History of Israel Part 9

Moses Leads Israel Out of Egypt and Receives a New Identity

Alright, bad pastor. Alright guys, watch.

So, Israel, remember back here Moses led a bunch of slaves out of Egypt. And they were clueless. They were Hebrews. They were not the nation of Israel yet. And God gave them, through adversity and the law, an identity bigger than themselves.

Church, can you hear me say that to you? An identity bigger than the individual. Bigger than themselves. And they became wandering around in the desert because they didn't listen. And then God said, listen, I got a land that I promised your father Abraham.

I got a land for you. Now remember, this is separated by a thousand years. A thousand years. You see, when God promises something, nations, powers, plans, mean absolutely nothing to the sovereign hand of Almighty God.

We are nothing but puppets. He is like the master of puppets. But, alright, I tell you guys, watch. So, watch this. They became a nation. God made, remember the little Goliath guy? Remember David who killed Goliath, right?

He became king and Israel became the most powerful nation in the world about 1050 BC. That's still a thousand years before Jesus was born. And David is the king, man. And he is the king and nobody can stand up to him.

And he said, God, I want to get rid of the tabernacle, the tent that we all worship you in that goes from place to place to place. I want to make you a temple. And God's like, no son, you got too much blood in your hands.

Your son is going to do that. Now understand this. Try to remove superstition bull from the truth of God's word. Do you actually think that a temple that Solomon made was really God's house? I mean, guys, really?

That would be like an ant making a nest for me. It's like, yeah, that's cool. But man, I got air conditioning, you know, right? But Solomon made a temple. The temple was not for God. Listen, it was for God's people to come to God.

This is not God's house. It's a stupid building. This is God's house. This is God's house, right? Are you with me? So now watch. Now watch. The people of God, now this is going to sound weird. God blessed them as a nation.

They became wealthy and powerful. But God said to them, hey, you better keep first thing first. Remember, you're here to serve me. People were like, yeah, whatever, man. I go to church for an hour on Sunday, God.

I don't need nothing else, okay? I can live like the world the rest of the week. But I give you that hour and go, Jesus, I love you. For once a week. And we can do what we want. God said, okay. And the ten northern tribes of Israel, now this is important.

In 722, got whooped. They got taken away and they were dust in the wind. Carry on my... Alright, so, by the way, the first Olympic Games happened right then and there too. But anyways, all the Jews and Judah, the two southern tribes went, y 'all are such losers.

You Presbyterians thought you were so all that. But us Baptists are the real chosen people of God. And God said, keep on with that arrogance. And they said, oh, yeah, man. We're the real people of God.

We are white. We are southern. We are Republican. So God loves us. And God said, bye, bye. Right? It's kind of like a mini concert, isn't it? Right? And so Babylon, who just whooped Persia, came in and said, and pimp-slapped Judah and put them into slavery and scattered them out from all the world.

And so here is Jerusalem, listen, here is Jerusalem, the once most powerful city in the history of the Middle East, now in ruins. Kind of looks like Baltimore on a good day. All right? It was nasty, run down, and beaten up.

The temple was destroyed. That first temple that Solomon built, it went bye-bye. Then those books that you usually skip over in the Old Testament is when the Jews started coming back. And they came back little by little.

Now remember, listen, this is not a Bible story. This really happened. And I want you to remember that. I don't care what you feel or what you think or what your opinion is, whether you're woke or still asleep, whether you're black, white, Puerto Rican, Mexicanese, I don't care who and what you are.

The reality is there's a God, His plan is going forward, and you have a choice this morning to either stand with Him or stand against Him. Your choice. America, I think, has done made their choice. And that's why I'll tell you about that next week.

Matthew 24 and the Destruction of the Temple

So they rebuilt the little temple, but they didn't have an army. They weren't a nation anymore. From 722 forward, they weren't nothing. Then all of a sudden, about 400 years after that, Jesus, this guy named Jesus is born.

All right? Now here's where we are today. Open your Bibles. Oh, I need to do that, too. Open to Matthew 24, chapter 24, and here's what's going on. All right? Jesus is born, and to keep the Jews from getting angry, the Romans, under a guy named Herod, said, You know what?

