Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 25, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - The Coming War For Israel

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March 25, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - The Coming War For Israel · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_04: That's the last time we'll hear that bumper.
0:04
SPEAKER_04: Listen, before we get into the uh climactic message of the Ezekiel series, I'd like to call up anybody who went on that one body project.
0:11
SPEAKER_04: I see David Ellis there, see Ron.
0:15
SPEAKER_04: And uh we sent a team down March 5 through 12 and uh to build a church.
0:21
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you remember, but we gave a lot of money to uh for for and we now support on a monthly basis the One Body Project, which is a branch of Haiti Lifeline, you know, this orphanage that we support.
0:35
SPEAKER_04: Uh just for those of you who are geographically challenged, Haiti is down there south of Cuba on the west side of uh of the Dominican Republic.
0:43
SPEAKER_04: But this project is a special branch of Haiti Lifeline dedicated to building 25 churches in 10 years.
0:50
SPEAKER_04: That's what we want to do.
0:51
SPEAKER_04: We want to build 25 churches in 10 years in villages and transform those villages too with community projects, especially digging wells.
1:00
SPEAKER_04: As you know, Haiti is a very, very poor country.
1:02
SPEAKER_04: So we send down a missions team, 12 people from Topeka and Heston.
1:07
SPEAKER_04: Actually, Heston has two S's, but uh not my slide.
1:11
SPEAKER_04: But um anyway, it's a great place, both Heston and Topeka, and you guys were part of that group, right?
1:17
SPEAKER_04: That's correct.
1:18
SPEAKER_04: You like it?
1:18
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:19
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:19
SPEAKER_04: Is this your first time down there?
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for me too.
1:22
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you too.
1:23
SPEAKER_04: So and and this is uh your transportation down there.
1:26
SPEAKER_04: Am I right about that?
1:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, the uh the tap tap, so colorfully called and decorated, is uh the natives' transportation, thank goodness, because we couldn't have fit on that one with the rest of them.
1:37
SPEAKER_04: No, we couldn't.
1:38
SPEAKER_04: Pretty uh pretty pretty.
1:39
SPEAKER_04: Uh now this is the orphanage.
1:41
SPEAKER_04: This is this is a scene from the orphanage.
1:44
SPEAKER_04: Has about 60 kids right about now, correct?
1:46
SPEAKER_04: They said.
1:47
SPEAKER_04: And here are some of them.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh kind of cute.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: Some of the children, yes, they're just I mean, beautiful little hearts and and souls in those kids.
1:55
SPEAKER_04: They love their soccer balls, don't they?
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: Soccer and candy, which you'll see in a minute.
2:01
SPEAKER_04: Uh, and so the children, you were there when the children from the orphanage and from the community were lining up for the school on a day.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's amazing to watch them.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: They get right in line and they march right to their classes.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, it's like a military show.
2:15
SPEAKER_04: I love their uniforms, those are kind of cool.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: Some more little cuties there.
2:21
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: They love posing, as you'll see again.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: There's they love posing.
2:25
SPEAKER_04: And so this is uh part of our group, am I right?
2:27
SPEAKER_04: Ron, you're back there with the uh with the hat.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: And there's uh Jesse Holler.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Jesse's right there, and and uh yeah, photobombing us.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: We were just uh taking a couple shots to show that we were really there.
2:40
SPEAKER_04: So it looks like you're building something before before you go up to the village.
2:44
SPEAKER_04: You were gonna build uh some stuff right there.
2:46
SPEAKER_04: Is that right?
2:47
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: Those are kind of the forms we built for the pews.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: Um so all those we we got them built there so we didn't have to carry saws in in the 25-minute hike and then carried them in with us.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: And then the other thing you see is uh me being mobbed by children when I pulled gum out of my pocket.
3:04
SPEAKER_04: Oh my goodness, look at that.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: They love gum, and then the uh the photo that's on the left there is uh Ed Waugh.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: He's uh one of the children there, and he was my uh my handy helper because he made sure that nobody got in line twice.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: If their hand came out and they'd already been there, he slapped it down and told them get out of there.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: So he kept them moving for me.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: Did he get rewarded for that?
3:25
SPEAKER_00: He got two extra pieces of gum and and he kept me alive, so that was a good thing.
3:29
SPEAKER_04: Ron, what did you call that group of kids that were coming after the candy?
3:34
SPEAKER_04: The love worms.
3:35
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, this is sort of like a bee, a bunch of bees coming, aren't they?
3:38
SPEAKER_03: Oh, you're right there.
3:40
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's cute.
3:41
SPEAKER_04: So then what you did is you loaded the truck with supplies because you're gonna head out a long way away to a village, is that right?
3:47
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
3:48
SPEAKER_04: And this is you taking off.
3:50
SPEAKER_04: And you're heading to the building site, and uh what's the name of that, Ron?
3:55
SPEAKER_04: What's the village?
3:56
SPEAKER_04: The village.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: We're guessing when we say Pegasi, so that's that's what we're going by.
4:02
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
4:02
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, okay.
4:04
SPEAKER_04: And then what's the deal with you?
4:05
SPEAKER_04: So you had to actually cross a river with all of your supplies?
4:09
SPEAKER_00: We had a about a two and a half hour drive in the trucks, which you'll see in the background picture here shortly, but about a two and a half hour drive in these open-air trucks, which was fine.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: And then we had to get in these boats, as as Ron said, were probably built pre-World War I.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Um and as you crossed the river, you started upstream, kind of floated down as they gondoled you down, and you bailed water out so that you didn't sink.
4:31
SPEAKER_04: My goodness, but you got all of this stuff across in these boats.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it was uh from those trucks.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: Exactly, from the trucks, the boats, and then on our backs and and some uh mules and wow.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: And the the villagers helped as well.
4:45
SPEAKER_04: Paint, water, food, tools, wow.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: And so then what, do you have a hike after that?
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, about a 20 to 25 minute hike.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: All of us made it.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: Ron uh made a couple trips himself, and and yeah, we just had to carry everything in that we were gonna have for three to four days.
5:00
SPEAKER_04: Wow, wow.
5:02
SPEAKER_04: Hiking up the mountain to the location.
5:05
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
5:06
SPEAKER_04: Uh Ron, what do you bring a lot of extra clothes and makeup and stuff like that?
5:10
SPEAKER_04: I noticed you got a couple suitcases there.
5:13
SPEAKER_04: Bringing all your snacks?
5:14
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, uh snacks, that's what mostly.
5:17
SPEAKER_03: And I'm gonna say something here.
