You are called to examine the mindset influencing your daily life and reject the yeast of secularism or empty religion. Instead, allow the Kingdom of God to infect every aspect of your walk, from your home to your vote. Surrender to Jesus as Lord and trust that His plan is working even when the world seems chaotic.
Oh, hold on.
Did I walk up?
I was only a half introduction earlier. Okay. My dad led me to Jesus at 4 years old, and then modeled what it looked like to be a Christian who lives it out before he was a pastor, as a coach, high school football coach. He took the school bus on Thursday nights for a full year to the projects and families because he told God he would because God asked him to, and he said, yes, Lord. Every Thursday night.
My brother was born on a Thursday that year. He did he he he went to the birth, and then he told mom, I promised God on Thursday nights, this is what I do. So he went and did what he promised God he'd do. He taught me to pray. He would bring me fifth grade, sixth grade when he was pastor.
Sunday mornings, 08:00, where the leaders would would pray, invited me as a 10 year old to go pray with the leaders of the church. It's where I learned to pray. Also learned to pray when I'd go for a snack at midnight, and dad's on his knees at night, nobody watching with his hands lifted, crying out to the Lord for his family, for the church, for the world. And then he took me all around the world. *God* promoted him, because he was diligent to pastor well, faithful with what God had put in his hand, promoted him to teach pastors.
And he's taken me to many, many nations, doing pastors conferences with him, learning from him, sitting in the back. And what you see and what you've seen in me today are in the last couple years that you've known me as a lot of the fruit from the seed that he's sown into my life. And so as he's teaching today, listen, because, man, it's gonna build your faith. He's teaching a very important topic, especially for what's going on in the world right now. That's why I asked him to come.
So listen. I'm reminded of a verse. Consider your leaders. Consider their way of life and imitate their faith because God's the same today and yesterday. Amen?
*Amen*. Love you, dad.
*Amen*. Would you
guys give a big old hand just to honor? "Hallelujah".
What a joy to see this good looking congregation. We got a full house this morning, and keep up with what y'all are doing and seeing the fruit. Love to see that God brought several different leaders and groups together, 30 third company, and the belong thing happening, and going out on Tuesdays, and seeing people come to the Lord, but then also having a local church a part of something much bigger than just local, and seeing what y'all are doing in other nations and in Pakistan. What a "hotspot". I I'm just returning from Pakistan myself, connected to some people that's the same family that y'all are connected to.
I got had the privilege of having breakfast at the hotel with Daniel and Pamela, who have been just got back from preaching the word with you guys, and so what a what a lovely young couple. And Pramila's brother, who's a big pastor in Lahore, Pakistan, ministered with them and did a pastor's conference there. So I see that y'all are involved in a hot spot of where God is moving around the world that was I don't know if this is on live or anything. I'm just I think he Okay. Good.
So, 98% Muslim, and God is shaking the nations and allowing the gospel to go out in such a way that over the last just 15 years, there's mass crusades, and there's Christian TV stations, and churches built, you know, and the government's allowing more freedom because God has done it. And so it's kinda like a hot spot that you all are involved in, and it's it's it's no small thing. It's huge. And so I was just there. That pastor has taken some of our go deep grace teaching, and we've translated it to Urdu, and now he's put that those messages on his TV station that's gone out to like a 180 nations around there.
So man, we can be a part of a local church like this that's impacting the world in big ways, and that's what you're doing. And that's just a a a a great thing. I wanna jump into something. Let's open our Bibles to Revelation-21. *Revelation-21*, we're gonna put on 1 through 5, and I wanna get into this teaching.
You know, the war broke out, and and social media, and TV, and protests, and things happened in our country and around the world, and it kinda grieved me that I was recognizing so many young people from The US that didn't have a clue about the history of *Israel* or what the bible says about it. And they're basing their comments, and their protest, and their thoughts on lies. And I said, man, I I need to teach this. In the schools, also taught history and looked at this, and I've been in in the word for 30 years, so just our knowledge of what the word says about Israel, you know, we need to have our worldview based on what God says. Satan is the author of lies and has lied to so many people, and we wanna build our life and our worldview and, you know, how we think and according to what he says, God is love and God is good.
*Revelation-21*, it says, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. I'm happy about that. I'm glad we're gonna live on earth. I like earth. **Praise the Lord**.
New earth. A new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. Then I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem. Everybody say Jerusalem.
*Jerusalem*. See, Jerusalem is important.
Yeah. Yeah.
The holy city and there's a name written in the bible of the name of it. It's Jerusalem. Okay? So that's a very a concept that's deep. Coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband, and God's gonna dwell with us, and we're gonna dwell with him, and that's gonna be the base of Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem.
