Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 19, 2022 | End Times: Follow the Signs with Patty Diliberto - Session 1: Old Testament Israel & The Purpose of the Church

Transcript

January 19, 2022 | End Times: Follow the Signs with Patty Diliberto - Session 1: Old Testament Israel & The Purpose of the Church · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: We are gonna get started, and I'm so glad that you are all here.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is exciting.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's exciting.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking forward to it.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've been studying a ton and just can't wait to get started.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really truly blessed by your presence, by you being here.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody wouldn't mind shutting the door, thank you.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm just delighted that there's so many of us.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that obviously speaks to where we all are in asking and wanting to know what is going on and how this is all coming down.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm excited to take this journey with you for the next 10 weeks.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: In your folder, you will see a syllabus, you will see a page to take notes on, and you will see some homework.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Woo-woo! So um so do that, it won't take you very long.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: This week it's just comparing um passages, and and I've got some observation and stuff for you there.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm hoping every week to have just a little bit of homework for you.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have so much to cover tonight, so I'm gonna talk really fast.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so let's get started.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let me pray.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Father God, we thank you so very much.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for everything that we are gonna see during this study, all the things that you are going to bring to our minds.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're so excited about that, Lord, and we just trust you, and we tell you that we trust you implicitly.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you, and I ask you to bless us tonight with your presence, with your word, and um just with the thought that you could return soon.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you, Lord Jesus.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: In your name we pray, amen.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, how often do you see that in Scripture, right?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Has it ever struck you how often God says, remember, remember, remember, remember?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: The word remember is mentioned 178 times in the Old Testament and 75 times in the New Testament.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think God wants us to uh do?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: He wants us to remember.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: He wants us to remember.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a significant word.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And why does he tell us to do that so often?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because we need the reminder to remember.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you've probably heard the George, um, however you say his name, maybe Santiana, and that those who are um those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to take a brief journey through the Old Testament tonight, chronologically, um, just because it has some really valuable things, and I feel like it's the perfect place to start before we jump into everything else.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, first we're going to look at Israel.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to understanding what will happen in the future, in the end times, an understanding of what has happened in the past will benefit us all greatly, right?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, the future faithfulness of God relies on the past faithfulness of God, right?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: The future faithfulness of God relies on the past faithfulness of God.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't have confidence in God and how and how he revealed himself in the Old Testament to the Jewish people, we won't have confidence in what he has done for us, the New Testament believers, and what he will do for the tribulation believers.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it is all based on his past faithfulness.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I love the Old Testament, and I know that it is difficult to get through, but the benefit of reading it and understanding it is really truly monumental to building your faith.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the foundation.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: It is crucial to understand that God's relationship with Israel, because all of it all of the end time prophecy deals with Israel.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: All of the end-time prophecy deals with Israel.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's crucial that we understand this relationship that God established with Israel and how it's going to impact the end-time prophecy stuff.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the truths that we will clearly see in the Old Testament is that everything God did and does was and is intentional.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you've done the chronological study with me, you've heard that over and over and over.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: God intentionally said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, because he wanted to share all of his creation with his people, with people who would be his image bearers.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the first two, Adam and Eve, were.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he made that he had even made man.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: But to show his fidelity and his faithfulness to mankind, he was faithful to one man, Adam.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean Noah.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, Noah.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: God used Noah and his sons to build the Ark of Salvation, and He used Noah to preach righteousness for 120 years.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: For 120 years, Noah is preaching to them, telling them that judgment is going to come.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: He's telling them it's going to, there's going to be floods.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: It had never rained at that time.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: They had no concept of the judgment that was coming.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's warning them for all of that time.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And all of those 120 years, no one repents.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: No one comes to God.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: No one comes to get into the ark of salvation.