Can God Send Illness and Disease?

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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All right, let's pray, we're gonna get started. Yep. Heavenly Father, almighty and everlasting God, we come before you in humble awe.

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You are the one true God, there is none other like you. Come, we pray, bless our hearts and our minds as we study your word.

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Send your Holy Spirit into our lives so that we may grow in love and grace and that we may go forth into all the world, proclaiming your gospel so that others may learn of your saving grace.

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Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. Amen. All right, so let's take the occasion of the global pandemic to kind of find a

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Christian way to consider what is going on in our world around us.

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And there's a few things I wanna talk about today. And number one is let's consider what

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I would consider to be off, like biblically way off responses from churches as it relates to the global pandemic.

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And there is, within the charismatic movement and the NAR, there are a group of very high -profile prophets.

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Yeah, I'm using the term very loosely here. And apostles and people who are pastors who are making claims to this effect.

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And the claim is this, God does not send sickness.

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Is that biblically true? Like ever?

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That's a soldier. I don't know, those venomous serpents in the desert. Okay, so we're gonna kind of address this issue.

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And so their claim is that it's only the devil who ever brings sickness. Now, off the top of your head, can you think of a passage of scripture where the devil was able to unilaterally, on his own recognizance and his own authority, launch a global pandemic whereby it would indiscriminately kill believers and unbelievers, all right?

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Or how about sent illness on a human being without getting prior approval from God himself?

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Huh? The plagues of Egypt? Who sent those plagues of Egypt? God. Okay, right,

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God did. So I'm going to point something out here is that one of the things that is absolutely ruled out, and I'm gonna have to do it this way.

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If we're gonna talk about this, we're going down the highway, we wanna stay out of the ditches on either side.

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So ditch number one is the ditch that says, God doesn't send sickness.

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We'll do a little bit of a Bible study along that to avoid that particular ditch. But the other end of this is there are people who are saying that this is a judgment of God for specific sins, all right?

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This is because of abortion. This is because of a tolerance of homosexuality.

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Are we able to determine which specific sin that God is judging the earth with?

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Yeah, no. So we'll talk about that as well. And we'll do a little bit of work along the way, and then we'll talk about what the toilet paper shortage really is, and we'll talk about that as well.

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Because as you can tell, today's sermon will be known forever as the toilet paper sermon. Is that its official name?

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No, I don't want that to be in there. I will say this, that one of the senior members of Kongsbinger noted that I don't think that he's ever heard the word toilet paper ever been used in a sermon before here.

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First, we have that Easter bunny sermon. Okay, thank you for sharing.

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Just saying. All right. So let's take a look at a couple of passages. Deuteronomy 28,

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Deuteronomy 28. This is going to be the curses section of the Mosaic Covenant.

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Now it's important to note, we are not under the Mosaic Covenant. And yet you're gonna note something quite fascinating in the details.

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Deuteronomy 28, 15, if you will not obey the voice of Yahweh your God, or be careful to do all of his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.

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Cursed shall you be in the city. Cursed shall you be in the field. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.

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Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of the ground. Increase of your herds and the young of your flock.

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Cursed shall you be when you come in. Cursed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will send on you curses, confusion, frustration, and all that you undertake to do until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds because you have forsaken me.

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The Lord will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

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Yahweh will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation, and fiery heat, and with drought, and with blight, and with mildew.

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Who is doing the striking? God is. God is doing the striking.

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Now, in this day and age, there's a whole group of people who will sit there and go, what a horrible, terrible

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God you believe in. Cannot believe that you would believe that God would send a disease. Right?

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This is the consequence of our sin. And I would note something here.

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We as parents, we know that our children are prone to disobey.

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And sometimes their stubborn -headed disobedience gets them into all kinds of trouble.

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So when your child, your toddler, wants to open up the oven that is currently set to 350 and touch the really pretty elements at the bottom of the oven, what do we do?

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No. We say no. And then the toddler has a fit, throws herself backwards on the ground, and looks like she's being possessed by a demon.

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All right? Maybe it was just my kids. Then what happens is that the toddler then goes back towards the stove, and you have to give the toddler a nice little pat on the bottom, which then causes her to cry.

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When there are consequences for disobedience, is it because you do not love your child, or is it because you love your child?

