What do We do with Israel? (Pastor Jeff Shipley)

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Now, I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel. It wasn't their military size.
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It wasn't the type of people. Church, we're going to be in Genesis 12 today.
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But we're going to be in a lot of places. And I'm going to need you to put on your thinking hats today.
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I'm going to need you to face some intellectual honesties, but more importantly some doctrinal and theological honesties.
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Let me tell you something. You don't win a fight by backing up.
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You don't. You don't win by giving up. You don't see the victory that the
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Lord has for you men and your families by giving in to selfish lusts and the apathy of our lives.
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And it's going to take it's going to take the reality of our submission to God's Word to see the peace and the victory that He has.
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And I know that's a big intro with a lot of fancy words, but over the next three weeks
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I pray that you hear God's Word. Yes, it's okay to be skeptical.
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But also be academically and intellectually honest with yourself as well.
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Now, your papers this morning. I hope all of you got them.
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If you didn't, raise your hand and we'll have some young men come and assist you. Because they're going to be very important for you for the next three weeks.
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I'm not going to be preaching at you for the next three weeks. I'm going to be just showing you what
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God's Word says. And you're going to have to take it on an evidentiary understanding to see whether what
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I am saying and more importantly what the Word of God is saying is either truth or fiction.
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I told you that this week we begin talking about the Israel -Palestinian conflict.
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Now, there are some of you in this room that are ultra right -wing, MAGA, whatever.
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And I'm not making fun of you. No matter what, man, you're there. Then there's some other of you that are bleeding -heart liberal hippies, you know, and you've got your
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Birkenstocks on and eating tofu, which I do not understand, but hey, more power to you.
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The reality is that the extremities in our political ideology and our geopolitical situations are not what we have to focus on.
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We as believers must always use the litmus test of God's Word, the compass of God to find out which direction we should go.
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Because if we aren't on our feelings and what our friends think and how we were raised, we inevitably get lost.
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And we're like that little lamb baying out in the woods, scared and alone, and we have to cry out,
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God, come and save us. What's beautiful is in the sanctification process of God, if we will grow and learn, those moments alone in fear and in destitute become less and less.
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Now, your little papers give you about a 4 ,000 year history, and I have 200,
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I told Carrie this morning, I have 237 pages of history on Israel that I've accumulated in my research over the last 20 years.
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And I have to condense it down to this one piece of paper.
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Now, this paper is not for today's sermon in totality.
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Every week that I write these for you, the idea is for you to take them, put them in your little
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Bible, take them home. And when you're sitting there, instead of watching Fox News or CNN or whatever you people watch, some of those
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CSI shows, turn the TV off. Turn your phone off.
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Well, some of you, your Bibles are on the phone, but turn all that other social media garbage off.
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Take the piece of paper out and study and learn and grow. But just real quick,
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I want to give you some brief outlines. Number one, in talking about Israel and the
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Gaza, the Palestinian and all this other stuff, what you have to realize is this has been going on for about 5 ,000 years.
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This is nothing new. And I rejoice in that. Because I don't have to preach to you something devoid.
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I always laugh when I hear pastors say something like this. Well, that's world history. This is
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Bible history. Guys, listen to me. There's only history. In time, space, and matter, an event took place that is not devoid or it is not an anomaly to the rest of the world history going on.
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It is what is reality. Just like there's no such thing as secular science and Bible science.
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They're not in conflict. In fact, they agree one with another. So as we look at this 5 ,000 years of history, here's something else
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I always hear say. Let's kill every Palestinian out there. Hell, Israel's bombing them into the
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Stone Age. Let's kill them all. Let God sort them out. I have a problem with that scripturally.
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I just do. I just do. I know some of you in here are like, man,
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USA, Israel, God bless. And I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but what
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I am saying is this. Your first loyalty and your first submission must be to the characteristics of God and His Word, not your political persuasions.
