THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL - PART 6

They said I went a little too fast last week, okay? So I'm going to back up and I'm going to slow down, and if I've got to divide this up in two weeks, that's what we're going to do.

Some of you this morning, I'm going to beg you to do one thing. I'm going to beg you to wake up, please.

I'm going to beg, I'm begging you. Wake up. The reason we're doing this, the reason

Carrie, who did a great job on this and is continuing every week, is because this is reality.

Not Google, not Brad Pitt or Selena Gomez or whatever little idols you have in your life today.

This is real life. This stuff really happened. There really was a guy named

Abram. God really spoke to him, and he told Abram way back in 2100

B .C. that I'm going to make you a great nation. Now I know, and someone asked me this, this is not stupid questions.

Guys, please, I'm trying to educate you, I'm not trying to entertain you. There's no stupid questions here, okay?

When it starts way back here in creation and goes forward, the numbers decrease.

So you start way back there, you come up here, and I think Jesus personally was born in about 4

B .C., okay? Jesus was crucified between 33 and 36

A .D., well, just somewhere around there. And by the way, guys, this right here, this little black line, is the total existence of the

United States of America. This right here compared to all of that.

See, some of y 'all live in Bartlett, Tennessee for the last 16 years, and that is the total encapsulation of your world.

It's not. You see, we serve a big God as a small piece of a big organism in which

God is bringing about His plan to restore man back to where he needs to be.

It has nothing to do with church, it has nothing to do with religion, it is history and real life.

Guys, there is a fact you need to understand today. God is alive and moving in the lives of people.

And I know some of you grew up in church, and you were lulled to sleep by continuous religious rules and understandings, and you were lulled to sleep in thinking because you walked down some stupid aisle and prayed

Jesus into your heart, you're somehow going to heaven. But that ain't true.

That ain't true. It is by faith you are saved. By grace. See. Now, this history, the reason we're spending so much time on this is because what

I'm trying to do is make you see that this thing right here is not some stupid book written by a guy named

Bob or the Baptist Church. It is the living, breathing Word of God that for 4 ,000 years has said this is going to happen, and shazam, it happens.

Over and over and over again. Some of you dorks out there are more freaked out because the word

COVID numerically adds up to 666. Woo!

COVID's the Antichrist. Put your tinfoil hat on and run to your basement and play your

Xbox again. Okay? Listen to me. You have fallen into a trap of things that you've become familiar with, you just kind of discount them.

It's the fat dude with the bald head preaching to me that I need Jesus again. Or the

Holy Spirit of the living God is trying to bring you to a place where you don't spend eternity in hell.

It's one of the two things. Either all of this is fake, and every Christian in this room is a pathological liar conspiring to trick you to follow a code of social order, or there really is a

God and He commands you to do certain things. It's one of those two things. It's either the biggest lie in history, or it's a reality that you need to take grips with.

All right, so for the last eight weeks, we have covered the history from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, all the way through the judges,

David killing Goliath, right? God making David king, David dies, his son

Solomon becomes king, Solomon builds a temple, right? Builds a temple, they go into civil war, the ten northern tribes in 722

BC are taken over by Assyria. By the way, if you believe I'm just preaching

Bible stuff, I tell you, go use your Google. It's called history. The world is bigger than Arlington, kids.

It's bigger than your little suburb, I promise you. Been around it twice, I'm telling you right now, wrap your head around some realities.

722, the ten northern tribes get whooped, 586, the two southern tribes,

Judah, that's where Jews come from, get whooped by Babylon, Babylon gets whooped by Persia, because you remember

A, B, P, G, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, anyways, so Persia, Cyrus II lets the

Jews go back and rebuild. That's where Esther and Nehemiah and Ezra and all those little books that you pass over trying to find, you know, about the beast and the 666, yeah, those books, read those because that actually happened there, and then after that, that's where we are today.

Now, Carrie put up more little pictures for you, and you can come read these later. Do me a favor, get your little phone on your little camera, take pictures of them.

Actually study outside of the next 20 minutes of your life, okay? It'll be really good, it'll be really good.

And guys, I'm an ex -crackhead high school dropout. If I can understand this, I promise you you can.