5:18
SPEAKER_03: Now we carried a lot of the equipment up there ourselves, but without the villagers' help and their mules and the horses, they helped us carry all of our hold that closer to your mouth.
5:30
SPEAKER_03: A lot of heavy stuff.
5:31
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I'm sorry.
5:32
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
5:32
SPEAKER_04: Well, that's great.
5:33
SPEAKER_03: You got it back.
5:34
SPEAKER_04: So then you get up there, and this is in the village, and they'd already built the walls and foundation, it looks like.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they pretty much the villagers had put up the uh, well, actually, a contractor did the complete foundation for us, and then they put up all the walls, and so all we had to do was assemble the rest of the church, and as you'll see, we'll put tin up and and get it painted as well.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Are you a builder?
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh no, I'm an organizer, and I'm an organizer and I'm a pretty good um delegator.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: So go do this, go do that was kind of a little bit of a.
6:02
SPEAKER_04: I've been with Ron over in Africa, and you're a pretty good builder.
6:04
SPEAKER_04: You can you can do anything.
6:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but these guys here, uh Jay uh James, Dave, and Chris was up on top of the roof constantly from daylight to dark.
6:15
SPEAKER_03: And that was not up on that roof.
6:18
SPEAKER_03: Not this time.
6:19
SPEAKER_04: So you guys cut the joists and you assembled them, and then you got up on the roof, so that's not you up there on top.
6:25
unknown: No.
6:26
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: We were gonna put him up there just for a picture for a photo shot, but we didn't do it.
6:31
SPEAKER_04: Wow, looks like you guys know what you're doing.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, some more assembly.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: It was it was really nice to to have people that knew what they were doing.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: And and actually, I learned quite a bit about building.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: My wife thinks she's gonna have me build something now.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's gonna happen.
6:44
SPEAKER_04: But that's the problem with going on these short-term missions trips.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:48
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
6:48
SPEAKER_04: So then you got locals who are watching you build, is that right?
6:51
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: These are locals.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: The gentleman in the striped shirt is actually the pastor of the church that we were building, and the young man that you see sitting on that bucket, uh, that's a 50-gallon bucket of paint that the pastor actually hiked in 20 to 25 minutes on his head.
7:06
unknown: Wow.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna be asking Jim to do that, you know, when we start doing some renovations, too.
7:11
SPEAKER_04: So he was seven foot tall, but now he's five foot and he sort of bowed out in the middle.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he just kind of bowed.
7:16
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, that's that's what a 50-pound buckle, but you don't want to see me like that.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: What is this?
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh I plead the fifth.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: We're uh this was a a watering hole, local watering hole that has a very high current rate, and they do not like this current down there.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: The pastor said none of the locals swim in this water.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Blaz, as they called us, um, decided we were gonna swim and bathe after having three days of no uh no running water, uh, jumped in and just had a great time.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, after they saw us jump in and figured, well, if we can do it, then you know, if they can do it, we can do it.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: So they jumped in, followed us in, and and just joy and laughter is what followed after that.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: It was such a great time.
7:59
SPEAKER_03: Ron, did you jump in there?
8:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I call those uh Adian kids or uh swarmer bees because when the Americans went in after they got through, they just went wild and they sucked me into the water too.
8:13
SPEAKER_03: But one thing I want to say about these kids, yeah, as we got out, this is about a 15-foot bank.
8:19
SPEAKER_03: It was slippery, wet, and we was having trouble getting up.
8:22
SPEAKER_03: I found myself getting pushed up the hill with these little hands, and then then uh sat there, they brought a bucket of water around, and they washed each of our feet volunteered without and without being told they did it of love, of appreciation.
8:41
SPEAKER_04: Wow, that's really cool.
8:45
SPEAKER_04: So they had these decorative brick windows, and then uh then the uh your guys are up there on the roof, they're putting up this special roof which we have to fly down pretty much from America, right?
8:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they have to get up and get all that tin, everything is there, and it it happens such a quick trip this time because the Air Force takes it down and they just say it's gonna be there.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't get there and get it and get it to where it needs to be, it will disappear.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: So it was a pretty quick trip.
9:12
SPEAKER_04: Well, now underneath that roof, then apparently it looks like you're building what are you building pews or quite quite a few of us um start building the pews, the forms that you saw earlier.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: We were putting them all together so that uh Sunday comes, everybody would have a place to sit and and uh we bought the wood and shipped that in?
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
9:28
SPEAKER_04: Yes, because I know their wood's not very good.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: No, and we had to carry it in um all ourselves.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: It was funny, and we didn't talk about this before, but uh there was logs that these guys would stand.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: One would stand on a platform, the other guy would stand on the platform below, and they had a two-man saw, and they would saw these, saw these logs that were probably four to eight feet in diameter, and perfectly straight.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: It just amazed me, but uh they weren't long enough for what we needed.
9:54
SPEAKER_04: Wow, Ron, did you build a pew?
9:56
SPEAKER_04: Did you work on the pews?
9:58
SPEAKER_03: Along those days.
9:59
SPEAKER_03: I was very involved with those.
10:00
SPEAKER_04: I'll bet you were.
10:02
SPEAKER_04: Wow.
10:03
SPEAKER_04: And there's the tin roof.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: This was the that was the tin roof we were all putting up.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: Um the uh you can see a couple guys up on ladders, and uh Ron was, I think, around the other side helping put up some of the tin as well and and getting us going, getting it to the people that needed it.
10:18
SPEAKER_04: Wow.
10:19
SPEAKER_04: So then uh villagers cooking for you, it looks like, and then you guys uh then you guys brought cook uh somebody brought workbooks for the kids.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a couple of the ladies that were actually our cooks, uh Gretchen and and Barb, who since the Haitians don't use ours down there, uh she was Bob the whole time.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: And so we continued to call her Bob in love, of course.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, they brought some coloring books and kept the kids occupied.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, they were right there in our back pockets trying to help us.
10:47
unknown: Wow.
10:49
SPEAKER_04: Oh, look at those little girls on Sunday morning.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: I told you they like to pose.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: You can you can see.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god when I showed this picture to my wife, she said, um, how do they get the whites so white and keep them so white?
11:03
SPEAKER_00: And I determined when we saw them washing them that they beat them on the rocks until the dirt wants out of the clothes so badly that they can stay white like that.
11:11
SPEAKER_04: I love how they get their head clear back over their over their shoulder there.
11:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I must say with all the people down there, and a lot of countries I've been in, the uh the clothes are not clean.
