I will cherish the old rugged rise, Spill my trophies and bless my day off.
I will cling to the old rugged rise, And exchange this suffering for a crown.
I will cherish the old rugged rise, And exchange this suffering for a crown.
Father in heaven, we know that as we come to you this morning, you are on the throne.
You are creator God, you are mighty God, you are holy God, you are right God, and righteous God.
You are the only one true God. Sula. Others have tried to come up and to gain a reputation.
Others have tried to be worshiped. Pharaoh tried to be worshiped.
Even for generations they worshiped Pharaoh trying to say he was a God and he was no God.
And they made gods out of silver and gold and copper and bronze.
They made gods out of wood. And people to this day try to make gods out of money.
Try to make gods out of sex, try to make gods out of drugs, try to make gods out of entertainment.
Lord, but there are no other gods. There are only those things who would vie for control of the human existence.
Only those things that would want worship, that could seek out men to recognize them and kind of put them up next to you.
But they have no place there. There is no other God in the presence of our God.
On this day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem and we all was to begin what would be the last week of his life.
And people were crying out, it was Xanadu, it was Xanadu, throwing down their clothes, throwing down their palm branches.
They were celebrating. Their children cried out, it was Xanadu, they said, save us Jesus, save us.
They cried out. And bystanders said, stop them, stop them from crying out like that.
And Jesus said, if they do not cry out, the very stones themselves will cry out.
God, all creation that recognizes that you alone are God, you alone have arranged salvation.
No other God came into his creation. No other God even existed or could help in any way, shape or form.
But you. And you have done this. And we are worshiping you, not just because you have done this.
Because you are here. We desire you. We want you above all things.
We want you to be in charge of this place. To inhabit the praises of your people.
To get the gospel out. To take this message to the ends of the earth.
Take it to wherever people can get internet. Thousands and thousands of miles away from us where we will never be.
Do whatever you want to do Lord. This is your time.
Today is the day that you have made and we will be glad in rejoicing it as we celebrate you in Jesus' name. Amen.
Sing it like you mean it.
Would you be free from the body of sin that's hard in the heart, hard in the mind? Would you leave a vain, funny wind that's wonderful, bad in the mind?
There is power, wonder working hard in the form of a lamb. There is power, wonder working hard in the flesh of a lamb.
Would you be free from your passion and pride, and power in the blood, power in the blood? So forth when things get sour and dry, there's wonderful power in the blood.
There is power, wonder working hard in the heart of a lamb. There is power, wonder working hard in the flesh of a lamb.
Would you be one of those more than strong, there's power in the blood, power in the blood? Sing it, sing it, oh Lord, sing it, oh Lord, it's giving thought, there's wonderful power in the blood.
There is power, wonder working hard in the heart of a lamb. There is power, wonder working hard in the flesh of a lamb.
Would you do service for Jesus, your King? There's power in the blood, power in the blood. Would you the daily just praise us to see, there's wonderful power in the blood.
There is power, wonder working hard in the blood of a lamb. There is power, wonder working hard in the flesh of a lamb.
Were you quiet? Did the Lord speak? Did you do it? As you were traveling through your life this last seven days, as you were driving in your car, or working your job, or at school, or as you were at home making dinner, or washing the dishes, or outside walking or riding your bike, did you listen?
Did the Lord speak? This is the moment in time at which we share how the Lord has touched our lives so that others can hear the same, the same thing you heard, the same way you heard, from the same God you heard.
Have you been inspired by the Lord this week? Share with us whatever the Lord shared with you.
I had a conversation with my boss a week ago. My boss is Jewish, and he does not understand Christianity, so we were talking about, he started off with me asking how old the earth is, thousands of years or millions.
And I answered him, he was shocked. And he said, well, how do you explain all the apostles with the dinosaurs? And I said, the blood. And he was like, and then he's talking about who is God, what's his name? And I said, Yahweh.
And he's like, okay, I don't understand. We believe all the same things, what's the difference? And I said, Jesus. And I'm fine about that. And I thought, how, I don't understand how people can live without Jesus, how empty I would feel.
And then he asked me, he goes, you don't use that to confess your sins? I said, yeah, to God directly. I don't need a rabbi or priest or someone else to talk to God for me, I just do it myself.
And so, but it made me really think that I could have, we could have a Christian with God, with Jesus having the Holy Spirit in us, ourselves. And I think how empty I would feel that we're not the case.
Praise God, Jesus paid the price and rose again on the third day. And now we have Him with us every day, those of you who have touched His Christ, your Lord and Savior, you're following Jesus, Jesus living in you, His Holy Spirit.
That presence, that would be worth it alone. I remember when I was alone, 25 years, and I had people that I cared about and people cared about me, as much as humans do anyway, but it wouldn't be the same.
It was never the same, never going to be the same. And then when Jesus came in, I was changed. I was affected, I was filled up. I couldn't do it without Him.
I didn't know how badly I was, how bad off I was. But now I do. All right, who else?
I had a conversation with one of my residents, we were just talking about faith in general, and one of the things she said was, God has a plan for everybody.
And sometimes when His plan for you is too strong, the devil uses temptation to try to strip you of that plan. So, may it be, you know, drugs, alcohol, stuff like that.
She works in a rehabilitation center, and she says that she sees God's plan in everybody, and the people who are really trying to shake what the devil gave them when they were younger and more willing to make those temptations.
She's seen, you know, people just completely turn their lives around for God, and just that when His plan for you is too strong, and you have too many of those temptations, that's enough reason to just say no to them all, because God has something great in store for you.
And in fact, I think it would be, it's simple with some maybe even human wisdom to realize that the more you are set upon by temptation, the greater opportunity to be set free. That is really something.
Wow.
So, at work I've been listening to my earphones more than my speaker, mostly because I don't like listening to three different things at once.
And certain days people like to listen to what they want to listen to, so I just shut mine off, I'll put my earphones in.
I've been trying to listen to a lot more Christian-based music, because for those of you who don't know my music, it's really broad. I listen to literally just about anything.
