The Bible is not a series of disconnected stories. Is one story about the redeemer, about our redemption. We can summarize the whole Bible in two words. Jesus wins. Let's say it together. 1, 2, 3. Jesus wins. One more time. Jesus wins If you don't remember anything else about tonight. That's the message of hope, because hope equals assurance.

Hope is not a probability. Hope is not a possibility. Hope is the assurance, the certainty that in Christ we have salvation. Now, how many of you have children? Can I see your hands? Wow, most of you. Do you remember the first time you held your baby in your hands? When at the hospital or at your house? They gave you that baby for the first time and you made an immediate covenant that you would do whatever was necessary for that child?

When I was a little girl, we used to move a lot. My father was an evangelist. We used to move every six months and for two months my father would look for a place with the big tent, and then two more months, he would do meetings every night for, and then two more months he would establish a new church, and then we would do it all over again.

Many times, one day we were in the Patagonia in Argentina. That's where I'm from. That's where the accent is from. And we were in the Patagonia in Lapa State in a little town called wa, and my mother announced that she was going to borrow a bicycle so that the two of us could go to the wheat fields that are endless in Argentina.

And I was so excited. Four years old, she made a little seat behind a little. She put a little chair behind. The bicycle and she obviously was the one steering the bike because I wasn't old enough to do that. We went many kilometers outside of the little town and imagined yourself in the middle of the wheat fields, and this happens to you.

My mother said, straighten up, you're gonna fall from the bicycle. And I did straighten up miles from the town. And something horrible happened. I started crying and she didn't know why, and she stopped the bike and she said, what's wrong? And I couldn't even talk. I was in such pain and she took my sock off, and when she took my sock off, half of my foot came out with my sock.

What happened was that I put my little foot inside the ongoing wheel. And he chopped my foot. I remember looking at my foot and seeing only white bone where my heel used to be, and stop looking at my feet. I'll tell you what happened.

So my mother with a strength that I'm sure came from above, she sat me in the main seat of the chair of the bicycle. She grabbed the bicycle and run. All those miles back to town. I was bleeding to death and we got to the little town. He didn't have a hospital even. They took an x-ray and there was nothing broken.

It's says that the flesh wasn't there anymore. It took about six months to me for me to walk again, and because I was so young, the whole foot rebuilt itself. And now for all of you that were looking, I have a little scar here. This tiny. That reminds me of the day that my mother gave me life for a second time.

That's what any parent would do with a child. That's what you would do for your children. My parents saved my life so many times. I'm not sure why we have come to believe that God is a different type of parent. I don't know who gave us that image of God. But the truth is, when his children became handicapped, God immediately acted.

And today we are gonna do a deep study of the plan of salvation from Genesis to Revelation. And I wanna share with you a word in Hebrew that changed my life and it changed my ministry. So please grab your Bibles and grab paper and pen. Let's make notes so you can share this. This is a message that for me is one of the messages that is life changing in regards to the gospel, and I am hoping that tonight you will walk away with a full assurance of salvation because hope equals assurance.

We're gonna start in Genesis. Genesis chapter one is the creation of this world for us. I don't know if you knew that God created this world for you. He didn't just one wake up one day and say, what am I gonna do today? Oh yeah, I'm gonna create a world. Another world. No, he created for the humankind. So that we could live here.

The same way that you prepared the house when you were about to have your child and you painted it and hang things on it, on the ceiling and on the walls. You put things because you were preparing a beautiful place for your child. That's exactly how creation reads. So from the second day on in creation, you hear God saying, okay, that's good.

That's good. That's good because he's preparing this world for us. Until the sixth day comes chapter one of Genesis has a divine dialogue that we don't have it in any other part of creation. This is the Trinity talking among themselves. You know that dialogue that you had with your spouse that says, okay, it's time to have children.

Some of you're are looking at me like we never had the dialogue, but most of you had the dialogue and God had the dialogue. Chapter one, verse 26. Then God said, let us make my kind in our own image. In the image of God we were created. Nothing else in creation is created in his image. And this is the clue you will see in a moment to interpret the rest of the Bible.

We're gonna talk about it. Verse 27 is the report. God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them. And that day was no longer just good, like all the other days. Oh no, because having a tree is good. Having flowers is good. Having a cat is good. But having children is a whole different dimension.

So verse 31 says, God saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good. This is a superlative in this day, and this word image is not a strange word. It's the same image that word that is gonna use be used later when Adam will have a child in his image. So this is God saying, okay, this is the only part of creation that has my image.

