In this brief update, the speaker reflects on the week’s teaching and ties together several biblical figures—Nicodemus, Zacharias, Mary, and the angel Gabriel—to illustrate the central biblical principle that faith is essential to please God. Citing Hebrews 11:6 (“without faith it is impossible to please God”) and John 4:24 (worship in spirit and truth), he explains a theological framework where God operates in the spirit realm, wielding ultimate power, while Satan is confined to the physical realm. He contrasts this with human reliance on personal strength, emphasizing that God calls believers to trust Him, leading to answered prayer and miracles. The speaker uses the stories of Zacharias’s doubt, Gabriel’s rebuke, and Mary’s humble acceptance to show how unbelief hinders God’s work, whereas faith aligns believers with divine purpose. He announces that the next lesson will focus on unbelief and its consequences in both the Old and New Testaments, notes his progress toward a 30‑lesson series goal, and invites viewer comments and questions.
Chapters
All right, hi everybody. I wanted to do a quick update. I've got a, got an issue with my phone here. It's trying to, trying to act up. It must be because it's Friday night and it's late. I usually do this in the morning, it looks a lot different. But hey, I wanted to thank you. Sorry it's late this evening, afternoon. I had a busy day today and I couldn't get it done this morning. But I wanted to finish up the week. I wanted to talk about Nicodemus. I kind of want to tie it all together. Nicodemus and Mary and Gabriel, where they come together. But I wanted to take it to a place where you may or may not have been thinking. But the Bible in Hebrews, Hebrews 11:6, it says that, but without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. And in John, I think it's 14, John 4:24, it says those that worship him must worship him in spirit It says, because God is a spirit, and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. So God is a spirit, God's in the spirit realm, and everything that kind of happens in God, if you can picture God, when it says, you know, I used to think that I was disappointing God because I wasn't always using faith, and he's up there with his arms folded, giving you one of those looks like, You know, what are you doing? But really, God, what God is, if you can think of kind of how I got it pictured, is, you know, there's a spirit realm and there's a physical realm, and God, God picked the— God's in the spirit realm, so that's where all the power is. And God picked or chose to use the spirit realm as his way of getting things done, and that left Satan with the physical realm. So if you're looking at— I mean, we're all living here in this. Satan's walking around and he's the prince and power of the air, of the earth, but God's in the spirit realm. And so when I read that God is— it's impossible to please him without faith, it's saying he's trying to lead us as the perfect father, trying to lead us like you do your child to make the right decision. Hey, use faith here. This is where you use faith. It's not, you know, what can I do with my own strength, or what can I do with my own, you know, wherewithal and just get after it. I mean, God's wanting to pull you into faith, and he's wanting to reward you by using your faith, and he does that through answered prayer, through, you know, things happening, and I mean, you probably, all of you all that are watching this probably have things that you know that God has helped you with or have done, answered prayer, miracles, all of that. But I want to try to tie this all in a kind of a neat little bow to get you on to your weekend. And, and when we, when we look at what Zachariah— you know, Zacharias questioned Gabriel when Gabriel said, you know, your wife Elizabeth's going to have a, a son. And he said, how can that be? You know, because I'm an old man and she's up there in age too. And so Gabriel kind of slapped him down and said you know, because, you know, I came with glad tidings and you didn't believe me. It pretty much said, you know, because of your unbelief, I mean, you're going to be mute until this happens, but God's going to make it happen. But we're not going to let you speak and screw this thing up anymore than you just did. And it goes back to the power of your words, and all of it kind of ties together. But Mary had a question too, and she kind of said, well, how can this be? Because I mean, I haven't been with a man. And instead of— the question wasn't from unbelief, it was from not knowing, not having the knowledge. And so he answered her question because he didn't come at him in unbelief. And he told her, this is how it's going to happen. This is what's going to happen. And she said, be it unto me according to your word. And so I just kind of want to, I want to set the stage for next week. We're going to talk a lot about unbelief and how God just, it does not, it does not please him. And it says that, that if, you know, that if you go back to Hebrews 11:6, but without faith is impossible to please him. So unbelief would I would say that unbelief does not please him. And we're going to see some things that, you know, what God does when he's not pleased in the Old Testament, and then look at the New Testament and kind of just try to pull it all together. But that's enough for tonight. I just thank you, and I told you I wasn't going to count down, but I'm getting real close. I hadn't really counted, to be perfectly honest, but I think I'm real close to my 30 lesson goal. And I'm gonna bust through that, but I just wanna thank you for watching, and I wanna thank y'all for the input. And any other, any comments or questions, feel free to, I read the comments, feel free to go ahead and put them in there, and I'll take a look at them, see if I can answer it. But thanks again, y'all have a great weekend, and I'll see you next week.
