Well, I definitely am over my head today. I have been for years and years, you know. The Lord is wonderful. I'm going to tell you something. This morning, I really sense his presence, very strong. Don't you? We've come to worship him, and he's here. He said that when we gathered together particularly. And I don't think we've got a whole lot of time left to serve the Lord. And I think it's very important for us to have that sense of reality. I'm telling you, that's been the question that God's people have had Ever since he made a promise, and any one of them that have gotten into the word of God and discovered that, he said he's coming back. And when he comes back, it's gonna be a special time. When he comes back, we're gonna have a thousand years with him. We're gonna live that whole time because we're gonna be resurrected people. And there'll be people that are not resurrected there in that millennial reign, that thousand year reign of Christ. We're looking forward to that. That's something after. Another word that God uses quite often, but particularly in the book of Daniel, And I'm going to read you that real quick, Daniel chapter 9. And I've written down here in the Bible the revelation, the book of the revelation, the Bible, is the answer to the question that is posed in Revelation 6, 9, and 10. Put that up for me, if you please. Revelations chapter 6 verses 9 and 10. Did you catch what I just got through saying? Revelations chapter 6 and 9 and 10 is an answer to the revelation, to the question that is, the book of the Bible, is an answer to the question of Revelation 6, 9, and 10. Has anyone got that? It says, and when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, for the testimony which they held. Hmm. Did I sure, sure we get that? It was 9 and 10. And they cried with a loud voice saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? Christians, typically, we in America have been blessed somewhat, but we are getting a taste of it now, and on its way, if time goes on long, that we will ask, Lord, How long, how long dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? My mother read us children the books of a book that was a history of martyrdom. And I've always been, from the time of a very small child, a young child, very aware of the martyrdom. And that's been the primary or one of the dominant experiences of dedicated Christians from the day of Abel right on up to now. And the question comes, Lord, when's that going to end? Well, I want to take you to Daniel chapter 9. verse 21 through 27, Daniel chapter nine, verse 21 through 27. And here is Gabriel's revelation, the Israel's angel oversight. It was Gabriel chapter nine of Daniel, and, Let's see if I can get you on here. Now listen, because this, and don't fall asleep. Daniel chapter nine, verse starting with 21 and going through 27. Now that's been one of the most difficult portions of the scripture. For the average individual, and I'm the average individual, And so, let's read that. Chapter 9, verse 21 through 27. Yea, while I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me. about the time of the evening oblation or offering. He informed me and talked with me and said, oh Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. And that has to do with the consummation. Consummation means the end of all this suffering. The end of Satan's dominance. and the influence of the cultures of this world. And the beginning of the supplications, the commandment came forth, and I am come to show you, or thee, for thou art greatly beloved. Therefore, you know it's good to be greatly beloved of the Lord, isn't it? Oh my goodness. What a blessing for Daniel. Therefore, understand the matter, and consider the vision. 70 weeks, and that's of years, 70 weeks of years, are determined upon thy people and upon the holy city to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins and to make reconciliation for iniquity. In other words, consummation of all this tough stuff, hard things. I'm gonna let you know some information about it. It's only Israel only has that many years, 70 weeks of years, 490 years of history. And that would be over with for them. And to bring everlasting rightness and to seal up the vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy. Putting in, put the most holy into the millennial reign on his throne for 1,000 years. That's what he's talking about. And anoint the most holy. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment, now we're getting a time references, time references, so that we can have a sense of time references. To restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah, the Prince shall be seven weeks and three scores. That's not 470, 490 weeks, or years. And two weeks, the streets shall be built again, the wall even in troubleous times. That's the starting of the 490 years of Israel's before God brings forth the consummation, or the time when Christ will come and fix it all for us. And that will be the millennium. And after three, four, two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself, and the people of the prince that shall come. In other words, he says it'll be so many years between that point of when Cyrus went back into Israel from Babylonia to rebuild the walls and the city of Jerusalem. And that the end thereof shall be with a flood unto the end of the war. Desolations are determined. Desolation means the tough stuff, the hard thing. And he shall confirm And that, the desolations in particular, means