We're going to build you a big temple. We're going to give you TV and radio and culture so that you'll get distracted from hearing the truth of the Word of God and you'll be like little monkeys in a play, people of God.

We'll distract you over here with wealth and with everything else and with importance so that you won't follow God anymore, American Christians. You'll be more concerned about your 401K and what you're wearing today than how you've humbled yourself before God and served Him.

You know what I'm saying? And that's why they built that temple. That temple, that second one that Herod made bigger, better, and faster is the exact one Jesus walked around and preached in. Are you with me?

Have y 'all kept up so far? Jennifer, where are you? Have you kept up? Okay, Mississippi gets it. Everyone gets it. All right, so here we are. Are you with me? Right? Jesus dies and rises again and ascends into heaven.

Now watch this. From 48, He died around 33 A .D. We're not going to talk about that, but He died around there. From 48 A .D. to 98 A .D., that's just 50 years, the entire New Testament was written in those 50 years.

From Matthew to Revelation, all of it's written, okay, in those 50 years. At the same time, the Jews decided, hey, maybe this is the time when we rise up against Rome again. And so in 66 A .D., the Jews said, oy, we're not going to take this anymore.

All right, so they rose up against the Romans, and Rome said, y 'all want to play? Y 'all want to play? Okay, and they took a legion from Egypt and brought it up, three legions from Europe and brought them down.

Well, there was one legion already in the Middle East, and brought them down under a guy named Vespasian and his son named Titus. And they walked into Jerusalem and absolutely tore it up. About 50 ,000 Jews were put to the sword and killed.

The temple was absolutely destroyed, almost. And everyone in Jew land there, everyone in Judea and Jerusalem and that surrounding area was either sold into slavery or kicked out. Okay, now watch. This that Jesus is saying, right here in Matthew 24, He's in the temple, okay, I'm just giving you some backdrop.

Everything I said earlier happened before. The temple being destroyed happened in 70 A .D. What Jesus is doing here talking happened in about 32 A .D. Okay, so you get their sandwich. Here's Jesus talking in Matthew 24, sandwich between this and this, alright?

Don't get bored, keep your thinking caps on. Alright, Jesus just told the Pharisees, y 'all are a bunch of hypocritical, lying, godless, stiff-necked, heathen, back-biting pigs and you're going to rot in hell.

Okay, Jesus wasn't in a good mood that day, okay? He was telling the truth just like He saw it. Well, He left the temple complex in Matthew 24. He left for the last time in His earthly ministry. He will be coming back, but that's next week.

He left. And as He's walking out of the temple, the disciples wanting to keep the peace and wanting to kind of enable the situation kind of came up to Jesus and go, hey, hey, hey, brother, slow your roll, man.

Do you not see this temple? How powerful and how much we've gotten? How far we've come? Do you not see that we are actually collecting the scraps as God's people from what the government tell us we can do?

Jesus sat there, verse 1, Jesus sat there and said this, hey, you see this great temple? You see it? I'm telling you this, one day not one stone is going to be left on top of another. Not going to happen.

The disciples went, ha, ha, ha, it would be kind of like me telling you, it would be a really cool thing. It would be like me telling you the Statue of Liberty is going to fall, right? Or Mount Rushmore is going to get changed.

Of course, that's kind of a reality nowadays, but you get what I'm saying. So the disciples, Jesus walked out of that city, walked into the Valley of Kidron, walked up on the Mount of Olives and was sitting there, and the disciples said, hey, boys, we need to go check this out.

So the disciples went away from everyone else, gathered around Jesus and said, hey, we got three questions for you, buddy. Exactly when is that temple going to be destroyed? When is the end of the age?

When's the end of time? And when are you coming back? And for the next two chapters, Matthew 24 and 25, Jesus answers them. That's where we're going to be spending the next three weeks, okay? Are you with me so far?

Because we're right here, and I know I nerded out a bunch and put a bunch of history stuff on here. Get your phone machines, or your photo camera, get your camera on your phone and take pictures of these, because I know you're not going to read them good.

But I stopped right here at the American Revolution, okay? So all this happened. Now, dang, man. Now, listen. Are you all bored yet? Okay. Just stay with me about 15 more minutes, and then you heathens can get saved, okay?

