Ep. 160: I certainly can't but God can

In the name of the glorious Trinity, Father and Son and Holy

Spirit, forever Amen. Glory be to the everlasting

mercies which. Sent you to us, O Christ, the

light of the world and the life of all.

Give us wisdom by your law and enlighten our impulses by your

knowledge. Sanctify our souls by Your

truth, and grant that we may be obedient to Your words and may

fulfil Your commandments at every hour, O You who enlightens

the rational with the knowledge of Your greatness.

Do enlight O my. Lord, our thoughts that we may

meditate upon Your holy and divine Scriptures at all times,

O Lord of all, Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

Forever. Amen.

maybe even impossible for jigsaw puzzles or the pieces of a

jigsaw puzzles to be put together without having the

actual picture. Very difficult and maybe even

impossible. It's also quite difficult and

maybe even impossible for man to read the New Testament of the

Holy Scriptures and to have an understanding of what it is that

Jesus is referring to. Why did he stand at the temple

and say he who is the first? Let him come to me why at that

time? But when you read the Old

Testament you see that there is a reason there is a fulfilment,

there is a type. Last program we spoke about

prototypes in the Old Testament with a type in the New

Testament, for example, not Moses.

Moses being a prototype of Jesus Christ who led the Israelites

out of captivity to salvation, to life.

Jesus, praise and glory be to his name, leads people out of

sin, the captivity of sin, and gives new life and salvation.

Isaac, the Lamb of God, Isaac, which was going to be sacrificed

according to God's commandments to Abraham, was a type of a

prototype of Jesus Christ, the lamb Abraham saw.

When God said don't touch the sun, don't touch, nothing's

good. Listen, if you even do this,

it's something that there's no benefit.

I'm just testing your faith to show the world, not that God

didn't know to show. Yeah, OK, question.

Well, if God knows always free will, the knowledge of God does

not determine our choices. Remember that God knowing I will

or I won't, will not determine my choices because I have free

will. I have free will.

So God, he turns around and sees a lamb.

That lamb was a prototype of Jesus Christ, and apparently,

and in the Scriptures, he was stuck in the tree.

Jesus was crucified on the tree or on the cross, the ark of the

Covenant, the old covenant, a prototype of Mary.

Go and read what was in the ark of covenant and you see what

what was in Mary's womb. What happened the the, the, the

steps Mary took where she went, how long she she stayed at all a

type of the prototype Abraham and Mary.

We spoke last program. Abraham believed God and it was

counted to him as righteousness. But you know, not only to him.

We're going to speak about that. What did Mary say?

Mary, on the other hand, said to the Angel, Be it unto me,

according to your word, Luke 138 both given a promise, both

believed the promise, didn't, didn't look at themselves and

their weakness or their age or their capability.

No, let it be according to God's Word.

Yes, Abraham believed. Leave your family, leave your

livestock, leave all your relatives.

Yes, Lord. And He did.

Both became examples of obedient faith.

As for Christ being the fulfillment of gods promised to

Abraham, God promised Abraham in Genesis 2218 that in your seed,

not seeds, singular, not plural. In your seed, Isaac, no, Jacob,

no. In your seed all nations shall

be blessed. Genesis 2218 Paul identifies

that seed as being the Messiah in Galatians chapter 3 verse 16.

Galatians 3:16

And for us Christians, Paul resounds the message in Romans

Romans 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4, Galatians chapter 3, in that believers themselves, we

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

too become Abraham's spiritual descendants.

Now, now again, I'm not saying that we are still connected.

We are still living in the old and the Lord.

No, no, no, no. But we are spiritually connected

to Abraham because that seed, that promise that was given to

Abraham and all those who believed the promise of

God-given to Abraham became the children of Abraham and also

were made righteous. That seed, that promise

fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ.

We believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, we become the children

of God, praise and glory be to his name.

But having Abraham as a spiritual father as well, those

Galatians 37, those who are of faith, are sons of Abraham, not

the old faith, not the old covenant, no, the promise given

to Abraham fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we

received the New Covenant. Let's continue reading chapter 4

of the Epistle of the Saint Paul to the Romans, chapter 4.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

We'll pick it up from verse 13 to the end.

For the promise to Abraham and his posterity that he should

inherit the world was not made through the law, but through the

righteousness of his faith is a bit of repetition to emphasize

his message. For if they had become heirs by

means of the law, then faith would have been empty and the

promise made no effect. Just because someone does

something good when they see someone that's stuck on the road

and they help them change their tires, but that person does not

accept the Lord Jesus Christ as his or her Saviour and does not

believe in God, that doesn't make them right, because then

the faith, faith is nothing then, well, let's all forget

about faith. Let's all go out and do good

things. The promise made of no effect

for the law. Now the law.

