12 Themes From the Birth of Jesus, Pt. 4

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Colossians 1:13 - Delivered From the Power of Darkness, Pt. 1

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Thank you guys, that was a fantastic, Maddy that was beautiful today, as usual.
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Where did you find that, oh I thought I left it back there, oh well, good to have all of you with us today,
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I hope we'll get you home in time to not have to slide home, we'll see,
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Charlotte told me to preach a short message today, so you know what happened last time a woman told me that right,
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I added 10 minutes, so I'll try to keep an eye out, but you know they said there wasn't going to be any water till this evening but we had missed on the freezing to the windshield all the way over here from Mahea, so I don't know,
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I think some of them kind of come in from the south, where the moisture comes in from the south and I think that's what this one's doing, we may get more snow than you do, you'd like that wouldn't you
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Paul, I mean you'd like it if we got more than you do, he does not like winter and look where he came from, to Texas, we'll be turning to the book of Luke chapter 4, please, and if you're on the phone don't turn to it, but I don't know, what do you do, scroll to it, yes, thank you, so we're finishing up our
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Christmas message maybe for you today, I doubt we'll finish it though, because I may cut it a little bit short, may take one more
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Sunday, but we went through the Christmas story in the book of Luke starting with chapter 2, and you know we talk about how the
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Bible is a living book, and you can read it your whole life, and read a passage you've read hundreds of times and see a new way of looking at it, a new message from God to you individually, and so when
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I was studying for Christmas message, which I don't particularly like to do seasonal messages, but I'll do it sometimes, especially
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Christmas and Passover, but I reading through it this year,
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I saw 12 major Bible doctrines, or major Bible themes in the
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Christmas story, I never noticed that before, so that's what we talked about, we've been talking about it, and we're on number 9, and actually on number 10 today, so what's interesting in this passage in Luke chapter 4, we went all the way through Jesus' birth up through his early ministry, like when he first started his ministry, it's a time span that we're covering here, so here, pick it up in Luke chapter 4, and verses 13 through 16, it's right after he was tempted by the devil, and it says in verse 14, and Jesus returned in the power of the
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Spirit into Galilee, and there went out fame of him through all the region round about, so after he was tempted by Satan, and Satan used the
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Bible to do it, you gotta always keep that in mind, false teachers always use the Bible, 90 % of what they say will be true, and that little 10 % is a killer of error that they put into it, but Satan did the same thing, but Jesus refuted it with Scripture, and that's why it's important to study, to show yourself as approved unto
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God, right? The Bible says we ought to always be able to give an answer for why we believe what we do, you can't do that without studying, so you need to be in the
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Word, it's not enough just on Sunday, but Jesus answered it with Scripture, now when he came forth from there after being tempted from Satan, and it says
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Satan left him for a season, that's the way it is with us too, we can have, you know, we can have peace for a season, but then the enemy still comes back, doesn't he, in this life, he will come back, so you always have to be ready,
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Ephesians chapter 6 is a great place to go read about spiritual armor that we should wear all the time, because we always gotta be ready, he leaves for a season, but when
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Jesus walked away from there, he had power, and it says in the power of the Holy Spirit, and in fame went about the region about him, and verse 15 says, and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by everyone that listened, because they never heard teaching like his teaching, but then he comes to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the
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Sabbath day, and stood up to read, and what's interesting about this passage, starting at verse 17, it shows what he read, and as we discussed last
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Sunday, it was a long passage, and he's actually reading from Isaiah chapter 61, because they handed him the scroll, and that's the part he had to read, and it's a long passage, and he read only maybe a third of it, maybe not even a third, maybe a fourth, maybe not even a fifth of it, and then stopped in the middle of a verse, at least the way we see the scripture today, where it has verses, he stopped in the middle of a verse, and closed the book and sat down.
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It's really interesting to see what he talked about that day, and what he didn't talk about, and the truth is, living in the day that we live, some 2 ,000 years later, there's a lot more to be learned by what he didn't talk about that day, and why.
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So let's look at that. It's fascinating to me. So look at, starting with verse 17, and there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet
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Isaiah, and when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, and the spirit of the
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Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. Now we understand that word poor doesn't mean poor in the
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Greek Old Testament, or in the Hebrew, it means meek.
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He anointed me to preach the gospel to the meek, meek in spirit, or you could say poor in spirit.
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It's not a bad translation, it just means poor in spirit, in other words, not haughty. To preach the gospel to those who are poor in spirit.
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He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to preach the acceptable year of the
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Lord. And then verse 20 says, now right there is not even the end of the verse he was in, but he stopped right there, and it says at that point in verse 20, he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down, and the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him, and verse 21 says, and he began to say unto them, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
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So it's like he read this first little part, and he stopped halfway through the last verse, and he said, you're looking at the fulfillment of that part of this passage, me, you're looking at the
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Messiah, I am the Messiah, that's what he's telling them. And I bet it got really quiet in that room for a little bit, don't you imagine?
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So we learn a lot from this, I mean, last Sunday we talked about what he did read, the portion that he read, so I don't want to go over that again.
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But it's interesting when you get down to this part about what he didn't read. So he's quoting from Isaiah chapter 61 verse 1, so I'm going to go to that, you can stay where you are if you want to, but I'm going to go out to Isaiah chapter 61, it might be interesting for you to look at it if you want to go ahead and turn there.
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And if we see verse 1 and then verse 2, after the first, oh, six or seven words of verse 2, he closed the book, he didn't even finish the verse.
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So let's look at it, Isaiah 61 1, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the
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Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. Now remember, this was written over 600 years before Jesus was born in the book of Isaiah.
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All of the Jews knew this book, unfortunately, the teachers weren't teaching from the
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Bible anymore, from the Old Testament, they were teaching from things called Targums, I've got a copy of one in my study at home.