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Do you understand what I'm saying? And if you're not there, you are just as guilty as any other sinner in this world.
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It is a reality that Hamas is a terrorist organization.
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There's no two ways about that. But as we face evil in this world, we must face it as Micah 6 tells us.
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We are to love mercy. We are to love justice, and we are to walk humbly with our
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God. You know, there is a place for hate in this world. There is a place for hate.
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But I'm going to tell you, according to Scripture, the only thing we are supposed to hate, and that is this.
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Our own sin. Yeah, some people say sin. No, no, no, no. Not sin.
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Your sin. You see, because it's easy to start hating sin and looking at everybody else and going, well,
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I hate what they're doing. I hate what they're doing. And it's okay to understand. But if you sit there and start hating everybody else's sin, what happens is yours get covered up in the vicarious hatred of others.
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See, that's humility. It's, I need to hate my sin. So as we go through this and we look at the history and the
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Scripture of this, let us remember that God's Son came to die, and He is a propitiation, not just for our sins, but the sins of the entire world.
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Let's read Genesis chapter 12. okay, wait a minute, no, don't be scared.
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Oh, man, that didn't turn out right. Well, anyways, that's Genesis 12 verses 1 through 3.
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You can't see it, I can't see it, but I promise you that's the Scripture reference. Let's read this Scripture together.
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Ready? Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to a land that I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
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I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse.
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Now listen, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
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Let's break this down just for a second today. Before we can talk about the current geopolitical situation in the
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Middle East, we've got to actually know by fact, not by proxy, we've got to know by fact who is who and what is going on.
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Abram, and I need you to hear me on this, let me tell you, Abram, who was later named
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Abraham, Abram was not attending First Baptist Church in the land of Ur.
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Okay? He was not a born -again Christian listening to Caleb on his camel.
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He was not sitting there studying God's word. He was a godless heathen, worshipping idols in a foreign land.
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That's who he was. And God chose him. Now I need you to hear me say that.
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God chose him. Abram did not choose God. God in his grace chose
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Abram. And wait! And you know why he chose Abram? Because he could.
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Because of his gracious mercy, he could. Now, what's important for us to understand about that is this.
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God is not a respecter of persons based on ethnicity or nationality.
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God's blessing is that by choice because of His grace. I tell you today,
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I am a born -again Christian, not because of who I am or what I do, but I can tell you without blinking
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I am a born -again Christian destined for heaven based on nothing but God's grace. Nothing but God's grace.
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Oh, but pastor, you're licensed and ordained. That has nothing to do with my salvation.
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Oh, but you're a believer now. Oh, but you're this and you're that. If you get in that mentality you're never going to be able to praise and worship
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God because you're looking at your own works and you don't understand how marvelous His grace really is. Now look at this.
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Lord said to Abram, go from your country, your kindred, your father's house to the land that I will show you.
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One of the things about when God calls you to salvation, it's not just what God is calling you to, it's also what
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He's calling you from. And this morning I walked out of the fire doors coming down here and before I even got to these two glass doors,
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I was hit three different times with people going, pastor, people in tears. I lost my mom.
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I'm struggling with this. I'm struggling with this. I'm struggling with this. By the time I got down here I looked up at Pastor Josiah and I was like, my brain was just and I was like,
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I don't know what pastor Steve Gaines don't have to deal with this, you know.
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We need to hire some more pastors so I can be insulated, preach a sermon, and go back and sit in my air conditioned office.
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Which is the way God intended it, right? The book of Hezekiah, go look it up. Book of Hezekiah chapter 1.
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You know it's funny, by the time I got right here, the emotion in me was not
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I'm frustrated, the emotion was I was hurt. And I'm going to tell you why.
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Once again, not because I'm a great guy. Because I'm a godless heathen just like you, saved by grace.
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It's because I love my family. You see, God called me from my self -centeredness.
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God called me from my selfishness. God called me from what I wanted to do to what
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He wanted to do. And when He does that, He puts you with like -minded people.
