Identification Truths

Howdy. Last time we spent talking about the issue of sins and forgiveness. So today we're going to pick up with question four. And let's start by reading, somebody read Ephesians 2.13. Who's got a Bible on? Anybody ready to go? Peggy, you ready?

Ephesians 2.13, but now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. Okay.

Now, when the Word of God says you were sometimes, you were once far off, how far away were you? Down the block, across the street? How far? Now what does that mean, to be far away from God? What does it mean? Out of fellowship. Out of fellowship? What else? I want you to think for a minute that you read a verse like this and you think, far off means that I can hop a jet and be close, you know? And what did, out of fellowship, what else was I out of? Out of Christ? Yeah. I had no hope. I was totally and irreversibly separated from the God of the universe. And not only that, there was no way back on my side. Do you have any other question sheets for me too?

Yeah, I do. Okay. Yeah, we got them. You guys must have missed class. Note who they are. We're putting them on the list. It's because the teacher is so organized. It's separated, yeah. Let's see. Brought near by the blood of Christ. If you're totally separated from the God of the universe, and not only is the distance infinitesimal, but so is the barrier. Understand what I mean by that? Not only is the distance too far for you to cover, but it isn't as though you had an open field to get back. That there's tremendous barriers, and you have no chance. of making it, the verse says, are made near by the blood of Christ.

So, from a positional, well maybe put it this way, from the viewpoint of a non-believer, when a person believes in the person and work of Christ, he instantly goes from the farthest he could possibly be from God, to the closest he could possibly be to God, just like that. Now that's the position. So, from a conditional standpoint, what would be the barriers for you conditionally to draw near in your own experience, in your own life?

Because positionally you're there, right? Everybody agree with that? You've been placed in Christ. Not only are you near him, but you're in him. You put it another way, it would be the lack of knowledge of your position in Christ. If you don't know where you are, positionally, then you can't operate from that position. Do you understand what I'm saying? Your viewpoint's not there. Give me another one. Sure. You have total lack of faith. Say you know. Say you read it and you find out.

But you don't believe it. Because you believe your own experience more than you believe the Word of God. Well, I don't feel it. I don't have any... century experience some warm fuzzy deal that God is near me or I'm near him, so I don't believe it. Okay, God says it in his word and in that sense it must be right, but I don't own it.

What else? That's why we keep a jar of the warm fuzzies in the medicine cabinet. Yeah, I've got one in my bathroom. The problem is it's empty. I keep looking for solace in there. Donna's supposed to put the jelly beans in there, but she never does. I'm using them all. What would be another barrier? And this is probably even more subtle than the first two we've talked about.

Say that again? How about sin? Yeah, that's exactly right. You believe that your sin and the conversation of Satan in your ear creates a distance between you and God. Understand what I'm saying? So let's say you sin. Right away, what do you think? I am personally unworthy to be that near to God. Are you? Why not? Because sin is not the issue. Yes, sin is not the issue. And by the way, who made you near? Did you do it? No. Again, it goes back to the Word of God in terms of what the issue is.

I make an issue of 1 John 1.9 a lot.

Do you ever notice in 1 John 1.9 there's no exhortation for you to ask God for forgiveness? What are you supposed to do there? You're supposed to confess, right? You're supposed to say the same thing about your sins that God says. So what does He say?

It's important to know. He took care of them, right? Your sins, your committing these sins, caused you to not be in fellowship, but it didn't touch your position one iota, right? So can you say, well, never mind, I can sin in my position, you know, no problem. So why do you confess? You have forgiveness. Based on last week's discussion, even if you don't confess them, they're forgiven. Are they not? knowing that you were cleansed of them. What else do you get there? That's good, but there's something else there that you need. There's something deeper in that sin. It's not the manifestation of the sins, but the sin itself, and that is present with you.

When you do that, aren't you saying, I agree with you? That's right. I agree with you about what I've been doing. But I also agree on a couple of other things. Number one, that I am positioned in your Son as a new creature. That's who I am. But I've been conducting my life as though I wasn't that.

Do you understand what I mean? That I've been living out of Adam and sinning, which has obstructed our fellowship. But you know what, God? You're right. And I'm wrong. And you're right about who I am. It's important to say, yes, you're right about my sinning, but it's also important to say, yes, you're right about who I am. I am your son. I am in Christ. And do you know that sinning for the believer is spiritual insanity? It's not the behavior consistent with being a believer. Isn't that something?

