Transcript

Let’s go to Ephesians this morning. We’ll look at Ephesians 1 and then actually look at numerous verses. As I thought about Vacation Bible School and the theme for Vacation Bible School, I had some notes with me from a True Church Conference years ago and I was actually thinking I might use in Florida but I thought I want to pull that together and talk about the divine dynasty. That’s what Vacation Bible School is about but I think all of us need to have our hearts on the divine dynasty.

Let’s look at it together, Ephesians 1. Look at verses 12-14. After saying many things to the church at Ephesus in this letter about the great work God brings about through his Son for our redemption and the building of the church, the apostle continues in verse 12 of Ephesians 1 and says,

“ 12 to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be,” notice this, “to the praise of His glory. 13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation – having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession,” here it is, “to the praise of His glory.”

Now chapter 3, verses 9-11,

“9 and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; 10 so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I’m just going to make a comment and read one more verse. Paul says to the church, God has this wisdom, it was a mystery for a while and he’s revealed it in this final age so that the principalities and the powers, the spiritual dimension, would know the greatness, the glory, the wisdom of God by what God does in saving people and making his church. Wow. The church has a ministry to the spirit world in that we are utilized by God to show the spirit world the great wisdom and power of God. Interesting.

Then Ephesians 3:21,

“21 to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”

Here we have the church again, which is the product of the gospel, God builds his church through the gospel so the church is the product of the gospel and the church is to the end of God’s glory both for time and for all eternity. That’s why I’ve often said giving your life to the end that God’s local church can be all it can be is something worth giving your life for because the glory of God is everything and the church is the centerpiece of God’s glory both for time and eternity because it is the work of Christ who is the glory of God.

You know, we love dynasties, don’t we? Whether it’s a political dynasty like the Pharaohs of Egypt or the Caesars of the Roman Empire or the Kims of North Korea or the Ming Dynasty that ruled for 276 years in China. We’re fascinated by them; we’re in awe of them at many times. Maybe it’s a financial dynasty like the Rothschilds or the Vanderbilts or the Hiltons and I’m sure there will be others coming along. We see these families and these people who seem to rule over their area and we’re fascinated by it. Dynasties fascinate us. Maybe you’re into sports dynasties. My family has learned to get into basketball and that wasn’t my sport growing up but it’s become my sport. Maybe you remember the Chicago Bulls or the Lakers during their dynasties or maybe the Miami Heat now that’s going to their fourth championship, maybe they’re creating a new sports dynasty. Alabama fans have something churning inside of them fearful that Malzahn may be creating another dynasty down in Auburn. Oh me.

We like dynasties, don’t we? There’s something about it. What is it in us that makes us in awe of these things or we follow them and they’re special to us? I can tell you exactly why: it’s because we are made in the image of God. Man is made in the image of God and God has a never-ending divine dynasty and making us in his image, he’s given us something of a dominion or a dynasty. Every man in his own household has his own dynasty. God gave Adam a dynasty in the Garden of Eden. Now he sinned and he messed it up and that’s what we always do, we always mess up. He forgot that our personal dynasties are to be under God and for the glory of God. Amen? Then God destroys the whole earth with a flood, he brings Noah out of the ark and he says, “Noah, everything, everything on the earth is given unto you. You have rule over it. This is you dynasty.” Again, Noah didn’t get started good, he got drunk and sinned and began to warp it and mess it all up.

But it’s in us. Maybe that’s what the text means that says God has put eternity in our hearts and as you raise little boys, understand God made little boys different than he made little girls. Yes, that’s still the way God does it. There’s a difference. Little boys begin early on learning to exercise dominion. They just need to be taught that this is your dominion but it’s under God and for God’s glory. But sin keeps coming in and perverting and corrupting our dynasties. We forget they’re to be under God and they’re to be for God’s glory but what God has done is through his gospel and the building of his church, he’s allowing us to be restored to and get back in on the true divine dynasty that’s always existed and always will exist.

