We'll read 1 Kings chapter 20, beginning in verse 1, and we'll read through verse 21. 1 Kings chapter 20, verse 1, this is God's word, eternally true. Now, Ben Haddad, king of Iran, mustered his entire army, accompanied by 32 kings with their horses and chariots. He went up in the siege Samaria and attacked it. He sent messengers into the city to Ahab, king of Israel, saying, this is what Ben Haddad says, your silver and gold are mine, and the best of your wives and children are mine. The king of Israel answered, just as you say, my Lord, the king, I and all I have are yours. The messengers came again and said, this is what Ben Haddad says. I sent to the man your silver and gold, your wives and your children. But about this time tomorrow, I am going to send my officials to search your palace and the houses of your officials. They will seize everything you value and carry it away. The king of Israel summoned all the elders of the land and said to them, see how this man is looking for trouble. When he sent for my wives and my children, my silver and my gold, I did not refuse him. The elders and the people all answered, don't listen to him or agree to his demands. So he replied to Ben Haddad's messengers, tell my Lord the king, your servant will do all you demanded the first time. But this demand I cannot meet. They left and took the answer back to Ben Haddad, then Ben Haddad sent another message to Ahab. May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if enough dust remains in Samaria to give each of my men a handful. The king of Israel answered, tell him, one who puts on his armor should not boast like one who takes it off. Ben Haddad heard this message while he and the kings were drinking in their tents. And he ordered his men prepare to attack, so they prepared to attack the city. Meanwhile, a prophet came to Ahab, king of Israel, and announced, this is what the Lord says. Do you see this vast army? I will give it into your hand today, and then you will know that I am the Lord. But who will do this, asked Ahab? The prophet replied, this is what the Lord says. The young officers of the provincial commanders will do it. And who will start the battle, he asked. The prophet answered, you will. So Ahab summoned the young officers of the provincial commanders, 232 men. Then he assembled the rest of the Israelites, 7,000 in all. They set out at noon while Ben Haddad and the 32 kings allied with him were in their tents getting drunk. The young officers of the provincial commanders went out first. Now Ben Haddad had dispatched scouts who reported men are advancing from Samaria. He said, if they have come out for peace, take them alive. If they have come out for war, take them alive. The young officers of the provincial commanders marched out of the city with the army behind them, and each one struck down his opponent. At that, the air man fled with the Israelites in pursuit. But Ben Haddad, king of Iran, escaped on horseback with some of his horsemen, the king of Israel, and the king of Israel advanced and overpowered the horses and chariots, and inflicted heavy losses on the air man's. Here ends our reading. You have a response of thankfulness. It's printed for you in your bulletin. The word of the Lord. Thank you. Thanks indeed. Let's pray. Our God and Father, we are thankful to you for this year's word. We pray that you had preached to us from it, Jesus, and that you had teaches of yourself. Show us your greatness as our king, the forgiveness, the love, the care that we have from you are God above. We pray that you would enable us to see ourselves better, to see you better, to love you, and to trust in you. And we pray that you would work by your spirit within us and among us to give us understanding. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. When I was in fourth or fifth grade, I think it was fifth grade. I was over at my best friend's house, David Morris' house on Van Courtland Drive in Pittsburgh, New York. And David was kind of up on a hill. The command Courtland Drive went up like this. And just one house next to him just down was a guy named Sean Rogers. And Sean was a senior in high school. We had known Sean and became friends with David in third grade. And this was fifth grade now. So I'd known him about three years. And Sean was great. Even though he was so much older than us, he'd come out and play with us, play football and that kind of thing. We didn't want to get tackled by him. But he is channeled with us as he kind of slammed us down and then prevent us from getting totally crushed in that. But I remember one time we sometimes I'd ride my bike over to David's house and sometimes when mom would drive me over there. And this time this particular time and mom had driven me over there. And we wanted to go somewhere else in this massive subdivision, Charter Oak. So I don't know if you remember that. And it was right next to men in high school. And so we were going somewhere else in the neighborhood to some other friend's house. But I didn't have a bike. And David had a bike because it was his house. Sean had a bike and it was his house. And but I didn't. And so