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And it's kind of like a paraphrase, that's why I would advise you not to read paraphrases of the
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Bible, read the Bible. Because when they paraphrase, it's like the Jewish teacher said, well, here's what we think it means.
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So in the Targums, they would tell you what they thought Isaiah 53 meant or Isaiah 61 meant and they change it.
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And so that's why the predominance of the Jewish people missed their own Messiah.
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Only those few who had access to the actual scriptures and read them were waiting for the
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Messiah to come in and recognize him like Simeon and Anna did. But that's why they weren't teaching from the
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Bible. They were teaching from corrupt Bibles or even paraphrases of the Bible. About 300 years before Jesus came, that's what the practice was.
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And they became the ones known as the Pharisees. So the same Pharisees who wanted to crucify
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Jesus corrupted the Bible 300 years before he got there. Isn't that amazing? So Satan still wants to do that today.
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So make sure you're reading the right one, you know, the one that comes from the good Greek and the correct Hebrew.
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So here he stops, he says, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And he stops right there.
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Now, if you look at the next part of that verse, look what it says. And so I'll read the whole thing.
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Verse two, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our
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God, to comfort all that mourn. He left that part off. Now what's interesting, when you start with that second half of verse two, and you keep reading this long passage, everything else that it talks about is not talking about the first advent of Christ.
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It's not talking about the part in Isaiah 53, where it says he'll be a suffering servant, where he will come and die for the sins of his people.
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He will come and die for the sins of many, it says. It's not talking about that part.
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It's talking about his second coming, which the Jew, for the most part, didn't really see that as two events.
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They saw it as one. It's almost like he had two mountain peaks with a valley and they looked across the top and saw this one and they saw it as one thing, the coming of the
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Messiah. They didn't see it as two different advents with 2000 some odd years in between, like it actually is.
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But the reason that Jesus stopped in the middle of verse two is he was, when he said, this is fulfilled in your ears today, he meant only this part.
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And he closed the book, he didn't read the rest. The rest applies to when he comes the second time, which is really fascinating.
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And if you read it carefully, you can see that none of it could have happened already. None of it could be something that's already happened.
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Well, what's interesting about it, you got basically three types of beliefs about the end times stuff that's taught in the
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Bible. You got people called millennials who don't believe that the book of Revelation is literal or that any of it's literal or what
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Daniel said or what Isaiah says or Joel or Zechariah. They don't think any of that's literal, that there's not going to be a thousand year reign of Christ on the earth.
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It's not literal, they think. And then you have the post -millennialists who believe that the church is going to be so fantastic that it's going to cause the earth to get better and better until it's so good here that Jesus can come back.
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How many of you buy that one? I mean, if you know anything about history, you know about World War II where they killed almost eight million
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Jews, right? Did you know that after World War II, the post -millennial position died away? You didn't see any theologians teaching that in seminary to speak of, if at all, other than to teach that it was something people used to believe.
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But there's a resurgence of it now among young Christians for whatever reason.
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I think it's because they want to think they're intellectual. But the thing is, it's still as false as it was in World War II.
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The world is not getting better. How many of you think it's getting better? You know, well, if you're very young, you might think it is.
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But if you're my age, you know it's not because you remember how it was. I got to meet
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George Bush one month before he announced, I'm talking about the younger Bush, one month before he announced he was going to run for president.
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I got to talk to him like this close for 20 minutes one day. Sorry. Oh, OK.
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And he asked me, he said, David, when do you think our country was the strongest? Well, you don't want to get the answer wrong when you're talking to one of the
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Bushes whose dad was the former president. So I thought about that a minute. I said, well, I think America was the strongest in the 1950s, about when
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Eisenhower was president. He said, you're right. You're right, David. I agree. And then he went on to talk about liberals and how they're destroying the country.
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And he said, but, you know, it took him 50 years to do it. So maybe we can put it back like it was and it won't take 50 years.
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And I smiled and shook my head. Yes, I'm thinking it ain't going to happen. But anyway, I was hoping he would get it right.
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Right. So as far as the way the world is going philosophically, the great apostle
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Paul said that before Jesus comes back, there will be a great apostasy, which means a falling away from the truth.
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And I've seen that in my short lifetime. Charlotte and I used to teach young people, teenagers, high school kids when we were in our 20s in Sunday school, we taught high school kids and I can remember teaching them things from scripture that were prophetic about things that might happen out in the future.
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You wouldn't believe how many of those things I've already seen happen by this time in my life. And we were teaching it as things that would happen back then.
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That was in the 80s. Right. So so many things are happening. The world is not getting to be a better place,
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I would say right now. And I track I track what's happening because the trade way
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I have to read the news, the world news every day and apply that to the stock market to try to figure out what it's going to do to the stocks.
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I have to read it. I don't like reading it, but I got to read it. And so right now the world is in the most dangerous time that it's been.
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And I don't know, probably since, I don't know, since Khrushchev tried to send nuclear missiles to Cuba back with that being the 60s.
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Right. Sixty three. We're in a more dangerous situation right now than in 63.
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And we have more wars going on now than ever. And for the first time of any of our presidents that have ever been president
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United States, we've had three, maybe four of our embassies closed because people closed them over in foreign countries.
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They shut them down, won't let us be there anymore. And normally it's Islamic countries that are doing it because they don't like us supporting
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Israel. But that's that's not happened. So we we've got to one war in the
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Middle East. And, you know, if you know anything about the end times, you know, to be watching Jerusalem, right.
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You know, to be watching the Middle East. And it's not this thing is not over. And it's it is not a good thing because it's a it's it's a thousands of years old aggression between the
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Jewish people and the Arabs. And, you know, this this thing is like tooth for tooth and eye for eye.
