Admonition Podcast

Take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to Mark chapter 9.

Tommy, I did a little messing with the sound system trying to get the nursery going back
on the speakers again and so I may be a little volume wise a little off where I need to

be.

just do whatever you need to do back there.

Mark chapter 9.

Alright, let's begin with a word of prayer and then we'll get into our study.

Our gracious Lord, Father of all mankind, giver of all good and perfect gifts, Father of
lights, we are grateful for your Son who came and offered Himself as a sacrifice on the

cross for our sins, that we might have the hope of eternal life, that we might have
redemption and justification, sanctification through the Spirit, that we might be able to

walk before you in holiness and righteousness, not our own.

but His.

Lord, we pray for those in this congregation.

May they set their path to follow the word that you have given to us, to follow the
scriptures, to be obedient to your truth.

May they live daily bearing their own cross as Christ has instructed us here in the book
of Mark.

May we be diligent as we strive to reach the lost.

to find those who are willing to open their hearts and their minds to hear the word of God
and be receptive to the truth that you have placed in front of us.

truly we know that we are sanctified by your word and your word is truth.

We pray that you will be with us as we speak the truth, uphold the truth, and always
strive to live in accordance with that truth.

All this we pray and ask in Jesus' name, amen.

In Mark chapter 9, uh Jesus has interacted with the uh father of the boy who has the
spirit, and we're around verse 25 uh when Jesus saw that the people came running together.

He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it,

deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more." I was
thinking about something and I thought it'd be a good question to ask.

Why is it that just in your thoughts and opinion studying scripture, why is it that these
spirits that, you know, we're dealing in a time of demon possession, why is it these

spirits

are creating these sort of maladies.

Someone's deaf, someone's dumb, can't speak, someone is, uh you know, having uh seizures
or seizure-like events going on.

Why is it that the demons are creating those type of scenarios and yet we believe, based
upon scripture, that

when we see someone having those type of scenarios today, it's not a result of demon
possession.

So why is it that they saw that and said it was demon possession then, but we see a
similar symptom and we say not demon possession?

I thought so.

That's why I asked it.

So Philip is on the side of there's a few people walking around who are demon possessed
today and he knows them.

ah

Okay, let me take you down a thought process because that's a worthwhile answer.

We don't have, as it were, visibility into the spiritual world to be able to say
definitively what's going on inside of a person, right?

There's no uh magical little set of glasses that we suddenly put on and we can see demons
or angels uh in the physical world.

But I think there's another train of thought that we need to entertain in answering the
question.

Because what we sometimes fail to do when someone asks us questions is step back and ask,
are we asking the right question?

If you were to look at it this way and answer this set of questions, number one, were
there people who had the maladies of being blind or being deaf or being lame or having

seizures or having this type of scenario, this type of physical symptom, were there those
who existed with those maladies prior to the first century?

and the New Testament.

Yes.

Is there any, so part of the problem we have is once revelation ceased, once we no longer
have word from God, this is what this is, we have an absence of information, right?

We have only what we can determine and tell from our own eyes, from our own minds.

So bringing up Eric's point, if we can't tell,

how would we know?

But if instead of coming forward from the first century, we reverse direction and go
backwards from the first century, the question should be asked then, where in the Old

Testament do we see any examples of physical maladies being connected to demon possession?

And the answer is nowhere.

There are individuals with physical maladies, there are individuals who suffer as a result
of those maladies, yet nowhere in all of the Old Testament are any of those maladies

ascribed to demon possession.

It isn't until the first century, while Jesus is walking the earth, while the Holy Spirit
is given through the gifts of the miraculous so that these miraculous deeds could actually

glorify God.

It is only in that sliver of time in all human history where God specifically draws out
demon possession as being something that is going on.

Not anywhere in the Old Testament, not anywhere in the New Testament.

Now, and I'll get to the comment in a moment.

Do we find in the Old Testament God specifically drawing out that angels

were active in circumstances in the Old Testament.

Absolutely.

There are a number of times that heavenly beings, spiritual beings, appear to different
prophets.

There's the individual who appears as a soldier of the Lord's host that appeared to Joshua
outside the city.

