Well done gents, very good! Very enjoyable!

I sort of like the idea - the invisible God, that's hard to understand the invisible God when so many things are happening around us, but He's there. Earthquakes are terrible – most of us here have experienced tremors – has anybody here not experienced a tremor? Not? Really! OK, I may as well tell you this story, we were in a restaurant some few years ago with my brother in Los Angeles, we were coming back to Australia and I said, well why don't you just meet us there? And so we did, we had dinner and all of a sudden there was this tremor came through and so we're sitting there, I lived in California, he was in Southern California and the waiter all of a sudden is under the table! We look over and say, well where are you from? We were having a bit of a joke, he said, look my wife is about to have a baby, I don't want anything to happen to me! I said, OK, I think it's over now, the lights were kind of swaying a bit, he said, are you sure? I said, I think its fine; we would like some more water if you don't mind! Anyway, he was from somewhere in the Midwest, wasn't used to earthquakes. Another time I was sitting in the airport again, believe it or not, in San Francisco and the flights were not stopped but it all of a sudden moved and we got an earthquake, we were waiting for kind of a midnight flight out back to Australia.

These are tremors, one or two have been, some of you may have been in an earthquake in an epicenter that is quite large – if you have been, you have never forgotten it, it is frightening, it hits you suddenly. If you were in a building for instance, some earthquakes are like a sonic boom, you think well it just starts trembling and kind of builds up – well maybe some do, but the ones I've experienced and heard about, it just hits you like you're sitting in a building and it's like something just hit the building, boom, like that, like a sonic boom does or a canon goes off and that's the way it hits and you don't know what's going on and then of course there's the shaking and the rocking and then you realize, oh, right, it's an earthquake, then you get under something hopefully, that whatever tiles are up there don't come down on top of you or something like that because  you can get hurt. But an earthquake – in Southern California especially, a lot of the buildings are fitted for an earthquake, to keep them from falling down. If the shaking is so severe, the building cannot remain a structure, it collapses as we've seen on so many occasions. Some buildings are earthquake fitted and that is, they are tied together in some way, they can go back in, what they call retrofit, they've done this in San Francisco for instance, gone back in and retrofitted bridges, under and over passes and buildings so at least they won't collapse and kill all the occupants. It will probably be damaged beyond repair but at least people will get out alive because the building does not collapse and I suppose that is the most important thing.

Now in Christchurch, some of the buildings that were built to withstand an earthquake, did collapse, now I don't know the full reason for it, a lot of times it has to do with the way the rolling motion comes through, if it kind of comes through at an angle, it comes through straight on or whatever, that's why some buildings can take it, some buildings cannot, maybe they weren't retrofitted properly or built properly in the first place to withstand it. In fact the dilemma that they will face is much worse than the damaged buildings that they have here, 25% I heard, of the buildings are going to just have to be removed, knocked down and rebuilt again. I was listening to one person who had a house out in the suburbs of Christchurch and he was telling about his house, he says well, how are you getting along, the interviewer asked. Well we're digging holes in the back yard you know, that's all we've got – no water, no sewage of course, no electricity, water had to be brought in, no sewage disposal and so the interviewer asked about his house. He said, well it was damaged, and of course the telling part was when he said, well I believe my house has slipped off the foundation, you could sort of tell it's not on the foundation anymore. All right, that's the death knell, right there, it's gone. You've got to do something about that.

In California, the house I had, and I checked it several times just to make sure, my house was built in 1954, it's quite an older house that we had then and it was bolted down on the concrete, foundations which were about so thick, about 15-16 inches thick and it had to be bolted down and if it wasn't you could get somebody to come in and earthquake proof your house to make sure it's bolted into the foundation so that when the earthquake comes through it's not going to move and slip off the foundation, they said that's the worst thing that can happen. But if it stays on the foundation, you're going to have some damage, we always get cracks, you could tell, and our house had been through several earthquakes. Our front driveway is testimony, I went and patched it up as best I could from time to time but the carport had concrete in it, but it was all broken up, but we didn't do that much about it, we just sort of left it because it was usable, but you could tell it had been through earthquakes.

