Latest / Faith by annm2705 / 720. Bible Study: Isaiah 29 (New Discovery? Ariel exists today (1978)! Second Coming of Jesus! Prophecy!

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720. Bible Study: Isaiah 29 (New Discovery? Ariel exists today (1978)! Second Coming of Jesus! Prophecy! · Faith by annm2705

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  Today we're going to cover chapter 29 from the book of
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  Isaiah, and again I found some interesting things to ponder.
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  Don't know if it's a connection, but I did find these things this
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  morning. So let's get started with a
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  prayer. Dear Lord, please let the Holy
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  Spirit open our eyes to experience.
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  What you want us to receive from reading through the scripture,
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  we ask for this in Jesus name, Amen.
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  So this is called in my study Bible.
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  It's called woe to David's city. And this is really, this is
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  where it gets interesting. The very first line.
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  So it says, woe to you, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David
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  settled. And so I, I remember reading
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  this a while ago and I, and even the commentary says like, why
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  does God start calling this place Ariel?
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  And what I found this morning is really interesting because my
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  study Bible covers it, but it it just left me a little bit
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  questioning things. So I'm going to read what the
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  study Bible says first. Why did Isaiah call Jerusalem
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  Ariel? The Hebrew word Ariel may mean
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  lion of God. It does say that.
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  When I searched, I found that also that L is God and then Ary
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  is lion, Lion of God, suggestive of the strength of majesty and
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  majesty of Jerusalem which David made Israel's capital.
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  Ariel also sounds like the Hebrew word for altar hearth.
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  Since the altar hearth in the temple was where sacrifices were
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  offered, Ariel became synonymous with Jerusalem.
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  OK, that may be, but you know today there is a city not in
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  Jerusalem. It is located 25.
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  Let's see. It's located 31 miles north of
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  Jerusalem. It's called Ariel.
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  It's located in what today is known as the West Bank area.
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  It's 25 miles West of Jordan, I think the Jordan River, and it
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  is 25 miles east of Tel Aviv. So there is literally a city
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  called Ariel in this area. So I mean, it's in the what's?
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  Called the West. Bank.
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  So granted, it's not in Jerusalem, it's 31 miles north
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  of Jerusalem. So I, you know, I thought, OK,
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  because it says the city where David settled.
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  So then I was curious. I was like, OK, it's called
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  Ariel. And here's, let me tell you the
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  history about this because it's kind of interesting.
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  So it's in the West Bank northwest of Jerusalem.
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  It was established in 1978. So Isaiah is a prophet.
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  Did Isaiah get this word from God?
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  Did God foreknow that Ariel would be a city at this the
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  towards the end of the age which we are in?
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  And anyway it was named after Jerusalem and it is the cap.
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  It was in 1978 it was called the capital of Samaria.
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  Isn't that interesting? In 2010 it was named the capital
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  of Samaria. This is all like recent stuff
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  and Samaria was the capital of the northern Kingdom of the 10
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  tribes of Israel. I just find this very
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  fascinating and think it's probably more than I, I, I don't
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  know, I think this might be a new, just something to ponder,
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  but it's, it's so interesting. So I know Ariel, I don't know if
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  there's other texts because I remember seeing Ariel before and
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  I was curious about it. And this just, you know, came up
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  today, but a little bit later we're going to see that it talks
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  about the second coming. So that's in the end of the age.
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  And just to think that there is a city today called Ariel is
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  really interesting to me. Especially just because I just
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  feel like we are at that time and I really there's a lot of
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  people that study eschatology that I guess affirm this belief.
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  And so I don't want to, I don't know.
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  It's just like when you see the signs and I start seeing all
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  these signs of the things that were prophesied to occur.
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  When the end of the age is approaching now, I don't know
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  how many more years I've certainly had.
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  I had a dream that had a year in it and I'm kind of waiting to
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  see what happens, if anything, in that year.
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  But other than that, I, I don't, I don't know.
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  I mean, we are just going to be watching, but there certainly
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  are a lot of prophetic events. That are happening
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  simultaneously, everything that is being talked about and
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  there's a lot of people looking for the Messiah to come.
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  The Jewish people are looking for the Messiah to come, and the
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  Islamic people are looking for their Mahdi, which I think might
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  be the Antichrist, but that's for another story.
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  But anyway, let's go back to Scripture.
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  So it says, woe to you, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David
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  settled again, I had to search. I was like, did David ever
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  settle there? Like is David connected to it
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  because we connect him with Jerusalem?
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  OI searched. And here's what I found about
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  this. So it says yes, According to
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  biblical accounts, King David lived and ruled in the area that
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  is now referred to as the West Bank, particularly in the region
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  corresponding to the ancient Kingdom of Judah.
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  Here's. Why Bethlehem, David.
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  Was born and grew up in Bethlehem, a town in the Judean
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  Hills located a few miles South of Jerusalem.
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  Bethlehem is within the current territory of the West Bank.
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  Then there's Hebron. David first ruled as king from
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  Hebron, located in the Judean Mountains, before establishing
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  Jerusalem as his capital. Hebron or Hebron is also in the
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  West Bank. Jerusalem David conquered
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  Jerusalem, which was then a Canaanite stronghold, and made
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  it his his capital. Jerusalem, with its historic
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  historical core in the City of David, is a key city within the
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  West Bank region. Kingdom of Judah.
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  David ruled over the Kingdom of Judah, which was centered in the
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  Highlands of the West, the Highlands to the West of the
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  Dead Sea and included cities like Jerusalem, Hebron, and
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  extending into the Negev Desert. These areas largely aligned with
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  the geographical boundaries of the West Bank today.
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  So the Kingdom. Let's see Judea and Samaria.
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  The West Bank is also known historically as Judea and
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  Samaria, names that appear frequently in the Bible.
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  The land once formed the heart of ancient Israel and witnessed
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  many significant biblical events.
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  Therefore, based on the biblical narratives and geographical
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  information, David did indeed live and have his Kingdom in the
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  region that encompasses encompasses the modern day.
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  West Bank and. Let's see then.
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  I was curious and forgive my ignorance because I should
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  probably know this, but I wanted to know, well, is Jerusalem in
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  the West Bank or is it part of the part of Israel?
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  Is it considered that? Because I'm in the US and I
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  don't know all of this, but that was not the most up to date
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  question because that's part of what all this like battling is
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  for and who's considering. I mean, I did know that the
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  Temple Mount was under like a dual kind of a authority or
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  there's lots of rules around it and so obviously.
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  It is a contested site, so. It's Here's what the Here's what
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  I found just searching Jerusalem's relationship with
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  the West Bank is complex and highly contested.
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  Here's a breakdown E Jerusalem is considered occupied territory
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  under international law. The international community,
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  including the UN, views E Jerusalem, which includes the
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  Old City and its holy sites, as part of the West Bank and under
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  Israeli occupation. Well, that's really funny.
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  I'm not funny. It's not funny at all.
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  But just that it's called under Israeli occupation, like they're
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  not supposed to be there, but then God really gave them the
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  land. So that's why I'm saying it's,
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  you know, it's kind of ridiculous.
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  But anyway, Israel captured and annexed E Jerusalem.
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  Israel occupied. They didn't claim, you know,
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  says Israel occupied. Yeah, because God said they
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  would. Maybe.
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  East Jerusalem during the 19676 Day War and later annexed it in
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  1980, declaring the entire city its united capital.
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  The annexation is not recognized internationally.
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  Wonder. Why?
