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00:26 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:33 Welcome to the cafe. Pastor Clark Covington here with another message at KJV Cafe. I’m so glad you’ve joined me here today.
00:36 Let me remind you, we’re online at kjvcafe.com. You could read about our history and the stations we’re on there. And we are on Facebook at facebook.com forward slash KJV Cafe.
00:51 And we just launched a newsletter and you can find a link to that newsletter and you can get an email each day with a little Bible commentary.
00:57 So thank you so much for joining me today. We are in the second part of a two-part series on the great friendship that we have with Jesus Christ, our Lord, when we’re saved.
01:06 And the example I gave yesterday, which I’ll give again, is a recent bear attack.
01:13 There were some young college wrestlers. I think there was four total, but two of them kind of split off after a early morning practice in Wyoming and they were going to the park, looks like a national park or a big park of some kind, but it’s Wyoming, so I guess everything’s wide open out there. They were up on a mountain or a hill there and they were looking for deer antler.
01:31 And these two young men didn’t find any deer antler, I guess, but they did find a big bear. And that bear came out of the bush and attacked one of the young men. And the other one that was with him faced a moment, faced a moment of decision.
01:47 What was he going to do? Was he going to jump in and help his friend? Was he going to run and try to get help? Was he going to run and hide? What was he going to do?
01:55 And I’ll preface this by saying, if you’ve ever been around a bear, it’s really frightening just to look at a live bear. We took our kids up there to Pigeon Forge and they had a bear exhibit in one of the stores and we took them out there.
02:08 And we were 15, 20, 30 feet from the bear behind, I think, at least a guardrail, if not plexiglass.
02:17 I mean, it was nowhere near the bear and my little six-year-old started crying. She started crying just looking at that bear. Now imagine being face-to-face in the woods with no protection and that bear is coming at you hard and fast.
02:32 That was what was happening. And this young man that was friends with the one getting mauled by the bear jumped in and grabbed the bear’s ear and pulled the bear’s skin. And the bear turned away from his friend and started attacking him.
02:46 And after several bouts of attacks that were pretty brutal, leaving many scars and broken arms and all kinds of stitches needed in the skull and so forth, the bear eventually went away and the children survived.
02:59 These college kids, I shouldn’t call them children, young men, the young men survived. And so we see so much poetry in this and I encourage you to look this up.
03:07 It happened in Wyoming, I think, on the 15th of October this year. We see wrestlers, these are college wrestlers, what do they do?
03:22 They fight and they fight for each other. And so you see that picture and them fighting the bear.
03:21 And you see the friends are fighting even if it meant death. And interestingly enough, if you look at the two friends, one of them broke the arm and looked a little banged up.
03:30 But the one that came in second, the one that took the place of the initial friend, really got the worst of it.
03:39 He had all kinds of scars and cuts and had to have all these staples put into his face or his skull and so forth. And so it’s interesting, the one that chose the sacrificial deed really bear a lot, excuse the pun, but bear a lot of the punishment.
03:54 Our text verse here is John 15:13, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
04:03 And that verse instantly came to mind when I read about this story by phone yesterday. And it’s incredible to see the love of Jesus Christ in a situation even like that, because we have a true friend in Jesus.
04:19 You know, we couldn’t survive the bear in our life that is attacking us that would be called sin without someone else intervening.
04:31 We were, those that have been saved, were headed for a devil’s hell. Hell is a real place. And those that haven’t been saved will go there if they don’t accept Christ as Savior.
04:45 As I understand it, there’s more in the Bible about hell than heaven. And Jesus himself often references hell. And hell is not made for man, it’s made for the devil and fallen angels.
04:52 But man will go there that reject Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The Bible clearly says that Jesus Christ himself says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.
05:05 No man cometh to the Father, but by me. I mean, think about that. How many ways to the Father? There’s only one.
05:13 And that’s John 14:6. So we see here, just one chapter later, John 15, 13, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
05:22 Jesus Christ, our only way to be saved, came and died on the cross at Calvary, willingly, obediently.
