Mike Bickle emphasizes the necessity of loving Jesus without offense, highlighting that true love for Him stems from gratitude for His perfect leadership, which is always motivated by love and wisdom. He warns that the devil seeks to instill doubt about Jesus's goodness, leading to offense in our hearts, which hinders our ability to love Him fully. Bickle illustrates this through the story of John the Baptist, who, despite his impending death, prepared his disciples to trust in Jesus's leadership. He stresses that overcoming offense is crucial for believers to grow in love and effectively represent Jesus in the world. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a deep understanding of Jesus's goodness to foster a genuine and unoffended love for Him.

Matthew chapter 11. We're going to look at the subject of loving Jesus without any offense in our heart. We're on the series of the first commandment, the Holy Spirit restoring the first commandment to first place in the body of Christ before Jesus returns. That's a fact. The first commandment right now is somewhere in the top 10 in the body of Christ, but it's going to be number one before the Lord returns. Let's pray. Father, I ask you for the release of your spirit. Even now, I ask you for your blessing upon the hearing and the speaking of your word in Jesus' name. Amen. One of the primary foundational truths in the kingdom of God is that Jesus' leadership is good. I mean, the whole kingdom of God is built around this truth. His leadership is good. And what that means is that Jesus always uses his power according to perfect love and infallible wisdom. The wisdom cannot be improved and the love is perfect. Every time he uses his power, he manifests his power, it is always motivated by perfect love. And it is always according to perfect wisdom. Wisdom that cannot be improved. Nobody can make a suggestion that would make the plan better. This is one of the great foundational truths of the kingdom of God. Now when we understand this truth, very simple truth, it gives us confidence. We have trust in him. But beyond that, it creates or stirs gratitude in our spirit towards him. It makes us so grateful for how he treats us. The way that he leads us and how he treats us is the same subject. When we understand that everything he does for us and to us is motivated by perfect love and infallible wisdom, it makes us say thank you, thank you, thank you. Why do you love us so much? And then it becomes our joy to lavish our love back on him. Sacrificial obedience is no issue when we're motivated by gratitude. Now we will only walk out the first commandment. We will only have the ability to love Jesus to the measure that we have gratitude. And the devil knows this. If the devil can minimize our gratitude, then our love can be cut short. And that is one of his main strategies, one of his main schemes, to hinder love in your life and in the body of Christ as a whole by accusing the leadership of Jesus in our mind. He wants to convince us that his leadership for our individual life is not motivated by love and it's not according to wisdom. Matter of fact, he will tell us, you're not getting what you deserve. That's true, but he means it in an entirely false way. We aren't getting what we deserve. We're getting way better than we would ever deserve. But the devil will come and tell you that Jesus is neglecting you. He's ignoring you. His promises aren't true. Something is wrong. And what he wants to do, he wants to convince us that Jesus's leadership is not good, so that we will be offended at him. Now many believers have a small residue of offense working in their heart and they don't even know it. Many believers. Now some believers are just offended at Jesus. They're just mad at him because something that happened in a relationship or something that happened in the realm of finance, he didn't come through like he should have. Or maybe it's a physical issue of healing. Or maybe it's ministry. Lord, I've been faithful for all these years and you've never anointed my ministry. You've never released favor. And there's many people that have big offenses towards Jesus. I'm talking about leaders of the body of Christ. But there's many more that have unperceived offenses. It's a residue of offense that's in their heart and it's dulling their spirit and they don't even know this is what's hindering love in their life. This is going to be one of the major battle fronts in the generation the Lord returns. The issue of is Jesus's leadership good or is it not good? And by being good, I'll define it again, that he uses his power always according to perfect love and infallible wisdom. That's what good leadership is. It's not only that Jesus is motivated right with love, his plan is absolutely perfect. Now let's look at Matthew chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11. This is one of the most straightforward passages on this subject where Jesus is speaking to John the Baptist's disciples. Now most of you are familiar with this story, but I'm going to interpret the story differently than is common. And I don't want to say this with arrogance, but I think it's commonly this story is told with a complete misinterpretation of what's going on. The story is about the time that John the Baptist is in prison. And it says in verse 2 that he heard about the works of Christ. So he sent two of his disciples to say, are you the coming one or do we look for someone else? Now the way this is often taught is that John's in prison and even John, because he's human, is experiencing