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  Because there's enemies of God, but God's the one who said that
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  so. It's who's, again, we'll get to,
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  you know, who's the Potter and who's the pot, who's the clay
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  and who's the Potter. You know, we don't get to decide
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  that that's God, God's decision, and God decided that's Israelis.
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  And we're foolish when we want to battle against God.
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  OK, Palestinians claim E Jerusalem as their capital.
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  The Palestinian or Authority and the Palestinian Liberation
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  Organization claim E Jerusalem as the capital of a future
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  Palestinian state. The West Bank is a distinct
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  territory. The West Bank is a region West
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  of the Jordan River, bordering Israel to the northwest and
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  South and Jordan to the east. It has been under Israel,
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  Israeli military occupation since 1967.
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  In essence, while Israel considers all of Jerusalem as
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  its capital and has annexed E Jerusalem, the international
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  community views E Jerusalem as part of the West Bank and
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  occupied Palestinian territory. So this gets to the heat of what
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  is happening in the Middle East today and just all of the
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  turmoil. Not today, I guess it's been
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  forever really, but it gives us some insight, historical and.
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  The current context of what's going on there.
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  So let's let's see what Isaiah heard from God and proclaimed to
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  Ariel. Is it the West, the city in the
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  West Bank? It'll be kind of interesting to
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  see how this plays out. So I'll start.
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  Woe to you. Ariel, Ariel, The city where
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  David settled. So we established David had
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  this. David is part of this West Bank
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  area. Add year to year and let your
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  cycle of festivals go on yet. I will besiege Ariel.
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  She will mourn and lament. She will be to me like an altar
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  hearth. I will encamp against you on all
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  sides. I will encircle you with towers
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  and set up my siege works against you.
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  So this is just really interesting because remember
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  when it talks about Jerusalem being surrounded on all sides?
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  So this is just interesting. That's verse 3 brought low.
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  You will speak from the ground. Your speech will mumble out of
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  the dust. Your voice will come, will come
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  ghost like. Your your voice will come ghost
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  like from the. Earth out of the dust.
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  Your speech. Will whisper doesn't sound too
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  good, but your but your many enemies will become will become
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  like fine dust and. The ruthless hordes like blown
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  chaff. So when it says people are
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  coming around and circling Jerusalem.
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  I mean it. It does.
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  I mean, like, I don't know. I don't know where Ariel takes
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  place in this because obviously it does talk about the city of
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  Jerusalem being surrounded. And is Ariel part of that?
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  I don't know. We'll just have to wait and see.
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  It says Now here's where it talks about the second coming of
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  Jesus. This is verse.
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  Five and six. Suddenly, in an instant, the
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  Lord Almighty will come with Thunder and earthquake and great
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  noise, with windstorm and The Tempest and flames.
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  Of a devouring fire. So when did God do this already?
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  He hasn't. So this is saying this is
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  talking about the Lord Almighty coming.
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  This is talking about Jesus. And here again, I mean, I, I
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  have not been, I don't think in any chapter where it hasn't said
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  something about Jesus. Then the hordes of all the
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  nations that fight against Ariel, that attack her and her
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  fortress and besiege her, will be as as it is with a dream,
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  with a vision in the night. As when a hungry person dreams
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  of eating but awakens hungry still, as when a thirsty person
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  dreams of drinking but awakens faint and thirsty still.
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  So it will be with the hordes of all the nations that fight
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  against Mount Zion. And that is also referring to
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  Jerusalem. Typically Mount Zion is, and I
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  always think of it as like the new established city of Mount
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  Zion when it says Mount Zion rather than Jerusalem.
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  Because to me it seems like it's it's God's future Jerusalem,
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  which is interesting to even mention it because the future
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  Jerusalem, if it's the new city that comes out of heaven, is
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  like half as OK. The distance, if you think about
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  the United States, because I compared this from one of the
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  coastlines to the center of the United States of America is the
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  size roughly of what the New Jerusalem city is going to be.
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  And it's going to be as wide and as tall as that distance.
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  So it's going to be something we have never, ever seen before.
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  And that I, I just don't know when that actually occurs.
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  I, I think it might be after the 1000 years, but I'm not really
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  clear on that. So I don't know if that I really
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  do. I don't know.
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  I'll have to look more into that, but it's when Jesus
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  returns, definitely. But I just don't know at what
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  point in it is it after the 1000 years or is that the restoration
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  that happens? I don't know.
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  We will find out later, but then the hordes of all the nations
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  that fight against, actually I think it might come after the
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  1000 years because I don't think anything evil can go into that
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  new city, Jerusalem. Everything will be outside of
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  the city. And if that is the case, then
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  there it sounds like it's going to be more of like any eternity
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  kind of a city rather than when there are mortal people around
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  because mortal people sin. So they wouldn't necessarily be
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  inside the city. So I kind of think it happens
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  after the 1000 years. Anyway, Let's go back to the
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  Scripture. So let's talk about Jesus coming
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  second. Suddenly, in an instant, the
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  Lord Almighty will come with Thunder and earthquake and great
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  noise. That's.
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  How Jesus's second coming is talked about in.
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  The Book of. Revelation, when it talks about
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  the 6th seal, it talks about an earthquake happening and it
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  talks about this, all of these. Same Thunder and everything.
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  And that's when the people like want the mountains and they go
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  into the caves. They want things to hide them
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  from the Lord because his wrath is coming.
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  So it it matches up with the description of the return of
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  Jesus. OK then the hordes of all the
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  nations that fight against Ariel that attack.
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  Her and her. Fortresses and besiege her will
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  be as it was in a dream with a vision in the night.
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  As when, and I already read this, sorry.
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  As when a hungry person dreams of eating but awakens hungry, as
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  when a thirsty person dreams of drinking but awakens faint and
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  still thirsty. So it will be with the hordes of
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  all the nations that fight against Mount Zion.
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  So these nations are going to want Mount Zion.
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  They're going to want God's territory.
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  But it's going to be like waking up a dream and thinking that you
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  have it, but when you wake up, you don't.
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  And that's what's going to happen with all these nations
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  coming against Israel. It's not going to happen.
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  Be stunned and amazed. Bind.
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  Blind yourselves and be sightless.
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  Be drunk, but not from wine. Stagger, but not from beer.
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  The Lord has brought over you a deep sleep.
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  He has sealed your eyes, the prophets.
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  He has covered your heads. The.
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  Seers. And so I guess at this point,
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  when I saw about deep sleep, I thought about I thought about
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  death because the Bible does talk about, you know, going
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  going asleep or falling asleep. But then he talks about sealing
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  your eyes, the prophets and covering your heads, the seers.
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  Well, there's not going to be any dreams or visions
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  apparently. Like during this time maybe.
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  That's the way I'm. Taking it maybe the study Bible
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  will have something more to say. I didn't read that before doing
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  this podcast for you. This whole vision is nothing but
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  words sealed in a scroll. And and that's the way today is
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  I we're reading from the Old Testament and the Israelites
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  have access to this and yet they are not realizing that.
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  Jesus, they are real, waiting for the Messiah to return.
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  They're just not realizing that it's Jesus.
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  And the book of Daniel will see this too.
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  I won't get ahead of myself. And if you give the scroll to
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  someone who can read and say read this, please, they will
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  answer. I can't.
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  It's sealed now in the book of Daniel, which we haven't read as
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  on this podcast, but in the book of Daniel, there's a seal or
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  there's a scroll and he is the Angel tells Daniel seal it up
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  because this is like for the end times.
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  This is, you know, you can't not until then will it be opened.