That was how we lived in California, Southern and Central California and we weren't too far from a fault. I start talking about faults, people say, well we have one here and we have one over there and…we have them all over Australia! Well New Zealand is practically floating, I mean you're in a place where almost anywhere you go the land is somewhat unstable and you can almost expect that kind of a thing over there and so what is in the middle of the earth is not too far from the top of the earth in New Zealand.

But in Christchurch there was a huge problem because of the enormous amount of shaking that occurred, the earth liquefies, that is, because of the shaking the ground itself becomes like a liquid. Now when things like that happen, how can you, what can you do? There's nothing you can do, you just have to just hope for the best but you have to kind of get out. In an earthquake, when the very ground on which you stand, even if you are outside, is so shaken and ripped up and you're in it, how can anything stand? It's the most disconcerting, confusing, mentally tormenting thing you could possibly ever be in when the very ground on which you're standing moves. We always count on the ground to be there don't we? I mean that's something we don't even think of; well the ground's not going to move! The ground moves, the ground gets pushed together and gets pushed up or ripped up or big holes occur and then they have sink holes and then whole cars or houses drop right into those sink holes. Wow, what's going on? The earth moves, the earth is shaken, how will you rebuild this, how will you rebuild at all? It was a beautiful city, we speak of bricks and mortar as being solid, something that you can count on, unchangeable, not moveable, it's comfortable, safe, it's enduring and when the very ground on which you live and walk shakes, when that happens, you can't count on anything anymore, that's it. Earthquakes, it's terrible. I know we've had floods, that's terrible – go to an earthquake, now you'll see what terrible really is. What about fire? The bible mentions all of these by the way. Fire – that's horrible to be in, to be trapped, to see it coming toward you, to see what could possibly happen to your home right then and there. We've experienced this, it seems like they're occurring with more and more frequency. But what do people do in a situation like this?

In the city of New Orleans where it had the floods, a lot of that is below sea level and they put the levees up, hopefully the levees will hold, even now you can have such storm surge you don't know that the levees will even hold now even though a great deal of work has been done on them, people simply left. You've got whole sections of New Orleans, a town I came from, people are not going to go back there, why should they? They just got their money from the government or insurance, as the case may be, packed up and went somewhere else and said, we're not ever coming back here again. Why rebuild? I'm going to find a new life somewhere else. Earthquakes are terrible.

In Hebrews 12:23, let's consider that there are things that do move, there are things that do not move- ever.

Hebrews 12:23 – To the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of a new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

V. 25 – See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, how much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven.

Now the question here is, who is it who's speaking and how solid is it what he speaks? And here is one of the main questions – the writer of the book of Hebrews starts with that question in Hebrews 1:1 by the way – and he poses the question, but in all of it he's showing that while some things change, some things will never change and this is what we have to look at and base, not only our life on, our entire future and our hope on the fact that some things simply will not ever change.

V. 25 - See that you do not refuse him who speaks…he says. And now He is speaking from heaven and He has spoken.

V. 26 – Whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, "Yet once more I shake not only the earth but also heaven." The bible does say that.

We're going to have the celestial bodies that are going to fall as they are described to be doing or whatever, there are going to be signs in the heavens, there's going to be ultimately a great cataclysm, so He says also the heaven, He is referring to the time when He spoke on Sinai and the people came to the Mount and they saw the rocks just come apart when God spoke. We see something that's more powerful than any earthquake, that is, God speaking, that's something that ought to be listened to.

V. 27 – Now this, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Some things will remain, some things will not. It's important to know what is going to remain and that's where we place our faith.

V. 28 – Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken…and the kingdom then, he makes the point here, which has always been and always will be and is in existence now all that remains to know is whether we're going to be in it or not, the kingdom is there. But…since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear. Not have a proud or an attitude of impunity or disregard for God…but we serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.

