Welcome to NECF sermons.
Each message here is designed to uplift and strengthen you in your walk with God.
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Let's dive right in.
Hallelujah!
Yes, no distractions today.
So that my suits will hold me down.
Hallelujah!
Praise God.
Amen.
Well, welcome to God's presence.
It's good to see our faces.
It's good to be in church this morning in the family of God this morning.
And I want to thank our lead pastor, Pastor Frederick Letong, for the opportunity to share
the word of God.
This morning, I want to thank the associate pastors as well for their commitment to this
work for the grace to teach the word, to learn the word and grow together in God.
Hallelujah!
This morning, we'll be building on what we have started.
Right?
We'll be building on what we have started.
Our lead pastor led us through manifesting the kingdom of God, which is the theme of the
year.
Hallelujah!
Can we say manifesting the kingdom of God?
Say I will manifest the kingdom of God.
And it helps us to understand what we have misunderstood, right, by heaven.
It laid the foundation for us to understand what we have misunderstood as heaven.
And the following we, Pastor Victor, picked up and took us through understanding the kingdom
of God, right?
Understanding the kingdom of God, manifesting the kingdom of God, understanding the kingdom
of God.
And this morning, you can choose any of either the topics, but for the sake of just saving
the message, right, you can just call it the union with Christ.
Okay?
Our union with Christ.
Because it took me time to actually find a topic.
There's no crafting of any topic.
We'll be going through the same topic all through the year, expansively checking the
scripture to help us understand what manifesting the kingdom of God is.
What understanding the kingdom of God is.
But today you can just call it our union with Christ.
And last week, Pastor Victor ended on a very important note that when a man believes that
is how the man does what, access the kingdom of God.
He comes into the kingdom of God.
Right?
So we're talking about John 3 verse 1 to 3 talking about Nicodemus and Christ's explanation
to him that accepts a man be born again.
He cannot be in the kingdom of God.
And if you're not in the kingdom of God, you cannot manifest the kingdom of God.
Okay?
So I'm just recapping this because what we are doing this year is we are building up
on everything.
Right?
We are building up on these teachings.
So today I want to explain further.
Right?
I want to explain further what that being born again is.
And I titled it our union with Christ.
Hallelujah.
Because when we understand this, our union with Christ, which has been born again, we
are able to manifest.
Right?
In subsequent teachings we will go to manifest.
But we need to understand our union with Christ.
Because in our union with Christ, we will understand heaven very well.
Right?
We would understand what heaven is.
John chapter 14.
You will hear a whole lot of things that you've heard in previous week again and again because
that's to get into us.
Then when we teach what manifestation is, you will be able to manifest.
John chapter 14 from verse 1.
It's a let not your heart be troubled, yet believe in God, believe also in me.
In my father's house are many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you.
That's three.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself.
That where I am, dear, ye may be also.
Now the foundation of this kind of a teaching or this kind of a statement by Christ in chapter
14 started from chapter 13.
Okay?
So someone can not just approach you and tell you not let not your heart be troubled.
If your heart is not troubled by certain information that you have received.
So there's only a source or there's only a need for comfort when there's an information
that you have received and you are thinking it is not palatable to your mind, then you
will be troubled.
So if you go to chapter 13 verse 1, don't forget, when we read the scriptures, we have
to read them in chunks, not just chapters.
Because you have to squeeze five chapters together to understand what is taking place.
So in chapter 13, it said, now before the feasts of the Passover, when Jesus knew that
this hour is how has come to depart out of this world to the Father.
Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
So it was about time for Christ to depart this world.
He notes, he said to depart away from this world to where?
To the Father.
Right?
To the Father.
So you have to note that because in chapter 14, it began to explain what we call the Father's
house in verse 2.
So just look at chapter 14 verse 2.
You should use hard copy Bible because to maneuver digital Bibles, it's not really helpful.
You can't maneuver quickly, right?
On a page, you can be seen the two chapters.
So use your hard copy Bibles, we encourage that very well.
So if you're in verse 2, you will see that what Jesus has said about the Father is now
becoming very clear.
