Biblical Anthropology - Identification - Part II

We're proceeding through this bigger topic of biblical anthropology, looking ahead to just a little over a month, moving on to biblical counseling. So this is kind of laying the groundwork for biblical counseling. And one of the things we've been doing, we started last week and we're continuing on with the subject, as you see in your handout, is identification.

Identification is a word, if you look it up in your concordance, I don't think you'll find it there unless you've got an unusual translation in the concordance. But what it is, it is a word that we use that kind of pulls together in one bundle a set of not only just words but ideas that are laid forth pretty substantially and consistently, mostly in the letters and primarily in Paul's letters in the New Testament. And it includes these things we bulleted last time and I want to make sure they get included again because I don't want us to get lost with, alright I got this handle identification, but we need to say real clearly and explicitly what it is. When we use a handle, like for example, another handle is the Trinity. That's a handle. It is really important that we use it as a means of communication and not as a means of alienation. Why would that matter? Why would it matter that we use a term like this as communication rather than alienation?

That's right. That's right. It's a key principle in Scripture that Jeremy has pointed out here. We're learning something that the Word of God says, and we want to understand it because the Word of God says it. We don't want to use handles and lingo to put a separation between ourselves and others. So, key point. The five things we have bulleted here are being in, for example, being in Christ, being placed entirely in so as to share an identity, and with, together with and united with, and we addressed these last week so I won't go over them in detail, but just to make sure it's fresh in people's minds. united with and then baptized into. Those are the five key terms that are used and we put them under the umbrella we call identification.

And from there we want to talk about what are the consequences? What does that mean? Now that we've introduced these terms and explained initially what those mean, here is what it means to each and every believer. That's the point we want to come to here.

The five things we want to talk about, and this is one of those things where if you're ever into getting tats, you know, you could tattoo it on your fingers, I suppose. But the idea is there are five ways, in particular, that we have been identified with Christ. And it is the consequence of our being in Christ. This is with, together with, and united with Him, and baptized into. And those five ways are these, and you have them on page 22, 23, and 24 of your handout there. The first one is crucified. Several New Testament passages say that we were identified with Christ in his death. And then I say such as, because this is not an entire listing, but it's several substantial listings.

This Romans 6, 1-10, Galatians 2.20, Colossians 2.20. Think about it, and this is something I kind of carry through the rest of this write-up.

We think about the Roman soldiers, and there were probably Unless there were more people being crucified that day than what we have immediately listed, probably something like about four Roman soldiers would typically be put on a small detail like this. And they would have a centurion who ordinarily would command a whole lot more people. But four Roman soldiers would be assigned to a detail like this. And their job was just to get them up there on the cross.

In fact, the Romans, what we have evidence of is the Romans would nail them all kinds of ways. The one actual leftover, you know, bones from a crucifixion, they put, and it was discovered in Jerusalem, And it's from the first century, New Testament times.

They drove the nail right through the bone in the foot. Just right through. And the Roman officers, they didn't just get them up there. They didn't care. So there's a bunch of different ways they did it. We have evidence in some cases they'd nail them sideways. So they'd, you know, do like that. So they didn't care. They just got them up.

But that day, What the Roman soldiers and all the people gathered around there didn't realize is that cross was crowded. The cross was crowded because there were just thousands and thousands of people there that day that nobody there with eyes ever saw.

And that includes you and me. Think about this. It's spiritually very, very crowded. The sins of the entire world for all time, everyone on the planet, from Adam and Eve to the very last person at the end of the millennium. Everyone on the planet. Christ took their sins upon himself. Everyone.

Aside from that, everyone who has believed From the day of Pentecost up until the day of the rapture, everyone who has believed was there with Christ at his crucifixion. Crucified with him. The old man of each one of us who believe was crucified there that day. What is the old man? The old man is all of who we were in Adam. Crucified there on that day. That's not all. The sins of the whole world He took upon Himself. Everyone who believes from Acts 2 to the Rapture, they're with Him and the Law was crucified there. Yeah, the Law was crucified there.

