If I Tell You, You Will Not Believe

Gracious God and Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us your word. We thank you for moving men of old to write down what you led them to speak and to write. We thank you for their love and their care and their faith. We thank you for your son, Jesus, who laid aside his glory, who emptied himself and took on the form of a bondservant, of a slave, of a baby, that he might come into this world to live among us, to feel our temptations and our weaknesses and our pain to save us from our sin and from hell. Father, as we've met together now, would you open your word to us? Feed us from it. Please strengthen me as I preach to be bold and faithful and wise and loving. I pray for each person here that you would give them soft and attentive hearts, that they would not fight against or be stiff-necked against your word.

I pray that you would move in us and among us by your Holy Spirit, convicting us of sin and righteousness and the judgment. You pray that you would mature us as men and women in everything, that we might grow up into Christ who is our head. I pray that you give us humility before you and one another as well. Father, there are many burdens that we bear. There are many things that distract us, that keep us from even what we desire to do in service for you. I pray that you'd remove those cares and those burdens right now, that you'd make this time a time of devotion, single-minded devotion to you and to your word. Strengthen us, Father, to do your will. Feed us, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Now we're going to be picking up at the end of Luke 22. I'm having a hard time with words this morning.

And every week we go further into Luke, the less I want to preach it. And it's because we're into the point where Jesus has been arrested and is headed toward his cross. And if there was a part of Scripture that I could, I mean, in one sense, if there was a part of Scripture I could get rid of, it would be this. It would be the part where we see Jesus treated so poorly, beaten, mocked, abused, accused. And then killed. And yet these things are here as a record of what was necessary for our salvation. And so while it's very painful for me to think about and to preach on, I'm absolutely convinced that it's necessary for our souls to look square in the face of what Jesus faced for our sakes. That we might understand more and might grow when we see what it took to satisfy the wrath of God against us.

And so this morning, we're going to be studying Jesus' trial before the Sanhedrin, the religious court, the council. You're going to see unbridled hatred and lying and an unashamed desire to kill Jesus. And it's shocking to see such hatred. It's almost unbelievable. My hope is by the end of this morning, we won't be shocked by it. We will be grieved by it, but we'll be equipped by it to not falter when we face these sorts of trials in our own lives. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word from Luke chapter 22, verses 63 to 71. This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him and beating him, and they blindfolded him and were asking him, saying, prophesy, who is the one who hit you? And they were saying many other things against him.

When it was day, the council of the elders of the people assembled, both chief priests and scribes, and they led him away to their council chamber, saying, If you are the Christ, tell us. But he said to them, If I tell you, you will not believe. And if I ask a question, you will not answer. But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God. And they all said, Are you the Son of God then? And he said to them, Yes, I am. Then they said, What further need do we have of testimony? For we have heard it ourselves from his own mouth. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now there are a number of things that go on in here, and I want to set the scene a little bit in terms of context. Because when we get to the next two months or so of sermons, two and a half months, it all happens in a matter of hours.

A couple of days. And so recently we studied how they were partaking of the Lord's Supper, this Passover, in the upper room. And Jesus was teaching his disciples. And at some point during that, Judas leaves. And he goes to the chief priests and the scribes and he says, I know where he's going to be. And he leads them out to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives where Jesus is praying by night. And Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss. Walks up to him, kisses him, and they arrest him. Peter pulls out his sword in an effort to defend Jesus, having said, I'll go to prison and even to death for you. Pulls out his sword to defend Jesus, to fend off the persecutors. And Jesus says, enough, and puts the man's ear back on. And at that point, all the disciples and all who are with Jesus, they scatter. Peter follows at a distance, follows all the way into the high priest's house, which is where they're holding Jesus overnight.

