Ezekiel Part 44

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Ezekiel Part 45

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Let's pray. Lord Jesus, as we open your word, we ask that your Holy Spirit to help us to rightly understand what is revealed in your word so that we may not be deceived, so that we may rightly believe and do accordingly.

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We ask in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so Ezekiel 38, one of the most, next to the

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Valley of the Dry Bones, I would say this one, has been tortured to death as of late.

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The prophecy against Gog and Magog. Now, does anyone remember, in light of recent military warfare -type things in Europe, what

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Gog and Magog is supposed to signify? Does anyone remember?

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I mean, when, the answer has something to do with the war in the Ukraine, okay?

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Okay, and when Russia invaded Ukraine, Pat Robertson came out of mothballs, that's the best way

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I could describe it, he came out of mothballs to declare that we were on the cusp of the

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Gog -Magog War. And how do we know that we're on the cusp of the

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Gog -Magog War? Well, let me read a little bit from Ezekiel 38. Okay, the word of Yahweh came to me.

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Son of man, set your face towards Gog of the land of Magog, the prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him and say, thus says the

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Lord Yahweh. Now, before we get into that, I would note here that there should be a note in your

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ESV Bible that says, it says, Magog, the prince of Meshech, or Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, because there's something in the

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Hebrew that's a little bit more difficult to translate. And so here, we go into evangelical eschatology and note that they don't know how to exegete text, nor do they understand

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Hebrew, but here's how this works. According to Pat Robertson, when Ukraine was invaded by Russia, that was to be expected because Russia's going to be the instigator of the

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Gog -Magog War due to the fact that here, it says the prince of Rosh in the

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Hebrew, and everyone knows that Rosh is Roshah. I am not making that up.

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Yeah, it might work, yeah. So here's the issue, we're talking millions, tens of millions of evangelicals legitimately think that Russia has something to do with the

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Gog -Magog War, and here's how it plays out in kind of pre -trib, pre -millennial eschatology.

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Roshah is going to be the king of the north that comes down from the area of the

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Ukraine, down through Turkey, and then they are going to wage war against Israel.

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And so when Russia invaded Ukraine, Pat Robertson made it sound like that was just a stepping stone, and Ukraine was going to be just steamrollered, and then

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Russia would enact its ultimate plan, and that was to go and attack and invade

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Israel. Hop, skip, and a jump away. Just, yeah, just a hop, skibbity, jump away.

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It's a, I know that's a bunch of skibbity, Ohio, but that's a whole other issue. But that being the case, how has that, how has the

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Ukraine war developed, by the way? Poorly. Russia seems to be bogged down, and if you'll note, in the last couple of weeks,

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Ukraine has invaded Russia. And they're doing okay.

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They're, they seem to be doing quite all right. You now have Russians, get this, fleeing the

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Ukrainian army by going to Ukraine. They're afraid to actually go deeper into Russia.

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So, I mean, does it sound like Russia's just this close to invading Israel? Knocking on the door.

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Not, at this point, I think Israel can beat them off with brooms, you know?

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Just, you know, all the military guys I talk to, who, you know, they're very unimpressed with Russia's military ability at the point.

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They're in no position to invade anybody further, and they're having a tough time at this point holding on to the property that they've seized in the

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Ukraine conflict, war, whatever it is, right? So, I assure you,

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Gog Magog, which is mentioned here, in Ezekiel, has nothing, zero, to do with Russia invading

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Israel. I have the

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Holy Spirit, and most certainly, he is very religious. So, so there, yeah, that's my new quip for people who claim

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I have a religious spirit. So that being the case, I would note, if you were to take Ezekiel 38, this prophecy about Gog Magog and what's happening here, you're gonna note that Ezekiel now is slipping from the cryptic into the flat -out apocalyptic.

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The language here starts to take on the same caliber, same genre, as we see in the book of Revelation, which means the ability to rightly interpret it goes up exponentially.

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If one is super easy, and 10 is difficult, Ezekiel 38's an 11. And here's, and I would note, in times past, it may have been an eight or a nine, but the reason why it's an 11 for Americans is because of all the wackerdoodle eschatology that has surrounded this text.

