Better Off Dead

with Pastor John Bradshaw

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm not going to have a long introduction for this
man of God. That's just the bottom line. We have
a common friend in our experience.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
HM.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Miss Richards Junior, Ahmsus Richards Junior brought me into ministry.
He gave me the same speech about my kids he's
given you. And I've heard this Elder Bradshaw from you.
He would mentor young men who he felt needed to
be in Adventist ministry. And one of these days we
can compare notes. I spoke at i'm a Missouri conference

(00:29):
in the afternoon at a camp meeting years ago when
Elder Bradshaw was there, and also at Michigan conference when
he was the evening speaker. And I know also from
my son, who's a good gauge on the youth of
our church, that John Michael, my son has been strengthened
in the message by the godly witness of this man.

(00:52):
So I would ask you all to pray for him.
Lift him up. Elder Bradshaw, you come up here and
lift up the word of God and God be praised.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Thank you, thank you very much. Yeah, Well, good morning everyone.
It is a special privilege I feel for me to
be here with you today. I don't know what had
to happen for the regular preacher to step aside this week.
I know that when he preaches, you are blessed and

(01:24):
fared and encouraged. So this is a there's a certain
responsibility for me to step in. Right here, a couple
of things I'll share with you. I'm just so encouraged
to see you participating in evangelism. I know because I've
heard Pastor oxent Tenko say with his own voice, outreach
is the reason we are here. I've heard him say that,

(01:46):
So therefore you practice what you preach, and I'm encouraged
by that. I believe that Jesus is coming back soon.
I think there's nothing more important than we could do
than share the gospel. Nothing more. After receiving Jesus, you
got to share Jesus. So thank God for what's taking
place here. Pray for us up in Baltimore Towson in particular.

(02:07):
We got some people coming out who are being very
blessed and they're encouraged, and they're hearing and they're learning,
and we're grateful for that. Never enough, you know, I
gotta have half of Baltimore come out to a meeting,
and I would go back to my abode bemoaning the
fact that the other half of Baltimore didn't come. I
guess that's an occupational hazard. But we are thankful for

(02:30):
all the Lord has brought out. I have the privilege
of co preaching with the North American Division President, doctor
Alex Bryant, and if you'd spare a thought for him.
It's the General Conference's Fall council right now, and Elder
Bryant is obviously there as the president of North American Division.
And other words, he's really really busy, and yet he's

(02:54):
finding time to come out and co preach an evangelistic
series with me. It tells me something about the hearts
of the man who is the leader of the work
in the North American Division. I am greatly encouraged by that.
A couple of things that you may or may not
know about. It is written every so often, somebody says
to me, so it is written independent ministry, and I

(03:16):
have to respond by saying, no, we are not. I
have no acts to grind with independent ministries. You understand
that not at all, But it is written is not one.
We are a ministry of the North American Division. We're
not funded by the North American Division. We are donor funded.
So if you are somebody who prays for or financially
supports it is written, please know I am exceedingly grateful.

(03:38):
Exciting things are happening as we're enlarging our footprint. We
are a media evangelism ministry, so our programs are broadcast
in more places right now than ever before in English,
e Espanol, and we're on more networks. We're broadcasting our
own channel. We have our own channel. It has written TV.
I hope you'll check it out. You can find it online.

(04:00):
It is written dot TV. So I would be very
grateful if you would say a prayer for it has written.
We don't exist just for fun. We exist so that
we can share the Gospel with people. Just the other
day we heard from a young woman. She said, I
was about to give up. I have been thinking very

(04:21):
dark thoughts. I found it is written. You have given
me hope. I have found the Lord. I am now
growing in my faith. My life has turned around. And
so that's why we exist to share the gospel with
producing resources in television programs. We're airing them around the world.
We do lots and lots and lots of training to
help people share their faith and so forth. Anyway, it's

(04:44):
all good fun. I have my friend and colleague here
with me today is Eddie Gonzalez, So if you get
a chance to say hi to him, I hope you will.
He's one of the nice guys. So that's a little
bit about us. If you don't have our app, I
hope you get our app. You just get it a year.
Every wherever you get app, it is written with an
app and one other thing I'll mention to you. I

(05:04):
do a daily devotional and I'd love for you to
get it. If you go to the front page of
our website, it is written dot com. You can sign
up to get it. And when you sign up to
get it, you don't sign over your children or no
social Security number is needed. You just get You just
get the daily devotional and it's usually one minute long,

(05:25):
sometimes two minutes long. And here's what I think is
the big blessing to you. You'll be blessed if you
see it. I think you will. But it's something you
can share with others. Someone says to you at work,
like you heard, you can say, hey, I thought of
you when I saw this. Tell me what you think.
Or somebody has been to Uzbekistan and you saw me

(05:48):
mention Uzbekistan, which I did recently. Go hey, check this out,
tell me what you think, and it may well be
that they'll sign up to receive the devotion. It'll be
an entering wedge for you anyway, something i'd encourage you to.
By the way, if you're a teacher or a preacher,
about forty five percent of the devotionals contain sermon illustrations. Now,

(06:10):
if you are a magpie like me, and you collect
shiny objects wherever you go, that is sermon illustrations wherever
you go, then this will be a gold mine for you,
a gold mine, lots of sermon illustrations. All right, greetings
from our team. It has written Greetings from my wife Melissa,
who isn't with me right now, but will be with

(06:31):
me for a couple of days coming up. We have
between us one son, one daughter, one daughter in law,
and a granddaughter. And she's special. Some of you are
not moved by that. I don't care. She's special. She's
more special than your granddaughter. Although I hope you don't agree.

