The Great Reset (2 Thessalonians 2:3b-4 Jeff Kliewer)

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Sermon Notes: http://notes.cornerstonesj.org The Great Reset

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Words out of Jeremiah 10 -12, it is he who made the earth by his power.
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Christ go to God and as we come together our hearts are turned towards him.
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I want to open us up also with some words of announcement. This coming Saturday the women have the outing at Lancaster at the
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Tabernacle. Cindy, is there an opportunity for additional women to sign up?
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Should they do it online or should they call you direct? Okay, ladies if you have not yet signed up, desire to sign up for this trip,
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Cindy Randall is here in church so look her up and make arrangements to join in with that trip.
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What time do you leave on Saturday? Gotcha, okay. Make your own arrangements to get there
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I guess is the message. Talk to Cindy, thank you. That's what happens when
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I ad -lib. This coming Saturday you have two options of ministering as the
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Lord would lead you. One of them is it's our monthly trip out onto Kings Highway by the
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Women's Center. It's our Love Life Prayer Walk, praying for women who are potentially making a decision or their men along with them that would end the life of an innocent child and so this
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Love Life Prayer Walk is seeking in front of the throne of God to protect these young lives and to help these women make godly decisions instead of the wrong decisions.
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Saturday is also going to be a work day here at the church. We're going to be sprucing up the building with various things that the deacons have online so please choose one or the other and let
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God use you in that way. Our weekly schedule is a slight adjustment today recognizing that it is
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Mother's Day. We're going to encourage people to stay at home or to visit their mom or to talk to their mom or to honor their mom.
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Our typical prayer time tonight we're going to put on hold so that we can honor our moms.
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So we will not be meeting tonight for the prayer meeting. We will resume that next week. The rest of our weekly schedule, the men's apologetics class, the women's precepts, women's studies, our small groups are still all going to be held this week.
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So look at those. If you are interested in baptism, I'm continuing to announce this because it's so important.
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If you are interested in baptism, have not contacted either Jeff or myself. Jeff's got a long list in his office of people that we've talked to.
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We're working on the arrangements for a plan. So if this is on your heart, please approach either
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Jeff or myself. We will be having an opportunity to have a couple of Sundays where we will give you a preparation class on the
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Sundays. So put that on to your thoughts. At this time I want to turn it over to Pastor Jeff.
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Well it is my distinct privilege to honor the mothers and to give a prayer that we would pray for a blessing on the moms.
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So first thing, can I just ask the moms who are here to stand up so we can give a round of applause. Praise God.
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You may be seated. We used to have a tradition where we would hand out carnations to the moms.
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So I went in to look for carnations at Produce Junction and they had enough in there.
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The trouble was there was a swarm of men looking for a last minute Mother's Day gift.
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And if I were to grab the 150 that were left, I think they would have tackled me on my way out because there were slim pickings at the end there.
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So I didn't get them this year. But what I would like to do is offer a prayer and just ask
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God's blessing on on all you moms. Let's go to before the Lord. So Father, this morning we want to first of all thank you for our moms and for all of the moms here today or watching online.
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Lord, we give you the praise and we know what a special role the moms have. Thank you for them,
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Lord. And Lord, we want to pray blessing upon them that you would strengthen them and help them in the work that you have called them to do.
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Give them peace in their hearts and joy in the Holy Spirit. Lord, we're also aware that Mother's Day can be a painful day for some who have lost their mothers or who have lost a child or whose children have gone prodigal and such things,
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Lord. And so on this day, Lord, we pray that you would be the God of all comfort to the mothers, that you would help them on this day to rejoice in you.
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The joy of the Lord is our strength. Comfort them and help them, Lord God. Lord, we also want to pray for the children as we know mothers constantly do.
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We pray, Lord, that the children would walk in faithfulness to the Lord, that you would help them and strengthen them, be with them.
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Lord, we pray also for any prodigals, those who have gone astray from the gospel of Jesus Christ. We pray,
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Lord, in Jesus' name, that you would draw back the prodigals. Bring them home,
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Lord. You are able to do that and I ask that you would in Jesus' name, powerfully.
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Father, thank you for this Mother's Day and we pray that it would be a blessed time with family and friends,
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Lord, and that you would be glorified in it. We ask that blessing in Jesus' name. Amen.
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Awesome. Thank you, moms. Next thing. Once a month, we have this great opportunity to tell you about missions.
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And in the past, we have spotlighted Israel and Sarah Quintani, who are church planners and evangelists in Portugal.
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They've worked with Gary and Terry Camlin. And so we've told you, we've given the mission spotlight, but you want to know what's better than a mission spotlight to tell you about missionaries?
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You're supposed to say yes. Yeah. You want to know what's better? How about if we invite the missionaries themselves to come up and share about their ministry?