He now explained that's what the Father's house.
Right?
So verse 13, because it was about to depart, let's go to chapter 13 verse 21.
He said, after these things, Jesus was troubled in the spirit and testified, truly, truly
I say to you, one of you will betray me.
The disciples looked at one another, on the side of whom he spoke, one of the disciples
whom the Lord was reclining at table at Jesus' side.
So Simon Peter mentioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking.
So that the disciples leaning back against Jesus said to him, Lord, who is it?
Jesus answered, it is he to whom I will give this mussel of bread when I have dipped it.
So when he had dipped the mussel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon is carried.
Then after he had taken the mussel, Satan entered into him.
Jesus said to him, what you are going to do, do it quickly.
No one at the table knew what he said, knew why he said this to him.
Some thought because Judas had the money back, Jesus was telling him, buy what we need for
the feast or that should give something to the poor.
So after receiving the mussel of bread, he immediately went out and it was night.
Verse 13, sorry, verse 31.
When he had gone out, Jesus said, now is the son of man glorified and God has glorified
in him.
If God has glorified in him, God will also glorify himself in him and glorify him at
once.
Little children, yet a little while I am with you.
You will seek me and just as I said to the Jews, so now I say to you, where I am going,
you cannot come.
A new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you.
You are all, you also are to love one another by these all people will know that you're
my disciples.
If you love one another, rest six, Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going?
Jesus answered, where I am going, you cannot follow me now.
Right now, but you will follow afterwards.
Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now?
I will lay down my life for you and Jesus said, will you lay down your life for me?
Truly, truly, I say to you, the roster will not grow till you have denied me three times.
Now the setting of this reading is one of a betrayal, right?
Of a betrayal.
So Jesus is saying, one of you will betray me, right?
So everybody begins to wonder who is going to betray Jesus?
Am I the one who's going to betray Jesus?
Right?
So Jesus was leaning close to him, began to ask the question.
Another thing we see here, he said that I will go, I will depart from you.
For a little while, you will not see me.
Right?
This somebody who has discipled them for three years, right?
Three and a half years, they're about, and he's saying you will not see me again.
Because of him, they have done many things on the streets.
They have scattered the message of the kingdom to the streets.
And now, the one who is leading the people who would share, or who have been sharing
the message is departing.
So you can imagine the state of mind that the disciples find themselves.
But he says something that they missed.
He said, where I am going, you cannot do what, you cannot go with me now.
You cannot go with me now where I'm going.
But afterwards, you would follow after.
Right?
You would follow after.
So we see that, let your heart not be troubled is very important.
Right?
Let your heart not be troubled is very important because of the parameters of betrayal, of
Jesus going, yet mentioning is returning.
So therefore, chapter 14 is actually explaining something much more clearly about the going
of Jesus.
Hallelujah.
Are we together?
Chapter 14, therefore, is explaining clearly about his going.
So he said, let not your heart be troubled.
Believe in God.
You believe in God.
Right?
Believe also in me.
Okay?
Believe also in me.
Now, when you go for evangelism, right, and someone tells you they believe in God.
Okay?
Believe in God.
You need to always ask them, what do you believe about God?
Okay?
Because when somebody believes in God, it means, it should mean that he believes in
Christ.
That's what you see there.
Believe in God.
Believe also in me.
So if someone said they believe in God, it means they believe Christ.
So when the person believe in God, and they believe not Christ, then they don't believe
in God.
He's not talking about the existence of God.
He's not talking about, oh, I know there's a diet up there.
Right?
He's not talking about that.
We're going to read it as we proceed in verse two and verse three.
He's not talking about the mere existence of God.
He's talking about the Christ and what the Christ will do.
So he said, believe in God.
Believe also in me.
In my father's house.
Who remembers what the pastor called this?
Father's house.
The word father's house in Greek.
What is the word?
Can we coerce it?
The father's house in Greek, what's the word?
Oikea, right?
Oikea, good.
Oikea.
And it means what?
Dwelling.
Household.
Hallelujah.
