It's good to be here with you this morning. Remember your pastor and his wife in prayer. I know you do. My wife and I pray for them regularly and especially lately. I know we're all getting a little bit older. Even the young ones are getting older. We're all getting older. I may be bent over a little bit, but I'm not broken just yet. I do have trouble sitting and getting back up again. My brother over here has trouble standing, I have trouble sitting. So put us together and, I don't know, what do you got? You got something. You got a whole person, yeah. Yeah, as Debbie and I and my wife, we often say, put us together and we got one brain going most of the time. That's the way it is. But remember them in prayer, and Sister Cheryl and her family, remember them in prayer also. And we have a lady at church, Carol, who lost her husband of 52 years. They were together, married for 50. They were together 52 years. And she's been going through her own health struggles. So I'm going to pray this morning before we get started. So if we could, let's just bow our heads for a moment. Lord God, we thank you for your goodness. We thank you for your grace. Thank you for your mercy. We thank you for your salvation in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Father God, I pray this morning for Cheryl and her family, for Versa's family. Lord, just pray your grace and strength at this time. Lord, that you would just surround them with your love and encouragement and strength to go through these days. I know having lost my own brother four years ago, Suddenly just like that Lord at 66 just dropped dead of a heart attack And I know that the loss and the pain that goes with it, so I pray for this family and for Pastor Caesar and his wife Lord God we pray for their health issues that both of them have ongoing that you would be merciful to him and continue to give them strength for each day to continue on until you come back to get us, Lord Jesus. I know his heart is to really get out this year and get the gospel even more so than ever before. And so I pray, Lord, that you would allow him that privilege of being able to be even more involved in the gospel than he's ever been in his life. In these last days, as our sister said, it is really some of the last days that we have. And Lord, I pray for Sister Carol Terinoli, that you would comfort her with her loss of her husband and help her with all the things I know she's got going on, Lord, that really pop up at this time. I pray now you bless our time together. I pray it's a blessing to those that are here today. And Lord, help me make up any gap in my teaching with your Holy Spirit. And we invite you here, Lord God, to teach us through your Spirit. And it's in your name, Jesus. Amen. Amen. Turn in your Bibles, if you would, to 1 Peter chapter 4. We're not going to spend much time there, but we are going to start off there. 1 Peter chapter number 4. The title of my message, I have actually Two titles, so one would be a subtitle. The message title I've chosen is Watchmen, What of the Night? The subtitle would be kind of what I've already heard here this morning, and that is that the hour is near. So if you turn to 1 Peter chapter number four with me, we'll look at just one verse, and then I'll kind of lay this out, and we'll get started looking at some things together. It says in 1 Peter chapter four, verse number seven, but the end of all things is at hand. Be therefore sober and watch unto prayer. This morning I want to remind us all of two things, the nearness of the Lord's return and the necessity of the gospel of Jesus Christ in your life and in the lives of your loved ones. So that's what we're gonna kinda look. So it's really gonna be two parts. We're gonna look at the nearness of the Lord's return. We're gonna look at some things that are going on in the world. As Deb said earlier, that time is short. We're gonna look at some things together and see just how short these things are, and then turn the corner and we'll look at the necessity of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You know, in Luke chapter number 24, there are two of Jesus' disciples walking down walking down the, what is it, Damascus Road, right? Damascus Road, yeah. And the Lord had been crucified. And he's been resurrected, but it's kind of like not known too much just yet what's going on. And the Lord meets them on this road as they're walking, perplexed and wondering about certain things and what would take place. And they did not recognize the Lord. He appeared to them in some manner in which they would not recognize him. And Jesus opens to them the scripture. And then he gets ready to leave. So if you look, and we're not gonna look here, but if you look at Luke chapter 24, verse 29, you read this. As he was getting ready to leave and walk away from them, it says, but they constrained him, saying, abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them. You know, when Jesus Christ walked this earth in human flesh, it was likened unto the daytime, because the day star was here. But he was getting ready to leave, and he told them, he said, look, the day is far spent. And we know it's coming after the day. It's the night time. And after the Lord left, you and I live in this, if you will, dispensation of the nighttime. And we know that there's a morning coming, but today you and I live in this dark day. And we are to be as the moon is to the sky at night. We are to be like that. We are to reflect the light in this dark world in which we live. But you know, in Romans chapter 13, Paul, went a little further. And I'll read to you, and then again, we'll turn to some scriptures together, I promise, but I wanna read this. Paul says in chapter 13 of Roman, verse 11, and that knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep. For now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. Now watch this. