Book of Esther - Part 11

Park Meadows Church

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Good to see all of you. It's good to be back. And we let's turn to Esther, Chapter four.

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Well, we were in this place in Esther, Chapter four. And if you remember, it was a place where the king had put out a proclamation to to not only kill the entire

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Jewish nation, but to fund it. He was going to give money to anyone who would kill the

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Jews. And this went out across the entire known world of the day. And Mordecai perceived this had happened.

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And remember, he put on sackcloth and ashes and began to mourn and pray. And the people, all the

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Jewish people all across the realm of the known world of that time did the same thing.

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And so we went out into the book of Isaiah, particularly Chapter fifty nine.

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We began to look at some times in the history of Israel where they had gotten away from God and forgotten

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God, so to speak, not seeing a need for him. And then they got in trouble and then calamity would come and then they would come back to the

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Lord. Of course, you see that through the book of Judges again and again. So we looked at this area in Isaiah fifty nine.

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And let's pick it up right here about. Well, I see where I want to start, but I guess everybody was probably here the time we time before last.

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Let's just look at verse 18 to get the context a little bit, and then we're going to drop down to a little bit lower than that.

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And he saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor.

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Therefore, his arm brought salvation unto him and his righteousness. It sustained him for he put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation upon his head.

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And he put on garments of vengeance for clothing and was clad with zeal as a cloak according to their deeds.

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According accordingly, he will repay fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies, to the aisles.

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He will repay recompense. And it talks about it actually gives a fore view of the end of this age as well.

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And it kind of shows how God is going to bring forth this tribulation period to accomplish at least three things at one time.

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He's going to deal with the Gentile nations. He's going to deal with the nation of Israel. And I believe for a part of it, at least he's going to deal with the church and cause her to want to make herself clean.

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And much scripture about that. But we talked a little bit about that in the past Sundays. Now, if you go down to verse 20.

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And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the

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Lord. So at the end of this tribulation period, the Jewish people as a nation, those who are still left alive, will see

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Jesus Christ as their Messiah finally. Finally, as for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the

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Lord, my spirit that is upon thee and my words, which I have put in my mouth shall not depart out of my mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed seed, saith the

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Lord from henceforth and forever. And so we see them coming to the Lord.

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Now turn to Isaiah chapter 61. And we see what the end result of this tribulation upon as how far as far as how

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God deals with Israel and their response in this chapter 61, starting with verse one.

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And the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings and to the meek.

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He hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and to open an opening of the prison to them that are bound.

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Now, that was a prophecy of Isaiah, but it personified Jesus Christ.

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And when Jesus was in his ministry on the earth, he quoted this verse about himself and said this was referring to me.

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To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our

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God to comfort all that mourn. Now, isn't that a strange contradiction of words to proclaim the acceptable year of the

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Lord and the day of vengeance? It's interesting when Jesus would quote parts of this about himself.

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He would often leave off part. He would talk about the part that's the acceptable day of the

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Lord and would leave off the part about the vengeance because he knew the timetable and no one else did at that time.

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He knew there was going to be a second coming when he would come to the earth again, and that time would have to do with vengeance.

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But the first coming, which he was living at the time he quoted these verses about himself, was all about salvation.

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It was all about the gospel being given out to the nation of Israel first and to the Gentiles second.

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But all of it was fulfilled in his life, and he saw the second coming. He foresaw that as well, but he didn't quote certain parts of this at that time.

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Then it says to appoint unto them that morning Zion to given to them beauty for ashes.

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Now, look at this in what we're looking at this morning. It's a little different as we last time.

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We've already looked at the vengeance of the Lord. We've looked at this tribulation period, how it's going to affect the nations of the world, how it's going to affect

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Israel as a nation, how it's going to affect the church, the people who are born again during this time period is going to have a different effect on all three groups.

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But there is a purpose in it for all three groups. And as far as Israel, and I think you can sort of also realize that this is a fore view of how it will be for the nations, the

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Gentile nations who come to him during that tribulation period, is there's going to be a change in their life.

