The reason we're here tonight is because of the cross of Christ. And I wouldn't rather be anywhere else. Let's open our Bibles tonight, if you would, to the book of Joel. Joel chapter 3. And I'm going to go ahead and read again. I read these last week, but I want to read all of this section in chapter 3 from verse 1 through verse 8. And I'm just going to let you sit down because I'm going to look at a couple of passages tonight, so we'll look at that just to start with. But Joel chapter 3 and verse 1 says, For behold, in those days and in that time When I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations to bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel whom they have scattered among the nations and parted my land. And they have cast lots for my people and have given a boy for a harlot and sold a girl for wine that they might drink. Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? Will ye render unto me a recompense? And if ye recompense me swiftly and speedily, will I return your recompense upon your own head? Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things, The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have you sold unto the Grecians that they might remove them far from their border. Behold, I will raise them out of the place where you have sold them and will return your recompense upon your own head. And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, the people far off where the Lord has spoken it. Let's look to the Lord in a word of prayer, and then I want us to look at another passage here quickly, but let's look to the Lord in prayer first. Heavenly Father, as we approach your word tonight, we ask the Lord that you would not only help us to understand and receive it. Lord, we thank you for your eternal purpose in Christ. And what all is included in that. And Lord, we know that you have a purpose of it for your glory. And that's what we desire tonight. We want to see a little bit of how that you are going to display your glory among the nations. And Lord, we pray that you'd open our understanding tonight. Help us, Lord, to receive the things that as they apply to us, not only in our understanding, but as they apply to our lives, and the hope and comfort that it gives to us. that we find in the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask these things in His precious name, amen. Now tonight, keeping in mind, does everybody have, I know we're a little bit short to begin, does everybody have a copy of the notes tonight? All right, there's one passage that's not on there that I want us to look at as we begin the message tonight to kind of set the background for what this is about in relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what matters the most. And so in Ephesians 1, I want you to notice with me, Paul is outlining the eternal purpose in Christ, first of all, in the first part of the chapter, in relationship to our salvation. And then he begins to talk to them about what he prays for them and that God would open their understanding, the eyes of their understanding and their enlightenment, and show them the things of his power and what he has wrought in Christ. And he says in verse 20, according to his working of his mighty power, he says, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places for above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. So you see several entities there, don't you? The Spirit of God closes with one here in the last two verses. He says in verse 22, "...and hath put all things under his feet." That's one relationship of things to Christ. Then there's another one, "...gave him to be the head over all things to the church." That's his headship corporately. So there's a vast difference between these two relationships. He's sovereign over both, but he's head of his church, and his church is united with him. But when you look at the first one, he says, and hath put all things under his feet, and he's talking about, in verse 21, far above all principality, governments, if you will, and power, authority, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, so there are names mentioned in this world, principalities, and powers, authorities, but also in that which is to come. And so the Lord Jesus Christ has been put over all of it. And the Word of God shows us as much as what God wants us to know about what God has, what He's done in relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. Sin came into this world through a man, and that man failed. God gave Adam dominion over all of his creation, and that man failed, completely failed. and cast all of creation, and as a result of it, all of the world powers that have come since then, nations, God established nations after the flood, and they've all been a mess, warring with each other, run by people in this world, run by rulers that are self-motivated, selfish goals and ambitions, ambitious people. Not people, for the most part, very seldom any that had any concern about God and the glory of God. Very few that even recognized that God has a place in this world. God humbled one Gentile ruler and brought him to the place after making him act like an insane man. He drove him nuts for about seven years and let him go out in the field and act like an animal. and look like one. I've always said his hair grew long like an eagle's feathers. He had long dreadlocks. He never washed them or anything. His hair was just a mess. So when he came to his senses, the Bible says, that means he wasn't in his senses. He was a crazy man. He said, look what I've done and look at all the glory that I have made and I have done and I have brought to myself. And God turned him out to the field as a crazy man for seven years. And when he came to his senses and he had his right mind again, he glorified God. He not only said that some