I heard a story of an old pastor. Who, when he finished his sermon, he said, Next week, I'm going to be preaching on Noah's Ark.
Well, during the week, some mischievous young men slipped into the church. They went up to the pulpit, got the pulpit Bible, and they just glued a bunch of pages of the Bible together. Old pastor didn't realize it. Until the next Sunday, he got up to preach on Noah's Ark. And here's what he read from the Bible.
He said, and Noah. took unto himself a wife. And she was Can you turn the page? 300 qubits long. Fifty cubits wide.
And 30 keepers high.
Well, that old preacher kind of adjusted his glasses. He said, I've been reading the word of God for years, I've never seen that before. But if the word of God says it, bless God, I believe it. If the Word of God says it. Bless God, I believe it.
Now you do realize we believe what we believe because it's here in the Word of God. But if you're trying to share Jesus with people out there, They may not take Quote, the Bible says so. as their final authority. We need to be ready to stand for the faith. What do we believe, and why do we believe it?
And so go back to 1 Peter chapter 3. In 1 Peter 3, Peter is talking to Christians who are about to enter into a chaotic culture. The whole culture is falling apart. And he says, How do you live for Jesus in this chaotic culture? And he said, Number one, remember, keep living good lives.
Live these godly, winsome, happy lives. Number one, keep living good lives. Number two, he said, don't be afraid. In fact, he goes a step further. Don't even be troubled.
Don't let your cage get rattled. This whole world, you live with a fearless attitude in this world, it's going to draw attention. Number three, we talked about this last week. If you want to live for Jesus in this chaotic world, you have to live under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. He's in control.
You're not. He calls the shots, you don't. We have to live under this concept. Look, church, we have to recapture the concept of the lordship of Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all, or He's not Lord at all.
And then, number four, Peter says this: if you want to live in this crazy, chaotic culture, 1 Peter 3.15. But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always being ready. To make a defense To everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you. But you do this with gentleness.
And you do it with fear. All right, number four, to live in a schedule culture, be ready to defend your faith. And you do that in two ways. First of all, apologetics. You know what I mean by apologetics?
Apologetics doesn't mean apologizing to the faith. That's not what that means. If you look there in verse 15, when he uses that word defense, the Greek word is apologia, it means a reply to an accusation. They accuse you of this, you reply like that. And so there is a whole discipline in Christianity called apologetics that helps you give answers when people say, I hear what you say, yeah, but.
Let me give you just a couple examples of apologetics. This is not exhaustive, but you share Jesus long enough. You can have some people bring a couple yeah butts up. One is this. You keep talking about the Bible.
The Bible says this. The Bible says that. Can we trust the Bible? That will be the first question that's thrown at you. Can we trust the Bible?
And the answer is yes for several reasons. Jot this down. Number one: archaeology. Archaeology is the Bible's best friend. True archaeology has never contradicted the Word of God.
Let me give you an example of this. In Luke chapter 3. Verses one Through three, just three verses. In those three verses, Luke gives twenty-two historical names. places and titles that have all been verified by archaeology.
Let me repeat what I just said to you. In three verses. Twenty-two historical names, places, and titles are given by Luke, and archaeology has said.
Okay, we may not believe in this Jesus stuff in Christianity, but he actually has gotten it right. It's all true. Archaeology is the Bible's best friend. You know, there was a. Another thing that's just happened recently in archaeology, I was looking at something from Dr.
Stephen Meyer, brilliant man. Dr. Meyer said, if you go to 1 Kings chapter 6, verse 1. It actually gives you the very date that the Israelites left Egypt to go into the promised land. It's about 1440, 1446 BC.
That's what 1 Kings 6.1 says.
So, you know, they wandered in the desert for 40 years, and so they come into the promised land somewhere around 1400 BC.
Well for years archaeologists said ah Bible got it wrong We have no evidence. That the Israelites invaded the promised land when the Bible says it did in 1400 BC. But now recent archaeology is like, huh. We're doing some studies and the population of Canaan did drop. dramatically around 1400 BC.