Listen. So, in 70 A .D., Titus and Vespasian came down and tore Jerusalem up. Now, on your little pictures, on your little sheets of paper, I didn't make this one big enough, because I was running out of typing room, but you can see right here.

That right there is in the city of Rome in 2020, right here today. I've been there, seen it in person, in Rome. That is called the Arch or the Column of Titus. It is an award or a trophy. It's this big, huge arch that Titus made for his father Vespasian.

And if you look real closely, you will see a menorah. That's that little candle thing you see, you know, happy, you know. Right, Hanukkah. Thank you, baby. Happy Hanukkah. That shows what the Roman soldiers carried back to Rome in 70 A .D.

See, this is not a conspiracy, guys. It's not a Bible story. This happened. You can get on a wheel plane right now and fly over there and see it. It's really cool, all right? So, the Romans tore up Jerusalem and scattered the Jews.

Now, I'm going to give you in five minutes, y 'all hold on, and you can follow along here. In five minutes, I'm going to give you the history from 70 A .D. all the way up to the 1600s. Watch this, all right?

From the Bar Kokhba Revolt to the Rise of Babylon as a Jewish Center

So, now Jews who had their own kingdom back here in 722 B .C. kept messing up. And then finally, in 70 A .D., the temple was destroyed. And so, the Jews were scattered all over the place. Now, I'm going to go through a little bit of history here.

You ready? All right, so the Jews tried to keep going. Jerusalem was taken over by vagrants. It was like Detroit, okay? It was just run down, beaten up, and was just a garbage hole, all right? And then finally, in 135 A .D., the Jews said, we have had enough.

Romans, leave those kids alone. And so, they decided to revolt again. It was called the Bar-Koba Revolt. So, in 135 A .D., the Jews said, oy, and Rome said, bring it. This time, Rome came into Jerusalem and tore everything up.

And they did this too. The Romans came in and took all the building materials. It'd be like Rome coming to Witten Baptist Church. They didn't just kill all of us. They actually took every one of these bricks out of the wall, loaded them onto a cart, and shipped them off to be used in other buildings around the empire as a reminder of who was boss.

Then, they tore up the foundation of many of the sacred buildings in Jerusalem, and then they plowed it. And then they poured salt in there so that when the next growing season, grass would go everywhere, except it would leave a permanent scar so everyone would be reminded that Rome is king.

That's how bad it was. About 150 ,000 Jews, not just in Judea now, but in Galilee and everywhere else, took off. In fact, this is so cool. Are you ready? And over the next 200 years, in 135 A .D., do you know that one-sixth of the Jewish population actually moved back to Babylon?

You know, back here in 586, you know, when Babylon took the Jews away? Well, a lot of the Jews stayed there because they had it a lot better in Babylon than they did in that podunk town, Jerusalem. And so some of their families stayed while the Jews right here said, Man, we're out of here.

We're sick of this. We're going back to Babylon. And Babylon, Babylon became the Jewish epicenter all the way up until the 12th century. Are you with me? Okay? So this is about 300 A .D. This is 300 years after Jesus had died, right?

And so watch this. The Jews were doing good. By the way, Babylon is modern day Iraq. Who said it? Well, you don't count. Modern day Iraq. Okay? That's where all the Jews were. Are you getting the ironies yet?

By the way, this is not a big conspiracy. This is real history. Okay? I know I'm boring some of y 'all, but please just listen. All right. So, oops. So anyways, so that's about 300 A .D. About 300, the Roman Empire was starting to collapse.

They left Rome, the emperor did, and moved to a place called Constantinople. Now, I'm not going to go into that. But basically, that government was called the Byzantinians. And the Byzantinians became Christians.

Christian people. In fact, I have a coin on a little necklace that Brother Tim gave me that says Christ the King. And it's over 1 ,000 years old. And it was, or actually 2 ,000 years old. And it was from the Byzantinian Empire.

It's really cool. I should have worn it. But anyways, listen. Now, the Byzantinians were really good Christians. And they said this. You know what? We need, we need to go back in now that we're Christians.