What is at stake here? Is what is shaken, what will come down, what will remain? There are things that cannot be shaken, what are those things? He says we are receiving, as I said, a kingdom that cannot be shaken. The kingdom, as I said, has always existed, it will never end. The kingdom of God, a kingdom that we are receiving. There has to be something solid in your life, the important things, I believe as Mark said in the prayer, the immoveable things and we are not moved by whatever wind that comes along and that we won't be blown over by it. Let me say earthquakes come in different forms, we can use it metaphorically in the sense that some of us, all of us have suffered a tremor. I asked how many didn't even suffer a tremor – if I asked you in your own personal life if you have suffered a tremor – is there anybody here who would not hold up their hand? If I asked you how much have you received a – personally – an earthquake in your life – maybe a few of you would hold up your hand. Yes!

Something in which the whole ground on which you stand, the existence of your future, your existence, your well-being, however it may affect you, just comes undone. That's an earthquake, and sometimes you're in an earthquake and you don't know it's going to hit and it hits you like a sonic boom and it keeps going for a minute or two and pretty soon the best thing you can do is get out of the place and just simply stay alive, there's nothing left for it. Some of us have experienced tremors like that. I'm glad to see our flood victims are here today, glad to have you here. They were in the flood I guess you could say, metaphorically, that was an earthquake too in the sense that wow...ok, what do you do? Everything that you've got is all of a sudden gone, you come back to it and it's a mess, some people couldn't even go back, some people couldn't even look into their house, they really couldn't. I'm glad that our people were, they did have other things in their minds it seems, greater things, more important things that whatever they lost, while it certainly affected them, did not affect them that much in the sense that they turned into despair. They said, well, we'll just pick up and keep going. Why? There's something that's not moveable in their lives, this is very important, you've got to know what is not moveable because the earthquakes are going to come, God says I will shake the earth.

Now let me just say, we personally have earthquakes in our lives that come along and some of us may simply have tremors, we don't mind tremors, we do like the waiter did at the restaurant, dives under the table and comes out and off you go again – that's a tremor, some of us have earthquakes. Now I John 2:13 – let's understand what moves and what does not move.

I John 2:13-14 – I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. There are some things which are simply permanent – so permanent it's hard for us to imagine, it's more permanent than the ground on which we stand. You have known Him who is from the beginning, I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. And I write to you, little children, because you have known the Father. I have written to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. And I have written to you young men because you are strong and the word of God abides in you. And you have overcome the wicked one.

It's simply showing there are some things that we have to place our faith in, some things on which we have to stand.

V. 15 – Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

A lot of people look to the world; I mean this is the only answer they have, is the world – I'm thinking in terms of how they live, what their future is, how they're going to fare in life with themselves and their family and their loved ones, you can't look to the world. You look to the world and you're going to be very disappointed and the world is going to offer you a lot of things that seem to be the right way to go.

V. 16 – For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but of the world and the world is passing away, and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever.

I thought it was very interesting – even the lust of it is passing away, one day there's not even going to be any lust for anything in the world, it would be good to consider that – what drives us, what do we search for, what do we want in life, what are we striving for, what's the basis, what's the foundation of why we do what we do? There are things that drive us, you might be amazed as to what drives each one of us and it should be a very revealing and telling thing for each of us as we go through this life to somehow try to understand, well what really drives you, why do you do what you do? Why did you get yourself in the predicament that you're in, there's something driving you, there's something –why are you doing this? OK, everybody has to look at this and it can be a very revealing thing, if you are prepared to go through that and get right down to the foundation, get right down to the very core and find out what remains, what remains, not out here, that's where the earthquakes take place, what is the center? What is it our lives are based on that will be there and was there from the very beginning and is there forever? That's where you want to be because you don't want to be tossed back and forth with everything that comes along, you don't want to be disturbed by earthquakes that are going to come along and wreck your life, you don't want to do that. You want to find out, OK, what is it I'm based on, what am I all about? You could be fooled, absolutely you could be fooled and when it happens you may realize maybe I better dig deeper, maybe I better go further, maybe I ought to see just what is my foundation, really and truly. Am I concerned with the world, how I fare in this life, how I appear to other people, how I am accepted by other people? What are my needs, what is it I'm going after, what is it I'm trying to satisfy in my own life, what is it based on? I hope to show you a few things today as we go along and I think I better move along! I'm posing a lot of questions here but I think in the questions themselves, we can begin to somehow try to locate some answers for that and answer these questions.