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It's very similar to what some of what we talked about in Sunday school this morning as Jeffrey talked about Levi and the amazing change in his life.

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I had been a while since I've covered that myself. And it was an amazing thing to remember that God took this man who had bloody hands.

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He was a warrior, actually turned him into the priest. But anyway, we talked about that at Sunday school.

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But now look at this. To a point unto them that mourn in Zion, to given to them beauty for ashes.

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Now, what is the ashes talking about? When Mordecai heard the news that the king had sent out a proclamation to destroy his entire nation, he put on sackcloth and what?

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Ashes, and this was common among the Jews. When they really wanted to repent, when they really felt a need to put aside and be separated from the world, they wouldn't even dress like the world.

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They would take the worldly clothes off and they would put on old sackcloth looking things and they would literally take ashes and put it on their body and on their head.

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And they would go before the Lord and cry out for his mercy. This is what

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Mordecai was doing. This, in fact, that spread, Mordecai started it. It spread across the entire known world to all the

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Jews in all the little pockets that they found themselves in as families. The fathers of the family were getting them in their homes and they were putting on sackcloth and ashes and mourning and confessing their sin and asking

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God to forgive them and to have mercy upon them. And that is exactly what's going to take place at the end of this age.

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At the end of this age, the tribulation period itself, this seven -year period is so famous in the church today and yet so misspoken of in my view as far as how it plays out.

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Part of the purpose of this is to bring all of God's children to the point where they are in sackcloth and ashes.

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They give up the worldly clothes. They give up the things of the world. They have absolutely no use for those things anymore at this point in time because all they're facing is sudden destruction.

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That's all they have to look forward to, sudden destruction. And all that they have left is God. They can't rely upon the money, the doctors, the drugs, the entertainment to get their mind off of how tough life is.

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They can't rely on any of that. It's all taken away. There's no longer any infrastructure. And all that's left is war and destruction and death and famine and pestilence.

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And it's all taken away. And at that point, guess what? Even this modern church will come out of her megachurches and come out of all of that entertainment.

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And they will go into their homes. And they will have their own way of putting on sackcloth. And I don't know that that's literal.

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But they will put on mourning, I will promise. I say they, we. When I say it that way, when

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I say they, it reminds me of this wonderful billboard on the way to Dallas. I'm sure you've all seen it over there on the left side going north towards Dallas.

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Some dude paid for this and put it up. And it says, God forgive them. And I'm always thinking, does he not need the forgiveness too?

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It's so funny. If you think about it, God forgive them. He put that up for everyone's benefit besides himself.

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But anyway, there will be a time of mourning. But look at the end of it, the design of it.

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I want you to see God's design in it. It is not meant for harm to his people.

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And so many of the people that propagate the idea that the church won't be here for any of it, they're saying, well,

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God wouldn't do that. Look, the end of it is good for the church. It's good for the bride.

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It makes her become chaste. And so look what happens is once this has taken its effect and God's will has been done in it,

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God himself says, I will give unto them beauty for ashes.

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In other words, in the place of ashes. You will come out of this time of mourning and sackcloth and ashes and repentance and putting the face to the dirt and kneeling down and just saying,

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Lord, just save me. I'm pathetic. Make me clean again. And then he will give you beauty from that.

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Now, I know this is aimed at Israel, but from the point of the

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Abrahamic covenant and to the point where Jesus Christ died on the cross and then the apostle

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Paul taught us that all of us Gentiles, the only way we are saved is through that covenant.

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We're part of that Abrahamic covenant. Then we're all like one on this side of the cross. You don't, you see, this is where the dispensationalists mess up.

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You cannot divide Israel and the church when you come to the point of the ones who are saved because the ones who are saved are the church, whether Jew or Gentile.

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They're brought in together under the same and only covenant, the Abrahamic covenant. Go study, restudy that.

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You will see that that is the way it is. And so what happens is this is going to affect the

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Jews as a nation, but those Jews are not even saved. They're lost Jews. So you have the lost

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Gentile world, you have the lost Jews. And then you have the church and the tribulation is going to have its correct effect on each group.