There's numerous occasions when Abraham is entertaining the three strangers and he doesn't
know who they are and ultimately we're

told through scripture that it was actually God himself and two angels, those angels being
sent on to Sodom and Gomorrah, we have an abundance of scenarios in the Old Testament

where God says, are angels interacting with humanity and humanity becomes aware of it
through revelation or through the action of the angel, okay?

So, it's not as though God

has no discussion of demons or angels all the way up until the first century and now
suddenly there is, like somehow the doctrine changed or something, right?

That's not what's happening.

And yet, all through the Old Testament, you have Satan on occasion interacting with
humanity, right?

Genesis chapter 3, Satan talks to Eve.

But Eve is aware of who's talking to her.

Eve knows that this uh serpent is more than just uh a creature that walks around.

So I point all of that out to say you have 4,000 years of history in which God could have
attributed all physical maladies to demon possession and he doesn't.

It is only during the first century, during the time of the miraculous gifts, that demon
possession is connected to these physical maladies.

But let me add this.

Are all physical maladies that Jesus and the apostles interact with attributed to demon
possession?

No.

We have numerous people who are just simply blind.

And as a result of their blindness,

They need to be healed, but their malady is simply physical.

There are individuals who are deaf, and their issue is simply physical.

So even in the New Testament, in the time of the miraculous, you have a divergence and a
separation between physical maladies caused by demon possession and physical maladies that

were just normal.

physical maladies.

Here's the individual who was born blind.

Well, what demon possession occurred for him to be born blind?

None.

He was simply born blind.

Okay, now, comment.

Okay.

Correct.

as you piece through this, the first thing you, when you're trying to answer a question,
especially a random question somebody throws at you from the Bible, don't begin with their

question.

Begin with what you know.

Begin with what Scripture says.

Like, all right, if we were going to try and answer the question, we first begin with,
here's what we know, here's what we may know, here's what we

don't know.

Now, how do those things bear on the question?

And to the point that, by the way, you see in the occasion when Jesus sends the legion of
demons into the swine, the demons knew that their ability to possess those on earth was a

limited time scenario.

because they ask Jesus, you come here to persecute us before our time?

uh As far as we know, we still have access to these humans.

So why are you interfering with our allowance, as it were, uh to do this?

So there's inklings from the text that even the demons were aware.

This was not a permanent scenario.

And it had not been a permanent scenario prior to that point.

Therefore, now we can look at the question of what about physical maladies today and why
did demons use the physical maladies?

May I suggest one least idea?

Yeah, go ahead, Michael.

think it was because.

So, of that and the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit given at the hand of Christ
through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and then the laying on of the

Apostles hands to the church.

Those actions made it possible to demonstrate that Christ had authority not just over
physical or fleshly matters.

but that Christ had authority over spiritual matters and spiritual beings and physical
earthly beings.

So by nature of Christ being on the earth at this occasion as these things are going on,
it is a demonstration of his authority and of his power that could be demonstrated very

few other ways.

uh

in the occasion and the time period of the first century, you have a demonstration of the
authority and a confirmation of the word that was preached, which miracles always are.

They're a confirmation of the word.

But the second aspect concerning physical maladies is if the demon is going to somehow
control the person, there's only so many things you could do to a human body.

There's only, I mean, we come up with a whole lot of diseases that people can have, but
there's only so many different symptoms that you can cause to exist in a person if you're

trying to torment them and control them.

And so the demons, by the way, it seems to also be clear that while the demons had some
level of control, they didn't have complete control, right?

There was the child in this occasion who sometimes was

fine, and then sometimes the demon would exert control over and he'd spazz them and he'd
throw himself in the fire.

All of these things would occur.

They didn't happen every moment of the day.

They occurred at different points in time as a result of the action of the demon.

So the point that we're drawing out as we just think about that question, well, wait a
minute, why should we not assume physical maladies are the result of demon possession

today is because there's no

evidence for it.

Just the same way there's no evidence for the continuation of the miraculous gifts of the
Holy Spirit in any way, shape, or form after the first century.

There's not one example nor one statement, and it's exactly to the contrary of what
Scripture says, to believe that God continued handing out the ability to perform miracles.

If

that is the case, then as we look at the opposite side, not the miraculous side, but the
demon possession side or the activity of the spiritual beings under Satan's control, you

have there the same thing.

