Psalm 88:5-13 says, “ O Lord God of my salvation. I have cried day and night before Thee. Let my prayer come before Thee. Incline, Thine ear under my cry. For my soul is full of troubles. My life draws near to the grave. I am carried with them to go down to the pit. I am a man that as a man that has no strength. Free among the dead. Like the slain, the lion, the grave. Whom you remember no more. And there cut off from Your hand. You have laid me in the lowest pit. In the darkness, in the deep. Your wrath lies hard on me. You have afflicted me with all your ways. Selah. Rest, meditate. You have put away my acquaintances far from me. You have made me an abomination unto them. I am shut up, and I cannot come forth. My eye mourns by reason of affliction. Lord, I have called daily upon you. I have stretched out my hands to you. Will you show wonders to the dead? Will the dead arise and praise you? Will your loving kindness be declared in the grave? Will I faithfulness and destruction shall I wonders be known in the dark, and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? But under the I have cried, O Lord, in the morning, shall my prayer come to You. Lord, why do You cast off my soul? And why do you hide Your face from me?" Listen to this verse. "I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up. While I suffer Your terrors, I am distraught. I am ready to die from my youth up....”

I want to turn to Psalm 69. A lot of times we probably all said “I wish that I knew a little bit more about the early years of Jesus.” Here's a summary of his early years in His own words. [Psalm 69:5-13] O God, you know my foolishness. My sins are not hidden from Thee.” This is David speaking, and then he goes into the words of Christ who had lost Let not those who wait on You O Lord, be ashamed for my sake. Let not those who seek Thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel, because for Thy sake I have borne reproach. Shame has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brethren and an alien to my mother's children.” Think about that from the time of his birth. Treated like a foreigner, an alien, an outcast. I did a study called The Outcast Savior. This is part of it. “I have become a stranger to my brothers. I'm an alien to my mother's children for Israel. Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.” Who said that? We know that was applied to the Lord Jesus when He cleansed the temple, you’ll remember. “The reproaches of those who reproached Thee have fallen upon me when I went, and chastened my soul with fasting, that was my reproach. I made sackcloth my garment, and I became a proverb to them those that sit in the gate speak against me. I was the song of drunkards. But as for me, my prayer is to Thee O Lord in an acceptable time.” So if you stop and think about that, I hear somebody describing growing up in a house where he is treated like a bastard son, if you will, an outcast, an alien, a foreigner by his own brothers. The people in the street laugh at him when he walks by. He fasted and prayed and they made jokes about it. He was. He was, a cause for mocking among all the people in Nazareth.

So, finishing up in Psalm 88:15-18, “I am afflicted and ready to die for my youth while I suffer Your terrors. I am distraught. Your fierce wrath has flooded over me. Your terrors have cut me off. They came around about me daily like water. They encompass me about together. Lover and friend, You have put far from me and my acquaintances into the darkness.”

So the expression of the loneliness. That what the Lord felt through His whole life. There's actually a passage in Jeremiah chapter 14 and Jeremiah speaking of the Messiah, and he says, “Why should You be like a stranger? Why should you be like an alien in your own land? Why should you be like a traveler who simply puts up his tent for the night and then passes on in the morning?” And it just gives us something of the understanding of how hated, how despised, how rejected He was his entire life. And I think it's important for us to realize this, especially living in a world where we are often mocked.

We are scoffed at. We are attacked, people like Ezer, and Johnny that we just spent time with, become a joke, become a by word, become a, you know, I think, a nickname that everybody laughs about. You know what that's called? That's called the “sharing in the suffering of Christ.” And Paul tells us to the extent we share His suffering, we're going to share His glory.
So I think it'd a real challenge for us.

Learn about "The Simplicity of Salvation" here:
https://basictraining.org/simplicity-of-salvation/

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“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2nd Corinthians 5:21. What is salvation? Salvation is the exchange of our sin for Jesus righteousness. What an amazing trade! You get to trade your sin for His righteousness. You get to trade not only the sin, but the condemnation that comes with it. “He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:18.

You know what the hardest part of believing is? It's too good to be true. It can't be that simple. He took our place on the cross. He invites us to enter into His life and His righteousness. It's an absolutely amazing and astounding exchange: “that we might become the righteousness of God.” It’s simply speaking of it in the sense of potential. It's a possibility for any member of the human race to enter into a right relationship with God, to enter into His righteousness.