11:23
SPEAKER_03: But these people with it's a dry area and very little water, they they come they come to church dressed.
11:32
SPEAKER_04: Wow.
11:33
SPEAKER_04: That's that's beautiful.
11:34
SPEAKER_04: And then here's what the pastor and his family, maybe?
11:37
SPEAKER_00: Pastor of the church and his family, yes.
11:39
SPEAKER_04: Wow.
11:39
SPEAKER_04: And so wow, you guys filled the place, didn't you?
11:42
SPEAKER_04: They for the dedication?
11:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, it was uh it was absolutely fantastic.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: As as Ron had said earlier, you know, we had all these pews and the people were showing up.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, Ron, you estimated we had how about how many people?
11:52
SPEAKER_00: About 250, 300 people.
11:54
SPEAKER_04: Wow.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: And that was inside and out.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, standing room only, busier than our Easter Sunday.
11:59
SPEAKER_04: They're pretty well packed in there.
12:00
SPEAKER_04: You guys were squeezed in among them, it looks like.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean uh Chris and I are sitting there with a little girl that wanted to sit on our lap, and so she got up right up front row center with us.
12:08
SPEAKER_04: Oh, look at that little girl asleep.
12:10
SPEAKER_04: Huh.
12:10
SPEAKER_04: I could put the whole congregation asleep.
12:12
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
12:13
SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's that's neat.
12:15
SPEAKER_04: So they dressed up and some of them sang and one of the choirs, uh-huh.
12:19
SPEAKER_04: Wow.
12:19
SPEAKER_04: Well, oh look at there's the that's a nice church you built.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful church, and everybody should be proud of what they did.
12:27
SPEAKER_04: Thanks, guys.
12:32
SPEAKER_04: I'm so proud of you for uh for giving for that.
12:35
SPEAKER_04: I think this is such a worthy project.
12:38
SPEAKER_04: It's not got a lot of bells and whistles, it's not going to be in the New York Times, but it's uh it really changes lives.
12:44
SPEAKER_04: So uh thanks, Ron.
12:46
SPEAKER_04: Thanks, David.
12:47
SPEAKER_04: Uh how many of you finished the Ezekiel or uh took the Ezekiel challenge?
12:53
SPEAKER_04: Oh, fantastic, great.
12:54
SPEAKER_04: So we're almost done with 48 chapters.
12:57
SPEAKER_04: This is our last and climactic message, and this is a message on prophecy.
13:01
SPEAKER_04: I know that makes some of you jittery, and uh and I'll address, I'll I want to say something to you a little later in about 15, 10, 15 minutes.
13:09
SPEAKER_04: But uh we are dealing with the most one of the most dramatic prophetic passages in all of the Bible, Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39.
13:18
SPEAKER_04: If you have a Bible, you may want to turn there because you shouldn't know about this passage.
13:22
SPEAKER_04: If you've ever listened to a prophecy show on radio or TV, it is likely that they were speaking uh with reference to Ezekiel 38 and 39 about the famous passage of the war with Gog and Magog.
13:37
SPEAKER_04: My title is The Coming War for Israel.
13:39
SPEAKER_04: And let's get started.
13:40
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna go quickly in our limited time, but we'll be we'll be just fine.
13:45
SPEAKER_04: The word of the Lord came to me.
13:48
SPEAKER_04: Son of man, this is Ezekiel speaking, face Gog of the land of.
13:56
SPEAKER_04: I know you're all gonna be a gog over this, but uh Gog is a per.
14:00
SPEAKER_04: Huh?
14:00
SPEAKER_04: Huh?
14:01
SPEAKER_04: That was a pun.
14:02
SPEAKER_04: Get it?
14:02
SPEAKER_04: So um so Gog is somebody we don't know.
14:05
SPEAKER_04: And maybe, maybe it's just a title, maybe it's like Caesar or Chief or something like that.
14:09
SPEAKER_04: Certainly nobody we've ever heard of.
14:11
SPEAKER_04: Nobody.
14:16
SPEAKER_04: We have heard.
14:16
SPEAKER_04: We've heard from him.
14:18
SPEAKER_04: We just heard from Gog.
14:19
SPEAKER_04: If you couldn't hear that over in the other buildings on tape, that was like the heavenly chimes right there, baby.
14:27
SPEAKER_04: So Gog may be in heaven after all.
14:29
SPEAKER_04: So, anyway, Gog's a bad guy.
14:32
SPEAKER_04: Name just maybe chief, but he is the leader of this end-of-time sort of huge uh uh armies uh that that go against Israel.
14:42
SPEAKER_04: Of the land of Magog, don't know what that is either.
14:44
SPEAKER_04: I mean, there it the word is used elsewhere in the Old Testament in Genesis 10 and so forth, and it seems to refer to a part of Turkey, but it could just mean Magog could just mean Gog of the land of Gog.
14:55
SPEAKER_04: Uh the chief prince of Meshech and Tubul, whoever that is, prophesy against him and say, This is what the Lord God says.
15:03
SPEAKER_04: Look, I'm against you, Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubul.
15:08
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna turn you around.
15:10
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna put hooks in your jaws, I'm gonna bring you out with all of your army, Persia, oh, we know about that.
15:16
SPEAKER_04: Cush, you should maybe know about that, that's Sudan, and Put, that's Libya, are with them.
15:22
SPEAKER_04: Gomer with all of its troops, and Beth Togarma from the remotest parts of the north, along with all of its troops, many peoples are with you.
15:31
SPEAKER_04: So we're talking about an allied, sort of an Axis, bunch of armies that together are gonna come down and attack Israel.
15:38
SPEAKER_04: And if you study the ancient names, it's gonna be short.
15:41
SPEAKER_04: I'm not gonna go through a lot of, you know, show you all the work that you do on this.
15:46
SPEAKER_04: Uh, and this differs a little bit from some of the prophecy people you might hear in the radio who find Russia here.
15:52
SPEAKER_04: I don't find Russia here, but Magog seems uh the evidence is it's Central Asia, uh, the Islamic republics of the former USSR, that would be the southern part of Russia, Meshach, Turkey, Tubul, another part of Turkey, Persia, Iran, Ethiopia or Cush is Sudan, Put, Libya, that's just to the west of Egypt, Gomer, another part of Turkey, and Beth Togarma, southern Turkey.
16:19
SPEAKER_04: So the modern nations that correspond to all of these names happen, interestingly enough, to be Islamic nations that want Israel to be destroyed.
16:33
SPEAKER_04: I don't think that's a coincidence.