Everything of scripture indicates that that did not continue, that it was for a limited
period of time, it didn't exist beforehand, it didn't exist afterward, and there's again,

no evidence.

Now, people will say, well, wait a minute, what about this person that was healed over
here or this, you know, everybody's seen this movie or that movie about demon possession.

Amazingly, all of these things seem to happen far off places somewhere in unconfirmed uh
scenarios with an entirely biased set of witnesses.

Just the same way, if you pay close attention to it, all of the televangelist healers
scenarios occur.

will it happen right there on stage in front of her?

Yeah, where did the person come from?

What's the documentation of their illness and where's the proof?

There's been a long standing tradition, or least there was for years, some within the body
of Christ where they would offer a reward if...

If you can visit the local cemetery and call up someone out of the grave from the local
cemetery who's been confirmed to be dead for an extended period of time, we'll pay you

this sum of money.

Well, if you had the power to raise the dead, which some of them claim they do, seemed
like an easy way to make some money.

Nobody ever takes him up on it.

Wonder why?

Now, two things to just glean from this is number one, when someone asks you a Bible
question, don't assume they're asking the right question.

Don't assume that the way they're asking it is the right way to ask the question.

That doesn't mean you have to be rude about it, but always redirect them to what do we
know?

If we're going to have a Bible discussion, let's not have it about what we think, let's
have it about what we know to be the case.

Once we can discuss what we know, then we can talk about what we think we know, then we
can talk about what we don't know, and that ought to be a pretty short conversation

because there's no sense talking about a whole lot of things that we don't know.

now.

As Jesus sees the people come running, He rebuked the unclean spirit saying, Death and
dumb spirit, I command you come out of him and enter him no more.

Notice Jesus is very explicit to this spirit.

Not only are you going to come out, you're not going to do what?

Come back.

Off limits!

Then the Spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him.

And he became as one dead, so that many said, He is dead.

But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

And when he had come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not
cast it out?

So the event occurs different than some other occasions where uh

evil spirit or an unclean spirit is cast out.

This one causes the individual to be convulsed, they fall to the ground, they're basically
laying there as dead.

So, apparently, laying there long enough that some surmise that they are dead.

But Jesus goes over, lifts the individual up, and they continue on.

ah Jesus is going to go into the house, as you often see recorded, you know, these events
would occur quite often.

People would be bringing individuals to Jesus who had maladies, who had difficulties, who
had ailments, who had...

uh

uh evil spirits and they would bring them to Jesus.

Jesus would meet with them on a shoreline or on a mountain or outside of a house because
there wasn't room for all of these people indoor anywhere uh in most of the places that

Jesus would go.

But then Jesus would go into the house and there would be some level of privacy.

So his disciples came and asked him privately, why could we not cast it out?

They're trying to understand because they've cast out demons before.

You read that back when Jesus sent out the 12 and sent out the 70 that they had power over
evil spirits, that they commanded them and they came out, they healed people, so they're

trying to figure out why could we not accomplish that this time?

So he said to them, this kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.

Why do you think Jesus says that?

Let's ask it this way.

Who's praying and who's fasting?

Okay?

Is it, we'll do it in category.

Is it the person who has the demon possession?

Yes or no?

Not likely, because if they're possessed by a demon, they're going to have very little
control over their praying and their fasting.

Okay, so it's probably not them.

Now, when Jesus interacted with the Father, notice, let's go back, when Jesus is
confronted by him, he answered him and said, oh, faithless generation, how long shall I be

with you?

How long shall I bear with you?

Bring him to me.

and they brought him to him, they brought the child to Jesus, and when he saw him,
immediately the Spirit convulsed him and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at

the mouth.

So he asked his father, how long has it been happening to him?

He said, from childhood.

And often he has thrown himself both into the fire and into the water to destroy him, but
if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.

Jesus said to him, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.

When Jesus confronts the situation, whose faith does He establish as the determining
factor?

The Father's.

But spend some time with your thoughts on that.

Is it entirely based upon the Father's faith because the other side of the equation,
Jesus, has no limit on His power or authority?

And if the apostles are on the other side of the equation instead of Jesus, do they have
limits on their power and their authority?

Yes, they do.

Okay?

When it's one person and God, the only person who potentially has a potential or who has
the potential of falling short is the person, not God.