Right?
It means household, which means a family as well.
Okay?
A family.
So in my father's house, there are many rooms.
Who remember what the rooms are?
The word in Greek for rooms.
Let's coerce it.
Monet.
Right?
You should know this word.
And that is dwelling.
Right?
That is dwelling.
So Jesus provides clarity on where Christ is going.
Right?
And where the disciples need not to be troubled.
Right?
So they need not to be troubled because he's going somewhere.
And that place is the father's house.
First, we see that believing in the fact that Christ is going to the father's house is creating
a space is key.
Because you already said that in verse one.
So believe in God, believe also in me.
We said it's not about the existence.
But believing in what Christ would do.
In my father's house, Oikea, which is family, there are many rooms which is a dwelling.
Now let me ask a question to church.
If you say, okay, let me put it this other way.
When we talk about a family and a household, when we talk about a family and a household,
do we mean the building or the people?
Do we mean the building or the people?
The people.
Right?
So it would mean that Jesus talking about a household here is not talking about a building.
He's not talking about a physical structure that you can touch and you can feel.
We're going to see that from the scriptures.
So it's not talking about a physical structure that you can feel.
So if I say my family is in the church, right, I'm talking about the place I live.
I'm talking about my family building.
But I'm talking about the people.
Right?
So he's trying to say that in my going, I will, right?
He said, in my father's house, there are many rooms.
Okay, let's, let's read that once a little bit before I make my statement.
He said, if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
Verse three, if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and we will take you
to myself.
So Jesus is saying that I will go and establish this household, right?
Provide access, make available this household.
That's then I will come again to you.
That's where I am.
You will be.
So I go to prepare a place, right?
I go to make a place.
He's simply talking about Christ going to make something accessible to us.
Okay?
So he's saying that Christ, I go to prepare a place is that I'm going to make this family
something you can assess.
I go to a place.
It means I go to make this accessible.
So in my father's house, there are many rooms, verse three, just jump to verse three, said,
I go to make this family accessible for you.
Then when it is accessible, thank you for that scripture, I will come again.
Two things.
I go to prepare the place.
I will come again and we take you to myself.
So three things, right?
Three things we can pick there.
It's going to make the place accessible.
When the place is accessible, it's not just going to go.
He will come again, right?
And when he comes again, what will happen?
He will take us to what?
To himself.
Good.
Now that word or the phrase, I go to prepare a place for you is actually referring to the
death of Christ.
Okay?
So you can write it down.
It refers to the death of Christ because it destroys death and his resurrection.
As the family of God, the Oikea is made available as a dwelling.
Through the death and resurrection of Christ, the family of God is made accessible as a
dwelling, is made available as a place.
So no one could actually come in without the death and resurrection of Christ.
But that is why he said, I will go and come again, referring to his resurrection.
In that said, please leave the description on the screen, please.
In that said, I will take you to myself.
So we see death, we see resurrection, and we see union with Christ.
I'm using the word union, right?
For those of you that know the word ascension, I'm not using it here because the ascension
needs to be taught much more clearly.
But it's union.
Right?
The death, the burial, resurrection, and the union with Christ.
So therefore, the Oikea, right?
The Oikea is actually, okay, let me backtrack.
We've gotten the three points, right?
Did we get the three points?
We got the three points, the death, the burial, and the union with Christ.
Now if we say that what this scripture is saying is actually a particular futuristic
event today, we say that it's something that will happen in the future and has not happened.
It will mean that Jesus has not fulfilled his promise to the disciples.
It means that nobody is in union with Christ.
Nobody has access to the kingdom of God.
Nobody has access to the family of God.
So if we say that this is something that is to come, it means that the house of God is
still empty.
If there's something like that, and nobody have access.
But indeed, since we say that it is the death and the resurrection, it means that the access
to that house, to that family is available.
Are we together?
The access to that family is available.
Therefore, the disciples now, since the death and resurrection has taken place, the disciples
we can say they are in union with Christ.
And we that have believed are also in union with Christ.
We are in God's family.