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  So again, this made me think about that part of scripture in
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  Daniel where it talks about it. It says or if you give the
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  scroll to someone who cannot read and say read this please
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  they will answer I don't know how to read.
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  So God is giving a blindness to them, I guess, just right before
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  he saves, I mean saves them literally, physically from their
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  enemies and where they will be so thankful to God and finally
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  realize that Jesus is who he said he was.
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  And and yeah, that's that's all prophesied to happen.
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  The Lord says these people come to me with their mouth and honor
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  me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
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  So it's kind of like a taught religion and, and people mean
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  well when they teach their children religion.
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  They they certainly are trying to train children in the ways of
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  the Lord and train people to give them religion to let them
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  know. But the the unfortunate aspect
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  of it, but maybe, OK, so Scripture does say like train
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  your children in the ways of the Lord and they will return.
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  So maybe there is something restorative about that because I
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  know that there are a lot of people who raise their children
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  to be Christians and then they aren't like really in the faith
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  as they grow up and, and the parents who tried to do what was
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  right are very concerned about their children being saved.
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  And so maybe hopefully that scripture does say like, if you
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  give this to your children when they are young, they won't
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  depart from it. So hopefully even if they go
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  through this phase, they will return to the Lord.
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  I mean, that's what as parents we pray for with our children is
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  that they do make that decision. And it's not just a religion.
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  Unfortunately, the way that I learned was basically about
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  rules. And it very much sounded like
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  what Isaiah, the mockers in the prior chapter that we were
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  talking about, it was rules, a rule for this, a rule for that
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  and all these things. And that's not what it's about.
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  It's about knowing God, like seeking God and then getting to
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  know God. And unfortunately, a lot of
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  times when you know, when you're teaching children, you're
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  telling them do this, do that, do this, don't do this, don't do
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  that. You know, it's like all these
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  rules. It's not so much the
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  relationship and I'm, I'm not saying every parent is like that
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  because maybe some parents teach their children about the love of
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  Christ and that really obeying these rules is showing God that
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  you love him. It's a different perspective and
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  it took me a long time to realize that because I knew all
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  the rules and I knew all the things that were to be obeyed,
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  but I didn't have that that relationship that I didn't
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  experience that that love of God in my life.
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  I just was like, well, this is what you have to do.
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  Or, you know, you get in trouble for this or you get punished for
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  this, you know, like these are all the things, the negative
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  aspects. And that's how I, you know,
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  learned. And yet at the same time, I did
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  want to be a good child, but then when things didn't agree
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  with, you know, when I wanted to do my own simple ways, then I
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  didn't really want that. And I thought, you know, well,
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  that's optional. And, and here's what really
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  concerns me is because of, because of they always say that
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  the people who were the most rebellious are the strictest
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  with their children. And so maybe I, I wouldn't say I
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  was the most rebellious at all, but I was rebellious.
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  And, and so now I know how I, I grew up and, and I've
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  surrendered all of that to God and, and decided that I wasn't
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  going to live like a hypocrite. Because that's The thing is
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  that, you know, since some religions, they kind of teach
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  you that you can just ask for forgiveness, you're forgiven,
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  which is true. And then the one thing that they
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  don't teach though, is repentance.
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  Like it's like if you ask for forgiveness, you're not supposed
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  to do it again. And if you just try to do that
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  on your own, it's not going to work out well.
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  It's because we are weak. But if we have the Holy Spirit,
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  we can overcome sin and, and God, God helps us, but we have
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  to surrender that we can't try to do it on our own.
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  And when we ask for forgiveness, we have to have the intent that
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  we will never do it again. Like that is our intention.
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  And then we rely on the Holy Spirit to keep us from doing
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  that again. But a lot of times I would
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  imagine that. You know the.
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  Priests probably hear the same confessions from people like,
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  yeah, I did that last week. Here it goes again.
• 26:09
  And, and so because I think like, you know, I fought with my
• 26:12
  brother, I fought with my sister or stuff like that.
• 26:15
  And when you're a little kid and you're going to confession and
• 26:19
  that's how I grew up. I grew up Catholic and but then.
• 26:23
  To read the Bible and to see everything from a different
• 26:28
  perspective and to learn like over these years, like it's
• 26:32
  taken me many years actually to get to this point to really see
• 26:38
  the love of God. And before it was, it was really
• 26:42
  all about. Rules and and about obedience to
• 26:47
  to God and. Of course that is.
• 26:51
  True, you do, there's absolutely you do.
• 26:53
  And so then I would met people who kind of just didn't really
• 26:59
  seem to be following the rules, but they would talk about the
• 27:03
  love of God, the love of God, the grace of God and they
• 27:06
  didn't, you know, they, I would say maybe live like a hypocrite.
• 27:12
  They didn't follow or they weren't obedient to the Lord.
• 27:16
  So then I was like, wait a minute, that's not right.
• 27:19
  You know, like I don't know. They, you know, like, I don't
• 27:22
  understand what they are talking about.
• 27:26
  So I think there's kind of two extremes.
• 27:28
  There's some that say, oh, you know, the, you know, we have
• 27:31
  this grace that covers us and we have the love of God and it's
• 27:35
  all the good stuff. And they don't ever really be,
• 27:40
  it's not like they're maybe they are convicted, but they kind of
• 27:43
  ignore, they think we're covered by grace.
• 27:47
  We don't have to be law abiders. Jesus took care of that.
• 27:51
  I mean, I think people are so confused on both ends.
• 27:55
  You have, and I'll just say it's probably the Catholics and the
• 27:58
  Protestants. That's the only way to explain
• 28:01
  it, is that some of the Protestants, I think are just so
• 28:05
  hung up on grace and they don't think there's any amount of
• 28:08
  obedience that needs to happen. And then the Catholics are so
• 28:11
  hung up on obedience that they don't see the love of God.
• 28:15
  And so you have these two extremes on either side and and
• 28:23
  then there's somewhere in the middle that is actually the
• 28:26
  truth. And the Bible brings out what
• 28:29
  the truth is. And so, but when I would hear
• 28:34
  like confess with your mouth, because I want to read that
• 28:37
  because that used to in my early stages of coming to faith and
• 28:42
  exploring and seeking God, this used to drive me crazy when
• 28:46
  people would say, if you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord
• 28:51
  and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
• 28:54
  you will be saved. Most people stop right there,
• 28:58
  but there's another line that comes after it.
• 29:01
  But The thing is, so if you declare with your mouth Jesus is
• 29:04
  Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the
• 29:08
  dead, you will be saved. Do you think Satan believes
• 29:11
  that? Now he won't.
• 29:16
  Here's what he won't do. He won't declare with his mouth,
• 29:18
  Jesus is Lord. That means Lord of your life.
• 29:23
  And I think a lot of people just say.
• 29:25
  If you declare. With your mouth, you know that
• 29:27
  Jesus, they're talking about Jesus as God or whatever, you
• 29:31
  know that he is one with the Father.
• 29:33
  I think there's just like a misunderstanding and.
• 29:36
  In the way people are saying this and presenting this to
• 29:39
  other people is very concerning to me because what scripture
• 29:43
  says. So think about it, if you
• 29:45
  declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, so it's acknowledging
• 29:50
  that Jesus is the Lord of your. Life that you are a disciple of
• 29:54
  Jesus that you are in the process of becoming more holy
• 30:00
  and being obedient to the Father of all the all the laws that not
• 30:05
  well the 10 commandments. I will say that were given those
• 30:09
  things just that don't change. I mean, Jesus said not a letter
• 30:14
  of the law will be removed until all these things have been
• 30:20
  fulfilled. Something to that effect.