Almost as if an invading force came in and wiped out a bunch of people. And the people who took over the Canaanites are a strange group of people. They don't engage in human sacrifice. They don't build any pagan shrines. And it's interesting, we're going through their trash heap.
There's no pork bones, they don't eat pigs. Who does that sound like? And in fact, one contemporary person that lived back in 1400, in 1400 BC, called these people the Habaru. Which sounds a lot like the Hebrews. And so archaeology has once again backed up the Word of God.
So, archaeology tells you you can trust the Bible. Secondly, I'm going to try to explain, I hope this makes sense. But the date between the original, when the original part of scripture was written, and the copies that we have today, we don't have any copies of the original. And that's the providence of God. Because you know what would happen.
If we had something that we know Matthew wrote, everybody would worship that, okay?
So we don't have any copies of the original. What we have are copies of copies.
Now, I want you to understand this. When it comes to any kind of ancient secular document, the greater the time. Between the original that was written. And the documents we have today, the earliest documents we have today, the greater the time. the less accurate.
Because it's probably a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of the original. And every time somebody handwrites, you've done this before, every time you try to handwrite a copy, you make a mistake. You leave a word out, you misspell something.
So the longer the time between the original, And what we have today, the copy we have today, the longer that time, the less accurate.
So let me give you some examples of this. Everybody's into the Iliad and Homer and the Odyssey and all that. All right, there's 500 years between the time Homer wrote the Ottawa, the Iliad. And the copy we actually have, the earliest copy we have, 500 years.
So it's probably a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.
Okay. Uh give me another example. Plato Thirteen hundred years between the time Plato taught and they wrote down his teachings. To the earliest copy we have in our possession today. 1,300 years.
It's just a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. Hey, Aristotle is even worse. 1,400 years from the time that Aristotle. Did his teachings, people wrote it down, and the copy we actually have today 1400 years. The New Testament?
25 years. We actually have, it's called Papyrus 52, P52. We actually have a fragment from John's gospel that's probably not the original, but it is quite possibly a very copy of John's original. That is unheard of in the ancient realm. You can trust the Bible.
Another reason you can trust the Bible is the sheer number of ancient copies of the New Testament that we have. 24,000 ancient copies or fragments of the New Testament. 24,000. The closest I could come up with in comparison was Homer. Homework, we only have 643 copies.
24,000 copies or fragments of the New Testament versus Homer's 643. And what's amazing about this is, you know, they didn't have copy machines back then. They didn't have scanners back then. All these copies, if they wanted to get the Bible out there, they had to do it, and it's an illegal religion. They have to do it underground, in caves, with dim lighting.
Did you know some of the people who actually copied the New Testament to spread it out in those days? They were illiterate. They didn't even know what they were writing. They were just kind of looking at the figures and trying to. 24,000 copies.
Copied in caves, underground, dim lighting, sometimes you don't even know what you're doing. The the New Testament should be a chaotic mess. with contradictions between this copy and that copy. Listen to this. This is statistically impossible.
98% of the New Testament Is there's no doubt this is the original. 98%. And the 2% that we're not quite sure, it's usually pronouns, maybe words left out, maybe misspelling. It does not affect doctrine at all. Statistically, that should not be happening.
And yet, the sheer number of the copies of the New Testament that we have, all in agreement, That's God. You can trust the Bible. Well, here's another question people will ask.
Well, all right, here's another. And this was asked me actually a couple weeks ago, somebody asked me this. You're talking about God, Chad. If there is a God. Why is there so much bad stuff in this world?
But why all the evil, if there is a God? Why do babies die of childhood cancer if there is a God? Why was my kid? My friend killed in an automobile accident. If there is a God, if there is a God and He is good and He is all-powerful, why does bad stuff happen?
The term is theodicy: T-H-E-O-D-I-C-Y. If God is good, if He's powerful, why does bad stuff happen? Where did evil and all this bad stuff come from? I want to give you five, let me ask you this. As you've shared your faith before, have any of you been asked that question before?
Well, if there's God, why is there evil?
Okay, let me give you five answers to that.
Okay. Answer number one: jot this down: free will. But God loved you so much. He wanted to have a relationship with the human race. God is a God of love, and He's like, I don't want to keep all this to myself.