the time when God is about to get rid of the difficulties. That time of difficulty. And are determined, and he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week And in the midst of the week, he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations, he shall make it desolate even until the consummation." Now, all that sounds tough, doesn't it? But basically, he's saying there's going to be in the middle of the last week, as I understand, which will be the four years, of great difficulty. What do you call that period? Great tribulation. And the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abomination, he shall make the desolate even unto the consummation. Now, when he talks about the abomination, he's talking about the work of Satan. For the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate even until the consummation and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. And what he's done there has made only four more years of Israel's after the Lord Jesus Christ is crucified and dies. There's only four more years for Israel to have to deal with in their time frame. Now, the question that most people would ask is, well, that's passed a long time ago. Well, actually, what he's really telling us here is there's going to be an end of Israel's of the history of Israel from the standpoint of their dominance as a religious group. You understand? Israel, they were the certified, bona fide institution of the truth. You understand that? Well, when Jesus was crucified and they rejected the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, Well, the Lord told them that their house was made into them desolate, meaning, hey, you guys, I can't use you anymore for this. I take away your badges and all your certifications, and you are not the certified, bona fide person who is in charge, that God has placed him in charge to be the pillar and the ground of the truth, the means of maintaining truth. Well, that happened. In Matthew chapter 23, the Lord said, your house is left unto you this way. He started in to the city by going on a donkey into the temple. And he had to drive out robbers. He called them thieves. They were just there for making money. And they denied him. They didn't recognize him. And they ultimately killed him. And the Lord says, now it's your house. Right after that, he came to his disciples, and he said, get a room up here. I'm going to have some time with you. And then he gave them the ordinances, particularly the broken body and the shed blood. That's not something to be saved by. That's something to remember how we are saved. We're saved because of that. And God wants us to keep it as the pillar and the ground of the truth. He certified the church. When he went in, he says, this is the Testament. This is the New Testament. This is a new arrangement, a new contract with another and different system. And when that happened, Israel's history immediately stopped. They've got four more years, I'm sorry, seven more years of time for the consummation. And they, during that, will have received again their dominance as the pillar and ground of truth. That happened when the Lord got all after the resurrection. The church is gone. Chapter 6 of Revelation lets us know that. It gives us a time frame. A time frame. We're beginning to get a time frame of things. When is it going to happen? Oh Lord, how long, how long, how long? And therefore, when the church came into existence, the timing of counting Israel in their responsibility and their experience stopped right there to an unknown number of years. So far it's been a long, it's been around 3,000 years or 2,025 years, hasn't it? How much longer? How much longer? Well, What we're going to find out is when Israel again in chapter 7 of the book of Revelation tells us that he gathered a group of individuals 12,000 from each tribe of Israel, 12 of of them and 12,000, 12,000, 122,000, it's people. 12 times, whatever. You do the mathematics. But he said, that's a timeframe, isn't it? But it's a timeframe because it's telling us Israel's gonna return to the beginning of that four years. Four years. of consummation. Now, consummation means ending the problem of what Christians have to put up with. That means till Christ goes into the control of the government for 1,000 years. When Israel has, we can see, now, when we're resurrected, we don't know exactly when that'll be. But I believe the Lord has given us certain kinds of indications that would give us a sense that, hey, we're close to it. And that's important to us as Christians, isn't it? How close are we to the time that he says, come up here, you're done? And that's the resurrection. But whenever it's done for us, the Lord in Revelation, I believe it's in chapter 7, that, go ahead and put it up there, you can start chapter 7 verse 1 there. He gave them their dominance back because the church was gone. If you don't want to know when the resurrection is, it's when the church is gone. And when Israel is going to be regenerated, re-given, returned to their dominance spiritually. You understand? The church has to go before Israel can have his dominance. Because you can't have two things with the same dominance, or you have disorder. You understand? He has to eliminate one, He eliminated Israel before He could bring us the New Testament and brought the age of the church. The age of the church will be over the moment of the resurrection. And there then will be another time reference. Will be the time where God, we are within four years of getting that 420 years that Israel had. They've only got four of those years left. Only four. All the other issues of history and time of the work of Israel has been done. And we've been in the time of the church 2,500, 2,025. 