Revelation 11-13 (Part 2)

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So you're hoping it'll start working now? Yeah, even now. Well, he'll know. He'll dam on it when it comes on, but you're going to let you know when a thing comes on.
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No, I turned off notifications because the internet's a five -channel. Mr. Barry?
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Samson? I'm going to let that one go. Heavenly Father, thank you for this chance to come before you this morning to be in your word and be instructed.
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And we ask that you just be the phone of life that opens the word to us and teaches us. Be with us and do
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His works. We just thank you for all the saints that are gathered here today to be learning in fellowship with each other.
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We ask what you said in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Revelation chapter 11.
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Read 11 and 12, chapters 11 and 12. Then there was given me a measuring rod like a staff, and someone said, get up.
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Measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship in it. Leave out the court, which is outside the temple, and do not measure it, for it has been given to the nations.
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And they will tread underfoot the holy city for 42 months. And I will grant authority to my two witnesses.
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They will prophesy for 1 ,260 days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, the two lampstands that stand before the
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Lord of the earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire flows out of their mouth and devours their enemies.
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So if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way. These have the power to shut up the sky so that the rain will not fall during the days of their prophesying.
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And they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every plague as often as they desire.
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And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them and overcome them and kill them and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which mystically is called
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Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. Those from the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations will look at their dead bodies for three and a half days and will not permit their dead bodies to be laid into a tomb.
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And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and celebrate. And they will send gifts to one another because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth.
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But after three and a half days, the breath of life from God came into them and they stood up on their feet and a great fear fell on those who were watching them.
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And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying, come up here. And then they went up into heaven in the cloud and their enemies watched them.
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And in that hour, there was a great earthquake and a tenth of the city fell. 7 ,000 people were killed in the earthquake and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the
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God of heaven. The second woe is past and behold, the third woe is coming quickly. Then the seventh angel sounded and there were loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our
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Lord and His Christ and He will reign forever and ever. And the 24 elders who sat on the thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped
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God saying, we give you thanks, O Lord, the Almighty, who are and who were because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign.
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And the nations were enraged and your wrath came and the time came for the dead to be judged and the time for the reward of your bond servants, the prophets and the saints and those who fear your name, the small and the great and to destroy those who destroy the earth.
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And the temple of God which is in heaven was opened and the Ark of the Covenant appeared in His temple and there were flashes of lightning, sounds, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a great hailstorm.
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A great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with sun and the moon under her feet and on her head, a crown of 12 stars and she was with child.
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She cried out being in labor and in pain to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads, 10 horns and on his heads were seven diadems and his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth and the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she would give birth, he might devour her child.
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And she gave birth to a son with a male child and he was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron and her child was caught up to God and to His throne and the woman fled into the wilderness where she was prepared by God so that she would be nourished for 1 ,260 days.
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There was war in heaven. Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon and the dragon and his angels waged war and they were not strong enough and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven and the great dragon was thrown down and the serpent of old who was called the devil and Satan who deceives the whole world, he was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him.
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Then I heard a loud voice saying, now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of this
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Christ have come for the accuser of the brethren has been thrown down and he who accused them day and night before God and they overcame him because of the blood of the lamb and because of the word of their testimony and they did not love their life even when faced with death.
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For this reason rejoice, O heaven, you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea because the devil has come down and having great wrath knowing that his time is only short and when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child but the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman so that she would, that she could fly to the wilderness to her place where she was nourished for a time, time and half a times from the presence of the serpent and the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood but the earth helped the woman and the earth opened up its mouth and drank up the river which the dragon poured out of his mouth so the dragon was enraged with the woman and went off to make war with the rest of her children those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
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Okay, last week we got to the point of measuring the temple before we go get any further.
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Larry said, he came to me afterwards, sorry Larry. I think maybe some other people may be asking the same thing.
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It says towards the end was Elijah supposed to come and I think that's all of a question when we talk about the two prophets as we named them and if you remember correctly, who did
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Jesus say before the great terrible day came that was Elijah, anybody remember?