And I listen to a lot of the music I listen to, I listen to the music that I like to beat, or there's certain songs where I don't like the beat but I like the lyrics. But anyways, I've been trying to listen to a lot more Christian, faith-based music.
And there was this song that came on, I was almost going to share it, and I listened to this song probably three times in a row while I was at work.
And this is the reason why I like music so much, is because you can feel, at least me personally, I feel music. I love listening to music, I love the feeling I get when I hear a good song.
So it's really weird because I'm a terrible musician, I'm not a good singer, I can't play an instrument to save my life.
But I love music, I love the inspiration you can find in music, and I've been that way forever. And then like I said, there was this song that came on, and it...
It was different.
The morning sun has set, the Savior of the world was fallen.
His body on the cross, his blood poured out for us, the weight of every curse upon him.
Well that was really something.
What a wow. God is good. God is good.
So it's it's Paul Sunday and by all rights I should be preaching by man's standards and the traditions if you will live in of the church.
I should be preaching about the triumphal entry of Jesus and I'm not going to.
Yes, I'm not going to follow what some call the lexicon and teach the text that I am supposed to teach.
Because the Lord have has led me to a specific verse which is right there.
So give me a little who to how are amen as we go to Luke chapter 23.
This is God's word. Now we're about to see that every word in God's word is mighty.
I hope you'll pay attention. You'll listen. You'll see. You'll hear.
You'll be ready for God to move because we're about to look at something and not answer the question.
Is anyone here familiar with the term the fog of war? Video gamers, gamers, right?
Definitely fog of war. Military guys usually. You got a little tactics.
So the fog of war is that which you can't see. It's outside the reach of your understanding.
So in a video game, for example, if your character is there, maybe out here is too far for your character to see.
Or if you have radar, then however far the radar goes out beyond that, too far for you to see.
It's a tactical thing really. It's not literal fog.
It is an inability to understand beyond a certain reach.
And that fog of war is scary. If you've encountered it in real life, you know what I mean.
I don't mean in a video game. I mean in real life.
When you get to the edge of something and you realize beyond this, I don't quite know.
In that moment, it's kind of scary. You're waiting for a diagnosis.
You've been called into the office at work after knowing that you did something wrong.
Your significant other says, we need to talk. Right?
Whatever it is, that moment at which it begins to get outside your understanding, outside what you know is going to come next,
that's the fog of war. That's the challenge, if you will.
I'll give you one example and then we're going to read this verse and then we're going to talk a little bit about it.
Some years ago, I got my first cell phone.
You probably remember that day when you got your first cell phone.
I got it as an adult, a grown man working for Pizza Hut at the time.
And I began to carry it everywhere that I went.
It was gray and clunky and flipped open. It had a little tiny plastic antenna that you pull up out the top.
It wasn't a brick. I wasn't allowed to buy a cell phone during the brick period because they were very expensive.
But this was about that big and it was a flip phone, clunky.
It wouldn't really fit in my pocket very well, no pocket no matter what.
So I carried it in my inside jacket pocket or whatever.
So some years passed and I got another cell phone. It was a little smaller, thinner, and I could carry it in my pocket.
So I got to be to the point where 365 days a year, 366 in leap year, I had that cell phone on my person.
Then it happened that one day I left the cell phone at home.
I was driving on my motorcycle actually.
And I had been having some mechanical issues with my motorcycle.
And it occurred to me that I might have mechanical issues again with my motorcycle because I really hadn't totally resolved them.
And it occurred to me that I did not have my cell phone.
Which means if my motorcycle breaks down, I have no way to call anyone.
So I'm riding on a motorcycle that may well break down with no cell phone, no way to call anyone.
And it occurred to me that almost all of the pay phones in the city by that time had been removed.
Anybody remember what a pay phone is? What they look like? Even Jason. Wow, that's impressive.
If you ever watched Superman, he used to change his costume.
Clark Kent used to change his costume in a big boxy pay phone booth, a pay phone booth.
And then the pay phone booth went away.
So then after that, the newer Superman always had to have a different way of changing his costume.
But then you just had these little booths that you could pull your car up next to.
That was pretty much all that was left. I pulled up next to one some years later and backed my car out.
Caught my bumper on the pole next to the pay phone and bent my bumper way out.
So I was kind of wishing that pole wasn't there.
But this day I was going, man, there's no pay phones. There's no cell phone.
And there's a good chance my motorcycle might break down.
And so for the remainder of my drive, I was thinking about where if my motorcycle broke down,
where I would go to get on a phone to stop at somebody's house.
I was in the country for a while to stop at the business and ask them if I could use a phone, whatever.
And I thought, but like if the motorcycle breaks down, it's going to break down wherever it breaks down.
It's not necessarily going to break down in front of a house or in front of a door.
I'm going to have to walk a quarter mile, a mile, whatever.
And I kept thinking about myself about how big the gaps are in between wherever I might be able to go to call
to have somebody come and rescue me if my motorcycle broke down.
And I want to say to you that I started to feel nervous.
Now, I wasn't saved at the time, so I didn't start praying or talking to God, didn't believe in any of that necessarily.
But I remember wishing, hoping that if the motorcycle broke down,
I would be somewhere within walking distance of somewhere that I could get on a phone.
That's the fog of war in simplistic terms.
It's that moment in time when you don't know what the outcome is going to be.
I submit to you that you don't know for sure if you have a cell phone that you can get help,
and you don't know how long it will take.
But our attachment to cell phones has gotten a little out of control
because your cell phone does not provide you safety.
I watch these videos on Facebook now and then where somebody will see like an abducted child or something,
or think it might be an abducted child, and they'll go and they'll grab the child and they put the phone up there like 911 is ringing on the phone.
And they'll show them 911.
Like you do realize that police response times are a minimum of like five minutes.
You're showing them that phone 911.
That's plenty of time for that individual to kill you outright and still take that child if they want to.
Your phone does not provide you safety.
Your muscles do not provide you safety.