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But what it's going to do is it's going to cause the two lost groups, which is the nations, the

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Gentile nations and the lost Israelites to come to the place where there is just nothing left but God.

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I mean, they're either going to shake their fist at God, which is what a lot of the Gentile nations will do, or they're going to fall down and say, my

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Messiah, how did I miss that you were my Messiah? Please save me. And the church herself is simply going to be dusting off the ashes and be turned into beauty.

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He's going to trade beauty for ashes. The oil of joy, he will trade and put it in the place of mourning.

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The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

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So where they had this spirit of heaviness and sorrow over their own sin and turning away from God, he will now replace that with the garment of praise of the spirit.

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That they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the

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Lord that he might be glorified. Isn't that beautiful? So see, the end of it is for good.

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The end of it is for joy. The end of it is for spirit -filledness.

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And the end of it is for beauty. And then look, they shall then come and build the old wastes.

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They shall raise up the former desolations, all of the destruction of this period in time.

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A time when Daniel said there was no time like it, nor ever shall be again.

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The destruction, the annihilation shall be so amazing. They will come and rebuild it. They will repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.

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And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks. And the sons of the aliens shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers.

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Now, this predominantly is talking about the nation of Israel after they are saved.

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And they go into the millennial kingdom. But let me say this, they're not the only ones that will go into the millennial kingdom.

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They're going to be Gentiles from the lost Gentile nations who will come to know him by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the tribulation period will be saved, the scripture tells us.

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They will be ushered into this same kingdom. And they are all one people of God through the

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Abrahamic covenant. They are not going to be two. They will be one, they will be the children of God.

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Jew and Gentile born again by the cross of Jesus Christ. It can't be different than that.

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In this hyper -dispensationalism that's been around certainly since I was saved, and before maybe two decades before that when it arose, it just really is a bit too far.

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Because it tries to make a division between Israel and the church at this point in time, in the future

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I'm talking about in the millennial kingdom, that simply is not going to be that kind of differentiation.

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What this is a picture of is the difference between the people of God and those who are not the people of God.

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And the people of God, which I believe shall be led by the Jews, who is going to be the king during that time period?

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Easy question, come on. Jesus. Is he Jew or Gentile? He's a

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Jew. And so the Jewish nation will become to me like the priests or the religious leaders of the entire world, only it won't be religion, it will be true relationship with God that they will lead for the entire world for a thousand years.

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And so this depicts a lot of different things going on. Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vinedresser.

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But ye shall be named the priests of the Lord. Men shall call you the ministers of our

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God. You shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall you boast yourselves.

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For your shame you shall have double. If you look back at the shame that Jews have had under the hand of Hitler, go back even 2 ,600, 800 years ago, under the hands of Artaxerxes, the same devil that inspired the destruction of these people, they have been shamed all these times, but they shall receive double honor for that during the millennial kingdom.

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And rightly so, because really, they are our spiritual forefathers.

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For confusion they shall rejoice in their portion, therefore in their land they shall possess the double.

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Jesus will rule from the portion of our globe that we call Israel at this time.

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Everlasting joy shall be unto them. For I, the Lord, love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering, and I will direct their work and truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, and their seed shall be known unto the

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Gentiles. Now, here's the thing. The everlasting covenant that God has made with them began with Abraham, and we are a part of it.

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We are part of that covenant. You cannot separate us out of that.

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All that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord has blessed.

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You will look at a Jew in that day, and the world will finally recognize that they are a blessed people.

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Whereas today, everybody hates Jews. I don't know why. The only people who really don't are born -again

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Christians. Out of all the Gentiles of the world, the born -again church, the true believers, not just professed

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Christian, but true, genuine believers love the Jewish nation, do we not? But very few others in the world do.

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They all hate the Jewish people, want to destroy them. Why? Because we battle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places.