You can understand this. Now, last week, we read about a guy named

Alexander the Great. Now think about this, just think for a second. If I wanted to get the good news of Jesus Christ out into this room, but every one of these tables spoke a different language,

I would have a problem, right? Where's, where's, where's, are the

Torres's here? Hey, Christian, bien de

Jesus el corazon aqui. If every one of us spoke a different language, it'd be really hard for me to get to everyone in here.

And that's what was going on right here. You had Rome, who was still a little baby at this time, they spoke

Latin. The Greeks spoke, right, right? And the

Franks spoke antiquity French, and everyone spoke a different language. But this guy named

Alexander the Great talked about in Romans 8, in Romans 8, where it actually says the name

Greece came up and said, I'm whooping you, I'm whooping you, I'm whooping,

I'm whooping everybody in here. And I came to whoop everybody and chew bubblegum, and I'm out of bubblegum, all right?

And this is what you're going to do. You're going to pay me taxes, but everything that you write and everything you must speak must be written in Greek.

Now, one generation later, all of you speak Spanish, the language you grew up with, but every one of you in here now also speaks

Greek. And then right after that, in 250

BC, the Bible was written in, now, and that's just a coincidence, right?

Dope -smoking hippies, that's just a coincidence, right? The Bible, 250 years before Jesus was even born, the

Bible's now written in Greek. Now, everyone has the Word of God.

For 250 years, they now have the God saying this to them. Hey, one day, in Bethlehem, there's going to be born this guy, and this guy's going to be the savior of the world.

You see why history's important? Greek now became the world language. Everyone spoke it as their second language.

God wrote his book in Greek. Alexander the Great wore everybody out.

Remember, for 12 years, he whooped everybody. And then he died to death.

And he had, well, he had one son, but it was kind of a weird situation. And his wife's name was

Roxanne. And so, but Roxanne and his son died to death, and so his four most powerful generals took over.

And they split his empire up. Pastor, what's this got to do with Scripture? Let's read, if you will, in Daniel chapter 11, starting in verse 1.

Let's read together, shall we? Come on, boys and girls. This is going to get good.

Learn. Don't look to be entertained. Look to learn. In the first year of Darius the

Mede, right, I stood up and strengthened and protected him. Now, I will tell you the truth.

Three more kings will arise out of Persia, and the fourth one will be far richer than the others.

This fourth king was a guy named Xerxes. And he took this little army of a bunch of Persians, about a million guys, and walked into this place called

Greece. And this guy called Leonidas said, We're not going to take it.

No! And so he got a bunch of guys, and he went up to fight, right? Are y 'all with me?

For some of you, you watch the movie, you know, This is Paris! Right? That's what that's about.

You see, Xerxes was a real guy. See, now you can believe it because Hollywood did a movie about it. See? That happened for real.

And see, Xerxes fought. Well, this guy Alexander the Great came and whooped him, and in 331

BC, he destroyed Xerxes forever at the Battle of Gargamela.

Alexander the Great died, and his kingdom was split into four. So the third king, named

Xerxes, will rise up. He's going to be real wealthy, and he will stir up the kingdom of...

Go ahead and read it together. It's okay. We all know. Don't you wish the Bible was a little bit clearer?

Oh, it was. See, this was written 400 years before this whole thing with Xerxes and Leonidas happened.

And yet God's Word predicted this would happen. A little bit more crystal clear for you?

This isn't just about don't steal, don't lie. It's about God making the most powerful people in the world his puppets.

Alright? Watch this. Then a warrior king will arise. Alexander the

Great. He will rule a vast realm and do whatever he wants, but as soon as it is established, his kingdom will be broken up and divided into the four winds of heaven.

If you look at your little list, this is a map I got off of Google. Not www .jesussaves

.com. That's a real map. Right there. See, you can believe it because Google in the world says it's real.

Not just a fat preacher from Baptist church. That is Alexander's entire empire. When he died, it was divided amongst these four cats right here.

I even listed them on the little map for you. Alright? It's really stupid simple. I didn't list them.

Someone else did. But anyways, you understand what I'm saying. His kingdom was divided into four. Now, you may be saying, oh, that's just a coincidence.

You're the crack smoker that's going to end up in hell. You really are. Because you cannot possibly be that stupid.