So therefore, there will be a union in Christ's family, as at the time of this writing, there
was no union, right?
But we will see that there's a union after Christ has died and he has resurrected.
Now let's go to Ephesians chapter two.
Ephesians chapter two, verse six.
Or let's go to verse 17.
Let's start with verse 17.
We'll come back to verse six.
Verse 17.
He said, and he came and preached peace to you who were afar off and peace to those who
were near.
For through him, we both have what?
Access in one spirit to the what?
The Father.
He said, for through him, we both have access in one spirit to what?
So the Father.
John 13 is going to the Father, right?
John 14 is going to the Father's house, right?
He's preparing the Father's house.
Here we now see in Ephesians, after the dead and all pertaining to him are taking place.
We see that we now have access.
Now let's continue reading.
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints
and members of the what, the household of God, which is the same word, oikea.
Here they use it as oikos, right?
Household of God.
Same root word.
So what we see here is that John 14 is talking about our union with Christ.
Are we together?
It's talking about what?
Our union with Christ.
Now let's go to Ephesians five.
Ephesians five.
Ephesians five from verse 25.
It says, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the blood,
so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any
such thing that might, that she might be holy and without blemish.
In the same way, husband should love their wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his wife, love himself for no one have hated his own flesh, but nourishes,
cherishes it just as Christ does the church.
Because we are members of his body, therefore shall a man, therefore a man shall leave his
father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.
This mystery is profound.
And I am saying that it refers to what?
To Christ and what?
The church.
However, let it be of you love his wife as himself and let his wife sees that they respect
their husband.
So what we see here again is the understanding of union.
So we can say that John chapter 14 and Ephesians 5 from verse 25 downwards is actually explaining
one thing that is common, which is union with Christ.
So we see present the church to himself, right?
Present the church to himself means both Christ and the church are together.
Did we see that?
Both Christ and the church are together.
His own flesh, they become one flesh.
We see union in that as well, right?
And it says this mystery refers to what?
Christ and the church.
To therefore say that our union with Christ is something that will happen in the future
in a particular location is a wrong teaching.
Okay?
So there is no, I know many of us are already thinking of Thessalonians and we'll go there,
right?
It's just in so many, we'll go there.
There is no scriptures, right?
That says that our union, right, is something futuristic.
Future, that's when we would be united, but no, there's nothing like that.
The scripture that comes to your mind is 1 Thessalonians 5 and we're going to read it
and explain it.
So therefore, right now we can say that we are in union with Christ, okay?
We can say we are in union with Christ.
We are already with Christ, but we are in this body.
It's like saying that you are married, okay?
You're married and your husband is absent in your present location, maybe where you
are.
And the person probably just took a trip out and you say because he's not physically present,
you are not married.
That is what we do when we say we are not in union with Christ because you are not saying
Christ is physically present in a spiritual body, right?
They're saying, oh, we are not in union with him, right?
But while that can happen in a real life situation, it doesn't happen with God, okay?
When it comes to spirituals, it doesn't.
You are in union with Christ.
So our union with Christ is not something futuristic, but something that has taken place
at the moment we believe.
Now let's now check Thessalonians 5 that said that we will be caught up, right?
We will be caught up with him.
Let's go to 1 Thessalonians 5.
I'm not going to explain everything, just a few things there from verse 13.
He said, but now we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are
asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.
For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring
with him those who are falling asleep.
For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord that we who are alive, who are left
until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who are falling asleep.
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of a command, with the voice of
an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ who rise for
us.
For we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with him, with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
So we will always be with the Lord.
Therefore encourage one another in these.
Now this place, if you just read it this way, and you put your holy wood mind or your nolly
wood mind or your bully wood mind into thinking, what you will see is graves open, some people
levitating up, and you that you are alive, you are joining them, right, if you try to
follow the scriptures.
Because it says that those who are alive and are left, we will be caught up.
You know what caught up means, you will be going up, right, together with them, those
who are in the clouds also, to meet with the Lord, we are in the air.
A-I-R, I don't mind.
