Who's the foundation stone according to me? Jesus was the foundation stone. Alright, the foundation stone is laid and then all of the other stones are put and they kind of loom against that stone. They depend upon it. The foundation stones of the foundation. You have to remember back then they weren't really using cement or anything. They would dig down, Here would be a hill, like this, and there'd be dirt on top of the hill. They would dig down and come down to rock. Of course, that's rocky country over there anyway. And they clear all this dirt off. And they start building the walls of their houses or buildings upon this foundation rock, which is this big. And all these other stones were laid on top of that stone. That's the way the city and the city of Jerusalem. That's the way the city of Jerusalem was built. The Mosque of Omer that you see over there today was basically The city that made the walls of that city, they dug down very deep in the ground, down to solid bedrock, and then they laid very large stones upon that. Alright? So the bedrock, the foundation, is Jesus Christ. Alright? Now, we as members of New Testament churches are stones. question up because it's very important. 1 Peter 2, 4 and we're down to verse 5. And you also living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood. In the book of Revelation, the Lord said that he had made his church Priests and kings unto God. He said that His church would rule and reign with Him forever. I'll say, alright. A spiritual house for a holy priesthood who offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, for this is contained in Scripture. Alright. Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone. Remember, I told you earlier in the class that Jesus was not a carpenter. Jesus was a stonemason. He never used carpenter terms. He used stonemason terms. The same Greek word for stonemason and carpenter is the same. Jesus being a carpenter. He does not use carpenter terms. These are stonemason terms. And He is the master mason. Alright? The master stonemason. Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone. And he who believes in Him. Who? In Peter? Who is it? Jesus. Now who's talking here? Peter. Alright, he's quoting Scripture. Believers in him shall not be disappointed. This precious value, then, is for you who believe, but for those who disbelieve. The stone which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. For they stumbled because they are disobedient to the Word, and to this doom they were also appointed." He said, but you, and I was talking to New Testament churches, This is a general epistle to the churches that want out. Alright? But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellences of Him who has called you out of darkness into a marvelous light. For you were once a no people. That's what it literally says. A no people. You were nothing. Absolutely a no people of nothing. Now you are the people of God. The word people of God there, it's in the genitive. The people belonging to God. You're God's possession. You are not. You have not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Who's he talking about? Gentiles that had become members of New Testament churches. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from flesh and lust which wage war against your soul. He goes on and he talks about Let's go to Isaiah 28, verse 16. Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a most costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed, for he who believes in it will not be disturbed. See what Peter was quoting? that Peter was the first pope. They didn't even have a pope until 606 A.D. They didn't have one. But Peter is not That's a foundation stone. That's this stone right here. Rock of Gibraltar. A stone. A foundation stone. The foundation stone like this building is built upon now. They laid a big foundation stone. It's called a what? Foundation. Alright. Called a foundation. And they dug down deep. That's the foundation stone that this building stands upon. Alright. Okay? Upon this gigantic foundation stone, He says, I shall be building. He says, you are Peter, you are Petros, a small stone. In masculine gender, Petros means a small stone, one you can pick up and throw. Now, what does the word Cephas mean? What was the word again? Petros. Now what does the word Cephas mean? Peter was known as Peter, Petros. He was known as Cephas and as Simon. Alright, those three names that refer to Peter. Alright, what do each one of those names mean? What does Petros mean? A stone that can be thrown and tossed back and forth between two people, like a ball. Was Peter's life like that, by the way? What does the word name Cephas mean? It means stone. C-E-P-H-A-S. That's also another word for stone. That you can call it back and forth. And then the word Simon. Simon is a different word. Simon means one who hears. One who hears. It's Hebrew, yes. But also, it's Aramaic. Everybody's name down here. Can you help me stand up here and teach and take the role at the same time? over here. Do you have any questions about that scripture now? No. I want you to be