where Peter, during that night, denies Jesus three times, and then the rooster crows in the morning. Now, while that's happening with Peter, some of what we're reading in this passage is going on as well. They bring Jesus in by night, and they can't have a trial until morning. It'd be unlawful for them to do that. And I want to talk about the trial first and say, the point of the trial was not to determine whether Jesus was guilty. They'd already decided they were going to. that he was guilty and that they wanted to kill them. As we've studied and led up to this point, we see that they wanted to kill him, they wanted to put him to death, and they've been trying for a long time to come up with a plan for how to do it. And so this trial is a mock trial. It's a kangaroo court. It's fake. It's not just. It's wicked. What they're about to do has no place in our minds as being the way that you ought to go about

judging someone. And so the purpose of the trial was not to judge whether Jesus was guilty of a crime, but it was rather to get some sort of charge against him that they could bring to the Romans so that they could get the Romans to kill them. Now, historically, before the Romans came in and occupied the land of Israel, the Israelites had the ability to execute capital punishment, to kill people. If they blasphemed or if they did If they committed capital crimes, they could kill them. But when the Romans came in, the Romans removed their ability to kill them, to kill people. And so now if the Israelites wanted to have someone put to death, they had to go through the Romans. And so what you have are two courts going on here. You have an ecclesiastical or religious or church court, and then you have a civil court. The church court being the Sanhedrin, the religious leaders that are gathering, that Jesus is going to stand before today. But the whole point of this meeting is to

come up with a charge that they can then make stick in front of the Romans, in front of Pilate against Jesus, so that Pilate will put him to death. That's the goal. That's the aim of this trial. In Mark 14, which is a parallel account to this, it says that the chief priests and the whole council kept trying to obtain testimony against Jesus to put him to death, and they were not finding any. Now remember, this trial is happening at the first light of dawn. They're trying to do it in a way that Pilate's going to say, yeah, this isn't just a lynching. So the first light of dawn, they've got witnesses, witnesses that they've set up to come in and to say what Jesus has done. And so they kept trying to get testimony against Jesus to put him to death, but they were not finding any. For many were giving false testimony against him, but their testimony was not consistent. Meaning some people were saying, well, he said this and he did that. And other people were saying, no, no, no, it was like this. He said this and that other thing. Their testimony was inconsistent. They were all lying.

They were embellishing and twisting what Jesus had said. And there was no consistency there. And so the reason that the chief priests couldn't find a charge against them is because their law required that they have two or three witnesses that agreed about what the offense was. And so they've got all of these people coming in and lying, and they can't get their story straight. In Mark 14, it continues on. It says, And not even in this respect was their testimony consistent. So the whole thing, this whole trial, if you will, has nothing to do with guilt or innocence. The only purpose was to cultivate a charge against Jesus so that they could earn a hearing with Pilate.

I want you to understand the wickedness of what's going on here for them. These are the religious leaders. They're in charge of caring for the people. And what they are doing here is an abomination. It's opposed to the law that they're supposedly trying to uphold. This is the height of hypocrisy for them. Listen to the law concerning witnesses and how they're supposed to determine whether this testimony is true. This is from Deuteronomy chapter 19. It says a single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed. On the evidence of two or three witnesses, a matter shall be confirmed. So one witness is not sufficient to condemn anyone because one guy can get mad at another one and go lie about it. It says if a malicious witness rises up against a man to accuse him of wrongdoing, then both the men who have the dispute shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who will be in office in those days.

So as they're listening and they're realizing we're hearing false testimony, they bring the accuser and the accused in and they listen to him hash it out. And so if I was accusing somebody and saying, he blasphemed, well, the consequence for blasphemy is death by stoning, okay? So listen to what it says. The judges shall investigate thoroughly. And if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him. just as he had intended to do to his brother. And so if I accused someone falsely of blasphemy and it was found out that I was lying, then I faced the judgment for blasphemy. I would be stoned. And so perjury, giving false witness, was a very, very serious thing. And it was the judge's primary job to determine the truthfulness of the accusations brought against another man. And if they lie, they're supposed to receive the consequence.

that they were petitioning for the other man. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you, meaning the wicked men. The rest will hear, the rest of the people will hear and be afraid and will never again do such an evil thing among you. Thus you shall not show pity. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. Now that may be a familiar passage to you, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That's given in this place in the context of bearing false witness. That you shall have no pity on the man who lies and accuses his brother falsely. And the judge's primary work is to determine whether they're telling the truth or not. Now here, in Jesus' trial, you've got the chief priests and the scribes hiring men to come in and lie, to accuse Jesus. And so we can see from this example, as well as this same council having paid Judas to betray Jesus,

that they only have one thing in mind. And this can hardly be called a trial. It's much more akin to a lynching. Now, in the count in Matthew of this trial, it says that Jesus doesn't answer any of the charges brought against him. The high priest rises up and says, do you not answer? What is it that these men are testifying against you? Now, why didn't Jesus answer? It said in Deuteronomy that if a false charge is brought against the accused, he's supposed to stand up and make his defense. And here Jesus isn't making his defense. He's not saying anything. He's not doing anything. He's just remaining silent. So the high priest adjures him, implores him to stand up and to make his defense. And yet Jesus remains silent. Now, why has he remained silent? Well, there are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that the testimony was so inconsistent that it didn't warrant a response. It was so obviously a lie that the high priest couldn't find anyone who could get their story straight.

