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Welcome to the Plenteous Redemption podcast, where the cross and the culture are on a collision course for discussion. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign The Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. Under the Jews a stumbling block, under the Greeks foolishness, but under them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Now, here's your host, Thomas Ervin. Welcome back. If you would pray for us. We have put an offer on a house. It has been accepted. There were some stipulations that we wanted from them and they agreed. And so now a, um, an appraisal has been ordered and we'll see if the house, I believe the house is going to be appraised for more than what we're, we're paying for it. Yeah, it's a blessing. So, um, they were asking, uh, I don't know what they were originally asking, but by the time we got to them, they were asking two 30, which makes me tremble and we offered 210 and they asked for 220 and then we settled on 215. which is still way more than I want to spend on anything or be indebted to. But that's just how it is right now. We don't have $215,000 laying around. So yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, just frame it, put it on the wall. And so if you would pray about it, we have some options available to us. In this current market, I have a good credit score. I have good credit. It's somewhere around 765, which is pretty good. And the best interest rate you can get with that credit score right now is 7.2%. Yeah. Now, we have the option to buy down the credit score. which is, I don't know what devil came up with that, with that idea. So, which means that lower interest rates are available. If you will give the bank cash up front, they will give you, no, it's not a down payment. It does not go to your loan whatsoever. You're buying the interest rate. Now, to be fair, to be fair, I guess, These are the conversations I've been having off and on all day. If we were to pay an extra $3,600 over and above our closing costs, our interest rate would go from 7.2 to 6%, which means, if you consider that across the life of the loan, you're saving a lot. I mean, you're talking about tens of thousands of dollars. So it is a devilish way to do business that I wish didn't exist. But it is also a way to significantly lower your monthly payments, as well as cut down on the amount of money that you would pay over the life of the loan. So we are going to try and come up with the extra money to buy down our interest rate, as stupid as that sounds. Yeah, with the VA, so because of the VA, because I'm going through the VA, no down payment is required, and we do have a lot of flexibility. There are both positives and negatives to using the VA loan. The positives is that you get a lot of flexibility, and they do a lot of things for you. We're getting somewhere around $2,500, $3,000 that's given to us from Chase Bank. because it's a VA loan that helps to cover part of our closing costs, which is tremendously helpful. And so there are some positives. The negative is that because it's a VA loan and it's backed by the VA, the appraisal requirements are really stringent. It's very difficult. In fact, a lot of people don't even want to see a VA loan coming because they know they're going to have to fix stuff. And our request with the seller was that let us come look at the house, give you a list of things that you need to fix ahead of time. Otherwise, you need to be willing to pay for a second appraisal and not have us pay for a second appraisal. And so they were willing to do that and made some repairs and things. But in order to get it all done, we've got to pay closing costs. And then if we want to get to the 6%, we've got to pay an extra $3,600. so that that's in the plan either way um we i anticipate that's going to happen i just don't we don't have any guarantees that's going to happen yeah we it's it's a 30-year mortgage we plan to pay it off in 15 or less that's the goal so um so we would like to try and do what we can now to make that easier to help facilitate that and a lower interest rate lower monthly payments gives us more room to try and do that kind of thing. So what I'm asking from you all is to pray with us that the Lord continues to provide so far. We've got lots of good news today. And so I mean the extra $3,600 to buy down your interest rate. I don't know if that's good news or not. I'm on the fence about that. And then I called him back and said, so just to be sure, that $3,600, it gets applied to the loan? Oh, no. Yeah, but they also lose it in the long term. OK. because the interest rate goes down. And so because the interest rate goes down, they get the upfront payment, but they don't get the long term 30 years of sucking you dry. So you're just cutting it, cutting down on their ability to bleed you. All right. So that if you pray about that, that would be a blessing. I would my family and I would sure appreciate it. All right back back back to what you came here for Israel was taken captive in a Syria for about a hundred and then about and then about a hundred and thirty years later Judah was taken into Babylon. All right, so there's about a hundred and thirty year difference between when the Northern Kingdom was taken into captivity and the Southern Kingdom was taken and if you've never read about Israel being taken captive into a Syria. You should I mean it is wild, you know, they're taken into captivity and