Now, go with me to second Timothy. *2 Timothy-3* and looking at verse 13. While **evil men and impostors** will go from bad to worse, wow, evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse deceiving and being deceived. I praise the Lord that the kingdom of heaven is advancing and you're a part of it, and praise God, the saints win. While I'm worshiping with you, I'm recognizing in my spirit that my congregation in a little bitty Louisiana, some small town, not like here in Pinellas County, the saints are gathered and worshiping.
And all around you, there's churches all over, the saints are gathered and worshiping. And all over from this state all the way across to Louisiana, the saints are gathering. And all around the world, in Pakistan, and other places over these 24 hours, the saints are gathering and worshiping. This gospel of the kingdom, Jesus said, will be preached from Judea, Samaria, to the utmost parts of the world, and it's working. We're plan a, there is no plan b, and plan a is working, and you're a part of it.
*Amen*? So, though there's evil and there's impostors deceiving and being deceived, and we see that out there, just be rooted and grounded in the good news. You're on the "winning team", and God's plan is working. Okay? The gospel is going out.
So, you'll hear news and you'll hear riots and protests, but really, you know, sometimes the the smaller minority has the louder voice in the news, and there's a whole bunch of folks around them that are praying for the peace of Jerusalem. *Amen*? They might not be as vocal outside, you know, throwing things at cars and stuff, but they're praying. So praise God, you're on the winning side. So even though it says, evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, and that will keep happening, deceiving and being deceived.
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of because you know those whom you have learned it. And then in verse 15, it says it this way, praise God. And from infancy, you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Then it says the famous verse we know, all scripture is God breathes and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting. So, it is the scripture, the word of God, that can make us wise.
So, what are we to feel like when this war breaks out in Israel, and all the news coming out? Well, we can be wise to what's up, and we can be wise on how to think about it according to the Scripture. So where should we look to get our our worldview? The word of God. So, we wanna base it on that.
So, here's where we're gonna start. We wanna know the history of Israel a little bit. Well, let's go to Genesis-12. Genesis-12. And the Bible says this, and it's clear as a bell.
The Lord said to Abram, **leave your country**, your people, your father's household, and go to the land I'll show you, and I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. So God God's a big God, but he's a patient loving God, and he likes to start out with a man, and then expand into a family, and expand into a nation, and expand into the world. He's a personal God. *Amen*? Amen.
So, he started out with a person. A person, Abram, and he called him, I will make you in a great nation, and I will bless you. And I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. So we we we as Christians, we need to know that concept. You're blessed in order to be a blessing.
You're blessed to be a blessing. I will bless you, and you will be a blessing, and I will bless those who bless you. And whoever curses you, I will curse. And all the earth will be blessed through you. So God was beginning to reveal himself to all of you, but he started with Abraham.
To get the revelation of salvation to you, he started with Abraham. He said, I'm gonna bless you, Abraham, and I'm gonna make you into a great nation, and I'm gonna bless you, and y'all are gonna be my people, this nation. And through this nation, I'm gonna bless the whole world. *Amen*? So he starts with a man.
And whoever blesses you is gonna be blessed. So praise God, I want the United States government to always side and bless Israel. *Amen*? Amen. We want that.
We want them to stay faithful to that. Praise God. We're blessed because we have. We'll stay blessed as we continue. *Amen*.
Then it goes on to say, look at verse 7. In verse 7, he says, to your offspring or to your seed, I will give this land. Okay? And then, from there, go to chapter 13 and look at verse 14. He says, the Lord said to Abraham after Lot had parted him, lift up your eyes and firm where you are and look north, south, east, west.
All the land that you will see, I will give to you and to your seed or your offspring "forever". So, let me ask you this. Who's the whole world? Who does it belong to? Who created it?
It's God's. Does God have a right to give it to whom He wants? God has a right to give it to Did God give it to Abraham and his seed? Yes. Did He give it to them forever?
Yes. So we have to if we want to understand the world and the war, we have to go back to the word. *God gave it to Abraham* and to his seed forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, that if anyone could count the dust, your offspring could be counted. Go walk through the land, the breath of it.
I'm giving it to you. Praise the Lord. Chapter 14 verse 18. Hallelujah. Then Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine.
We just did that. He was priest of the most high God, and he blessed Abram saying, blessed be Abraham by God most high, creator of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand. Then Abraham gave him gave him a tenth of everything. So here, you have God making that covenant, that's speaking that word to Abraham, and you have *Jesus* as Melchizedek coming in confirming the covenant with Abraham. Father, son agreed together.
He's blessing Abraham. The word of God comes to Abraham. Jesus is the word of God. How did the old testament saints get saved? Same way the new testament saints, by believing the word, and the word is Christ.
See, Christ was there in the old and the new. Jesus is the word. When God spoke his word and created everything, Jesus created it all because Jesus is the word. When Abraham believed the word, he was believing in Christ. He believed the word, and how do we know?