The law causes provocation, for where there is no law, there is

no transgression. We're going to talk about this

briefly. Therefore it is by faith that we

will be justified by grace, so that the promise might be sure

to all his posterity, and only to Him who is of the law, but

also to Him. Sorry not only to him of the of

the Law, but also to Him He is, who is of the faith of Abraham,

who is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made

you a father of many peoples in the presence of the God in whom

you have believed, who quickens the dead, and who invites those

who are not yet in being, as though they were present, those

not born yet. For he who was hopeless trusted

in hope that he might become the father of many peoples.

As it is written, so shall your descendants be.

His faith never weakens, even when he examined his old body

when he was 100 years old and the deadness of Sarah's womb.

He did not doubt the promise of God as one who lacks faith, But

his faith strengthened him and he gave glory to God.

He felt assured that what God had promised him, God was able

to fulfill. Therefore, his faith was

reckoned to him for righteousness.

That his faith was reckoned for righteousness was not written

for his sake only. We're going.

We have a part of this, but for us also, for he will number us

also who believe in him who raised our Lord Jesus Christ

from the dead, who was delivered up for our offences and rose

that he might justify us. Let's briefly go through this.

There's some repetition there. So the promise to Abraham was

not given through the law. We we've discussed this, but

through his faith promising what was the promise he promised him

not only that you're going to have a child and you know he's

going to now talk about Sarah, but he promising the promised

Abraham the airship of the world.

You're going to be an heir of the world not based on obedience

to the Mosaic law. Why?

Why the law wasn't even given yet.

Abraham was found righteous. The law wasn't given yet.

If so, if it was according to the obedience of the law, faith

would have been meaningless as Paul writes.

And then he goes on to say, listen, the Lord, the law

reveals transgression and brings judgement upon sin.

You're driving on a road and this has always been my example.

Let me let me do it again. Let me give it to you again.

Let me share it with you again. You're driving on a on a road.

There are no speed signs whatsoever.

Now I'm not sure, but I, I, I'm, I'm certain of this.

In Sydney there is a law that when there is no St. lights,

you're permitted to drive up to such a speed speed if there's no

signs. But if there are St. lights, you

drive another particular speed limit, right?

So when there is no signs, there is no law, you're not doing

nothing wrong. You're driving.

The police officer cannot tell you.

Well, this is Milo. He say, well, bye, bye, come

again, thank you, come again. You can't just impose a law

according to your understanding. See that goes with interpreting

scriptures too. There is a law on interpreting

scriptures. Not everyone is permitted to

interpret scriptures, right? So when one says when says one,

when one says, I feel I think, no, no, no, give me the law.

Give me the law of the interpretation of the

scriptures, which is in the church.

Went on a tangent. I know.

Let's come back again. So when the sign goes up and you

break the and you drive your own speed, then you are breaking the

law. That's why I think it's in the

book of Ecclesiastes. It says that God created evil.

God didn't create evil. God didn't create immorality.

God didn't create drunkenness. No, when the law came, the evil

means the punishment came as well in verse 15.

For the written law is the worker of wrath, for where there

is no written law, neither is there a violation of the written

law. So the law came to show people

what they're doing wrong. You know, there's so many laws,

hygienic laws, how to go and I'm going to say how to go and

relieve yourself as we do according to the, the anatomy of

the body. What do you need to do after

you've done it? These are all Levitical laws.

These are all, you know, laws for man to, to be made right to,

to what is it to, to, to help mankind to take care of the kind

of of mankind right to then know what is wrong and what is right.

And then Paul says that Abraham is the father of all believers.

So those who believed also, they became the children of Abraham

in that promise, the children of the promise through Abraham.

So Abraham is the father of all believers, making them coheirs

with him in the promise. So whoever believed, whoever

believed as Abraham believed in what God had promised becomes an

heir of that promise, just as we today.

Now the promise has been fulfilled again.

Yet Abraham is our spiritual father.

That's why when when the church began in the book of the Acts of

the Apostles and we've discussed that the apostles and the people

who had believed in the Lord Jesus Christ would still go to

the temple and celebrate that liturgy of how they would come

and proceed the procession that they would bring out the the

Torah and they would read and they would be covered and

someone would read and one would interpret.

They would still do that. So today when you come to the

Church of the East and you see and you look around the temple

and the and the vestments and you say quite somatic.

