Address—M. Persona
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Laundry.
No, no, no, right inside the sun.
On the ground.
And.
Now.
Well, as a professional speaker, this is my profession. I am used to talk to sometimes 2000 people, but nothing gets me nervous like talking about the things of the Lord.
Serial things.
And everlasting things.
And I'm going to try to speak something here. I hope you understand my my Brazilian English. I will pretend I speak English. You pretend you can understand me. So I think we will go along together. And I was thinking about when I was converted. I was that was 1978. I was in college. And then I met a guy there, another student, a fellow student.
And he, he was.
He kind of attracted me to talk to him. I was involved with Mr. Salesman, the saving the world ecology and all those things. And the he put a sign on the the board on the on the ecology and it said if you are interested in the Indians in the Amazon forest, come talk to me. I said, wow, I was interested in the Indians in the Amazon forest. So I went to talk to him.
00:05:20
Well, that was those. I think you have United States those papers that the fly comes and.
Dies there and that was one of those papers. So I I went to talk to him and said, Oh yes, the forest, the Amazon Indians is because I know some missionaries who are preaching the gospel there and do you know the gospel?
So that day I started learning what the gospel was, and I was far away from Christ, far away from the gospel. My, my, my book, my book. Next to my bed was the Bhagavad Gita.
Thing from from India and I thought that was crazy gospel. This is for old people and but the Lord started working in my heart and one day I got saved.
I trust the Lord and then twelve students got saved through the ministry of this this student, he was a very good evangelist, not much that kind of preaching, but the kind of sitting and talking to you in a very close way, very intimate way and bring you to Christ.
And.
After after we had some, I think school was out or something like that, I lost contact with him. And then I said he didn't say anything about churches or religions. He just preached Christ to me. And I said, well now I'm a Christian. I thought I'm a Christian, where should I go? So I went back to the Catholic Church where I came from.
Brazilians are mostly Catholic, where by that time now things have changed. But I went to the Catholic Church and I stayed there for one year.
Helping the priest, the mass, studying the Bible, reading the Bible, sure that I was saved by faith in the Lord Jesus. So sometimes if you find a Catholic who says he is saved you, you, you may believe I was for one year saved. And but then of course looking Bible and studying Catholic doctrine, I found things were not matching, so I left the Catholic Church.
The Catholic, the Catholicism, it's a very visual religion. If you want to see Christ, they show you oh, there is he's on that cross. Can you see that cross? No, but I don't want to see okay, we have one that's not on the cross and they have an image, image statue of Christ and then on the Holy Friday, I think they they have one in a coffin, dead one and then.
They have a reason, one that they walked in the streets of the cities in Brazil. So you have everything is visual, you can see, you can see what you believe.
But there was something different in the faith I got from that the gospel this, this this friend preaches to me. He gave me a magazine and it was an English. He thought I could speak English and read English. So he gave me a magazine, an American magazine, a Christian magazine with articles about about the gospel. And what what caused my attention was the the last cover, the back cover of the the magazine.
It was a painting by an artist with a tone you say Tom, yes, where Christ was buried, tum tum tum and there were some trees, a very beautiful painting. And 1/3 of the painting was the tomb and then the sky and clouds and.
Christ, he lives was were the words He lives I. I was so impressed by that empty phone.
That I took out that page and took some place. They framed it for me and I put on the wall in my bedroom. Every day when I wake up, I saw he leaves, it's empty. He lives. And that made impression, especially in those days. You see, in 1978, we were still believing much in science and science by that time said that.
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Man cannot.
Rise again. If he dies, he's dead.
Cannot.
Raised from the tone, and that was something that science was teaching. That was. But the Bible was saying something different. Of course, many things changed from them.
So now if you ask a science, if a man, a dead man can live again, he will say, well, maybe we are discovering this and that and this and that. We are we are putting people in the refrigerator to keep them. OK, so one day we will take them out and put in the microwave and they they will leave again. So they science now say it's possible. They they try to make it possible. But by then all the science. But I just put Even so today people.
