Stay Calm for He Has Got It Under Control

The victory you have through a victorious God, today on Leading the Way. We're not serving a weakling defeated dead hero. We are the soldiers of the conquering Lord. Therefore, everyone who knows him must start living as a conquering soldier.

Instead of living in fear, we should be sending terror into the heart of the devil. Instead of living in defeat, we need to live in victory as we surrender to the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. For more than 30 years, Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Yusef has passionately proclaimed uncompromising truth, right here in this neighborhood and in neighborhoods just like it all around the world.

Today, a reminder that you serve a risen Lord, and that gives victory through surrender. It's part of Dr. Yusef's series called God Has the Answer for Every Problem You Face. Please do remember that Leading the Way is listener supported, meaning that Dr. Yusef relies on God's provision through listeners just like you, listeners who are blessed by his teaching and his ministry impact. So learn how you can stand with Dr. Yusef at ltw.org.

More on that later. Right now though, listen with me to a message called, Stay Calm For He Has Got It Under Control. Three things that I want to share with you from the Psalm. Psalm 24. First, you look at verses 1 and 2 and you find the declaration of the Lord's ownership of the whole universe. Secondly, in verses 3 to 6, you see the Lord's offer, which is the ultimate offer. And thirdly, verses 7 to 10, you find the Lord's conquering and overcoming to be unavoidable, inevitable.

So let's look at the first two verses. The Lord's ownership of the universe. The earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof.

I love that old translation. The earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof. Some of you probably already thinking or saying in your mind, Wait a minute Michael, but I thought the earth belongs to Satan. I thought Satan is the prince of the air. I thought the earth is controlled by Satan. Now the people who belong to Satan on the earth controlled by Satan.

So I want you to hang in there with me. I'm going to explain it, okay? The Lord's territorial claim is the ownership of the entire universe. The countless stars, the vast space empires, the unfathomable orbits.

They are all His. One planet in the midst of the hundred million galaxies in the Milky Way is planet Earth. But, tens of millions of stars that are spinning around the center of this giant disk is an enormous disk that's dotted with stars. A hundred thousand light years is from rim to rim. An inconceivable six hundred million billion miles of stars.

They're all His. Some thirty thousand light years from the center of that desk of stars is a modest sized star which is called the sun. The sun spins around the hub of the universe carrying with it a family of baby stars. Think about it this way. They're spinning around this intelligible space holding tight onto that mighty star. It's like a bunch of kids holding onto mama's skirt, right?

Get that picture in your mind. That mama and her children make their orbit around the center of the galaxies once every two hundred million years. And yet one out of the millions upon millions upon millions of planets and galaxies, the maker and the owner of the whole universe focuses just on that one planet.

Of all of them. Why the Earth? Why planet Earth? Why not Mars? Why not Mercury? Why not Venus? Why not Saturn or Nipton?

Why? Why planet Earth? Which is really a speck when you think about it in relationship to all the size of the big planets. Because, beloved, nowhere in the universe does God need to assert Himself and His ownership as in the planet Earth. Long before Adam and Eve and long before the Garden of Eden, long before the serpent in the garden, long before creation, Lucifer, who was the angel of light, Lucifer who reflected the light of God, Lucifer who served at the throne of God, Lucifer rebelled against God and he wanted to take the Earth as his domain. But he couldn't.

Did you know that? Until Adam handed it to him. Adam gave it to him. And that is why God had to reinstate His authority over planet Earth. And that is why God had to rescue planet Earth from the foreign invaders of His property.

And He exactly did this more than two thousand years ago on a hill called Calvary. The Earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof. The Lord's ownership of the universe. Secondly, the Lord's offer is the ultimate.

Look with me please at verses three to six. Verse three, who may ascend to the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in the holy place?

The answer is very simple. No one. No one is good enough to stand before God. No one is righteous enough to stand before God. No one is pure enough to stand before God.

No one is clean enough to stand before God. In David's day, only the high priest who goes through all sorts of rituals, he goes into the Holy of Holies once a year and for the briefest of time. And he goes in there in dread and fear lest his life will be snuffed because of his sin and the sin of the people. So he offers a sacrifice of his own sin first.

Then he offers a sacrifice on behalf of the people. And David here looks forward through the eyes of faith into the New Testament. He looks forward with the eyes of faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, where the Lord is making the ultimate invitation, which he had done so for now two thousand years and issues an inclusive invitation. He issues an open door, an open arm invitation, whomsoever will repent and turn from their sin and wickedness will receive grace from his hand.

Who can come? Look at verses four and five. Not once a year, not for a briefest moment, not in fear and tremble, not in uncertainty and doubt.

No! But it's also, listen to me, listen to me, it is also not y'all come, you hear? There are evidence that must be exhibited for those who have come, for those who have washed their sin with the blood of Jesus Christ. It's got to be evidence, exhibited evidence for those who have been washed by the blood of the Lamb, those whose sins are forgiven and forgotten by Jesus, those whose outward life is reflecting an inward obedience, those whose clean hands reflect an inward integrity toward Jesus, those whose heart are not filled with the desire for this world and for what is seen only, those who love God more than anything else in life, those who live for God, not for self, and those who serve God and not self.