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It's because you love your child. And so the idea here is that God sending consequences of this nature, as difficult as it is for us to take the fact that these are sent on account of our sin, our disobedience, mine and yours included, and that ultimately these are the things that God sends for the purpose of sobering us up and waking us up to certain realities.

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I do find it fascinating that our Vice President Pence has been calling for prayer and repentance in the midst of all of this, and he is being mocked mercilessly by the unbelieving left on this.

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This is ridiculous, this is terrible. What do we need repentance of?

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A lot, a lot, all right? So you know, God sends, he says, I will strike you with wasting disease, with fever, inflammation, fiery heat, with drought, with blight, mildew.

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They shall pursue you until you perish. The heavens over your head shall be bronze, the earth underneath you be iron.

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The Lord will make the rain of your land powder from heaven. Dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed.

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The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them.

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You shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. Your dead body shall be food for all the birds of the air, for beasts of the earth.

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There shall be no one to frighten them away. The Lord will strike you with boils, the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and scabs and itch of which you cannot be healed.

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The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind. You shall grope at noonday as the blind grope in the darkness and you shall not prosper in your ways.

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Again, I think this is sufficient to say that, hmm, the person who says God never sends disease doesn't know what they're talking about.

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Now, the enterprising person might say something to this effect. Well, that's the Old Testament.

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That's the Old Testament. God doesn't send disease now in the new. All right, let's take a look at some red letters, shall we?

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Book of Revelation, we are in chapter two,

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I believe. Give me a minute to find it. We are looking to the letter that Christ had written to the church in Thyatira.

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Pfft. Pfft, pfft, pfft. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

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So, Revelation 2 .18, to the church, to the angel of the church in Thyatira, write the words of the

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Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire, whose feet are like burnished bronze. I know your works, your love, your faith, service, and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.

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Who's he writing to? Christians. Who's doing the dictating here?

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John is taking notes. Who's actually the one sending the letter? Jesus. These are in red letters.

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So, you know, this portion of the Bible, these also contain red letters. Jesus is speaking to a church.

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In fact, there's seven churches in all that get a letter from Jesus. He says this, I have this against you. You tolerate that woman

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Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

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I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.

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Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her, I will throw into great tribulation unless they repent of her works.

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Jesus is gonna do what to her? Throw her onto a sickbed.

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And what's the purpose of this? Calling him to repentance.

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So, you'll note over and again, what ends up happening when you read the scriptures is that there are consequences of increasing, increasing intensity is a good way to put it, which shows that God's intention is to judge us, to condemn us, and the idea here is is that if you pay attention to warnings of this nature, you wake up and you go, wait a second,

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I am in the wrong, I need to repent. The idea here is that these judgments of God, if increasing intensity, are designed to wake us up, to get us to go, wait a second here, the reason why things are going so terribly for us is because of our evil, and you'll note that over and again, that God promises for those who repent that he will relent, relent of the disaster that he intended for people.

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Repentance, people coming to their senses and going, Lord, forgive me, have mercy on me, I've sinned.

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This is designed, you know, these disasters are designed to open up their eyes.

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So you think of Jonah, and he's sent to Nineveh, and these people are war criminals of the highest type.

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These are just terrible, cruel people, and Jonah doesn't wanna go.

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The reason he heads off in the different direction is because he knows that God is merciful, and Jonah's message to them is 40 days, 40 days and Nineveh will be overturned.

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It's gonna be destroyed, God's gonna destroy it, it's gonna wipe it out, and what did they do? They repented.

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They straight up repented. God, you're in the right, we're in the wrong, and God relented of the disaster that he intended for them.

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That's the idea. So you'll note here Christ in Revelation 2 has threatened this false prophetess that they're tolerating, that they shouldn't be tolerating, who is engaging in sexual immorality in a form of idolatry.

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Christ was patient with her, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, desiring her repentance, but she refused to repent, and so he has threatened her.

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He says, I will throw her onto a sickbed and those who committed adultery with her unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead, and all the churches will know that I am he who searches the mind and the heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works.

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So let's get this straight up here. God does send,

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Christ does send diseases, catastrophes, pandemics, and these are designed to open our eyes.

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Now, there is an account in one of the Gospels, and let me find it. I think it's in the

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Gospel of John, and I'm just gonna do a real quick search in the Gospels for it because I want to find it proper here.

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Tower, let me find it this way, T -O -W -E -R. Of course, I spelled it wrong.