Because the only two in the scenario are person and God.

There's no other dependencies there.

So, in a scenario where it's the man and Jesus, the only one with the potential of falling
short is the man.

Not gonna be Jesus.

Is there any indication in the text that Jesus needed to pray and fast in order to command
the demon to come out?

No.

Okay, so let's go through the scenario again.

You've got the one who's demon possessed, the one who brings him who is desiring for him
to be healed, and the person doing the healing.

Jesus tells the one who brought him his faith is a part of the equation.

But this man says, had complete confidence.

I believe you could do it.

That's why I brought him.

There's no doubt in the man, the Father's mind that Jesus can do this.

His only quandary is, why couldn't the apostles do it?

So if it's not the person being healed and the father already had full belief and
confidence, then who is the party that failed?

the apostles.

Because they're not God.

They're not God in the flesh.

They have the potential for failure.

They have a limitation of authority.

And even the text makes it clear because notice the question, verse 28, why could we not
cast it out?

They didn't come to Jesus and say,

Why did the father have so much more faith when you were doing it than when we were doing
it?

That wasn't the question.

The question was, why couldn't we do it?

Why is there a difference in the authority that you have and the authority that we have,
or how do we understand the difference?

So when Jesus says this kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting, but Jesus did
not pray and did not fast in order to cast them out, then whose prayer and whose fasting

is under consideration?

Because he doesn't tell the Father to pray and fast, he tells the Father to believe.

This would be the apostles, okay?

Now we're getting into why couldn't they do it?

So, let's examine the situation again.

Did anything change about the person who needed to be, have the demon cast out, whether it
was Jesus or the apostles?

No.

Was there any difference in the state of the belief of the Father, whether it was the
apostles or whether it was Jesus?

No.

So now we're down to Jesus and the apostles.

Jesus succeeded, he has authority over all flesh.

all over heaven and earth, okay?

So that one's pretty easy.

He didn't need to pray, he didn't need to fast, he commanded the spirit to come out.

So if we identify that it is the prayer and the fasting of the apostles that was the
problem, now we're beginning to ask a different question.

Let's ask it this way, whose authority was going to cast the demon out no matter whether
Jesus did it or whether the apostles did it?

God's authority.

It was the authority of God that would cause the demon to come out.

Jesus spoke and the authority was there.

When Jesus attributes prayer and fasting to being part of the reason they failed, Jesus is
establishing that their will and their request and their authority were not in alignment

with God's.

and therefore the prayer and the fasting would have been for the benefit of aligning
themselves with God.

Not aligning, A-L-L-E-Y, aligning, L-I-G-N, aligning themselves with God.

Jesus is saying there's a separation between you and God.

and you need to fix it.

You need to focus on why is it that you are not aligned with God and he tells them that
two spiritual disciplines that were the solution for that were praying to God, that is

speaking to God, and fasting.

What is fasting all about?

What is the purpose behind it?

There's a number of different ones mentioned in Scripture.

What are they?

First, maybe we should ask, what is fasting?

All right, fasting is withholding food and or drink depending, know, Jesus fasted both
food and uh liquids for a period of time on occasion and just simply food on another

occasion.

So you have the withholding of eating and consuming things, okay?

Why would someone fast from a, we'll just ask it, from a.

physical medical perspective.

Anybody ever had to go on a fast for 12 hours or 24 hours before a procedure or something?

There's a lot of different reasons medically why someone may fast or say, you've got this
procedure at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, so eight o'clock morning four, cut it off.

Or eight o'clock the night before, no more.

There's medical, physical reasons why someone might fast, but the Bible's not really
discussing it in a medical,

hey, this is the great latest diet fad, so you should consider this.

No, no, no, that's not what is under discussion.

Are there occasions where individuals fasted because of sadness and mourning?

Yes.

So fasting in the Old Testament on numerous occasions was tied to the grieving process.

If you've been around those who've lost loved ones,

You find that invariably in America, what we do is we bring a ton of food and they're
interested in eating none of it because they're grieving.

But we would hate for them to starve while they're grieving.

So we bring them food and we don't know what else to do.

So we bring them more food.

And they might have friends and family over who aren't grieving nearly as bad, and those
people need to eat.

So we're keeping them from having to make food while they're grieving.