Your money does not provide you safety.
Your vehicle does not provide you safety.
You get in the car two hours away from home and you start to drive home.
It may or may not get you there.
The police do not provide you safety.
The fog of war is that understanding that there are things that are outside our control, outside our understanding.
And when we get right up against that line, it starts to get a little nerve wracking if you don't know who God is.
We're going to read just one verse to start with today.
And then I want to introduce you to the fog of war in scripture.
In Luke 23, 44, it says this.
Now let me back up one verse.
And then he said, truly I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise.
That's what he said to the thief who was dying on the cross, who was the one who had kind of stood up for him, the one who wasn't mocking him, the one who was realizing that he was somebody.
And in 44 it says, and it was now about the sixth hour and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour, the sun being obscured and the veil of the temple was torn in two.
So our focus is up to that semicolon if you have a New American Standard or whatever is there in your Bible.
And it says, and it was now about the sixth hour and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour, the sun being obscured.
That's our focus.
Remember that the verse numbers in your Bible are not God inspired.
They are there for you to reference so you can look something up.
That's all like an encyclopedia or a dictionary.
But the text literally says, and now it was about the sixth hour and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour, the sun being obscured.
So the sun is blocked.
This is not a solar eclipse.
In this part of the world when they say the sixth hour, does anybody know what time they mean?
Say again?
Noon.
That's right, noon.
6 a.m. is the beginning, count six hours from there, it's noon.
That's how they would keep track of time.
And they'd still do that in the Middle East to some degree.
And the main reason that's true, how it kind of got started is because the hours of the day don't change a lot.
Like over here we have like, because we're up in the Northern Hemisphere for example, half the year it gets dark.
If you didn't have daylight savings time, half the year gets dark at 6 p.m. and half the year it gets, less than half the year, it gets dark at 9.30.
And that's a big swing, three and a half, four hour swing when the sun goes down over there.
It's not like that really.
It doesn't have that big swing.
So they had 6 a.m. was roughly dawn, right?
And six hours later, roughly noon.
That's how it was every single day.
And right about then, it got dark.
So you want to say solar eclipse is the first thing you think of, right?
Then it lasts for three hours.
So it's impossible, scientifically speaking, for a solar eclipse to last for three hours.
Also, interesting fact, the crucifixion is happening during the Passover festival.
Does anybody know what happens during the Passover festival, celestially, every single year?
A full moon.
You can't have a solar eclipse during a full moon.
It's not possible.
The way the galaxies move, the way the stars are oriented, the way God designed it, you could not have a solar eclipse.
So this is not a solar eclipse.
God obscures the sun so that it gets dark.
Now the question is, why?
What is God teaching us about this?
And I submit to you, the Bible doesn't say.
That's the fog of war.
Someone is going to ask you someday, why does the Bible say it got dark during the crucifixion?
You can Google it. Google it right now.
If you Google it, you don't Google it right now.
That's a bad suggestion. Google it later.
Anyway, if you Google it, you will find people telling you with certainty why it got dark during the crucifixion.
It's the three hours right before Jesus dies.
So they'll say, well, this was the time at which God was disgusted with mankind and what was going on there and his wrath is depicted.
This is the time at which sin was on Jesus and sin equates to darkness and so all the world was in darkness.
This is the time that it goes on and on.
The ideas of why this might be true.
We look at something in scripture and we see five, ten ideas.
What do you actually know for sure?
What do we know? What can we see that's not in the fog of war?
We know that it got dark at noon.
That doesn't happen.
Not a solar eclipse.
And it stayed dark for roughly three hours at the end of which Jesus dies.
That's what we know.
You might want to know more.
So the eclipses don't last three hours.
That's right.
Now you might want to know more, but you don't get to.
So let me tell you some things that then we can extrapolate from the verse that we can use, if you will, out of the text.
Throughout the Bible, all throughout the Bible, the absence of God is depicted as darkness.
So someone will argue that this is the absence of God, right?
That God is not present in that place, that he's not there or whatever.
Whether or not that's true, the Bible does tell us that the absence of God is darkness.
The absence of God's goodness.
Where there is no goodness of God, there is darkness.
The absence of knowledge of God is depicted as darkness or ignorance.
A person is ignorant of God.
That's darkness.
Sin is depicted as darkness.
Judgment depicted as darkness.
Wrath depicted as darkness.
And natural darkness is even depicted as a time to rest from work, which has great significance when you think about Jesus.
Jesus' crucifixion was the time to rest from all sacrifice, the time to rest from any efforts to pay for your sins yourself.
The Bible does not say with certainty why the sun was blocked out at that moment.
God has used natural darkness many times to express himself.
Did you know, we always hear about the, remember the pillar of cloud and fire when the Israelites were coming out of Egypt?
Did you know that it says, if you go back and read that text, that it says that the army of Pharaoh was blocked as they were sitting at the Red Sea
and he had pursued them out there and he was going to destroy them before they cross the Red Sea and Pharaoh tries to follow and the sea crushes him?
Before that, the army of Pharaoh was blocked by that pillar, a pillar of fire and cloud and darkness.
It's hard to have a pillar of fire and also darkness, but this is God that we're talking about.
Darkness was there. And you can kind of see that.
You might see that in like a comic book or a depictions from an artist where it has like swirling flames and darkness in there too.
Whatever it actually looked like, God blocked the army of the Egyptians with fire and cloud and darkness.
Darkness was depicted at Mount Sinai.
There was an idea that if you touch the mountain, you would die.
And they were scared. Everybody was trembling. Why?
Because of the fog of war, a lack of understanding, a feeling that darkness that covered the mountain and they would die if they approached God that way.
People want to add great symbolism to everything that God does.
I want to add great symbolism to everything that God does.
In fact, it would preach better. It would preach easier.
I would struggle less preaching this verse if I could say to you the darkness that God caused at the moment that Jesus was on the cross
and about to die in really the minutes, or 180 minutes, the darkness that God brought about at that time represents or means this.