He creates not only a beautiful world, but he creates a little garden where he's gonna place humankind. Chapter two, verse eight. The Lord God planted a garden. Towards the East in Eden. Now, remember last night I told you the Old Testament was translated into Greek 200 years before Christ was born, and this is an important translation because the New Testament writers quote from the Greek Old Testament when they're quoting verses I wanna tell you a word here.

The word garden in Greek is the word Paradiso. Paradiso very important word in the Bible. What word do we get from that? So this is the word paradise. The Lord God planted a paradise. Verse nine Out of the ground. The Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to sight and good for food and the tree of life.

Was in the middle of the Paradiso. Okay, so we don't know what fruit this was. So today is gonna be apples and he place humankind here in the middle of Paradiso so that they could eat of this symbol that they were eternal as their father is eternal because we were made in the image of God. Chapter three of Genesis, the kidnapper comes along.

I hope you have never lost your children, even for two minutes in a mall. There's nothing more desperate in this world than losing your children even for a few minutes. And I'm sorry that some of you have actually lost your children to death. There's nothing more painful. And the kidnapper came along and said to the children of God, oh, come with me.

I have better things than your father does Leave your father. And the saddest part of the whole Bible is Genesis three when the children of God decide to leave and follow the kidnapper. But God wasn't gonna stay quiet. He wasn't gonna just stay there. My mother wasn't gonna leave me in the wheat fields.

Bleeding to death. That's not what parents do. And our father, in whose image we have been created immediately sprung into action. And we call this the Covenant Genesis three 15. And sometimes the translations have language that is a little hard for un to understand but God is speaking to the devil in the presence of Adam and Eve, and he's telling.

The devil that he's not gonna get away with this. And so Genesis three 15, we read it and I will put Amity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. But truly, the Hebrew is more clear. It says, I will crush your head.

Why would you tell somebody that has just taken your children? Oh, God says, read my lips. I will crush your head. I almost see God going read my lips. This is a passionate parent. This is not a God that says they lost a foot in the wheat fields who curses? No. God said, no. These are my children.

I'm gonna crush your head. You are not getting away with this. This is not the end of it. And the rest of the Bible is the story of what God had to do to get his children back. Now, the saddest verse in the whole Bible is the last verse of chapter three of Genesis, because they have to leave the parais where the tree of life is found.

Chapter three verse 24. He drove the men out and at the east of the Garden of Eden, he stationed the Caribbean and the flaming sword, which turned every direction to guard the way to the Tree of life. This is Genesis. When we get to Revelation, we're who are standing again by the tree of life, which is the mystery of the Bible because we lost.

We lost access to the Tree of Life and Paradiso here. But when we get to gen to Revelation, we have the same language again. And so for example, we just start Revelation and we start hearing the same exact words. Revelation two, seven, for example. Let's go there. Same two words, three of life. Paradiso. Same exact ones in Greek, actually, chapter two verse seven.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches, to him who overcomes, which in Revelation, overcoming means to believe in the Lamb until the end, because we overcome by the blood of the lamb. So it says he overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradis of God.

Same word. And it's how? How did this happen? We lost paradise here. We cannot longer be eternal because we no longer have this access to the symbol that is the tree of life. And now here we are back, and if you keep reading, You will see that those who wash the robes and make them wide in the blood of the lamb have now access to the tree of life again.

And we end up in the last chapter of Revelation 22, verse 14, standing by the tree of life again. And this is the mystery that must be revealed for us to understand what the gospel is now. Last night I told you about an academic word. The word is iCLU, I N C L U S I O, which is a narrative sandwich when something starts and ends in the same way.

The whole Bible, even though it's hundreds of years, Period between Genesis and Revelation, the first three chapters of Genesis are reversed in the exact order in the last three chapters of Revelation. Genesis one, God creates the world. Genesis two, God is with his people. Genesis three sins the world.

Revelation 20 sin is destroyed forever. Revelation 21, God is again with his people. Revelation 22 3 of life Paradise, full circle. Now, how did this happen? How did this happen? If we lost it here and we have it here? I'm so glad you asked, because I'm gonna tell you, and this is the word that has changed my life, is the word goel.

So write it down. It's like Noel for Christmas, but with a g o e L, the world is goel. Let's say it together. 1, 2, 3. Goel. One more time. Goel. Goel means in English, Kingsman Redeemer, the closest of kin who could do for you what no one else could do. And God set this redemption. Rules so that when the Messiah came, we would understand who he was.