of what he had said before that there's a God above all gods, now he says, He's the only God. It's a tremendous testimony to read there, but very few rulers come to that point. We have some that are crazy. We have some that are completely have lost their mind. I mean, literally, some of them are insane crazy, and they act like that. And that's happened over the centuries, all down through history. But then we actually have some that, I saw something about, if aliens came to this earth and ask you to take us to your leader, wouldn't that be an embarrassment? Yep, it would. So, but, God's going to wrap all this thing up one of these days, and the Son of Man is going to reign in righteousness. He's going to rule over this earth, and for a thousand years, it's going to be what God intended it to be. He'll rule in righteousness. The scepter of his kingdom will be a right scepter. It will be righteousness. That'll be what his kingdom stands for, will be righteousness. Won't that be a breath of fresh air to say the least? I'm looking forward to that. I think that is one of the most exciting things to think about. I see what's going on and you look at the news. And you just kind of have to turn away and say, you know what? God's going to fix this mess. And it's a mess, but God's going to fix it. And he's going to do some things in the process. Now, God has nations that he has used as his servants, even Gentile nations. God said in one place, he said, in Isaiah, he said, I've used him, I believe it was Isaiah, but anyway, he said, he has served me. And so, and I haven't recompensed him for his service in this particular regard, so he said, I'm gonna give him these nations, and I believe that was Tyre and Sidon. I know it is. So he said, I'm gonna give him Tyre and Sidon. We're gonna look at Tyre and Sidon tonight. So, God recompensed. In other words, no nation, no individual can ever say that God owes them something, that they did something, God used them to do something for Him and never were recompensed. But you see, justice works, there's two sides to that coin, isn't there? So we're going to look at some of that tonight. Now, when you begin to look at this, we looked at the first three verses last week, And now I want to take the time to look at something, the dimensions, because it's important to get into before we get into verse nine. So I want to deal with verses three through eight, and beginning in verse two though, notice that again, I will also gather all nations and bring them down under the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there, that's not begging them, That's a legal term. It's interesting how sometimes people take words in the Word of God and then they picture God as pleading, wringing his hands. God, he's not wringing his hands, never has. God's not worried about anything. He's not fretting. He told us not to fret, cast our care upon him, so he's not fretting. And no matter how much you dump on him of your problems, he's still not fretting. And he's not fretting about the world's condition tonight. We do, he doesn't. But he says, I'm going to plead with them there, and that's a legal term. In other words, it's like when you go to court and there's a plea that has to be entered. So this is a legal term. God is going to exercise judgment. He doesn't need a district attorney to help him out. Amen for that. He's got, he'll do his own. Thank you. He's judge and he's attorney and he's jury. He doesn't need that either. He's going to plead with them that God is going to, as the judge of the whole earth, Abraham said, shall not the judge of the whole earth do right. And he's going to do right. And what we're seeing here is God doing right. We look at all that the nations have been allowed to do and are being allowed to do tonight, and it's just staggering the wickedness of people and nations and the wickedness of rulers. I was going to mention something. I mentioned Sunday school. I'm not going to bother. I'll get on by that because I don't want to take too much time. But yeah, I will. I understand that, as a matter of fact, other people knew this too, but even some military people knew five months ahead of time that we were going to end up, that Ukraine and Russia was going to be going to war. People in our military. And that when we did, it would be over financial deals. It would be more over money. than it was anything else, and that's what it's about. And in the process, not only have we been drained to the tune of billions of dollars, but over 400,000 people in Ukraine alone have died, which is more than we lost in World War II, if I understand right. You think about that. That is staggering. Over corruption. So God knows what he's doing. When you see what God's doing, it's just like. Each and each of us as individuals, everyone is going to stand before God as individuals and we're going to give account. And those that are lost, we men look at something like hell and say, isn't God awful when they should say isn't sin awful? To deserve that. because God doesn't do anything unjust. So we should look at it and we should say, my, that's what God thinks about my sin. Yes, it is. And we should look at the cross of Calvary and see what God did with his son and say, my sin is horrible. That's what my sin deserves. when you actually have a clear, just view of things like God does. That's perfect. And so when you look at this tonight, I want us to look at some things and there will be some details we're going to look at. I want us to be able to see where these things are going to take place. They're already taking place and are going to take place. Now, notice he mentions he's going to gather the nations. And so the Word of God specifies some of what those are. Now, when the Word of God was written, they weren't named what they are now. Things keep getting