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And when God shuts the door, it's done.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And everything that Noah has warned them about happens.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Many generations later, God showed his faithfulness.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, I have a tickle.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: His faithfulness by choosing another man, Abraham.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Abraham was the one that he was now going to reveal himself to.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: He gave Abraham that sevenfold blessing in Genesis 12, too, that he would make him a great nation, that he would bless him, that he would make his name great, that he would be a blessing, that he would, that anybody who blessed him would be blessed, that anybody who cursed him would be cursed, and that all the families on earth would be blessed because of Abraham.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the sign of that promise was a covenant, a covenant that God initiated and totally was totally dependent upon God to keep it.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was a covenant that was unconditional, it was never to be forgotten, and it was binding for all time.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was unconditional, it was never to be forgotten, and it was binding for all time.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: That covenant is still intact today.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Jewish people are still God's chosen special people.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And against all odds, Israel, the Jewish people, have survived, and they still play a huge role today.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: The nation of Israel and the land of Israel are the focus of all end-time prophecy.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense why we are looking at this tonight, right?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: God was faithful to his promises to Abraham by giving him a son, Isaac, and God reaffirmed his covenant with Isaac and with Isaac's son Jacob.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And Jacob had twelve sons who continued that godly line and heritage of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: God was building a nation who were his own inheritance, who would be a godly nation.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: It only makes sense then that as God was building his godly heritage, Satan would be building his ungodly line as well.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where the Nephilim come in.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that he has done that, that Satan has done that with many individuals through all of time, all of time, dating back probably to Cain, and that he has used individuals throughout all of history.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: The Pharaohs, Herod, Antiochus Epiphanes, Hitler, and others who we don't even know about because he has kept them hidden from our view.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: One book that talks about this is one I really recommend.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's called The Unseen Realm by Michael Heiser.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Really excellent book.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And another one is Judgment of the Nephilim by Ryan Peterson.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a really good book as well.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: So those two books I recommend.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: God told Abraham 400 years before that his descendants would be slaves in Egypt.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: 400 years before they are slaves, he told them they are going to be slaves, and they are going to be slaves for 400 years.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: As events progressed, Joseph and the rest of Jacob's sons, who Jacob's name was turned to Israel, changed to Israel, and so these are the sons of Israel.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: They are bought into brought into it to Egypt and they are enslaved there for 400 years.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: The people cried out to God in their distress, and he heard them because he is the God who sees and he is the God who hears.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: He shows himself faithful to Israel by raising up a deliverer, Moses.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: God tells Moses that he has an agenda for him in Egypt, where Moses has a past, and Moses gives God excuses of why he can't do it.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: But eventually, reluctantly, he obeys God, and he is used greatly by God to bring one wave of disaster after another on the whole land and all of the people of Egypt.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: The last plague was the death of the every firstborn in Egypt.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And God instructs the Hebrews to mark their lintels and doorposts with the blood of a lamb that would be sacrificed for this purpose, and thus establishing the Passover, which is symbolic and the ultimate redemptive promises of God, that the innocent would be sacrificed on behalf of the guilty.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Humiliated by God, Pharaoh allows the people to leave, but then of course he changes his mind, which sets them up for God to be able to show his mighty power by parting the Red Sea for them to go through.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Then God's glory leads them through the desert, through the wilderness for 40 years.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: During those 40 years, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and the law, and he confirmed the Abrahamic covenant with him.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he established the Mosaic covenant with Moses and with the people of Israel.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: God made a covenant with Noah.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: God made a covenant with Abraham.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: God made a covenant with Moses, proving that our God is a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: That is who he is.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: God manifests himself in the pre in his presence in the tabernacle as the children of Israel are wandering through the desert.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And people learned that they could trust him.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: They could trust him to supply what they needed.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Then eventually Joshua leads the people into the promised land and to take possession of it.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And after Joshua died, the people still needed instruction and direction.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: So God raised up judges.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Judges who would tell the people what God wanted them to know and what he wanted them to do.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And God led the people through the judges for 400 years when they would let him.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: When they weren't so rebellious that they wouldn't do it.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually the pull to be like all of the other nations was so great for them that it caused them to turn to idolatry, which God abhors.