying to pervert the Gospel of Christ." Trying to reverse the Gospel. "They're trying to revise it, which means to reverse it," says Tim Keller. I love that image. They're turning away from the full Gospel here. They're turning away from the truth and they're being thrown into confusion. There are some people that are confusing you. Now, isn't it beautiful, the clarity of mind that saving faith brings. Suddenly you can see things. You understand who God is. You understand the world that God made. You know how you fit into it. You understand your sins. You get it all. You see it clearly. That's why I think John 9, that man born blind that Jesus spits and makes mud and then he washes and he can see, is not just a physical miracle, an actual miracle, but it's a metaphor, a spiritual image of our own salvation. John Newton thought it so when he wrote Amazing Grace. "How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I'm found. I was blind, but now I can see". But now these false teachers come and things are confusing, they're throwing you into confusion. Satan is the god of confusion. And things aren't so clear anymore. Now they don't understand and now they're depressed and discouraged. Later he's going say, "What happened to all your joy? Remember how happy you were. You're not happy anymore." V. Paul’s Curse on the False Teachers Confusion has come in and so Paul utters a curse on them or on anyone that preaches a false Gospel. "Even if we or an angel from Heaven should preach a Gospel other than the one we preach to you, let him be eternally condemned." What an incredible statement. Let him go to hell forever and ever. Let him burn in hell forever, if he comes and preaches a false Gospel. He reaches for a lofty language, "Even if an angel from Heaven should come." Radiant, shining like lightning, like the angel that came and rolled back the stone and sat on it and his appearance was like lightning. If you ever saw an angel like that come and he stands in all this radiant glory and he preaches a Gospel other than the one we preach to you, let him be eternally condemned. Because Satan, you know, he can masquerade as an angel of light. He can do that, and so his messengers can look like servants of righteousness too. Paul uses that language. So even if you get a bright shining angel telling you another Gospel, let him be eternally condemned. But he actually adds himself to that. "If I should come back later in two or three years and say, 'I think I've come to a new understanding of the Gospel. I've got a whole new way of understanding this and I start... I realize now the way that we harmonize the Old Testament and the New Testament is Christ plus law equals salvation.' If you ever hear me say that, then let me be eternally condemned." Doesn't matter who says it. What matters is that the Gospel itself can never be changed. And he says it again. He repeats it. He says, "I've already said. So now I say again if anyone is preaching to you a Gospel other than the one you accepted, let him be eternally condemned." It doesn't matter. So he says it twice. Paul's ultimate goal here is to please God and not men. He said, "I'm not trying to be popular here." I wonder if the Judaizers said that about him. "Paul's just trying to make it easy, easy believeism, don't have to keep any of these laws, he's got a big following in every Gentile city he goes. He's just trying to be popular." VI. Paul’s Ultimate Goal: To Please God Paul says, "No, I'm not, I'm trying to be faithful, trying to be faithful to the God who gave me this Gospel, that's what I'm trying to be. Am I now trying to please men or God? Am I trying to win the approval of men?" Now, that is such a temptation, isn't it? Do you feel that pull on your hearts? Trying to please people, trying to please human, a human audience. The irony with whole Judaizer-legalism thing is, the shoe is on the other foot. They're living for a human audience. They're living for the Sanhedrin or the Pharisees, with legalists that taught them their legalism to try to please them. There's always a human audience with legalism, always. "So I'm not trying to please men, but I'm trying to please God. If I were trying to please men I would not be a servant of Christ." That's his ultimate goal. VII. Application Now, what applications can we take from this beginning as we begin to look at Galatians? First, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a gift from heaven to us. You've heard it preached this morning, how God sent His Son, Jesus, who lived a sinless life perfectly obedient to the law we could not keep. He kept it perfectly, and he is offering to you and to me a gift, a free gift of perfect righteousness, like a beautiful robe. He's just saying, "Here, put this on. It's my righteousness. I get all the credit, but you get the glory and the beauty and the salvation that comes. Put it on and you give me all that nasty, wicked sin and I will take the wrath and the punishment that that sin deserves." That's the exchange of the Gospel. Trust in Him, trust. Don't leave this place unconverted, unconvinced, because there is no other message. If you reject this Christ righteousness gift, the only thing left to you is your own works righteousness and it will not save you. Trust in Him. And if you've already trusted in Christ and been a Christian for years, understand what I said a number of minutes ago, the Gospel is still for you. "It's not the ABCs," as Tim Keller said. I love this, "It's the A to Z." Again and again you're going to come back to this, I am forgiven in Jesus. I'm forgiven in Christ. I can't use my good works to calm my conscience. That is such a thing we struggle with, right? Whenever you're guilty, whenever you violate God's law in some way and you are guilty and you've done something sinful, works righteousness says, "God demands some kind of works, a list of things and once you do those seven things you can start feeling good about yourself again." That's works righteousness. Throw it away. It is wickedness. You come back again to the cross, you come back again to Jesus and say, "I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner, you know who I am. Thanks be to God that you saved me by your grace. Forgive me, cleanse me, renew me and restore me." And then when He does that, get up and walk in the power of the Spirit and serve God in righteousness and holiness, and live in that pattern the rest of your lives. We have a lot more to say in Galatians, but we'll stop right here. Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for the things that we have learned. We thank you for the Gospel message. We thank you for the power of the Gospel to transform us. I thank you for the example of the Apostle Paul in preaching it to us. God, I pray that we would realize there's no middle ground between Christ's righteousness and self-righteousness. I pray that we would embrace by faith the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross and embrace by faith the gift of perfect righteousness and embrace by faith the gift of the Holy Spirit who empowers us now to walk in newness of life. Help us to understand this true Gospel we pray in Jesus' name.

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