(06:56):
I hope you don't agree. Anyway, that's that let's pray
and anticipate that God will speak to us. You know what,
before I speak, I didn't choose a subject today designed
to puff you up. I didn't do that. I'm not
swinging for the fences today. This isn't a sermon designed

(07:18):
to have you stand back and say, ooh, what a sermon. Ooh.
That's not the point. I don't know exactly why God
laid this on my heart. I hope he did. I
think he did. But this is a sermon that I
pray will cause you to stop and think and search
and grow and reach out after the Lord and ask

(07:42):
God to do a great thing. There we go. Let's pray, gracious,
Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, we come to you.
This must be really the high point of the week.
This is your day, the Sabbath. And now we're at
that special hour of the worship service, and we're at

(08:03):
that part of the worship service where we gather around
the Bible. You don't have time to waste. We've been
blessed already. The scripture reading so beautifully read, the music
so beautifully delivered, the opportunity to give in offering the

(08:25):
Children's Story, which is always an adult story in disguise.
We heard your voice, and all of that we're thankful,
and so now we are praying that you'd speak to
us as we open up the Bible. We are praying
that you would encourage us. We are praying that our

(08:49):
hearts and your heart would be joined together, inextricably bound
up together. We want your life to flow through our
own thoughts, to motivate our own. Please do bless Dear Lord,
we ask you, and we pray in Jesus' name, please

(09:10):
say with me amen. The medical people at the hospital
did everything they could. They did CPR desperately, They performed
numerous other procedures, but the man in his early seventies

(09:36):
didn't make it. No fault of the medical team. They
employed their expertise, they put their training into practice. They
followed every procedure which it would have been reasonable for
them to utilize. But it was not enough, and the

(09:58):
man did not pull through. Although as sorry as they
were that he did not live, the doctors and the
nurses agreed that this was a good death. The man

(10:22):
had recently been through some significant health challenges in addition
to his immediate and pressing concerns. The medical team declared,
after doing all they could to save him, that as
sorry as they were for his demise, as sorry as
they were for his surviving family, that this was a

(10:49):
good death. Now, the idea of a good death might
leave you feeling ever so slightly uncomfortable. It might, I
would understand that if you're medical, then you might be
more greatly disposed to understand this idea a good death.

(11:11):
Give you another example of a good death. My mother
died in her nineties. Now, she was a wonderful mother.
She was a wonderful woman. The day before she died,
she was visited by a granddaughter and a great granddaughter
who were not mother and daughter. They were from different lines,
as it were. They spent the day together. They had

(11:34):
a wonderful time. They took her out. Oh she was,
she lit up. She had a great time. While it
was sad that she was gone, very sad, you'd have
to call hers a good death. She had family nearby.

(11:55):
She had lived a long, happy life filled with a
company wishments. Although time had done its work and she
was no longer vital, vibrance and energetic. After her granddaughter
and great granddaughter dropped her off at home, she pretty

(12:18):
quickly declined, went to sleep, and then went to sleep.
You'd have to say a good death sad, not tragic.
She was in her nineties, if she was in her teens,
sad and tragic. But for my mum, a good death.

(12:45):
There are bad deaths. I have a physician friend who
told me, in the course of a conversation that he
had been present at the death of many people, many patients.
Now why that was, I don't know, but you can
imagine that physicians might be there in a time of desperation.
They rushed to the bedside. It's too late to do much,

(13:06):
I asked him. I asked him if he saw a difference,
an observable difference between the death of a Christian believer
and an atheist. Now, I don't know if this is
empirical data. I don't know of his experience as normative

(13:30):
for all physicians. I don't know, but I do know
what he told me. He told me that he had
been present at the deaths of many people. Never had
he seen an atheist die in peace. Well, then he
backed up just a little, He said, maybe one. I said,

(13:51):
have you been present at many atheist debts? He said many?
None of them die in peace, he said. Well, with
the exception of the one, I have never seen them
die in peace, he said. By contrast, committed firm believers
in Jesus tended to pass away with a certain amount

(14:15):
of serenity about them. Not the bitterness, not the anger
that he viewed atheists dying with, but serenity and some
considerable peace. Now, I don't mean to tell you that
every atheist dies angry, that every atheist dies, butter, I
don't mean to tell you that I'm certain that's not

(14:36):
the case. But I am sharing with you the lived
experience of a physician friend of mine who takes careful
notes and very careful mental notes, and that's what he observes.
Some deaths, in his estimation, are better than others. Christians,

(15:02):
we can thank God that we need not live in
fear of death. The Bible says that Jesus said that
he came into this world that we might have You
tell me life, life, How tell me again more abundantly?

(15:23):
That's right, Jesus came that we might have life, John ten,
verse ten. The same Bible writer John and one John
five and verse twelve says that he or she that
hath the son hath you tell me life. If we
have Jesus, we have life. Writing to the church in
coloss A, which is not very far from Lao Deicia,

(15:48):
the apostle Paul wrote, when Christ, who is our life, appears,
then you also will appear with him in glory. In fact,
in that verse Colossians three and verse four, there are
a couple of supplied words that really ought not be there,
given to us as a gift by the translator. If

(16:10):
you take those words out, that verse says, when Christ
our life appears. Now that's a powerful thought. Christ our life,
not Christ, from whom we get life, not Christ in
whom is life. Although those things are true, Christ our life.

(16:30):
We have life because of the life giver. And we
are grateful that death, described in First Corinthians, chapter fifteen
as an enemy, will be destroyed Verse Corinthians fifteen and
verse twenty six, Revelation twenty one and verse four. God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there

(16:55):
shall be no more you tell me death. Now, if
you were to think about this, you would realize it's
a curious thing that we are talking about death at all,
in as much as when in the beginning. God created.
He did not create assuming that there would be death.

(17:18):
Death was not part of the equation. It was not
part of God's plan. God never intended that there would
be a single funeral. God never intended that you should
ever drive past a funeral home. It was not God's
idea that there would be headstones or even headaches. Sin

(17:41):
is an intruder, like a hijacker. Satan hijack this world. Now,
if you're old enough to remember, you remember there was
a time that hijackings were common. In the early seventies.
There was at least a hijacking a month. There were
times that there was a hijacking a week for a
given period of time. Somebody gets on board a plane,

(18:01):
and we wonder how in the world people were ever
allowed on board planes with weapons. How in the world
anybody was able to get on board a plane with
sticks of dynamite. I mean, what were we thinking? We
were very trusting in those days, weren't we? We were
very trusting. I just went through a security checkpoint in
another country. In fact, there wasn't a checkpoint. There was

(18:21):
about seven checkpoints. There was this one, and then there
was this one. Then there was this place where we
get the stamp and the passport, and then there was
this one, and then there was that mercy, just let
me in the country, haven't you scanned me already, checked
me out already? We used to be very trusting, Remember
the days that you could see somebody off by walking
all the way through the departure gate at the airport.