So in the air, right, you would, so if you put such kind of a mind on this is what you
will see.
And that would mean, you now translate that heaven is the cloud, and heaven is the sky.
That is not heaven.
Okay, because what the scripture means, just two words, we just do two word study and we
will clarify that our union with Christ has taken place, and this place is not talking
about a union, this place is talking about a congregation, a coming together of people
who are already united.
So you can write it down, that 1 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians 4, sorry, 1 Thessalonians
4, verse 13 to 18 is talking about people who are already in union, but they are coming
for a conference, if you can put it that way, they are coming for a congregation.
It's congregating, it's not talking about union, because union has taken place when
they believed.
So this part is talking about congregating, people coming together.
So why did I say it's not a union, but it's actually coming together?
Verse 17 says, we who are alive, we will be caught up.
First, that caught up word, there's no up there.
Okay, you can, it's a phrase, don't split it.
If you split it, it will mean, caught up means you will translate it to you going up.
So where do we find these other words?
Matthew 11 verse 12, the word is actually apagia, right, in Greek.
The word is actually apagia in Greek, H-A-R-P-A-Z-O, apagio, apagio means pens.
H-A-R-P-A-Z-O, that word caught up is apagia.
It means to be taken, it means to be taken.
In places where it appears, it is used as to be taken together with something, to be
taken.
It has nothing to do with people moving into the sky.
Now let's read Matthew 11, 12, can you quickly give me Matthew 11, 12?
From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence
and the violence are parjoined by force, they take it.
Does it mean that the violence are going up into the sky?
No, it doesn't mean that.
Matthew 13, 19, quickly, Matthew 13, 19.
We're trying to debunk the idea that the cloud is heaven and we are going to participate
in something.
When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes
and snatches it away, that's the word, to take away, to take away what has been sown,
right?
To take away.
The next scripture, John 6, 15.
John 6, 15.
Meaning that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, take.
The word take.
Now let me show you two places where it was used as cut up as well.
Second Corinthians 12, 2 verse 4 and Revelation 12, verse 5.
If you have wisdom, you know now.
The moment I call revelation, you know what that will be.
So second Corinthians 12, verse 2 to 4 and Revelation 12, verse 5.
In these two places, the word apadu was used as cut up, was translated as cut up.
Now let's go to second Corinthians.
I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was cut up to the third heavens, whether in the
body or out of the body, I do not know.
God knows.
We know that this man was cut up into paradise, whether in the body or out of the body, I
do not know.
God knows, right?
And he had things that cannot be told, which man cannot alter.
Paul is referring to a vision here, right?
It's related to a vision, not a physical event taking place.
He's referring to a vision.
Verse 12, verse 5 is also used as cut up, which is also a vision.
Okay?
So it means that you cannot take vision literally.
Actually, even in that place, he refers to, he was taken into the heavens, which means
taken into a spiritual realm.
Not Paul, even in that vision, he was not levitating.
He was actually taken into a spiritual realm, right?
That's the meaning.
An unseen realm, immaterial world, right?
And he was told things that could not be altered.
So these are the only two scriptures that actually use the word cut up.
And we have seen that it only means to be taken.
Now when we go to 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Thessalonians 4, it would therefore mean that we can read
it this way.
Then we who are alive and who are left will be taken together with them in the clouds.
Now let's deal with clouds.
We have dealt with cut up.
You have been, you know, you have been cut up with your rules.
You know what that means, right?
You were not levitating when you got caught up with Instagram rules.
So it means that you cannot just use word, just give them a wrong interpretation.
Now the word clouds is air, I don't know, you said in the air in some places, it's AER,
right?
The word cloud in 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 17 is AER, oh no, not, pardon, excuse me.
Okay, that's air, that's something else.
Now the word clouds, the word clouds is not air, sorry.
It has another Greek word, but what it simply means is actually referring to a congregation
which we see in Hebrews, right?
We see this word in Hebrews.
Let's go to Hebrews.
I will explain the air there, but cloud refers to a people.
Hebrews chapter 12, Hebrews chapter 12 verse 1, this is one place where we can see.