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John the Baptist. So we know by what Jesus said that Elijah actually wasn't going to descend coming in camel's hair, wearing funny clothes, doing crazy things again.
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Jesus says, hey, if you can accept this, John the Baptist was Elijah.
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So we know that Elijah's really not going to come but people should preach in the power of Elijah.
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Last week, Andy said you were confused. What did I confuse you before I go any further? I was confused.
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You said it from the pulpit last week. Any confusion? Before I move any, before I confuse anybody any further,
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I want to make sure to give you the opportunity to get cleared up. Okay, good, okay. All right, this was the temple precinct.
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It's 35 acres. This would have been most holy place.
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Come through here, you would have the menorah or the shack that you showbread here, menorah here.
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Then you would have the veil and then you would enter here and here would be the Ark of the Covenant.
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Interestingly enough, these corks right here, I'm putting these here for a reason.
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And then right here would have been another altar of incense. If you would have gone to the
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Herodian temple, remember there was how many temples? Two, Solomon's temple.
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Then when they went back into the land under Shesh Bazar or AKA Zerubbabel, they laid the temple foundations.
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And how do we know it was Shesh Bazar and Zerubbabel? Because Ezra tells us that Shesh Bazar laid the temple foundation and then was
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Haggai say who laid this temple foundation. He said Zerubbabel, same dude, okay? Pagan name,
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Hebrew name. Well, after they came in and laid the temple and raised it up from the destruction of 586
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BC by Nebuchadnezzar, it was paled in comparison to what the original temple was.
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Remember what happened in Ezra once it was erected? It said that they couldn't tell from the joy if it was people screaming in joy and weeping in disarray because it paled in comparison to the one that Solomon had built.
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But then during the time of Zerubbabel coming back into the land,
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Zachariah, Haggai, Malachi, there was improvements made. It was still very small, still very small.
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That would have been the whole temple precinct itself about right here. But during the time of like the
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Maccabean era, the Hasmonean dynasty, the intertestamental time, it then became enlarged.
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The Hasmoneans just, I'm just, made it about this big, you see?
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And then Herod comes along with money from Rome. Remember how, anybody remember how
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Herod got put in place? He actually helped,
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Mark Anthony sent Jewish people, helped them to fight and that's how he got put in place by Rome as the puppet king for the
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Jewish people and they gave him boatloads of money to then, he couldn't be in the temple because what was he?
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He was an Edomite. So what did he do? He enlarged, he was an architectural,
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I mean genius. Masada, Herodia, this and other places that he did, absolute architectural genius.
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So what he did is he enlarged all this. He did, he made all of this, the outer parts of what we would say the inner temple complex because remember, out here was the court of the
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Gentiles and this is important when we get to interpreting this, okay?
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This was the court of the Gentiles. When you came through here, everybody remember what I said? This court was here, when you came through right here, what was here?
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Women, yep. Who could come in there? I mean,
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I know we did just women, huh? Jewish women, that's right, Jewish women. So once you came through this here,
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Jewish people only. He enlarged this, then he gave him the caner.
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When you come through here, that would be the court of the men and it stopped right there.
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Once you got to the court of the men, it was very, it wasn't far. There wasn't an actual gate there but once you got to the altar, you knew you couldn't go any further because where did the altar start?
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It started the priestly, Levitical priestly duties of not just the Arianic priesthood but all of the, basically the hands that helped them do it.
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There would have been butcher tables all over the place right here, okay? You just didn't willy nilly, as my wife says, walk into the temple complex.
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Anybody remember what the Mosaic Law said? No commoner is to be in the temple complex, no commoner.
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Look, you just don't walk through here. If you were a woman and you walked past that gate into the court of the men, you know what was supposed to happen to her?
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She'd be put to death. If a dude thinking he was just gonna meander on past the court of the men and he was gonna go stand over here by the brazen altar or go wash his little hands in that labor, you know what was gonna happen to him?
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They were gonna take him outside the gate and they were gonna stone him to death. That's what they were gonna do. Nobody was to go past here but the
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Levitical priest. I mean, but the, yeah, the Levitical priest. But then only a certain group of people could come into here.
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But then who came in here? High priest only. High priest only and how long?