We have the Law along with the debt note. This is an IOU along with a debt note for what we owed. Here's something, a little side note, but not too much aside. Do we owe the Lord anything? I see you're shaking your head no. Why is that? Because everything that he did, he did out of pure love. Yeah, yeah. You're exactly right. It's out of grace. Ingrid kind of brought a hymn to my attention where she was saying, well, I owe him this. And I started thinking, oh, she was right. It's all by grace. We don't owe him. As a matter of fact, what was owed was all paid. All paid. The debt note entirely paid off.

And that's the key here. These are three summary outcomes to identification with Christ's crucifixion that God caused to take place on that day. So that day, that cross, that hill, Belgotha, place of the skull, very crowded place. There are three summary outcomes. Those show up on top of page 23 in your handout.

Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Oh, I was just going to make a point about when he was on the cross and he said, it is finished. Yes. It wasn't no little, it's finished. But he rose up and screamed, it is perfect. I think that word perfect. It's finished, complete, done deal. And it's funny, in the Greek it's just one word. And it is actually in a form that emphasizes the completeness and totality. It's a completely done deal. It is totally and entirely finished.

The first one there, the believer died in relationship to the sin nature, which does not mean the believer does not have a sin nature, but rather the believer is no longer an absolute slave to the sin nature. We have Appendix Item 5, which is from a prior week, has a diagram of the believer's relationship to the sin nature while in this present body. Why is it important that we not say, well, the sin of nature is just plain gone?

Why does that matter? Because it isn't. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, because it isn't is a key thing. And one of the reasons, and we will be getting into this more when we get into the counseling part of things, but we're also going to be addressing it again before we're done with this topic of biblical anthropology.

And that is that one of the reasons we don't just say, well, the sin nature is gone, Ben's right, not just because it isn't gone, but also because if we do not recognize the continuing presence of the sin nature, even though the believer is no longer joined to the sin nature, and especially this will be only with this body, But one of the key reasons why that's important is if we don't recognize that, then we don't have good answers for why the believer still has an issue with sin.

Yeah, Mike? You rob God of His grace, too. Rob God of His grace? Yeah. Okay, and how is that? Well, if man isn't aware of his need. Ah, okay. Yeah, we have a continuing need and that's one thing. You could ask the question, why didn't God just kind of wrap it all up? Make it so that it isn't an issue and we're all done and all that. Matter of fact, why doesn't He just, once we're saved, we go home?

But you speak of the soul or the sin nature. Right. This is where it's an ongoing process of understanding what that soul life is and how to live in the ascended life, the spirit man. How to walk And walk in the Spirit, how to, as Colossians puts it in the passage we've referenced here earlier in Colossians, setting our mind on things above. Everybody speaks a condition and position. And sure, that's good words, but you have to understand what the soul man is. the vanity involved in this world as compared to walking in the new man.

We'll be talking about that in the weeks to come because that is a key issue. Let's go on to point two. The believer died in a relationship to the law of Moses and any principle of law. That means that no part of the law of Moses is applicable as law to the believer who is part of the body of Christ. That is directly applicable.

We are not under some kind of laws. We're not under some partial set. We're not under the set of laws that the pastor happens to pick. Okay, you're not under the law except for these, right? And it has to do with the ones that has to do with putting your money in the box and things like that. No, not under any law at all.

No part of the law of Moses is as applicable as the law of the believer who is a part of the body of Christ. We have appendix item 6, a comparison between the principle of law and the principle of grace. That's the appendix item that's in two columns and a white sheet that you got this morning. And then the third one, the believer died in relationship to the world and its basic principles. That's something that we looked at at the very end of our study of Galatians.

The world has its pressures, there's the Romans 12.2, to not be conformed to this world, and the world is seeking to make us conformed, excuse me, to the world's pressures, ways, and systems. These no longer have a claim on the believer. Let me give you kind of an analogy here. And it's one that scripture draws upon. The believer has been bought out from the slave market of sin. Completely bought out from the slave market of sin. So why do we get this voice calling us, hey, come back to this old sin. Don't you like me anymore?