Maybe the easiest way to look at that is John 3.16 has to do with salvation. One John One Nine has to do with the restoration of someone who's already believed to fellowship. I hate it when the guys remember stuff. I think you have to bring in the element of position and condition there. What the Word of God tells us is our position in Christ. Position is one of those things that is...

Once somebody believes in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, he, by being placed into Christ, receives a position that can never be touched. He's a son, he's an heir, he's blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies, all that the Word of God, especially Paul's epistle, says that he is, you'll find that those verbs are not going to be. They're all either aorist tense, which is fact tense, they're already true, or they're perfect tense, which means they're facts with abiding results going on today.

Now, when a believer who has this inviolate position sins, it does not affect his position at all. He does not temporarily step out of Christ. He does not temporarily lose his position or anything like that. What happens is that he loses intimacy and fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the reason he does is simple. What's the name of this class? Identification. If you are identified with Christ and abiding in Him, then the functioning in there is intimacy, a growing intimacy with Christ. If you, by lack of faith, conditionally step out of your position and begin to abide in Adam, how much communication does Adam have with God? Zippo! None, right? And even though you have been positionally separated from the sin nature, you can still function as though you aren't separated. In other words, you can act out of him. You see that? Well, God is done with your sin nature. So there isn't any redeeming qualities there, but there is a way to restore the fellowship.

And the work of the Holy Spirit, I think the Holy Spirit has two jobs that he does with the believer. One is, and the most important one, and the one he loves to do, is to reveal Christ to the believer through the Word. But if the believer steps into Adam and begins to sin... By the way, when a believer steps out of Christ conditionally and steps into Adam, how soon does he begin to sin? And how often does he sin? Non-stop. It isn't 35 things. It's no faith, no sin.

So the Holy Spirit's job in that second case is to do what? What is He there to do if you're functioning in the flesh? What's He going to do? He's going to convict you of what you're doing. And He doesn't do it condemnatory. He does it to approve you and restore you.

You see that? To fellowship. Because then once you're restored conditionally to fellowship, He can get on with the business that He really likes to do, which is what he's been sent to do, is to reveal Christ to the believer. So, I mean, you think about what grace you live under. Without the Holy Spirit, once you moved into Adam, you'd never come out.

You'd stay there. Don't you think so? Wouldn't you? If the Spirit wasn't working in you, you would stay in Adam. Well, along that same line, At the same time that the Holy Spirit is convicting you, isn't sin condemning you? Yes. And condemning you and separating you.

We did the James study on Tuesday. Let's see if I can remember these two words. Paradzo and dakimasu. I don't know which one is which, but... I think perazzo is the temptation to sin, to condemnation. Docimas is the temptation to sin, but God intercepts it to approve you.

He uses it to approve you. See that? Where Satan and your sin nature want you to sin in order so that you can be condemned, and that's the last point that I made in my question, that you are separated from God and that it's up to you to do something about it, you know, that God, you really made Him mad this time, and you're going to have to do five extra push-ups just to get back in His good graces. Well, you'll be doing push-ups until your arms fall off, because that's not the way back. So, you have a situation where God takes your... Do you want... Is it cold over here? Oh, I'm hot. Is everybody too hot? Why don't you crack the door and we can get the air moving.

So, what's interesting here, Steve, is that there's a real assault on your viewpoint when you sin. And if you think about it, you think, oh boy, I've really blown it this time, mad and not happy and I don't like where I am, but maybe what I believed in wasn't true. Maybe I need to step up the pace a little bit, study more, go to church more often, so I can be more holy and this won't happen again. Or it's not working. Oh yeah, it's not working. Or it doesn't work.

You know, the hurrier I go, the behinder I get. Boy, do I understand Romans 7. Every time I would do good, boy, evil is dogging me. And when evil dogs me and I want to avoid it, it gets me every time. I really know what that old wretched man is about.

It's interesting, Romans 8.1 says there's no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus. Well, that sort of blows Romans 7 in terms of feeling condemned. then you have a new spirit of the principle of life in Christ Jesus that has already freed you from the law of sin and death. So how do you live? By faith in the facts.

So when you confess in 1 John 1.9, confession means to say the same thing, and there's a whole sequential, in my mind anyway, a whole sequential of facts about who does God say that I am.