then the Assyrians moved into the promised land and they were living in Israel's land the Northern Kingdom, but not doing it in accord with God and so lions and bears kept eating them. And you know what they did? You know what God told them to do? He said, go get the Levites and bring them back and let them teach you how to live in my land. And so they went and got the Levites and brought them back and let the Levites teach them how to live in the promised land. It's just, I'm telling you, it's wild. So you got to go read that when you get a chance. Now, while in Babylon, for Judah while in Babylon God revealed to the Jews that the Gentiles would reign until the return of Jesus Christ. All right, that's primarily the book of Daniel now when it comes to Judas captivity that that captivity makes up a massive portion of your Old Testament. All right now Judah being captive in Babylon. That's the book of Ezra. That's the book of Nehemiah. That's the book of Daniel. That's the book of Jeremiah. That's parts of of Isaiah Zephaniah Haggai Zachariah all these books all deal directly with that what that directly or in some of them indirectly with that captivity lamentations. I mean all these books are connected to that and so to get the full picture of that you got to go through all those books to piece it all together. which indicates that's a very important event in your Bible. Does God use a massive portion of your Old Testament to tell you about it? And so we want to, you know, take special care to put a good focus on those things as the Bible does. Now, until the Lord's return, Israel will forcibly submit to Gentile rule. So why does the United Nations get to tell Israel what to do? Why does England get to tell Israel what to do? Why does America get to tell Israel what to do? Because they are under the thumb of Gentile nations until Jesus Christ comes back and fixes it. There's nothing that they can do. Now, in that scenario, the best situation is a strong America that supports Israel. relationship has been very beneficial for America, and very beneficial for Israel. We just happen to have a brain-dead human being in office now that is doing his best to ruin that. Now, when Persia, as King Cyrus, took Babylon, so Judah goes into captivity into Babylon, that's Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar goes through three sons, and the last son was a We'll just say he was a character. He saw the handwriting on the wall, literally, not figuratively. And that night, Persia took Babylon. And when Persia took Babylon, they took control of Babylon's captives, which is Judah, right? Now, Cyrus comes in and then King Cyrus sent Judah back to Jerusalem. But here's the catch. God said that Israel is going to remain many days without a king and without a sacrifice. They get to go back to the land occasionally, but they don't get to be Israel in the promised land. They are a group of people who that land was given to them, but because of their rejection of their God, Those rights have been temporarily put on hold. They've been temporarily removed from being able to have that special benefit that God gave them, which is terrible. So what Cyrus did is he said, you get to go back to the land. I want you to rebuild the temple. Well, who cares what Cyrus wants? Well, he's the king of the world right now. He's the top world power, and he's a Gentile, and the Gentiles are reigning, so you're going to do what he says. You had Zerubbabel, who is in Matthew chapter 1, and if I'm not mistaken, I believe he's also in the lineage of Jesus Christ and Luke. He's in the lineage of Jesus Christ, which means he's in the lineage in Matthew chapter 1 of the kings. All right, so he is a descendant of the kings of Israel, but he will never be king. Cyrus appointed him governor. You're going to go back, and you're going to be my governor in that land. You will not be king. As God said, you're going to abide many days without a king. You're subject to the Gentiles. It's just how it is. And that has been a torturous existence for Israel off and on. It's really been problematic, and it's going to continue to be that way until the Lord comes back. So Persia took Babylon and assumed control over Judah. King Cyrus sent Judah back to Jerusalem under his authority and with his permission. Now, when he sent them back, he told them to rebuild the temple. You know what else he told them? Is this how big it's going to be? Is this how long? Is this how wide? Cyrus told them what the dimensions of the temple were going to be. They are under control of the Gentiles. They're going back and building God's temple under the direction of a Gentile King and he pays for it. And so that's pretty incredible. And so that that's how that's going to go the current nation that exists in the Middle East that we call Israel. They are only there because Great Britain and the United Nations made this space and space in this special deal for them to be there. That's no different than Judah being sent back by Cyrus. That's another Gentile nation saying, OK, we'll let you go back there for a little while, but we're going to put boundaries on you. And I know that you were invaded and treated unbelievably barbaric by a bunch of animals, but you better be nice to them. Why? Because they're subject to Gentile powers. Now, I wish it wasn't so. I wish the Gentile powers would get out of their way and let them go do their job. And they would. Israel, for the modern political powers, for all its