doubt. This is not at all what's happening. Not remotely what's happening. John has no doubt whatsoever. John knows he's going to die. Jesus knows John is going to die, but John's disciples don't know that John is going to die. And so John hears in verse 2 that the miracles are happening and he's been waiting his whole life for the time where God would release the Holy Spirit upon Jesus. Now the, the, the miracles are breaking out and the report is going forward. So John is in prison and he says, this is the time to send my disciples. So he goes, I want you guys to go on a mission. Go to the preacher from Nazareth and ask him, are you the Messiah? And so they go. And in verse 4, Jesus answers and Jesus understands what John's doing. John is not concerned for himself. He's concerned for his disciples. John knows where he's going and he knows his disciples are going to be in utter confusion in a very short amount of time. And so John is actually preparing them to relate to Jesus in a right way after this crisis is going to come. The death, the sudden death of John the Baptist that's going to throw off all of John's disciples. So Jesus said, go tell John this. Verse 5. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised. Now what Jesus did is he quoted two of the major promises from the Old Testament concerning the Messiah. From Isaiah 61 and Isaiah 35, when the Messiah comes, these things would happen. Now when Jesus did these miracles, these young men were so excited. They said something like, that's right out of the Bible. We learned this in synagogue class when we were just boys. You're the Messiah. We've seen it with our own eyes. We know these passages because these were very common, well-known passages to every young Jewish boy that grew up through the training system of that day. So they, verse 6, Jesus says, before you go I want to give you one point of teaching. Okay, what is it? Blessed is he who is not offended because of me. And they think, why would we be offended at you? You're the Messiah. John's been telling us about you. You're raising people from the dead. The hope of Israel has come. Why on earth would we ever be offended at you? And he said, just remember that. You are blessed if offense does not enter your heart towards me. Now people are offended at Jesus for two main reasons. They're offended at Jesus because of what he does and they're offended at Jesus because of what he doesn't do. How he doesn't intervene in the way they think he should, if he was really a good leader over their life. Now Jesus is not going to intervene and John is going to be killed and these disciples are going to have to struggle through the issue of offense. If you're really God and you're really good, why did John die and what does this mean about my life? So I can imagine them, a couple of them coming back, these two guys, John, John, you know they're talking through the prison, you know, the window. We saw him. John says, what did you see? He raised the dead, he healed the sick, the blind, just like Isaiah 61 and Isaiah 35. And John says to himself, I knew he was going to do that. I knew that he would answer this for me. What did you learn about him? He's the Messiah. He's the one. John says, you've seen it with your own eyes, right? Yes. And John has just functioned as a good shepherd. He has prepared them for what's coming. I can imagine John saying, did he say anything else? They go, no, not really. Oh yeah, this kind of cryptic little proverb. It doesn't make really any sense. John said, what did he say? He said that we would be blessed if we didn't get mad at him. Why would we be mad at him? John said, remember that. That's a very important principle. Because the, the point of this story was not to encourage John. It was to stabilize the young forerunners that were being raised up. Because the way they handled and processed this crisis in their life was going to determine how they would relate to Jesus from then on. Let's go on to verse seven, paragraph E. Now Jesus, because he has so much loyalty to John, he knows the crowd is misinterpreting this whole thing just like preachers have done. And I'm not trying to be mean about it. I just care about presenting this in the right way. They think John's wavering in prison and he's not at all. And so Jesus looks at the multitudes in verse seven, Matthew 11, verse seven. He said to the multitudes concerning John, what did you go out in the wilderness to see when you went out to hear this man preach? Did you go out to see a reed shaken by the wind? He goes, do you think John is bending like a reed under the weight of the wind? Do you think he's wavering under pressure? He goes, no, John is not wavering. He's not a reed shaken by a wind right now. The winds of persecution do not move John at all. He said, did you go out to see a man in soft garments? And then it goes on in the text to say, for guys that live in soft garments, live in the palaces. Is John a man of comfort? Is that, is that what's on his mind? Comfort? Is he fearfully trembling like a broken reed or is he longing for comfort to live in the palace? If John was after those things, all he had to do was be quiet. Herod liked him. Herod would have put him in the king's palace instead of the king's dungeon. If only he would have just been quiet. John wasn't remotely interested in being quiet. He said, John's not a man shaken by the wind. Neither is a man who lives for comfort. So the crowd goes, oh, well then what was all of this about? These two guys coming and I don't think Jesus gave the answer, but it was