Pathway to Victory

Speaker 1

Hey podcast listeners, thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's Word through the most effective media available, like this podcast.

To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes.

Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Hi, this is Robert Jeffress and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day. This Bible teaching program on today's edition.

Speaker 3

Of Pathway to Victory.

Doesn't it give you comfort to know you have a friend? A friend who knows your future because he planned your future.

Jesus is that friend who will neither leave you nor forsake you.

Don't wait to the future to make Jesus your friend. Make him your friend today.

Speaker 1

Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. Have you ever longed for a best friend? You know, someone who truly understands you and supports you through life's ups and downs?

The Bible reveals that we have access to the most faithful friend imaginable, Jesus Christ Himself. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress shares why Jesus wants an intimate relationship with you that will last for all eternity.

Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.

Speaker 2

Dr. Jeffress thanks David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. When planning your vacation, we know you have endless choices. But vacations that are reinforced with Christian entertainment and fellowship, those are rare. For example, anyone can book a trip to the Mediterranean, but nothing can compare to the one we're planning for you. It's the perfect blend of luxury travel to the Greek Isles combined with family-friendly entertainment.

So while there's still space available, stop by our website at ptv.org to book your spot on the Pathway to Victory Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise. The dates are May 5th through 16th. You'll be impressed by the first-class accommodations, the talented musicians we're bringing along, and of course, the expansive itinerary. All the details are at ptv.org.

Now let's give our attention to our final message in the teaching series called Jesus Revealed in the End Times and the companion book I've written for you. You often hear me say that Bible prophecy was not written by God to satisfy our curiosity, right? And that's because God's plan is much grander than that. You see, Bible prophecy is all about the return and reign of our beloved Savior, Jesus Christ. It's the unveiling of King Jesus in all his glory.

I'm going to send you a hardbound copy of Jesus Revealed in the End Times when you specifically request it and when you include a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. But please do that now because this time-limited offer ends this week.

Now it's time to turn our attention to God's Word and the final message in my teaching series. So let's get started. I titled today's message Jesus Our Friend.

Speaker 3

Two boys, Lee Wilcox and Bobby Rohrbach, met while riding their bikes in 1962. Both boys grew up in working-class, churchgoing homes. They spent their Saturday mornings watching cartoons together and leaned on one another during those awkward teen years. Neither of them liked school that much, so they spent their time cruising local root beer stands and going to drive-in movies. After high school, they had planned to travel around the country by car, but Bobby was drafted, and Lou got married. While Bobby was stationed in Germany, the two men sent reel-to-reel tapes—remember those?—to one another, jabbering away about what was happening in their lives. In time, both men ended up becoming police officers. They talked about their cases together in order to release the tension of their jobs. At one point, they both had open-heart surgery and boasted about their matching scars. Now they're in their 70s, and they still remain best friends.

The Wall Street Journal recently profiled these men not for anything spectacular they had accomplished, but because they are a rarity—people who remained friends throughout the decades. Do you realize that 4 out of 10 Americans say they do not have a best friend? In fact, the reason is probably obvious. Sociologists tell us it takes spending at least 300 hours with a person to develop a close relationship with them. Would you like to have a best friend? Somebody who accepts you just as you are? Somebody who answers and responds to your phone calls and your texts? Somebody who's there to encourage you during the difficult times? Well, we have such a best friend, though few of us really know it. He's a friend. Proverbs 18:24 says, "who sticks closer than a brother?" His name is Jesus, and throughout eternity, we will have the distinct pleasure of knowing him forever and ever as our eternal friend.

You know, some people are uncomfortable with the idea of Jesus as their friend. They don't understand how Jesus can be our exalted king and our truest friend. One writer expresses it this way: he said, "I've often heard the statement, Jesus is not our friend, he's our king." But the truth is, we don't have to choose because both are true. Jesus is our exalted King, and He is our truest friend. In fact, that doesn't minimize his glory; it magnifies it because it displays the immeasurable riches of God's grace. Remember, in our study of Ephesians, Ephesians 1, verses 5 and 6, God predestined us to the adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed upon us in the Beloved.

