Midnight Cry

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I want to say happy Memorial Day weekend.

And we are so thankful and grateful for men and women who gave up themselves, who fought and bled and held America on their backs so that we can be here and have the freedom we have today.

If you've served or anyone in your family has served, would you just raise a hand up?

I know it's not Veterans Day, but we thank you.

Amen.

And we thank God for those who have gone before us.

So, anyhow, and I'm thank you know, I'm thankful for one more thing that it rained a little bit and you didn't make it to the lake today.

So thank you for being here.

Um what a blessing.

I do want to say this because of the rain and um what becomes of our soccer field.

There is no soccer today for Upward Soccer, but we are still gonna have the awards program at 245 in this building.

And so uh Derek and Jamie Randolph have done a really amazing job this soccer season um running that.

And it's been cool.

I was explaining to somebody the other day, we started with the hope of about 30.

And this soccer season we had over 130 kids involved in our program.

So God's really grown that, but praise the Lord for people that have helped in the vision that we have there.

And we use this building, we're looking, and and pray with me.

I've been just sharing a little bit, but one day we may see flag football come to fruition, and uh there's a lot of property out here.

So I'm done with my commercial.

First Thessalonians chapter 5, the midnight cry.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

Mr.

Cooper was about as berserk a junior uh kids leader as I've ever known.

And I didn't know what I know now at the time, but I looked at him and I did recognize some things.

We were in a middle to upper class kind of church.

Every man always wore a suit.

Mr.

Cooper's suits were a little different.

Okay?

I don't really know how to explain that, but the colors were different.

They were different, they fit different.

Mr.

Cooper's hair was different.

He looked like Jerry Lewis from the Nutty Professor who was just coming out, and he had these big, thick glasses, and uh Mr.

Cooper had puppet shows.

Y'all remember church puppet shows?

This is kind of scary, right?

Our puppet shows had fights, like they were boxing, like Mr.

Cooper was wild like that.

But one thing I'll never forget, almost every week, Mr.

Cooper played guitar, so all this, he'd get his guitar out and we'd get into worship, and he would sing, and he loved I'll Fly Away.

Y'all know I'll fly away.

And I can remember as a kid, one glad morning when this life is over, singing about death, and smiling and watching Mr.

Cooper, and one day I remember like I didn't really get it.

But this I know about that same church, we would come into big church, my church's favorite song, and I know it was because the whole atmosphere was different.

But my church would sing this song called The Midnight Cry.

And when they did, as a 10, 11, 12 year old, I felt the difference in the atmosphere.

I felt the room change.

And I and what I want to say is I knew something holy was happening, but I didn't understand it as a young person.

But now at 44, when I consider a phrase like this from that song, I can almost hear my father say, Son, go get my children.

Everything within me now pauses.

Everything sort of fades for a moment.

And that midnight cry.

Let me pray.

Father, we love you.

And God, we thank you for the opportunity we have today to be in your house.

We thank you for the people of God in your house, and we thank you for worshiping the word of God.

God, I pray that you would give us a picture today.

Lord, this is your word, this is your book, this is your church.

God, would you speak?

Get us and our agendas and everything just out of the way for a little bit.

God, so we can hear you and hear what you want from us.

Lord, paint this for us from your word in Jesus' name.

Amen.

First thing this morning is the signs of the times.

If you look at First Thessalonians chapter 5, it says, But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.

For when they say peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape.

Signs of the time.

Now, notice how differently people define time.

And even in your family, people differ on what it means to be on time.

Am I right?

Some, if church starts at 10 30, will say, I'll arrive at 1029 with 58 seconds.

And that would be on time, right?

And others would say, you know, if the preacher hasn't started preaching yet, technically, I'm still early.

Right?

And then there's some of you that set seven alarms.

You wanted to be up, right?

You you know, your spiritual gift is like you know a snooze button ministry, right?

And so time means different things to different people, but this opens with concerning the times and the seasons.

The word times is chronos, where we get the where we get the word chronological time.

It's clock-driven, it's a uh quantitative moment.

And then there's the seasons, which is the word kairos, which is qualitative, of an opportunity for time.

The Greek word for kairos is a word that means archery, like a moment that is pinpointed.

And so we have times and we have seasons.

Kranos and kairos of time.

Well, when we talk about that, our kranos is our clock moments.

I fear that the clock moments have tried to take over our world.