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And He invented this thing called the church. So that you would have the opportunity to love people.
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Where you can take Jesus as He is to people where they are. Where you're not trying to change them, you're just showing them the real
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Christ so that Christ can change them. That's what God called Abram to do. And He said to him,
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I will make you a great nation. Now some of you fundamentalists in here, and some of you theologians, keyboard theologians who are like nuts on Left Behind and Hal Lindsey and all this.
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I want to point something out to you real quick. God did not call Israel look at the scripture, God did not call
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Israel to be the church. God called Israel to be a great nation.
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Israel is not the object of my worship. Israel is not the object of my concern.
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Israel is not as a nation something that I herald, it's I follow God and God says those who bless you
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I will bless them. I want in that line. But it's not because of the moral ethical stances of Israel or their government that I do that.
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It's because my mind is so focused on trying to obey God their credence comes from God's word not their proof of God's existence or they are something special that I need to bow down to or to support simply because well they're just great people.
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See? They're godless, totally depraved people just like me. They're evil just like Hamas.
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They are not morally superior to other peoples on the planet. If we would understand this as a people group.
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Now remember how many races of people are there? There's only one race of people. They're called
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Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Okay? There are not multiple races of people. A Chihuahua and a
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German Shepherd are both dogs. Okay? Now you may not be as good looking as I am.
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Let's take Pastor John for example. He ugly.
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And he from Mississippi. Actually he's from Louisiana. Where are you from? Arkansas.
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He got web feed and inbred. Okay? But he and I are on the same level.
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That street walking prostitute on Sycamore right now is the same worth in the eyes of God as I am.
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Let us never forget that people. And when we forget that what we start doing is segmenting people.
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Well that's Israel. They're God's people. So they're perfect. No they're not.
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Okay? The reality is this is a 5 ,000 year old history that is way more complicated than a 15 minute news segment on Fox News.
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This is way more complicated than an article in the New Yorker. This is way bigger than a political situation of who's in charge in this
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Knesset and this Prime Minister. I tell you what this is all involved in. It is the sovereign will and plan of God unfolding right before your eyes.
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But we'll get to that in a little bit. I want to make you a great nation.
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Not a great church. A great nation. Theologians by the way. Replacement theology.
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But you can look that up later. I will bless you and make your name great. Let's stop right there.
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I will bless you and make your name great. You know how many Muslims, Jews, and Christians there are in the world?
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A bunch. All three of those religions all call the father
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Abraham the father of the religion. We don't. We believe in Jesus.
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Ready? Father Abraham had many sons. Everyone had many sons.
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Father Abraham. Right? Abraham is seen as the patriarch of three major world religions.
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Jerusalem is the Mecca if you will of two of those major religions.
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But we'll get to that next week. Watch those. I will make your name great so that you will be a blessing.
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Christians can we stop right here? Let me do a little side sermon for you. Please say, stop saying may
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God bless you when you have no idea what the word bless means. Do you understand what that actually means?
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To bless someone? Here in the Hebrew that word bless is Barak. Go ahead and say it.
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Right. Barack Obama I'm sorry. I didn't hijack the word.
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He did. Barak. It means to bless. The Greek word is eulogia.
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It means to bless. Now what does it mean in actual definition? It means this.
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Simply to speak a good word of. I'm going to bless Charquita. This is going to take a second.
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Speak a good word of Charquita. You have a beautiful grandchild. You have a wonderful husband.
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You have a pretty little girl. But you are an awesome stud too girl. I just blessed her.
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I just blessed her. That's it. That's what blessing means. It means to speak a good word of.
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Do you know that God says, when he says I will bless you, it means
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God's going to say that's my boy. That's my daughter.
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Hey, all of the heavenly hosts in the cosmos that I've created come here and see how beautiful my child is.
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It's not some silly let me slap you in the forehead and say somebody stole my Honda. It literally is the creator of the universe going.