But the point is, there are times that people don't eat because of sorrow or grief.

But then scripture also discusses fasting from a spiritual discipline perspective.

This is the type of fasting that Jesus was doing

in the wilderness.

This is the type of fasting that we read about elsewhere in scripture.

This is the type of fasting that Jesus condemns the Pharisees for participating in, but
then showing themselves physically to be fasting so they could be considered praiseworthy

by the crowd.

Jesus said, if you're fasting and it is for spiritual purposes, it is between you and God.

It's not you

cause yourself to look like you're really almost nearing the point of death.

You don't walk around with your hair disheveled and your self unwashen or anything like
that just because you haven't eaten.

Just so people go, he must be, he might be a number of days into that fast.

Yeah, he's really, there you go.

Man, that guy's spiritual right there.

Jesus said, no, if you're going to fast, do it privately.

Jesus didn't condemn the practice, he condemned using the practice to be seen as
righteous.

So the practice is this.

The practice is withholding food for the purpose of clarity and focus on a spiritual
matter.

if you're hungry.

It's hard to focus.

But if every time you're hungry and your body reminds you you're hungry and you're
intentionally hungry, it reminds you why you're hungry.

So, if you say, know what, I really need to focus on this spiritual issue, but you just go
about your day, are you more likely to forget to focus on the spiritual issue?

Because you're just going about your normal process?

Well, if you're not eating, there's a continual reminder day after day for however long
that fast is that you're not eating for a reason.

And there's actually good evidence that once you get past the initial hunger cravings,
there's benefits towards additional focus of mind when your body finally stops getting in

the way and interrupting every thought that you have with, hey, let's eat again.

um I'm not a doctor and I'm not giving any medical advice here as to how diabetics would
get around that, but I will say this, um when you look at it, it's important to realize

fasting is never commanded anywhere in Scripture.

There's not a single instance of a fast being a command in Scripture unless it is in a
scenario where

like this one, Jesus is saying, you're going to accomplish this, it's going to require
this of you.

ah So there's not like a blanket command, everyone needs to fast three days a year or
anything like that.

But Jesus is pointing out that their spiritual discipline and as a result of that
understanding, their alignment with God,

is the reason why God didn't do what they asked for.

So he's telling them, it's not God that needs to change, it's you.

You need to get into a scenario with God that God will actually do what you ask for when
you ask for him to do it.

So as you examine the text, Jesus isn't saying, you know what, there's a special
procedure.

If you're going to get this type of demon to come out,

You're gonna pray for an hour.

You're gonna fast for six hours.

You're gonna pray for another hour.

You're gonna faster He's not giving them a procedure He's telling them the problem and the
problem was their alignment with God If you go back into Old Testament texts like Nehemiah

Daniel many other Old Testament texts with both prophets and others David's a great
example of this

over and over and over again in the lives of those individuals, they went in prayer to God
seeking to know what God's will was.

What they should do in order to meet and achieve God's will in a situation.

My understanding of this text is Jesus is saying, kind of like James chapter four,

you didn't receive because you asked to miss.

You thought you could cast out the demon and you can't.

God can, but God didn't honor your request because of you and not the demon.

Okay?

So that's at least my understanding of the text.

Hopefully that helps or draws out some things that you may not have thought about.

Here in verse 30,

We read, then they departed from there and passed through Galilee, and he did not want
anyone to know it.

For he taught his disciples and said to them, this occasion, much like the occasion where
they went off into the region of Tyre, Jesus is trying to find time to dedicate to

teaching his disciples.

But every time the crowd comes, every time the multitudes arrive, he can't teach the
disciples because

of all of the people that are present.

So Jesus is going through Galilee and he's trying to avoid being discovered and someone
saying, hey, Jesus is here, because he's trying to teach the disciples.

He taught his disciples and said to them, verse 31, the son of man is being betrayed into
the hands of men and they will kill him.

And after he is killed, he will rise the third day." But they did not understand this,
saying, and were afraid to ask him.

Jesus will use the reference the Son of Man.

Anybody know which Old Testament prophet that phrase comes from?

comes from Ezekiel.

Ezekiel uses the phrase son of man numerous times in Ezekiel's prophecies.

And Jesus utilizes that description to make it very clear that he was human.