Sean said, well, you can ride on my bike. Now Sean had a 10 speed, which at the time in 1977 or 1978 was huge and the thing. You know, it was one of those standard 10 speeds for those fewer older with the, you know, the rammed horn cur, you know, handlebars down there. And it was so tall compared to what I was. And I remember Sean saying to me, okay, John, just get up on the seat. Now, at the time, you didn't have cushy seats like you have today. You have these hard metal seats covered with vinyl. And so I got on this hard, thin metal seat covered with black vinyl. And he said, now he said, you sit on the seat, I'll stand up. And just take your hands and hold the seat behind you. Just hold on to that. And he said and keep your feet out of the spokes. So just hold your feet out like this because you'll want to get tied in there. And I remember David looking at me. My friend looking at me and he said, hold on. Sean goes really fast. And so like I said, we're at this hill. And I forget the name of the street that went out from David's house in another direction, but it went downhill. And we immediately started. And it was fast and it was scary. I don't get scared by much, but that was about the most scared I ever was as a kid when I was on that bike. And he was going, he was taking turns as if there was no kid on his bike. I mean, the bike was going like that. But even though dude said this is going to be scary, I had confidence I'd be okay as long as I did what Sean said I needed to do. Because Sean could have crushed me many times in football or whatever games we were playing around the neighborhood for two and a half years. But he hadn't. I know Sean cared for me and considered me a friend even though I was a little guy. And so I thought he's not going to do something that's going to mean my death. And so I just simply hung on to that to that seat. And as you see, I survived there. No helmet. But I had confidence because of Sean's, Sean's care for me. Even though the situation I was going to had lots of risk and lots of things to make me afraid. It did not feel good on that bike. And I was all balanced and hanging on and that kind of thing. And it was just asphalt that we were on. No helmet. But as they have, as they have looks, we all survived anyway. As they have gets in this situation here, we see a lot of reason for fear. Not only has been a Dodd king of Iran, this is the king. Now, whether they have knows this yet or not, we don't know. But if you look just above here, been a Dodd son was the one that the God was going to use to crush Israel. Elijah. So you can look there. You can see that there in like verses 15 through 18 of chapter 19 there. Look down there. And so, but, but Elijah hadn't, or Elijah hadn't gotten gotten up there or Elijah, Elijah hadn't gotten up there yet to anoint the sun as king. And so his father, been a Dodd is still still raining there. He's a powerful man, but he also has 32 kings with him and their armies and their horses and their chariot. And one thing to understand is that in ancient times, army strength was measured by the number of chariots they had. This was an indicator of their wealth and their power. If you had horses, and that was a thing, but then if you had some of those horses connected to a chariot, that was a thing too, because you could really go fast and really do lots of damage if you were a chariot in battle. So this is a massive, or as it says here, a vast army in a hable has lots of, lots of fear yet this is a passage that God gives to us about confidence that we have in the Lord. If you like to fill up blanks in an outline, we start here and we can see this from this passage this as human beings were born into loss. In this passage, as we go down through it, verses 1 through 21, we realize that as human beings were like Ahab and we're like Ahab's people. Now, again, Ahab is the king in the north over the ten northern tribes and their capital city was Samaria. And so Ahab is there in Samaria in the capital city and it's being besieged by the aromains which are serians today, not a serians, but serians today, it's the city of Damascus. And so, they're being attacked, this huge army has come down and the people immediately lose much, don't they? Now, it's not a question that God is answering whether they should have liked, you can look at this humorously and say the people kind of cared about losing everything they valued. That was second wave, you know, when the officials are going to come in and search and take away everything they value, they just readily give away their wives and children. They're called in silver and such was the morality of Ahab and the people, perhaps. But that's not really the question or the thing God is having us focus here as we look down this passage. But massive loss, they've lost and it's not just, it's not all of the kids, it's not all the wives, it's the best of the wives and the best of the kids. And so, they've had massive losses already. You see that in verse 4, Ahab says in his response to the second request, when you ask for these things, I didn't object, I just gave my consent, you have these