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It is the same Satan who hates them, who did during the times of Artaxerxes, who did during the times of Hitler, and who shall do so again in the times of the tribulation period under the

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Antichrist. Well, anyway, I wanted you to see part of that scripture there so that you could see that the tribulation period is not all about the destruction.

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It's not all about what we would perceive as the evil of it. The end of it is meant for good as it comes from the hand of God.

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It's going to be good for those who come before the Lord in sackcloth and ashes and get right with Him and then exchange those ashes for beauty.

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Now, in Isaiah 32, just for a moment, we'll look at that and then we're going to make our way back to Esther, believe it or not.

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We look at Isaiah 32 and drop down to about verse 13.

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And we read the first part of it a week before last when we were dealing with the tribulation aspect. Isaiah 32, 13, upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briars, yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city.

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So that's the end part talking about the tribulation. The thorns and briars picture the tribulation period.

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But now look, verse 14, because the palaces shall be forsaken, the multitude of the city shall be left, the forts and towers shall be for dens forever, a joy of the wild asses, a pasture of flocks.

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And so even the cities will be desolate and wild animals will be walking around in those cities. They'll be destroyed.

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But now look where it picks up at verse 15, until, I like that word. And the word until begins to talk to us about God's purpose in it all.

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The end of it all is a beautiful purpose. And it says, until the spirit be poured upon us from on high.

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You see, that is the end of it. That's the design of it. The design of the tribulation period is to bring

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God's people back to God. That is not a bad thing. It just feels bad when you're going through it, right?

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I mean, think of our own lives even before we got, we're perhaps not in the tribulation period yet, but don't our lives have times of tribulation in them?

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We have times when we go through great trouble. And we get closer to the

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Lord as that nears its end and we come and we say, you know what, I can only rely upon you.

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So we've tasted this before. Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high and the wilderness be a fruitful field.

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See the end of it? The tribulation, it turns everything into a wilderness because it destroys the infrastructure, it destroys everything.

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The economy is destroyed, everything is destroyed. And yet it springs up far more beautiful. And the fruitful field be counted for a forest.

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Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness shall be peace in the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever.

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You see the good that comes from it? Now listen, we can apply this in our life now. Even before we get to the tribulation period, we can apply this in our life now.

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That when we go through hardships, like I know Raymond's been through one recently.

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And I know Diane has been through one with the medical issues. And you go through those things and God is with you through those things.

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And the end of it is righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance.

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What can be better than quietness and assurance? Peace in the heart, quietness and assurance of God's presence is what comes from all this.

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And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation and in sure dwellings where no enemy can come and destroy it.

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And in quiet resting places. Listen to the words. This is where our souls yearn to be anyway.

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When it shall hail coming down on the forest and the city shall be low in a low place.

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Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass.

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Now, we go back into Esther chapter four and let's pick this up at verse four.

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So we saw pictured in this story of Esther, we see a picture of the hatred for God's people.

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And the desire of Satan to destroy them all, which has happened before now several times in history.

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But it will culminate in the tribulation period when Satan thinks he can destroy every Jew and every

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Christian that's alive on the planet. He thinks he can do that. But has he ever been able to do that? No, and he will not be able to do that.

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Now, let's pick this up. So in our story of Esther, the proclamation has gone out to destroy the

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Jews. It's been funded, so the money is there to make it happen. And Mordecai is in sackcloth and ashes.

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And let's see how this begins to affect Esther herself. So Esther's maids and her chamberlains came and told her about all this.

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She didn't know about it yet. King kept this from his wife. I wonder why. Now, he didn't know she was a

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Jew yet. But I'm sure he thought that my wife would not approve of me destroying an entire people from my kingdom, slaying thousands of women, children, innocent people.

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I don't think my wife would go for that. So he just didn't tell her. So her maids come and they tell her.

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Then was the queen exceedingly grieved. Can you imagine? Now, you read that the Bible is so concise. You read so much and there's so much happening in so few words.

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But don't just let that pass you. She was grieved. Okay, is that it? She just like, just read on here.