The fact that Jesus wants to be our truest friend doesn't exalt us. It's not what's so great about us that Jesus wants to be our friend; it is what is so great about God that He would want to be friends with us. It's all because of grace. Jesus loves being known as our friend. In fact, we see that in both the Old and New Testaments. We see that in the beginning with Adam and then with Eve. Genesis 3:8 says that the Lord came down every day in the cool of the day to visit with Adam and Eve. That's how we know the Garden of Eden wasn't in Dallas; there was actually a time when it was cool in the day, and the Lord would come down and visit. Now, who is it that came down and visited with Adam and Eve? Was it God the Father? No. God is an invisible spirit (1 Timothy 1:17). Nobody has seen God. No, it was Jesus, God in the flesh, who came down to visit with Adam and Eve. We call this a theophany, a pre-New Testament appearance of Christ on earth.

Think about Abraham. The Bible says three times Abraham was known as what? The friend of God. Think about Moses. In Exodus 33:11, it says the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. When God spoke to Moses, was it the booming voice on Mount Sinai proclaiming the Ten Commandments? Was that it? No. Moses met with him face to face. That was the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus was also the friend of those in the New Testament. You find that name "friend" used throughout Scripture. For example, think about that paralyzed man. Remember the story in Luke 5? Jesus was teaching in a house that was filled to the rafters. In the middle of his sermon, there was a disruption. People looked up and noticed the ceiling was being peeled apart. Some men on top of the roof had a friend who was paralyzed, and they lowered him down to be in front of Jesus. When Jesus saw him, what did he say? "Friend, your sins are forgiven."

Or think about his relationship with John the Baptist and Lazarus. John the Baptist, Jesus called him in John 3:29, a friend of the bridegroom. What does that mean? Well, the picture of the church is of the bridegroom, Jesus, and the bride, the church, coming together. The Bible says when Christ comes back again, at the very beginning of the millennium, the thousand-year reign of Christ, there's going to be a great party, a banquet, the wedding supper of the Lamb described in Revelation 19. It will celebrate the union of the groom, Jesus, and his bride, the church. The Bible says Jesus said John is going to be the friend, the best man, if you will, of the bridegroom. I think it's John the Baptist who is going to preside over the wedding supper of the Lamb. Not only that, he referred to Lazarus, who was dead, as his friend. Remember in John 11:11, Jesus said, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep." When somebody dies, it's their body that falls asleep; it's not their soul. Their soul goes on forever and ever in heaven or hell. But "our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. But I go that I may awaken him out of sleep." His disciples were known as his friends. In John 15:13 and 14, Jesus said, "Greater love has no man than this, that he laid down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you."

And here's something that will blow your mind: even Judas Iscariot was known as a friend of Jesus. Remember, it was Judas who betrayed Jesus for the 30 pieces of silver. In the garden of Gethsemane, it was Judas who led the Roman soldiers there to arrest Jesus. When Jesus saw Judas, what did he say? "Friend, come and do what you have come to do." You see Jesus in that friendship relationship after his resurrection. Remember the story in Luke 24? Two of Jesus' followers were walking back to their home from Jerusalem to Emmaus. It was the afternoon, Sunday afternoon after the resurrection. These two followers of Jesus were talking about everything that had happened in the last three days. Jesus appears to them in human form in his resurrected body. They were prevented from recognizing him immediately. Jesus said, now this is a loose translation of the Greek, "What is the hubbub all about? What are you all talking about?" These two men looked at Jesus and said, "Are you the only one in Jerusalem who is unaware of what's gone on these last three days? About how this Jesus was thought to be the Messiah, was arrested, tried, and crucified? He was buried, and now they're saying he's been raised from the dead. Have you not heard about that?" The Bible says at that point Jesus began speaking to them and showing them how from Moses in the Old Testament through now, all the prophets showed why these things must happen.