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We are so blessed today. We have Israel and Sarah Quintani visiting us from Portugal and we've asked them to give a description of their ministry, tell us how we can be praying for them.
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And we just want you guys to know that we are so, we are blessed to be able to support you in your work and to partner with you in the gospel.
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And we're thankful for you and we're excited to hear what's going on. Thanks. Hello, church.
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Good morning. It is a great privilege for us to be here and yeah, it's, we really wanted to thank you for all your prayers and support.
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And we really want to share just a little bit of who we are, what we're doing in Portugal. So I am
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Israel, this is Sarah and our daughter Julianne, who just turned two in March. And yeah, we're serving alongside with Gary and Terry Camlin, which by the way, it's
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Gary's birthday today. So give him a happy birthday if you have his email or our phone number.
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And while Gary and Terry are serving in theological education at the
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Portuguese Bible Institute, we're working with evangelism and discipleship in the context of church planting.
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And so in Portugal, church planting, it's a big, big need. And Sarah will tell you a little bit of why this is and what is the context of Portugal.
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All right, so Portugal is a small country in the westernmost tip of the
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Iberian Peninsula. It is largely influenced by Catholicism. About 81 percent of the population are
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Roman Catholic. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact number of evangelical
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Christians in the country, but a conservative estimate is of around 0 .4 percent, so 0 .4
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percent of the country's population. So this makes evangelism and discipleship a very high priority in a country where believers are nearly invisible.
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Right, Julian? Exactly, so she's just talking, yeah.
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So yeah, this is what the Lord has called us to do, to work with discipleship and evangelism in this very rough context where people really don't really realize their spiritual need.
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And let me just tell you a little bit of some highlights of what the Lord has done in our midst.
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And one of the highlights is some of the youth that came to a discipleship and evangelism course.
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Some of you participated of a prayer challenge that was held back in March, and there we shared about this course.
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And we were so excited because three youth of our community were able to come to this course.
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And it was very interesting. One of the girls, the university students, she clearly said that she really could not believe in God, and she could not feel
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God in any way. So it was very good to see her engaging in gospel conversations and to listening and to hearing more about what it means to be a
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Christian, what it means to have a deeper relationship with Christ. She's still in the learning process, she's still on her way to actually getting to know
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God, but we're still praying for her, and we know that the Lord is at work. Another great encouragement within this group was a guy from a very
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Catholic background who saw God a lot more as a boss rather than someone whom you can have a relationship with.
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And so after our course, he said that he realized his spiritual need and how he needed to have a deeper relationship with God.
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And so it is great to see that the Lord is at work in Portugal, in and through us as well.
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Another great encouragement for us was a single mother who, through our
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Bible studies, she shared with us in her testimony that she was able to have a deeper relationship with God, and she and her daughter were baptized also.
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So that's a huge praise for us, for God. And on that note, we really just want to invite you to keep praying for us and praying for revival in Portugal.
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We know that the same God who saved you and me is also redeeming people in Portugal, in New Jersey, and all over the world.
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We really want to pray that the Lord will bring revival to Portugal, that this number of 0 .4
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percent would really be 40 percent in the next couple of years. So please be praying that the
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Lord will be at work and that we would see a revival in Portugal. So thank you, thank you so much.
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And if you want to just have a reminder or something, we have a prayer card. You can come talk to us after the service.
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Thank you so much. Thank you, Pastor Jeff. Why don't you stay here and we'll pray for you.
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Pastor John, would you pray for Israel and Sarah? Lord God, we are so privileged to know our brother and sister have been called by you, that they have heard the call and that they have gone.
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We thank you for equipping them, for sending them, for giving them the word that that lamp would be lit there in Portugal.
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Father, we do pray as they do for a revival in that country. As they boldly said that 0 .4
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percent could become 40 percent. Lord, you can do that mighty work. We pray for the outpouring of your spirit.
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We thank you for the individuals that they have reached and as they pray that there will be open doors and opportunities so that these individuals can hear more of the gospel, can be discipled, can grow.
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And Lord, they may be the next ones called to go out into the field. Pray, Father, that you would also equip them, that you would call and that you would establish a core of believers, that they could plant the church there.
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And Father, we also pray that you would meet their needs. You already have met it, Lord, but that you would show us how the needs financially for them would be taken care of.
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We lift them up to you. We pray, Father, as they go, as they spend the rest of their time here, that they would be encouraged and refreshed and when they return it would be for safety and also for the power of your kingdom.
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We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. I don't know if anybody noticed that one picture with Israel and the four young gentlemen standing.
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Didn't that one guy look a lot like Tim Robinson? Let's pray.
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Father, we do come to you with hearts desiring you, seeking to worship you.
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We pray, Father, continue to pray for the mothers in our congregation and all mothers. We know,
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Lord, that they are such a special blessing to the families, to the children, to their husbands.