faults, that is one military you don't want to toy with. Their capability and what they have learned, imagine being surrounded for centuries by hundreds of millions of people who hate you. That's like saying, you know, we're going to give you a place to live. How about right in the middle of this snake pit? Don't get bit. Well, isn't it a place to live? What's wrong? And so they take Israel and they say, well, yeah, we'll give you this spot right here, surrounded by everybody who hates you. And because of that, they become battle-hardened, and they have developed a military that is unbelievably advanced and capable. Now, it's small, because the nation is small, but it's still not one you want to play with or cross the wrong way. They are incredibly powerful. Now, during Judah's captivity, Daniel was a prominent prophet in that time period. He was given these visions that revealed the relationship between Israel, the Gentiles, and the future reign of Christ. All that is laid out in the book of Daniel. He was given visions of a great statue and also of five wild beasts. Now, it's interesting, the statue, this great image of these beautiful medals, that's how man sees it. When you get to chapter 7, 8, when you get to, you know, so Daniel was split in two parts. The first six chapters are historic for the most part. There is some prophecy in there, but it's mostly historic. When you get to the second half of the book, chapter 7 through 12, it's heavily prophetic. Though, again, there is some historic information there, but the emphasis is prophecy. So the first part, man kind of gets to have a lot of word because it's historical events. And when man describes these kingdoms, he's like, oh, it's like a beautiful statue made of these beautiful metals. Then when you get to God and God describes it, he says it's like a bunch of wild, ravenous beast. Very different. God's opinion of it is not quite the same. And so he was given visions of a great statue and five wild beasts. Four of these beasts would reign from the time of the captivity of Judah. So the moment Judah went into captivity, No aspect of Israel is in the land anymore. Not the northern kingdom, not the southern kingdom. They're gone. And when Nebuchadnezzar takes them, he becomes the world power. That's the start of the reign of the Gentiles. O Nebuchadnezzar, thou art the head of gold. You are the beginning of all of this. All right, then it goes all the way to Rome. All right, so you have Babylon, Persia. Now in Daniel, they're often called Medo-Persia. That's the second kingdom. The third kingdom is Grisha, which we know today typically as Greece. And then the fourth kingdom is Rome. Now, here's what's so interesting, and here's where there's a massive shift, both prophetically and in terms of how things function in the world. The last kingdom is Rome. Jesus Christ, so first of all, John the Baptist, then Jesus Christ, come into the world under that kingdom. That's very interesting. Christ dies, is buried, and rises again the third day. Now, here's something he said while he was standing on Earth about John the Baptist. He said, from the time of John the Baptist. Now, when was the time of John the Baptist? When he was standing right there. I mean, they were right there together. And eventually John is arrested and put to death. But Jesus said from the time of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of Heaven suffered violence and the violent take it by force now. So here's the idea God said here is the order of the kingdoms who will rule this world Babylon Persia Grisha Rome. Okay, Lord, what happens after Rome? Well, we're going to have a pause. That pause is going to be the church age. Okay, what happens to the kingdoms during the church age? Well, the kingdom of heaven suffered violence and the violent take it by force. Well, who do you want to reign? Whoever is the strongest. It's not about who he wants to reign. What's going to happen is Russia is going to invade Ukraine. Hamas is going to invade Israel. You know Britain is going to take half the world and then lose it all. And so it's just going to go back and forth. Gentile powers are going to be fighting and whoever is the most violent and the most powerful that's who wins. That's who's in control of the kingdom of heaven until another more powerful kingdom can come along and kick them off the throne. Now nobody really wants it to be that way. But if it has to be that way you want to be in the country that has the strongest military. Praise the Lord. We right now we are in that country. We want it to stay that way. It looks like we have a group of people in charge who do not want it to stay that way. It's not clear why that is. What do they think is going to happen to them when China takes over the world? When China is sitting in that position, what do you think is going to happen to the people who helped them to get there? They're going to come and say thank you? That's not how it's going to work. All throughout the history of communism, They always have what they call useful idiots. Those people, Lenin literally said that. He called them useful idiots because he knew he could rely on them to help him to get communism into power, and then as soon as communism was in power, they were executed. And it's a clear historical precedence. It happens every single time. And it'll be no different this time. But if you're in a situation where the Kingdom of Heaven is reigned and ruled by the most powerful, well, you