How to Prepare for a Pending Plague

[0:00] Exodus chapter 9 this morning. We just finished chapter 8 last week. And we looked at the pestilence, the plague of flies. And we studied how to prevent a pestilence, seeing that maybe Pharaoh could not have stopped the work of God here.

[0:18] But there was definitely some things in that passage that showed us something could have been prevented. At least in your life, it could be prevented. And that is we saw that you could heed God's warnings because Pharaoh was warned by the water where several other plagues were associated with, an instant reminder of some things God has done.

[0:38] And you could take heed to the warnings in the Word of God. And also you can get to Goshen, to that place that God severed and separated in your life for you to dwell in free of sin and free of corruption.

[0:52] And the third thought last week was to give in to God. As we saw that Pharaoh was warming up from the pounding of the plagues, he was starting to consider letting them go.

[1:05] And of course he reneged on his statement of letting them go. But responding to the punishment is a good way to avoid a pestilence or to prevent one from coming more corruption in your life.

[1:17] Now we're in chapter 9 and we're on the fifth plague. And I'll point out a verse, verse 3. The very last word in verse number 3 is the word murrin.

[1:31] I like to read it as murrain. That's what it makes sense to me. But as I looked it up, five out of six definitions and pronunciations said, murrin.

[1:42] Murrin. I listened to it probably 30 times saying, really? Is it murrin? I don't know how it's going to come out of my mouth today as we read, but I'm trying to say murrin.

[1:54] So that word there is a generic term for mass casualties of livestock. It's an epidemic. It's caused by rapidly spreading diseases that pass from animal to animal.

[2:11] Typically you're talking about domesticated animals where there's large quantities. It's not such a thing that's known of out in the wild. But today there's modern examples of this such as hoof and mouth disease.

[2:24] You've heard of that. Perhaps anthrax as it appears in animals and can kill many. There's a lot of others that I just don't know how to pronounce the names of them, so I didn't even bother trying to sketch them down here and read them off to you.

[2:37] But I think you get the idea that this is something that can still even happen today. And to avoid this, we generally give shots to all the animals. Maybe you have a pet and you give a dog a distemper shot.

[2:51] That's what it is. It's trying to avoid a disease that can be spread from animal to animal. So now let's read verses 1 through 7 of Exodus chapter 9. Please follow along in the Bible.

[3:02] Then the Lord said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh and tell him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go that they may serve me. For if thou refuse to let them go and wilt hold them still, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep.

[3:25] There shall be a very grievous myrrhen. And the Lord shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt, and there shall nothing die of all that is the children of Israel's.

[3:37] And the Lord appointed a set time, saying, Tomorrow the Lord shall do this thing in the land. And the Lord did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died, but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one.

[3:50] And Pharaoh sent, and behold, there was not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go.

[4:00] Let's pray and ask the Lord to help us with this passage and to speak to our hearts this morning. God has a serious request before you this morning that you would move in this place, that you would take this passage, these seven short verses, easily overlooked plague, and give us something that we can learn from and benefit from.

[4:21] Please speak to our hearts. Make your words alive this morning, and take this truth and this historical setting and make it come to life in our lives today where we live.

[4:33] And so I ask that you'll do a work this morning. We pray that you'll strengthen the believers, that you'll convict us and convince us of the truth of your word and how important it is in our life. And we ask this in Christ's name.

[4:45] Amen. Amen. Now, it's easy to read through the Bible and to get to Exodus 7. You're just picking off one plague after another. You've got 10. And here you hit number 5.

[4:56] It's seven verses. And you could go right into verses 8, 9, and 10 and have Moses with his hand in the furnace digging up ashes, and on you go. And this is one that's just easy to overlook.

[5:09] Not a lot of detail, just a reference that this is what I'm going to do, and that's what I did. And I'd like to put some time on this plague this morning and try to first understand the seriousness of it and understand altogether the devastation that existed in Egypt with this plague.