• 30:22
  So these laws stay in place, the 10 commandments stay in place.
• 30:25
  Those are things that are we have to live by.
• 30:28
  Those are guardrails for us so that we don't fall into sin.
• 30:32
  And so we don't have like disastrous, disastrous stuff
• 30:35
  happen to us if we break those things.
• 30:37
  Bad things will happen when you break the commandments of God.
• 30:41
  There's no doubt about that. So if you declare with your
• 30:45
  mouth, Jesus is Lord. And a lot of people say, well,
• 30:47
  if you believe, if you believe and speak it with your mouth
• 30:51
  about Jesus raising from the dead, well, I think Satan
• 30:53
  probably knows that Jesus rose from the dead.
• 30:56
  He's witness of that. Satan's not going to be saved.
• 31:00
  And so we have to think about like what this really says.
• 31:05
  So in Roman, this is Romans chapter 10, verse 9.
• 31:09
  Now in verse 10, it says for it is with your heart that you
• 31:16
  believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you
• 31:21
  profess your faith and are saved.
• 31:24
  So there's something just like what Isaiah was saying, but
• 31:28
  their. Hearts are far from me.
• 31:31
  So it's not just speaking that Jesus is.
• 31:35
  The son of. God and believing that because
• 31:38
  that's how I was I mean I was that's what, you know, like
• 31:43
  everybody who says, well, I have faith I'm a Christian there's a
• 31:46
  whole bunch of people that call themselves Christians, but
• 31:49
  their. Hearts are not.
• 31:50
  Close to God are they aren't showing evidence of that by the
• 31:56
  way, their actions are. They aren't being obedient to
• 31:59
  God. They're being continually
• 32:01
  rebellious to God. And there's lots of things that
• 32:05
  people do every day that in this world, in this society, that the
• 32:11
  world culture doesn't think there's anything wrong with it.
• 32:15
  And so people do it all the time.
• 32:16
  And they call this as a Christian and they rely on grace
• 32:21
  or they rely on confession and they continue to do what they're
• 32:24
  doing, but they don't repent. And that is very scary for all
• 32:32
  people that are not taught what is actually in the Bible.
• 32:37
  And so it says, as Scripture says, anyone who believes in him
• 32:42
  will never be put to shame. There is no difference between
• 32:46
  Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all and
• 32:51
  richly blesses all who? Call on him for.
• 32:57
  Everyone who calls on the name of the.
• 32:59
  Lord will be saved so it This is something that is, I think,
• 33:07
  miss. Taught.
• 33:09
  If you really read the Scripture and contemplate what this is
• 33:15
  saying, it is a little bit different than what I would take
• 33:19
  away from it when I heard somebody saying these things.
• 33:23
  And then there is. So James touches on this as well
• 33:29
  in chapter 2 verse 18 he says. But some will.
• 33:35
  But someone will say you have faith, I have deeds, show me
• 33:41
  your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my
• 33:47
  deeds. OK, so and then he says this is
• 33:52
  a really good one. You believe that there is one
• 33:55
  God good. Even the demons believe that and
• 34:00
  shudder. So it's almost like James is
• 34:05
  directly responding to people who are misquoting.
• 34:09
  Romans are who are saying the same thing like history repeats
• 34:13
  itself. So James says, you foolish
• 34:16
  person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is
• 34:21
  useless? And then he goes, I'll just read
• 34:25
  this whole thing. Was not our father Abraham
• 34:28
  considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son
• 34:32
  Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his
• 34:36
  actions were working together and his faith was made complete
• 34:40
  by what he did and the Scripture was fulfilled.
• 34:44
  That says Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as
• 34:50
  righteousness, and he was called God's friend.
• 34:56
  Are we a friend of God? Would God be happy with us?
• 34:59
  Are we treating God the way He asked us to live?
• 35:03
  Are we showing God we love Him by obeying the commands?
• 35:08
  Jesus said if you love me, obey my commands, or if you love the
• 35:10
  Father, obey his commands. I, I don't remember what exactly
• 35:13
  what it was, but love and obedience are connected.
• 35:18
  So if we are disobeying God intentionally, we are not God's
• 35:24
  friend. I mean, I guess we're a friend
• 35:27
  of me. We think we're friends with him,
• 35:29
  but we're his enemy. Think about a friend that you
• 35:34
  say this, this is really bothers me like don't ever do this to
• 35:37
  me. And that friend does that to
• 35:39
  you. Are you really a friend with
• 35:41
  that person or is that person really a friend to you?
• 35:45
  Because would they do that to you if they really cared about
• 35:48
  you? So this is the same thing about
• 35:51
  us and God, like we can't be outwardly rebellious to him by
• 35:59
  our actions when we say we love him.
• 36:02
  Like if you love him, obey him. He gave the rules for a reason.
• 36:06
  And and to think that if you think that you can keep on
• 36:10
  breaking rules that God gave and be his friend, I think you're
• 36:17
  distorted in your mind. You're making up stuff because
• 36:21
  the Bible doesn't say that, you see, And then James says in, in
• 36:25
  verse 24, you see that a person is considered righteous by what
• 36:29
  they do and not by faith alone. So you can't be all rule related
• 36:34
  either. It's what you do like you know
• 36:38
  what God wants and then you try to fulfill it.
• 36:42
  And with the help of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, you can do
• 36:46
  things that you wouldn't be able to do on your own.
• 36:48
  You can be more loving to people.
• 36:50
  You can do things that you wouldn't normally want to do,
• 36:53
  but because of God and because of His.
• 36:55
  Spirit. Working in you, then you start
• 36:58
  to do the things that you wouldn't do on your own,
• 37:00
  naturally. So in the same way was not even
• 37:04
  Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when
• 37:08
  she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different
• 37:13
  direction. So she protected the lives of
• 37:16
  some other some Israeli tribe spies and she gave them a place
• 37:22
  to stay. And then she there the the
• 37:25
  people that were coming against him to kill him.
• 37:27
  She sent them in a different direction.
• 37:29
  She protected them. And so she was it was credited
• 37:35
  her. She did good things.
• 37:37
  And so God looks at the good things we do and and that is
• 37:43
  credited toward righteousness. But we can't knowingly offend
• 37:49
  God and disobey his commandments and think that we are a friend
• 37:57
  of God. We are mistaken.
• 37:59
  And I'm talking about this because I'm hoping that if
• 38:02
  somebody is in that situation right now, they hear this and
• 38:06
  they wake up before it's too late, before Jesus returns.
• 38:09
  Because as we're reading this, you know, there's this city of
• 38:11
  Ariel today. We're it's talking about Jesus's
• 38:14
  second coming. And you need to be prepared.
• 38:18
  We all need to be prepared for it.
• 38:21
  And we need the Holy Spirit is what we need and that's going to
• 38:24
  even come up too. So James 26 chapter 2 verse 26
• 38:29
  ends with and the body without the spirit is dead.
• 38:35
  So faith without deeds is dead. So we, if our body doesn't have
• 38:43
  the Holy Spirit, we are considered dead.
• 38:47
  There's going to be evidence in our life.
• 38:49
  If we have the Holy Spirit, we will become a new creation.
• 38:53
  We will begin to change because we can't really avoid it.
• 38:57
  First of all, to get to this point, we were seeking God.
• 39:01
  So God doesn't force himself on anybody.
• 39:04
  So if you haven't been seeking God, if you're listening to
• 39:08
  this, you're obviously seeking God.
• 39:10
  But if you seek God, then you will receive the Holy Spirit.
