What do we do with Israel? part 5 (Pastor Jeff Shipley)

Now I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel. It wasn't their military size.

It wasn't the type of people. Next Sunday, I'm really excited.

Not in contrast to, but in addition to, our regular praise music.

I'm excited about all three songs we're going to sing next

Sunday are original songs written by the members of this church. And so I'm very excited.

Pastor Christian played one for me in my office. I sat there.

If I was a girl, I would have cried. I was sweating testosterone from my eyes profusely because it was just so absolutely beautiful.

Absolutely beautiful. Guys, this is the fifth part, the last part of my sermon series on Israel.

And I'll be honest with you. I probably preached to you maybe 20 % of what

I actually have studied and written out. There's just no way it would take me a year to go over 2500 years of history.

Now, I want to just now, I know some of you hate it when I do this, but I just, just for clarity sakes, contextual sakes, and for honest harmoneutics,

I just want to give you a brief, brief summary of where we are. Okay.

Starting back in 2100 BC, that was a joke, brief, and I'm going to go through 4000 years.

Nevermind. Y 'all catch up later. God told Abraham, hey man, go to this land and I'm going to give it to you and your descendants forever.

Whoever blesses you will be blessed and whoever curses you will be cursed. And so it just went through this big thing and you had

Moses, you had, you know, David and Goliath, David, king of Israel, Solomon, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And Israel was constantly rebelling against God and God was constantly judging them.

And he kept saying, hey, y 'all keep messing up. I'm going to scatter you all over the earth. By the way,

Israel, the Jew, is the most dispersed population culture in the history of the world.

So things that make you go, right. So they're everywhere.

In 586 BC, they ceased to be a nation at that point with the

Babylonian captivity. They did come back and rebuild the temple, but that was eventually degradated as well.

You got Greece, you got all this stuff. And then Rome took over and that's who was in power at the time of Jesus.

Jerusalem was controlled by the Roman Empire. And there was this dude named

Herod who was a real good friend with a cat named Octavius who was the first Roman emperor.

He was put in charge of Jerusalem. And so he built this fabulous temple.

He started in about 20 BC, 15, 20 years before Jesus was born.

And he built this fabulous temple, this fabulous temple. And in 70

AD, it was destroyed. The Jews said, man, we're not going to take this anymore.

Right on. And they rebelled and Rome came in and whooped them to death. You fast forward,

Israel was renamed. They had no nation, no city. They had nothing in their name.

They didn't have any identification marks as a culture except for this unwavering belief in God and God's promises that one day he would restore them again as a nation.

In 1948, yes, only 70 something years ago, Israel for the first time in all of those thousands of years was reformed as a nation.

That's never happened in the history of mankind. And Jews from all over the world, just like scripture says,

I will bring back my people to their homeland. That has been happening for the last 70 years.

Now this is all historical fact. This is not a sermon. I'm telling you facts, absolute truth.

You can choose to believe it or not, but for some of you under the age of 30, you're going to have to go to Wikipedia, but I promise you

Wikipedia will back this up as well. So we fast forward and we talked about the 1948

War of Independence and how all these nations came against a nation the size of New Jersey and millions of people were against them and they won.

In 1967, we talked about that war of five different nations supported by the

Soviet Union with state -of -the -art weaponry once again attacked Jerusalem and in six days

Jerusalem quadrupled its land, defeated every enemy, and on the seventh day they rested.

Again in 1972, the Yom Kippur War, again the Arab nations tried to eradicate the state of Israel with the stated purpose not of just taking over, but literally wiping

Israel from the face of the earth. They failed again and in a few months Israel was victorious again.

Time and time again, Israel has been surrounded and they've been attacked and they have not ever been defeated.

Once again, things that make you go, huh? It'd be like Millington fighting everybody in the state of Tennessee and winning, you know?

And that's amazing because I don't know how they would read the road signs to figure out where to go. But anyways, so here's where we are.

Now pastor, how do we know the future of Israel? Well, the same place we know all the promises of God in Scripture for Israel, we're going to read some of those about the future from here on out.

Jesus is, his last time in the temple complex right before he died.

Now this is that temple that Herod built. It was magnificent and he sits there in Matthew chapter 24 and it says, as Jesus left and was going out of the temple complex, his disciples came up, called his attention to the temple buildings.

Then he replied to him, do you see all these things? I assure you not one stone will be left here on another that will not be thrown down.