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: The people of Israel continued to rebel against God, and they and they wanted what all of the other nations had.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted a strong king to rule over them.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: So God reluctantly gave in to them and gave them what they asked for.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And King Saul came on the scene.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: He looked promising at first, but then all of that power went to his head, and he sinned greatly.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: His successor, David, had a heart and a will to do God's will.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: He was a man after God's heart, and God blessed him.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Solomon, his son, David's son, took over as king.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And after his reign, the United Kingdom of Israel is split into two kingdoms.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: The northern kingdom became known as the kingdom of Israel, and the southern kingdom became the kingdom of Judah.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: God continued to be faithful to those two kingdoms, even though they were not faithful to him.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Over and over they were not faithful.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: He proved his faithfulness by speaking to and through the prophets for another 400 years.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: God again wanted warned the people through the prophets that judgment was going to come.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: If they did not repent, if they didn't turn their hearts back to God, judgment was going to come.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: They would not listen to him, and judgment came down, just like God said it would.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: God used two mighty kingdoms to discipline his people.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Assyria carried the northern kingdom of Israel into captivity, and Babylon carried the southern kingdom of Judah into captivity.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Remarkably, even in a timeout by God, he continues to show his faithfulness to them because he sends prophets along with them into exile, into captivity.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it shows us that even when we are disciplined, God loves us, even when he has to do that.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: For 400 years, he speaks through these prophets.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's during this time that we hear from Daniel, the prophet Daniel, about what will happen in the future and the end times that are still to come.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: God made sure that his promises of a return back to Israel would be accomplished, and he tells them that the exile would end within 70 years, and it does.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: God, because God always keeps his promises.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that return, that return started the prophetic clock because it started the 70th week of Daniel, which we will see in detail in a couple weeks.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: God moves in mighty ways to bring 97,000 Hebrews back to Jerusalem on a mission.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: The first mission is to rebuild the temple, the second one is to re-establish the worship in the temple, and the third one is to rebuild the wall around the city.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: He uses godly Zerubable, Ezra and Nehemiah, to accomplish this.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: God kept his promises just as he said he would in the exact time that he said he would do it.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly 70 years after the deportation.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: God was getting ready for 400 years of silence to begin after the prophet Malachi gives his message.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: God tells them what he's going to do through Malachi 3:1.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: See, I will send my messenger who will prepare the way before me.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: The messenger of the covenant whom you desire will come, says the Lord Almighty.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And with that, the Old Testament comes to a close.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: God has done what he set out to do.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: He has revealed himself in persistent, in personal, and in powerful ways that had a profound impact on the entire world.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: That last era before the coming of Messiah is known as the intertestamental years or the silent years.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is called this because when the Hebrew canon closes after the writing of the pre and preaching of the prophet Malachi, that's when it closes.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: God was silent, but he was not inactive.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: I won't go into everything, but boy, I wish we could, because it's so good.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: What God does during that intertestamental period.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is so faith-building, it blows your mind.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: I wish we could go through it.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Through the influence of the Greek, through the exile and the dispersion where the people are dispersed, through the influence of the Greece, of Greece and the power of Rome, God completely sets the stage for the spread of the gospel to the whole known world.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: That intertestamental period is amazingly faith-building.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that you catch a glimpse of God's incredible faithfulness in this short chronology that we've just gone through and what took place in the Old Testament.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's important for us to understand this.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: I pray that you know how committed God was to his people Israel, because God is still this committed to his people Israel, as committed as he was back then.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he worked powerfully on their behalf.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: He is still working powerfully on their behalf.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: They just don't always recognize that.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: He initiated all the covenants, and he has kept all of the covenants except for a few things that still need to happen, which are not even, anyway, I won't go there.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: So these are not just interesting stories.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're not just a narrative that explains.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: These are real life, real people who had real encounters with God, and they reveal God's character in all of this.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: We see the theme of his Hesed, faithful love throughout all of the Old Testament.