When God looks at you, the first thing He sees is the righteousness of His Son. That's why Paul says in Ephesians 1:6, we are “accepted in the Beloved.” Christ is “the Beloved.” We are in Him. God accepts us as He accepts His own Son. It's extremely important for us to latch on to this because the devil sits on your shoulder and my shoulder 24 hours a day, particularly when we fail, particularly when we fall short, particularly when we don't do something that we should do or do something we shouldn't have. And he begins his accusations, reminding us of how far we are from what we ought to be and how often we fail, and how far we fall short and on and on. Aren't you ashamed? You should be ashamed of the person that you are.

We need to always remember that when Christ died, (this is very important) Paul tells us there in Philippians 2:5-9. He stepped down out of the glory of heaven, took on a robe of human flesh, found Himself in this world, and humbled Himself even more to death (Death on a cross.) That's a criminal's death. He despised the shame. He took on human flesh and went to the cross, despising the shame. That's very important because it indicates that He looked at it as a small price to pay, to carry your shame and to carry my shame.

And He paid the debt, and He wiped the slate clean of the shame. “Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls." Hebrews 12:2-3.

Learn about Salvation here:
https://basictraining.org/what-is-salvation/

Download or order the free booklet “The Gift” here: https://basictraining.org/the-gift/

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Salvation comes only by Grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and only in Him alone. Especially if you've been left behind, learn about "The Simplicity of Salvation" here:
https://basictraining.org/simplicity-of-salvation/

This is the valley of Megiddo. That we'll see later is the winepress. Scripture says the Lord is going to tread the winepress, and the blood will come out of the wine press. And where does this valley end up? Jerusalem and the Kidron Valley.

When he came in, the power of the spirit, after being tested in the wilderness, He came to Nazareth, where he'd been brought up. And as this custom was, the synagogue the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And you all saw the scroll last night when they delivered the book to him. It wasn't like they brought him a book like this. And He read the portion of Scripture that was prepared for that day, and just by chance, it happened to be a prophecy of him. He stood up to read, and there was delivered to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. “When he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written.” This comes from Isaiah chapter 61. “The spirit of the Lord is on me. You notice again the emphasis on the spirit of the Lord, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are bruised or beaten down, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” The interesting thing about this is that he read to a certain point and stopped. He's reading from Isaiah 61. That's where he stopped in the middle of a verse. Why did he stop in mid verse? Because between the first part of the verse and the second part of the verse is an undetermined period that you and I know as the church age. So, he quoted only the part that related to his immediate coming. The other part is going to relate to the day of the vengeance of the Lord.

When we think about the tribulation. What do we think about? Starvation. Warfare. Famine. Plagues. Pestilence. Earthquakes. Mayhem. Persecution. Slaughter. You and I should have the tribulation entirely different to all of the negatives of the tribulation are from human viewpoint. That's from the world's point of view, from divine viewpoint. The tribulation, while it may be the day of the vengeance of God and the wrath of God on those who reject Christ, it's going to be in a seven year period of time. The greatest period of evangelism the world has ever known. The whole world is going to be evangelized. You know, once again, people make a mistake of reading the passage that says, the gospel will be preached in the whole world, and then the end will come. And they say, well, Jesus can't come yet because we haven't finished the job. He's not waiting on us. During the time of the tribulation period, it's going to begin with 144,000 Jewish evangelists in revelation chapter seven. Think of these guys as 144,000. Apostle Paul, or 144,000 Elijah's unleashed on the world. They're going to be supernaturally protected so that they can go through the entire time without being killed. But that's only the beginning.

That's the first wave of evangelism. The second wave of evangelism for the converts, 144,000. You know, you unleash 144,000 from the 12 tribes. It's like Jesus had 12 apostles. I included Paul in that. Judas was the fake. Of course, and with 12 men he shook the whole world. What are you going to be able to do with 144,000 like that? And then there are converts. If you read on in revelation chapter seven, a multitude that could not be counted from every tribe, every tongue, every nation, every family standing in heaven, why are they in heaven? Because they've all been murdered. But until they got martyred, what do they've been doing? They've been winning other people. The first wave of starts, a second wave that's even bigger. And then you get to mid-tribulation and you have a visitation of the two witnesses, which I take to be Moses and Elijah, representing the law and the prophets. And they can't be killed at the top of that church right there on Tabor. You have a name, church of the Transfiguration. And on each side you have a chapel of Moses and a chapel of the light.