Because he obeyed and went.
That's right.
And then everywhere he looked, God said, I'm giving it to you. Now, just on a side note, *Abraham* comes back with the spoils of war. He won, go and rescue Lot, got everything. Melchizedek, Jesus comes and has communion with him, communes with him. And Abraham gives a tithe to Melchizedek, which is kind of Hebrews tells us, gives us a little foreshadow that since Levi was in the loins of Abraham, Abraham had Isaac, Isaac had Jacob, Jacob had 12 sons that became the 12 tribes of Israel, and Levi was 1 of them.
So the bible says, Levi, the Levitical priesthood was tithing to a greater priesthood, *Christ*, the high priest forever. You see? So it's a confirmation. So here's the blessing of Abraham. Now Abraham, praise the Lord, has the son of the promise, Isaac.
Yes, he had Ishmael also trying to do things his way, and God blessed him too, and made him many nations, great people as well. But the promise was to from his own body was to Isaac, and then Isaac had Jacob and Esau, and Jacob was the promised 1. And Jacob, praise the Lord, had 12 sons, And Jacob's name was changed to Israel. So this is the founding of the nation of Israel between Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, who is Israel, his 12 sons. And God is choosing out.
They are chosen by God, the chosen people. He chose them to begin to reveal Himself to them, so He can reveal Himself to you. His goal is salvation to the world, but God is personal, and He started with a man and a family. *Amen*? He's a loving personal God.
So, the rest of the Old Testament is really a story about this family. The chosen nation of God, Israel, and it's their relationship to God, so God begins to reveal Himself to them. He reveals his law to them. He reveals his way of living. He reveals his holiness, and then he also reveals their sinfulness.
And, through the whole story, he has a grand plan to bring salvation to the world. Abraham, I'm gonna bless you, and you're gonna be a "blessing to the whole world". So there's a something special for us as Christians understanding our Judeo Christian heritage. *Jesus* himself said salvation is of the Jews. It come through that line and opened up to us, so there's a high regard for us as Christians with the Jewish faith, and with the Old Testament, and with the nation of Israel, and understanding that, and being faithful to what God has called us to be a blessing.
Praise the Lord. So, looking at some more, it goes on *Genesis-15:5* and 6. He took them out and said, look at the heavens and count the stars. Indeed, if you can count them, then he said, so shall your offspring be. And here's a key line from all of our teachings to pastors, and Abraham believed God, and it was credited or imputed or imparted into his account as righteousness.
The same way you become righteous by believing the word who is Christ. Hallelujah. Chapter 15 and verse 18. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said to your descendants, give this land. From the River Of Egypt to the great river Euphrates, the land of all these istes, give to you.
It's God's land. He gives it to his wants. And and the the measure of the land is even greater than the little part that Israel has today. They're supposed to have a bigger part. Okay?
So he gives them all this land. *Genesis-17* and 17 7 and 8, he says this, I will establish my covenant as an **everlasting covenant** between me and you and your descendants, after you for the generations to come to be your God, and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan. Everybody say, holiness. Holiness.
Where you are living as an alien now, I will give you as an everlasting possession. How long? Everlasting. Everlasting. An everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you, and I will be their God.
So again, we under need to understand current events according to the word of God. And God gave the land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And to understand that history, when you're reading every time, you know, we're preaching the New Testament, and we come out to a story, and we give a story from Kings or Chronicles and understand, it's good for us to have the big plan, the grand plan, that this whole story of the Old Testament is Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the 12 tribes, and the history of that nation. And it all flows together. So praise God.
And so the Torah, the first 5 books of our Bible is also their first 5 books in Judaism. You know, the Torah, what Moses wrote, Genesis, the origin of the universe, the human race, the Israel being called out as the chosen nation. Exodus, the bondage of who? Of Israel and their exodus from Egypt. It's all their story, which is now we have been grafted in.
Now, it's our story too. *Amen*? So we're 1. Leviticus, the book of the law. Numbers, the book of the 40 years in the wilderness.
Joshua, the conquest of Canaan when *God* instructed them how to divide the land according to the tribes, and each tribe was given a section of land, and they knew their boundaries. And now Joshua, take them in and go get the land. It's my land. I give it to you. There's trespassers in there right now.
There's evil nations that don't know God, that worship false gods, that are not my people. I want you to go in and take it. It's my land. I'm giving it to you. And they began to take the land that belongs to them, by God, and he said to drive them out.
And if you don't complete the job, then what you leave in the land is gonna come back and become a "snare to you". And it's a picture. Everything in the Old Testament is a physical example of a spiritual truth for us today. That when God delivers you and brought you out of Egypt, and crossed the the Red Sea, and on the way to the promised land, and He delivered you, He doesn't want you to invite and and keep some of your old sins and your old ways back that would be a snare to you later or a snare to your children or your children's children. He wants you to have complete and total victory.