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe more importantly, for what we're going to see in the next 10 weeks, we see his sovereign control over everything.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: That is one of the things that stands out the most when you read through the Old Testament is that God is Complete, total control, and nothing happens that is not out of his control because it's not even possible.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: He was totally in control, and when he had to, when he when he had to discipline the people because they were stiff-necked and they wanted to worship idols, it was done to fulfill his love, it was done, and discipline was done to fulfill a greater purpose.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: When people see fail to see God's character through the truths of the Old Testament, they will have a distorted view of God.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: They will.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because it really depends on how you see God in the Old Testament.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: They may instead see him as a harsh, demanding, vengeful God, and they will not trust him.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: They won't trust him in the future because they have had a distorted view of him from the past and how he's revealed himself.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's why it's important to read and understand the Old Testament.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, God judged people, right?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: He did.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: He absolutely did.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: God warned that judgment was coming.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: He warned it through Noah.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: He warned it through the judges.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: He warned it through the prophets.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: He warned it through John the Baptist, and he warned through Jesus that judgment was going to come.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it has.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: J.I.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Packer says, the reality of divine judgment as a fact is set forth on page after page of the Bible of Bible history.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: God judged Adam and Eve, expelling them from the garden, and pronounced curses on their future earthly life.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: God judged the corrupt world of Noah's day, sending a flood to destroy mankind.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: God judged Sodom and Gomorrah, engulfing them in a volcanic catastrophe.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: God judged Israel's Egyptian taskmasters just as he foretold he would, unleashing against them the terrors of the ten plagues.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: God judged those who worshipped the golden calf.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: God judged Israel for unfaithfulness to him after their entry into Canaan, causing them to fall under the dominion of other nations.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, God judges.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: But to round that judgment out, let me also add that God judged our sin by taking it upon himself when Jesus died on the cross.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so his judgment wasn't just against others, it was for our sake as well.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: God does judge.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And now that my eyes have been opened to more of the pure, evil, Luciferian stuff that is going on and the worshipers that still exist today and are propagating their craft, I'm glad.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad that God judges.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: I want God to judge evil, right?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: We want that.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's a level of evil that we want Him to judge.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: And sooner rather than later.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, the wickedness was bad enough to be judged just like it is now.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: The days of Noah.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the end times are going to be like the days of Noah.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want wicked people to get away with what they have gotten away with.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, judgment came and judgment will come.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it is and was deserved.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: That is what grace is all about, though.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: None of us deserves grace, but God freely gives it to us.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: God's promise to Abraham that through the line, his line, all the families on earth would be blessed, led to the fulfillment of Messiah's birth, of Jesus' birth.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: When we look at the 70th week of Daniel, we will see how incredibly specific Jesus' coming was to that time period.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it is truly astounding.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: The age we are living in now is the age of grace.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus came, his focus was to reveal the Father and to do the Father's will.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if somebody usually usually if somebody asks, so why did Jesus come?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Our usual answer might be, well, so that he would die on the cross so that we could be with him forever.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a true statement.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: But it really, truly a truer statement is that he came to do the will of the Father, to obey the Father, and to reveal the Father.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus came.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when people that he was perfect, he was obedient, the obedient son who was determined to do the will of the Father, so that we might see the faithfulness of God in giving his son, the Messiah.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, God established a covenant with us, predominantly Gentile people, during this age of grace, this church age.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was through the blood of the innocent one, Jesus, that our covenant is secured.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: God initiated this covenant just like he initiated all of the other covenants.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just like the Noahic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, and the Mosaic covenant.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: God has kept the new covenant now for 2,000 years, and he will for all of eternity.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Ten days after Jesus' ascension, the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost, which was also the Jewish feast of weeks.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: The church was birthed that day.