(18:43):
I explained this to my son when he was very little.
I said, son, you know, there was a time we
didn't have everything X ray and we'd have to go
through these scans. And my son, who as I said,
was very little at the time, he said to me, Daddy,
do you think we'll ever have it like that again?
That's a question of child would ask. I had to
explain to him that, no, son, it will never be

(19:05):
that way again, hi, Jackson. In the US and Canada
and Japan and the Middle East and all of that,
these people who inveigled their way onto aircraft with bad
motives and then before you know what's going on, something
bad is going on. That's that's how Sin came into

(19:26):
this universe. Satan inveigled his way into the garden of Eden,
and then he beguiled Eve and Adam. Well, Adam decided
where he would cast his vote, and he cast his
vote on the side of Eve. And before long, through
treachery and dishonesty, the devil had captured the hearts of

(19:51):
our original grandparents. Sin came and as a consequence of
sin death. Now I know that you know that we
have become far too comfortable with sin in this world.
And I know that you know that preachers don't preach
about sin today like they used to long ago. You

(20:13):
know why we want you to like us. We don't
want to offend you. We don't want you to think
that we are too conservative. We don't want to talk
about these things because we would hate you to think
that we're fuddy duddy that were behind the times, that

(20:33):
we're intolerant. But then there are some of us who
don't care, and we're willing to talk about what needs
to be talked about and let you think what you
want to think, because that's up to you. I have
been asked by God to tell you the truth. I
have not been asked by God to make sure you

(20:54):
like the truth. That's between you and God. Jesus spoke
about sin, and when he did so, he did so
in a radical way. I don't mean all the time,
but at least on this instance of which we read
in Matthew chapter eighteen, sin came into the world sin

(21:15):
broad death, and now we are kind of cozy with sin.
It doesn't offend us like it ought to, because as
as though we have been inoculated against it, we see
it everywhere. We watch it, everywhere we go on a Facebook,
we scroll through have mercy. I didn't ask for that.

(21:37):
It just assaults you. It'll come at you from out
of the blue. You'll watch your television program and you'll
watch things that you'd never discuss in church. You listen
to music, you'll even sing along, you sing lyrics that
you never sing from the front of church. Oh it's
only a song. No, it ain't only a song. It's sin.
It's not only a movie. It's wicked. And I'm not

(21:58):
characterizing every song and every movie like that. We've become
comfortable with sin, even though the Bible says the wages
of sin is death. And so Jesus speaks to some
of this in Matthew chapter eighteen. Verse one is where
I'll begin. And Jesus, the Bible says, came to his

(22:21):
disciples saying, no, I beg your pardon. The disciples came
to Jesus saying who is the greatest in the kingdom
of heaven. Luke wrote that there arose a reasoning or
a dispute among them, which of them should be the greatest.
Now that sounds like a very human thing, to strive

(22:45):
for the mastery. We want to promote ourselves. We want
the best seats. We want people looking at us with admiration.
There are people who will sell their soul just so
people will look at them and ooh and ah, Who's

(23:07):
going to be the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.
Seems like a human thing. But then there are the
real Bible heroes. Moses, the meekest man on earth, Joseph
who was imprisoned and just went about serving God without
any malice in his heart. Daniel, who was taken from
his own people to a foreign country, subjected to humiliation,

(23:33):
but yet he served God. And there was Hannah and
Mary and so many others. It's a natural thing to
court fightery, to seek admiration. It's natural, but it's not Christian.
It's the antithesis of Christianity. In fact, the Bible says
Jesus came to this world not to be ministered too,

(23:55):
but to minister and to give his life as a
ransom for many. That's what the Bible says. Striving to
be the greatest is indicative that all is not right spiritually.
These were church folks. Who among us is going to
be the greatest. We are striving for the supremacy. We

(24:17):
are one to elevate ourselves and in so doing push
somebody else down. Tell us about this, oh, rabbi, a
friend of God, of God calls you to be the
head elder, or the head deacon, or the president of
this or that. If he does, then he does. Someone's
got to do those roles. But if you covet position,
if you seek applause or praise or approbation, you are

(24:42):
not well spiritually. But as we'll find out, there is
hope for you. Don't worry if you're not well. You
go to the doctor when you're not well, and you
believe you're going to get well. So don't worry if
you're not well. Don't be distressed. If you find some
thing about you spiritually that isn't all it ought to be.

(25:03):
We are growing down here. We are on a journey.
We are growing in God's grace, and the Lord is
going to get it right. Can you say, men today,
it's going to get it right. So to answer their
very self centered question, Jesus placed the child in their
midst and he said that unless a person is converted
and becomes like a little child, that person cannot see

(25:24):
the Kingdom of God. He used the simplicity, the innocence,
the dial less ness of a child to indicate the
kind of person that a follower of Jesus really ought
to be, not claiming for position, not wanting to be
the greatest, but there's something about that. I was in Paris,
France some years ago, and I went to the Palace

(25:45):
of Versailles. It's splendid. Well. I knew someone who knew someone,
and the person that was known worked at the Palace
of Versailles. Was an insider. One of them people had
a key to everything inside the Palace of Versailles. My
friend contacted his friend. He said, give these people, if
you can, the experience of a lifetime. So I went
to the Palace of Versailles and they're it's a museum,

(26:07):
and it's it's a whole lot of things really And
have you ever been to a museum and there's an
area that's roped off, and man, I wish I could
get in there. We got in there. We were the
people behind the rope walking around. I'm looking at the
peasants on the outside of the rope, those who are
looking and things. I'd like to be in there. And
I'm thinking to myself, Man, look at me for once
I'm on the inside. I'm seeing the stuff that people

(26:29):
aren't allowed to get up closer. Ooh, and you can't
and I can. This feels pretty good. And then the
tour guide said, would you like to see the opera house?
I said yes. I mean, I'm not an opera buff.
I wouldn't know one opera from another, but I said, sure,
let's go. And they took us to the opera house.
And this thing was splendid. It was built by Louis

(26:52):
the fifteenth and it was inaugurated by the wedding of
Louis the sixteen, who was the child of the king
at the time, and Marie Antoinette. And at the time
Louis the sixteenth, or he wasn't Louis the sixteenth, he
was the defint Louis was fifteen and Marie Antoinette was fourteen.