I'm his son. I've been identified with his son in the death, prayer, and resurrection and ascension. I'm seated in the heavenlies. No question. I have been acting and conducting my life as though that wasn't true. But you know what? It is true. And I agree with you, God. Does that mean that I downplay my sins? Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, as I grow spiritually, I even abhor them more because of what they do. They cut off that fellowship. And you find that that fellowship is the most prized thing you have. I mean, think about it. God has made a way for us to rest in communication with Him 24-7 and to be loved by Him, even while we're here, and to rest, no matter what the circumstances are. And reckoning ourselves dead unto sin. And alive unto God.

Sure. Sure. So, J.B. Stoney, who's a writer I really admire, he says, that anything other than seeing yourself in Christ only is sin. But that's right. That's right. Because that's who you are. You know, this isn't trying to decide whether you're going to be a Republican or a Democrat. This is who you are in existence for all eternity. You are a son. You are in life by the very resurrected life of Christ.

And that, you know what? It's too late. You guys already believe. It's over. Sorry. You cannot go back to Adam. You can't go. You have no chance of changing your mind about being a believer in Christ and saying, well, I'm the heck with this. I want to be Adamic again. Well, you can go function that way, but it still doesn't touch your position. Not one iota. And you know what?

You cannot make God mad by your sinning. Why not? Because he's done with sin. He carried out his wrath on sin on his son. So you can't out-sin grace. You can't do it. And you think about it. What arrogance is that? And what a slap in the face to God it is for you to think, oh, I can make him mad. I can be so terrible that God would change his mind about me. Nonsense. Because it isn't about you. So, again, it's too bad, you're in grace, sorry. That's really the reality. But sin makes you look at it as though you're not. And you start believing you're not.

It's a perfect setup for the old man. It gives him more than condemnation, guilt, all those things. You avoid the peace, the rest, and Adam comes to the forefront in sin, in that you have to do something. And that's where he gets the foothold back in. That's right. By the guilt and condemnation, I have to do something. I made God mad. So I have to do something to restore myself.

I think between no condemnation, there is no condemnation. So the guilt is gone. And then I don't have to do anything, because it's Christ. It's all Christ. Once you do that, the confession, you know, you're going to sin. But the confession is not burdensome. No. And it's interesting how knowledgeable confession is. I grew up in Catholicism. You know what confession is in Catholicism?

You sit down on Saturday, outside the box, and you make a list of all the bad stuff you did all week, right? Then you march in the box, and you say to the priest, here's what I've done since last Saturday. And you say, for these and all my other sins, I'm really sorry.

He says, no problem, I absolve you. You walk out, and before you hit the church door, you've sinned again. Oh yeah, and I used to miss him all the time. I used to miss him on purpose because I knew he'd be mad at me if I told him that. And he recognized my voice and said, hey, you've been confessing this a long time, you're not really sorry. Yeah, and then you have to do a penance, you know.

And the question is, well, if I say that, I'm not going to do the penance, am I forgiven? But, you know, we laugh at Catholicism. Trust me, that's how the mind thinks. The endemic mind thinks exactly like that. In Catholicism, are you forgiven if you don't do penance?

I don't know. I think it's a package deal. It's a purgatory deal. Oh yeah, you got to go to purgatory. Well, you go there anyway. Oh, that's true. So... Do you confess that? Not doing penance? What's that? If you were following the system, you would have to do that. The next Saturday you would have to say, you know, I did this and this and this and this 50,000 times and I didn't do my penance last week either. Penance is very subtle. It's exactly what Courtney described. That I have sinned. I've asked God to forgive me, and there's something I have to do to atone for my behavior. That's what penance is.

Who establishes that? The church does. And it's usually prayers, like they have these Hail Marys and Our Fathers, and you've got to say 25 of them. Money works too, right? Oh yeah, a checkbook works wonders in that deal. But God has established His, and that's death and Christ. Yeah, that's exactly right, and so let's talk a bit about then about how do we continually draw near to the Lord Jesus Christ from a conditional? How do you do it? We've discussed most of the elements. Number one is knowledge. You need to know the facts of the word. And what do you find out in the facts of the word? I'm near. I'm near.

Ephesians 2.13 I was once far away, but where am I now? I'm near.

James 4.8, it says, draw nigh to God, and he will draw near to you.

Hebrews 10.22, let us draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, having our bodies washed with pure water. So the first thing is to know. What's the second part? Once you know, what do you do with what you know? You believe it. What's the third thing? Rest? No, I put that five. You guys are fast. I would say the next thing is to behold.