So, wanted Joshua to go in, and they begin to wipe out. And during Joshua's day, they did just that. But then, gradually, they begin to fall away. And as they fell away, the whole story, we look at it through Judges, some of the sin of the people of the land would creep in, and they would mingle with it, and then they would fall. And they would fall, and they would become under bondage of sin that they weren't supposed to be in bondage in.
Some of us keep the door open to things from the past, and then you fall to it, get into bondage again, and there's no reason for that. And they would fall, and they would become under bondage, and now they were slaves to another people in the promised land that God had given them. And then, they'd cry out, and God would have mercy, and raise up a judge It was not like a judge today, it was a judge who was a hero leader with a sword who would call the army, and they'd go wipe out, and they'd have they'd wipe out the evil, and have victory on all sides, and peace in the land for 40 years or a time. And then, they'd fall again. So, all through Judges, all through you see this happening and over and over.
Why? Because the the spiritual true *salvation* hadn't come yet. They were in the Old Testament time, but the Savior of the world to come to cleanse us from the sin was coming in the future, but we had to go through the Old Testament time because God was revealing Himself to us slowly and surely through the nation of Israel, and giving them the law of how to live. And the law was a mirror shining in their face where they recognized, if I obey obey, I will be blessed, and we'll have victory in all our battles. But as soon as we disobey, we'll lose, and the other nation will conquer us, and then we'll be in bondage again.
And it was a cycle of bondage and victory, and bondage and victory, until 1 day, all the world could cry out and say, we recognize through the Old Testament, we recognize through the law, we need to be saved, not from this sin, or this tribe, or this kingdom, we need to be saved from ourselves. And in the fullness of time, through the nation of Israel, God sends Jesus to save us from ourself and set us free forever. Amen? Amen. Hallelujah.
But He used the nation of Israel. He used Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, His chosen people. He called them out of the world to Himself to be a blessing to all of us in the future. You see? So, we see this happen, and we understand the roots, and we understand then *God* raised up kings.
There was Saul, and then there was David, and then there was Solomon. And on Solomon's day, *God* had told the people as they left, when you get into the land, don't go worship any way and any how you want. Don't go worship according to the people that's around you, according to the world. You know, you're a chosen people. I have a way, and I have a specific place where I'm gonna put my name.
And when you get there, you're gonna know. And then, the story goes out, and then they begin to see and understand God called out a particular city in a particular spot, and its name was Jerusalem. And he said, that's where I'm going to put my name, my presence is going to be there. And, Solomon built the most glorious temple of the world, and set it on the mount. Hallelujah.
And, there was the temple, praise God. And, he built the temple, and it was so glorious. They had *Jerusalem* and Israel, and they had peace on every side in Solomon's day. They had conquered all their enemies, and all the other nations would come to Solomon for wisdom. And they would come, and they had they had peace.
They had won the victory. And when Solomon dedicated the temple, the glory of the Lord filled the temple. Physically, you could see the Shekinah glory. It filled the temple in such such such a way they couldn't even do anything but fall down and worship, and it was just an awesome thing in God's presence. And it was a picture.
It was an Old Testament picture of what I just read in Revelation of new covenant glory, a new Jerusalem coming down from heaven, and praise God, Jerusalem now, hallelujah, there's a name, and His presence would dwell with His people forever. So, in the Old Testament, it's a type and shadow. Solomon's day, the glory of the Lord filling the temple in the midst of the people, in the capital city, in the center of Israel, there and on the highest mount, there is Jerusalem, and there's the presence of God, and there's peace on every side. It's an old testament type and shadow of the kingdom of God within us now. Hallelujah.
So there's something special about Israel. There's something special about Jerusalem. Yeah. And we need to keep that in our hearts to understand the world today. His chosen, His chosen people.
Now, you know, at that time, after Solomon, Solomon's heart was deceived later. He married foreign women, things came in, they began to worship false gods. He fell. *Christ* hadn't come yet to cleanse the sin from the heart. And when it fell, the nation was divided.
Just a little history of Israel, Old Testament. So you had Solomon's glorious day, there's a picture of the kingdom coming. Hallelujah. And then it fell away, and now the nation is divided. Israel, 10 tribes to the North, Judah and Benjamin, 2 tribes to the South.
And now, the nation is completely divided. And, the nations to the North fall away into sin. Fall away into sin of the people from the land. Fall away in such a way that God's prophecy and God's word comes true that if you obey the law, I'll bless you. If you disobey the law, I'm gonna curse you.