What that is, is the old slave master screaming and hollering and yelling with no claim, no basis for claim at all, but screaming, hollering, yelling, arm twisting, pleading, and all those other things for us to come back and obey the old master. There is no validity to that claim, but still a lot of noise can be made.

In recent past, the Philippines was under basically a dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. And Marcos was one of those who ran the country and had quite a bit of power. Well, when he was ousted, He still continued to run around, make a lot of noise, and have people calling for him to come back. Of course, he never did go back and take power.

But that's, I think, a good picture, because here's someone who makes lots of noise, boy, hits the press, gets lots of attention, keeps pleading for the opportunity to come back, and yet had no basis for the continuing claim and apparent power. And this is the way our relationship is with the world and with the sin nature both. There is a former pressure. The pressure is still there. The screaming and yelling and hollering is still there. But no right to claim. No right to claim that place.

In each case, it's important to see that our death with Christ on the cross does not terminate or annihilate the sin nature, the law, or the world. All those are still around, right? It doesn't end those, but it ends our absolutely beholden nature to them. So each of these are still present. But our death with Christ on the cross, however, causes us to have died in relationship to each of those, the death of separation.

The next one is buried and it's interesting you say buried, well wait a minute, didn't he already die? But the burial confirms and assures of the death. The burial is therefore brought out in Romans 6 and Colossians 12 too. It's the assurance that the death, yes, actually took place. So here we have again, the people who were doing the burial thought that this was rather simple.

We've got Jesus and we wrap him up and we put him in the tomb. But you know what? That tomb was crowded. That tomb was crowded. I was there. You were there. That was a very crowded tomb. Because we were there with him. The place was packed. I was thinking a lot of times about how good it would be to have a set of earplugs. A lot of time you could just stick in your ears, you know, your spiritual ears. Uh-huh. And for a man. Ah, okay. The listening to the world's input there? Yeah. And one of the things we think of there, the reality of the burial.

The burial was real, so much so that it was something they had to do quickly because they had to get everything done before Sabbath and there's also Sabbath preparations on top of that. But also the tomb was sealed with the seal of Rome. And so you had Roman soldiers on the outside. And this was a larger team of Roman soldiers, most likely, than the ones who were there at the crucifixion. Because this was a team who would protect, basically at risk of their own lives, protect the tomb from being opened. And they would rotate time-wise as to who was on primary duty. Yes? They didn't believe the Lord's claim of his resurrection primarily to prevent the stealing of the body.

That's right. And yet what they found out is we're not going to stop this. Doesn't matter how much you threaten the soldiers or how well trained they are or the number, this is going to happen and no team of soldiers is going to stop it from happening. Being dead in a relationship to the sin nature and the law and the world are not hypothetically or nearly true. It is true. The real thing.

The third one was raised. Raised with him and that's That's another point. If we think of it being raised with him, people that saw him, and we have it on record, certainly cases in the Gospels, Paul summarizes it and even adds some additional information. How many people saw Christ raised? Yeah, 500 plus, basically. We have this figure of 500 and 500 plus.

It is that resurrection that certainly was a startling revelation to the disciples, and one in particular, to Thomas, right? But even Jesus' brothers, and particularly named as James, was one who, so far as the record shows, didn't believe until he saw his own brother raised. So he was the utmost skeptic up until he saw his brother raised. It was pretty hard to turn that away and turn that down.

Okay, let's look at the last page, page 24. Being raised with him means that our new life is derived from his new life. His life, not mine. His new life. We're not only dead in relationship to the sin nature of the law and the world, but we're alive in a new kind of life.

And this is a key thing for us to take note of. Scripture repeatedly uses A word that means new, not just new in sequence, not just new like, okay, this was the old and now this is sequentially new, but new in kind. And that's something that Scripture keeps pointing to again and again. A new kind of life. This is Christ's life, resurrection life, not simply alive again of the same kind.