able, if you have a question like this, this brother says, do you think Peter thought that he was the stone that Jesus Peter died, didn't he? According to history, Peter died being crucified upside down. Did the gates of hell prevail against him physically? Yep. He went to be with the Lord immediately, but he was overcome as a man, but not spiritually. Now, if this church was founded upon Peter, the church died with Peter. A friend, a teacher of mine, many years ago, a matter of fact, he preached a sermon on my birthday. And this is when I was born. And he taught many years later. He talked about churches being like bees. He said, we know that Now, he said God created bees a long time ago. Didn't he? We know that God created everything. Every horse, every animal that you see in the world, every little biological life, form of life, God created. Okay? He brought it into existence. It didn't happen, it didn't evolve or anything. God created it back in In space and time, in one period of time, He created those things. Now some of these rascals, animals and things, and some of the diseases that we have, were part of the curse that was put upon man. When did weeds and thorns begin? Right there. Now Adam was supposed to stay busy and kill and cultivate the garden, and also protect the whole universe from Intruders. And of course, there were intruders. Who were the intruders? Demons and Lucifer, or Satan. Okay, he was supposed to protect it, including his wife. Well, he didn't do his job. Simple as that. And when he did sin, God said, because of you, the ground will bring forth Weaves and thistles and thorns and noxious plants. That's when they all began. They were here before. They were part of the curse. And I believe what happened then, a lot of the different flies and other things began right there. There was no death before that wasn't. What did man eat at that period of time? He was a vegetarian. A snake. He's a vegetarian. Alright. When did animals, how many of you knew this? When did animals begin to eat each other and when did man begin to eat animals? After the ark was unloaded. God did not have to keep, or Noah did not have to keep animals from killing each other. When those animals were turned loose off of that ark, the whole digestive system of the animals were changed. Now again we find out in the millennial reign of Jesus Christ, over here, we find out that the lion will lay down with the lamb. And a child will play with a snake, like a toy. Like it was in the garden. Like it was before the flood. Okay? Are you catching this? Evidently. And Noah, before he went on the ark, before he came off the ark, he was a vegetarian. I'm not telling you to go out and become a 17th-day Adventist. Okay, then don't do that. But I'm telling you that this is what happened in history and in space and time. This is what happened then. And what's going to happen again. Man had a lot of fellowship with animals. Before, after they were released out of the ark, what happened to these animals? Do you remember that Herman? What happened to the animals? What kind of a state of mind did they have that they didn't have before? Fear. Fear. God put in the animals the fear of man. And the animals began to fear one another because they had to survive. They didn't evolve that way. You know why? They didn't evolve that way. That's when it all happened. OK? You know what, Matt? About the time that God said, I'm looking up here in Genesis, that the age of man would be three score and ten. Yes. Man's lifespan changed. The age and lifespan of man changed. His diet and everything was totally changed. And how was the world watered before the flood? Alright, how was the earth watered? What were the earth like? Let's have the earth here. We know that the Bible teaches that the earth is a circle. Alright? It's a circle, basically. And at that period of time, there was land on one part of it, we're going to call that earth, and over here we're going to call water. And around the whole earth was a bubble. The bubble was an ocean in the sky. An ocean. If I misspelled something, please tell me. I'm notorious for that. Here we have an ocean in the sky. Now, here was like a greenhouse. All of this was like a greenhouse of things. There was never any rain before this period of time. There were springs in the ground. In other words, the earth held fresh water down in it. Down in what we call the aqua first. Aqua is the word for water. I'll write the water strata in the earth. There were springs flowing out of that. places. Well, after the flood, or when the flood came, God opened up three bodies of water. What did He do? It didn't just rain, did it? When the flood came, when God destroyed all of the animal life and human life on this earth, they had But before that, man didn't have to go out and cultivate the ground and have irrigation ditches or anything. That wasn't necessary. It didn't come and rain down on anybody. There wasn't any thunderstorms or lightning at all. None of that took place. That atmosphere of the earth did not exist at that time. It was a very calm, pleasant, Well, it started raining. The