(27:14):
So there's something a little bit weird about that, but
we'll just leave that and move right on. And so
we get to this opera house. The thing there's a
work of art. There's painting on the ceiling which is magnificent,
and they had a sculpture, make sculptures and stuff and
put all around the walls. It was beautiful. They said,
would you like to sit in the royal box? Oh? Yeah,

(27:36):
I like to sit in the royal box. So we
got one of these spiral staircases. Memory tells me it
was made out of stone. And we get up there
and we're in the Royal box and he said, go
ahead and sit down. And I'm imagining, of course, that
this is the seat in which the King sat. It's
not they've they've they you know, the King is not
a three hundred year old seat. This thing was built

(27:57):
in the seventeen hundreds. But I sat there and I
looked down and I looked at the picture on the ceiling,
and there's some American kids down there rehearsing for something
on the stage, and the thing looked so splendid, and
I thought man. This was the property of one man
once and I said to myself, it must be good

(28:18):
to be the king. And as I thought that, what
Bible verse came into my mind, I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds. I will be like the
most high lucifer in heaven. Had everything he needed, really
everything he could have wanted. But he was right there

(28:40):
in the sanctuary in heaven, the temple in heaven, and
he said to himself, it must be good to be
the king. He wanted to elevate himself. He wanted to
be something that he was not created to be. He
wanted all of the power and all of the glory.
And hearing the same disciples asking the question, how can
I be great in the Kingdom of heaven, Jesus said,

(29:00):
the one who humbles himself or herself like a child
is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. While those
who receive such a child receive him. Okay, But then
he said, but whoso shall offend one of those little
ones which believe in me, it were better for him
that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that

(29:23):
he were drowned in the depth of the sea. He said,
you'd be better off dead then carrying on like that.
Now I looked into that millstone. They were these little
millstones ahead for hand mills, and then there were these
big old millstones that they had an ox or a
donkey had to drive. It was one of those big millstones.

(29:46):
Jesus said, you'd be better off dead then dragging someone
into sind you'd be better off dead than setting a
stumbling block before a person's path. Now, I think, and
I think you'll agree, that Jesus was not saying if
you do that will kill you. He's not saying that.
He's saying, it's better that your life ends. Then you

(30:09):
would go on and trip up an innocent one and
lead that one into sin. Better off not alive, then
be alive and carry on like that. He went on,
whoe unto the world because of offenses, for it must
needs be that offenses come. But whoa to that man
by whom the offense comes the idea of causing another

(30:33):
person to stumble this offended Jesus. The thought that you
might be responsible for someone else being lost. That is
a solemn thought. Now I don't need to go there,
but I will. Where does that lead those wicked men
and women who harm children and scar them and lead

(30:55):
them almost irretrievably broken. Where does this Parents who are
old enough to sort out their troubles but instead act
like children and harm the children. I spoke to somebody
and I said, how will your children be? I understand
you're going through a divorce. How will your children be?
She said, the children will be fine. And when she

(31:18):
said it, and how she said it, I knew they
weren't going to be. And it wasn't long, and two
of those four kids were in therapy and another one
was just drifting aimlessly through life, And to this day,
to a greater or lesser degree, still is. Jesus says,
don't harm the little ones. Jesus then went on to

(31:41):
underscore the abhorrent nature of sin. When you said, it
off your hand or your foot causes you to sin,
you'd be better off going to heaven without that hand,
or without that foot. You'd be better off without a hand.
Here even when I said, if your eye causes you

(32:02):
to stumble, you'd be better off plucking out that eye
and go to heaven with one eye. Then go to
the Lake of Fire with twenty twenty vision In two eyes. Now,
that's a radical thing to say. It's a strong thing
to say, and Jesus was not advocating chopping off your

(32:23):
hand or your foot or plucking out your eye. I
don't want anybody to think, well, maybe I need to
go into harm myself in order to not go in
a sinful direction. No, no, no, it's a point. It's
a descriptive thing. There's something in your life now that's
causing you to stumble. Get rid of that thing. You
don't need it, no matter what it is. Might be

(32:46):
some friends you're better off without that. Might be some
lousy boyfriend or girlfriend for that matter, you're better off
without them. Might be a job for which you are
compromising your faith. Jesus says, you'd be better off without
that thing. Better pick you can food out of trash cans.
Then being paid two hundred thousand dollars a year and

(33:06):
compromising your faith and being a hypocrite and being set
up for everlasting destruction. You don't want that. What Jesus
is saying is that sin is best put away. Whatever
the sacrifice, or the perceived sacrifice, Sin can't benefit you
in any way. You may crave it, you might desire it.

(33:27):
You might be fascinated by it. You may fail to
understand the importance of it. You might be attracted to it.
But sin cannot help you. It will hurt you, and
through you, it will drag others to perdition. You'd be
better off without that thing that'll drag you down. You know,

(33:49):
during COVID, you saw how people acted. And I'm not
against this. People say, I don't want to get COVID,
I could get sick. Now, the fact of the matter
is the majority of people were only going to get sick.
It was a minority of COVID suffers who were going
to die. That doesn't mean it's not important. I'm just
laying this thing out here for you. Most people who

(34:10):
got COVID just blew right through it, some of course
very badly affected. No one wanted that. You see, people said,
the chances of me dying of COVID are slim. The
chances of me getting really sick not so slim, but slim.
But I don't want to fool with that because I
don't want to take my chances with it. Right, that's
good thinking. And so people said, give me a shot,

(34:31):
and then their second one, and then the third run
and then the booster, and people said, I don't want
to wear a mask. I want to wear two masks.
And they said no, not coming over, not going to church,
not going to church because of COVID. By the way,
you can come back now. It's okay, you can come back,
or it's over now you can come back to church.
Can't go to work, won't walk in my neighborhood. If

(34:54):
I go to trade to Joe's, I will observe the
thing will be at least six feet away from you.
You know, people took measures. I'm going to use the
word extreme, but it don't mean that in the majorative sense.
Extreme measures because we didn't want to get that sickness.
We didn't want long COVID even when we didn't know
about it. We didn't want to die, we didn't want anything.