V. 17 - The world is passing away the lust of it, and he who does the will of God abides forever. Little children, it is the last hour and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come by which we know it is the last hour.

Let me just briefly explain that because a lot of people totally misunderstand when it says it is the last hour. God's calendar is not in how many days are left to go, that's the way we tend to do that, we're into days and times, I can draw something out of the book of Galatians 4, don't get me wrong, there is a time, there's days, calendar, God understands time but the event or the things that God says is the last thing – it is the last thing. How would you understand this? Simply is this – the antichrist that is to come, that had already appeared is the last big thing that is to come, that's all he means, there's not going to be more than that – in other words, what you see as the antichrist, ever how you may want to describe it, you can pick up in evangelical book shops all of the stories about the antichrist you want to and they will say it is a person. I don't get that out of this, so you better know what that is, but simply understand, it is the last hour, the deception that is going to be upon the whole world and that is going to take anybody and everybody and you, if possible, away from the true God, his concept, idea of the antichrist, it's there, that's it, that's the last one that's going to come – figure it out, there's not going to be another one that will come. OK, I just want to make that clear how you should understand the last hour. It will get worse, but you already know it. That's what he said – you already know it, you know him. We read that in the previous verses.

V. 19 – They went out from us but they were not of us, for if they had been of us they would have continued with us, but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. What's the difference? You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. Yes you know this, there's something that helps you to see it, helps you to understand it, that has to be the anointing from the Holy One.

V. 21 – I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and no lie is of the truth. You know what's at stake? Truth, there's something else at stake and I'll tell you what that is in just a moment. Truth – no lying is of the truth. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ, he is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.

What does this mean? I'll tell you what he means, it means that you now have a whole concept that one might even call it secular religion or secular Christianity in which a person tries to be the best possible person – but Jesus Christ isn't anywhere around, He's not a part of that person's life. The very thing that you can lean on, the very thing that is solid, that is immoveable, Jesus Christ, as we're going to see in a little bit, but He is the only foundation that can be laid. That foundation is not there – so you try to be good people, there's nothing wrong with trying to be good people, I like good people and I like for people to try to be good people! I think it's marvelous, it's wonderful – but when a person is going to claim God as their God and Christ as the one upon whom they base how they live, then they do not live by the power of God, they do not have that abiding within them, they do not have that anointing – you are against Christ! They say, well no, well wait a minute – you don't live by it, I'm not say you; it's a rhetorical argument you understand how I'm saying this OK?

A person would not live by Christ though claiming His name, claiming to be who they are – well you can't do that, He said no lie is of the truth.

V. 22 – Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. So they deny Him in that way – they deny Him in works as another scripture says, they deny Him in the sense that he is not there where he ought to be inside the person, through the anointing a person should have. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either (he says); he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

Let me tell you what else is at stake here – the authority. What's the authority? Do you know what the authority is in the life of most people? Themselves. That's not what it says here – two things at stake – truth and authority. Now the world is going to get rid of both of those if it can, the world is going to mount an assault on both the truth and authority – the authority that you should accept in your life, so we're talking about who and truth – they will mount an assault against truth and what? The who and the what, to try and simplify it, but this is what he is talking about here. He is dealing with philosophy right now, he is dealing with whole thought patterns, whole ways of life that we experience right now and he was dealing with it 2,000 years ago by saying this. In fact there's nothing really new here.