for the sake of those disciples. Verse 11, if there's any doubt at all, he says, John's the greatest man ever born of a woman. There have been many martyrs through the years and John's faith was certainly equal to all of them. Jesus with his own lips called him the greatest man to ever live. John was not shaken, but John was concerned that his young disciples were going to be shaken. Not shaken by pressure from Herod, but shaken by offense in their relationship to Jesus. And beloved, that's far more serious. Because if we get offended at him, we cannot grow in love. And the devil knows this. The devil wants to accuse Jesus to our minds. And the way that Jesus treats us personally, so that we get offended. Because what God is doing is raising up a company of forerunners all over the earth who are going to make sense of Jesus' leadership in the end times across the nations. Now beloved, you and I are not going to be able to speak on a global level or even a regional level about the leadership of Jesus being good if we struggle with his leadership in our personal life. The same reality that causes us to overcome offense in the way he leads us in our individual life is the same truth and reality that we will use when we speak about Jesus in a forerunner capacity for his national, global, and eschatological purposes. The way God is raising up and training forerunners to speak about his good leadership is in the laboratory of their own life, discovering his good leadership. When things don't go well in the money realm, the relationship realm, the physical realm, or the ministry realm, or whatever other realms, and the devil comes and says, I told you that you could not trust him. We declare our love and our confidence and we take our stand because believing in Jesus' good leadership is a decision we make. We posture ourself and then the gratitude grows out of that and then the love flows out of the gratitude. We will never have more love for Jesus than we have gratitude for his leadership. And the way we have gratitude for his leadership is by understanding how good his leadership is. So if the devil can get you offended and hit Jesus' leadership in your personal life, you will never be a successful forerunner representing Jesus on a, on a eschatological level. Whether it's to your region, or to your city, or to your friends, you'll never be able to convince him is when Jesus shakes everything that can be shaken. Paragraph F. No, back to Matthew 11. I forgot one verse. Very important verse. Matthew 11, verse 12. Jesus goes on now and makes John the Baptist a picture, the prototype of spiritual violence. He said, John, was a man of spiritual violence. And it's not physical violence. It was the, the abandonment, his resolution, his dedication. He was violent, meaning there was no cost too great to get in the way of him and a hundredfold obedience, no matter what it cost him. And I've watched over the years, young forerunners, they will bear the rigors of a lifestyle, of fasting and prayer and living in simplicity and humility. I mean, they will bear the rigors of this. I've seen them do this for, for some years. But when it comes to the issue of Jesus' leadership in their life, I've seen them get offended. They can do the fasting and prayer, but when the relationship doesn't work right, the money doesn't come through, the healing doesn't happen, all of a sudden this small but real residue of offense begins to well up in them. And what I, my, my point is this. It will take as much spiritual violence to lay hold of the facts of Jesus' good leadership when our emotions are raging within us. Beloved, that will be spiritual violence to get a breakthrough on this area in our life, ever as much as the prayer and fasting, humility, dedication that we're normally thinking of when we think of spiritual violence. Now let's go to John chapter 2. Now in John chapter 2, it's a very interesting passage of Scripture. John goes into the temple. Now he cleanses the temple two times in his three and a half year ministry. On the beginning of his ministry, he goes in, which is John 2, he takes the whip, turns over the tables, causes complete pandemonium in the temple, and then three and a half years later, or three years later, he does it again. So he cleansed the temple twice, right here in John 2 and again in Matthew 21 at the end. This is the first one. It's important to understand that. Now if you can recognize in John 2, the miracle at the wedding at Canaan, Jesus' first miracle happened the event before this. So my point is, Jesus is just now beginning his miracle ministry. The word is not out at all. He did a private miracle at a wedding and then he goes to Jerusalem. Nobody knows who he is. He's an unknown preacher walking into the temple. And the temple was a massive structure like the municipal auditorium, but even more. It was the one of the most magnificent buildings in the ancient world. Very expensive and opulent and all these powerful leaders and this unknown preacher walks in, this 30 year old young man. Nobody knows him. He knocks all the tables over. He takes a whip, uses it. Then the leaders come to him in verse 19 and Jesus said, destroy this temple. And he's talking about his body, but they don't know it. And I'll raise it up in three days. And they said it took 46 years to build it. What do you mean three days? And Jesus leaves. Now his disciples are new with him. They've only been with him a short time and they're not even all in place yet. I can picture him. Jesus. Now I know this is your first time out in ministry. It