Well, 2024 has gotten off with a big bang, literally. In fact, several big bangs, and we're not talking about origins. The big bang I'm talking about is bombings that have happened. We're right into this new year. It's amazing to me that this year has started off the way it has. And what's funny is I've noticed that a lot of people are sort of not really aware of what's going on. The news doesn't always cover things like they used to back in the old days. And so a lot of Americans particularly are really, you know, they know what's going on with target stores and pronouns and diversity and all that stuff. But a lot of the things as far as what's going on in geopolitics around the world and warfare, global warfare, and the potential for war to spread, some people are even saying, are we nearing World War III? Now, that's legitimate people asking those questions. So, this year did start off, in fact, at midnight, at 12 o'clock sharp at midnight in Tel Aviv, rockets were flying from Hamas. That was the first big boom of 2024. Here's some video footage of that event. About some say 30 rockets flew across the border from Gaza. Now, if you've been following, these are people celebrating New Year's Eve, seeing midnight, they're all thinking this is fireworks and stuff. This is in Israel, but those little flashes were two rockets, and then now there's two more rockets flying from the Gaza region into Israel. And there's all kinds of footage of this because everybody had their cameras out, you know, for New Year's Eve at 1201, this is what was happening. You'd think that Hamas was, you know, wiped out. Like if you see what's happened in Gaza, you think, where in the world are these guys hiding? Well, there's still tunnels and there's still work to be done. The Jews have not found all these launching locations in the Gaza region. I think a lot of people think Gaza is just leveled. There's no more Hamas, you know, and all this stuff. But actually, this is midnight, New Year's Eve, just a few nights ago. And fortunately, Iron Dome did the trick. And a lot of these really didn't land After the southern central Israel, all the sirens went off. It had intercepted most of the missiles. All the sirens were activated all over southern Israel, and people were in bunkers after that. But no injuries have been reported from this missile attack. But it did blow up some areas with people that were not there, so that's great. Nobody was hurt. Now, one of the problems, by the way, with Israel's Iron Dome, you can even see it, when there's a flash of light in the sky, that means Iron Dome has taken out a rocket. It's really pretty high tech, the Iron Dome system, but they're working on another system I've shown you in previous Prophecy Updates, a laser system. The Iron Dome is very expensive to operate. Every time you have to shoot one of these rockets out of the sky, it's tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars But their new technology is laser technology, and it's going to cost them $1.39 per shot to fire this laser. And they're saying it's close to operational, which is going to be helpful and save some money. But this is an incredible, like really attack. And the world somehow thinks because Israel has the technology to defend herself from these rockets, 30 rockets flying over the sky into Israel, they think it's somehow unfair. because the Jews have technology that shoots these rockets down. But what would we do as Americans if this happened in Portland? We had rockets flying into Portland, 30 rockets on New Year's Eve. I'm pretty sure the United States would respond a lot more radically, but at least 20, but some say close to 30 rockets. Now, 30 is nothing. When I was in Israel with our last tour, we had 4,000 rockets from that same region fly over while we were in Israel, 4,000 rockets in two weeks. So that's just, there's a reason why Hamas is being taken out. Now, you might say, well, Brett, why are we talking so much about Israel? You know, prophecy update, Israel is the epicenter of Bible prophecy and Jerusalem is the epicenter of all things Bible prophecy. So that's why we really need to focus tonight on what's going on there. All that to say, this is incredible that, in fact, the Gaza Strip, this is still kind of the underground operations of Hamas that's still in action. That was boom number one in 2024, in the first seconds of the year, we saw that. The second big boom that happened was the assassination of senior officer Salah al-Ahouri, which he is one of the, you know, top senior leaders of Hamas and he was feeling very safe there up in Beirut. On the second day, now this is day two of 2024, on the second day a drone operated by probably, they're not admitting this yet, It's kind of laughable that a precision guided rocket hit this apartment on the third story. And it was very precise. In fact, Israel saying, we didn't do that, but whoever did that really knew what they were doing. And they were to guide this missile right into the window of the room that this guy was in. And it's kind of interesting how Israel is very precise. They really are trying not to have collateral damage and what have you. But Salah al-Huri, third man, is in seniority to Hamas, was in Beirut there. And this shook up the world a little bit because whoever did this, knew exactly where he was. And this is where Nasrallah and some of the other Hezbollah leaders and what have you are a little concerned that Israel seems to be able to do kind of what they want when they want. This proved that Israel could probably take out Nasrallah. I would recommend Steve, the tour guides, he did a just a few minute thing a couple days ago. And I think he nailed it when he said, you know, Israel, the reason they don't take the Hamas leader, or pardon me, the Hezbollah leader out up there in Lebanon is because the devil, you know, is maybe better than the devil you don't know. Nasrallah has softened his sort of actions in the past, a couple of years, it seems like he's maybe matured, if you could even say that, to where he knows that probably going to war head to head with Israel is not the brightest thing to do right now. So people are wondering, why hasn't Nasrallah done something about this? There was a bombing that happened in Beirut, like this should be the Hezbollah just retaliating now. But you'll note, they're still kind of holding steady. And the world kind of scratches his head saying, why is that? And it has a lot to do with Israel's ability and maybe the leader of Hezbollah, maybe perhaps knows better. But all that to say, this leader, this guy is gone. Now the leadership of Hamas, this makes them not feel safe. There's leaders that are outside of Gaza, like this man who are probably shaking in their shoes right now because Israel has, vowed to destroy Hamas completely. So killing the deputy chief of Hamas political bureau could be, some people are worried about the sparking of retaliation. Now, why do we care about this? The world is watching Israel. And one of the things in Bible prophecy is the attitude of the world toward Israel and the way that they think toward Israel's response or reactions to what's going on, I think is following the biblical narrative. And I'll show you more about that as we get further into this. By the way, when this guy was taken out, Babylon B strikes again. I have to do my monthly Babylon B shout out. I just thought this was just a little funny. Tragic, Hamas loses two leaders in one day. Of course, she was the president of Harvard who was recently let go for, you know, for reasons that I'm not really sure, other than she really did a horrible job in basically saying, it's okay if you're a Harvard student and you wanna say death to Jews and stuff like that. It was shocking how she would not give on that. And thus, because of plagiarism, technically she lost her job. But anyway, Babylon would be always kind of funny the way they put stuff. So boom number one, day one, 2024, Israel rockets from Hamas going into Israel. Boom number two, Israel blows up the third story in Beirut and kills the Hamas leader. Boom number three, next day, happened in Iran that shook the world. And of course, this is the first major attack on Iran on Iranian soil that has taken place in quite some time, at least as effective as this one. Iran explosion, the bomb blast near Qasem Soleimani's grave. And if you remember Qasem Soleimani, we'll talk about him. Soleimani, he was the guy that the United States took out a few years ago. And they've always vowed retribution and all that stuff. But on the third day of 2024, Iran blamed Israel and the United States on Wednesday, just a couple of days ago. that the United States and Israel blew this up. But it's funny to me because guess who took credit for this? The Islamic State. Some say ISIS, it depends on who you're talking to. But Al-Qaeda, the same groups that are ISIS, Al-Qaeda, or Islamic State, but the Islamic State claimed responsibility Thursday on their social media platform for these two suicide bombings targeting a commemoration for this