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We pray, Father, that you would give them strength and encouragement, give them discernment and wisdom.
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Lord, that the love that they have for their families would be such a powerful impact, not only on them but on our neighborhoods, in our country, our world.
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Father, we thank you for those who have answered the call as missionaries that are out with the light shining in countries that need to hear, and especially this morning for Israel and Sarah and Juliana.
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We pray as they evangelize and disciple that you will equip them, as they share
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Christ, that you would give the very message and as unbelievers would hear that they would respond.
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Father, we continue to lift those in our fellowship that are in need, whether it's healing, whether it's grief.
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Father, we continue to hold them up. Father, be a close, close presence to them.
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We pray, Father, for the working and the hearts of individuals that have heard the message in these past weeks.
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I think of Vincent, a young man who Stan was able to minister to in the hospital and accepted
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Christ right there in the hospital room. We pray, Father, for him. We pray for families, friends, neighbors, that we would speak the word of truth.
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This world definitely needs to hear it. Now for Pastor Jeff, as he gives us encouragement in a message of reality of what is to come.
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We pray, Father, that we would respond not out of fear, but in faith. We pray in Jesus' name.
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Amen. Let's all rise. 1 -5,
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God said to Jeremiah, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And what a great encouragement that should be to us this morning that God knows us.
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He's called us by name. He's consecrated us and set us apart to be his church.
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So let's just rise out from the love that's within us. Just to sing out a heart of praise to him this morning.
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Christ alone my hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song.
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This cornerstone, this solid ground, firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
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What heights of love, what depths of peace, when fears are stilled, when striving ceases.
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My comforter, my all in all, here in the love of Christ I stand.
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In Christ alone who took on flesh, fullness of God in helpless babe.
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This gift of love and righteousness, scorned by the ones he came to save.
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Till on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.
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For every sin on him was laid, here in the death of Christ I stand.
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In the ground his body lay, light of the world by darkness slain.
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Then thirsting for the glorious day, up from the grave he rose again.
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And as he stands in victory, sin's curse has lost its grip on me.
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For I am his and he is mine, bought with the precious blood of Christ.
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No guilt in life, no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me.
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From life's first cry to final breath,
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Jesus completed my destiny. No power of hell, no scheme of man, never blocked me from his hand.
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Till he returns, what calls me home, here in the power of Christ I stand.
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And again Lord, just coming before you, just bearing our souls to you, surrendering all.
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All to Jesus I surrender, all to him
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I freely give, I entrust in his presence daily.
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I surrender all,
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I surrender all, blessed
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Savior, I surrender all to Jesus, I surrender all.
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We are his feeders, all forsaken, dear
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Lord Jesus take me in. I surrender all,
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I surrender all, all to thee my blessed
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Savior, I surrender all,
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I surrender all. I surrender all,
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I surrender all, blessed
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Savior, I surrender all to Jesus, I surrender all.
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All the earth rejoices, he wraps himself in light, and the darkness tries to hide, and trembles at his voice.
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How great is our
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God, sing with me, how great is our
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God, and all will see how great, how great is our
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God. Age to age he stands, time is in his hands, beginning at the end.
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The Godhead breathe, sing with me, how great is our
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God, and all will see how great, how great is our
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God. Name above all names, he's the name above all names, and all will see how great is our
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God. Name above all names, he's the name above all names, and worthy of all will see how great is our
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God. How great is our
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God, sing with me, how great is our
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God, and all will see how great, how great is our
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God. How great is our
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God, sing with me, how great is our
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God, and all will see how great is our
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God. Strengthen us by it, we pray that you would remove fear from our lives in all manner of anxiety, replacing that with faith.
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Lord, your word says, fear not, for I am with you, be not afraid, for I am your
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God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
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So Lord, we pray that you would do that now, make us stronger in this battle, because the world is at war ideologically,
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Lord. World views are clashing, Christians with our gospel against secularists who hate the gospel.
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And Lord, we need to be strong, and so Lord, make us strong for this battle. Help us to remain faithful until the end, and come soon,
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Jesus, we pray, amen. Post -Tenebrous Lux, anybody know what that means?
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Post -Tenebrous Lux, after darkness, light. That was the cry of the
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Reformation, and it's written on the Reformation wall in the city of Geneva. Sometimes I wonder about the providences of God and how things come about, but way back in 1998, little did
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I know God's plans for my life. And at the time, I was studying basketball for the most part.
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Now, studying economics, but basketball was my primary God at the time. But I went to Geneva on a class trip.
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We got to study Geneva and the international organizations that meet in Geneva.
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And at the end of that class, we actually flew to Geneva to go visit these places.
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So I don't know if I ever visited the World Economic Forum, but we visited a number of NGOs like that.
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And I didn't know how important that that trip would be. One of the things I noticed when
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I was there was at night, they would have demonstrations, and I thought that was so interesting.