Can you think of resurrections that were not of a new kind? Pardon? Lazarus was one. And in Acts, probably Dorcas is another one we could point to. So you've got resurrections to this kind of life, which is kind of interesting to think about. So you have a person being resurrected to this life and then dying again. There's one other thing to take note of, and this is the magnitude of the resurrection, and this is pointed out in Ephesians chapter 1. We have it quoted in verse 18 through 23 here. And I think this is something that Christians need to understand. A lot of times we get into situations, and do you ever feel like, I'm inadequate for this? Whatever it is? Ever come to that? I don't have what it takes for this.

In one sense, that's probably a great recognition. On the other hand, it is exceedingly important to recognize, and interesting, here is Paul in chapter 1, he says, you know, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory. Let's put in the word wealth. Wealth of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of, now this is, surpassing means overthrown. Okay? Overthrown, way over the top. Greatness. Yeah. The adequacy that he provides is always adequate. Yes, always. What is the surpassing greatness of His power toward, the Greek word there is eis, or eis means into, His power into those who believe. So it's not just sort of power in your general direction, but it is specifically power into those who believe. What's that power?

These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. and seated Him in His right hand in the heavenly places. It's that resurrection magnitude power that you as a believer have into yourselves by God's doing. So what's the magnitude of the power that the Lord is pouring into you? It's His resurrection magnitude power.

If you want to say, how do I calibrate this power meter? We're talking resurrection magnitude. That's the kind of power. This meter is pinned at resurrection magnitude power. That's the power that each believer has made available to them by the Lord. And that's the key thing.

The surpassing greatness of the power of Christ's resurrection. I'm talking about the last paragraph there in that section. is the measure of the magnitude of that new life that is not just enacted at that past point in time, but is being right now directed into the life of each believer, right now. Which is also a marvelous truth that is not at all just hypothetical, but is intended to be real life now. We who believe are not intended to do the living here on this planet. He is. His life. Resurrection magnitude life right now. Because notice back up there in the Ephesians passage, that power. What is the surpassing greatness? Not just was. What is the surpassing greatness right now? Present tense. Right. Yes.

That point is so important to me because throughout my life I've always thought of the fact that we look to, sometimes I think as Christians, we look to Christ as He assists us or He adds to our strength. And we call on God asking us to give us the strength to do this.

It's not exactly that He's giving us strength. He's our everything. And we need to realize it's not He does something to ourselves that enables us, but He is everything that we do. It's not in addition to ourselves. Yes, that's a good point. It is not our best efforts and the Lord makes up for the shortfall. It is entirely his life. It's entirely his new kind of life. It's not something that we concoct. And yes, it is easy for us to fall into a mode of asking the Lord for help. He didn't come to help. He came to be our life. Christ who is our life is the way Paul wrote to the believers in Colossae. Thank you.

Ascended and seated. Acts 1 records historically when Christ ascended. And here are the 11 apostles at that point in time. We have it from the Ephesians passage above here, Ephesians 2, 4-7, and elsewhere in scripture, that Christ was seated in the heavenlies. We end up seated with him in the heavenlies, not just when we die or are raptured, but spiritually speaking right now. Notice that that seated in the heavenlies is not a, oh I can't wait till I go home to be with the Lord.

Certainly that's something we can look forward to. But this seated in the heavenlies is a done deal. It's entirely true now of everyone who believes. Later on he's going to tell these people they need to quit stealing and lying and all kinds of things. But he's told them already right at the outset They've been blessed with every spiritual blessing. That's Ephesians 1, 3. And here in Ephesians 2, 4 through 7, that they have already been seated with Christ in the heavenlies.

What are some other passages that point to that heavenly place that we have with the Lord right now? Can you think of some other verses that talk about that place that we have with the Lord that's heavenly? coming to the Lord in prayer, you're not coming to something that's going to fall apart. You're right there in the heavenlies with Him. A heavenly petition. We're right there in His presence. Good. What else? Can you think of other passages that point to that heavenly place that we have right now? Yeah, here's heavenly citizens.