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My keyboard is doing a thing now where if I hit the letter R, it puts out two of them. Ah, here it is,

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Luke 13. Yeah, that's right. I'm at church, no pirate computers are permitted at church.

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So Luke 13, consider these words. There were some present at that very time who told

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Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, and he answered them, do you think that these

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Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way? The temptation is to sit there and go, hmm, those

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Galileans got what was coming to them, hmm? All right, you people who are suffering from the coronavirus, ah, you got what's coming to you.

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And Jesus takes a look at disasters of this type, and you're gonna note the capriciousness of these types of things.

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They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And then there's gonna be a mention of a particular tower.

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Says, do you think they were worse sinners because they suffered in this way? And his answer is, no, no.

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I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or how about those 18 on whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them?

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Do you think they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? Answer, no,

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I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

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So let me ask you this, let's kind of throw this in. Do you think the people who are suffering from the coronavirus in Italy, they are worse sinners than the sinners here in Oslo, Grand Forks, East Grand Forks?

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No. And what's Jesus' message to us in the midst of disaster like this?

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He says to you individually, repent. He says to me as an individual, repent.

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You know, oftentimes we sit there and we think, well, those people had it coming. This is just karma, right?

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What goes around comes around, you know? If they didn't want a coronavirus, then they should have cleaned up their act.

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Now, the coronavirus is God's call to all of us to repent, to recognize that there are cosmic consequences that impact the creation itself, that none of us, none of us are immune from the consequences of our sin collectively.

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And when the creation itself retaliates with disasters all by the hand of God, the message is what?

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Repent. That's what the message is. Now, we've all heard that one particular passage, if my people who are called by my name, right?

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Let me find that real quick. It's in the, if my people. I spelled it wrong.

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I've got too much toilet paper on the mat. Yeah, I spelled it poople. Okay. My apologies.

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What was I thinking? All right, let's see here. If my people. Yes, 2

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Chronicles what? 714. There it is, that's right. 2 Chronicles 714.

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Now, this is one that we've all heard because this is kind of like the slogan verse used for the National Day of Prayer.

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And I want you to consider that verse 14 begins partway through a sentence.

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And so let's look at it out of context first because everyone likes to quote this thing out of context. If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn away from their wicked ways, then

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I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land. Aha, okay.

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So you'll note that in this passage, it's calling for what? Repentance.

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To acknowledge their sin and seek his face to humble themselves and what is promised from God?

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Forgiveness of their sins, which is what we all need and the healing of their land. So let's back up a little bit and consider what the context says.

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Thus Solomon finished the house of Yahweh. So this is something that is written in the context of the completion of the

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Temple of Solomon. Solomon finished the house of Yahweh, the king's house, all that Solomon had planned to do in the house of Yahweh and in his own house he successfully accomplished.

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Then Yahweh appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him, I've heard your prayer. I've chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice.

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When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain or I command the locusts to devour the land or send pestilence among my people.

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Who's sending pestilence? God, all right? So in the midst of disaster and listen to the disasters.

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Famine, the complete lack of rain, locusts, pestilence and he says when

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I shut up the heavens, when I send pestilence or I command the locusts to devour the land among my people in the midst of a calamity like that if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray, seek my face, turn from their wicked ways.

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Turn from their wicked ways is a very long way of saying, repent and recognize,

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Lord, you are just in sending these things. We truly deserve them and worse.

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Forgive us, Lord. Now, by way of reminder,

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God eventually did send disaster on Israel. Think of Judah.

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So after the splitting of the kingdom into the northern and the southern kingdoms, the northern kingdom goes into idolatry.

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God sends them prophets, they don't listen. They end up being scraped out of Israel and dispersed into the surrounding nations.

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And so you talk about the 10 lost tribes of Israel, that's kind of where the concept comes from.

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You know, who today says they're from Naphtali. Few could trace their way back to that because of what happened is they got scraped out.

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But then Judah, the southern kingdom, went also into idolatry, refused to repent, and God sent them prophets.

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You think of the prophet Jeremiah, who was commissioned by God to preach the word of God, to call

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Judah to repentance, and God told Jeremiah at the beginning of his prophetic work, they ain't gonna listen to you.

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They're not gonna listen to you. This is gonna end very poorly. This is gonna end in disaster for them.

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So God made good his threats because they wouldn't repent. He sends

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Nebuchadnezzar. Out of the entire population of Judah, what percentage of them survived the attack of Nebuchadnezzar?