I want to have a group of people I can share my love relationship with.
Now He could say You have no choice. You will follow me. Love relationship cannot bloom in that kind of environment. When I Proposed to my wife, if I said, Helen, I want you to marry me, and you will iron my clothes, you will cook my breakfast, you will do what I tell you to do. You have no choice in the matter.
You want to get married? She'd say, find somebody else. I'm not going to do that. God could have said that to the human race. You're automatons.
You're going to do exactly what I tell you to do. But God says, no, love cannot bloom in that environment.
So God says, I want a love relationship and I'm going to take a risk. I know if I give you choice to follow me, or to abandon me. I know that there's a risk that you will abandon me, but the risk is worth it. I'm going to create you with free will. And the human race, Adam and Eve, the original, listen to me, the original humans.
Said Thank you for creating us. Thank you for the offer of a relationship. But we're going to do our own thing. And when we did that, we opened the world to this weird Power, this weird force called sin. And sin doesn't just affect us spiritually.
Paul says in Romans, sin is so corrosive, it's so messed up, it's so powerful, that when sin entered the world through Adam and Eve saying, God, we don't want you, we're going to go our own way, it even affected nature. Like nature itself is corrupted by this sin. You have no idea how corrosive sin is.
So did God uh In God's perfect plan. They say, you know, I'm going to create these things called hurricanes to wipe out human beings. No. But when sin came into the world, even creation was corrupted, and these gentle breezes that God designed to cool us down becomes these corruptive forces called hurricanes that wipe people out. God in his perfect plan did not say, I'm going to create cancer to wipe out people.
He didn't do that. But when Adam and Eve rebelled against God, and they represent us, when the human race said, Thank you, but we're going to do our own thing, and we allowed sin into the world, sin messed us up genetically, it messed us up with cancer. Sin opened the door. to corruption and corrosiveness on every level.
So, why is there evil in the world? We're blaming it on God. God's like, don't put this on me. I told you, you can follow me or you can abandon me. You decided to abandon me, that's fine, but you've allowed sin in the world, and nothing is the same now.
Here's a second answer to this.
Okay. Much of what we blame on God. It's our decisions. It's things that we've decided to do. Let me give you an example of this.
I was reading an atheist years ago. Who said, I used to believe in God. I was a theist. And he said, I believe there was a God and a loving God. And then one day, I think he said he's going through Time magazine.
He's going through a magazine. And he said, I saw a picture in this magazine. of a kid in the famine of Ethiopia starving to death. And he said, when I saw this picture. of a starving child.
I said to myself, There cannot be a God, or that wouldn't happen. Why would God? Allow that to happen.
Well, k you remember the famine in Ethiopia? Let me give you the behind-the-scenes thing to this. Do you know that the human race has the capacity to feed every person on planet Earth four times over? We have that capacity. During the Ethiopian famine, There's plenty of food trying to get into Ethiopia.
We are trying to feed these kids. It was human warlords who prevented the food from getting to the kids. We're blaming God, and God's like, don't put that on me. That ain't my fault. Y'all are the ones that decided not to let the food get to them.
Don't blame me for that. I remember years ago. Look, my mind's getting foggy the older I get. It's back in the 80s, I think. And I think it was the uh singer Axel Rose from Guns N' Roses.
I was watching him as in some kind of concert. I was watching him on MTV or something.
Something I shouldn't have been watching. I was watching him, and I think he was about to sing that song, Knocking on Heaven's Door. And he said, I would like to dedicate this song. To my friend so-and-so. It was found.
of a drug overdose in a hotel last year. And he said something like this. I don't understand why a loving God would let that happen, oh, but so what? And he sang the song. Boom.
Did God shove the cocaine of the guy's nose? No, the guy made a bad decision. Did God load the syringe and put it? No. God's like, why are y'all blaming me for all this stuff?
A lot of the evil that you struggle with are decisions you make. Hey. There can't be a God because my best friend's son was killed by a drunk driver in an automobile accident.