things, you have these things already. So, these people have stepped into soon massive loss. This is what we see for each of us as human beings. As we look at Genesis 3, we see that we are born into as a human being, you have been born into massive loss. You've already lost by the time you're born what God had intended in his first good intent for human beings. We see this in the Garden of Eden where God says that the day you eat of it, you'll surely die and certainly Adam does die eventually physically. He dies, we term it this way spiritually that day. We know from Paul that we are now born with sin nature, our proclivity, a preference to do sin, and that's how we're born. So, when David writes and says, you know, sin my mother conceived me, you know, we're born with this sin nature and this natural inclination not to please God, and therefore not to be blessed by him. We're born into massive loss. Ephesians 2.155 talk about this as well. We're born into this curse. Ephesians 2.1, Paul says for everybody that they were born in deadness, spiritual deadness, dead in sin, dead in transgressions. And so, we're born having lost spiritual life from the get go. It was lost back with Adam, Romans 5.12, Paul tells us that. So, we're not even born with spiritual life and then we lose it. We're born without spiritual life from the get go. This is why Nicodemus is confused in John 3. Well, we know you're a teacher from God, but how is this? And Jesus says, unless you're born again, unless you're given spiritual life, which you weren't born with, unless you're born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. So, of course, this stuff is not making sense to you. You need to be blown upon, so to speak, figurative, not literal, hitting our Sunday school discussion. You need to be blown upon by the Holy Spirit to give you spiritual life, which you've lost in Adam before you were ever born. And so, we see a shadow of this, a picture of this in this text in 1 Kings, that we're born into loss. We're like these people who've already lost our gold and our silver, and if we had a good wife, we lost her. We had a bad wife, she's still around, and I guess that's a curse, I don't know. And we're left with our stinky kids, and the good kids have been taken away from us. So, to map this out a little bit for us, we're born without, as the New Testament talks about, we're born without an inheritance in heaven. That's not something we own or look forward to in our physical birth, born without that, born without an inheritance, we've lost that. So, A, there in your outline, to write a couple of things here. You were born in a state, you were born in a state of having lost your spiritual life through Adam's sin. So, Genesis 2, 17, on the day you eat of it, you'll surely die. So, death comes into the world, Paul writes about, and so Ephesians 2, 1. You were dead in your transgressions and sins, as you were born. And then, B, you're also born in a state of having lost your inheritance, again through Adam's sin, which you own, Adam's sin, Romans 5, 12. It says, in Adam, we all sinned, it's just like having your father's last name, if you have your father's last name. And just, you have that, because that's his last name. We have Adam's sin, that's credited to us. We own that, but also we've continued it. If someone has objection to the fact that they're guilty at birth, and they bear the guilt of Adam, if they have objection to that, we just say, oh, okay, you're wrong, but also have you sinned, and they say, well, yeah, if they're being honest. So, either way, but it's really both. So, we're born in the state of great loss, no spiritual life, and no eternal inheritance. Now, number two, in our lives, as we go down the passage here, in our lives, the thread of further loss sits before us. Let's write a further loss, it's before us. We see this in this passage here, again, modeled for us, or as a shadow, for us of the reality of what's true of each of our lives. They've lost already a lot. They're gold, they're silver, the best of their wives and their kids. But now, the king of the arrowman is going to come in, and he's going to search their houses and take everything of value to them. So, they're gameboys or whatever, they value there. And he's going to find it and take it away from them. So, there's a thread of further loss, and that's the present kind of of this passage, kind of the present center of this passage. So, that's verses four through seven. They'd already lost gold, silver, best of their wives and children, and now the thread of the seizure of everything they value. And then, in verse 18, look at verse 18, kind of an unexpected phrase there. In verse 18, Ben Haddad says, if they have come out for peace, take them alive. Now, what do we expect it to say next? If they've come out for war, kill them, but he doesn't say that. He says if they've come out for war, take them alive. Ben Haddad's intent for them is exile, captivity, slavery. Perhaps that's worse. We don't know. It depends on your soul, the state of your soul. But this is what stands before them. Now, think about this if you can. If you're