moved around, you know, like chess pieces on a board. God's in control of that, too. He determined the nations and the bounds of their habitations, and they continually are changing, but it's moving all in one direction. Keep that in mind, I want you to see something about that tonight. Now, there's some specific nations, though, that are mentioned. Not by the names we know, necessarily, but we can tell where they are. In Ezekiel chapter 38, in verses 2 through 6, verse 2 says, son of man, it's there in your notes there, son of man, set thy face against God, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshach and Tubal, and prophesy against him. And thus saith the Lord God, behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshach and Tubal, and I will turn thee back and put hooks into thy jaws and will bring thee forth and all thy army, thine army, Horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armor, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords. Persia, Ethiopia, Libya, with them, all of them with shield and helmet, Gomer and all his bands, the house of Togarmah and the north quarters and all his bands, and many people with me. So God just named a whole bunch of areas, a bunch of places where there's some nations. Now think about this and you might want to look at your map there that I gave you because I want you to see something about this. When you look at what it says, Magog, that's a It's a middle Chaldean name. So you have Hebrew and the Babylonian Empire, they spoke Chaldean. So it's a derivative of a Chaldean word or language. This land, land of Magog, means, one of the definitions of that word is, it's two words, Gog's Fort. So in one way, you look at it, you say, well, Gog is the prince, and then it speaks of the land of Magog, Gog's fort. And almost everybody you read in relationship to this will tell you that what that's talking about, it was a name, an old description of the Caucasus Mountains. So if you look at your map there, And I want you to notice, I want you to see, you may already know this, but just in case, and I'm sure not everybody does, but I want you to see where these places are. At the very bottom of this map, and there was another one I could have got, but I wanted to use this one, you'll see a little purple dotted line under there. That's the top, the very bottom, that's the top of Iran. You hear a lot about them, don't we? Sometimes we don't get the relationship where these places are in relationship to other countries. That's the top, the very north end of Iran. It borders Turkey. And north of that are a bunch of names there that it's hard for us to say, and I'm not even going to try. But you go back, you go all the way up here, in the blue there, it says Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, you see Great Caucasus, and then Lesser Caucasus down here. There's two ranges that run parallel to each other. And that's the lesser and the greater Caucasus Mountains. That is what is meant by Gog's Fort. Those mountain ranges, those are, you ought to take a look at those sometimes, some pictures of some of those. He's talking about beautiful mountains, but they are almost impenetrable. That's why they're called Gog's Fort. You try to march an army over that, you got your hands full. Now, so they create a fort. Now, let's look at some of the rest of this a little bit. The chief prince, verse three again, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. And that is, that's talking about Tubal, Meshech and Tubal, old words for Moscow and Tobolsk. two major cities in Russia. They were a barbarous northern people. So when you look at a lot of these terms and names, they're old names, but when you find out where they are, it's describing various parts of this huge country. So let's look at it a little bit. It includes Well, this area we're talking about includes the Iranians. I showed you where they are on the map. They're right next to Turkey. Turkey is included in all of this. Very specifically, it's naming Turkey. And the Slavic, the Germanic peoples, some of them, much of the settlement of Russia I didn't realize this until recently because we don't study much about Russian history. When Putin was talking, as a matter of fact, when he was interviewed by Tucker Carlson, I don't know if any of you saw that or not, boy, Putin, he wanted to go into about 30 minutes. He started out by giving about a 30-minute history lesson and lasted even longer than that about the history of Russian. One of the things he mentioned is how they were started. He's right about that. A lot of what he says is nothing but lies, but he got that right. He put a slant on their history, but at any rate, it is formed of a whole bunch of people, different kinds of people, until the last little over 100 years, It was a lot of nomadic people, it was barbarous people, barbaric people, but it was clans. Just this clan, this kind of people here, and different kinds of people over here. You go all the way over the eastern part, you got the Mongolian people. And they controlled, as a matter of fact, they controlled most of Russia at one time, the Mongolian people did. The Slavic people controlled it at one time. You have a kingdom that started back in the 900s, The key was the name of that. And so anyway, it's it's been a hodgepodge of all different kinds of people. And that's why you have all these names, because it's naming all those different peoples. And so he describes that's what he's describing. He's describing basically God is describing Russia. And Turkey. I want to keep that in mind. He says, he goes down in verse 5 and he says this, Persia, well that's specifically, that is Iran. That's the old Iran. Ethiopia, now you're going down into Africa, especially northern Africa. Libya, well that's northern Africa too, right