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the demonstration of the wind and the fire and the tongues and the power was Jesus manifesting himself to those people, to and through the church that day.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it hasn't stopped for 2,000 years.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is now the spirit, the part of the Godhead that has been working throughout this church age.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Revelation 1.8, God says, I am the Alpha and the Omega who was who is and who was and who is to come the Almighty.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: I believe the God who was could be God Yahweh, revealed in the Old Testament.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: I believe the God who is could be the Holy Spirit who is working during this church age, and I believe that the God who is to come is the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: And all three are working throughout his story.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's important for us to understand that none of the things that happened happened randomly.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: They all had a design, they all had a purpose.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Every single element for all of time was by design and exactly in the order and the time that it happened was perfect.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the more I learn, the more I know that that statement is incredibly true.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Prophecy makes up 30% of the Bible, 50% of the Bible, 66 books cover human history.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: There are more than 100 prophecies in the Old Testament regarding the first coming of Christ.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And through these prophecies, we know, we know that Jesus truly was the Messiah because he fulfilled all of them.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the statistical probability of one single person doing that is staggering, staggering.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: His second coming is spoken of five times more than his first coming.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the reasons we can have confidence in his second coming.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus totally fulfilled the prophecies regarding his first coming, and he will totally fulfill the prophecies of his second coming that is yet to be fulfilled.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yay! I hope that you are seeing the continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament because it is so significant, it's so important.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: It impacts the future things that will happen.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Since every single thing happened exactly the way Scripture revealed that it would happen, we can have full confidence that in the future it will happen exactly the way God says it will happen and the way Scripture reveals it will happen.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: I can't emphasize this enough.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: God's past faithfulness to his promise gives us total confidence in his future promises.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now we live in the church age that began on the day of Pentecost.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the word church is translated from the Greek word ecclesia.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: The church has not always existed, right?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was birthed on Pentecost and it continues until the rapture of the church, which we will look at in detail in a couple of weeks.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus stated in Matthew 16 that he would build his church and that the gates of hell would not overcome it.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that is evidence that the church is not, did not exist before the day of Pentecost.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: It is Jesus' church.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's some unique distinctions of the church.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: First, the Old Testament doesn't contain one reference to the church.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because it wasn't there.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 1, 18 through 20 tells us that the church is built on the foundation of the resurrection of Jesus, meaning that the church could not have existed in the Old Testament times.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: The church age was a mystery to the Old Testament prophets.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: The definition for mystery is a truth revealed for the first time.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't get it.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: The prophets did not get it.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't know about the church age.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: The church is clearly distinct from Israel.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: The church is not a continuation or a replacement of the Old Testament Israel.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's some unique similarities.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Both Israel and the church are the people of God.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Both are part of God's spiritual kingdom.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Both participate in the spiritual blessings of the Abrahamic covenant and the new covenant.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: And there's some unique differences.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Israel is an earthly political entity, but the church is the spiritual body of Christ.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: Israel was composed of Jews, but the church is composed of both Jews and Gentiles.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: A person becomes a Jew by physical birth, but a person becomes a member of the church through a spiritual birth.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: The reason I'm emphasizing all of this is because there are some who believe that Israel is not still God's chosen people, that they have been replaced by the church.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: But God's covenants, what did we see?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: God's covenants are binding for all time.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: We are not a replacement.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: When the church started, God gave the Holy Spirit, and He has worked powerfully to advance the gospel of Jesus through the church age for 2,000 years, and he will continue to do so until the church is no longer here.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul assured the church in Thessalonica that they were not living in the end days, because they were afraid that they had missed it.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: They were afraid that they were living in the end days.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And in 2 Thessalonians, he says, Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: So according to God's timetable, the day of the Lord is and the accompaniment judgment will not start until those two things happen, until the global rebellion occurs and until the Antichrist is revealed.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: Paul then mentions what is currently keeping the evil back, he tells them.