V. 24 – Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning.

Look, this does not change, it doesn't change. In the book of Hebrews I think I alluded to this previously, he is trying to help you to understand there are some things that do not change. Oh yes, he's talking to the Hebrews who forgot who God was and who were into all kinds of other things except following the true God and he's saying, look there are some things here that are changing, he's not going to speak through the prophets anymore, that is currently, he did still speak through them and that word still is good, I'm not saying that. He said I'm speaking through a Son – a Son, trying to show the definite aspect of the fact that this is how He is now speaking, he's not saying that Jesus is only a Son among many, that's not the point he made, but He is now speaking through a Son as opposed to others. This is what He does; now this makes it more solid and so we speak of better things than that of Abel, as we just read here. Just to give you a little hint, that is what the book of Hebrews is about, it's to show you how solid things are and not to lose it and not to let them slip and not to move away from it and not to become dull of hearing, all of these things you find in the book of Hebrews. I'll give a bible study on that one day for you.

V. 24-25 – Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that He has promised us – eternal life. A promise or not? It is a promise.

V. 26-27 – These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. So they were experiencing that. But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you and you do not need that anyone teach you but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.

Now look there are some things that you can count on always and forever, you can just do that. The world in which we live teaches us to place our foundation on something that will pass away. There are two issues here, truth and authority. Truth changes and another one tries to come in and usurp the authority, what is the authority – and tries to pass it off to you. People seem either to believe that truth is what makes them feel good and works best with their experience; this is sometimes labeled empiricism, the empirical self it speaks of or that truth that makes sense to them objectively or intellectually and that is sometimes labeled rationalism. These two approaches – are they acceptable in developing a system of truth and any kind of an idea of authority – the world has adopted that. And that's why they don't understand the true God; they're going to move away from it. If it feels good, empiricism.

Let me read to you a little section here that I think is very telling in this regard. "Empiricism is by definition, ‘the obtaining of knowledge through the senses or through experience' – right experiences will bring an understanding of truth or so we think. These experiences, both emotional and physical are often defined by the popular media that inundate today's generation, including music, television, film and poetry. Media of this kind can create an ambiance of authority because they tell stories in ways that are appealing. In music the stories are told with a particular mood or beat making them easy to remember and repeat. In television or film they are told with images, visual art and effects and musical score, all of which combine to capture imaginations and promote ideas and world views. In most cases however, the story is told, the image is produced and the effects desired have their sources in just another human emotional human experience or desire. It can be tempting to commitment oneself to a particular song or to a movie's message but these messages themselves go only deep as the individuals who produce them."

And so you're drawn to how sensually it strikes you and we're moved by this. This is not permanent, it is not true, it is false, it's a lie. "Newer generations living in the 21st century have never known what life is like without television or video cassette, CD, DVD, recorders or TiVo. Because of technology we can at least in some sense create the reality we desire. It is now possible for example to program electronic screens with what we want to see when we want to see it and we can use preselected iPod tunes to the soundtrack for our lives."

You all think about that one. We've preprogrammed the iPod tunes, as he says, as the sound track of our lives. And you see a person who has tuned out everything, tuned out reality, moving along with the things plugged into his head or her head and that's what they march to, that's it, it becomes truth. Oh it's a cultural thing but it becomes a whole way of life. Now when things start to happen in a person's life, that doesn't help them, everything is just ripped apart. "This has the double effect of, on one hand, of creating the feelings and ambiance we desire and on the other hand, letting the rest of the world go by and this kind of environment, many of the new generation say they believe in Christianity, that they trust God and His Word but have become tongue tied, embarrassed or defensive when their beliefs are questioned or challenged. Not only so the notion of a universal authority that applies to one and all is almost completely foreign to the contemporary context." The authority of Christ and His Word is acceptable at the personal level perhaps, but is almost a foregone conclusion that it cannot be applied to everyone. I think therefore…as it says…rationalism then is knowledge or belief that is gained through reasoning."

