Open your copy of the Word of God, please, to Psalm 122. Psalm 122. If you have seen any news in the past 24 hours, you are aware that the situation in the Middle East has significantly escalated. With that in mind, I felt led yesterday evening to really change the plan for this morning's message. We'll get back to, we'll come back to we must go at another time. If you didn't get one of the note-taking sheets and lift your hand ushers, have these. You've likely been served, but you can take that home with you. It's a little different than we normally use. I'm going to go fast because I have a lot of ground to cover today. I want to try to put into biblical perspective what's happening in the Middle East. And I know different people have a different awareness of this, and so I will try not to wade into the weeds too deep, but bring everybody up to at least some point of basic understanding of the spiritual and biblical importance of Israel, and why it's important for America to stand with Israel. This is far more than a political matter. It's a biblical matter. It's an important spiritual matter. And I'm thankful, I'm sure as you are, that those 300 missiles and pilotless aircraft, when they say drones, don't think about a little thing that your grandson flies around the backyard, a little helicopter type looking thing, right? These are basically pilotless planes loaded with munitions. that they programmed to fly in a particular spot some hundreds of miles away. And you are aware that over 300 of those were sent to attack Israel yesterday, last night. And that the Israeli Defense Force, along with help from the United States military, knocked 99% of those out of the sky. That's good. What will happen in the days ahead, specifically in Israel's response, who knows, they have a lot of options. We want to take a much broader view about that. I've been kind of making some notes on this subject since the October 6th attacks when Hamas left Gaza, which is an area in Israel, we'll identify that in a little bit, and killed hundreds of people and took hundreds of people hostage in that massacre that took place. So yesterday was a tipping point for me to just talk to you about this and to put it in biblical perspective. The Bible says in the 122nd Psalm, verse six, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love thee. We need to have an awareness, a concern, and a compassion for the nation of Israel and for the Jewish people. Our goal here today is to make you aware of the situation so that when you do pray for the peace of Jerusalem, you'd be able to understand and convey to others the signs of the times. Because the global stage just got shuffled a little bit, that we could see Maybe the Lord's getting ready to come back. If that's the case, I want to say from the word of God, even so come Lord Jesus. Just come on ahead and take us out of here. That'll be just fine. The Lord may tear another thousand years, but certainly what we're seeing could easily connect the dots to what's going to happen after we're gone. You know about the attack on October the 6th of last year. Men, women, children, infants were tortured, brutally killed, some left to die, and many taken hostage. They were taken back to the Gaza Strip region where the attackers came from. This military Palestinian force known as Hamas is funded and armed directly by Iran. and indirectly by many other of Israel's enemies. The Arab world hates Israel. We're going to expand as to why that is. Let me throw this in. The Arab world generally hates America. And the reason they hate America is they see us as the protector of Israel. And in their mind, they think, well, if we didn't have the U.S. Navy sitting in the Mediterranean Sea, if we didn't have the U.S. Navy in the Red Sea, if we didn't have the U.S. Navy in the Indian Ocean, we'd just wipe those Jews off the face of the earth. That's what the Arabs think. And we are protecting Israel to some degree. But Israel's not going to be defeated because the protector of Israel is Jehovah God. Now we need to have our place and be in the right spot and be in the right level of support. But the protector of Israel is Jehovah God. But the Arab world, one of the reasons, the primary reason they hate America, it's not because we're affluent. It's not because we don't believe the Quran. I mean, that bothers them. I get all that. But the big driving issue is they see America as the great Satan that is protecting the people with whom they have vehement hatred. the Jews. So we're going to just ask a few questions, make a few observations, put some scriptural context to all of this. While the fighting, how did this violence start? Turn to Genesis chapter 12. Genesis chapter 12. Here's where it started. God gave the land of Canaan, the promised land, before it was called Israel, God gave it to Abram. In chapter 12 of the book of Genesis, beginning of the first verse, now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto the land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee. And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And Abraham did that, he took, he left. He left his home, didn't know exactly where he was going, just knew God had called him to go and he followed the leadership of the Lord. And he arrived in what we know today as Israel. He arrived in the land of Canaan. Turn to Genesis chapter 16. That's the first domino that we just read. God giving Abram and