Okay, well, let me ask you something. Who got the guy drunk? Who got the guy behind the wheel of the car? Who did that? You're going to blame God for that?
He made his decision, and that decision has destroyed a life. Yeah, but Chad, can't God override the free will of that drunk driver?
Okay, so we want God to override everybody else's free will when they make bad decisions, but we want to maintain our own free will. I'm not sure it works like that. And so where does evil come from?
Well, it originally came because we human race, we rebelled against God, and corrosive sin came into the world. Secondly, a lot of what we blame God for is our own decision. And number three, Look, if you're going to have a biblical worldview, Y'all get your worldview from this book. If you're going to have a biblical worldview, you cannot discount the reality of demons and Satan. and evil forces.
A lot of what we blame God for, it's the demonic, it's the satanic operating in our world.
Okay, let me give you a fourth answer to this. Why is there evil? Why is this bad stuff happen? Here's one. A lot of times it's a mystery.
We don't know. Do you know it's okay sometimes when somebody says to you, I'm wrestling with the idea of a loving God because this happened in my life. You tell me why did this happen? It's okay to say, I don't know. I don't know.
It's above my pay grade. He's in charge. He's in control. I don't know why this happened. And let me give you one final.
Answer to this: Why is there evil in the world?
So, Adam and Eve, with the human race, rebelled against God. We allowed sin in the world, and everything, even biologically, creation-wise, everything fell when sin came into the world. Number two, a lot of what we blame God for are our own bad decisions. Number three, the reality of Satan and demons. Number four, there's a mystery.
Sometimes we just don't know. And then, number five, listen to this. The fifth answer to that is this: I don't know why this happened, but according to my worldview, based on the Word of God. One day, Jesus is going to come back and He's going to make it all right. He's going to wipe every tear from our eye.
One day, it'll all make sense. One day, Jesus will make everything okay, and I'm just waiting for Jesus Christ to come back. If you don't have that worldview, and look, look. If I thought everything was random, and chaotic and history was not going somewhere. I'd be the, y'all have to put me in the nut house yesterday if I thought that this is all there was to it and it didn't make sense.
That's not what that word says. That word says, yeah, it's messed up now. Yeah, we're weeping now. But yeah, one day he'll wipe every tear from our eyes and the kingdom will come down and he will rule and reign forever. It's going to be okay one day.
That's an answer.
Alright, so. Number one, can I believe the word of God? Yes. Number two, why is there evil? Why is there messed up stuff in the world?
Number three, you share Jesus. Hould be a third question people ask. Why is there only one way to God? The church you need to understand. We believe there's only one way to God.
There's not the Buddha way to God, the Muhammad way to God, the Confucius way to God. There's only one way to God. You all know what His name is? Jesus. You know where we get that?
I just told you about Papyrus 52, written by John. John had the audacity to say, I was Jesus' best friend, I'm the disciple Jesus loved. John, Jesus' best friend, said this in John 14. He said, Y'all can debate me all you want. I was there, I heard the man say it.
John said, I heard Jesus say. I am the way, I'm the truth, I'm the life. Nobody gets to the Father but by me, Jesus said it. There's one way in the same season. Here's a question that will be thrown out.
Wait a second, I don't make no sense. There's only one way. Chad, how do I answer a friend, a family member, a cousin who asks, How do you believe there's only one way to God? That doesn't make any sense. I answer that in two ways.
Number one, That's actually one way is the nature of reality. If you're to ask me. Cad, what's your phone number? If I were to say to you, Choose any 10 digits you want because all circuits lead to my phone. You'd say that's crazy, right?
That's not reality. If you're going to ask me, Chad, I want to visit Cross Assembly on Sunday morning. How do I get there? If I say, hey, choose any road you want anywhere in the world, just take the road, because all roads lead to cross assembly.
Well, that doesn't make sense, does it? If it doesn't make sense. In the logical realm, why should it make sense in the spirit realm? That's my first answer. My second answer is this, and I get this from R.
C. Spruel. You come against me and say, that's unfair to God. He only provided one way. Let me remind you.
He didn't need to provide any way. He's under no obligation to provide any way to him. We're the ones that rebelled against him. We're the ones that spit in his face. We're the ones that killed his son.