16:35
SPEAKER_04: And in fact, uh, let me just mention uh the two main ones here, Turkey and Iran, uh, the leaders from the north of the Northern Army.
16:45
SPEAKER_04: Let me just mention where I've seen those in the news lately.
16:49
SPEAKER_04: Victor Davis Hansen is at Stanford University, the Hoover Institution.
16:55
SPEAKER_04: He's a classical historian and so forth.
16:57
SPEAKER_04: And in an article he wrote recently called Can Israel Survive?
17:01
SPEAKER_04: I really like this guy, he's very smart.
17:03
SPEAKER_04: Not a not a Christian, not a, you know, not a right-winger or anything.
17:08
SPEAKER_04: He says this.
17:09
SPEAKER_04: He says, by now we know both what will start and what will deter war against Israel.
17:16
SPEAKER_04: In the past, wars broke out when the Arab states thought they could win and stopped when they realized they could not win the war.
17:24
SPEAKER_04: But now a new array of factors has probably convinced Israel's enemies that finally they can win what they could not win in 1947, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, and 2006.
17:40
SPEAKER_04: Those factors are ever more Islamist enemies of Israel, such as Turkey and Iran.
17:48
SPEAKER_04: There they are.
17:49
SPEAKER_04: Ever more fear of Islamic terrorism, ever more unabashed antisemitism, ever more petrolars flowing into the Middle East, ever more prospects of nuclear Islamist states, and ever more indifference by Europe and the United States.
18:01
SPEAKER_04: So, he concludes his article, brace yourself.
18:04
SPEAKER_04: The next war against Israel is no longer a matter of if, only when, and it will be far more deadly than any we've witnessed in quite some time.
18:16
SPEAKER_04: A couple of things uh I just gathered from uh recent internet searches, this uh Iran's uh leader uh with this uh Pinocchio nose is a missile, uh, and as you perhaps know, Iran paraded some missiles that they had written on, death to America and Israel.
18:40
SPEAKER_04: And the leader, however, is saying, of course our nuclear facilities are for peaceful purposes.
18:46
SPEAKER_04: Why do you ask?
18:48
SPEAKER_04: Or in uh headlines recently from Turkey, the other nation there.
18:52
SPEAKER_04: Turkey threatened war against Israel and then against America over Donald Trump's decision three months ago to move our embassy to Jerusalem.
19:02
SPEAKER_04: And on and on.
19:03
SPEAKER_04: Other headlines actually more recent comparing the size of the armies of Turkey and Russia to the size of the armies of USA and Israel, as though they might fight each other.
19:13
SPEAKER_04: Uh the president of Turkey's name is Erdogan, uh and he calls Israel all kinds of names, so child murder, state, and so forth.
19:24
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if okay, I decided I would share a joke that's that's uh a joke that's uh uh a favorite in Israel uh these days, and that is that President Erdogan of Turkey, who by the way has turned Turkey in just five years from being a democratic, a democratic nation to being an Islamic fundamentalist nation.
19:44
SPEAKER_04: I mean, he's just imprisoned a 16-year-old, by the way, for criticizing him on Twitter.
19:49
SPEAKER_04: I mean, he has turned it into a totalitarian state, a fundamentalist Muslim state in just actually four years.
19:55
SPEAKER_04: He became president four years ago.
19:56
SPEAKER_04: So so all of this is rather is rather recent, what I'm telling you about Turkey being fanatically anti-Israel, anti-America, pro-Muslim.
20:05
SPEAKER_04: Anyway, the joke goes that President Erdogan called up President Trump one morning and said, I just wanted you, I just thought you might want to know.
20:11
SPEAKER_04: I had a great dream last night.
20:12
SPEAKER_04: It was a wonderful dream, it was a fantastic dream.
20:14
SPEAKER_04: What was the dream, President Trump said?
20:15
SPEAKER_04: And Erdogan said, Well, the dream was I dreamed that I flew over to America and traveled all over your beautiful country, and on every house there was a big banner.
20:25
SPEAKER_04: And on every banner it said, Welcome to the United States of Turkey.
20:32
SPEAKER_04: And Trump said, You know, that's really interesting.
20:34
SPEAKER_04: Very quick way to Trump replies, it's interesting, because I had a very similar dream last night.
20:38
SPEAKER_04: I dreamed in my dream that I flew over to Istanbul, a beautiful city, and as I looked over Istanbul, I could see there was a banner on every house in Istanbul.
20:46
SPEAKER_04: President Ergon said, What do those banners say?
20:49
SPEAKER_04: And President Trump said, I don't know, I can't read Hebrew.
20:55
SPEAKER_04: Terrible.
20:56
SPEAKER_04: But you can imagine why they love that joke in Jerusalem these days.
20:59
SPEAKER_04: So, but anyway, what we've got here is, and that was right out of the Bible.
21:04
SPEAKER_04: That's scriptural.
21:05
SPEAKER_04: No.
21:06
SPEAKER_04: So uh Israel under attack, so what we've got here is we have apparently the prediction of a war that's going to happen, and the WHO, the elements of that war, are gonna be all of these nations which today all happen to be Islamic, and they come primarily from the north, but they have uh allies in the south, in Sudan, in Libya.
21:24
SPEAKER_04: Notice Egypt's not mentioned, which is presently at peace with Israel, uh, Algeria, and so forth, part of part of the ancient put and cush.
21:35
SPEAKER_04: So uh then God continues, verses 7 and 8, be prepared.
21:39
SPEAKER_04: He's talking directly to the bad guy here, to the to the Hitler, to the Haman, to the uh to Gog.
21:47
SPEAKER_04: Be prepared and get yourself ready.
21:49
SPEAKER_04: After a long time you'll be summoned.
21:52
SPEAKER_04: In the last years, those are two phrases, and there's several others like them, which are regarded by Hebrew scholars as technical phrases.
22:00
SPEAKER_04: Referring to the end, to the eschaton, to the end of time.
22:03
SPEAKER_04: Not 500 BC, not anytime soon, but the end of time, okay, the day of the Lord.
22:10
SPEAKER_04: After a long time in the last years, you'll enter a land, Israel, that has been restored for more and regathered.
22:16
SPEAKER_04: Remember chapters 36 and 37, the last two weeks, the regathering, from many peoples to the mountains of Israel, long a ruin.
22:24
SPEAKER_04: They were brought out from the peoples, the nations, and all of them now live securely.
22:28
SPEAKER_04: Very interesting, he says, live securely.
22:31
SPEAKER_04: He doesn't say live at peace.
22:32
SPEAKER_04: You can't say that Israel's living at peace.