You cannot be that stupid. And here's the thing. It's not just stupidity that keeps you from understanding.

Come here. It's okay to be offended, but listen. It is the scales of sin that are not allowing you to see the truth of God's Word.

And your prayer right now needs to be, God, in the next 15 minutes, will you please let me understand in real life.

Because this isn't a sermon. This isn't a Bible study. This is maybe one of the very few remaining warnings that you're going to get.

I'm telling you this. God is real. His salvation is real.

Your sin is real. And Him coming back is real. And you don't want to be against God.

Because it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living, breathing God. So let's just keep reading this

Bible story. Let's just keep being bored by, I don't understand the Bible.

Because you don't want to. I guarantee if I gave you a new video machine game, and you walked through it, you would learn them buttons real quick.

You would. But you can't take 15 minutes to learn God's Word because it's too boring to you?

That apathy is going to cost you more than just an intellectual embarrassment. It's going to cost you to believe the world, marry out of insecurity, have rebellious children, and your miserable life.

And then you're going to keep seeking out other things to make you happy because you will not submit to the

Word of God to change the life. And you're going to keep doing the same silly things that your parents and grandparents did.

And you're going to pass that poison on to your kids and your whole life is going to be nothing more than a gold watch and a coffin at the end.

You know why? Because this is boring to you because you don't care about the things of God.

Even though it's screaming to you and thousands of other people way back here when it was written, these people didn't listen either.

They didn't listen either. Daniel, you know who listened? Alexander the Great. It's amazing.

He walked in Jerusalem and he was going to do to Jerusalem what he just got finished doing to the city of Tyre, and the high priest ran out and read him

Daniel 8 -11. And you know what Alexander the Great did? He goes, yeah, that's right, that's me. I'm going to spare your city.

And he marched into Egypt and whooped all of Egypt. History. You see,

Alexander the Great, who was not a Christian, had more faith and belief and appreciation of the

Word of God than some people who are fed it every week. Makes me sad.

Alright, so, sorry. Guys, let me just be honest with you as a pastor.

I am not a good preacher, okay? But I am a good, serious pastor.

I hurt for my people and I hurt for you guys who are sitting there on the precipice of hell and you have no care in the world.

You're waiting for this to be over. You can't celebrate, you can't rejoice and you're going to keep eating from the same pig trough the world offers you, thinking it's sirloin steak.

Let your life be changed, guys. Not by religion or me or some stupid church.

By the power of the Word of God, this is real. Okay, I'm moving on.

Watch this. His kingdom will be broken up and divided to the four winds of heaven but not to his descendants.

Oh, that was a lucky guess. It will not be the same kingdom that he ruled because his kingdom will be uprooted and go to others besides them.

Huh. None of Alexander's children. Right. So the kingdom of the south will grow more powerful and one of its commanders will grow more powerful and rule a kingdom greater than his.

Now, I am not going to read the next 20 verses to you, but I did you a great favor.

I gave you a synopsis, sorry, I gave you a synopsis of it right here. If you want to, go home, read this instead of playing on your phone.

Put it on the back of your toilet. Seriously, I'm not joking and I'm not being crude and funny. Put it on the back of your toilet and if you're ever in the bathroom for more than a couple of seconds, pick it up and read it.

Right. Actually spend time and learn something. Please, I beg you. Because guys, the day is coming when everybody's making fun of the antichrist and all this stuff that's going to happen in the end days and you're going to be lulled to sleep.

You're not even going to realize the bullet shot. But anyways, moving on. Alright, so here's what happens.

I'm going to give you the Jeff Shipley version. Alright. So Alexander the Great dies, his kingdom split up by four generals.

These four generals, one of them named in the south was a guy named Ptolemy. Alright. And I never can pronounce this other one.

Good. The one in the north, if you look at your little map again, see, look. The one in the north with the green, right, his name was

Seleucid. Bill? Seleucid. Thank you. Seleucid.

Seleucid. So Seleucid and Ptolemy both wanted this little piece of land.

By the way, back in Genesis it said it would be the center of everything. Anyways, oh, by the way, have you looked at the news today about the

Middle East, which for a thousand years has been the center of all turmoil. One of those things that make you go hmm.

But anyways, guys, they both wanted Jerusalem. They wanted that land. Now Ptolemy had about eight or nine kids.