That's the evidence. Here's a big problem. It's a big problem with so-called the professing church. Many of them still living in the Old Testament.

What do I mean by that? As I already told you in the Old Testament, the high priest is the only one who entered into the Holy of Holies and for the briefest of time, he had to wear bells because as long as he can hear the bells, he's still alive, but he could have been stricken dead. That's how it means to be in the presence of God. And these sins were only covered for one year, they have to come back the following year.

Why? Because animal sacrifice cannot permanently remove sin and the stain of sin. They had to come back year after year after year because the blood of bulls and lambs only provide temporary covering. Never permanent solution to sin. Never permanent forgiveness of sin.

Never forgiving and forgetting. But those who are truly in Christ Jesus, and this is the Psalmist's look of faith down the road just as Abraham did, those who truly come to Jesus declaring themselves sinners and desperate in need of God's forgiveness, those who confess that only Jesus and his blood that was shed on Calvary can purify us and wash away all of our sins. Only they who can come to him and offer clean hands because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ that has been imputed upon them. And these sins, my beloved, are covered not for a year or ten years or a hundred years, but for all of eternity, for all of eternity. The Bible said only Christ can wipe away our sins permanently.

Another question. Do you know the one thing that God cannot do? Of course, next to that he can't sin.

Do you know? Is that he cannot remember the sins of repentant sinners. He cannot remember confessed sins from which you have repented and you became child of God by adoption. He doesn't remember them.

Not because that he has a case of amnesia. It's that he will not hold it against you. That you are justified before Christ. But something else you need to know about Old Testament redemption.

The concept of the Old Testament redemption. Only a kinsman redeemer can really redeem you. Remember the story of Boaz and Ruth and... You know what the two qualifications that a kinsman redeemer has to have? First of all, he's got to be a relative. And secondly, he has to be very wealthy. He's got to be so wealthy that he can pay the price of redemption that he can become a kinsman redeemer. And beloved, let me ask you this. Who is richer than the one who owns the universe?

No one. And why do you think Jesus taught us, his children, to say, our father? This is not a prayer that people rattle. I've been in churches where people say, our father, and they just muddle through it.

No. He taught his children to look up to heaven and call his father, our father. Jesus is not just trying to be nice. Jesus is not just trying to make you feel good.

No, no, no, no, no. It is because we become his beloved children through the blood of Jesus. We become his relatives. And we have to be relatives in order he may redeem us. We have to become relatives for him to become our kinsman redeemer. And if you're not relative of Jesus, if you're not relative of the father, today you can be. Repent of your sins.

Turn to the only one who can forgive you and redeem you. Not just in this life. He redeems for eternity. Churches are focused so much on this life that we have lost sight of eternity. Of the saddest things in modern 21st century evangelical church. The Lord's ownership of the universe, the Lord's offer is the ultimate. And the Lord's overcoming is unavoidable and inevitable.

Look with me, please. The last three verses. Do you know that five times, five times in these three verses, the Holy Spirit inspires David to speak of Christ. To prophesy of Christ as the king of glory.

Do you get it? Five times. And the challenge or the question comes in twice. Who is the king of glory? First answer. The Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle.

Then comes the second question, second challenge. As if you say, I didn't hear that. Who? And he gives you the emphasis. He wants everybody to hear it. He wants hell to tremble. He wants Satan to tremble. He wants the enemies of God to tremble. He is the king of glory.

He is the almighty, conquering king of glory. Neither our churches in the West either have died or are dying in the Western world. Today we have so many lifeless professing Christians all over the Western world. And the reason for this is because the real Christ, the Lord of glory, the conquering Lord, is not at the center of the worship.

What do these people have in common? Listen to me, I've been around, I've seen it. They have been brainwashed with the concept of the meek and mild and lowly Jesus. They have ignored the fact that Jesus now is a conquering Jesus. So many false teachers and preachers confess a Jesus and say that his meekness means his weakness. So many ignore the scripture exhortation. When Paul said that we know him after the flesh no more. The reason we have insipid Christianity, insipid churches, insipid Christians who are living insipid Christian lives is because they refuse to believe in the resurrected, ascending, powerful, Lord, conquering Jesus.

That's the reason. They do not want to believe that our Lord is the Lord of hosts, that our Lord is a conquering Lord, that our Lord has defeated Satan and sin once and for all, that our Lord conquered death on the grave, that our Lord conquered fear and sorrow, that our Lord has conquered bitterness and worry and anxiety, that our Lord has the power over evil right now. Listen to me, beloved, the church of Jesus Christ is made up of sour, moping, sulking, complaining servants of God. No, the church of Jesus Christ is made up of soldiers of the mighty army of the conquering Jesus.

Let's live like it. I honestly am confessed to you that I think that what we made of the church of Jesus Christ in the West probably make the angels want to hide their faces. We're not serving a weakling, defeated, dead hero. We are the soldiers of the conquering Lord. Therefore, everyone who knows him must start living as a conquering soldier. Instead of living in fear, we should be sending terror into the heart of the devil.