general. You can see when the bomb goes off, the people panic, but a lot of people killed in this. It's so tragic when you see the taking of life. And why would Islamic State, well, you gotta remember, So the Shiites and the Sunnis are still against each other. The only thing that makes Sunnis and Shiites come together is their hatred for Israel and their hatred for the United States of America. And that's when you see them all come together. But with this situation, this is probably a case where the Sunnis attacked the Shiite part of Iran and the leadership of Iran. So this was a big commemoration from the 2020 killing drone strike of the worst terror attack. This is the worst terror attack in Iran for decades. So Iranians are starting to feel a little more vulnerable. This boom was the boom that the world is concerned about because who knows what Iran will do because of this, things are heating up in Iran. Iran has thus far been using its proxies. All these little groups, whether it's Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis or others that are their proxy, they supply weapons and money to these groups and are able to sort of kind of keep their hands clean. But it really is just the Iranians attacking Israel, attacking the United States, we'll talk more about that. The Wednesday attack in Kerman, that's the place this town killed, the numbers are, some people say 140 people were injured, others say up to 284, but 84 people are confirmed killed at least in this targeted ceremony. Now Soleimani, this is the guy that the United States took out by an American drone strike in 2020. This is, This makes the Islamic clerics there in Tehran, they put this flag up over their little places of worship and mosques. And this little red flag means retribution, and they keep it flying until they get their blood for blood kind of thing. And that's one of the things that the world is kind of wondering, what's Iran gonna do since they're blaming, of course, Israel and the United States for this? But that's just the first three days of this year. Those are some bloody, brutal days of 2024. We're off with a bang, sadly, here in 24. And 24 is proving to already ramp up. And the question, how far is it gonna go? Did you know that Israel right now is fighting on five fronts? This is a shock, huh? Well, just hold on, we'll get to that. Israel is fighting on five fronts. It depends on who you talk to, but let me show you this. I'll tell you why five fronts, I'm being conservative on this. One is because right now the five fronts, Israel, the IDF is saying we are fighting on the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Iran, we're fighting Iran. They would say those are the five fronts we're fighting right now. The reason they're not including the Houthis on that, by the way, is because the United States is tangled up with the Houthis. Like, we're the ones trying to handle the Houthis for the most part, and Israel is not doing much really, but they probably will and could at any moment, I should say. But where it gets to the seven is right here, this independent article, Israel readies for war on seven fronts, as attacks recorded in neighboring countries. In an address to the Israeli government on Tuesday, Yoav Galat, the country's defense minister, and one of the only three members of its war cabinet, said they were coming under attack in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank, but also Iraq, Yemen, and Iran. So, you know, this is a big deal. When you and I as Bible people read that the nations of the world are gonna start grouping against Israel, the fact that Israel is preparing and planning and saying, we've got seven fronts that we have to keep our eyes on right now, what country does that? I mean, how many countries can hold against seven other countries? Some of the old wars of Israel, you know, the war of independence when Israel was attacked by five neighboring Arab nations. Everybody thought that was miraculous that Israel survived that. We're watching these nations that are powerful, and they have powerful weapons. Israel, the defense minister said, we are in a multi-front war coming under attack from seven theaters, he said, before listing them all. Without specifying, he added that they were taking action on six of the fronts, but one of those is where the United States is dealing with the Houthis. We'll talk about that in a second. So five see a lot of action, but there's seven that they're watching. They said they had also seen multiple explosions in the area throughout the day, though there were no casualties. they're seeing, the United States is announcing that there's a multinational maritime security initiative that started in the Red Sea. Now, keep that, what is a maritime security initiative, a multinational, what is that? Some would call it war. Others would say, it's maritime. That sounds happy. Oh, let's have a maritime initiative. That sounds really fun. Merry Christmas, maritime initiative. That's awesome. But I'm telling you, there's a reason I think the United States is not calling it what it is. You see, one of the battlefields that Israel has to watch, but the United States is engaged in, maybe even more than Israel right now, is the Red Sea battlefield that's happening right now. And in the Red Sea, we've got some interesting things going on. Now, the Gerald Ford is there in the Mediterranean Sea. But one of the things you should note is they're heading home now. It was really something, I have to say, it was a shock to see the Biden administration send this battle group into the Mediterranean when October 7th happened and there was the threat of Iran attacking Israel and Lebanon and Hezbollah. The Biden administration said, we're gonna be there for Israel. And that was a shocker how much he poured into that. But now the Gerald Ford is getting ready to head back. Now, what does that mean of the United States support for Israel? I'm not sure, people are speculating, but that was a great show of force, but they're getting ready to leave. They're headed for home after being there for almost three months, but they're still gonna be sending other ships to that region. But one of the other regions that we're seeing where the United States is getting a stronger presence, where we've got battleships and what have you, is the Red Sea. Some of you have been with me to the Red Sea, and it's always an interesting thing. Where we go to the Red Sea, it's quite a sight to behold. We go down to Eilat in Israel. Sometimes we'll take a dinner boat and we'll just do a dinner boat out in the Red Sea and you can look out and you can see Saudi Arabia, you can see Jordan, you can see Israel, and you can see Egypt, all just within a mile of your boat. And it's quite a deal. We've seen rockets actually fly while we were down there in a lot. We had a hotel once blow up in Egypt, right next to where we were staying on one of our trips. But that was in Egypt, a very different security, different place. But even on the southern tip, now they're seeing these Houthis and others that are causing trouble, proxies of Iran, making all kinds of trouble in the Red Sea. The Red Sea is a major thoroughfare for the world's economy and the cargo ships and what have you that are going through there. Did you see, just speaking of 2024, just the last day of 2023, maybe you saw this New York Times article The US helicopters sink three Houthi boats in the Red Sea. We've been seeing these Houthi boats come and threaten cargo ships. The United States has said, you guys need to stop that. And they said, yeah, whatever. And so the United States is starting to say, don't mess with the ships. Well, this particular one, by the way, here, I think I have some video footage of some of these ships. That's the ship that was fired on on January, or December, the last day of December. But these United States helicopters that came off of the carrier that's down in there was going to defend this big ship when they started firing on the United States helicopters. Not a bright thing to do. and they believe it was our helicopter's 50 caliber gun that took three of the four boats of the Houthis from Yemen, took three of those four boats out. And this isn't the footage of those things, but these are some of the training videos and some of the things that our military and others are working on. and also the Houthis, they're trying to figure out how to take over these cargo ships. They tried to board the mayor's cargo ship, but to no avail. So the United States, these kinds of helicopters here, we shot out three Houthi boats killing 10 just the last day of 2023. You have to understand, this is what a lot of nations, a lot of people would call war. Are we at war? Is the United States at war? Well, if you were some of these guys that have been training over in that region and shooting boats out of the water, you might say that we are. This is kind of an interesting thing, you know, a clash between the Houthi fighters, Iranian backed, basically appears to be the first of several. Maybe you saw, was it