Now here's what's really cool. This is a modern -day picture. Once again, you can go to Google Earth or something, but this is part of the temple complex and here's what you're going to notice.

See all these blocks down here? Some of these blocks, they're solid rock.

Some of them are 40 feet long by 12 feet thick by 12 feet high. They're massive stones, but if you'll notice up here, see these smaller stones?

This was actually built, this part was added to the original wall that Herod built.

These are the actual stones that were there when Jesus said this, but anyways, these up here that you see were added on by the

Arabs, the Muslims, who in the 600s took over the Holy Lands.

In fact, in 692 AD, that's when they built the dome of the rock that sits on the site of the temple now, we think.

But anyways, here's my question. Read chapter 24, verse 1.

Jesus is walking out of there, and as he's walking out of the temple complex, he says this, not one of these stones will be left upon another.

So what's that tell you? Burnett's help out the blondes. What's that tell you? If Jesus said not one stone will be left on another and they're still there in 2023, what's that tell you?

Hadn't been fulfilled yet. In other words, there's a future for the nation of Israel and a future for the church that may be intertwined but they are distinct in their predictions.

Let me explain to you what happened. So Jesus is sitting here, and I don't know if I can hold this steady enough, that wall that you just looked at is this section right here.

This little thing is a ramp that actually went up. This is on something called Mount Moriah.

Mount Moriah, yes, that's what the street is named for. Mount Moriah is right here. This is

Mount Zion down here, but here's Mount Moriah right here, and people would walk up this ramp and Gentiles or non -Jews could hang out here and could hang out here.

Remember when Jesus cleansed the temple? This is where it happened, right there. You can walk those same steps today.

But anyways, that wailing wall is right there. The Muslim temple is right here, and then there's a

Muslim seminary right here. But anyways, Jesus is sitting here, and he says, hey boys, see all this stuff?

Not one stone will be left on another. And then they walked out this gate. This is called the beautiful gate.

They walked out this gate on the east side of old Jerusalem, and this is called the

Kidron Valley, the Kidron Valley. And they walked up here, and they walked up to Mount Olives, verse 3 of chapter 24.

As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, tell us when these things will be, and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age.

Jesus just sat there and told 12 Jews, hey guys, see all this stuff?

It's going to get torn down. Well, immediately the Jews said, what? What do you mean?

Ain't no one going to tear this down? What are you talking about? But as they were walking along Jesus, this mild path that they walked, no one really wanted to ask him.

And so they're sitting there going, you ask him, Peter. No, man, you ask him, James. John, you're the favorite. You ask him. No, I ain't going to ask him.

And so they get up on the Mount of Olives, and you got to remember, there's hundreds of people following. So they kind of pulled

Jesus aside privately, and that's why it says there, asked him privately, because I don't know if you know this, but there are some people who claim to be

Christians who pretend they know a lot more than they say that they know, because they want to actually put their salvation in the hands of their knowledge rather than the hands of Christ.

Well, that's what the disciples were doing. We don't want anybody to know how dumb we are. So, hey, Jesus, come here, man.

Yo, spill the tea. What is the sign of your coming? Now, notice these questions.

Notice these questions. Tell us when these things will happen, i .e., when's the temple getting torn down?

Number two, they asked, what is the sign of your coming? And then number three, they asked, what is the end of the age?

So they asked three questions. They said, man, when is the temple getting torn down? When are you going to come in your kingdom?

And number three, when's the end of the world happen? As we know it. Golly, y 'all are asleep today.

All right. This is Jesus's answer. What is the future of Israel? What is the future?

For the rest of this chapter, Jesus is going to answer those three questions. Now, this is not just found in Matthew.

We could have gone to Revelation. We could have gone all over the place. But Matthew 24, it's called the

Olivet Discourse, because Jesus sits down and goes, okay, boys, here's what it's going to be.

And we're going to get in some cool things in a second. But watch this. Jesus said, watch out that no one deceives you.

For many will come in my name saying, I am the Messiah. And they will deceive many.

You are going to hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, because these things must take place.

Now, I didn't graduate high school, but must take place time frame is the future.

That's all right. Go ahead and say it, Farley. Future. Very good. But the end is not yet.

So there's a logical time stamp and when he says something in the future is going to happen, but even when that thing transpires, that's not the end.

Are you following me? Who's from Mississippi in here? Are you following me? Okay, good.