Yes, we won't deny that. What's the problem with being

quite, oh, that was abolished. Find me in the Bible where it

has been abolished. Nowhere in the Scriptures do you

find Jesus, say I have abolished.

No, the promise has been fulfilled.

But we continue that tradition, that somatic tradition, we

continue, you know, and this, this can go in so many ways, but

let's keep it, keep it intact. The the promise has been

fulfilled and we are heirs of God, not Abraham.

Now we are heirs of God, our heavenly father.

Abraham is our spiritual father, God is our heavenly father.

We are heirs of God. We are adopted as God's

children. We are coheirs with Jesus

Christ. The fulfilment of the promise to

Abraham that means we inherit eternal life in the Kingdom of

God. Abraham and those who believed

or not Abraham, but those descendants who believed and

continue to believe entered the promised land today.

Jesus will not take us to a promised land that is on earth.

No, no, no, He will not take us to Jericho and to Jerusalem.

No, no, no, no. The Lord will take us to the

eternal promised land we are in. We are.

We have inherited eternity with the eternal, living Lord Jesus

Christ. Eternal life in the Kingdom of

God, Resurrection and glorification, fellowship with

God, participation in God's glory all through Jesus Christ.

Do you see what you have? Do you see what you have?

Stop. Stop.

No, no, no, no. Let's stop.

Let's stop. All right, anything just posting

those TikTok pictures and those TikTok videos of dancing to a

song where there's there's just foul the filthy words and you

think that those poses on the social media, this is you.

That's your value that's your value.

Well, reality check, a spiritual reality check.

My dear sister, my dear brother, you are heirs with Jesus Christ.

You have eternal life in the Kingdom of heaven.

You have participation. You shit.

Listen to this, You share in the eternity of the Lord Jesus

Christ. If we continue, by the way, when

Abraham believed and his faith was counted to him

righteousness, he didn't stop adhering to the law.

No, he continued. He would still offer the

sacrifices, right? He would still celebrate the

Feast of the Booths. They would still eat kosher

food. They would still uphold the law,

right? So, hey, today, why does it make

a difference that once you believe, you don't have to do

anything else? Well, that's just, I'm sorry to

say that's hogwash. That's not true.

That's not that's not biblical, but going back again, we are

heirs through Jesus Christ of what we have awaiting us if we

continue Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10.

Ephesians 2:10

I love it if we continue in the good works, but our

righteousness comes from our faith.

We spoke about this last episode.

Then we see that Abraham's faith in God's power, look at what

happened, that when he believed in God's power, what God said to

him again, there was another promise again.

And now the fulfillment of the first promise is happening.

He and Sarah were far beyond childbearing age.

He didn't look at his weaknesses, the Saint Paul says

he was. They were both beyond child

childbearing age. Abraham trusted God's promise.

Sarai chuckled. Yeah, whatever.

I'm going to be impregnated. No, Sarai.

Sarai chuckled. Abraham believed that he would

become the father of many nations, beginning with Isaac.

And yeah, yeah, Abraham was 100 years, Saint Paul writes.

Yeah, you know how it happened. It wasn't like the birth of

Jesus Christ. No, there was seed.

There was, you know, Abraham and Sarai had a sexual relationship.

Oh, how can a hundred 100 year old man?

Yeah. See, you're thinking biology

now. You're thinking physics.

You're thinking the physicality of bodies.

You're thinking how can a man? Of course a man can't, cannot.

God can. This is a lesson.

What can you not do? Well, you know it's hard for me

to fast for 40 days. Of course it's hard for you to

fast for 40 days. But God can help you and

strengthen you just believing in the Lord.

Believe in the promise of Jesus Christ.

Ask and it shall be given to you.

This is what we need to ask for. Lord.

I'm having so much difficulties. Lord, I don't know whether it's

my complacency, it's my comfort, it's my foolishness.

When time comes for the Great Lent and I'm not rushing you.

Yeah, we have. We have at least just shy of a

year to go. And time comes for the great

land, for example. Pray about it.

Pray. Ask.

And it should be given to you. Not that it should be open to

you. Search and you should find.

Just like Abraham did. Believe in the power of God.

Believe when someone asks you to do something in the church.

Ohio. You.

No. No, I can't do this.

Of course you can't do this. I can't do this.

Stephen Can't manage or or produce the podcast and double

edged. So no, no, we can't.

We're weak, we're foolish. God works through.