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And and it's probably not over yet. So we have to be really watchful.
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Now, if you look at this part, Jesus didn't talk about even even the things we've seen in my lifetime.
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He stopped short of talking about that. But now let's read a little farther in his passage and see what he's looking at, where he starts, where Isaiah prophesies beyond the times of Christ into the end times.
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And Jesus was asked a question in Matthew chapter 24, if you remember, where they ask him, OK, when will this happen?
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And he was talking about the destruction of the temple, which happened in 70 AD. They asked him, when would it happen?
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Well, that was only 40 years into the future. And he told him what to look for for that. And the second question they asked him was, when will the end of the age happen?
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He asked two questions and a lot of these scholars that want to be amillennial or postmillennial for whatever reason, they don't they don't act like there's two questions, they act like there's just one, but there's two.
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The question about when will the end of the age happen? He answered it.
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And those things haven't happened yet at any time in recorded history. So they're still in our future.
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And this passage in Isaiah 61 goes out and begins to talk about that. And that's why Jesus left it out that day, because he said,
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I am here for the first time now as a suffering servant. He didn't read the part about how he's coming the second time because he ain't going to be a suffering servant.
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He's going to come in vengeance and destroy the enemies of God and set up a kingdom for a thousand years in Jerusalem, the very city, the very place that all of the dark nations of the world.
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And by that, I mean evil nations, the world want to destroy right now. You take Iran, Iraq, Russia, China, and so many of the
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Islamic, all of the 100 % of the Islamic nations want to drive them from the river to the sea.
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That means to push them off into the Mediterranean ocean and drown them and kill them all. That's what they want to do.
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And it's been that way since Abraham. Satan has hated God's people since the times of Abraham.
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It's worse now than it's ever been. And that's what they want to do. That's what's going on over there right now is an attempt to do this all through my life.
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I've seen several attempts to do this and God has protected Israel in miraculous ways every time that I've seen with my own eyes.
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So let's look at this now. Let's start with verse two to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. He stopped right there.
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Acceptable, by the way, if you read that in the Hebrew, it has the connotation of like God's foreordained plan.
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That's what acceptable means. It's God's will. That's what it means. Jesus said, I'm going to proclaim that it's
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God's will for the Messiah to come. And I'm him. That's kind of what he told him when he shut the book there.
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But look what happens with the second half of that same verse and the day of vengeance of our
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God to comfort all that mourn. So apparently there's going to be something that happens after the first advent in the 2000 years.
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And then as you go out towards the end times in the end times, there are going to be things that happen that are going to cause people in Israel and all over the world to mourn.
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And he did. That's just how it starts. That little passage. Now, what we're going to talk about here as we go through this next bit of information in Isaiah 61 that Jesus left out that day is what is coming.
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Why do you know what's coming at the second advent and prior to it? Well, the first thing that we see is
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Jesus did not talk about the second coming. He stopped short of that. He only talked about the first coming of Christ.
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He didn't talk about the second coming. He didn't talk about the tribulation period, which is a seven year period of tribulation greater than the world has ever seen or ever would see.
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And God said in the scripture that if he didn't cut the time short, no life would be left on the earth. He didn't talk about that.
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He didn't talk about the comfort that he will have for those who mourn during the terrible tribulation period.
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He didn't talk about that. He left that out. And then in verse three there in Isaiah 61, he says to a point unto them that mourn in Zion, that's specifically talking about in Israel, people that are mourning there to given to them beauty for ashes.
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So the powers of the world tried to destroy Israel and burn it down and did destroy some of it and will out in the future, but God's going to give them joy in place of the ashes.
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So the ashes haven't happened yet. It's something in our future where the nations of the world attempt to destroy
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Israel, see what time it is. Okay. Um, so he's going to give them beauty for ashes, oil of joy in the place of mourning because, so can you see the contrasts you've got mourning, you've got ashes, which, uh, talks, you know, pictures, destruction, and God's going to replace it with beauty and joy.
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So what you see is a picture of great tribulation and then Jesus Christ coming the second time and setting up a millennial thousand year kingdom that where he reigns from Jerusalem physically, and Israel will be the strongest nation in the world.
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And all the other nations will come there to worship God. And so nation will have, uh, Israel will have joy.
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Whereas in this dispensation, they've had sadness and mourning and ashes and destruction.
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So you see the contrast between the tribulation of this age and the beauty of Israel in the thousand year millennial kingdom, where Jesus who was born of Jewish parents will reign as King of the world, and he will rule with a rod of iron and, uh, you, you're not going to have other religions openly being practiced at all.
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Jesus said, I am the way and the life and the truth. No man comes to the father, but by me and anyone who tries to bring someone to heaven through another door is a liar and a murderer.
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So he left out this part about the second coming. So now he goes on and says that God will give them the garment of praise in the place of the spirit of heaviness and sadness.
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So Israel will be praised instead of hated by the entire world, like they are right now.
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I mean, I have never in my lifetime, never seen people march in the streets of the United States of America, who's
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Israel's greatest ally for their enemy Hamas, and especially college kids who know nothing about history.
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I mean, listen, a college education today is like a seventh grade education when, when I was in school, they're just a fact, you are not being taught history.
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And when they are in many of the East coast colleges and West coast colleges, they're changing the history.
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It's not the same history. You would read the textbooks when I was in school, but even when I was in school, they were starting to destroy it.
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I remember I went to Baylor business school thinking that capitalism was a bad thing. And I said, where'd you learn that in front of the whole class?
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Because I raised my hand. I said, isn't that a bad thing that made the professor angry? He said, where'd you get that Mr.
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Mitchell? I said, seventh grade social studies book, sir. Well, they're wrong.
