The 7000

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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If you turn your Bibles please to 1 Kings chapter 18, we're actually going to be looking at a fairly large portion of scripture and I will do my best to stop imitating

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Jeff Durbin as far as the length of time goes. I used to be very, very good at getting, you know, being right on time and things like that and then

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I came to Apologia and I have been absolutely ruined as a result of that. We had a baptismal service about a month or so ago and I was preaching on baptism.

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I'm doing a series on baptism. I've done 12 sermons on the subject so far and since we were going to have more than 20 baptisms that evening,

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I decided to go short and instead of like an hour and ten, it was an hour and five, and I thought

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I really, honestly, if you had asked me how long do you think you went, I would have said 45 -50 and then

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I looked at it on Facebook and it was like an hour and five minutes long and it's like I'm just ruined. It's terrible, but it is good to be with you and I understand from talking with the gentlemen, my other elders, that they're going to be heading up here not all that long from now actually.

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Yeah, end of May. We're trying to actually find a time to have a debate with Brandon Robertson.

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I'm not sure if any of you know who he is, but he is a homosexual minister and we're trying to have, probably end up having it there at the church, but we need to need to know when and that's what was involved in all the planning of all that stuff is when the guys are going to be up here.

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So, I'll just warn you ahead of time, mothers bring extra treats for the kids when

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Jeff is preaching because you'll need extra Cheerios to get through. 1

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Kings chapters 18 and 19 probably would not be what you'd expect. Normally, when

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I am preaching, I like to do exegetical work. I like to open up especially a

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New Testament text or an Old Testament text as well and dig deep into it, but looking at two chapters, you can't get very deep into any particular aspect of things.

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What I want to do is to remind you of what takes place in 1 Kings chapter 18, and you have the encounter of Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, and a few years ago,

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I had the one opportunity that I've had to go to Israel, and I had honestly not pursued the opportunity to go to Israel before.

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I'd seen so many people, people go over there, and they do their videos, and they've always got the

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Dome of the Rock in the background, and they're hawking some 48 CD set or something like that for the, you know, little payments of $59 a month or whatever, and I, you know, talking about how their lives have been changed and everything else, and so I was sort of ambivalent about the whole thing.

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Yes, Lord, and yes, the

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Lord speaks frequently, huh? Okay, especially during the summer, I would imagine, and so we get there, and I'll tell you, it was life -changing,

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I will admit. One of the things that, the main thing that I took away from going to Israel that one time was how small it is.

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It's tiny. I mean, you get into a car on a freeway at the south end, and you can be at the north end in no time at all.

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It's just amazing how small all those areas are, and how quickly you can get from one place to another in a modern vehicle, but, you know, you have the story of Elijah running here.

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That gives you an idea. He could have done that, and in the

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Gospels, Jesus taught in all their synagogues, well, once you see the area, yeah, that was, that makes perfect sense, because those synagogues are not very far away from one another, because it's not a big place.

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The thing that blew me away the most was when I had the opportunity on the shore of the

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Sea of Galilee at Capernaum to speak on John 6.

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First of all, that was, that was pretty special, but I could stand on the shore, and anywhere along the

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Sea of Galilee, you could look across. So, you know, think about it in the maps in your

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Bible, and I've just realized a lot of people never look at maps in the

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Bible anymore, because, well, where are the maps? I'm not sure where they are, but during boring sermons when

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I was a kid, you learned the maps really well, because they were colorful, you know, and it actually wasn't all that bad.

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You ended up learning your Biblical geography when you ran into a poor sermon. Anyway, you think of the

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Sea of Galilee, and it's oblong, obviously. It doesn't matter where you stand, because Capernaum's up at the top.

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You can always see the other shore from wherever you are. Now, when you're looking from north to south, it's a ways off, and what you're really seeing are the mountains on the other side, but you can see the other shore, and when

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I had thought of Sea of Galilee, I always thought, you know, big, huge, ocean -type thing, you know, and it is a big lake.

