I'll be turning first today to Genesis chapter 15. Genesis 15 is going to take me a while to get there. After a much needed update that we need to hear about in current events that actually are very relevant to that particular passage of scripture. For which, if you'll bear with me, I am going to open this message. with a once well-known theme song, actually, from a mid-1960s TV show that I think is very appropriate to describe developments of the past week in Washington, D.C. and with the incoming president-elect. Thank you for bearing with me on that. Donald Trump is back and faster than lightning. He has already flipped on and betrayed his campaign promises. And much of his support base, as is clearly shown by the Zionist neocon war hawks, he has chosen to head up his administration. And that, after all the fanfare and promises that he, his family members, and his VP pick, J.D. Vance, made that there would be no more neocon war hawks. Last July, even the liberal Newsweek magazine outlet published an article after Trump picked J.D. Vance as his VP, saying that the Trump-Vance ticket signals the end of the neocon movement. All that was a fantasy pipe dream that vanished into thin air just this past week, as soon as it was announced that Trump won the election. As I warned two weeks ago, what we now have in Washington, D.C. is Flipper 2.0. And through his campaign promises of peace, Donald Trump is now going to destroy many by making more. Trump supporters were quite gleeful to hear that John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Nikki Haley were not being considered for cabinet positions. They said, see, Trump learned from his past mistakes. And Trump said that, too, before the election. He said that, too. He learned from his mistakes. He wasn't going to do that again. But with maybe two possible exceptions, the people Trump has picked to fill all of his cabinet positions are all pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian, and pro-war neocons. Every one of them. Those two possible exceptions are RFK Jr., picked as Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services, which may be the only decent pick Trump has made. And with Elon Musk, picked to head Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency, the DOGE, Mr. Musk is a very strange and mysterious character. It's very hard to know where he's at on anything, but he strikes me as actually one who could turn out to be the devil in disguise. Of all Trump's picks, I think RFK Jr. will face the most opposition for confirmation. Independent ex-pat military political journalist Brian Berletek, I mentioned him before, he's a very insightful former U.S. Marine officer who now lives in Thailand. He added Tulsi Gabbard to those two this past week and referred to his list of three possible exceptions as the, quote, sugar-coated icing on the ball of arsenic that Trump expects the American people to choke down, since all of Trump's picks for key foreign policy and war-making cabinet positions are nothing but ideological clones, in fact, of Bolton, Pompeo, and Haley. just as committed to the imperial, neocon, forever war agenda as those three were, if not more so actually. Tulsi Gabbard is definitely in neocon, bought and paid for by the Israeli lobby, as I'll explain in a moment. But all that said, here's an excerpt from what Brian Rilettick said this past week. You remember Donald Trump Jr. No neocons or war hawks. He went from no neocons and war hawks to all neocons and war hawks. And forgive me for not being surprised, but this is literally what he did during his first administration. I tried to warn people then, said Brian Rilettick, because I actually looked at the people who surrounded him. He says, I understand where real power stems from, it stems from money and guns. In the United States there is no alternative center of power with enough money and guns to make any meaningful change in American politics. He said, so people are going to invest their hope in Trump because Trump promised them this, he promised them an anti-war campaign to divest from American imperialism abroad and invest in America. He said, that's something that I would love to see, something I wish I could believe in and see unfold, but it was just never going to happen. He was just telling you what you want to hear, so you get the support of war-weary Americans, and then once he's in office, he's going to do exactly what he feels, just like he did the first time. I'm going to end the quote there, but that sounds a whole lot like what I said two weeks back, except for what Brian Berletek doesn't understand. because he's not a Christian and therefore doesn't understand the Bible. This isn't just about money and guns, that's not where power comes from. It's about the spiritual ideology that underlies Donald Trump's personal agenda to apparently be king of the world. And it's also about God the Father sovereignly overruling Trump's personal agenda to bring his word and his will, his ultimate will, to pass in placing his king, the Lord Jesus, on that holy hill of Zion, as we read about in Psalm 2. I got into this somewhat two weeks ago, and I'm going to dig more deeply into it today, after briefly analyzing Trump's cabinet picks. Beginning with Trump's pick for CIA director, John Ratcliffe. Surprise, surprise, Ratcliffe is another Roman Catholic Jesuit to the CIA. That nefarious organization that also grooms 95% of its agents from the Walsh School of Foreign Service and Jesuit Georgetown University. And that exists today as the Jesuits have always existed to foment warfare, revolutions and regime change throughout the world in favor of the Roman American Empire. And