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And so not only do you have to rightly interpret it, but before you can even get there, you've got to kind of peel the banana and get rid of this nonsense that you were holding onto before and toss that before you can even eat the banana.

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So, you know, so Americans have to unlearn some bad stuff. And by the way, if you are tempted to go along with the latest and greatest so -called prophetic words and insights regarding the end of the world and the most popular bestseller, the latest one by Jonathan Cahn or John Hagee or things like this, don't do it.

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Those, I kid you not, those books are only good for toilet paper and you can buy less expensive toilet paper at Sam's Club.

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And it actually comes rolled, okay? Using a book like that for toilet paper requires you to tear pages and the absorbency issue is in question.

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You get the idea, but they're not worth anything else. Maybe hockey pucks or something like that. Fire starter, right, exactly.

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Oh yeah, yeah.

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Yeah, so here's the thing.

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God revealed something later on to them. What a sentence. And I would note, I'm gonna, this is gonna sound odd, but every day

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God reveals something to me, every single day when I read the Bible. Okay, God is speaking through his word.

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So what we're gonna do is we're going to, we're gonna first read this prophecy regarding Gog and Magog.

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And at the end of it, I might as well take your mind and put it on frappy mode, just hit the frappy button, it's gonna, you know, at the end of it, you're gonna go,

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I don't know what I just read. Okay, that's kind of the point. But we of the

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New Covenant, we're able to cheat, okay? Let me explain what

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I mean by this, okay? If you were to ask the average Orthodox Jew, who is

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Isaiah 53 about? He was pierced for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.

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The chastisement that bought us peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed, right? Who is that about?

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You ask the average Jew and who will they say? They'll say it's Israel, because they've been made to suffer.

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Are they right? Not even close, okay? So how do we know it's about Jesus?

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Oh, they can read too, Josh. Okay, I just find it very anti -Semitic of you to infer that Jews can't read, okay?

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So I would note Jews can read very well. The issue is that they won't read the

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New Testament. So we have it on the words of the Apostle Peter that this passage, by his stripes you are healed, is about Jesus.

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We have it on the words of the author of Acts, that's Luke. When you think of the

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Ethiopian eunuch, what passage was the Ethiopian eunuch reading in his chariot while heading back to Ethiopia?

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Isaiah 53. And when Philip comes along and says, do you know what you're reading?

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How could I unless somebody guides me? And he asks the question, who is this referring to? And what does

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Philip say? Well, he's starting with that passage, he's explained everything about Jesus. So we have clear passages in the

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New Testament that explain to us that Isaiah 53 is in fact about Jesus.

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But if you're not gonna read the New Testament, Isaiah 53 is gonna be locked to you.

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Now, that being the case, here's how we get to cheat. Did you know that Gog and Magog is mentioned in the

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New Testament? Yes, it is. And we can sit there and go, praise

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Jesus. Because after our minds are mushed up reading this prophecy and we go,

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I don't know, I just read it. Okay, we can just go right over to Revelation chapter 20 and we can see what's going on, okay?

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So let's read the prophecy. Thus says the Lord Yahweh, behold, I am against you,

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O Gog, chief prince of Meshach and Tubal, and I will turn you about and put hooks in your jaws.

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I will bring you out and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great host, host again, savah in Hebrew means army, all of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords,

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AK -47s, AR -15s and missiles, lions and tigers and bears. Oh my.

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I added that last part, by the way. I was taking liberties with the text. Persia and Kush, put, are with them, all of them with shield and helmet.

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Gomer and all his hordes. Oh my, oh my. sorry.

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I'm in that kind of mood, yes. Beth Torgarma from the uttermost parts of the north with all of his hordes, many peoples are with you.

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Be ready and keep ready, you and all of your hosts that are assembled about you, and be a guard for them.

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After many days, you will be mustered, and ketchuped, and mayonnaiseed. Sorry.

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Sorry. Sorry. Two fists in it today.

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Two fists in the decaf today. Sorry. Sorry.

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I'm only partly sorry, so that's all that counts. All right.