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Don't get me wrong. It was really low when I was there. It's 20 feet low when I was there.

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I guess it's back to its normal now, but still, it just stunned me at how small these places are, and one of the places we visited was the synagogue at Migdal, and when you hear

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Migdal, what you need to think of is Mary Magdalene. Mary from Migdal is what

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Mary Magdalene means, and the synagogue itself was from the first century, so it would have been the synagogue that Jesus taught in, and so, yeah, there is sort of something special about standing there looking at the mosaic that was on the floor, and it's like this now because of all the earthquakes and stuff that have happened over 2 ,000 years, but those stones heard

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Jesus teach, and yeah, you stand there, and you go, wow, it happened right here.

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This isn't just a storybook. It really happened here, and one of the places that we went was to Mount Carmel.

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Now, of course, there's a gift shop and trinkets that you can buy and Elijah statues and all this kind of stuff, and that is one of the bad things is that it's all meant to get your money, get your shekels, literally, because that's what they use, but still, you're there, and you can look out, and you can see the brook

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Kidron, which once flowed red with the blood of the prophets of Baal, and I had the opportunity in this little grove of trees to speak especially on the words of Elijah when he was mocking these false gods, and when he, you know, there are 450 prophets of Baal, according to verse 22, and Elijah's crying out to God to vindicate himself in front of the people, and their response after the fire falls, you're thinking about all these things, and what we were doing, by the way, just in passing, we had a

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Jewish tour guide, and man was he knowledgeable, and he knew the New Testament really, really well.

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He was very, very knowledgeable, and so what we were doing during the entire trip was doing everything we could to witness to him, so when

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I spoke there at Mount Carmel, I spoke at the

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River Jordan, and every time at Qumran, right outside the cave where the

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Isaiah scroll was found, every single one of those talks was meant to present

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Jesus to our Jewish tour guide, and he did admit, you know, you know what?

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I shouldn't have brought this up, but just think about this. One of the greatest hindrances to this man coming to faith in Christ was all the foolishness that he had heard and seen from Christians that he had guided through Israel.

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He had heard such ignorance of the scriptures that he could recognize it.

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He said, you guys are different. I get that. I understand that. You're saying things that no one else would say, but still, that was a lot of stuff to try to overcome.

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It really, really was, and so I'll never forget being up there on that mountain and talking about how the people of Israel were going back and forth, and they were engaging in syncretistic worship, and we did, by the way, visit one of the high places.

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If you're familiar with your Old Testament, you've read about the Asherim, the groves, the high places.

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There's one very, very old one that we visited, and I was a little surprised at how big it was, but this is where the worship of Baal would take place, sacrifices would take place, immoral sexual activity would take place, and remember that the reason that this is going on is that it was believed that Baal and the various gods of the peoples could give you better crops, could cause your livestock to have more offspring, and things like that.

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They'd give you fertility. They were primarily a big fertility cult because that's what you needed back then.

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You needed to keep your livestock alive, and you needed to have food coming out of the ground. Those were your highest priorities.

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Everything else was secondary, and what did you need for that? You needed rain, but you didn't need so much that it flooded you, and this is how humanity existed until and still exists in major portions of the world.

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You and I have lived the life of kings, kings and queens, in almost any other century.

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To have the luxuries that we take as absolute necessary would have only been things that kings and queens could dream of.

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To have whatever, however much food you want, whenever you want it, to have indoor plumbing and water and warm water without having to start a fire and everything else, and to have, as most of us have grown up in the

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United States, until the past six weeks, we never had discussions about food, famines, can't get enough fertilizer for crops, that kind of thing.

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We've been blessed, but you need to realize that's very unusual.

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Mankind has struggled with these issues for all of history, and so that's what these people will be focused upon, and so you need to realize that the temptation of the people of Israel, which was warned about way back in, you know,

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Moses, the people of the land are going to try to entice you into the worship of other gods.

