Free Moral Agency

Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. You're not going to go to heaven because of your Hebrew blood, you're going to go to heaven because you've been washed in the blood of the Lamb of God. It doesn't matter if you're a Jew or Gentile male, female, bond, servant, rich or poor, doesn't matter. And that's such great news. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying, amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's Word has to say to you, here is Jack Hibbs. Matthew chapter 23, verse 37, Matthew 23, 37, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jesus says, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her, how often I want to gather your children together as a hen, gather their chicks under her wings, church are you with me? What does it say? But you were not willing. Verse 38, behold, or look, your house has left you desolate. In other words, the temple, the temple's over, it's over, it's done, forget it. Jesus is saying, I'm not propping up religion anymore, I'm done with this. You had the scripture as you should have known them today was the day. And besides all this now, because you've rejected, you've exercised your choice to stick with tradition rather than putting faith in me and Christ in the Word of God. Your temple, it's done, no need for it anymore. For I say to you, verse 39, you shall see me no more till you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And did you know that the Bible records that in the last days, everybody listening, are you with me? The Bible says that at the end of the tribulation period, those remnant of living who are Jews who believe will cry out and say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. I want to remind you all again, Romans 8.29 says, for whom he for new, he also predestined. He knows everything. He can't learn anything. He sees down the corridors of time. And he knows exactly what decision you would make when the gospel would be presented to you, if you'd say yes or no. If you blow it off or not, I can't blame anybody. It's so powerful that I can't blame it on my past. I can't blame it on my mom or my dad. I can't blame it on anybody else. It's so powerful that it's God saying to you, what are you going to do with me? In the moment, in the right now, he's asking some of you, what do you say to these things? This guy appears just been given nothing but Bible. Forget about him. Listen to my word, Jesus would say. It's my word. What are you going to do about me? Do you really want him? Him being the Jesus of the Bible. Not him being the Jesus of the New Age movement. The Jesus of the gurus, the Jesus of the cults. No, God, Jesus, Jesus, the son of God, Jesus, the one who you and I so could not help ourselves that he went to the cross and died in our place for us so he would pay the dead of all of our transgressions and sins and then die in his body, die and be buried. On the third day, he resurrected for our righteousness and he says, I did that for you and listen, if he were to say to you, look, I did that for you. Listen, if you're a pre-programmed, there's no praise or worship in that, right? Think about it. It's almost like a petulant, spoiled child. They always get this. They always get that. They always get this. They always get that. And they never once say thank you because they think this is the way the world is until it's gone and the way things are going, it's all going to be gone soon. And our faith is going to be thrusted upon an ancient dream or a living reality. And that living reality will be Christ, will get us all the way through the tribulations of life and into his presence because he's committed himself to us. It's not your great commitment to him. We often say, we're hanging on. How's it going? We're hanging on to Christ. Oh, that's cute. That's like you're two-year-old thinking they're mowing the lawn. All they're doing is they're riding on your back. He's hanging on to us. And by the way, he never lets go. Ephesians 1, verse 3 says, Ephesians 1, 3 says, Blessed be the God and Father for Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Here it is, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined, remember, for knowledge precedes predestined, us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. One more here. 2 Timothy 1, verse 9. Who has saved or is God who has saved us and called us with a holy calling? Not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus, here it comes before time began. But has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, isn't that beautiful? Another point under this here, and that is, verses 3 and 4, involves love, compassion, and mercy. So we're not only grieved and sorrowful about those in our lives who are lost, which by the way, I should add this. When he says that in verse 3, for I could wish that I, myself, were accursed from Christ, this is Paul speaking. For my brethren, he's talking about his Jewish brothers and sisters. My countrymen, according to the DNA, according to the flesh, who are Israelites, wait, Paul, would you just say, Paul, this is Paul, no wonder why he's grieved, no wonder why he's sick, he was stomach, he's sick and, and he's saying, is there any way for me to be cut off from eternal salvation so they can have it? How can you, how can you say that, Paul? Listen, I love you guys, but not that much. For me to say, God, send me to hell so long as they can go. You know what God would say to that, and he's going to say it to Paul. But listen, before I say it, he also had to encounter with one other person that said the exact same thing, Moses. You guys, and I'll just paraphrase it, and Exodus 32 marked it down, Moses said, God, if you're not going to save these people and rescue them, then block my name out of your book of life and put their name in. And do you know what the answer is to both these guys? The answer to Moses and the answer to Paul from God is the same thing. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. Stop right there, press pause, everybody, here's the thing. The only love I can imagine coming close, and Lisa and I have felt this. At least at this stage of our lives this far. We remember when our daughter became violently, immediately sick. She was eight months old. She was rushed to Children's Hospital of Orange County. And the pediatric hematologist came out and said, I give your daughter 50% chance to live at best. We don't know what she has, but because of that, she's in quarantine, and she's been quartered. They had to quarter her. They had to tie all the four extremities to the four posts of the hospital bed and strip her down to her little body. Because if you touched her skin, she would bleed through her pores. Her blood cells were licing. Her blood cells were breaking apart and falling apart. And the blood cells, her hematocrit dropped so violently low that the skin couldn't even hold the blood back. The blood was leaving her veins in her arteries and floating to the level of the skin and coming out of her pores. So if you touched her chest or her cheek or her nose, blood would come out. And the 50% chance are less to live. And then, what do you do? If you've ever been there, listen, there are people, I'm not going to name them, but there are people who lead you in worship here, up here. And you know they come up here and they lead you in worship, and you don't know anything about their life. You have no idea that when they're done here, they go back to the hospital because their son, for example, has been in the hospital more than he's been home over the years of his life. And he could die at any time from his cancers. But they're leading you in worship. But you don't know that because we don't burden you with that. So when the doctor says, she's got less than 50% chance, and she's in quarantine eight months old. Do you know what you say? This is what you say. God, seriously, let's make a deal. No funny business. Your God, whatever she has, give it to me. Take it off of her. Have you ever prayed that prayer? Is your husband have cancer? Is it your wife? Is it your kids? Is your parents? I know no other love. Listen, there is a love that is among warriors. If a hand grenade is tossed, the US Marine throws himself on it before he ever thinks. He's been programmed to do that. He's been trained so well and hard that when that grenade lands on the ground, he doesn't say, oh, God, grenade. He yells grenade as he's throwing his body onto it and he's been taught how to embrace the grenade so that he saves his brothers. That's powerful. The only other thing I know is that when a parent, for example, says, God, give me that cancer. I cannot stand to see my child go through this or my wife or my husband. Your love is no man than this than a man laid down his life for his friends. But what if your friends have hated you, cursed your name, then all men are wrong against you? And Jesus still loves, Jesus still goes to the cross. You see, the scope of God's sovereignty involves love and compassion and mercy. These are the things that God, by the Spirit, lives out in our lives and it's very powerful. But that is a tortured thing. I wrote myself this note that I have not seen this level of anguished, tortured love in this world except in the life of a parent who's mourning for a wayward son or daughter or a sick or ill son and daughter. Some of us have, maybe you do, have relatives that are far from Christ and you would say to God, oh God, in fact, it's so bad, it hurts you so bad that you would love the rapture to happen today but your caveat is, oh Lord, please not today because they're not right. You have to leave that. That's none of your business. You have to leave that with God. And then we end with this. It's verses 4 and 5 and that is the scope of God's sovereignty incorporates the full counsel of God, God's full teaching. He says in verse 4 to whom pertain the adoption, he's speaking about the Jewish people, the genetic descendants of Abraham, the glory. Did they not see the glory in the wilderness wanderings? Did they see the cloud by day in the pillar of fire by night and the covenants? Notice it's plural. This is cool. Come with me. Good, good, good. Covenants plural. That's the Abrahamic covenant, promised to the Jewish people and that is the Davidic promise that is given. There are others but those two are the main covenants that didn't come to America, that wasn't given to Canada, God revealed himself to the Jewish people for a reason. And it's also, by the way, why they're in headline news. They're God's people. It doesn't mean everything that they do is right, sometimes they do things wrong. It has nothing to do with God choosing them. Do you know that? He's chosen them. You mean the whole thing? No. The land is his and those Jews who believe in him are his. Not all Jews will believe in him. They're not his. Not all Gentiles will believe in him. They're not his. He says here, the giving of the law, the service of God, the promises of whom are the fathers and from whom, listen, according to the flesh, Christ came who is over all the eternally blessed God. Listen, we're going to end with this. It doesn't mean get up and leave. It means listen to this. This is amazing. All of the promises, everything that you and I need for eternity has been promised to the Jew first. Did you know that? When the gospel was being preached in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, what did the Bible say? Jesus said, don't go to the Gentiles. Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Isn't that fascinating words? He didn't say go and preach to the nation of Israel. Nope. What did he say? Go and preach to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Out of Israel, there will be those who are mine. How do you know Jesus? Because I'm, look at it, I, I, Christ came, okay, this is fourth grade English. Here we go. Are you ready? Job witnesses, Mormons, friends, listen. This is important. My Jewish friends, Muslim friends, hey, listen, for Christians who don't get it, watch this. According to the flesh, Christ came. Number one, Christ is a descendant from the fathers. Christ is a descendant from those who were given all the promises. Did you track it with me? You got that? All of this pertaining to the descendants of Abraham by DNA. We got that. Jesus, according to the genealogies in Scripture, is a descendant of Abraham, legally, blood lying. We got that. But did you get this? Christ came. Who is overall? Who? Who? Who's the who? You can't flood this up. If you flood this up, you're never going to graduate junior high. The who is Christ. It has to be. Christ came. Christ is overall. Christ, the eternally blessed God. You can't get away. That is a pure fact. You can wrestle with this for the rest of your life. You're going to lose. The eternally blessed God is the manifested in the flesh, God, the Son, having come to die in the cross for us. That's how you become a descendant of Abraham. You're not going to go to heaven because of your Hebrew blood. You're going to go to heaven because you've been washed in the blood of the Lamb of God. It doesn't matter if you're a Jew or Gentile male, female, bond, servant, rich or poor. It doesn't matter! And that's such great news.