Say it, Jake, loud. Seleucid had about eight or nine kids. They ruled, they ruled, they ruled, they ruled.

And if you look down there in verse 18 or 19, it mentions Cleopatra. How many of y 'all ever heard Cleopatra in school?

Yeah, she's in the Bible. Walk like an Egyptian. But she wasn't

Egyptian. She was Greek. She was a descendant of Ptolemy, who was a Greek general of Alexander.

I bet you didn't know that, did you? You know why? Because you learn the stories without learning the truth. And they lull you to sleep going yeah, y 'all evolved from a single cell organism that just decided to grow lungs one day.

You can't be that stupid. Real life. Real truth.

Learn it. Because this may be some of y 'all's last warning. So, the kingdoms divided.

Jake, say it loud. Seleucid. And Ptolemy fought each other.

They hated each other for generations. And it went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Finally, this guy named

Antiochus Epiphanes. You know why he called himself Epiphanes? Because Epiphanes means to be made manifest.

He actually thought himself as a Greek god. He was that arrogant. Can you believe that?

So crazy. But anyways, he finally said, I've had enough. And he invaded. And the

Ptolemy people were fighting with Rome and all that. But we'll get into that some other time.

But anyways, Antiochus Epiphanes walked in Jerusalem and said, I'm now the new king. Ptolemies are no more.

This is what you're gonna do. And he walked into the temple. The temple. You know that temple that I told you way back here?

That Solomon rebuilt. And then Ezra rebuilt. And then Nehemiah. Yeah, that temple. The site's still over there today.

But anyways, that temple. He walked into that temple and he said, all you Jews, you are now.

I know you all speak the Greek language, but you need to become more American. See, you need to become more

Greek. You're not only gonna speak Greek now, you're gonna start holding Greek traditions. You're gonna celebrate

Greek holidays. And oh, by the way, this whole God Yahweh thing, you're done.

You're gonna start worshiping Zeus. And to make sure you never worship in this temple again,

I'm gonna do something you hate. And so he takes a pig. And he brings it into the temple altar.

He takes it on the altar and slits its throat. Now, do you all at least know the fact that to a

Jew, that's a very bad thing. Right? I always love when I go to Subway, I always ask the pimply -faced 16 -year -old kid, is this ham kosher?

And he always goes, I don't know. Let me go ask. And he goes ask the 18 -year -old pimply -faced manager, and he doesn't know.

And the whole time I'm going, ha, ha, ha, ha. Right? Because there is no such thing as kosher ham.

Right? So girls, if your boyfriend's Jewish, no ham sandwiches. Alright, so anyways.

So he goes in, slits the pig, and he says, you're gonna worship me.

Because now this place is defiled. And it stayed defiled until the

Jews said, we aren't gonna take this no more. Right? Teachers, leave these kids alone.

And so the Jews rebelled, and for a hundred years, they whooped the

Ptolemies and the... Say it loud! Yeah, they whooped them guys.

I can't say it good. And they whooped both those guys and drove them out, and for a hundred years, Jews were the main power.

They were the main thing. They were the stuff. Right? And I'm not capping you.

Listen. They were the main things in there. Y 'all just don't know how fresh I can be.

They were the main guys in there. Until these little Roman guys showed up in 63

B .C. and said, we're taking over. Now why am I telling you all this history? Why am

I telling you this? I want all of you in this room to read chapter 12 right now.

I got five more minutes. Chapter 12. Come on. Turn your little pages or scroll down your little

Bibles. Go ahead and read it. Don't be scared. What did

Daniel chapter 13 say? It's not there.

You're right. It's not there. You know why? Go back and read Daniel 12 1. At the end time.

You know why there's a period? Because that's it. You see, notice a couple of things.

Read with me in chapter 12. It's okay. Notice this. It says Michael, the great prince who stands watch over his people.

That is the angel Michael, but we'll get into that some other time. There will be a time of distress such as never occurred since nations came into being until that time.

How bad is the world right now? Eh, it's bad. I mean, you gotta wear a mask and Joey doesn't love

Susie and you know, oh my gosh my internet like doesn't work and you know,

I mean, it's stressful times. But watch this. You're gonna remember

You're gonna remember my words. We're gonna reach a time where that verse is gonna go

Oh, that's what pastor was talking about. Holy crap. You know why?

