Welcome to Bible Believers Fellowship and the ministry of bbfohio.com. I'm Pastor Greg and I welcome you to our current events update and then our study in Acts chapter 12, verses 1 through 11, titled, The Lord Hath Sent His Angel. The conclusion of this two-part message can be found at bbfohio.com. As we now begin, this is part one of two. We continue to watch closely Israel at war as of 1724. And in that war, Hamas leaders continue to die. According to Romans 13, one to five, the government of Israel has a mandate from God to kill them. The headline from I-24 News, IDF dismantlement of Hamas terror infrastructure in the northern part of Gaza is declared completed. So that's big. That's sooner than I thought they would make that kind of a declaration. Further dismantling of the terror group will include eliminating its chiefs. Hate to be in their shoes. Seizing the rocket arsenal and destroying the tunnel network. which I think they'll just have the explosives set off to do that. This was yesterday's latest headline, IDF Strike Takes Out Chief. So they had said that the further dismantling of the terror group will include eliminating its chiefs. Well, IDF Strike Takes Out Chief, Deputy Chief of Hamas's Nusrat Battalion. And so that's one of the big guys, to just put it that way. And the question now, really, as things continue to work south in Gaza, they're watching the West Bank, Syria, the Red Sea, and also north of Israel is a country called Lebanon. There have been numerous attacks by Israel, even though they're not even claiming responsibility, of Hamas leaders in northern Lebanon. And the question is whether Hezbollah another terror network from the north will join the war against Israel. To begin an all-out war or not to begin an all-out war? For nearly three months, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been hesitating to make a decision. Will the high-profile killing of senior Hamas official Salah al-Aruri, right on Nasrallah's home turf in Beirut, change that? At least for now, there's no real answer. If the enemy thinks it can impose war on Lebanon, our fighting will be without ceiling, borders, rules and controls. Whoever thinks about war with us will regret it, as war with us is very, very expensive. The threats coming from Nasrallah in his speech on Wednesday are not much different than those already made earlier in this war, And as far as he's concerned, they are already bearing fruit. I will read you the words of the Israeli Minister of Defense, Gallant. He says, the problem that they have is not just the people of the Gaza border communities that are displaced, but also those who fled their homes in the north. Another speech is expected on Friday. Will there be a different rhetoric there? No one really knows, but the Israelis are not waiting. At least four Hezbollah members, including a senior commander, were killed on Wednesday night in what is one of the deadliest Israeli strikes on Hezbollah operatives so far. And Israel is ready for whatever consequences it may bring. We are on a high level of readiness in the north. I visit here often, and I think our readiness is at its peak. Israel is upping its actions. Hezbollah is upping its rhetoric. And in the hope of preventing a major explosion, the American envoy, Amos Hochstein, is coming to the region Thursday for visits to Jerusalem and Beirut. Just over a year ago, he brokered a deal between Israel and Lebanon with the approval of Hezbollah regarding the maritime border. He hopes to do the same this time, but with the cannons firing, it will be far more challenging. So the battle is raging already. It's just whether or not it's going to become an all-out war on the northern border of Israel with Lebanon. Now, we discussed this previously about digital currency. It's a way to control you. Please get that through your head. No matter what other people are telling you, digital currency means controlling you, period. This little... Digital IDs linked to a social credit score, a massive database, and a programmable centralized digital currency could be a reality by 2030. According to the UN's Agenda 2030, providing a legal identity for all and a digital public infrastructure is essential to achieve peace, inclusivity, and justice. And to that end, the United Nations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and partners of the Rockefeller Foundation have recently launched their 50 in 5 campaign to accelerate digital public infrastructure. The aim is to facilitate digital ID, digital payments, like central bank digital currencies, and data sharing rollouts in 50 countries in five years' time, or by 2028. Now, the digital public infrastructure, or DPI, is an all-inclusive phrase for a technocratic governance system powered by three main components, digital ID, digital payments, and massive data sharing. A DPI is being pitched as a mechanism for financial inclusion, convenience, improved health care, safety and security, and to progress an environmentally green agenda. The whole green agenda, the whole digital currency thing, climate change, global warming, all these things are masterminded by the same people with the same billionaires with the same agenda. And it is to control you. We previously discussed certain conservatives, I put in quotes, although I think some of them are true conservatives, they just have no wisdom, pushing us toward digital currency. You'll turn on some of these guys that have their own podcast and talk shows and everything, and they're urging you to get into Bitcoin or Ethereum or one of these other digital currencies. It's really just insanity if you think about it. And this guy, I think, did a good job of explaining it. Like it or not, the world is going digital. Almost everything you use, everything you consume, and everything you collect will be digitized sooner or later. And that has huge implications for all of us. Around 95% of payments are made electronically. We are absolutely dependent on the internet and digital transactions for that. But there is also a move towards a cashless or a digital society. And that's what should worry you the most. There are various rationales put forward why the move to a cashless society is a good idea. And believe me, it is a good idea for almost all of those who are talking it up. It's just not a good idea for you. Perhaps you've heard some of these claims before. Let me share a couple with you. Only criminals use cash. Well, that's a total fabrication. We all use cash at some point, but it would be true if they actually banned cash, and that's what they want to do. So here's the real reason governments want your cash to disappear. They