want your government to be the most powerful. And right now, our government, and for the past nearly 300 years, our government has been the most powerful. We want it to stay that way as long as possible. But here's the extent of the usefulness of the United States of America. We send millions of dollars in the form of missions, Bibles, and tracts to countries all over the world, possibly nearly every country. It may not be every country, but it's pretty close. I mean, you got churches on the coast of Mississippi, on the coast of Florida. I can think of just a couple of churches on the coast of Mississippi and Florida who are responsible for sending Bibles and tracts to nearly every country in the world. That doesn't count the rest of the country, which there are a handful of other churches doing the same thing, doing something very similar. Now, the second thing. Israel has been safe because America protects them. That relationship is in serious danger right now. You have a president who thinks he's going to get reelected by appealing to the most radical people in his party. Now, the way he got, theoretically, elected before is because he appealed to the people who were in the center of his party. And they were the majority. And they voted him in. He has since abandoned those people and made his entire presidency about the most radical people in the Democratic Party. That's not going to go well. In fact, theoretically, Because he's done that, it is impossible for him to be reelected. It cannot happen. So if he is reelected, you know we have a very serious problem in our system. Something is broken. Somebody has found a way to break it and make it work to their advantage. It is not possible. If the election were held today, Donald Trump for better or for worse would be our president hands down. There would be no question. And so Joe Biden in order to try and sway that and why are we talking about politics because we're talking about the kingdom of heaven our the fixed our country is not politics, but having a political figure who will leave you alone and let you go and preach the gospel and study. The Bible is incredibly beneficial right now. He thinks in order to win the election, he has to appeal even harder to that radical that fringe tiny group of radicals, but very loud group of radicals in his party. And so in order to do that, I have no idea how you did this. You have the LGBTQ community alongside the Islamic community. That's who he's appealing to those two groups to gain votes. How do you appeal to those two groups at the same time? They hate each other. Well, I mean the LGBTQ community don't realize the people they're trying to help hate them and as soon as they're in power will murder them. which again could be easily realized if you would do a little homework. And so in order to facilitate that he has to damage his relationship with Israel. Well, now you're now you're crossing over into spiritual problems. You're going to damage America's relationship with Israel and doing that will ensure you damage your favorability and blessings from God. So we've got two things going for us with what little is left. We send missionaries all over the world to preach the gospel. We send Bibles and tracts all over the world for it and who knows how many languages and continually expanding every chance we get. And number two, we protect Israel. And if those two things fail, what use is there for this country anymore? You can have all the F-22s and F-35s you want. If God is against you, you have no chance. And that's the direction we're headed. Yes, sir. Well, you don't find America mentioned in the Bible because the period in which we exist is the Church Age and God has no real concern over the political situation during the Church Age. And it just so happens to be that America's reign is during the Church Age. What that means is America is the most violent. America is the most powerful. The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it. You don't get to have it unless you're willing to take it. And we had two world wars in which America was prominent. The second one established America as the premier power in the world. Hitler was going to take the world until he and Japan made the mistake of crossing that sea and getting America engaged in that fight. That changed everything. To the extent of, you want to know how violent America can be in order to take the kingdom of heaven? They dropped a nuclear bomb on a country. And if you don't know what a nuclear bomb is capable of, for the goodness of your heart, it may not be worth looking into. But if you want to take the kingdom of heaven, you've got to be the most violent. Right now, China is hungry. And their borders are not wide enough for that population. And they're looking to expand. And so if you don't have a dominant and strong America in the Kingdom of Heaven, what you're going to get is a dominant and strong China and Russia in the Kingdom of Heaven. The reality is right now, those two countries can't touch the American military. Whether people want to admit that or not, they don't like to admit that. They like to think that they're somehow on par with each other. America spends $260 billion a year on its military. You know the second closest country is? China, at about $100 billion. It's not even close. You know where Russia is? About $60 billion. It's not even close. Russia is barely able to handle Ukraine. And you think they're going to go against America? There's