It said, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of what?
Of witnesses, right?
So great a cloud of what?
Witnesses.
The witnesses are those who are witnesses of the faith, right?
People who have witnessed the faith, and we see Hebrews 11 mention a number of them that
have believed the message.
Are we together?
So this cloud of witnesses are the same people.
We will come together and we'll form a cloud, which will form a congregation.
So yes, there is a time that will come where this world, this mortality will give up for
the immortality to come in.
Yes, there's a time.
Nobody is saying there is no time where everything would end.
There's a time.
But that time is not what you always refer to as rapture.
It is not a time.
Let me tell you what I wrote here.
I said it is not a time of disappearance, right?
It is not a time of disappearance.
You can write it down.
It is not a day you will not know about.
It is not a day you will not know if you are in the Lord or not.
It is not a day of you will now realize, oh, I've not been serving God all my life.
It's not.
It is the day where because you have believed in God, you will congregate with those who
have believed in God and have slept in the Lord.
Means they have died and they are buried.
So it means they will rise and we who are alive, we will congregate with them.
Do we get it?
It's not going to the sky.
It has nothing to do with the sky.
Right?
So forget those movies.
So it is not a day of levitating to the sky.
It is not a day of uncertainty.
The movies we watch will show that, oh, I was not sure.
Oh, and I've been serving God.
They will now show you one place.
Ah, he did not forgive his brother.
Oh, that is why.
Oh, before he entered the church, he just insulted somebody.
And that is why he did not make it.
It doesn't work like that.
That is not what the scripture is saying.
It said those of you that are in the Lord, right, that are alive.
Are you not in the Lord?
Are you not in union with the Lord?
Let's continue.
So it is not a day of uncertainty.
You are certain, you know, right, that they will come and you know that you are in the
Lord.
And you will gather in that congregation.
And that congregation, I said I refuse to call it the rapture, right, the way we all
because in fact, there's no word like that.
But because they've gone to this place to teach that that's rapture, right.
Now rapture is actually your union with Christ.
It's actually the same word to be taken in with Christ.
The indwelling of God is actually your rapture.
Do we get it?
Your union with Christ, it means to come together with Christ.
Right.
What is happening in first Thessalonians is everybody that has come to it is like, let
me give you an example.
They call for a conference.
They call for a conference of engineers.
Right.
They say all engineers should come for this conference.
Is it when they call for that conference that the engineers are made or before that conference
the engineers were made?
Before the conference they were made.
So it's not rapture that is not this gathering that is making you enter into the kingdom
of God.
Do we get it?
But you are gathering with people who are in the kingdom of God.
We are gathering with people who are in the kingdom of God.
This meeting, it is not a meeting of salvation.
This meeting it will happen.
It is not a meeting of salvation.
It is not a meeting to establish the kingdom of God.
It is a meeting that those who are in the kingdom of God will come together as one.
Okay.
All right.
Now let's go further.
First Thessalonians 4.
I mean I'm sure pastors will still give us more on that as the year.
Let's go back to First Thessalonians 4.
It says, meet the Lord in the air.
Okay.
To meet the Lord in the air and so we will always be with the Lord.
If you read this well and you want to apply justice to what you have been thinking, to
meet the Lord in the air therefore we and the Lord will be in the air suspended there
and we will be there forever with him.
That is what it will mean if you take it literally.
So we will always be with the Lord because we will meet him in the air and he will be
in the air.
So it therefore means that we cannot use direct literal words to explain these things because
they are spiritual realities.
All right the air just like I said is the word AER or AEMI.
Let's go to Acts 22 verse 23.
Which is the place where this word was also used.
This is the place where this word was also used.
And as they were shouting and throwing off their clothes and flinging dusts in the air.
So this is used directly describing what someone saw taking place.
What someone saw taking place which is throwing things into the space, into the atmosphere.
So it's used not figuratively here but directly.
All right 1 Corinthians 9 verse 26.
So I do not run aimlessly.
I do not box as one beating the air.
So now he's talking about making things or doing things fruitlessly.