Because once you know the facts and once you believe the facts, what the Spirit of God is going to do is not make you a theologian. He's not going to do that. What's He going to do? He's going to reveal Christ to you, the person. So what do you do when you see Him in the Word? You behold Him.

And then I put down, once all of those are in place, when God asks you to do something like present yourself to Him, the members of your body or your body itself, you don't have any trouble doing that because you know who you are. And the last thing is rest. And why can you rest? Because all of the barriers between you and God have been taken care of by Him. There's nothing for you to do but rest. Do you see that? There's nothing left for you to do but rest. And that's what glorifies God, that you do rest because your rest acknowledges that he has done everything. See that? That's very cool.

Now, I must tell you, When you sit and talk to one-on-one with other believers and you kind of run down this, you know, knowing and faith and that kind of thing, and then you're saying, you get to rest. Boy, you talk about something that's very tough to believe, is rest. Don't you think so? Well, the circumstances come in. That's right. Because what are you viewing? You're thinking about circumstances and how can you have rest. And actually, he's the God of all circumstances. That's right.

Now, the other verse that we didn't put down there, but the one that I really like is in Philippians. Let's see if I can find it quickly. That sort of spells out what one would do about the circumstances in your life. And if I couldn't find it quickly, I guess the Lord doesn't want me to talk about it. Steve, this new Bible you gave me, I'm not familiar with it.

Here we go. The verses that I'm looking for is, by prayer and supplication, make all your requests known unto the Lord. It's Philippians, what? Four? Let's see. Okay. Be anxious for nothing. Don't you love that? Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. Okay? Anything excluded from that list? Is it okay to go to God and say, Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz? Is that okay? Sure. According to this, it's fine. Sure.

What's wrong with that? Does He promise to give you the Mercedes Benz? No. What does He give you? Peace. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Now, the Lord Jesus said to His disciples that You come unto me, all you that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest for your souls."

What's cool about that is that there is no possibility of anyone born in Adam living on this planet to ever know what rest is in their entire existence. From the time they're conceived into eternity, there will never be rest. Never. There will always be tension and angst.

Am I right about that? I mean, have you ever known anybody who was not a believer, no matter what assets they had, ever rested? I think that's why Christians live longer. Could be. Could be. Average of what, seven years or something? Christians do. Not that they want to, but you know.

So the Lord Jesus, or Paul says in Philippians, you know, you come to the Lord with prayer and supplication, and don't be anxious, and just lay it out to Him. What does He promise you? He will give you the peace that passes understanding. I'm thinking, when we come to Him, we're like, we're going to play a game of poker. We ain't got no cards. That's right. God's got all the cards. So, what's interesting about that is that here is the exhortation from a conditional standpoint to enter in and to sit down with the Lord Jesus, nearness, beholding, and to lay out your request to him, no matter what it is. It doesn't matter. You just lay it out, right? And he says, I will give you something that you cannot get. Even if I answered and gave you everything you wanted, nothing would add up to what I'm going to give you anyway. The peace that passes understanding.

Let me tell you where I saw that this week. I saw it in Hal Malloy. I mean, here's this guy goes into the deal on Monday night and the doc comes out and says, this is the highest white count I've ever seen. Imagine a doc coming out from doing a blood work on you and looking you in the eye and say, this is the highest white blood count I've ever run into.

You're really sick. And then the next day they tell him you have acute acute disease. Acute doesn't mean, oh, you kind of got it, ran into it, you know. You have cancer that if you don't do anything about it, we will have a funeral in 30 days. The closer that your reckoning comes, which is death, I think the more free you get.

That's right. You know what Hal's response was? Praise God. That's right. And he said, They said, well, boy, we're going to send you down and we're going to start and do all this stuff. And the doc said, well, you know, you're not reacting. What's the deal? And he said, well, I'm kind of, you know, I'm resting and I'm sort of looking forward to what the Lord's going to do and the people I'm going to be able to meet during this process. and share the Lord Jesus Christ with them. He said they were looking at the medication to make sure they... How many squirts you got more? Yeah, yeah. So now where did that come from?

You know, I'm sure that Hal had already talked to the Lord about his circumstance, you know. He did that probably long before he even knew. Oh yeah, because he was in considerable pain. And that thing on his tongue, which he couldn't talk, is really a cancerous tumor.