But I can't do that because the Bible does not tell us what it means.
If you want to do a study yourself and go through the Bible and do a study on light and darkness, natural light and darkness, tons of verses,
light and darkness as ignorance, light and darkness as penalty for sin, light and darkness as the wrath of God, you can do that.
You could spend days and it would be awesome and you would come away knowing more about God from that study.
But what you will not find is a place at which God says that the darkness that took place during the crucifixion represents or means X.
It's a problem, isn't it? What if it makes it so that somebody, because they can't know the answer to that question, they will not believe in Jesus.
They will not accept Christ because you can't answer that question for them.
Guess what? That's not the way it works.
There will always be things that God knows. There will always be things that God holds at bay from us.
If you knew everything that was lost in the fog of war, you would never move forward.
If you knew everything, every challenge that might come, if you knew the fear that you would feel from leaving your cell phone at home, you would never forget it.
Or you would repent of the fear. You would turn from it and say, I'm not going to be afraid. I used to live by the cell phone.
That might not be true for some of the young people. I never had one before.
There was a time before where I knew nothing. And now I know something.
And the something that I know includes that there are things that I don't know.
That fog of war, it's even scarier when the radar reaches a mile or 12 to the horizon.
But what's just on the other side? The more you know, the more the thing that you don't know could be scary.
That's the nature of it.
Could it be the absence of God, the absence of His goodness, the absence of knowledge of Him or ignorance, the sin, the judgment, the wrath, or even a time for rest, for work?
Yeah, it could be any or all of those things.
But we would be remiss to preach that it is any or all of those things specifically because the Bible does not clearly say.
The Bible simply relates the events.
Have you ever noticed that the Bible does not clearly specifically argue against evolution?
One of the greatest lies, I'm not going to call it a theory, I'm going to call it a lie.
Macro evolution, that one animal, one species of animal evolves into another, that is a flat out travesty and they teach it in schools.
We teach it in our schools in America and have you ever noticed that the Bible does not expressly say that there is no evolution?
The word evolution is not used in the Bible.
But people teach that the Bible does teach that there is no evolution. So how is that so?
Well, what the Bible actually teaches is that each kind fosters or produces its own kind.
And that is specific. But it was not put there to debunk evolution.
Evolution wasn't even invented until less than 100 years ago.
And really was invented to cause one thing to be prejudiced or biased against another people.
The idea of race, that there were races of people, dark skinned people were one race and light skinned people another race.
That was invented by the same man and in the same document.
And look where we are today. There is only one race. It is the human race.
Every white person has different skin and every brown person has different skin.
We're all unique. Just because your eye sees a certain class of people looking approximately the same way or having certain similar traits,
does not make them a different race that was invented at that time. And it was invented to put certain people below other people.
So why doesn't the Bible clearly rebuke that?
Because it's a lie crafted in very modern day, very cleverly put together, to avoid the plain truth that is scripture, that there is only one race.
So you can use the fog of war. You can use the fog of war to make people afraid to move forward.
Don't you understand that the more you move, if you ever reach the edge, when you get near the darkness, get near the fog,
get near the thing that you don't know and don't understand that could be dangerous to you,
when you get near that edge, you are in danger of destruction. You are in danger of falling down.
You are in danger of being pushed back. You're in danger of losing your resources. You're in danger of becoming poor.
You're in danger of your health failing you. Oh no, stay in the middle. Stay in the light. Stay where it's safe.
Don't ever adventure. Don't ever take a risk. Don't push forward.
You can use the fog of war. People use the fog of war to cause fear. And that's what's happening with evolution.
You can't win the argument that creationism is the correct thing, because those who do not believe in God,
do not believe that God created the universe. They don't want to believe it, because if God did, then they have to respond to that truth.
The truth calls for a response.
So here we are looking at a verse that teaches something without actually teaching us for sure what it was that it was teaching.
The darkness, whatever its exact purpose, does serve to mark a moment in time, like a statue, like a monument, like a red X on a calendar.
It is an unforgettable event that happened as Jesus was about to die. There's no doubt about that.
And while we can't know exactly why it happened or exactly what was being conveyed, we can know that when that happened,
there was something happening that must not be forgotten.
1 Corinthians 4-5 says, Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness,
and disclose the motive of men's hearts. And then each man's praise will come to him from God.
Do you understand that in that moment in time, God was not explaining the darkness in part to say,
One day you will know, one day I will dispose of this secrecy, one day I will eliminate all failures of knowledge, one day I will make all things understood.
And only those who are willing to understand that which I have now given them, to stand under that which I have now given, will then be present to know all things for eternity.
And the others, they'll know enough to know that they messed up, that they didn't live according to that which God had disclosed.
We are not to go around passing judgment, meaning speaking unto that which the Bible does not speak.
It's not our job to look at what a person does and say, Hey, you're in sin, you're going to hell, because we don't know if they're saved or not.
It's our job to look at a person, for example, and say, This person needs to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Whether they profess to be saved or not, we should be delivering the message and the truth about God into our homes, into our schools, into our workplaces, all the time, all the time, all the time.
Do you know a Catholic priest? Absolutely share the simple salvation of God, the truth, because he may or may not be saved.
Do you know a pastor? Absolutely share the gospel. Do you know a deacon? Do you know a dad who's raising his family in a Christian way?
Absolutely share the truth about Jesus, because just because someone is doing something does not mean they understand what they are doing.
Don't go on passing judgment before the time. Wait for the fog of war to be dispelled.
Wait for the things that you don't know to be revealed to you as God either reveals them in this life or ultimately in that moment.
Then God will bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts. And then each man's praise will come to him from God.
Isaiah 42 16 says this is I will lead the blind by a way they do not know. Now, listen, let me be really clear.
So what we're saying is God will lead those who realize they don't know. A blind man knows he's blind.
So those who know that they don't know where they're going, what they're getting into, exactly what's going to happen, they can't tell the future.
They don't know how it's going to go. God says I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know. In paths they do not know, I will guide them.