reading first things and you're sitting in exile, that's what happened to you. You were taken alive. Literally, you were taken alive by, if you were an Israelite, you were taken alive by the king of the Syria. Second kings, chapter 17. Second kings, right Bob? And if you were a Juttaite in exile, you were taken by the king of Babylon, 120 years later. But either way, you were taken alive. And so this is the threat, they had experienced this. The threat of further loss had come upon them. So they were disenfranchised and the role of meaning of the word there. Everything that was a value to them was taken away. They had further loss. In life, destruction of a person's life and circumstances comes from his or her sins. You know that in your own lives. A lot of the bad things that have come to you have come to you from your own wrongdoing. This is why these realites were exiled. So Bob read for us this morning. Why did God thrust him from his presence from the promised land? It was because of their sins. They were disinherited because of their sins. Galatians 6.7, Paul writes in this language, a man reaps what he says. The one who says to please his sinful nature from that nature will reap destruction. That's what had happened to these people. That's what happened to those who were reading first and second kings. They had sewn to their sin nature. All those things we read about God's people in the north, in second kings 17, and then all the things that people had sewn in the south in Judah, in 2 Kings 24 and 25, they had reaped destruction. A person can be not only as these people captives in a foreign land, but Paul and the writers of the New Testament and Jesus says, that's just a shadow of what I was talking about with your soul. You can be a captive to sin. You can be a slave of sin. Jesus talks about that. He who does sin is a slave of sin, Jesus says. Paul has chapters in Romans about being a slave to sin. And that's what we're born into. That's what a person has prior to faith in Christ, this further threat. If I continue to be the non-believer today, says if I continue to be walking in my sins, there's further threat to me. My slavery to sin will be a reaping of destruction to my own life now and in eternity. We harm our lives by our sin, but in the end there's eternal destruction. That's a threat for each person because of his or her sins, whether they've grown up in a church or grown up outside of a church. This is he's chiting the Jewish Christians in Rome, who we thought they were better than the Gentile Christians in Rome, and he says this in Revelation, or sorry, in Romans 2-12, all who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. Either way, you're all sinning whether your background is Jewish or Gentile and whether you are a person who grew up in the church but don't have saving faith, or whether you're a person who grew up outside the church and don't have saving faith, you'll meet destruction in the end apart from faith in Jesus. So when Jesus returns, there's that threat we read from 2 Thessalonians 1-7 that says this. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven and blazing fire with his powerful angels, he will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord, hear the promised land in there. The exiles were shut out, they were thrust from God's presence. The Old Testament promised land was a picture of the kingdom of God where God was, a picture of today heaven and being thrust out from heaven at death. Or when Jesus comes back, it's a picture of the lake of fire and being thrust out into the lake of fire and not allowed into the new heavens and the new earth. So there's threat, further threat, for a person today apart from faith in Jesus, further threat of what his sins or her sins will bring to his or her life. That's a threat, further loss, or at the end when the person dies or when Jesus comes back, there's further loss threatened there too. It's just sitting there before them of hell and the lake of fire. Yes. That's great. Not number three. Though we arrive into the world in loss, arriving with no spiritual inheritance, arriving with no spiritual life and understanding, though we arrive into the world, born into the world in loss, and though the threat of more loss sits before us, there's reason for hope. There's reason for hope. And that's what we see as we work down the passage here verses 8-11. Now, Ahab has some reason. We don't know why, but he has some reason for hope here. He stands up to bin Hadad and these 32 kings in the horses and chariots, this huge army, and he says, you know, I gave you what you asked for first but no more. For some reason he has hope. And there is reason for hope as well. It doesn't seem wise for Ahab to resist here. It doesn't seem wise for him to rebuke bin Hadad. You like that little rebuke there? The one who is putting on his armor should not boast like the one who's taking it off. In other words, boast after you've won the battle, not before you go into it. By the way, if you're in sports, if you want to lose, boast about how you're going to win the game. You will lose. It just happens. If you're