this man Ratcliffe is really a Jesuit rat. I was raised in a large Catholic family in northwestern Chicago, youngest of six children, graduated in 1987 from Notre Dame University, was followed by a doctorate degree in law from Southern Methodist University School of Law. He was appointed by President George Bush in 2004 to be the chief of anti-terrorism and national security for the DOJ's eastern Texas district. In other words, he was called upon to implement the Bush-Cabal's Constitution-Destroying Patriot Act. In 2007, Ratcliffe campaigned for U.S. Attorney for the District. His campaign website said that, as a federal prosecutor, Ratcliffe personally managed dozens of international and domestic terrorism investigations involving some of the nation's most sensitive security matters and, quote, says he put terrorists in prison. But there's no evidence that Ratcliffe ever prosecuted a single terrorism case. He's a liar. He also misrepresented his personal involvement in the U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case, claiming that there are individuals that currently sit in prison because I prosecuted them for funding money to terrorist groups. But there are no court records that Ratcliffe was ever involved in that case. And the attorneys that worked the case denied his involvement. Ratcliffe was elected to Congress in 2014. His official house biography says that as prosecutor for the Eastern District of Texas, he arrested 300 illegal aliens in a single day. When in fact, his office arrested only 45 individuals suspected of being illegal immigrants, including two who turned out to be American citizens. And again, officers involved deny that Ratcliffe played a central role in any of that. In 2019, Trump nominated Ratcliffe as Director of National Intelligence, but Ratcliffe withdrew and Republican senators actually opposed him after his public lies were exposed. Nevertheless, Trump picked him again in 2020. He was approved, served until Biden took office in that position. So this man is a known public liar who will politicize intelligence and will repeat every malicious fabricated lie in the narrative about China and Russia to support the never-ending war agenda, which of course is precisely why Trump picked him, because he's a liar. Another of Trump's picks was Florida Congressman Mike Waltz, a retired Army colonel, picked him as a national security advisor. which is a top foreign policy post formerly held by the rabid neocon warmonger John Bolton. And Waltz is just as bad as Bolton in that regard, if not worse. He is a combat decorated Green Beret, still serving as a colonel in U.S. Army National Guard, elected in 2019 as the first Green Beret to serve in Congress. After graduating with honors in international studies from Virginia Military Institute, Waltz was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. after which he graduated from ranger school and was selected to be a Green Beret. He served as a special forces officer in Afghanistan, Middle East, and Africa, earning four bronze stars, including two for valor. In 2017, after telling a CPAC audience about his time serving in Afghanistan, Walt said of that war as follows, So are we 15 years in? Yes. We are in for a lot more fighting. And do we need a long-term strategy to undermine the ideology of Islamic extremism, just like we did fascism and just like we did communism? Yes, we do. We're in for the long haul. I think our nation's leadership needs to begin telling the American people, I'm sorry. We don't have a choice. We're 15 years into what is going to be a multi-generational war. This is his philosophy. Because we're talking about defeating an idea. It's easy to bomb a tank. Very difficult to defeat an idea. That's exactly what we have to do. We have to defeat the Islamic extremism. because it's an idea. After his statement, a CPAC audience member disrupted the panel shouting, it's impossible, you can't do that. Of course it is, but these radical warmongers are willing to commit genocide against whole populations in their attempt to do so. Waltz has a vested interest in that effort, having said that after he helped found Mentus Solutions, a defense contractor that provides strategic analysis, intelligence support and training. Waltz sold that company in 2020 for $92 million. And so he's found never-ending American warfare to be highly lucrative as well. He has a book published with an oxymoron for a title, Warrior Diplomat, Green Beret's Battles from Washington to Afghanistan. And that describes his foreign policy, so-called diplomacy achieved through never-ending warfare. That's his version of diplomacy. As we know, Trump boasted that he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, which is, of course, absurd. unless his plan was to order Zelensky to the same terms that Putin is demanding. And that may have been what many were hoping. That's what I suggested, the only way he could do it. But Mike Waltz says, not so. That's not what we're going to do. Two weeks ago, Waltz announced that Trump's plan to end the Ukraine war means intensifying sanctions on Russia, which didn't do any good. How sanctions don't work will have zero effect at this point. and taking the handcuffs off Ukraine by allowing them to strike further deep inside Russia. That's his plan for ending the war in Ukraine. Obviously it's not going to end the war in Ukraine, neither of which will end the war, the latter of which will only spark the very type of World War III that Donald Trump appears to be in hot pursuit of. And why is that? What is the spiritual ideology that underlies Donald Trump's personal agenda? It's all about bringing the controversy of