And it all started right here. You'll remember if you read on in the passage there in Luke four, they brought him to the brow of the hill to cast him off the crowd started moving in on him, locking arms, trying to push him, possibly from this place, and he passed in the midst. They're all going, where did he go? Supernaturally delivered. Christ could not be killed until the moment that God ordained hang on the cross for your sins and my sins.


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Learn about "The Simplicity of Salvation" here:
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Jude 24 says, “Enoch, the seventh from Adam.” Very interesting. It's significant, apparently, that he is the seventh from Adam. Seven, of course, is a the number of "completion."

Genesis 5:24 says, “Enoch walked with God and Enoch was not.” He was the first one to experience the Rapture. He is taken into the presence of the Lord. But Enoch left us a prophecy. And here Jude is actually quoting from the Book of 1st Enoch. This is the first prophecy that we have recorded from the first prophet who is named in Scripture. And here in Jude 24, he says, “Behold the Lord comes with 10,000 of His saints.” This is a reference to the Second Advent of Jesus Christ, which is pictured just as Enoch said it would be in Revelation 19:11, where John says, “Now I saw heaven open and behold a white horse. And He who sat on him was called faithful and true and in righteousness. He judges and makes war.”
Revelation 19:14 goes on to say, “The armies in heaven clothed in fine linen and white and clean, followed Him on white horses.” Who's that? That's you and I at the Second Advent. “The Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints...” and thousands upon thousands.

We're going to be there. You say I can't ride a horse! Don’t worry. We have time to prepare. There will be riding lessons before we come. And I want you to notice that the first prophet agrees with the last prophet.

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What about the giant of self-will? Matthew 26:39. The Lord Jesus Christ fighting His inner battle before He went and won the battle. He's in the garden. He's under the weight and the burden. What's about to happen at the cross? And if you never thought about this before. I hope that you'll get this right in your mind.
He was not afraid of the nails.
He was not afraid of the physical pain. That was as nothing. He proved it as a sheep before His shearers He was dumb. He did not utter a cry. He did not scream in anguish and agony.
He offered His hands and His feet to the man that drove the spikes into the cross.
What He feared was contact with your sin and my sin. He feared the judgment of God the Father on Him for the sins of the entire world. And He sweat blood in agony and anguish in the garden as He wrestled with what was about to happen. Praying a prayer that could not be answered. “If there's any way, let this cup pass from me. ”Nevertheless, ...” (Here's how you kill the giant of self-will) “... not my will.
Thy will be done.

Learn about "The Simplicity of Salvation" here:
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How can we know that the Bible is the Word of God? Look at the prophecies of the Old Testament. Look at how they were fulfilled in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if that doesn't convince you, nothing will. Luke 1:68-70. Zacharias speaks about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into the world and declares that it had been the central focus of the prophets since the world began.

If you took eight prophecies and those prophecies were specifically fulfilled, the chance of those prophecies being fulfilled after hundreds or thousands of years would be one in ten to the 17th power, which is one in ten with 17 zeros. If you covered the state of Texas a foot deep in silver dollars and mark one of those dollars and sent someone into the state of Texas, the chance of them at some point reaching down and pulling up that marked silver dollar would be one in ten to the 17th power (calculation thanks to Peter Stoner.) That's only with eight prophecies of the coming of Christ. We have over 300 concerning His first coming alone.

These are the prophecies referenced:
1. The Woman’s Seed—Genesis 3:15
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
2. The Tribe of Judah—Genesis 49:10
“The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people.”
3. Born of a Virgin—Isaiah 7:14 (Matt. 1:23)
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”
4. Born in Bethlehem—Micah 5:2 (Matt. 5–6)
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.”
5. Messiah both God and Man—Isaiah 9:6
“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of peace.”
6. Called a Nazarene—Matthew 2:23
“And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene.’”
7. Crucified for Sinners—Isaiah 53:3–6; Zechariah 12:10
“He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief … Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows … He was wounded for our transgressions, … the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed … All we like sheep have gone astray … And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” “And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they have pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.”
8. He Is Coming Again—Job 19:25–26
“For I know that my Redeemer, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God.”