And God said, even to Moses, before they even got to the promised land, hey, in the future, they're gonna fall away, and I'm scatter them among the nations. And that's what happened. In July, the Assyrians, Syria and their great army came and conquered *Israel*, took them away captives, spread out the tribes, the 10 lost tribes. And then in May, Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar comes in and conquers the southern camp kingdom Judah, and destroys Solomon's temple. And they're away scattered in the land.
So Israel is all scattered. Okay? But, God called them back during Cyrus' time, and the people were let go. And, the people from the Southern Kingdom, Judah and Benjamin, some of them came back, and they rebuilt the temple. But, it was nothing like the temple of Solomon's day because God had a plan for His second temple, and that wasn't it.
This is it. You are the "living stones" that have come together to make the temple of God. The prophet Haggai prophesied and said the people were mourning. They saw the temple, and it wasn't like Solomon's temple, and some were crying, and some were praising God, but the older ones knew what it would look like. They were they were over 70 years, and they were they were weeping.
And Haggai said, look, I'm gonna prophesy to you, the glory of this latter house is gonna be greater than that of the former. But, he wasn't talking about that building. He was talking about this 1. You are those living stones all around the world. You're connected with a stone in Pakistan.
You're with a stone in Louisiana, and together, we are the body of Christ, and we're the temple, and He's filled in this house with glory, and there's more glory in you than there was in even Solomon's day. Hallelujah. I tell you, as the body of Christ is coming together, reaching people in Pakistan and around the world, the glory of this latter day temple is being filled more more glories. Protesters. Don't worry about the news.
Don't worry about the bad. Look at look at the good thing. Look at the picture. The body of Christ is going around the world and being built up. Hallelujah.
So they came back and rebuilt, But from that time, *Israel* hadn't had a nation. They were a people. They still had the *word*. They still gathered in synagogues to hear, but they didn't have a nation of their own. You know, they came back.
Alexander the Great conquered that area, and then the Romans conquered that area. And see, the 2 tribes to the south, Judah and Benjamin, became known as Judah, and that word just became known as Jew. So that the the Jewish people So when we say Jew, we're speaking about this whole Old Testament, the chosen people. Okay? So they're they're chosen.
But now, I wanna show you something prophetic. Look at me look at with me in Revelation-12. *Revelation-12*. The Bible says, a great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of 12 stars as her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.
Then another sign appeared in heaven, an enormous red dragon with 7 heads and 10 horns, and 7 crowns on his head. His tail swept a third of the stars of the sky and flung them to the earth. And the dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will "rule all nations" with an iron scepter. Now, know, we understand theologians and the law of first mention mention whenever you see scripture and you can go back and look at that woman in other places, we understand clearly that the woman they're talking about is Israel.
And the woman gave birth to the male child who will rule all nations is Jesus. So the woman is Israel, giving birth to Christ who's coming to save the world. The red dragon is easily shown as the devil. And then look what it says here. Verse 17, then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring, those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea. So all through the ages, okay, after Jesus' day, we know the Romans had conquered that area, and then in 70 AD, the Romans knocked down that second temple they had built that Herod had added onto it, and they tried to wipe the name of the Jews off the map. That time during Jesus was called Judea. *Jerusalem*, the capital. The temple there.
But after they knocked down the temple, they wanted to wipe that name, and the Roman Empire started calling it Syria Palestinia, and changed the name. It has never been There has never been a nation there called Palestine with a nation in a government of a of a nation called Palestine. It's it's not historical. It's never happened. It has it has always been associated with the Jews and the kingdom from all the way back before Solomon's day.
K? Israel had a nation there. After a while, God spread them out because of their sin. But listen to this. Listen how he what he prophesied about bringing them back to their land.
Go with me to *Deuteronomy-30* and verse 4. I'm a see if I can see it from here. Deuteronomy. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there, the Lord God will gather you and bring you back. That's just 1 of the many scriptures.
*Isaiah-11:11-12*. In that day, the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the See, the first time was when they came back after Cyrus. This is the second time in this century. The Lord will reach out His hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant and his people from Assyria, from the Lower Egypt, from the Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, and the islands of the Mediterranean. He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel.
He'll assemble the scattered people of Judah from the 4 quarters of the earth where he had scattered them. Look at *Jeremiah-16* verse 15. Jeremiah, you will be blessed as surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israel's up out of the land to the north and out of the countries that he banished them for I will rescue them. So so there's several, and and and I can list several for you of prophecies that even though they disobeyed *God* and God scattered them throughout the nations, you see, when God made a covenant with Abraham, God, even though the people are disobedient and and go against the covenant, God will always keep His covenant with the people for our God is faithful. Listen to me now.
*God's got a covenant with you through Jesus Christ*. And how many are glad that even though we sometimes might be unfaithful to the covenant, he's still faithful to you? Amen. So, our trust is in his *faithfulness* and not so much our own. Amen?