his families with a promise, gave them this region of the globe. In chapter 16 of the book of Genesis, and now Saria, Abraham's wife, bear him no children, and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian whose name was Hagar. And Sarah said unto Abram, behold, now the Lord hath restrained me from bearing, I pray thee, go in unto my maid, that it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarah, and Sarah Abram's wife took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, and after Abram had dwelt 10 years in the land of Canaan, he gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. Verse four, and he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived for mistress, for her mistress, she was displeased, despised, excuse me, despised in her eyes. The generations of the Arabs all come from this child born to Hagar. When Sarah said, I have a better plan than waiting on the promised child that God said he would send. God says he's gonna send us a child. I'm impatient. I want it now. I don't want to wait on God's time. Here's my plan. You're always gonna make a mistake when you try to supersede God's plan with your plan, even if you think you're trying to get to the same outcome. God's way is the best way. And any other way is gonna be a problem. Any other way is gonna be sin. This is where it starts. This is where it starts. The enmity between these two mothers has generationally produced the violence and hatred that all of us have lived with our lifetime down through these centuries and millennia. And today in Israel, 10 million people live there. We're going to back up and look at the history briefly in a moment. 73% of those who live in Israel are Jews. 21% are Arabs. 6% are other nationalities. In this fighting, in this struggle, consider the two main combatants Who's fighting who? Well, Israel, the Jews that returned to the land back in the middle of the 1900s, and their biggest ally, the United States. We do help them militarily significantly, as do other free nations, but America has been the staunchest ally of Israel for its entire existence. And who are they fighting? They're fighting the Palestinians. Well, who are the Palestinians? The Palestinians are people that have lived in that region and their descendants for many, many, many years. You say, well, if they've lived there a long time, why isn't it their land? Well, we'll get to that. But we started in Genesis chapter 12. God said, go over there. That's your land. And I want to build a nation right there from your people. They lived in this area for centuries under various regimes, various nations had control of Palestine over periods of centuries. These Palestinians are the descendants of Ishmael, the wild man, the child that never should have been brought into this world with Abram as his earthly father. Lebanon is involved there in the north. We'll see that in a moment. You have a little map on your handout sheet there. Lebanon's involved. Back 20, 30 years ago, the central focus of the struggles were the northern part with Lebanon. Remember, we had the marine barracks that was blown up back in the 80s in Lebanon. There's been a lot of attacks that come. There's a group up there called Hezbollah. They're just a different brand of the same poison. Arabs that hate the Jews. They don't particularly get along well with Hamas, the ones in the south. But they can cause problems, and there are attacks right now that Israel's fending off from Lebanon to the north, and of course, you know, the Palestinians from Hezbollah to the south. And then yesterday, Iran had been talking a big talk for a long time. Well, they finally delivered. At least they attempted to deliver. Their stuff wasn't all that impressive. American and Israeli forces took care of it. So these are the main military groups that fight in the name of the Palestinians, Hezbollah and Hamas. They hate Israel, and because they see us as the protector of Israel, they hate America. Why is there a fixation on the actual land of Israel? Show the map there, and if I could have back there what's showing behind me, that would help me. If you guys can get that rolling, thank you. This is the land described in the Old Testament when God promised it to Abraham and all his descendants. Ownership. It became called Palestine during modern history. So there's a general map of the eastern Mediterranean up there in the top left-hand corner. You see Saudi Arabia, the big yellow. Iran is the big teal-colored nation. And you see just that little brown kind of elongated, that little teeny thing? That's Israel. That's where the Jews are. And all those countries around there are almost 100% Muslim. And the Muslim world says, oh, you're treating these Palestinians so terribly. Saudi Arabia, why don't you take them in? No, we don't want to do that. Egypt, why don't you take them in? No, I'm not going to do that. Syria, why don't you take them? Iran? Iraq, why don't you take them? No, we don't want them. They like having the problem there. They like having the problem there so that they can bother and have excuses for attacks on Israel. God's eternal covenant with Abram promising a great name and a great nation, a great land, is still in force today. So Abram traveled to his place God led him. The Hebrew people were out of the land for a while, you remember. A few generations down, they had to go to Egypt because of a famine. The story of Isaac and Jacob