And you might wonder, well, why did they care if they could get their story straight? And it was because they were going to have to go and testify before Pilate. And Pilate wasn't going to consent to killing Jesus if the testimonies were terrible. And so they did have to have stories that were believable. And yet they couldn't find any. So the high priest says, are you not going to answer? And Jesus doesn't answer first because their testimony is unbelievable. He knows it's not going to stand before Pilate. But the other reason, and the more significant reason, is that he knew that his hour had come.

Against all of these charges, think of it this way. Against all of these charges that Jesus is facing, did he have no answer? Couldn't he have answered? Of course he could have. He could have answered every charge that came against him. You remember as we were leading up to this point, there was a time when the Pharisee's strategy was to come and to question Jesus closely, to pay attention to what he's saying, trying to catch him in something he might say. And every time they did it, they failed. Because Jesus would answer them in a way that made them look like idiots. Or he'd ask them a question. And he'd shame them. And so we have to keep in our minds that if Jesus had wanted to deliver himself out of this, he could have. And he could have done it in any way he wanted to. He could have argued his way out. He could have explained himself. He could have delivered himself miraculously. He could have done anything he wanted. And yet he chose to remain silent and not to answer the charges. Now consider for a moment your own life. Have you ever had someone lie about you? Do you want to keep silent?

In a word, no, right? I mean, it goes so far in our own hearts that if we think someone, you know, if Daniel says something about me and I think you might get the wrong impression from what he said, I'm going to answer and be like, well, no, no, no, Daniel's wrong. He didn't understand. It was like this. We have in our own hearts this insatiable desire to defend ourselves and to be vindicated and to be right. But Jesus doesn't answer him a word because he knew that his hour had come. It was time for him to die. And so the purpose of the trial was simply to bring a charge that would stick against Jesus by any means necessary. Now, when it didn't work, when all of these false accusers couldn't get their story straight, they turned to a different strategy. They tried to get Jesus to self-incriminate. This is the part that Luke records. He doesn't record the part where Jesus isn't answering, where he refuses to answer the charges. Matthew and Mark both do. But Luke picks up where the high priest turns to Jesus.

and begins to question him to try to get him to self-incriminate. The high priest says to Jesus, if you are the Christ, tell us. And Jesus answers and he says to them, if I tell you, you will not believe. And so Jesus acknowledges by his answer their predetermined outcome. He knows this isn't a trial. He knows that he's not going to deliver himself with the truth. And here's an important thing you have to learn. And we'll come back to this later on toward the end. In this life, truth doesn't always win. It will be vindicated in the end. But the righteous aren't always vindicated in this life. Their lives are not always saved. And that's a hard truth, but it's something that you have to understand and accept. Or you won't be prepared for it when it happens. When you think, well, if they just knew the truth, if I could just tell them the truth, if they just understood the truth. Those who are opposed to God have no regard for the truth. They don't care if what's true. And so Jesus says, if I tell you, you'll not believe. You won't be persuaded by the truth.

You have no regard for the truth. He goes on, if I ask you a question, you'll not answer. And he's referring back to the times when they would question him and he would answer them. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath? And it's like, what would they say? Nothing. They refuse to answer him. So if I ask you a question, you will not answer. And so to this point, Jesus has refused to answer the simple question, are you the Christ? If you are, tell us. He says, if I tell you, you won't believe it. If I ask you a question, you won't answer. And what you see here, you have to put this together with our own desire to be vindicated. Because here we are going, well, Jesus was keeping silent. He wasn't attacking. He wasn't saying anything. He was going along. And what I want you to see is that what he was doing was not throwing pearls before swine and not giving what was holy to dogs.

