Yes Men

they were lacking competence or just plain stupid. The two weavers even went so far as to pretend to personally dress the Emperor. They went through it all minding every action of a real tailor as they went on their way. Now I know you know the story. This point, everyone, even the Emperor, pretended not to see the suit. I mean, if they saw the suit, he'd have to admit that maybe he was not in the right station at life, or maybe he was stupid, maybe he lacked competence, so

he didn't say anything. So everyone pretended not to see the suit, even though they could not just so they would not appear to look incompetent or foolish. That's one type of yes man. Yes man who doesn't want to look silly or foolish or incompetent. That says yes or concurs with everything, with the hopes of never never having the light shined on them pointing out their flaws. But ultimately there's going to be someone, let's hope, someone so

bold to stand up. And in the case of the Hans Christian Andersen story, ultimately it took the raw honesty of a child to stand up to yell out. The emperor has no clothes, the man is naked. Nobody's seeing that the man is naked. This lovely cautionary tale predates Andersen's writings, actually with Spanish, Arab and Jewish versions of sorts. Why well, because the concept of going with the flow or lying to get ahead has been around since the beginning of time. This is nothing new.

and change it. In other words, don't yeah, yes man. The truth is that when people gain power by listening to the honest criticisms of others, that's how they grow. That is the part of the process. They are going to gain power. You are going to get better, gain strength, authority, power, stability.

power by listening to the honest criticisms of others. And when you refuse to listen to those who really love you enough to be honest with you, you're going to fail. That's why gaining success is so much easier than keeping success. When you're climbing, you take all the tips you can get, But when you're standing on top of the mountain, it seems that no one, no one, not even the closest people to you, can tell you anything unless Heaven forbid,

they agree with you. So you ask other people as you're trying to gain power or growing something, and you're listening to everyone all their honest criticism, and that becomes productive. But the minute you gain success, then you ignore everyone. This is why gaining success is always easier than keeping success. Don't ever get to that place where you're just looking for people to agree with you. Scripture says in Proverbs twelve twenty two, the Lord detests lying lips, but he

delights in men who are truthful. It is so important that you are truthful with the people in your life, especially the ones you love. There's just some bizarre things that go on in relationships. I've never understood how a true friend, a real true friend, would rather pretend they don't see the spinach any other friend's teeth, of course, leading them to the embarrassing situation of hearing it from a stranger, then to step up and tell them, hey,

you have spinach in your teeth. How could that be wrong? How could that be hard or difficult to point that out when you know someone's going to and I know that this example may be benign. But if you aren't honest about the little things in life, you won't be honest about the big things either. Scripture points this out very clearly. Luke sixteen to ten says whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with very much, And whoever is dishonest with very little will also be

dishonest with much. There's no line there that if you can master this in the small things, if you're able to do the small things in life and be righteous on those things, then the larger things will not be as difficult. There's a lot of opportunity for you just to just to tell somebody what they want to hear. But to one end? Is this to benefit you? Is this

so you'll be liked? Or are you like some of these klingons that seem in these stories are just people who are trying to get material goods or get some fame themselves. Maybe hopefully it'll rub off or all look like I'm one of their confidants.

them to say. We've looked at the fact that Luke sixteen ten says whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will be dishonest with much. A good rule to understand that a good person is going to be a good person in the big times and heavy times and the small times. But this all works both ways. You should be honest with those around you, and you should want to surround yourself with honest people as well.