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Once a year. Once a year, very quickly. Get in there, get your business done and get out because it could be now tradition.
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I think we've all heard that tradition says when they went in to do the day of atonement because that is the only time they went in there.
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One time a year, he offer up a sacrifice for himself, his family, himself, he would go in, take down his distinguished attire, put on clean linens, he would go in there and do his thing.
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Tradition says they put a rope around his head with a bell so that when, if them bells quit moving, they knew he got zapped and he would be drug out.
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We have no indication that ever happened, okay? I do just a little historical data.
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Jeremiah, you know, last time we saw the Ark of the Covenant, they may know, the last time we saw the
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Ark of the Covenant was really with Jeremiah. Jeremiah, so we, do
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I believe there was the Ark of the Covenant was in there at the time? Yes, I do. But the original Ark of the Covenant was the last, the
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OG, okay, was last seen with Jeremiah. My opinion.
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That this was a remanufactured Ark, my opinion. Nobody ever saw that again after the destruction of Jerusalem.
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Read your Bible, high, low, far, wide, shake it, flip it up, flip it back, listen to the audio. Ain't nobody gonna tell you that we ever saw that again after the
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Old Testament, until the New Testament. Now, it says here that he was given a measuring rod to go measure, this is verse one, the temple of God and the altar.
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Now, where was the original temple, technically speaking?
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Where did the idea of the dwelling place of God develop? Timber now.
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Garden of Eden. This is important, this is important.
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If you're, remember I told you, you do your biblical theology as the flow of redemption, how things unfolded through redemption.
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So your biblical theology would go this way, your systematic theology, then you would figure out, let's just say, we'll use this, the temple of God, then you start putting all these categories in here and then you develop your system.
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This would be your systematic theology and then it would build on one another up and down like this.
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But biblical theology, it started in the Garden of Eden. Wasn't it Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve, and what did
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Adam and Eve do in the garden? Was how they'd ride on a lion together down by the river.
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Okay, what did they do? They, man, they walked with Jesus, whom I believe Jesus is the pre -incarnate
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Christ, walked with him in the garden. That's what I believe. But because of sin, what happened?
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They were exiled, kicked out.
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This is lost, per se, for a very long time.
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Where does the dwelling place, this was redemptive history. Where on this does it develop?
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Where does the dwelling place of God then come back? Somebody said it a minute ago, the tabernacle, right.
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So after the Exodus, you have the tabernacle.
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That happens here. The dwelling place of God is lost for thousands of years.
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Okay, it shows up here. God says, all right, I'm gonna dwell in the midst of my people.
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But what did the tabernacle do? It moved around. It had no stationary place where people could go worship.
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It was wherever they went. Now, part of that was their fault. They didn't do what they were supposed to do. Remember the 10 were bad spies, two were good.
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All they had to do was go and conquer the land, and they failed to do that. So what did they do? They wandered around in a big circle for 40 years when they could have went and established a stable place.
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Well, this here, then once they get in the land, it goes to Shiloh for a little while.
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Remember, there's a good period of time you had the judges and all that here. You go to Shiloh, and then you get to where David wants to build something for God where it can be stationary.
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And God says, you can't do that. You kill too many people. Although he did it during the wars of the Lord, as God told him, he said, but don't let your son do it.
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So then you had the temple. So let's do this, Solomon's.
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Solomon's temple, huge. This now meant that no longer did this thing travel around in the land of Eden, the land of Israel.
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It was actually gonna be a stationary place. It was gonna be set up where people then could come to God, worship
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Him there. They would all gather and meet and assemble to worship God.
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But even when they came there, once again, who could approach
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God? Even in Solomon's temple? Only the high priest. They could come, men could offer offerings at the brazen altar.
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They could have someone offer incense, but they could not go and see the dwelling place of God.
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They lost the dwelling place of God, exiled. They were exiled out of Solomon's temple because of sin.
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Anybody remember what the reason was? Remember? Breaking the Sabbath. They broke the
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Sabbath. All the Sabbath laws, they broke them. Whether it was doing things on the actual
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Sabbath or not letting the ground lay fallow or dormant for that seventh year.