and Israel. They changed his name to Israel. And so then they end up in Egypt. It was all good for a while, but then there arose a king who knew not Joseph. And they were in bondage for 400 years. But when they came out of Egypt, where are they headed? Back to the land God had promised them, back to the Holy Land, back to the land of Canaan. And so Israel would conquer the land as God provided for them, established a kingdom with the 12 tribes, the temple replaces the tabernacle, they're in Jerusalem, and first Saul, then David, then Solomon, and on and on and on with the kings, they have the great thriving nation, they are the dominant world power for many generations. Then spiritual decline leads to political and economic and military decline. And ultimately they are overthrown by the Babylonians. And from the time that Babylon conquers and sacks Israel and carries away the young people, from that time forward, there was never organized government there. Remember Babylon, they let a remnant return, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the time of Esther and all that, just going through the Old Testament history really quick here. So then we come to the end of the Old Testament, that 400-year silent period, and at the end of that 400-year silent period, we know what happened in history, the Roman Empire comes into play. And so the time of Christ, the time of the gospel records, Israel is allowed to have a government, but they're under the rule and authority, they're under the thumb of Roman government. And since that time then, 2,000 years, the Holy Land, Israel, Palestine, has just been dominated and ruled by different ones, the Ottomans and the Turks and all sorts of Eastern European nations. And just as they would rise and fall, they'd claim that land. And so we come down to the middle of the 19th century. In the early part of the 19th century, there was the Zionist movement. People in the Jewish nation scattered all over the earth with no homeland. I mean, they have a homeland, but there's no structure there. They said, let's go back. We've been out for too long. Let's go back. It's called the Zionist movement, returning to Zion. And that began in the early 1900s. And show the next map there, please. And so this is what the land of Israel, the Holy Land, looked like before World War II. And Britain is kind of, Keeping the peace. It's part of the British Empire. So again, there's no Arab state there. It's just Britain keeping the peace, keeping some commerce going, keeping the infrastructure going. This is the early 1900s. But toward the end of World War II, as Britain controlled the Holy Land, Palestine, they wanted to get out of there. They were pulling their troops home and reducing their footprint around the world. They tried to broker agreement that would create a separate Arab and a separate Jewish nation in that region. And the Arabs rejected the proposal. The Arabs rejected the proposal for what they now talk about a two-state solution. That was the original plan. But they didn't want that. Nope, they want the Jews out of there. They want it all. And so with no political solution possible, British forces withdrew on May 14, 1948. And at that moment, Israel said, It's ours. This is our nation. And the nation, the modern nation of Israel was born on 1948, May the 14th. It's their Declaration of Independence Day, if you will. And so there was an Arab uprising to that in 1948, but the better trained Israeli military force that they had put the Arab resistance down quickly. And in fact, Israel expanded the land that it controlled within that big white framework there. Again, Israel considers this event their war for independence, and the Palestinians call it al-Nagba, or the catastrophe. 700,000 Arabs were driven from their homes. Show the third map, if you will, please. And so this is what, this is what Israel looked like in the armistice there in 1949 when it all kind of, when the dust all kind of settled at the birth of the Israeli nation. The president, the United States president at the time was Harry Truman. These procedures were done through the auspices of the UN, so the world was generally for this. Again, the Arabs said, no, we don't want to split, we don't want to share. They didn't want any part of that. Truman put his full weight on the way to the American government behind the Jewish people. And so that's what it looked like at the outset. And you see these pink areas, and that was controlled by Jordan for the Arab people. You've got the Gaza Strip down there on the little corner of the Mediterranean Sea. You have the West Bank here. I'm talking about the West Bank. Well, that's the red part. The Jordan River's right there in the middle, flowing from the Sea of Galilee, up the top of the screen, flows straight south down to the Dead Sea, the Jordan River. And that area called the West Bank, west of the Jordan River, was controlled by Jordan. And it was an area kind of petitioned off for the Arab people to live. These three particularly important areas after the 19, there was a war in 1967. The Arabs said, we don't like how this is being divided up here. And so the West Bank, identified there in the pink, and Jordan was controlling that. Jordan is the next door neighbor there across the Jordan River. But in 1967, Israel was convinced that Jordan was going to attack from the east, that Egypt was going to attack from the southwest. And they did