Now I'm gonna give you, many of you are taking notes. I'm gonna do pre pretty quick. What were the main five functions of the Goel in Kinsman redeemer in the Bible? This is gonna blow your mind away. This is gonna change your life. The Goel had five functions to, for the closest of kin. First one, only the Goel.

The Kingsman redeemer, the closest of kin, could set the price and set the relative free if they were enslaved. So if you had lost your freedom because you couldn't pay your debt, only the Goel, the Kingsman Redeemer could come and set you free. Pay your price and set you free. Number two, only the Goel if you lost your property.

Because of that, only the Goel could come and pay the property and get it back to the original family. Number three, the go could appear in court in place of the relative. Number four, the goyle was the one who was in charge of the lineage of the family. So if somebody died without descendants, the goyle married the widow and had a child who bore the name of the dead brother.

So he didn't die without descendants. Number five, the Goyle had to avenge the blood of the relative that was killed unjustly. So let's review. The Goyle was the only one who could come and pay the price and set the relative free the Goyle. By the way, the Liberty Bell is called Liberty Bell because it's in Leviticus 25 10 that it says to proclaim liberty to all captives and is part of the redemption laws, and that's why it's called the Liberty Bell.

And I don't know if you know that the Liberty Bell has on it inscribed Leviticus 25 10. So the let's do it again. So the first was pay the price of the relative and set them free. Number two, get the property back. Number three, appear in court in place of the relative. Number four, secure descendants from the family.

Number five, avenge the blood of the road. Now this is where he gets amazing when God created us in his image. He obligated himself to rescuing us because he's our closest of kin. I'm gonna repeat it again. When God created us in his image, he obligated himself to rescue in us because he's our closest of kin.

So the whole Old Testament uses this word for the upcoming Messiah that would come every time in your Bible. You read the word redeemer. Actually, the Hebrew says Goel. Kingsman Redeemer, not just Redeemer is your closest relative Redeemer who would come to do all the five functions of the Goel. So Jesus would come, woo, and this is where I get excited.

Jesus would come and do all five rolls. He would come and pay your price and set you free. That's why at the cross he said it is finished. What's finished. The full price has been paid. Because your Goel paid it. Number two, Jesus purchased our property bag. That's why the new Earth will be here because Jesus got it back.

He appears in court in our place presenting his blood on our behalf. Number four, secured descendants for God from a race that now was mortal. We were never gonna be immortal again. We, God wasn't gonna have descendants from this race. But Jesus purchased descendants for God. That's why Isaiah 53 ends by saying he will see his lineage and be satisfied.

And number five, Jesus. Will ave our blood. At the end of times. Jesus is our Goel. And every time that you see in the Old Testament the word redeemer, remember it's not just redeemer, it's kingsman redeemer. It's the closest of kin that would never leave the relative in distress on their own.

Isn't that amazing? Amen. And if I had time, I would tell you how the Sabbath plays into this, because everybody had to count in. If they didn't have a Goel, they counted everything in sevens because every seven years, all the slaves were set free. And every seven times seven, all the debts were paid, that slaves were set free.

And that's where the Liberty bill comes in, Leviticus 25, 10. Anyways. When did Jesus pay the prize and opened again the path to Paradise? When did he do that? When did he do that? We're gonna study that for a moment. Open in Luke chapter 23. See the Bible is not a series of disconnected stories.

It's one story, and today we're doing the word study of paradise so that you see how it's connected. While we lost, here we have here again, the Bible ends with us standing by the Tree of life again in Revelation 22. But when did he open the way back to paradise? As our . He did it at the cross and today we are going to learn something very special.

Let's go to Luke 23. This man, the fifa, the cross didn't deserve anything. As a matter of fact, he's called an evil doer, and that's a very good. Translation because the word for evil, doer or criminal is  made out of two words.  And ergo. Ergo means work. Kaos means bad or evil. He's a worker of evil. Both of them that are on the side.

And the two thieves next to Jesus represent the whole world, the ones that will accept his sacrifice and the ones that will reject his sacrifice. Chapter 23 of Luke. Verse 39, 1 of the urgo, one of the evil doers who were hanged, there was hurling abuse at him saying, are you not the Christ? Save yourself on us.

But the other answer on rebuking him said, do you not even fear God since you're under the same sentence of condemnation? Verse 41, we indeed are suffering justly for what we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. We are being condemned, righteousness.

Righteously, but this righteous man is being condemned. And then we have the most outrageous request in the whole Bible. Now before we study the request, remember that the one who is dying is the Goel and the one next to him, both of them are his children in his image. What would you do for a child that has lost a foot or that is incapable or that is handicapped in the moment they request your help, what would you do?