yesterday, another kind of vessel came, and it was a unmanned drone boat, and it was pretty high tech. The world kind of was shocked that the Houthis have a drone boat that was supposed to go, but the problem is it blew up too soon. It blew up a couple miles away from its target. Fortunately, our military was able to see it with their own eyes blow up. But it was an unmanned drone ship or boat that did kind of raise the eyebrows of even the United States. We realized, man, one of these boats, if they're lucky with that kind of explosive power, could really hurt one of our ships. So everybody's on red alert. So that was yesterday on the 4th after an ultimatum by the US and its allies. I ran back Houthis tried to attack with that unmanned vessel. The United States refuses to call this a war, but what do we call it? A multinational maritime security initiative. Now, the question is why? Well, it's not just in the Red Sea. It's not just in the Red Sea. Do you know what's going on? with our US forces, this was an article that goes, and I gotta say, it goes all the way back to November 17th. So this is an old article, but I wanted you to see it because this is an old article that states US forces attacked 151 times in Iraq, Syria during Biden presidency. How many of these attacks have you heard about? Once in a while it sneaks up and says, oh, one of our bases was attacked by something and nothing really happened, so it's all okay. But we're also not known for being really upfront about death, American soldier deaths. And there are people that are claiming the United States is not being open with the regular public of the United States about what's really happening, but we've been attacked a lot, 151 times in Iraq and Syria during the Biden presidency. Now, why are they not wanting to call this, we're at war with these nations, even though we have soldiers there and people's lives at risk and people dying even? I'll tell you, it's really two words, election year. Nobody wants to think that there's a war going on during an election year. This is election year. Congratulations. I'm sure you're all very much looking forward to 2024 as we get ready to grapple with debates. Maybe they won't have any debates. Who knows? But it's going to be ugly, I'm pretty sure. This election is going to be ugly, as they all tend to be. But this article, the Pentagon, Iranian-backed proxies have attacked U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria. And more than a third of those attacks have occurred in the last month of November of this article. It's only ramped up since this article. In fact, you know, the United States, we are retaliating to some degree. The big debate is, are the United States really doing much about these attacks? Are we worried about these attacks? Our Biden administration is saying, eh, it's kind of no big deal, we're taking care of everything. And they are doing some things, like there's some interesting footage that came out, I thought this was an interesting, this was unclassified November 12th, 2023, where taking out, this is a US retaliatory airstrike in North Abu Kamal, Syria. the 12th of November on 2023. According to the US, the target was an IRGC training facility and they took that out as retaliation for being attacked. So, you know, they're shooting rockets at us and we're blowing up their training facilities. Again, I would say, some would call that war. But the reason it's interesting is because, you know, the Bible talks about, Jesus said in the last days, there would be wars and rumors of wars. That's kind of the narrative. And that's exactly what we're seeing today. So election year, now. This election year may be one of the biggest indicators, if you ask me, as a Bible student, a person who likes to read the Bible and read Bible prophecy, the election and how it goes this year might be one of the big indicators of how close to the last days are we. Are we living in the last days? Is the rapture of the church gonna happen soon? I believe it's very possible. It wouldn't surprise me if the rapture happened tonight before we get our Sinnebons. That'd be great. I'd love that. But if it doesn't happen tonight, I believe the rapture could happen soon. I lived my life with that imminent awaiting of the rapture of the church of Jesus Christ. It could happen at any time. Could be another hundred years. Doubt it. But we're supposed to live with that eminence. But this election, What does the Bible say about the world's geopolitics, especially as it relates to the United States? Well, many of you Bible prophecy students know the United States is mysteriously absent from the Bible when it comes to the world events of the last days. That's where it's really something interesting. As far as all the Bible prophecy things I could stack up, maybe if I had to, if somebody said, Brett, what's your number one argument of why the rapture would not happen tonight? Well, I would have a hard time making that argument, first of all. But if I was forced to, I might say, because the United States is still a powerful nation. That might be the one reason I would say, because, but question, what happens to the United States after the rapture of the church? Like 10 seconds after the rapture of the church, what does the United States look like? I think maybe more than most nations, even though the United States is largely not as much a Christian nation as it once was, I still think we might just be the most affected nation when the rapture of the church happens, especially when it comes to our military. Don't you wonder how much of our military will be left after the rapture of the church? So the problem that I'm suggesting that the United States is still a military power feared by the world is one of the things that sort of keeps the biblical narrative of a one world government and all that stuff. We're kind of the thorn in the side of those globalists who would like to see that happen. The United States, we still like ourselves to be land of the free, hopefully. But once the United States is taken out of the equation, you can almost see how the whole Bible prophecy narrative is gonna come together. That's why this election is gonna be interesting. Strong leadership from America is not part of the biblical narrative of the future events. If there is one hint of the United States in Bible prophecy, does anybody know where that's at? Anybody wanna take a stab at that one? The young lions, right. In the book of Daniel, and also Ezekiel. Ezekiel talks about this mostly in the Gog Magog war. When those Gog Magog nations, we've done whole teachings on who they are, I'm not gonna go into that tonight. But the stage is sure set for that right now, the Gog Magog battle. The nations have fallen into place, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Russia. The players are right there for the Magog War of Ezekiel 38. But there's a group of nations, and one of the nations, the young lions, that some would suggest might be the United States. We stand with others, England and others, and what do we do? Does anybody remember what is our thing? We just wag our finger and say, you know, shame on you guys for attacking Israel. And that's all we do. Does that sound like the United States? Yeah, with weak leadership. If we have weak leadership, then I can see us just say, hey, Nadi, I can't believe you guys have attacked Israel like that. But to not do anything about it, it's gonna take, the end time scenario is gonna take whoever's leading the United States, if the United States even exists at that time, it's gonna take a weak leader to be that, because there's gonna be other strong nations very much involved with the attack, all the world attacking Israel. But Israel will be on its own in the Gog Magog invasion, and also be on its own during the Armageddon attack, when the last battle of the seven years of tribulation, Israel will be attacked by the nations of the world. In fact, let's talk about that biblically here just for a second, because this is really key. What does the Bible say about the second coming of Jesus Christ? Now, remember, if you follow pre-trib, pre-millennial eschatology, and there's different views, and you can have different views if you like, and it's an in-house debate, at least it should be, and it should be a friendly debate. I've noticed it's gotten mean-spirited over the years. I think that's unfortunate. But I'm one who believes in a pre-trib rapture. The rapture of the church is the next thing that happens. Then there's a seven-year period called tribulation. God pours out his wrath on a Christ-rejecting world and wakes up the Jews. At the middle of that, that world leader, Antichrist, he's called the... a lot of different names in the Bible, but that's probably his most famous one. He'll come and in the middle of the tribulation, commit the abomination of desolation, which is in the temple, rebuilt in Jerusalem. And he's gonna, the Jews are gonna be saved at that moment. They're gonna realize that Jesus is the Messiah. Remember when it says, when the fullness