One place where it makes that point actually in three different ways, three times, is the book of Philippians. Chapter 1, heavenly citizen conduct. Chapter 3, you have a heavenly citizenship. Chapter 4, names in the book of life, which is the list of citizens.

How about Colossians? Keep your mind set on things above. Why there? Because that's where you have that citizenship. That's where you have that seating with Christ. That's the place where we have all of our blessings. That's the place where we have our citizenship. That's the place where we live.

You think about it, if you have a sequence like this, It's the last thing in the sequence that says where you are. Are you right now on the cross? That was an historical event. This five-point sequence actually leaves you there seated in the heavenlies. And it doesn't mean that the prior ones no longer have relevance, but if you ask the question, where am I now?

It's that last one. That's where I'm seated. And I certainly need to know the truths of the prior ones, and there may in fact be things in my daily life that I still have to learn from the fact that I was crucified. I may have to go, you know, learn from and revisit those truths. But the reality is where am I now? I'm seated with Christ in the heavenlies now.

That's where I am. If that is the case, If that is the case, where are you living spiritually right now? Where are you living spiritually right now? With Christ, and where is He? Oh, wow. That's where you're living spiritually now? Really? Yeah, that's right. Well then, I've got this thing here. How does the living get done here? What is God's intent for the living that happens in this thing that we've got here walking the planet? Christ. Isn't this amazing? We live there, He does the living here. You're done here. You're all through. You're all through here. It's His job to do the living here. I live there. Isn't that something?

That's real different from try really hard to be a good Christian. That's really different. That's really different from asking the Lord for some hail. You get the point? This is not I'm doing my best here and asking the Lord to kind of pitch in for my shortfall. It's I'm done here. I live there. He does the living here. That's his intent. So that it's not my life, not my best efforts, not him supplementing my trying as hard as I can. But I'm done here. It's his life. He's the one.

It's Galatians 2.20. It is no longer I who does the living, but Christ who does the living in me. Now have I blown any circuits?

You ever talk to somebody and you're talking about maybe the person you're talking to or maybe even yourself or somebody and you say, well, he's not all there. Well, guess what? God's intent is that Vern's not all here. And if you hear somebody say, well, Vern's not all there, well, good.

Because I'm out of here. I'm out of here. I'm done. It's Christ who does the living here. I'm through. And now if I fall back into the place of trying to pull it off, and I can. If I fall back into that place of trying to pull it off myself, I can try to do that. And that's not what God has in mind. And this happens in lots of different situations. Let me share two, because I think I have time for it.

I had a project that was 10 years ago this year. It was a project that was just awful. And it turned out okay, but at the time there were people yelling, screaming, calling me on the phone in the middle of the night, on weekends. The sleep was short for several months on end. And this overlapped the time when Randy and Jessica were getting married. So, you know, this was quite a time. And they were, you know, I was getting multiple phone calls from lawyers.

What's amazing is, you know, I could go into just basically miracles that this thing wasn't all swarmed up in lawsuit. But basically, I had several months of just extremely intense time that was highly, highly stressful. And I just got to a point there where I just said, Lord, you know, I can't do this. But that's actually very good. Because it was a point of really recognizing, honestly, the Lord has a mind all the time. I'm not supposed to do this.

Another instance that I would give you is there was a fellow, his name was Red, I think it's a nickname, Red Daniels. He was in a North Vietnamese prison camp. And they started torturing him. They hung him upside down with leg irons, which means basically pipe clamps on each ankle.

And that was Sunday. And by about Thursday, he realized, you know, he says, I'm not going to make this. I can't keep resisting because, I mean, it was getting bad, just physically, psychologically. And about Thursday of the week, he told his captors and torturers, he said, you know what?