This is a little bit different from the sensuality or gaining through the senses, through reasoning. I'm simply pointing out to you how we tend to learn sometimes and that we may not be the people we think we are because we are affected by the world. OK – "The fields of philosophy, science and mathematics have long been strongholds for irrationalistic thought; it is mirrored in a perverse view of man's creativity and intellectual superiority in which such things are to be the source of truth and authority. Concepts that don't make sense to the experts are too easily and quickly rejected into today's culture, fostering the opinion ‘I am right because I trust the experts on X' – educational credentials often become the sole basis for credibility but educational credentials have their own agenda. Biblical teaching such as the creation or miracles have been ruled out of bounds in much of academia. Many questions from the disciplines of philosophy, science and mathematics are designed to evoke a skeptical view of Christianity. If there is a God, why are there not much more positive miraculous occurrences and fewer calamities? Why is there so much evil in the world if God is good? Why would you put your trust in someone as narrow minded as Jesus? There are no philosophical, scientific or mathematical formula that can answer such questions. In the context of rationalism, this means that the questions themselves are designed to show the naiveté or irrelevance of religion. Raising the dead by a spoken word rather than heroic, scientifically based medical means is not an activity science has any real interest in affirming."

They don't want to look into that, that's not their issue. You know the devil said to Jesus in the temptation – well now, prove to me who You are, that what he says – If You are the Son of God, turn this bread into stone, if you are the Son of God, cast Yourself down, and You'll be OK, You'll be saved. Let's see you do it and if you don't get hurt, if You say You're the Son of God, prove it, prove that to me, that's what he's doing. Give me proof. People are doing the same thing today, it wouldn't have mattered if you've got it or not, you can't prove it to people, you can't. You know how Jesus answered? He quoted God right there, He quoted God, right there He quoted God. In other words, He didn't even have to quote God, all He had to say was, God. The devil knew it, that's the authority.

Matthew 3:16 – we went through this in the Life and Teachings class which was a very important point that we made, several times there.

Matthew 3:16-17 – Now when He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold the heavens were open to Him, and He saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

This is what He hears, He gets up from there, goes to the wilderness, meets the devil and the devil says – Are You really the Son of God? Come on now! You see, here is the point, He is the Son of God who speaks, He is the Son of God who brings the message and the word from God, He is the One who is sent, He is the One who is not only sent but He is the One who says, I will always be with You, He is the One who says, I will live within you, as a matter of fact, I and My Father will dwell within you. Now folks, this is solid, that's not going to be moved. You can be moved by whatever comes along on some movies, some television and you know that when some of you are in University right now and you sit in the classes and you think you're learning mathematics, you think you're learning literature, you're learning various social…especially classes on sociology that you are learning rationalism for one, you are learning that and they are teaching you that there are no eternal absolute objective truths, they're telling you this. Now it may not be said as overtly but you're getting it.

Now you have to wonder then, why is the world in the situation it is when people start believing that, they go down a certain track, they live out ever how they want to live, they don't deal with their minds, with what's going on in their minds, they don't deal with who they listen to, they don't have control over their lives, anything comes and goes, they have no control over that and they wonder why they get in trouble. Now I've always asked for our congregations to take a look at that and to say, all right, what's going on in my life, there is a cause, let me get down to the true cause, not a manufactured one, not a lot of teenybopper kind of solutions that people put forth sometimes, let's get down to there is a cause and effect, let's really get down to that.

Now these are things you've got to count on, they do not move, they do not change. You know I hear this over and over again – well, we've got to talk to the X generation in a certain way, we've got to talk to the Y generation, they're even more different. Is there a Z or Zed generation? Don't know! Let me tell you something, the issues are the same today as they were with Adam and Eve, nothing's changed, they just found a better way of getting through to your head, and nothing's changed. So whenever we preach the gospel of  truth, I don't know that we ought to try to dress it up in such a way where we're going to try to get through to them from the senses or to appeal to them because they're so smart. No, I won't be doing that, I'll just tell you the truth how it is and I believe you understand it. I don't believe I'm speaking a foreign language, sorry, I don't go for it folks, the issues the same, the outcomes the same, nothing's changed and simply because we've got into a certain culture and a certain way it looks like we're thinking, a person gets in trouble, results exactly the same. You've got to figure out what you did.