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work, but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he's taken out of the way, and then the lawless one will be revealed.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's a specific time for the man of lawlessness to be revealed.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the Holy Spirit is working along with the church to restrain and keep that power back, that person and that time at bay until it's the appropriate time.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: The power, the power delaying Satan's masterpiece and plan to reveal the false Messiah, Antichrist, must be of God.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: That timing piece.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: It makes more sense to say that the Holy Spirit is curbing the devil, excuse me, the devil, than that a political entity, some political person, could be doing that.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or even that an angel would be keeping Satan at bay.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's nobody in the world who has that kind of power.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Only God has that kind of power to restrain Satan.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is God, is the Holy Spirit of God is the only person with sufficient supernatural power to do that.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: No one else has that power.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, the Spirit works through the believers, you and me, to accomplish this.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the church, indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, has always been part of what has kept the end times from happening.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says that at some point, at some time, the Spirit will step aside.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: He will step aside from his restraining work, allowing sin to have dominion here.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: I assume that at that point in time the rapture will take place.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit steps out of the way and allows the lawless one to do whatever he wants to.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: There will be no more restraining evil.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: That should make all of us shudder.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: No more restraint of evil.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is still going to be present on the earth because you can't kick God out, of course.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: But his unique restraining ministry through God's people, the church, will be removed.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: It will be over because he uses us to help.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Constable at SonicLight.com says the Holy Spirit of God is the only person with sufficient supernatural power to do this restraining.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: The removal of the restrainer at the time of the rapture must obviously precede the day of the Lord.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: The Greek word translated restrain carries the idea to hold back from action, to keep under control, to deprive of physical liberty as by shackling.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is what the Holy Spirit does in our day in preventing the Antichrist from arising.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: Things are evil and bad now.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: But imagine how horrible it will be when the restraints are off.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: John Phillips says, after the rapture of the church, the Holy Spirit will continue his work bringing people to salvation.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: But he will no longer baptize them into the mystical body of Christ, the church.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: Nor will he actively hinder Satan from bringing his schemes to fruition.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: Once Satan has achieved his centuries-long goal, Christ will return and demolish the whole thing.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: Paul Feinberg says there seems to be abundant evidence that the Holy Spirit will be active in the earth during the tribulation period.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Evangelism will be more effective than it has ever been.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that's true.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because multitudes come to faith in Christ.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: We'll look into all of this in the coming weeks.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that this teaching tonight has made sense to you and has encouraged you.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: We believers in the church age, especially today, which I believe we are the last generation of the church.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: I really believe that.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: We are notorious for trying to figure out the future without understanding the past.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: We want to figure it all out, but do we want to take the time to look at the past and say, hmm, there's some clues there?
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you can see why that doesn't work.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: God's faithfulness in the past demands his faithfulness in the future.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: And our attempt to figure all of this out, and because of technology, we have the opportunity today to hear many voices with many messages.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: I probably listen to some of the very same people that you listen to.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you listen to any alternative media, I probably listen to what you listen to.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: Some, perhaps many, many of them are false and they are distorting the truth.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you are going to listen to those voices, just know that you have to have incredible discernment when you are listening to them to distinguish deception from truth.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you are not going to apply discernment, then don't listen to them.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not going to think critically, don't listen to them.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you're just going to buy whatever somebody says, don't listen to them.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Many of them are twist twisting scripture to fit their narrative, and it is incredibly easy to do that.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do you get what I'm saying?
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's important.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Don't believe everything you hear.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: I love this quote by Dr.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: David L.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: Cooper.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: He says, When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense, but take every word at its primary literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context clearly indicate otherwise.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that good?