a preemptive strike. They said, we're not going to wait here to be attacked. And so in 1967, they took control of the West Bank, took it away from Jordan. They took control of the Golan Heights up in the top right-hand corner of the white on the little edge of Syria there. There's some mountainous plateaus that overlook. You can see all the way to the Mediterranean from up there. Very strategic place. It overlooks Lebanon. It overlooks northern Israel. And that's called the, when you hear them talk about the Golan Heights, that's the Golan Heights, the top right-hand corner of the white over into the area of Syria. You got the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, that little area right on the Mediterranean Sea that looks like a little strip of land, that's what it is. It was not part of Israel in the first assignment of their territory. And it was occupied by Egypt until 1967. And Israel said, we're not going to sit around and wait for you all to attack us. And they just, they took it. I mentioned the Golan Heights. Okay. So go to the next map, please. There it is, the 67. So when they went to war, this was the Six-Day War. How long have we been in the war on terror? How long was the Vietnam War? How long was World War II? How long was the Korean conflict, Vietnam? Six-day war. Israel just says, when we go to war, we're going to go get her done, and we're going to wrap it up. So they took, see the area there, southwest of Israel, that's the Sinai Peninsula. That's Egypt. They got, Israel just said, nope, that's ours now. Thank you very much. They took control of the West Bank. They took control of the Golan Heights. They expanded their territory. Now this just exacerbated all the other hatred that the Arabs had. Why are these areas so important? They were not part of the original borders from 1948. They were validated by the UN. Israel occupied the land in this disputed military action. The Arabs say, oh, it was a sneak attack and all that. Israel says, no, we know you were coming. We know you were coming, just like we heard for a week Iran was going to attack. This was the most telegraphed invasion or attack ever. And so there are still Palestinians living in these areas, the tan areas that Israel just said, we're going to create some space for our nation. And they tried to let them live there in peace. But every time Israel would try to bring more Jews home, and set up camps, they called them, or set up little towns, set up little villages. They were subject to attack. There have been struggles for the ownership of the land simply because God gave it to a particular people. It's the only piece of real estate that God gifted to a nation. You can't look in the Bible and say, well, America owns the middle part of the North American continent. You can't find that. You can't find that China owns its own land. in the Bible I'm talking about. But you can find in the Bible that God's people own that land. The creator gave it to them. So we come to modern history. That six day war in 1967 effectively redrew the maps. Round two came in 1973 and Israel was attacked by Egypt and Syria. Egypt and Syria were pushed back again. In 1979, We finally come to the Camp David Accords. President Jimmy Carter negotiated some peace between Egypt and Israel. Hopefully that was gonna, other Arab nations were gonna see, okay, you can make peace with the Jews, show the next map, if you will. All right. So this is the map now after 1982 that came out of the Camp David Accords. It's roughly what it looks like today. But there's been these constant bubbling up of unrest and violence and fighting. In 1993, we learn about the Oslo Agreement. Israel agrees to withdraw its forces from Arab territory seized during the Six-Day War. And Arab states in exchange agree to recognize that Israel has a right to exist. That was the Palestinian Liberation Organization's main point for years. We don't even recognize their right to be a country. So when they conceded that, and many Arabs still do not, it was a big deal, the Oslo Agreement. Then there was a follow-up, Oslo Agreement number two, but it fell apart. Both sides blamed the other one. It didn't happen. In the early 2000s, there was Palestinian violence. Again, that erupted on the streets in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and other places. So things have changed a bit. Arafat died in 2004. Saddam Hussein was stirring the pot in all this. From Iraq and that guy in Iran that's the head of the deal now, he's about as bad as that Korean dictator. It's likely the Antichrist is getting ready to step on the scene. The stage is certainly set for that. Maybe the curtain will close and we'll come back at a later time. But it looks like to me that the Antichrist might step out and say, I've got a solution for all this. That's what the Antichrist is going to do. And some dynamic, charismatic personality could convince people, I have a solution for the problems in the Middle East. Don't you think the world would flock to that guy? We see that. Well, that's exactly how the tribulation period is going to begin. Then in 2020, President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, negotiated an agreement called the Abraham Accords, a general declaration and bilateral agreements between Israel and three Arab countries, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco. And this, again, was supposed to pave the way for other Arab