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That's my baby. That's my baby. Look what it says.
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I will bless those. I will speak a good word of those who speak a good word of you and him that dishonors you.
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I will curse. Now you say, okay, what's that mean?
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It means this. This has nothing to do with politics, ideology, philosophy, ethics, morals, or anything else.
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It has to do with this. I am never going to raise my hand against God's chosen people as a nation or as a church.
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Bellevue is a great church. FACS is a great school.
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St. Anne's. I am never, and some of y 'all need to be real careful when you start slamming your brothers and sisters in Christ based upon a preconceived idea that because you white
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Anglo -Saxon Baptist Protestants and Americans in the south, you have a higher moral eligibility to be able to speak a negative word against somebody else.
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Now we are to call out sin. But make sure it's sin you're calling out and not just preferences.
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Not just preferences. I remember a lady years ago that used to go to church here.
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We had a young man who was not a believer at the time, but he is in this room today and a Christian. In his shock value, he used to wear this stocking hat with two horns out of it.
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He actually sewed him. I thought it was quite creative, if not dorky. She thought it was demonic.
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In my head, the thing I was thinking about was Viking. I wanted to clash the shields.
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But he came in here one Sunday night Some of y 'all know who
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I'm talking about. He came in here with this stocking hat on with these two horns sticking out of her head and she freaked out.
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Instead of coming to me and letting me handle it, she decided on her own arrogant idea that she was going to walk up to this young man and in a polite way
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Karen him by saying, would you please take off that hat? It's offensive. You know what that kid did?
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Walked right out them doors. I had been praying for this kid for like ten years that he would become saved.
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And I wanted to choke her. I'm not lying. I wanted to choke her. Was his hat really that important to you?
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We're dealing with an eternal soul. In hell there's no recess.
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There's no second chance. There's no parole. There's no time off for good behavior. Hat. Guys, make sure you're careful what you speak against.
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Especially that which God has ordained to be His. Last thing. In all of your families of the earth shall be blessed.
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And in you, all of the families of the earth shall be blessed.
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Now, here's something that's really weird. In the past tense of that word blessed there, there's a difference than in the
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Barak of earlier. Yes, it means to speak a good word of, but what it actually means here is to kneel in subjugation.
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That's what it means. In worship and in honor. Do you all know
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Abraham? I don't know him. Bill, I'm sure, knows him. Bill Metty. But I personally don't know
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Abraham. I don't know him. I don't know him. How has Abraham blessed me?
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How has Abraham blessed you people from Bartlett? How has Abraham blessed you
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Mississippi folks? Hmm. Huh? Obedience to God?
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Okay. Okay. Abraham was the father of what nation?
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Well, no, he's not the father of all nations. He's the father of three religions, but who said that?
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Israel. Thank you, Pastor. And what came out of the nation of Israel?
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God chose them for a specific purpose. To be a lamp stand for His Word to a lost and dying world.
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But He also chose them to this. Have you ever, on every Christmas, had a pastor get up and read the genealogy of Jesus Christ?
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Oh my God. It's like Leviticus, man. I'm like, and this guy begat this guy that begat that guy.
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And I'm like, oh my God, can we just get to the end? I know we're talking about Jesus. Snoopy's talking about Jesus.
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Can we just get to Jesus? You know? Through the line of Abram, who later became
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Abraham, who had two sons, Ishmael, who was the father of all Arabs, and Isaac, who was the father of all
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Jews, or Israelites. And God said, you two and your descendants are going to be like this to each other until I come back.
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We're going to get to this next week. We're going to do a lot of prophecy next week, so some of you like rubbernecking
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Revelation people are going to freak out for next week. But listen, I am blessed. I am in subjugation to the descendant of Abraham because that's where my
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Jesus came from. Was that bloodline. God promised Adam Jesus.