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And man, there was a number of years ago before I came to Apologia, when I was at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, I did a lengthy series on the law of God, and one of the texts that I dealt with was the text that said that if anyone entices you, if anyone amongst the people of Israel entices you to worship other gods, you are to be the first one to expose them, and the first one to cast a stone upon them to kill them.

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And it specifically said it does not matter if this is a person as close to you as a brother or even your husband or wife.

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That was how vitally important avoiding idolatry was, and here is

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Elijah. And what does Elijah say in chapter 19 when he runs from Jezebel?

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He says in verse 10, I have been very zealous for Yahweh, the God of hosts, for the sons of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I alone am left, and they seek my life to take it away.

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So I'm the only one left, but I've been zealous. But listen to what these sons of Israel have done.

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They've forsaken your covenant, they've torn down your altars, they've killed your prophets with the sword, and you could have gone on to say, and they've built the groves, and they've built the

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Asherim, and they've engaged in idolatry, and they have engaged with the

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Baals. And this was what was going on.

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Now remember what else is going on. Judgment of God is falling upon Israel. There is a drought that is going on.

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God has shut up the heavens. Can you imagine what that's like? See, we have reservoirs, and dams, and even when there are rough years, we've got a reserve.

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We were smart enough to plan ahead. I remember a few years ago, I was down in, what's the city in South Africa, Cape Town.

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It's a really tough name, isn't it? In Cape Town, South Africa, it's over on the eastern side on the ocean.

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It's a beautiful place, beautiful, beautiful place. But they were having a massive drought, and they literally got down to within two weeks of people just packing up and leaving because there was no water left.

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All of the things that they had done, all the infrastructure they had built, it was just exhausted. Sometimes it just lasts that long.

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Can you imagine what it was like in this day? You don't have that kind of ability to create storage.

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And so everyone in Israel is suffering. You have decreased amounts of food.

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You literally have decreased amounts of water. You probably are in a situation where bathing is no longer really something that is a proper use of water.

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That makes living in a city not overly enjoyable, I can assure you of that. But then again, let's be honest, until the last century, living in any city was a very odiferous experience.

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Oh, think about it. Think about what it's like to be in a place like London. It was called the old smoke.

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Everything was covered in soot. And then until you had plumbing, and until you had sewers, and you had horses running through the streets.

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Like I said, wearing cologne was primarily not so much to keep you from offending others, but just give you to something to smell so you're not smelling everything that's around you.

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Seriously, we've had it easy, folks. We have had it good, and we're used to it.

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And when you lose it, all of a sudden you feel like God has forgotten me, because now

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I'm having to live like people have lived for thousands of years before me. But think about it for a moment.

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During that time, there were judgments coming from God, and life was difficult in Israel.

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And so the pressure was being placed upon everyone to worship in an improper fashion.

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Go ahead and worship Yahweh. But we need to, we need to worship the Baals as well, because they might help too.

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And in fact, if you are so narrow -minded, if you are so narrow -minded that you won't do this, you're a hater.

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You might offend the Baals, and then we will all suffer. Can you imagine the pressure that was being put upon a faithful Israelite at this time to compromise their faith?

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Think about that, because what happens in chapter 18 is Elijah has this incredible victory.

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I mean, we know the fire falls, and of course, we know that Elijah mocks the gods of the peoples.

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In verse 27 and verse 18, it came about at noon that Elijah mocked them and said,

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Call out with a loud voice, for he is a god. Either he is occupied or gone aside or he's on a journey or perhaps he is asleep and needs to be awakened.

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And the translation there that says, he has gone aside, that's the normal terminology for, he's using the restroom.

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Now, of course, they didn't have restrooms back then either. It was a hole in the ground. But, you know, that's the whole idea is, you know, he can't come to consume your sacrifice because he's busy taking care of nature, taking care of business, you know.

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And you see the result is, so they cried with a loud voice and cut themselves according to their custom of swords and lances until the blood gushed out on them.