Then everybody will get it. So for nation will rise up against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

There will be famines, earthquakes in various places. All these events are the beginning of birth pains.

Now here's where I and a lot of other pastors disagree. They'll sit there and go, see, see, see, there's going to be a bunch of wars.

Well, man, let's be honest for a second. Can we be honest for a second? Name me a time in human history where there hadn't been a war.

You know what I'm saying? We've been thumping each other's skulls for 6 ,000 years now and we ain't really stopped.

There's going to be earthquakes? There's always been earthquakes, right? There's going to be famines?

There's always going to be famines, especially when Pastor Josiah goes to Golden Corral. It is a famine, right, after he goes through.

So what's the logic here? Well, there are some things that are pretty cool. This is a list of all of the wars in which were the greatest death tolls.

And you have a great spectrum here. You have the Iberian, Spain, Portugal taking over the

Americans, killing all the Native Americans. From about 1492 to 1600, about half a million people were killed.

Sorry, revisionist history. But anyways, the two biggest ones are right here, World War I and its sequel,

World War II. Okay, yeah, man, that's a lot of people. You got combined there, you got about 80 million people that were killed.

But, I mean, it's still kind of subjective. You know what

I mean? I mean, can we be honest for a second? You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. Okay, so a lot of people died.

That's not definitive enough for me. Let's look at this. These are the earthquakes recorded from 1900 to 2019.

1900 to 2019. Now, it is without a shadow of a doubt that starting right about here, it started increasing exponentially, okay?

For you Arkansas folks, that means really a bunch, exponentially it started.

Now, you know what's cool? Is in that time frame right there is the exact time frame that Israel became a nation again.

In 1948, the earthquakes started going bigger and bigger and bigger.

What's really wild, did y 'all know this? I didn't know this until I did the research. There were 1 .3

million earthquakes in nine years from 2010 to 2019. 1 .3

million. Now, I ain't hearing about them, right? But I have some friends that live out in California and said, oh yeah, we get them all the time.

Some of them wake us up in the morning. Like, you know, it's no big deal to them. If I feel an earthquake, I'm like, holy mary, you know, my

God, I'm diving under tables and stuff. But out there, it's no big deal. But once again, can

I be honest with you? You know what I'm saying? It's just not the smoking gun for me, because I'll be honest with you.

You say, oh, in the history of the world, no one recorded every earthquake that has happened since the time of Jesus to now.

It's like when I hear people sit there and go, well, the Earth's getting warmer. It's been getting warmer and warmer since, well, what do you do with the two little ice ages that we've had, you know?

I mean, and dude, where's the guy for the North American Weather Meteorological Service that was recording back in 1432 all of what the temperature was, man?

This is how they told the temperature. Ah, hand's a little warm. It's hot today. Oh, it's going to rain today.

I mean, they didn't have satellites back in the 1500s to tell us all this stuff.

So using this as an absolute proof of earthquakes and the fulfillment of Matthew 24, in my opinion, is just a little weak.

Well, let's keep going. Verse nine, then. Now don't miss this.

Don't miss this. That word then is teto. It literally means a transition of time.

So you have the end's not come yet. These are the beginning of birth pains, but then, then they will hand you over for persecution and they will kill you.

You will be hated by nations because of my name. Then many will take offense, betray one another, hate one another.

Many false prophets will rise up and deceive many because lawlessness will multiply and the love of many will grow cold, but the one who endures to the end will be delivered.

This is the good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all of the world as a testimony to all nations.

And then the end will come. Okay. Okay. A little bit more definitive, but can y 'all name me a time when the love of many wasn't already cold?

I mean, seriously, I mean, go back to the hippies. Where's Melanie? Melanie is a great hippie.

Karina, great hippie. Okay. Even in hippie land, the love of many is always been cold.

You know what I mean? I watched a video, um, not for this sermon, but as I was researching of four kids in protest against the

George Floyd murders, four black kids kidnapped a mentally retarded white kid and tortured him for like 70 hours, 70 hours laughing, videoing it and putting it on Facebook.

And I'm like, in my mind going, dude, I used to be a cold hearted dude. I couldn't do that.

You know, I mean, mama's throwing their babies away, drowning them in cars, you know, but tell me a time in human history that that hadn't happened.

Are y 'all with me? Are y 'all with me? Hmm. So far we have seen people will be deceived.

Well, that's all the time. Um, go look to any election in the United States in the last 30 years, many false prophets come in the name of Jesus.