actually is. But, you know, if you would approach this differently, it could be really different. If you would go in, ask for a meeting with the leaders. Get a handful of them. Give them words of knowledge, the secrets of their heart. Heal a couple. Take them to the graveyard. Get a few raisings from the dead. Then open your Bible. Point out the prophecies of the Messiah, the messianic prophecies about yourself and go, here I am, here I am. Oh. Then give them a word of the Lord. Here's the word of the Lord. Change the money deal in the temple. I'll give you a week to pray about it. I'll come back and check in, see what the Lord tells you. Now that's how we normally would approach something like that. But Jesus is not concerned. They have no way of comprehending anything he's going to do. And he knows they don't. And his disciples have no way of comprehending it because they're brand new with it. It's only done one miracle. Right there in John 2, just a little bit early at the wedding. So now there's two groups that are in a real tension, I mean a real issue. Group one, they are offended at Jesus, the Pharisees, and what Jesus did gave them all the reason they needed to just be done with him. But the other group, the young disciples, they're in turmoil. And they're saying something like, that couldn't have been wise. You didn't even give them a chance. But maybe you know things we don't know. And we're so attracted to you. And you seem so of God. And they were in anguish. And the anguish that they had actually drove them into a deeper connection with the Lord. Whereas the Pharisees, the same information of the same event, gave them all the right they needed to just write Jesus off and be done with him. So the principle that I write here, Jesus often offends the mind to reveal the deep things in our heart. Jesus knew they hated God. He wanted it to come to the surface. He knew his disciples loved God. And he knew that as the caterpillar in the cocoon, the struggle they would actually, their love for God would actually increase and be solidified through this offense of their mind. The longing of their heart for God came to the surface. Now Jesus wants to bring our hunger to the surface. And he wants to bring the unperceived offenses we have against him to the surface so we could get him healed. Because we can't grow in love towards him if our heart is offended towards him. And so the Lord will allow our mind to be offended so that our heart is wide open. What are you going to do when Jesus's leadership in your life, what are you going to do when Jesus's leadership in your life doesn't add up with what you think he should be doing? What we do because we love God. We, some process like this, and you will relate to it. It's like, Jesus, I don't get what's going on. But I must have the wrong information and you must have the right information. I trust you. I love you. I know I'm missing something and I know you're not. That is the humility and that is the awakened hunger that Jesus wanted from these disciples. Now Jesus is leading history this way. When I read the book of Revelation, I go, Jesus, you're doing that cleanse the temple thing on an eschatological global level. They're never going to figure it out. He says, if they love God, they will make it to the truth. And besides, I'm raising up messengers to make it easier for them. If they love God, even though it's all confusing, something in their spirit will make them go on a quest for truth. If they don't love God, I will give them all the information they need to write me off completely. Because when their mind is confused and offended, the deep movements of their heart will be openly seen on the surface. Paragraph G, John 20. Now Jesus is visiting, I mean, is appearing after his death before the apostles with his resurrected body. And Thomas, you know the story. Thomas goes, hey, I don't, I don't believe it. So Jesus walks to the wall. Thomas goes, whoa. And he touches him. And Jesus's resurrected body is really physical and material. It's a real body with real. I mean, Jesus said in Luke 24, don't you see my body is flesh and bones. Tough matters, resurrected body. Beloved, you're going to have a real physical body forever. Like you do now, just a whole lot better version than what we have right now. So John, Thomas touches him. We know the story. But Jesus gives a very special insight about love in this passage. He looks at them and he says, blessed are those who believe me when they don't see the end result yet. They believe without seeing. Now they saw Jesus, but they haven't seen the end of the story yet. They haven't seen the breakthrough yet. He goes, you're blessed because what he's really saying, blessed are those who decide to trust my leadership. And in doing this, they will express so much love towards me. It will move my heart deeply. Now the blessing isn't just that they are spiritually, and they increase in their spiritual life. Yes, they get a blessing for believing, but the blessing is not just what they experience. The blessing is what they offer to Jesus because they trusted him without seeing. They get to offer the testimony of love that most people don't offer the Lord at this kind of level. So he goes, let me tell you something. You will have a blessing for your own personal life. You're the way the Spirit touches you. But you will also have a blessing on the way you get to offer yourself to me in love. It will move me in a unique way if you do it before, if you believe me and you love me and you trust me before you've seen the final