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Now, think about this a minute. She knows now that her father is going to be killed. And because he had angered the state, so to be, they've decided just to kill every

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Jew there is. And that means ultimately she will be found out, ultimately, and she will be killed.

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All of her entire people, kinfolks, as far back as she can remember, will be destroyed. That's what she's thinking about as she grieves here.

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And she sent Raymond to clothe Mordecai and to take away his sackcloth from him, but he received it not.

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Then called Esther to Hattach, one of the king's chamberlains, whom he had appointed to attend to her and gave him a commandment to Mordecai to know what it was and why it was.

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So Hattach went forth to Mordecai into the street of the city, which was before the king's gate.

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And Mordecai told him of all that had happened to him. Isn't it funny that the king's servants are having to find this out from people outside the gates out there?

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The king had not told all of his people what he was doing. And he was told of the sum of money that Haman had promised to pay to the king's treasuries for the

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Jews to destroy them. Also, he gave him the copy of the writing of the decree, ripped it off the telephone post and handed it to this servant and said, take that back and show all the people inside the palace what's actually going on out here in the real world.

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So they gave him a copy of the decree that was given at Shushan to destroy them so that they could show it to Esther and to declare it unto her and to charge her that she should go in and to the king to make supplication to him and to make requests before him for her people.

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Now, Mordecai sends a command to this girl he had raised. It's not his own daughter, but to her, this is his father.

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This is her father. This is the man who raised her. Her parents had been killed. And he tells her, look, here's what you are going to have to do.

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You're going to have to be the one who is as the judges. You're going to have to be the one who's the deliverer of Israel.

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You're going to have to be the savior of Israel. If you can't go before the king, your husband, and get this changed, we're all going to be destroyed.

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That's what he tells her. Now, it gets even more interesting as she begins to realize what the weight that's been put on her, and you'll see why in a moment.

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And Hattach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai. Again, Esther spake unto

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Hattach and gave him commandment unto Mordecai. All of the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces do know that whosoever, whether man or woman, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called by the king, in other words, invited by the king, there is one law in the land of his to put him to death, except such to when the king shall hold out the golden scepter that he may live.

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So if you go in before this king, it doesn't matter if you're his wife or who you are, if you go into his presence without his invitation, the penalty is death penalty.

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And the only way you can be saved is if he raises up his scepter and says, okay, I'm going to give you mercy. You came in here uninvited, but I'm going to give you mercy.

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What do you have to say to me? She knew that law. And here, the man who raised her, who she considers her father, says,

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I need you to go in there right now and talk to this man about this, or they're going to kill us all. Well, she hasn't been invited to go in.

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And she knows, in fact, she hasn't been invited to go in for 30 days. Hadn't seen him in 30 days.

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So, think about the weight that she has on her. So, except such, okay, but I have not been called to come in and to the king these 30 days, she's thinking.

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And they told to Mordecai Esther's words. So Mordecai comes back and answers this.

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Now, Esther's kind of putting up a defense and saying, I can't just go in before him and speak for the Jews. I've not been invited in and he'll kill me if I go in there.

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And she sends that news. So, she's going back and forth to communicate with a servant that's taking the communication to Mordecai and bringing it back to her.

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Now, here's what she sends to tell him that. So, then Mordecai sends a message back. Mordecai commanded to answer

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Esther, think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house more than all the

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Jews. He says, look, if you don't take care of this right now and they follow through and they kill every

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Jew in the land, do you think they're not going to figure out who you are someday? And they're going to kill you. For if thou altogether holdest your peace at this time, in other words, if you refuse to go in and talk to him like I've asked you to, then shall their enlargement and deliverance arise to the

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Jews from another place. Did you catch the drift of this? Mordecai says, look, I understand you're fearful to go before the most powerful man on the earth, which was this king,

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Artaxerxes. I understand you're fearful, but let me explain something to you. If you don't do it,

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God will raise up deliverance for the Jews some other way than through you because he's not going to let that Jewish line be destroyed.

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Now, how did Mordecai know that? How did he know that? Because he had heard of the prophecies of the

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Messiah and that he would be born of the Jews. So he knew God was not going to let them totally be destroyed.