First of all, and we saw this from our beginning text: I. The dynasty is always all about glory. The dynasty is about glory. What else did the Ming Dynasty or the Kim Dynasty or the Pharaoh’s dynasty or the Caesar’s dynasty there in Rome, what else were they about other than glory? They had everything else you could possibly want but they could never get enough glory, they could never be made too much of, they never could be exalted too highly, they never could be praised too often. A dynasty is always about glory and that’s what God is about it’s just that men take the truth of it and pervert it and make it upside down and twist the original intent of it but God is about building his divine dynasty and he does it through his gospel. We preach the gospel: God saves men, the saved men, generically men and women of course, all come together in local congregations building churches and then when those churches are proclaimed in the truth and walking in truth, God gets glory in the earth. His dynasty is glorifying itself in that.

It’s always about the glory. All of God’s secondary purposes that were revealed before the cross were but stones built up to this climactic crescendo of this central purpose that God has to glorify himself through his gospel and through his church built on that gospel. That’s what we get to get in on. That’s why we have Vacation Bible School to help these young boys and girls begin to grasp God’s about a divine dynasty. You don’t qualify for it, you’re corrupt and you’re polluted and you’re sinful but God’s provided a way through his gospel that you might be cleansed of your sin, made a child of God and added to one of his churches and be a part of his eternal divine dynasty. Anything and everything else we do as a church is secondary and must be subsequent to the gospel being the center of all we’re about and the gospel is central because God’s glory is pre-eminent. Nothing – listen – nothing, nothing, nothing makes more of God, nothing shows off more of who God is than his power, his beauty and in his wisdom than when his gospel is preached and people are changed. That’s what it’s all about. Dear lady, that’s why you clean the house and organize the home and do all you do so that somehow and in some way, you doing your role in God’s economy comes to the end of souls being saved, the gospel being preached, God’s dynasty being expanded and God’s glory being expanded.

Now, we talk about glory, glory has the idea of an opinion or an estimation. It means always a high or a good estimation or an opinion and the idea is that a gospel church, a sound church, projects an accurate high and good view of God and when the church is weak or the church is diminished or the gospel is dumbed down, then we don’t portray a good and high view of God to the world. In Ephesians 3:8 of our text, the apostle says something interesting. He uses the phrase here in Ephesians 3:8 about the “unfathomable riches of Christ.” That means the unfathomable riches of Christ means the attributes and characteristics of God are too glorious and too beautiful to be able to fully take in or to comprehend. The word “unfathomable” literally means “untrackable.” I like to deer hunt and sometimes if you shoot a deer, you have to track him, you have to track the blood trail to find him but you need to be good at it. You need to know what you’re doing; you need to be trained in it. There was a day when I wasn’t good at it and I’m still not very good but I couldn’t track it because I wasn’t trained. That’s the way it is in our human capacity and in the limitedness of our frail human condition, we can only see a little of who Christ truly is: he’s untrackable, he’s unfathomable. We are unable to get in on the full. We can know him truly but we can’t know him fully. Did you get that? What we do know of him through his word is true but it’s not all there is to know. That’s why heaven is such an exciting thing. You begin to treasure him in this life, you begin to love him in this life, you begin to learn more of him in this life and it becomes the older you grow, the more you’re sanctified, the more you mature, it becomes an increasing passion of your heart and then one day you get to heaven and have that perfect mind and that perfect understanding and for all eternity you keep learning more of the great infinite beauties, pleasures and wisdoms of God in Christ Jesus. He gets glory now and he gets glory then. He is truly the unknowable Christ in that you may know him truly but you will not know him thoroughly or completely ever. Did you know that? You will never know him completely because he’s infinite and even in heaven with a glorified body, you’ll have a perfect mind but not an infinite mind.

In Ephesians 3:10, the apostle uses the phrase “the manifold wisdom of God.” It means the multifaceted aspects of God. God’s wisdom has so many layers, so much depth, so much dynamic to it, we can never wrap out human minds all the way around it. There is the manifold wisdom of God but he says, what can be known of the manifold wisdom of God is known through the church. Is that not interesting? Now listen to me: the manifold wisdom of God is not best known through you individually as a sold-out committed Christian. That is true but that is not the best way it’s known. The manifold multifaceted unknowable wisdom of God is not best known through your discipleship group though that’s a good thing, that’s not the best way it’s known, it’s the way God designed for it to be known and that’s through his church. A local body of baptized believers overseen and led by men in the office of elder and served by men in the office of deacon that partake in the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The church, God’s wisdom to show off to everyone including the spirit beings, he told us, how powerful, beautiful and wise God is.