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And that was, how long did they do that? God was patient with them 490 years. And then He finally said,
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I'm done with you. And He, soccer ball, kicked them out of the land, just like He said He would.
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This is lost. Then it comes back into the picture. When they come back in the land, 534, 533, depending on what your time was, the coming back in when
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Cyrus, after the exile was over, the temple then is rebuilt, 516
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BC. And they can begin to worship. Things resume, but they still can't worship
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God the way that He intended. All the prophets pointed to a new covenant.
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That new covenant meant that God was not going to dwell in the midst of His people here.
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What was He going to do? What does Jeremiah 33 say? He was going to dwell in them, in them.
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That's why the temple of God under New Testament theology is not a structure made of bricks or made of seal skin.
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It was gopher skin, whatever, okay? It's not this. It's the heart of people where God dwells.
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First Corinthians chapter three. We've probably all heard this. You are the temple of God.
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Ain't that what Paul told them? You, plural, you, plural. And then, hey, take your
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Bibles and turn over to First Corinthians chapter, I think it's chapter six.
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Yeah, First Corinthians chapter six. First Corinthians chapter six, verse, yes, sir.
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He says, do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and that you are not your own for you have been bought with a price.
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Therefore, glorify God in your body. You are the dwelling place of God.
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You are the actual temple. Actually, it should be temples because each one of us are the dwelling place of God.
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Therefore, now that we're coming to the point where he says, I want you to measure the temple,
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I believe in his vision. I said this last week, his vision. He actually saw in his vision,
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I believe he saw Herod's temple. He didn't see a church.
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And here's why I say that. There's three things he tells him to measure. He says, I want you to measure the sanctuary.
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Remember, this was naos. I'm just gonna transliterate it. That's the Greek, naos, meaning where the dwelling place of God is.
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I want you to measure the dwelling place of God, the altar here and the altar of sacrifice.
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You know, each one of these has a point to the people of God and the church. One, the dwelling place of God is you, right?
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We all agree with that. What about the altar of incense? What does it represent? Even in the
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Psalms, what did the altar of incense represent? What's that? Prayers. Prayers, that's right.
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He says, you're gonna offer up your prayers as a sweet aroma to the nostrils of God.
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That was your prayers. Well, what about the altar? The sacrifice.
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Sacrifice. Do we give sacrifices today? I don't think anybody in here got a goat or a lamb out in the car.
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Although I wish I had a goat at the house. Did anybody come with a goat or a lamb besides Kelly?
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Sorry, sorry, I'd clarify that. No, we didn't, why? Because there's no more sacrifices to do.
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No more dead sacrifices to offer. Let's don't, hey, we have to remember.
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What does Romans say? Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
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We are to offer our bodies to God as a living sacrifice.
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Are we? How should we look at the altar? We're giving ourself to God.
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So what does he say here? I want you, go back to Revelation chapter 11.
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He says, get up. Remember, he didn't have a Stanley 35 foot or DeWalt tape measure.
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He had a gigantic rod. He says, I want you to get up. I want you to go measure the dwelling place of God.
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We're just gonna use that. Does anybody translation say sanctuary? No? It's actually the word means sanctuary.
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The temple of God, the altar, and those who dwell in it. So now he's saying,
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I want you to measure these thing here, this, and measure those who worship in it.
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Who worships the true and living God? Only those who were dwelled by the true and living
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God. People probably get into that today. Look, the chick at the woman at the well, she said, well, you say you worship here.
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We say you worship here. And what did Jesus say? Hold on, there's coming a day where we're gonna worship in spirit and in truth, and it ain't gonna matter where you are.
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Why? Because you can worship where you are. Where you are.
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Yeah. You were saying, don't know about living sacrifice a while ago. That should be daily. It is.
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You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it is. That's a daily. And how does that begin? By repentance. Yeah. Repentance.
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It is a lifestyle of offering yourself up as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto
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God. And how do you do that? By the renewing of your mind. By putting the word of God into your mind, embedding it into your heart, so that I might not sin against God.
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You know? Look, I'm a Bible teacher. I always encourage people for more
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Bible. You're never gonna hear me say anything else other than that. Hey, what do you think you should do? I think you should read the prophets.
