Here we are in November and a lot of stuff to talk about. I've titled this Prophecy Update, Change is in the Air. And it really is that way in many, many ways. And I wanted to kind of cover some of that this evening. And I don't even know if there's time to cover all of it. I've got a fairly long list, so we gotta get right to it. Change is in the air. Probably one of the biggest ones, of course, the presidential election. That's going to change some things depending on who is elected. And I think a lot of the world is waiting to see who the next president of the United States is, and then that's going to change sort of what their trajectory is. And we're going to see that. It's going to be interesting to see that. North Korea, soldiers are in Russia. There's some change in the air. I'll talk about that. Russian-Ukrainian war. There's change in the air about that. BRICS summit at Kazan, Russia. Are you guys familiar with BRICS and what's going on there? That's something we should be aware of. It's bigger, I think, than we might know. Changes in the air when it comes to weapons technology. We're seeing things being invented in lightning speed. It's kind of amazing. Also, we saw just last week a first for Israel. Israel did something that they've never done before when it comes to military tactics and policies. And we're gonna look at that perhaps. And also changes in the air when you go to the Temple Mount. in Jerusalem. So that's kind of a quick rundown of some of those things. So the first change in the air item that I want to talk about is, of course, the presidential election. And some might say, well, what does that have to do with Bible prophecy? Well, I would speak to it as an issue of, it kind of gives us a hint as to the timing, whether it's sooner or later, maybe the rapture of the church even. the rapture of the church and the world situation. And then, you know, the end time scenario. One of the, you know, options for president of the United States seems to almost speed things up toward like almost breakneck speed to be like the conditions the Bible says will be in the end times. So we'll talk about those conditions. But one of the other candidates seems to almost be slowing or holding back some of those things that we see the Bible talk about, about end times scenarios. Wonder which candidate I'm talking about there. We'll get into some of that, but you know, a lot of people, you know, students of Bible prophecy, I've noticed, sometimes I've seen the attitude, hopefully not. We know how things are gonna turn out, so why even vote? Like, you know, why vote? God already knows what he's gonna do. He's sovereign, so why vote? And I don't think that's the right attitude. How are we supposed to think about presidential elections and end times? Or some of you, I've heard some people talk like, well, since I'm an end times Bible prophecy buff, I know how things are supposed to be at the end time, so I'm gonna vote for that. That means you're probably voting for Kamala, honestly. Because some of the things she's really for really fits that end time scenario. So you say, I'm voting for her. Hopefully you're not doing that either. Some of you have that my vote doesn't matter sort of mentality. God's gonna do what he's gonna do. So my vote really doesn't matter. We live in Oregon. The last place they count is Oregon and it's corrupt anyway in Oregon. Our vote doesn't count. Well, I think, you know, for me, there might be some truth to that, but I still think, you know, I still like to think that I need to, before God, you know, have integrity and say, I know that I'm doing my best. Even though there might be other things out there that are corrupt, I'm still gonna try to have integrity before God and do my duty. And is it really my duty? We'll talk about that. How can a Christian possibly vote for someone who's a sinner? or vote for the lesser of two evils. And really, the truth is, this is the truth of the matter. And it's funny because I've heard things like the abortion issue. Well, it's just a wash now. It's just a wash because Trump has backed off on his abortion stance, which he has, there's no question, which is really unfortunate. I'm really sad about that. And I'm bummed that he's kind of not fully flipped on it, but he's definitely softened on the issue. But people forget there's a lot of other issues. There's a lot of other policies and things that we need to talk about. If one side wins, support for Israel deteriorates. If that same side wins, more babies are likely to be aborted than the other candidate. If one side wins, more children will be encouraged to trans, transition to their transgender self, their gender dysphoria, and they'll be encouraged. If one side wins, America becomes less and less important or even significant in the world, and globalism becomes, these are all things, like think about all this stuff. Just the Israel relationship with the United States. The idea of abortion being, in my opinion, if we save one baby, out of the mother's womb, I think that's worth considering. Is that worth a vote? Even if we save one baby. This idea of the kids, and schools even, encouraging kids and not even telling their parents about transitioning and their gender. the idea of the United States being sort of, you know, not as important. Are we losing our strength and our influence that was once used to help in the world in a lot of ways? Meanwhile, you know, the World Economic Forum and And Dr. Evil there, he has this plan where he wants to truly be into this globalism. And the United States loses its position in the world. You know, human trafficking. One vote is going to be not really helping the human trafficking problem. Another vote will actually hopefully nudge toward saving all those people. There's so many people. And we don't really even know the number. When we don't really know the number and people debate what the number is, that makes me nervous that it's much bigger than what we even know. Human trafficking is a real problem. But if the other side wins, support for Israel is likely to improve. Which side am I talking about? Well, if you remember, you know, the last time the Trump presidency, his administration was in office, the Israelis loved it. They were naming streets. Now, I understand there's a whole nother side of that where some of you are like, yeah, Trump's the Antichrist because they're They're being sucked into his evil ways and stuff. I don't think Trump's the Antichrist, but I do think if Trump's in office, Israel has more of a friend. And the Bible does talk about, I will bless the nation that blesses Israel, and I will curse the nation that curses Israel. The World Economic Forum will be sad if Trump gets elected. And also greater stability in the Middle East will probably be likely. If you measure what happened during the Trump administration and versus the Biden administration, which ones had more stability in the Middle East? Well, as soon as Trump was out of office, the Middle East has gone nuts, totally nuts. There is a question, you know, could the Middle East powers be readying for a Trump administration? The winds of change are in the air and people are, nations and presidents and dictators are saying, what do we do if Trump is in office? And they know what to expect from his previous administration, which is kind of interesting. Also, with Trump in office, he has always been more pro-border and wanting, you know, the Border Patrol, hands down, want to be able to do their jobs where they haven't been in this last three and a half years. But I think as Christians, you know, we have to kind of remember what the Bible says about what we're supposed to be doing. You know, if you just say, I don't care about all those issues and I'm not even sure my vote matters and it's all evil, if you just kind of put it all out there, I think you're not really carefully looking at the issues and the policies that are in place and the ones who are making them. But in 2 Thessalonians, would you turn there real quick, 2 Thessalonians chapter two, I just wanna remind you of one of the major things that we're supposed to do in the last days and what our job is as Christians. And let's just kind of quickly review. I love this whole passage. 