[5:28] Now, in verse 3, God targets the cattle of Egypt in this plague. The hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle which is in the field. And this is something God picked.

[5:39] He targeted the cattle. It's interesting. Now, before I get into this cattle thought, a lot of expositors of the Bible and commentators, a lot of theologians, will make this attempt to say that all the plagues that God is putting on Egypt are all about various gods that the Egyptians worshipped.

[5:59] And the Lord is showing that he's targeting their specific gods and he's showing that he's more powerful than their gods. And there's some, you can really, you can make some pretty good association with a few things.

[6:14] But when I studied this a little bit, I found out that the Egyptians worshipped hundreds of gods. Some have it as many as 2,000 different gods. Now, that's a pretty big number and they all kind of intertwine into a big jumbled mess in history as far as their beliefs and people that died and they supposedly rose again and they married this person.

[6:36] It's weird stuff if you read into it. Of course, it's weird stuff. All heathenistic worship is weird stuff. But to say that God's targeting their top 10 gods, I just don't, personally, I don't buy it.

[6:49] It's especially because God does not express this purpose in the scripture. It's something that preachers kind of imagine or try to establish as a truth.

[6:59] Well, they worshipped the sun god and one of the plagues was darkness. So God showed he's more powerful than their sun god. I don't know. I mean, after the darkness was passed, the sun came right back up.

[7:12] He didn't target hundreds of gods. So there may be some truth to it, maybe not. Nevertheless, it's true, the Egyptians worshipped a variety of gods and several of those gods were supposedly connected to the natural world.

[7:26] And so you could build a case if you chose to. But just throwing that out. But what I want to consider, putting all of their worship of any idolatry, any gods aside, let's consider the cattle.

[7:38] And let's consider the real life, the real experience, and how this played out in the land of Egypt. Possessing and raising cattle is vital to any civilization, especially in this day and age.

[7:57] Possessing and raising cattle was, I'd say, a necessity. Now, you're familiar with some things like some goods that cattle and livestock provide, like leather items, and the hundreds and hundreds of uses for leather.

[8:12] That's just not in our society. That's back then, too. Lots of uses for the skins and the leathers of these animals. Not only that, but their fur and their wool, that's extremely useful to this civilization and society.

[8:27] Beyond that, the milk, the meat of such animals, still today, you walk into a grocery store and go to the meat aisle, and you're looking at livestock that was raised and butchered so that you could buy and consume.

[8:42] It's necessary. It still is today. It was very much back then. And that's just naming a few of what I'd call just many, many, many products provided by owning the cattle.

[8:56] They're used in trade to get a hold of things they did not possess that wasn't natural to that land and the trade routes and the merchants that would come down.

[9:06] Remember how Joseph was brought down and sold into Egypt because there was trade routes. And if they had cattle and they had a large number of cattle and lots of horses, they sold them off.

[9:18] They traded them off to gain other things. It was part of their economy. Beyond that, it was part of their consumption, like I already mentioned.

[9:29] But without the machinery of our day, the industry of our day, the technology of our day, owning cattle was of extreme importance. Think about some Bible characters that you know, like Abraham or Job.

[9:43] You know what they were mentioned as having and being wealthy? Cattle. Listing even, in some cases, the very heads of cattle. It was a commodity. It was their portfolio. They didn't own businesses, worldwide transactions.

[9:57] No, but they owned cattle. That was what they had that made them wealthy and rich. It was extremely important. And so start to get the idea was this isn't just something to blow off and rush by, but this is going to affect everybody, what God is doing here in this plague.

[10:15] They were necessary for farming, necessary for plowing and for harvesting, and just critical to nearly every facet of this civilization.

[10:28] Their economy, their agriculture, their transportation, their military. You know what Egypt's known for? Horses.

[10:40] You read that in the Bible. God says you're not going back to Egypt to multiply horses. You don't go there. You know what Solomon did? He did exactly that. Went back and built his army with the horses from Egypt and he wasn't supposed to.