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God promised Abraham Jesus. In all the Old Testament, God kept saying, but wait, there's more.
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Call now. Put your faith in now. Because one is coming who is going to crush your sin and take your sin away.
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And on that day, on that day, a star was shining, the angels were singing, and men who were wise bowed down for the descendant of the
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Lion of Judah was born in Bethlehem. And as John said, behold the
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Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So let's talk a little bit more. We need to understand the promises of God to Abraham.
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And you've got to remember this is about 2200 B .C. For you Kentucky folks that means before Christ.
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So 2000 years. Now you've got to remember, Abraham is as far away from Jesus as we are from Jesus.
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Here's Jesus right here. Abraham was where are you people? Abraham was 2200 years that way.
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We're 200 We're 200 that way. This brings me to my next lesson in the sermon.
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Don't smoke crack. Because you will pay for it when you get older. So watch this. Man Jeff, make them black.
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Anyways, all these verses are on your little sheet. No they're not. No they're not. But copy these down.
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And I'll give them to you real quick so you can write them down. Let me see.
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Where is your paper? Yeah, there you go. Let me write them down for you. Psalms 106 27.
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Ezekiel 2023. This is Leviticus 2633.
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This is Deuteronomy 427. And this is Ezekiel 1215. I want you to understand something.
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You know what our God is great at? Being a parent. He really is.
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And He never counts 1, 2, 3. God never enables children to continue to be wrong.
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You see, God loves so much He does something that we sometimes fail to do because of our emotions and our feelings.
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He actually disciplines those whom He loves. That's actually in Scripture. If you love them, you'll discipline them.
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This is what God said to His chosen people. I will scatter you among the nations.
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Now I want you to understand this was written in Leviticus. Genesis, Exodus. God said in the future,
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I'm going to scatter you to the winds. But God, what have we done? It ain't what you've done, it's what you're going to do.
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God is so powerful and so omniscient, He knew the very people
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He called were going to rebel against Him and God said, I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out a sword after you as your land listen, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become waste.
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They ain't got land yet! They don't even have cities and God is already prophesying,
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God is already saying, this is what's going to happen. I'm going to make you a great nation. Oh yeah, I'm going to make you a great nation.
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Then I'm going to whip your rear end! Because you're rebellious, but you're still mine.
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Look at this. The Lord will scatter you. This is in Deuteronomy. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples and you will be left few in number among the nations where the
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Lord drives you. Now, the pastor Jeff cited me was trying to get you to understand the total depravity of all people and the eventuality of God's discipline on those whom
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He loves. But the other side of me is saying this. Do you people not get this? This wasn't written by a guy named
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Bob last week in CNN. This was written, and we have proof through the Septuagint, the
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Dead Sea Scrolls that 2200 years before Christ was even born God was saying, your cities which you don't have yet, your land which you don't have yet, will become destitute and your cities waste because of your rebellion towards me and I will scatter you among the peoples of the whole earth.
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You can't go to a country without swinging a dead cat and hitting a Jew. Can't do it.
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Yes, that was the humor relief there part. There's no other people group in the world like them.
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They're everywhere. They are not centrally located before 1948 anywhere.
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You got Russian Jews, Greek Jews, you have Arab Jews, you have
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Egypt Jews, you got American Jews, you got Canada Jews, you even got
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Columbian Jews. They're so confused, they don't know whether they have a torah bread or a burrito.
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They know there are Jews everywhere. Yeah, I gotta do that because some of y 'all are floating.
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Stay focused. But God already prophesied all this. Look what he says here.
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Now look at this verse. So they will know that I am the Lord when I scatter them among the nations.
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He's talking from a past tense about a future tense so that they will know he's really
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God. Record this now so that when you're sitting in the middle of nowhere in Siberia, Russia going
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I don't know what we're going to do. Remember I told you this was going to happen. You can trust me about the negative but now you can also trust me about the positive.