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So I went out to see what were these people doing. They were mostly young students, and I found that they had dollar bills, fake dollar bills, with a cross and bones on the back.
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Skull and bones, I mean to say, on the back of the bills. And they were taking these, wadding them up, and throwing them into the fire.
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This was a group that was anti -American. America was the problem, and the dollar was their enemy.
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I found that interesting. I didn't understand it at the time. So I finished my trip to Geneva and came back home.
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But things continued in Geneva as they had been since 1971. When a man named
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Klaus Schwab invented what is called the
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World Economic Forum. The World Economic Forum, from that time, began to grow and gain influence.
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They invite what they consider the thousand most powerful people on the planet to meet with them yearly in Switzerland at a place called
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Davos. These people include Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, George Soros, prime ministers like Justin Trudeau, presidents like Joe Biden, prime ministers like Jacinda Ardern from New Zealand.
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Time Magazine ran an article recently called The Great Reset. How to build a better world post -COVID -19.
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Schwab wrote a book called The Great Reset, and that was to be the theme in 2021 before it got canceled because of COVID.
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But what you found in Build Back Better is that this language of the
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Great Reset is echoed by presidents like ours who said, we are at an inflection point.
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There is about to be a new world order. The Great Reset, they call it.
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Well, what are the tenets of this Great Reset? They put it right on their website, so it doesn't take any conspiracy theory tinfoil hat stuff to figure out what they're after.
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On their website, Charlie Kirk has summarized their eight agendas. Number one, by 2030, you'll own nothing but be happy.
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Number two, and this goes to the dollar bills thrown in the fire, the USA will no longer be the world's leading superpower.
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Somehow it is this most Christian of nations on earth that stands in the way of a global agenda.
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Number three, nobody will die waiting for an organ donor. Why is that important?
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The answer is that they seek to create synthetic organs. And combining that with AI technology, that people could live even though their organs begin to fail.
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I think they're after immortality, some kind of superhuman transhumanism that they're after.
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Number four, strange one, you will eat less meat. Their goal for you is that you eat less meat.
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Why would that be? Well, I think it's because in First Timothy four, when it says that doctrines of demons began to be taught, a departing from the faith, it goes on to say in verse three that they will forbid marriage and forbid you to eat meat.
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First Timothy four, three. But they say that the reason for it is that cows produce methane.
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And it turns out that methane is 23 times more effective than carbon in trapping heat.
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So what is their solution if methane from cows is filling the ozone and filling the atmosphere and causing global warming?
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Well, eat less meat, kill the cows. It sounds to me like these
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Chick -fil -A cows that have been out for the death of chickens are about to get their comeuppance. Because their idea is not anything short of kill all the cows.
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That's their plan. Number five, find a home for the billion people that will be displaced by climate change.
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Number six, you could be preparing to go to Mars. They would like to colonize
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Mars. That's one of their big agendas. Number seven, this is important. Western values will have been stretched beyond the breaking point.
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Mark that for later. Number eight, fossil fuels will be obsolete.
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So you find in this an agenda for climate. In fact, has anybody found it disgusting to drink through a straw that leaves your mouth tasting like chalk?
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That's because the World Economic Forum has made it a goal to eliminate plastics from our consumption.
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And that's why we don't get bags at ShopRite anymore. Climate has been their primary objective, climate change.
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But something shifted with the introduction of COVID in late 2019.
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And all of a sudden, the power that was available to these men was exponentially increased.
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I mean, think about the power that one man, maybe the most powerful man on Earth, if you look at it this way, was given in the
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COVID era. His name is Anthony Fauci. Power to shut down entire countries and the movement of people by their assessment of the supposed dangers.
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Their assessment. In fact, Shanghai has been the world's largest prison camp in the history of the world.
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Millions of people locked in their own homes, unable to leave because government, this big government, is keeping them captive in the name of COVID.
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Not only externally keeping you a prisoner. And again, there was lockdowns in our country. But think of this, that they would presume authority to mandate vaccines.
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Or you lose your job. All around the world, government assuming the right to put a substance in your body that you may or may not want.
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The issue there is the totalitarian control that they would take authority over your individual body.
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And not just what goes into your body, but the breath that you take in and out. To presume to be able to put masks on the faces of individuals.
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Imagine that kind of power that they could even control how you breathe.
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And how children breathe in school. Think of that. Did you ever stop to think how much power that puts in the person who makes such mandates?
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Now, I am keenly aware that this is Mother's Day. And I know that it's typical to take a break from expositional preaching through a book.
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On Mother's Day, and Father's Day, and Labor Day, Memorial Day, day, day, day. But see, these days add up.
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So I made the decision that I'm not going to stop preaching through the text. Every Mother's Day and Father's Day.
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But rather, we're going to progress through the text. And so, turn with me to 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 3 and 4.