[10:52] The military is affected by this myrin, this plague. Now, I want the gravity of this to sink in and let you start to see that this isn't just a passing thing, but this crippled the nation.

[11:10] This crippled their economy. It could lower their military drastically. It's a multifaceted, even a, you might call it a cascading effect when the cattle die.

[11:23] Everybody's going to be affected. Now, a point to note before we move on is that not all of the cattle died, but rather, verse 3, thy cattle which is in the field.

[11:34] That's important to notice that because in a little bit later in this chapter, two plagues later, there's going to be a grievous hail and in verses 19 and 20, he's telling them, go gather your cattle, get them in because if they're out in the field, you let those cattle out there, they're going to die.

[11:50] And so, they had an opportunity here to get the cattle in, to preserve them and to protect them. Verse number 3, God declared what he was going to do.

[12:04] Very, very plain description. I don't know if it was some airborne thing that he sent out across the fields of Egypt, across their pastures, whatever it was.

[12:15] He declared what he was going to do and we read he declared in verse 5, when he was going to do it. He appointed a set time saying, tomorrow, the Lord shall do this thing in the land.

[12:28] So, if you're an Egyptian and God says, I'm going to do this and God says, I'm going to do it tomorrow, how do you suppose you would react?

[12:40] How do you suppose you'd respond to knowing such a grievous plague is coming upon your land and you have a day's warning, you have ample warning to do something about it?

[12:54] How do you suppose you would react knowing that all of these valuable commodities are out in the field and they're going to perish tomorrow if I don't do something about it? Wouldn't it be wise to do something about it?

[13:07] Wouldn't it be wise to prepare for the coming plague, to the coming tragedy? And so, let's take that thought right there because that's real. let's take that thought and I want to preach something I'm calling preparing for a pending plague.

[13:23] A pending plague is just one day away. It's very close. It's very near. And they could have prepared for this. They had warning. They knew when it was coming.

[13:34] They knew what was coming. We sing a song that's in our hymnal. There's a line from it. It says, death is coming. Hell is moving. And I don't want to just talk about your day of death but maybe it is your death or maybe it's the death of this country that you know of or maybe it's the falling away into apostasy of the body of Christ as we're watching.

[13:56] Let's just say this. Things are not going to get better. It's just not happening. If you're blinded to that and you've been just programming yourself and listening to these voices telling you it's going to get better, it can get better, go read your Bible, brother.

[14:10] Get in this book. Let this book decide whether it is or it isn't. And this nation, if we're going to talk about the nation, it's not coming back. It's not getting better.

[14:21] And this nation's going to get exactly what it deserves. It's already coming in waves. They're small waves now. They're going to get bigger, I don't doubt. The judgment of God because you're living in a place that has forsaken God and completely forsaken His word.

[14:37] And so it's not going to get better. But there's something that we can do before the day approaches, whether it's our land, whether it's our church, whether it's the church, whether it's your own personal life.

[14:50] So let's consider preparing for a pending plague. And the first thing I want to say that could be done, just like these Egyptians, you could protect what's important.

[15:02] I already discussed here how vital these animals are to this civilization. and if they die, it is going to hurt. And so it would be very, very wise to bring them out of the field, to get them into the fold, to get them behind the fences for their own protection and preservation.

[15:21] So much of the Egyptians' lives depended upon the cattle industry, the livestock. And they could protect what's important.

[15:31] Now, it makes me consider there's some things that are pretty important in the life of the church, in the life of the nation, in the life of me, my personal life.

[15:44] And I could give you a list of five things. Maybe I tried a little, I just got a little stretching and decided not to stretch it to match the animals. But I could give you a list of some things and I'll just bring it down to two, maybe three.

[15:58] But two things for sure that I'd say are of extreme importance to this church. And the one is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[16:09] And the second is the word of God. You take those two things away and we've got nothing. Oh, we have each other, right?

[16:21] Without the gospel of Jesus Christ quickening your understanding and giving you the new birth, I don't really want you and you don't want me. Without the word of God to lead us and guide us and teach us and change us, I don't want you and you don't want me.