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What do you think I should do to help my marriage? Read your Bible. What do you think I should do to help raise my kids better?
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Read your Bible. Well, and use the rod. Yeah, that's what you're gonna hear out of me.
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Because the Bible is sufficient for all things. I think I was talking to Richard the other day. Look, the
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Bible's sufficient for everything pertaining to life and godliness. It ain't gonna tell you how to change your oil.
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It's not gonna tell you how to replace the faucet at your home, okay? Changing your oil and replacing the faucet at your home, not knowing how to do that will not damn your soul.
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But not knowing the true and living God that has been revealed in the Son of God, which has then been pointed to by the
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Holy Spirit. If you miss that, you're damned forever. Now, the dwelling place of God, he is measuring them.
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Why is he measuring them? He is measuring them for protection.
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Remember, what was the interlude back in chapter seven about? Remember, it says, so if you have the measuring in the first interlude in chapter seven, and it gave in numbers, remember, 144 ,000?
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Everybody remember that? 140, 12, dump 12, dump 12, dump 12. All of that was the measuring, the sealing of God's people.
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This is the equivalent to that of the sealing of God's people. And why?
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Because he's fixing to tell us why. Because now his people have been protected, not from harm, but they have been protected from eternal punishment.
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They have been commissioned with a job, and now he is going to send them out to do what he's called them to do in the power and the authority that Jesus had gotten when he was resurrected.
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He was on the mountain in Galilee, and he says, all authority has been given unto me to get heaven and earth. Now I'm sending you to go do the same thing.
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That's what he's fixing to talk about here. He said, leave out the outside, and verse two, leave out the court, which is outside the temple.
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So he measured here. He wants you to leave out all of this. Leave out all of that.
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And he says, why leave it out? The true worshipers are where? Here. What's out here?
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Anything. It can be false converts. It can be
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Judaism. It can be a billion different things. It can be the little
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Hindu dude I talked to this week, talking to his little idol.
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It's everything outside of the true and living God that has been measured by him.
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Brother. And he says here, they're gonna trample it for 40, I'm sorry, leave outside and do not measure it for it has been given over to the nations, and they will tread it underfoot, the holy city, for 42 months.
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Now, here's where we've got to figure out what does it mean to be given over to the nations?
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Anybody say Gentiles? King James say Gentile? New King James says Gentile? It does.
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The actual word is ethne. And it means nations, races, people, yeah, it could be the peoples.
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Who says peoples? No, I'm just saying peoples. Yeah, it's anybody outside of the
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Jewish community. That's how it was in the Old Testament. It was goi, which meant Gentile, goiim, meaning the plurality of that, the goiim, everybody outside.
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Remember, you had two types of people. You had Jews and everybody else. Well, technically speaking, when you come into the new covenant, what do you got?
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You got two types of people. You got the people of God and everybody else.
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So he says here that they're going to trample underfoot by the nations, all of them, for 42 months.
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Now, that 42 months can get complicated, okay?
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Remember, we had, I don't know, some of y 'all are in here coming into, going, oh, no,
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I didn't know we were gonna do math. 42 months, 1 ,260 days, time, time, and half a times.
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He said, well, how do you get time, time, and half a time? One time times half a times.
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One plus two plus half gives you three and a half. That's how, that's how, and that, anybody remember where that came from?
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Daniel, yep, Daniel. So now it says they're gonna trample under all of that for 42 months.
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Is it real 42 months? Is it figurative 42 months?
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Is it symbolic? Remember, all that's gonna determine on how you understand this whole section.
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What did the Preterists think? It's real 42 months.
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Yeah, it was real 42 months. What does dispensationalism think it is?
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42, yeah, they really believe it's 42 months. They believe it's the last three and a half years of the
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Tribulation, and it really doesn't matter if you have Schofield's 1909, 1919,
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Ryrie, John MacArthur, they all believe, and dispensational eschatology believe that that's gonna be a real 42 months, three and a half years, 1 ,260 days, it's all this is referring to the same timeframe, at the last years of world history, per se.