God could have said to hell with all of y'all and gone his own separate way. He doesn't need to offer any way, but God in his graciousness and his mercy has offered a way, and that way is Jesus Christ. And listen to me: if God's way back to him meant everybody's got to take a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, most people couldn't do that. If God says, Your way back to me. If you had to pay $100,000.
Most people couldn't do that. But God says, no, my way back to me is so simple, even a nine-year-old child can do it. You repent of your sins and you trust in my Son Jesus Christ, and you come back to the Father's heart. Here's what R. C.
Sprule says. I love this. Um We're the ones that rebelled against God. We're the ones that spit in his face. We're the ones that blasphemed him.
Suppose God said, you've rebelled against me. You've marked me. You've broken all my laws. And now you've killed my son.
However, in response, I offer you total amnesty. Complete forgiveness. and eternal life. In perfect paradise. Did you hear what I just read?
You've done this to me. You've spit on my son. You've killed my son. And in response, I offer you total anonymity, complete forgiveness, and eternal life. And the only thing I demand in return is one thing.
that you honor, worship, and serve that son of mine that you killed. And the response of the creatures who did all this mess is: that's not fair, God. You've only provided one way for us to go to heaven. That's narrow-minded of you, God. And do you understand what I'm saying?
God is not obligated to provide anyway. But he loves you so much, he says. I'm going to offer you a way. And it's so simple, anybody can do it. I want to share this with you as well.
Do you know how offensive it is to God? For you to say There's a hundred ways to God. And yet he sent his own son. And watched his heart get torn out when his son was beaten, scourged, crucified, naked from the whole world, went through more torture than you and I could ever imagine, so that he could have one hundred and one ways to God. Do you know how offensive that is to God?
No, don't don't listen to me Can y'all stop wimping out on this thing? Let's be bold and strong. I was talking to Jonathan Kahn Wednesday night, taking him back to the hotel. He said, I won't tell you the program, but he is about to go on a nationally recognized program, and it's okay. Jonathan, remember?
They're going to ask you about gay marriage. And here's the other thing they're probably going to ask you about. They're probably going to ask you about: you believe Jesus is the only way to salvation.
So don't wimp out like most Christian leaders do when they get on programs like that. You boldly and strongly say, Yeah, I believe there's one way to salvation, his name is Jesus Christ, and I am unashamed of that. All right, so when Peter says. Be ready to give an answer. Be ready to defend your faith.
Okay, I've talked about apologetics, but let me give you a second thing that I think he might be saved. Because part of biblical hermeneutics, biblical interpretation, is you've got to ask yourself. What did the original audience think? when they read Peter's letter.
Okay, you understand? The first century audience, when they hear, always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you. They probably did not hear, okay, church, go out and buy a Josh McDowell book, take some apologetics classes. That's probably not what they heard, okay? Listen to me.
When Peter says to them, always be ready to give a reason. For the hope. The key is in that definite article, the. What is our hope? Jesus.
I think what Peter's saying is, give them Jesus. They mock you, give them Jesus. They laugh at you, give them Jesus. Here's what I want you to do. Don't get sidetracked when you're sharing Jesus with people, you're sharing the gospel.
If you're not careful, you'll get sidetracked. Yeah, well, what about the Trinity? You know, let's forget about the Trinity for a second. Let me talk to you about Jesus. Yeah, but no, what's your stance on gay marriage?
You know, I don't need to get into that right now. Let me just talk to you about Jesus. Hey, are you a MAGA Republican? You want to them? Let's not talk politics.
Don't get sidetracked. Give them Jesus. What is the hope definite article? It's Jesus. In fact, the Bible says very clearly in 1 Timothy 1.1, 1 Timothy 1.1.
Jesus is our hope. 1 Peter 1, 3. Our hope is Jesus, crucified and raised from the dead. Jesus is our hope. Church, let's keep the main thing, the main thing.
It's all about. Jesus. And that's what Peter's saying. This world doesn't make any sense. They're going to try to sidetrack you.