ocean's in the sky. It says the floodgates of heaven were opened up. In other words, there were rivers running from heaven now down to the earth, spilling down upon the earth. It was emptying the heavens. This ocean, this bubble around the earth, a thick bubble. It says the Springs of the deep opened up and started flowing harder than ever. And to that extent it started doing something it had never done before. It started raining. And with rain comes lightning and thunder. When God placed Noah in that ark, and it started lightning and thunder, on the outside of that ark. It had never taken place. Things had never taken place on the earth. Now, they're taking place. Then, after this happened, man became terribly sinful again and they built a tower. Right there and here, talking about human government, gave man command. He said, spread out. Don't build cities, that causes problems. Spread out and be wanderers and depend upon me. Live a nomadic life, I'll take care of you. When people get in big cities, what happens to them? Crime and violence. People don't live well together. We're not herd animals, really. Every time I see one of these, I love them. If you live in one of these big places where they have these walled cities, you know, around here, these big gated communities. That's me, I said, that's a cow pen. I look at that thing, I said, that's a, that's, people are living in herds. Man wasn't supposed to live like that. And what they did with absolutely indirect violence, against God. They built this great tower here and they said we're going to stay right here. We're going to have a kingdom right here. The greatest kingdom on earth. And they thumbed their nose at God and they built this gigantic tower. That one up here that was a symbol of their universal brotherhood and government. The one world government that they wanted to establish. What did God do? He scrambled the languages. And he divided the earth. The earth split up into continents all over this earth. Islands were made. And that's when that took place. Now let's get down to where we are. We got all that figured out. That's not quite parables, but that's the foundation of parables. I'll tell you that much. We're all nomads. We're supposed to be nomads. regarding the Millennium. It's already happened in Hebrew. The tenses are such that it is something that's taking place because it's so sure. God's Word is so sure that you can speak it and know it's going to happen. Matthew 16 and 18, what we were talking about. You're Peter, but upon this gigantic stone, I'll be building my church and the gates of hell will not wrassle her down. That's prophecy. And this is the prophetic parables of Matthew 13 Our foundation, that foundation of them is built upon this truth. Alright? Now, we know that the gates of hell would prevail. It would be raining like a storm. It would be raining terror and trials upon these churches and these people that made up these churches throughout the church age. And we know that God is not going to Error and truth are allowed to co-exist down through this period of time. And this period of time, who is called to be the god of this age or the god of this world? Because he still has control over it. Satan. Alright. And we're walking on Satan's ground today. And we're in God's army. And we're plowing through this church age that we live in today. And we have a lot of opposition. We have a lot of opposition. The churches, through New Testament churches have had opposition. And we're going to make this great big wide swath of error. The Lord sowed seed, which is the Word of God and which is truth, in the daylight. Remember? And the field came up. You know, I mean, these things were supposed to come up. And then what happened, what did the enemy do at night time? Night time is a cryptic time. That's when thieves go out and steal. Of course, these days they even steal in day time. But night time was a time of thieves. No man traveled at night time. You lay down and hold up and protected yourself because the thieves were on the loose. at night time, all down to the ages. Now the enemy went out at night time and sowed false wheat, tares, in God's field. And what's the field? Where's that? That's the earth. That's the earth, and it is the time period in which we live in. Now we know that Jesus Christ came to this earth, Jehovah came to this earth and became flesh, and he was crucified on Calvary, and he died, willingly, He was buried and He was resurrected. And He went back to heaven. And we're still living among this smut hole down here. But He gives us promise that we're going to make it to the end. The Church's truth is going to make it to the end, even though error will co-exist with it. religion. And she hid leaven. What is leaven a type of in the Bible always? Sin or error. And it says that she hid this leaven in this loaf of bread. And if their judgment didn't come, what would happen to the loaf of bread? The whole batch would be destroyed. Now at the end of this age, the age that we live in right here is called the church age. important for studying parables. At the end of this church age, I, all