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10%. Could you imagine nine out of every 10 people you know dying in a war like that?

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That's what happened. And then those who survived, what happened to them? They ended up in Babylon.

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They got a free trip to Babylon. They got relocated against their will.

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They had no choice in the matter. They were relocated to Babylon. And in the midst of all of that then, if you wanna know what a humble prayer of 2

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Chronicles 7, verse 14 looks like, turn with me over to Daniel 9.

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And in this text, we're gonna see that Daniel is reading the prophet Jeremiah.

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He's reading the scroll of the prophet Jeremiah, which in biblical terms at the time was the freshest and newest book added to the

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Bible. Jeremiah was dead probably what, 50, 60 years at this point, maybe even less.

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And so this is the freshest book added to the scriptures at the time. Here's what Daniel says.

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In the first year of Darius, the son of Asuerus, by descent, Amid, who was made king over the realm of the

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Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the numbers of the years that according to the word of the

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Lord, to Jeremiah the prophet must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years.

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So then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and please for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.

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I prayed to the Lord my God and I made confession saying, oh

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Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.

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We have sinned, we have done wrong, we've acted wickedly, we've rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and your rules.

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We have not listened to your servants the prophets who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our fathers and to all the people of the land.

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To you, oh Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame as at this day.

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To the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all of Israel, those who are near and those who are far away and all the lands to which you have driven them because of the treachery that they have committed against you.

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To us, oh Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers because we have sinned against you.

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To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness for we have rebelled against him and we've not obeyed the voice of the

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Lord our God by walking in his ways which he set before us by his servants the prophets.

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And all Israel has transgressed your law, turned aside, refusing to obey your voice and the curse and oath that are written in the law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us because we have sinned against him.

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He has confirmed his word which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us by bringing upon us a great calamity for under the whole of heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem.

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As it is written in the law of Moses, all of this calamity has come upon us yet we have not entreated the favor of the

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Lord Yahweh our God, turning from our iniquities, gaining insight by your truth. Therefore the

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Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done and we have not obeyed his voice.

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And now oh Lord our God who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and have made a name for yourself as at this day we have sinned, we have done wickedly.

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That's a good prayer, that's a good prayer. Now unfortunately there are a whole bunch of churches and I have documented this on my program who are not engaging in prayers of this type at all.

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They are instead doing goofy things like standing in front of thousands, being broadcast on television channels to millions, doing things of this nature.

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Coronavirus, we bind you in the name of Jesus. We declare you to be illegal.

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I'm not making this up, it's just ridiculous. Binding and decreeing and declaring and exercising authority and all this kind of nonsense, that's not prayer.

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Yeah, she's in that group. And then I don't know if you saw Kenneth Copeland, holy smokes, there's a video of him.

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He put anointing oil on his hands and told people to touch the television screens or their computer screens and he was.

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Yeah, it may have been industrial mineral oil from the Dalton Tractor Supply Company in Dalton, Georgia.

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That's an inside joke. It kind of looks like hand sanitizer, like he didn't want anyone to give them the coronavirus through their televisions.

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But here's the thing. When disaster strikes, the scriptures tell us to what?

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Repent, humble ourselves, confess our sin, pray for God's mercy. And there's a whole lot of lack of that going on right now and a lot of goofiness that has replaced it.

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And so we'll note then that God does send disasters. He does. And when something like this happens, you're gonna note at the end of the day, statistically speaking, the people who have died or who've had the coronavirus, that at the end of the day,

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Christians and non -Christians are all gonna be equally dispersed among them. We don't get a special favor from God as a result of all of this.

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But what's called for is to put out these false prophets and this nonsense and to do what

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God has called us to do. Because ultimately, and again, you'll note the thing that God faults them for is not hearing his word, not obeying his commands, not listening to his voice, setting his voice aside and listening to other voices.

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And the other voices, the voices of the false prophets are always the ones who tell you no disaster will befall you. You're the head and not the tail and all this goofy stuff, right?

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Out of context. Now, all of that being said, I wanted to show something here because in the midst of all of this, we have an issue.

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And that is that the world we live in by the day just seems to be getting weirder and weirder.

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And I mean, to a point where it doesn't, I mean, what's going on is just crazy. It's bonkers and it's happening in the church, it's happening outside of the church.