Our trust is in His salvation. They sang and talked about it today, is what He did, His finished work. Our trust is in Him. See, God cannot be unfaithful. It's His character.
So, even though God When God made that covenant with Abraham, and He He did a a procedure as a as a symbol of the covenant, which was common to that day, He They they Abraham had to slice animals and lay the bloody half on this side and this side. And then, what would happen in a covenant, the 2 parties in the covenant would walk through, pass through, making a covenant with each other for life. And the covenant was, if I break the covenant, may I become like this dead animal. And God was making a covenant with Abraham and everybody coming through him. But you know what he did?
He put Abraham to sleep. And instead of Abraham representing us, he made a covenant with himself, with Christ, and him and Christ walked past through. And you know what? We broke the covenant, but instead of us dying and become like the bloody animal, Jesus Christ hung on the cross for us. And even though even though we couldn't keep the old covenant of obedience to the law, Jesus, our big brother, he kept the covenant for us.
So see, it was a covenant between God and himself, and we entered into it by faith. Hallelujah. So God made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And even though they struggled with it, even though they fell so many times, God was gonna be faithful to them just like he's faithful to you. So, we're happy to know that God still loves and honors *Israel*, *Jerusalem*, and the Jews because he's gonna keep his word to them.
We're happy to know that because that means he's also gonna keep his word to us. Yeah. That's right. He's faithful to that covenant. Hallelujah.
Yeah. Which is a foreshadowing of the covenant he's making with us as we enter into that covenant by receiving Christ as your savior. You're entered into the covenant God made with himself that he's gonna bless you forever. Hallelujah. And *Abraham* was really asleep.
*God* did it with himself, and we have entered into that. So God said, even though I've scattered them, because I have a covenant with them, I'm gonna bring them back. And then, when the Ottoman Empire was defeated after World War 1, and lands were given to the victorious armies, That land was divided up. Iraq, Lebanon, Syria became a nation. And the Balfour Declaration said, we need to give land to the Jews, their heritage, where their nation was formed.
We need to give them a biblical homeland because at the time, after World War 1, anti Semitism started growing and spreading throughout Europe. And you know, it built up to World War 2 when lies from the devil through Hitler and his people convinced the people to annihilate 6,000,000 Jews. Why? Because of the scripture I read in Revelation-12, the devil hates the woman, Israel, and hates her man child, Jesus, and goes out to make war with them. And, there's a there's a sentiment in the world of people who don't know Christ that hate Israel and hate Christians.
And, it's the devil. It's more than just human depravity. I'm not mad at at the the individual people of Hamas, or even Hezbollah, or any of them. They're blinded by the God of this world, and have been filled with lies from their youth to hate Israel, and to hate to hate the Jews, and to hate Christians. But if the gospel light could come to them and show them the truth, their heart could be awakened, and it can change them as many of them have been changed.
And you can hear testimonies of former and former Hamas people that have been transformed by the light of the gospel. Hallelujah. But the evil that's in them that wants to kill babies and go into several towns right outside of Gaza, and to sneak in, and terrorists, and to kill people, and some have been killed and left to children in a closet that were rescued, and others babies beheaded, and other people taken hostage and raped, and and that that evil behind that. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but it's this dragon from the beginning that hates Israel and hates Christianity. So, after World War 2, then they decide Britain says, okay, we're gonna back off from controlling this area.
And Ben Gurion, the airport in Tel Aviv is named after him, he rises up. So people had been coming from all over since World War 1. They called it aliyah. Aliyah in Hebrew means to ascend. Whenever the Jews were coming from North Israel, South, all over to the feast of Israel where they had to come to the place where God put his name.
Don't go worship your sacrifices here here here. I want you to go to a specific place that I'm gonna put my name. They had to come *Jerusalem* 3 times a year for the feast of Israel to give their sacrifice and to honor God. And they would call it Aliyah. I'm going up.
I'm going to ascend to the mount. I'm ascending up to the mountain of God. I'm ascending up to Zion. I'm going up to worship. And that became known from between World War 1 and World War 2, and even before in the 18 hundreds as a Aliyah.
Hey, the Jews are returning. Zionism, they called it. We're going back to Zion. We're gonna return, and we're gonna ascend. And then it got it got to be a a form they had to go through to get their passport and to get their visa.
They were making a Leah. If they could make a Leah, they would get the rights to go home. Why? Where were they going? They were ascending back up to the mountain of God to go back to their homeland because God said, in the last days, I'm gonna gather my people from all the nations where I spread them, and it was a miracle after World War 2.