no chance. It's not going to happen. But when you have a weak president, you have weak leadership, and you have a hungry Russia and China, you're going to have trouble in the world. And that's what we have. And until that's reconciled, it doesn't matter how powerful you think you are. If you're not going to enforce your values, your expectations, then the evil men and seducers in this world, the strong men in this world, are going to run rampant. So right now, the kingdom of heaven The way it's defined, it's characteristic, is that it suffers violence. Well, how come we don't see it here? Well, we live in the most powerful country. And because of that, we get to live in relative peace. Now, you go to a city that doesn't have a police force. What's it going to look like? Now, you want a relatively honest police force that is going to enforce the law. and what you get in that area is, again, relative peace. Now, that's the kingdom of heaven. You've got to remember to think about all this separate from the church and the expectations God has put on us. So, that's kind of where we are. The reconciliation of the Jews and the restoration of their kingdom was prophesied in the Old Testament, so much so that when Jesus was present on the earth, the Jews were fixated on that kingdom. They could not. You have the resurrected Jesus Christ standing before the disciples and what they ask him. Do we have the kingdom now? I just rose from the dead. Can we talk about what's coming up now? Is it a kingdom? No, it is not a kingdom. Now, that should further make clear to you that during the church age, the political aspect of this world is not God's concern. God's people, filled with the Holy Spirit, saved, converted, standing before their Savior, they say, can we have the kingdom now? It's not for you. You, as the church, you are not concerned about the kingdom. I want you to go and be a witness of me everywhere in the world. That's your job. That's my expectation. Yeah, but what about that kingdom thing? No, you put all that aside. I will return to dealing with the kingdom after the church age. So what is dominant during the church age is the kingdom of God, which is a spiritual kingdom that is invisible and completely under the control of God. You will never read in your Bible that the kingdom of God suffered violence and the violent take it by force. Will never happen. Nobody's going to end up in the kingdom of God and God's going to be like, well, how'd you get here? Now, if you're in the kingdom of God, it's because you came through Jesus Christ, and he put you there. There's no other way. All right, now, the kingdom of heaven, you read about those parables in the kingdom of heaven, and a man shows up not having a wedding garment on, and God's like, how'd you get here? That's the kingdom of heaven. You read about the wheat and the tares growing together. in the kingdom of heaven. You don't see that in the kingdom of God. There is no parable about the kingdom of God where the wheat and the tares grow together. We talked about that the mustard seed growing into a massive tree and the fowls of the air which in the parable and those parables are devils are in the tree. Not in the kingdom of God. They're under the tree. You are not going to find devils and tears and people who don't belong in the kingdom of God. It is 100% a spiritual kingdom in which you become a part of after you trust in Jesus Christ and then you are expected instead of getting got instead of God allowing to reign over a king who governs a nation. He wants to reign over you. Can he? Is he? Will you allow him? And so that's ultimately the question. Look at Jeremiah 23. Let's look at a few prophecies of this kingdom. Jeremiah 23. And this kingdom, you'll probably hear me repeat several times, the kingdom of heaven And this is another massive difference between the two. The Kingdom of Heaven is a physical, visible, earthly kingdom. Jesus Christ said that the Kingdom of God is invisible. In fact, in Matthew 5 or 6, he talks about how there'll be a group of people who get to see the Kingdom of God based on the way they lived. That'd be pretty interesting. But elsewhere in the Bible, it talks about how the Kingdom of God is invisible. It's not subject to your sight. Jesus said the Kingdom of God is within you. And so that's a massive difference between those two kingdoms. Now, the kingdom of heaven is always a physical earthly kingdom that's visible. You can see it. It's tangible. Look at Jeremiah 23 verse 5. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David. Who is David? King. All right, so you see where this is going. Well, who's going to raise unto David? A righteous branch. You see the way that word is spelled? Why is the word branch capitalized? Because it's a person that person is Jesus Christ. All right. So Jesus is going to be in the lineage of King David and that's what Matthew 1 bears out. So a righteous King or branch and a what a king that branch is going to be a king. He shall reign and prosper and shall execute justice and judgment in where? the earth. This is the physical kingdom. Jesus Christ is going to come and he's going to reign over the physical kingdom on earth. All right, that's what we call the millennial kingdom. Has that happened yet? Until then the kingdom of heaven suffer the violence and the violent to go now. Let's go back to those those four beasts. All right, so you had Babylon and then you had Persia and then Grisha and then you get to