result. Now beloved, you're going to be alive billions and billions and trillions of years, right? And that's only the beginning. You can only believe without seeing for a minute of your entire life, your 70 years on the earth. A billion years from now, you'll look back and you will understand the power of this promise. You can only love him without seeing for the few moments we're on the earth in this age. Like I said last night, this is the only age, the only time, a moment in time, 70 years is a moment compared to billions of years. You can only shed blood for Jesus once because after this age, you can't ever shed blood again. You can only believe without seeing and you can only shed blood to show your love for him. I'm talking about the martyrs who counted themselves worthy to suffer for him. Those are two things you won't be able to do for the next billions and billions and billions of years. You can only do them now. And so the Lord's looking at us saying, I will take it very personally. I will take it in a very personal way. If you trust me and show love to me before you've seen the final product, it will move me and it will bless you as well. Let's go top of page two. Now, one of the favorite prayers, we pray this a lot. I'd say probably Ephesians 1 is the favorite prayer at IHOP. That's not official, but it just kind of seems that way. Which that's a good one, to be the one, to be at the top. But Philippians 1 is another. Paul prays that love would abound. That their love for God and love for people. He's praying for their love for people, but your love for people can only abound in the overflow of your love for God. He goes, I pray that your love may abound. Verse 10, excuse me, that it would be without any offense. There would be no offense in your love. You would not be offended in any way in your abounding love. Now this is one of our prayers. This is a forerunner prayer. Because the only way we will be able to testify of His good leadership to the nations, whatever level the Lord gives you, is if you can bear witness of it in the, as truth in your own private life. Paragraph B, the prayer of David. It's a great prayer. David, the man after God's own heart. Psalm 19. This needs to be on everyone's personal prayer list. David prayed, who can understand his errors? What he means is, he goes, I get the things I get. I know the five things I'm struggling with, but who can understand all of them? The other ones I don't even see. He goes, cleanse me from secret faults. Now he doesn't mean secret that he knows them, that he's hiding them from everyone else. He's saying, cleanse me from things, the unperceived compromises that I'm not even aware I'm doing. Show them to me. Then I will be blameless, he goes on in verse 13 to say. We want to ask the Lord, show us the pockets of pride and offense in our spirit towards Jesus, because we want our love to abound with no offense in it at all. Roman number three, our confession. Now there's one verse, I'm going to give you a handful of verses and then you can use them all equally effective. These are like swords in your hand, where you strike against the accusation of the enemy. Now you get to pick any one of these swords that you want. They're all equally effective. I'm just going to give you a few of them to war back against the devil's accusations, against Jesus's leadership, so that you can in fact abound in love and the first commandment would be first in your life. Because with this issue unsettled, with even a residue of offense, we can never love him with all of our heart. We will always be dulled and hindered and stopped in our pursuit of love. Many believers aren't even aware of this, this great thief that is stealing their love. The anchor in our heart, I call it an anchor confession. I mean our life is anchored on this. Here it is simple. The Lord is good, his mercy endures forever. This song or this statement is the most quoted statement in the whole Bible. There's no song in the Bible that's even close to mention this many times. It has a unique place in God's kingdom. What it means real simple, the Lord is good. He's good. We are saying he uses his power only with perfect love and infallible wisdom. Wisdom that can't be improved upon. When the devil comes to us, we answer back. The Lord is good. And he says you're mistreated. The Lord is perfect in his leadership. He is good. He is good to me. And if the devil sees you can't move, be moved off of this truth, he will leave it for a moment. Come back to it later. We'll leave it for the time. But he'll switch to the second truth, to the second lie. I mean, he will say, okay, so the Lord is good, but you're disqualified. So the benefits of his good leadership won't help you anyway. So he switches from the devil first accuses the Lord. But when we settle that, then he accuses you. It says, what good is it to you if the Lord's good? Because the benefits will never work in your life. We go, we have an answer. His mercy endures forever. Whatever sin I do, his mercy triumphs over it. If I will come to Jesus and repent and renounce that sin, his mercy endures and outruns my sin and conquers it. When the sin and the anguish of our sin is in our heart and we hate it, the mercy of God endures it. It outlives it. So the devil comes, tells you to give up and give in. And our answer is, the Lord is good. His mercy endures. We have both subjects covered. The Lord's leadership and the Lord's tenderness towards us, so we're not disqualified to receive the benefits of his leadership. Paragraph B. Now this song was sang