And we need to take Jerusalem over and rebuild it. Because that's where Jesus was crucified. And so they walked in. About that time, there were about 3 ,000 to 4 ,000 Jews only living in that area. And so the Christians decided, hey, let's do a little door-to-door evangelism.

So they went around, and they were like, hi, we're from the Byzantinian Empire. We're here to tell you about Jesus. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm Jewish. And they were just killing Jews in the name of Jesus, right?

I mean, that is some awesome strategy for witnessing. We're actually going to try that with tithing here. Okay? If you did not tithe today, please see Tim and Jim before you leave. They have a little special gift for you.

And so they started wearing the Jews out. So the Jews were like, we're out of here. And they ran off to escape again. That happened for a couple of hundred years until 632. There was this guy named Muhammad.

Muhammad, Islam, and the Muslim Control of Jerusalem

All right, now watch this. This guy was shrewd as shrewd can be. I know I'm boring you. Hang with me, okay? Who's bored? A lot of liars. Okay, so watch this. Watch this, watch this. This guy named Muhammad, this was his job.

He, there was a spice route that went through the Middle East, and he was like, hey, Arab peoples. Remember, they were all living in camps all over the Middle East. He's like, why are these Chinese and these Europeans going through our land not giving us a dime and making all this money?

We're gonna help them out with that. And so he got a bunch of Arab, other Arab dudes, and the Arab dudes were riding down horses and camels, and they were riding down there, and they were attacking the caravans, and they were taking money.

And then Muhammad got to be like the big man on campus, right? He was like a stud. And everybody was like, ooh, Muhammad, God has sent him to save us. And they started worshiping the moon because the desert was hot and the sun and the...

Right, so at that point, Muhammad was sitting there, and one night he was sitting in his tent, and all of a sudden he was like... And this angel came and gave him a new revelation, a new revelation. The God of Abraham said, all of that is fake.

I'm gonna show you that you are the real chosen people, not those stinky Jews. Jesus was just a prophet. Muhammad, you're the Messiah. Muhammad said, okay. And that religion spread because it unified separate people groups to actually come together under one banner to actually demand rights for themselves.

They got woke, okay? So about 640, let's say, A .D., the Muslims are like, they're now Muslims because they follow the Islam. They were like, you know, all this really used to belong to us before the Jews 2 ,000 years ago kicked us out.

Let's call them back down there and whoop them. And so the Muslims said, that's a great idea. So they got this cat named Sal. It's a long story. I'm not gonna go into it because I will nerd out. But the Muslims marched to the Holy Land.

Well, the Christians that were there, the Byzantinians that were there, and the Jews that were there were like, hey, oh no, let's all come together as a family and fight the Muslims. And the Jews were like, forget y 'all, check this out.

You don't hear about this in history books. The Jews marched out and said, welcome, Muslim brothers. Let's whoop these stinking Byzantinians and get them out of here. And that's just what happened. The Muslims drove the Byzantinians out.

And for 400 years, the Middle East became Muslim. And in 692 AD, a guy decided, you know what, if we are the real people of Abraham and that temple's already torn down anyways, let's build a Muslim mosque right on the exact same spot Solomon's temple was built.

And it's a little picture for you today. I'm sorry it's so literal, small, but that little gold dome-y thing, that is Jerusalem. By the way, this was taken from a camera about 30 minutes ago. Once again, this isn't history.

This is right now. So in 692 till right now, that little gold building is stood there. All right, you with me? Okay, you with me? All right. So they built that tower. They built that mosque. All right, you ready?

Come on, stay with me. I know, I know it's history and it's boring, but I promise you it has an impact on your life today. I'm not telling you about Tippecanoe and Tyler too. I'm telling you about stuff that impacts your life today.

The Crusades, the Ottoman Empire, and the Road to 1948

Almost done. The Christians, for 400 years, from 600 to about 1000 AD, the Christians were like, wow, the Jews were like living in rat holes. The Muslims, depending on who was in rule, they were either really nice to them or really mean to them.

All right? In 1099 AD, the Pope of the Catholic Church decided it was time for some more door-to-door evangelism. So he gathered every European army in Europe and they got on little boats and they sailed to Israel.