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And I would note something here. And this will be the least popular part of this particular

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Sunday School message, but one that we need to consider. In Joshua 11, verse 20, the

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Lord reveals something regarding what happened to the Canaanites. In fact, the conquest of Canaan by Joshua, the conquest of Canaan and the

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Israelites coming into the promised land, is the type and shadow of the end of the world and Christ's return in glory and we receiving the earth as an inheritance.

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So that's what the picture is. In the Old Testament, that's the type and shadow foreshadowing the end of the world.

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And there's something that God says here in Joshua 11, verse 20, that I think we have got to take into consideration and we'll throw in some other passages to help flesh out this concept.

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The Lord, it was the Lord's doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed just as Yahweh commanded

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Moses. I want you to think about this. So as, you know, and immediately before that you have kind of the listing of the different kings and the different cities who had fought against Israel and there was only one group, the

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Hivites of Gibeon, who made peace with the Israelites, only one group. The rest of them came against Israel and they were all defeated.

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And we learn here in this text that the Lord hardened their hearts so that they would come against Israel in battle.

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And the reason for it, so that they would be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed.

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And this is a part of scripture that we today really don't want to talk about but this is a major theme in scripture.

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And that is that as you get closer and closer and closer to a time when

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God has determined that he's going to act in judgment, as we get closer and closer and closer to that time, then what ends up happening is that those whom

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God is going, those who he are going to judge, their hearts are hardened and their eternal fate is determined this side of their death.

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Their hearts are hardened for the purpose then of God not showing them mercy.

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And over and again what you will see happen then in times like that is that the number of believers will dwindle down to a remnant because God's intention is to judge.

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And when that happens, it's like a tidal wave. The best way

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I can put it is that we've all seen the video that happened regarding that big tsunami in Indonesia.

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And we remember watching the video of how right before the tsunami came in, the sea receded out.

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Right before the tsunami came in, the sea receded out. And what did people do? They were walking out going, wow,

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I can't believe I'm out here. This is weird, where'd the water go, all right? And if you know anything about tsunamis, if that happens, run, right?

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But they're all walking around going, this is the coolest thing ever, you know? And they don't see it as the sign of what's happening.

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So kind of in a similar way then, when God is going to act in judgment, oftentimes there is a preceding thing that'll happen.

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And that is growing apostasy, rebellion against God, hard -heartedness to his word, and people just wandering off in mass to completely delusional idolatrous religion.

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Does that make sense? And when you see that happening, hang on, because it's gonna get worse.

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Now, I'm gonna show you this is a clear pattern that we'll see then in another place.

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And that is going to be in 2 Thessalonians 2, very famous text.

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Yes, sir? Now, the ones whose hearts were hardened, they were already nonbelievers to begin with or suppressors, and Jesus just,

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I mean, God just lost his patience with them. Yeah, he said, he went all Burger King on them. He gave it, you know, they wanted their way, he gave it to them their way, and said, fine, you're gonna have it your way.

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I'm not gonna make it possible for you to change your mind at this point. That's what repentance is. Metanoia means to change your mind.

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So persistence in an unbelief, and you risk God saying, okay, have it your way.

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But consider then this, 2 Thessalonians 2, concerning the coming of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect of that the day of the

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Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the apostasy comes first.

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Now, I'm using the Greek word here, apostasy. It says rebellion in your ESV translations, and that's what an apostasy is, it's a rebellion.

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Now, I always have to make this point when we go through this text, and here's the point. Everybody who's born dead in trespasses and sins and at war with God is already in rebellion against God.

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So when it talks about a coming apostasy, where does this apostasy take place?

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It has to take place in the church. The rebellion has to take place visibly within the church, otherwise there's no point of this prophecy because it's just describing the status quo of unbelievers.

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So what's being described here is an open rebellion against God in the church.

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Now, let's take a look at some of the ways in which that is manifesting today. I can think of an entire

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Lutheran, air quotes, denomination that defies the commandments of God, ordains impenitent homosexuals, ordains women, and the doctrine that they preach is utter blasphemy.

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They affirm the love of God to people who are impenitent and basically take their sin and say your sin is completely okay rather than call you to repent.

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That's one manifestation of it. And then another manifestation of it would be what

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I see happening in the charismatic and the NAR movements, who are not only tolerating but absolutely defending those who are obviously against frauds, who are documented false prophets and false teachers, who are manifesting false signs and false wonders.