Well, we got Joel Osteen. Okay. Wars and rumors of wars. Well, yeah, that's happened.

Oops. Sorry. A conflict between nations. Duh. Famines. Okay.

And earthquakes. So yes, these are signs Jesus gave, but you have to understand the credits aren't rolling yet.

Okay. He said that these would be the beginning of birth pains and then that timeframe would end and then something else would happen.

Then he said this verse 15, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken by the prophet

Daniel, write this down. If you want Daniel chapter nine, Daniel chapter 11 talks about this.

And that's what Jesus is referring to standing in the Holy place. Let the reader understand.

And then those who are in Judea fleet of the mountains, let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house and let the one who is in the field not turn back and take his cloak.

And alas, for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days, pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the

Sabbath for then there will be a great tribulations as not, sorry, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, will it will ever be.

Now, you know, one of the key things about this passage that no one really ever pays attention to is this phrase right here.

Let the reader understand. Now, let me explain this to you.

Now that you're going to have to put your thinking caps on just for a second. Jesus was talking to his disciples on that Mount of Olives about 32

AD. Matthew wrote this in about 54, 55

AD. Yes, we know that for out with a shadow of a doubt. Let me give you just a little side bit of history on this.

I have in my office, you can come up there and look at them. I have in my office 30 books written by 60 different people that were all pastors right after the time of Jesus.

I have all their sermon notes. Okay, not all of them, but a bunch of them. I could reproduce all of Scripture from those pastors alone, not to mention the 26 ,000 copies we have of parts of Scripture.

Oh, and by the way, they all match. They all match. Okay, so let that bake in your noodle for a second.

But watch this. Matthew wrote this 20 years after it happened. 20 years after it's happened, he's saying,

I'm writing down everything that Jesus said. And then it says this, let the reader understand.

In his mind, there was a future group of people somewhere down the road that this was going to apply to.

He knew, focus, he knew it was not his generation.

It was a future generation. Now, you may say to me, okay, which generation is it?

It's the one who's going to experience these things. Now, we're about to discuss these things, but I want you to understand that through the sovereignty of God, in Ephesians chapter 1, it says, grace be unto you and peace from God our

Father to Lord Jesus Christ. It says, to the saints who are in Ephesus and the faithful everywhere.

You know what's so beautiful about that? That's addressed to Jeff Shipley. That's addressed to Pastor Josiah.

That's addressed to Miss Gwen. That's addressed to all of us in this room that are faithful.

This was not speaking to the disciples, all of it specifically to them, because Matthew wrote about it later, and he was talking, let the reader who reads this later on, who understands the times that they're living in, that this applies to you.

Now, I want you to, just for a second, think of two things. Number one is,

I want to just bring to fact that line that says, then let those, in verse 16, let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

People say, well, this has already happened in 70 AD. Okay, let me explain just for a second.

I'm going to nerd out history just for a minute, okay? Relax. It's going to be okay.

I promise you. I just have so many people always tell me, Pastor, I hate history. I know you do. I get it.

Trust me, okay? I smoked my way through the 11th grade. I understand, okay?

But here's what's so cool. When Israel, or particularly Jerusalem, rebelled against the

Roman Empire starting in 67 AD, it went through 73 AD, but in 70

AD, Rome came and surrounded Jerusalem, surrounded it, and they took three months, and they killed everybody because they was home.

Now, I want you to think a second. Jesus is God. He can tell the future.

If you're surrounded, what great military advice is it to say, leave the safety of Jerusalem and flee to the mountains where the

Romans are camped out? That ain't good advice. Are y 'all with me? Am I going too fast?

Are the civil servants understanding this? Okay. It doesn't make no sense, so we can't be talking about that, but then it gives this qualification.

In the beginning, it says, when the abomination of desolation happens.

All right, here comes the chart. You ready? I hate these charts. I really do, because they're so prolific, and they're just overdone, but let's be honest.

Here we are in 2023. This is the present church age. This is what's going on right now.

We are right here, but at some point in the near future, the rapture of the church is going to happen.

Now, for those you don't know what that is, basically, it's all true believers, not all church people, not all church people.

All true believers will be taken up to God in heaven. The old evangelistic pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church once said, if the rapture happened today, 80 % of you would still be sitting here.

I would like to think Witten has a little bit higher percentage, but I promise you this.