at very strategic times in Israel's history. It was sang at the tabernacle of David. Remember when David got the 24-7 and all the 4,000 singers and musicians, he put them all in place. The dedication song for David's tabernacle. The Lord is good. His mercy endures forever. David understood the value of that declaration. Whilst David dies and his son Solomon takes his place, but now they move out of the tabernacle or the tent, because David's tabernacle means David's tent. David had all the singers and he had the drums and the sound system all in a tent in his backyard. But when Solomon came along and took over, Solomon built this massive temple and moved the whole operation into the temple. Took a few years to get that done. But now when Solomon is dedicating the temple, what song does Solomon use? The same one his father used a few years earlier. The Lord is good. His mercy endures. And when the 120 trumpet guys were, da-da-da-da, and the singer sang that song, the shekinah glory fell. It fell twice. Both times when they sang this song. So some more years pass and a king named Jehoshaphat gets raised up. Say Jehoshaphat. Okay, you got it. Jehoshaphat. He's a good king. He's really loved God. The enemy attacks Jehoshaphat. Most of you know this story here in 2nd Chronicles 20. It's a famous story. They surround him. The word of the Lord comes. The Lord says, I'm going to help you. So Jehoshaphat put the singers out in front. And what do the singers sing? I mean, imagine, imagine George Bush calls Kansas City. Hey Mike, what's happening? Well, we're having our global braggadoo fast this week. Yeah, we're not going to be able to make it this time, but we've been trying to track with you. Hey, we got a big military conflict stirring up over in the Middle East. Could you send Misty and Marcus and Corey and Alicia? Could you send them and maybe, we got a lot of tanks, but we're going to have them like get their worship team out front and sing some of them songs you sing at IHOP. It's so awesome. Yeah, I'll send Misty right on over and we'll send Tim and the whole gang. I mean, this is bizarre. It's a great Bible story, but in reality, I mean, what if the president called the worship ministry and said, give me your, your teams and put them out in front of the war and the battle and the, and the military guys will be behind them. So the guy's out there. Okay. I mean, it's real life. It's the day before they're going, you know, how do you feel about this? Well, the guy said, God told him and, but isn't this what David did? Yeah, but it's been a few years back. We haven't seen it for about a hundred years or so, but Hey, so this guy's trying to figure out his song list for real. They got to sing a song. I mean, that's real human life. The guy goes, you got a song list as well. I wrote this one song last week. Nah, I didn't really like that. So you got another one. Yeah. Tell you what, this is so huge. Let's go back to the song that David and Solomon sang at the dedications. The Lord is good. His mercy endures forever. And the glory of God broke down again. This is the confession doesn't have to be that sentence, but those truths, his leadership is good. We take our stand and we will not back away. And we declare it to the devil. When he comes to accuse Jesus in our mind, Jesus said, you're blessed. If you don't get offended at me because your love will abound. If you don't get offended at me. And again, many sincere believers, they're not offended at a major level, but they have a residue of offense operating in their spirit and it hinders their love. They're still a little bit hesitant about that thing. A few years ago where the money didn't work out right and they felt a little bit abandoned by the Lord. They go, I love you, but I'm a little hesitant Lord. You're a little bit on probation, but not really, because I do love you. But a little bit. I mean, it's hard to get language. Because we love the Lord, it's hard to say we're offended. Another way to say the Lord is good is Romans 8.28. Paul said, we know all things work together for good. All things work together for good. For those who love him. It's not just they work together for anybody, but for the people who commit themselves to be a lover of Jesus. Now the all things, Paul said, I promise you God will overrule whatever the bad is. What a statement. This is the same, it's the same sword. It's the same weapon in essence as the Lord is good. We strike against the enemy. This is our confession. Song of Solomon says it. His banner over me is love. It's the same thing. His leadership over me is in perfect love. Because for his banner to be over us, it means the way he leads our life is about love. You can use any of those. There's many, many Bible verses you could use. Paragraph D. All around the throne, they talk about the worthiness of Jesus. Beloved, this is gratitude. They have so much confidence in him around the throne. He is worthy in this age of our unqualified trust. He deserves our total trust with no doubt. He's worthy of it. He has proven himself worthy to be trusted. If we lose our life in the conflict, it was a great decision under his worthy leadership. Does it matter what we lose? If we've obeyed him, it was perfect love and infallible wisdom in the way that he led us. And for billions of years, the story will be told and we will say, yes, you're worthy. You're worthy to be trusted without qualification, without any qualifications. Paragraph E. It's describing the saints. This is the saints at the end of the tribulation. Jesus, the event right