(35:15):
We didn't want to take COVID to grandma's house. And
Grandma died because we brought COVID over to her house.
So we took measures, extreme measures again, I'm not using
that word negatively. To avoid We shut down the country
man close down our churches. Some of them were closed
for a year. I don't know what happened around here,
don't matter longer than a year. Why, of course we

(35:37):
didn't want to get sick, and yet we'll get close
to sin. You know, not a single person who got
COVID is going to go to hell because of COVID.
Did you know that not a single person is going
to be lost because of COVID? Might have got sick,

(35:58):
might have died, perish the thought. I'm not being light
about that. I have to believe that we took that
thing seriously, and yet Sin would dally with it, would
pile with it, we hang out with it, we get
close to it, we'll act. I get any problem when
the Bible says that sin causes death, sin separates a

(36:22):
person from God. We got to get serious about this,
ladies and gentlemen. You got serious about COVID, and you
and sin got some kind of settled day taunt going on.
What in the world Sin is the enemy here? Lady
and gentlemen. Yeah, you ought to look after your health,
of course you should, but you need to be looking

(36:42):
after your spiritual health as though your eternity depend upon it,
because we know it does. Too many people worrying about
this and worrying about that. Not so worried about sin
when sin nailed Jesus to a cross us and sin
will snuff out your eternal life. All right, we painted

(37:05):
that picture. But as Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, Ah, there's
the rub. You can talk about sin until the sun
goes down. You can talk about letting go of sin
until you're blue in the face. Most would agree that
sin must go. Not all. Some have performed theological gymnastics

(37:26):
in some way to try to excuse sin, as though
holy living isn't really holy. Don't know what we can
do about those folks. Some of I advioleanced the idea
that sin doesn't matter so much. Of course it does.
But the question is this. It's one thing to come
to church and tell folks that sin isn't good. You

(37:47):
knew that. The question is what do we do about it? Huh? Okay,
I know the easy answer. Jesus all right, that's a
good answer. That's a good answer, an answer that leaves
out some of the detail. Were you ever in math
class and a math teacher said, okay, do the thing

(38:09):
and hand it in, and you hand it in and
you got You didn't get one hundred percent, even though
all the answers were right. The teacher said, you didn't
show your working. I don't want to show my working.
I just want to give you the answer. You got
to show the working. So we want to take a
look at some of the working today. Sin will drag

(38:30):
us down. You saw the answer for my sin is Jesus.
That's a good answer. But we want to show the
working here. Turn with me in your Bible to Romans
chapter six. Romans chapter six. I want to tell you
why we're going there. The news is all good. The
news is good. It's really good news. We're in church.

(38:54):
We're not gonna go away from here feeling defeated or deflated.
We're not gonna go away from here feeling disappointed. We
will not leave here feeling as though there's no way
forward or there's a way forward. Let's find the way
forward right now. So Romans six and verse one. Now,
the challenge of dive bombing into Romans is that we
didn't get the lead up to Romans. The Romans is

(39:15):
a very sequential book, but pardon me, we're going to
dive bomb right in here. We're going to land in
Romans chapter six and verse one, where the apostle writes
what shall we say, then, shall we continue in sin
so that grace may abound? Now this is a question
that he's really posed in different words earlier in the
Book of Romans. There's a lot of repetition in Romans,

(39:35):
a lot of repetition and enlargement in Romans, even though
it's not a prophetic book. So it says, do we
continue in sin so that grace mamber? Why would he
write that, because in just a few verses earlier Romans
five and verse twenty, Paul said, where sin abounds, you
tell me grace does much more abound. So the idea is,
if sin causes grace, maybe we should sin show that

(40:01):
there's more grace. That's not an illogical question. And Paul
answers the thing. He says, God forbid. Now, in the
original he never uttered the word god. I don't know
why the translators wrote God forbid. It really is something
like certainly, not absolutely, not, no way in the world.
Shall we continue in sin so that grace may bound?

(40:23):
Paul said, not happening. If he lifted there, you might
have said, oh okay. But he didn't just leave it there.
Paul told us why it ain't happening. He said, how
shall we here? It comes? How shall Here's a frustrating
thing with the Lord for a lot of people. You're

(40:44):
told I shouldn't do that. You're told be good. Don't
tell your kids to be good. You're asking him to
make water run up hill. Don't tell them to be good.
Dumb idea. We know that sin is wrong, we know
that certain things ain't right. We've got the Ten Commandments
and all of that, But often we approach that without this.
And if you approach that without this, you're going to

(41:08):
be miserable. You're going to be trying to pull a
rabbit out of a hat when there's no rabbit in
the hat. So here we go, God forbid. How shall
we that are dead to sin live any longer? Therein

(41:28):
are you with me today? How shall we that are
dead to sin live any longer? There? What does he
mean by that? Don't you know that as many of
us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into
his death. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism

(41:49):
into death. That, like as Christ was raised up from
the dead by the glory of the Father, even so
we also should walk in newness of life. When we
understand this thing correctly, understand that our baptism was really
the funeral service for the old sinner that we used
to be. That's what it is. This is why we
bear baptized by immersion. We put you all around it,

(42:10):
like someone who is buried is put all around it.
It's why, at least in our church, we have a
person laid back like that, just like they're going into
a grave. Not every church does it that way. I
don't know that it matters too much, but that's how
we do it. It's symbolic of burying the old you.
You know what, I guarantee you there are people here
right now. It's impossible to have a collection of people