2 Thessalonians chapter two, we'll start in verse one. It says, now we beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto him. Did you notice there's two events right there? The first one mentioned is by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together. What's the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ? What are we talking about there? Second coming, but when it says, and by our gathering together under him, what's that? rapture of the church. That's important to note that. So we're talking about both events there. Verse two, that ye be not soon shaken in mind or troubled, neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us, that the day of Christ is at hand. One of the things that we always see when you talk about Bible prophecy, one of the messages that's overwhelming is don't be troubled by this stuff. So if you're into Bible prophecy and you end up being troubled, you're doing it wrong. You gotta read it differently. If you're freaked out, Jesus even said, don't be troubled. These things will have to come to pass before all these things. Like don't be troubled, Jesus said in Matthew 24. Paul said it in First Thessalonians chapter four and five. Comfort one another with these words. Knowing the end of the way God's gonna shake things out should be a comfort and it should make you feel more at peace. That's a theme. It shouldn't be troubling your soul. You shouldn't let your soul be shaken, it says there in verse two. Then it says in verse 3, let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except there be a falling away first. And that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? So this is a description of the Antichrist coming. He'll be worshiped, he'll be set up to be worshiped as God, even implied here is the abomination of desolation spoken of by Jesus in Matthew 24, Daniel in Daniel chapter nine. So this is all congruent with all the other Bible prophecy things. But now we kind of get to the crux of the matter, verse six. It says, and now you know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work. Only he who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believeth not the truth but have pleasure in unrighteousness. This is a description. So, you know, we read about, you know, in verses, you know, two through five, basically that the Antichrist is coming, he's gonna commit the abomination of desolation. But the next verses sort of talk about what the timing is on that, and what has to sort of happen first, or what is happening first. And, you know, this King James language, you get it a little bit lost, but I think one of the key operative sections is this verses six through eight. And I put it up here in the ESV version, because it's a little more easy to read. But let's note a few of these things that are most important. First of all, it says, and you know. what is restraining him now, so that he may be revealed in his time. There's something restraining this Antichrist character, this world leader, who's gonna be lying and deceiving and all that other stuff. Something's restraining him now, but eventually he'll be revealed. There's a timing that's involved here. Verse seven, for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Boy, that means we're already seeing precursors to the Antichrist coming, and one of those is the idea of lawlessness, and is already at work, only he who now restrains. King James says let, like a let in tennis, when the ball hits the net and is stopped from going over. That's the old school word let, the way they used it back in the 1600s. But the word is restrain. He who now restrains, it says, it will do so until he, the one who restrains, is out of the way. Then, and only then, the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming." So when is the Antichrist going to be done away with? The second coming of Christ. That's when Jesus is going to intervene. But what's keeping the Antichrist from coming? Well, there's an interesting thing here. He who now restrains will do it until he, the one who's restraining, is out of the way, and then the lawless one will be revealed. So then it starts to become the question of, you know, who is that that is restraining or letting, as the King James puts it? So there's a debate. Is it the church or is it the Holy Spirit? I believe the answer is yes. I think it's both. Where is the Holy Spirit? What's the whole thing we're in the book of Acts all about? The book of Acts is all about the coming upon of the Holy Spirit. And where did he come upon? The church of Jesus Christ. And that's how the Holy Spirit is moving in the world today through his people, through the body of Christ. And I think if I had to die on the battlefield, I'd say for sure the Holy Spirit. But I think it's interesting because how is the Holy Spirit most seen and understood today? If you read your Bible carefully, the Holy Spirit moved differently in different dispensations of time throughout the ages. And Jesus even said, this is gonna be good that I leave you because my Holy Spirit's gonna come and comfort you and remind you of all truth. and the power of the Spirit's gonna come upon you. That's the church of Jesus Christ. So when you read it, only he who now restrains the Holy Spirit working through and in his people, the church, it will do so until he is taken out of the way. When's the church gonna be taken out of the way? the rapture of the church, and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming." So, you know, now you say, well, Brett, won't the Holy Spirit be in the world during the great tribulation? I believe the answer is yes to that. Wasn't he in the world before Pentecost happened in Acts chapter two? Yes, he was, but it was a different dispensation of time. The church age, or the age of grace, as the dispensationalists often call it, is where the Holy Spirit moves kind of radically different. I believe when the rapture of the church happens, we'll see the Holy Spirit move in a different way. And in some ways, it's going to be more Old Testament-y. What do you mean by that? Well, just remember, there's gonna be a couple of prophets that are gonna show up in Jerusalem, breathing fire and burning people up. That sounds Old Testament to me. And the Holy Spirit is gonna be moving in and through those guys in a way that we kind of saw like Elijah and Moses and others like that. So I believe that the point is the Holy Spirit is work through his church today. And one of the things that church is supposed to be doing by the power of the Holy Spirit is restraining. Restraining what? The coming of the Antichrist and the progression of all the things that will lead up to the tribulation period. That's why Jesus taught us through that little parable in Luke chapter 19, you can jot it down in your notes, Luke 19, verses 12 through 27. He gives the parable of the minas or the, you know, it's like a one month salary. And you know, the ruler is gonna go to another city and get his kingdom. in this parable. And then he goes away. And then some of the people, he gives each one of them a Mina, but some of them invest and some of them don't. The one guy that doesn't, he loses his Mina and it's given to another. The people that rejected the king altogether are gonna be slain in that little parable. It's like a scary parable. What's that one about? Well, the thing that's interesting is the master told them in Luke, in this story, Luke 19 verse 13, this is where this kind of comes into play. Occupy, he said, until I come. Greek word is an interesting word for this word occupy. And the word is pragmatium, which is a long word, but it means to do business and to put your capital to work. That which was given to you, you should use all that to invest and make it better and keep going, do business, business as usual almost. So here's the parable of the kingdom. And when the master comes back with his kingdom, in that parable Jesus told, the ones that occupied were the ones that were given more responsibility in his kingdom. So what does that all mean? Well, this idea of occupying is something that I think has been lost by the church. You know, our churches, we get so much into my own thing and it's all about me and my comfort and my joy and a victorious you and happy life and all this stuff, but we kind of forget one of the main things. And one of the main things happens to be that we're supposed to be restraining. We're supposed to be letting, holding back something, pushing the other way on the natural flow of the way the world's going. Are you doing that? Are you occupying with the talents and giftings God's given you to sort of push back? And here's where I kind of take this. One of the tiny little things we do, we've got other things too, but one of the things we have to maybe push back a little bit is a vote. When you and I vote, that's what we have, especially in America. There's places around the world, you don't even have that. You're just stuck with the government and the dictator and all that stuff. But here we have a vote. Isn't it amazing that Christians, if the 40 million Christians that don't vote this election season, which if it's like last time, then who knows who's gonna win. But if just the Christians would show up and occupy, it'd be a slam dunk. That's what's so shocking to me. Heartbreaking, really, if you think about it. So, you know, some gained, some lost, but the one that lost, he didn't do anything with his, that's kind of the one I would say, man, if you don't use your vote, are you like the one that's saying, well, I'm gonna take what I've been given, an opportunity to push, even if it's not completely pushing, but even if it's a little nudge with my little tiny vote. But if there's one thing the last several elections have told us is your vote does kind of matter. I mean, there's been some really close ones in the last several decades that I've been shocked. These huge, you know, millions of people and yet it gets down to just a few thousand votes. Kind of interesting. So when Christ's kingdom comes, he's gonna take account of how you use what you had. And we'll talk more about that in a second. This idea of occupying. One of my favorite clips I'd like to show you is Billy Graham in 1959. Do you guys remember, some of you are old enough, do you remember when Billy Graham was fiery? He was fiery. He was, you know, a lot of you, and like, by the time I was old, you know, watching him, he was really the mellow Billy Graham. But if you watch some of these old ones, man, but man, how true is this? Check this little clip out of Billy in 1959. Bible says that this hope of his coming should cause us to watch. Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. The Bible indicates that to us that know him it should purify us, and every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself. It should make us united as Christians, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake, and be at peace among yourselves. It should cause us to evangelize. Occupy till I come. Occupy with loving your neighbor. Occupy! Don't sit down and say the Lord's coming. I'm just going to sit here and wait for his coming. No. That's sin against God. That's displeasing to God. Go back to your school. Go back to your home. Go back to your church. Go back to your social obligations. And work as you've never worked. Occupy till I come. Go down among the people. Help the poor. Love your neighbor no matter what race he may be. Give food for the hungry. Get involved in the world in which we are living as a light and a shining testimony for Christ. Ye are the salt of the earth, ye are the light of the world. Live for Him, and this burning hope within you should make you live more intensely for Him than ever before, with far deeper commitment to Him than ever before. Amen, that's preaching right there. That's some old school fiery preaching, yep. But there's a real place for that, I think. And boy, we don't hear that as much anymore. But all of this is a theme, this idea of occupy till I come. That's what Jesus taught in that little parable that's so powerful. Jesus said it more directly in Matthew 24, when he said, "'Blessed is that servant who the Lord, when he comes, "'shall find so doing. "'Verily I say unto you, "'he shall make him ruler over all his goods.'" That's the guy that was faithful with what he was given, and he's gonna be given more to be entrusted to, just like the parable there from our previous section there. He goes on and talks about the evil servant when he says in Matthew 24, but, and if that evil servant, you don't wanna be this guy, shall say in his heart, My lord delays his coming, and he begins to smite his fellow servants, and eat and drink with the drunken. The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looks not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites, and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Man, I don't want any part of that. Whoever that group is, stay away from that. So back to 2 Thessalonians, the key question here in our reading, what are we, by the power of the Holy Spirit, restraining? Well, this passage that we read here in 2 Thessalonians gives us a couple big ones, two main ones. Number one, apostasy. Did you see that in verse three, where it says, let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come, except there be a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition. One of the things that Paul says here to the Thessalonican churches, you'll see a falling away. What's that mean, a falling away? The Greek word there is apostasia, a fancy word, but it's a very specific word with a specific definition. It means rebellion and abandonment or an apostasy. That's where that comes from. The word apostasia has two Greek definitions in its dictionary. One, a falling away of key and true doctrines of the Bible to heretical teaching. Is that happening today? We see that all over the place. And then two, a complete renunciation of the Christian faith, which results in a full abandonment of Christ. That can mean either one of those things, falling away of false teaching or perfectly rejecting Christ altogether. That's all apostasy. Jesus also mentioned this in his Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, verse 10. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. Like this is part of the common theme Jesus talked about, Paul talked about. So apostasy or the falling away is the first thing that we're restraining, hopefully. And boy, I sometimes wonder if the church gets worse and worse at this first one about, you know, holding back apostasy, could that be meaning that we're getting closer and closer to the time? It's like when you see those levees start to break in the South. It doesn't start necessarily with a giant gush of water, but water starts leaking through some of the cracks and more cracks, and pretty soon it's, and people are trying to put sandbags and plug them, and they're still holding it back, but kind of barely, and then eventually, boom, it just goes. I wonder if we're at that place right now in our lives where we Christians are putting sandbags and trying to preach the gospel and trying to speak the truth, but it's about to break. The falling away, we're seeing that. But not only falling away, the second other distinction of this time period, according to Paul here in Thessalonians, is verses nine through 10, when he says, even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, it says, with all power and signs and lying wonders and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they receive not the love of the truth. that they might be saved. There's people that love the truth, and there's people that plug their ears and don't wanna know the truth. Deception is part of the deal. Deception, deceivableness, and lying wonders. Are we seeing deception and lying wonders today? Man, we could go on pretty easy about this one, and we've talked about all these. You know, gender issues is one of the biggest lies out there that's so obvious. You know, it's amazing to me that so many people have sort of acted like this is perfectly normal, perfectly okay, that men are competing against girls and going into their locker rooms, perfectly normal. The rest of the world thinks we're nuts. But here we are in the United States deceived in sort of a profound way that no one's really born male or female. They're just whatever gender they are. By the way, I like to bring this up because people... Nobody wants to talk about this, but the American College of Pediatricians, they have a position statement they made on this, and nobody's reading it. It's like the gender issue is not biological or medical, it's just political. And it's so obvious, because listen to what these guys said in their abstract. Gender dysphoria, which they still call it that, resolves in the vast majority of patients by late adolescence. In other words, if a kid's going through gender dysphoria, usually it solves itself before they get to be out of adolescence. Currently, this abstract says, there is vigorous, albeit suppressed, debate among physicians, therapists, and academics regarding what is fast becoming the new treatment standard for GD in children. This new paradigm is rooted in the assumption that GD is innate and involves pubertal suppression with gondotropin-releasing hormone, GnRH, agonists, followed by a use of cross-sex hormones, a combination that results in the sterility, often of minors. A review of the current literature suggests that this protocol is founded upon an unscientific gender ideology, and lacks evidence base, and violates the long-standing ethical principle of the first do-no-harm. So the FDA recently added a warning to the Gondotropin-releasing hormone, GnRH agonists, known as what we call, you'll hear them say, puberty blockers. after having identified a serious potential side effect for some that may cause dangerous surge of spinal fluid pressure on the brain and can cause headaches, nausea, double vision, and even permanent vision loss. And yet, you know, we've got these elementary school teachers and faculty promoting this and not telling parents. when their kids are gonna change their gender because they are, of course, the scientists that know. You know, it's amazing. It's just deception. We're seeing that on so many levels. One of the great deceptions out there is climate change. And if you don't believe it, just listen to the experts. Well, Babylon B is not the expert, but I had to show you this. I love how Babylon B, often in their satire, they sort of reveal things that are just kind of funny and true. But this says, experts warn hurricane in Hurricane Alley during hurricane season, clear sign of climate change. The article goes on, local resident Sarah Smith said she was also completely shocked by the coming storm. I was just going to Hurricane Hank's to pick up some of their hurricane meatloaf for dinner, when all of a sudden the town hurricane alarms started going off. Smith noted, you hear about these things happening in other places, but you never expect them to happen in your town. I guess this type of, this is the price we pay for destroying the planet with our dangerous CO2 emissions, Smith continued. Still, I never thought I'd live to see the day that a hurricane would hit Florida. Gee, I hope this won't affect this weekend's Miami Hurricanes game. It's so ridiculous. Oh, Brett, you just don't believe in science. That's the big claim out there. No, there's huge deception on this one, huge. You want to know what the real scientists are saying? You can look this up yourself, but Euro Weekly article that everybody should know about, a large group of scientists and professionals from across the world declare there is no climate emergency. This article goes on. Hundreds of scientists and professionals from across the world, led by the Norwegian physics Nobel prize laureate professor, Ivar Geiver, declared that there is no climate emergency. That should be known, that there's legitimate Nobel Prize