When they got close to Emmaus, it was about a 7-mile walk from Jerusalem. When they got close to there, Jesus acted like he was going to leave them. They begged him, "Oh please don't leave us, we love talking to you, come and have dinner with us." So Jesus came and fellowshiped with them and encouraged them. Jesus maintained a relationship with his followers after the resurrection. I think that story is significant not only because it happened, but it also portrays the kind of friendship Jesus wants to have with us. First of all, an enduring friendship. We're going to have a relationship with Jesus that can begin right now and never be interrupted throughout eternity. I want you to jot down 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. Now these are verses we usually use to talk about the rapture. You know, where do you come up with the rapture? That's just a man-made term, people say. No, it's found in the Bible. The key verse is 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17: "For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, and then we who are alive and remain shall be raptured (harpazo, caught up, snatched away) to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord."

But what I want you to notice is something I didn't see till this week about that last sentence. Notice how Paul closes that verse. He doesn't say, "and thus we shall never be sick again," though that's true; there'll be no sickness in our new bodies. He doesn't say, "and thus we shall never die again," though that's true as well. Nor does he say, "thus we shall be with our loved ones forever." That's true for our family and friends who know Christ. But he says, "and thus we shall always be with the Lord." That is the enduring friendship he offers us. We shall be with the Lord, and the kind of fellowship we're going to have with God, the kind of friendship, is also an intimate friendship. Paul said in Philippians 3, "My one desire is that I may know Christ Jesus," not just about Christ Jesus, but that I might know him and the power of his resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 13:12, Paul said, "We shall finally see face to face and know fully, just as we have been fully known." There's a great verse in Revelation, actually two verses, Revelation 22:3-4: "There will no longer be any curse, and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be on it, and his bondservants shall serve him, and they will see his face and his name will be upon their foreheads." Don't we long for that? The time that we're going to see Jesus face to face.

By the way, you don't have to wait until you die to enjoy friendship with God. It can begin right now. Jot down these two truths about that friendship with God. First of all, we are made to be friends with God. There's a God-shaped vacuum in every heart. We are made to be friends with God. Secondly, not only are we made to be friends with God, but Jesus wants to be our friend. A writer from yesteryear said it this way: "Many believers adore Christ as God. They feed on him in communion. They cleanse themselves in his precious blood. They look to the time that they will see him as their God. Yet of that intimate knowledge of and companionship with Christ, they have experienced little or nothing. Jesus Christ first and foremost desires our friendship."

Now get this: the consciousness of this friendship with Jesus is the very secret of the saints. You look at great men and women in the past of faith; they all had this in common. They were conscious, aware of a friendship, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. One of my heroes of the faith was the late, great evangelist Dwight Lyman Moody, D.L. Moody. At his funeral service in 1899, this friend gave this testimony of Moody. He said, "D.L. Moody walked with God and so did not have to turn out of his way to speak to God. I had been driving with him on some deserted road. We would be talking together when suddenly he would pause for a moment and speak to God just as naturally as he would speak to his friend." Shouldn't that be the way it is for all of us?

You may not know the name Joseph Scriven. He grew up in Ireland, suffered a tragedy, and out of that tragedy, he fled to Canada. He began to concentrate on his relationship with God. He demonstrated that relationship by doing good things for other people, chopping firewood for widows. While in Canada, he received word that his mother was desperately ill and close to dying. He couldn't afford a ticket to go back to Ireland, so he wrote her a poem. Little did he know that that poem would bring comfort to millions of Christians in ages to come. Joseph Scriven wrote these words: "What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer." Jesus wants to be that friend.

Now here is a simple truth, if you don't remember anything else: a simple truth for the chaotic world in which we live. Now is the time to know Jesus as your friend, not the future. The time to make Jesus your friend is not in the future; it is now. Why? Because the future has a way of becoming now quicker than we ever can imagine. The time to make Jesus your friend is not the future; it is now. You know the downside sometimes of preaching a series like I've brought to you, "Jesus Revealed in the End Times." The downside is we think of the end times, the rapture, the millennium, the Second Coming, as things that are way, way away. They're the future. We put them out of our mind because that's going to happen in the future. The truth is we don't know when those events are going to happen. They could happen tonight before we go to bed, the rapture of the church. Or they could happen 100 or 1,000 years from now. We don't know when these events are going to occur. But what we do know is our future becomes our present very quickly. In fact, somebody once said, I love this quote: "We are traveling toward our future at the speed of 60 minutes an hour." You are headed for your future; it's going to become your present before you know it.