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. The days are dark. The time is late. The time that you and I live in marks about the 6,000 year of human history. For the last 2,000 years, the Holy Spirit of God has been out in the world calling and calling and wooing and looking for a bride for the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think, as Sister Deb said earlier, the Lord deserves every one of these souls. He died for the whole world. The Holy Spirit's going out, and in some way, He's talking to every soul. See, Jesus is the true light which cometh in the world and lighteth every man's heart. He gives light to every person. And so, you and I live in the final days. the closing days, and we're gonna explore that in a little bit. It's the day just before, as the Lord promised in John chapter 14, he said, look, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also. It's just before that time when the Lord comes and fulfills that promise to bring us back to heaven or to bring us into heaven with him. The darkest hour for earth will be just before the dawn of the millennial day. There'll be a seven-year tribulation, and that's coming. It's gonna be a dark day. The Bible describes it as a dark day, a day of thick clouds and darkness. That's what's coming. And there's many indications in Scripture and in the current events around us that point to the lateness of the hour and the nearness of the Lord's return. So I want to examine some of those things this morning. some of the things that are going on today, the events that we see happening today. And if you look around in the world, it can be confusing if you don't have a Bible, right? Your neighbors are confused by what's going on if they don't have a Bible and are not saved. Your coworkers are confused by what's going on and how they get batted back and forth in this world and bounced around. But we're not confused because we know what's going on. We know it's the lateness of the hour. and it's the wickedness of men. And we're leading towards this time of the tribulation. Daniel calls it, in chapter nine of Daniel, he doesn't call it this, but it's the 70th week of Daniel, that last period of time when the Lord is gonna deal again with his nation of Israel and with the rulers of the world and the world at large. And it's a time that you read about in Revelation, where he brings out these seal judgments and then these trumpet judgments and then these vial judgments. That's what's coming. We know what's going on today. We know the course of this world because we live in what the Bible calls this present evil world. It's found in Galatians chapter number one. This is why we have all the turmoil in the world. This is what's going on in the local communities and on the news, if you watch there or read there, whatever you may do, you hear about it some way. On the internet, whatever, a coworker, you hear about the wickedness that's going on in the world. And that's no surprise to those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ, because we live in a present evil world, and that is what's going on, the mass shootings, the stabbings, all the violence that you see, the turmoil in the country, all that stuff. is because we live in a present evil world. And as we get closer to the Lord's return, things will get even darker. Things will get even more difficult on planet Earth. Because evil men and seducers wax worse and worse. deceiving and being deceived. See, they don't just stay at a certain level of wickedness and evil. It gets worse and worse. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing that all around us today. So in this first part of this message, I want to look at some events that are indicative of this present evil world and the nearness of the Lord's return. But as a Christian, I want to remind us all I'm not really looking for these events. I'm not looking for the Antichrist. I'm looking for my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the blessed hope, as Titus 2.13 says. That's who I'm looking for. But I can look at some of these things here and see to remind me that the time is short. And if I have something that I need to do for the Lord, I need to get it done. I don't know when my last day is on this earth. When my brother passed away at age 66, he thought he was perfectly healthy. He had had a physical two days prior, and they told him what great shape he was in. And 10 minutes after he had a heart attack, he was gone. He went to glory, praise God, but he was gone. So I don't know, and I want to be sure that I am about the Lord's business, because as the Bible says, the night that you and I live in is far spent. It's almost over. So with that, we're going to look at the nearness of the Lord's return. It was already talked about this morning a little bit. I think it might have been Brother Mark. I love the way this stuff comes together. I think you were talking about a little bit Matthew 24 and deception and things, right? Yeah, that great Olivet Discourse, we're not gonna turn there, we're gonna turn to some scripture in Genesis in a minute, but that great Olivet Discourse, if you look at that thing, the Lord lays out what's coming before his return. He tells us about the beginning of sorrows. And then he talks about the great tribulation. And he says as this thing begins, there's gonna be spiritual deception. There's gonna be people going around saying, I am Christ. In other words, you can become God. You know, there's one of the leading advocates for, I don't know if you've heard of the Great Reset and the World Economic Forum, the Davos Group, that's in Switzerland where these world Luciferian elitists get together and they plan your life out for you and the events of the world. Well, there is an individual who has the ear of all these elitists. His name is Yavall Harari. He's a Israeli professor, and he has the attentive ear of globalists like Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, Barack Obama, and many others. They just love what he writes. He openly mocks the God of the Bible. And oh, by the way, just to add to his sin, he's a Sodomite besides. And he openly mocks God. He wrote some books, and his second book is called Homo Deus, Homo Man Deus God. In other words, you can be God. Where