2,025 years, or 25,020 years, right? Well, come on. Are you watching? Are you listening? Are you thinking? We don't know how much longer that's going to go, but do we have indications that it's not very long now, right? And, but Israel's only got four years left before the consummation, meaning the end of all this tough stuff and the millennial reign of Christ. Have you got that? Well, The Lord has given us some indications that we're pretty close. And by the way, let's see if I've got another. Well, at this time, I want to say, well, what about the book of Ezekiel, where the Lord gives Israel some information. What is that information? Well, that at a certain time that happens in history that there is a nation that we have, well, we have indicated that according to my opinion and biblical indications that There is the existence of Russia. There is the existence of Iran. There is the existence of Turkey. There is the existence of Ethiopia. And what's the other one in Africa? Huh? No, Libya is, I said Ethiopia, right? And Libya, Libya is on the other side of Egypt from Israel. And Ethiopia is south of Egypt. That's a south group. And then Russia and Turkey are the north group. And the Bible prophesies that they're going to come against Israel. And what's gonna happen is God's gonna do a special, powerfully effective job of totally getting rid of the armies that come into Israel. Now, we read that last Sunday, right? And I said, you know what? It didn't say Egypt. Egypt's here. It didn't say Saudi Arabia. It didn't say all the other Arabian groups. It didn't say Italy. It didn't say Greece. It didn't say any of the other countries of the world. It just gave those ones, and guess what we look at as people who are looking at historically, right now, those specific ones, that God has named are going to come against Israel. Well, they hate them. They hate them. The Iranians hate them. People all over the world hate them. Why not all of the nations of the world going after them? No, it's just those particular ones. They're lined up right now. That tells us something where we are historically, does it not? What likely is it that the particular alignment, after several thousands of years, it was over 3,000 years before that when Ezekiel made that prophecy, it was so specific. The ones that would go after him, Israel, and the ones that wouldn't go after Israel. That didn't mean they didn't hate them. It just means they're not going after them. Does that mean anything to you? Does that give you any sense of timing? That means we couldn't be far away. They're all lined up. They hate them. They've been having wars back and forth. You say, well, they've been kind of They had their horns chopped off here recently. That's okay. Maybe they have to grow a few more horns. But there we have that particular lineup. Now, does that affect you like it does me? Does it give you the sense of, hey, I think I kind of understand we're in the time frame that this could happen pretty quick. Are you ready to go as a Christian in the resurrection if you're lost, if you're not saved? And we've got a Bible that is so supernatural. You can't just, in the trash can, irrationally, can you? It ought to be a time when we know what's happening. What are we going to do concerning in our priorities now, then? We've been given, I believe with all my heart, we've been given a time frame. You reckon? He said, hey listen, wake up here. Wake up. It's always been important that we reach people because, I mean, I'm 89 years old. It went by like that. Did you know that? And I've seen a lot of people go on and off into eternity. in my life. Make sure you know Christ as your Savior. And make sure, people you care for, and Jesus cares for everybody. For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son. What a God. What a God. We came this morning, and He was here. He was with us all along, wasn't He? It just enhances itself, like turning the radio on just a little bit louder or up. It helps us have a sense of reality, doesn't it? Well, gracious. So there are other indicators besides Daniel. There's the second battle, the end of the Great Tribulation. Now when does the end of the Great Tribulation occur? In relationship to the timing of Christ's and Ezekiel's issues, timing. Well, it's just four years. It's just four years. You're just four years away after what Ezekiel has indicated, just four years. And the Lord's coming. on this earth. There's going to be another battle that he gives us to have a sense of timing. And that other battle, the second battle, is going to be to clear out after the millennial reign. Clear it out. But there's, well, clearing out the time of the tribulation and the people and the tribulation. What is the tribulation about? It's to eliminate all the people on the earth so we can go cleanly into the into the millennial reign. See? It's got to be cleaned out. The millennial reign is not going to bring lost people into it. Do you understand that? And so, the second battle is cleaning out the tribulation period. That really starts, and that's really a good portion of the book of Revelation, after chapter six. And it all blends in. I think, well, maybe I should start here at 14, Revelation 14, but no, start at