• 39:16
  And the if you don't have the Holy Spirit, that's what Jesus
• 39:18
  said, that you must be born again to enter the Kingdom of
• 39:23
  God. God gives the Holy Spirit, but
• 39:26
  it says in James, as the body without the Spirit is dead, that
• 39:30
  means if we don't have the Holy Spirit, we're considered dead.
• 39:34
  We're going to be eternally separated from God if we don't
• 39:37
  have the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes about when
• 39:39
  we surrender, when we say, OK God, I've been rebellious
• 39:44
  enough, it's time for your will to be done and not mine.
• 39:48
  Help me do that. That's.
• 39:50
  Simple. That's that's what we just have
• 39:52
  to say that to God and mean it, say it and mean it to God and
• 39:56
  then God will give the Spirit and so faith without deeds.
• 40:00
  If you if you just know all the rules, but you're not living the
• 40:05
  way Jesus taught people to live, then that's dead too.
• 40:12
  So you have to, you have to have that.
• 40:14
  But if you have the holy. Spirit, you will start.
• 40:16
  To do those deeds. Even if you didn't do it before,
• 40:20
  the Holy Spirit is powerful to change a person like that.
• 40:24
  So without deeds, if you're not doing deeds, that's that's
• 40:27
  evidence of your faith. Just like James said, that will
• 40:32
  come forth when you have the Holy Spirit in you.
• 40:35
  So All in all, it's supporting what Jesus said that we must be
• 40:38
  born again. We must receive the Holy Spirit.
• 40:41
  The Holy Spirit will begin to change.
• 40:43
  We will be a new creation. In Galatians chapter 5, it
• 40:48
  describes a person of the world or the fleshly person, and it
• 40:52
  also describes a person world with the Holy Spirit and the
• 40:56
  character of the person with the Holy Spirit.
• 41:00
  That's if you aren't sure if you're a worldly person or if
• 41:04
  you're filled with the Spirit or if you're seeing your life
• 41:06
  change. Read Galatians chapter 5 and
• 41:10
  reflect on it. Look at your life and say what
• 41:13
  do I sound like? Where am I?
• 41:15
  What which am I am IA person of the world, or do I have the Holy
• 41:20
  Spirit? Is my life being changed?
• 41:22
  Because all of us, probably some more than others, start out as
• 41:27
  the worldly ones and we have a lot of those characters,
• 41:31
  characteristics, character flaws, I would call them.
• 41:34
  And then when we receive the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit
• 41:37
  starts changing us to be more like Christ.
• 41:41
  We're not going to be perfected until Jesus returns, but there
• 41:46
  is evidence of it. If there's no evidence, then you
• 41:50
  really need to spend more time reading scripture and getting
• 41:56
  close to God because that means that you are probably not saved
• 42:00
  if there's no evidence of a changed life.
• 42:03
  If you didn't have a before and an after, then there I would
• 42:10
  pray about it. Seek God really hard, especially
• 42:13
  right now because of all these prophetic things that we're
• 42:16
  seeing occur. I mean, it seems like the return
• 42:18
  of Jesus is getting closer and closer.
• 42:20
  And I'm very much impacted by a dream I had after I got
• 42:24
  baptized. It was probably a week after my
• 42:27
  baptism that I had this dream and it had a year in it.
• 42:31
  And I'll just tell you what the year is.
• 42:33
  And I, I'm not saying this is absolute or anything.
• 42:37
  I'm just saying it was a dream and it, it really shook me.
• 42:42
  Plus, I've had about 70 dreams since 2019 that were spiritual
• 42:50
  related, that had the name of Jesus, the power of Jesus, the
• 42:53
  power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit.
• 42:55
  I never dreamt about these things before that.
• 42:58
  And, and it all changed the very night of my baptism.
• 43:01
  That's when I started having dreams.
• 43:03
  A lot of people in the world are having dreams.
• 43:06
  Anyway, this 2026 dream happened and I, I can't shake it and I'm
• 43:12
  just, I tell everybody, I'm kind of like, I'm going to just wait
• 43:15
  and see what happens in 2026. And if nothing happens, then
• 43:20
  I'll just, you know, keep my faith and keep going on.
• 43:23
  But it what if it's what if that what if that's the time that
• 43:28
  God's going to come to gather his people that the Lord is
• 43:30
  coming on the, you know, to gather his people.
• 43:32
  What if that is, what if, what if God actually did reveal that?
• 43:37
  You know, that would be, I don't know, Or maybe God just made me
• 43:41
  think that that's what's coming up so that I would speak about
• 43:44
  this to people because I'm concerned about other people.
• 43:46
  Like, you know, I never, I thought Jesus's return would be
• 43:50
  thousands and thousands. Who knows when I didn't even
• 43:53
  actually know that Jesus was ever going to return to be
• 43:55
  honest, until I read the Bible and I just thought it was some
• 43:59
  future thing. But and 2020 I kind of got shook
• 44:04
  and I was like, wow, this is like a strange event that's
• 44:09
  happening to the whole world. This seems very weird.
• 44:12
  Nothing like this has ever happened in my life.
• 44:14
  And more and more, I mean, I kept asking God and I just.
• 44:20
  Keep being. Like shown through scripture and
• 44:24
  like get. A.
• 44:24
  Firm that yeah, it is getting closer.
• 44:28
  So whether or not it's going to be next year, who knows.
• 44:31
  There's a lot of people looking at September of this year and
• 44:34
  the only reason I don't think that is because of that dream I
• 44:37
  had. But you know, who knows?
• 44:40
  In my dream, in a lot of my dreams, I was also surprised by
• 44:45
  when it did happen. So I could be completely off.
• 44:48
  So, and I'm not saying that I'm right about any of this.
• 44:53
  I'm saying I had a dream and the dream really impacted me along
• 44:57
  with the other 70 dreams that I had.
• 45:00
  And these dreams were also not just like random dreams because
• 45:03
  everybody would say, well, why would you believe in a dream?
• 45:05
  Because they're so, you know, strange that.
• 45:08
  How could you ever believe any of that?
• 45:10
  Well, The thing is I saw things in my dreams and some of those
• 45:13
  70 dreams that I had that showed up in my real life and I was
• 45:18
  like it would as soon as it would show up in my real life,
• 45:21
  it just like shook me because I was like, Oh my gosh, I dreamt
• 45:24
  about. This.
• 45:26
  So in a sense, you know, somebody kind of mockingly said,
• 45:29
  what do you think you're a prophet?
• 45:30
  No, I don't think I'm a prophet. However, I have seen things in
• 45:35
  my dreams. That have appeared.
• 45:37
  In my life, in the physical form, in my life, not the whole
• 45:41
  dream didn't play out, but one scene from a dream showed up in
• 45:46
  my real life and all of a sudden I was like, Oh my gosh, I dreamt
• 45:49
  about that. So.
• 45:52
  When that happens to a person, it's not normal.
• 45:56
  Like I never had that stuff happen to me before my baptism,
• 46:00
  before I legitimately surrendered to God and said I
• 46:03
  don't want to be a hypocrite anymore.
• 46:05
  I've always believed, but my actions didn't show that I was a
• 46:11
  follower of Christ and I don't want to do that anymore.
• 46:13
  When I made when I decided to get baptized in 2021, so it was
• 46:17
  really recent. I decided I'm not going to be a
• 46:20
  hypocrite and I'm, you know, I also prayed to Jesus like to
• 46:24
  help me follow through like I'm surrendering to you.
• 46:27
  Help me follow through with this and and he did when I prayed
• 46:32
  that prayer, it was actually two years before I got baptized.