of the Gentiles, Romans 11, 25 comes in, then all of Israel will be saved. There's gonna come a time where the Jews will realize Jesus was the Messiah. Well, at the end of the seven-year period, that's when Christ returns. Revelation 19 talks about it. Jesus is gonna come back with 10,000 of his saints. That's us. So the tribulation period will come to an end when Jesus returns. Zechariah 12, Zechariah 14 describes that day. Zechariah 12, verse three says, and in that day, I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people. All that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces though all the people of the earth be gathered against it. What's gonna happen? When Jesus comes in that day, the day of the Lord, one of the things you should know that it's gonna be part of the deal is all the nations of the earth will be gathered against Jerusalem. The reason that's important, you know, I've been reading this in Zachariah since I was a little kid. It was hard to imagine all the nations of the world coming against Jerusalem 30 years ago, 20 years ago. But today, it's almost happening. We're watching all the nations of the world. You say, well, United States stands with Israel, but even that's sort of hanging by a thread. If you've watched the protests, and if you see the horrible effect our academic program, our colleges and universities have had in brainwashing the Gen Zers and the millennials, Boy, it's shocking to see the attitude on Israel with the older generation, the further down you get to youth, the younger people have been brainwashed by, you know, a lot of these crazy colleges, universities, even, you know, high school education. There's been a lot of horrible brainwashing, you know, propaganda that makes a lot of these young people think that Hamas is the victim and that Israel is a bunch of ethnic cleansers and genocide is happening. We'll talk more about that in a minute. But it's really sad. The United States is very divided on whether we should support Israel or not. I still have to admit, I'm shocked at the Biden administration's support for Israel, at least in this last three months. That's a shock to me. I'm still trying to figure out exactly why, because that's a turn. That is a turn of behavior. The Biden administration and the Obama administration were some of the most unfriendly toward the Jews in our nation's history. Right up until October 7th, suddenly the Biden administration has largely really stood up. Now, they're starting to talk about the two state solution and all that stuff that we've heard them talk about for years. And that's not gonna work out very well according to Zachariah. In fact, let's read on. So this is Zachariah 12, three. But the key thing I want you to get from this is one of the things all the people of the earth will be gathered against it. So when you and I see the nations of the world angry at Jerusalem, That should be a sign of the times. You and I should say, wow, this is really, the stage is being set for the whole world to be against Jerusalem. I've been to Jerusalem like 10 times. I've spent like several months of my life in Jerusalem. And you know what? It's a neat city. It's got some history. It's fun because of the ancient times that have been lived there and the old, you know, archeological digs you can see. but it's really not that big of a deal. Other than that, what makes Jerusalem such a big deal to the world? Who cares? Why don't more people care about Dundee? or Portland or New York City. Like, you know, it's a funny thing that there's big cities, there's small cities, famous cities. Why is Jerusalem getting all this attention? The answer, nobody really knows other than the Bible says, guess what? Jerusalem belongs to, anybody know the answer? God, God says, Jerusalem is mine. I've written my name on that city. That's what makes that city unique. God's name is on it. And that starts to make sense. When you go to Jerusalem, you can sense that there's no lakes or rivers that flow through it or make it beautiful in that way. It's just up on a hill and it's kind of this Middle Eastern city. What's the big deal? But the big deal is you can sense the Lord's hand is on that city, but you can also sense the spiritual battle that's being fought over that city. It's not as much political, I believe, as it is a spiritual battle that a lot of the world doesn't even want to acknowledge. But Jerusalem, though all the people of the earth be gathered against it, the Lord is gonna return when that time happens. So does that make you kind of start to think, is the Lord's return coming soon? Zechariah 14, also a couple chapters later, same topic. It says there in Zechariah 14 verse one, behold, the day of the Lord comes and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee, speaking of Jerusalem, for, check this out, I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle. And the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Now this is bad news. This is where my Jewish friends in Jerusalem don't like when I talk about Bible prophecy. I've even talked with my buddy Steve, the tour guide, about this. He's like, Brett, your eschatology, if what you're saying is true, Jerusalem's gonna be crushed and almost destroyed. And I'm like, well, that's what the Bible says. I understand his sadness because he's a Jew who lives in Jerusalem and he's got a lot of friends and loved ones and it's tragic and it really is. but in the last days, this is what's gonna happen. I'm gonna gather all the nations against Jerusalem, Nevada, and could that October 7th, where we saw women raped, It was hard for us in modern warfare to even picture the kind of grotesque things that happened on October 7th. So when you read a passage like Zechariah 14, like who goes in and wipes out a city and rapes and beheads babies and stuff like that, that's so pre-civilization kind of behavior. Who would do that today? Well, we saw who does that. It's the people who hate Jews in Jerusalem. They're the ones who are willing to do what the Bible says is going to happen. The city shall be taken, the houses rifled, the women ravished, and half the city shall go into captivity. We saw, you know, a bunch of hostages taken into captivity in the October 7th situation. During the tribulation period, when the Antichrist is leading the charge and all the world suddenly hates Jerusalem, we'll be in heaven at this time, by the way. And good news, all my Jewish friends that believe that Jesus is the Messiah will also be in heaven at this time. But sadly, anyone who's gonna be in Jerusalem during the tribulation period, that's gonna be a tough go. This is what's gonna happen. Half the city will go forth in captivity. It's not hard to imagine that today, because that's what happened October 7th on a smaller scale, but picture that on a larger scale, not just a kibbutz in South Israel. This is what's gonna happen in Jerusalem, sad to say. So it says the remainder, the residue of the people. By the way, one thing I wanna point out here, the half of the city shall go forth in captivity. This is something that you should mark and know well, what are they trying to do right now to Jerusalem? Does anybody know? Split it in half. It's the 67 border, you know, if you remember before the Six Day War and the Jews took the other half of Jerusalem, you know, the West Bank, the Palestinians control that side of Jerusalem, but they sort of kind of cohabitate with the Jews in Jerusalem, so it's sort of a half and half city, but it's still technically under the control of Israel. because of security issues. So when they talk about a two-state solution, one of the things they're talking about is splitting Jerusalem in half. One of the things the Bible says, those that try to divide Jerusalem in the last days, the Lord's gonna crush those nations. You don't wanna be the, it always cracks me up, these presidents who've come and gone shaking hands with the Arab-Israeli leaders saying, we're gonna be the one to usher in the two-state solution. And you're like, you better hope you're not the one that does that. Because God's gonna crush your head if you divide Jerusalem in half. That's what the Bible says. That's a cup of trembling that's gonna happen. So this is gonna happen, but it's in the tribulation period. It's the day of the Lord when it comes. I will gather nations against, half the city will go forth into captivity. The residue, the remainder of the people, shall not be cut off from the city then. They're hanging by a thread. Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations as when he fought in the day of battle. When did the Lord fight in battles? Anybody remember? All kinds of times. Give me one example. Jericho. How did the people of Jericho do when God fought against Jericho? They were all killed, all of them. The walls came a tumbling down. Let's talk about the Egyptian army, the most powerful army in the world at the time. And God went to battle against them. He bugged them and he bugged them. And he used real bugs. But can you think of a more sound defeat of any army than what God did to the Egyptian army? I mean, think about it. Not only were there bugs, lice, and flies, and frogs, and blood, and all that stuff that killed a bunch of people, even the oldest of every household was killed. How many of you, raised by Chauvins, how many of you are the oldest person in your household? Like the oldest of siblings? Yeah, so half of this congregation would have been wiped out in Egypt, right there. Right there, just that one plague alone, let alone the other plagues that caused death. But then the army, whatever's left of the Egyptian army comes chasing after the Jews. And you know the end there, they all drowned in the Red Sea. That's what happens when the Lord goes to battle. The Lord is a warrior, the Bible says, he's mighty in battle. Remember Rabshakeh, the trash talker, the most powerful Syrian? One angel came and wiped out 185,000 soldiers in one night. So is it gonna be difficult for the Lord when it says, then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations as when he fought in the day of battle? The answer is, the end. Like it's not even, he's not even gonna break a sweat. I hope you understand that, that's an important thing. This will be the end of the tribulation period when Christ returns and goes to battle against those nations that have sought to destroy Jerusalem. So as sad as it is for Jerusalem's future, Jerusalem will win in the end. We know that they're gonna win, but it's only because the Lord's gonna intervene. supernaturally and powerfully. So we're seeing this narrative of the world hating Jerusalem. Antisemitism is reaching a feverish pitch around the world. And every time you see this, you have to understand, this is so much the Lord seemingly setting up the days that Zechariah is talking about, that all these nations are starting to aim their weapons at Jerusalem and Israel in general. This is the narrative. We're seeing biblically proportioned antisemitism. The hatred for Jerusalem and the Jews, it's being driven from all over the world. And the narrative is not even true. A lot of the things that are being leveled at the Jews are just propaganda and lies. I'd like to address one of those lies because I think we as Christians should be those who speak the truth. I'm not sure we can make a big difference in the world's attitude toward the Jews because we're seeing prophecy unfold. But at the same time, I like to be one who speaks truth. And one of the things you're hearing is that Israel is committing genocide. Is Israel committing genocide? I wanna try to help equip all of us to be able to talk to your friends at school and your goofy teachers with your cardigan sweaters and pipes puffing who are saying Israel's committing genocide and all this stuff. I wanna kind of go over that because what a ridiculous moronic kind of thing to say that Israel's committing genocide. The reason this is a big deal is because the world's been chanting that in riots all around the world. But as 2023 drew to a close, maybe you saw this in the news, South Africa, of all places, South Africa decided to file a claim at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. If you know, that's kind of the world's court, if you would. They filed a claim, preposterously accusing Israel of being of carrying out genocide in Gaza. So Israel, the nation, is on trial right now. They're going to be because of this claim. And there's other nations that are joining in with this. Now, the crime of genocide Where did the word genocide come from? Let's talk about that for a second, because it's almost laughable that people say, the Jews are committing genocide. Well, genocide was a term that a Jew invented. Why? Because there's no group in the world's history that genocidal, intentions have been leveled at and that no single group of people more than the Jews have been targeted for genocide. As it turns out, this guy, Raphael Lemkin, he was famous for saying he's the father of the genocide convention. He's the one who came up with the word genocide. He said, the problem of genocide becomes as vital to the sociologists as the problem of disease is to the physician. It calls for diagnosis, cure, and above all, prevention. Why did this guy coin the term genocide in 1944? Well, he was a Polish-Jewish jurist, Rafael Lemkin, and he was the first one to use the term genocide, the systematic extermination of Jews by the Nazis. It's one of the most serious accusations that can be leveled at any nation by international law. Today, genocide has a very specific definition under Article 2 of Genocide Convention of 1948, meaning this, committing acts, including killing, that are intended to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. That's what the 1948 convention decided that genocide means, and it became part of the world law that genocide should at all costs be thwarted. It's important to underscore, and this is where people get really confused, that the commission of genocide has nothing to do with the number of civilian casualties during war. That's where the world misses it a little bit. All throughout warfare, throughout all of history, there's been civilian casualties at war. The United States, when we won World War II, we did it with two bombs, you know, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and there were, you know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. And we did that. Now, people debate whether we should have done that or not. I'm not going to argue that point. Most of you probably know, if we didn't do that, probably millions of civilians would have died after that if we had not done that. So it's a tough decision when you're in war as a nation, what you're gonna do. We were facing that, and the United States, we chose the bomb to wipe out hundreds of thousands of civilians to finish the war. But under this commission, they made it clear genocide has nothing to do with the number of civilian casualties in war. The key element in the crime of genocide is the need to possess relevant intent. What is your intention? Whatever criticism one might have about Israeli policies or IDF, Israeli Defense Forces actions in Gaza, Israel has never sought to destroy the Palestinian people, whether in a whole or in any tiny part or in any manner. The Jews have never tried to destroy Palestinians. They have done more than any other nation that we can see in history to avoid killing Palestinian people. If you don't understand this, even, this is where our National Security Council spokesperson, John Kirby, again, this is where the Biden committee, this guy to me is like watching a cartoon. I'm sorry, I shouldn't say that. But if you watch him, he's a cartoon. I can't believe he's our Security Council spokesperson. But when it comes to this topic, again, the Biden administration is saying, this is probably the smartest thing this guy ever said. He basically eviscerated the inappropriate use of the term genocide to describe Israel's actions in Gaza. And he forcibly stated, Israel isn't trying to wipe out the Palestinian people off the map. Israel's trying to wipe Gaza off the map, or is not trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel's trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat. Hamas, so if we're going to start using that word, fine, let's use it appropriately. This week, when he was asked about South Africa's claim against Israel as a genocidal state, Kirby was unequivocal, saying the U.S., quote, finds this submission of South Africa meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever. This idea of genocide, the Jews wanting to just wipe out Palestinians, that is a narrative of your American universities, of Hezbollah, Hamas, fundamentalist Muslims all around the world saying that the Jews want to drink the blood of all the Muslim children and stuff like that. That's never been what the Jews have ever done. If you're familiar with the IDF, Remember the precision guided missile I showed you in Beirut that took out the third Hamas leader there in Beirut? That's the kind of precision, no nation has been more precise than Israel. Now, the Gaza operation has been tricky. And there's reasons why. Let me share with you why the Gaza looks messy and some people are sort of saying, see, they're just leveling Gaza and they're killing everyone. That's not what's happening. The Jews are trying to save Palestinians. Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his IDF chiefs of staff, Herzi Halevi, have been unequivocal and repeating and stating the goal of the operation in Gaza is to eliminate Hamas. by destroying its military and governing capabilities, not to destroy Palestinian people. I told you, and Kirby said, Hamas is the one that's genocidal. Well, can you support that? Super easy. All you have to do is look up the Hamas charter. And in the Hamas charter, it says, Israel will exist and continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it. just as it obliterated others before it. The day of judgment will not come about until the Muslims fight Jews and kill them, Article 7 of the Hamas Charter. Hamas, Article 32, Hamas regards itself the spearhead and the vanguard of the circle of the struggle against world Zionism. Islamic groups all over the Arab world should also do the same since they are best equipped in their future role in the fight against the warmongering Jews. The Hamas charter says we need to destroy Israel, out with Israel, from the river to the sea, wiping out a whole nation is what they want to do. And they're not even pretending anything about it. The president of Iran, remember? My favorite of all the wacko presidents of Iran was Ahmadinejad. Anybody remember him? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Man, that guy, he was a weirdo, but he would just say, death to the Jews, we're gonna drive all the Jews into the sea. Like he didn't pull any punches. And the reason I was appreciative of that is he was the president of a major nation telling him what he was really thinking. And nobody could say anything against it. Now the leader of Iran is just a little more reserved, but he's worse than Akhvedenajad in his objectives. So the heart is still there to wipe out the Jews. Akhvedenajad just had a big mouth, and he said what they were all thinking out loud. So that's kind of interesting. If anyone is guilty of a genocide here, it's the internationally recognized terrorist group Hamas. Not only does Hamas openly state the destruction of Israel as the ultimate goal, as evidenced in its charter that I just shared with you, but Hamas massacred 1,200 Israelis over, including raping, burning, mutilating, beheading, executing women, raping women and children. This is what these guys did, and this is what Hamas is all about. that there have been civilian casualties in Gaza, yes, that's tragic. And even the Jews are saying that. The Jews say it's tragic. You'll never hear a fundamentalist Muslim or Hamas person say, oh, what a tragedy, Jews are dying today. You'll never hear that. Nobody will ever be sad when a Jew dies that's of this, you know, fundamentalist Islamic view that death to the Jews is the answer. But you'll hear the Jews, there's Jews protesting in New York City today saying, you know, cease fire. I don't agree with those Jews, but it is amazing. You can find hundreds of Jews saying, stop, we don't wanna see, like it's, you just don't, you find one fundamentalist Muslim that's saying, oh, that's really a shame that those Jews died on October 7th. But what you actually see is nations celebrating that because they're genocidal. Hamas is using, not only does Hamas not care about Jews dying, this is the truth. Hamas has been using its own people as human shields, embedding its military operations in schools, hospitals, kindergartens, homes. That's what's made this messy. And they're not afraid to let their own Palestinian people die. And they feel like they're dying for a good cause. They're dying for Allah and for, you know, the cause of Islam. And it's a good death. That's the way they look at it. So sorry about the kids in the kindergarten. They all died because those Jews were trying to get to us. We were hiding behind the kindergarten underground, but they died. Those kids are gonna go into their heaven with the virgins and all this stuff. That's what they believe. So they could care less about their own deaths. But it makes it difficult when the Jewish state is saying, we're trying not to kill Palestinians, but they're using the Palestinians for human shields. The IDF has been warning civilians in Gaza to evacuate before the pending attacks. They gave them weeks in some cases, pamphlets flying saying, we're going to blow up these buildings, get out while you can. Who does that? The Israelis are the only ones who really have done that to the level that they're doing today. They're providing safe passage for them to do so while at all times adhering to the principle of distinction and proportionality in aiming, you know, at Hamas military targets that are underground. The underground tunnel system is way more intricate than even the Jews knew. It's quite a deal. The baseless leveling charge at Israel as being a genocidal nation, all that South Africa is doing is engaging in a form of what is today lawfare. Do you guys know what I'm talking about when I say lawfare? It's really a proxy. Hamas is, you know, some of these nations are just more proxies of Iran. They're just trying to make Israel look guilty in the Hague. That's the thing. South Africa is not only, by making this claim of Israel, they're not only diminishing real acts of genocide that have happened around the world. The Holocaust was a big one, but we could talk about the Armenians, we could talk about the Yazidis in Rwanda, we could talk about Darfur, Syria, even, there's more arguable cases that could be made for genocide. Israel's not one of them. Now, fast forward to a guy named Ghazi Hamad. This is a guy who's one of the senior leaders of Hamas. And he was in this interview, and I didn't get the exact interview, but I did get a interview that I wanted to show you. He was the one who famously, gleefully, right after the October 7th massacre said, we will do this again and again to destroy Israel. What happened there was wonderful. Like this guy is all about that. Let me show you. So this is that memory website that takes all the Islamic stuff that they don't want us to see and then they translate it for us. Check this out. Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must get rid of this country, because it is indeed a security, military and political disaster for the Arab and Islamic world. It must end. Therefore, we are not ashamed to say that. With all our strength, we must get rid of it. And we will get rid of it a second and a third time. And this will not be the first and the last flood. No, it will be a second, a third and a fourth, because we have insistence, we have a decision and we have capabilities. We will fight and we will fight. But as I told you, we will pay a price. Yes, we are ready. I will tell you honestly. We are the people of the martyrs, and we are proud to be the martyrs. We don't want to deal with the civilians, nor do we want to harm them. But there were times when there were conflicts in the field, in an existing area, and there was a celebration, and there were residents. It's a vast area, it's not easy, it's about 40 kilometers, so we have to end it. Where should it end? In Gaza? No, I'm talking about all the Palestinian lands. All the lands in Palestine, meaning the destruction of Israel? Yes, of course. The existence of Israel is illogical. The existence of Israel is what creates all this pain, suffering, tears, and blood. It is Israel, not us. We are the victims of the occupation, that's the bottom line. That's why no one should blame us for what we are doing. On October 7, October 10, October 1 million, what we are doing is justified. So everything we did on October 7th is justified. This is the position of the Hamas leadership. In response, the British foreign secretary, James cleverly commented about this. How can there be peace when Hamas are committed to the eradication of Israel? It's always amazing to me that there are some even Christian so-called churches, and I say so-called, I should be careful. Maybe there's people that do believe in Jesus, But they think God has forsaken Israel, and it's such a dangerous posture to have. But how can anybody that reads their Bible think that, you know, crushing Israel or ceasing to exist, Israel ceasing to exist is a good plan? Especially if you read your Bible for more than 10 seconds. The Bible has much to say about Israel, and especially when it comes to the end times. Meanwhile, just some rapid information update, over 130 hostages are still held in Hamas tunnels and in some homes. They're using these people as insurance policies to stay alive. One of the reasons they're not cease firing or agreeing to a cease fire is they're saying we're not going to let any more hostages go because they know that if they get too thin on hostages, Israel might be more tempted to come in with a stronger arm. One of the sad stories of this that I wanted to tell you about, because, you know, Israel, they're dealing with really tough, tough circumstances. You know, going through these Hamas tunnels, this is a new kind of warfare. We had tunnels in Vietnam that were bad enough. I mean, I can't imagine what our, military had to go through in Vietnam with those little jungle tunnels and stuff. But these Hamas tunnels are on next level. It's like a whole new type of battlefield that Israel is becoming the experts now on. And we, the United States, is looking at Israel saying, we need to probably be trained by you guys because we're going to see more warfare like this probably in future wars around the world. These Hamas tunnels, millions of civilians above ground, as a shield, and then huge underground system of fighters. And Israel's charting new territory on this. But with all that, one of the sad things that happened just a few days ago, in December actually, did you hear