If the rapture happened right now before I finish this next sentence, there would still be people sitting in this room, because you've asked

Jesus Christ in your heart to be your Lord and Savior, and he's never been either. You've sat there and walked down an aisle and gotten baptized, or say,

I believe in God, but even demons believe in God. You have never truly understood what it means to die to yourself and follow

Christ, okay? Some of you are still going to be sitting here, and when it happens, you're going to turn into super Christians.

You will, because you're going to remember the words coming from my mouth. You're going to remember the scripture, and you're going to go, oh

God, and why everyone else in the world is coming up with a plausible deniability of why this happened.

You're going to know in your heart, oh crap, this is that time, okay? And you're going to be left here for seven years, and it's going to stink really bad, but we'll get to that in a second.

The rapture is coming where God calls his people home. Now as soon as that happens, for some reason in these seven years, and you can go back again to Daniel 9 or Daniel 11 or Revelation 20, or it's written all over the place, for these seven years right here, it's going to be under the power of a guy named the

Antichrist. Now who is the Antichrist, and what does he do? This is what he does.

He is a stud peacemaker. Let's find two people that just absolutely can't stand each other.

LSU, well, Tennessee, no, where's a Bama fan? Oh, Mercedes.

Oh yeah, all you guys back there. I am the University of Tennessee, okay?

Right, you're going to hell. I love the University of Tennessee. You love those inbreds in Alabama, okay?

Now there is no way that I'm ever going to cheer for Bama, and there is no way they're ever going to cheer for Tennessee, but what happens?

Pastor Jeremiah, stand up. I don't mean to disturb your breakfast, but here we are.

What if someone could come and take me, old Smokey, and get that fat, overweight, needs

Jenny Craig elephant, and get those things, two things together, and we're best buddies now.

Would that not be awesome? This person right here would be a stud.

How many times have you heard the news in the last three months and going, dude, especially you younger people in here that are on social media,

Israel is the aggressor, Israel is the bad person, Israel is a poo -poo head,

Israel is whatever. That's usually from people who still have spots, haven't hit puberty, and have no idea what they're talking about outside the realm of human history past October 7th, okay?

It's a little bit bigger than Bartlett, okay? It's just a little bit bigger than TikTok, alright?

But the reality is, there's going to be a day where someone's going to go, hey, you

Jews, oy, come here. Hey, you Palestinians, come here. Hey, guys, can't we just get along?

And here's what we're going to do, and he's going to come up with this plan, and everybody's going to go, man, why didn't we say that before?

Dude, that's a great idea. Hey, man, dude, what's up? Oy vey, and they're going to be singing and dancing in the streets, and for three and a half years, it's going to be absolute

Pax Romana all over. It's going to be peace all over the place, and people, the economies are going to go up.

Everything is going to be great for three and a half years, and in that three and a half years, here's one thing

Israel's going to do in the future. They're going to rebuild that temple.

Now, the reason they haven't done it yet is because this big mosque sits there, and in case you didn't wonder, if a

Jew went up there with a chisel and a hammer and started taking down that mosque, it's going to be a really bad day for them, okay?

But somehow, someway, and personally, I believe that the mosque, the

Dome of the Rock is going to stay there. There is increasing evidence that Solomon's Temple is actually south of that mosque, and I think it's going to be a beautiful picture in peace,

John, you know, linen kind of world, where they're going to have that temple sitting there, and then they're going to have the mosque sitting there, and everybody's going to be like, dude, it's so awesome.

Free weed for everybody. It's all peace, love, and joy hippie, right? Some of y 'all smiled way too much when

I said that. Put the junt down, okay? And they're going to be absolutely happy.

And this dude, now I don't know if you know this or not, but human beings, once people keep coming up and going, man, you're awesome, man, you're the greatest, here's what happens.

Their head starts getting bigger. Let me see an example of this. Hollywood. Hollywood.

Do y 'all know they have over 200 award ceremonies for themselves every year? And some of you idiots actually watch it on TV.

The most self -congratulatory, arrogant, self -centered pigs actually have 200 different ceremonies to celebrate themselves.

I'm going to have the first annual Witten Pastors Awards. Like, we'd have to have something definitive and objective, like, who's the funniest pastor?

Thank you for saying that. Oh, we have a scientific study on that. Who won that?

That's right. That's right. Because I don't tell stupid dad jokes, I actually tell funny jokes.

But anyways, I won the Grammy for the funniest pastor of the year award.