I will make darkness into light before them and rugged places into plains. These are the things I will do and I will not leave them undone.
You see, God is able to dispel the fog of war just as you reach the edge and are about to go somewhere you've never gone before.
Just as you are about to conquer or struggle with difficulty that you've never faced before, God is able to bust open a whole new region of light and capability and understanding.
God is able to take you where he wants you to take you if only you are willing to not know everything before you go.
And as Jesus is dying on the cross about to usher in a new era, the beginning of the church as we know it, about to save souls like never could be done except trusting that God would eventually do it.
If Noah got saved previously, he trusted that God would eventually do it by the way that he had planned.
When David got saved, he trusted that God would eventually do it. So they're just trusting looking ahead.
And now that way is finally exposed, made clear, even though it was prophesied and there were lots and lots of prophecies about what Jesus would do.
Now all those prophecies about what Jesus would do being fulfilled, it's become obvious.
Do you understand that David lived with the fog of war? Abraham lived with the fog of war?
They all said, however you want to do it, Lord, by whatever means we believe, listen closely, we believe in the way.
We believe in the way that you will use, though we don't see him. We yearn to, but we don't.
They all said, we believe in the way that is to come.
I'm asking you today, are you willing to be blind compared to God?
Are you willing to be led by God to a place where God is taking you through a pathway that God is taking you that you do not know?
If you have a five-year plan, a ten-year plan, and a twenty-year plan, have you said of your five-year plan,
this is my five-year plan, but God is sovereign over my five-year plan.
God can change my plan. This is the man or the woman that I want, but God can change my plan.
This is the job or the promotion that I want, but God is the author of the plan.
Where there is no vision that people perish means God must be in it or you will die.
You will fail. You will fall.
The very darkness that you perceive is at the end of what you know is actually where God wants to take you.
If you want God to expose everything before you get there, then you're not willing to be a blind man led of the Lord.
You're not willing to be traveling down passes that he is willing to take you through.
You're not willing for him to smooth the rugged places into planes.
God says, these are the things I will do, and I will not leave them undone.
That's a promise you can take to the bank.
Isaiah 50 verse 10 says, Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of his servant,
capital S, God's servant, that walks in darkness and has no light?
So he's asking this question, who is among you that is in a difficult place?
Who is among you that you're right at the edge of the fog of war, you don't know what's going to happen,
you're scared, you're wondering, you're anxious, maybe depressed, maybe struggling,
you're not sure, you're self-esteem issues, you're concerned about whether you're capable,
or whether someone else is going to get to you, or a circumstance is going to be out of your control.
Who among you that fears the Lord and obeys the face of his servant, walks in darkness and has no light?
It's possible to get to that moment in time where you feel that way, but listen to what he says.
He says, Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.
If you've come to a moment in time where you have a question and you don't know the answer,
you have a verse and you don't get it, you have a trial and you don't know how you're going to get over it,
you have a problem and you don't have a solution, let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.
Not on your own abilities, rest from your work and say, Okay God, I don't see how we're going to get there.
You say you have a good plan for me, you're taking a plan to prosper me, a plan to bless me, a plan to benefit me.
You say that you could turn everything off from my good. I can't imagine how you would do that,
but I love you and I've called according to your purpose, so I am willing to be blind to the circumstances,
blind to the solution, blind to what's going to happen, and I'm willing to just trust you
and rely on you. Micah 7-8 says, Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy. Though I fall, I will rise.
Though I dwell in darkness, the Lord is a light for me. I want you to think back to some difficult time.
Some time when you were going through a problem or you were facing something that you didn't know how it was going to be resolved.
Think back to a moment in time at which you were at the edge of the fog of war wondering what was going to come next.
Now do you notice something? There are a few traits of that time.
Either you chose to trust in the Lord and God walked you through it as bad as it might have gotten
or whatever, you were sustained and you made it through. Or you chose not to trust in the Lord,
you didn't call out to God, etc. In which case you made it through just abundant grace, here you are.
So either you did or you didn't call out to the Lord at the moment that you did not understand,
at the moment of your anxiousness, at the moment of your struggle, at the moment of your trial.
And then that marks the situation you are in. But know this, you know this now, He was there.
You could have called on Him. If you didn't, you could have. You could have relied on Him. You could have trusted Him.
I remember the night that we heard that Stuart, which was Sherry's grandfather,
who was basically the patriarch on her side of the family. He was a stubborn old coot.
But he had a fight with cancer and he died. He was also a man you could respect.
He was a man who kept his word. He was a man who showed up when people needed him.
He'd do the thousand dollar repair of your car and maybe, maybe charge you for parts.
Mind you, if you went out there while he was repairing it, he was probably swinging a hammer
and breaking things if it wasn't going quite right. If he couldn't get a bolt off, whatever, he had a temper.
The night that he passed away, Sherry and I lay in bed. We weren't there the moment that he passed away.
We were actually at a softball game and we heard about it afterwards.
We were on our way out to visit him and got the call that he'd passed away.
And we lay in our beds that night and cried together.
Now, Stuart had accepted the Lord and he'd gone to be with the Lord.
And that changed the way we mourned him. It was the same thing with Judy.
We're talking about Judy. Ariana was reminiscing over her grandmother who passed away.
Judy was twice miraculously healed from cancer and then the third time was not.
And even though they told her she'd only lived six months without treatment
and a year maximum with treatment, she lived for three and a half years.
And for the first two and a half years, of the three and a half years,
she was still volunteering at the Life Station, volunteering at the church, serving here,
doing all kinds of things, cleaning, working, etc.
So for a year and a half after she would surely be dead, she was still serving God on earth.
She didn't know what was coming. I didn't know what was coming.
The fog of war was very real and after she passed away, we wept, we cried.
But we know where she is now.
I submit to you that we still don't quite see heaven clearly.
But Stuart and Judy see heaven very clearly.
The fog of war is real and for that reason, Jesus died, rose again, went to heaven.
