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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
Israel and the Middle East (A Basic Overview)
Do you have questions about what's going on in the Middle East right now between Israel and Hamas? Do wonder what the significance of all this is? Listen as Pastor Bartlett gives some clarity on this important topic!
| Sermon ID | 41524145364597 |
| Duration | 51:51 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Genesis 12:1-5; Genesis 16:1-6 |
| Language | English |
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