Zion to a head, and it's about achieving his father the devil's ultimate goal of installing his Antichrist king on that holy hill of Zion instead of its true king, the Lord Jesus. And that leads me to Trump's other extreme Zionist neocon picks, all of which actually appear to be dictated by Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump's billionaire Jewish campaign financier, Miriam Adelson. Trump picked another Roman Catholic, Marco Rubio, for Secretary of State, a well-known pro-Israel Zionist neocon and incessant warmonger who has a history of direct ties, actually, to the Miami Cuban drug trade, and about whom not much more needs to be said. We know Marco Rubio. Trump used to call him Little Marco, but now he's elevated him to this very high position. Trump picked former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel. which position actually was approved by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, as that position typically is, Huckabee is an apostate, ordained Southern Baptist, Billy Graham type, Catholic friendly, and Scofieldite Zionist, former pastor. As such, he's another useful idiot of Talmudic Judaism. who completely ignores the history of Palestine, denies the very existence of the Palestinian people, and denies that the West Bank of Gaza is Palestinian. He said as follows, he said, there's no such thing as the West Bank, it's Judea and Samaria. There's no such thing as settlements, they're communities, they're settlements, they're cities. There's no such thing as an occupation, he said. Some will recall that Dr. Don Boyce, who is now with the Lord, he used to preach at our church once or twice a year, until he promoted similar views about Palestinians. We had to part ways with him. So much for Mike Huckabee. Trump picked famously, or should I say rapidly, Zionist New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik to fill Nikki Haley's old job as ambassador to the UN, who promises to be as bad or even worse than Nikki Haley. She is another Catholic Harvard University grad with a combined Jewish ancestry who has distinguished herself as one of the most extremely anti-Palestinian members of Congress. Max Blumenthal is a fairly well-known independent journalist with the Gray Zone. He takes it a step further and says she finds her true constituency when she goes and addresses the Israeli Knesset instead of Congress. Last year Stefanik was granted a lucrative cash award by the Miriam Adelson Zionist Organization of America. called the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson Defender of Israel Award, given in her case for vociferously using her seat in Congress to attack university presidents for allowing First Amendment freedom of speech to function on their campuses and because they refused to crush Palestinian solidarity student clubs like Students for Justice in Palestine. Trump himself recently announced his unity of heart with her on that topic, saying as follows, my first week back in the Oval Office, My administration will inform every college president that if you do not end anti-Semitic propaganda, they will lose their accreditation and federal tax support. Donald Trump couldn't be clearer. We will not subsidize the creation of terrorist sympathizers, and we're not going to do it on American soil. Next, I will inform every educational institution in our land that if they permit violence, harassment, or threats against Jewish students, the schools will be held accountable for violations of the Civil Rights Law. In other words, in his first week in office, Trump promised to attempt to eradicate the First Amendment and to silence all public protest and opposition to Israel's genocide, genocide of the Palestinian population, under the age-old Jewish fraud and tactic of anti-Semitism. The Jews have always claimed anti-Semitism to gain more power and prestige. And that will no doubt be ramped up throughout society and will probably be the next subject of heavy censoring on YouTube as well. As a member of Congress, Stefanik has smeared the U.N. as being anti-Semitic whenever it has allowed Palestinians to just express their grievances against Israel in the General Assembly. She has supported the cutoff of funding for the U.N. Relief Works Agency, the agency that is essential to providing humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. These people hate Palestinians. So as UN Ambassador Stefanik will simply ramp up Nikki Haley's tradition of rubber stamping everything Israel wants at the UN and opposing a peaceful resolution, peaceful solution in Palestine. Moving on, Trump picked his loyal ally and former congressman Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, although Gates already faces stiff opposition from both parties due to his allegations against sexual impropriety. Trump picked South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem for the role of Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, even though she has no military or intelligence background at all and she's not even from a border state. However, she is a long-time Trump loyalist who was believed actually to be a contender for vice president, and she's also bought and paid for by the Israel lobby, which is Trump's priority anyway, as long as she's a Zionist. She introduced a bill in South Dakota last March, infamously called protecting the security of God's chosen people. to crush speech critical of Israel. That's what that bill was to do. Protecting the security of God's chosen people. That's what she called it. And that's when there's only one Jewish rabbi in all of South Dakota. This is a South Dakota law. And when, by the way, as pointed out many times