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And he said, look, if you don't do what you're supposed to do, God will raise something up somehow to keep us from being destroyed.

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But you and your father's house shall be destroyed. In other words, they'll kill me and they'll kill you.

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And God will save Israel another way if you don't do what you're supposed to do. That's what he's telling his daughter. Now, is that good theology?

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Not particularly. Not particularly. But is it good living?

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Absolutely. Now, what do I mean by that? Most of us in this local body, anyway, study and understand the sovereignty of God maybe better than a lot of other people do today because it's not the popular doctrine of the church today.

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It was in Spurgeon's day. He's known as the Prince of Preachers. Everyone loves to talk about him, but they don't like to talk about his theology because he believed

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God was in control. We believe that here. But you know what you should never do?

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No matter how strongly you understand and believe God is in control, you should never just fold your arms, sit back and say, well, let's just see what he'll do then.

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I'm not going to do anything because I know God will take care of it. That is never the correct position of one of God's children, ever.

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When we're living this life, never forget who's in control. Never forget that, but always remember we have responsibility as well and we should be looking to God's hand as he directs us this way and this way to do what he wants us to do.

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And I think Mordecai is pointing this out to this young lady. He's saying, look, we know

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God is in control. He is not going to let us be destroyed because the Messiah is coming.

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But you better do what you're supposed to do if it's what you're supposed to do. You need to go spend some time in sackcloth and ashes, young lady.

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You're in the palace. I'm out here. You're in there. And you're trying to send me nice clothes. And I refuse those.

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I send them back to you because I'm not going to give up the sackcloth right now. And you need to put some on because you need to figure out what

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God's will for your life and the very next step you're about to take is. We know what his will is for us as a nation.

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And we know he's not going to drop that. We know he's not going to let that happen. But we don't know how he's going to stop it.

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And Mordecai is saying, the best I can tell with what God's given me, with the things that I know and the things that I see, you're the one he's going to use.

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Maybe you should go find out if that's true. That's the message that he sends this young woman.

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Now, imagine the weight on her life. I mean, she was a young girl at home just a year ago or so, probably 14 years old.

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She's now the wife of the most powerful man in the world. And he doesn't even call her in to see him, but about every 30 days or so.

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And he says, you've got to go talk to him, even though you haven't been invited in. Now, this is where she stands.

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And so Mordecai tells her, think not with yourself that God won't save the Jews. But I'll tell you one thing, if you don't act,

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I will be killed and so will you. Now, look at this. The last phrase in verse 14 is an amazing phrase.

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He tells her this. All these things, God's going to protect the Jews. He'll raise up another way if it's not you.

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But if you don't act, I know you will be killed and I will be killed. But then he says this. And who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

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Now, tell me that wouldn't preach. You don't have to be called pastor to read that verse.

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No, that could be a sermon right there. For such a time as this. But to her, it wasn't a sermon.

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It was her life and possibly her death. And then

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Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer. Now, look at this. Go gather together all the

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Jews that are present in Shushan and fast for me. Now, all of a sudden, she's wanting to put on...

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Now, she's part of this all of a sudden. Tell them to pray for me.

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Neither to eat or drink for three days and nights and pray for me. I also and my maidens will fast likewise.

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And so will I go in and to the king, which is not according to the law. I will break the law and go before him without invitation.

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And if I perish, I perish. I tell you what.

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Mordecai had motivated this young woman, had he not. He motivated her.

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And she is now motivated. And all of a sudden now, she's got her battle face on.

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And yet she's still... At the same time, she has a face of humility and sackcloth and ashes for the first time since she's been in that palace.

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And she now is ready to serve God. So Mordecai went his way and did according to all that Esther had commanded him to do.

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And he says to her, I know

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God is sovereign. I know God is not going to let the Jews be destroyed. But who knoweth whether thou art come into the kingdom for such a time as this.

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How do you know you're not in there because you're the one God put there to save this nation? How do you know that,

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Esther? Now, we've got to teach our children like he's teaching her. We've got to teach our children that how do you know that you weren't put here to save something, to save a nation?