And this is an offensive thing for Jesus to have said in the Sermon on the Mount. Don't give what is holy to dogs. And do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet. They'll have no regard for what you've said, for the truth. And then they'll turn and tear you to pieces. Now is this not what Jesus is facing down? Would the truth have averted what was in their hearts to do? No. And so we learn there's a time for you, in the midst of accusations against you, there's a time for you to keep your mouth shut. You say, but, but, but, but, but. And I say, I know, but, but, but, but, but. Keep your mouth shut. So he doesn't answer their question. But then he says to them, he says, if I answer, you will not believe. If I ask you a question, you will not answer. But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God. And so while Jesus doesn't answer their question directly, yes, I'm the Christ, he does answer their question. Now, this is significant because up to this point, Jesus has concealed the fact that he's the Christ.

Not just in this situation, but in his whole ministry. You remember when he was talking to his disciples and he says, who do the people say that I am? Some say John the Baptist. Some say Elijah. Some say a prophet. And he responds to him and he says, but who do you say that I am? And what does Peter say? You're the Christ. You're the son of God. And then what does Jesus say? Tell no one. Tell no one. He warned his disciples that they should tell no one that he was the Christ. And the reason was because it was not his time. So he concealed it, this fact. But now it is his time. So he does reveal who he is. Everyone who was in the room understood what he was saying, but they needed him to say it plainly. So they all said to him, are you the son of God then? And he said, yes, I am. And that was it. They wanted a charge. And he gave it to them. You realize if he hadn't answered, they couldn't have brought him to Pilate. They had nothing on him. They hated him. They might have just, you know, a riot might have come and they might have just killed him.

They could have. They hated him that much. But they couldn't have taken him to Pilate without him doing this. And you have to look at it and go, why did he do that? He signed his own death certificate by saying, yes, I am. Are you the Christ? Yes, I am. In other passages, it's not so direct. He says, it is as you say, or you have said it yourself. Now, at this point, everyone exclaims together, what further need do we have of testimony? We've heard it from our... We have heard it ourselves from his own mouth. He said, I am the Christ. Now, was he the Christ? Yes. If this was anything close to the way a court ought to work, what they should have done was determined if he was lying. Right? But there's none of that. There's none of that. They don't care what the truth is and what the lie is. Their intention was only to get the testimony that they think would incriminate Jesus. And now they've got it.

And next week we'll go into it. It says immediately they whisked him off to Pilate to make him stand trial. Now, this text is pretty straightforward in what's going on. There's no justice. There's no concern for the truth. This is just a lynching. They're intent on killing him, and what he's done or said or any of that has no bearing. Now, what's the benefit to us of studying this? If you're like me, your first reaction to this is anger. Anger that the people would treat Jesus this way. That they'd be so hardened. They'd be so callous. They'd be so wicked in the way that they prosecute him. And something wells up inside of you and you go, but that's not right. It's just not right what they're doing. And that's the first thing you have to learn is it's not right what they're doing. And you're going to face things in your life and it's going to be absolutely not right what's being done. And the question to you and to me is what are we going to do when we face those situations?

You might say, well, I don't know about all that. I don't think we're going to do that. And I say, it's already happening already. In our day and age, we can't figure out what a man or a woman is, what a boy or a girl is, what bathrooms we should use, how we determine such things. And now we have states with birth certificates that have a we're not sure yet box for sex, or we haven't determined, it hasn't been determined yet. And too many Christians go, that's not right. And then they think they're done. That's not right. And I go, you're right. It's not right. So is there anything to be done? We've got legislation being passed in New York State that says that if a baby survives an abortion, they're not entitled to health care. They're not provided to have their life sustained. And we all go, that's not right. And I say, you're right. That's not right. And if we're wise, if we'll open just one of our eyes halfway, we'll realize we're going to face this sort of stuff in our life, each one of us. And what are we going to do? Get angry?

Probably, at least at some level, you get angry. Makes me angry. But is that the end of our response? That's not right. And we say it a little louder because we're angry. That's not right. And we're done. You have to have in your minds that there are things that are going to happen in this world all the time that aren't right, that are exceedingly wicked. Not just a little bit wicked, but really, really wicked. That there are pressures that work on us and in us that have the explicit purpose of destroying other people. That we would seek their destruction, their death. And that's the whole point of it. There's no other point. That's the point. The whole point of this trial is simply to see Jesus killed. There's no other point. Their authority's been touched. Their authority's been threatened. And they say, we ain't going to have it. We're not going to have it. We can't have it. This man is a disruptor. He's causing trouble. He's leading the people away. He has to go. Better that one man would die.