God sent the Holy Spirit and he lives in us now so that wherever we are,
whenever we face that edge of the fog of war, we can claim this promise.
Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.
God says, these are the things I will do and I will not leave them undone.
I will make a way. I will guide them.
I will make darkness into light and rugged places into plains.
Now am I saying that the darkness that occurred while Jesus was on the cross teaches us that?
No, because the Bible doesn't say that.
But it is a fact. What I have said to you is a fact and it is a very evident fact to believers
after the crucifixion, after the moment of darkness.
From that point on, we now know that these things are true.
That moment marked a spot in time after which we now know that these things are true.
One more.
This side of that event, darkness, both symbolic and natural, has lost its importance.
It can no longer keep its grip on men.
While darkness once would rule, darkness once would reign, darkness once would control us,
drive us, create in us a fear that would push us to go a certain way, an anxiety about what was coming.
Like this is the area of the fog of war.
When I get over here, I know I have to go back this way because over here I can see
while darkness could have that effect on us, now darkness is coming.
While darkness could have that effect on us, now darkness has fallen.
Not darkness has fallen like it became dark.
There has always been darkness. There is darkness in this room right now.
Even though if you look at the lights in the ceiling, for long enough, they are painful enough,
they will probably give you a headache in about 15 minutes.
And yet there is darkness.
Just look at the shadows under the chairs of the people next to you.
Even in the brightest of lights there is darkness, but the truth is that darkness has fallen.
This side of the event, darkness, both symbolic and natural, has lost its importance.
It can no longer keep its grip on men.
Remember, let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.
Remember, though I fall, I will rise.
Though I dwell in darkness, the Lord is a light for me.
Jesus said it this way.
This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but people love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear their deeds will be exposed.
But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly
that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
We are called to live a life where darkness no longer reigns.
Darkness no longer has any power over us.
I am not afraid to go where God has taken me.
I will tell you what, if I am afraid of anything, it is to not go where God is taking me.
Even though I can't see the level ground, even though I can't see the pathway,
I am not fully equipped in my own estimation to be able to go where he is taking me.
Even though that is true, the thing that should scare you the most is to not go, to go where darkness still reigns,
to stay where darkness still has some control or scares you away from your purpose, your being.
God calls us, and light, if you will, calls us to respond.
We respond by repenting. We turn from our ignorance. We turn from our sin.
We turn from trusting in that which we think that we know and instead call upon the Lord.
We believe in the one who sent his Son to die on the cross.
We believe in the crucifixion as payment for sins.
We believe in the resurrection as testimony that we will live again.
We receive the Holy Spirit presence in us.
And if the Holy Spirit is with you, what do you have to fear?
Do you not know that that anchor, that testimony, that down payment proves that you will be in heaven one day?
If you die today in a car accident or take a bullet in your head, if you die from cancer in a week or even tomorrow,
we know a woman who went to the hospital feeling kind of sick and they diagnosed her with cancer
spread all throughout her body and she died like eight hours later.
So if you die, that down payment, that testimony, that Holy Spirit, He will take you home.
What fear is there in the knowledge that the Holy Spirit is in you? The answer is none.
Receive a new heart, care, have compassion. Yes, take blows, suffer, go through trials and tribulations just as Jesus did.
We walk as He walked and that does not mean untouchable in this lifetime, but it does mean untouchable in eternity.
We follow His teachings to the best of our current knowledge, believing and testifying to a risen Savior.
That's the Kingdom of God on this side of the crucifixion.
What did the Kingdom of God look like on the other side of the crucifixion?
Well, very similar, very similar, but requiring a certain amount of faith in an event that had not yet occurred.
That brings us to this conclusion. There are three things that I sort of pointed out to you and I'll rehash them now so we have them clearly.
The first one was that it can represent the absence of God, the absence of His goodness,
the absence of knowledge of Him or ignorance, sin, judgment, wrath, and even a time to rest from work.
It can represent all of those things, but the Bible does not clearly say that this darkness represented any of those things.
This darkness, whatever its exact purpose, does serve to mark a moment in time.
It's an unforgettable event that happened as Jesus was about to die.
And this side, our side of that event, darkness, both symbolic and natural, has lost its importance.
You could almost say that this darkness on that day was darkness's last hurrah.
It was the last opportunity to scare everybody half to death.
It was the last opportunity to trick everybody into appealing to their false gods,
to worshiping their idols, to staying hidden while things were unfolding.
But now, darkness has fallen.
That brings us to our conclusion. If you find yourself in darkness, you must listen now.
You are called out.
You wouldn't be here today if there wasn't your family, yourself, whatever, you came here today
because there is a good likelihood that something is going to be proclaimed here today,
that God can do something today, and let me tell you, that proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt,
that you are called out of darkness.
You must listen. 1 Peter 2.9 says, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people for God's own possession. That's what God is calling you to,
so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
You are called out of darkness. Darkness has fallen. Why would you want to stay there?
But the fact is, it appears that some of you, some of me, sometimes friends we have, etc.,
kind of enjoy fellowship with darkness.
There are some things that the world produces that we kind of like, spend a little time with,
stream a little too much, jump on social media, too many things on your phone,
posting things that shouldn't be posted, listening to things that shouldn't be listed,
doing things that shouldn't be done. We kind of enjoy it and get the rewards from it, right?
There are people out there who claim to be Christian, and they've risen to be making a thousand
or five thousand or ten thousand or even a hundred thousand dollars a month doing things that nobody should do.
And they started out on kind of a good footing, and people liked them then,
and now it's like they traded their conscience.
There is a people that claim the name of Jesus, but want to keep that fellowship with darkness,
and you must listen, you are called away.
So if you find yourself in darkness, you must listen, you are called out of darkness.
If you enjoy fellowship with darkness, you must listen, you are called away.
2 Corinthians 6, 14 says, Do not be bound together with unbelievers,
which is talking about relationship, right?
But listen to this, For what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness,
or what fellowship has light with darkness?
Let me show you how this little object, may I have this flashlight here?