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Come see me after class. So I went to his office and he said, capitalism is what built the economies of the
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West. The greatest economies that have ever existed in the history of the world built by capitalism, which taught in the, which is taught in the
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Bible. Socialism is nowhere in the Bible except where it speaks against it. Oh, okay. Well, I had that backwards.
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Sorry, sir. And I, you know, I left the office unscathed gladly. But, um, when you don't understand the history of Israel, starting from Abraham to what was promised to him, the land that was promised to him is their land.
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It has been for thousands of years. And then the modern time in 70 AD, when
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Rome came in and destroyed Israel and they were scattered throughout the world, the Jews were, and then after world war two, and they killed
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Hitler killed six to 8 million Jews. I think the higher number is more likely, um, the world at large felt sorry for the
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Jews and they let them have their land back. It was their land. They let them have it again and decided they could be a nation.
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So the very day of their declaration as a nation or their proclamation as a nation, they were attacked on three sides by Islamic nations and tried to be destroyed on day one as a nation, but they won the war miraculously.
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And in several have happened since then. So here you see all of this, these things talked about here in Isaiah, that they would have ashes and mourning and heaviness, but this would be replaced by beauty and joy and praise.
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Well, we haven't seen that yet. Have we? There's still people, thousands of people marching in the streets of Washington, DC yesterday against Israel and for Hamas.
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Do you know the word Hamas is in the Bible? It means destroyer or the killer of innocence, which is what they did.
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They went in and killed thousands of, well, 1 ,200 Israeli families on their farms.
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I can't tell you what they did is so bad. You can read about it and Israel retaliated.
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So now they're saying Israel's the bad guy. Well, only if you're totally don't understand anything about how things work in the world and have worked for 6 ,000 years of history.
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So if it's true that a family has a right to protect itself when someone tries to kill its members, it's also true of nations.
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And when they came in and they did this across the border into Israel, they had a right to retaliate.
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And boy, did they ever. And the world now saying they're the bad guy. Really? Oh, they're killing thousands of women and children.
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You don't know that because the only news source is Hamas's news source that reports that and they put the tunnels under the hospitals where the army's under the hospital.
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And what do you think is going to happen when Israel destroys the army's going to hit the hospital? They're the ones that put it there, though.
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They hide among their civilians because they don't care about them like we do. Their whole mindset is different than ours.
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We value life. We value the life of our of our people, of one another. We treat each other like we would treat ourselves.
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That's Christianity. They don't have that. So, yeah, you can't you know, you can't you can't just let them stay there in peace because they're going to come across that border and kill another 1500 people month after next.
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It's just how they are. I've seen it my whole life. And yet you've got kids in college today, not picking on I'm preaching to the correct to the choir here, but across the nation on the
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East, like Harvard, Yale. In fact, the president of Harvard just got fired because of it. Because she was saying it's great that they killed babies and women,
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Jewish babies and women saying things, you know, she was alluding to that. So they fired her and they should have. But they only fired her after Christian billionaires started pulling money from Harvard and saying, we're not getting any more money as long as she's president.
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So they fired her, which they should have done. But it's sad that they had to wait until people were threatened to pull the money, isn't it?
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So so for the first time in in America, in American history, you have Americans rioting in the streets saying that Hamas, the destroyer of innocence is good and Israel, the people of God is bad.
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And the Bible says there will come a day when they will call good evil and evil good. And we're in that day.
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And if you think we're not, you're just like you're asleep. You're sleeping. Jesus said, be careful that you not sleep like others and be watchful because he'll come as a thief in the night.
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And we are asleep, ladies and gentlemen, if we don't understand that things have changed so much in this man's lifetime.
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Sixty nine years old when I was 20, these things had not happened in the in the earth anywhere.
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And we're seeing them happen in the streets today. Be very careful that you remain watchful of what's going on in the news because it's matching the scriptures.
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Now, now look here. So all of these contrasts are found in verse three. Jesus did not speak of the fact that during their day of salvation, talking about the
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Jews that during their day of salvation would be given beauty for ashes, oil of joy for mourning and all these different contrasts, the planting of the
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Lord that he might be glorified. He left that part out because it was part of the future.
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And he was telling he was showing them what he was going to do in the first advent, which was his 33 years of life on this earth.
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That part wasn't going to happen yet. So he did not speak of how the
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Jews would glorify God during the millennial kingdom after the tribulation. He left all of that interesting part out.
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So look at there in verse three.
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Let me get you to look at something. If you want to flip to Luke chapter 21, verse 20, it speaks to this a little bit.
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To a point unto them that mourn in Zion to given to them beauty for ashes regarding with that verse,
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Luke 21, 20 says, and when you shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.
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Now, this was given where Jesus answered the question, when will the end of the age, the end of the world take place?
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What are the signs we look for at the end of the world? He said, well, when you see Jerusalem compassed about by armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh and they shall fall by the edge of the sword and shall be led away captive into all nations and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the
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Gentiles until the times Gentiles be fulfilled. What's interesting about it in Luke chapter 21, when you see the answer to that question,
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Luke recorded that Jesus talked about two different aspects. One was he, well,
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Matthew records it too. One is he answers the question, when is the temple going to be destroyed? Well, that happened in 70
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A .D. The second one, when is the end of the age? This part of Luke chapter 21 is talking about the first question.
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When is the temple going to be destroyed? And he talks about it there. Israel will be surrounded by nations and the edge of the sword will come.
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They're going to take Jews captive into all nations. And that happened in 70 A .D. But when you go ahead and you read the rest of Luke and the rest of Matthew 24, you find that he also about half the material talks about a future event, which shows us when the end of the world will come.
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Matthew 24, 16 says, Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains. Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take a thing out of his house.
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Now, what's interesting is in the Luke passage where it talks about the destruction of the temple, it says that Jerusalem would be destroyed.