in messages that we posted, according to the Bible, no unbelieving non-Christian Jew, whether he's religious or not, has any right to call himself one of God's chosen people. God's chosen people, His elect as they are called throughout the New Testament, are only those who have repented of their sin and false religion, have believed the Gospel message and placed their faith in the shed blood of the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus, to atone for all their sin and have thereby received Him as Savior and Lord. And in so doing they have been regenerated and truly born again with a new nature. And therefore no unbelieving Jew has any claim whatsoever to be one of God's chosen people. So Kristi Noam is a bought and paid for Zionist. Tulsi Gabbard has been picked as Director of National Intelligence. She is a Hare Krishna chanting Hindu who served as Congresswoman from Hawaii while also serving double duty actually as an esteemed Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. To get on the Trump team, Gabbard has gone full-blown Zionist as well and declared that the goal of Hamas, she says the goal of Hamas is world domination. She calls out protesters against the Israeli genocide campaign in Gaza as puppets. And like Elise Stefanik, she claimed that Biden hasn't done enough to condemn anti-Semitism. They're going to use that anti-Semitism card all over the place. A year ago, Gabbard went straight from the Fox News studio to the pro-war March for Israel in DC, claiming there, as she got up to speak, that the goal of Hamas isn't about Palestine, but to establish a global caliphate. They want global dominion, she says. That's Tulsi Gabbard, Vivek Ramaswamy, who Trump picked to assist Elon Musk in running Trump's new DOGE department, encourages Israel to continue to slaughter Palestinians, and has said that he would love to see the Zionist regime, quote, put the heads of their resistance leaders on stakes and line them up on the Israel-Gaza border. So these are most of Trump's cabinet picks. You see him on TV and think, oh, that's a nice guy. He's just great, isn't he? Max Blumenthal called the whole group a complete clown car being driven to the White House by Netanyahu's Likud party. But rather than clowns, I would classify them as useful idiots for the Antichrist. And this brings me finally to another of the more controversial of Trump's extreme Zionist picks, and perhaps the most dangerous, which is popular Fox News host Pete Hegseth. picked, as John Bolton was also, from the green room at Fox News. But in his case, he was actually picked to head the Pentagon in the extremely powerful position of Secretary of Defense. Hegseth reportedly attends a non-denominational church, claims to be an evangelical Christian, but like Mike Pence, he's another open-closet Catholic who led his Fox News audience in a Catholic prayer for the season of Lent using Alex Jones' phone app of Catholic prayer titled Hallow. which, by the way, is also promoted by Tucker Carlson, Episcopal Catholic Tucker Carlson, who was removed from Fox News for, among other things, being too anti-war after Tucker openly opposed Pete Hegseth for calling for an immediate launching of war with Iran after Trump ordered the assassination of Iran's revered General Soleimani in October 2020. At that time, Pete Hegseth called on Trump to bomb Iran's energy production facilities, ports, and nuclear facilities. And he served now and then as an advisor to Trump at that time. He said Trump should even bomb mosques, hospitals, and schools if deemed necessary. This guy claims to be a family man. claims to promote family values while promoting the wholesale slaughter of literally hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians and families in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and Palestine. This is Pete Hegseth. In March 2022, Hegseth called Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal, saying what's at stake is repelling an authoritarian saying, I want the Soviet Union back, I want Ukraine back, I want Kiev back. None of which is true. Those are all lies. And so Pete Hegseth promotes Lindsey Graham's version of America First that American force should be used without limit, without regard to any international law. He has been taken on propaganda trips through the occupied territories in Palestine by the leading sponsor of violent settler activity against local Palestinians. He was taken to occupied Hebron, where the most fanatical violent settlers live in complete apartheid there, claiming that while he was there, that it was the Jewish settlers who were besieged, living under siege in a holy site, he said. And so he sees everything, when upside down, Scofieldite, Zionist view, as really in their shameful ignorance, shameful ignorance of the Bible, most pseudo-Christians in America do the same thing as well. Haig says, as opposed to two-state solution, and supported Israeli sovereignty over the entire West Bank, refers to Israel as God's chosen people, and says if you open up your Bible, you'll find that God granted Abraham the land of Israel. He said, this should settle our understanding of the modern Israeli-Palestine conflict. And then as the icing on Donald Trump's cake, Hegseth spoke at the 2018 Arutz Sheva conference in Jerusalem, where he declared that, quote, there's no reason why the miracle of the reestablishment of the temple on the Temple Mount is not possible. Pete Hegseth. No reason, of course, aside from the fact that it would require direct warfare with most of the Muslim world and probably with Russia and China and North Korea as well. And these, however, are no doubt the reasons that Pete