Exodus eighteen twenty one says, but select capable men from all the people, Men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain in cases like that, The Bible is clear when it warns you not to help the wicked by lying for them. Exodus twenty three, do not spread false reports. Do not help a wicked man by being a malicious witness, essentially being you know, going on the stand and defending someone whose actions are indefensible. Telling someone

the lies they want to hear while they are hurting themselves. Similarly, is like taking a bribe to help the wicked, and you end up being a part of that. You're either their yes man or you are the type that are welcoming yes men into your circle because it's much easier than having a mirror held up and having to be accountable. A key word that pops up on this program all

the time, accountability. Deuteronomy sixteen, nighte teen and twenty says, do not pervert justice or show partiality, meaning always the straight line is the straight line is the straight line. Don't try and justify something for your own gain. It goes on to say, do not accept a bribe for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. Follow justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land. The

Lord your God is giving you. So this is saying, listen, I get that there's short gain or what seems like short gain out there, that you can do things and you got a bribe, or you get this here, you get that.

people are taken down and sick people are ignored. Worse than all of this, bad people continue to do bad things because no one speaks up. Yes, the truth can hurt, but the sting of the truth lasts only a moment. However, the lies of a so called friend can destroy you for life. You have to remember that. Susan, Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show.

into eternal punishment. It goes on to say, but the righteous into eternal life. The word there for eternal in both cases is aonious in the Greek, and it means eternal. So if these people don't go away into eternal punishment, then the righteous don't go to eternal life. But what is the punishment, Well, the punishment really and as far as the verses, and I'll give you some verses you

can look up. You've got Matthew eighteen to eight. Second Thessalonians one, eight and nine that talks about the everlasting chains, the eternal fire that people talk about Jude seven, the outer darkness Matthew eight twelve, the wrath of God Romans two five, the lake that burns with fire, and brimstone Revelation twenty one to eight. A place prepared for Satan and his angels Matthew twenty five forty one. So there are many that are talked about, but I'll put it

to you this way. God is everywhere. So there are a lot of theologians that debate back and forth Susan about, well, so is God in hell? And there are those that just emphatically say, no, God is not in hell. But technically God would have to be everywhere. However, the salvation of God is not in hell. And so imagine it this way. There are a lot of people I know

that hate water. They can't stand it. They do not like the taste of water, and they'll tell you right out to your face they don'tdrink water, but they do. They don't drink water in water form, they don't go and get a glass of water, But in every juice, every soda, every piece of fruit, everything that they do eat or drink has some water in it. And so they're getting the benefits of that water, thinking they're not

drinking any water. Likewise, there are people that walk this earth that don't believe in God that get the benefit of God even though they don't go to a church or don't experience typical companionship with other Christians or any of that. They get it through other believers coming by them, or the way other believers run their life kind of overflows under them. So likewise, like they're drinking all these other liquids and they're saying they're not drinking water, they

really are. That even the atheist or the non believer is reaping benefits of this world just by living in this world where other Christians are. So imagine a place where now those Christians are subtracted and God in the sustinary sense is subtracted and now all you have is that thirst and the absence of anything that can quench it. So, staying with the analogy, if you imagine that person who says they don't like water, but they get it and

everything else that they drink. Now they're in a desert that has nothing, none of that, no water, and no fruit and no you know, soda pop and none of that. And now they're really feeling the power of what water is in any form, yet they can't get it. Essentially, that is hell. It's the absence of the salvation or sustaining power of God. So that the Some argue that it's literal fire and brimstone, and some argue that it's not. Some argue the physical attributes of hell really don't matter.

The truth of the matter is that it is the absence and unpleasant because it's the true realization. It's if somebody picks up a gun, points it at someone else, thinks that the gun is fake, squeezes the trigger, and kills someone. They can't now understand the weight of the situation. Go okay, I want I want a do over. I want that bullet back in the gun, and that person alive. Can't you would live with that forever. That action is a one time action that will go on forever. If

you kill someone done, that action is forever. Well, imagine rejecting God and now you've you've made the choice to reject God for the sixty seventy eighty ninety one hundred measlely years you're on this planet. God won't force you to love him for eternity, which is all eternity is and heaven is. So he says, I'll let you go

somewhere where I'm not and you can be there. They will realize the weight of it in its fullness, but they've made the choice based on everything they could know, the same choice everyone else did, and the weight of the decision often is looked at as well, Gosh, it seems so, it seems so, you know, like so heavy, But so is heaven. Heaven is not, you know, not something that a person should be able to receive any