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And it came about when midday was past that they raved. Yeah, sort of like that.

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They raved until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, but there was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention.

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Can you imagine what that looked like? Some Shiite Muslim groups have a ceremony they go through each year where they cut themselves and they bleed.

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And I've seen pictures of it and it's, it's amazing to think about. They raved for hours.

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They must have been exhausted by the time this was over. And there is Elijah. And so, he calls the people of Israel together and he puts together the sacrifice and he tells them to douse it with water.

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And then he calls upon God and says, O Lord, verse 36,

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O Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, today let it be known that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all these things at your word.

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Answer me, O Yahweh, answer me that this people may know that you, O Yahweh, are

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God. By the way, just in passing, I'm still reading from the, this is actually the 1977

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NASB. I'm actually switching English translations. I'm going to be using the

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Legacy Standard Bible that just came out. It's, it's the NASB with everything changed that I automatically change when

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I read the NASB anyways. So, in the Old Testament, when you see the

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L -O -R -D in all caps, that's the Tetragrammaton, Yod -Heh -Wah -Heh, pronounced Yahweh in Hebrew, or the, how we slaughter it in English, Jehovah.

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And so, you'll notice I read that way. Well, the L -A -S -B just has Yahweh, so I don't even have to be doing that.

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And then there are a couple texts in the New Testament that I've always struggled with the NASB rendering of Romans 9, 5, for example,

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John 1, 18, and the L -A -S -B translates it the way I translate it. So, it's like, why not?

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I mean, I normally don't use an English translation, but when traveling, it's a little bit easier when you're, got other stuff to do and, you know, you just got out from underneath your

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RV and fixing something. You don't have quite as much time doing stuff. So, but please notice something up here in Utah.

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Notice what it says. Answer me, oh Yahweh. Let's go ahead and use

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Jehovah. That's not, that's not a possible pronunciation. Jehovah has three syllables. Yahweh only has two syllables.

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So, answer me, oh Yahweh. Answer me that this people may know that you, Yahweh, are

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Elohim and that you have turned their heart back again.

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Now, why is that important up here? Well, because I believe it was 1901. I need to double check that because it, something in the back of my mind says it could have been 1911, 1912, but I think it was 1901.

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There was a statement from the first presidency of the LDS church that established as a doctrinal norm for the

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LDS church that the father is Elohim and his first born spirit child is

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Jehovah. So, in at least for the past 120 years anyway, so that was not what

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Joseph Smith taught. There are numerous scholarly articles that demonstrate that Smith didn't have this idea, but hey, it's continuing revelation.

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Do whatever you want. But I was actually asked to leave the visitor's center of the

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Mesa, Arizona temple right around when

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Wade was born because I pointed out to this nice older pair of missionaries that, for example, in places like Deuteronomy 435, it says to you, it was shown that you might know that Jehovah, he is

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Elohim. There is none else besides him. And that 535 times in the

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King James Version of the Bible, Lord God is Yahweh Elohim, singular name of God.

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And so they asked me to leave. So, I did, but you know, praying that the

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Lord would use that to open up someone's mind. So, here you have it right here, that you,

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Yahweh, are Elohim and that you have turned their heart back again. So, when you realize that L -O -R -D in all caps is the

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Tetragrammaton, you'll be stunned at how many times reading through the Old Testament, you're going to see the contradiction that exists in LDS theology at this point.

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So, you know the story that the fire of Yahweh fell, consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust.

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That was, I think it was, I think it was just a phaser, took it all out, and licked up the water that was in the trench.

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And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and they said, Yahweh, he is Elohim, Yahweh, he is

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Elohim. And so evidently the Mormons had left at that particular point in time, because that's not what

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Mormonism teaches. And that's not what's being taught in any one of these temples. In these temples, you will see

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Yahweh, Jehovah, and Elohim as separate physical entities interacting with one another.

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In fact, Elohim will send Jehovah down with Michael to organize the earth.