this? The IDF troops mistakenly opened fire and killed three hostages in Northern Gaza battlefield. It's really a sad story because these three guys, apparently, when Israel was coming in strong to that region of Gaza, these three guys escaped their captors, or maybe the captors realized they were doomed, so they ran away and these guys got away. But then they hung this, they used some food to make this sign that basically says SOS, you know, basically trying to say we're hostages. But the soldiers that were there, the IDF, thought it was just a ruse by the Hamas to try to get them not to shoot there. And these three guys came out waving white flags and sadly IDF mistakenly shot them dead. This is a sad thing for Israel. But this is what's going on there. So three hostages killed in one afternoon just because it's hard to identify. So... This Hezbollah warfare, everything, you know, all this is happening. Very sophisticated rockets are up in the north in Hezbollah. The Hamas rockets are just sort of, they're not super high tech. They can do a lot of damage, but they're not, you know, precision guided missiles. The big question everybody's asking is when's Hezbollah gonna jump in? Because they have rockets that can be very effective. And everybody's kind of holding their breath about that. With all these nations going against Israel, Iran, the most powerful through all the proxies, but all these other seven fronts that we just talked about, is 2024 the year that can evolve into a world war? That's a question to be asking. Real quick, China, of course, is saying that the unification of China and Taiwan is gonna happen soon. The United States, we've sort of drawn a red line saying that's not gonna happen. But the United States has become famous for drawing red lines and then doing nothing about it. So that's going to be an interesting thing to watch. What's China going to do as far as World War? North Korea is planning for a nuclear exchange with the Western world. They think it's the right time. right now. One thing that's come out that's kind of shocking, did you know the Russians are buying weapons from North Korea? I think most of us Americans are thinking those North Koreans are a bunch of wacko people with some cardboard missiles that they parade down the, and that may have been true a couple decades ago, that they really didn't have legitimate weaponry. But you have to understand, North Korea and Kim Jong Un, he has some weaponry that is at least as sophisticated enough where the Russians want them and are buying them, which is kind of interesting. We're seeing Iran weapons show up in places that, you know, some people are, well, these aren't proxies of Iran, you know, these people, but the Houthis have shot Iranian weapons. Russians have also bought Iranian weapons for the conflict in Ukraine. So the world is trading and buying and purchasing weapons, but the world is kind of setting up and saying, wow, does North Korea have legitimate weapons? And the answer is yes. Kim Jong-un is saying that he believes that nuclear exchange toward the Western world is probably coming soon. That's what his claim is. Little rocket man, as Trump used to call him. But none of these nations, none of these nations that are kind of going crazy right now want to see strong leadership in the White House. That's why I say, normally I would say the White House and the president, whoever gets elected, has nothing to do with Bible prophecy. But I do wonder if it is an indicator, if we have a real strong leader who's elected, will that change? Will that put on hold some of the things that are happening right now? Or if we have a very weak leader in the White House, will that sort of let the world go crazy and sort of the end time scenario to fully unfurl in all of its horrible glory? That's the big question I'm going to be watching in 2024. So does it matter who the President of the United States is? Yes, I believe it does. But here's where I wanna remind us because I've noticed that election year, especially in Bible prophecy circles, election years can become sort of a headache and a bummer. And I just wanna give us a word to be reminded of where to keep our brains. Yes, I think we as Christians in America, we have the privilege to vote. I think we should very carefully vote, prayerfully vote. I won't tell you who to vote for. I will teach the Bible. And if you're even 10 seconds going through the Bible with me, you'll probably know probably who the person you should vote for. There's topics that the Bible's really clear on. And to me, it's a little more easy. So I don't tell people who to vote for, I just teach the Bible. And then I say, pray about it and vote for whoever you feel the Lord's leading you to vote for. But at the same time, I am troubled that there's Christians that say, yeah, whatever, I'm not gonna vote. I feel like that's a waste of trying to at least be a good example in this world, trying to change things to see things better. But Brett, things are gonna get worse. Maybe we should vote for the wrong person, and then the rapture of the church is gonna happen. No, that's not the way to do it. Remember those scriptures? What does the Bible say we're supposed to do until he comes? Occupy, I did a whole prophecy update once on what it means to occupy. And that means just to keep doing our best, work hard, serve the Lord, be salt and light, be good Christians, try to do your best as a people, as a nation, all the things that we're stewards of. And as it turns out, if you're a voter in America, you're a steward of this country. So I do believe voting is important. But at the same time, I think we need to tone it down as Christians when it comes to the whole election thing. We gotta remember, the Savior is not whoever the next president is. That is not the Messiah. I'm worried about anybody that's presenting himself as a Messiah. That's not a good look. And Christians sort of treat their favorite leaders as messiahs sometimes. That's a wrong behavior. We need to remember God raises men up and puts men down. God puts ugly, horrible people in power, and God puts good people in power. It just depends on what he's doing. You know, what would they have thought of Samson when Samson came into power? Oh, Samson was awesome, Pastor Brett, really. He was sleeping with prostitutes. All the time, like that was his thing. Going down to the Philistine country, that'd be like us electing a guy that likes to go to, say, North Korea and sleep with prostitutes, and then come back to the United States and says, I'll be your leader. That's Samson. Oh, but he was a strong leader, even though he slept with prostitutes. Yeah, the problem is the Lord raised up even sinful, wacko people to be leaders in countries. Don't be surprised. I always say, well, Brent, we can't vote for anyone. Well, that's true if you're looking for a sinless person. The only person you can vote for is Jesus. But if you're gonna vote for someone, guess what? They're sinners. If you voted for Hillary, she's a sinner. If you voted for Trump, he's a sinner. If you voted for Bush one or Bush two, sinner, sinner. They're all sinners. We vote for sinners. That's part of the deal. But remember, that's not where our salvation comes from. Christians, I think sometimes we misrepresent where our hope lies because we become more passionate about who the next president might be than we are about the second coming of Christ and about the rapture of the church and about the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, sometimes if we're not careful, I think we can hurt the gospel of Jesus Christ by being more into politics than we are into the gospel itself. Brett, you're one to talk. You talk about politics. No, I don't. I talk about Bible prophecy. I talk about issues the Bible talks about as far as the world goes. And if they happen to dabble in politics, I don't care, but I'm talking about the Bible. I wanna make that clear. Some people have accused me of that. So abortion is very political. No, it's biblical. God talks about the unborn child. Well, you're talking about Israel. That's very political. You should stop talking about Israel. The Bible talks more about Israel than any other nation, God's plan and purpose for Israel. So we should be those who talk about Israel, even if you deem it as political, it doesn't matter, it's biblical. It was biblical before it was political. Does that make sense? I hope you all know that, that's an important distinction. So I believe that this year promises, Mr. Doom and Gloom here for a second, because of the election year, I think this is gonna be a perilous year. Don't you think? We're gonna see ugliness. We're gonna see sinfulness. Unless we see a miracle, we're gonna see a continued spiral of the United States, which is heartbreaking. I'm a patriot. I love this country. I'd love to see the country repent. be saved, turn to the Lord, and I'd love to see that. I pray for that. I preach the gospel every Sunday. Some people, Brett, you're all about Bible prophecy, and that's all you ever talk about. Well, hold on a second. If you're here on a prophecy update only, I can see how you think that, but. But this month, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do right in the sanctuary, I'm gonna do 20 services this month. That's what I do, 20 services between Wednesday nights and five Sunday services and iron works and prophecy update. One out of the 20, I'm gonna do a prophecy topic. All the rest out of the, so is my ratio okay? Are you guys okay with one in 20? Like, come on, that's ridiculous. And by the way, I don't think I have to apologize for the ratio that I talk about Bible prophecy, but I just think it's funny when people sort of make that charge. You're all, you guys at A.C. Creek are just into Bible prophecy. 