on the coast. With them, And then you look at Gomer and his bands. Gomer, again, that's the Celtics, the Gauls, used to be. Now it's Italy, France, Germany, and Switzerland. The sons of Japheth, in other words. You could go back to Genesis 10. I didn't put that verse there, but I'll give it to you. Genesis 10, verse 2, and when God first began to disperse the nations after the flood, Gomer was one of the sons of Japheth. Okay, so that's the Gentile people. You have the Semitic people, Shem, and Japheth, and Ham. And so Gomer is the first son of Japheth. And so all of these are named there. Togarmah is the area of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Now follow me on this. Go back and look here again. You have the Caspian Sea over here, and you got the Black Sea over here. The map's not big enough, but if you go up here to the northwest side of the Black Sea, what nation is up there? Anybody, one of you men want to tell me? Tell us. Come on, somebody can stab at it. I'll tell you, you hear about it all the time in the news right now. You'll be pretty close if you just guess. The one you hear about all the time, I just mentioned it as a matter of fact. Ukraine. Ukraine. Ukraine, actually, the people in Russia, most of those that are in that end of Russia moved there from Ukraine. The people in Ukraine right now, the primary language in Ukraine is not Ukrainian. It's Russian. A while back, real recently, there were about 40 soldiers that were trapped by the Russians. The Russians said, you should just wave the white flag, surrender before we have to kill you all. And they said, Russians, and they said it in Russian, Russians die fighting. And they said it in Russian. So there you have it. That's a little bit of the background. So that's this area that God's talking about and He's describing here. It's that whole area. that he's describing, including Turkey. Now, I keep saying that because I want you to keep that in mind in a little bit what's going to come up here in just a little bit. This is, you know, when we started this book, I made the comment, I said, the Word of God is more up to date than your morning paper. It's way ahead of your morning paper. God has told us from a long time ago, clear back in the prophets, Joel's time and Ezekiel's time, what's going to happen. And He named these nations. It's amazing. Listen, you think about the inspiration of the Word of God. God named these places with their old names clear back then, and it's happening now. When God says something, you and I better believe it. When God says something, it's true. When God says something's going to happen, it's going to happen. whether it's talking about nations or whether it's talking about you and I. When God says it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. When God says that the Son of God, that all people, the quick and the dead are gonna stand before the Son of Man and be judged, that's going to happen too. When I look at these things like this, it reinforces to me that when God says something, it's gonna happen. It's as good as done, because God said it. Now, one of the things I also notice, if you go down to verse 13 of Ezekiel 38, you find this. There are some nations that are not named from the north, and they're not named with the nations that are gathered. I don't know how much hope this gives to us, but it gives us some maybe. I'm talking about as far as here in America. It's a sad state that we're going to be in, but it tells us something. And when you look at our condition tonight, you can kind of see it. But I'm not understanding this way because of what I see now. I've understood this this way a long time ago. Long time ago. He mentions, he says, Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish. With all the young lions thereof, that's the young nations that come out of these nations, especially Tarshish, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? Hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey, to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, and to take a great spoil? What is Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish? Well, Sheba is probably, and I wouldn't be dogmatic about this, but I believe it's the indication is this in the Word of God, what today it would be. And I don't know what the borders would be, you know, back then, what it is now, of course, would change a little bit, but that's where Yemen is. And I'll show you why I'm saying that. The book of Matthew, as a matter of fact, I put this in, I'll get ahead of myself here and go down to number four. If you go down to number four on your page there, you'll see Joel chapter three in verse eight, where he says some things about the Sabians. He says, and they shall sell them to the Sabians, to a people far off. Well, that's the same people. In Matthew chapter 12 in verse 42, It says, "...the Queen of the South shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it. For she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, it greater than Solomon is here." At that time, Israel thought of Yemen as the uttermost parts of the earth. It was the furthest extent of that peninsula. Nothing had been explored past that. That's what they thought of as the uttermost parts of the earth. So that's the part of the world that is talking about there. And then, I want you to notice especially that merchants of Tarshish, and all the young lions thereof. Tarshish is a term in the Word of God that's used in more than one place. As a matter of fact, Saul was Saul of Tarshish. But it's also used in relationship to India. Solomon sent ships as far as what we call India today. It was called Tarshish back then also. It was considered a great shipping place. He got apes and gold and silver and diamonds and all kinds of riches. out of that Tarshish that he sent