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That's not what the Bible teaches. That's in direct contradiction to what scriptures teach. That's something important for you to realize.

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And so notice what happens, then Elijah said to them, seize the prophets of Baal. Do not let one of them escape.

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So they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slew them there, 450.

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That's capital punishment, and it's capital punishment based upon idolatry in the land of Israel.

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That's exactly what the law of Moses called for. I just have to wonder these days, to be perfectly honest with you, how many

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Christians would actually think that it's a good thing that Elijah executed the prophets of Baal?

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I think if we were to take a poll, the vast majority of people who call themselves Christians would say that shouldn't have happened, or that was wrong, or all we have here in the

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Old Testament is a recording for us of what happened, but that doesn't mean God wanted it to happen type of a situation.

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That's a shame. Now, what happens is the rain falls, and in chapter 19, something fascinating.

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Now Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.

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Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, so may the gods do to me and even more if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.

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And he was afraid and rose and ran for his life. Now let's be honest, that's a little hard to understand.

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You just stood in front of 450 prophets of Baal, and God protected you, and God brought the fire, and the people have cried out,

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Yahweh, he is Elohim, and boom, as soon as Jezebel says,

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I'm going to kill you, you are running like a madman. Now that may say something about Jezebel.

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That may say something about Ahab. It's pretty clear that Elijah isn't really afraid of Ahab, but Jezebel, yeah, what she says she's going to do, she's going to do, and she's evil.

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And that's certainly what the scriptures reveal. But you know the story, he runs, and the angel gives him food, and it gives him supernatural strength, and so he eventually, he comes to 40 days and 40 nights, he comes to Horeb, the mountain of God.

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And of course, the 40 days speaks to us of the wandering in the wilderness and everything else that took place.

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And so he comes to a cave, and God speaks to him in the cave and says, what are you doing here,

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Elijah? And that's where you have verse 10, I have been very zealous for Yahweh, the God of hosts, for the sons of Israel, forsaken your covenant, turned down your altars, killed your prophets of the sword, and I alone am left, and they seek my life to take it away.

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And so he brings a charge against Israel, and he feels like he is the only person, the only person, who is left faithful in Israel.

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And then you have the very interesting story, we're not going to go into it right now, but basically, Yahweh is passing by the cave, and you have the great strong wind, and then you have an earthquake.

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And I mentioned this morning, when speaking from this text out in Magna, they had had earthquakes in 2020,

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I believe it was, is that correct, was it 2020? Like 2 ,500 aftershocks, and we're just rocking and rolling out there.

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And I said, I'm thankful that you're not repeating that right now. And, but the

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Lord was not in the earthquake, he wasn't in the wind, he wasn't in the earthquake, there was a fire, but he wasn't in the fire, and then there was a sound of a gentle wind.

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And Elijah knows that God will be there in that, and so he wrapped his face in his mantle, he went out, stood at the entrance of the cave, and behold, a voice came to him and said,

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Elijah, what are you doing here? And he repeats what he had said before. Sons of Israel have forsaken your covenant, they've torn down your altars, killed your prophets with a sword, and I alone am left, and they seek my life to take it away.

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And Yahweh's response is fascinating. Yahweh said to him, go, return your way to the wilderness of Damascus.

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When you have arrived, you shall anoint Haziel, king over Aram, and Jehu, the son of Nimshi, you shall anoint king over Israel, and Elisha, the son of Shaffa, of Abel Meholah, you shall anoint as prophet in your place.

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It shall come about, the one who escapes in the sword of Haziel, Jehu shall put to death, and the one who escapes in the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall put to death.

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Yet I will leave 7 ,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.

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So here's what I wanted to come to, all of the rest of this was, that was, well, we're done with the introduction now, what time is it?

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Okay. Basically, God does not answer

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Elijah's complaint. He basically says to Elijah, get back to work.

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Here's what you need to go do, and you're going to go do this, you're going to be obedient. And so then he gives these amazing words,

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I will leave 7 ,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.