a better and don't bet, if you see a team being boastful about how they're going to beat another team, bet against them. They will lose. Please don't bet. That's awful stuff. It really is. It's a terrible thing. There are a lot of lives and families part. Ahab has some kind of hope. Or else you would have just surrendered and saved his life. It's a hope for relief for us that we have a hope for relief from the threat of eternal loss and a threat of loss of our eternal inheritance. The threat of eternal loss and two eternal inheritance now and forever. Matthew 2534, then the king will say, that's Jesus will say to those on his right, come to you who are blessed by my father, take your inheritance. The kingdom prepared for use since the creation of the world. What does Jesus say is our inheritance as believers in him, the kingdom. Now inheritance is the language of promised land. If you were one of these people under King Ahab, you had an inheritance. That's a very technical term in the Old Testament and it was an inheritance given to your forefather by Joshua. You had a plot of land and that was your inheritance. And what is being threatened in the future of these people in this passage is there an inheritance is being taken away. Being taken by the Assyrians, what the Assyrians do in the end for the second second Kings 17 is they repopulate Northern Israel with foreigners from other places and the Israelites their inheritance are lost to them. But Jesus says, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. So God planned this for you. That's the good news. You plan this inheritance for you. And that's our hope. That's the gospel hope that's given to us an eternal inheritance. The God planned for us, you know, Ephesians 1.4, before the creation of the world. He predestined us to this. Or as Jesus puts here, he prepared for you since the creation of the world. Or first Peter 1, 3 through 5, Peter writes this, God and His great mercy has given us new birth into a living hope. Okay. Abraham has this hope that he's going to be okay, that he's going to be able to keep his inheritance instead of lose it. Peter says in his great mercy, God has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance. Again, Peter, a Jew who knew when he used to term an inheritance was talking about a plot of land in Israel. But now understanding that this plot of land in Israel was just a shadow of this inheritance that Jesus promised to his followers and inheritance being the kingdom for them into an inheritance that can never perish. It's not lost in front of us. It's not taken away your inheritance in heaven. It can never perish, spoil or fade. It's kept in heaven for you who, through faith in Jesus, are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. So we have a hope that's relief from the threat of eternal loss on the one side and a hope that's looking forward to our eternal inheritance. The kingdom that Jesus has prepared for us, the sheep in that passage, Matthew 25, the inheritance that Jesus has prepared for us. And in the New Heavens of New Earth, that will again be a plot of land somewhere. But so we have this bidirectional hope. Now B, B. Next, we're hoping in blessings for God today and is blessing of eternal inheritance in the future. What are we hoping in to have this thing, to have his blessing today, and to have eternal blessing or eternal inheritance in the future? What do we hope in? What do we hope in? Well, do not hope, and here's your B here, do not hope in your own ability and power to regain what you've lost. Ahab doesn't, he's not, you know, he's not, he gets this word from the prophet there, look at verse 13. Meanwhile, a prophet, verse 13. Meanwhile, a prophet came to Ahab, King of Israel announced, this is what the Lord says, do you see this vast army? I, the Lord will give it into your hand today, then you will know that I am the Lord. Ahab says, but, but who will do this? Ahab doesn't say, of course. I mean, look at me, look how strong I am, look how vast my army is. No, he's got what, 232 men and 7,000. Say that's not as big as the 32 kings in their armies. Ahab's confidence is not in the size and strength of his own army. It's not in his ability. His ability, his confidence and his ability was shown off in the first request for gold and silver and the best of your wives and your kids. Ahab understands this. He's glad for this message, but he says, how will this happen? What, what, what will go on here? Who will do this? Certainly not us. We don't have the power and the strength. And so Romans 5, 6, see Paul says to us, you see that just the right time when we were still powerless, like Ahab, with our eternal inheritance, not obtained, prior, prior to faith, prior to faith in Jesus, with no spiritual life, powerless to believe. No spiritual life, no spiritual sight to see the kingdom of God, no spiritual ears to, you know, Jesus said it, anyone who has ears let him hear. And Jesus isn't there knowing that ears. Even the disciples were saying, what did you mean when you said that? The Paul says, when we were powerless, Christ died for the ungodly, though we were dead