That's what it is. And it isn't because Hal is this highly spiritual, push-up guy, been working at this Christian thing for a long time, and he's a really... Nah, nah. If there's anybody that knows the sufficiency of Christ and his own weakness, it's him. Because he's as tough a guy as you'll ever meet. You hear all those stories about him and the ride to Rockies and all this other stuff. I mean, he's crazy, the stuff he'll do. So, the promise is, you come to me with everything, and I will give you the peace that passes understanding.

Now, the next verses that we're going to cover are Colossians 1.13 and Colossians 2.13-15.

Who wants to read Colossians 1.13?

And Colossians 2.13-15.

Okay, my question was, what are some of the characteristics of the power of darkness. This is in a rock and roll band. What are some of the characteristics of the power of darkness? What are some of the characteristics of it? Death. Doubt. Good one. Idolatry. What else? Depression. What else?

Now notice it says, power of darkness. So darkness has got some muscle behind it. And it's active. And it's designed to maintain its status of darkness. Maybe a good example is in John, I think it's John chapter 4, when the Lord Jesus said that that they wouldn't come to the light, that light has come into the world, but they won't come to the light because they loved agape darkness greater than they loved the light because their deeds were evil. That's a demonstration of the power of darkness to hold human beings in its grasp because their deeds are evil and they hate the light and love the darkness. We have this attitude, I think, as believers, that if they'll just sit down long enough and we can give them the light, they'll go for it. No, they won't.

Darkness is powerful. Does darkness work in a believer's life? and they will scurry to the food. The minute you turn that light on, they, it's not like you have combat boots on, they disappear immediately. The light has been shown upon them. It's been shown upon what they are. Roaches are the same way.

I think what I identify with is Jesus Moses, but you have to serve the name of the Lord. He's putting us all away in the cross. The reason that I asked this question was so that we could understand, maybe. When we went through Romans 6, and the Lord Jesus, or God, identified us with Christ and His cross, that we were baptized into His death, we were buried, resurrected, ascended and seated.

The power of darkness is so great that if the only thing that happened was the forgiveness of your sins, you'd still be living in darkness. Trust me. Do you understand what I mean? Because is forgiveness enough to make you alive? No, it's not. No, it's not. So to forgive a sinner keeps the sinner in darkness. And darkness is powerful.

So when he says in Colossians, he delivered us out of the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom the Son of His love, how did that translation happen? Through identification with Christ and His cross. That's how it happened. Do you see that? He, by identifying you with Christ, death, burial and resurrection, took you out of darkness and put you in the light of His love. Position. Position. See? No matter what darkness tells you, that's the position.

In Colossians 2.13, he made us alive together or quickened us, having forgiven us all trespasses. He blotted out the bond of the ordinances that was against us, that was contrary to us. He took it out of the way and he despoiled principalities and powers. Now let's just for one second.

What's a believer's relationship with the king of darkness? Satan. What's your relationship with him? Zero. He seems to have some freedom to try to influence you, doesn't he? Only the first and. What do you think? Now that you're a Christian and you're positioned in Christ, Satan's just marked you off the list and he leaves you alone, right? He's constantly picking. Why? I mean, what's your positional relationship to him? He's trying to draw you out. That's right. You have no relationship to him positionally. Am I right? How about conditionally? Absolutely. So what's he trying to do? We're in this domain. Now, do we give him too much credit sometimes?

We had a guy in a class one day, this was years ago, come in and I always start my class by asking for prayer and this guy says, pray for me because Satan's really been after me this week." You know what I said to him? Satan doesn't know your name, he doesn't know your address and he doesn't care. He said, yeah, he does. I said, what he was trying to convince me is that Satan was omnipresent. You understand what I mean? He said, no, well, he sent one of his guys to pick on me. I said, I'm telling you, he doesn't know your name and he doesn't care. He said, why not?

I said, because you've got a sin nature. He doesn't need to be poking at you. You're no threat to him. Right? So you have a conditional relationship. The thing that gets believers into sin is their own sin nature. James says that you are lured out of your position in Christ by your own lust. Trust me, Satan doesn't know anybody's first name in this room. I'm telling you, he doesn't. And he doesn't care. He doesn't have to care.

He's up there accusing the brethren. And here's what else he's doing. He's marching all these nice little Christians to church on Sunday. that are negative are happening in their lives it's because especially they are doing God's work and that it's drawing because of that and Satan is undermining it because they are accomplishing these things.