You know, I saw that illustrated in my own life. I was headed up the North Dallas Tollway at 5:45, headed toward home. I knew, or I thought I knew, what I was going to be doing that evening. I was going to be packing for our vacation that began the next day. I knew what I was going to do the next two weeks on vacation, or so I thought I knew. But one 26-second phone call changed everything. Just a brief phone call: "Pastor, the church is on fire." I turned around and went there. Needless to say, I didn't spend Friday evening the way I thought I would, and I didn't spend the next two weeks the way I thought I would. Our future is coming at us very quickly, and it can change in just a moment. Our future turns on a dime with just one event, one phone call, one doctor's report.

I think about Job in the Old Testament. He was having a great life; everything was going well. When one day he got word that his 10 children had been killed in a freak windstorm. He was trying to recover from that devastating blow. The same day he got news that he had lost all of his possessions; he had gone bankrupt. And if that were not enough, he was struck with a debilitating illness—all in a single day. I think about in the New Testament, the story of the wealthy entrepreneur who was unable to sleep because he had so many plans and dreams for the future. He lay awake working out his business plan for the next five or ten years when God came to him and said, "You fool! You fool! Tonight your soul is going to be required of you, and who will own what you have possessed?" We don't know what the future is. James said, "Our life is but a vapor. It appears for a little while and then it vanishes." We don't know what the future holds for us, but we know who holds our future. Doesn't it give you comfort to know you have a friend? A friend who knows your future because he planned your future, and he's willing to walk with you side by side through your future until you get to the other side.

Don't wait for the future to make Jesus your friend. Make him your friend today. How do you do that? It's very simple. First of all, accept him as the Messiah who came and died for your sins. Believe in him as the prophet who said that he's coming one day to reward the righteous and to punish evildoers. Be aware; revere him as the judge who is constantly evaluating your every word, thought, or action. Honor him as the King who has total reign, has total say over your life. And begin today to live with that continual awareness that Jesus is that friend who will neither leave you nor forsake you.

Speaker 2

We've been praying that you would make that decision to trust in Christ today. If you've made this choice, would you be sure to write me a note and let me know? David will give you our mailing address in just a moment. I would love to hear from you.

Well, today's program marks the end of our series called Jesus Revealed in the End Times. And for the record, my original sermons contain far more teaching material than we were able to include on this broadcast. So stand by for David to explain how you can receive the entire collection of CDs and DVDs that contain the original unabridged recordings.

And then this is the very last time I'll mention my brand new book called Jesus Revealed in the End Times. So be sure to write, call, or go online to ptv.org. Many teachings on prophecy focus on events such as wars, earthquakes, and villains. But my book addresses prophecy with one hero in mind, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the very center of human history. It's a beautiful message of hope, not fear. You see, Christ's second coming shouldn't scare.

Speaker 3

Us, but thrill us.

Speaker 2

People who are fixated on darkness desperately need to hear this message. Will you give generously to Pathway to Victory so that we can share the good news together? Your gift will introduce others across North America and around the world to Jesus Christ.

In return for your generosity, I'll say thanks by sending my new book to your home again. It's called *Jesus Revealed in the End Times*.

David thanks Dr. Jeffress.

Speaker 1

You're invited to request the brand new book *Jesus Revealed in the End Times*. When you give a generous gift to supply the ministry of Pathway to Victory or when you sign up to become a Pathway Partner, call us at 866-999-2965 or visit our website ptv.org. When you give an especially generous gift of $100 or more, we'll also include the complete *Jesus Revealed in the End Times* teaching series on audio and video discs, plus a study guide for personal or group study.

But this is the very last day we'll be mentioning this special offer, so call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. You could also send your request by mail. Write to P.O. Box 223, 609, Dallas, Texas 75222. One more time, that's P.O. Box 223, 609, Dallas, TX 752.

I'm David J. Mullins wishing you a great weekend. Then join us next week when Dr. Jeffress presents a study in Romans called *Grace Powered Living* right here on Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible.

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