Hegseth was picked as Secretary of Defense. So as stated, within hours of being declared the winner in the presidential election, Flipper Trump immediately betrayed most of his support base and turned from no more neocon war hawks to all neocon war hawks. The man who promised peace to the Muslim leaders of Michigan to gain their votes is now bringing them war instead. And that finally brings me, thanks for bearing with me through that, finally brings me to Genesis chapter 15 and the main point of this message. which is to review the spiritual and in fact the prophetic reason behind Trump's double cross and what he is getting his staff picked and lined up to accomplish during the next four years. Since he only legally has four years to do it, unless he also manages to finally suspend and abolish the U.S. Constitution, which he may well try to do also. Here in Genesis 15, we find a very important promise made to Abraham. He was the progenitor, of course, through his son Isaac of racial Jews and also through his firstborn, but then Cathoic son Ishmael, he was also the progenitor of many of the peoples that today identify themselves as Palestinians and Muslim Arabs. But before either of those two sons were born, Well, his name was still Abram. And just after he led his servants in a local army and the slaughter of three invading kings in the east and their armies in chapter 14, we then read the beginning in Genesis 15, verse 1. After these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram. I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed, yet a loved one born in my house is mine heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness. And of course, this is one of the most important verses in the Bible, actually, laying down the great doctrine of justification by faith alone in God's revealed Word. Paul cites two of these verses and expounds on this great doctrine in his epistles, especially in Romans 3-4. Verse 7, he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees to give thee this land to inherit it. He said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? He said unto him, take me and heifer of three years old, and the she-goat of three years old, and the ram of three years old, and the turtle dove, and the young pigeon. And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another, but the birds he divided not. When the fowls came up upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. To explain what's taking place here, why did he cut these animals? After Abraham said in verse 8, Lord God, whereby shall I know I shall inherit it? The Lord in effect says in verse 9 to 10, you prepare the contract and I will sign it. This was a standard and customary way of making a blood covenant on oath to the death in ancient times, practiced among most cultures at the time, including the Greeks, Romans, and Chaldeans, whereby a calf or some other animal was cut in pieces, parts laid in order, and the parties to the covenant would join hands as they both passed together between the parts, signifying that if they did not fulfill their part of the agreement, they also agreed to be cut in pieces like those animals had been. This practice, by the way, is also mentioned in Jeremiah 34, verse 18, where the Lord says, I will give them in that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they have made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and pass between the parts thereof. He said the princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, and the eunuchs, and the priests, and the people of the land, which pass between the parts of the calf, I'll even give them into the hand of their enemies, into the hand of them that seek their life, and their dead bodies shall be for meat. of the fowls of the heaven to the beasts of the earth. God says there, I'm holding them to the covenant that they made with me to keep my law. And so here in Genesis 15, the Lord says to Abraham, cut the covenant, prepare the contract. But in this instance, the two parties did not pass between the parts. Only one of the parties did so. Verse 12, when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and lo and horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he, the Lord, said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. And also that nation whom they shall serve will thy judge, Egypt. And afterward they shall come out with great substance. And thou shalt go with thy fathers in peace, thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, they'll come back here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. Came to pass when the sun went down and it was dark. Behold, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between those pieces. The Lord himself and by himself passed between these parts in the form of a smoking furnace and a burning lamp, apparently via a vision given to Abraham while he was in this state of deep sleep. The smoking furnace probably signifying the affliction and the tribulations that Abram's descendants would suffer in Egypt, which we just talked about. as prophesied here by the Lord, the burning lamp signifying God's presence and glory as He appeared and led those same descendants out of Egypt in the pillar of fire. Here, the Lord passed between the parts by Himself, because Abraham had no performance required under this contract. Abraham didn't have to do anything. It would only be performed by the Lord and for Abraham's sake, and strictly because of his faith as he displayed in verse 6. just as our covenant today with the Lord and for the promise of eternal life that He gives us does not rely on our performance, any performance on our part, and is based