ships down to get it from. But it's also used in the Word of God in relationship to the area you get over around Spain and Great Britain. Sometimes in the Word of God it's talking about that direction when it talks about it. It's because it's a term that has to do with shipping. It has to do with merchandise and shipping merchandise. To a great extent. Well, that's what those places were known for that. And so you come on down here and I want you to notice what it says now here to get back to our text. I want you to notice in verses four through eight. God says, yea, what have ye to do with me? Ottar and Sidon. So he had mentioned what they had done with his people in verse 3, and now he says this, Yea, what have ye to do with me, ye Ottar and Sidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? The Palestine is on the coast, what's Palestine today. It used to be where the Philistines were, and right off of that, Zayden's on the coast, right up on the north end of that coast, and then right off that coast, next to there, is Tyre. It's an island right off the coast. Eventually, there was a causeway that was built to go out to it, so the military—as a matter of fact, I think it was Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, under them, that built it to go out to that. Don't quote me on that, but I believe that's the case. But they built it to get out to there so that they could overthrow Tyre, which Babylon is the country that did that. Nobody could get to them. They were a proud country, but they were extremely rich. Here's an island nation and extremely wealthy. They were noted for their great wealth and all their idolatry that went together with their wealth. Now notice what it says. What have ye to do with me, O Tyre and Zidon, in all the coasts of Palestine? Will ye render me a recompense? If ye recompense me swiftly and speedily, will I turn your recompense upon your head? He changes a question, they're rhetorical questions, and he changes it to a statement. This is what I will do. If you were to try to recompense me, I'll recompense you back." In other words, you're going to get judged and you're not going to avoid it. Would the God that lost sinners would all recognize that? Men of wealth think somehow because they're so wealthy they're immune from the judgment of God. Not so. God told Israel, regardless of how well off they were and what they trusted in, And even in offering their sacrifices and their gold and silver to Him as offerings, He said, do you think, I'm paraphrasing, do you think I'm in need of anything? I own the gold on all the hills, I own the mountains, I own the cattle on all the hillsides. God didn't ask them to sacrifice anything because He needed something. Men are so foolish as somehow to think that they can take their wealth and they can not only redeem themselves, but maybe they can help their family too. You say, do people think like that? Of course they do. There are people right here in our town that think like that. The Catholic Church has been selling patents for centuries. Come and pay penance for your relatives that have died and we'll get them out of purgatory soon. They think they can take their money and save a relative from hell and from purgatory and not have to go to hell. Your money is not going to help you. The book of Psalms says of those that are wealthy, all the riches cannot by any means redeem their brother. People should read their Bible. Turn their back on what lying religious leaders tell them and read their Bible. So he's talking now to a nation. You see, all of this stuff, we can look at it and say, oh, this is just a bunch of stuff about what's going to happen. No, it all applies to us. It tells us some things about God. And so Tyre and Sidon were a great shipping center. They had a tremendous, a world noted, if you will, economic system because of all the wealth. Everything went through there. If it came from out of the Mediterranean, from any nation, including Egypt, it came through Tyre. And from there it was dispersed to every other place. And same thing going the other direction. And they profited from all of that. But look at Revelation chapter 18. This takes it how God applies this now. I told you that Babylon, Babylon overthrew Tyre. God gave it to Babylon for their hire, for how God used them to judge Israel and other nations. He said, I haven't paid them back yet, so I'm going to give you Tyre insight. That's what he says. When you look at, this was a world noted economic system. Who benefited from that? Babylon. Babylon did. And Babylon became, during that empire, they became a world empire that was built upon its polytheistic God, if you will, religious system, what is Nebuchadnezzar require all the princes from all the nations to do? He built a great image representing him. It wasn't of him. It was a big, big pillar thing. And they all had to, at the sound of the instruments, they all had to bow down and worship that. Three Hebrew children wouldn't do it. He was trying to force everybody to worship Him, everybody from every nation and tongue to worship Him. Religious system, one. They had the governmental system and they were the wealthiest empire in the world as well. They controlled the wealth of the known world at the time. When you come to Revelation chapter 18, you find God saying this. and the kings of the earth who have committed fornication and live deliciously with her." Her. Who's that? That's the whore, the religious whore in chapter 17. When you read the verses before this, now listen, there are two Babylons. They're joined together and they're seen as one. But you can have, listen, with the world system, you can have them united, but they're not in union. It doesn't mean they all like each other. They may resent each other, and sometimes they do, but they do it for expediency