God's got me and you can't do a thing. You can't touch me because God's in control. and you guys are just done. That blew their circuits. They flitted them out of the clamps. They realized they couldn't do anything to them. Because it didn't depend on him. It depended on the Lord's sufficiency.

And sometimes those extreme events, like the one I just described from my own life about ten years ago, and for Red Daniels from several decades ago. But both of those illustrate the point that most of our lives don't consist of those things. And yet the Lord's intent is the same. It's His life living here. Our life there. And that's a key truth that frequently is overlooked. Probably a week later the captors were saying, oh shoot, we should have left him up there.

Yeah, well, what happens, it's amazing, when he told them, he said, you know, you guys can't do anything to me because God's the one that's in control. And it's entirely up to him and his sufficiency. And you guys are trying to break God. That's when they, he said, they just gave up. They realized they couldn't do a thing. There was no way they were going to touch him.

And they could tell by the expression on his voice and on his face, hanging upside down, that they weren't going to break this guy. That he was entirely relying on God's sufficiency. And they saw it. It's amazing. These guys were torturing, obviously not believers, but they realized they were up against something we can't touch. We're never going to break this guy.

Why? Because it's the Lord's sufficiency, not his. The key point as we look at this is just a recognition, you know, it's possible to look at this as all just hypothetical and all just jargon, but do you think that the apostles wrote so that we could just have jargon and stuff to poke in our head? Not at all.

No, they very much intended that this be lived out. They very much intended that this be real life. And that this be taken to heart and mind. But not just stuffed into the gray matter, right? This wasn't just some intellectual stuff that you learn about. But something to be lived out day by day. And why would they do that? Why would they take the time to write this, but spell it out repeatedly? Why would they write it in such a way that they intended that we would? Probably because it was the reality of what they were going through.

Yeah, I think that's a good point. The guys who are writing this were not guys who just sitting off in some ivory tower and life was nice and they could write about this hypothetical thing. But yeah, it's very much about how do they endure the very things that they're enduring. So this, first of all, yeah, it was real. It was tested.

Yeah? I think if you don't know these things, you haven't been taught them. and if they're not part of your life, the only thing you have left is to take up your cross and follow Him. Okay, yeah. Which can be really tough. Yeah, yeah. This is not a matter of our best efforts. It's not a matter of just gutting it out. This is a matter of His resurrection life and power. And us recognizing, we're done here. But doesn't that gutting it out have to be went through?

As bearing your own cross, I mean. Which you were speaking of, Ruth. I'm not quite sure what you mean. There has to be the struggle. The need has to be revealed. I'm still not quite sure what you mean. I don't believe scripture actually says that that's a requirement. Boy, it sure was with me. I think what you can say is it is descriptive of what people go through. but it is not prescribed. The scripture does not spell that out as a requirement. Although, certainly people, many people will describe and say that's what happens.

Why is that? Why is what? Bad upbringing? Bad parents? Why is it that people would have to go through that? Oh, why is it that people would have to go through it? I think there are a number of different reasons. One is, I think for a lot of people, it's they maybe are even directed to give your best efforts. They are taught to try really hard. Give of your best to the master. Yes? Well, if we don't give of our best efforts, how can we come to the end? Well, and it may come to that.

I guess what I would look at is, and this is something we're going to be talking more about later as well, but what I would look at is the direction, the direction that scripture gives to, you know, like for example, we just went through Galatians. Those Galatians were only two years old than the Lord Max. And yet he talked to them, you know, you've fallen from grace." And he didn't say, well that's okay, you'll eventually get there. He said, right now you've fallen from grace and right now you need to walk in the Spirit.

Right now you need to be loving one another, serving one another through love. And not just later. There are certainly many, many Christians who can describe a point of recognition of need. but Scripture does not assume it as a universal. That's what I would say. Could you not say that some people will get it almost immediately? In a situation where they're taught well, and they just have... maybe in their... before they were saved, they already have come to that point of recognizing, I just cannot do this. when they are saved and then they receive this teaching of, it's Christ's life, it's His empowerment, and they have that from the beginning, their walk will be more consistent.