What a thing we’ve become a part of when we’re saved and become a part of God’s church which is the building of his divine dynasty. This Christ who is God, who is in the fullest sense not unknowable is now made known truly through the gospel and through the church so the church is central, the church is foundational, the church is essential to God’s divine dynasty and his purposes of bringing glory to himself, making much of what he can perform.

Now, one way to look at this is to think about the church like a telescope. The church is God’s telescope so that men might be able to more clearly see who God is. The church is God’s theater. The church is God’s theater that projects more than any other entity in the universe who God is and what God is like. The church is God’s pipe or God’s conduit through which flows the truth of who God is to the world around us. That’s why as the church we must accurately proclaim the truth – now listen – and correspondingly accurately participate in the truth. Both and. God forbid we just have a strong pulpit but the people in the church are not really striving to live out the truth preached from that pulpit. It’s both and. We must accurately proclaim and we must accurately perform that truth because God has ordained – listen – he has no Plan B. He’s ordained, “You are my telescope through which men will see me, God, and make much of me and be in awe of me. You are my theater through which I present the truth of who I am to the world so present a true presentation. You are my pipe, my conduit through which flows the truth of who I am to the world so don’t clog up the pipe with stuff that doesn’t need to be in there. Let me flow through.” This is God’s divine dynasty.

So why if this is so essential, if this is so foundational to who God is and what God is about, why is it so hard to find a sound gospel presentation and sound biblical or gospel churches? It seems to be in every generation. You know, I love to read church history. On my study break this year I’m going to study Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the greatest and godliest men of the last century. He was a Bible believing, gospel preaching and deeply intellectual man in Germany who worked against the Nazis until he was assassinated by them and he points out in his writings that he not only opposed the wickedness in the state government but he saw as the foundation – listen to me – he saw as the foundation stone of Germany’s demise that the church lost the gospel and the church became weak in the truth so the church was not the salt and not the light the country of Germany needed and so she fell to the wiles and the lies and the wickedness of the Nazis. Are you hearing me, church? I’m studying this man’s life because I believe it’s the perfect parable of where this nation is today. You cannot have the fall and the ungodliness and wickedness, folks, we’re not falling into it, we’re plunging headlong into it unless the church is so weak it no longer has a voice. It’s no longer respected. It’s no longer feared. It’s no longer honored. And then God’s glory is diminished.

First of all a dynasty is all about glory. God’s building his divine dynasty so that he might be made much of, seen and held in awe and glorified and primarily his dynasty is centered in his church he’s building through his gospel. II. The enemy wants the glory. That’s what’s going on. That’s why it’s hard to find a true gospel preacher and a sound gospel church because the enemy doesn’t like God getting the glory. The enemy wants the glory. You see, the chief purpose and central ploy of God’s enemies is always and has always been the replacing or at least the marring of God’s glory. The replacing or the marring of God’s glory. Sometime back I called this the great cosmic conflict for glory. The great cosmic conflict for glory. Isn’t that what made Satan Satan? As a matter of fact, Tommy may have it on the screen but Isaiah 14 gives us a prophetic statement that is both true of ancient Babylon but it’s also a prophecy of Satan and the antichrist. In Isaiah 14:12 speaking primarily of Babylon but also the ultimate fulfillment in Satan and the antichrist, he says, “ How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations!” First of all, let’s remind ourselves that just as David, king of Israel, was a type of Christ, Belshazzar or Nebuchadnezzar or Cyrus or whoever the ancient pagan kings were, were always a type of Satan. They represented a satanic empire, David on the throne of Israel represented a godly empire. David in the Old Testament is a type of Christ, the pagan kings of the Old Testament are types of Satan. These ancient kings hated Israel because Israel was an image, was meant to be the image, I might say, of God and God’s glory in the earth. This is where God was working until the church age when he began to build his church. So, these pagan kings who were godless wanted to replace God’s glory with their own glory and if they couldn’t completely replace it, they wanted to diminish God’s glory so what did they want to do, diminish or replace Israel. So we see throughout the chronicles of history and the annals of sacred writ we see very clearly the pagan kings of antiquity wanted to ruin Israel and they still do today even though God’s primary emphasis has moved off of Israel and onto the church. Nevertheless, that stirring of these satanic kingdoms is to mar God’s glory and therefore Israel because Israel was meant to be God’s glory in the earth.