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We'll talk about that in a minute too. That's a form of rebellion against God as well. And so note here that the return of Christ will not happen until the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction who opposes and exalts himself against every so -called

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God or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God. And we'll note that in Pauline theology, in his letters, the temple of God is not referring to the temple in Jerusalem.

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The temple of God is referring to the body of Christ, to the church itself, because we are the temple of God.

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We are being built into the temple of God. So here you've got another case then that there is a man of lawlessness coming, there's an open rebellion against God within the visible church, which will culminate in a fellow who opposes and exalts himself against every so -called

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God or object of worship and he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be

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God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And now you know what's restraining him so that he may be revealed in his time for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.

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And there's kind of an important word, lawlessness. Mystery of what?

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Lawlessness. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.

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And then listen to eight. Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the

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Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

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And this is the part that really should sober us up. I want you to consider the implications of what verse nine says.

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The coming of the lawless one, the parousia, the revealing, his coming of the lawless one, it is by the power, or you can say the energeia, this is our, it is by the power, the activity of Satan.

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So we'll note this here. The coming of the lawless one is by the power or the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, with all wicked deception for those who are perishing.

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All right, so the coming of the lawless one, you know we're talking about the Antichrist. The coming of the

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Antichrist is by the activity of who? Satan. How?

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With all power in false signs and false wonders. So I want you to think for a second.

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There you are, you're watching that religious television network. And there is a fellow claiming and decreeing and declaring,

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I, I, the Lord is telling me that those of you who are watching today, if you send me $1 ,000, he's gonna heal you of cancer.

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Or that you got somebody like Todd White out there and he's working the streets and he's helping people by saying, you know,

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I, I, the Lord is telling me that you have a thing wrong in your back. So he puts him in a chair and says, oh look, one leg is longer than the other.

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And then he's miraculously able to manipulate your legs so that your legs are now both the same size.

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What is that? That's a false sign. That's a false wonder.

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And then I think about somebody like Bill Johnson, the apostle at Bethel Church in Redding, California.

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He is famously quoted as saying, I refuse to create a theology that allows for sickness.

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And what has Bethel had for a long time there? Every Saturday, they hold these things called healing rooms where people can come and be healed of various diseases.

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Well, last Saturday, they canceled their healing rooms. Why? Because of the coronavirus.

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If, I know, I know. We need your healing rooms more than ever, Bill Johnson. How dare you close them?

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What are we dealing with? False signs. This is false signs and false wonders. Yet, Bill Johnson would tell you, we are commanded by Christ to heal the sick, to raise the dead, and all this kind of stuff.

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Have they been healing the sick and raising the dead? No, not at all. Even in his, that we're not going to say, things are just so terrible, this is the end of the world.

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We have to say that there may be repentance. God may wait.

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Yeah. We just don't know. We just don't know. So here's the idea here is that, coming to Christ's metaphor regarding the end, what's gonna happen is that these things started showing up in the time of the

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Apostle Paul already. But now, as we're getting closer, Christ likens these to birth pains, okay?

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So the contractions started 2 ,000 years ago. And we've been in labor for 2 ,000 years.

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So the contractions are a lot stronger right now, all right? So are we on an eight or a nine?

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I have no idea. I have no way of measuring how many centimeters, you know. We don't know how bad the scale is.

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Yeah, we don't. I'm kind of worried that we're only on a four, you know? You know?

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Let me tell you this, we're pretty wimpy, though, 2 ,000 years ago, and now it's so much worse.

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We're dying, we're dying. I will say this, the rebellion is worse than it ever has been. The rebellion in the church is worse than it ever has been.

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That's the part that worries me. It'll keep getting worse. Yeah, and it's gonna keep getting worse, all right?

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So note then, the coming of the lawless one is by the activity, the power, the energy of Satan with all power, false signs, and wonders.

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So here's the thing. When you look on the internet or you watch Christian television and there's a false sign or wonder in front of you, this is by the activity of Satan.

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Straight up, straight up. And it is a form of wicked deception for those who are perishing.

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And listen to what's going on here. These are people who are engaging in the rebellion in the church, and these false signs or wonders and this wicked deception, it is for those who are perishing.

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Why? Because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

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That's frightening. Because over and again, as I do in exposing work and pointing out these people are not teaching the

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Bible correctly. These are false signs and false wonders. There are people who are outside of the church who sit there and go, how can people be so stupid as to believe this stuff is real?