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When on Mother's Day we preach about the Antichrist, and the abomination of desolation, and the coming one world government rebellion against God, don't blame me, it's
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Providence. Amen? Let's read it today, so you see why we're here. 2
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Thessalonians 2, verses 3 and 4. Let no one deceive you in any way.
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For that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first.
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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. Not a happy subject for Mother's Day. You know how the world deals with anxiety and fear and scary things?
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The therapy they propose is called exposure response therapy. You're to, in increments, look at the things that cause you fear.
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Whether it be handling a small spider and then again and again a bigger one. Exposure to the things that cause you fear.
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But you see, in that worldly scheme of therapy, all they can do is make you look face -on the thing that causes you anxiety.
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Christians also should be willing to stare the lion in the eye.
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David was unafraid of the giant and could say, you come at me with your gods, but I come at you in the name of the
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Lord God. We should not be afraid of exposure to the enemy.
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But secondly, we have something far beyond ERT. We have the ability to then turn and look at the
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God who is higher than anything that we could possibly fear. So here's what
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I'd like you to do. Guys in the back, cue up a two -minute clip of a man named
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Yuval Harari. Evil personified. The right -hand man of Klaus Schwab and the thousand most powerful people in the world who are trying to plan a new world order as if that were their right to do.
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This man sets the agenda for the Davos meetings once a year. This man is interviewed by Anderson Cooper in 60 minutes.
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He's listened to by the Bezoses and the Bill Gates of the world. I want to spend no more than two minutes listening to how he speaks.
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Cue it up. And how intrusive it is. Let's listen to this.
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And COVID is critical because this is what convinces people to accept, to legitimize total biometric surveillance.
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If we want to stop this epidemic, we need not just to monitor people, we need to monitor what's happening under their skin.
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What we have seen so far is corporations and governments collecting data about where we go, who we meet, what movies we watch.
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The next phase is the surveillance going under our skin. We now see mass surveillance systems established even in democratic countries, which previously rejected them.
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And we also see a change in the nature of surveillance. Previously, surveillance was mainly above the skin.
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Now it's going under the skin. Governments want to know not just where we go or who we meet, above all they want to know what is happening under our skin.
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What's our body temperature? What's our blood pressure? What is our medical condition? Now humans are developing even bigger powers than ever before.
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We are really acquiring divine powers of creation and destruction. We are really upgrading humans into gods.
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We are acquiring, for instance, the power to re -engineer life. Humans are now hackable animals.
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The whole idea that humans have this soul or spirit and they have free will and nobody knows what's happening inside me, so whatever
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I choose, whether in the election or whether in the supermarket, this is my free will, that's over.
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I mean, all this story about Jesus rising from the dead and being the son of God, this is fake news. There's an antichrist spirit.
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An antichrist spirit. He is an architect of what they call the
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Great Reset. And notice that they would like to monitor people under their skin, aware of what's going on inside of the human body.
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But notice also at the end he says, Jesus rising from the dead, that is fake news.
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Fake news. I've got some news. Turn with me to Psalm chapter 2. Here's the perspective that I would like to teach us to have with regard to the end times antichrist spirit, the coming rebellion, which
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I think we're beginning to see, the antichrist himself and the abomination of desolations,
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Psalm chapter 2. Why did the nations rage? And the people's plot in vain?
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The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against Yahweh and against Messiah anointed, saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.
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He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision.
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Pause right there. There is a little man in Geneva who considers himself bigger than the people of this world, considers himself hopeful of immortality by creating organs for himself that he might never die.
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There is a God in heaven who hung not just Mars a short distance away from the planet
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Earth and not just Pluto, if it's still a planet, but every galaxy in the universe was spoken into existence with a breath, with a word.
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Our God, the sovereign over the entire universe, it says in Psalm 2 verse 4, laughs at the schemes and the plots of the new world order.
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The Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, as for me,
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I have set my king, that's a ruler, that's authority, on Zion, my holy hill.
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By the way, his name is Jesus. I will tell of the decree.
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The Lord said to me, you are my son. There's one son of God and the son of destruction can't touch him.
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Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession.
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You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
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Now therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned. O rulers of the earth, serve the
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Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son, there's the gospel.
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Worship the son of God. Give homage to Christ, lest he be angry and you perish in the way.
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For his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Fear is appropriate, but not fear of man.
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Not fear of some little Yuval Harari or Klaus Schwab or any anti -Christ spirit.
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Fear of God, the creator of heaven and earth. And this ought to be our approach to life, especially as we see chapter 2, verse 3 approaching.
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Turn with me. Let's look at it verse by verse and word by word. To understand what it is the
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Lord would say to us today. The big idea is that the rebellion spoken of here is a supranational, meaning bigger than nations, worldwide, one world government, movement away from capitalism to socialism, the doing away with the dollar in favor of a digital currency, all under the counterfeit lordship of the anti -Christ.