You know, one of the things I don't think we believe anymore, or we're gobsmacked when we see it, is the depravity of man. We don't believe it for ourselves. We don't believe it for other people. When you see depravity on display, we don't know what to call it anymore. We look at it and we go, well, there's a strange thing. Why do they do that? We're sort of like dumbfounded. I don't understand why they would do that. And I say, shame on us if we don't understand why they would do that. We should know why they do that. Because we should have some knowledge of why we do those sorts of things. But we live in a world, we live in this bubble as Christians that say, well, I don't do those sorts of things, and I don't really think other people do those sorts of things. I mean, occasionally you have people who are really bad, but they had a really tough life. And nowhere do we say, that's wicked, and that's wrong. We might think it, we might say it here, but what you see in this mockery of a trial is the depravity of man.

And we're surrounded by it. We're a part of it. So what are we supposed to do about it? That's the question, isn't it? If we see it and then we just go, oh, that's depressing. It's very depressing. What am I supposed to do about it? I read this helpful article this last week, and it was about intransigence. I really like the word intransigence. How many of you know what the word intransigent means? Great, I get to tell you. Don't get your phone out and look it up. I know how you guys are. Listen. You bumping him because he gets his phone out, Laura? No. Intransigent means like absolutely unwilling under any circumstances to be moved. It's like stubborn to the nth degree. That's what intransigent is. Unwilling to listen to you, unwilling to consider what you have to say because you are wrong. That's what it means to be intransigent, okay? Intransigent people are miserable to deal with.

in arguments because they don't listen. They can't be reasoned with. They can't be persuaded. They're awful. And you know what? Christians need to learn to be intransigent. Absolutely need to learn to be intransigent. We'll not be moved off of what God says. And the failure of our day is that Christians have no heels to dig in and say no. Or yeah, or yeah, or he says, or they'll do it for politics, but not for the gospel. We all find our heels. You remember a few months ago, I said to you, you know, If you want to get Christians to fight, what do you think they'll fight more about? Will they fight more about their Second Amendment rights or will they fight more about abortion? Well, they'll fight for their guns. Let me tell you, we will fight for our guns. You're not going to take my gun away. And I remember asking, maybe you'll remember, I said, so what if legislation came down the pike that said, you turn your guns in and we'll get rid of abortion. That's the trade. You think Christians would go for it? I don't think they would. So we'll fight, but not about the right stuff.

Christians need to learn to be intransigent. They need to learn to be immovable. You know, if you were to look at the news today and you were to think about gender issues and homosexuality and transgenderism and all this stuff, if you didn't know better, you would be inclined to think that like half of the population is homosexual. That there's all these people everywhere. And you know what? is not true. Not only is it not true, all of the promotion of this sort of propaganda hasn't changed the percentage of people in our land who are actually homosexual. What percentage of our population is homosexual? Do you guys, do you know? Two to three percent. Two to three percent. It's the way it's been for decades. It's not like busting at the seams. It's sort of a lifestyle that doesn't lend itself to reproduction.

They have to steal. They have to have converts. It grows only by conversion. It can't reproduce itself. But if you looked at our society, you'd think, man, they're everywhere. I mean, what are we going to do? And do you know why you think that it's everywhere? Yes, because the media tells you it is, but because the people who promote that ideology are what? Intransigent. They will not be moved. They will not have you believe anything except what they say. They will not listen. They will not reason. They don't want to be seen reasonable to you. They have an agenda. They're going to see it done. And they've carried the day. You say no to them, you think they're going to go away? They're going to keep coming again. You know why all this stuff about infanticide and all this in late-term abortions and stuff, you know why it's all in the news right now? Do you know why states are doing this? It's because they're afraid that Roe is going to get overturned. And you know what? If Roe gets overturned, it's not going to change a thing.