It's funny that in that time to talk about spiritual things was something people did not accept much, especially those who were in universities and they would not accept it. Today is the opposite. You must have some spiritual talking to be popular. You know, even kids today, they they are reading vampire, vampire, vampire books and all those magician Harry Potter, things like that.
So everything is magic. Everything. Everything is spiritual. There is a world of.
Beings living out there and interfering in this world and so on. So it got even harder to talk about resurrection in these days.
Because people is just indifferent to resurrection. They were not back there. They would, they would oppose it. Said no, it's impossible. Yeah, it might be. Do you feel OK? Do you feel good believing that it's good for you? OK. I believe different. It's good for me, OK. It's very the times we leave now, unless you go to places like India.
Places like there the Arabian countries, where there is opposition against the the gospel, here in the Western world there is in the indifference.
You cannot. It's hard to buy a fight with somebody. When you talk about the gospel, people are just OK, OK, let's be polite. Let's respect each other.
But anyway.
It's the same message that the Gospel tells today.
Resurrection, Of course, the resurrection is something that comes from a long way in the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. He came to this world. He was born in a very unusual, unusual way, being born of a virgin.
He did not receive the nature we did. He did not have seen himself, so he came as a different kind of man. Another thing is that he was not just born, he came in flesh. What is what makes everything different? Because we were born, we were created, we were conceived and then we were born and we did not exist before.
But if you go to 1St, I think first John says the one who came in flesh.
It came because he existed before. He was there, always his God. He's the Son of God, the eternal Son of God. He was there, always there. And then he comes to this world, the Son of God, and he walks here as the perfect man, no sin at all, the perfect man.
And he is rejected by his creatures, creatures, the people he created. And he goes to the cross. Of course we know the story. And there he pays for something he did not do.
He pays for our sins, He pays for our debts, He pays for our crimes, He pays for everything.
And when you are a criminal, what happens to you? You do something against the law and you go to jail and the judge comes to you and say, OK, you're going to, you're going to get 10 years in jail and you go to jail 10 years later. If everything went all right, OK, you walk out the the jail.
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The bars cannot hold you anymore.
The law cannot keep you in jail anymore because you, you didn't, you paid your penalty. You paid your, the what you all do to society, to the law and everything. So you can walk out free and no one can come to you and say, hey, you, what are you? What are you doing here outside of jail? You should be there. No, see, I paid. Yes, I am a free man now. I owe nothing. I paid everything.
This is resurrection.
This is resurrection that could not hold the Lord Jesus and death in death in the jail could not hold him because he paid. He paid them and God accepted that payment so he said OK out.
And then God took him out.
Took him up and because he paid.
There would be no salvation, there would be no hope, there would be nothing for us without resurrection. Of course we know the word Christ accompanied on the cross is bloodshed, it dying, Him dying for us there. But it would be all, it would be lost if He did not.
Come out from death if you did not come out from death.
Usually when we preach the gospel, we tell people that the sin that was our great, great problem begun back there with Adam and Eve and and the people usually argue that, oh, I was not there.
What I have to do with that?
If I were there, I would not do that. I would obey. No, you would not. I I would not. We read the Bible, we read Genesis. So This is why we say I would do different. But Adam and Eve didn't read the Genesis. They they were there and they disobeyed.
Another argument I usually talk with lots of people on the Internet. Another argument is why didn't God just tell them exactly what would happen?
Because God told them if you eat of that tree.
You will die.
Why didn't God show them?
Everything that would happen movie or something and see this is this will be the world, how the world will will look like if you disobey and so and so on and so on. Because if they knew everything detailed by detail would not be obedience. That would be just knowledge. That would be understanding. Because obedience depends on faith and faith and faith is something we don't see.
If I tell my little kids, don't do that. Don't put your hand in the that thing that it's hot.
Lucas I remember this. It happened. It's a real story. And then the little kid goes in.
You can hear.
And then the cry, you know, obedience is just accepting, OK, That said, I cannot, I should not put my hand there, so I should not. But then you go, you want experience, you want knowledge, you want to see if that's true. And that's not faith, that's not obedience.
So I came from a religion that was much based on seeing things.