want more of your money, and they want more control over your life. Firstly, you see, a cashless society is one where every single transaction can be taxed, and governments love that. It's also one where every single transaction can be tracked, and big tech, big business, and big government love that too. Effectively, it's the end of what little privacy you have left. Businesses and governments already use your spending data to assess you. Imagine if they knew how you spent every single cent. We could find ourselves in a social credit score society like the Chinese communists have. Is that what you want? You could find that insurance premiums might rise because of your diet or alcohol choices, and you could even find yourself cancelled because those in charge, the wokesters, deemed that you were supporting the wrong retailer. Little wonder a cashless society, a purely digital society, is beloved by big tech, big government, and big business. In a cashless society, there's nowhere to run. You cannot withdraw your money. You cannot hide it at home under your mattress or in your sock drawer to preserve your purchasing power. It is one step closer to the economic serfdom that I keep warning you about and I'll continue to warn you about. Perhaps you are one of those people who are happy to have the convenience of tap-and-go payments, making sure you never have to handle the exchange of physical cash. I understand that perfectly. It's very convenient. It works for many of us. But the implications of not having the option to do it differently is a step in the direction of totalitarianism. Like it or not, the world is going digital. I'm quite repeated there, but that's the thing. It's all going toward the beast system. It's not the Mark of the Beast, but it's the Mark of the Beast in its infancy, I guess we'd say. If we use the illustration that once the Antichrist is in control and actually forces the implementation, that'll be adulthood. Then it's in its infancy. It may even, some would argue, it may even be nearing its teenage years. And that works on more than one level. But, With that, also just want to take a moment to remind you that I believe it's Wednesday the 10th is the date that they've set for possibly overriding Rhino DeWine's veto of House Bill 68, which would have protected children from being abused and mutilated, and also protect girls in girls sports from being beat up on by boys. So the Republican Speaker Jason Stevens announced this week that the Ohio House would reconvene on January 10th, weeks earlier than scheduled, in an attempt to revive the bill before the official start of the 2024 legislative session. Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers of the Ohio legislature, meaning Stevens pushed to sidestep the government is likely to succeed. But you should never take that for granted. And so you can still contact your state reps to ask for a veto override from them. Go to OhioHouse.gov. Some of you hopefully did that. We showed you last week. and you put your address information under where it says who represents me, if you don't know who your representative is, the map comes up, you click on your neighborhood and the picture and link for your representative comes up, you go to his page and then you hit contact and send them your, please be nice about it, and you know, you do, I always call him your honorable representative in their name because that's just etiquette, but at least just be nice about it. And our representative, we're pretty happy with, so we do think he's honorable. You also do the same thing, OhioSenate.gov. And this is state government in Columbus. And you go to put your on the right side on their page, put your address and everything. And then you find out who your Senate senator is. Most people have trouble keeping up with who their state reps and senators are. And then they make it worse because they've been changing the maps. So we're in a different district now than we were previously and all that. So it's hard to keep up with. So that just gives you the information so that you can Be a doer of the Word and not a hearer only. Amen? Alright, Acts 12. Pick up verse 1 through 11. Chapter 11 ends with Saul and Barnabas heading back to Antioch. And now in Acts 12, we come to the first apostle to be martyred. Read the even verses with me, so I'll start with verse 1. Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church, and he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. Then were the days of unleavened bread. And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him, intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people. Peter therefore was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and the keepers before the door kept the prison. And behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison, and he smote Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals. And so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me. And he went out, and followed him, and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel, but thought he saw a vision. When they were past the first and the second ward, they came unto the iron gate that leadeth unto the city, which opened to them of his own accord. And they went out, and passed on through one street, and forthwith the angel departed from him. And when Peter was come to himself, he said, now I know of a surety that the Lord hath sent his angel and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews. Amen? Amen. So Herod Agrippa's political campaign of persecution ends with a jailbreak. So we're going to see the first four verses, Herodian persecution. Then verses 5-9, Peter's actual jailbreak. And then verses 10-11, his realization of what's going on. So let's start with verses 1-4. The Herodian persecution is what this is called. Verse 1, Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. This is Herod Agrippa. How many of you read your Bible and you, wait, Herod who? Herod the Great? Herod Agrippa? Which one's which? Well, this one is the grandson of Herod the Great, and he was the one who killed all the infants when Jesus was born. So there are other Herods. Don't try to swallow the whole pill at one time. Just get that much down that you know that this Herod, Agrippa, is the grandson of the one. Some churches actually observe a holiday, or not really a holiday. In that term, we use it a lot as celebration. It's more of an observation or a remembrance of the slaughter of the innocents. I think there's a feast in some of the churches. Some of the Protestant churches have a feast of the slaughter of the infants, I think they call it. John Wesley says he