nations to recognize, okay, we can recognize one another and live in some peace. The Accords aim to promote peace and stability and cooperation within the Middle East. But why is there still so much hatred? Well, the animosity, the hatred goes back to Genesis 16 that we read. It's this simple as well. Both sides claim ownership of the same land. You ever had a fence fight with a neighbor? Well, that's my land. Surveyor said so. I got a survey that said it's my land. Both sides claim ownership of the same land. And it's not just any land. Jews believe it to be a holy land. Arabs believe it to be a holy land. Christians believe it to be a holy land. So no one's gonna just walk away and say, well, it's a pretty good piece of land, but there's other good properties around. Nope, it's tied to their religion and tied to their culture. Get this, most of you know this, some of you don't know this. The very place where the Temple of Israel used to stand, Solomon's Temple, the Holy of Holies, the holy place, the outer courtyard, all that, on that site right now, today, sits the second most important Muslim mosque. And the Muslims will not let Jews go near it. And Israel says, one day, we're gonna blow that thing up. And we're gonna rebuild the temple right there where it's supposed to sit. They all believe they own the land. They all believe it to be sacred and holy. Nobody's going to just walk away. Another thing about what's fueling the hatred, the Palestinians are rapidly growing in numbers. The average Israeli woman has 2.6 children, while the average Palestinian woman has 6.1 children. That heightens tensions. Many Palestinians train their children from a very young age to hate Jews. I mean, teaching four and five-year-old little kids, you're supposed to hate those Jews and indoctrinate them over and over again and teach them that there is great honor in killing Jews. Text messages were intercepted after this October 6th event. from Palestinian family to Palestinian family and young people, teenagers, telling his parents, I got to kill Jews today. That's what they've been taught to do. The two sides have a very different standard of living. The average wage for an Israeli is five times what the average wage is for a Palestinian. That exacerbates tension. misunderstanding and hatred. And both sides believe God is on their side. They believe God's on their side. Why are Christians generally so pro-Israel? We believe God is currently working primarily through his church, but that Israel still plays a key role in end times prophecy. I cite those scriptures that are given to you there I'll just read Zechariah 8, 13. It shall come to pass that as you were a curse among the heathen, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you. You shall be a blessing. Fear not, fear not, but let your hands be strong. God's not forgotten about Israel. He's working through the church right now. The Gospel of John talks about Jesus. He came into his own, the Jews, and his own received him not. So God has got a little pause button on working primarily through Israel right now. He's working through his church. Jesus said, upon this rock I'll build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. But when the Lord comes back and he takes his church, the bride of Christ, out of here, then we go back, not we, we're gone, but the people that are here go back to an Old Testament time period, as it were, and God begins to work primarily through the Jewish nation during those seven years, leading into a thousand year reign of Jesus. Why are Christians so generally pro-Israel? Let me read Romans chapter 11, verse one and two. I say then, hath God cast away his people? God forbid, for I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew. What ye not, the scripture sayeth to Elias, Isaiah, how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, for I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits. That blindness, in part, has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. Just a little pause button right here on Israel. We believe that part of the end time events the Bible speaks of is a return of the Jews to their homeland and we saw that in 1948. The promise given in Jeremiah 23 and also in Ezekiel chapter 36 verse 24, for I will take from you from among the heathen, I will take you from among the heathen and gather you out of all countries and bring you into your own land. We saw it happen. Because of that, the reestablishment of the nation of Israel in the Holy Land in 1948 was considered to be many the sign of all signs. The Lord's gonna be coming back soon. Israel is reestablished. There is the blossoming of Israel in the desert. Therefore, rumblings in Israel raise expectations that we may be close to the return of Christ. Here it is though, simplified and summarized. This is Israel, God's chosen people. You want to be on the right side. Listen to Deuteronomy chapter seven, verse six and following. God's speaking to the newly coalesced nation of Israel after they've come out and been brought out of Egypt. For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God has chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all people. but because the Lord loved you and because he would keep his oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with his mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations. Words of caution. Being Israel does not give that nation