Took the Christian faith that is nothing about sin, nothing at all we don't see Jesus with his eyes. We don't feel, we don't nothing. We just believe we just stress what the word of God says to us and.
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Many people get it wrong. You know when we when we talk about.
The Lord Jesus gospel and everything. I was in the plane coming here flying from Brazil last week Wednesday, and there was a young man sitting by my side. And we we start talking, He's American. He was coming back to United States and he, he, he said he was a Christian. I said, wow, that's, that's great. That's good. I'm a Christian too. So you, you know where you're going to if this plane crashed. He said, yeah, yeah, sure. I know I go to heaven.
Wow, that's great. And why do you go to heaven?
Because I'm a good person.
Because I try to help others.
OK. And then I started from zero.
Talking to him, he goes to a church here in the United States, a Christian Church.
And he had never heard the gospel. It was something brand new to him.
That he there is nothing he could do to go to heaven. There was nothing, nothing that could be done because everything was done before. I remember a story about a man during the the Reformation.
Lutero and those, those guys, this, this man was a very rich man, wealth man, and he was looking for salvation, for peace. And he traveled all over Europe. Do you know how I can have, I can be sure what I have to do to be sure to be saved. And then he knocked on the door of some somebody who was from the the reformers. And this guy said he asked him, do you know people? They are telling me, you know what I have to do.
He said too late. There's nothing you can do.
Oh, please don't say that. Yeah, it's too late. You arrived too late. You got here 1500 years late because everything was done. And this is what we trust. This is what we have assurance of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ that that includes resurrection otherwise would be no hope for us includes resurrection now.
Even in the Christian world, like the United States, Brazil, people are still thinking that.
Salvation comes through imitating Christ, being as good as Christ was when he walked on this world. But I tell you that the life Christ's life in this world.
Is the worst thing we could have as an example for us to be saved. Why that? Because if we try to imitate him, the first thing we have to imitate is this. He had no sin.
How could we? So if someone tries to imitate Jesus life here and he understand who he really was, he will get frustrated because it's impossible. This is why God provide him as a sacrifice for us. So everything could be done in him and by him and through him. And now you can imagine in those days of the.
The Gospels, those disciples walking with the Lord Jesus and he, He was always telling them.
I will die, but I will rise again. I will die and I will rise again. I will die and I will rise again. We find this many times in the Gospels. Didn't they understand? No, not at all.
So when he died, they got frustrated. You see those two disciples in the.
The road to emeralds.
They're said if we bring it to our days, we can understand better. Imagine it, you have elections next year in the United States, right? Imagine you are one of the, the guys who help the president, the, the present to be. There's a candidate and you, you, you now you have your life, your time, your family, everything working towards this candidate because he will save America. He is one of the the one who will.
Get rid of all problems and we have jobs for everyone and money and everything. So you work, you work hard, you follow him, you go to the speeches, you, you give, give out all those those tracks is about this candidate and everything. And one day someone comes to him and said, hey, he died. Who died? Our candidate died.
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No present, no president anymore.
Can you imagine how would you feel? Well, but I sacrificed my family, my job, everything to follow him and to to go because I thought I was going to be his secretary or something in his in his government. Now go back with the the taping. We are now in the the 2000 years ago, I thought he would be the king. We thought he would be the king who would save Israel from our enemies.
Who would take our enemies out from Israel?
That was the frustration, because he did. They didn't understand that.
Nothing would be complete without resurrection. Resurrection is the the golden key that.
Closes all the the word of Christ resurrection without resurrection. That would be no hope. We are going to we are going to read something in Acts.
Chapter 17.
Verse 30.
Acts 17, verse 30.
Here we see the Apostle Paul preaching to the Greeks.
The Greeks were the finest people in those times. Those the culture, the best culture, whether the Romans were the the power, the military power, but the but Greeks, they were the the culture people who really knew things.
Greeks were the New Yorkers, if you like, was the everything came from there and.
Here we see that him preaching to the Greeks and the times of this ignorance, God winked that, but now commanded, commanded all men everywhere to repent, because He had a point the day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained, whereas He hath given assurance and all men in that He had raised him from dead.