It looks a lot like my meeting, my deadline, my business, my appointment, my cause, my time.

Time is money.

What time is it has become more important than what is my time for?

Kairos is qualitative.

Now it's talking about times and season, and so I want to make sure that chapter 5, we started this series in chapter 4, and we talked about the rapture, which is this twinkling, this moment that happens in time.

And the idea of the day of the Lord that's coming, which should be most of your heading in your Bible, 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, is of that plus the second coming of the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 2 · chapter mention

It's a season of time.

And so, again, Paul is writing to answer questions.

These people thought maybe we missed it.

Maybe the day of the Lord has started.

And so he's trying to answer questions about times.

Seasons.

But I want us to know that God, from the onset of time, has showed his handprint.

Just look at our seasons.

When you think about the word seasons, God has said, I want you to see it, right?

In springtime, guess what happens?

Everything is birthed, everything is born, everything blooms, and then in summertime, everything grows, and God is showing you his handprint even on the way.

And nobody controls a season but God.

And so it grows in the summer, and then in the fall, guess what?

Everything has a time, a season for fading away.

And then at winter, everything is at rest.

Not wasted, but at rest, and we see God's hand in our seasons.

He tells us about times and seasons.

But letter A, I want you to see this morning, is the prophetic indications of what Paul is saying.

He says a funny thing.

He says, You have he says, You have no need that I write to you.

What a strange line.

It's called preteration.

Paul says, I have no need to write to you, and then he writes to you.

Paul is referring to the education that he gave them in Acts on three weeks of time, three Sundays, he says three Sabbaths, but he's there three weeks, and he's referring to teaching them prophecy.

Now, what that tells me is this, this is me putting into it, but in three weeks' time, Paul taught about times and seasons and prophecy.

And so it's fundamental.

It's important for Christians to understand prophecy.

Because Paul said in three weeks' time, you have no need to write you.

I've already taught you this in a few Sundays.

But this is what he says about that time.

He says, just remember, it is coming like a thief in the night.

The prophetic thing about this, it's coming as a thief in the night.

Joel 2 and Amos 5 says the same thing.

It would be a time of darkness, and it's going to be like a thief in the night.

What do we know about the Lord's return compared to a thief?

Have any of you ever been stolen from?

We had a yard sale one time in Indiana, and I was coming outside, I don't know what I went in for, but I came back out, and a man was getting on my mountain bike that was up for sale, and he was trying to take off down the road, and he hopped off it quickly, the bike fell down, and I was like, what just happened?

This man was trying to steal from a yard sale, right?

If it was that bad, I'd give him a mountain bike.

Here's what's funny.

I went to Wendy's later that day in the drive-thru and he saw he was working the drive-thru window.

And he saw me, and I started to hand my money, and he ran back into the kitchen, and I'm like, okay, well, here's what we know about thieves.

Nobody posts on Facebook, gonna be out tomorrow thieving.

A thief does not announce the time of his arrival.

It says, Jesus is coming like a thief in the night.

Matthew 24, 36 says, No man knows.

He comes as a thief to the world.

But, verse 5, look what it says.

You are all sons of light and sons of the day.

We are not of night nor darkness.

What does that even mean?

So he comes as a thief in the night, but we're not of the night.

So to the church, he says, I'm coming to somebody who is greatly anticipating my arrival.

To the world, I'm a thief in the night.

But two sons of light, not that you'll know the season, not that you'll know the chronology, but you'll know, or the exact moment, but you'll know the season, and there are things of the season that will be shown.

Well, look at that letter B.

Perilous illusions.

Jesus compares, or Paul compares them to labor pains.

That's an interesting comparison.

Not random pains.

Jesus is coming again and it's just random pain, but labor pains.

That's important because labor pains, all the women could help here, labor pains increase in frequency and intensity, but it's not without purpose.

Frequency and intensity, labor pains don't indicate the death of something.

Labor pains indicate that that travail is bringing forth delivery.

Do you see that?

Labor pains.

Pain that is producing deliverance.

Delivery is on its way.

Now, chronology no man knows, but kairos is of the season.

And I want you to look at Matthew 24.

What does the Bible say?

Describe as the season of time.

Matthew 24, you can look, start in verse 3.

Now, as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, Tell us when will we, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming in the end of an age?

And Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many, and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.