have I heard that before? Genesis chapter number three. But Jesus in Matthew 24, he talks about this great deception that would go on, and he also talks about wars and rumors of wars. Middle East, Russia, China, Ukraine, right? Go on and on and on, and wars we don't know about. We only hear rumors of wars going on in places we can't locate on the map. But they're there. He said that there would be turmoil among the nations. And man, don't we have turmoil? We're shooting things out of the air left and right these days. There would be famines, he said in Matthew 24. We're gonna look at that in a little bit. Pestilences. Can anyone say COVID? If you can't say COVID, how about monkey pox? How about bird flu? How about the swine flu? And on and on it goes with, what is it? H1NC3422. You know, I don't know what that is anymore. He said there would be earthquakes, ever-increasing earthquakes. If you look at the geological data, you will see that there are greater and greater in intensity and number earthquakes than ever before. This is what Jesus said would be the beginning of sorrows. And we get to glimpse a little bit through the window now of Scripture and current events and see that these things are going on. But rather than looking at the Olivet Discourse in great detail, I wanna turn to a place that you wouldn't necessarily think to turn to. Genesis chapter number 47. Turn in the Bible with me to Genesis 47. I need to do that myself. In Genesis chapter 47, we get this remarkable prototype glimpse of what the Lord's gonna be doing in these days just before his return. You wouldn't think to go all the way back to Genesis 47, but there it is. Let me give you a little background. In Genesis 47, I'll wait till you get there. The time is around 1700 BC, give or take a little bit. Jacob, whose name is what? Jacob, whose name is Israel, and his sons are now living in the land of promise, the Canaan land. But Jacob's sons get angry with one of the sons, Joseph, and jealous of their father's obvious special love for Joseph. When an opportunity presents itself, they, the other brothers, sell, 10 of them, sell their brother Joseph into slavery in Egypt. Egypt in the Bible represents a few different things. There's a couple of different types. One of the types of things it represents is the world. So it's a man sold into slavery into the world. Now, after some time in Egypt, the pharaoh, who would be the leader of the world, the pharaoh has a dream, which God gives the interpretation of to Joseph. As a result of his interpretation, Joseph becomes an exalted leader in Egypt. The dream is the prophecy of seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of famine, or dearth, or difficulty. All the land is in the midst now, as we're going to read here, of a seven-year famine. Now, think of the type, think of the picture, think of the prototype. We've got the world Egypt, the type of the world, the world in a seven-year period of darkness and death. That's a picture of the tribulation that's coming. It's a picture of that seven-year tribulation. And what we see here is the setup that I see today happening in the world. Now, this is how we know we're getting so close. Let's take a look at Genesis 47, verse 13. And there was no bread in all the land, for the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine." There was no bread. In other words, the food has failed. On a recent magazine cover of The Economist magazine a few months back, they had a picture of wheat harvest. Okay, nice beautiful wheat with the flower of the wheat. But if you looked real closely at it, what you saw was the flower of the wheat were little skulls. And the point they were making inside the article was that there are food shortages all around the world happening today, and people are beginning to starve all over the country. And that's what we see here, and there was no bread. In other words, a severe famine has decimated the food supply. Famines, in case you're not familiar with it, are food shortages. Often severe, they last for a long period of time, and it makes for a desperate population of people. Now, famine can be caused by a number of things. Severe weather, it could be severe drought, severe rain, anything that destroys the crop. It can be a disease among the crops or the cattle, but it can also be something that's purposeful in order to overthrow an enemy in war. Where you remember, you come against the city and you starve them out, so to speak. It's a method of enslavement, or perhaps even a way of killing a population. A famine can be, and will be, in the future, used as a judgment by God. In the book of Revelation, chapter number 18, and in Matthew 24, I already referenced it, he talks about these things that are coming. Our old friend Henry Kissinger, is that guy still alive, anyone know? What is it, you gotta be like 199 or something? Anyway, our good old buddy friend Henry Kissinger once said, control the oil and you control nations. Control the food and you control the people. The Biden administration about a year ago, they announced a new program. It was gonna be a government-wide effort to cut the greenhouse gas emissions. Let me ask you, is there anybody here that's really worried about climate change? No. The Lord said, while the earth remaineth, we're going to have seed time and harvest, cold and heat. There's no reason to worry about that thing. Set your young ones at rest with that thing. They don't need to worry about that thing. But there was a new initiative. They were going to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. And they were going to incentivize farmers to take land out of production by raising rental rates or giving them incentive payments to do so. Now when you take land out of production, you know what you begin to cause? A food shortage. I think it's in Holland, if somebody can yell and correct me if I'm wrong, they are demanding that their farmers take out one third of their cows out of production. Do you know what that's going to cause? A food shortage. You see how the Lord is already beginning to show us