(42:33):
this large without people someone feeling this way, feeling miserable
about themselves because they know they've got something going on
in their life. They know they've got some sin bubbling
away under the surface. Every and in it blows out.
So people see it and they know that, and they
know that Christian, and yet they can't stop it, and
they feel terrible, they feel like a hypocrite. In fact,

(42:55):
it is not uncommon for people to say, oh sin
is as bad as the pastors say, and I just can't,
so I might as well quit. No, you are in
the right place. You ain't gonna quit on Jesus because
there's some sin in your life for which He died.
You ain't gonna give up. Now we are finding the
solution right here. The Bible says we're buried with him
by baptism and the death verse five. If we've been

(43:16):
planted put the seed under the ground together in the
likeness of his death, we shall be also in the
likeness of Oh look at that. If you've died to
the old life and you were buried in a watery grave,
you are gonna come out of that thing in the
likeness of His resurrection. So what this is telling us
is there's a provision in the Gospel for you to

(43:38):
pass from death to life, to leave the old life
behind and live a new life in Jesus. Look in
verse six. Maybe, maybe maybe I'm the only one here
who gets fired up by this, because I know what
a sinner I was and am with out Jesus and mine.
Maybe maybe i'm looking out here. You all do look
very holy. Maybe you never had a battle with sinn

(44:00):
in your life, and this is only academic for you.
Maybe I think that's probably what it is. But this
excites the sinner like me verse six, knowing this that
our old man is crucified with him, that the body
of sin might be destroyed, that from now on we

(44:20):
should not serve sin. Come on now, I don't care
how dirty your mind is, how angry you are. I
don't care how twisted some of your ideas are. I
don't care about your track record. I am telling you
that through faith in Christ, you need not serve sin. Oh.

(44:41):
Look in verse seven, the one who is dead is
freed from sin. Come on, somebody and say man verse eight. Now,
if we are dead with Christ, we believe that we
shall live also with him. What a thing to be
free from sin? What is some someone? We carrying it
around like Christian and Pilgrim's progress with that massive burden

(45:06):
on his back undoubtedly representative of the big, heavy anvil
that the author John Bunyan used to carry around with
him when he was an itinerant worker. And we carry
this thing around and we struggle sometimes to summon the
energy to stand up straight. But the Bible says we

(45:27):
can be freed from sin knowing that Christ being raised
from the dead, knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead,
dies no more. Death has no more dominion over him.
For in that he died, he died this sin once.
But in that he lived, he lived under God, all right,
knowing that verse eleven. Likewise, in the same way, reckon.

(45:53):
Now we are north of the Mason Dixon line up here. Well,
I'm from people reckon nice day. Yeah, I reckon. It
looks like in my brain, I reckon. I shall we
talking New Zealand as well, my homegun. Yeah, I reckon,
I reckon. It's pretty good reckon. We kind of have

(46:14):
this idea I believe. I think that's what I reckon.
But you look at that word, it has a connotation
of accounting. Reckon. It's like you do the books and
then you recognize that the balance is one hundred dollars
and ten cents. You reckon that that's the balance. The
reckoning is the result of your accounting methodology. So Paul

(46:38):
Diden saying, oh, yeah, yeah, I just choose to believe
that I'm free. He's saying, you weigh up the evidence,
you do the working, you read what's written here in
the Bible, you consider what Jesus has done, and then
you can only come to the conclusion that you are
dead indeed under sin, but a lie under God through

(47:02):
Jesus Christ, our Lord. Jesus died so we might live.
We believe that, and then we say, I'm gonna follow
Jesus into the water of baptism. I will leave my
sin behind. I'm gonna come up a new person. Now
I know, I know what you're thinking. I'll get to that,
and you won't let me forget it. Verse twelve. Do
not let sin therefore rein in your mortal body that

(47:24):
you should obey it. In the last seal, you get
that right. We choose to obey sin. Now you might say, man,
I'm on autopiloty I put my foot in my mouth
without even thinking that's right. It's still a choice. Sin
is a choice you don't have. Or the devil made me. No,
he didn't. The devil tempted you. You made you nobody else.

(47:46):
Don't lie. Don't hide behind that. The Bible says, I'm
gonna read that same verse again. Don't let sin rain
in your mortal body that you should obey it. In
the last ser of neither yield ye your members as
instruments of unripe don't surrender yourself to be an instrument
of unrighteousness, but yield yourself under God as those that

(48:07):
are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments
of unrighteousness under God. That would yield it means to surrender.
So temptation comes and you want to honk and shake
your fist and wind the window down and screech at somebody.
And God says, don't do that, surrender it to me,
and you're ah, and you surrender. You're at home and

(48:32):
your spouse is doing something, oh, something terrible. Ant are
chewing too loudly. It's the end of the world. And
you want to push back from the table and say,
how many times have I told you I can't stand it? Well,
maybe you can't stand it, and I would advise any
spouse to be polite at the dining room table. But

(48:52):
before you haul off at somebody, God will speak to you,
and you say, all right, I'm gonna surrender that to you.
You tempted to on your taxes, You surrender to the
Lord and he will bring you through. You're tempted to
open that web page that you know you should stay
away from, and instead you go, oh, Lord, I'm going
to surrender that to you, and God will move in
with a power that you may never have experienced before.