Well, to Palestine. Right? They got off their boats. They walked up to Jerusalem and said, it belongs to us. Thank you, baby. You're so cute. And said, this belongs to us. The Jews inside Jerusalem were helping the Muslims defend against the Christians.

Why would they do that? Well, because this is what happened. The Muslims and Jews got whooped and the Christians did this. They walked in there and they said, okay, all Muslims over here. Cut their heads off.

All Jews over here. And the men stood up and said, we're Jewish. And they were trying to bide time. The women and kids took off towards the mosque where the temple used to be. They went to this little place called the Wailing Wall, but we'll get to that next week.

And the Christians took all the Jews, shoved them in the only synagogue in the city, stacked wood around it, and lit that puppy on fire. They actually that evening grilled their dinner over the ashes of the burnt Jews in the name of Jesus.

God, praise His name. The women and children that made it to the Wailing Wall, well, they found them. And they slit their throats to see how far they could get the blood to trail down the stairs down where, by the way, the Via Dolorosa was.

You know, the road where Jesus took. In fact, one guy reports that he was so elated because as he walked up the hill, the blood was rushing over his toes in the name of Jesus. That lasted 200 years. And I'm going to speed read, okay?

It lasted about 200 years. Then these guys called the Mamelukes. I know that sounds like a gang from New York City in the 60s, but the Mamelukes were a militant Islam group from Egypt. They said, you know what?

The Christians have held the Holy Lands long enough because they're holy to us, too. And our dome was sitting there. And the Mamelukes came in and whooped the Christians. Then after the Mamelukes came in, this group called the Ottoman Empire rose up and they came in and whooped the Mamelukes.

And then in 1914, a World War I broke out and the Ottoman Empire with Austria, Hungary, Germany and all that fought the Allies. The Allies won and Britain in 1917 took over the entire Palestinian area.

And Britain was like saying, you know what? We need some Jews up in here. There was way too many Arabs. The Jews need their own homeland. They need their own homeland. And they kept pushing for it and pushing for it, but no one was really listening because let's not rock the boat.

And then in 1939, this guy named Hitler invaded Poland. And Poland was one of the highest concentration of Jews at that point. And he said, what are we going to do with all these stinking Jews? We've got to get these Jews out of this place if it's the last thing we ever do.

And so he gathered up all the Jews and he started shoving them into ovens and burning them just left and right. Six million Jews got killed to death in the name of a nation. And in 1945, the war was over.

And at this point, the Holocaust was well known. And Britain said, man, these people have suffered enough for the last 2 ,700 years. They haven't had a country. Let's give them a country. And in 1948, in one day, Isaiah, 2 ,700 years before that said, Israel will be reborn in one day.

In 1948, the only time this has ever happened in world history, a nation was born in one day. No, the Declaration of Independence, we were not a nation until 1783. The only time in history a nation was born in one day without a shot being fired.

John 5:24, Eternal Life, and the Call to Believe

Now, here's my whole sermon. And I'm done. Stay with me. Stay with me. For 2 ,700 years, before American Indians, before Africa's slavery, before all the modern history that is so up in your minds, for 2 ,700 years, the Jews like cockroaches were hunted down by every single nation ever.

Think about that. God said, if you people walk away from me, you will be the scourge of the earth. Now, for those of you in there, they're trying on the fence of where you need to follow God or not, because it's all church and it's all religion.

If God's not real, how did mankind and some sort of grand conspiracy theory for 2 ,700 years include all these nations to fulfill exactly what God prophesied would happen? Now, wait a minute. It gets better.

For 2 ,700 years in history, in real life, wake up from your church bull crap. Listen. For 2 ,700 years, they were trying to be obliterated. The nation of Judea was wiped out. Rome in 135 A .D. changed the name to Palestine.

Made Jerusalem not even the name of the city anymore. And today, you can get on your little google .com and you can look up Israel. And it's right there. And Jerusalem's right there. Because God said, this is my city.

And one day, I will put on the throne someone of the bloodline of David who will never be kicked off again. Now, I close with this. John 5, verse 24 says this. I typed it at the bottom of your page. And I gave you a whole bunch of references that you can actually study.