the right to do wrong. If they commit atrocities, there should be accountability. If somebody in their military goes rogue, they should be held accountable. And I believe that they are and will do that. But we must acknowledge Humans are sinful people. We cannot suspend our ethics to go along with everything Israel does just because they're Israel. But we ought to use our influence to help them move forward righteously. And it would help if we had a more righteous individual at the helm of the United States government, my opinion. In the Old Testament, God's blessing upon Israel was dependent upon their obedience. So even God did not unconditionally support Israel's actions, no matter what they did, but he honored his relationship to them, and that's where America needs to be. Only God knows the timetable of all these prophetic details. Jesus says in Matthew 24, 36, but of that day and hour knoweth no man, not the angels in heaven, but my Father only. Skip down a few verses still in Matthew 24. Watch therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord doth come. Skip a few more verses down to verse 44. Therefore be also ready, for in such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man cometh. We're reminded that in First Thessalonians 5.2, the Bible says, for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night, unexpected, without warning. And that's reiterated in 2 Peter 3, 10. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Ultimately, this world is reserved under fire. And the initiation of the end of human time will be sudden. And the announcement will come at the rapture when believers, the church, his bride is called up out of this earth Consider now these possibilities. Iran is behind most of this violence. Iran. They have a Islamic rule, kingdom there. And they are very close to creating a nuclear weapon. And every indication, if you just watch, if they have the ability to deliver a nuclear device on one of those missiles or one of those drones, they will send it. They will send it. Well, they'll kill a lot of their own kind of people. They don't care. Whatever it takes to get Israel off the face of the map from the river to the sea. No Israelis. No Jews. I'm not a military expert. Don't claim to be one. But I do know human beings. And I have a little bit of a logical brain. I believe last night was a test. They want to deliver a nuclear device on Israel. And so, so Israel, Again, my prediction was to step outside, get outside the pulpit here. Israel's not going to let that happen. They will send fighter planes to blow up whatever it is that's going to produce those nuclear weapons. They have the greatest intelligence gathering, not America. Israel has the greatest intelligence gathering in all the world. They're going to know when Iran is about to complete all that they need for a nuclear device. And when that happens, they're not going to let that happen. They're going to say, nope, we can't let them have it. They're being propped up, Iran is being propped up by Russia and China. They're longtime allies who are not going along with the sanctions, the much ballyhooed sanctions against Iran. Iran's still selling oil to Russia. Iran's still selling oil to China. And that's how they finance all this terror. That's how they finance all these attacks against Israel using Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and these other groups. This alliance was predicted in the Old Testament. We don't have time to elaborate on it. Ezekiel chapter 38, chapter 39. Some Bible scholars equate this with a future war. These are familiar things if I was reading them to you. Well, that's the Battle of Armageddon. Eh, maybe. It's more likely the second seal in Revelation chapter 6. Revelation 6 verse 3, and when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say come and see and there went out a number another horse excuse me that was red with the power was given to him that sat there on a take peace take peace from the earth that they should kill one another and there was given unto him a great sword the world is about to explode perhaps The setting is right in front of us. Someone posted on Facebook, a friend of mine posted on Facebook, said, I think Iran has just started World War III. I said, well, if they did, I know who's going to end it. King Jesus is going to end it. Let's close with some certainties about this matter. A. Israel will survive all attacks. The Bible speaks of Israel's future victoriously. Isaiah 54, 17, no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. And every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. That whole chapter, Isaiah 54, is prophetically speaking about Israel, and the fact that they're not gonna be overthrown, wiped off the face of the earth, which is exactly what the Arab world wants to happen. Israel will survive. Well, they may be wounded. They may suffer great losses, but they're gonna survive. They're gonna be in the land until the Lord Jesus returns. Better be, there will be peace in Jerusalem someday. There will be absolute peace, not just in Jerusalem, but in all of Israel. And that peace will extend to the whole world. That peace will be established by Jesus Christ, the Son of God. All hail King Jesus. Lastly, the Lord will rule the earth in righteousness. He's going to rule the earth in righteousness. Now, I want to be part of that. Don't you? Well, here's how you can be part of