You wouldn't leave them on the F wheatfields, would you? Neither did Jesus, and I want you to understand the request. Let's write this down. He said three things. This is the thief on the cross talking to his goel. The first thing that catches our attention is that he says Jesus, nobody called Jesus.

They call him Rabbi Lord, master. Nobody called him by his first name. Accept the thief because Jesus means Yahweh saves. Remember the angel? Doesn't it ring in your ear? You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from the sins. Oh, the thief says, Yahweh saves. And then he says, remember me?

Oh, but that's a very important verb because remember is the covenantal verb of the covenant of God. When God remembered his people, he got them out of Egypt. When God remembered his people, he brought them back from exile. Remember, doesn't mean put a portrait of my photo on your desk. It means please act on my behalf according to the covenant.

This is not a little request. This is please take the bicycle and sit me on it and run back to town because I can't do it. This is a request of a child that needs a Goel because do. What he needs to do. Yahweh saves. Remember me act on my behalf according to the covenant. When you come into your kingdom, the only one in the whole scene that could see that behind the cross there was a crown, is this evil doer.

And he says to Yahweh, saves act on my behalf when you come in your kingdom. But he doesn't realize that Jesus at this moment is acting on his behalf right now in this very moment. And Jesus says, the only thing more outrageous in the request is the way it was granted because it was granted so outrageously.

And I am so sad we that we spent so many years looking to where the comma is in the next verse, that we absolutely lost the assurance of salvation that we have on that verse. So today I wanna settle this issue of the comma. I wanna tell you what the Greek says and what's the order. So please write it down so you never worry about that again.

Jesus says to this urgo as the Goel truly. I tell you today, and this is the order in the Greek. Ready, write it down. Truly, I tell you today with me, you shall be in paradise. So the Greek has the with me in the middle of the sentence, which is very important because in Greek, the center of the phrase is the most important part.

So he says truly, I tell you today with me, you shall be in paradise. Okay? So let's analyze this. First word today. We know that day Jesus didn't go to paradise. The Bible says that on Sunday, he told Mary, I haven't ascended to my father yet. So that's not the today. You know what the today is.

You don't have to wait until I come into my kingdom to know if I will remember you. You can know this today. See in Luke today shows the immediacy of salvation in the moment that you asked for it. Look for in Nazareth. Jesus says, today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. He goes to Zak's house in Luke 19.

He says, today, salvation has come to this house on the cross says, remember me act on my behalf. When you come in your kingdom, and Jesus says, you can know this today. You can't have it both ways either. That today was related to paradise, which he wasn't because we know he didn't go to paradise that day.

The Bible says that, so you can't have it both ways. Then you gotta believe in the immediacy of the assurance of salvation. If all you have left tonight is a prayer, and the prayer says, Yahweh saves act on my behalf According to the covenant. When you come into your kingdom, you will hear the same answer today.

You can know this, that you shall be in paradise. Second thing is the verb you will be. It doesn't say you might be. It doesn't say, let me think about it. The gospel is not the possibility of salvation. It's not the probability of salvation, it's the assurance of salvation. You will be, oh. What I would give for all of you to walk out of this place knowing that you have a Goel who has paid the full price, and if you believe in that Goel, you will be in paradise.

The third thing is what we've been studying. Where will you be? This is the only time in all four gospels that Jesus uses the word paradis. What we lost over here and we have here in this very moment, we're getting back. The first one to be promised a bite of the Tree of life is this urgo, this evil doer who has done nothing right except as the Goel to act on his behalf.

And Jesus says, I can tell you something and I can tell it to you today with me. You will be in the Paradiso, the very place that you have lost over here and that you absolutely don't deserve. But I'm your Goel and I'm acting on your behalf. See in the Adventist church, we don't have 28 pearls of great price.

Sometimes we act like we do. The doctrines are the angles through which we look at this peril, but the peril is Jesus Christ and him crucified. Amen. Amen. This is our north star. You can't lose this. You have to be able to understand all the doctrines in light of the cross. So Jesus says, let me tell you, there is one reason why you will be there.

It's because you will be with me, otherwise you wouldn't be there. So today, Second you will be third. Where in Paradiso you will be eating the tree of life that you, which you lost. Now you have back because I've done it on your behalf as Jesus. And the fourth part, which I left for the end is the center of the sentence in Greek is the with me.