05:29 You don’t think Jesus Christ had the opportunity to wipe everyone out? He did. He’s God in the flesh. He’s perfect.
05:35 He’s sinless. He can do as he pleases. I love this scripture.
05:39 It’s not in all the Gospels, but one of the Gospels, the men approach Jesus in the garden to take him in, and this is the beginning of his crucifixion.
05:47 And they ask who he was, and he just responds, and they all fall down. And just him speaking makes everyone fall down.
05:54 And that, to me, is a picture of his power. You know, God has all power. He could have called legions of angels down to deliver him from that situation.
06:04 He could have done anything. He could have blinked. He could have had a thought, and everything would have been resolved.
06:17 So when you see and you read that Jesus Christ was brutally just tortured and humiliated on that cross, his beard plucked out, vinegar and gall put on his tongue, given a crown of thorns, he was beaten so much he was unrecognizable, it was the worst physical death that’s ever happened to mankind.
06:26 When you read about that, understand that that was his obedience, that that was God in the flesh saying, yes, I will be a friend to that sinner that will accept my free gift of salvation. I will be a friend to him because I will do it.
06:43 Now, he did it for everyone. You know, it’s been done past tense. It’s just a matter of who will accept his free gift of salvation.
06:50 Amen. But he took our place as this young man took the place of the other young man. He took our place and he bore the brunt of it for us.
06:59 He was, I love the verse in Isaiah. It’s Isaiah 53:5, Isaiah 53:5. But he was wounded for our transgressions.
07:10 He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes, we are healed. Isaiah 53:5, but he was wounded for our transgressions.
07:15 He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes, we are healed. That’s Jesus Christ.
07:20 And that’s what he did for us on the cross. Amen. We had a sin debt we couldn’t pay.
07:34 The old Testament law shows that we weren’t able to keep the law. We’re not perfect. We are sinners.
07:39 100 out of 100 human beings walking the earth today are living as sinners. We are not perfect. You get into the details of God’s law.
07:48 No one can keep it. No one can. God’s standard is higher than any of us humans can uphold.
07:54 When did we fall short? In the garden. Adam and Eve, who did not have sin, they were living forever, eternally, as I understand it. And the devil tricked them.
08:06 They ate of the forbidden fruit. Sin entered the picture. Death entered the picture.
08:10 And ever since then, it’s been passed down from generation to generation. We don’t become sinners, you know, oh, this person’s bad. They become a sinner.
08:17 No, we are born sinners. It is our nature. Look at a child.
08:19 Look at a one or two year old, try to take their toy or try to see if they don’t lie about something or whatever else. God allows the little children to sin, not because he doesn’t like little children, because he wants us to understand that we are born with a sin nature. It’s just how we are.
08:33 And the only way to resolve that sin nature is by the perfect spotless lamb dying on the cross for our sin. It’s called the atonement. It’s called the substitutionary death.
08:41 It is the idea that Jesus Christ died for our sins. And that when we accept him as Savior, we can’t do anything but have faith. All we can do is accept him.
08:51 We can believe that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord. When we accept Christ as Savior, we’re saved. You don’t have to join a church.
08:58 You don’t have to get some kind of award. You don’t have to have a bunch of money in the bank, or you don’t have to give a bunch of money that you have in the bank. You don’t have to be super Christian.
09:10 You don’t have to complete a bunch of levels of missionary work or have a certain pin on your chest or anything else.
09:16 All you have to do, all you have to do is believe, amen. All you’ve got to do is believe.
09:22 At that, there’s a beautiful verse in Romans. I can’t help myself. I believe it’s Romans 10:9. I’m going to look it up here, Romans 10:9.
09:27 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
09:40 That’s it in a nutshell. I mean, 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 paints the gospel. And there’s, you know, John 3:16 alludes to what God’s plan is.