winning scientists that are saying, no, it's all just a bunch of lies and it's all political and power grab is what it is. Now, we can just go on and on. The deception that an unborn child is just a blob of fetal tissue, that's maybe the worst of all the worst. The deception that it's my body, my choice. That's deception. There's so many people that are deceived. It's not just your body, it's another person. That when you chose to have intimacy romantically with your boyfriend and your boyfriend chose to have sexual relations with you, you chose to do something that, guess what? That's typically what happens, you get pregnant. That's why the Bible says you get married and then you do this more methodically without just kind of going from a fling somewhere and one night stand and then, oh no, what do I do with this pregnancy? It's the whole thing is a giant deception and abortion is at the top of that list. We could go on and on deception in our schools. Man, our schools are running rampant with deception. I think it's one of the chiefest of sinners in a lot of ways. We're sending our children mindlessly off to be indoctrinated, not as much educated. And I know different districts are different and there's differences from teacher to teacher. There's still some great teachers out there. We need to be praying for them because they're an endangered species. Talk about climate change. Talk about the real endangered people, Christian teachers in the public school system. That's a dangerous role right there. But Christian teachers are on the defense every day. There's pressure for them to cave and teach crazy, weird ideologies and stuff like that. We should be sure, know that that's just all part of the deception. And Isaiah the prophet talked about some of the same stuff when he said, woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight. And Timothy, 2 Timothy 4, three through four, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned into fables. You know, this idea of truth has come up several times already tonight. And you know, some people say, you're not very loving. Pastors need to be more loving and not talk about things that are so offensive. But one of the things that by definition love is, is love actually rejoices in the truth, remember? From the love chapter itself, 1 Corinthians 13, six, it says, love rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. So one of the true marks of the last days would be a resistance to the truth. And guess what? To occupy until he comes, you and I should be purveyors of truth. We should be pointing people in the direction of truth. And that's not gonna be popular. People won't like you for that. Remember, Jesus told us in John, they hated me first, that's why they hate you. One of the biggest mistakes pastors, churches, Christians make is try to be the friend of the world. Oh, we're supposed to love, yes, and be loving for sure. But loving equals also rejoicing in the truth, not rejoicing in iniquity. That's the problem. We've tried to rejoice in iniquity. The churches are the rainbow churches, the alphabet soup churches that are out there embracing sexual immorality, along with a bunch of other ideologies that are totally anti-God. You know, like climate change. There's a lot of churches have got on the climate change bandwagon and they shouldn't have because climate change is really, it's just a old form of worship. People used to worship the earth back in Bible times too. And it's just a kind of a newer form of that, I guess is what we would say. But we should be busy declaring the truth, pointing others to the truth, being all about the truth. Now, speaking of that, I gotta wrap this first point up, because I'm still on point number one. I've been asked this question a lot in the last several weeks and even months, how can a Christian possibly vote? for someone who's a sinner? Or how can I vote for the lesser of two evils? And I gotta understand, people really struggle with this. This is a real struggle for a lot of people. And I understand their apparent dilemma. And if you're not carefully thinking through it and thinking biblically, I can see why it is a dilemma for some. But hopefully this will help. And I mentioned this a little bit on Wednesday night, but I'm going to say it again because our Prophecy Update crowd is a little bigger on these Friday Prophecy Updates, and I just really want to make this clear. Because when we make our decision for who our next president is going to be, we need to vote on policy, not on as much personality. I guess personality can be a factor in your reason why you'd vote for someone, but I think policy is way more important than the personality. That's the first thing. The second thing is, in a sense, did you know that God put leaders in power all throughout the Bible? In fact, we know certain names of the people that God, like, remember Cyrus? He was named a couple hundred years before he even became born and in power. The Lord said through the prophet, I have named you Cyrus before you were even born. And then along comes Cyrus and Cyrus was put into power. Was he a godly, God-fearing, wonderful man? No, but God put him in power. Guess what? God voted and in his world, one vote from God kind of wins. But God voted for Cyrus. And if you read it through, guess who else God voted for? Artaxerxes. Well, who's that? Read your Bible. You know, there's a lot of guys. Let's go to some that you maybe do remember. Samson. God voted for Samson and put him in charge of Israel and put him there. And guess what? Talk about flawed. Samson had a thing for prostitutes, man. He just, and he wouldn't go to, it'd be like if our president not only had a problem with prostitutes, you're like, yes, check. But what if our president went to say like Iran and wanted to go down and sleep with prostitutes in Iran just for fun, and then come back. Like this is Samson, that's who Samson was. And Samson was a self-centered, proud, arrogant, wacko. But guess what? God put him in power. God voted for him. What about David? I mean, this is a weird one because not only did God put David in power, but David was a murderer and an adulterer. And it was just cold-blooded murder what he did and committed adultery. And not only did God put him in power, but guess what? God loved David. That's shocking. I wouldn't vote for a murderer, an adulterer. God did, and guess what? You and I are created in the image of God, and the point of that is often I think we have to do things that are, like God's our model. We were created in his image, and guess what? In America, we get to help choose who our leaders are gonna be, and God chose leaders that were more sinful than Kamala and Trump combined. And so my point is, I think we have to be really careful not to just say, well, I can't vote for the lesser of two evils. If you're voting for anyone with a pulse other than Jesus, you're gonna get a big center. And good news, we already have a Messiah. We're not voting for a Messiah. We already have that. Thank the Lord for that. And he was sinless and perfect and he is qualified. I think that's why some of us are struggling with this one because we have Jesus and we choose Jesus. He's my leader. But when it comes to people that are leading our nations, you're not gonna find a Jesus out there. Jesus is the Messiah. He's not the president of the United States, but I'm thankful. I'll take Jesus over any leader anytime. But there are many issues here at stake that I've already mentioned in this introduction. that as Christians we need to have influence on. The sanctity of life is something that your vote matters. The very definition of what a family is, you can vote and one side very much defines family as different than the other side. You know, Democrats for a long time have not defined the family as a mom and a dad. But it's, you know, male and, you know, it's not Adam and Eve, it's Adam and Steve. That's for a long time. You know, there's one side that is always voting contrary to godly things, like what the definition of a family is. Now, I got to say, the Republicans are weaseling their way closer and closer to wrong in a lot of issues as well. That's just the sad thing. I can't say I perfectly identify or that Republicans, the platform represents my views. No, it doesn't. And they're getting further and further away from my views. Where's my platform? Right here. God's word is my platform. What the Bible says is my platform. But when it comes, if you're gonna vote one way or the other, guess which side actually tends to be a little closer and nudge things a little better toward godly things than the other group? It's very clear on this. The relationship with Israel. The Democrats are famous for not really supporting Israel. In fact, you just ask the Israelis what they think. And they'll tell you, I've been to Israel many, many times, stood in Jerusalem and talked to people on the street, and they get mad when we start talking about various leaders from the Democrat side. But what about the border? Are there biblical issues? You have fentanyl coming across the border, terrorists coming across the border. Are we even sovereign as a nation if we have just open borders and anybody can by the millions come through? That's an issue. that deals with things like fentanyl, human trafficking, terrorism possibilities. And so, if you as a Christian know that these are things we should be trying to