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Answer, judgment of God. God has sent on them a strong delusion, really strong.

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And that's the frightening thing about all of this. Now, there is a time coming when it will get worse than that.

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Because we're still in the days of false signs and false wonders. But Christ warned us of a different day.

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And in the Olivet Discourse, he describes what's going to happen as we get closer to his return.

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I'll start at verse 22 of Matthew 24, just for context. Christ says, if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved.

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But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short, talking about the end of days. So if anyone says to you, look, here is the

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Christ. You could even translate that, here is the Messiah. Or there he is, don't believe it.

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For false Christs and false prophets will arise and they will perform great signs and wonders so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect, see,

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I've told you beforehand. So right now, we're still in the days with wickedness and deception, false signs, false wonders.

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But at some point, as we get closer to the return of Christ, there's gonna be a switch.

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And that is that there are going to be legitimate signs and wonders committed by false

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Christs and false prophets. And Christ has warned us ahead of time so that when it switches from false signs, false wonders, to actual signs and actual wonders, that we don't get deceived.

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I've said it before that with what's coming, Patricia King, who's a notorious

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NAR charismatic, I'm convinced she would sell her mother into slavery in the Sudan to be able to operate in true signs and wonders like what's coming.

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Matthew 24, Matthew 24, 24. False Christs, false prophets will arise and perform great signs, great magos, magos signs and wonders so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

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See, I have told you beforehand. Now, one other thing we'll throw into the mix here and we'll kind of wrap up on this.

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Also in the Gospel of Matthew, at the tail end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives this warning regarding false

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Christs and false prophets. And I'll start in verse 13 for the sake of context.

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This portion of the Sermon on the Mount goes like this. Enter by the narrow gate. The gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction.

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And those who enter it are many, many.

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The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life. Those who find it are few.

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So if your religion is easy, everything's going great and you happen to be a big, big, big, big, big, big group of people, then you may have a problem here, right?

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Jesus did not come to have so that you'd have your best life now. So then he says this. Beware of false prophets.

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They come to you in sheep's clothing. Inwardly, they are ravenous wolves. So false prophets are not going to come to us dressed like the devil.

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They're gonna come dressed like sheep. They are inwardly, they're ravenous wolves.

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You recognize them by their fruits. This is going to include their life and their doctrine. The two go together. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

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No, every healthy tree bears good fruit The diseased tree bears bad fruit. The healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can the diseased tree bear good fruit.

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Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and is thrown into the fire. Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits.

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In that same context then, in the context of false prophets, false teachers, not everyone who says to me,

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Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

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On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?

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I cannot help but think that Matthew 7, 22 sounds eerily like what the false prophets, the false apostles in the

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NAR and the charismatic movement would say to Jesus because they are known for their prophesying, they are known for their casting out of demons, they are known for their so -called mighty works and signs and wonders, and yet Jesus says to them,

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I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

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And that accords with what Paul wrote for us in 2 Thessalonians 2, talking about the revealing of the man of lawlessness and the coming of the lawless one, that his coming is by the activity of Satan with false signs and false wonders.

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So the reality is this, is that a pandemic of this sort in the

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Lenten season is, I would say, designed to get all of us to pause and consider our own sin, my sin included.

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Consider our own sin and for us to call upon God in repentance and to repent of all of the different ways in which we have transgressed his commandments, including idolatry, believing false things about him, teaching others false things about him, and all of the different commandments in which we have sinned against him, whether it be the commandment to honor our father and mother or to not murder, to not commit adultery, to not steal, to not bear false witness, and all of the coveting that we engage in.

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Consider our own sinfulness and like Daniel, call upon him for mercy. But also in looking at what repentance would look like in the midst of a church that is sick right now, and I mean really sick, sick with false prophets, false teachers, false apostles, false signs, false wonders, is to recognize that God's word tells us what the source of all of that is, and it's not him, it's the devil.

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And that would cause us to repent of listening to these people, financially supporting them, and calling others who are trusting in them and their false messages to repentance and speaking the truth to them that they are being deceived.

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And all of that because of some small organism we cannot see that's infected, what, 150 ,000 people globally out of seven billion?

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Statistic, I heard there were 80 ,000 people that have recovered from this. Yeah, yeah, as I look at the stats, you know, half the people who've had it or have already recovered, you know, the active cases are.