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That's what this verse is about. Let's look at it. Let no one deceive you in any way.
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We must be discerning, brothers. Understand human nature and what it is that people actually seek.
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And by the way, it is not the environment. Anybody who claims that they're trying to save the environment because there's going to be rising tides doesn't go and buy a home at Martha's Vineyard on the water or the
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Florida beachfront. They don't believe the world will be killed and destroyed by global warming. They're after something else.
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So let no one deceive you in any way. For that day, meaning the day of the
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Lord, spoken of by Joel and elsewhere in 1 Thessalonians 4 -5, the day of the
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Lord will not come so it's not going to happen yet unless the rebellion comes first.
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Now, when you read something like that, the rebellion has to come first, a Bible student must say, what's the rebellion?
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Not just glaze over and say, I don't know, but to begin to study the word, to understand the context of the scriptures, to know what it is we're looking for because Paul makes reference to it here, but it assumes prior knowledge.
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He doesn't expand upon it in length. So what does that word mean?
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It's translated rebellion. The Greek word here is apostasia from which we get apostasy.
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When someone apostatizes from the faith, they have been identifying as a
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Christian, but now they deconstruct that faith. They leave the Christianity of their parents behind and they go off running to the universities to be taught a different worldview.
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It is to leave something they once professed. The word apostasia can be translated a revolt, a departure.
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It always has this idea that something was identifying as Christian, but now leaving that.
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It is a rebellion from something that was ostensibly there. To understand what this rebellion is, we have to understand the macro idea of Christ as king.
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Psalm chapter 2. He has authority. He has a rod of iron and he rules the nations.
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In fact, think of the Great Commission itself. All authority has been given to me.
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Authority is a kingly rule. The word in Greek is exousia. It's a power.
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Just like you would exercise a demon, Christ has authority. He has power. How much so?
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All authority has been given unto me. Therefore, church, go and make disciples of the nations, baptizing them in the name of the
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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
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The idea here is that Christ is king. He has authority over every nation, that each nation would become a
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Christian nation. Not necessarily in the sense that the government and every ruler considers them a
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Christian, but that Christians are salt and light in that culture and they're shaping the ethics of the laws of the land and the culture in which we live.
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That's what it means to be salt and light, Matthew 5, 17 and 18. So the concept here is that Christ is king.
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And therefore, the rebellion is when you see once ostensibly
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Christian countries, like the whole continent of Europe, now reduced to 0 .4
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% evangelical. Places like Geneva, where the gospel light shone after darkness post -Tenebrous,
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Lux, now the seat of rebellion against the lordship of Christ.
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You've seen it in Europe and you're seeing it creep into Canada and the United States of America and wherever the gospel has gone to the ends of the earth.
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So the rebellion is first of all, not about plastic straws and not even about face masks and COVID.
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The rebellion is about three things. Power, money and sex.
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These are the three desires of the leaders of the world. Let me prove it to you from Revelation chapter 13.
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In Revelation 13, we see the rising of a beast out of the sea.
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This beast is a one world government. If Christ is the one who has created the nations, even as he'll speak to individual nations in Isaiah 10 through 24, even as Christ is head of nations, according to the
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Great Commission, those who do not recognize the lordship, the invisible rule of Christ, will desire something called supranationalism.
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Something that transcends nations, a theory or a governing body that's higher than individual nations.
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They would like to see the demise of sovereign nations or if sovereign nations remain, that there would be some government that transcends it.
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Hence the World Economic Forum. The leaders of the world having power not just within nations but over nations.
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This system is described as the beast rising out of the sea. And we can't get into all the imagery of the ten horns that are replaced by one, but understand this, that regions of the world come under the authority and the league of a government that's called a one -world government, and there arises one called the
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Antichrist who speaks blasphemous things against God. And he is the ruler of this one -world system.
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Notice at the end of chapter 13, he has a way of indicating that someone has come under that authority and it is called the mark of the beast.
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So the first thing that the rebellion requires is a one -world government, supranationalism.
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The second thing is socialism. Capitalism is nothing more than the free exchange of goods and services, but a socialist system has a governing power that controls the exchange of goods and services.
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And here we read about it in Revelation 13, 16 to 18. Also it, this beast, causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slaved, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead.
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Why? Why is there going to be a mark of the beast? The mark of the beast, in the interest of the people who give it, is all about money.
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Look at verse 17. So that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark.
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That is the name of the beast or the number of its name. It's about buying and selling.
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So one of the movements afoot at the World Economic Forum is to get rid of physical currency, as China has done in their totalitarian state, and in the
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United States of America, get rid of dollar bills, like the fires of Geneva. Moving to digital currency.
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Why do they want digital currency? Because that can be controlled by a keyboard in the hands of the people in power.