We should be sending terror into the very pit of hell. Instead of living in defeat, we need to live in victory as we surrender to the Lord of lords and the King of kings. Who is the King of glory? The Lord Almighty in battle. Doesn't say the Lord wimpy in the struggle. Doesn't say the Lord struggling with the strugglers and He's broken with the broken.

Come on now. He died on the cross and rose again to die no more. He was born as a helpless babe in Bethlehem.

No more. He did this to redeem us. Now that we're redeemed, we need to live as redeemed.

The apostle Paul did not say, oh look at me, I got beaten. Look at me, I've been stoned. Look at me, I've been persecuted.

Look at me, I've suffered this. He said, yeah, I went through all this, but in all these things we're more than conquerors through Christ who loves us. Well, before I get carried away, I want to tell you something very, very important. The last two verses here in this psalm. Between verse 9 and verse 10, there is a space of long centuries of this, what we call the age of grace. What do I mean by this?

Listen to me. The Lord Jesus right now is gathering His own from every tribe, from every tongue, from every nation. The conquering Lord Jesus is now calling His elect from every corner of the globe. We are seeing for the first time in history great evangelical leaders turning their back on the gospel. Meanwhile, terrorists, convicted terrorists who are becoming converted to Christ and they now are evangelists.

Nothing like this has ever happened in history. And you and I, my beloved friends, are God's instrument of calling many of His children to come home. So that we with them can experience the joy of reunion in heaven with Jesus. I believe with all my heart right now, Jesus is gathering His own to get ready for that reunion in heaven.

He's gathering all those who are heaven bound. And it may be sooner than we may think when the trumpet shall sound and the world will come to a standstill. Then as the people who are left behind look up and see the Church of Jesus Christ, the faithful soldiers of the cross ascending into heaven, going into the sky, moving upward, just like Jesus did when He was ascended into heaven. They will be rising from the highways and the byways, from airplanes, from workplace, from farms and from factories, from prison where they've been prisoned for the sake of Christ, from every corner of the seven continents. There are people who's going to be lifted up just like Jesus was ascended on that day. And those who are left behind, they're going to look up and they see it with their own eyes. I say what I'm going to say with sorrow in my heart. As they see us on our way home, it's going to be too late for them.

It's going to be too late. Those who have rejected Jesus as the only way to heaven and salvation, those who tried to modify Jesus, those who wanted to stretch Jesus to fit their own concept, those who worshiped a weak and weakling Jesus, they will call upon the Lord, but it will be too late. And I can imagine, I can only imagine, some of them are going to go to one of these dead churches. I'm not going to name names.

You know what I mean. They're going to go to these dead churches looking for answers, but they're not going to have answers. These people in those churches are in worse shape than they are. For they knew and they rejected the truth. They're going to knock, but there was no one to open the door. They will seek, but they will not find and they will ask, but no one to answer. As our conquering Lord Jesus leads our parade into heaven and the angels will ask, he will point to his redeemed and they say, who is the Lord of glory? He will point to all his redeemed and say, these are my soldiers. These are the faithful men and women, boys and girls who believed in me, trusted me for their salvation.

They are victorious in battle with me. Open your gates of heaven and heaven will open and we shall descend with the Lord. You're listening to Leading the Way Audio with Dr. Michael Youssef.

Listen on the radio online with the Leading the Way app or through your favorite podcast platform. Learn more at ltw.org. Learn the keys to spiritual endurance, overcome spiritual burnout and train up the next generation to stand firm on biblical truth. With Dr. Youssef's new book, Never Give Up. At the end of his life, imprisoned in a Roman dungeon, the apostle Paul urged his young disciple Timothy, never give up on prayer, never give up on biblical truth, never give up on the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. In his brand new book, Never Give Up, Dr. Michael Youssef unpacks Paul's rich words of encouragement found in 2 Timothy. Words that will help you endure, flourish and thrive in the midst of doubt, danger and despair. Don't be ashamed of the word of God.

Don't dilute it to the point of unrecognition. In this encouraging book, Dr. Youssef unveils four unique aspects of what it means to never give up biblical truth. A timely message as Christians around the world face mounting pressure to compromise their faith and abandon their biblical values. Dr. Youssef also shares personal examples from his life and ministry of how he found the strength to stand for Christ amid the pressure to compromise.

Order your copy today. Be empowered to live for Christ in difficult times and learn how to leave a lasting legacy of faith for the next generation. Whatever the future may bring, don't surrender. Don't be intimidated.

Never give up on biblical truth. Order your copy of Dr. Youssef's newest book, Never Give Up. Contact us today.

Order your copy of Dr. Youssef's life impacting book, Never Give Up, today. Give us a call. 866-626-4356. Once again, 866-626-4356. Or order through the online resource store at ltw.org.

That's ltw.org. Again, the title, Never Give Up. Well, that's our broadcast for today. Thank you for being with us. And I hope you'll make it a point to listen again next time right here for more Leading the Way. This program is furnished by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Connect with us through our YouTube channel, Facebook, Twitter and all of our social media networks. You can learn more at ltw.org.