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But if we understand this figuratively, as I do understand this, that 42 months represents something.
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It represents the time between the times. It represents a period of time in which, that's why
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I read chapter 12. Did anybody hear that it says he took the woman and took her off into the wilderness for 1 ,260 days?
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And we have to move forward some, so that you can understand why the 42 months, I believe it is speaking of the interadvent time.
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When we read that, most of us caught in where it says there was a woman and she had a child, okay?
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Most people go, well, who's the woman? I say, forget asking who the woman is for a second. If we can determine who the child is, then that'll help us understand what has taken place.
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It says that woman was going to have a child, and that the dragon was there waiting to devour him.
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Everybody remember any of that? Everybody? We just read it? I think we should have, and I said this to Sybil, when we put out the little nativity scene at the house, and you know, to be biblical, you gotta get out the magi.
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Why don't we have a dragon hanging over top of the, you know, ready to chow down?
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But that would be real. And then Sybil went like this to me. But that would be real.
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Instead of having him under a stable, how about having him up under the dragon waiting to devour him when he is born, because that's actually how the scripture shows the nativity scene.
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Probably wouldn't sell very well. I don't know, it might. It might. So that woman was waiting to have a child, and when that child was born, it says that male child was to do what?
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To rule the nations with a rod of iron. So who do we know who that is? That's Christ.
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There's only one person that says that about, and that began in Psalm chapter two, right? That he would be, he would rule with a scepter, and he would rule, and in some translations, it ain't scepter, it was shepherd.
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The shepherd in the Old Testament that ruled with a rod of iron, okay. So we know who that is, but it says that after that child was born, it doesn't give us a statistical and chronological of what happened.
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It's giving you a synopsis, a summary of what happened. It says when that child was born, he was ruled, he ruled the nations with a rod of iron, but what does it say?
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It says that God did what? It said God pulled him up to his throne. So what would we see? The birth and the ascension, and then when he goes up, it says what happens to the woman?
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She is taken out into the wilderness and protected and nourished for 1 ,260 days. So that's why
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I understand these time frames to be the time of the church, the gospel age, the time in which the ascension,
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Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, and ascension until he returns, because at the end when it says that he comes, he is given all dominion and authority and power, and when he returns, he's sent to the eternal kingdom.
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That is the everlasting kingdom here. We're done. It's the eternal state. Well, how long does that time take for age?
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Well, it says it's for 42 months, 1 ,260 days. It is a symbolic time frame of the church.
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Now, if you're a millennialist, I don't know in who here is,
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I am. I don't see how you interpret this, that this is not the millennial.
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If I'm gonna be consistent, remember, you can interpret it any old way you want, but when your interpretations are becoming inconsistent with one another, that's when you know you're probably wrong, okay?
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You have to be consistent with one another. If the church age is the millennium under the amillennial position, anybody know what the amillennial position is?
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Okay, if the church age, the gospel age is the millennium, and I'm saying that the 42 months is the time between Jesus' ascension and his second return, it has to be.
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It has to be. Why? Because the church is a church militant in this time.
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In the time of the millennium, in the time of this time frame, what's the church doing?
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What's the church doing? Making disciples. What did Jesus say? On the mountain in Galilee in Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 through 20.
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God bless you, son. May you live for a long time. Teach all nations about the Son and the
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Holy Ghost. That's it. And what's the mission of the church? That right there. And he says, and lo,
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I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. And when's the end of the age?
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When he splits out of Eastern Scott, and he comes, and he makes all wrongs right, judges the living and the dead, and we usher into the new heavens and the new earth.
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Now, that 42 months is a time in which the
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Gentiles, it says, the time of the Gentiles is at hand. There's only one other passage that I can go to to bring merit to what
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I, that I believe that this is the time of the Gentiles. And you can look it up if you want. You go home, you can read
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Luke chapter 21. And it says that Jesus is gonna give over to sin, to Jerusalem, to the destruction by the
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Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled. Well, what's the time of the
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Gentiles? They're bringing in the mystery of God. Didn't we say it two weeks ago?
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What's the mystery of God? Go ahead. Ephesians two. Yeah, Ephesians two. Two and three.