22:34
SPEAKER_04: But I'm here to tell you that probably in the 70 years since Israel's been a nation, since 1948, in those 70 years, Israel has probably never been, never lived as securely as they live right now.
22:49
SPEAKER_04: Honest, I'm telling you the truth because, well, first of all, their defense forces, the land forces are clearly the strongest in the Mideast.
22:56
SPEAKER_04: Their Air Force controls the sky of the Mideast.
23:01
SPEAKER_04: Israel is um has a has a peace with both Jordan to the east and Egypt to the south, though that peace with Egypt, you know, is always in danger because of the fundamentalists down there.
23:14
SPEAKER_04: I mean, there's no more Saddam Hussein, there's no more Yasser Arafat, there's no more Yosama bin Laden.
23:19
SPEAKER_04: Israel's economy is strong.
23:21
SPEAKER_04: Uh now they are actually in the fifth year of a five-year drought, so I've been praying for them, you know, that rain would fall.
23:28
SPEAKER_04: But but I mean, to be honest, Israel recycles, uh America recycles, we see we somehow are able to recycle 9% of our water, which is pretty high for any Western nation.
23:40
SPEAKER_04: Israel recycles something like 48, almost 50% of their water.
23:43
SPEAKER_04: So they're surviving even though they're in a in a in a in a drought situation.
23:48
SPEAKER_04: But anyway, so they're living securely, so very interesting.
23:52
SPEAKER_04: It seems to me that that we're in a situation since you know that that could perhaps fit this, though Turkey's certainly not ready to attack her.
24:01
SPEAKER_04: And so God speaking to Gog says, you will advance, coming like a thunderstorm, you'll be like a cloud covering the land.
24:08
SPEAKER_04: On that day, thoughts will arise in your mind, and you'll devise an evil plan.
24:12
SPEAKER_04: He will say, I'm gonna advance against a land of open villages.
24:16
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna come against a tranquil people who are living securely, all of them living without walls and without bars or gates, in order to seize spoil, excuse me, and carry off plunder, to turn your hand against a people gathered from the nations who live at the center of the world.
24:32
SPEAKER_04: A recent book called Epicenter was based upon this phrase that God says Israel is the center of his world, of the world.
24:41
SPEAKER_04: On that day when my people Israel are dwelling securely, will you not come from your place in the remotest parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, a powerful army?
24:51
SPEAKER_04: Now I told you that I didn't see Russia specifically mentioned among those eight names that we were given, although the southern Islamic uh parts of Russia are included.
25:03
SPEAKER_04: But I can see Russia, because of the constant reiteration of the word remotest parts of the north, I just think uh Israel was completely unaware of anything north, uh, very far north of Turkey.
25:16
SPEAKER_04: So I think I think perhaps Putin and Russia could be included here, but you know, I don't know.
25:21
SPEAKER_04: Uh you and many peoples.
25:22
SPEAKER_04: You'll advance against my people Israel like a cloud covering the land.
25:26
SPEAKER_04: By the way, this is really similar to the other prophetic passages in the Old Testament.
25:30
SPEAKER_04: Daniel 11 predicts a king of the north at the time of the end, he says, the king of the north will storm against him with chariots, horsemen, many ships, will invade countries, sweep through them like a flood.
25:42
SPEAKER_04: He'll also invade the beautiful land that is Israel, and many will fall.
25:46
SPEAKER_04: Jeremiah chapter 50, verse 41.
25:49
SPEAKER_04: Look, an army is coming from the north, a great nation, many kings stirred up from the ends of the earth.
25:54
SPEAKER_04: So this is not saying something unique.
25:56
SPEAKER_04: Uh the Old Testament prophets all apparently heard the same thing from God.
26:03
SPEAKER_04: Now, when will this happen?
26:04
SPEAKER_04: We've already said it'll be, seems to be at the end of time.
26:08
SPEAKER_04: I don't know, great tribulation, perhaps.
26:10
SPEAKER_04: It'll happen in the last days, literally at the end of the days.
26:14
SPEAKER_04: God, that I will bring you against my land.
26:18
SPEAKER_04: Notice that phrase, my land.
26:19
SPEAKER_04: America's never been called by God my land.
26:23
SPEAKER_04: But God says, I'm going to bring you against my land.
26:26
SPEAKER_04: Israel is God's country, and um and we need to keep that in mind.
26:32
SPEAKER_04: And God says, I'll bring you against my land so that the nations may know me.
26:37
SPEAKER_04: That's God's purpose, when I show myself holy through you in their sight.
26:44
SPEAKER_04: Um why is God doing this?
26:47
SPEAKER_04: And the answer is he's acting for the sake of his name, his reputation, his glory, which is being impugned.
26:56
SPEAKER_04: He is being mocked today.
27:00
SPEAKER_04: He is uh I mean, I don't know if I'm so disgusted with Sports Illustrated, the article that came out just a few days ago, making fun of Dayton Moore, the general manager of the Royals, who brought in some people to counsel the Kansas City Royals in spring training about pornography and the dangers of pornography.
27:18
SPEAKER_04: And Sports Illustrated actually runs an article criticizing him, saying, you know, how crazy I'm you know, how bizarre.
27:24
SPEAKER_04: He uses the word bizarre in the title, how bizarre.
27:26
SPEAKER_04: Uh major league players don't have a problem with pornography.
27:29
SPEAKER_04: Now they do have a problem with wife beating and so forth, and you're going, and there's no link between the two?
27:34
SPEAKER_04: Anyway, so I didn't mean to share that at all.
27:37
SPEAKER_04: But it just ties in with the with the because he goes on and it mocks Dayton Moore for just even being religious and a Christian.
27:46
SPEAKER_04: And you say, you know what?
27:48
SPEAKER_04: I mean, a hundred years ago, yeah, I mean, 100 years ago, America, you could have said that America was aware that the Lord is God.
27:56
SPEAKER_04: The Lord wouldn't have had to have said about America, you know, that that the nations may know me, including America, because America at least knew.
28:04
SPEAKER_04: Our president, our president, before he was president Woodrow Wilson 100 years ago, he was the president of Princeton.
28:10
SPEAKER_04: And as president of Princeton University, in answering a letter about what Princeton taught, he said, and I quote, we teach that the Bible is the word of God, that Christ is the real savior of mankind.
28:23
SPEAKER_04: Can you imagine?
28:24
SPEAKER_04: Can you imagine anybody at Princeton University today?
28:27
SPEAKER_04: Anybody in leadership saying that that's what Princeton or any Ivy League school or any university in America, any president saying something like this.