Now, he’s called star of the morning, son of the dawn, of course, here’s what’s happening here: who is the true bright and morning star? Jesus Christ. Who called himself the star of the morning? The son of the dawn, that was Satan trying to be the imitator, Satan trying to take his place, Satan saying, “I want the glory instead of the true bright and morning star.”

Verse 13, look at it, “But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north.’” This is prophetic of Satan incarnating into the antichrist and he wants to set himself up as the highest of everything. We preached about that a long time back in the fall of last year when I came back from study break when I preached on the antichrist.

Then we have verse 14, “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” Here we have the antichrist, this satanic superman who desires to set himself up on the throne of heaven that he might get the glory, blasphemously marring and if he can’t mar it – well, he will mar it but also wanting to replace the glory of God in the earth and in the universe. That’s going on all the time. All the time there is a working of a satanic kingdom that wants to rob God of his divine dynasty and the glory it deserves and set up man in his own glory. Why is it that when you go to almost any university in our land today, they will scoff and sneer and ridicule and deride any notion of biblical truth but they glory in man-centered wisdom that’s full of wickedness and perversion? They place themselves on the throne and dethrone God. It’s always about glory and the enemy wants the glory.

First of all we said the divine dynasty is all about God rightfully getting the glory; secondly, we talked about the fact that the enemy from the beginning wants the glory; now thirdly, the enemy’s primary strategy is to destroy and replace the gospel and the church. His primary strategy has always been to destroy and replace the gospel in the church. Why is that? Because God said very clearly, it’s not said anywhere better than Ephesians 1 and Ephesians 3, God said very clearly, “My great glory is going to be seen in my gospel and in the building of a church.”

Now, I think what’s happened a lot of times is that we’ve misjudged the mission and the work of Satan in the world. We don’t miss it but we get it out of order. When we look at the moral evils of society and say, “Well, Satan’s behind all of that.” That’s 100% correct. Satan is behind all the divorce and the adultery and the fornication and the lying and the stealing and the murders and the child abuse and the thefts and the drug addiction and the alcoholism. We could go on and on. Satan is behind all of that but when we see Satan behind all of that but we are not primarily and substantially concerned with Satan’s work perverting the gospel and destroying the church, we’ve missed it, as a matter of fact, we’ve fallen prey to what Satan wants us to do. He’s got sort of a decoy battle plan over here and he wants us to get our attention over there while his main strategy is over here and we’re not paying too much attention to it. His main strategy is corrupting the gospel and church because that’s the centerpiece of God’s glory. While he would like to get us on the moral issues – don’t misunderstand me, we don’t ignore them, amen? We should be against those, we should vote for politicians who will lead against those but you cannot do through the federal government what God has ordained to do and establish through his church. That’s why we have a two-pronged approach but our primary zeal and our primary emphasis and energy is the church and the gospel.

That’s why we’re trying the best we can with the energies we have and God’s blessed it to grow so that it’s quite exhausting, to be honest, to preach the gospel and plant glory of God focused, Christ-honoring, Bible-saturated churches everywhere we possibly can. Why? Because the dynasty is about the glory and God gets the most glory through his gospel and the church. You see, I’m convinced that man in his fallen depravity is perfectly capable of all kinds of moral evil with little or no assistance from Satan. Did you hear that? All this stuff, “Well, the devil’s doing that.” No, if the devil never existed, you’re perfectly capable of great evil. But Satan, I’m convinced, attacks with all of his might the church and the gospel that he might at least diminish if not replace the glory of God in the earth. His warping work is going on in the church. In 1 Timothy 4:1, Paul writes to Timothy about the doctrines of demons and Paul is talking in context of church life and he’s warning Timothy if you take over these churches, there’s going to be doctrines, teachings that come into the church that are not the right teachings, they’re not God’s teachings. They sound good and the naïve and immature will be led astray by them but they’re not God’s doctrines, they are the doctrines of demons. James 3:15, “This wisdom is not that which comes down from heaven but is earthly, natural and demonic.” James is saying there’s the proneness in every age, there is the proneness in every congregation, there’s a proneness in every denomination for these doctrines that didn’t come down from heaven. The Apostle Paul when he wrote the majority of our New Testament theology, he says, “I did not receive these things from men.” He got them from God and that’s what we hold in our faith that the men who wrote this book, the pages of sacred Scripture, got a divine revelation from God himself. These doctrines came down from heaven but the Bible tells us there will be the ever present persistent effort to bring other doctrines, other teachings that didn’t come down from heaven but they come up out of the earth and they’re natural and demonic and they get into the church.