(49:15):
And you get to the end of that thing and
you say, well, look what God did ordinarily out of
being with that like a pig in the strawberries. But
God brought me through and he'll do it again and again.
You're around at that work of function and they offer
you wine and you think, what are some sophisticated people

(49:35):
at church who drink wine? And then the Lord says, yeah,
but they're not your example. Jesus is your example. You go, oh,
that's right. And they said, come on, man, I know
you want of these Christians, but don't be so uptight.
It's very nice. And you say, in that moment, dear Jesus,
I'm struggling here. The temptation is real. Make a way

(49:56):
of escape, and he will because you're surrendered to God.
And you get to the end of the evening, you said, man,
my conscience is clear. I honored God in that moment
instead of dishonoring God. Verse fourteen. The Lord wanted you
to hear this today. Sin shall not have dominion over

(50:21):
you because you are not under the law. But you
are under grace. What a beautiful thing to know that
we live in a sinful world. But sin does not
have to have dominion over us. To know that every
way we turn this sin. But it doesn't have to
govern us to know that there's temptation at every turn.
But it doesn't have to govern us. Why because we

(50:44):
have chosen to die to sin and to live for Jesus. Now,
it's common for preachers to use the church board meeting
as an example of people who lose their caul. I
gotta tell you, I've never been to a church board
meeting where people got ugly. But can you imagine sitting

(51:05):
in a meeting, whether it's a church board meeting or
a PTA meeting, anything else, and somebody is about to
say something cutting, but they go, I'm gonna surrender that
to you, Lord. Or somebody says something you're gonna rear
up on your hind legs and lash out, and you say,
I'm gonna surrender that to you. Lord. There's somebody a
church who offended you, and maybe they really did, but

(51:25):
there's a bitter way of going about it than going
after them like that. And you say, Lord, as much
as I like to stangle that person. I surrender it
to you, and I ask you to give me love.
This will change your life. That person at Wegman's got
snippy with you, and I'm gonna take that lady, But no,
Jesus give me grace. And you can say, hey, God,

(51:47):
bless you have a great day and walk out of there,
maintaining your equilibrium, retaining your Christian experience. And you are
a light who shone for Jesus, not a self righteous
goat who only acted that way to make the other
person feel bad. But you let Jesus work in your
life in that moment. And somebody somewhere said, man, that
person must have something serious going on. You see, when

(52:10):
Jesus died on the cross, he died to give us victory.
What does the Bible say, The son of Man came
to seek and save that which was lost. You shall
call his name Jesus, for he will save his people
from their sins. Amen. None of us are damned to

(52:32):
be addicts to this or that. Now, by the way,
I need to come back around here. I'm not saying.
Just believe in Jesus and you'll be delivered from the
addiction that may happen but you may need to support group,
You may need people around you. I'm not down on that.
But none of us must be addicts. None of us
must have corrupt minds, none of us must be prideful,
none of us must be seeking. Who's going to be

(52:54):
the great, who's gonna be greatest at reaching hearts in
the national Surely me else need to be that person,
not a single one. Why Because Jesus came to this
earth and he said, a new heart, also will I
give you? And I'm caught in the old Testament, and
a new spirit will I put within you? And I
will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh,

(53:15):
and I will give you a heart of flesh. There
is a way forward for the sinner. There is a
way forward for the boorish husband who doesn't seem to
be able to manifest respect for his wife. God can
change your heart if you will surrender that heart to
him and choose to die to self. Self wants expression.

(53:36):
I want to tell you how crazy you make me.
I want to tell you how badly you park your
car out there. I want to tell you how rude
you are. I want to tell you that people don't
like the way you carry yourself. I mean I don't,
but you understand. But God says, no, that ain't no.
You don't want to do that. That's not love, that's
not Christian, that's not right. And I'm praying, Lord, give

(53:57):
me a new heart today, give me a fresh baptism
with the Holy Spirit. Today. Allow my heart to beat
in harmony with yours. That old person that I was,
let that person be dead, and let's not practice spiritualism
and somehow drag that person back to life. We don't
need to do that. The Lord is able to change
your life. Now here's the next sermon. I know I'm

(54:19):
out of time already. What I ought to do is
quit write here. But if I do, someone's gonna say, so,
let me give you the next sermon and a half
in about three minutes. What's gonna happen. I'm not sure
what the amen was four exactly, but I'll proceed. What's

(54:41):
gonna happen is you're gonna go home and you gonna say, yeah,
you know he's right. The Bible says that I'm not
being taken that seriously, and I have not been living
in a way dead to sin. And you're gonna say yep,
I pray, thank you Jesus, dead to Sin. I consider myself.
I see what you've done for me on the cross,
Dead to Sin. And then at about ten o'clock tomorrow morning,

(55:06):
your neighbor's cutting the grass and you told him to
keep away from them shrubs, and he gets too closer,
right over top of two little plants that you be nurturing,
and you say that is it, and you storm out
of the house and you shriek and you yell. You

(55:30):
put on some old sweat pantsom a T shirt, what
holes because you don't even care how you look, and
you and his face, Larry buddy eye, lie hm. I
mean it's so bad your husband has to run out
and hold you back, and he brings you in the house,

(55:55):
give you a cup of ice tea or something. And
then you say, after that sermon yesterday, and after the
way I prayed last night, I really thought I had it.
I really thought I did well. I really think you
did too, And I really think you do. The one

(56:17):
thing that I do need to tell you is that Paul,
after Romans six, goes to Romans seven. It's a reality check,
and he says, there are times I don't want to
do what's right, and I don't. And there are times
I don't want to do what's wrong, and I do,
and he calls himself a wretched first six chapters of
Romans the theory, and it's good theory too. And then

(56:38):
you get a Romans chapter seven. It's the reality chap.
You can have all the theory you want, but you're
still fighting against a hard and sinful heart. But then,
who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
I thank God through Jesus Christ, my Lord, Jesus a deliverer.
And then Romans eight and verse one, there's your key.

(56:59):
There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are
in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but
after the spirit, but after the Spirit. So, ladies and gentlemen,
we have the privilege of bringing to Jesus our sin
heartened hearts, receiving a new heart, and being filled with

(57:22):
the spirit of God. Yep, we're gonna have some growing
to do. You got some unlearning to do. Those old
habits don't immediately die the minute you name the name
of Jesus. But you've got to be relentless about this.
Jesus save me God, do that work. Fill me with
your Holy spirit, keep us front and center, and more

(57:42):
and more and more the life of Jesus will be
manifest in your life. I read a book called The
Desire of Ages, and on page six hundred and sixty
eight I found a quote that said this, all true
obedience comes from the heart. It was hearts work with Christ,
and if we consent, he will so identify our thoughts

(58:07):
and aims with his, so blend our hearts and minds
into conformity to his will, that when obeying him we
shall be but carrying out our own impulses. The will,
refined and sanctified, will find its highest delight in doing
his service through an appreciation of the character of Christ.