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Because that's the next thing God says. He says when I scatter them, this is
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Zechariah chapter 10. I can't read what verse but I know it's Zechariah 10. 9? Is that what it says?
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It says when I scatter them among my peoples, now wait a minute. The same emphatic way he's saying it they will remember me in far countries.
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And they with their children will live and come back.
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You know what's great about our God and grace? I love the book of Jonah for this one verse.
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God said go left. Jonah said and went right. Jonah literally looked in the face of God and in pure Ava fashion went
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NO! All of a sudden
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Jonah is on a ship somewhere in a storm going where am
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I? How did I get here and what am I going to do? And then this verse happens.
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And the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. You know what grace is?
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It's not forgiveness. Grace that is a total separate doctrine. You know what grace is?
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Grace is this. You do nothing yet I still come and call you my own. You continually screw up.
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Remember the little prayer you prayed down here? I'm going to start doing my devotions. I'm going to quit drinking.
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I'm going to stop doing that. And 24 hours later you just a bum again. Remember that?
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God already knew it and still chose to die for you before you were even born. In fact before the foundation of the world
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God chose you. Romans 5 .8 God demonstrates His love for us and that while we were yet sinners
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Christ died for us. God sat there and saw the people of Israel all the way back in Adam's time.
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All the way back in Abram's time. Knew they were going to mess up. He said so that you will know that I'm God.
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I'm going to scatter you. Remember I told you this. But also remember this. I will bring you home.
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Now here's the problem. In this time Sorry.
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Good or? Alright. If you don't know history this is not amazing to you.
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But if you actually know history this is amazing to you. Okay? It's just absolutely amazing.
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Watch this. Guys I'm going to go to Spain next week.
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I am. I'm going to get in my car I'm going to drive south I'm going to hit
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I -10 turn east and I'm going to go to St. Augustine.
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That's Spain. That's where you went on your honeymoon? Really? Did Sue come? Yeah. Okay.
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Was she disappointed in the city as much as she was in the honeymoon? Alright. So Please feel free to heckle.
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Alright. So Am I wrong in saying
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St. Augustine is Spain? I am? It was founded by Spain.
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It was lived in by Spain. Wait a minute. It was built by Spain. But it's not
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Spain no more. But what if tomorrow at 1201
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AM by declaration of the sovereignty and power of the
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United Nations and the United States St. Augustine became Spain again. What are the chances of that happening?
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Flip your paper over. You'll see a map on the back of your little paper. And as I know all of you are going to do this week, you're going to actually study so that you can appreciate the power of God's sovereignty.
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I know you're going to do that. I'm going to give you just a brief and we're almost done.
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Just relax. I'm going to give you a brief history lesson. In 67
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AD, during the time of the Apostles, the New Testament's being written, 67
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AD, the Jews that were living in Jerusalem and there was no Israel, but there was the city of Jerusalem.
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That one city was the last holdout. They got invaded by the Romans. And in 70
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AD, the Romans came in and whooped them. And when I say whooped them, the
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Romans just went absolutely ham -lit fire all over every Jew they could find.
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They were crucifying and killing them left and right. Wholesale. The Jews were like, alright, y 'all win.
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We give up. For 60 years. And in 130s, they went to war with Rome again.
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And they got whooped again. Then the Jews decided, you know what? Teachers, leave us alone.
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We aren't going to take this anymore. They went to war again. And the Romans whooped them again.
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Now, this time when the Romans whooped them, they unleashed the dogs of war.
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And the Romans were very good at this. You can't go see Carthage today because Romans literally, when they destroyed the city, they had slaves remove every brick so that not one brick would be left standing on another.
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Then they took all those bricks and put them in buildings all over the city of Rome. And then what they did is they actually troweled and plowed up the land and salted it so that nothing would grow there so the whole world for perpetuity would have a scar on the continent of Africa showing
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Roman dominance. That's who came against the Jews the last time.
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And they laid waste. Rome went one step further.