resist, we're restraining, that's our job, that's your job description. We should be plugging up the holes in the dike, like we were talking about and saying, I'm gonna be a Christian, I'm gonna resist that. You may not be able to completely hold it all back, But your voting is one way you get to be in resistance. There's other ways we should be doing that too. But I'm reminded of James 4, 17, where it says, so whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him, it is sin. So that's something, for me personally, I can't just sit by and do nothing, knowing that I can use my vote to nudge our sinful corrupt world in a more godly direction. If it's at all possible, I'm gonna do that. and I'm not gonna waste that. So what do we do? I think we should for sure do three things really quick. The first thing you should make sure and always do during these times of elections is pray, pray. I exhort thee therefore, 1 Timothy 2, that first of all, not second of all, first of all, supplications, prayer, intercession, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. You and I, job number one, even more than voting, is to pray. Second thing that you and I need to do is trust, trust. It is better to trust in the Lord, Psalm 118, verse eight says, than to put confidence in men, amen? It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. Boy, I think that's true. So number one, pray. Number two, trust. And then thirdly, vote. And I'm gonna put that in that category that we've mentioned. Occupy until I come. Be that one that's resisting that hard flow of sinful, wacko, godless behavior. Our job as church people are to kind of restrain and hold that back if you read your Bible carefully. So the first change in the air is the elections. And it's gonna change things in a lot of ways. I think morality is gonna be either going in a better direction or a worse direction. The relationship with Israel, better or worse. Like we're gonna see the change, it's coming in four days. In four days, we're gonna see radical change. And a lot of the world is gonna make their decisions on what they're doing based on that as well. So what are some of the other changes in the air that are on my list of things? Well, the second one I wanna talk about is North Korean soldiers. in Russia, did you guys see that? This should be a little bit shocking. Like, what's going on? There's all kinds of video footage of these Korean guys coming to Russia. There are all these little Korean guys and all these big Russian soldiers are handing out their uniforms and giving them weapons. And some people believe these Korean soldiers, there's about 10,000 of them, 8,000 in one location. They say these are like the SEAL team North Korea, if they even have such a thing. But some say these are their best soldiers that are being sent to Russia. What's going on there? One guy that I'm not going to be sad to see go is Anthony Blinken. But this Reuters article, Blinken expects North Korea troops to enter fight against Ukraine in the coming days. This was just yesterday. And this video kind of explains what's going on. Check it out. We now assess that there are some 10,000 North Korean soldiers in total in Russia. And the most recent information indicates that as many as 8,000 of those North Korean forces have been deployed to the Kursk region. We've not yet seen these troops deploy into combat against Ukrainian forces, but we would expect that to happen in the coming days. Russia has been training DPRK soldiers in artillery, UAVs, basic infantry operations, including trench clearing, indicating that they fully intend to use these forces in frontline operations. Should these troops engage in combat or combat support operations against Ukraine, they would become legitimate military targets. Now, one of the reasons that Russia is turning to these North Korean troops is that it's desperate. Putin has been throwing more and more Russians into a meat grinder of his own making in Ukraine. Now, he's turning to North Korean troops. And that is a clear sign of weakness. So the big question is, is Blinken right about that? And I'm not going to say I know more than he does. He should know more than I do, but I doubt it. Anyway, this is one of the more clueless, but I digress. But is Putin, is this a sign of weakness? It could be, but there's a bunch of experts that are saying it's quite the opposite. One of the things that you might wonder about Putin is we have tried to isolate him through financial withholding and trying to starve him out financially and stuff like that. We wanted him to be alone and feel alone in the world. That was the United States' goal. But one of the things we're seeing is Putin is gathering a team of people around him. And you say, well, you know, North Korea is crazy, but they've been isolated and alone, and suddenly they have a buddy with Putin. Why would, you know, the North Koreans, why would they send their top troops to Russia? What's in it for them? Well, there's an exchanging of weaponry that's gonna be happening there, technology, stuff like that, that they think both of these nations are gonna benefit from. And should this make anybody else nervous that a nation on the other side of the world, we think, oh, whatever, North Korea can do whatever they want, but we're seeing with this Russian-Ukrainian war, The question is, is it getting worse or is it getting better? Is it gonna end? Nobody really knows, but there's a big sense that change is in the air when it comes to this issue. Now, one of the things that people are starting to worry about is, has World War III already started? That's a real concern. In fact, Newsweek article, World War III has already begun, J.P. Morgan Boss says. Top executive at J.P. Morgan sounded the alarm about the beginning of World War III. But one expert told Newsweek it's not time to panic just yet. The bank institution's CEO, Jamie Dimon, said in a recent speech at the Institute of International Finance that the current conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East has already begun the Third World War. Diamond previously called Russia, North Korea and Iran the evil axis that alongside of China will hurt institutions like NATO. And they're beginning to talk about doing it now. Diamond said at the event they're not talking about waiting 20 years and so the risk of this is extraordinary if you read history you know what I'm talking about. See, the thing is, the change in the air, as it turns out, Putin's not alone, he's got North Koreans, but there's some other things that people are talking about, change in the air. Item number three on my list, Russian-Ukrainian war. What's going on, is there change in the air? Well, Newsweek article, again, Zelensky reveals first step to ending Russia-Ukraine war. Wouldn't that be great, you know, you think? Moscow ending their aerial attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure could provide a starting point for negotiations to end, this article says. The war started by President Putin, Zelensky said. The Ukrainian president told journalists that getting a result on stopping Russia's continued targeting of energy and cargo ships could signal that Moscow may be ready to end the war. Newsweek has emailed the Ukrainian president's office for comment. So on one hand, they're saying, hey, maybe there's hope for this to end. But the U.S. News and World Report article says this, in Ukraine, hopes of war break through slim. Whoever wins U.S. election. For many Ukrainians, the outcome of the U.S. election next week and its impact on the war with Russia feels less likely to be pivotal than it once did. See, some people thought, well, when Trump gets in there, this war will be over. And that's what Trump says. I'll have that thing over, you know, first 10 minutes I'm in office kind of thing. But even with the, you know, the Democrats' unprecedented financial aid that they've given to the Ukrainian war effort, there's still battlefield losses and accelerated in the east. And Ukraine has grown impatient with Joe Biden's reluctance to let it unleash Western weapons on targets that are deep into Russia. So there's all kinds of controversy that still swirls, even though we've given billions and billions and billions of dollars to the effort in Ukraine, the Ukrainians are still kind of mad that we haven't given them the weapons that are offensive that will take out Moscow. So, What's going to happen if Trump gets in? He's criticized the level of U.S. support for Kyiv, refused to say he wants Ukraine to win the war, and promised, if elected, to end the conflict before it even takes office in January without even explaining how. So we'll see. Is this one of those things where Trump just kind of miraculously pulls out something that's kind of amazing, or is it Mexico paying for the border wall? Did that really happen? Well, not yet, but you never know with Trump about what's gonna happen, but this article goes on basically saying that either way, whether it's Kamala or Trump, they're gonna say, the Ukrainians feel like it's a lose-lose. All our hopes are not looking at the election, but to think about how to provide ourselves both through internal resources and otherwise. So there's kind of a big question about what's going to happen in the next few weeks with the Ukrainian war. And some believe it could either be solved. Others believe, no, it's just going to be the gateway to open up World War III. And we're already seeing that with the North Koreans going in there. So that's another big thing. Change is in the air. Here's a big one as it relates to Putin and others. Changes in the air in the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia. Did you guys see about how this is going? Now if you don't know what BRICS is, basically it was a meeting of five nations that decided to be a team. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. That's the B-R-I-C-S. And it started out with just those five. But over the last few years, their annual meeting, just a few weeks ago they had their big meeting, also present were quite a few other nations. Some say there were more than 30 nations in attendance to Putin's and Brick's big meeting. but six of which those nations also have officially become part of BRICS. So now it's 11 official nations in BRICS in January. Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. Now this is getting to be quite a team of nations. Should that be of interest to the rest of the world? What if you're not on the team? What if you're not asked to be on the BRICS team? Do you think the United States are going to be asked to be on the BRICS team? The whole reason the BRICS nations have come together is to pull the United States out of their position of power. We've been, in their mind, the bully on the block. The American dollar is the currency of the world. Because of that, they have to pay exchange fees, and the rest of the world has been bullied by the United States. That's their view. BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia. Putin laid out his plan and nations are lining up. In fact, right now there's 28 nations that either are on the BRICS team officially or want to be considered or even have applied to be a part of that team. So at the end of August, this all happened where they started forming, but now this new group is particularly interesting because Iran, Saudi Arabia have become enemies. They've been enemies for quite some time now, but they're both trying to be part of BRICS. That's kind of interesting. So how's that going to happen? I'm not sure. But some believe China is the one that brokered sort of a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran that is now allowing them to both be part of BRICS. Multiple dictatorships who oppose the United States and the West are also lining up to join the BRICS group. Many other countries, maybe 28, are partner states or have applied to join. This CNN article The West, once Putin isolated, a major summit he's hosting shows he's far from alone. See, this is where maybe we've been a little short-sighted from the United States' point of view. We all think, hey, we've got sanctions, financial sanctions against Putin, and he's alone, and there's no one in there, he's just alone out there. Not really. He's got more people on his team than we have on our team. Nearly three years after Russia's invasion of Ukraine saw Moscow condemned by countries globally, Leader Vladimir Putin is staging a summit with more than a dozen world leaders in a pointed signal from the autocrat that far from being alone is his thing and emerging as a coalition of countries that stand behind him. The three-day BRICS summit, which started Tuesday in the southwestern Russian city of Kazan, is the first meeting of the group of major emerging economies. Putin met with China's Xi Jinping at the summit on Tuesday and claimed afterwards their country's partnership was a model of how a relationship between states should be built. So China and Russia, Russia is not alone. Our trying to isolate him has not happened. And it seems that he's gaining in steam in some ways. This Jerusalem Post article bricks opening a multipolar world order is forming as Putin, they say Russia is looking to alternative currencies amidst US sanctions, but he falls short of outlining details. If you look at a map of these BRICS nations, the dark blue are the official BRICS countries right now, but the light blue are all the other countries that want to be part of the team. And this is a big change that's in the air. It's something to watch as Bible prophecy, you kind of wonder, now why is the United States not even really mentioned in Bible prophecy? And there's all these other nations. One of the things you'll notice is the brick nations are all mentioned in Bible prophecy. at least the ones that are signing up right now, they're still powerful and doing stuff in the last days, but the United States, somehow we're kind of off the table. What's going to happen with that? Is BRICS part of that, that's sort of going to dethrone the United States as the bully on campus or whatever they like to present it? So something to be watching is this BRICS nations and this federation of nations. And Putin is not alone. I think that's a misnomer that a lot of times we Westerners Think. Also, another change in the air. I just sensed that. In the month of November, I thought we could talk about a lot. I could just go on and on. What about weapons technology? Is there a change in the air? One of the things the Russian-Ukrainian war has shown is that the weapon of choice is drones. And it's not tanks, it's these drones. And they're modernizing drones, you know, just when you think drones are amazing. They keep modernizing and using more and more tech. Have you guys seen the drone footage we get before each service, like on Sundays and Wednesdays online? A lot of people think that's like stock footage that we had some professional. No, that's live, like right before the service, we got, there's a couple of kids in our church, they get up there on the roof and they fly the drone. And it's like this amazing footage, it's incredible. And I wish everybody knew that. No, that's live. That's like real people driving into church and stuff. But, you know, can you imagine, not that we would do this, but can you imagine if we just strapped a little grenade to one of those and just flew it around? And if you didn't park in the right place, you know, you come back out to your car after church like, well, your car's blown up. Sure doesn't work there. Well, we would never do that. We would never do that. But that's how the Ukrainians are using drones, and they've made it very modern. It's not just using duct tape and stuff, they're actually, I wanted to show you this video." These red boxes represent the first days of a new epoch of warfare. That's because this drone, developed by startup Ukrainian company Saker, is autonomously identifying targets. Within each box is what a computer vision algorithm believes is a target that could be strategically beneficial to destroy. Well, the text above indicates what, in particular, it thinks it is, and the number to the right is an indication of the software's confidence in what it believes it sees. The short-term benefit of autonomy is straightforward. Russia's most effective countermeasure is to interrupt the signal between a drone operator and a drone, so what if the drone doesn't need a signal? What if a drone, once deployed, could independently navigate to, identify, and strike a target? Or even, what if it could determine its target and decide to strike it itself, without any authorization by an operator? While all indications suggest that there's not yet wide-scale use of AI drones in Ukraine, Sacker's scrappy autonomous drones have reportedly already destroyed Russian targets in autonomous mode, meaning the era of AI warfare has quietly begun. So these autonomous drones, basically it takes the problem of, I mean, the Russians were getting good at finding out where the operators were and taking them out. And then the drone becomes unusable because he won't be able to fire or drop the detonation or whatever. But now they're able to kind of decide for themselves. And you know how they're doing that is with AI. And this is technology that's happening really fast. AI is being applied to these drones so that you don't really have to have a human operator. They'll just identify a Russian tank and know that that's an enemy vehicle and just take it out. And it's really something. When you watch this technology and how far it's come in just in the last year, it makes you realize there's a grenade and that's the Atheist Greek parking lot right there. But anyway, no, that's a very real threat. A grenade dropped in the top of a tank, there's a bunch of footage of that where they literally just drop grenades in the tank and it disables the whole thing. Which is interesting when it comes to the New York Post article, ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt says U.S. military should ditch tanks in favor of drones. Give them away, he says. Schmidt is listed by Bloomberg Billionaires Index as the 51st richest person in the world with a fortune valued at $33.3 billion as of Wednesday. The former Google boss said that the Russian-Ukraine war has shown how a $5,000 drone can destroy a $5 million tank. Eric Schmidt, the billionaire investor and former CEO of Google, said it's time for the U.S. military to do away with tanks, artillery, and mortars in favor of aerial drones, similar to the ones that he is building to help Ukraine. He said, I read somewhere that the U.S. had thousands and thousands of tanks stored somewhere. He told Future Investment Initiative in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, give them away, buy a drone instead. That's what this