So he's talking about I'm not being fruitless in this place.
I do run with a target.
So I'm not hazzardly doing things.
So beating the air does not mean punching the air.
Here it's used figuratively.
So we've seen a place where it's used literally.
A place which we can take it figuratively because beating the air means doing something
that has no yield result.
First Corinthians 14 verse 9.
So with yourself, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how
will anyone know what is said?
For you'll be speaking into the air, right?
You're speaking into the air means no one can comprehend, right?
Which is similar to beating the air.
The two used figuratively, right?
Now let me show you the main scripture that now.
So it means that this word can be used figuratively and it can be used literally.
And you cannot transpose the meaning in either of the two contexts.
Now the main scripture that now give us understanding to this is Ephesians 2.
Ephesians 2 brings us close to it.
Ephesians 2.
Ephesians 2 verse 1.
Just give me Ephesians 2 verse 1 to 2.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once worked following the course
of this world, following the Prince of the power of the air.
What is the Prince of the power of the air?
The spirit that is now at work in the sons of what?
Disobedience.
So what is the power of it?
No, no, just understand that.
What is the power of the air?
The spirit that is now at work.
So it's talking about a spiritual.
Air is used as a spiritual reality.
A spiritual realm.
So if you go to verses 1, it's not talking about the atmosphere, but it's talking about
the spiritual realm.
That at the end, we will be in the spiritual realm with those that are falling asleep and
we will meet the Lord in that realm.
And there we will be forever.
Are we together?
He says, so we will always be with the Lord.
Now I now try to check if there is anything before verse 18 because verse 18 says, encourage
each other with these words.
Right?
So I check maybe between verse 17 and 18, there is something that added streets of gold.
Something that added heaven as a hall where God is sitting and there's cloud, street of
gold, you know, where all the houses and mansions that we have misinterpreted in John 14, maybe
they managed to insert it there.
What I checked and there was nothing.
These therefore meaning that since we are united with God, we are in union with Christ
on this earth, what is left for us, right, is to gather together as a people that are
in union with Christ and stay with him in the spiritual realm forever.
So therefore, heaven is not a physical location, just like Pastor started teaching us.
Heaven is not a physical location.
The mansions are not in physical.
Thank God we started with that explanation.
First Corinthians 15 verse 42 to 45.
Let me show you one thing that complements first Thessalonians for Pastor Victor already
told us that last week.
He mentioned it.
That's what is left for the believer.
Okay, so exactly the same scriptures.
So let's read from, no, I mean first Corinthians 15, 42 to 48.
So is it with the resurrection of the dead.
Just here in the scripture, someone will say, does it mean that Pastor Mario is teaching
that there's no resurrection of the dead?
That's not what I'm teaching, okay.
I already told you there's a day, right, where those who have slept in Christ would rise
again.
If you read first Corinthians 15, there was an argument about those who said there's no
more resurrection or the resurrection has passed or something like that.
This one is explaining to us much more that there's actually a day, right, a day that
was saw in first Thessalonians of such where the perishable, right, will give up and the
imperishable will be taken up.
So is it with the resurrection of the dead?
What is son imperishable?
What is son perishable?
What is raised is imperishable.
It is son in the son, it is raised in glory.
It is son in weakness, it is raised in power.
It is son in a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
Thus it is written the first Adam became a living being and the last Adam became a life-giving
spirit.
But it is not the spirit that is first but the natural, then the spiritual.
The first man was from the earth, a man of those and the second man is from heaven.
And as was the man of those, so also are those who are of the dust.
And as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of what's heaven.
Just as we are born the image of the man of those, we will also be the image of what's
the man of heaven, right?
We will be Adam.
So here he's talking about a spiritual body that the believer would receive, right?
To give up our existence in this physical body.
So that is what is left for the believer.
Hallelujah.
That is what is left for the believer.
To be able to exist in the spiritual realm, we will take up this spiritual body.
Because Christ has it.
Hallelujah.
We appreciate you being here today.
We hope you carried this word with you throughout your week.
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