In 1948, *Israel* was born again, became a nation in a day. They hadn't had a land or nation for over 1000 years, and bam, right at that time, the Ben Gurion declared themselves to be a state, and right away, nations that recognize this, we honored that, and The United States recognized them as a nation. And history goes like this. Right away, the nations surrounding them, the Arab Muslim nations that were blinded by the God of this world attacked them. And, the god of the armies of Israel rose up, and a little tiny nation won.
And then, in 1967, the Arab nations attacked again, and the god of Israel rose up, and Israel won in 6 days. They call it the 6 day war. And, Israel took back all of Jerusalem and the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and even some of the Sinai Peninsula belonging to Egypt, they took back the land that God gave them. They took back all the land that God gave them between the seas and the boundaries that He showed them in the Bible. They took it back and won victory.
But you know what happened? The UN, The US, governments around the world started pressuring them as the Palestinians were crying out with a lot of false doctrine and a lot of lies about their the government started putting pressure on Israel. Why don't you give them back some land so you can have peace? "Land for peace" deals. Make it a 2 state nation.
Do these different things to yield, to pacify, but you know what? Can't make deals with the devil. In the Hamas charter in Hezbollah, and Iran, they have written documents that their goal is to wipe Israel off the mountain, to never have peace. So how can you negotiate a peace treaty with a people group that doesn't want to have peace with you? You can't.
So every time Israel would yield to the world and give up land for peace, it never worked. Now, the people in the land have a bigger place to get rockets from Iran, put them through their underground tunnels, and shoot them into Israel because in their heart, they want to wipe out Israel. Do we love the people? Are all the people in Gaza Strip or West Bank like that? No.
There's Palestinian Christians having prayer meetings today with Israeli Christians and others, and they're the people of God. But they allowed to be elect in the rulership of Gaza to be a terrorist group called Hamas that are against Israel a 100%. So when they're bombing and sending bombs, and everybody wants to start saying, let some back off, and let's call for a ceasefire, what you're really asking is say, let's give them time to regroup so they can do it again. Israel has done that over a number of years, And this time, they crossed too many lines. This time, they killed too many innocents.
This time, they took too many hostages. This time, Israel says, we're gonna go in until we completely wipe out the terrorist group called Hamas, which is the right thing. Love people, but we There's evil in the world. You see, there's a there's a segment of our nation in the political views that think, if we can all just feed all the hungry, and if we can take care of all the needy, then everybody would satisfy, then we'd all get along. But that philosophy denies the truth that there's evil in the world.
There's a God who loves people and wants them all to come and be able to live in peace with him. The only way to have peace with your neighbor is first to have "peace with God", and then you can have peace with your neighbor. But if you don't have peace with God, and you're blinded by the enemy, you know, there are schools in Gaza that train their children to hate Jews. They train their children to hate Christians. They train their children that if you strap bombs on yourself and go into a marketplace across the border there and blow up Christians and Jews, you'll be rewarded by your false god Allah with "72 virgins".
And their mindset has been warped by this indoctrination, and we need to love them and pray for them, but we don't need to appease their their governments. We need to stand strong. You see, the Palestinian people aren't allowed to have freedom of speech. They can't write articles and blogs on social media about what they really think. Some of them want to live in peace with their family.
They want to have peace with their Christian neighbors and their Jewish neighbors, and they're they're good with that. But if they say anything that they side or agree with Israel, they can be killed. Do you know they're taught that the holocaust didn't happen? Your average Palestinian growing up doesn't believe that the holocaust was real. They're taught it didn't happen.
So they base a lot of their, you know, worrying things on stuff they're learning from their past, and they also, they don't believe Israel was ever a nation. That Solomon had a temple, that it was a great nation, that Israel was ever there. They think they had a nation, but Israel didn't. So, a lot of their life is based on lies, and it's only the truth that can set people free. So, when this war came out, church, and I saw on social media and so much, our young people in The United States have swallowed these lies from social media and don't have a history of the truth of Israel, we need to get back and say, need to teach a little, you know, summary of the story of Israel and God's chosen people to make people understand, you gotta base your worldview based on truth, not on propaganda.
So what do we want? We want peace in Jerusalem. But I understand before you can have peace, you have to have victory. I have peace with *God* through the victory Jesus provided over the enemy. *Amen*?
*Amen*. There had to be the victory. So we want victory to get rid of Hamas, and we want the the Christians over there to be able to go in and preach to the people, and light to shine, and peace with Hey, we want to Maybe there'll be some Palestinians over there like Rahab, the harlot in Jericho, when God's people was going into Jericho to take the city. And Rahab said, hey, those guys are really the winning side. I have recognized God's on their side.
I'm gonna help them. Maybe we could pray for some people there to say, I saw where the hostages are. I saw I know where some terrorists live. Maybe there's some that could help Israel and join the wind inside and clear that spot out so it can be rebuilt and people could live there. My thought, let's let them live there if they're willing to sign with Israel and say, we're willing to live under Israeli government and peace as a free society like America, where we might have freedom to worship the way we want, but praise God, we'll live in peace with you.