See that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, there will be famines, pestilences, earthquakes in various places.

All these are the beginning of sorrows.

And so he lists out some descriptors, some labor pains, some birth pains that are descriptors of the season.

And some of them, verse 5, verse 11, are false Christ and false gospels.

Now, if you do any kind of study of the last 50 years, if some decades, you'll see that in every decade leading to this one, there has been someone who claimed to be Jesus Christ.

You had Sung Young Moon in the 60s and 70s, and then you had Jim Jones in the 70s, you had David Koresh in the 80s and 90s, Marshall Applewhite with the Hellbop comet that was coming to Earth in the 90s.

There's a guy named David Shaler who's living now in 07 that claimed to be Jesus Christ.

Every decade, it seems, there's this new claim, and these are people, right, that you can find evidences of.

Who knows how much more is out there?

So false Christ, and it says false gospels.

We see this throughout, right?

We have the there are no absolute false gospel.

Truth is relative, right?

The truth is whatever you want it to be.

As long as Miguel is happy, his truth is fine.

I have my truth and you have your truth, right?

That's what that is going on, that's been going on for the last 30 years, right?

The identity thing that's going on throughout culture.

I identify as this or I identify as that.

Well, listen, science tells me something, right?

You can identify all you want, but that is saying the truth really doesn't matter.

There are no absolutes.

And to say there are no absolute is an absolute, so you're claiming absolute.

Okay?

And so the truth is relative is a false gospel.

We've talked about prosperity gospel.

Prosperity theology says that God, listen to me, and this is great.

I mean, we'll have droves here if we said, just show up to church.

You're gonna get millions.

That is God's plan for your brightest and best life.

That's what he wants for you.

I love how prosperity theology, a preacher arrives in a jet and tells broke people the secret to financial security for$79 a ticket.

My life just got a little dimmer, not brighter.

Okay.

Universalism is taught today.

In the end, it really doesn't matter because we all go to heaven anyway.

That's a false gospel.

There is no hell that doesn't jive with how God is love.

There's many false gospels at every turn.

I want you to see Matthew chapter 7 just for a second.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Look at verse 15 and 16.

It says, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing.

But inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

You will not know them by their fruits.

Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

Tim Chowley said that Satan's greatest ambassadors are not pimps, politicians, or power brokers, but false prophets.

He said they seek to get into the church, hear this, to divide her, to separate her, to bring disunity, and it's happening everywhere today.

He said further, wars and rumors of wars.

Did you know that currently there's 130 armed conflicts over 60 countries?

Right now.

And this all started.

We started this series when the Iran war broke out in February of this year with the death of the Ayatollah that happened and it's sending shockwaves to our news, and now it's sort of seems a little bit background, but I need you to understand a little bit of prophecy here.

Iran was Persia until 1935.

Persia is where you'll find the story of Esther and Ezekiel 38:1, and in those chapters it talks about this coming army that's coming against Israel, and it's called Gog and Magog.

Ezekiel 38:1

And if you do any study of it, most commentators will say it looks like this is the country of Iran, it looks like the country of Russia, and that there's this large force that's going to march one day against Israel.

Now, is that happening right now?

It's not necessarily happening right now, but keep your eye on the needle that's moving.

Why?

Because the hope for the hour that I want you to see, those things, according to Scripture, are going to happen.

What do we look for?

Wars and rumors of war.

They're happening.

Famines, earthquakes, and pestilences.

Since 2020, conservative estimates as many as 500,000 people have lost their life to famine, earthquakes, and pestilences.

In 1900 to 1999, the median, now we have better technology now, but the median would say that natural disasters amounted to 7,000, the median average, 7,000 natural disasters in 100 years.

Since 2000 to 2026, there's been 7,438 natural disasters.

So we see what scripture is saying as an increase.

Here's a positive.

I know you're like, come on, something, Pastor.

Verse 14, go back to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

Want you to see it.

For what I'm doing, for what every pastor in every church is doing.

He says, Now we exhort your brethren, warn those who are unreal.

Comfort the faint-hearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all.

Why?

If you go back to verse nine, for God did not appoint us to wrath, but attain salvation.

And in Matthew, it said that the gospel would go forth to the last one.

Now, who that last one is and what that's going to look like, I don't know.

But what an exciting thing.

Wouldn't you like to know the person who is the last person to come to Christ?

It says that the gospel is going to go forth.