• 46:36
  So I'm not really quick to jump into this, but once I jumped in
• 46:41
  and once I did it, I I'm all in it and and it's anyway.
• 46:47
  It's very important to me and it it is to all of us because it's
• 46:52
  our. Eternal placement.
• 46:56
  Now I want to mention something that is really refreshing in all
• 47:00
  of this too, because you get into laws and then you also want
• 47:02
  to talk about love because it took me a long time to really
• 47:05
  feel the love of God. And I think a lot of people that
• 47:08
  I talked about was kind of the rule side of it all was like I
• 47:11
  was because the whole world is living rebellious to God for the
• 47:16
  most part in a generalization. Yes, there are people who do not
• 47:19
  live like the world, but I'm just saying mostly what we see,
• 47:22
  mostly what I was surrounded with was worldly living people.
• 47:28
  And so of course I'm like, Oh my gosh, you can't do this.
• 47:31
  Look in Revelation chapter, the last two chapters, I guess 20
• 47:35
  and 21, because it says it lists all the things that will not be
• 47:39
  in God's Kingdom. And that convicted me because I
• 47:42
  was part of that. I was, it was describing me
• 47:46
  would not be in God's Kingdom. And so when I saw that, that's
• 47:49
  what caused me to change my life.
• 47:51
  I was like, I want to be in God's Kingdom.
• 47:53
  I had that desire and to see that you're not going to be in
• 47:57
  God's Kingdom if you live that way.
• 47:59
  So you need to repent of that. You need to change that with the
• 48:02
  help of the Holy Spirit. But I see people who are
• 48:05
  Christians who are still living like what it says in Revelation
• 48:10
  chapter. I think it's the second to the
• 48:13
  last chapter where it says outside will be the and it lists
• 48:17
  all the different things. So look at those last two
• 48:19
  chapters of Revelation if you aren't familiar with that.
• 48:23
  But and that's what convicted me.
• 48:26
  And I thought, I don't want to be outside of God's Kingdom.
• 48:29
  And yet I was still even surrounded by Christians who
• 48:32
  were living like that. And so then I was like just the
• 48:36
  talking about all the like the law side of it all, like you
• 48:39
  can't do that. And what was missing was
• 48:41
  repentance. What was missing is becoming a
• 48:45
  new creation. So there's a lot of people that
• 48:47
  call themselves Christians but have not become new creations.
• 48:52
  But the other side is that I didn't, the love side of it was
• 48:57
  I guess something I really didn't experience until after
• 49:02
  surrendering. And then I started to see like
• 49:05
  every time I became obedient to God when I didn't want to, there
• 49:09
  would be some blessing that would come along and I would
• 49:12
  realize this just came out of nowhere.
• 49:15
  It was completely unexpected and and I realized where it was
• 49:20
  from. And I think there's probably a
• 49:22
  lot of things in our lives, the blessings that we don't realize
• 49:26
  are actually from God, but when they happen, we just think it's
• 49:30
  a normal part of life. But they are blessings from God.
• 49:34
  So Hebrews Chapter 11 verse 6 says and without faith it is
• 49:41
  impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him
• 49:47
  must. Believe that he exists.
• 49:51
  And that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.
• 49:59
  I didn't know about that reward. When you start living obedient
• 50:04
  to God, He does start doing things.
• 50:07
  And I actually didn't even know that was in Scripture until this
• 50:10
  morning. And so Hebrews 11, Hebrews
• 50:14
  Chapter 11, verse 6. And he rewards those who
• 50:20
  earnestly seek him. I can attest to that because he
• 50:24
  does. And I want to tell you a little
• 50:26
  story about this morning. So I haven't been, I've been so
• 50:30
  much on this podcast and so much with work and all these other
• 50:33
  things that I haven't been exercising.
• 50:36
  And I think exercising is really important.
• 50:38
  So I just started doing that this like 3 days ago.
• 50:42
  And every morning to get up right away and go out for
• 50:46
  exercise in the morning, morning.
• 50:48
  And so a day a day ago, I actually ate, I had an apple and
• 50:53
  I cut it up and I cut it to remove the core, but I actually
• 50:59
  cut quite a bit off there. I mean, there's still a lot of
• 51:02
  good apple is what I'm trying to say.
• 51:04
  And so I, I thought, I'm going to save that.
• 51:08
  Or that night I wanted to go for a walk because usually in the
• 51:12
  evenings, if I would go for a walk, I would see deer in the
• 51:15
  neighborhood. And so, so I wanted to give it
• 51:17
  to the deer. And I didn't, I didn't go for a
• 51:21
  walk in the evening #1 And so I had my apple pieces that were in
• 51:27
  the refrigerator. And so this morning I opened up
• 51:32
  the refrigerator for something else and I saw the apple pieces
• 51:35
  and I was like, oh, shoot, I should take those this morning.
• 51:37
  And you know, I'll just throw it out in the woods on my walk.
• 51:41
  And then you know, some animal will get it.
• 51:44
  And so I had these apple pieces in my hand and I'm on my walk
• 51:49
  early morning. It's beautiful out.
• 51:51
  Birds are singing and it's the temperatures are great.
• 51:55
  It was like 60°. It was just awesome.
• 51:58
  And I'm walking along and all of a sudden on the side of the hill
• 52:02
  in my walk I see 5 or 6 deer and a little baby fawn too.
• 52:08
  And and I was just like Oh my gosh, I never saw these in the
• 52:11
  morning. This was like the first time I
• 52:13
  ever saw these deer in the morning.
• 52:15
  I would see them all the time at sunset but never in the morning.
• 52:18
  But I also wasn't out walking in the morning either.
• 52:21
  But I have in the past. But I never saw deer.
• 52:24
  Always in the evening though. I know exactly when I can go out
• 52:27
  and every time I see deer. That's why I was bringing these
• 52:30
  things Well, but in the morning I didn't expect to see them.
• 52:34
  And so I saw them and I was at far they saw me, they looked at
• 52:38
  me. And so I threw these animal are
• 52:41
  these apple pieces towards them, not to scare them, but so that
• 52:45
  they could see. I did like an underhanded throw
• 52:47
  gently so they would like land and the deer could actually see
• 52:51
  that they were landing. And then I walked really far
• 52:54
  away from them because I know, knew that I would scare them
• 52:56
  away if I continued walking in the path I was going.
• 52:59
  And I, I wanted to see if they would actually go and get the
• 53:02
  apples. So I walked down a hill.
• 53:05
  And then when I returned to come back, I, the deer were there and
• 53:09
  I could see their mouths moving, moving, and they were eating the
• 53:12
  apple pieces that I had thrown out.
• 53:14
  And I was so excited about that because it was such an
• 53:18
  unexpected surprise to happen along a walk.
• 53:22
  And it was, and I just, you know, it's just like that.
• 53:27
  I don't believe in coincidences anymore.
• 53:29
  Like God probably arranged that actual interaction.
• 53:35
  Like in my mind I was hoping to give the apples to the deer, but
• 53:42
  then in the morning I didn't expect it and I had, it was like
• 53:48
  5 pieces. I think there were maybe 6 or
• 53:51
  more deer that were there. So it was almost like there was
• 53:53
  a piece for every deer. It's really wild when you think
• 53:56
  about it. And, and just that I was able to
• 54:00
  see them in the morning. It was completely quiet and
• 54:02
  peaceful. I got to throw it out to them
• 54:05
  and they got to have that. And it was just like a just a
• 54:08
  pleasant little thing. And I think those kinds of
• 54:11
  things are just like little gifts from God.