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How do you know you're not going to be the next president of the United States and actually turn the thing around?

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Ronald Reagan did it when they said he couldn't. He did in eight years. He destroyed the Soviet Union in eight years. And if you're old as I am, before that time, you thought the

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Soviet Union would rule the world at one point, eventually. You thought communism would destroy us.

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And one man in eight years of his life destroyed them. Who's to say some young person in this room can't have that effect on the whole world?

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We're so busy teaching our kids, look, go to school, get an education, and just go be an accountant. Think of yourself, that's you.

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You're an accountant, or I'm the plumber, or I'm this. And we teach them to think that what they're doing is who they are.

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And that's not true. They're far more than that. We don't know the purpose of each of us and also each young person in the room.

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We don't know what day we've been raised up for. We don't know what role we will have to play in that critical time in the history of the world.

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The United States' debt right now is $14 .5 trillion is what we owe predominantly

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China. The Bible says that in the end times, China will arm 200 million foot soldiers who will march across the

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Euphrates River into towards Jerusalem. In 1980,

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I read an article in Time Magazine, 1980, I mean, that seemed like yesterday to me, but some of you weren't here at that time.

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I mean, but 1980, Time Magazine reported that at that time, China had 200 million foot soldiers armed.

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They're sitting there ready. We owe them $14 .5 trillion.

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Now, let me put that in perspective for you just a little bit. The population of our entire nation is only 312 million.

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Doesn't take much math to figure out how much each of us in this room owe to China because of our marvelous leaders that you prayed for this morning and rightfully so.

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You led us to pray for our leaders, but our leaders have gotten us into this place. We've got 112 million taxpayers, and we, 112 million taxpayers, owe $14 .5

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trillion. Out of our population, we have 25 million.

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We've only got 312 million, all right? 25 million of those are not even working right now. They're unemployed right now.

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16 million work for either the state or the city, and 4 .3

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million work for the federal government, which owes $14 trillion. 45 million out of the three, well, we got 312 million people.

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45 million of them are on food stamps. 66 million are retired and no longer working, so they're not adding anything to the taxes that can pay this off.

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1 .6 million went bankrupt this year, and this year's not over yet. And 990 ,000, that's right at a million foreclosures have taken place this year, and this year's not over yet.

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The liability of each individual taxpayer in this country right now, each of you, raise hand if you pay taxes.

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Ms. B, you've paid your share. Everyone that just raised their hand, now listen to this, the liability that you as an individual hold right now is $1 .26

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million. If each of you paid $1 ,026 ,000 to our government, our government could then pay their debt off.

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What are your children going to owe? 4 .5 trillion, if you took all of the assets of every small business in this entire nation, it's only 4 .5

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trillion. All the money that every small business has, and yet we owe 14 .5 trillion. If you took the big businesses like Dell, and like Microsoft, and you add them, that's only another $13 trillion.

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Our government owes more than, almost more than the combined assets of all the companies in our country.

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This will scare you to death. Our entire nation only has $75 trillion in assets.

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We have $114 .7 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

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Who's ever taken beginner accounting? Beginning accounting now,

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Ms. Jenny back there, if you've got $75 trillion in assets, but you owe $114 .5

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trillion to somebody, do you have anything? No. You have twice the liabilities that you have assets.

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That's $242 million worth of assets per person, but it's $1 .26

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trillion of liabilities per person in our nation. We're just sitting here going to the malls.

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We're going to restaurants like nothing's happened. Do you not think something is going to come of this?

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You can't pay it off. You're not going to pay that off.

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Who do we owe it to? We owe it to red China, communist China. Do they love us?

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No, they just love to use us. We're the guys that buy their stuff from them.

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We're the guys who have made them rich because we bought everything they made. We sent all of our manufacturing over there, and they've now employed all their people to build our toys, and we buy them, and the money goes back to them.

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Guess what? Now they've built a middle class. It's only about five years is projected.