I'm not quite sure how to phrase that. And then there are others of us who are not taught that. Maybe our lives weren't as horrible from an earthly standpoint as somebody else's. And so it takes us a little bit longer to get to the end of ourselves. But it isn't that God says, oh, you're going to have to wander the wilderness for 40 years before you get it.

It's, I want you to know this. Believe it. I would use this description in my own life. I grew up, I mean I was a believer at four and a half. I grew up in the Peninsula Bible Church and I can remember having both sermons and songs about depending upon the Lord and yet I would say that Nancy and I were married for 15 years before I finally came to a point of realizing, you know, I can't depend on my own adequacy. So descriptively, yeah, it took a long time.

I don't know that I can see scripture prescribing that or saying that that must be the case, although many believers can describe that as true. Tom? of the way Dad kind of taught us how to bind our parents. We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way. It's interesting. It is a common thing to see described, and some believers will go through it at different times where they'll realize it. And, you know, even what I described to you with this horrible project 10 years ago. I mean, that was a point of real realization for me. You know, I was 45 years old. So, yes.

Just to get real quickly back, you asked why the apostles and the writing of scripture emphasizes so much. I think the reason to keep in mind is this is the system we're under, as we talked about in Galatians. the principles under which it operates. We live under gravity and so my kids need to understand that there are principles of gravity that since they live under it, they have to understand it. And since we live under grace, that is the reigning principle, it's important for us to understand it. with our children. I tell my kids all the time, don't go up the slide like that, because if you fall off, gravity is going to hurt when you get it. There's nothing like falling off of that slide.

Boy, it drives the point home. You know, it is one thing to just go, okay, I got the concept in my head. How much does it take to get it across? And some of us does seem to take quite no deal. Yeah. To reinforce the theory of gravity. Yeah. But you see, that's where we find out that the Lord's at the bottom of the slide. Yeah. Yeah. He's still going to let you fall. Yeah. And he's going to let you learn from your from your actions, what the consequences are. Sure. How often do we in our lives have raised kids? Yeah. I tell my daughter all the time, she does something, you're going to hurt yourself. Yeah. She keeps trying to do it. You're going to hurt yourself. Eventually she hurts herself. And I just look at her and say, you won't do that again, will you?

Yeah. Yeah. There was an account once where I heard about someone, a babysitter, was called in to watch a kid when the parent was in the other room. And the babysitter was called in so that the parent could kind of go through a time of less hassle or something. It was rather strange. And anyway, the babysitter was within earshot of the parent in this situation. Well, it so happened that a bee got into the room where the kid was. And so the babysitter was trying to keep the kid away from the bee. And after several times of, you better watch out, there's bees in here, and we'll try to take care of the bee and get the bee out of the room and all that. Several times later, the parent was in the other room and didn't understand what the thing was. You let them have it.

And sometimes that's indeed what it takes. We do get into situations like that where we can go through quite a time of recognizing, oh, this is the consequence. This is what it actually takes. But all the years and time that's lost because of that. Yeah, I think... And isn't that why the Lord has given us this word? So that we don't have to lose all those words. Yeah, I think it's a matter of certainly we can look at different believer circumstances and yeah, sometimes years go by before lessons are learned. But then, even through that, we learn what eternity is, you know, and the principle of time.

Yeah. And, Brad? But just like, as you're watching your kid go up on your slide, it's not your will that they fall off the slide, but you'll allow it if they're going to learn better. Sure. So God doesn't will us to go through the Roman Senate experience at all, but you'll allow it if that's what we do. But there is allowance of it, yeah.

We're through with time, so let's pray, okay? Lord, we thank you for Just what you've laid out in your words so clearly, we thank you. As we look at this identification, it is your very intent that this be learned and lived out, and so we just would pray for your working in our hearts and in our minds that we would indeed absorb these things, and that it would be your life doing the living with you in the heavenlies. We pray this in Jesus' name.