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Shall we say gathered? You will be gathered in the last, in the latter years, you will go against the land that is restored from war, the land whose people were gathered from many peoples upon the mountains of Israel, which had been a continual waste.

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Its people were brought out from the peoples and now dwell securely. All of them, you will advance coming on like a storm.

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You will be like a cloud covering the land and all your hordes and many peoples with you.

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Thus says the Lord Yahweh. On that day, thoughts will come into your mind and you will devise an evil scheme and say,

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I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will fall upon the quiet people who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls and having no bars or gates to seize spoil, carry off plunder to turn your hand against the waste places that are now inhabited.

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And the people who were gathered from the nations who have acquired livestock and goods who dwell in the center of the earth,

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Sheba and Dedan with the merchants of Tarshish and all of its leaders will say to you, have you come to seize spoil?

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Have you assembled your hosts to carry off plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock, goods and to seize great spoil?

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Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog, thus says the Lord Yahweh, on that day when my people

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Israel are dwelling securely, you will not know it. You will come from your place out of the outermost parts of the north and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great host, a mighty army.

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You will come up against my people Israel like a cloud covering the land. In the latter days,

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I will bring you against my land that the nations may know me when through you,

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O Gog, I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. Thus says the Lord Yahweh, are you he of whom

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I spoke in former days by my servants, the prophets of Israel, who in those days prophesied for years that I would bring you against them?

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But on that day, the day that Gog shall come against the land of Israel, declares the

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Lord Yahweh, my wrath will be roused in my anger. For in my jealousy and in my blazing wrath,

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I declare on that day, there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. The fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field and all creeping things that creep on the ground and all the people who are on the face of the earth shall quake at my presence and the mountains shall be thrown down, the cliffs shall fall, every wall shall tumble to the ground.

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I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Lord Yahweh. Every man's sword will be against his brother with pestilence and bloodshed.

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I will enter into judgment with him and I will rain upon him and his hordes and the many peoples who are with him, torrential rains and hailstones, fire and sulfur.

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So I will show my greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations.

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Then they will know that I am Yahweh. Now that's just the first part of it. Now who would like to give me a summary sentence on that?

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Jeff. All right. It seems to be talking about the last days. It seems to be talking about the last days. No, it's Russia.

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Oh, Hannah, Hannah, Hannah. Russian mustard. Yeah, it's Russian mustard. That's right. So Jeff Kenney has pointed out this seems to be talking about the last days.

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Can I push that forward just a little bit? Maybe the last day? Okay. Because what's being described is cataclysmic.

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It's apocalyptic. There's like no undoing this. If mountains are destroyed and people are melting and all this kind of stuff, there's something going on here.

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This is clearly having something to do with the end of the world. Clearly.

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Now here's where we get to cheat. We get to look at the New Testament. Okay? And we're gonna test

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Jeff Kenney's hypothesis. Is this really talking about the end of the world? Hmm, let's see here. All right.

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So Revelation chapter 20, starting at verse seven.

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When the thousand years are ended, I would note, thousands.

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When the thousands years are ended. What an interesting way to talk, right?

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Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations. Now, here's where we have to pay very close attention because in the premillennial view, the thousand years is a literal thousand years.

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And the best way I can describe it is is that Jesus secretly comes back seven years before he visibly returns.

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The secret return is the rapture. He wishes the church away. And then all of the focus is now on genetic

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Jews. Right? Literal genetic Jews. And they are the ones who are tasked with the job of preaching

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Christ through the period of the seven -year tribulation. And once that is over, Jesus comes and he establishes a literal kingdom here on planet

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Earth and will reign for exactly 1 ,000 years. And Satan is bound for those thousand years until the end of the thousand years.

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And then he's released to deceive the nations which will then lead to the

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Gog Magog War which then begs the question here. Why would anybody think that what's going on in Ukraine has anything to do with the

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Gog Magog War? Because if you're a consistent premillennial dispensationalist, then the

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Gog Magog War cannot happen until after the end of the thousand years. Okay, just pointing out some of the obvious flaws here and they're kind of, they're glaring.

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But here's the issue. The only time in the book of Revelation where it talks about these thousands years is in this portion of it.