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Not 7 ,000 have been left to me by their own free will. I wanted to have 21 ,000, but I've only got 7.

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It's the best I can do, but, you know, I've got to deal with the cards that have been dealt me, you know.

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That's how a lot of people would view God, but God says, I will leave 7 ,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal.

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Elijah didn't know who they were. There was no faithful Israelite Facebook group that they were all a part of that they could have fellowship on.

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He didn't have their text messages in his phone or anything like that. He didn't know they were there.

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He said, I alone am left. No, no, Elijah. I've got 7 ,000 that have not bowed the knee to Baal, not kissed that disgusting idol.

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But here's what I want us to think about in our time this afternoon. What was it like to be one of the 7 ,000?

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Like I pointed out, they've been going through the drought just like everybody else.

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They've lost livestock. They've lost crops. They've experienced hunger and thirst, and they've experienced the pressure of the society around them.

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You need to sacrifice to Baal. How dare you be so narrow -minded as to not join with us?

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We're all in this together, right? Can you imagine the pressure?

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You're the only person on your block that refuses to go to the worship up at the high place.

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The people come back and they say, don't you understand? Don't you see what's going on around us? We're in the middle of a pandemic, no, a drought, and you're not doing your part.

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Because you see, if you'll go worship with us up at the high places, then maybe Baal will give us rain, and we'll protect our crops, and we'll protect our livestock, and you may be responsible for killing grandma.

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Sometimes the reactions are pretty precious. You hear what

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I'm saying? There was pressure placed upon them. And how many people, how many people would give in?

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Think about it for a second. These 7 ,000 did not have the book of John.

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They did not have Paul's epistle to the Romans. They didn't have Romans chapter 8. They pretty much had

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Moses. That was about it. That was about it. Now, there's some beautiful stuff in the

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Pentateuch, but we've got a whole lot more. They didn't even have anything close to what we would have in the

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Psalter. And so with what little they had, they remained faithful because of God's grace, first of all.

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He's the one that's reserving these 7 ,000 people, this remnant. He's the one that keeps them.

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And yet, such pressure would come upon them. Such difficulty was theirs, but they didn't give in.

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They didn't give in. Now, they didn't have what we have, and they didn't have all the promises that we have in the

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Scriptures today. And they didn't have all the examples of what could come later of the peoples who were destroyed.

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They just simply had the warnings in, like, Deuteronomy 28 and 29. And yet, they stood firm.

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Now, you know the application that I'm making here. You can see it. It's obvious.

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This isn't the first time in history that God's people have been in a culture, in a nation, that has experienced the judgment of God.

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There were faithful believers in Germany. There were

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Christians in Dresden. Most people today don't know what happened in Dresden.

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Dresden was a war crime, and our nation and England together committed it.

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We firebombed Dresden. Dresden had not really been touched. Dresden was not a military site. It was a much older city.

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It was a beautiful city. Ancient architecture. And yet, in,

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I believe, late 1944, in an effort to break the will of the German people, we firebombed

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Dresden. And now, Dresden was made of very, very burnable stuff. And we did it in such a way, we dropped incendiary devices.

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Not explosive devices, but incendiary devices. And we did it daytime and nighttime.

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Waves of bombers. And that city didn't just burn to the ground.

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The corpses that were found burnt to a black crisp in the middle of streets, because they tried to get away from the fires, but it was, the city became an oven.

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And men, women, and children were simply cooked where they were. And there were many

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Christians that died in that firebombing. Now, did

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God lose them? No. They have eternal life in Christ. They have forgiveness of their sins. They have not been lost out of His hand.

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But they suffered because of the nation that they were a part of.

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And that's not the first time. Between 1347 and 1351, more than half of everyone in Europe died.

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In some cities, 70 percent of the population died.

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We call today the Black Death. They didn't call it that back then. They called it the Great Mortality.