And we'll see that the chair over here on the slina has a shadow, and now it doesn't.
It's a pretty bright flashlight.
There's a shadow under all three of those chairs. There's no shadow under that chair.
There's no shadow under that chair. There's no shadow under that chair.
Three of these chairs all have a shadow. Now it doesn't. Now it doesn't. Now it doesn't.
It's very simple, right? It's very simple.
Darkness can exist in light only if there is a barrier placed between the source of light
and where the darkness will hide. The chair creates a barrier.
From this angle I can shine a lighter, now the shadow is gone.
However, inside Chris's pocket, like where his left hand is right there,
it's dark and it's still dark. Right?
Inside the case of RJ's tablet that he's typing his notes on there, it's dark and it's still dark.
The only way to have darkness in light is to place a barrier between the darkness and the light.
Do you understand? And so if you want to have fellowship with darkness, a barrier has,
and you are in the light, you are walking in the light that is God's light,
then you have to have a barrier between the darkness and God.
And if you have a barrier between the darkness and God so that the darkness can exist
and you're going to have fellowship with the darkness, where do you have to be?
On the other side of the barrier from God, because that's the only place the darkness is. Right?
There is no darkness in God, no variation, no shadow of turning, no darkness whatsoever.
And so if you want to have a fellowship in this lifetime with that darkness,
the product of darkness, or behave as darkness yourself to produce something,
if you want to have that fellowship with darkness, you have to be on the other side of the barrier.
Hence your sin creates a barrier between you and God. Not because you're no longer able to be saved,
nothing has actually changed. Not because darkness has any power whatsoever.
Darkness is fallen. Darkness cannot restrain you.
But in your desire to have fellowship with darkness, which can only exist in a place
where there is a barrier between darkness and God, you must go across the barrier to where the darkness is.
And you will then be in the darkness.
Whatever that barrier is will create a shadow so that you will be in the darkness.
And some people find that relieving. Some people find that to remove stress.
Now I don't have the challenges. Now I don't have to do what God wants me to do.
I don't have to tell anybody about Jesus anymore because now I am in fellowship with darkness.
I have moved to the other side of the barrier.
Don't let your sins place a barrier between you and God.
Have no fellowship with darkness. You are called out.
Darkness is fallen. Darkness doesn't want to be gone.
And in some sense will still continue to exist until all darkness is gone.
And you don't want fellowship with darkness. You are called away.
So if you see darkness, you see a company, a manufacturer, a video, a song,
a type of music, or an artist, or a meme, or a friend, or a boyfriend, or a girlfriend.
And they are in darkness. Don't go be in darkness with them.
You are called away from that darkness.
That's exactly what the verse said.
Do not be bound together with unbelievers for what partridge have righteousness and lawless
or what fellowship has light with darkness.
The answer is none.
God now calls all men, and that means all men, all women, all people old enough to understand, to repent.
The darkness that bound men has fallen.
Acts 17, therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, and that word there, ignorance,
remember darkness and ignorance are often symbolic of one another.
Therefore having overlooked the time, you could say, of darkness,
God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent
because he has fixed the day in which he will judge the world in righteousness
through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead.
When God sends you into darkness, if there's a place you must go that seems dark,
you have to go into the fog of war, you must be the light.
And this is like maybe always, right?
Wherever you are on this earth, you must be the light.
Matthew 5, 14 to 16 says, You are the light of the world.
A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket,
but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works
and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Funny thing about darkness, when you're in the darkness, nobody sees anybody's works.
That's why thieves like to be out at night.
That's why drug addicts come out at night.
That's why prostitutes come out at night, right?
Because it feels safe, protected, comfortable. By what?
This law didn't change.
That's why young people who are doing things that they shouldn't be doing
want to stay up until 2, 3 a.m. and after mom and dad have gone to bed.
Because it feels safe.
I know, I was one.
But you're not safe.
You're going to a place where darkness still has some hope, some control, some reign.
Have no fellowship with darkness.
Rather, let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works
and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
A couple of closing illustrations.
The first one is, there's another thing that has to do with gaming,
a term that's called level grinding.
You know what level grinding is?
Some gamers in the room know what level grinding is?
Level grinding is when?
What was that game you were just playing earlier?
How do you level grind in Clash of Clans?
You attack other bases and you get more and more resources, etc.
So you level grind.
Level grinding in a video game will do you some good.
How?
It makes you more capable of winning.
It takes you to a place that you couldn't otherwise get to.
You can level grind in the things of the world.
You can pursue money, relationships.
You can behave sneaky, have fellowship with things of the world that you're not supposed to.
You can level grind there.
But believe it or not, you can also level grind in the kingdom.
Surrender yourself to doing so in the light of God, not in the light of men.
I will read my Bible.
Say, I'm not a very good reader.
I will listen to my Bible and I will read my Bible some,
but I will listen to my Bible always, a lot, and I will take it in.
I will make notes.
I will study.
I will worship.
I will praise.
I will pray.
I will level grind.
I will use the disciplines that God has given me to make me more godly, if you will.
Not to make you saved, whatever, but to make me more godly.
I'm going to level grind in the kingdom of God.
If you've spent 10 hours in Clash of Clans, and you probably spent a lot more than that,
if you've spent 10 hours in Clash of Clans, you've missed out on 10 hours of level grinding in the kingdom of God.
I'm just being transparent.
When I was working at Radio Shack back in the day, I started there when I was 19.
When I was 20, I bought my first computer pre-Pentium.
It was a 286, 286 megahertz.
That's how fast it ran.
At that day, it was like bold, man.
It was cutting edge.
It cost $1,200 on a credit card that I had to get just for that purpose.
I couldn't get $1,200 on one credit card, so I had to get two credit cards.
They had the RS, Radio Shack RSVP card.
It had a certain limit on it.
Then I had to get a MasterCard Visa.
I took my MasterCard Visa and extended it up to be like $500, and the rest of it on the RSVP card,
because I couldn't pay for it on one credit card.
I wanted that so bad.