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Thousands years. Okay? Thousands, okay?

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And here's the question. Has the devil been already bound?

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Yeah, he's bound right now. Yeah. Now, I don't know if he's been loosed yet, okay?

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But let me give you the text on this, okay? Our text is 2 Thessalonians.

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Be sure to enter the data correctly. 2 Thessalonians 2, okay? Here's what it says.

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Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together 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 that the day of the

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Lord has come. It just cracks me up that the left behind group started all the way back in the time of the apostles, okay?

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Oh, you folks in Thessalonia, you've been left behind. You missed it. Jesus came back and you, well, bummer for you.

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So. I wish we'd all been ready. Life was filled with guns and wars and everyone got trampled on the floor.

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I wish we'd all been ready. Sorry. I'm working with my therapist on that, but anyway.

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So he says, let no one deceive you in any way. That day will not come, okay? So the day of the

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Lord will not come unless the rebellion, that's apostasy, 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, proclaiming himself to be

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God, okay? Has that technically occurred yet? Not exactly, okay?

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We know the office that he'll fill. We just haven't seen the man of lawlessness. Do you not remember when

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I was still with you, I told you these things? This is why you shouldn't be fearing about being left behind.

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And you know, listen to this, what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time?

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Huh, Satan has a restrainer on him? Yes, Satan has a restrainer on him.

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So Paul is describing him as being restrained. And listen, for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, only he who restrains it will do so until he's out of the way and then the lawless one will be revealed.

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Cross -reference this then with Revelation 20, when the thousands years are ended,

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Satan will be released from his prison and will come to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth.

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Huh, does it sound like in 2 Thessalonians 2 that Satan is restrained, bound, in prison, limited?

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Yes, absolutely. Is he bearing a seething grudge? You betcha, okay?

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When he comes out, do any of you wanna be near him when he comes out? Nowhere in sight, okay?

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This is just, okay, he is really, really gonna come out angry, come out swinging.

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And so the idea then here is this, is that the thousands years, again,

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I'm gonna, coming back to the Greek on this, is the time period from Christ's ascension until his return and glory to judge the living and the dead.

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It's not a literal thousand years. And I would note, it makes zero sense that Jesus would set up an earthly kingdom on a planet where everybody conceived is born dead in trespasses and sins.

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That makes zero sense, okay? How much do you think the people of planet

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Earth are gonna be keen on having King Jesus be their king while they hate God, okay?

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This is a formula for disaster, okay? And so the idea then is that the proper way to understand this is the way the church has historically understood it.

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The thousand years is a, it's a symbolic number from Christ's ascension until his return.

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And so we know that immediately before the return of Christ, Satan is let out of prison to do what?

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To deceive the nations. Yes, Hannah? Not necessarily.

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Okay, so the question is, are these the same people who do not believe the Genesis account is real? I would say not necessarily.

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Many of the people who are kind of like your fundamentalist, premillennial dispensationalists, of course they're gonna believe

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Genesis. So I would say there's a spectrum of belief with people like that, but I would note that it's generally kind of held onto within groups that are associated with like American evangelicalism and the old fundamentalist movement.

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So you kind of super heavy, we take the Bible literally in everything kind of thing.

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So if it says that God protects us with his feathers like a hen, then God is a chicken, okay?

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These are also the flat earthers, right? They can tend, well, here's the deal. There's plenty of premillennial dispensationalists who are not flat earthers.

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I would just note that in the past decade, there's a number of flat earthers has grown exponentially.

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It's just kind of nuts. Yes, sir. So the

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Antichrist, the man of lawlessness, is a churchman. Let me explain, okay?

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So, I knew this was gonna end up with these kind of questions, I just knew it. Can't go onto this topic without these kind of questions.

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So watch this. Say, let no one deceive you. So we're back in 2 Thessalonians. That day will not come unless the rebellion comes first.

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This is talking about the apostasy within the church. And the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, and watch this, 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.

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Now, you ask the average premillennial dispensationalist, what is that referring to?

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The third temple that they're gonna wanna build in Jerusalem, and the Lutheran sits there and goes, what?