in sin. So Paul recognizes this, he draws this out in Ephesians 2 and Philippians 3, you know, we see that we are powerless prior to faith. It gives us power. And that's what then gives us an inheritance. God initiates this. He brings his own power to play. It's not Ahab being good, it's not Ahab having enough troops. So don't trust, don't hope in your own ability and power to regain, to get an eternal inheritance or to have spiritual life. You need, it's spiritual life first and then faith second. Now see, see, hope instead in God's ability, hope instead in God's ability is power and his favor. And that's what we say in verse 13. What does the prophet say? See the action of this verb here. The prophet says, do you see this vast army? God says, is the Lord says, I will give it into your hand. That's the Lord's power. That's the Lord's ability. The Lord gives it into your hand. You as a believer, the Lord gave you faith into your hand. He gave you salvation into your hand. He fought this battle. He caused your 7,232 people to overcome the vast army. That was much more than this. So hoping God's power, his ability, his favor. That's what Ahab is hoping in, not himself. Hoping God's ability number one there for your victory in life over sin. For your life and overcoming your enemy, the devil is trying to devour you. God by his spirit living in you is your key to victory over Satan to your key to victory over temptations and your key to victory over your sin nature. God's spirit in you is the key. That's what we hope in. We hope, you know, I won't be such a sinner next month as I am this month. And when we sin or we mishandle some relationship or pride for whatever we do that blows things up for us, we have hope in our future. Not a hope, not a hope of worst loss to come like these folks until Ahab trusts in the Lord, but hope that God's power will come into play and will give us blessing where instead there was a forecast of greater, greater loss. So as you look forward in your life, say, you know what, I will follow Christ better next month than I have this month because God's power, his spirit, is within me. So Paul writes in Galatians 5, 16, so I say live by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. That's the key. The spirit of God lives in you. The same spirit, Paul said, the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you and he is powerful in you so that you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature within you. This gives you hope. Not because you've gotten better, not because you're thinking better, though you may be as you understand the scriptures better, but you understand scriptures very because God's spirit is in you. But your hope is in God's spirit continually, progressively working in you to make you strong against sin, to make you wise against sin, to make you able by his power to say no to ungodliness as Paul says word to say in Titus chapter 2. So we have hope for victory, not over the airman's, but over our sinfulness, over Satan's temptations, over our sin nature, over our former slavery to sin, our former sin master of Satan, because the spirit of God is in us. Now number two, we also have hope in God's ability, power and favor for our victory, for your victory over death, for your victory over death. Jesus' hope is he hung on the cross. We saw as Bob Red Force, his hope was in the Father. Jesus, if you want to divide, sometimes it's helpful for us to divide the full humanity of Jesus from the full divinity of Jesus. They're tied together, but Jesus speaks sometimes out of one nature, humanity, and sometimes out of the other nature is divinity. And Jesus is probably here speaking. We can reason it late on the cross, dying physically, unable to overcome death physically. He says, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And so he looks in his humanity as Ahab did here, King over God's people, there's an Ahab, Jesus connection, King over God's people. He looks for his eternal well-being, Jesus does, to his Father. Dying breath, right? Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. Ahab, to trust in the Lord for his victory over death by the invading airomans, he trusted that he would not die physically to the airomans by trusting in the Lord. He says, who will accomplish this? And the Prophet says the young officers of the provincial commanders will do it. And we see Ahab just blowing our minds, I remember reading this last year and just saying, this is Ahab, and he's been faithful. So God says the young commander, the young officers of the provincial commanders will do it. So what they have to do, he summons, verse 15, the young officers of the provincial commanders. He just trusts this thought of the Lord's going to do it, so I need to gather these guys in. It's not a question or anything, he just does what the Lord says. The Lord said he's going to deliver us from you guys, so I called you here, and then he sends them out. And Ahab is in the battle too, you see at the end he's the one chasing and overcoming there. So Ahab trusts in the Lord for his victory over death by the invading airomans. Paul puts it this way for us Romans 5, 8, but God demonstrates his own life force in this. While we were still sinners, while we were Ahab's, while we didn't deserve God to fight for us, because we were worshiping other things. And serving other things and following our own sin natures. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And verse 9 of Romans 5, Romans 5, we will be saved from God's wrath through him. Paul writes in Romans 11, and it's the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you. He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who lives in you. So we look for our eternity, our eternal inheritance to Jesus and to his spirit being in us for victory over death just like Ahab does here. It's the Lord who gives his victory in life over sin and the Lord number one and number two, the Lord who gives his victory over death both by his spirit. In life by his spirit, victory over sin nature, in death by his spirit, victory over our own death and even our physical death eventually as Jesus comes back. Now D, D, something to see here from Ahab that God teaches us from Ahab here. Hope includes action on your part. Hope includes action on your part. Now Jesus informs us, now we're not talking about salvation by works here, but we are talking about a faith that works. So here James in this, but see that in this passage here. Our first action is belief, that's your blank there. Our first action is belief and trust in God's promises. Here's what Jesus says is the work you're to do, the work that saves you. He says this, do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life which the son of man will give to you. On him, the God, God the Father has placed a seal of approval, then they asked him, what must we do, what must we do to do the works God requires? Jesus answered the work of God is this, the work God wants you to do is this, believe the one he has sent. Ahab, we talk about sometimes as we're talking and Christianis here, that faith that saves is not just mere ascent. It's one thing for me to say, oh I think if I get on that bike seat, I'll be okay. That's mere ascent, that's faith without any action. If I believe I'll be okay and I need to get to that other friend's house, what do I do? I climb up on that seat and that bike was too big for me so it was one of those climb ups to get up there and I think somebody probably pushed my shoulder so I could get balanced on that seat. Real faith, real belief starts acting on the belief and that's what we see with Ahab here, he believes and so he gathers those provincial young commander officer people, whatever order of those words that is there, and then he sends them out. He really believes, he doesn't just let God take care of it because God has said, okay now think about your confessing our faith today and providence if you were in Sunday school, how does God accomplish his decree through means typically through you doing what he just told you to do. And so God tells Ahab, I will accomplish this, I will give this army, this vast army, enter your hands through these young officers of the provincial commanders, whatever, there and so Ahab gathers them. This is a faith that works. If it's true faith, it starts doing things, thinking that this is really true. Ahab's not thinking, well send them out there but they're going to be slaughtered. Ahab doesn't send them out there and run toward the Mediterranean Sea. He sends them out there and falls right with them and he says, you know, well, who will start the battle and God says you will. And so Ahab starts the battle. He sends them out and been a daughter to get the scouting report that troops are coming out from the city of Samaria. Ahab believes in acts on the belief. And so in salvation, Jesus says believe in me, I am the king who saves my people. I am the faithful Ahab who responds to the Father and follow my words and you will be saved. And so we put all our eggs in the one basket of Jesus and we don't say Jesus and this and Jesus and that or pick up several religions or try to trust in Jesus and then other things. We just take action on that belief. So it's the old question, you know, if God says to you, you know, you die tonight, you know, God says to you, why should I let you into heaven? And we say because I believed in Jesus and if whomever says and we say and nothing and we don't say another word and then we hear from Willy Wonka, my boy, you've won. It's Jesus and nothing else. But our action is in the nothing else. Our action is in self control, restraint from trusting in any other thing to save us. And so God says believe in Jesus and be part of my people. That's what we do. We just walk walk in his ways. So next line there for you, our first action is belief in trust. God promises to protect you in life. He promises to protect you in life. So act like it. Don't fear. God will protect you. He's determined the number of your days and you cannot extend them. So just trust him. He'll protect you in the way he wants to protect you every day. He has ordained for you as Psalm 139, 16 says, you know, every day ordained for me was written in your book before one of them came