• 54:14
  Like those are just like things that happen in our day that we
• 54:19
  maybe, you know, wouldn't think much of.
• 54:22
  But when you get close to God and you start realizing all
• 54:26
  these little things, like God is sovereign over everything.
• 54:29
  He controls everything. And he does, I think he makes
• 54:34
  paths of people cross. Like when you cross a path with
• 54:37
  the person who, you know, tries to talk to you about God, I
• 54:41
  think that's his intention. He wants to draw near to you and
• 54:44
  he uses willing people to kind of reach out to you, but
• 54:50
  ultimately God is God that just wants to have a relationship
• 54:54
  with you. He wants to he wants to love
• 54:57
  you. He wants to give good gifts and
• 55:00
  this isn't that brings about another verse the good gifts of
• 55:04
  God. So in Matthew Chapter 7, verse
• 55:07
  11. If you then, though you are
• 55:10
  evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much
• 55:15
  more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask
• 55:21
  him? So he's not a as one.
• 55:25
  It was Rick Warren who said this.
• 55:27
  Pastor Rick Warren, God's not a genie and he isn't he's not
• 55:32
  that's what we often use him as. But you know, who are we to use
• 55:36
  the creator? But we often go to him acting
• 55:40
  like are expecting him to be a genie like God, I want this.
• 55:44
  Can you give me this? I mean, that's that's just our
• 55:48
  sinful, selfish nature. When we go to God and ask for
• 55:52
  these things, we have to know that what we're asking for has
• 55:55
  to be within his will and has, you know, has to be holy and all
• 56:00
  of that. But it, you know, it says it
• 56:03
  says how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts
• 56:09
  to those who ask him? Luke clarifies us a little bit.
• 56:14
  Luke Chapter 11 verse 13. If you then, though you are
• 56:19
  evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much
• 56:24
  more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those
• 56:30
  who ask him? So Matthew, he says good gifts.
• 56:37
  Luke clarifies that it's the Holy Spirit to those who ask
• 56:41
  him. So the Holy Spirit isn't that
• 56:44
  awesome. That is like that is our eternal
• 56:48
  ticket, our our ticket to eternity when we have the Holy
• 56:52
  Spirit. So God is good.
• 56:55
  He we are undeserving to be in the Kingdom of God because of
• 56:59
  our rebellion to him, but he is so loving that he gives us a
• 57:03
  ticket. The Holy Spirit is our ticket to
• 57:07
  eternity and what God has in store for us is going to be so
• 57:12
  amazing. His Kingdom it revelation those
• 57:17
  last two chapters that kind of gives you a glimpse of what God
• 57:20
  has planned. I mean, like he does not spare
• 57:23
  any expense to make something elaborate beautiful.
• 57:29
  And I mean, I can't even imagine.
• 57:33
  I mean, we're just going to be so shocked when we see, so
• 57:37
  surprised. I would say shocked is always to
• 57:39
  me a negative, but surprised to see what God did.
• 57:44
  And that's what Jesus, when he told his followers, he said I'm
• 57:48
  going away to prepare a place for you.
• 57:52
  So all these like thousands of years that have passed, Jesus
• 57:55
  has been prepared a place for the children of God.
• 58:00
  Isn't that amazing? Like this is just this is what
• 58:03
  needs to be talked about with people, the love of God and what
• 58:07
  he's what he has planned for all of us and all, you know, we
• 58:12
  just, you know, God loves it when we love him back.
• 58:15
  He loves us even when we aren't loving him.
• 58:19
  But then he loves it even more when he when we realize what God
• 58:24
  has done for us, and when we love Him back.
• 58:27
  And we love Him back by obeying his commands.
• 58:30
  So going back to Isaiah, these people come near to me with
• 58:35
  their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are
• 58:38
  far from me. Their worship of me is based on
• 58:42
  merely human rules that have been taught.
• 58:45
  Therefore, once more, once more. So this makes me think one more
• 58:51
  time. The last time it sounds like
• 58:53
  it's going to be the second coming of Jesus.
• 58:55
  Therefore, once more I will astound these people with wonder
• 59:00
  upon wonder. The wisdom of the wise will
• 59:04
  perish. The intelligence of the
• 59:07
  intelligent will vanish. Woe to those who go to great
• 59:12
  depths. To hide their.
• 59:14
  Plans from the Lord don't do anything in secret because it's
• 59:18
  going to be exposed. Who do their work in darkness
• 59:22
  and think. Who sees us?
• 59:24
  Who will know? There's certainly schemers out
• 59:27
  there, but God knows. God knows everything.
• 59:29
  He knows all the hairs on our head.
• 59:31
  You turn things upside down like good for bad.
• 59:36
  We see so much of that today, as if the Potter were thought to be
• 59:41
  like the clay. We have to remember who the
• 59:43
  Creator is. God is our Creator.
• 59:46
  He is the Potter. We are the clay.
• 59:49
  We're not going to outsmart God. Shall what is formed say to the
• 59:55
  one who formed it? You did not make me.
• 1:00:00
  That's where actually now, just when I read that, I just had
• 1:00:03
  this thought about this transhumanism stuff that's going
• 1:00:06
  on right now, like using computers and technology to
• 1:00:12
  supplement what the human body would do.
• 1:00:15
  Like this is like using a substitute like and and then
• 1:00:20
  creating like, I don't know, they well, like CRISPR babies,
• 1:00:26
  like they people can take, you know, a sperm and an egg and
• 1:00:32
  create a baby and create these designer babies.
• 1:00:36
  Or, you know, like there's a lot of stuff genetic engineering
• 1:00:40
  that the technology that people have today and that can use it
• 1:00:47
  and think we don't need God. We can do this on our own.
• 1:00:51
  Well, God, you know. You, you did not make me.
• 1:00:56
  We didn't make God. God is still powerful.
• 1:01:00
  He is in control. There's going to be like a lot
• 1:01:02
  of rude awakening, just like this says here.
• 1:01:05
  The the ones who you know, the intelligence of the intelligent
• 1:01:08
  will will vanish. The wisdom of the wise will
• 1:01:11
  perish, perish. We just you know, we have to
• 1:01:16
  know our place in the the order that God is the creator and and
• 1:01:23
  we are although we create, it's because God made us in his
• 1:01:27
  image, not because we are gods. We are not gods.
• 1:01:33
  Can the pot say to the Potter, you know nothing?
• 1:01:38
  You know, Are we to tell God? Oh, I can do this on my own.
• 1:01:42
  It's pride, and God hates pride. So as human beings, if we're
• 1:01:46
  trying to solve all this without God, then yeah, that's that's
• 1:01:51
  what it's talking about here. In a very short time.
• 1:01:56
  Listen to this. In a very short time, will not
• 1:01:59
  Lebanon be turned into a fertile field?
• 1:02:02
  Think about Lebanon today. I mean, it's gone through so
• 1:02:05
  much war right now, but God's going to restore it.
• 1:02:10
  And the fertile field seems like a forest in that day.
• 1:02:15
  The day of the. Lord, the deaf will hear the
• 1:02:19
  words of the scroll, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of
• 1:02:24
  the blind will see. He's going to.
• 1:02:27
  Open up their eyes. When Jesus returns, their eyes
• 1:02:29
  are going to be opened and they won't be blinded as they are
• 1:02:33
  now. And that's so cool.