Then I got a video game.
It was my first ever video game.
I really loved this game.
It was pretty cool.
You'd explore the galaxy and build your space crew.
You'd have different people with different skills.
You'd level grind.
You'd go out and use the skills of your characters.
You'd go up levels, and you'd find resources.
Then you'd go sell them for money, and you'd buy better stuff for your ship.
I played that video game.
I'll bet you in the first two months I had it, I played it probably 300 hours.
My crew was amazing, what they could do.
I'd go to sleep at night, and I'd lay down to rest, close my eyes.
I could see the screens from the video game when I was laying down there to go to sleep.
Not just a thing.
No big deal, right?
Then I met a young lady, fell in love, started dating,
spent a lot less time playing the video game, but still playing the video game too much.
One night I was sitting in front of the video game.
I was not saved.
I'm not a Christian.
I kind of believed that God existed.
I'm playing the video game, and she comes sat down behind me,
just pregnant, about four months with my child, playing the video game.
She wasn't doing nothing.
She wasn't hurting me at all.
She was just sitting there watching, playing the video game, just hanging out with me.
I started to feel guilty.
I started to feel like I didn't know what was going to happen.
I started to feel upset, the fog of war set in, like what's about to happen?
I didn't know.
So I responded.
I said, you know what you need?
I said, you need a hobby.
Love of my life, pregnant with my child.
I said, you need a hobby.
She got up and left the room crying.
It took probably, I don't know, years for her to overcome that nasty moment of bitterness.
I protected my God, who is that video game.
Be careful about falling in love with a man who loves video games.
Watch out for the fog of war.
Be careful about being a man who loves video games.
Watch out for the fog of war.
So then I'm free.
I'm safe, right?
Because I figured that out and I repented.
And even though I wasn't a Christian then, later I figured it out.
Long after becoming a Christian, I was a Christian for about five years.
I was living up in Michigan.
I was going to Bible college.
I got a video game called Knights and Merchants.
Still out there.
Pretty cool game.
Not like what we have now, but still pretty cool game.
And I got on Christmas break from school.
And I thought, you know what, I'm going to play that game.
I haven't played in a while.
I'm going to play that game.
And I started level grinding.
And in seven days, I played about probably 50 hours in seven days.
Christmas break, that's gone.
She's working all the time.
I'm not spending time with my kids.
They come in and see me while I'm playing the video game.
You know what I mean?
And then I started going to bed at night.
I started seeing the screens on the back of my eyelids.
And I realized I was in trouble.
I realized I was doing the same thing I used to do when I was saved,
well, before I was saved.
I realized I had fellowship with darkness.
Anybody can do it.
What I'm saying to you is a little level grinding will do you some good.
The level grinding you really need to do is in the kingdom of God.
We ran into a salesman at Costco.
And Arianna and I went there and he was trying to get me to switch over to AT&T cellular for my cell phone.
I don't want to switch over.
I just don't want to deal with it, right?
As far as I'm concerned, I'll probably have the same cellular company until Jesus comes again.
And unless somebody comes along and just totally wants to pay my bill,
then whatever company will be fine by me, I don't really care.
I don't have to deal with it.
And Arianna said, well, the same guy tried to sell Aunt Becky's cell phone service when we came here together last week.
And I'm like, yeah.
She said, yeah, same guy.
And she said, Aunt Becky just said to him, she don't want to hear it.
I was kind of nice to the guy, you know.
And we got talking about it.
And I said, well, the thing is if he asks 10 people and one people say yes, he makes a bunch of money.
So if he asked 10 people an hour and one person an hour says yes, he makes a bunch of money.
I said, so the only way he can go wrong is by not asking.
And the Holy Spirit said to me, yep, and that's evangelism.
That's telling people about Jesus.
You go out in the world, nine out of 10 people are still in the darkness.
They still think darkness has power.
They still have fellowship with the world.
And if you tell all nine of those people, one or two of them would accept Jesus and they would get free from the grip of darkness.
They would get saved and become an eternal being.
But we'll never tell nine, not in any short period of time, because as a class of people, we're kind of not telling anybody.
And the reason for that is we forgot that drastic moment that took place almost 2000 years ago and which darkness rained on the earth for three hours.
What was that moment?
It was the moment at which Jesus was crucified and paid for sins.
God has not sent his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God, God's one and only son.
When we leave this place today, I want to ask you to join me in level grinding.
Not in some video game, not in your kitchen or in your house or in your finances, but in the kingdom of God.
I want us to leave this place today and live for Jesus like we meant it when we said I'm going to live for Jesus for the rest of our lives.
I want us to leave this place today and live for Jesus, telling anyone who will listen, having compassion on those who are still lost in the darkness
and becoming very, very careful, very concerned, very determined not to allow in our presence that darkness which actually fell and cannot grip you anymore, cannot touch you, cannot hurt you as long as you're loving and living for the Lord.
Darkness fell.
You got some part of it?
You got some part with darkness?
You know, understand, you're called away from it.
You feel stuck in it, you want to be stuck in it sometimes maybe, you understand, you're called out of it.
And none of that, for sure anyway, is what it meant when it got dark for three hours.
But this much I do know, there was a major event that took place that day and darkness fell.
At this time I'll have the praise team come and lead us in our closing hymn.
I'm asking you to listen to what God is saying to you today and say, look, there are a lot of good things in this life.
There really are.
But God is better than any of them.
To realize that there is still darkness in this life.
There are lots of things that are separated from God, if you will.
When you start to have fellowship with one of them, I'd like you to say, no, I'm called away.
I won't do it.
If it's a person, if it's a hobby, you say, I'm called away.
I won't do it.
If it's darkness, you can have no part with darkness now because you are light.
Would you stand with me and sing this song and respond as the Lord is leading you to do so?
Whatever that might be.
The choice.
Jesus.
Oh.
Holy means completely different like lights.
He's whole.
Oh.
See one more.
Let this be our prayer to God.
Focus on the Lord right now.
Let's sing together.
Oh.