Okay? Here's what's going to happen. This Antichrist who brought all this together, by the way,

Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Nixon, Obama, every president has tried to do this over and over.

You have the Oslo Accords, the Camp David Accords, you have all this stuff. They've won

Nobel Peace Prizes for stopping the fighting. There's a guy coming who's going to stop it for three and a half years.

But then he's going to get such a big head of himself. That temple is going to be rebuilt, and in three and a half years later, this is what he's going to do.

I have brought peace and stability to the whole world. Man, you're paying 69 cents a gallon for gas.

Dude, a loaf of bread is like it was back in the 1970s. They're not killing each other.

Rementing firearms is going out of business. Again, because no one's buying bullets no more.

Everything is super cool, man. Everything is great. Y 'all need to worship me.

And he's going to walk into that Holy of Holies, and he's going to put up a statue of himself, a painting, a picture,

I don't know, maybe a whole diorama. And he's going to say, you people need to worship me.

And people are going to do it. You say, no, that's impossible, that'll never happen.

Taylor Swift. If I have to watch one more stinking football game with that teeny bopper little jerk,

I don't care that she's dating. I don't care. I want to see smack -mouth football.

That's why I turned it on. I don't really care who he's dating and who she's dating. Somebody hit somebody, right?

Robert De Niro. You name it. Anybody.

Because of human nature of which God's Word says we are all sinful, we are all prideful. Isn't it funny how every human being you know, after God's Word says that, is the very thing that they struggle with?

Pastor Josiah preached such a great sermon yesterday at the funeral in which he said, you have no understanding or no realization that you need a

Savior because you do not realize how deep in sin you are. And until you understand the depths of your sin, you'll never understand the richness of grace.

And that's where humankind is right now. Guys, this guy's going to elevate himself to Godhood.

And when he does, in that three and a half years, it isn't going to be happy no more. Because the

Orthodox Jews will lose their ever -loving minds.

All those really really far -right extremist Muslims, they're not going to be happy again.

And the Christians, those that are actually left, those kind of Christians, they're going to be saying, well this isn't quite right.

We don't need to sing down, sing kumbaya, speak in tongues and pass the communion cup. And this is what's going to happen.

Everybody's going to start fighting again. Except this time now, this cat is in charge.

He is large and in charge. You know how you unite common enemies?

You give them a common enemy. You give them a common enemy. And the common enemy of all those groups of people are going to be the true believers in Jesus Christ.

You see, right now, as some of you sleep, and some of you are like, oh God, when is this going to be over?

Or this has nothing to do with me. Or whatever is running through your stupid little minds. You're sitting there, and you are going to be the exact mental composition of what they're going to be then.

You see, the same sin that condemns us now is the same sin that condemned them. And the same grace that saved us now is the same grace that's going to save them.

But the difference between the two is right now Jesus will cost you some of your friends.

It will cost you some of your wants and desires. But at that time, it's going to cost you your life.

One of the most damaging, heartbreaking things for me is this. Revelation speaks of this time, and it says this.

You will have to have a mark to buy or sell or trade. You will have to have a mark to get medical care.

And I want you, just for a second, how many of you mamas have ever had a kid, Aisha? Aisha has had two of the most beautiful children in the whole world.

Far surpassing both the intellectual beauty of their parents. But, I remember when

Alina was a little baby. And Alina got a little sick. And she got a little fever.

And Pastor Jeremiah was like, she's fine, don't worry about it. Where did Aisha go?

To the hospital, because that's her first baby. And it sniffled, we're going to the stinking hospital.

Le Bonheur, we're going to fly in from MIT the best therapist in the world.

You know what's going to be horrible? Is if you want to follow Christ, you're going to have to watch your children starve.

You're going to have to watch your kids with a broken arm get amputated. Because for you to go to any government service controlled by the

Antichrist, you will have to deny Christ. And you will have to follow Him. You say, that's not possible.

Dude, it's happened so many times in history, it's not funny. Let me give you some examples from this time.

There was a guy, his name was Christos. Not Christos, Christos. And he was serving as a centurion in the

Roman Guard. And he became a Christian. And one of the ceremonies they did is they burned incense to the statue of Commodus.

And they said, hey, if you burn incense to this guy, you're okay. If you claim this

Jesus guy, we're going to kill you. And he refused to do it. And they tortured him to death in front of everybody as an example.

Guys, you can choose to follow Jesus now. Or you can choose with greater pain to follow

Him then. But either way, it's going to cost you your life. Guys, I've got to ask you a question.