Jesus was the Ultimate Gift. Learn about "The Gift" here:
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Salvation means the forgiveness of all your sins, past, present, and future. Ephesians 1:7 says, “In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace.” When I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and then I fall into sin, we ask the question, “How could this be? How could I be a child of God?” How could I have the righteousness of Christ? How could I be a member of the family of God? And then turn around and do worse than I did before I was saved?

Now we're moving from our position with Him to our practice. My sins as a Christian do not change my standing with God, but what they do affect is my fellowship with God. Now the issue is, am I maintaining fellowship with God through my day? Am I filled with the Spirit? Am I walking in the Spirit? Paul tells us in Galatians 5:16 that if we walk in the Spirit, we will not commit the lust of the flesh. Why do we then fall into the things that we fall into? We make a choice somewhere along the way to stop walking in the power of the Spirit. That is, to stop walking by faith and to start acting in our own strength, our own energy based on our own intelligence.

How are we going to restore that fellowship? 1st John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us..." of how much unrighteousness? All of it.

We need to understand we're in a spiritual war, and we need to understand that the enemy is going to be setting traps for you every day, the rest of your life. You're in a battle. We have an enemy who hates us. He's diabolical. That's why they call him the devil. He's been studying mankind from the beginning of creation. He's been studying you since you were born. He has a whole lot of henchmen that work with him – the fallen angels. They're constantly reporting to him: "Here's their weakness. Here's the thing that'll bring them down."

Which brings us back to the fact that we are forgiven our sins upfront. Colossians 1:14, “in whom (speaking of Jesus Christ) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” That forgiveness covers the span of our entire life. We are forgiven upfront for all that is yet ahead. We all fall. We all fail. At that moment, fellowship is broken. And that's why it's important to understand: “I am still a beloved child. I am still righteous in Christ.” The great thing is when we come and confess, then God says, “I’m going to clean the whole slate.” As far as our relationship with God is concerned, all sins are forgiven – past, present and future. It just doesn't get any better!

Hebrew 4:15-16 says, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Learn about Salvation here:
https://basictraining.org/what-is-salvation/

Download or order the free booklet “The Gift” here: https://basictraining.org/the-gift/

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What is salvation? Well, salvation is a new spiritual birth. You remember the story of Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night there in John chapter three, “Jesus answered, most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” And then He says in verse seven, “Marvel not that I say to you, you must be born again.” Is he talking about baptism? No. Jesus actually said, “Are you the teacher of Israel?” Use the definite article. You are the preeminent teacher in Israel and you don't know these things?

What should Nicodemus have known? Well, he should have known Jeremiah 31, verses 31 to 34 and Ezekiel 36 about the new covenant. “I will pour clean water on you, and you will be clean.” In Ephesians five, Jesus Christ “gave Himself” for us, “that He might wash us and cleanse us with the washing of the water of His word.” John chapter four — the Woman at the well, living water. John chapter seven — during the feast of Tabernacles, Jesus stands up and cries out and says, “If anyone thirst, let him come to Me and drink...” “...out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.” And then John adds in parentheses, “this He spoke of the spirit which was not yet given, because Christ was not yet crucified.” So, it's a new spiritual birth. 2nd Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away; all things become new.”

And what are these new things? Well, you have a list of at least five of them.
1) We have a new position before God. Because of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Our old position has gone. 1st Corinthians 12:13, “By one Spirit we have all been baptized into one body.” So we have a new position.
2) Secondly, we have new life. That's because of regeneration. Titus 3:5, “Not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.”
3) We have new power because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The moment that we believe in Christ, we are now endued with power from the Holy Spirit.
4) We have a new purpose because of his gifting and calling. 1st Corinthians 12:7, “for each one is given a manifestation of the Spirit, for the profiting of all.” You have a gift that God gave you at the moment of salvation.
5) We have finally new security because we are sealed by His Spirit. And this is Ephesians 1:13. And “having believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.” And then later in Ephesians 4:30, he tells us that “we are sealed to the day of redemption.” That's our security — the seal of the Holy Spirit.

What is salvation? Well, salvation is a new spiritual birth. What should Nicodemus have known? “You must be born again.”

Find out more from the original lesson here: https://basictraining.org/what-is-salvation

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