more than Hell is. But it's done based on justice, you know that, because certain things that you do, depending on who you do them, have different consequences. So Susan, for instance, if you were to hit a brother or sister, that would be wrong. You slap them in the face. That'd be wrong, but you're you know, parents might break it up and say, okay, well they're young, they're just

being silly. If you were to slap your parent, same act, different consequence, right, Okay, Now now you take that, Oh yeah, I remember, that'd be a big consequence. Now you take that and you do the same act and you slap law enforcement, same act, different consequence. Right now you're looking at possible jail time, same act, total different consequence. Now, the same act that you did to your brother or sister that might have just been broken up by mom and dad, and then you hit your mom and that

becomes something different. Now you're punished by your dad or vice versa, and then law enforcement comes in you slap them. Now there's possible jail time. So what we've learned is that the same act done upon different people can have different consequences. So now think about slapping the face and rejecting the Holy and righteous, true, eternal God. The punishment, by definition susan has to be eternal. And so although it doesn't seem fair, really, the more you look at it,

the more fair it is. And I never hear people saying, gosh, it's so unfair that I get to go to heaven because I believe no, And that's equally as unfair, but it's based on justice. And the justice in this case is that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and let him come and die, that whoever would believe in him would have that price paid for and have everlasting life. And those that reject that God loves them enough to say, okay, I will

allow you to reject that. Imagine if you had a child who didn't want to live with you, didn't want to be with you, and it's freezing outside and there's no food and there's no warmth, and you love them and you're trying to you're trying to get them, but you can't force them because that's no longer love. So you let them go and they die outside. It's like they That's what hell is. It's it's the ultimate act of freedom on behalf of a human being that abolishes

all freedom. It just is someone who says, I don't want it, I'm sorry, don't care, don't want it, don't love God here, won't don't want to love him for eternity, and he says, okay, not my will be done, but I will apparently.

it's not. There's still that's there. You're still getting water out of the fruit punch. You know, there's still You're still getting bits of God and the benefit of God looking over this place. Even when things are horrible because of choice as man has made, uh it, you know, you're still getting those things there. And people forget that and don't get it until it's all gone. And in that absence that reality will be purer than ever. However, there is enough of it there for people to make

the whole decision, just like picking up that gun. Well, it might be fake, yeah, but it might not. It has the weight, it has the shape, it has.

cause death. So you can't undo the decision. You have all the information you need to make the proper decision. It's not about ignorance. People don't go to hell because oh I didn't know, I didn't hear about this. Jesus, that sounds like a good, good deal that everybody will get the same opportunity to accept or reject and basically say, I rather go through door A or through the door B. It's not just God doing some checklist because somebody annoys him.

And that's what some of these preachers try and convey is that it's just God's mighty party list, and you have to be on this exclusive list to get in, and in that sense it makes it look ugly. But no, the door opens and locks on the side of the person, not on the side of God, and the individual chooses where they want to go.

bodies and our souls back together. And I'm curious as to how that will occur if people are burning their bodies and disposing of their ashes in all unlikely places.

that process. And if you think for one second God's going to come back in all his glory and then go, oh, my goodness, I gotta put Okay, let's see the hip bone connected to the thigh bone and thigh bone. No, you're gonna be fine from ashes. You came from ashes. You return and God can bring you back from any state. There's not a technicality where God's going, well, Gosh, I can raise people from the dead, but not in this state. That's a mess. That's just not the case. There's nothing wrong.

Now our Jewish brothers and sisters feel differently about cremation, but in the state of your Christianity and what you believe, uh, cremation can just be a financial concern. It's cheaper, it's easier, and as a matter of fact, more and more people are doing it. But there's nothing in Scripture that would have a problem with that, and certainly nothing as far as the mechanical process, because you're dealing with something miraculous to begin with. You know, isn't it interesting that as

a human being you are concerned about the mechanic. Here's God raising people from the dead, but all of that is clay to begin with. It even refers to as that jar of clay throughout scripture, that concept that really the body is just like this vessel and that holds the important stuff. Bodies never important in except that it is the vessel that moves you from point A to point B, and to respect it.