the type that's come. This is the day in which we live. The hour is near. Watchmen, what of the night? You're the watchman. What of the night? It means, what are you doing about the night? The largest private owner of farmland in the United States is our good friend Bill Gates. He owns thousands and thousands of acres of farmland. He's the same guy also who wants us to eat fake meat, right? By the way, he's also the same elitist, Luciferian elitist who says he wants to reduce the population of the world. Hmm. Yeah, that'll do it. China and other foreign entities have spent billions of dollars buying up millions of acres of farmland in this country. Now, we still have a lot of farmland, okay, but again, there's a lot of stuff. All this stuff means reduced production, leading us towards a food shortage. The climate change agenda of the globalist elites dictates that the reduction of meat production, because after all, so, you know, the cows don't have a great carbon footprint apparently. You know, so they want us to, literally want us to eat bugs, eat crickets. It's already showing up in some of your food products. Just look at your labels carefully enough, unless you want to eat crickets, that's fine. Here and around the world, farmers are having to change their production methods to reduce greenhouse gases. So man may start something, but God's going to bring it forth. In 2022, last year, over 50 million poultry livestock had been killed due to the threat of disease. Again, taking food out of our system. There have been over, actually there have been several dozen disabling fires and things, events at food facilities across our country. Plane crashes, fires, and things like that. Again, taking food offline, food out of production. Now we don't see a whole lot of that in this country, although if you look in the past year or so, The shelves where I shop occasionally are less full than they used to be, but we're still blessed in this country. We still have a pretty good supply chain. But the rest of the world, it isn't so. As man does his best to ruin the food supply, God will eventually send out the rider on the black horse. to further destroy the food supply and usher in an even greater famine of judgment against the world and the New World Order Babylon. Revelation 18.8 talks about the famine that the Lord would bring forth. I want to remind you, though, that what the Lord said about famine. He said even in the famine, nakedness and peril, these things can't separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. Look at verse 15 of our text. And when money failed in the land of Egypt, so now we have the money failing. The Bible says in Proverbs 22, 7, the rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is a servant to the lender. The United States of America, and the world at large for that matter, are servants to the lenders right now. the lender being sometimes foreign governments, but most often it's the central banking system, or as we love to affectionately call it here in this country, the Federal Reserve Bank. Now, you've heard me say this before, it's not federal, there's no reserves, and it's not a bank. It just makes you feel good when they say Federal Reserve Bank, but it's none of those things. It's a Luciferian debt system. That's all it is. Money, money failed. Money is the means by which people carry out transactions in a simple way. We don't have to barter, bring our cow to swap for your two pigs or whatever. It's a way in which we can barter for services just easily. Here you go. Pass back and forth. Governments with the cooperation of the central banks, Federal Reserve, spend way more money than they have. Have you noticed that? And the only way to make up this difference really is to tax its citizens more or to borrow. Borrowing is a lot easier for them than taxing us. You wouldn't think so the way they tax us, but it's a lot easier to borrow than to tax us. And where do they borrow that money from? Mostly from the central bank, who, by the way, created it out of nothing and lent it to the United States of America at an interest rate. That's something only Lucifer could come up with. One way in which the money fails is when the form of money loses its value. We see the currencies of today beginning to fail all around us. Money fails when people lose trust in the value of that money. People lose trust in the value of that money in times we call inflation. We have any inflation in this country? The cause of inflation is very simple. It's called deficit spending. Now you can simplify it. I don't know if I ever used it as an example before, but I like it. I'm of the age where I grew up watching cartoons when they were cartoons and not some kind of trying to teach me something. Remember Popeye and Wimpy? What did Wimpy always want to do? If you buy me a hamburger today, I'll pay you back or something like that, right? That's our U.S. government. That's called deficit spending. It's Wimpy saying he's going to, you know, if you lend him money today for a hamburger, he'll pay you back tomorrow, except he never did pay you back, I don't think. Neither will our government. So let me make it clear. Inflation is caused by printing too much money without a corresponding rise in the goods and services to be consumed. This creates an excess of money. That's what we have today. I think I've used this example before, but I like it. In 1822, I looked this thing up. A one-ounce gold coin was worth $19.39. Okay? One-ounce gold coin. With that, you could go out and get a nice tailor-made suit. You could buy a new pair of shoes and have enough money left over for dinner. Do you know if I still had that one-ounce gold piece, you know what I could do today? I could go out, get a nice handmade suit made, get a new pair of shoes, and go out for dinner. Can't do that with $19.39, can you? That's inflation. The United States of America is in national debt of $31.5 trillion. Now, we throw around numbers like nothing, a million, billion, trillion, you know, we just throw them out. Let me give you a little idea in a couple ways. A dollar bill is about 6 inches long. 6.14 I think is the number. 