Just one simple question. Where are you today? And where are you with the last five

Sundays? We have proven time and time again through Scriptures that the entire history that's being played out right now was already told about in Scripture.

You know what prophecy is? It's nothing but pre -written history. It's going to happen. The fact that Israel is a nation again is an unbelievable fact given by God's Word that it would happen.

Everything that God said would happen has happened.

Why do you people want to believe in Nostradamus but don't believe in Scripture which has proved 100 % right over 4 ,000 years?

Here's the difference why. Because you don't want to submit believing in Nostradamus or any of this other stuff.

I remember in 2012, Christians were like, it's the end of the world. The Mayan calendar.

The Mayans couldn't even predict their own demise which you're going to worry about? Come on y 'all.

I saw a movie about it. There's going to be earthquakes and floods and everything. We better start buying more wise food and packing it away.

Why do you believe in sensationalism but you don't believe in the very thing that happens over and over again is 100 % correct?

Here's why. You ready? You're not ready to have another God beside yourself.

That's why. Because you refuse to submit to the reality of God because it's going to cost you the thing that you worship the most.

Yourself. I know people that have sat in churches for 40 years that are still not

Christians. They're still not Christians. I know folks that... I remember preaching

Revival one time and the pastor came down and gave his life to Christ for the first time. Guys.

Being in a church does not make you a Christian. It does not. Standing in a garage does not make you a car.

Okay? You got to come to a point where you have to ask yourself who am

I going to choose to follow? Myself? My insecurities? My fears? My wants? My needs?

Or to follow Christ? And I'll close with this. Music people you can come up.

I'll close with this. Listen. You may say to yourself, Pastor, how do I know if I'm a Christian? It's really stupid simple.

It's really stupid simple. Stupid simple. Do you follow your will? Or do you follow

Christ's? Well, Pastor, here's my funny thing. We all sin. Yes, we all sin.

Way to go champ. That's hard intellectual thought right there. Yeah, we all sin.

Of course we all sin. But does your life look like this? Or does it look like this?

See, if your Christian life looks like this, I need a medical person.

What's it like when that line just... Say it again, nerd. It's an asystole.

You don't want an asystole in your Christian life. You're flat lined. You're dead.

You're not regenerated, born again in the love of God. If you're a Christian, it's going to look like this.

Oh man, they cut me off on Germantown Road again. I'm going to beat their brains out, you know. Right?

Right? You're going to struggle, but you're also going to repent. And you're going to grow and mature.

If you're still reacting to the stimuli of the world with the same anger and immaturity as you were 20 years before, you might want to start looking at your salvation.

Big time. You have to be growing in Christ. Last thing.

I know, I've already said that. Just listen to this. The last part of that verse said this.

There will be a great tribulation that the world has never seen, nor will it see again.

Six million Jews and 50 million people were killed in World War II. If everything already happened, we know the death tolls of the siege of Jerusalem.

It was about 45 ,000. 45 ,000. It's going to be really bad like the world...

Six million. Hmm. Hmm. It's coming, guys.

It hasn't already happened. It's coming. Where are you going to stand? I'm not asking you to join this church.

I don't want you to ask Jesus Christ in your heart. I don't. I don't want your membership.

I don't want your stupid money. What I want is for your soul not to be tormented in hell forever.

I want you to know the peace of God that changed my life. I want you to know what it is to actually be a part of something greater than yourself and know the peace that comes from that.

I want you to be saved. That's all I care about. If you're not 100 % sure that you're a

Christian, I'm not talking about some emotional feeling. I'm talking about this is the day, right now, that I give my life to Christ.

I want you to come forward and talk to a pastor. We can't save you. The same Spirit of God sent me.

The same Spirit of God sent Mickey. And as scary as that is, that's truth. Okay? But we can show you

God's Word. Romans 10, 17. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God. Not an idiot

Baptist preacher. The Word of God. If you're not sure of where you are with Jesus, come forward.

If you need some accountability, you need to join a church for that accountability, come forward.

If you just need prayer, whatever it is, and if you're a Christian in here and you've got everything done, don't sit there with your hands in your pockets looking at a stupid screen.

Go find somebody and actually miniature somebody today. Because if you can't do it in here, you ain't doing it at work.

Whatever it is, I want you to stand up. Let's glorify God today by being obedient and you come this morning as God leads.