Because for 4 ,000 years, God's been saying exactly what would happen and he said if you're smart enough and you're actually one of his children, you're gonna understand the times.

By the way, there is a Daniel chapter 13. It's called the book of Revelation. But we'll get into that in about three weeks.

Okay? And if you're not a Christian I'm asking you very seriously to not to be here for those next three weeks because I'm gonna prove to you stuff that'll make your hair turn white.

But anyways, listen to this. It said in those end days, listen, it's gonna be so bad that it's never been this bad in the history of the world.

For all you post -millennialists you unsaved people, don't worry about it. That hasn't happened yet obviously.

Unless the world's just gonna get better and all come to Jesus when we sing Kumbaya. Anyways, watch this.

But at that time, all you people who are found written in the book will escape. Christians, listen to me.

Are you scared? I'm not gonna lie. I am.

Last time I got whooped I was 12 years old in a fight. Last time

I got whooped. I'm a pretty bad dude. Pretty smart. I'm scared.

I ain't gonna lie. This stuff is making me nervous. What's going on in the world today.

It's making me nervous. But the

Bible says, I'm gonna escape. Doesn't say what

I'm gonna go through until that escape happens. But it does say, I'm gonna escape.

Look what else it says. Look what else it says. It says this. Watch. Many of those who sleep in the dust, the earth will awake.

Some to eternal life and some to shame and eternal contempt. I know we don't have a lot of verses about the rapture because the rapture is just a bunch of silly stuff.

Or it's written dispensationally in every aspect of God's prophecy.

This is for advanced students. Know what I mean? It says many of those who are dead will rise up.

Rise up? If I die before Jesus comes back, the grave ain't gonna hold me.

I'm going home. Nothing can change that. Now I'll close with this. Later on, as you read, it says this.

Daniel didn't understand what this book said. He didn't understand. But this is what he was told.

In the end days, information and understanding will grow.

See, Daniel didn't understand what he was writing about. He had no idea. Greece looked like, you know,

Mason, Tennessee. And yet 200 years later, it became the most dominant power on the face of the earth.

See, Daniel didn't get it. But Daniel didn't have to get it. All he had to do was preach it.

Because the people who this verses were about would understand it. Some of you in this room today in this room today do not get it.

Alright, that's cool. I understand. Some of you have been raised up in church religion for so long, you take comfort in the poxy or the creeds of your church, yet in your heart you know you truly are not saved.

You know you're not. It says some of them will rise up to eternal life, and some of them will rise up to eternal damnation.

I'm sorry, guys, if you believe one of those little religious things that if you're not a

Christian, you're just going to die and cease to exist. That is not the definition of eternity or damnation.

You with me? You hear me? This book is written for you to know the truth and the truth that sets you free.

And it's not just about your eternal life. I had a young man tell me this. I believe there's a God, but I'm not ready to submit to him right now.

I'll do that later on in life. The arrogance of that statement to actually think that you have that much control shows how little suburban your little brain is.

Okay? Guys, you could die right now.

The fool thinks in his heart he has tomorrow. Now here's the question I'm asking you. If all these things are historically accurate and all these things happened, then the verses that talk about what will happen are logically the same truth.

And if you don't have Jesus Christ, not in your heart, Lord David, but as God, as Lord, if you don't have his blood covering your sins, you are screwed.

I don't know how else to put it. And if that's not delicate enough for some of you, some of you need to come out of the 1950s

Christianity and actually start witnessing and preaching the truth of the gospel in a way that these people are going to understand it.

Guys, it's real. Right now, it's real. Right now, someone just died in the world.

Every time I snap my fingers, someone just died. Every second of every day, someone just died.

And if only one out of a hundred of those people are Christians, that's a really sad hundred seconds.

Are you one of those one? I'm not asking you to join my church.

I'm not asking you to give me money. You have nothing I want or need.

And if you die and go to hell tonight, guess what? I'm going to sleep just as good tonight as I did last night. I'm here warning you that the bridge is out, and you best take heed to the word of God because it isn't a

Bible story, and it's not made up of the power, the hypocrisy you saw in your parents for 30 years as you were growing up.