Take these pieces of paper. This is going to sound crude, okay? Take these pieces of paper, please, and stick them on the back of your toilet. Please, I know that sounds crude. I'm not being funny and I'm not being silly.

I'm tired of Christians walking around stupid and ignorant all the time. It's why your faith, you get so nervous. You hear a plane fly over and it's like, oh God, I'm left behind. You listen to books and stories and preachers, but you don't listen to God's completed Word through history.

Read this stuff. It's real. It really happened. Even the secular atheists admit this happened. Okay? But back to John 5, verse 24. What's it say? Somebody read it. A male voice so it'll be heard. Watch this.

I'm almost done, but people, it's only... Watch this. I know for visitors this is like a weird thing because churches usually don't do all this stuff, but I'm not a preacher and this isn't a church building.

This is the Word of the living God and your eternal soul is on the line. Okay? Watch this. Verily, verily, modern English, truly, truly, I say unto you, He... Anybody in here in that Greek word is anthropoi, which means mankind.

He that hears my Word for the last 30 minutes, I have poured into you 2 ,700 years of God's Word coming true and nobody could stop it. He that hears my Word and believes on Him that sent me has everlasting life.

Present tense right now. Has everlasting life. And shall not come into condemnation, but is already passed from death to life. You want to know how powerful my salvation is? You know how powerful it is?

First of all, it comes by faith. It says believe. It doesn't say go to church, give money, or go to seminary. It says simply believe. Some of you walked down an aisle and prayed a prayer into your heart for Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior, but you didn't have faith, you had fear.

Okay, you with me? That's why some of you are still struggling whether you're a Christian or not. Because you believed in more of a prayer that's not found in the Bible and a religion and a church rather than you believe in the blood of Jesus Christ.

That's why you're so jacked up. Hear what I'm saying to you? Because this may be the last warning of the bridges out that you get on this earth. He that hears my word and believes on him that sent me has right now everlasting life.

Guys, I am immortal. How many of you nerds just pictured Highlander? Right? Chicks, never mind. But I'm immortal. Guys, I have eternal life not when I die. I have eternal life right now. You can kill this physical body, I'm still going home.

And by the way, God paid for the whole buffet, so one day He's even getting the body. I'm safe. I'm secure. Not because my preacher says so, but because my God says so. And He said that way back then and He's been able to keep His word all this time.

Has everlasting life. Now listen to that last part. And shall not come into condemnation. Last thing I'm going to say to you. Music peoples, no, stay still. Last thing I'm going to say to you. Listen.

You have a choice this morning. Everyone in this room. You're either going to inherit by the blood of Christ eternal life or you're going to buy by your arrogance and fear eternal damnation. It's one of the two.

Well, yeah, that's just that Baptist. No, it's history. This is real life. More real, you're living in the dream. You've swallowed the red pill. This is the fantasy, guys. This is not real. What's real is going to be the awe, fear that encapsulates your heart as you come face to face with the risen Jesus Christ.

Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Him as Lord. I don't care that you're Baptist. I don't want you to join my church. I don't care about your money. You have nothing I want or need. Nothing.

I'm going home and sleeping just as good tonight as I did last night. I'm here as a prophet of God to warn you that you discount God's Word and the truth that is being shown to you to prove that it's real over 2 ,500 years.

You reject that. There remains no more sacrifice for you. None. Now, here's what's even cooler. Next Sunday, we're going to put God's Word to test again. I'm going to bring it all the way up till today.

And we're going to find out whether God's Word is true even today as it has been for the last 2 ,700 years. Guys, if you can explain to me or name for me another culture of people that has been absolutely hunted almost to extinction 15 different times and then after 2 ,700 years they came back and have their own country again without firing a shot you show me that in history.

I'll pay you $100 right now. I'll pay you $1 ,000 right now if you can prove to me without a shadow of doubt there's a word of a lie in any of God's prophecies that have already come true. Right now. I'll write you a check.

Don't drop it, it might knock your teeth out. But, I'll write you a check right now. Guys, as the music dudes and dudettes go up there listen, I don't want you to be all emotional. Come take me by the hand.

I don't want that. I want you to make a decision right now not based on emotion but based on historical fact. I don't want to talk you into anything.