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It may not even be five years. I bet Jeffrey knows the date because we talk about it sometimes. Within the next five years, their middle class will be large enough where they don't need us to buy their stuff anymore.

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Now, if they don't need us to buy their stuff, what do they need us for? Do they love us?

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They hate everything we stand for. They're godless communists. That's what they are, the leadership, anyway.

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I'm not saying there aren't some wonderful people there, but their leadership are godless communists, and they hate our philosophy of freedom, and they think it would bring anarchy, which it would bring to them, and I think our nation is in trouble.

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I think we're at the place where Mordecai was, and we don't even know it. I think the proclamation has been sent out.

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I think all the nations of the world hate us. I've traveled enough to know that. We've saved them.

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World War II, we saved every one of their rear ends, and now we have the European nations.

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You've got Greece. You've got Ireland. You've got Portugal. You've got Spain, and now you've got

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Italy, who are bankrupt, and now it's coming out in the news that they've been cooking their books to make it look like they were better off than they really were, and yet all of the other countries, such as Germany, France, the

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United States, have bought their debt, so now we're holding paper on bankrupt companies.

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It is way, way, way bigger. You remember the problem where we had the mortgage problem here about two years ago, when the biggest recession we've ever had since the

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Great Depression happened, two, couple, three years ago? That was caused because our banks had loaned money to people to buy houses who didn't have jobs because the government had influenced them to do that.

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The government had said, look, we're going to put pressure on your bank and make it hard for you if you don't loan money to people that can't afford houses so they can have houses, so they did it, and then guess what?

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Those people who had no skin in the game, they didn't even have to put 20 percent, 10, even 5, no money down on these big houses they were buying.

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Guess what they did when the economy got bad? They just walked away from the house, left it with the bank, and the entire economy of the world almost collapsed.

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Who's ever heard of Warren Buffett? You ever heard of him? Do you know what? There was a day three years ago in November when he said, now he told about this later, he said, there was a day when

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I thought the entire world as we knew it had ceased to exist, which meant he thought he lost all of his money, which is a bunch of money he has because all of the banks are tied together, but you know what?

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They figured out a way to sweep that under the rug and kind of fix that a little bit, and then you had a great bull market has happened for two years, but that's problem still not fixed, and I want to tell you something.

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If you have, Greece is one thing, but if you have a country like Spain or Italy go under, there's not enough money in the world to fix it.

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Europe doesn't have the money, and we don't have the money. We're $14 trillion in debt. We can't help them, and that's going to affect every bank that there is in the world when that happens, and it's going to happen.

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Now, where are we? We're not in sackcloth and ashes because we're not even smart enough to figure out we ought to be.

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Isn't that something? As a people, as a nation, and I'm predominantly referring to the Christians in this nation, and it's frightening and sad, but you know what the end of it will be?

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Beauty. He will replace the ashes with beauty and peace and a quiet place and protection someday.

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That's all coming, but we're going to go through some things first, so be ready. Now, could some of these things usher in the tribulation period?

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Can you foresee how something like this, where all of these Western nations, Christian nations collapse, and China's left with all of them owing them all of these trillions of dollars, and yet they don't really need it because they've got cash and they've got weapons, and then the entire economy of the world collapsing, could you not foresee one man standing up and saying,

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I've got the answer to that, and he speaks maybe almost as well as President Obama, gives a good speech.

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He stands up. I've got the answer to that. Follow me. I got the answer to that. I can fix that. I can fix that. I can fix that.

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I can fix that. I can fix that, but we'll all have to be one nation to do it, so you go pray tonight, tomorrow make your decision.

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You can keep your broke nations, or you can come in under me, and we'll have one nation and I'll fix everything. You decide.

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Can you see that happening? It's all in place. I'm not saying it's about to happen, but I'm saying it's going to happen someday, and it's all there, so we have a lot to think and pray about, and how do we know that some of us in this room, especially some of these young people, have not been placed in this kingdom for this purpose, to be voices, to be maybe even more than just a voice of righteousness and correctness in how we ought to be living.