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They didn't know what it was. They came up with all sorts of explanations for it. Sadly, people who call themselves

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Christians blamed the Jews for it. And so, in one city, they gathered up all the

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Jews, they put them on an island, closed them in a building, and burned it down. Killed them all.

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That was their way of trying to get rid of the problem, because the theory was the Jews were poisoning the water sources.

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Obviously, it had nothing to do with anything. But can you imagine being in a city where in 1346 there's 10 ,000 people, and in 1351 there's 3 ,000 people?

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Think some Christians died? I mean, that was a pandemic, okay?

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That one really qualifies, okay? Big time. There was actually a form of that disease.

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The theory was that it could actually be transmitted by looking at someone. Now, it couldn't be.

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But the respiratory form of it was so deadly, it killed within 12 hours.

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And so that's why they thought just by looking at somebody, you could transmit to somebody else.

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Those were dark days. Christians died. They experienced the judgment of God in that context.

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There were Christians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki who were vaporized when we dropped nuclear weapons on them to end

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World War II. And so the reality is God's people are kept by God.

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Every single one of those people is in the presence of their Lord today. They were brought through safely to their heavenly home, but they still died.

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They still suffered. 7 ,000 that God kept for himself, he had for a purpose.

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And the question that we have to ask ourselves today, we don't know what the future is going to hold.

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And right now, think about what it was like, just for a second.

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This is the illustration I used when I gave a sermon at Apologia early last year,

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I believe, when I explained my coming to understand the glorious future of the kingdom of God, even though we're facing such difficult times.

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And think about what it was like in 1351, right as the plague begins.

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Now, by the way, the plague kept coming back. It came through Geneva when Calvin was alive, and Zwingli even caught it when it came through Zurich, but he survived it.

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It just kept coming back for years and years and years and years. It just became a part of life.

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And anybody who went to a city, you were risking the plague. It was just, you know, when Luther went to study, he was risking the plague.

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That's how it was. But can you imagine in 1351 thinking about the future?

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You think it would have been really easy in 1351 to go, this is it, this is clearly all the plagues of Revelation rolled into one.

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There are corpses, there aren't enough people to even bother burying them, and they've got these disgusting growths on them, and oh my gosh, it's how

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Lindsay's wildest dreams come true. And yet in 1351, how could they know what the future was going to hold?

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That there was someday going to be a metropolitan tabernacle and a man named Charles Spurgeon, and thousands of people converted to faith in Christ that changed a whole city.

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And the missions work that would go all over the world, they could have never imagined it, could never have seen it.

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Because if they judged by what their eyes were seeing right now, it's done. That's why we can't judge that way.

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That's why we can't look at what's happening right now. And if we start seeing famine, and see the problem is today, we're going to see it.

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We're going to see it within 30 seconds of it happening, because that's how the world works now. You're not going to read it in a newspaper and see a black and white picture three weeks later.

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You're going to see it in full color on your phone. If there are famines and wars, and if the guy that's got 6 ,000 nuclear weapons decides to use a few of them, we're going to see it.

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It'll be really easy to make a judgment about what God is doing based upon what we're seeing right now.

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It'll be just as much of a mistake as it would have been in 1351 to go, it's done, can't recover from this one.

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We can't act in that way. Instead, we have to be thinking, all right, let's say that the worst case scenario takes place.

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What do we do to be faithful like the 7 ,000? Because eventually, those 7 ,000, hundreds of years down the road, another faithful person was in the temple when he saw the

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Messiah being brought in as a baby. God said, there he is. God had kept a remnant all those generations, all those centuries, and then he fulfilled his promises.

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What are the promises of Scripture? The promises of Scripture is that they will stream into the house of the

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Lord. They will long for God's law and God's truth, that God is going to extend the scepter of his righteous king's reign over all the earth.

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So what are we going to do to be a part that when this utter foolishness of secularism, this great enemy of Christ, secularism is the denial of everything true and good in the teachings of Jesus.