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And the passages in Luke and Matthew where it talks about the end times. It doesn't say
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Israel is destroyed because it's not. And there is there is where you can see the contrast between the answer to the two questions and the amillennialist and postmillennialist who believe it's all just already happened.
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They'll tell you all of that's already happened in history. It happened, you know, with the Greeks and with the
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Romans and it's done. So it's not talking about some future event. Well, if you just read it, you can see they're wrong because it talks about many, many, many things that have never happened yet in the history of the world.
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If they have not happened yet and they're prophetic, it means they're in our future. Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes and woe unto them that are with child, et cetera.
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But pray that your flight would not be in winter for then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, nor even ever shall be in the future.
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And except those days should be shortened, there should be no flesh saved. But for the elect's sake, that's the ones that Jesus knew before the foundation of the world, all of the people he's going to save for their sakes, he will cut those days short.
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Now, Isaiah 61 3 has great significance in the light of these kinds of passages over in the
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New Testament. But Jesus did not read about this part that day because he only wanted to talk about the first coming.
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Well, let me do this. I'm not going to try to finish that part today.
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I also have some information here I'm going to save for next time. But it talks about persecution of Christians in the world today.
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You think that everything is safe and sound, but over 360 million
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Christians live in places right now where they experience high levels of persecution, 360 million.
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And if you if you look at recent figures, there have been 62 ,000
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Christians killed in Nigeria and by Islamic people just since the turn of the 21st century, 62 ,000 killed just because they're
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Christians. And just in the last weeks, we had over 450 some odd Christians killed just in their churches burned just because they're
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Christians in Nigeria. So this is going on right now. I have to wonder why the United States of America, who's supposed to be pro -democratic and pro -Christian, don't go in there, send special forces in there and do something.
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We should. But we know we want to go in other places. I don't know. I don't know how they're deciding where they go.
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But there are places we should go. And that's one of them. But let me get you a little taste of something that's coming.
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Ezekiel chapter 38, if you want to turn there, starting with verse one. This is a fascinating passage, it's
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Old Testament, right? And yet it speaks of something that has not happened yet in history, but is going to happen.
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And it speaks of the Russian army, which, as you know, right now is in a war with Ukraine, probably going to win that war and take over half of Ukraine, which gives it a pathway to march down.
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By the way, Moscow is directly north from Jerusalem. So when the Bible talks about the enemies from the north, it's talking about Russia.
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OK, when it talks about Gog and Magog, every historian that I've read and everyone that studies anything about humanity and where the different families of the world came from will say that Gog and Magog are
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Russia and it's Russia and northern Russia. So that's what this passage is talking about.
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In Ezekiel chapter 38, starting with verse one. And the word of the
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Lord came into me saying, I see this is this is the part that Jesus left out of Isaiah 61. He didn't talk about this part because it was going to happen prior to the second coming, not the first advent when he was there that day.
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And the word of the Lord came into me, the prophet said, son of man, set your face against Gog and the land of Magog.
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That's Russia and northern Russia. And the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and those are two city states that were in Russia at that time.
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We know where they were now. Archaeologists know where they were. And say, thus saith the
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Lord God, behold, I am against you. Oh, might as well say Russia, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.
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You might as well say Moscow, right? And I will turn you back and put hooks into your jaws and I will bring the fourth and all your army, all of them clothed with all sorts of armor, even a great company of bucklers and shields.
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Persia, Ethiopia. Now, now listen to this. These are the confederates of Russia that was prophesied some two thousand six, some eight hundred years ago.
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Persia is Iran, modern Iran. Ethiopia and Libya are in Islamic Africa.
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These nations will fight with Russia against those Christians and Jews in the end of time.
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And just this week. We've got an escalation of war in the Red Sea, the
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Red Sea, most of the goods that come to this country from overseas come through the
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Red Sea to get here. And how do you pronounce it? The Houthis, am
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I saying it right? Houthis, they are from the eastern coast of Africa, Islamic people who
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Iran is funding, Iran being Persia here in the scripture. And they're attacking ships with missiles and drones and blowing up cargo ships.
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Now, they would have blown up a lot more of them if the United States and France and a couple of other nations hadn't been out there shooting their rockets down and their drones down and destroying them.
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But we're going to miss one. And as soon as they blow an actual ship up and sink it, it's either U .S.,
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British or French or something like that. You're going to have all out war right there. So all of this, this is in the part of the world that this scripture is talking about two thousand eight hundred years ago prophetically.
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So then it goes on, says Persia, Ethiopia and Libya. That's the very part of the world where these fighters are coming from.
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Gomer and all his bands in the house of Tagarmah and the northern quarters and all of his bands and many people, be thou prepared and prepare for thyself, thou and all thy company that are assembled unto thee.
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He's talking to the Russians and their confederates, which are the Islamic and Arab nations that go with Russia to attack
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Jews and Christians. And so God is telling them through this prophet to be prepared because he says, if after many days and I want you to I want you to think about time periods going by when this was written up until today, where we are now, after many days, thou shalt be visited.
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Now, when you see God visiting you, that's a bad thing in many contexts in the scripture, because usually like if a nation attacks
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Israel in the Old Testament, then God will visit that nation and destroy it. So a visitation of God against a nation that that's trying to hurt his people is a bad visitation.
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And that's what this is talking about. Be prepared, prepare yourself after many days, thou shalt be visited in the latter years.
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Thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword. Now, think picture this.
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Israel was destroyed in 70 A .D. That's a long time ago, almost 2000 years ago, was destroyed and scattered.
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The Jews were scattered in every nation. Right. After World War Two, 1940, I always forget the exact year.
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When is it, Ron? When Israel became Israel became a nation again, they let them go back to their land and they've been there ever since.