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What are you talking about, okay? Would Christians consider a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem to be the temple of God?

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No way! That's type and shadow stuff. We have the substance, the substance is

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Christ. So in Pauline theology, let me show you this. I'm just gonna do a quick search.

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I'm gonna look for the word temple. All right, T -E -M -P -L -E, and I'm going to limit my search to the, well, actually, let me see if I can do the epistles.

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All right, so let's do this. I'm gonna scroll down, because temple's mentioned a few times in the

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Book of Acts, more than a few. Pauline theology, 1 Corinthians 6. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the

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Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? Hmm, okay.

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So in Paul's way of thinking, temple isn't, he's not pointing to the temple in Jerusalem anymore. He's pointing to something different.

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He's pointing to the church, okay? So let's see here.

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Let's see, house. Stones is what

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I'm gonna look for. Hang on a second here. Here we go.

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This is 1 Peter. You yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood.

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What's Peter referring to there? Who's being built up like living stones into a spiritual house?

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The church, which makes us what? The temple, okay?

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So let me see if I can find the cross -reference on this 1 Corinthians 3 .9. All right, hang on a second here, 1

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Cor 3. Let's see, scrolling down. Okay, here we go.

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He who plants and he who waters are one. Each will receive his wages according to his labor, for we are

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God's fellow workers. You are God's field. You are God's building.

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That would make you what? The temple. So in apostolic thinking, the temple isn't the temple anymore.

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The temple of God is the church. And there are other texts like it.

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Okay, let me see if I can find this one. Let's see here. Yeah, I have

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Ephesians 2 here. Hang on a second here. Ephesians 2, let me pull that up too. Ephesians chapter 2.

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We're gonna scroll down here. Okay, so then you are no longer strangers.

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You are no longer aliens. You are fellow citizens with the saints, members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets of Christ Jesus, himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is being joined together, grows into a what?

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Holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the

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Spirit. So in New Testament, apostolic theology, the temple is who?

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The church. So when we get to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, okay, 2

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Thessalonians 2, and we let the New Testament interpret itself. So let no one deceive you in any way.

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That day will not come unless rebellion comes first. The man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so -called god or object of worship, so that he takes a seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be

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God. This tells us this. All of the prognosticators right now who are sitting there going, is the

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Prime Minister of Turkey the Antichrist? The answer is no, he is not, okay?

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The Antichrist is a church man. He exalts himself within the visible church, proclaiming himself to be

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God in the church, right? He will perform great signs and wonders so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect, okay?

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So everybody who's got their eyes on Middle Eastern politics, they are looking in the wrong direction.

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This is why the Lutheran confessions identify the office of the papacy as the office of Antichrist, because historically, the office of the papacy exalts itself above Christ.

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The Pope declares himself to be the Vicar of Christ visible on planet Earth, and he can speak ex cathedra, from the chair, the throne, right?

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And so you oppose Pope, you lose your life. This is why we recognize that that office is the right office to be looking at.

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Does that make sense, okay? So we're looking for a church man, a sign and wonders church man, who is basically imbued with the power of Satan to deceive the nations, and Satan isn't waging war against unbelievers.

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He already has them. Where's the battle line? The church, okay?

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So the ultimate breach of security here is that Satan enters the church, exalts himself within the church, proclaiming himself to be

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God himself, and demands worship of himself within the church, and a whole bunch of people call themselves

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Christian are gonna go, okay, I'll worship you. Sure, you want me to take a stamp on my hand? Here, here's my hand, go ahead and stamp me.

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Right? And TBN goes wall to wall. Jesus is back, man, he's here.

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No, yes. Yeah, right.

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Yeah, so I would note that even nations that are closed off to Christian missionaries have this funny thing that they do.

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They send their infants to the United States to be adopted. Have you ever stopped to think about that for a second?

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Okay, I mean, in our congregation, if I could point out the

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Rose family, okay, we have three young Christian women from a nation that has forbidden the gospel to be preached in it.

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Okay, think this out with me here. So the idea is the gospel will be preached to every nation. That doesn't mean you necessarily have to go to every nation because sometimes

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God causes nations to come to you. Just kind of how this works, okay?