*Amen*. But if you have the philosophy, you're not a state, and we don't recognize you, and we don't want you to be there at all, then there's no way they can have peace, you see. So it gives a little Having the background of of the Bible, we can understand a little bit better about what's going on today. And I'm a close with this. Go to Romans-11.
Romans-11. Then we'll pray and turn it back over to David, John, the praise team. Hallelujah. Romans-11:24. After all, if you were cut out of an "olive tree" that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature was grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
If you haven't heard that before, let me just say *Romans-9, 10, and 11 all deal with Israel*, that even though as a whole they rejected the Messiah and it went out to all of us who are Christians now, *God still is gonna be faithful to the covenant* to them. Don't think that the church has replaced Israel. No. We haven't replaced them. All the blessings of Abraham have now come upon us.
Yes, because of Christ. But even though they rejected, God still has a plan for them. He's saying, here's the olive tree. If we weren't part of the family, and God grafted us into His body through the blood of Jesus Christ, then this natural branch, Israel was a part of the family, and have been cut off by their under belief, isn't God able to graft them back in?
Yes.
So, he wants us together, Jew and Gentile, 1 body in Christ Jesus. So, he still has a plan and he's still faithful to them. He hasn't cut them off forever. He's got a plan for them too. Father, we're so thankful, Lord God, that you've given us a way through your word, that when we see current events, Lord, we can look to your word for wisdom.
It's only in your word that we can know truth. And, Father, help us, Lord, to recognize the war in Israel from your perspective. Father, we pray for the peace of Jerusalem. We pray, Lord God, for the end of of the enemies of God, of the of the terrorists, Lord, that Israel rise up and put a stop to that with you. And Father, we pray that the word of God would go out to the Palestinians and all the Arab nations around them, that there would be revival of people coming to you.
In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for your time. We love you.
*Amen*. Thank you. Thank you, dad. You know, when when dad speaks, it's okay if we go over, because it's because what he's saying is important. I I we put this on social media that we're gonna be doing this today and got some some responses, you know, I'm I'm scared to come to church if, you know, you're talking about politics.
And I I wanna tell you just real quickly, there there are 3 yeasts talked about in the Bible. *Jesus said, beware of the "yeast of Herod"* and the yeast of the Pharisees. Yeast is, you know, women that or men men and women that bake and stuff. Yeast spreads throughout and helps the bread to rise. Like, you start with a little and it multiplies.
It spreads throughout. Yeast is a way of thinking. Okay? It's it's a it's a mindset. It's a it's a way of thought that spreads throughout your life and then spreads throughout society.
The yeast of that of of Herod is is the mindset that says, I don't care if you believe in God. That's fine. But don't bring him into school. Don't bring him into your job. Don't bring him into don't talk about him at the restaurant, and and definitely don't talk about him in politics.
That's the yeast of Herod. You see it all throughout our society. Right? Okay. So so beware of that because that will infect the way you think and lead you away from Jesus in your life.
The yeast of the Pharisees is, oh, let's let's put God at the center, but let's reduce him to something that's powerless and really doesn't have the power to transform your life. So let's let's play like he's at the center of our Sundays. Let's play like he's at the center of our Bible reading and our small groups, but really he's just a powerless thing that makes me feel good and check it off the box. Beware of the yeast of the pharisees. Don't let it influence your way of thinking.
*Jesus* is either really Lord or it's just the yeast of the pharisees. Because if he's really Lord, he he you're gonna follow him. And then there's the yeast of the kingdom. Jesus said the kingdom is like yeast too. And, man, if we allow his way of thinking, the kingdom of heaven, we're we we we play a role in his kingdom, but it's his kingdom.
His kingdom. It's about him. Well, then that begins to affect, and we we allow his kingdom to infect every aspect of our life and society around us through us. Amen? So beware of the yeast of Herod, specifically.
People say, well, this message is it's really not about it doesn't help me at all. Life's not about you. It's about Jesus. And when we learn that life's about Jesus, and we learn our role, and where we fit, and surrender to that, then we get to experience the full life of Jesus in us. We're not we're not we're not just inviting Jesus into our heart.
He's inviting us into his. Yes. We're not just in we're not inviting Jesus into our life. He's inviting us into his life. We **surrender to that** and follow him.
Amen? So so I do bring Jesus into politics. I'm not gonna preach whether you are a Republican or Democrat or Libertarian or whatever, But I'm a preach the bible. And in preaching the bible, it will show you "how to vote". And if it doesn't, you are distracted by the yeast of Herod.
Repent. Amen? Amen. Praise the Lord. God's good.