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And they're growing. More and more Jews are going there from all over the world to be safe. And so look at this.
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It is a land that was brought back from the sword. Right. It's a land that was made a nation again after the sword destroyed it.
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Here we see so clearly this ancient prophecy showing what's happened since 1948.
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And I wasn't born quite yet in 48, 54. That's not much in the future from there.
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So predominantly in my lifetime, these things have been fulfilled. So after many days, you'll be the enemies of God will be visited.
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And he says in the latter years, you will come into the land that is brought back from the sword.
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So there's going to come a day when Russia attacks Israel. That is there again now because we brought it back from the sword, the
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United Nations after America won the war, World War Two, and the British and our allies won that war.
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Israel was brought back from the sword and is gathered out of many people. So the Jews came from every nation, from many people back to their land against the mountains of Israel.
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Now it just names it. It says it's Israel. Now, this when this was written, this had not happened yet.
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In fact, when my mom was born, this had not happened yet. It happened roughly in my lifetime, and the people have come back from all over the world, back into Israel.
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And so these places around Israel have been always laid waste throughout the history of the world since the time of Abraham, because everyone hates
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Jews. Why do they hate you? They represent God and humans hate God. There's none righteous, not one.
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The Bible says none that seeketh after God. We've all gone our own way. Humans can act nice and pretty all they want, but in the inner core, they think they're
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God and they hate the true God until the Holy Spirit awakens them and they're regenerated.
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And then all of a sudden, in one moment of time, they change that whole viewpoint and they love God. It's a miracle for any of us to have that happen.
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All right. So the Bible calls it the calling. The Holy Spirit calls you and opens your eyes to see
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Jesus for who he really is. And when you see him for who he is, he's irresistible. When you see that, you'll be saved because you will want him, you'll desire him, and the
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Holy Spirit puts that desire in your heart because you did not have it two seconds before that. If you had, you'd have gotten saved then.
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You see my point? So here we see the scripture pointing to these things in the latter times.
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So they've always been waste, but now it is brought forth out of the nations and they shall dwell safely, all of them.
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So Israelis have dwelt relatively safely since 1948 because the
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United States of America has armed them and protected them every time the
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Arabs and Islamic nations from all over the world have tried to destroy them. We've gone in and protected them and they can't beat us yet.
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They still can't beat us. They don't have the technology we've got. They can't even get their missiles to the ships because we shoot them out of the air before they get there.
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It's amazing technology that God's given America. Now, we're the protector of Israel.
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My question is, if we stop protecting them, what will happen? I don't even want to think about it. But right now we're protecting
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Israel. We are aligned properly, whereas Russia and China are against Israel and all the
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Islamic nations are not aligned. In fact, they're about to be visited. The Bible says here, so thou shalt ascend and come like a storm.
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Now it talks about, OK, Israel was gone, then it was put back in place and they dwell safely.
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And then somewhere, and that's already happened, but somewhere in the future from us right now, Russia is going to come toward Israel like a storm.
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Well, going through Ukraine is going toward Israel. You do know that, right? Check out your map when you get home.
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It's going toward Israel, OK? So I'm not saying this is the time where they're going to go and attack
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Israel. I'm just saying they're one nation, they're one border closer than they were last year. And they will be like a cloud to cover the land, the
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Russians and their Confederates will be. Thou and all your bands, that means their Confederates and many people with thee, with Russia.
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Thus saith the Lord God, it shall also come to pass that at the same time shall things come into their mind and they will think an evil thought.
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And the evil thought they think is they will say, well, I'm going to go up to the land of unwalled villages and I will go to them that are at their rest and they dwell safely, all dwelling without walls and have neither bars nor gates.
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And I'm going to spoil them and take a prey to turn my thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited.
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That's Israel, desolate places that are now inhabited. They've planted a hundred thousand trees there since they became a nation because it was desolate.
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It was just it was leveled by the Romans and it just became like desert. Now it's beautiful if you go over there and look at it.
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I've been there twice. It's just amazing how it is now. Now shall say I'm going to go up and take this.
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I'm going to take spoil. I'm going to turn my hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations.
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That's the Jews which have gotten cattle and goods that dwell in the midst of the land. I'm going to skip to verse 17.
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Thus saith the Lord God, art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants, the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years prior to when this was written, that I will bring you against them.
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I will bring Russia against Israel and it will come to pass at the same time when
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Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord God, that my fury shall come up in my face.
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God says he's about to pay him a visit. Russia that is for in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have
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I spoken. Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel so that the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the heaven and the beast of the field and all the creeping things that creep on the earth and all the men that are upon the face of the earth will shake in my presence.
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That has not happened yet. No, it's not true that all the stuff in Matthew 24 has already happened.
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Most of it has not happened. So the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the air and all the people are going to be shaken.
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Listen, that is a worldwide tribulation. It's not just in Israel. That's never happened.
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When he answered the first question about when will the temple be destroyed, that was only in Israel and he answered when it would and it did happen just like he laid out.
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The Romans encircled it, destroyed the city and scattered them throughout the world. That happened in 70 AD. So let me ask you a question.
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If Jesus's prophecy of when the temple would be fulfilled out 40 years in his future happened to the letter, why do you think his prophecy of what's going to happen at the second coming isn't going to happen to the letter?
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Why do you think, oh, it's just figurative. So I'm going to teach theology in the seminaries that teaches that never happens.
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That way, all my seminary students and future preachers can be asleep when it happens and all their people in the pews can be asleep and all the people that aren't in the pews will be asleep.
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And so this is exactly what the prophet said would happen. For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have
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I spoken. Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking of the land. Verse 21.
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And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my nation. Against who? Russia, throughout all my mountains, saith the
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Lord God. Every man's sword will be against his brother. And then you go into the next chapter.