chapter six, really. It all starts with that question, how long, oh Lord? How long, oh Lord? Then the rest of it is to let us know how long from the time they're crying out and that they were crying out while Christians during the church age. I'll bet you the folks that died even before that all the way back to the times of Adam and his sons. How long, oh Lord, do we have to put up with this? How long, oh Lord? And he gave them consideration and began to let them know some time frameworks. That's what it is from Revelation 6 on. It's a time and happenings information. And it's only four years from the time of the resurrection and the beginning of the tribulation, it's only four years. And then there's thousand years that we can have a time when the Christians are not going to be persecuted. How long, oh Lord? Well, you're going to be with me for 1,000 years, and I'm going to dominate the situation. Satan's not going to be dominating because in the second battle, he was taken out before the tribulation starts. Cleaned up, cleaned up after those four years. He's cleaned it, that's the consolation, it's done. Because that second battle, the one different than the one indicated in Ezekiel chapters 28 and 29, or is it 28 and 29? Are you with me? Following? What are we doing? We're answering the question. How long? Time frame works. Time marks. Going down the highway. Twenty-five more miles to Dallas. Four more years until Jesus takes over on the reign and takes Satan away from the dominance. Bounds him up, cleans up the population for a millennial reign of Christ. And how long, how long, oh Lord? Until that time, will we know when it is in relationship to the resurrection? Do we not? And the resurrection we can identify right here in the book of Revelation because after the church is gone, after all the resurrection of the saints before were gone, What happened? Israel was re-chartered as a principle, tellers of the truth and sustainers of the truth with 12,000 of 12 tribes. By the way, those two tribes do not, during the that are serving God in the tribulation time. It listed 12 tribes and those 12 tribes do not include two tribes that God originally gave to Israel. The new when they went across into the promised land, they gave 12 tribes proper groups of positions and property. Did you know that? There were 12. There were two in that word that were not given in and listed in the 12 tribes that were in the Revelation. Did you catch that? Have you ever caught that before? Well, I have. And I try to let every people know, by the way, on the way. And that was Dan and Ephraim. You say, Brian, what do you think? They didn't. Well, there's something wrong with them. Their tribe, the whole group of the individuals had were so dominantly unworthy. All of the tribes were unworthy, and you and I are unworthy, but they had done some things particularly bad. If you want to find out what they did, we were talking about that with Ken last night, and we figured it out, see? So I'll leave you with curiosity. But it was true there. It was true. Then, after that, in the book of Revelations, we come to the place when we end with the millennial reign. That's a thousand years. That's a timing framework, is it not? That's a timing framework. But at the end of that, guess what? Another battle. That's the third one. Is that right? Is that right, you think? Maybe? And what was that battle like and what was it for? Well, you know, the second one was Jesus Christ came in power. An army against an army. That was the second one. The first battle was Christ affecting the battle, but not having an army against an army. It was a work of Miraculous. Just having those people get confused and they killed each other. They killed each other. They killed each other. Lord took it. It said he didn't take a sword as his lips or his mouth. He didn't do it that time. What he did was just arrange through affecting their thinking and confusion, and they killed every one of those soldiers of those armies. They killed each other. They killed each other on the first one. The second one, Christ and his power killed the people that he fought and they were fighting against nations. Now the third one, by the way you're going to have to study this yourself to get it into your brain thoroughly. The third one was different. What was it different? Do you know? Well, let's read it. And that's found in Revelations 20 verse, I'm sorry, the last one is Revelations 20 verse seven. And that's it. Revelations chapter 20 verse seven. Now it says, and when the thousand years are expired, that's chapter, verse seven, when the thousand years are expired, and what are the thousand years? Come on, millennium, millennial. thousand years. That's after the second battle, right? To clean up for the millennial reign. And it says Satan shall be loosed out of his prison. By the way, in the second battle Satan was put into prison. He wasn't there to affect the culture when Jesus Christ was in charge of Kings of kings and Lord of lords and millennia. Satan shall be loosed out of his prison that he was put in in the second battle and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth Gog and Magog and I bet you nine, ten, 9 out of 10 or maybe 99,000 out of 10,000 will say, oh, this is the same battle as Ezekiel. Because there's the word Gog and Magog. But it's different here. It says Gog and Magog. Did you notice that? Catch on to that. It's a different thing. The other is Gog of Magog. Gog was a person, Magog