Well, I do want to say something about that because I sat in a missions meeting two weeks ago, and our gospel opportunities that are before us are like never before.

I sat in this meeting called Dulas.

It's a ministry that partners all over the world.

And Dulas has a technology now that's, listen, I know people get scared about AI and this and that.

There's a technology called ISER.

And this technology allows us to look into indigenous tribes all over the country.

And they showed us this graph.

And on the graph of Togo in Africa, it had a breakdown of every tribe in an area, and it showed us where the gospel was and where the gospel wasn't, where there's churches that are implanted.

It's amazing.

And so what we know from that is that the church is moving and the gospel is going forth like never before.

Paul moves from prophecy here to posture.

So what he says to the Thessalonians, since Jesus is coming, how should you the church live?

Prophecy was never just to satisfy curiosity, it was given to produce in a church, you and I, readiness.

So let's look at that point two this morning.

Ready at all times.

Look back, 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 4 through 6.

1 Thessalonians 5:4–6

So are you ready?

And what does that mean?

What does that look like?

But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this day should not overtake you as a thief.

You are all sons of light and sons of the day.

We are not of the night nor of darkness.

Therefore, let us not sleep.

As others do.

We'll come back to that verse.

Letter A is the distinction of the saints.

Readiness is one of the distinctions of the church.

Suddenness will not overtake you.

It will be a surprise to many, and the moment exact will be a surprise.

But sons of light, we should not be arrested by the idea that Jesus is one day coming again.

It says that the signs will be evident.

In other words, you won't know the moment, but you should never be caught asleep.

We had a staff meeting, and we had a couple of interns in my old church.

Joe was one of them.

And there was this other boy named Matt who was interning.

And we had started the meeting, and we got like 20 minutes in.

And Matt fell asleep.

And the pastor looked at Matt, and we were just kind of smiling at Matt over there, nodding off 20 minutes into the meeting.

And Pastor John said, All right, Matt, why don't you close us in prayer?

And Matt, right?

We would have two-hour meetings.

And Matt began to pray.

Dear Lord, thank you for the good meeting.

And we're just sitting there, let him have his prayer.

We're like, Matt, you fell asleep, brother.

Like you fell asleep during the meeting.

Listen to what we're told that we are to be awake.

Ephesians 5 14.

Church says this.

Awake, thou sleeper.

Arise, and Christ will give you light.

That word sleeper doesn't mean unconscious.

It means awake those who are in activity as a Christian.

Those who are living in ignorance as a Christian.

It's kind of like a doctor with a cure in his pocket who sleeps while a patient is in the other room helpless.

A mariner is idle and has a lifesaver while somebody's drowning at sea.

You should Google this, the revival hymn.

But in the revival hymn, there's old voices that preach the word, and they in that hymn it says, Too much of the church today is like a giant bed.

And Christians are asleep.

And he says, God is calling, and Christians are saying, I don't want to be awake.

It's not time to get up yet.

And God is calling.

We say, we don't want to.

And God says, Wake up.

Sleepy Christians, wake up.

We see in verse 6, therefore let us not sleep as others do.

But let us watch and be sober.

Let's look at the second part of verse 6.

Letter B is the discipline of the soldier.

It says, But let us watch and be sober, for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk or drunk at night.

But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.

So as a Christian soldier, he says, You need to watch.

Ancient cities set a watchman that would watch over their city as a protector, a watchman of the wall.

The word watch is gregero, and it means vigilant and attentive, used with shepherds guarding sheep or guards watching a city.

Isaiah 62, verse 6 says, I have set a watchman on the walls.

Isaiah 62:6

Now, a watchman, Christians, is not passive.

Men, if you hear a noise at your house, are you passive?

Say, honey, go get it.

There's probably a robber.

Go see what's going on.

A watchman is not passive.

He's positioned and prayerful.

And he says, How do you do that?

He says, be sober.

In a culture full of feasts, in a culture full of drunken parties, Paul said, Be sober.

They would understand what he meant there.

1 Peter 5.8 says, Be sober, be vigilant, for your adversary, the devil, walketh about seeking whom he may devour.

But it starts, we understand that idea of an enemy coming at us, but he says, first, be sober, be vigilant.

Last week we talked about living in holiness.

The antithesis of spiritual holiness is drunkenness.

It's not sobriety.