to be. Trust in this. You will be okay. You may die today. You may die in 70 years, but he'll protect you all the way. Trust trust in that. So God promises to protect you in life and to work all things out for your good Romans 828, right? To work all things out for you. So trust me when things happen that you don't want to happen when you don't get into the college you want, when you don't get the rewards you want, when you don't get the job you want, when you don't get the boy friend or girlfriend that you want. That's God's goodness for you. He's preventing you from something, you know, and some of you have been really good sympathizing with my very minor first world or first world, right? First world problem of not being able to run since June 10th. And there's lingering injury that I have. And just as long as I haven't run since I was 37 years old, I'm 55 now. But I just, I know God had some purpose in it. He's just having me spend that early morning time and other other things. And it's not like I wasn't reading the Bible before. Now I am. I was doing it both times, but he has a good purpose in it. And yeah, I lost 91 dollars in a marathon that I couldn't run. No refunds for a marathon. You know, on October 22nd, but God is a good purpose. And that 91 dollars was worth it because God's in control. And so whatever happens to you, you get fired or you lose your job or you have great tragedy, not saying that the tragedy isn't great. But God is good. God is working all things out for your good. So trust this and act like it. Act like it. Doesn't mean you can't mourn. Doesn't mean you can't be disappointed. But no, no, and you're hard in your mind. This is God working out his good for me. And some of those things we figure out seven years from now. Some of those things will find maybe an eternity if we even care about those things when we get there. And then the last little blank for you there and to bring you to heaven. Here, that's what God promises for you to protect you in life, to work all things out for your good and to bring you to heaven upon death at Romans 828. All things will work out for your good. It will protect you 1 Peter 1 5 through faith. You're shielded by God's power until the coming of salvation that is ready to be revealed at the last time. Okay, so believe in this. You're being shielded and God's working out all things for your good or Philippians 123. It's our assurance. When we die, we'll be with the Lord. Paul said, I may die here in prison, but if so, I'll be with Christ. Or as he said, in 2 Corinthians 5, to be here in the body is to be away from the Lord, but to be away from the bodies to be with the Lord. And that's a good thing. And so trust trust in those things. We're to believe in the things that God has promised in scripture and those things he's promised to work all things out for your good. Romans 828 to protect you 1 Peter 1 5 until Jesus comes back and when you do die, that'll bring you to heaven immediately. So trust in those things and they have trusted in the things the prophet shared with him. This as the New Testament describes it, the Old Testament is the writing of the prophets and the New Testament is the writing of the Apostles. These are God's words. Trust them like they have did. You know, they have gets it right here amazingly, but he really does and God acts and is faithful to his promises. They are a man's and the armies of those other 32 kings, they go running. Sorry, I love the language there of just the power of this. Verse 20 and each one verse 20 and each one struck down his opponent at that the air man's fled with the Israelites in pursuit. So trust trust in these things. Don't believe that you're going to have a Ferrari. Don't believe that you'll be CEO of your company. Don't believe that you'll go to Yale. Any of those things can be true, but God has promised you none of those things. But he has promised to protect you, to watch over you in your life, to keep you safe. He has promised to work all things out together for your good. And he's promised to bring your you to himself, whether in death or his return, whichever comes first, or for most of us, maybe in both. Let's end there. We'll start up with that number two next week. It's a decent place to start. I knew when starting I knew when doing this this week, I said, I don't know where it's going to end, but I'm just going to keep track of time. And and we'll have a good good discussion, a good discussion next next time with this. We can answer part of the summary so you can jump down, jump down to that. We'll do a all that I lost in Adam, all that I lost in Adam. Just like a habit, lost all this stuff already. And all that you're threatened, you've been threatened to lose like a habit in the people were threatened to lose everything else they valued. God's protection today and eternal inheritance and again, that's what we were threatened to lose. Christ has gained back for you. That's the good news for us as believers in Jesus. We'll talk a little bit more about that next week and look at some other things that we learned from Ahab here as well. But with that, let's pray.