What if he had said, think about it practically speaking, what if he had said, the Son of
God is being betrayed into the hands of men and they will kill him?

What would be wrong with that statement?

You, go ahead Philip, say it You can't kill God.

You can't kill the Son of God.

Not in His Godhood.

Not as deity.

So Jesus emphasizes His being as a human to emphasize that this was going to happen to
Him.

But to use a phrase different than that would be to ascribe something that would simply
not be possible.

You can't kill God.

They didn't kill God.

They killed Christ in the flesh.

They could not touch the Spirit.

By the way, that's not something we should be surprised about because Jesus tells us, do
not fear Him who can destroy the body.

Rather fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.

It's not

strange for us to question whether or not man can touch the spirit or destroy the spirit
or kill the spirit.

Jesus said flat out, no they can't touch it.

Not mine and not anybody else's, but God can.

So the discussion here is of the flesh and a fleshly death, but they did not understand
this saying, and were afraid to ask him.

One of the things that

leaders struggle with is those who they are leading who won't actually speak up.

They won't actually say what's going on.

They won't actually say what they're thinking and instead of learning and instead of
providing an opportunity to learn, they clam up and nobody learns.

That's what happens with the disciples.

All of them are thinking

this and none of them are saying a word about it.

Yeah, so uh there are a number of texts that make it quite clear it was not easy to be
Jesus' uh Quote unquote measuring up was impossible.

Go ahead.

One, when Matthew gives the genealogy of Christ, man, there's some real scandals in that
genealogy.

mean, you look at prostitutes, thieves, I mean, it was all.

But I think he was doing that to make us realize more that Jesus was flesh and blood.

You know, bringing...

more down the earth.

I mean, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

He had a family tree and the ancestors just like everybody else did.

So we'll get just a couple more verses in here and then we'll close.

Verse 33, then he came to Capernaum and when he was in the house he asked them, what was
it you disputed among yourselves on the road?

So we don't have the discussion, we don't have the dispute recorded, we have Jesus asking
about the dispute.

So they were traveling and there's a discussion going on, but they kept silent.

For on the road they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest.

And he sat down, called the 12 and said to them, if anyone desires to be first, he shall
be last of all and servant of all.

Then he took a little child and set him in the midst of them.

And when he had taken him in his arms, he said to them, Whoever receives one of these
little children in my name receives me.

And whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me." Jesus is trying to teach
and prepare the disciples.

And the first principle that he establishes with them is that if you desire to be the
greatest, if you desire to be first in his kingdom, you're going to have to not do it

man's way.

man's way of being first, man's way of being greatest is I'm gonna be better than
everybody, I'm gonna exceed everybody, I'm gonna do better than everybody, I'm gonna be

the first in line, I'm going to be the one who achieves more, I'm going to...

Jesus says, nope, nope, that's not how it works.

What did Jesus say was the attribute of the one who would be first in the kingdom of
heaven?

All right, he would be last and he would be servant of all.

Usually the status of greatest means I'm going to be sitting in a big chair, y'all are
going to be serving.

You think about going all the way back to the days of Joseph.

And what was the dream?

Joseph saw his sheaf standing up and all the others bowing down.

Joseph saw himself standing up and all the stars and the moon and the sun and the moon
bowing down.

All right, there's the one who's great and then there's the servants.

Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no, you flip that over.

The one who's the greatest is the servant of not a few, not a select one group.

but all, how is that demonstrated in the life of Jesus?

All right, one example in the private scenario, him washing the apostles feet there in the
uh Dine of the Betrayal.

What about at a grander scope of all humanity?

How did Jesus become servant of all?

He died.

He sacrificed himself.

He became the one who paid the price for everybody.

Turn to Romans chapter 5.

Romans chapter five verses six through nine, we'll close with this.

For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

Not because of his lack of strength, but ours.

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would
even dare to die.

But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us.

Much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath
through Him." Paul makes it clear in his discussion concerning the sacrifice of Christ

that he sacrificed himself not for a select group, not for those, as Calvinists believe,
who were already determined to be saved.

He sacrificed himself for

everyone.

Jesus establishes not just His teaching on the first shall be last and servant of all, but
also demonstrated it in going to the cross and showing the apostles what it really meant

to be servant of all.

Okay, thank you for your attention.