(58:28):
Through communion with him, sin will become hateful to us.
Now that sounds radical, right, You can't imagine hating some
of the stuff that right now you love. But if
you let God do the work, that's what will happen
in your life. Jesus came to this world not to
give you a half baked victory, not to get you

(58:51):
close to the finished line, not to get you nearly there,
not to clean you up, not to renovate you. He
came to this world to recreation, to make you new,
to allow you to be an example to the world
of what the grace of God can do. And his

(59:12):
victory for you was total and complete. Now, if you
want to go to Alexandria in Egypt, that's about one
hundred miles north and a little bit west of Cairo,
and you looked out into the water that way, you'd
be looking out over Abukia Bay. That's a fascinating bay.
Recent times archaeologists have found submerged ancient cities there. They

(59:35):
found two thousand year old ships there. It's quite the place.
But in seventeen ninety eight, and that's a year for us,
Horatio Nelson, Admiral Nelson of the British Fleet, led the
British Navy in a battle against the navy of France.

(59:55):
It was called the Battle of the Nile. The English
were spectacularly successful. To commemorate this, the ruler of Egypt,
a man at the time, his name was Muhammad Ali,
interestingly enough, gave the British an obelist Cleopatra's needle. If
you go down by the River Thames in London today,

(01:00:16):
you can see it. It's right there, right now. Cleopatra's needle.
Thank you for delivering us from this scourge of the French.
If you go to Trafalgar's at Trafalgar Square in London,
great big tall thing, Nelson's column in honor of this
man who won the Battle of the Nile and other
battles as well. Now that Victoria the Battle of the
Nile in Aboukia Bay total domination. It was an absolute

(01:00:40):
route utter defeat for the French. Nelson said this afterward. Listen,
victory is not a strong enough name for such a scene,
as I have passed long ago. Adam and Eve were
out there in the gard ne Eden and Eve did

(01:01:01):
the unthinkable and ate the fruit. The planet was plunged
into sin. And shortly after, shortly after, God promised our
original grandparents, those rebels, He promised them that Jesus was
gonna come to this world. You, Satan will bruises heal,
He will bruise your head. This was gonna be complete victory.

(01:01:24):
Jesus came to this earth when the planet was in
a desperate place. God's people were servants in their own lands.
A pagan empire ruled the better part of the globe.
But then Jesus Jesus came and lived a life of
commitment to God. Jesus came and lived a life of
obedience to God. Jesus came and lived a life of
surrender to God. Betrayed by Judas, sentenced by pilot, delivered

(01:01:51):
up by his own people, nailed to a cross by
Roman soldiers, Jesus bled and suffered and died. They laid
him in Ship's new tomb. And then on Sunday morning,
Mary Magdalen is there? Where have they taken him? John
goes running down there with Peter. What in the world,

(01:02:13):
where is our savior? The angel said, he is not here,
He is resin this friend. Was victory, victory over the grave,
victory over the forces of darkness, victory over the powers
of hell, victory over sin. It was victory for you

(01:02:35):
and me, and anyone who chooses to believe in Jesus
and surrender their life to him. We might say, as
Nelson said, victory is not a strong enough name for
such as seen as Jesus passed, it was total domination.

(01:02:55):
He came out that grave on Sunday morning and ascended
to heaven, seated in God's right hand. And soon he's
coming back for you. Can you say, man, victory Today
through Jesus, are we discovered sin Us no good? But
I'll save us very good. Sin will drag you down,
Jesus will lift you up. You can't beat it in

(01:03:17):
your own strength. But if you'll die that death to
self and let the spirit failure and Jesus live his
life in you, you are looking forward to the return
of Jesus, that day when gravity cannot hold you down,
that day when there's an innumeral company of angels crowding
the sky, that day when the dead in Christ shall rise.
We say, with John who wrote Revelation. Even so, come

(01:03:40):
Lord Jesus, victory is not a strong enough name. Can
you say, Amen, We're gonna claim that victory, friend of
this hope. We aren't leaving here today defeated. We're not
leaving here disconsolate. We're not leaving here discouraged. We are
not leaving it depressed. We're gonna leave here elevated. We're
gonna leave here ignited. We will leave here encouraged because

(01:04:03):
Jesus is here, is our savior, Here is our Lord.
Here's our victory. He has changed everything, and he's coming
back to take us. So come on and say man,
pray with me. Pray with me. Friend, Father in heaven,
we thank you today that in spite of sin, there
is a savior. In spite of our weakness, you are strong.

(01:04:25):
In spite of our failure, You can make us right.
In spite of the ghastly, grotesque nature of sin. We
can say today that we don't want it. There's not
one here today who's impetuous enough to make you a
promise or give you a pledge and tell you that

(01:04:50):
we're going to get it right. We're going to tell
you today as we have got it wrong. But we're
willing to allow you to take our hearts. We are
willing that you fill us with your spirit. We are
willing to receive the righteousness of Christ. We are willing

(01:05:12):
to die to self that sin might not have dominion
over us. Now I have assumed. I have presumed something, Friend,
I said, we are willing. I must ask your forgiveness.
I spoke for you. The only one who can speak

(01:05:35):
for you is you. I want to give you a
chance to silently speak. If it is your desire that
Jesus fill you with his presence, if it is your
desire to be dead, to self, but alive under God.
Would you raise your hand right now? Would you? No? No, no,

(01:05:55):
not not ask you to promise God, nothing but leed.
God know that you are willing to be made, and
you willing to be transformed, willing to be kept by
His grace? Are you willing today? Father? The only one
looking around right now is you. You can see the hands.
More importantly, you can see the hearts. So keep us now.

(01:06:19):
Would you please fill us with your spirit. Let us
be dead to sin and alive under God through Jesus Christ,
our Lord. This is our prayer. We pray in faith
in Jesus' name. Please say amen,