Now when we come to the Passover, which we are coming to, we answer that question, who is the truth and who is the authority in my life – that's what you're asking and that's what you're answering, hopefully whenever you take the bread and the wine.

John 14:3-4 – "And if I go and prepare a place for you…now you need to believe that He is preparing a place that will not be shaken…I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know and the way you know."
V. 5 – And Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You're going and how can we know the way?" Now good old Thomas – it's a good thing he asked the question, but Christ had something to say to him about that later.

V. 6 – Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

God speaks through His Son, He gives us the truth through His Son, He gives us the same truth that's always been there, He now speaks through His Son. And that stands, nothing's changed.

V. 7 – "For if you had known Me, you would have known My Father also and from now on you know Him and have seen Him."

So He always points to the Father, just like He did to the devil – said "God" – that's it, the devil couldn't say one thing after that – God – because the devil knew, the devil knew He exists but he was questioning Jesus and he says, You tell me, You prove to me who You are. Of course the whole idea was to get Jesus to doubt if he could, as to who He was. There's something got to be solid in everybody's life and so in the life of Jesus, the Father was there, always – always! He wasn't going to be shaken and what the Father said, because He always quoted the Father, He said, whatever the Father does and shows me and what I've seen, I do. Remember? Thought we read this last night in the study. Whatever He says, I do. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. Simply will not be shaken.

I Corinthians 3:9 – For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field and you are God's building. Now that's interesting, the building here.

V. 10-11 – According to the grace of God which was given to me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation and another builds on it, but let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. He tried to put some other kind of idea or teaching or philosophy or religion or concept or whatever it is, but outside of this, it's simply not going to work.

V. 12 – For if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay and straw, each one's work will become clear for the day will declare it because it will be revealed by fire. So fire, a trial comes, the fire will test each one's works, what sort it is.

V. 14-15 – If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. And if anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss but he himself will be saved, yet as through fire.

V. 16 – Do you not know…here's the point he comes to…do you not know that you are the building of God and that the spirit of God dwells in you?

Is that building going to be affected by an earthquake? Is this one earthquake proof? Is it going to come tumbling down at the first quake that comes along?
V. 16 – …you are the temple of God and the spirit of God dwells in you…that's a building that doesn't collapse, earthquakes can come, anything can happen, that building does not collapse.

Colossians 1:23 - let me conclude here:

Colossians 1:23 – If indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard…
You ought to read Psalm 18; you ought to read Psalm 62. David said, He's my Rock, I will not be moved. He is my defense, He is my salvation. It doesn't matter what somebody might say, it doesn't matter who's going to come against me, it doesn't matter who my enemies or foes are, He is my Rock.
Yes, that's the way it's got to be, if it's not, when it comes you're going to have a problem. He is my Rock. I will not be moved.

V. 23 – Indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven of which I Paul became a minister.

And you cannot preach another gospel. You cannot preach another philosophy, you cannot turn your mind and your life over to something else, you've got to be grounded and steadfast. Now in the one, who is solid, who is that foundation, this is the point, we have a hymn in which I have asked Drew to lead, He Whose Words Cannot Be Broken. Sir Isaac Newton penned these words, but he was a scientist and everything that he could see pointed to God, but it pointed to God, it was quite simple, he understood that, he said there is something that is so sure, the earth can move, you can have volcanoes, you can have floods, you can have things we can't explain out here, but there is God.

"Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion city of our God. He whose words cannot be broken formed thee for His own abode. On the rock of ages founded, what can shake your sure repose?"

Tremor? Earthquake? Can shake you until you don't know who you are or where you're at anymore - Yes it can – unless you know something else. "With salvations walls surrounded, you may smile at all your foes."