was the grandson of Herod the Great, nephew to Herod Antipas. So there's another Herod, by the way. Who's Herod Antipas? He's the one who beheaded John the Baptist. So there's some bad people. That's a bad family. It's a wonder they haven't made a TV show about him. And also father to that Agrippa, his son was also called Agrippa, before whom St. Paul afterward made his offense. We'll see that as we continue on in the book of Acts. So you can see there's a lot of Herods to keep up with, but for purposes of our study, just remember this is Agrippa, the grandson of Herod the Great. And verse two says, and he killed James, the brother of John with the sword. So this is the first apostle to be murdered. The word martyr just means witness, but the witnesses who gave their lives and actually died became known as martyrs. And that's how we have that term handed down to us today. And he is James of Zebedee. brother of the Apostle John, who was John Zebedee. And they were also, remember, called the Sons of Thunder. So that's who this James is. According to historical evidence, only John Zebedee, I just like that last name. That'd be a good baby name for any of you, you know. Wouldn't it be cool to have a little boy running around? Hey Zebedee, get over here. Zebedee would be short, yeah. But John Zebedee is the only, he was called the Beloved, by the way, that's, you'll hear him referred to that way. He was also the writer of the Gospel of John, and first, second, third John in the Book of Revelation. He's the only one of the apostles who would die of old age. But he didn't die, you know, in a retirement home. He spent a number of years at the end of his life. They say he was over the age of 100. He was on the island of Patmos. It was not the Hawaiian Islands. This was a big rock out in the middle of the Mediterranean, hot, hardly any vegetation. It was like Alcatraz. And then he survived that and lived a few more years according to the historical information we have. So verse three says, and because he saw it pleased the Jews. You see that? That's what you call politically motivated persecution. He proceeded further to take Peter also. And we'll come to the end of that verse in a moment, but this was politically motivated persecution. The reason he was persecuting him is because he was scoring points with the Christ rejecting Jews. who happened to be the people of power during that time. Most believers, by the way, at this point are Jews. But among those who are still rejecting Christ, the rich and powerful of Judea, they liked seeing Herod persecute the Christians. So we are seeing an increase of this today, politically motivated persecution. And some people are applauding it because they don't like the side that's being persecuted. But it'll come to, those chickens will come home to roost at some point. This is just a fact reported. This is really a left-wing publication, Reuters news source. FBI finds scant evidence that the US Capitol attack was coordinated. That's the actual FBI findings. But what they're doing is pretending that they found otherwise so that they can call it an insurrection. Not a single person's been charged legally with insurrection. Not a single person in prison is in prison for insurrection. They've taken Donald Trump off of the ballot because they say he took part in insurrection. How? There was none. They say so. They've admitted there was no insurrection. And what we do know is to what extent it was an insurrection. It was a fedsurrection. And it was done, coordinated, It was politically motivated. And folks, you can kid yourself all you want. They aren't angry because they're not the same party or whatever. They're angry at Donald Trump. And they're angry at anybody who supports him. Doesn't have anything to do with Trump. You put anybody else in that same place doing what Donald Trump did, and they'd hate him as equally, just like they hate all of you if you support what he did. Why? The end of Roe v. Wade. The fight against gun control. The stand against the sodomite LGBT woke movement. And on and on it goes. That's what's motivating this politically motivated persecution of people. Little old ladies serving time in jail for doing nothing more than getting on a bus and going to Washington D.C. on January 6th. Listen, anybody who destroyed property on January 6th should go to prison. That's a fact. But there's all kinds of people going to prison who didn't do anything but show up. And the people who did the destruction somehow are avoiding prosecution. They got one guy on video ripping a window out. And he's a fed operative and that's why he's not in prison. Now, the political side of this is one thing, but I'm telling you as Christians, you are going to see this persecution coming at you the longer the Lord tarries. Because that's what they're after. The FBI is purging conservatives and critics of the January 6th narrative. And that's according to the findings of Congress. the GOP side. Jim Jordan calls it the weaponization of government against political enemies. Now just like in Nazi Germany they came after the Jews, no one said anything, they came after this group and that group and one after another finally it comes to your door. You either speak up against this now or get ready. That's what's coming. A whistleblower report, the FBI used the January 6th riot to mislead on domestic terrorism spike. They're calling anybody who's called a conservative, who's against abortion, and they have families who just stand out in front of an abortion clinic. And then they go and raid their homes right in front of their children and take them off to jail, knowing they're not going to be able to prosecute them. They're sending a message. They're wanting people to fear the stormtroopers. That's what's going on. It's moving toward what we were talking about with the digital currency. Revelation 13, 7, and it was given to make war with the saints. Herod, Agrippa, has the spirit of Antichrist. He hates the saints. And that's what's behind a lot of what is going on in the Democrat-Marxist regime in power today in America. They can maggot all they want. They hate God. They love murder. They want to confiscate your weapons and turn you into slaves. And they know that Bible-believing Christianity is the main obstacle to their victory. And that's where you are, current events update. We're back in our text. Same spirit. And he proceeded further to take Peter also. And it says, then were the days of unleavened bread. Now some of you, I'm not picking on you. Some of you haven't taken the time. You need to familiarize yourself with the feasts of Israel. You need to understand these things.