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When this foolishness destroys itself, and who knows how many people will take with it.

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Someone's going to need to be there to say, and this is the way forward. Here is the king.

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Here is his way. Here is how true peace between nations can exist and between people can exist.

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This is the only way because there's an empty tomb, because there's an empty tomb. And so we have to be faithful in sowing into the future, in sowing into these children, in sowing into the grandchildren and the great -grandchildren.

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We've got to stop being like, I was raised in a form of Christianity that never thought about grandchildren and great -grandchildren, because there weren't going to be any.

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We're it. This is the end. I was wrong to think that way, but that's how

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I thought. Now I realize my oldest granddaughter is 10, 10 years younger than my wife was when

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I had my first child. I'm hoping to be a great -grandpa. Now, of course, if they wait to get married, as long as people wait to get married these days,

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I ain't going to make it. But if she marries as early as I did,

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I've got a real good shot at it. I was 19 and she was 18, and our 40th wedding anniversary is in June.

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Thank you. The point is,

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I'm thinking about my great -grandchildren, and you need to be thinking about them too. It takes your mind off yourself.

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It takes your mind off of your fear of what I'm going to lose, because, oh, we love our stuff, and we love our conveniences, and I do too.

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I'm talking to myself. I'm not saying, ever saying, I'm free of all this. No, there's, I love my bikes.

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I'm a cyclist. Those of you around here, just a couple years ago,

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I would drive over to the, to the foot of the mountains over there, and I'd ride my bike up to Guardsmen Pass and back down again.

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Oh yeah, in fact, I could probably take anybody in this room right up to Guardsmen Pass. Andrew's laughing, but I'd kill you, bro.

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There's no chance of that. I love my bikes. I would,

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I would hate to not be able to ever do that kind of thing again, but the, I have to realize, if that is a love that is in competition with the love of God, it's sin, it's idolatry, and if God takes it away from me, he's not doing that because it's bad for me, it's good for me.

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That's the right thing. I need to have very different perspectives on than I was raised with, and we all will, because the people who continue to have a love for things in this world, and the people who believe that all the wonderful blessings of material stuff that we've had for years and years and years is the only sign of God's love for us, are going to decide

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God no longer loves us once those things are gone, once those things are gone.

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So there is a bright future, but it's only a bright future when the people in it are bowing the knees to their creator and their maker, and as long as they're bowing their knees to what is made and denying there is a creator and a maker, there will be dark times ahead.

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Christ will put every enemy under his feet. He will put every enemy under his feet.

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So, do you want to be in the 7 ,000? That's really up to God's grace. I'm not going to stand up here and pretend

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I know I'm going to be there. That deserves a good laugh, because I don't know that.

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That's not because of me. If I'm going to be one of the 7 ,000, it's because God, by his grace, sustains me.

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But I can be doing what his word tells me to be doing right now to prepare my heart and to rid myself of the love of those things that the world can take from me.

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That's how the world controls you. If you love the stuff of this world, the world has you. If you don't love the things of this world, the world can't touch you, has no power over you at all.

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That's the secret, but it's not an easy secret, is it? Because we love our stuff.

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We can't love our stuff. We've got to recognize, no matter what it is, a beautiful Bible from Jeffrey Rice.

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It can burn. Memorize it. Put it in your mind. A blessing now.

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Use it. Be thankful for it. But if God says, it's time for it to go, it's time for it to go.

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I realize how hard that is. I realize I'm preaching to myself, but if I'm preaching to you too, well, that's why you came.

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That's why you came. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we are thankful for the promises we have in Christ.

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We are thankful for His resurrection, His enthronement, His power. And Father, we pray that whatever the future brings to us, not because of who we are, but so as to glorify the name of Christ, we will be in the 7 ,000.

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We will not bow the knee to the Baals of this world. We will not join our worship with the worship of the world, but that we will be servants of Christ, that honor and glorify

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Him in all things. Write your word upon our hearts. May we not forget what we have thought about this day.