Don’t you think they’re going to come in with a red suit and a pitchfork tail and horns on its head. No, they don’t show up like that, they come in looking like great Christian leaders, great Christian spokesmen. That’s why I always challenge the men of this church, “Men, you’ve got to be well read. You must be mature. You must be humble. You must be biblical because you need to be discerning in this day. You must be discerning in this day.” Galatians 1:6-7, “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel.” Why would Paul say a different gospel because he’s going to refute that very statement in the next statement? Why does he say and here’s the way he says it “because many are preaching to you claiming they’re preaching the gospel of Christ but it’s not the one I preached to you”? Paul said, “I preached to you the true and real gospel of Christ and these other guys have come in and tinkered with the message and added some stuff to it and they’re calling it the gospel and if you’re not very mature and discerning, it’s going to sound like a good gospel but it’s not.” Because what does he go on to say? He said, “which is really not another,” this is verse 7 of Galatians 1, “which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.” Don’t you be so foolish and naïve to think that only happened 2,000 years ago in the churches of the Roman Empire, this same distorter is still working. The same twister is still working. The same interloper is still working in the church today.

So, Satan’s ploy is to devalue, to distort, to derail the gospel by infusing false doctrine into the church because Satan knows when the gospel is distorted or devalued or completely derailed, God’s glory is diminished in the earth and he hates God and hates God getting the glory because he wants the glory and he knows if he can distort or pervert or corrupt the gospel and corrupt the church, then God’s telescope so that the world might look and see a true picture of God, is now clouded and unclear. Then God’s theater, the church that’s supposed to present God and God’s truth to the world becomes corrupted and it’s a perverse message. God’s conduit, God’s pipeline, the church, is clogged up and it can’t flow the truth out to the people so God is not seen and known for who he truly is and he’s not glorified as he ought to be.

But, you know, there’s something interesting about God: if the Methodist goes south on him, he’ll just raise up the Baptist. If the Baptist goes south and they are or have, then he’ll just raise up somebody else. Listen, he will not be without his church and his glory in the earth. Amen? Our loyalty is not to a denominational label as much as I appreciate and esteem our Baptist heritage because I think they were good men and on the right track. Our commitment is to God and his truth. Down, down, down, down with any denominational loyalty and up, up, up, up with the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

What happens is when religious institutions get established, they begin with a good and proper motivation at the beginning and then before long the bureaucracy develops and people work in the bureaucracy and the first rule in their modus operandi is: maintain the bureaucracy and they loose the truth. It’s happened over and over and over. The Great th Awakening of the early 18 century, George Whitfield and John Wesley and Charles Wesley and Jonathan Edwards, do you know what they basically did? They basically preached the Anglican church empty. The Anglican church, the Church of England kind of ruled the known world at that day and there were some good and godly Anglicans but the church bureaucracy lost the truth and it became a dry, dead gospel that’s going through the religious motions and these men rose up aflame with gospel preaching and souls started getting saved and they left the church in droves to find a true ministry. It has been that way in every generation.

This is why Paul has the strongest condemnation against those who pollute and diminish in an effort to supplant the gospel of Jesus Christ because that’s the centerpiece of God’s glory and God’s purposes. Galatians 1:8-9, “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!” That’s as strong as you can be. Cursed means damned of God and marked for condemnation only. Verse 9, “As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!” What seems to happen and I heard this of all places on the radio, Ben Haden, the Presbyterian preacher said this just recently and it’s an apt illustration, he said, “You know, a perfumer is one skilled in taking essential oils and putting them together to come up with the aroma that matches the concept the perfume company wants out of that particular name and so they’ll mix these oils and then there are people who are trained to smell them.” He said, “There is one lady in New York who is so good she makes a lot of money just sniffing perfume and they’ll bring her the perfumers concoction and she’ll smell it and she’ll say, Yes, that smells like the concept you’re trying to promote with this name. Or she’ll say, No, you’ve missed it.” He said, “But it’s interesting, you can find these shops here and there where they have the same name-brand perfume for ¼ the price.” He said, “You buy that perfume, you open that bottle, you smell of it and it’s close but it’s not the real thing. It’s a knock-off. They used some inferior cheaper products and got a close aroma but not the real thing.”