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And those who do not follow the directives of the thought police, as they get under your skin, those who do not follow, their accounts will simply be turned off.
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And that's what it says in verse 17. So that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark.
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This is the agenda of making all things digital and getting rid of the ability to simply exchange in the freedom of a marketplace.
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We won't get into the number of his name. That's for another sermon. And I'll say I probably wouldn't have a great answer for that anyway.
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Not sure that our generation will know. But in the last seven years, people will understand. Let the reader understand what that 666 means.
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But there's one more thing. Power, money, and sex. Turn with me to Revelation 17.
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In verse 2, we see the fall of a one -world religious system.
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Because supporting this one -world government are religious people that ultimately will worship the
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Antichrist. But notice what they're committed to. Verse 1 says, Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bulls came and said to me,
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Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters.
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Prostitute here refers to a spiritual adultery, a making of idols. But notice also that there is sexual immorality motivating the world leaders.
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It says, With whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality.
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And with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers of earth, dwellers on earth, have become drunk.
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Psalm 2. Let us burst their bonds. What is it that restrains the sexual immorality of the people of earth?
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Especially as they desire more and more perverse things contrary to nature and the design of God. It is nothing other than what they call the
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Western worldview, but it is the Christian sexual ethic. It is the
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Christian teaching of the Bible that describes God's good gift to humanity in sex between a man and a woman in marriage.
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Despising these things, they will forbid marriage and seek to normalize perversions that are contrary to God's design.
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And that's what we see with the fall of the one world religion. They are judged for such things. In chapter 18, we have the fall of one world government.
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The traders and the ships and all the people that delight in the wealth of the nations as they gather that to themselves.
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Revelation 18 describes the demise. Look at verse 3. For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her.
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And the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living. From that verse alone, we can understand the motives behind the kings of the earth because we're told explicitly here that it's about what?
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Sex and money and power. Verse 3 of chapter 18, the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality.
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The kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants' money of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.
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So the question is, when you come to 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 3, do you just gloss over and say, well,
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I don't know what the rebellion is. No, there's context about this coming rebellion, this apostasia.
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It is the kings of the nations pursuing money, sex, and power, dominating the world, changing the ethics of the land by their intrigue.
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This is the nature of the case. Turn with me then to the rest of the teaching, 2
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Thessalonians 2. We're told that the day will not come unless this rebellion comes first.
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Guys, you think it might be about to happen? Can you see the setup? All of these things coming?
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Well, that has to come first, but something else has to happen as well.
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The revealing of the Antichrist, that's the second thing. Isn't this pleasant for Mother's Day? The second thing it says, and the man of lawlessness is revealed.
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The son of destruction. Daniel foresaw the
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Messiah. And he says in Daniel 9 24 -27 that Messiah would be cut off at a certain point in time.
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But then he goes on to say that the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city until that prince sets up what is called the abomination of desolation.
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Who is this prince? Well, we're told in Daniel 9 26 -27 that he will make a covenant of peace with the nations.
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This one is called the Antichrist. He speaks blasphemous things. The Antichrist must come and be revealed for who he is before the great tribulation begins.
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The Antichrist is spoken of in Daniel 9, but also in Daniel 11 36 and following.
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But turn with me to Matthew 24 15. Jesus foresaw the end times because he's written the script.
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And he tells in the first 14 verses of Matthew 24 that there are certain birth pangs that indicate that we're getting near the end.
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Remember some of those things, wars and rumors of wars like Ukraine and World War threatenings, nation rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes, pestilences,
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Christians persecuted and even martyred. But the good news is that the gospel is going to the ends of the earth.
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That's verse 14. Now notice verse 15 of Jesus's teaching in Matthew 24 is about my last point today, what is called the abomination of desolation.
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What is that? Well, by the sound of it, we know it's abominable like the abominable snowman.
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It's something terrible. It's horrifying. It's an abomination, but it's desolation.
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It causes desolation because when this abomination of desolation happens, it kicks off what's called the great tribulation, which will completely desolate the earth.
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Matthew 24 15. So, says Jesus, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet
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Daniel standing in the holy place, let the reader understand.
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In other words, you're not going to understand what is Pastor Jeff going on and on about unless you read
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Daniel 9, Daniel 11. All these things correlate. The book of Revelation, the reader is given the full counsel of God.
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When you see it, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. In other words, you need to run for the hills.
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Everybody who's alive at that time to see it needs to get out of there because it is triggering the desolation of the world.
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So, what is the abomination of desolation? Here, we don't have exact understanding of what it is, but look at 2
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Thessalonians 2 4, what we're studying today. Here, Paul gives us that answer.
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What is it though? What does the Antichrist do? Well, you're right.
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Let's look at it. 2 Thessalonians 2 4.