That's your ticket. The fact that you will be with your Goel, you will be with me. In Paradise, they're with me. So powerful. One time I was listening to a program with my husband, it was a preacher who had gone with another very important religious figure to the Middle East to. Do some peace talk, but there was one important person, and the rest were all either preachers or people in the team.

When they got to the Middle East, the security was so tight that they grabbed the very important person and all the other people were left behind and they wouldn't be allowed in and this preacher was. Reporting this on tv and we were watching it and he says, and I was desperate. I wanted to go in with the important person, but they wouldn't let me in.

And I said, I am part of the team. And they wouldn't let me in. And then the security took this person, the important person far away from us. And when he was about a hundred yards away, he turns around and he sees us all over there and he goes, he's with me. Oh, he says the security parted like the Red Sea.

And I walked and I said, I told you I was with him. I told you I'm with him. Oh, I can't wait for the thief on the cross to be walking the streets of gold. Amen. Actually, let's do it this way. I'm gonna be walking the streets of gold and all of you know that, know what has happened to me. All the things that have gone wrong in my life and why I don't deserve salvation will say, what is she doing here?

I can't wait. I can't wait for Jesus to turn around and say she's with me. Amen.

You have a Goel who has done for you what you could have never done for yourself. Many years ago I didn't know the gospel. I was born in the Adventist church, but I didn't know the gospel. The gospel is the good news. That Argo has done for us what we could not have done for ourselves. And that you can live with that assurance that you will be in paradise and you can be with that assurance today.

Amen. And so one day I started following a family not physically following their story, and I'm sure many of you know him. It is the  family. The son was born quadriplegic with cerebral possum. The doctor said, don't even put any energy on this kid. He's gonna die soon. He's not gonna survive. The father who was in the United States Armed Forces said, no, sir, he's my child.

And I'm gonna do for him what he cannot do for himself. So he left the armed forces and dedicated his life to his very handicapped child. When the child was 15 years old, they entered a handicap, a mar a, a 5K marathon for handicapped children. And this father brought his son with a wheelchair when they crossed the finish line.

This young man had a big smile on his face, but he can't talk and he couldn't move his arms in a coordinated way. And they had made a computer, they had created a computer for him that he could type from his forehead, that he would have a little thing here, and he would type with a forehead and the father rushed home to see why this handicapped child could live, could be with this.

Big smile on his face when they crossed the FI finish line, and so they hurried home and he typed that. Today when we crossed the finish line, I felt like I could walk. I felt like a winner. I felt like I was worth something. The father said, my child. From this day forward, we're gonna enter every possible marathon and race, and I'm gonna take you to the finish line because I'm your father and you are my child.

And I followed them for 20 years, and I saw them go more than a thousand marathons and races together, and the father always took him to the finish line. But it was the day that I saw the triathlon in Hawaii called the Ironman, which I'm gonna show you tonight.

That day I understood the gospel of Jesus Christ. I saw this father take his handicapped son, 112 miles. Of bicycle. He created a little chair in the front and he biked, and the sun was sitting there 112 miles. Then I saw him running with a wheelchair in front, 26.2 miles, and then 2.4 miles he swam with a rope and a little boat in his back carrying his child.

When I saw this father, Carry his child, 2.4 miles of swimming, 26.2 miles of running 112 miles of biking, and I saw them get to the finish line. I understood the gospel of Jesus Christ. I understood that I am that handicapped child and I'm sitting on that chair and I have a goil that has done for me everything that was needed for my salvation.

And I said, I'm going to live with a smile on my face. Not because an I am an able athlete, but because I have a redeemer. Now you know the word in Hebrew. I have a Goel who has done for me what I could not have done for myself. What would you do for your child? I came to tell you what your goil has done for you.

I am so handicapped in so many ways, and I don't mean my foot, I mean my soul and in my mind, I could never attain salvation, but I can live with a smile on my face because I have a Goel who has done for me what I could have never done. He died to pay my price and he promised me that I will be in paradise.

And don't you dare doubt him. He's your goal. He paid your price, set you free. He got your property back. He stands in court in your place. He bought descendants for God from a race that was dead and he will ave our blood at the end of times. You want hope, you have assurance. You have assurance, and if you have never ever accepted Jesus as your goel, tonight is your night.

You don't wanna live one day without the assurance that you will be in paradise because you have a Goel who has done it for you. And he crossed the finish line and he took us with him and he said, it is finished. It is completed. We know how the story ends. Jesus wins. And we are with him. And if you believe in this goil, and you believe that you will be in paradise and you can know this today.

God bless you.