6 inches long. If you had a million of them stretched lengthwise, okay, you would stretch that 97 miles. That's a long way. That's here past Rochester. But if you had a billion of them stretched out that way, you could stretch those things out 97,000 miles. That's like four times around the circumference of the Earth. Isn't the Earth, what is it, 25,000? I don't know, 25,000. That's like four times around the Earth. But if I had a trillion dollars, I could spread those things out 97 million miles. See, a trillion is not a million by any stretch. If I had a million dollars, I could spend $1,000 a day for three years. If I had a billion dollars, I could spend $1,000 a day for 3,000 years. If I had $1 trillion, I could spend $1,000 a day for 3 million years. We owe, as a government, 31, as a people, .5 trillion dollars. We can't pay that thing back. You think we're going to pay that thing back? No, that's why they'll be able to do a great reset and bring forth a new form of controlled government currency, which will eventually lead to the mark. This is the current aspect of things. It's going to eventually lead to the mark. By the way, the Lord had a wonderful idea for how to control the money supply. You can read about it back in Leviticus. Every 50 years he had a year of jubilee and everything that had been lent out had to come back in and he would shrink the supply of money back to where it didn't get inflationary. But that's not what we do in this country. The US and the world economies, we used to have gold as a means of stopping the money supply from getting out of hand and going inflationary. But today, it's simply print money. It's a fiat currency. You print money. It's backed by nothing except the blood, sweat, and tears of the American taxpayer and the American citizen. The bottom line is the money will fail and outrides the rider on the black horse of Revelation chapter 6. a measure of a wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny. A penny is a day's wage. There is going to be inflationary pressures and food shortages and maybe even wage, or not wage, price controls, and it's gonna be to the point where the scarcity of food and the inflation, it's gonna be so hard to get food during this time that's coming. Money has never been the answer. Make no mistakes about it, the money will fail. The rich rulers of this world will have their day in court with Jesus. And one day he's going to destroy their gods of money and power. James chapter 5 says, Go to now, you rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered, he says, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. You have heaped treasure together for the last days. the money will fail let's look at chapter 47 again look at verse number 17 16 and 17 and Joseph said give your cattle and I will give for your cattle if money fail and they brought their cattle into Joseph and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses and for the flocks and for the cattle of the herds and for the asses and he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year give your cattle and they brought their cattle Cattle and land were the basic means of production in those days. We talk about, I worked in business for years, and it was the means of production, okay? That's what we were, I worked for a producing company, and we produced things. But back then, the major means of production was land and cattle. And that was the thing that lifted the average common person of the day out of poverty and into middle class, if you will. and they were allowed to be into the middle class by the production systems that they had. And that would relate today, in the day and age in which you and I live, is the small businesses of this world, the middle class worker of this world. In this country and around the world, the middle class is losing its ability to pay bills and to save money for that proverbial rainy day. This may, you know, one day bring in that so-called universal guaranteed income that you hear about once in a while, but the means of production is being destroyed in a number of ways. One, by the runaway costs that we have of inflation. Some due to printing too much money, some due to restrictions in the supply chain, oil prices and all those sort of things, but also the tyrannical overreach of our government in the You know, what is it, what they call that, 1,000 days to flatten the curve, what was that called? Oh wait, 15 days to flatten the curve. It's more like 1,000 or so, I don't know how many days it is. It'd be about 1,000, wouldn't it, three years worth? More and more average people are relying on the government to supply their needs as the means of production gets squeezed out. Do you know during this period of time that we call the pandemic, which was really a lockdown thing, about 20% of small businesses went out of business. I mean, you know, and even today they can't get the help that they need, which is going to lead to further closures. You see, the means of production are being destroyed right now before our eyes. And as Joseph was here in the middle of a seven year famine, coming in this tribulation period is this time where all these things will begin to fail. The small business will go out of business. And guess what? Amazon will rise up. Walmart will rise up. All these big businesses will rise up and it will lead to more and more fascism and communism, which has never helped a single person other than those at the top ever a day in life. When you destroy the middle class of society, you get more poor people and more rich people. The Bible says in Proverbs 30, remove far from me vanity and lies, give me neither poverty, down here, nor riches what's in between the middle class he says give me neither poverty nor riches feed me with food convenient for me lest I be full and deny thee and say who is the Lord or lest I be poor and steel and take the name of my God in vain Genesis 47 verse number 19 wherefore shall we die before thine eyes both we and our land by us