Yeah, and if you follow the logic down on most of those stories you'll find that in the end Satan wins in their mind. because they were defeated, usually, right? Or that they're in the battle and they're not realizing very many quote-unquote victories, right? That's kind of the mindset.

If you go back to the Word of God and just the two Colossians verses that we've just described, we've been taken out of the kingdom of darkness, put in the kingdom of the Son of Islam, And he has spoiled principalities and powers. And that's a given fact. It's a fact. So I'm called by God to be involved in some sort of service to him.

What's my viewpoint? Do I function from the viewpoint that I must gain ground for him? Or do I function from a viewpoint that I hold the ground? Which is it? I hold the ground. Am I winning souls for Christ, or am I being used as an ambassador of the reconciliation? Am I to tell people, you know, I've got to win you over to Christ, or do I go to them and say, hey, you know, the sin issue with regards to you and God is already done? It says to give an account whenever asked. Yeah.

Well, isn't the only reason, if it's only identity or when a person becomes a Christian, The only reason Satan would waste his time with you wouldn't be because he doesn't want you believing what's true of you because then other people see Christ through you.

That's right. Otherwise, why would he care? Because he can't change your position. That's right. So, he just wants to keep you... Keep you in darkness about it. Right. Ignorance. Because if people see Christ through you... So now look at how he does it. Let's see. Christian television maybe? By rights he won that round. He did before. Right. He doesn't have it now. No. But he had it before.

And by rights we still have the same nature in us. Yes we do. And so what's the best way to deal with that? Is it to scare human beings with demonic behavior? Nah. Nah. The best way to do it is to dress them up, make them look holy, put them on TV, and just keep them from the truth by making them function spiritually out of the flesh.

Isn't that the subtle way to do it? If I can march all of you down to church on Sunday and have you go through a ritual and make you feel good when you walk out, I've done my job. And you never find out about your position in Christ, you never find out about your identity, And if you happen to be really spiritual, then I'll engage you in a combat, so that you never get to the truth. Do you see how subtle that is?

If a mission organization has some sort of satanic influence, it may be just the person, the missionaries, sin, and crash and climb a cross, and they blame Satan. Let's maybe run out of time, so let's cut to the short strokes. Let's say you do encounter Satan in your environment. Let's say you are a missionary.

What do you do? What do you do with him? You cast him out. He just described his own fate. What do you do? You stay where you are. You don't move out of Christ's one inch. I was just saying what we talked about with the armor of God. Sure. You stay right where you are. And the other one, it always is fight the good fight. So everybody thinks it's fight, but what is the end of that? Fight of faith. That's right. It doesn't mean go out and attack. Facts. I always hear this.

I'm going to fight the good fight. And they're going to go out and attack. And it doesn't call for that. between the armor of God and how many times we hear Sam from. It's not go out and fight the good fight. We're going to go out and lead the charge and take on Satan. It's fight the good fight of faith. Let me give you a quick story Jim Poole told me.

He was in Thailand and he was with some New Tribes missionaries that were working in a village and they worked there for two or three years and didn't get one convert. So they finally packed their bags and left. Right? Six months later, they went to another village, which was on the other side of the valley, and that whole village came to Christ. So, I mean, Satan beat them on the one, and they beat Satan on the other?

I don't think so. What's the principle there? The Lord knows those that are His. He knows. They weren't defeated. If you look at it, if good things happen, we win, and if bad things happen, we lose, or we're in darkness, or we're failures, that's ridiculous. It puts you in a position of responsibility. God knows those who are His. You may lose too. The issue is that Our job is to abide, is to know, believe, abide, behold and rest, no matter what the circumstances are, no matter what they are. Even if you're getting marched down to the Colosseum to be lunch for the lions, you abide and rest.

Looks like Satan won. Don't you think that the crucifixion of Christ really, from an objective standpoint, looks like Satan won? The Son of God is crucified. Satan must be thinking, aha, I got him. I got rid of him. And the minute Christ died, he must have gone, oh, did I blow that one. You see that? So, we're always in a position of victory because we're in Christ. The job is done. We win. Did the second bell ring? I'm starting to hear noise out there.

I'm going to close with reading what I think is a terrific verse. Hebrews 10, 19, Therefore, brethren, we have boldness to enter the holy places, or the holy of holies, by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh. And we have a great priest over the house of God. So let us draw near with a true heart in the fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our body washed with pure water. Amen.