28:36
SPEAKER_04: And so you'd have to say, you know what?
28:39
SPEAKER_04: America now, with all the other nations, needs to know something.
28:43
SPEAKER_04: They need to know that the Lord is God.
28:45
SPEAKER_04: And that's God's purpose for doing everything that he does.
28:49
SPEAKER_04: It's not for our sake, it's for his name's sake and his reputation's sake.
28:54
SPEAKER_04: So, anyway, he's gonna bring God and these other nations, these other armies, these hordes of peoples into his own land.
29:00
SPEAKER_04: He's gonna drag them with hooks, he says.
29:02
SPEAKER_04: But once they get there, he's gonna be mad at them.
29:05
SPEAKER_04: He's gonna look at them as foreign invaders.
29:07
SPEAKER_04: And so he says, the whole thing turns right here in verse 18, and he says, I'm gonna, I'm gonna lose it.
29:12
SPEAKER_04: Now, on that day, the day when God comes against the land of Israel, he says, My wrath will flare up.
29:20
SPEAKER_04: I swear in my zeal and fiery rage on that day, and now he says, four things are gonna happen.
29:26
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna bomb them.
29:27
SPEAKER_04: Number one, a great earthquake in the land of Israel.
29:30
SPEAKER_04: Now, that'll Israel's just the epicenter of the quake.
29:34
SPEAKER_04: Israel happens to be on the greatest fault line earthquake-wise in the world, the Sino-African fault, and uh there's that's why there's so many earthquakes in Israel.
29:42
SPEAKER_04: Well, the earthquake that'll be the epicenter in Jerusalem, apparently, and and the whole earth will be affected because look at the next sentence.
29:49
SPEAKER_04: The fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the animals of the field, every creature that crawls on the earth, and every human being on the face of the earth will tremble before me.
29:58
SPEAKER_04: The mountains will be demolished, the cliffs will collapse, and every wall will fall to the ground.
30:02
SPEAKER_04: And that's just his first judgment.
30:04
SPEAKER_04: Number two, he says, God says, I'm gonna call for a sword against him on all my mountains.
30:09
SPEAKER_04: This is the declaration of the Lord God, and every man's sword will be against his brother, just like it was when Gideon fought the Midianites, and God confused them, and they start killing each other and made the job easy.
30:21
SPEAKER_04: And number three, he says, I'm gonna drop an Ebola virus on those armies.
30:26
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna execute judgment on him with plague and bloodshed.
30:30
SPEAKER_04: And number four, I'm gonna pour out torrential rain and hailstones and fire and burning sulfur on him, as well as his troops and the many peoples who are with him.
30:40
SPEAKER_04: Because God's gonna be angry that there's foreign invader in his land.
30:44
SPEAKER_04: But again, it's like the gonging of a, you know, uh, he has to tell us again the reason I'm doing it is so I can display my one, my greatness, my holiness, and my name.
30:57
SPEAKER_04: I want to reveal myself in the sight of many nations, not just Israel, not just my people.
31:02
SPEAKER_04: I want everybody to know that I am the Lord.
31:06
SPEAKER_04: And then he looks back and he says, you know, I'm just gonna let you know exactly what I'm doing.
31:10
SPEAKER_04: My military strategy from A to Z, starting from the very beginning, has eight steps.
31:16
unknown: Okay?
31:16
SPEAKER_04: I will turn you around, drive you on, and lead you up from the remotest parts of the north and bring you against the mountains of Israel.
31:24
SPEAKER_04: That's one, two, three, four.
31:25
SPEAKER_04: Then I will knock your bow from your left hand, force the arrows to drop from your right hand, give you as food to every kind of predatory bird and a wild animal.
31:35
SPEAKER_04: And finally, number eight, I'm gonna send fire against Magog and those who live securely on the coasts and islands.
31:42
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna torture them.
31:43
SPEAKER_04: And then what?
31:44
SPEAKER_04: Then they'll know that I am the Lord.
31:46
SPEAKER_04: Okay, okay.
31:48
SPEAKER_04: God acts for the sake of his name, and now he circles around just so we'll know.
31:55
SPEAKER_04: He says it again, so I will make my holy name known among my people Israel, and I will no longer allow it to be profaned.
32:05
SPEAKER_04: Big problem with profanity that uses the name of the Lord in vain.
32:09
SPEAKER_04: You need to stop it if you do that.
32:11
SPEAKER_04: It's serious to God.
32:13
SPEAKER_04: Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, the holy one in Israel.
32:18
SPEAKER_04: Yes, it is coming, and it will happen.
32:20
SPEAKER_04: I'm not playing games, he says.
32:21
SPEAKER_04: I'm not telling you, I'm not threatening you, telling you something that may or may not happen.
32:25
SPEAKER_04: This is going to happen.
32:26
SPEAKER_04: This is the declaration of the Lord God, this is the day I have spoken about, the day of the Lord that you're constantly reading about in the Old Testament.
32:33
SPEAKER_04: Now he concludes this way in the last nine verses.
32:37
SPEAKER_04: He says, I'll display my glory among the nations, and all the nations will see the judgments, the per punishment I've executed, the hand I've laid on them from that day forward, the house of Israel will know that I'm the Lord their God, and the nations will know.
32:49
SPEAKER_04: In other words, my action of judgment will cause admiration to come from the world.
32:54
SPEAKER_04: And then he says, My action will be salvation, and that'll draw admiration, because at the end I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have compassion on the whole house of Israel, and I will be jealous, note that word, jealous, for my holy name.
33:09
SPEAKER_04: They'll feel remorse for all the unfaithfulness, note that word unfaithfulness, they've committed against me.
33:15
SPEAKER_04: And they'll know that I'm the Lord their God when I regather them to their land after having exiled them among the nations.
33:21
SPEAKER_04: I'll leave none of them behind.
33:22
SPEAKER_04: I'll no longer hide my face from them.
33:24
SPEAKER_04: I'll pour out my spirit on the house of Israel.
33:27
SPEAKER_04: This is the declaration of the Lord God.
33:29
SPEAKER_04: And he ends the chapter.
33:31
SPEAKER_04: But what we know happens after that, after he brings Israel back, after Gog, Magog, that whole thing is done.
33:40
SPEAKER_04: That's when Palm Sunday happens again.
33:45
SPEAKER_04: This time, Jesus riding in, not on the full of a donkey.
33:49
SPEAKER_04: This time he rides into Jerusalem on a white horse.