From the dead.
Paul tells them that they will be judged.
By Jesus himself, that man.
The same man who was crucified, who was rejecting this world, he will come back again and he will judge.
He will not be a nice person, not like people think. You know, if you go to any spiritualist guy and say, what do you think about Jesus? Is he coming again? Oh yes, he will come and he will bring peace to the world, flowers and everything. No, this is not the way He will come to judge this world. And the worst thing we would would want to be to want to be was would be in that that place of judgment.
Because he will come and he will judge and no one would like because we see it today. People are there in, in, in Wall Street.
Pledging for just justice, righteousness, better government and everything. Everything.
Of course we always want this kind of kinds of things, but what about if we ask for God's justice?
Could we say, Oh God, bring justice to this world?
Would you? Would we want that? Because a world with justice, a world where everything is according to the will of God, is a world we are not prepared to live in.
You are working.
Your boss. The telephone rings. Your boss tell you. Hey, tell I am not here.
That's a light if we were living in a just world.
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You would die right on the spot because this is justice. If you lie, you have to pay the penalty. If you do anything, you have to pay it with your life. This will be the the 1000 years Kingdom of Christ. Every day there will be judgment. You will wake up in the morning. If you were there, if you were one of those who were going to live in the Millennium on the earth, you would wake up in the morning and you will see a body.
Because somebody died, somebody was killed by the judgment. That is justice. And we will, we will not stand in this, in this way. We are now a ritual's world. We could not if God just intervened now, but Christ will do. And he says he tells the Greeks here, Paul tells the Greeks.
Give them assurance and all men.
In that he had raised him from the dead to do what? To come and judge this world. Here he says something that.
All men.
Given assurance unto all men.
Did the old man see the Lord Jesus reason?
No.
No, he acts the same book of acts. We go back to chapter 10, verse 39.
X10 verse 39 And we fall here. I think it's Paul, Peter. I don't know Peter. Peter is saying, and we are witnesses of all things, which he did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they slew and hanged on a tree. Him God raised up the third day and showed him.
Openly.
Not to all the people, but into witnesses chosen before of God.
Even to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.
Wait a minute.
In Acts 817, says.
He had given assurance unto all men. And here it says.
We are witnesses, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God. How is that?
Not everybody saw the Lord Jesus reason alive again, from the dead, from the dead. Not everybody. But was not that unfair?
Should not God show everyone? See here he is.
Him, I raised him from the dead would not be a better way, a fair way to do it.
Well, when when Peter says witnesses, witnesses, this is the way God has chosen witnesses.
To give it testimony and this is not strange.
Even for anyone. I give you an example if you are an investor.
You are an investor in the stock market.
You go to the Internet, you open the your browser and then you see the stocks you you bought. They are, they're going up. You say wow time sell and then you sell or they are going down. Oh, time to settle and sell or something like that. I don't understand much of this. I'm not the stock market.
But I ask you, have you ever seen I stock go up?
Have you ever seen how it does? It jumps or it floats. Nobody has seen a stock going up. We believe the testimony of the journalist.
Who says that he has access to some numbers very complicated numbers in the stock market and he translates that those numbers and tell you a time to sell or time to buy because they're up they're down and what you do you sell and buy you you put millions on his word because he just is a testing test witnesses that's all that's it. This is how.
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Things work in this world. We don't see things have men went to the moon? Did you see? Did you go with them? Did you, did you look there? No, we, we saw in the newspapers on TV or a movie or something. And we, we believe they told us and everything. And this is what God required there, back there, only them.
Obedience by faith and faith is something that you don't see, and this is what God requires now.
About the Lord Jesus resurrected faith we trust he is risen and because his reason we have hope we we are we have life and eternal life. We have a place in heaven to be with him and that will be very soon that will be very soon witnesses. This is what God God uses, but let's read something else in Acts.
Chapter One.
To explore a little bit more of this.
X Chapter one verse one.
The former treaties have I made all theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up after that.
After that hit through, the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the Apostles whom He had chosen, to whom also He showed himself alive after his passion, by many infallible proofs, being seen of them 40 days.
And Speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.
During 40 days, the Lord walked in this world with his disciples, teaching them, showing them things that telling them things that they never heard before.
40 days. And not one, not just one, many of them if we go to 1St Corinthians chapter 15.
First Corinthians, chapter 15.
Verse one.
Moreover, Brennan, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand, by which also are saved, if you keep in memory what I preach them to you, unless you have believed in vain, for I deliver them to you first of all, that we that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures.
And that he was buried, And that he rose again the third day according to Scriptures. And that he was seen on Cephas. Then of the 12 after that was seen of above 500 brethren at at once, of whom the greater partner remain, and to the present, but some are fallen as asleep. After that he was seen of James, then of all the apostles.
500 at once. You could not fake that.
You cannot just invent that. You cannot say, oh, that's come here 500 brethren.
Let's do a deal here. We are going to tell the world that he is risen. OK, let's do this. You cannot do that. You cannot do that. No one could do. Perhaps two person, two or three person combining, something like that. But 500, No, no, impossible. And they were alive.
And some of them could say, hey Paul, I am, I didn't see it. You are wrong.
They were alive. They could have just said the opposite here, but they didn't because he really was out of the grave. He really was reason. He really appeared to those disciples, all those, all those people. And one of the greatest proofs that the resurrection is a true fact and we believe in facts. Facts is brought by to us by testimony, by by witnesses.
Like we believe. In fact, when we read the newspaper the guy wrote there, he saw it and tells us.
One of the greatest proofs is that the first person.
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Who met the Lord Jesus after he came out from the grave was a woman.
Why is that? I'm saying this is a proof because there would be no sense, especially in those days, if they would made-up this story to have a woman as witnesses.
Why? Because men were chosen never woman in those days.
They would. They would, perhaps.
Take Joseph and Nicodemus, OK, these are very respectful and let's let's put him down here in the story so people will believe it. No, it's a woman. This is true. It's a woman. It's a it's a real fact. It happened like that. So God would not change it and the disciples would not change it. And if you go to John chapter.
9.
We see a kind of chain of testimonies. John Chapter 9, verse 34.
Chapter 19.
Chapter 19. Verse 34.
But one of the soldiers with a pierced his side.
And forthwith came their out blood and water.
And he that saw it bear record.
And his record is true and he knoweth that, he said.
That he said. True. That you might believe.
There were people who were sure he died.
He really died and when we go to Chapter 21.
Verse 24.
This is the disciple which intensified of these things and wrote these things. And we know that his testimony is true. Another testimony. We have witnesses that he died. We have witnesses that his reason again. And then we go to the the place where this woman meets him.
In John Chapter V, Chapter 20.
A mixed report is here.
Is this the end of my time?
I think I have more damage or 15 minutes, yes.
OK.
John chapter 20, verse 2.
Here we see Mary Magdalene going early in the to the chapter verse two, chapter 20, verse 2. Then she ran it, and cometh to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they had laid him.
See, he told them he would.
Come back from.
Why this woman doesn't say, hey, it happened, what he told us would happen, it just happened, no.
The first thought is somebody took the body. This is man, this is.
Rational man we, we, we listen to the word of God again and again and again, and when we try to understand with our our mind, we think they stole the, the the body. Peter then goes and and runs to the the place and.
And then John goes with him and they found it empty. The sepulchre was empty. And now there there's something here that's important to say. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus is not like the resurrection of any people that was.
Were those who were dead in the gospels and were brought again to life like Lazarus. Lazarus was brought again to life, but he died again.
They had to be buried again because he died again. That was just a cure for his disease and he went back to death.
00:45:10
That that kind of restriction wouldn't do for us.
It's very.
Different because Lazarus came out from the grave. We don't know how because he was all tied up. You know, they, they used to make it like.
Those Egyptians, mummy, yeah. And the the Lord said help help him help him to untie him or something like that. But the Lord when they got to the the place where he was buried, all the the.
The clothes were there.