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They renamed Jerusalem. They renamed Israel. They called it
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Syria Palestine. That's the name they named it. That's the name they named it.
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This was in 135 onward. They renamed the place.
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Israel and Jerusalem ceased to exist. But here's a problem guys.
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They will live and come back. To where? Now remember,
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Zechariah is written 100 years before Jesus was born. The Romans destroyed Jerusalem 100 years after Jesus died.
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And then Romans sold Jews into slavery to every dealer that came through Rome.
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Russians, Ethiopians, whatever. They were selling Jews. They're all over the world now.
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What's really cool is this. If you go to Isaiah, which is written 400 years before Jesus, it says this.
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Now I want you to focus. Before Zion was in labor, she gave birth. Before she was in pain, she delivered a boy.
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Who has heard of such a thing? Who has even seen such things? Can a land be born in one day or a nation be delivered in an instant?
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Yet as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her sons. For 2 ,200 years there was no
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Israel. If you look on the back of your little paper, you'll see that map. There's that map and many more.
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That is actually a railroad map from the World War I area, which was from 1914 to 1918.
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There was no nation of Israel. It did not exist at all.
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On May 14, 1948, in a thing that has never happened in the history of mankind, nor has happened since, a nation was born literally in one day.
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In one day. You say, well, pastor, that's coincidence.
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Okay. I ain't going to try to prove it to you. But here's the evidence against what you're saying.
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Here's what you're saying. And you probably wear tinfoil hats and believe in black helicopters too.
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And that the moon landings were fake or whatever and there's another planet behind the sun called something stupid or whatever dope you're smoking this week.
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Here's what you have to come against. Okay. Take a deep breath. Think. That would mean every nation from the time of Rome, I'm sorry, every nation from the time of Assyria to Rome, to every nation that has ever existed including the
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Russians and every Arab nation, have all been in a secret plot before any of those nations actually existed to actually rename that whole place
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Palestine. Okay. Keep it a secret for 2 ,000 years.
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Wait for World War II to end and then on May 14th they all get together and go, it's time.
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Let's really trick those people into going to church and giving their monies to preachers by making this 2 ,200 year old prophecy come true.
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Because we want to trick the one guy in Bartlett Tennessee who just wants to smoke weed in his mom's basement that there really is no
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God and the church is all phony. So that's the big secret and all of that historical evidence, you're right.
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That's what it's got to be. Or, there is a God He has a plan. It's coming to fruition and you best be on the right side of it.
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It's one of those two things. I'm going to close with this. Listen to me.
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Listen. This is the beginning salvo of this. It's going to take you intellectually wrapping your head around it, but here's what else it's also going to take.
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It's going to take a regenerated spirit with regenerated eyes to hear the Holy Spirit in you speak the truth from God's Word.
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And if you're not a Christian, I'm not here to prove you anything, but I'm giving overwhelming evidence on an intellectual level by ancient documents and look up Fox News right now on your phone.
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I guarantee you the first or second story is about Israel. Guarantee it. 100%.
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Guys, there's a reality Jesus is coming back. How do you say that? Because the same book that prophesied all this to be true is the same book that said
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Jesus died for your sins and he's coming back not as a lamb from Bethlehem, but as a lion reclaiming
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Judah. Which side do you want to be on? I'm going to ask the music people to come up. I'm going to ask you to stand.
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And in a non -emotional way, I want you to think. Where do you stand today with God? Not with Israel.
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Not with Hamas. Not in the political stuff. Where do you stand today with God? If you are not a
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Christian and you are not a believer or you're concerned about that, I ask you to come forward this morning.
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If you need to repent of sin, I ask you to come forward this morning. If you need prayer,
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I ask you to come forward this morning. But what I don't want you to do is stand in the same place continuing to do the same thing you did last week and expect a different change.
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If you're a believer, go minister to someone. Don't stand there and read the screen or listen to the music.