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Three, yeah, and four, because then in four, he actually gives you the criteria what the church is going to look like when you bring in the
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Gentile and the Jew together. You get prophets, and you get pastors, and you get teachers, and you get evangelists.
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They all are fitly joined together so that they can be of one body, one baptism, one spirit.
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So the time of the Gentiles is the time in which the proclamation of the gospel is going out, making disciples of what?
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You say it a minute ago. The nations. You know what that word is? Ethnic. Understand that.
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Nations, ethnic, Gentiles, making disciples of the nations, taking it to the nations.
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Now, in verse three, and we got three minutes. Verse three, and I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1 ,260 days closed in sackcloth.
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So if this time frame is the same as this when the church is militant, and this time frame is what he's used for the time of the
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Gentiles, and then it says here that he's given his witnesses the ability, the authority to do what?
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What does it say? Prophesy. What does prophesy mean? Don't be speaking in tongues.
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That's not what it means. Prophesy means to proclaim the word of God boldly in a timely manner with a specific purpose about the truth of God, whether it be in condemnation, exhortation, encouragement, or just straight up didactic.
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Okay, so he's given his two witnesses, and we'll talk about two witnesses in just a second. Well, maybe next week. The two witnesses have a specific purpose, and it's to prophesy, proclaim the truth of God, to proclaim the warnings of God, to proclaim the goodness of God, right?
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He said he grants them, and he does it for 1 ,260 days in their clothed in sackcloth.
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Well, why 1 ,260 days? Well, one, it's a specific time frame, but why does he use day?
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Because the proclamation of the gospel by the people of God is a day -to -day affair.
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What does Hebrew say in chapter three? Today is the day of salvation. Today is the day.
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Do not harden your heart as they did in the day of the provocation, but turn to him.
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Why today is still called today? Today. When's today?
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Every day you wake up, it's today. So what's the pattern of the people of God?
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It's day by day. Day in, day out. Sometimes that seems a little mundane. Sometimes that seems a little rudiment, but that's how
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God said we're to do it. Day by day, day by day. He also says in Corinthians, that go to the
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Lord while it is today, for today is the day of salvation. He says that. He's quoting a passage back in I think
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Psalm 40, where it says that today is the day of salvation. Turn unto the Lord for He is our salvation.
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He is quoting that passage. So it is a day -to -day affair that the witnesses of God proclaim the prophesied, the word of God day in and day out.
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So who are those two witnesses? Well, those two witnesses have a pattern that was set back in Deuteronomy 19, which says under the authority of God and under the
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Mosaic legislation, you did not do anything without the consent or under the authority of how many?
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Two witnesses. Two witnesses. Look, when
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Jesus sent out the 70 along with the 12, remember how he sent them out? Two by two.
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He sent them out two by two, so that they could never say that Jesus didn't care about the Mosaic legislation.
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He sent them out preaching the kingdom of God two by two. Two by two.
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Wine sackcloth, and we'll wrap it up. Sackcloth was a picture in the
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Old Testament of the continual pattern of the preaching that sackcloth meant repentance. How many times have we heard him say,
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I repent in dust? Sackcloth. What did John the
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Baptist wear? Camel's hair. You know what sackcloth is? Camel hair. What did Elijah wear?
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Camel's hair. You know what camel's hair is? Sackcloth. What is it a picture of? It's a picture of repentance.
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All through the Old Testament, and I don't have time to go through all of them because we gotta go. So, we will pick up in verse four next week.
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For those that'll be in here, for those that are going with Andy, he'll be at the end of the hallway, and you can pick us up on the live stream if whoever wants to go with Andy.
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Okay? All right. Mike, would you pray for us? Well, Heavenly Father, we thank you for the time that we've been able to come together under Brother Mike's teaching.
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Thank you for his preparation, and we thank you for the blessing of hearing your word proclaimed, both in spirit and in truth, and we pray now that you would be with us as we go into the worship service.
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We pray that you'd be with Brother Keith. We thank you for bringing him back safely, and we pray, Lord, that you would be glorified in all that's said and done, and we'll thank you and praise you for it.