anyhow. And so you find in Revelation chapter 17, you find the religious Babylon. It's not an accident God says Babylon, Babylon is fallen twice. Babylon, Babylon is fallen, both of them. The religious Babylon is destroyed in chapter 17. Now listen, you say, well, how do you know that's true? Well, listen, what does it say in the first part of chapter 18? It says, and in chapter, I think at the end of chapter 17, it says that the kings of the earth are going to rejoice and give gifts to one another. It's going to be Christmas time, exchanging gifts because religious Babylon is fallen. They're rejoicing then, and then in chapter 18, they're weeping and moaning. Look at it. kings of the earth have committed fornication deliciously with her shall bewail her and lament for her and they shall see the smoke of her burning. This is a different her. It was all joined together at one time. This is what will be the World Trade Center then. Standing afar off for fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city, for in one hour is thy judgment come, and the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn for her. Wait a minute. They were rejoicing and exchanging gifts a moment ago, maybe an hour ago. But now what? Just the opposite. Why? Not because the religion fell. It says in verse 11, And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her, for no man buyeth their merchandise any more. The merchandise of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet and all fine wood and all manner of vessels of ivory and all manner of vessels of most precious wood and of brass and iron and marble and cinnamon and odors and ointments and frankincense and wine and oil and fine flour and wheat and beasts and sheep and horses and chariots and slaves and souls of men. Men, what a list of stuff that is. Look at that last one. and souls of men." You know how you can tell a person's God? When their religion fell, they rejoiced. When their economic empire fell, that's when they cried. When you see, you can tell something about yourself What would cause you the greatest grief? If your church fell apart or you lost everything you got financially, materially. What would cause you the greatest grief? What keeps you up at night the most? See, these kings, they didn't care about the religion. It's a religion of expediency. It was a religion of expediency. It is right now. You know why our presidents most of the time, I don't think Trump ever did this, but most of our presidents, well, I don't think Barack Obama did either. He did this with the Muslims. But most of them have gone over to the Vatican at some point and kissed his ring. Why? It's expedient. It's expedient. You may look at that and say, oh, well, politically, that's a wise thing to do. No, if it's a foolish thing to do with God, it's a foolish thing to do, period. If God hates it, don't love it. Don't kiss it. Don't bow down to it. You know why people kiss something like that? It's to show loyalty. Loyalty. Psalm 2 in verse 12 says in relationship, first it says in the first part of that, the kings of the earth have set themselves against the Lord and against his Christ. And then it warns at the end of that, because God has set his son upon his holy hill of Zion. Now, when that happens, kiss the son, lest he be weary with thee, and angry with thee, and thou perish. in a moment. You better show your loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ now. How many kings do that? Nope. They'll show their loyalty to that fool over there in the Vatican, but they won't show their loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ because they don't have Him. But that's going to change because our passage told us tonight in the Word of God that He has put all things under His feet. And the world's going to see that one of these days. God's going to show the world who's God. That's why I love this. One of these days, the world's going to see who God really is. They're going to be forced to acknowledge He really is God. Again, Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar plundered the land of Tyre and Sidon along with Israel. They relished their desolate captive condition. Tyre had, when Babylon took Israel, Tyre went in and plundered the land. They gathered up as much gold and silver as they could for their gods. The Gentile nations around Israel thought it was great. They rejoiced, just like when 9-11 happened. Same thing. 9-11 happened, what happened over in Palestine? What did the Palestinians do? Boy, they were having parties in the street, weren't they? Maybe you guys, maybe you weren't around to see that. You got to go back and see if you can take a look at a video of that. I'm serious. As soon as they heard about what happened, man, they were literally parades, partying in the streets, jumping up and down and dancing and clapping and singing. They were thrilled to death. Nothing's changed. We're stupid if we think anything's changed. Satan hasn't changed. What we're reading here in Revelation is about economic Babylon. That's what these have lived for. Verse 14 says, And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee. And all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all. The merchants of these things which were made rich by her shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing and saying, Alas, alas, that great city that was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet and decked in gold, precious stones and pearls. For in one hour, so great riches has come to naught. And every ship master, oh, ship master, Every one of these areas that I mentioned to you a little bit ago, they have made their wealth on shipping. They're noted throughout history for their wealth in shipping their merchandise and the merchandise of others. Every ship master in all the