[16:40] These things here, we can't do without these things. I would never want to see the gospel of Jesus Christ and the word of God left out in the pasture, unprotected, unprotected, to just get infected out there in the world, in the field and disappear from our land and our lives.

[17:03] But no, I think we need to protect and keep close these so valuable, these vital commodities, if you want to call them that, to match. Because God entrusted us with them.

[17:16] He entrusted us, believers, with the gospel and his word. And those are two things that we can't stand to see infected. If we didn't have the gospel, we could not propagate.

[17:27] We'd die off as a group of believers, as a body. And if we didn't have the word of God, we couldn't stay clean, we couldn't grow, we wouldn't know what we're talking about. And so how can we protect these things?

[17:40] I want to say just two quick things here. Be aware of the threat. Like, God let them know and believe that the threat is real. Don't stick your head in the sand and act like, ah, I don't, you know, Moses and Aaron, there they go.

[17:54] No. Believe it. You've seen what God has done already. You know if he says I'm going to do something, you should have figured out by now he's going to do it. And you better believe that there are some forces coming after these two important things.

[18:08] Would you take your Bibles and flip over to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. 2 Corinthians New Testament book chapter 3.

[18:29] If you're aware that there's a threat against what's important to us and if you take it serious it'll cause you to do something about it. It'll cause you personally to decide to protect what's important, what's valuable, what you can't live without.

[18:47] In 2 Corinthians chapter 3 here's one of them verse 7, I'm sorry, chapter 2 and verse 17 Paul says For we are not as many which corrupt the word of God.

[19:02] Why would anybody corrupt the word of God? Why? Who would want to do that? I did a little research this week of you know I've studied the new versions and I know the deal with that for the most part but I did a little look on some kind of a little different angle and saw that the Jehovah's Witnesses have their own Bible.

[19:30] The Mormons they have their own Bible. These people that don't like the name Jesus or the Lord they like Jehovah or Yahweh they have their own Bible and they've changed and altered things in this text to be what they want it to be and the list is incredible.

[19:50] Do you know that there's a King James Bible for Catholics? That's a version. A King James Bible for Catholics. What in the world is that? The Catholics have their several versions that are said for Catholics because things have been downplayed or altered or shifted or notes to explain away so that it matches the reader would think this is what it means.

[20:15] Somebody's been corrupting and corrupting and corrupting what is holy and righteous and pure and came forth from God and is a source that points us back to God and draws us up out of our filth and there's something there's a pestilence that is trying to take away something that's been that is so so so important to our culture to our society.

[20:41] There's a cascading effect if the word of God gets corrupted. One generation comes up and doesn't ever see the once it's changed they don't ever see that God's going to keep it pure and that the words are pure and preserved by God so once that's all gone they don't see that as a problem and then some alterations get made to eliminate every reference to Sodom or Sodomy or to that sexual perversion and now that's gone and now the quote unquote holy Bible is more inclusive and accepting everybody and then things of God's nature of his holiness are downplayed the person of Jesus Christ who is exalted to heaven itself as holy and harmless is brought down to a lower to the one the one that should come to some new age sounding thing mysterious that doesn't just doesn't put the pin on who he is but just lets every culture believe on the one and he's not the son of God and somebody's been corrupting and corrupting and corrupting the word of God flip over to

[21:47] Galatians chapter 1 that's not the only important thing that's getting messed with Galatians chapter 1 so is the gospel of Jesus Christ when somebody comes and knocks at your door and asks do you believe there could be peace on earth do you believe that there could be a kingdom of peace doesn't it sound wonderful they're not going to preach that Jesus Christ is your only way to heaven through his shed blood they're going to tell you that we can spread the peace of God on this earth when somebody comes and tells you that some angel showed up and he preached another gospel and we need to believe his gospel well Paul identifies that right here let's look at it verse number 6 Galatians 1 verse 6 let me back up to verse 4 speaking of Jesus Christ says who gave himself for our sins there's the blessed gospel that he might deliver us from this present evil world world according to the will of God and our father to whom be glory forever and ever amen period but then not everybody is preaching that Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil world that our deliverance or salvation is through the death burial and resurrection of Christ but others will preach this verse 6