that. You've got to get into the bride of Christ. You've got to get into a relationship with holy God through his son, Jesus Christ. And his promise is that his reward for us after service in this sinful, sin-cursed world is that we will rule and reign with him. Brother Jim, I'm gonna have to arm wrestle you as to who gets to be mayor of Sissonville in the millennial reign. If I can't have Sissonville, I want Chattanooga, Tennessee. so I can go get bees chicken every day. We are literally gonna rule and reign with the Lord in this perfect righteous existence. We return to an existence that's described the closest we can see of it is Genesis chapter one and two. An earth without a curse. An existence with Satan bound, chained, can't have access to us. His demon horde insulated out from us. An existence like that. I wanna be part of that. If you wanna be part of it, here's how. First of all, you gotta recognize you're a sinner. Everybody is. The Bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The Bible says there's none righteous, no, not one. Everybody's a sinner. Nobody's qualified to have a relationship to God. Nobody's qualified to rule and reign with Jesus Christ in this millennial time for 1,000 years before we get to our final heaven, the new heaven, new earth. Before that happens, we get to rule with the Lord Jesus for 1,000 years after the tribulation period. We're not qualified to do that. because we're sinners, that same old problem. But there's a solution for the problem, and the solution is found in Jesus Christ. The Bible says in Romans 5a that God commendeth his love toward us. And that while we were yet sinners, everybody is, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And specifically, Jesus Christ came to earth because we were sinners and because we are sinners. He came to earth, he died on the cross, rose again on the third day, hallelujah. And because Jesus did that, God then offers you and I the gift of eternal life in the person of Jesus Christ. The Bible says the wages of sin is death, Romans 6, 23. Wages of sin, getting what I deserve, death. And the Bible's not talking about physical death there as much as it's talking about spiritual death. Eternally separated from God in a place designed for the punishment of sin. A terrible, awful, fiery place called hell. The wages of sin is death. If I get what I deserve, if you get what you deserve, we're forever away from God burning in hell. What a contrast as verse 23 of Romans 6 continues. But, oh man, this is great, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now a gift is different than a wage. The wage is getting what I deserve, getting what I'm entitled to, getting what I've earned. Wages of sin, death, but the gift of God. A gift, what someone offers me because they decided to love me. Would you like to have the gift? The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So eternal life, the forgiveness of sin, relationship to a holy God, is available to me in and only through the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself said it this way in John 14, six. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Jesus said, I'm the only way. I'm the only way. You may think you can get there because you try hard. You may think you can get there because you do good deeds. You may think you can get there because your good stuff is going to outweigh your bad stuff. You don't have any good stuff. None of us have good stuff. We're all sinners. Jesus doesn't have good stuff either. He has perfect stuff. And so his perfect stuff gets applied to my account. His perfect stuff is how God looks at me. He sees the merits in the blood of his own son, Jesus, perfect, holy, sinless, and under that is little Kevin Bartlett. Oh, he's sinful, but he's under the blood. He's on the merits of Jesus. So you can receive salvation, the gift of eternal life, and the end of the verse clarifies it, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So how does it happen? Well, the Bible says in Romans chapter nine, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, Believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Those verses simply mean that if you'll believe God when he says he'll save you, then when you ask him to, believing that he will, he does. And I want to tell you, at six years of age, he did. He did. And I'm on my way to heaven, there's no braggin' that. Except the brag on Jesus. Nothing I can boast about. I didn't do it, I couldn't do it, I had no hope of it. But Jesus said here, would you like eternal life? Would you like to give to the forgiveness of your sin? Just receive my son, just take Jesus, just take my son, and you can be eternally saved forever. And the cherry on the cake of eternity is 1,000 years. ruling and reigning right here in a perfect, a perfect earth. And it may start out, the seven year countdown may start today, may start tomorrow. God may look over at Jesus and say, son, go get them. It's time. And we are out of here. And the clock starts ticking on this world, and the clock starts ticking for us. Seven years here on earth, and then 1,000 years, seven years after, we come back with him. We come back, and he establishes a perfect kingdom. A perfect kingdom. Hallelujah, oh hail King Jesus. Let's pray together. In the moment as we close our service, We'll sing a verse of a familiar song for this last portion of the service that we refer to as the invitation. you