also on faith alone apart from works. So it is, in the way the Lord confirmed His promise in verses 4 to 5, that Abram's offspring would be as numberless as the stars of heaven. And then the Lord adds an additional clause to the contract, saying in verse 18 to 21, In the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates, the Canaanites, the Canaanites, the Cadmanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaims, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. These verses here, this entire promise that God made here is commonly referred to as the Abrahamic covenant. which includes the promise made above in verse 4-5 and also here in verses 18-21. The last clause of this contract, of course, is what is being cited to you today by Pete Hegseth, by Orthodox Zionist Jews within Netanyahu's administration, they're pulling him in this direction, and the State of Israel at large, and the world over, also by many very ignorant pseudo-Christians that do not know God's Word, that in most cases also, just like unbelieving Jews, do not know the God who wrote the Bible, And that most certainly includes the fake Christian neocon warmonger, Pete Hegseth. And those who cite this today claim, and they appear to believe, based on this clause and these four verses, Genesis alone, that the modern, apartheid, racist, and murderous state of Israel has every right to continue its genocide of the Palestinian people of Gaza, because it's their land. God gave it to Abraham. which it appears will soon include a much broader campaign in the Israeli-occupied West Bank region and the Golan Heights and beyond, as this covenant says, from the Nile to the Euphrates. However, and what for many is their foolish, hard-necked, and unfounded pride, and perhaps for others, shameful ignorance. What none of the aforesaid groups stop to consider is that the Lord has continued to amend and in fact clarify this covenant since it was given to Abraham on this clear night under the stars of heaven. Beginning with the Mosaic covenant given on Mount Sinai, which after that law was given to Moses, we read in Exodus 24 in verse 3, Moses came down from the mount and told all the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments and all the people answered with one voice and said, all the words which the Lord has said we will do. They committed themselves to the covenant, and giving that covenant, the Lord also said in Deuteronomy 30, 17-20, if they disobeyed, if they broke their covenant, He said, But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shall be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them, I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whether thou passest over Jordan or go possess it. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, said the Lord. I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live. that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, that thou mayest obey his voice, that thou mayest cleave unto him, for he is thy life and the length of thy days, that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord swore unto thy fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. As we know, Israel always turned aside from the law to idolatry instead, for which they were driven off the land promised to Abraham twice. First by the Babylonians in 586 BC, after which the Lord graciously, as He had promised in the law, brought a remnant of Jews back into the land 70 years later under Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. From which time, until the commandment of Artaxerxes to go back and rebuild the city, they had been given an exact timeline in the 9th chapter of Daniel's prophecy of when the Messiah would come. They were told exactly when the Messiah would come. But then when He did come, In the fullness of time, as Paul says, Israel as a nation rejected and crucified its Messiah, the Lord Jesus. And so they were again driven out from the land the second time by the Romans in A.D. 70, at which time, Matthew 23, at which time the Lord Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem, knowing its calamitous future. And Jesus said in Matthew 23 and verse 37, as he prayed over Jerusalem. He said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, now that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not, ye would not. He sent prophet after prophet to them. And they killed the prophets, stoned them, and rejected their word. And then he said, behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. I submit to you that this is an amendment to the Abrahamic covenant. Luke records those very same words in Luke 13, 34-35. What Jesus is saying here is that Israel's house will remain desolate. From that day in AD 70, when they were driven off the land, until that day that Jesus prophesied in Luke 21, verse 24. Where we do read, first of Israel's desolation that occurred in AD 70, Luke 21, 24, Jesus said, In a day, Israelites, Israel shall fall by the edge of the sword and shall be led away captive into all nations, their house being left to them desolate. And then Jesus says how long that desolation will last. And Jerusalem shall be trodden down to the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. At which time, Jesus said, that time of tribulation that He spoke of in Matthew 24, 21, will finally take place just before His glorious return. We read here in verse 25 then of Luke 21. And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth, distress of nations with perplexity, not understanding why this is happening. The sea and the waves roaring, men's hearts, failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth. The powers of heaven shall