[23:10] I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel which is not another but there be some that trouble you and would notice this underline it get it they would pervert the gospel of Christ but though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you let him be accursed as we said before so say I now again if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that that ye have received let him be accursed those are strong words from the apostle Paul you don't go around talking about that like to your neighbor that doesn't agree with you on what you believe about the Bible do you but the apostle Paul is saying it so strongly because it needs to be said strongly because the gospel of Jesus Christ needs to be protected it is the truth it is the way to Jesus Christ that God gave his son to pay for our sins that Christ died for our sins to take us to make that eternal covenant or payment for God for our sins that doesn't need to be downplayed and watered down and turned into well God loves everybody and God just wants you to come to heaven and be with him and blessed are they that mourn and as so frequently the gospel is downplayed and pushed aside into turning into this which is do good and do unto others and be kind and if you do

[24:45] God will accept you and it's a false gospel and Paul said I don't care who preaches it if it's an angel from heaven preaching it let him be accursed that gospel is not to be perverted that gospel is to be protected church and it's been entrusted to us it's been entrusted to us who know the truth and believe the truth we ought to hold fast this form of sound words and stand on the truth I don't care who's afraid to say it I don't care who believes against it they're wrong and when you know the truth Christ said the truth shall make you free and there's such a liberty and freedom when you know the truth even if you can't debate the scholars even if you can't put them down and put them in their place there's still a liberty where I'm not buying what you're selling because I have something that's better when you know what you have in Jesus Christ don't let anybody take the gospel away from you or take it away from us and don't let them pervert the word of God these things are too important they're too important they need to be protected if you possess something that important shouldn't you protect it should you just leave it sit out there in the field for the world to come by and just infect and corrupt and destroy and before you know it it's gone a generation comes up and they've never heard it they've never seen it they're not being exposed to it because it's not being preached and protected

[26:21] God help us not to leave it out in the field now back in Exodus chapter 9 let's take a look at something else that we can do one more thing I want to say that we can do with something that's so important we can protect what's important but secondly we can preserve you can preserve your investment you say what do you mean by that well these domestic animals that we're reading about in these amounts I mean in these amounts in the land they don't they don't maintain themselves they don't take care of themselves and keeping and maintaining flocks and herds of all of these animals is not a part time job it's it takes much time and much energy and much effort there's feeding there's breeding there's shearing and slaughtering you have to have protection how's that verse never mind

[27:31] I'm just thinking of a of a verse about the sheep of his pasture but nevertheless there's there's fences that have to be put up and maintained and guarded I was oh I know I was thinking of the shepherds in Luke that were keeping watch over their flocks by night keeping watch like protection detail because that's something that has to be done in order to maintain a flock and these these commodities they're very valuable you need to protect them they need to be work on the fences and work on the pastures and they have to rotate the pastures you have to always be cognizant and aware of of where they are and what's happening out there in that field you have to make sure there's sufficient and ample water it's very time and energy consuming in just in one of these categories with the oxen as one there's several others but just a little note about those animals that you have to keep the mature bulls away from the immature bulls or they will they'll trample them they'll gore them they'll injure them and you want those to mature and you gotta you can only put certain bulls in with the ones that'll live in harmony with others because they won't all do that they'll fight each other you can't let them out into the pasture with the cows so they'll try to be breeding them in the wrong time and they'll also fight with some of them at times there's a lot that goes on that has to be done to maintain an effective herd to sustain that herd and it's more than you imagine and like I said you can breeze right past this thing and not understand there's a lot to this this is somebody's investment there's much to be aware of