20 out of the, 20, you know, is it 25? I think it's 25. Yeah, 25 services, if you do the math. We're gonna be doing a lot of talking about the whole Bible, and our number one topic is not Bible prophecy, it's Christ and Him crucified. That's what all of our message has to be, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Even Bible prophecy. So it's true, don't be shocked, 2 Timothy 3,1, this know also that in the last days, perilous times are gonna come. I think we're seeing that. But make sure, guard your heart in 2024, because 2 Timothy, 1.7 reminds us, God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind. This should be the mark. Wouldn't this be great? If A. C. Krieger's that we, those of us that do go to Bible prophecy studies like this, that if we go away with this sort of attitude, not, Oh, the world's going to burn. We're all going to die. You know, all this stuff. No, we don't want that. We wanna go and say, you know what? We have confidence in the Lord. We put our trust in the Lord. He knows what he's doing. We're praying that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. That's what we pray for. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem. The world actually, by the way, Christians, we're the ones who can really breathe easy and just say, you know what? We know what the Lord is doing. We're the ones that should be at peace and not fearful. The world is kind of freaking out. I like this article, this kind of cracked me up. I even took the picture from it because it's, humans may be fueling global warming by breathing, new study says. Did you guys see this last month? Exhaled human breath can contain small elevated concentrations of methane, CH4, and nitrous oxide, N2O, both of which contribute to global warming, which is funny. Are we at global warming or global cooling? I always forget. According to research released last week in the UK, the journal PLOS, which is a big outfit, saying that if you breathe, you're contributing. The methane and nitrous oxide exhaled by humans make up about 0.1% of UK's greenhouse gas emissions, the write-up said. The gases are in addition to the carbon dioxide that humans exhale. They also went into a deep dissertation on flatulence, which I am not gonna read, but this guy sort of reminded me of that. Anyway, the world is saying, I guess humans need, what are they saying? Like what's their point? Hold your breath? Or maybe just let humanity die off. There are people, there are climate change people that are saying, yeah, we need to sort of diminish the population and stuff like that. That's actually a thing. Even in our own backyard, you know, the world is freaking out. We need to be praying for our own city. You know, the Bible says pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and I do, and that's my number one job, but I still pray for the peace of Portland. Did you see this UK, this came out of London, the Sun UK article, Walking Dread. Rotting, oops, sorry, that's a verse. The one I just talked about, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. But this is the Walking Dread. Rotting, cracked zombies, record numbers and sex sold for $20 in squalid tents. The city that turned a blind eye to drugs. and the whole article there in London. Once hipster paradise that prompted cable satire Portlandia, which told of residents obsessing about barista-made coffee and bike-share schemes, and this liberal Northwest Coast City now looks more like a nightmare dystopia. That is because two years ago Portland decriminalized all drugs, including heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, and fentanyl. under what was known as Measure 110. Possessing small quantities of these deadly substances no longer result in arrest. Even though it's illegal to drink alcohol on the streets, the effect has been devastating. Isn't it funny? The Londoners are saying, yeah, you can't drink a beer on the street, but you sure can shoot up and stuff like that. It's estimated the number of deaths from overdoses there have risen 28% this past year. The state is now the worst in the country for young people dying from drugs. In Multnomah County, which includes Portland, there were almost 500 drug-related deaths last year. In 2019, it was 200. 200 in 2019, 500 in 2023. I have police officer friends that are, you know, here at Athey Creek who've told me, Brett, our job description's changing. We're, you know, we're dragging dead bodies out of tents. We're the ones who have to go and, you know, do this and, you know, see what happened. And, like, it's like a horror show is what our police are having to face in Portland. Angela, who runs the PDX Real News Service in Portland with her partner Jeff Church, says, you'll take your life in your own hands walking in these streets. All the homeless have weapons. The streets are run like a prison. This is the city that we live. It's something we need to really be praying about. What can we do as people, as a church, pray for them, but what can we do? I mean, the leadership here is constantly looking for ways we can help homeless people. We do help homeless people, but we have to admit it's really difficult. If you find a homeless person on the street and try to help them, you're gonna find that's a very difficult task. Most of them don't want anything to do with you. let alone be helped. It's really quite a tragic scene. So what do we do? Do we get bummed out and depressed because of these kinds of things, perilous times? No. Luke 21, 28, I love this one. When these things become to pass, then look up, lift up your heads for your redemption draweth nigh. 2024 is the year, I want to remind us with the election and all that, to really put Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. I love this. This is a solid proverb that you all know, maybe even haven't memorized. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not on your own understanding. Does what's going on in the world make much sense? Apart from the Bible, it makes no sense at all. What's happening in the world, the narratives, the teachings of the world, the rantings of the world, makes no sense at all. When you read your Bible, it makes sense. But even with that, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don't lean on our own understanding. But instead, in all thy ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths. I think this is what Atheist Greekers need to do. This is what people that are watching online, we need to do this year is say, we're not gonna trust in the election system. We're not gonna trust in our, even our wonderful constitution or even our wonderful history. We're not gonna trust in all the good things we can list about our nation. We're gonna still put our trust in the Lord and not lean on our own understanding. That's gonna make 2024 a better year for you. So keeping our eyes on Jesus, 2024, it's essential that we lean on the Lord and not on our own understanding. Be careful, folks, don't lean on the news, don't lean on the people in power, don't lean on the elections, lean on the Lord. He's the only one worthy of leaning in Jesus' name. Let's pray. Lord, as we close up this particular little prophecy update, I pray that you'd help us to be in the right mind and have the right heart. Lord, we do see so much in the world and the wars and rumors of wars, even as Jesus told us there in Matthew 24, but it's reached kind of a feverish level. It does make us wonder, Lord, if you're coming soon, but we know that you've left that a variable. So we pray that we'd be a church watching waiting, ready for when you return, when you rapture your church, when you'd come in your second coming. Lord, I pray that we would be a people ready for that with our eyes on you. Help us not to get too fixated on what's going on around us, but keeping our eyes on your son, Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith. So blessed, these are people who have taken time just on this little update on what's going on in the world, Lord. The wars and all the sad casualties of wars, Lord, our hearts are broken. but we know you care more about those people than we do. So again, we put our trust in you for even those things, Lord. So bless, we pray. And we pray you bless these cinnamon rolls as much as possible that we're about to eat. In Jesus' name, amen.