33:53
SPEAKER_04: And he rides in through the eastern gate, which has, if you visited Israel with me, you know the eastern gate is blocked up.
33:59
SPEAKER_04: Because Suleiman the Magnificent back in medieval times was told by the Jews, who strongly believe in Ezekiel 38 and 39, he was told that's what was going to happen.
34:10
SPEAKER_04: The future Messiah would ride in through that gate and he says, Not on my watch.
34:14
SPEAKER_04: That's why there's 16 feet of concrete blocking the eastern gate right now.
34:19
SPEAKER_04: It's walled up.
34:19
SPEAKER_04: And then he put a Moslem cemetery right in front because he knew that, you know, religious and holy people and messiahs, they don't walk in cemeteries.
34:27
SPEAKER_04: Which is why, by the way, in the Jewish end times, they have they have the Messiah building a bridge across the Cadron Valley so he doesn't have to walk into cemetery.
34:36
SPEAKER_04: It's kind of cool.
34:37
SPEAKER_04: But uh but here, as if the Lord's gonna have problems busting open 16 feet of concrete and opening up the eastern gate and coming into the city.
34:47
SPEAKER_04: And uh and as he's uh as chapter 43 is going to say, the glory will finally return to Jerusalem.
34:54
SPEAKER_04: So that's uh that's why we preached this this morning because it's perfect, because this is the this is the prelude to the next Palm Sunday.
35:02
SPEAKER_04: Billy Graham was right, the the late Billy Graham, who said only the second coming and the millennium will bring true relief from the world's enduring problems.
35:12
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
35:14
SPEAKER_04: So, three applications from this passage and from the whole book is a way of summarizing, uh summarizing the series.
35:22
SPEAKER_04: Number one, watch Israel with a loving eye and embrace true prophecy.
35:28
SPEAKER_04: Watch Israel because Israel is where it's going to happen.
35:31
SPEAKER_04: And you need to watch because that's what's going on, that's that's sort of the powder keg.
35:36
SPEAKER_04: And when that thing explodes, that's when Christ returns and saves them at the last moment.
35:41
SPEAKER_04: But watch them with a loving eye, the way you watch the church with a loving eye.
35:45
SPEAKER_04: You sometimes have to hold your nose, but you love the church, the bride of Christ, and you're the same way with Israel.
35:51
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes Israel's so disgusting, you hold your nose.
35:54
SPEAKER_04: But the Lord Jesus Christ, or but the Lord said, He who touches Israel touches the apple of my eye.
36:01
SPEAKER_04: Zechariah 2.8.
36:03
SPEAKER_04: To God, what you think when you think about Israel is one of the most important things about you.
36:08
SPEAKER_04: So watch Israel with a loving eye.
36:10
SPEAKER_04: But something else, embrace true prophecy.
36:12
SPEAKER_04: I know some of you get really jittery about prophecy, and I don't blame you.
36:16
SPEAKER_04: You've uh turned on the radio sometimes and heard some flake predicting the end of the world at a certain time, giving dates and so forth.
36:23
SPEAKER_04: And there are flaky uh predictors out there, but there is true prophecy.
36:30
SPEAKER_04: And I would say this to you as well.
36:34
SPEAKER_04: Uh those of you that uh hate touching revelation or any prophecy like that, you need to be honest and realize that the moment you walk out of this room and you turn on the radio or turn on the TV, you're gonna hear prophecy.
36:47
SPEAKER_04: There's nothing more common today than talking heads on TV or radio or in magazines, predicting what's going to happen.
36:57
SPEAKER_04: If you don't agree with them.
36:58
SPEAKER_04: I learned this so clearly starting back in the summer of 2007.
37:03
SPEAKER_04: I got a phone call from New Republic Magazine, which is a prominent liberal magazine in New York City with a branch in in Washington, D.C.
37:10
SPEAKER_04: And they said we're gonna be doing a major article on all the candidates uh in next year's election, and we wanted to interview uh Sam Brambach's pastor.
37:18
SPEAKER_04: And I said, fine, so they sent out an editor, a young guy, he was a really cool guy, Noam Schreiber, an Oxford University graduate, a Jewish fellow, just just brilliant, loads of fun.
37:27
SPEAKER_04: I had a great afternoon with him.
37:29
SPEAKER_04: And um and afterwards he sat on the stage here.
37:32
SPEAKER_04: Uh it was dark in here except for the light coming in through the windows, and we just had a long talk.
37:36
SPEAKER_04: And it was really fun, really cool guy.
37:38
SPEAKER_04: And uh, and the situation at that time in the election was that Senator Obama was well behind Hillary as he was he was running for the Democratic nomination.
37:48
SPEAKER_04: And um and on the Republican side, one of the seven candidates was Sam Brownbeck.
37:53
SPEAKER_04: And I'll never forget the moment after quite a while, after we'd chatted about this, that, and both of our backgrounds and so forth, when Noam Schreiber, who now, by the way, uh writes for the New York Times, uh, Noam Schreiber changed from being a media personality or a talking head or journalist into a passionate prophet.
38:14
SPEAKER_04: And he started trying to talk me into supporting, publicly supporting uh Senator Obama.
38:19
SPEAKER_04: And he said this: he said, we'd we used to support Hillary, but now all of us at New Republic, you know, keep this, keep this, keep this on the down low, but we all support Senator Obama.
38:28
SPEAKER_04: We really believe that if Senator Obama could get in, a couple of things would happen.
38:33
SPEAKER_04: Number one, the race relationship, the the there would be healing between blacks and whites in our country.
38:38
SPEAKER_04: And uh I heard that.
38:40
SPEAKER_04: But he said, you know, I just I that that I think, you know, just if if America's white people would vote for an African American, that would I think do it.
38:47
SPEAKER_04: And the other thing is, you know, economy is really anemic right now, and we love his plan for the economy.
38:53
SPEAKER_04: We think the economy would really, would really go great.
38:56
SPEAKER_04: Now, at the time, and and he was really passionate, and he's and he was talking to me personally, and just this is going to happen.
39:02
SPEAKER_04: Now, we don't know him very well.
39:03
SPEAKER_04: I said, I don't know anything about him.
39:04
SPEAKER_04: All I know is he's up in Chicago.
39:06
SPEAKER_04: Nobody knew anything about him.
39:07
SPEAKER_04: So we don't know that much about him either, but for what we can tell, he's our guy.
39:10
SPEAKER_04: Now, at the same time, Hillary and uh the American, or the American, the Republican candidates, like McCain, who eventually got the nomination, were warning against this senator saying you don't want to put him in because if he gets in, America will quickly lose its status as the world leader because he's a closet Muslim.