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's an incredible.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was such an important quote for me to find.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because I have wrestled with this.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: I have wrestled with what I have heard.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the many voices and the different interpretations about what is going on right now and what is around the proverbial corner.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to Scripture, I am a literalist, and that means that I believe that all Bible prophecy intends historical fulfillment.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's what a literalist believes.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: That, in other words, prophecy will become history as God carries out the fulfillment of it.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: Some theologians and people are idealists.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thomas Ice talks about idealists.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Idealists see prophetic passages as a teacher of great truths about God to be applied to our present lives.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: Idealists believe that the Bible uses prophetic passages to present principles between the message that is universal and abiding.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: Idealists have adopted a postmodern influence which exalts the interpretive process at the expense of arriving at a definite theology.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: It exalts the interpretive process.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, they see it as symbolism or as an allegory, but not something that happened literally, legitimately, and that will happen.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's wordy, but again, I am a literalist.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that all Bible prophecy intends historical fulfillment.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I will be teaching the class from that literalist viewpoint.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: Everything will happen exactly the way Scripture and God says it will happen.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: However, we will not be able to completely figure it out.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have all the answers.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: Some of those voices today are contradicting what Scripture says will happen in the last days.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: They are not staying true to the text.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: Some people say that that prophecy should be taken symbolically, not literally, which has birthed confusion and doubt.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly what Satan wants to produce: confusion and doubt.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: There is symbolism in the book of Revelation.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's tons of symbolism.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we won't be able to figure it all out.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: Some of these same people are what Jesus described as false prophets with false messages.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: And they are, they truly are.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: They sound very sincere and altruistic, but they are false.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: The topic of the end times that I'm that we are embarking on for the next 10 weeks is so difficult to understand and grasp.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope to make it clear and biblically true to the text.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: And none of these things need hyperboil because it's all so amazing.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: And alarming in themselves.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: But what we can know, we should know.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we can know much.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: But there is also much that God left vague.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he left it vague for a purpose.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: If he didn't bring clarity to it, then there's a purpose for that.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when we have our discussion around the table, let's remember what I said about deception, and that there are some voices, what some voices are spouting, right?
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: We all have our opinions.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do we all have our opinions about what is going on around the world and in our country?
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: We don't all share the same opinion, do we?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure you agree that Satan is having a heyday to bring division and discord to the church, to believers.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: Pastor Connor asked to have a talk with me, and I figured it was about this class.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that, hmm, this will be interesting.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: But he wanted to share his concern.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what he said, I felt like was worth repeating.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: He said his concern was that the conversations around our tables would devolve into what Facebook looks like.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was a brilliant statement.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because we all know what those Facebook things devolve into.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that is not what we want to have here.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what I told him.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, Connor, women really struggle when they can't figure something out, especially those who are mothers.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because if a mother doesn't have things figured out, then chaos is going to rain.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just, it's just part of our nature to try to figure things out.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm not calling us control freaks, although we are.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I also think that God has given us just this inquiring minds and this innate sense to figure things out, right?
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many women have come to me and said, just help me figure things out right now.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: We want a safe place to talk about this stuff.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: We want a safe place to process, and that's what I told him.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he totally got that.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, not totally, but he he agreed.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you can totally get women, but but I want this place to and time to be a place, a safe place, and where we work through the what-ifs, where we talk about some of this stuff and some of the differing ideas and the scenarios that that we think might happen.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: But remember, not one single person has all the answers, right?
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're all working to make sense out of what we are living through, and it's not easy.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's not easy.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: We do need a safe place to do that.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we all have our opinions about the vaccine, and our opinions are all over the place, all over the board with this.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would ask that the vaccine not be a topic of discussion at the table.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the reason I'm asking that is because it divides us, and it's very divisive, which is exactly what Satan wants.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want us to help each other understand more and not feel like we have to defend our position.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: I want us to have great discussion and interaction and to keep an open mind.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: I want us to realize that there are many theories about the end times, and I will present what I think is the best option.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'll also present some of the other options too.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: I want us to think deeply and critically about all of this.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the bottom line, I want God to be pleased with our attempt to understand this.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know that this was a long discussion tonight, and now we're gonna have discussion around the table, but um, but thank you for being attentive and thank you for being here.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I just hope that this class is a blessing to you in lots and lots of ways.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let me pray.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: Father God, thank you so very much.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you that we can trust you completely, that your past faithfulness shows us how reliable you are, and that you will bring everything to fruition the way you say you will.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: Give us eyes to see, Lord, give us ears to hear, give us a heart to understand and a heart to trust you more.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: We love you, Lord, and we we just cannot wait to see you.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: So together we cry out, Come, Lord Jesus.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: And in the meantime, let us be faithful, Lord.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you in Jesus' name.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.