of us saved, and the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is going to be raptured into heaven. The word rapture comes, our word rapture comes from the Latin word rapare. And it means to snatch away, not snatch us up off of this earth, tribulation period. There will be a true ecumenical movement at that time because there's no boundaries at all. First of all, they're not going to believe in Jesus Christ. It's just religion period. All right? And somehow or another in the world, this Santa Christ is going to get everybody to worship one religion. You know, there's going to be many signs and wonders at times. Maybe Buddha will show up. And maybe Mohammed will come back. or everyone, all the so-called Christians, or everyone of all faiths, everything, to meet with Him there. That's what's going to happen in the end times. They're going to lay down all the walls. God's people are going to be gone. And this world religious system that's headed up by the Antichrist will be formed and finally consummated in what is called the Great Harlot of the Book of Revelation. She is the absolute consummation, the epitome of this false religious system that right here took place. God said, wait! Now, we have a farm out there. How many of you ever planted a garden in your backyard? Flowers in a flower bed or whatever? Tomatoes? Now, I know that And in Jesus' time, they didn't do much irrigation. They depended upon God to send rains and irrigate the ground and water the crops. They would go out, they'd plow the fields, prepare the fields, and then they would plant whatever crop they were going to raise. And basically it was wheat or barley, something like that. No corn, by the way. There wasn't any corn anywhere raised in Europe. I don't care what King James Version of the Bible says. planted their fields or whatever they were going to plant, they planted them and then they just sat back and waited for those crops to come up. They didn't go out every day and look at them and measure them and dig them up out of the ground and check the roof system or anything like that. They let it be. And just sat back and let God take care and nature take care of that field. The only thing that they did, they might go out Nothing else. Even back in that time, they didn't even do that. We do that today. But back then, they just let the crops grow until harvest time. Jan? Yes? You said your visit over there and the other way around, they would let their vineyards just grow and grow all over. That is what? They don't train them like that. It's so much different there than it is here. The vineyards over there, how many of you have ever gone to a vineyard where they grow grapes? They're up on nice posts and stuff, and they're all sprung out there, and they trim them back and train the vines. And you work with some of the great vines. But over in Europe and over in the Middle East, those vines just grow on the ground. They're on the ground. They just whoosh. On the ground. They just let it be. And they let it go, and they just let it be until harvest time. And when harvest time comes, they go out and harvest the good stuff, and they stack up the bad stuff later, and they set it on fire and burn it up. Now, that's exactly what the Lord said He was going to do, wasn't it? He said He would gather up truth and bind error in bundles one world religion, ecumenical movement in the last days that he's talking about. That's the binding of the pairs that the Bible talks about. He'd bind them up and he'll set them on fire in the tribulation period. Because right after the first three and a half years of tribulation, right in the middle of that tribulation period, what is the Antichrist going to do? He's going to stand up in Jerusalem. Israel has always looked for the Messiah that will build the temple. They don't want to build the temple. They're waiting for the Messiah to build it. They want the Messiah to build the temple and to bring the whole world under His rule. The Bible talks about Jesus coming back with a rod of iron on a white horse and just slaughtering His enemies and bringing the whole world under His power. The Bible teaches that. Israel did not understand His first coming at all. For He would come and die. Jehovah would come and He would become flesh and die. As a matter of fact, He would be crucified by His people. By His nation. And then He would come back after this period of time and set up His kingdom over here. But he's going to let Satan, he's going to turn Satan completely loose on this earth for seven years. His kingdom of this earth will be the epitome, it will epitomize itself in the reign of the Antichrist. And after that three and a half years, Antichrist is going to stand up and say, don't worship any god, don't worship Mohammed. Buddha is not allowed. Jesus isn't here anymore. You worship Me, and it says that for a while this sable will be worshipped by men. There will be some opposing this. And what will happen to the ones that oppose? You will be beheaded. You cannot buy, you cannot have a job, you cannot sell unless you have the mark of the antichrist. That 666 