guy is saying, who's making his billions and billions of dollars being used to make these drones. This Byte article, general in charge of nuclear weapons says, heck, let's add some AI. What could go wrong? Air Force General Anthony Cotton, the man in charge of the United States stockpile of nuclear missiles, says the Pentagon is doubling down on artificial intelligence. An alarming sign that the hype surrounding the tech has infiltrated even the highest ranks of the US military. Does it make anybody nervous that he would say, well, let's go and throw in some AI to our nuclear weaponry? As Air Force and Space Forces Magazine reports, Cotton made the comments during a 2024 Department of Defense Intelligence Information System Conference earlier this month. Fortunately, Cotton stopped short of promising to hand over the nuclear codes to a potentially malicious AI. But he said, AI will enhance our decision-making capabilities, he said, but we must never allow artificial intelligence to make those decisions for us. The US military is planning to spend a whopping 1.7 trillion dollars to bring its nuclear arsenal up to date with AI. So this is where weapon technology is going and it's made a lot of people nervous. AI is not perfect. and taking people out of it makes a lot of people nervous. Also these drone swarms and stuff that you read about and drones, when you read the book of Revelation, you do kind of wonder if some of those things John saw in his depiction of the tribulation period are swarms of drones, when he calls these locusts with fire coming out of their nostrils and stuff, who knows? But we see change in military technology, and it's happening fast. Your drone technology was amazing a month ago, it's even more amazing now, and it's one of the most rapid moving weapons technology that's happening right now. Change is in the air. Another change that's shifting gears, there's a first for Israel. There's a change in the air when it comes to Israel. Israel has seemed to take a new strategy against Iran. It's no longer allowing Tehran to sort of have this shadow war through the proxies. If you guys know the whole thing, Iran has stayed squeaky clean by using these other nations and proxy groups to do its bidding against Israel. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the rebels in Syria, people in Iraq, like the Iranians have all these people that have been shooting Israel missiles at them for years and years and years now. They've been developing them. Now, if you've been following what we've been talking about in Prophecy Update, Israel has been soundly defeating these proxies. Hamas is all but done and gone. Hezbollah is up against the ropes. If you're watching what's going on in the north, there's talk of a peace deal already because Hezbollah has been, you know, Basically, they cut the head of the snake off and all its leaders, and it's like they got this goofy guy that's in there right now, it's the leader of Hezbollah, but everybody knows he's not really that great of a guy, he doesn't know what he's doing. It's because they're out of leaders. Either a pager blew him up, or Israeli Mossad took him out, or a missile got him, and Hezbollah is up against the ropes. They're pushing back all against the northern border so Israel can go back to their homes up in the north. But the question is, when will there be a peace treaty? Who knows? But what's changing now is Israel having really shown its ability to take out these proxies, Israel's no longer hiding the fact that we know it's Iran who's doing all this. It's all the Iranians. Usually, when Israel has attacked Iran, like, we know that Israel blew up some nuclear facilities several years ago in Iran. We know that they've attacked them periodically, and even Mossad agents have put bombs in places in Tehran. We know that. But Israel has never admitted it. That's a thing about the Israeli military. They never admit to doing anything. They don't deny it or say anything about it. They're just completely silent. They just do what they need to do to survive. And that's been kind of a spooky thing about Israel. You just never really know. But a big change happened when Israel last week sent their retaliative strike against Iran because of the most recent barrage of missiles. Remember, the Iranians have sent more than 400 ballistic missiles toward Israel in the last couple of months. That's no joke. So Israel said, we're gonna retaliate. And then they retaliated. And then they said, here's what we did. And they spelled it out to the world what they did. That's all something that's very new in Israeli warfare policy. In fact, if you look at the CNN article, Israel strikes on Iran broke a 40 year taboo. Tehran faces tough choices about what to do next. This article says, Iran rushed to downplay the impact of Israel's strikes on its territory this weekend, suggesting that it's taken an off-ramp to avoid a wider war. But the attack set a precedent the Islamic Republic has tried to avoid since its inception 40 years ago. The adversaries had spent decades avoiding direct confrontation, instead choosing to exchange punches in the shadow war, the proxy war. Israel used clandestine operations to assassinate key Iranian figures, execute cyber attacks on vital facilities, as Iran continued activating its Arab proxy militias to attack the Jewish state. Saturday's attack marked the first time Israel has acknowledged striking Iran, bringing the shadow war into the open, and crossing a threshold that has led some in the Islamic Republic to question the country's deterrence capabilities. If you know it, at first people were saying, oh, Israel didn't do much in retaliation. But actually, if you wanna know what they really did, they took out all their air defense systems. Iran sits naked and totally susceptible to all of this. Israel can fly whatever jet plane they want to over all of Iran right now. because they took out all their listening devices, their radar, sonar technology, their anti-aircraft missile platforms. Israel can fly whatever they want right now over Tehran, and that makes them nervous. So what does the Khomeini do? If you're the Iranian leader, what do you do? And it's gonna be interesting because some say if he was smart, he'd do nothing, because he really is vulnerable right now. But most say he's not very smart, he's more prideful. Plus his religion says he needs to create chaos even in Iran to bring the 12th Imam. Like his eschatology is we need to have chaos in Iran from Israel so that our Mahdi will come and save us. Like that's a dangerous bit of eschatology. How would you feel if we're as Christians, we're saying, well, Jesus is gonna come back, but we have to blow up everybody before he'll do that. That's what the Iranian eschatology is. We don't believe that. We believe we should just love one another, preach the gospel, speak the truth. The Iranian, you know, eschatology is chaos in the world, death of Iranians and everybody else, death to the Jews, death to America, death to everyone, and then the Mahdi will come. That's a dangerous eschatology. So, you know, Khamenei here, he's kind of in a weird spot right now. Is he gonna retaliate? And if he does, Israel's kind of turned the page and said, we're not worried about your proxies anymore, we're going right after you. and we're making it a clear and present danger that you know we're not gonna mess around. So some fear that this is gonna escalate rather than stop. The whole tit for tat battle that we've been seeing back and forth between Iran and Israel, it's all been happening. We can't really take much more of that before Israel escalates to something really large. Change in the air. It's a whole new way of doing war for Israel. Those of us who have been watching Israel, we think this is important and something to watch. Let's see, where are we at? Number seven, I gotta start wrapping it up here. Changes in the air when it comes to the Temple Mount. Now, the Temple Mount, of course, if you know the tribulation period, there's gonna be a temple built on it. Most call it the third temple, but if you've studied temple periods with me, there's actually like seven temple periods we could talk about. But one of those temple periods is when the tribulation period starts, there's gonna be a rebuilding of the temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. But how do you do that? Well, I believe Daniel chapter nine gives us the hint that the Antichrist is gonna come and broker a deal where they'll be able to build their temple on the Temple Mount. One of the things that has been so quiet though for the past several hundred years is the Jews not really desiring or talking much about building the temple on the Temple Mount. But back when Israel took over the Temple Mount, and the wars of Israel, and when Moshe Dayan took over the Temple Mount, there was a small group of Jews that started saying, we need to get ready to build the temple. because they took possession of the temple. Now Moshe Dad gave the Temple Mount back to the Jordanians who are currently in control of the Temple Mount. It's amazing, when you go to Israel, you go through Israeli security, Israeli airports, Israeli checkpoints, but when you go to the Temple Mount, you go and the Jordanians control that little region. of that place. So like, for example, there was a little group called the Temple Institute. We've always kind of thought they were a quirky