by us, slavery, servitude to the governments. I have a friend, his name is Jack, and 30, man, it's going to close to 40 years ago, he used to always say, hey, he'd say, brother, they want us living and working on the company store, company farm, something like that. And it's true. This is what we see going on around us. He used to call the Revelation 13, you know, the beast, he used to call it the world, UN, military, economic, church, state, God, or something like that, government. I mean, he was right, that's what it is. Genesis 47, 19, we see, wherefore it says, by us and our land. In the future, when the tribulation comes, when the food fails, and the money fails, and the means of production fail, for the average class, middle class person, people will be desperate and ready to say, I'm yours. And bow down to that beast. That's what's coming. By us. The beast kingdom will be dealing in the souls of men and slavery. Revelation 18, 13, I'll read for time's sake. It says, speaking of that beast kingdom, these are the things that it's gonna deal in. And cinnamon, and odors, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. People are going to be that desperate that they're going to sell themselves into servitude, bondage, slavery, as this beast system takes over. And this slavery, we see it today, we hear about it, rumored. You know, pedophilia, you know, child abuse. That was going on thousands of years ago. You don't actually think it's stopped, do you? We just don't hear a lot about it, and thankfully we don't hear too much about it, but it's still going on today. That's also the kind of thing that's going to be going on. Look at the book of Joel, chapter 3, verse number 3. It says this, And they have cast lots for My people, and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine that they might drink. This is the kind of debauchery that's going to be going on by us. They said, you know these perverts, because that's what they are, these pedophiles, these perverts, they want to be called, have you ever heard this? Map. They want to be called a map. A minority attracted person. They're perverts. That's what they are. And the Lord's got a special place for them if they don't get right. Chapter 47, verse number 20. And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. Joseph buying the land for the world ruler. The government now, in this case as we're reading here, and as it will as we get closer to the Lord's return, is buying all the land. In the future, they don't necessarily have to buy it, just control it. I don't know if you ever heard of technocracy. It's not that actually new of a term. Back in the 1930s, Zbigniew Brzezinski was writing about the technocracy. And Hitler used a technocracy during World War II. A technocracy is a way of controlling now today through computers and technology and cell phones and all the AI and all these things. They want to control or own the land. all the resources of the world. The Babylon New World Order system today is fully developing these things and it will come to fruition during the tribulation. Revelation 18, 12, verse 13, again talking about that system in the future. Precious bounty of the land, gold, silver, pearls, linen, wood, brass, iron, marble, spices, wheat, cattle, slaves, and the souls of men. This is what they'll be dealing in through a technocracy of controlling our environments. Verse number 21. And as for the people, he removed them to cities. You know, the Bible doesn't talk very favorably about cities. In Isaiah 5, 8 it says, Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth, alone to follow after their God, to find God in quietness, squeezed into cities. Did you know that over 4 billion people live in urban setting cities today? They're putting people into cities. And there is a move now in certain states, and I think this is unfortunately maybe one of the states where they want to now urbanize the suburbs, urbanize, bring the city living into the suburbs, build things that go up now into the suburbs. And I don't know if you've noticed, more and more over the last 15 years, you see above businesses, you see people living, and you see a bunch of living complexes around it. This, again, is the new world order. They want a 15-minute city where you no longer need your carbon-burning car. You can just walk to within 15 minutes and get everything you need. They want to squeeze us in, as they did here. He removed them into the cities. By the way, it isn't for your benefit. It's for control. Does anybody remember what happened to those poor people in Shanghai, China? Over 20 million of them locked into their little cubicle high-rises, could not get out of their apartments for fear of being arrested or worse. I got to look at my note here, because I don't remember. Heat wave out west last year. And there was some people that had signed up with a program with a company called Xcel. X-C-E-L. Xcel. And when it got real hot, they found out, oh, man, I can't turn my thermostat down. Somebody else is controlling it for me. Yeah, Xcel was. It was the program you signed up for. It was a test program. They moved them into the cities. Unfortunately, Our government, the U.S. government, along with other major governments, but all I care about really right now is ours, but I care about the rest, are attempting to usher in the United Nations WHO, World Health Organization, as the governing body, quote, when we have another pandemic. In other words, they will then decide who gets locked up, who can go out, who can't go out, what treatment you'll get, et cetera. Don't kid yourself. We can come up with another pandemic anytime we want. And we may find ourselves locked up also. Now, some of you may be thinking this guy's nuts. That I'm a conspiracy theorist or something. No, I believe in conspiracies. There's a conspiracy. And by the way, if you look in the Bible, conspiracy always means something that's real that's going on that's nefarious. And we have a conspiracy that started back in the garden. That's where the conspiracy started. Yes, it's the truth, whoever