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Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog and say, thus saith the Lord God, behold, I'm against you, oh,
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Russia, the chief prince of Meshach and Tubal, that's Moscow. Meshach is Moscow.
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And I will turn thee back and leave but the sixth part of thee. Now, five sixths of the
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Russian army will be destroyed at this point. Five sixths, almost all of it will be destroyed.
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And I will leave only one sixth part of you and will cause you to come up from the north parts.
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That's where Russia is now. And I'm going to bring you upon the mountains of Israel. They're going to come down south toward Israel.
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And when they get close, some somewhere around either the northern part of Syria or the northern part of Lebanon, I hadn't figured out which route they'll take yet.
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Probably could figure that out if I, you know, we together could look into that. It doesn't matter. They're going to come south toward Israel.
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And he says, when you do that, God says, I'm going to destroy five sixths of you.
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And I will smite your bow out of your left hand. What does that mean? All of the armaments that they are so proud of, that they put in their parades every once a year in Moscow and they got the missiles going up and down and they're, you know, inter -ballistic missiles and all this stuff.
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God's going to destroy the bow out of their left hand. And that's representative of their armaments, their weapons of war will be destroyed by something.
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And it's God that's behind it. Right. Maybe God that just does it. And I will cause your arrows to fall out of your right hand.
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So their weapons are going to be destroyed. And thou shalt fall. Listen to this. You will fall upon the mountains of Israel.
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And that's the mountains north of Israel. The mountainous area that's north of Israel, you and all.
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And this is not Armageddon, by the way. This happens before Armageddon. Armageddon is even worse than this.
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OK, so this is what we call the Russian war. This happens before Armageddon, I believe. There's two thoughts on that.
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Some people believe it's Armageddon. I don't think so. And thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou and all your bands and the people that is with thee.
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And I will give you unto the ravenous birds of every sort and to the beasts of the field to eat you.
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God says this is a visitation from God. Thou shalt fall upon the open field, for I have spoken, it says the
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Lord. Now, when God says it happens because I spoke, it's because he's sovereign. See, churches don't like that doctrine anymore, either.
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It happens because I said it and I'm God. People don't like that doctrine today, but he's in control of everything.
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All right. So now he says it's going to happen because I've spoken it and I will send a fire on Magog and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles.
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Now, here's what's interesting about that. The only place that we think we can find America in the
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Bible is where it talks about the isles. That's short for island, right? Because England is an island compared to the rest of the
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Roman Empire. So during that, you got to look at the context when this is written, because like Ben taught in Sunday school this morning,
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God used men to write the Bible and he used the context that they lived in. Sometimes you've got to ask, who were they talking to?
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What was the topic? You know what was going on in the world at that time? Well, when it speaks of the isles, we think it's speaking of England and its progeny, which is the little nations and big nations that came from England, which
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United States is one of them. So we would be considered an island, a rather large island from the viewpoint of the
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Roman Empire, where it is in Europe and Asia, right where it used to be. And so I think this could be talking about America.
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But if it is, then look what this pictures. I will send a fire on Magog and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles.
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Would you describe America as a people that are dwelling carelessly right now? Like nothing will happen.
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No one's as strong as we are. We can live any way and do anything we want to do to any other people we want to do it to.
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Even when God says, don't do that, we're going to be just fine. Same way Rome said it, same way Greece before them said it, and they don't exist anymore, but we're saying it in America.
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This is going to be just fine. We can live any way we want. There's a way that seemeth right in our eyes and we will do it.
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And yet it contradicts what God says is right. And God will pay a visit to people like that. So what a picture this.
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If you could just put this in modern language, picture what this looks like right here. If you understand intercontinental ballistic missiles, which
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I do, I know a little bit about rockets. So here's what
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I picture. I will send fire upon Russia and upon upon them that dwell carelessly in the isles.
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Now, if this is Russia and Europe and this is the United States, you've got an ocean here and one of them launches their ballistic missiles.
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What do you think the other one's going to do within five minutes? The U .S.
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is going to launch it's and they're going to pass each other in the sky and then they're both going to suffer annihilation like the world has never seen before.
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You may not even have enough sun left showing to grow crops for years after that nuclear winter is what they call it, but but this is what this verse pictures.
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God says, I will send fire upon Russia and those who dwell carelessly in the isles and they shall know that I'm God.
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At that point, people will fear God and instead of just being careless about it, like I don't know if God's even watching.
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I don't know if he's even there. So will I make my holy name known in the midst of the people of Israel and I will not let them pollute my holy name anymore.
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So the Jews are not right with God either. When all this happens, part of the reason this happens is
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Israel's being spanked. God's people are being spanked. And as far as America, God's people called
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Christians are being spanked. It's called, you know, it's it's tribulation. And it always happens when
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God's people get away from God, he brings them back, he gives like a caring parent who spanks their child so that they come back and lovingly hug and get right with each other and restore the relationship.
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That's what this is about. That's what the whole tribulation period is about is for Israel and it's for Gentile saved people that are
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Christians to get right with God and get close to him again. And nothing will do that more than when
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God takes all your toys away and you're not even sure you've got enough food. All of a sudden, you know, all the things that distract us will be gone and we'll just be thinking,
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God save us, God save me. Let me find a way through this. Let my family find a way through this because they're going about killing all the
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Christians and Jews in this time period. They're going to cut their heads off and looking for them in the cities. One good clue for you, if you're hearing my voice today, is don't be in the city when this starts.
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You don't need to be in the city. That's the easiest place for them to start. And that's where they'll start. So here we see this is speaking of something in the future that Jesus said, no, this is not what's going to happen at the first advent.
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This is going to happen shortly prior to my second coming. And I can't read all this.