[29:15] I'd say it's a major major operation now hold that thought and look back to near the end of the Bible and find this one tiny tiny book it's the third epistle of John it's just a little bit before the book of Revelation the third epistle of John would you turn back there I want to show you one verse and make an application we need to protect what's important and much like these Egyptian herdsmen should have done we need to preserve our investment would you look at third I'm sorry it's second John I'm all over the place this morning second John and verse number eight second John verse eight the Bible says look to yourselves why what do you think that means look to yourselves like taking an inward evaluation not look at your brother not look at your children or your wife look at yourself for a reason what's the reason that we lose not those things which we have wrought there's some things that we've worked for some things that we as believers in Jesus Christ have sacrificed and the epistle says look to yourself brother take heed to yourself to your life to your walk with Christ you don't want to lose something that you've worked too hard for an investment if you will there's some very very valuable things in the

[31:08] Christian life not the scriptures and the gospel anymore but some things in the Christian life that if they're just left out in the field they'll perish just the same any labor that you've wrought for Jesus Christ any battles that you've fought any suffering that you've done for Jesus Christ any reproach that you've borne anything that you've given up God notices God is aware of and he's attentive to this and he will reward you like that verse said he'll reward you accordingly for your service and for your obedience I say protect your investment Jesus Christ said lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven and if you've done work for Christ and you've gone after some things and you've laid aside some other things and taken up your cross then you've laid up some treasures along the way and those treasures can be lost

[32:14] John says look to yourselves that we lose not those things for which we have wrought but that ye receive a full reward the whole thing don't lose the rewards you can't lose your salvation but you can lose those rewards those things that you've worked for those cattle if you will are yours and you've invested in them and you don't want to see them just drop dead and disappear those cattle in your life represent the times you've resisted your flesh the sorrows and sufferings that accompany the Christian life the things that you've endured for the sake of Jesus Christ some of you in here have given up some things in this world you've given up a pay raise so that you could be faithful to the Lord you've given up some time with your family that they don't really care about the Lord and about church and so you've given up some of that so that you could be right with

[33:18] God and seek his will and grow in his grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ some of you have given up careers and earthly possessions many have given up the comforts of this first world country to go live in a third world country and endure hardships and put up with diseases and dirt and things you face on a daily basis the power is always on at your house you always have the comforts the air conditioning the things that you expect at any minute you could go to a store and get the food and supplies that you desire at any minute I'm hungry in 15 minutes you can be full and yet some people have given up that ease and those luxuries if you will and it's an investment that they've laid up for themselves in heaven to serve

[34:18] Jesus Christ I suppose that if you own stock if you own any investment in the financial world and you found out today through a source that tomorrow at noon the whole thing is crashing the stock market is history tomorrow at noon this major recession is coming do you know what you'd do first thing tomorrow morning you'd be dumping everything you'd sell it all you'd cash out why because you want to protect in 24 hours it's all gone you would absolutely do something to protect that investment you'd do that with your money right you'd be proactive and save your investment well these horses and these asses and these camels and these oxen and these sheep they were commodities they were valuable they were somebody's investment they put much care and effort into growing and maintaining and feeding and caring and doctoring these flocks and herds nobody wanted to lose what they invested so much in so

[35:32] Christian be prepared for what's coming be prepared for a plague I'm not preaching gloom and doom to you but it's not going to get better I'll prophesy that without even flinching it's not going to get better for us as Bible believing Christians even in this land much less in this world and so commit thy work unto the Lord and plant your feet in the holy word of God and fix your heart like the psalmist said my heart is fixed oh God my heart is fixed I am not walking away from this I am not leaving when the pressure comes I'm going to stand by the grace of God as long as I can stand and serve my Savior prepare yourself determine that you'll never walk away from this life no matter what comes your way look to yourselves and preserve your investment if you slip get back up if you get tired get rest get refreshed and get back in the fight but don't lose those things that you worked for don't lose what you laid up in heaven two verses from the book of revelation that John writes to these churches in revelation 2 25 he says this this is from Christ to this church it says but that which ye have already hold fast till I come in chapter 3 verse 11 he said behold I come quickly hold that fast which thou hast that no man take thy crown church preserve your investment sometimes it's it feels like we live in