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But once the gospel's preached to every nation, then the end will come. And here's the thing,

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I'm of the opinion that the way we have to define nations is according to the way the book of Genesis defines them.

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You go back to the table of nations after the flood, and that reduces it down to 70, okay?

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Which is kind of a unique number because remember when Jesus had 70 disciples that he sent out?

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That's the representation of the gospel going out to all the nations, and 70 being the operative thing.

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If we just count it biblically then according to the way God numbers the nations and kind of looks at them coming out of the flood, we've already done that.

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They're part of a bigger nation. Yeah, they're part of a bigger people group. So nations then would be defined kind of according to like super families after the

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Tower of Babel. And that being the case, we've already reached every nation.

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There is no place where the gospel hasn't gone as far as requirement for it to reach all nations.

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Now that doesn't mean it's reached every language. It hasn't, and we're very, getting dangerously close to fulfilling that portion of it.

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Well Paul actually says that in Colossians I think. Yeah. That the gospel can reach the whole world. Yeah, and it is.

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So in 2 ,000 years there's very few little pockets where it hasn't reached. Very few.

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We're down to the nubbins at this point. That being the case, have you guys noticed as we get closer and closer to that that the world seems to be losing its ever living mind?

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Okay? It's just, it's getting, you know, I mean, just the Olympics, that was so weird.

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You know, the opening ceremony was so blasphemous and then you had two men beating up on women and everyone praising that going on.

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It's like, what is going on? Okay? So the idea then is as we get closer to the end of the world,

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Satan is going to be released. And here's the deal. If you think it's only seven years, you may be wrong.

36:36

The seven years itself is a symbolic number. You know, which makes it possible that Satan was released in 1987, the year after I graduate, which makes sense because all the music started tanking at that time.

36:52

Okay? You know. But all of that being said, you know, the idea then is that Satan is released for the purpose of deceiving the nations and the nations go for it.

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And then through the deception that he brings about, he basically enlists them as the agents to wage war against Christ, his enemy, by slaughtering and waging war against the church.

37:23

So when we read in the Gog Magog prophecy in Ezekiel, when it talks about Israel, that's you.

37:31

Satan's waging war against us. Yes, Marilyn. Yes. Yeah, so a good way to think about it is this.

37:51

Is that he has very limited ability to deceive currently. But to say that he has no ability is wrong because there's still demons.

38:01

Think of it this way. After, you know, so when Napoleon was captured and was exiled to Elba, right?

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How dangerous was the French army at that point? Not. Not dangerous at all.

38:18

But I mean, it could have done some damage, but you know what they were missing? A unifying leader. But once he got off Elba, what happened?

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Yeah, then we have big wars, we got big battles going on, and finally he has his

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Waterloo experience, right? You don't wanna have a Waterloo experience, I'm just saying, okay.

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But all that being said is that once he was freed again, and he went right back to being as dangerous as he was, and he was that unifying factor.

38:53

So a good way to think about it is that the demonic horde is absolutely diabolically deceptive.

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But it's limited in its scope and its vision and its ability to work together properly.

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And once Satan is released, their leader is released, and Satan's gonna have his

39:16

Waterloo experience at Armageddon, is the best way I can put it. But after his release and prior to Armageddon, it's all hell is breaking loose.

39:26

And all I gotta say is, find a way to get out of the way. That's the idea.

39:33

Scripture talks about the bonds being there and loosening over time until that time when they break entirely.

39:42

Yeah. So he gains more control over time. Yes, so if you were to think of it, Satan's heyday, his golden era, would be in the centuries before Christ.

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The entire world, with the exception of one small nation, completely under the control of demonic powers and engaged in idolatrous religion and stuff like this, and even

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Israel being compromised by the heresy of the Pharisees. And so Satan's power is just huge.

40:13

I mean, Satan is this close to taking all of humanity. And then

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Jesus shows up. And by dying on the cross, rising from the dead, ascending into heaven,

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Jesus, and then subsequently binding Satan, Jesus let off a spiritual nuclear bomb and it destroyed the worship of the pagan gods.