said that, amen. If you look at all these things, through all the plans of the World Economic Order, the New World Order, the Davos Group, whatever, you want a great reset, all those things, the UN Agenda 2030, all those things, Satan will use this structure to begin to put together his government with the Antichrist at its head. But remember, as God brings judgments upon the earth in the future, he is in control. Your pastor gave me this verse, it's a good verse. It says in, now it's in the book of Job, chapter five, verse number 12. He says this, he God, and Job's a picture of people in the last half of the tribulation, 42 months. the tribulation he God appointed the devices of the crafty so that his hand so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise he taketh the wise in their own craftiness and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong that's what the Lord can do just like that one more verse from here take a look at verse number 24 and it came to pass that I'm sorry and it shall come to pass in the increase that ye shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh now I know what that is Pharaoh is a type of the world again the fifth part that's a tax that's a world tax Daniel chapter 11 verse number 20 I believe it is talks about that in the last days there would be one who would come on the scene who would work for the Antichrist and be a razor of taxes A world tax. Now, I don't know what form it's gonna take place. You know, carbon credits, energy credits, whatever. I don't know. But God gave us the fore view of what's coming. You see how close we are to this thing? The night is far spent. The hour is near. Watchmen, what of the night? Now, in just a few minutes here, I wanna turn the corner and I wanna talk just a little bit about the necessity of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a cost to the gospel. There is a concern of the gospel. There is a corruption of the gospel. And we need to take care of and with the gospel. I hope by now you're beginning to see the necessity of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul said, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth to the Jew first and also to the Greek. You have I say this often because it's so true. The only words of eternal life. Right here. I love Peter in John chapter 6. When the Lord said to the disciples, are you going to leave me too? And he said, Lord, who are we going to go to? Thou hast the words of eternal life. Christian, thou hast the words of eternal life. Watchmen, what of the night? What are you doing with them? The gospel of Jesus Christ. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter number 15. Let's just talk a little bit in our last minutes about the gospel of Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, those of you who know something about your Bible, you'll know you get a short definition of the gospel of Jesus Christ right there. So let's look at these first four verses. And I just wanna bring home a couple of points in the last few minutes here. says in verse 1, moreover brethren I declare unto you the gospel which I preach unto you which also you have received and wherein you stand by which also ye are saved if you keep in memory what I preached unto you unless you had believed in vain For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and He was buried, and that He rose the third day according to the Scriptures." That's the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We need to make it no more complicated, but no less thorough than that. You know, if you talk to the average person going to church today on a Sunday morning, what do you think about Mother Teresa? Remember Mother Teresa, the Catholic nun in India who devoted her life to the poor of Calcutta, remember her? If you ask the average person in churches today, in churches today, forget about the world at large, in churches today, what do you think? Think Mother Teresa's in heaven? They'll say, after all, she was such a good person. Let me read to you what Mother Teresa said. If I come face to face with God, we accept Him in our lives, then we become a better Hindu, a better Muslim, a better Catholic, a better whatever we are. What God is in your mind, you must accept. Now if that's her testimony, she's not in heaven. She's not in heaven. Don't get confused by that. Well, my Uncle John, you know, he's a really good guy. He doesn't, you know, he doesn't talk much about Bible, but he sure believes in the big guy upstairs. Well, my Aunt Sally, you know, she's devoted to pro-life causes, so she'll be okay, right? How about my cousin Lou? He's down at the city mission. He's feeding the poor. He'll be okay, right? Don't confuse the Gospel with other things. There's the Gospel of Jesus Christ, given to you right there, that Jesus Christ died, was buried, rose again the third day according to the Scripture, and whosoever believeth on the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's that simple, but it's that important. Don't confuse the matter. There's a concern of the Gospel. The concern is the souls of people. But God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Remember, God so loved the world. Remember that? The concern of the gospel is lost souls. You, me, everyone else in this world. The Lord was concerned for our soul. Without the gospel of Jesus Christ, I know where I would be headed. And it wasn't because I was any worse than any of you. I might have been, but I might not have been. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the concern of the gospel is for souls. And Jesus Christ, as we heard already today, is worthy of every one of those souls that ever came into the world, man, woman, boy or girl. But unfortunately, there's a corruption of the gospel. Galatians 1, I talked about Galatians 1 before about this present evil world. He said there that those who would pervert the gospel of Christ. Now we heard already about some of that perversion, Brother Mark talking about and Brother Kevin about that Asbury thing. There's no gospel being given there, it's a perversion of things. Now who would do that? Well, I know Satan would do it. He would love to mess up God's plans. But I also know that Satan is not all-powerful. He's not omnipotent. He needs workers. And he has, as the Bible says, false apostles, ministers of righteousness, deceitful workers. That's who he has working in the world today. So there are those who would corrupt, and they try to convince people there is no truth. There is no God. Well, actually, you can be God, because in you is the universe, and I can become one with the universe. You don't need the gospel. That's old-fashioned. You can make it on your own. After all, there's many ways to God. All you got to do is find your path. But guess what? You and I can also enter the gospel. Paul actually prayed, he said, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ in 1 Corinthians chapter 9. He didn't want to hinder the gospel. You and I can hinder the gospel of Jesus Christ. First of all, by not saying a word. Does anyone know you're a Christian? I'm not pointing fingers at anybody. I'll point them at me. Does anyone know you're a Christian? Have you told anybody lately? How about at work? Don't be 007 secret agent man. Okay? Let somebody know that there's hope in your heart. You don't have to beat them down with the Bible and whack them across the head. Just let them know there's hope in Jesus Christ, and you've received that hope of Jesus Christ, the salvation of your soul. Let them know that's what they need. The hour is late. The greatest need of mankind is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Always was and always will be, till the day you go to be with Him in heaven. The gospel must be preached. You notice what we read here in 1 Corinthians 15. He said that he preached the gospel. He preached this thing. You know, if you look up the word preach and gospel in the Bible, you'll find they are connected. The gospel and resurrection, the gospel and preaching, they're connected in the scriptures. And Paul went out, he didn't have some special gospel. Look at verse three. He said, look, the thing I deliver to you is the thing that I also received. And you will not go out and deliver that thing unless you have received it yourself. Have you received the gospel of Jesus Christ? If you have, you ought to be out there telling somebody about it. I don't know how you do it. You can do it with a gospel track, okay? You can leave these things everywhere. I mean, I don't even go to the... Once in a while, I try to put gas in my car, and I get in the car, and my wife said, did you put a gospel track there? I said, yeah, okay. So now I carry them so that she can't, or when she reminds me, I say, yeah, I did. I put them in the gas thing. Right? You put them in your bills. You put them in your neighbor's mailboxes. You hand them to your neighbors. Do what you can to get the gospel out. The hour is near, but you won't do it if you haven't received it. And if you have, you ought to. And it's not complicated. The gospel must be preached. And he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Find your way of doing it. Your pastor wants to go door to door. That's wonderful. Okay? That's wonderful. If you can avail yourself of that, do that thing. However it is. I've taken to giving out the little books that I've written. I've given them to every one of my neighbors, 43 neighbors. I live in a small area. Every one of them have gotten them. Most of them are still talking to me, too, which is amazing. But every one of them have gotten the book. I give them to my doctors, veterinarians. I give them to every contractor that comes into my house to do work. Guy delivers a couch, here you go. Here's some money and here's a book. Do what you can. There's nothing special about that. It's just getting the gospel out. You know, the power's in the gospel. Remember old Jonah? He was a crotchety old man. He didn't like the Ninevites. And it wasn't the power of Jonah. It was the power of the Word of God that brought a great revival to the nation of Nineveh. Remember, it's not you. It's not how sharp you are, not how good looking you are. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ. Only let your conversation, the Bible says, be as it becometh the gospel. That whether I come and see you, he said in Philippians, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, Paul told the Philippians, that ye stand fast in one spirit with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. Paul himself said, and I'm gonna finish with this, that he was a servant of Jesus Christ. He said he was called to be an apostle and he was separated under the gospel of God. So let me ask you this morning, are you a servant of Jesus Christ like Paul was? You and I are not apostles. There are no apostles like the Bible talks about apostles. They don't exist. They were part of the foundation of the church. Just look at Ephesians chapter two, the beginning of that thing. There's no apostles today. But are you called? Romans chapter 8 verse 28 says you're the called according to purpose. You're called and the purpose is to honor the Lord Jesus Christ and to get the gospel out there. But the thing that Paul said was he had separated himself under the gospel. Have you separated yourself in any way from the world? From your former life? Have you separated yourself in some manner for the gospel's sake? It's not too late, brothers and sisters, to get started. Start where you are and just begin. Final verse, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, which we learned was an evil present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. I said it earlier, I may be a bit older, I may be a little bit more bent over, have trouble sitting up and getting down and all those sort of things, but I'm not broken yet. In the days that I have, I'm going to serve my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, while He gives me breath. I hope you will do the same for the honor and glory of your Savior. He deserves it. Brother White, do you want to come up? You want this thing here?