God does. God has promised he did not

focus Abraham, didn't focus on the weakness of his body or

Sarah's barrenness, right? But he remains steadfast,

remains steadfast, fully convince yourself God can

accomplish whatever he wants, whatever he promises in my life,

God can accomplish it regardless of what it is, what

circumstance. God can accomplish this, and

because of this faith that was credited to Abraham as

righteousness, we Christians today sharing that statement, it

is also accredited to us. That wasn't written only for

Abraham, but also for all believers in the promise of God

that there will be a seed, and that seed was Jesus Christ, and

that seed has come and that seed has fulfilled the promise, and

that seed has fulfilled all the salvific plan of Jesus, of God

in Jesus Christ his Son. We are also believing in that we

are made right. We are made righteous.

We have been saved from the Mosaic Law, from the original

sin. We have been saved.

We have a new life in Jesus Christ.

Again, saved does not mean eternal life.

No, saved from the old, brought into life in the new.

So righteousness is accredited to all those who believe in God

today and stop now, listen very carefully.

We just say it in passing. We say this in passing.

Righteousness accredited to those who believe in God, which

God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

Saint Paul says that God, that God, those who don't believe

that Jesus Christ was raised from the day by by by God, are

believing in a false God. Jesus said I am the door to the

flock. I am the door.

All others are liars and they're false.

And I will say it again, regardless of what colour the

cassock is, it could be white, it could be red, it could be

black, it could be purple, whatever polka dots, whatever

whoever teaches and tells you and claims that it is not only

through Jesus Christ subliminally to you know, get

likes and to be loved by the world, we know where the world's

going. Don't believe, do not hear, do

not listen. It is only through Jesus

believing Jesus Christ. Don't believe in man, believe,

don't even believe in me, believe in Jesus Christ.

He claimed this. So righteousness is credited to

all those who believe in God who raised Jesus Christ from the

dead. Why?

Saint Paul writes it beautifully.

Christ was delivered up because of our sins, not Muhammad, not

Buddha, not Bhagwan Rajneesh. No, no, no, no, they don't even

claim it. No other no other faith, not

Moses, not Elijah, not Abraham, no other faith out there claims

that their leader was delivered up because of our sins.

No, actually they claim that their leavers who are dead,

Jesus died for them as well. But they didn't believe.

They chose to mislead people. Christ was delivered up because

of our sins and was raised for our justification.

Let's go into chapter 5 as well and let's read verse one.

Therefore, being justified by faith, let us have peace with

God through our Lord again. Again, peace with God through

our Lord Jesus Christ. There's no peace with God unless

it be through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Peace with God. That means restoring one more

time the friendship that humanity lost through Adam's

disobedience in the garden, Adam's, Adam's disobedience, and

the friendship was broken between man and God who restored

it. Jesus Christ, the second Adam

again in the garden as well. So he's saying that faith,

having this faith being justified by faith, believing

now today for the Christians today, he's writing to the

Romans, right? They were Gentiles.

But let's let's put it for our Christians today, having this

faith now that believing in Jesus Christ to be the fulfiller

of the promise and believing to in Jesus Christ to be the only

way to God to have a relationship with God.

Let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus God.

Let us remain that friendship, keep that relationship

friendship. We should not fall out with one

another, you and God, because of disagreement over the law.

No, no, no. That's what he's saying to the

Romans, you and I. Let's not fall out with God

because of our understanding of our interpretation or of our

immorality and and evil desires. Let us not be enemies of God.

We should stop sinning. We should not go back to the way

we used to live, for that is making war with God.

If you don't have a relationship with God, you're at war with

God. You're the enemy of God.

You are the enemy of God, not God.

So listen to me. Listen, listen if it's the first

time you're you've been introduced to these podcasts and

you're listening. If you don't have a relationship

with God, you've been living a life of your own understanding

and your own philosophy, you're at war with God.

God is not your enemy. God loves you.

You became the enemy of God. If you were and you have repent

and you go back again and sin, you become at war with God

again, that friendship is only through Jesus Christ and you can

always restore that friendship with Jesus, with God, always the

restoration, reconciliation of the friendship with our heavenly

Father, God the creator of heaven and earth, who can only

be known through Jesus Christ. Everyone say Amen, honk your

horns, beep your horns, do whatever you want to do, jump it

home and go yes, Amen and then startle the people in the in

your family only through that relationship with Jesus Christ

you can always restore that relationship.

How many times 70 * 7 come back to the Lord, come back and ask

and ask and ask Lord, I forgive me for I became your enemy one

more Time Lord forgive me. We have chance in one of the

praise anthems of the funeral rite of the Assyrian Church of

these it's the the rite of the funeral of women, the second

Mutwa, the second setting sitting in the hymns in the in

the praise hymn we say Abraham will not refresh those who are

burning and and the judge will not forgive those who have not

repented. It is time to repent, go back

and reconcile with God one more time through Him, Jesus Christ.