mark. No. Man. Six. Again. What's that? Man. Six. Man, man, man. 666. What man will do to man. The triune evilness of man. Man is corrupt. He's going to show you how corrupt man is during that seven year period of time. Men will destroy mankind. The whole earth will be destroyed, it says, if God does not enter me. Alright? Do you have any other questions? You got your foundation down there now? Alright. Matthew. Let's bounce around just a little bit. Let's go back in the book of Matthew. in the 13th chapter. Now Mark and Luke have a lot to say about what's going on with these parables also. Look in Mark the 4th chapter, Matthew and then Mark, Mark the fourth chapter. Why do we have four Gospels, by the way? There's a reason for it. It was in three languages. It was in Latin, in Greek, and in Hebrew. Three languages that Jesus spoke. Now we have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then finally John. There were three Gospels to begin with. Three Gospels. The Old Testament states something about Two or three witnesses let everything be established. All right. And what does the four Gospels represent? What do they represent? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. What do they do? What is the purpose of these four books? They prove that Jesus Christ, Jehovah, came to the earth. And He lived a perfect life. That's what those four Gospels teach you. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they taught about Jesus. Each one of them teach you about Jesus in a different way. Alright? Jesus is taught of in the Gospel of John as follows. the deity of Jesus Christ proven without a shadow of a doubt among mankind that they would know that He was Jehovah in the flesh. Matthew talks about Jesus as who? The rightful heir of the throne of Israel. The King. Okay? Luke. The ox will be what? The burden bearer, the servant. And the face of the eagle, the eagle represents what? Represents the heavens and the one who dwells there, in other words, God. All right? And the lion? The king. All right? The lion, the king. All right? We see these things represented in these four doctrines. as a servant. And here we have the parable of the sword in 4, 1 through 9. Alright? 4, 1 through 9. And Jesus actually kept on teaching by the seashore and such a great literally kept on being by the seashore, on the seashore, on the land. And he literally kept on teaching them many things in parables. What is that? Parables. Remember what that term is? physical besides something spiritual so you can either hide a meaning or to explain a meaning. Now, these parables hid things and they explained things. Alright? They hid things from the people that did not want to hear. And Jesus told the nation of Israel, hearing you will not hear, seeing you will not see. He kept saying to them in his teaching, listen to this, behold, the sower went out to sow beside the road and the birds came and ate it up. The sower was who? Jesus Christ. He went out and sowed where? In the world, alright. God came to the earth and He told truth while He was here. He stated absolute facts, truth. When Jesus said, before Abraham I kept on being, Before Abraham sprang into existence, I existed forever. What did the Jews do when He made that statement? They took up stones to stone Him for blasphemy. Why was Jesus Christ, why was He crucified? I want you to understand this. It's real important because people out in the world don't believe this. In religious systems, they don't believe this foundational truth. If Jesus was murdered by Israel because he said that he was Jehovah God. He said that he was the king of Israel. He said that he was Jehovah God. I'll really put that machine over there. There we go. Now, it's directional. It'll pick you guys up and me too. You haven't said much out there in a long time. Where was I? Israel murdered Jesus. Their King came to them. And in so many ways we will see this in these parables. Okay? Some fell by the side of the road. What's that side of the road now? We're having a test tonight. What's the side of the road? It's outside the field on the turn roads. What are the turn roads? Hard ground. That's the hard ground where the roads is where you drive around the farm. So you have hard ground. You don't plow that ground though. You leave that hard ground there. Well the seed won't go in hard ground. It's got to be prepared so it falls out on the ground. Some of that seed just fell on hard ground and what happened? come to people that are hearing the Word of God, and snatch the Word of God out of their hearts. Because Satan doesn't want one person to be saved. Because every time somebody is saved, that's somebody in the Lord's arm. Simple as that. Alright? And then other seed fell on rocky ground, and when it did not have much soil, it immediately sprang up, because it had no depth of soil, remember? Here we have big rocks, these foundation stones, underneath this dirt. And where it is shallow here, the sun comes down and beats on it, and the first crop to come up is right here where it is heated. These little things come up there and put their little smiling leaves and faces all over. But they have no root down here, and no moisture. And it didn't have much soil, and immediately it sprang up. Immediately it sprang up. That word used, Mark just uses it over and over and over again. Immediately, right now, it sprang up. But, because it had no depth of soil, it dried out. It fell among the cursed. The cursed. It fell among the cursed. And the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. And other seeds fell on good soil. As they grew up and increased, they were yielding a crop and were producing 30, 60, and 100 fold. He kept on saying this, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Pay attention to those words. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Who did not have ears to hear? Who were they? Who committed the unpardonable sin? Israel. What was the unpardonable sin? What did Israel do that they committed the unpardonable sin that they would not be forgiven? When Jesus performed the miracles that the Messiah was supposed to do, and what was the one messianic credential or miracle that Jesus was to perform that nobody else ever did? Heal the blind. That was a specific messianic credential, and He did. And instead of accepting the Messiah, they wanted to kill him. That one blind man that had been blind all of his life, they were going to throw his mother and father out of the Senate office. And that man didn't even know who killed him. And they were afraid that That's kind of weird, isn't it? The king came and his servants, the serfs, the paeans, killed him. And He was saying to them, to you it has been given, the mystery, the secrets of the Kingdom of God. But for those who are outside, they get everything in parables. I'm going to tell you the secrets, folks. But these secrets are going to be secrets to the uninitiated because they wouldn't hear. It's the whole story of all the Kingdom parables. and not perceive, while hearing they may hear and not understand, lest they return again and be forgiven." Who's it talking about? Who is it talking about? The administrator? And He said to them, Do you not understand this parable? And how will you understand all the parables? Alright. Isaiah the sixth chapter. Turn there. Isaiah chapter six. Isaiah has been commissioned, and he is sent out. He said, send me, Lord, and he said, I'll send you. And this is what he said. And he said, go and tell this people. Keep on listening, but you're not going to hear. You're not going to understand what you're hearing. You keep on looking, but you're not going to understand what you see. You're never going to be able to put it together. The hearts of this people incensed me, and their ears dull, and their eyes dim, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and repent, and be healed. Then I said, Lord, how long? He answered and told me. How long? How long would it be before Israel was cast off of her land? How long would it be? Hmm? 2,000 years. Well, they would be cast off for 2,000 years, but how long after they crucified the king of Israel? Within that generation, many of those people in that generation saw their land devastated. They were carried out as slaves throughout the world. They were in constant rebellion against the Roman Empire. And the Roman Empire finally, totally, and once and for all, totally destroyed the city of Jerusalem. Their wonderful city. Who was on the throne of Israel when Jesus came? Herod, whose descendant was Herod? Esau's descendant. Was Esau the promised son? No. He was an interloper. He was a foreigner to the promises of God. He was a liar. What did God say about Esau? He loved Esau. God loved Esau. He hated it, didn't he? He said, Esau I hated, Jacob I loved. Who's on the throne of Israel? The hated son. The son that Jehovah hated. Herod. Why do you think Herod was so paranoid when he heard that the Messiah was born? What happened there in Bethlehem? Why did the Magi come? Why did they come? Why did they come? Herod did. He had to receive them. The stars! Okay, what about the stars? How do people tell time and what are the calendars based upon? Did Daniel, when he was in Babylon, and when he founded this school of the Magi over there, the learned school that stayed in Babylon, by the way, many of the Jews stayed there, did not go home, and many of them were what they call Magi. And these Magi knew the book of Daniel well. And the book of Daniel told when the Messiah was coming. That's caliber. They told how many days it would be until Messiah the Prince would ride into the city. Why do you think those Magi had come? Because they saw that it was time, the calendar was right, the season was here when the Messiah was to come. And they headed toward the land of Israel because they knew that the Messiah would be born. And these Magi, however many of them there were, they might have been 10 or 12 of them or 2 or 3 or whatever, There were a group of them that came to Herod. Why did they come to Herod? They thought he was the king. They thought he was going to have a son. They thought the Messiah was going to be born because of the book of Daniel. So where do you go when you want to see the son