He talked about these outlet stores. I like outlet stores. Now, sometimes an outlet store just has the overruns of the main line designer product but a lot of the outlet stores have a very different product. It looks close. Take the average polo shirt, I’ve bought some of them and they’ve got the little emblem on them and they look close but if you compare them to the original, you’ll find the fabric is not quite as heavy, the hemming is not quite as sharp. It’s close but it’s just not the real thing. It’s a knock-off. You ought to see my wife in Chinatown in New York buying those knock-off things, $10 for 20 million dollar purse and it looks close but it ain’t the real thing because you carry it for a while and you get it in the rain and it starts washing away. Stuff like that happens, why? It looked right but it’s not the real thing.

Coca-Cola, it’s the most prominent brand in the history of mankind. They say of all the companies of all the brands, Coca-Cola is known and understood around the world more than any other product and it’s been imitated over and over and over again. There is one cola overseas that just calls itself Cola Cola and they say if you drink some of these things, they’re close but they’re not the real thing. That’s why Coke many years ago, came out with the slogan “It’s the Real Thing,” because there’s a lot of knock-offs our there.

You listen to me: as long as I have breath, there will never be a knock-off gospel preached in this pulpit in this church. As long as I have breath, this will not be a knock- off church. We’re not going to be an imitation that just looks like it and smells like it and people throng to it, this must be for the glory of God and the divine dynasty, the real thing or as close as we can get, God help us. Amen? No knock-off gospel. No knock-off church. That’s the work of Satan. That’s the stuff that comes when a guy is getting real clever and smart and they start listening to natural earthly, Paul told Timothy, demonic doctrines. Some of you are here today, you’re here today because you’ve had your fill of knock-off churches and knock-off preaching and knock-off gospels and knock-off Christianity and you’re striving to find as best you can, the real thing. Do you know what that makes you? A normal Christian. You’re just average. Don’t pat yourself on the back, you just live in a world of sub-normal Christianity. Satan is always about that. He’s always working in these ways.

You know, that’s the great paradox that you find in the church and it’s been my experience, it’s been our experience: on the one hand the church is a place of respite and rest from the world, it’s a place of unconditional love and caring and I’m telling you, you mark these words down, this congregation has more genuine caring sacrificial love than you’ll find anywhere. I know that. I’ve watched you and I’m blessed by it but on the other hand the church is also a place of warfare and that’s what’s strange, that’s the paradox. It’s also a place where you have to fight and you have to struggle and sometimes you have to war to protect the truth, both the proclamation of it and the performing of it. So both are true: a blessed place of love and respite but also a place of fighting and war. Read the epistles where the Apostle Paul writes to practically every church and he goes to war to keep them out of the error of the day. So it’s both, but praise God, but praise God, churches can mature to where they get to a place where the skirmishes are minor and the sweetness and the love and the compassion is major. Amen? Can I get an Amen on that one? But you’ve got to fight some wars to get there or you’ll have a counterfeit knock-off church that looks good but ain’t the real thing.

Can you imagine what it’s going to be like on Judgment Day? For elders and deacons and pastors who led churches that were knock-off churches and God said, “You were a phony. You marred my glory. You diminished my glory. You perverted my gospel.” Can you imagine?

So we fight and we work and we toil together to get in on and advance the divine dynasty for the glory of God. Vacation Bible School is one means to implant true gospel seed in the hearts and lives of boys and girls that will one day be breathed upon by the Holy Spirit of God and these children will be converted by the true gospel and be joined by God to a true church and be part of God’s eternal divine dynasty and when we get to heaven, his glorified bride, he will be able to say, “Look at them. This is what I can do with nothing. I cleansed them, I’ve washed them, I’ve purified them, I’ve sanctified them, I used them during their earthly pilgrimage and now I glorify them and all of heaven will praise Jesus, the King of the dynasty forever.”

Now, Grace Life Church, men of this church, be men. Strap up your boots. Gird up your loins. Get a hold of the mast one more time and say, “Until my last breath, I’m going to be a part of this church, being a true church, preaching a true gospel for the glory of God and be a part of God’s great dynasty.” And I’ll be with you all the way, by God’s grace. By the way, only by God’s grace.

Let’s stand together.