Through Him we have been brought by faith into the grace wherein

we stand and are proud in the hope of the glory of God.

Because of this faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and only

through Jesus Christ we have that access into the grace.

Now what is grace is what God has done, what God fulfilled,

what God brought to to being in Jesus Christ, which is

forgiveness, repentance, salvation and new life with the

Lord Jesus Christ until he returns and the Kingdom of

heaven. We we through him, we enter this

new covenant through Christ who is now acting as a mediator.

Paul says we have one mediator between God.

This is salvation for salvation. This is what Paul is saying for

salvation. There is one mediator between

God and mankind, and that is Jesus Christ.

That is the grace that we have access to.

Look at what Saint John Chrysostom comments on this

being counted worthy of the knowledge of God be This is

grace being counted worthy of the knowledge of God, being

moved to abandon error, coming to the knowledge of the truth,

obtaining all the blessings which come through baptism.

That is the grace that we have not merely to receive

forgiveness of sins, but countless and additional

benefits as well as baptism, absolution.

These are sacraments, the Holy Eucharist, all extending from

the gracious Sacrament. The 1st and most important

sacrament of the one Holy, Apostolic and Catholic,

Catholic, meaning Universal Church, is that extend all these

sacraments. All these gifts extend from the

one Sacrament that is the priesthood versus 3 and four.

And not only so, but we also glory in our tribulations,

knowing that tribulations perfect practice in US and

sorry, patience and patience, experience and experience.

Hope all these things. I'm going now.

Now Saint Paul is bursting out bubble.

Hallelujah, praise God, yes, Hallelujah.

Life is going to be so beautiful rose.

It's going to be pebbled pebbles of roses along the way.

It's going to be so smooth. I will never worry.

I will never be, you know, heartbroken.

I will never suffer. No, no, no.

All these are through afflictions.

Why, why, why is it selfish to ask God to give us a life that

is annoyed and evolved from void and null and void from all

afflictions life? Because Jesus was afflicted for

this life. Jesus was afflicted and and

suffered for that grace to be provided for you and I.

So the grace that we receive is through afflictions, and

afflictions are not a sign of God's abandonment.

No, no, no, no. It doesn't mean God's not there

or why am I heartbroken? God's left me.

No, God is there. If you're a little bit

attentive, especially especially you see when people come in and

console you and, you know, express their consults, that is

God. That is, that is a work that God

has commanded us to do. So it's not a sign of God that

has abandoned us, but God's will, God's knowledge, and God's

plan through affliction to produce what Paul says in US.

Patience, steadfast endurance, that patient produces, tested

character, our spiritual maturity, the strength in the

hope. Our hope is more strengthened

through these afflictions that we go through when we are at

peace with the Lord Jesus Christ or we have reconciled with God

through Jesus Christ. And lastly, verse 5.

And hope causes no one to be ashamed because the love of God

is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to

us. From where?

Where did you receive the Holy Spirit?

Yes, in Holy Baptism. No, no, when I believe that is

the Holy Spirit. OK, let me give you this

example. Stephen.

No. Was it Philip?

Philip went to Samaria. Philip baptized people in the

name of the father of the son of the Holy Spirit.

Philip. Philip was one of the chosen 7.

But then we read that Samaria had received the faith and were

baptized, but didn't receive the Holy Spirit.

They believed, but then Simon and the disciples had to go and

lay their hands on them. When did the Holy Spirit ascend

on Jesus Christ? When he was coming towards John?

No, no, no, after he was baptized.

So too we when when we are baptized, the Holy Spirit we

received by the laying on of the hand of the priest or the

efficient of the baptism. This hope cannot fail us,

beloved. That's what Saint Paul is

saying. It rests on God's promise, not

man, not man. God promised us.

God promised that we if we continue steadfast in far in in

faith in our tribulations through Jesus Christ and those

deeds that were for ordained for us according to Ephesians 2

chapter 10, if we remain a life of repentance, then we have the

promise of eternal life. Psalm chapter 146 verse three.

Psalms 146 · chapter mention

Do not trust a Prince or upon a Son of man, for there is no

salvation in his hand, only through Jesus Christ, and that

is the New Covenant salvation and promise that we have

received, praising glory be to His name now, and that all times

and forever. Amen.

We hope you enjoyed this week's message.

Please don't forget to rate and review this podcast and share

with your friends and family. For any future topic suggestions

or to give us detailed feedback, please visit our link in the

show notes. Linktr dot EE forward slash

double edged sword. Until next time.