Rome. When you get to Rome, Rome fell and is no longer the world power because of that dividing line where Jesus Christ was born, lived, died, was buried, rose again the third day, then begins the New Testament church age. And from the time of John the Baptist until the coming of the last kingdom, the kingdom of heaven suffered with violence and the violent take it by force. So there is a fifth kingdom that's coming. and it's made up of 10 Kings and when those 10 Kings are revealed, they're going to be revealed during the tribulation sometime in the midst of the tribulation. These 10 Kings will be revealed and when they are Jesus Christ himself will come back and smash those 10 Kings those 10 Kings aligned with the 10 toes of that statue and Daniel and Daniel chapter 2. All right, and so When the Lord comes back, he's going to take them out and then establish his own kingdom, and it's going to be bloody. It's not going to be, you know, Jesus is not coming back looking like some European hippie that can barely carry a stick or a twig. He's not Gandhi walking around in a diaper. I mean, he's coming back as the lion of the tribe of Judah. It's going to be ugly. If you chose to be one of his enemies, you chose to reject him, What exactly does a lion do to his enemies? Come back and give you a hug? No, it says when he comes out of media that the blood flows as high as a horse's reins. Good luck. Or change sides. I recommend changing sides rapidly. Isaiah 9, look at Isaiah 9. Isaiah chapter 9. which is a well-known prophecy chapter that details prophecy about the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah 9, verses 6 and 7. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. Who's that about? Sound familiar? A child is born, a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. Why is that the first thing God has to say about the Son of God born into the world? The first thing he wants you to know about this son is not that he's coming to save you. He's taking the government. It shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. On the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no end upon the throne of who? There he is again in the lineage of David and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will will perform this. Are you sure? I mean, is he really going to come? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's going to happen. I mean, what if something stops him? It's not. It's not an option. That is not an option. All right, so that's a physical Kingdom that the Lord is going to reign over and and and then of course this idea is repeated in Micah 4 7 as well. The Lord shall reign. He is going to reign this will be a physical and visible Kingdom on Earth. This is not the spiritual Kingdom. We know of as the kingdom of God Jesus will eventually be given the Dominion that belonged to Adam. Now, what causes a lot of confusion, again, you got to put it all in context. Jesus rose from the dead, and then what was said about the risen Lord Jesus is that all power is given unto him. And so then people say, see, he's got all power. But he doesn't exercise that power. Not yet. Do you know when he begins to exercise that power? Revelation 11. In Revelation 11 it says the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God and his Christ. It's not until then that that declaration is made and then he still doesn't come back and exercise power on this on this earth until late in the book of Revelation. And so right now, right now, God is not in control of this earth. God intervenes from time to time when he needs to to accomplish his purposes. And so let's be clear about what we're saying. We're not saying that God has somehow, you know, in some form of weakness, lost control. That's not what's happening. In order to reconcile things, it has to be done with an unbelievably high level of integrity and honesty and righteousness alongside mercy and grace and long-suffering in order to accommodate all those things, God has to be willing to allow certain things to happen and to continue and to stay out of it for your benefit and for your purpose and for his benefit and for his purpose and to be able to balance all that and reconcile all that and never step in and make a mistake. That's very difficult. That's very hard. It would be very easy for God to just step in and say, okay, no more evil. It's over. Well, in order to do that, he's got to take your free will. He's got to take away your choice. He's got to take away your ability to be saved. Or if he just steps in and says, you know what? I just forgive everybody. Well, if he does that, God just became unjust. You can't just, in an unjust manner, just blanket forgive everybody. There has to be payment. There has to be justice. And so in order for that to happen, God has to administer that justice and yet also be gracious enough to give you time to receive the justice that he's administering. That's a very difficult thing to accomplish. You talk about walking a tightrope. That is impossible unless you're God. Now, That's the best that we can understand it and explain it. And I guarantee you it's infinitely more complex than that. And so when God is looking down at it and he sees the big picture of everything that's going on, he knows when to intervene, when not to intervene, and to stay out of the way and allow things to happen and how far it can go before he needs to step in and do something about it. And when he needs to, he will. Otherwise, he