09:49 Here Romans 10:9 is one of our founding verses of our church. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, so you’re speaking with your mouth, but you’re believing in your heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. That’s what saves you.
10:04 So you’re saved by Christ who died for you, amen? And that should spark great adoration for the Lord. We have a true friend in Jesus. The greatest love of all loves, Jesus showed us by dying for us.
10:14 He did this while we were yet sinners. God died for us. God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, died for our sins while we were at war with him, while we were an enemy of him.
10:22 Romans 5:7-8, for scarcely a righteous man would one die, yet pre-adventure for a good man some would even dare to die, but God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And this is an incredible love.
10:36 We can’t fully understand the depths of the love, but thinking of the idea of the principle that we are at odds with God because we’re a sinful man, and he still went and laid his life down in the most brutal, horrific fashion you can imagine for us.
10:53 That’s God’s way of saying, I love you this much. I love you so much that you can’t comprehend it, that there’s not a word to describe it, but you can understand the principle. You can understand your own ways.
11:04 I don’t have many enemies, and if I were to think of an enemy, I can’t really think of anybody that I would call an enemy per se, but the worst enemy I’d ever have, I don’t know that I’d love to go and die for that individual, and the chances they may not ever accept that gift that I gave them. Amen.
11:20 Can you imagine that? You’re going to die on the hospital bed, and they need your liver, and they’re an enemy of yours, and you don’t even know if they’ll take your liver, but you die anyways to give it to them?
11:30 Can you imagine that? I mean, I know that’s kind of a simple example, but that’d be hard for a human, a sinful fallen man to do, but that is what Christ did for us.
11:41 And look, that’s an indescribable love. You know, after reading that story about these young men, or you can watch the video clips about them as well, just search like bear attack in Wyoming or something, I’m sure it’ll come up.
11:53 Is there any doubt that that one individual and the other, the two that were together, is there any doubt that they love each other? Is there any doubt that they’re devoted to each other?
12:02 Is there any doubt that they would die for one another? I don’t think there’s any doubt because they literally fought a bear side by side and to almost not death, and they survived, and so their devotion is clear.
12:12 Is there any doubt that Christ loves us? That he took, again, that bear of sin, and he put it on his shoulders, and he drank that wicked, brutal cup of iniquity for all mankind for all time on the cross at Calvary.
12:25 Is there any doubt that he loves you? Is there any doubt? All he’s saying is believe, believe on me, and you’ll be saved. The Bible says that God doesn’t change.
12:30 There’s no variableness or turning with God. If you believe in Jesus Christ and you are saved, amen, that’s eternal. That is eternal security.
12:42 Once saved, always saved. God will not cower to our enemy. He will deliver us.
12:49 So we understand his love. We understand what he did at Calvary. We believe in Jesus Christ.
12:55 We trust the Lord. Understand that God will face these battles head on that we face. Think about where is the Lord going? When will he leave us? What trouble is too much for God?Jeremiah 32:27, I love this verse.
13:09 Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me? Is there anything too hard for God? That obstacle in your life, is it too difficult for God?
13:18 That stress in your life, can he not solve it? That issue that you just can’t seem to get past, could God not deliver you from it if he so chooses? Even if he chooses not to deliver you, is he not capable of giving you peace and persevering you through the hard times and preserving you and all the rest?
13:41 It is God alone that helps us in this life. It is God alone that every good thing comes from.
13:47 It is God alone that is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. And we see that through the illustration of what Christ did on the cross, we have a great and mighty love in God. And then we accept the true historical fact of what Christ did on the cross.
14:00 We are saved and we are born again and we are now his. And with him, nothing is too hard for him. There is no situation, there is no bear to come out of the woods where Jesus Christ will cut and run.
14:12 He will be there with you through thick and thin. Amen. In your lowest time, that’s when Christ will show up the most.
14:17 In your highest time, he’ll be there just as well. He will not leave you nor forsake you. You have him for an eternity and that is a promise from God’s word.
14:26 Thank you for listening. Take care. God bless and amen.