Because it's just going to go back to the states and, well, you're going to have states who say, no, you can't do that. And you're going to have states who say, yes, you can, just like you did before 1973. And we all think, it's all going to be better if we get Roe overturned. And so all the states are doing, all the wicked are doing is looking at the times and they're going, if it happens, we want to be prepared for when, you know, if that happens, we don't want to lose what's important to us. So they're just writing it into law ahead of time. This is what we're about.

And we're all going, I can't believe they do that. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. And I'm going, why can't you believe it? What do you expect the wicked to do? What did you expect these priests to do? If Jesus had told them the truth, you'd think they were going to go, oh, you are the Christ. Never mind all the other miracles you've performed for the last three years. This one convinced me. The wicked will give no rest to their eyes in their pursuit of wickedness. They're absolutely intransigent. And Christians, if you're going to stand, you have to adopt this model. You have to have faith to stand and say, no, no. Under no circumstances will I ever, ever, ever say yes. No. Never is that okay. Never is that right. Never is there a circumstance where it's acceptable. No, no, no, no, no.

And you say, but if I do that, you know what will happen to me? And I say, yeah, I do. You should prepare for that. I do know what will happen. And you know what will happen. So we have to prepare for it. I'll lose my job. I know. You can get another one. Lose my family. Jesus told you that would happen. What about my money? Come to Sunday school and listen about all the stuff James and his hearers gave up for the gospel. The gospel has a cost to us. And if Jesus is willing to go and to submit himself voluntarily to the hands of wicked men for our salvation, how is it that we can expect to live our lives without having to bear any of that same sort of burden and call ourselves Christians? How can we have a principle against suffering and against claiming the name of Jesus and think that it's all going to end well for us? Forget us. What about our kids? What do we teach them? What are we showing them?

How are we preparing them for this world? Do you think it's bad for us? Wait for our kids and our grandkids. We're going to move to China. It's better over there. I've thought about it. I'm like, well, when it gets really bad, where am I going to move? And it's like, China's on the upswing in terms of Christianity. Maybe I'll have my kids go be missionaries in China. And I think, oh, you unfaithful idiot. Brothers and sisters, you have to prepare for the wickedness of man when you are the one that's in the crosshairs. And you have to prepare now. You have to be committed to what you will not to flinch on and what you're able to give on. You're able to give on your guns. You can give on your guns. People always say, that's a God-given right. No, it's not. God didn't write our Constitution. It's not a God-given right. It's a freedom that we enjoy. It's a far cry from the gospel. And so you look at this and you say, well, Jesus went and he signed his own death certificate. And I say, well, you know what? Sometimes you may have to do the same thing. That may be what faithfulness requires of you, to say, yep, I'm not going to keep my head down.

I am the one. I did say that. I do believe that. I am committed to it. Lord, help me. Have mercy on me and my children and my wife, my husband. It's a weird thing. You talk this way and some people are just like, like, you got to be kidding me. You think anyone's ever going to sign up for that? And I say to them, yes, I do. I think that the things that I'm talking about this morning actually are attractive to some people. The people who God is at work in, they look at it and they go, I want the reward. which means I've got to run the race. And if that's the race, then sign me up. And so in my mind, and I think in your mind, you have to see this sort of intensity, this sort of intransigence, immovableness, as gospel ministry and as evangelistic. Are you kidding me? You think people are going to go for this? And I say, yeah. The same gospel is a stench to some people.

and a pleasant aroma to others. And I trust God to make it a pleasant aroma to those who he's working in. It's terrifying to me, but it is pleasant. If you're like me, I mean, you kind of vacillate here and you're like, you've got to be kidding me. Dave, you can't seriously expect me to do that. This is what I say to myself. You can't, you really? And I say, what else can I say when I look at what scripture says and what Jesus endured? How do I think that I'm going to get out of this unscathed and remain faithful? The other reason I think it's evangelistic is because I've seen people come to life in this sort of ministry, and they respond to it, and they go, oh, you mean we actually need to do what Jesus said? And I say, yeah, now you're on the right track. Jesus is the Lord of heaven and earth, and if he's to be our Savior, he will be our Lord. He will command us, and he will sustain us, and he will receive us into his heaven and into his joy eternally in our time, in his time.

And that's what we ought to pursue as Christians. You ought to read this passage and it ought to scare your socks off of you. And then when you put them back on, you ought to go, help me, Lord, to do that. To not have a principle against following Jesus. Let's pray.