• 1:02:39
  I'm just writing this down because I write on my Bible when
• 1:02:46
  I have things come to mind. And as I'm reading Scripture, so
• 1:02:52
  it says once more, the humble will rejoice in the Lord, the
• 1:02:57
  needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
• 1:03:01
  The ruthless will vanish. The mockers will disappear and
• 1:03:05
  all who have an eye for evil will be cut down.
• 1:03:09
  Judgments coming when Jesus returns.
• 1:03:12
  Those who with the word make someone out to be guilty, who
• 1:03:16
  ensnare the defender in a court, in court, and with false
• 1:03:21
  testimony deprive the innocent of justice.
• 1:03:25
  So there's a lot of in. Courts there's there's a lot of
• 1:03:27
  false. Testimony, but judgments coming
• 1:03:29
  from God. Therefore, this is what the Lord
• 1:03:33
  who redeemed Abraham says to the descendants of Jacob.
• 1:03:37
  No longer will Jacob be ashamed. No longer will their faces grow
• 1:03:41
  pale when they see among their among them their children, the
• 1:03:47
  work of my hands. God is the Creator.
• 1:03:50
  They will keep my name holy. They will acknowledge the
• 1:03:54
  holiness of the Holy One of Jacob.
• 1:03:58
  They will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
• 1:04:03
  Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding.
• 1:04:08
  Those who complain will accept instruction.
• 1:04:12
  So I think this is talking about.
• 1:04:14
  The the Jewish people, the people in that area.
• 1:04:17
  Because he was talking about Ariel.
• 1:04:19
  And they are going to, they're wayward in spirit, but they will
• 1:04:22
  gain understanding. Those who complain will accept
• 1:04:26
  instruction. So this is a future restoration
• 1:04:29
  that God is promising. And it's, and it sounds like
• 1:04:33
  it's all happening when Jesus returns.
• 1:04:35
  So something to look forward to. Now this is a long podcast once
• 1:04:41
  again, I didn't think it would be, but it is, and I will read
• 1:04:45
  the questions and answers from the study guide and then we will
• 1:04:48
  conclude. So what were siege works,
• 1:04:52
  military equipment used to capture a walled city, Assyrian
• 1:04:56
  art shows wheeled battering Rams and.
• 1:04:59
  Huge wheeled towers packed with Archers.
• 1:05:04
  That's interesting too, because God made Ishmael's descendants
• 1:05:07
  The Archers or the hunters. So when he says about towers
• 1:05:11
  surrounding, that's very interesting.
• 1:05:13
  Soldiers pushed these towers towards the city's wall and used
• 1:05:18
  them as protected as protected ladders.
• 1:05:26
  Why did God prevent the Israelites from understanding?
• 1:05:29
  Because they had rejected God for so long and in such callous
• 1:05:34
  ways. This might have been God's way
• 1:05:36
  of saying, OK, have it your way, or it could have been an
• 1:05:40
  exaggerated way of saying that the people were so blind.
• 1:05:43
  It was though, God himself had put them to sleep.
• 1:05:47
  Who were those who could not read?
• 1:05:50
  Isaiah's God-given vision was a closed book to the people of
• 1:05:54
  Jerusalem. To those who could read, perhaps
• 1:05:57
  the professional prophets, the vision contained mysteries to
• 1:06:01
  which their eyes were closed. Those who could not read,
• 1:06:05
  perhaps the ordinary inhabitants of Jerusalem, were removed
• 1:06:09
  further still from their understanding.
• 1:06:11
  The seeming advantage of the professional prophets did not
• 1:06:15
  really place them ahead of the common people, for neither
• 1:06:18
  understood the vision. Honor me with their lips, but
• 1:06:24
  they are far from, but their hearts are far from me.
• 1:06:27
  Jesus used this verse to describe the hypocrisy in His
• 1:06:31
  day. So again, being a hypocrite
• 1:06:33
  Christian, that's what it means. And that's in Matthew chapter 15
• 1:06:39
  verse 7 through 9, and Mark Chapter 7 verses 6 through 7.
• 1:06:44
  So Jesus says about the hypocrites in His time.
• 1:06:47
  But that's today too. We certainly have that.
• 1:06:51
  So what rules had they substituted for genuine worship?
• 1:06:55
  Human rules do not apply to the laws outlined by Moses in
• 1:07:01
  Leviticus themselves, to by Moses in Leviticus themselves,
• 1:07:08
  but to the way Moses's teachings were applied by the priest.
• 1:07:14
  Though these rights are these rules about what and when to
• 1:07:19
  sacrifice, Though these rules about what and when to
• 1:07:23
  sacrifice, how to honor the Sabbath, what not to eat, and so
• 1:07:27
  on, were given by God and had a purpose, the people had missed
• 1:07:31
  the point entirely. They were only going through the
• 1:07:34
  motions, and that wasn't enough. They didn't understand why.
• 1:07:40
  Who was planning what? To offset the threat of the
• 1:07:43
  enemies, kings often relied on intricate international schemes
• 1:07:49
  that obligated them to allies. Isaiah may have been referring
• 1:07:53
  to the alliance between King Ahaz of Judah and Assyria, but
• 1:07:59
  more likely he had in mind King Hezekiah more recent apparent
• 1:08:04
  alliance with Egypt to counteract the Assyrian menace
• 1:08:09
  to Jerusalem. What does it mean that the
• 1:08:12
  leaders of Judah were doing their works in darkness?
• 1:08:15
  Negotiations with Egypt to form an anti Assyrian alliance were
• 1:08:20
  probably carried out on in secret and behind Isaiah's back.
• 1:08:24
  Isaiah was implying that the negotiators thought their
• 1:08:28
  actions were so clandestine that even the Lord himself was denied
• 1:08:34
  access to them. The prophet states these people
• 1:08:37
  in the clay have a completely illogical view of God the
• 1:08:42
  Potter. Such folly is tantamount to
• 1:08:46
  accusing the Creator of lacking wisdom and understanding the
• 1:08:52
  Potter like the clay. Jeremiah talks about that and
• 1:08:55
  Paul in Romans 9 does that. Jeremiah chapter 18 and Paul in
• 1:08:59
  Romans 9 talks about the same kind of concept.
• 1:09:03
  Why did Isaiah focus so much on issues of justice?
• 1:09:07
  The Hebrew word for justice refers not only to legal matters
• 1:09:11
  decided by courts, but also to all matters of right behavior
• 1:09:15
  and proper treatment of people. In Isaiah's day, Judah tolerated
• 1:09:20
  discrimination in various forms, neglected the needy, abuse of
• 1:09:24
  the poor, disregard for God's covenant law, and sinful
• 1:09:28
  personal and social practices, much as our society today does.
• 1:09:33
  The through Isaiah, God told his people that things were not as
• 1:09:39
  they should be and warned them of the judgment coming as a
• 1:09:43
  result. How was Abraham redeemed and
• 1:09:49
  what does it have to do with Israel?
• 1:09:52
  Abraham's rescue from paganism and sin by God's gracious
• 1:09:57
  calling is here described by the word redeem, which is often used
• 1:10:03
  in the Bible as a way to indicate deliverance.
• 1:10:06
  It literally means buying back, but it also carries the sense of
• 1:10:12
  rescuing from death. As God had done for one man,
• 1:10:16
  Abraham, he now offered to do for a whole people Israel and
• 1:10:22
  also more. But this was covering Israel.
• 1:10:24
  So hope something was interesting to you for you today
• 1:10:28
  and hope you come back. Please subscribe to the podcast
• 1:10:31
  and if you're interested in this and then also share it with
• 1:10:36
  other people who need to hear this because it's all about the
• 1:10:40
  Kingdom of God and all of us getting prepared for that day.