was a place. Here it's two persons, different persons. It's been a thousand years, things have changed. And God wants us to know there's a difference of the implications of Gog, of the word Gog and Magog in both of these battles. They're different. You understand? and Magog, to gather them together to battle, both of them were people, persons, who had charge of armies, armies, not one army, armies. To gather them together to battle, the number of them as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. Now that didn't happen in the second one, did it? And that was the armies, that was the armies, but it says, And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. In the second one, he was placed away from it and put in prison, basically, but not in this place, lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. put on where were the false prophets, where did they come from? Well I guess people who have generated untruth I guess from the time of all history in which Satan has been loosed. Then And we saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. I saw the dead, small and great. So something happened here that didn't happen. The other thing that happened after the battle, which cleared everything out for the, of all back things of history, and all persons that were still alive that were against Christ. He didn't want them to go into the millennial reign. He came into millennial reign with a clean slate of all the people. They were all saved. They were saved at that time, the immediate time when he went in the millennium. They had been saved during the other the great tribulation. Are you catching all of this? I don't expect you to, but it's put in a video, an audio, so you can look it over again. So definitely that last war, that last battle was clearing For good. And by the way, the heavens and the earth suddenly were taken away. This universe went and it was replaced with a new one. Right at that time, isn't that correct? We're not going to have anything else on this earth and on this order of things. From the day of Adam till the day of the third battle. Then comes the judgment, the great white throne. By the way, just in case some of those folks out here that do not know, that no person saved by grace or faith is gonna be in that judgment. Because it says they're gonna be judged on the basis of their works. And it says, none of them, none of them were gonna make it. You've gotta be saved by grace or too bad. Period. At any time of the period of the creation, right on down to the great white throne. You can't be saved except by grace. Because you're a sinner. Can you imagine? What God's feeling when a person who is a sinner addresses Him and makes a plea for Him, makes a plea to Christ for salvation and says, I've been a good good dude. The Lord's listening to it, smelling it like filthy rags. It's an abuse to God. He cannot answer such a prayer. Do you understand that? Because when Christ died on the cross, that was our death, legally. And when he was resurrected, that was our new life. The Bible says, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration. That's a new birth. That's a new birth. We're born again in our spirit, and we make connection with God again. We're saved. He doesn't hold it against us, our sins. Christ has already paid for it. And that makes it salvation. available to us. Otherwise, there ain't no other way. There's no other way. But God has given us an answer through the scriptures, through the revelation, to the answer. How long, O Lord? He gave us a sense. And if we're sharp, and if we're continuing to watch out, and the Lord wants us to do that, watch, watch, look, realize how things are. Now we did a very quick run from one place to another, starting there in Ezekiel in the Old Testament. But by the way, in Daniel, and I found many other verses that give us time issues so that we can not just sit in here wondering if it's ever going to happen. And as we approach it, we don't get caught. Totally surprised. I'm not one of these fellows that goes around saying, hey, it's going to be on such and such a day. But the Bible does say, we ought to know the season. We ought to know the season. And I've never felt like I've been pastoring here for 50 years. And I've never thought anywhere along the line, like at this point in my life, that, you know, I'm looking at the way things are right now, it gives me a time frame. And it's saying to me, you know, things are, rolling into place. Brian, you don't have much time left. My age, I don't have a lot of time anyway, right? But I like to see these young men and young women, particularly, and everybody else, but especially our young men and young women stand up and say, Man, I've got to reach people, get involved, because there's nothing else more significant. When I was about, let's say it was 1967, I was 31 years old when I got right with the Lord. I'm telling you something, my life, has not been wasted. My life has been, this is the best part of all. And I love engineering. I love research. I love management. I love all those things. I love those things. But boy, they just do not come even close to what I love in the sense of the importance and pleasure to walk with my Lord. to have a sense of how he's thinking, where we are. Let's stand. We have a baptismal service here, right? Jeff, we got a baptismal service? Yeah, go ahead and get him. Well, I hope you put up with me one more time. We're not guaranteeing any other times. You know that.