[37:25] Egypt with a society that's ruled and governed by men and women with hearts that have been hardened for a long long time and they're not getting any softer sometimes it feels like that and we can watch and in my lifetime surely in yours you can see things slipping away any spiritual fervor that existed in this land any appetite for righteousness that existed in this land is just going going gone and it's being replaced with wickedness and perversion that is that is just mounting up year by year as if it's the new normal the moral new norm for our generation and our society it's acceptable to this world and so we need to be prepared for the pending plague because God's not just going to sit idly by and be made a fool of and be mocked he will not do that and so I mentioned earlier he begins allowing this land to see to receive the fruit of their doings as he says in Jeremiah and it's just coming in small waves right now it's coming in to where you're seeing such perversion and you're seeing such a strong voice of such a small few that have gotten not just a foothold but they've gotten control and you go ahead and go out there and try to run your mouth against it see what happens to you see if there isn't control it's more than a foothold and it's coming and it's coming and it's coming a very grievous myrrh a very grievous disease that spreads quickly spreads and it's going to spread and God's going to send it but what can we do well we can protect what's important we can make sure that the gospel of

[39:23] Jesus Christ and the holy scriptures is held firm and we we hold them fast and nobody's going to take them from us and touch them and pervert them not on our watch we're going to hold fast to these truths and then the second thing was we'll preserve our investments what we worked for we're not going to let go of what we fought for we're not going to let slip through our fingers and those things you've done for Jesus Christ that are going to have eternal weight and that are going to be perhaps given back to you in the form of a reward in eternity look to yourself Christian determine I'm going to finish this thing with my boots on I'm not going to give in I'm not going to fall down I'm not going to bow to bail Jesus Christ is my savior he's my lord he's my king to God be the glory from this day forever I'll stand with him and his grace will hold me up so protect your investment let's not let the death come through here let's bow our heads let's bow our heads and I'm going to ask you a few questions just a moment to to consider what you heard this morning and I ask you not to look around but just to to do some internal thinking here

[40:52] I mentioned the gospel of Jesus Christ does that mean something to you personally what I'm asking you is do you know that you're on your way to heaven because you've believed in the gospel of Jesus Christ or are you just attending church again and you're not really sure about these things the lord appointed a set time and there's something in this bible that talks about a set time the bible says it's appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgment and you're going to stand before god and you're going to stand in judgment and what god's going to see if he doesn't see jesus christ righteousness imputed to you he's only going to see your sins because your good works and your religion and your righteousness and your morality mean nothing at all to him he's too holy to be impressed with you he's too holy he's your creator you can't impress him what you need is what he offers you the righteousness of his son the lord jesus christ have you received the gift of eternal life offered to you by the sacrifice of jesus christ if you're saved and know it then praise the lord and get a hold of that and never let go if you're not saved if you don't know it would you please talk to me before you leave would you please just let me show you how you can have eternal life today and get this thing settled for once christian are you looking to yourself you realize that you too can slip and lose the work you've done the suffering the things you've given up can all go away when you give up when you walk away don't leave them out in the field to perish look to yourselves that we lose not those things we have wrought but that we receive a full reward preserve your investment hold fast that which thou hast father please take this plague and this passage and lord as i tried to make it relatable i pray that your spirit would do the work and bear witness to these truths help us to be resolved to hold fast to the king james bible and to hold fast to the blessed gospel of our wonderful savior help us to live this out live it outwardly in this world and holding forth the word of life and shine as lights the lights that you've made us god for that one that's on the edge who's giving in to sin and leaning toward the world oh god prick their heart show them it's not worth it show that it's nothing but death out there you're going to destroy it all you have no use for it give us a glimpse of your holiness and put in us a desire to be more like you and to walk with you and to follow your ways strengthen each one i pray in jesus name amen amen let's sing