stays out of it. He doesn't interfere in the affairs of men other than to tell you who have the Spirit of God, go preach to these people. I want them to come to be with my son. And the only way that's going to happen is for you to go and preach the gospel to every creature and get the Word of God into people's hands. The brother I was talking about at the onset that's having trouble with this church, you know one of the things they complained about? He bought gospel tracks. Now, this is the same group of people, the same group of people who had a person in their church get sick and they wanted to give them some food to help them out, cook dinner for them. The church had to vote on whether to give them pizza or chicken. I'm just telling you, you bring that stuff in here, it's going to be a rough day for somebody. That is ridiculous. They can't do something nice for people in the church who need it, unless everybody comes together and votes on it. Man, just burn the whole place down. It's no longer a church. It's over. What you want is for the existence of that place, you want it to die. That's what's going to happen. We need to pay somebody to mow the grass. Well, we need to, you got to vote on that. No, we don't. We'll just let it grow. When you come to church and it's a jungle, don't you come say anything to me. And it's just, it's ridiculous. And so the physical and visible kingdom on earth is what we're talking, it's the, you know, the spiritual kingdom. It's invisible. It's within you. It requires you to be governed by God. The physical kingdom, it is a mess. It's violent. It's dirt. That's why I want my wife carrying a gun. I carry a gun. I usually also have mace. I want my wife carrying a mace. For what? Have you seen how people act today? Well, isn't God going to protect you? Well, what happened to the other Christians who got shot, robbed, raped, harmed? Is that God's fault? No, that's life in the kingdom of heaven. God said, Sir, you have a family. It's your responsibility to protect them. And so I want to try and do that as best I can and so Jesus will eventually be given that Dominion and when he has Dominion the same Dominion that was given to Adam will be given to the last Adam and I know that I have it in my notes and we'll get to it eventually and some of you who follow through the what I talked to the book of Daniel, you already read about it in Daniel 7 or 8 or 11 somewhere around about in there in that book. The ancient of days goes to the second Heaven and rips that Dominion that was given to Satan away from them. And then the son of man comes and meets the ancient of days in the second Heaven and he gives that Dominion to Jesus Christ. And then from there he comes straight down to the earth and establishes his kingdom, but it's not until then is done. He have the power he does. But it's not time for him to exercise that power. So we're not talking about a God who's like, well, I'm trying what I can. I'm doing what I can. That's not what's happening here. If God felt like he needed to step in, there would be nothing anyone or anything or any being could do about it. That's just not where he is. It's not time for that. When it is time for that, it'll be done. The zeal of the Lord will perform it, and Satan and his armies can... It's so bad. God pre-wrote what's going to happen to Satan. God literally wrote down, Satan's going to raise up an army, and then I'll just come back and destroy him. Don't you mean there's going to be a battle, and it's going to be like, who's going to win? No. It's just the Lord's going to come back. He's not even going to touch him. Just this flame of fire out of his mouth and out of his eyes, and then it's over. Well, I thought there was going to be a battle. Well, I didn't have another word for it. Slaughter might turn people off. It's not going to be even close. And so the last Adam was born in Bethlehem, according to Micah 5.2. And what is Bethlehem known as? The city of King David. And that's where Jesus, that's the whole point. The first thing you learn about Jesus Christ in the New Testament is that he's a descendant of King David. It's the very first thing that God wants you to know is that he descended from King David. And just showing his kingly lineage all the way back. And so when the wise men came from the east to see this small child in a house, When they met with Herod, what did they ask him? Where is he that is born King of the Jews? Where is that guy? Where is that kid? And Herod's like, it's news to me. Yeah, where is he? I want to know. And so that's the direction that this world is going to. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. You can learn more about our ministry by visiting www.plenteusredemption.com. You can hear more Plenteous Redemption podcast audio at www.plenteusredemption.media. Please comment below if this podcast has been a help to you. Also, inform us of future topics that would interest you. Thank you again for listening to the Plenteous Redemption podcast.
The Kingdom of Heaven vs The Kingdom of God | Lesson 1 | Part 2
Series Rightly Dividing
Rightly dividing the word of truth is an essential skill for the Christian. Join us at Go Forth Baptist Church as we carefully divide the word of God.
Go Forth Baptist Church
Lucedale, Mississippi
Pastor Thomas Irvin
Sermon ID | 4424911576619 |
Duration | 48:07 |
Date | |
Category | Teaching |
Bible Text | 1 Samuel 8:7 |
Language | English |
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