I'm not just talking about being drunk by alcohol.

It's not being awake, not being aware.

It's spiritual ignorance of what's going on.

It's our job as watchmen to be sober.

To be, the Bible says, walk circumspectly.

That's looking and watching and guarding our families, guarding our churches, being sober.

1 Thessalonians 4, 3 last week says, For this is the will of God, your sanctification.

That through love of God and others, you'll eliminate the need for ungodly purposes.

So how do what I'm saying there is how do we be sober?

He says, through the love of God that's growing in you and growing, that's what you keep in your life to help you from falling asleep.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

Let me make this practical.

Alright, these are made up.

When people fall asleep, what happens?

Marcus got hurt at church.

Somebody overlooked him.

And because he got overlooked, he replayed it.

And he stopped praying because he compared himself to those people at that church.

And he eventually stopped reading the word of God.

And bitterness intoxicates discernment.

And Marcus has been out of church for ten years.

Because for a moment there was no sobriety.

Rachel's life became routine.

A man messaged her, nothing vulgar, nothing obvious, but she started to like the feeling.

She deleted text, began hiding things, and different attention turned into a different attachment.

Not better, just different.

And hear me, church, Satan uses different in relationships, different as a tool of Satan.

Hear me.

Nobody falls into temptation.

It's one thought, one text, one justification at a time.

I like the way I feel.

There's emotional affairs and they turn into physical affairs, but it started one different thing.

Daniel was not looking for sin, but pressure piled up, and it just seemed like a drink would help.

And then a weekend of drinks would help.

And before long, Daniel kept needing a drink.

And his drink turned into years of drinks.

That's why Paul said, put on the armor.

Because no believer accidentally stays strong.

You have to put armor up, put guardrails up.

And when you put up a guardrail, you can't give an inch to the enemy.

Not one justification, not one moment, not one inch.

That's what that armor is about.

Because if that armor is penetrated, what happens to the life?

He says the breastplate, it protects the heart, lungs, and vital organs.

Faith and love protects the inner man.

Faith in God and love for people will keep your heart from poison.

Will keep you loyal to people, will keep you from the poison of the enemy, that one inch.

And then he says the helmet of hope protects a man.

Well, that makes sense, right?

The helmet of hope protects your mind.

So if you will always keep this helmet of hope, if I will always keep hopeful, right?

The way that you think, if it's always hopeful, you've heard people that aren't hopeful, right?

No matter what you say, no matter what the answer is, they have an answer to that answer.

You're like, we should do this.

No, that's never gonna work.

And you're like, I can't talk to these people.

I give them ten answers and nothing ever works.

There's no hope.

And he says, protect your mind with hope.

That makes sense with Philippians 4 8.

When God says, think on whatever things are good and pure and just and right and lovely and of a good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on that.

That's surrounding this head with hope.

Now listen, if you're surrounded by people that have none of that hope, good luck staying hopeful.

You'll get in despair with them, and then it'll be a pouting party.

So he says, you've got to protect your mind to be sober.

To be ready at all times is to stay protected.

Why?

God sends blessings where there is a capacity to hold them.

Now putting on the armor is often hard, boring, it's uncelebrated.

But the blessings of readiness show up in a in a marriage celebration that's had 50 years.

You know what they've done for 50 years?

Same old boring thing a lot of times.

We've been loyal, we've been faithful, we have kept a guardrail.

What's happened with someone that's been in a church for 40 years?

They've been loyal when they because the enemy's coming.

Not one inch, not one justification, nothing.

I haven't given on the ground.

I protected my head, I protected my heart.

It's predictable, but the blessings of being faithful were opened up.

The readiness opened up God's blessings.

Wyatt fell off a scooter.

And uh when he did, he got a concussion.

And I'm telling you, I got parents shamed, everyone after that.

So the doctor said it first.

So uh he didn't have a helmet on, I guess.

No, he didn't have a helmet.

I talked to family members, and the first thing they want to say, I'm like, he had a concussion.

Like, does anyone want to comfort us?

He I he probably didn't have a helmet, I guess.

Like, no, he didn't have a helmet.

What kind of you this is what you feel.

You feel so parent shame.

What kind of parent would allow their kid to ride a scooter down a big hill?

And I'm like, I didn't even have a say.

He just came out the door rolling down the street.

While he's rolling 20 miles an hour, you want me to say, Stop! Helmet! You don't have time to think those things, right?