And the stone was taken away and he came out, he came out. No one went there to help him. This is the the resurrection that is real resurrection, the one that will happen to us, to those who believe in the Lord Jesus, because what, what good would would do for you if you were in your.
Casting coughing, casket, casket. And then you came back to life.
Would you be happy? No, not at all. How will you get get out? No way. But this risk reaction is about a body that is perfect. A body that that is different is not a spirit. And I have to say this because we are much influenced by Eastern religions. Eastern thoughts.
That think that life is good when you get rid of the material world.
This is what teach the Buddhism and even the Greeks. The philosophers thought that no, when God created the material world, he said it's good.
The problem is that this was spoiled by sin. Everything was destroyed by sin, was contaminated by sin, but he created and he said it's good. And when the Lord comes out from the grave, he, he, he has a body now. It's not he. He tells his disciples, hey, touch me, see, I am not a ghost. I can eat. And he eats in front of them.
But at the same time, he would appear in the midst of his disciples inside a room with windows and doors locked. How could He do that? We don't know, but he he could. He could. It's a different kind of matter.
Is a heavenly kind of matter, some spiritual body when the Bible tells that in Corinthians different, but he tells us see in looking in looking he tells his disciple see.
I have flesh and bones.
I wrote about this in my blog.
And many Christians wrote back and said, oh, this is a heresy. How can you say Christ has flesh if the Bible says flesh is bad? Something like that. They believe in the resurrection. That is just senatorial body floating around like a ghost. No, there's a man in glory right now, a man made of flesh and bones in glory in heaven.
The first one and we will be like him there we will be the gospel stands by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus all it falls down. If you take it out take out take out the resurrection you fall it falls down but when when beautiful things I would like just to not see here and then we can we can conclude.
Is.
Inverse chapter 20.
Verse eight when John arrives.
At the Sipuc then went in, John went in also other disciple. This is John. Which came first. John outran Peter, perhaps he was younger and faster, but he didn't go in. Peter went in, he didn't go in, he stayed outside just looking. But then he goes in and this is what he says, and he saw and believe it.
00:50:08
I think this verse is wonderful. He saw somewhat.
Nothing.
John saw nothing.
He could tell Peter a Peter. Did you see? What did you see, John? I saw nothing.
That's that's right. He saw nothing and he believed it. And this is the faith we have now. We didn't see Jesus. He saw them him alive. He saw him walking around. He saw him. They saw him dying. And John believes in what he doesn't see.
The empty grave, the empty tomb, the empty book that was.
Evidence enough for him. Of course. Later he would see the Lord Jesus walking with them for 40 days.
But he believed before that, and this is precious for us because he was the first one of these these people we are now in.
Those who do not see, and Even so believe.
This is what the Lord tells.
Thomas and John in the same the same chapter John 20 verse 29 when he appears to.
He appears to his disciples.
And Thomas is there and he got surprised in verse 26. And after eight days, again his disciples were everything, and Thomas with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said this be unto you. Then said he to Thomas, Reach, hit her thy finger. And behold my hands, and reach hit her, hit her, hit her.
Thy hand, and trust it into my side, and be not faithless, but believing.
And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God, Jesus said unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. We are blessed. The Lord is telling this to us. We are blessed. We are blessed as blessed as John who has not seen and believed. We are blessed for not seeing.
And Even so, believing, we can now live a life of faith.
Because we believed in everything. We never saw. We never saw, but we believe.
God gave us faith to believe. We can see, of course, with our eyes of faith. And there is a new Hebrews in Hebrews, a verse that says.
Umm, chapter.
I think it's chapter 2.
Or chapter one.
I missed it. My Bible can find.
Now we see him.
I.
29029 OK. Thank you.
I was in the wrong book 29.
But we see Jesus.
Was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, grounded with glory and honor.
That he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man. See, we, we, we now can see more than John did.
John saw an empty tomb and that's all. We see Jesus now.
Crowned with glory and honor.
This is the one we believe in, in whom we believe. This is one we are waiting for at any moment to be taken from this world, to be with him. And I tell you.
This is faith, this is the real Christian faith, and this is what keeps us until the day he comes. We can pray.