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It tells us what he does. The Antichrist who opposes and exalts himself over or 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. That's the abomination of desolation. The Antichrist will not only hate the
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Christian God, he'll hate Allah, the false God, the so -called God of Muslims.
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He'll hate all million idols created by the Hindus. He'll hate Joseph Smith's Kolob dwelling
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God. He will hate every so -called God because the abomination of desolation is when he declares himself to be
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God. This requires the rebuilding of the temple. And of course, if you study the
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Temple Institute in Jerusalem, they have everything ready for the rebuilding of the temple. The only thing they need is governmental permission to do it.
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It could be built within a matter of months by today's technology. And there's room on the temple mount to do it.
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When that temple is rebuilt, halfway through the tribulation, the Antichrist will go there and proclaim himself to be
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God. And from that point on, desolation. The Great Tribulation.
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The last three and a half years of this world as we understand it now.
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Isn't that comforting? So in closing, today's sermon is about the apostasy, the
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Antichrist, and the abomination of desolation. But there's three things I want to say to you about those things.
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And they all relate to fear versus faith. You see, when you hear a passage like this, you could in the flesh begin to fear the things that are coming.
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But 365 times, 366 times in the Bible, we're told, fear not.
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That's one for every day, plus he has one in there for the leap year as well. Fear not.
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You can have faith or you can have fear. Now here's what I want to do. I want to preview in my closing word chain.
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I promise this is brief. I want to read the larger context of 2
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Thessalonians 2. Because it does in these verses teach the things that I taught.
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But the larger point begins with do not be alarmed. Do not be shaken in mind.
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Because these little specks of dirt that gather in Davos have no power at all.
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The one with whom you have to do is the restrainer who's keeping them at bay.
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There has always been an Antichrist. There has always been one ready to step in and assume that role.
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But it wasn't Hitler. And it wasn't Napoleon. And it wasn't the one that the
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Thessalonians thought it was. Listen to the larger context as you continue on verse 5.
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Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now.
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This is next week's sermon. So that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.
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It was already at work in the first century. And we're 2 ,000 years later. It's already at work.
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And then it says and then wait, oh sorry, verse 7.
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For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.
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When the Holy Spirit steps out of the way taking the church with him and the salt and light restraint of this evil is taken out of the way it says and then the lawless one will be revealed.
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I don't know if Klaus Schwab will turn out to be the Antichrist. He's an Antichrist. But the
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Antichrist, the man of lawlessness will be revealed when God says it's time. And look at the final result.
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You want to see a great reset? Whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming and therefore set up a millennial kingdom where he rules in righteousness on this planet.
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Amen. So that's the closing. So you can have fear or you can have faith.
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Now if it's true that God himself is the one restraining this and it's his timetable then why are we afraid of the events as they get set up?
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It's up to God. If God is the one who works all things together for good then even in the sufferings whatever sufferings he has us to go through it's for our good and our eternal pleasure with him.
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And moreover, if we really believe that we're going to be raptured out what do we have to fear?
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Now we need to fight because it could be that our fighting is God's mechanism of restraint of the evil of this world.
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And so we fought and we fought and we fought for 49 years to overturn Roe versus Wade. What if it is in a month from now that God says, yeah,
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I'll restrain Roe versus Wade and it's overturned in the name of Jesus Christ which would only be the start of our battle.
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We need to fight like it all depends on us through the power of the Spirit but know that it all depends on him.
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Let's close in prayer. So Father, thank you so much for your word to us today. Thank you for the preview of what comes next.
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Lord, I pray for us as a church that we would have our hearts and our minds set upon you.
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Teach us to fear you and to have no fear of man. Lord, we see the wicked schemes of the
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World Economic Forum and the Great Reset. Totalitarian control even over the very bodies of individuals made in your image and we ask in Jesus' name that you would restrain that evil.
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Let it come to nothing. You laugh at their schemes. We pray against their schemes in Jesus' name.
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We pray that America would not be replaced as a global superpower but that you instead would turn and strengthen this nation by the revival of the
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Christians, the preaching of the gospel, the establishment of Christian ethics in the land in Jesus' name.
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We pray for us, Lord, that we would stand strong in the battle without flinching, without fear and declare the whole counsel of God.
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Increase our faith, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let's stand and sing. Jesus paid it all
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All to Him I owe Sin hath left a crimson stain
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He washed it white as snow Now and now indeed
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I find Thy power in mine The chains of leper's spice
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Melt a heart of stone Cause Jesus paid it all
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All to Him I owe Sin hath left a crimson stain
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He washed it white as snow When before the throne
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I stand in incomplete Jesus died my soul to save Thy lips shall still be clean
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Cause Jesus paid it all All to Him I owe
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Sin hath left a crimson stain He washed it white as snow
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Cause Jesus paid it all All to Him I owe
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Sin hath left a crimson stain Now may the
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Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.