And the helmet, I swear, the helmet we had, it was corny.

I'm not gonna lie.

I know why he didn't want to wear it.

He had a helmet, we had those spikes going down the middle, looked like a mohawk.

But I'll tell you this, he had that concussion, and a week later, this is during COVID, we had to get out and go make a Starbucks run.

And guess who in the car is wearing a helmet?

Why it was.

He had to wear a helmet in the car because we were gonna be extra safe after that.

Paul said, You gotta armor up.

You gotta walk circumspectly, you gotta redeem the time.

Now, as a Christian, I gotta be honest, I have had weeks and months and years that sometimes feel like deja vu.

I'm going through a thing and I get in the word.

And look, my flesh sometimes just wants to win.

I want to go off on people like you do too.

You know what I'm saying?

Just God, is it gonna be okay once?

Can I just lose it once?

Would that be alright?

Can I just, can I just not go into work just this week, God?

Nobody will know.

It won't be that big a deal, right?

It's it's not that exciting sometimes.

But what it produces in the church, what it produces in us, he said, be sober, be diligent, and give God your yes.

Why?

I'm glad that you asked that.

Look at verse 9 through 11.

It's the hope for all time.

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us, that whatever we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.

Therefore, comfort each other and edify one another just as you are doing.

It's the hope.

Letter A is an appointed salvation.

I share with our serve team this morning the very worst possible thing for a Christian.

Pause there.

It's one day heaven.

It's the same as the very best thing.

One day we are going to die if we don't get raptured.

The very worst that Satan can throw at you.

What is it?

One day we're going to be with God in heaven.

We had an appointment of ourselves.

Now, first, we had an appointment with wrath.

Understand what the wrath of God is.

We are saved from sin, and we are saved from self, and we are saved from Satan, but God, listen to me.

So that's what that, John 3.16, Tony Nolan says it that way.

God so loved you.

And God so hates sin.

And the wrath of God for sin is white hot.

God's wrath for sin comes out of God's love.

God is holy, and God cannot be touched by sin.

But he loves us so much.

Heaven had a juxtaposition for humans, right?

Heaven had this thing to happen.

God who cannot be touched by sin saw us in need of saving from sin and sends one part of himself who cannot be touched by sin.

Now, if you can understand that, explain that to me, great.

God sent part of himself who could not be touched by sin to become man and be touched by sin.

He loved us so much.

It means so much more when you understand He who knew no sin became sin for me and for you.

He appointed salvation unto us.

But it says appoint and obtain.

It says that.

That for God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation.

Jesus Christ died, and the full scope of salvation involves God appointing.

He is not willing that any should perish, but that all come to repentance in faith, and then humanity repenting of our sins.

Placing our trust in Jesus Christ, surrendering our will.

Jesus did not avoid wrath, he absorbed wrath.

Isaiah 53 said that.

And by his stripes we're healed.

If we're dead in Christ, either way, the good news is that gospel that he came for us.

Well then, letter B.

This is what we're doing today.

We're doing what he called forth today on letter B.

And he says, and we urge you, brethren, comfort one another and edify one another with these words.

Comfort one another.

Paul did not tell us to have comfort.

He said, give comfort.

If we have unity in this church, in this community, in God's word, he says, edify, build one another up with these words.

So this is what I want to tell you.

I don't know who's going through something.

I don't know who that you know that got a diagnosis.

I don't know who that you know who is struggling, but this is what the word of God says.

He says, comfort one another with this.

That one day the worst that we get is what Eli described.

It's the best that we get.

The worst of my life is gonna be that it ends.

And the best of my life is gonna be that it ends.

I'm gonna ask if the praise team can come and join us.

I shared with you when I was growing up, and I thought about how can we be comforted.

I was growing up, I would hear this song.

I don't know that I totally understood it.

But after I've gone through death of family members, after I've gone through people having been labeled with different diseases, after I've gone through financial ups and downs, after I've gone through dark days, I'm comforted.

And I think you'll be comforted as well.

We're excited you joined us for today's message.

Our heart is to connect with others in our community to grow with one another and build a bigger kingdom.

If you accepted Jesus today, we want to hear about it.

Take a moment and text CCW Connect to 94,000.

Thank you again for joining us on the CCW podcast.

We hope you'll make plans to join us in person on Sundays.