be shaken, and then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. At that time, then, will come to pass the great day that Paul speaks of in Romans 11, 25-26. when the elect remnant of once blinded Jews, Paul means there, shall be saved. And they finally repent of their unbelief and their evil and murder and shedding of innocent blood and their stiff-necked idolatry that they have always been prone to. And they will then recognize and turn for salvation to their true Messiah and Redeemer, the Lord Jesus, after in their blindness they crucified Him and have denied Him for almost 2,000 years. And then shall it be fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah 12, 10, where God says, I will pour upon the house of David, upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplications, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as they mourn for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. On that day, all Israel, Paul says, the remnant of Israel, and then all the people of God, Jew and Gentile, will finally be united into one body. And in that day there will be one fold and one shepherd, as the Lord Jesus said. And then, only then, and not until then, on that day, the Abrahamic covenant will finally be fulfilled as the Lord Jesus Himself takes His throne on that holy hill of Zion. But before that glorious day gets here, this world has to go through hell on earth. Because much to the preterist and all-millennialist dismay, and probably sheer horror when they find out, those words of the Lord Jesus will be precisely and literally fulfilled. where he said in Luke 21, 25, there shall be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars upon the earth, distress of nations with perplexity, and the sea in waves roaring, men's hearts failing then for fear, looking after those things which are coming on the earth. The powers of the heavens shall be shaken. When will that take place? Jesus says, when the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. In other words, at the close of the church age. And it appears from these recent developments, to me, that we are nearing that time. That third temple will be built on the Temple Mount that Pete Hegseth spoke of. It seems to be his mission. As also early Christian writer Aaron Naess, we were talking about before, recorded in chapter 30 of Against Heresies, about 80 years after Rome's destruction of the second temple in AD 70, Aaron Naess wrote about another future third temple. He said, but when this Antichrist So I've devastated all things in this world. He will reign for three years and six months and sit in the temple at Jerusalem. And then the Lord will come from heaven in the clouds in the glory of the Father, sending this man and those who follow him into the lake of fire. Irenaeus is quoting there, citing to 2 Thessalonians 2.4 for authority for that statement, where Paul says, that man of sin and son of perdition must come on the scene before we are gathered together to Christ. Paul says, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God and that is worshiped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. So Irenaeus knew that a third temple would be built in Jerusalem. We have a couple of messages posted online as to why that prophecy must yet be brought to pass. It was not fulfilled by the Pope of Rome, as historians believe. There will be a third temple in Jerusalem. Extensive plans and preparations are underway to build it. But in order to bring that third temple into being, that same Antichrist will have to confirm a seven-year covenant, as you read about in Daniel 9, 27, with the many. presumably meaning Israel and surrounding nations, that will allow temple sacrifices to be once again offered on Mount Moriah in that third temple. And it certainly appears to me that Donald Trump very much desires to be the man that makes that happen, who may well confirm that covenant. We won't know for certain until that covenant is confirmed, which I believe will take place after a major war to remove the Muslims and the Al-Aqsa Mosque from Mount Moriah. which it sounds like Pete Hegseth is preparing to accomplish. So I believe that day is indeed drawing very near, for which we all need to be prepared, mentally, physically, especially spiritually. And those who are by far, of course, the least prepared for these days are those who do not know the Lord Jesus personally as Savior and Lord. And that, of course, includes the vast majority of people on this earth, as they're the ones whose hearts will fail them for fear. Our hearts won't fail us for fear, because we'll know what's going on. But they are the ones whose hearts will fail them for fear, for looking up those things which are coming on the earth in days soon to come. And so I hope that all who may hear this message online or hear in church today, who have not yet bowed their knee and surrendered to Christ's Supreme Lordship, will do so today. They will take this message to heart, repent of their former sins, false religion, and unbelief. They'll trust in the shed blood of the Lamb to atone for their sin, and they will receive the Lord Jesus as Savior and Lord. And that's my message for today. Let's go ahead and pray. Father in heaven, thank you for your word that warns us of things to come, comforts us, encourages us, and gives us strength and hope and courage. We just thank you so much, Lord, that we have your word, we have your spirit with us. And I just pray that you'd help us all, Lord, to be motivated by these things to really get active in serving you, as P.J. preached about first hour. Help us to do that, Lord. We love you and praise you in Jesus' name, amen.