little group of Jewish people, but they've been faithfully building, preparing all the things you'd need to build a temple. All the equipment, all the furniture, including the lavers and the altar, and even the candlestick, which you say, how do they do that? Lots of gold. Because the candlestick was large and it was pure gold, the whole thing. Billions and billions of dollars worth of gold. They already have that now. They've got the gold. Now, they haven't put it all together, because that'd be hard to secure, but they have it all ready to roll, the gold and all that. You've heard of them getting the red heifers and all that stuff. They're getting everything ready to build the temple. Now, what's interesting though, is that movement, the Temple Institute, along with others, it's starting to become more of a known issue around the world, that there's these Jews that wanna build the temple. Some are worried that the Jews are gonna blow up the Dome of the Rock Shrine. That's the golden dome you're looking at here in this picture. That's a Muslim shrine there. It's not a mosque, that's a shrine. The Al-Asqa is the mosque that's on the Temple Mount with the gray dome. But some say they have to kind of blow this one up to make room for the Temple Mount. But if you know the Bible and what it says about it, there may not be a need to blow up the shrine of the mosque here of Muslims, but it's in a place called the Dome of the Spirits next to this religious facility. But Now in power, Israel's messianic far right is dead serious about building the Temple. It's starting to become a very serious thing that the Jews are really wanting to do. This was just August 29th of this year. Recruitment of Kohanim, anybody with the name Cohen. If you're a Jewish person and your last name is Cohen, you are one of the descendants of Aaron. That's one of the few people of Jews that can know what tribe they're from, if their last name is Cohen, they were from the sons of Aaron. I have a buddy, Rick Cohen, who's a Jewish guy, and I always call him Rabbi Rick, you know, because he's one of the Coens, like he could be one of the guys on the temple. But, you know, this recruitment of Kohanim, breeding of red heifers, architectural plans, anyone, by the way, have you seen the news about Ben Gvir and his cohorts? This is a powerful guy going up on the Temple Mount saying, we Jews should be able to be on our Temple Mount and pray. and it's infuriating the Muslims, but anyone who thinks Ben-Gavir and his cohorts want to only pray on the Temple Mount, this article says, look again, the big project is already underway. Itamar Ben-Gavir's visit to Jerusalem Temple Mount this month is demand to allow Jews to pray there and his call to build a synagogue on the site. But most believe this is just an act of deception. It conceals an orderly three-stage plan to seize control of the site and build a new temple. The demand for Jews to be permitted to pray at the Temple Mount, what Muslims call Haram al-Sharif, covers up a longer-term goal to demolish al-Aqsa Mosque and establish in its place a third temple. If you don't think that it's true, a lot of Muslims think it's true. The Jerusalem Post article says Saudi Arabia calls on international community to hold Israel accountable for Jews going up to the Temple Mount. Saudi Arabia's statement came after a Sunday report that National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gavir arrived at the Temple Mount entrance with a huge entourage. Like he came with his own kind of army and they just kind of walked up on the Temple Mount. What are you gonna do? That's kind of what he said. The country of Jordan, Jordan News article from the Jordan Times or whatever, countdown for the construction of the third temple is accelerating. The third temple is accelerated in Jerusalem. So this is just another sign of the times. There's going to be a temple built there. I don't believe we're gonna see that. I think we'll be raptured before that happens, which is kind of exciting. Because before we're raptured, you'd expect to see this kind of activity, the demand to build a temple on Jerusalem on the Temple Mount. And you say, but Brett, there's a problem with the Muslims and the Jews. Man, if the Jews get rid of the dome of the rock, see there's the, the picture of that there is the Al-Aqsa Mosque, that black dome that there, that's the most important Muslim building to the Islamic religion on the Temple Mount. But as it turns out, they're worried the Jews are gonna blow it up and take over the Temple Mount. That's not what's gonna happen. The Bible tells us that this Antichrist is gonna come and broker a peace deal. Read Daniel chapter nine. In that 70th week, the seven-year period called the Tribulation, there's gonna be a brokering of a deal, and the Jews are gonna think, awesome, and they're gonna sign the deal, fall for this deal, hook, line, and sinker, and build their temple. I think it's gonna be part of that peace deal that's gonna be signed, and they're gonna think they got away with it right up until, The Antichrist is gonna go in that very temple and declare himself to be God in the temple that he allowed the Jews to build. And that's when the Jews will know they're in big trouble. And the Jews will flee to the mountains of Petra and run for their lives from this world leader that's gonna dupe them into signing this peace treaty And they'll be hanging by a thread. The Jewish people will be hanging, because Antichrist is gonna make war against the Jewish people. This is what the Bible says. We've covered this in the book of Revelation, the book of Daniel. I'm not just making this stuff up, if you're wondering. It's all very clear in the Bible. But you say, well, Brett, the Jews will be hanging by a thread, and then they're in big trouble, and Antichrist is gonna make war. They're gonna be hiding in the wilderness of Petra? Yep. Then what? The second coming of Christ. At the end of the tribulation period, that's when Jesus returns, and he's gonna come to the rescue of the Jews, and that's when Christ is gonna make war against the nations of the world that have surrounded the Jews. You see, all the stuff we're seeing, anti-Israel, anti-Semitism, it's all part of that building up to what the Bible says is gonna happen at the end times. There's gonna be a hatred for Jews, they want a death to the Jews. The stuff we're seeing is all precursors. And so what you and I can know about this as Christian church that are gonna be raptured, we know these things should be signs of the times before the rapture of the church happens. We're not gonna see the fullness of those things because we're gonna be taken to heaven. Well, Brett, what if the pre-trib rapture is not true? What if you're raptured at the end of the tribulation? Well, the problem with that thinking is, then what did Paul mean when he said, we're not appointed unto wrath, but to obtain salvation through Christ? The tribulation period is called the time of the wrath of the Lamb. That's the name of the tribulation period, the time of the wrath of the Lamb. And we're not appointed unto wrath, but to obtain salvation. So I just don't believe the Bible teaches a post-trib rapture. But if you really wanna believe that, you can. We'll see who's right when we're all raptured and going to heaven. But all that to say, man, when we start to see these things happen, the Bible says, look up, for your redemption draweth nigh. I think it's a day where you and I, you say, Brett, this isn't all very encouraging, new weapons and drones, and we were supposed to be comforted tonight. Oh, but we are comforted because while the rest of the world thinks the world's falling apart, we as Bible believers see that everything's falling into place exactly the way the Bible says it would. There's nothing surprising here. Everything that we talked about tonight is like, wow, we're getting closer to exactly what the Bible says, which that's what, what do we do when that happens? Look up for your redemption draweth nigh. I think we have much to look forward to. Now, if it's still a ways off and we have hard times to go through, the Lord is gonna take care of us. He takes care of his bride, he takes care of his church. We don't have to be fearful, but we can put our trust. Remember, pray, trust, and then vote. Those are all things that we're supposed to do, amen? Amen. Lord, as we go our way tonight, we do sense changes in the air, and all of these changes are all pointing to what your word talks about as the last days. It makes us excited, but I pray that we would be busy occupying until you come. Help us to not have an apathetic view of just sitting around waiting for the rapture. Lord, you didn't tell us to do that. You told us to be busy, going in all the world, preaching the gospel, that we're to be salt and light in this dark world. Lord, give us wisdom in how we spend our time and what we do with our time. Lord, give us marching orders, Lord. I pray that you'd put in front of us opportunities where we can be light and salt to an ever-increasing measure. So bless your church, Lord. I pray that all those here in this room, plus all watching online, that as Christians, we'd be ignited and that we'd let our light so shine before all men. So bless these, your people, as we go our way. Bless the cinnamon rolls that we're about to have as much as possible, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.