company and ships and sailors and as many as trade by sea stood afar off and cried when they saw the smoke of a burning saying, what city is like unto this great city? You know one of the biggest concerns? Among nations is right now is pirates interfering with shipping and driving our prices up. What are they going to do next? Yeah. It's a big concern. Better be concerned about something a little more serious. And so, religious Babylon sells the souls of men. through their ungodly system of penance of the dead. But the nations and the kings of the earth sell the souls of men, literally, right now, tonight. It's astounding how many people are being sold as sex slaves from country to country. And if you don't think that's what's partly what's involved, only part, but if you don't think that's involved in our open borders, you're not listening and paying attention because it is. It destroys, literally destroys the lives of people clear down to little children, five, six years old. Destroys their lives. Destroys their soul. When Jerusalem fell under Rome in 70 AD, they sold, the Jews that weren't killed, they sold into slavery down into Egypt and up north into what's now Turkey, that part of Asia, and up into the area of Russia where all those different groups were. All over the world, as a matter of fact, sold them into slavery. You don't hear about that part of slavery. Two profits that they care about, money and land. Money and land is what they care about. I can tell you right now, it was at least 10 years ago, or maybe a little more. I remember looking at some articles in the Mediterranean off the coast of Israel. Israel discovered the largest natural gas veins in the world, out in the Mediterranean. Drilled for them, set up their drilling rigs, and guess who said they had the right to them? Turkey and Egypt started fighting about it. They still want them. That's what it's about. They still want them. God is going to recompense the nations. There will be no paying God off. I want you to look here as we begin to wrap this up a little bit. God is going to recompense. Notice what He said here, I'll recompense speedily. You have taken, verse 5, you have taken my silver and my gold that is out of the land of Israel, but it all belongs to the Lord. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and act like it belongs to them. And have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things. The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border. Behold, I will raise them out of their place, whether ye have sold them or not, and will return your recompense upon your head. I'm going to bring them back, as he said in verse 1, I'm going to raise them out of where they are and bring them back, and I'm going to recompense it back upon your head what you have done. How does that apply to us? Say, what does that mean to me? Well, it tells me that God is a just God. And when God says, vengeance belongeth unto me, I will repay, saith the Lord. We can trust him. We can trust him. In Luke chapter 18 and verse 7, Jesus gave a parable of a poor widow that went to an unjust judge. And because of her constantly going to him, persistence, He likens it to persistence in prayer. And he says this, and shall not God avenge His own elect? Israel is a nation that God chose as a nation to serve Him, and they did serve His purpose. Very few of them were His elect in a spiritual sense, but the Bible tells us very clearly God still has a remnant according to the election of grace, and a nation is going to be born in a day. God's going to avenge his elect, which cried day and night unto him, though he bared long with them. I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? Two things I want you to notice quickly. God will avenge his elect. If you're one of God's elect tonight, you can be sure that when you suffer persecution, When you suffer affliction for the cause of Christ and for righteousness' sake, God will avenge His elect. Just write that down, count on that, live by it. God's going to take care of it. We don't have to take it into our hands. God is going to take care of it in His time. The second thing I want us to notice is, He says, will He find faith on the earth? Will he find faith on the earth? In other words, will he find a people who still believe the truth of God? Jude says this, and I think it's God's providence that Jude comes just before Revelation. He says, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you the common salvation, I'd love to have just written a letter to you about the gospel. how God saves sinners. But it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints." Why is that? Because Paul told Timothy that in the last days, men shall depart from the truth. They'll heap to themselves teachers having hearing ears. They won't have any tolerance for the truth anymore. They won't endure sound doctrine anymore. They'll have a little short fuse, if you will, a little short endurance stick when it comes to hearing any preaching, and especially if it's really sound preaching that really exposes the loyal and the mind of God according to the Word of God. So where is it with us tonight? Where do we stand? Where do you stand tonight? Are you one of God's elect? Do you know that you know the Lord Jesus Christ? Or rather, even better, do you know that you're known of God? And then secondly, as a child of God, are we hungry and desirous to learn and to know as much of the will of God from the Word of God as we possibly can, to be further and better established in the truth of God? Because we are in a battle. We are in a battle. We're going to have to know, as much as we can possibly know, have it buried deep in our heart and in our soul to be able to be faithful, to remain faithful and endure for the sake of Christ. Let's stand and have a word of prayer.