39:32
SPEAKER_04: And and that that was that was the prophecy from Hillary and the Republicans.
39:36
SPEAKER_04: Well, both of them turned out to be so false, am I right?
39:39
SPEAKER_04: Because after eight years of Barack Obama, America had not been toppled at all from being the world leader.
39:45
SPEAKER_04: And the old that was uh so the Obama detractors were wrong, and the Obama supporters were wrong as well.
39:50
SPEAKER_04: I mean, the race relations didn't seem to be a whole lot better, and and Noam Schreiber himself wrote a Bellseller four years later while uh criticizing Obama for ruining the economy.
40:00
SPEAKER_04: And he was the guy who had been predicting that the economy so that uh by the way, by the way, the New Republic still is guilty.
40:10
SPEAKER_04: Yesterday they published a major article.
40:12
SPEAKER_04: They're really angry that Trump uh nominated sorry about this, but this goes along with my point.
40:17
SPEAKER_04: He he he has put in place John Bolton, a Christian and a conservative, as our new national security director.
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SPEAKER_04: And immediately, New Republic has published an article saying that they believe that John Bolton will hand Iran the nuclear bomb.
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SPEAKER_04: This is crazy.
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SPEAKER_04: And you're going, here's another prediction.
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SPEAKER_04: You go, so here's my point.
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SPEAKER_04: If you're jittery about prophecy, I don't blame you.
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SPEAKER_04: But realize you're hearing prophecy almost every minute of the day, if you turn on your TV or if you turn on your radio, so embrace true prophecy.
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SPEAKER_04: And what I mean by that is embrace prophecy that comes from heaven.
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SPEAKER_04: Even if you're not sure how to interpret, Ezekiel 38 and 39 of the book of Revelation, embrace it.
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SPEAKER_04: Embrace it.
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SPEAKER_04: God says to those who read the book of Revelation, you'll be rewarded just for reading this book.
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SPEAKER_04: No wonder, it makes your head spin.
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SPEAKER_04: But embrace true prophecy.
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SPEAKER_04: That was long.
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SPEAKER_04: That was just my first point.
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SPEAKER_04: I'll go quicker.
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SPEAKER_04: Okay?
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SPEAKER_04: Okay.
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SPEAKER_04: Watch Israel with a loving eye, embrace true prophecy.
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SPEAKER_04: Second, share God's passion for the world to know him.
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SPEAKER_04: Did you notice how many times he says here over and over, it's not for your sake I'm going to act, it's because I want the whole world, the whole world to know that I'm the Lord their God.
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SPEAKER_04: It's why we send teams to Haiti and Dominican Republic and all over the world.
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SPEAKER_04: It's why we do missions, God wants everyone to know, and eventually everyone will, because every knee will bow.
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SPEAKER_04: And third, return to your divine lover.
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SPEAKER_04: Yes, that's the theme of this book.
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SPEAKER_04: I preached, I chose as the as the as a as a theme of Ezekiel, dear Israel, you're killing me.
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SPEAKER_04: When it finally came to me after studying this book, that this book is all about a controversial idea where God says, I am jealous, an idea which we consider in our psychological age as a sign of weakness, a sign of insecurity, a green-eyed monster, an obsession.
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SPEAKER_04: But in this book, in the Old Testament, jealousy is a wonderful thing.
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SPEAKER_04: It's the word used to translate a Hebrew word, kina, which refers to the passion of God for you and for me, for those he loves.
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SPEAKER_04: The appropriate response by a husband or wife when another lover enters the picture.
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SPEAKER_04: So his jealousy is the best compliment you could ever receive.
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SPEAKER_04: And he says, I'm jealous because you've taken another lover.
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SPEAKER_04: And that's why I get so angry at times.
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SPEAKER_04: Because God feels like Arthur felt about Guinevere.
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SPEAKER_04: If I could choose from every woman who breathes on this earth, who I would love the most, they would all still be Jennies, he said, even though she had committed unfaithfulness.
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SPEAKER_04: And God feels like that about you and me and his people Israel, even though we have set up idols in our hearts.
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SPEAKER_04: We love them, we trust them, we obey them.
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SPEAKER_04: They dangle before us these pleasures that draw us away from the pleasure in our husband, in our lover, in our divine lover, God, which is why James says, you adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world, not meaning with the world's people, but the world's temptations, is hatred toward God?
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SPEAKER_04: And that's the story of the book of Ezekiel, that story that we taught in chapter 16 of this little girl, this orphan that God adopts and then falls in love with when she grows up, but who turns away from him and rebels and takes her love to town and becomes a prostitute.
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SPEAKER_04: And God cries and weeps.
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SPEAKER_04: And then finally, finally she repents and she's restored.
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SPEAKER_04: And that's why I Say the third point, the major point, the point you need to leave Ezekiel with is return to your divine lover.
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SPEAKER_04: Seek the Lord while he may be found.
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SPEAKER_04: Call on him while he is near.
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SPEAKER_04: I've asked Jeremiah and Amanda, John to close this series with a I what I think of really is perhaps a theme song for the book of Ezekiel.
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SPEAKER_04: Lord have mercy, a little bit of a different version written by Michael W.
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SPEAKER_04: Smith, also sung with him by Amy Grant, with words that seem to come right out of this book.
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SPEAKER_04: I have built an altar where I worship things of man.
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SPEAKER_04: I have taken journeys that have drawn me far from you.
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SPEAKER_04: Now I am returning to your mercies ever flowing.
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SPEAKER_04: Pardon my transgressions.
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SPEAKER_04: Help me love you again.
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SPEAKER_04: Lord have mercy.
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SPEAKER_04: Lord have mercy on me.
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SPEAKER_04: And as they sing to you, pray that prayer.
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SPEAKER_04: Pray that Ezekiel prayer, Lord bless us.
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SPEAKER_04: As we fall back in love with you.
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SPEAKER_02: Promises of burn within my heart.
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SPEAKER_02: Have now grown dear.
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SPEAKER_02: With a doubting heart I follow the paths of earthly wisdom.
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SPEAKER_02: Forgive me for my unbelief.
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SPEAKER_02: Renew the fire again.
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SPEAKER_01: Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord H mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy, I have built to answer whatever should I have to trend this that have drawn me returning to your mercy.
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SPEAKER_01: Lord have mercy on me.
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SPEAKER_01: So I bow my heart before you in the goodness of your presence.
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SPEAKER_01: Your grace forever shining like a beacon in Lord have mercy Christ have mercy on me.