They're going to come against you with all these accusations. Keep the main thing. Let's look. Let's not make this thing complicated. Just keep focusing on Jesus.
Look, I believe if you can share, do y'all believe there's power in the word of God? No, I'm asking the question. Do you believe there's power in the word of God? You combine the power of the word of God with Jesus, that's a powerhouse right there. There's a great story about, I told you about Charles Spurgeon, one of my favorite preachers.
Spurgeon. Great megachurch pastor in the 1800s. It's like a, let's say, it's like a Tuesday morning at 9 o'clock. He's in his study. Nobody's at church.
It's Tuesday morning. He's just writing some stuff out. And they're doing some construction in the sanctuary. And they want to make sure the acoustics are a little bit better, whatever.
So they had construction workers up in the rafters doing some stuff. And somebody came in and got Charles Spurgeon and said, Hey, can you take a break for a second? He said, Yeah, what's going on?
So we need you to go to your pulpit and just do a sound check. Just say a couple things to make sure these acoustical tiles are in place. Can you do a sound check? He said, sure. Takes off his glasses, puts them down, puts his pen down, walks into the sanctuary, walks to the pulpit.
Again, nobody's there because it's Tuesday morning. He's just doing a sound check. And all he does is this: he stands behind the pulpit and he goes. Behold the Lamb of God. who takes away the sins of the world.
He turns to walk away and hears somebody sobbing. What's going on? The person sobbing is one of the construction workers up in the rafters, who, when he heard the man of God say, Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, he came under conviction and got saved right there. Why? Because there's power in the word, and there's power in keeping the main thing, our hope is Jesus.
Don't complicate this. Another great story, I love this. There's a man in the 1700s, he was a big fan of John Wesley. He wanted to hear Wesley preach. And so, all of his life, you want to hear Wesley, he finally got a chance because Wesley's coming to a nearby town.
He had a chance to go hear Wesley preach.
So he heard Wesley preach, and Wesley preached this sermon. You must be born again. This is a sermon. You must be born again. This is great.
I finally got my dream come true. Her, my favorite preacher. A couple months later, he's on business and he finds out Wesley is going to be in the area where he's having business. I can't believe this. All my life been waiting for him to preach.
I've only heard him once, I'm about to hear him again.
So he goes to your west a second time. Wesley preaches this incredible sermon. You say you must be born again. That was a sermon.
So afterward, this man went up and basically said, John Wesley. I'm a fanboy. I'm your biggest fan. I've always wanted to hear you preach. He said, I got to hear you preach a couple months ago, and you preached, you must be born again.
I just heard you preach today, and you preach this sermon. You must be born again. I was talking to a guy, he said, He heard you at this city, and you preach, you must be born again. Why is it everywhere you go, you preach, you must be born again? And Wesley said, because You must be born again.
Let's not complicate this thing. It's all about Jesus. And you must be born again. He is the hope. He's not a hope.
He's not a who.
Well, my life will be better if the Republican Party will win this fall. And my the Dow Jones goes up because I can have good retirement. And this, and that. Oh yeah, and Jesus is coming back. He's not a hoop.
is the hope. As I was praying about this this past week. Jesus, our hope. Um Lord put something on my heart. Before I do that, look at some of verse 15 I've got to share with you.
He says, How do we share Jesus? How do we share hope? Do you see this in verse 15? He says, You do it with gentleness. And respect.
Hey, we go down to the abortion clinic every month. To pray. Because we believe we're going to be giving you, I think somebody told me in August, we're going to give you a report of how many babies you all have saved by going down to the abortion clinic. We pray. But we don't shout.
We don't yell at people. We don't call them bloody murderers. We don't do that. Why? Because we are prohibited by scripture.
It says right there: you stand for your faith, but you do it with gentleness. And you do it with fear. You know what that means? I don't care what you think about me. I care what he thinks about me.
When you're about to witness somebody, well, Chad, I'm a little bit nervous about witnessing. Why are you nervous? Because you're afraid of what they're going to think about you. Don't be afraid of them. You fear God, you do what God tells you to do.