before Matthew 15, the seventh trumpet, the saints had been caught up to meet the Lord in the air. They're all together. The event before this, Jesus captured everyone from one end of the heavens to the other. So the saints are all together on the sea of glass in that rapture transition state. So all the saints from one side of God's purpose to the other, they're all together. That's what happened the event before here. That happened in Revelation 11, 15. When the trumpet was blown, this is the next event that John sees. He sees all the saints, not all of them. He sees some saints, but we can just imagine just a bunch of them are there. And they have watched the tribulation unfold with the judgments. And they've watched the rage of the Antichrist with his martyrdom. I mean, with his murderous threats and killing the saints. So they've seen the judgments of Jesus and they've seen the rage of the Antichrist. They've seen the whole thing. It's at the end. The seventh trumpet just was blown. All the information is now in. And here's what the saints say about Jesus. Great and marvelous are your works. Your leadership is fantastic. Now that we see the whole picture, you are amazing in your leadership. When all the information is in, this is what all of the people of God will say. You're great in wisdom. Wow! You know, I didn't understand it all, but wow, I get it. You're great in power. You're great in love. You were moved by love. We see it now. And we marvel at what you have done in leading history into this transition. And then they will go on and say everything you did was just and true. You did not violate truth on any point. You were true to love. You were true to humility. You were true to purity. You were true to justice. You were true to everything you claimed. When all the information's in, they will say, and your judgments have just been manifest. So they're declaring this after the judgments and after many have been martyred. When all the information's in, this is what they think about Jesus. Now here's my point. Why do we wait till then to have that confession? This is our confession now, before the information is all in. Beloved, I want to enter into the blessedness of believing and loving without seeing the full picture complete. You can only do that once. Only in this life. Only in this age. After this age, the next billions of years, you can't do that. Final point here. Paragraph F. We end with this. Revelation 13. It says the Antichrist opened his mouth to blaspheme against God and to blaspheme his name. The Antichrist is going to blaspheme Jesus. Now that doesn't mean he's just going to say Jesus and say profanity. It's going to be far more insidious than that. He is going to, in very clever ways, sophisticated ways, he's going to prove to the nations why Jesus is utterly false. Why Jesus does not move by love and nor does he move by wisdom when he releases his power. The Antichrist is going to blaspheme God, the Father and the Son, and blaspheme the name of Jesus. Now the spirit of the Antichrist is going to be operating through all of his messengers and that spirit, in a low measure, is already operating in the world today. They're blaspheming the claims of Jesus. And not just his claim to be God, his way of salvation. The fact that he insists on purity according to his definition, his standards. And the fact that he will confront openly everyone that refuses love according to his standards. I mean this makes the nation so angry. Now this spirit is actually operating in many people, even in the church. They will blaspheme Jesus's love and wisdom as he confronts the evil powers that will not submit to love. And they even blaspheme, or they put down, I'd say today it's not at the level of blasphemy it's going to be, but it's still the operation of the same spirit at a low level. And what happens to the saints? Verse 7 of Revelation 13. It was granted to the Antichrist to make war the saints and overcome them. Now the Antichrist overcomes believers, some believers. I think it's millions, but I think hundreds of millions are not overcome. It means they're physically martyred. When the Antichrist overcomes believers, that's physically. In the next verse, we end with this, it says the opposite. It says the believers overcome him. Now which is it? Does he overcome us or do we overcome him? Both of them are right. He overcomes us physically, but we overcome him spiritually. We do not yield in love or in our loyalty to Jesus. So he may kill our body and overcome us physically, but we triumph over him by not yielding in our allegiance and our love to Jesus. And in that way we defeat him. And how do we overcome? Of course we know by the blood of the Lamb. But look, there's several things here, but I'm just going to hit the one. By the word of our testimony. The word of our testimony is the Lord is good. And when the, the Lord is enforcing his standards in the earth of purity and love, and he is confronting in his judgments everything that gets in the way of his kingdom, we take a stand. And when he is being blasphemed from without the church and within the church, by the spirit of darkness assailing his wisdom and his leadership, we make the word of our confession. The word of our testimony. He is good. We trust his leadership. His banner over us is love, and we will take our stand true to the end. And in that way, we are sure to grow in love. This is the way, a critical point in growing in the first commandment in our life. Amen and amen. For more free downloads from Mike Bickle, please visit MikeBickle.com.