of the king that is going to be the great king, the Messiah of the world? You go to the palace. They went to the palace and there was a counterfeit there. the uncovenanted sons. Joseph was supposed to be on the throne, his descendants, not Aaron, not Esau. God always has administrators of His kingdom in the world. Who was basically the only administrator left? Show me some of them in the Bible according to the New Testament history. Who were left in Israel the only faithful few that were in Israel when Jesus came? When Jesus was born, what happened? Shortly after He was born, He was taken to the city of Jerusalem. What was it? All right, it was Simeon. There, there was a prophet of God, a priest, and he was looking for the Messiah because he knew when he was supposed to be born. There was a woman prophetess there, and this Indian said, I want to see the Messiah before I die because he knew that the time was there. The clock was ticking. The Messiah was to be born. Herod, when these Magi came to him, he called for the theologians. They said he's going to be born in Bethlehem. So I wasn't telling my son that it would be my job. Go over there to Bethlehem. Because they knew where he was supposed to be born. And come back and tell me where he is because I want to worship him too. They wanted to kill him. Because he was the false king. And he couldn't stand for the real king to be born. So Herod had every child two years and under. A lot of these people knew about it, and I can guarantee you all of Israel knew about it. They knew the Messiah was coming. They knew the time was near when Herod called them to tell them when the Messiah was to be born. And according to the writings in a little book called the Ark of the Covenant, they interviewed Jesus' family. And after He came back, by the way, God told them to go down to Egypt. because Herod was going to try to kill the king. So they went down into Egypt. Then God called them out of Egypt to come back. And it says Jesus, when He was 12 years old, He was in the temple debating with the doctors of theology. And they were amazed at Him. They knew the Messiah had come. But what did they do to the Messiah? He wasn't the Messiah that they wanted. There was a palace built, wasn't there? There was a temple built. Who built the temple? Herod. Herod's family had built the temple. Herod's family had fought their way into the throne of Israel from the Roman Empire, and they were interloping upon the throne of the nation of Israel, and Herod built this most beautiful temple that ever stood. More beautiful, they say, even than Solomon's temple, but it was an empty temple. God was not there. God had left them. He had left them because they had abandoned Him spiritually, so He left them. God did this. It says in the book of Ezekiel that the spirit that Holy Place, from the Holy of Holies, and stood there for a while, and stood in the doorway for a while, stood at the gates of the city for a while. Then I went over to the Mount, and they saw the Sheolchan and the glory of God over on the Mount of Olives, and then it just disappeared into the heavens. God was weeping over a nation that would not have Him. In the end time, God's gonna do some laughing. He's gonna laugh at those that have rejected Him, false religion. What does the word religion mean? Let's look at it. Some of you have seen me do this before, but this is really important. Right here. Religion is not enough. Sometimes, All right. Our English language is made up of prefixes and suffixes and roots. All right? And a priesthood fix means what? Reading. your term for ligaments that bind your muscles to your bones. All right? Ligaments. And that means to bind. Okay? And then IOM, that's the suffix which means the act of. The act of binding back again. Religion is supposed to bind mankind back to God. But does he step away from God? but false religion will bind you away from God. False religion will bind you away from God and tie you up like it did Herod and the leaders of Israel and their false religious system bound them away from God and blinded their eyes and deafened their ears. Alright, we're going to go on from here next week. Thank you for your attention. Bring your questions. We'll be going through this class for a few more weeks. And I don't know how many more, probably about three more weeks or so. And bring your questions now because some of them are so important because I want you to understand the foundational truths that these parables are founded upon. Because if you don't have a foundation, you just don't have the story. Brother, would you dismiss us in prayer for your brother? How long does that take? If you dismiss us in prayer. Gabriel, thank you so much for your Word, Lord. Thank you for how rich it is with your wisdom, your Word, what you would have us to know about you and how you would have us to live our lives, Lord. Just thank you for Brother Jim and His understanding of the Word, that He may help each of us to better understand the richness of Your Word. Just pray that You'll be with us as we go our ways and in the services to follow. In Jesus' name, amen.