40:38

Who is out there worshiping Zeus right now? In public? Like nobody, right?

40:47

I mean, we have entire temples that are just, that went derelict and were destroyed, not by armies, but by the gospel.

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So God, in restraining Satan, has given kind of a free hand for the gospel to be reached until its conclusion.

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And then when Satan comes out, holy smokes, get out of the way because he's coming out in a rage.

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And he will not forgive the church for preaching

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Christ and having all of these people saved by Jesus, his archenemy. And he will do everything possible to destroy the church.

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Oh yeah, every legal system on the planet will be a tool. Yep, we will be hated by everybody.

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So listen to then how this works. So Satan will be released from his prison. He will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth,

41:49

Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea. They marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the, what?

41:58

Saints, the Hagioi, the believers, and the beloved city. The fire came down from heaven and consumed them and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were and they will be tormented day and night, forever and ever, amen.

42:18

So Gog and Magog, if you were to kind of think about it in its first exegetical cycle, is in fact the war that all saints find themselves in currently.

42:31

Okay, if you were to think of it like the Gog -Magog war, the Satan's horde waging war against the saints for the purpose of deceiving them and all that kind of stuff.

42:43

So every single false teacher is an agent of Satan in the

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Gog -Magog war in the broader sense. Okay, in the narrow sense, the Gog -Magog war is going to refer to that final, final battle between Satan and Christ.

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And guess who shows up again? Jesus. And guess who gets thrown into the lake of fire at the end of that?

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Satan. And we'll all be sitting there going, yay! No more Satan. And it's going to be fantastic.

43:16

So you'll note the language is there and there's the explanation. So coming back then to Jeff Kenney's hypothesis,

43:22

I think you nailed it, sir. Jeff Kenney, two points for Gryffindor. But you get the idea.

43:31

So yes, so we're talking about the end of the world. We're talking about an eschatological reality and things of that nature.

43:38

Now let me check the chat because I think some questions are kind of rolling in, which

43:44

I would expect because this is difficult stuff. Deb Pratt says, was there a time when the

43:53

Bible was removed from the public school? So I would note that, oh, what was that atheist woman's name that Walter Martin debated?

44:05

Oh, Madeline Murray O 'Hare. She was instrumental in getting prayer taken out of the church, out of the public schools.

44:14

And so that was just, that was a little before my time. But so I grew up in, when

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I went to public school from kindergarten to fifth grade. No, sixth grade.

44:27

Kindergarten to sixth grade, there was no prayer in school at all. And you were strongly advised not to.

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If any religious group wanted to meet on campus, you had to get approval from the principal and stuff like this.

44:40

That still kind of continues to this day. So the Bible, so I would say 50s, 60s is kind of when,

44:48

I would say 60s is really when you kind of have that turning point. And concurrent with that is what they call the sexual revolution, which is the dumbest thing ever.

44:58

Just basically, we want to have sex anyway, we want to have sex, stop telling us it's wrong, is basically how that boils down to.

45:06

So, but you get the idea here. All right, so, now let me, something has happened to these kids, in fact.

45:25

Huh. So Google Pixel 7 talks about a time during the, sometime between the 60s and 80s that his parents came home and said something's happened to the kids in school.

45:38

And they ended up quitting teaching because something has taken, something has taken a bad turn.

45:45

And I would note that the current crop of kids is kind of really sketch and sus at the moment.

45:51

Let's see here. Okay, so Google Pixel 7 says 70 nations never heard this before.

45:57

Exactly, this is why you have to interpret all of the Bible together. 70 nations, Christ would have been thinking in terms of the 70 and the fact that he had 70 apostles, you know, that he sent out 70 disciples he sent out on a dry run to evangelize, points to the fact that that's how he's understanding that.

46:15

Okay, let me back up here. Okay, so, okay, all right.

46:20

There's no burning questions at the moment. Good, all right. I have to go. So, we will continue with Gog Magog and the non -Russian connection.

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Next week, no, in two weeks, because next week is Ask a Pastor. Just remember, get those theological questions in for next week's

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Ask a Pastor Sunday School. All right, peace to brothers and sisters. Lord willing, we will see you next time.