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So let's see. Let's see what happens here. Now, this is fascinating. This is really fascinating.
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So, OK, so this these whatever these things are going back and forth and bringing fire to these nations, these two nations it's speaking of, creates a lot of death and destruction.
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And look what happens. Behold, it is come and it is done, saith the Lord. This is the day whereof
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I have spoken and they that dwell in the cities of Israel will go forth and shall set fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and the bucklers, et cetera.
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And they will burn them for seven years. So whatever has happened out there, they don't approach the equipment or the people for a long time.
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And then they go out and they burn it all in the fire burns for seven years, and so they shall take no wood out of the field, neither cut down any of the forest, for they shall burn the weapons with fire and they shall spoil those that spoil them and rob those that rob them, saith the
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Lord God. And it shall come to pass in that day that I will give unto Russia a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea.
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It shall be it shall stop the noses of the passengers. So here you see five, six of the
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Russian army destroyed and laying out there because no one can touch them. What do you know of today in modern technology?
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That you would make something would happen to a body and you couldn't go near it and touch it for many, many months or years.
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Nuclear, not necessarily a neutron bomb, but a nuclear bomb. Neutron is a form of that. But that doesn't hurt.
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It kills electronics. This one kills people. And not only that, but that contaminates everything that it touches with nuclear waste so that if you went around it, it would kill you.
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How in the world could that have been written 2 ,800 years ago? You didn't have nuclear bombs back then.
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Only if God wrote it. Only if God, who foresaw the future and predestined the future, wrote this book right here, this
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Bible. So, yeah, you know, you wonder atheists like to mock Christians.
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But some of the most intelligent people who have ever lived have been Christians. Some of the greatest scientists have been
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Christians. Why? Why would intelligent people believe this book? Because they see things like this.
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You can't answer this if you're an atheist. You haven't even seen this if you're an atheist. You haven't seen this because if you had, you'd probably be saved by now, right?
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You read something like this and you're much of a thinker. You think, well, how'd that get written? They say, oh, well, it was it was written after Christ.
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Well, you know what? After Christ, they didn't have nukes yet either, did they? But we know from the
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Dead Sea Scrolls, this none of this was written after Christ. It was written. It was carbon dated at least 300 years before Christ.
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All of these prophecies happened before Jesus was born. God is good when he allows those kinds of things to be discovered, isn't he?
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Good before it before that, too. All right, so here you see that seven years go by and they they make a heap of dead bodies in Israel and give it a name.
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It's a mountain full of dead Russian soldiers buried and they give it a name.
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And it tells you what the name is going to be. And so the people that pass by will stop their noses because of the stink of death and there shall they bury
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Russia and all of his multitude, Iran, Iraq, go through and name them, and they shall call it the
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Valley of Haman dash Gog. Haman sounds a lot like Haman, Jordan, but it represents the
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Islamics and the Russians together. In seven months shall the half of Israel be burying these bodies and they will cleanse the land.
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And yea, all the people land shall bury them and it shall it shall be to them a renown the day that I shall be glorified, says the
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Lord God, and they shall sever out men of continual employment. Now, watch this is amazing.
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This is verse 14. They're going to be people that Israel hires workers that are of specific skill sets to deal with nuclear contaminated bodies.
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And they will employ these, they will sever them out from among the men. In other words, they'll bring these gifted, skilled individuals from among the rest of the people and they will continually employ them, which means it's not a short time job.
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It's a full time job and they're going to pass through the land to bury those that remain upon the face of the earth to cleanse it after the end of the seven months shall they search.
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So they're not going to touch the bodies for seven months to let the nuclear waste die down a little bit.
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And then they send people in special suits that have special skills to get them and bury them and burn them and bury them and so forth.
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Now, I just find that fascinating that that's written two thousand six hundred years before now and certainly thousands of years before nuclear material even existed or was known about.
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But there you have it. And so Jesus left all of this part out that day, but God didn't leave it out because it's all the rest of Isaiah 61 and its portions in Ezekiel 38 and 39.
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And then you go over in the book of Revelation and the New Testament where it quotes a lot of these passages and talks about very detailed, specific things that are going to be happening in our future.
01:00:06
None of these things have happened yet except the things that had to do with the destruction of the temple, which was the first question they asked
01:00:14
Jesus. Isn't that fascinating? So all of this was sort of found,
01:00:19
I saw it in the Christmas story this year. I'm done with it now, though. So if you miss some of it, you can go back on Park Meadows Church dot com.
01:00:27
If you don't put the word church, you're going to get a Park Meadows and walks a hatchet. It's a different church. So Park Meadows Church dot com, if you want to catch the first part of this story of the
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Christmas story with all of these 12 wonderful doctrines. And so this last one just simply had to do with Jesus stopped and didn't talk about the second coming.
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But you have to ask the question, why do you leave it out? Because he wasn't going to fulfill it yet for approximately 2000 years.
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And now we see it starting to happen. All right. That's all we have time for. If we're going to get you home before the highways freeze over, let's stand and have prayer together.
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By the way, if you're visiting, we have food, lunch here every Sunday after church. We always have enough for visitors.
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If you want to stay, we'd love to have you if you can fit your schedule. All right. Let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for your word.
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We ask you to bless it in our lives, help us to carry some of these truths to our friends that don't know about these things, maybe get them thinking about these things and about you.
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And we ask you to bless each person here with this message. And may you use it in our lives to let us be better salt and light to the age we live in.
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And Lord, go with us into this time of fellowship, bless it and bless the meal we ask in Jesus name. Amen.
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And give us all a safe ride home. Hey, little one, are you kidding me?
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No, I'm not kidding. That's awesome. It's snowing already. How are we? How are we going to get home?
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Thank you, sweetie. Gemma, I'll take it home. Thanks.