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And there's two active strains. There's two active strains, didn't know that part, so. But in the midst of our pandemic, which we have to think about, you know, how we're doing church and the things like that, this is a time for us to repent, and it's most appropriate that we do.

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There was a reference to Mark Juther. Oh, yes, I do wanna read that real quick. Let me hunt that down real quick.

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So Martin Luther, in his, you can find this in the Lutheran Study Bible. Let me pull that up.

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Martin Luther, in his introduction to the prophet Jeremiah, talks about things that we're experiencing here.

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This rebellion against God and, you know, kind of the pattern by which God operates.

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And I wanna show you that, which means I have to get my Lutheran Study Bible up and running. I might do it a different way here.

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Hang on a second here. While it's going that direction. No, it's in the Lutheran Study Bible.

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Lutheran Study Bible. Let me give it a second, I'll get there. And it is, here we go.

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I think this is gonna get me there. Aha, yes, very good. All right, so let me just go to the prophet

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Jeremiah. Got a little clicky, my apologies.

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Jeremiah, all right. Here's, let me find what Luther wrote, because it is so helpful, kind of in this regard.

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So we learn from Jeremiah, this is Luther. We learn that Jeremiah, among others, that as usual, the nearer the punishment, the worse the people become, and that the more one preaches to them, the more they despise his preaching.

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Thus we understand that when it is God's will to inflict punishment, he makes the people to become hardened so that they may be destroyed without any mercy and not appease

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God's wrath with any repentance. So the men of Sodom long ago had not only, had to not only despise the righteous lot, but even afflict him because he taught them, even though their own affliction was at the door.

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Likewise, Pharaoh, when about to be drowned in the Red Sea, had to oppress the children of Israel twice as much as before, and Jerusalem had to crucify

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God's own son when its final destruction was on the way. So it goes everywhere, even now.

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Now that the end of the world is approaching, the people rage and they rave most horribly against God. They blaspheme and damn

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God's word, though they well know that it is God's word and it is the truth.

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Besides, so many fearful signs and wonders are appearing, both in the heavens and among all of the creatures, which threaten them terribly.

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It is indeed a wicked and miserable time, even worse than that of Jeremiah. So it will be and must be.

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The people begin to feel secure and sing peace all as well. They simply persecute everything that accords with the will of God and disregard all the threatening signs until, as Saint Paul says, destruction suddenly surprises them and destroys them before they know it.

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But Christ will be able to sustain his own for whose sake he causes his word to shine forth in this shameful time of ours, just as at Babylon he sustained

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Daniel and those like him, for whose sake Jeremiah's prophecy had to shine forth.

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To the same dear Lord be praise and thanks with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, over all and into eternity, amen.

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Oh, yeah, that's making the rounds on social media about how Christians should behave during the plague.

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Let me find that real quick. I wonder if I can. I'm probably running out of time, though.

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Martin Luther time of plague. I know this has been making the rounds on social media.

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Let's see here. When the deadly outbreak comes, counsel for Martin Luther, the last bit, okay?

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Okay, let's see. Is that what you wanna wear,

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Mikey? Let's see, let me find this real quick.

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The Word of God, Practical Steps. Where is this quote? Should a Christian flee the plague?

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To begin with, some people are of the firm option that one need not and should not run away from a deadly plague.

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Rather, since death is God's punishment, which he sends upon us for our sins, we must submit to God, and with a true and firm faith, patiently await our punishment.

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Others take the position that one may properly flee, particularly if one hold no public office.

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So Luther commends those of strong faith. He says, since it is generally true of Christians that few are strong and many are weak, one simply cannot place the same burden upon everyone.

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But some should stay, in our case, that would mean engaged with others, even at personal risk.

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Those who are engaged in spiritual ministry and pastors must remain steadfast before the peril of death. And we have a plain command from Christ, a good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.

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Luther also adds, likewise, fathers and mothers are bound by God's law to serve and help their children and children their fathers and mothers likewise.

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Paid public servants, such as city physicians, city clerks, and constables, or whatever their title, should not flee unless they provide capable substitutes who are acceptable to their employer.

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And then he goes on to add, those looking after children or with sick neighbors, Christians should be good Samaritans following the law of love as well as civic laws, and this surely applies to the plague like the coronavirus.

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So the idea here is, should you flee? Kind of depends on your vocation, all right?

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So me, I'm a pastor, I have to go down with the ship, so that's the idea.