You do this with gentleness and you do it with fear. I was praying about this this past week. Our hope. Hope, hope. And the Lord brought a verse back to my mind.
I just sat there in my study and just meditated on this. Titus 2.3. Says, hey, we We are looking We're waiting for We're expecting The blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. We're waiting for Jesus to come back. Our hope is in Jesus Christ, crucified, raised from the dead, and returning one day, and today may be the day.
When you have that hope. You have this calmness in this peace. I've shared this story before, and this might be the last time I share it because I've used it a couple of times. I just love this, it always reminds me of this verse. You understand what Peter says.
Give a reason. For the hope. Our hope is Jesus is coming back. Yeah. It's a great little story.
about uh Robert Robbins. He was in the Air Force. He was an Air Force pilot during the First Iraq War. And after, I can't remember how many missions he had flown, like the 300th mission. He was told that You can go back home.
He said, Well, I'm supposed to be here for a few more months. I said, We know, but you've done a good job. You can go back home. And so Robert Robbins was tempted to call his family and say, hey, I'm coming home early. But he said, you know, I'm not going to do that.
I'm going to surprise him. And so he flew to Massachusetts. He drove all night. He can't wait to see the look of surprise on the face of his family when he drives in unexpected. After driving all night long, he pulls into his driveway and there's a huge banner out front of his house.
Welcome home.
Well, how do they know? He walks inside and his kids are ready. His wife has a beautiful dress on. It's early in the morning, but her makeup is on, and they're reunited and they're crying and they're happy. And after the celebration died down.
Robert Robinson, man. I was trying to surprise y'all. How did you know I was coming home early? And his wife said, I didn't. But she said, once we knew that the war was over, We knew you'd be home one of these days and we knew you'd try to surprise us.
So we were ready every day in case today was the day. And I remember that verse we just played a second ago. One day he will come like a thief in the night. Church, he is coming back to surprise us. Today may be the day, and I want you and me to live in that hope to be ready every day in case today is the day the one we love comes back.
Today may be the day Jesus comes back. Let's be ready every day. That's our blessed hope. Jesus is coming back. Stand on me right now.
Stand on me right now. Hey, I'm going to ask you a question. I'm a little sick today. It's not the lettuce from Taco Bell. No, I'm homesick.
As much as I love this world and I love this place and I love America and I salute the fly, okay. I'm a little homesick today. I'm ready for Jesus to come back. My hope is, I'm going to say it again, in case you missed it. My hope is not in the elections.
It's not. My hope is in Jesus Christ, crucified, raised from the dead, seated at the right hand of the Father, and coming back again, and today may be the day. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Sing this to him right now. Yeah.
And come, Jesus, come We've been waiting so long for the day you return to heal every hurt and right every wrong We need you right now Come and turn this around Cause deep down I know this world is in home Come Jesus, come there'll be no war And there'll be no change When Jesus comes Let today be You come for the moment. And the strong just the same. We believe in the power of his name. Oh, sin. Come, Jesus.
Come, Jesus, come. We've been waiting so long for the day you return to heal every hurt and ride every road. We need you right now. Come and turn this road because deep down I know this world is in hope. Come, Jesus, come.
Come, Jesus, come. The Bible says. But those of us who know him, he saves us completely, past, present, future. That means that messed up passage you have. Stop reliving it.
It's over. It's covered in the blood of Jesus. Present means when you walk out of those doors, he's going to be walking with you everywhere you go. Future means God is in charge. He's in control.
Relax, calm down. Everything is going according to plan. You know, that's the one thing you're not supposed to say to people who are panicking. Just calm down. Calm down.
But I'm going to slap you around. Let me slap you around a little bit a little bit. Just calm down. It's all gonna work out. You believe that?
It's all gonna work out. Raise your hands and receive this blessing from the Lord. Hazarak Wehrmatz. I thought it wrote the older kid. He emecha Adonai El Hecha Beho Eshe Telak, which means cross assembly.
Be bold. Be strong. Don't be afraid. Don't be terrified of anything this week. Why?
Because the Lord Jesus is going to be with you everywhere you go in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. God bless you, beloved. Go change this world for Jesus Christ.
