And we were talking about this the other day, my wife and I, that when we disappear, when the church disappears, and, you know, what's left behind are a bunch of religion, old Christian who aren't really saved, and a bunch of Jews, obviously, and a bunch of heathen all over the world. As God begins to stir those Jews up, most likely, I don't know if you've ever noticed, but a lot of Bible publishers from the missionary societies, the Trinitarian Bible Society, the old-fashioned American Bible Society, the Gideons, had a little thing called New Testament and Psalms. And it's just the New Testament and Psalms. And it didn't have any Old Testament books in it, which is a very good book to work on the streets with people because through the New Testament, you can show them the verses of salvation. You can show them Jesus and the Psalms. You learn how to pray. Some of them had the New Testament Psalms and Proverbs, but those little books. And I was thinking a lot of the Jews, who've been taught their entire life, don't touch the New Testament. Those are the ones that hate the Jews. They're Jew haters. The New Testament is Jew. And so they stay away from it. All they have is the First Testament that God gave from Genesis through Malachi. Some of them will probably pick up a New Testament, and you know what they'll do? Just like anyone, you start reading a book at the beginning. Sometimes a lost person pick up a Bible, first place he looks is Genesis. Probably not the best place for him to start. He should start in John, but people usually start at the beginning of a book. He'll pick up that New Testament, they'll start reading Matthew. And so God knew when these days would come, so he put Matthew first in the Bible, with all those Old Testament Jewish references to it. So when a Jew finally does pick up Matthew and starts to look at it, he goes, wow, look at all the quotations from Isaiah and the Psalms and the books of Moses. And they're just looking and going, this is a Jewish book. They told me this was a white man, Gentile book from Europe. This is a Jewish book. and we're looking at this book and the reason I'm telling you this is Jesus is being asked in the 24th chapter In the first verse, he departed from the temple. And that was not good, because Jesus should be in the temple, but he departed from the temple just as his father departed from the temple in the Old Testament when they were no longer following God's Word. And he left, and he said in verse 2, See all these things I say unto you verily, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. And he knew what they were doing to themselves by rejecting the only Savior, the only Messiah, their hope. By rejecting their hope, they were leaving themselves in a hopeless condition where instead of having life, they would face death. Instead of having peace, they would face war. And verse 3, as he said on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately. And that's how disciples come privately. I hope you as a disciple come privately to the Lord and ask Him questions like, tell us, When shall these things be? What shall be the sign of thy coming and the end of the world? And we've observed that in these next couple chapters, 24 and 25, he is going to talk about a period known as the Tribulation, which is the time of Jacob's trouble. And why am I telling you this? Because the church is nowhere in view. The Christian is not in view. He's a Jewish Messiah speaking to Jewish disciples about the fate of Israel and the temple and the Jewish people. Go back to Jeremiah 30. What's happening is Christians are losing sight of this and thinking that somehow all these passages apply to them, but they're Jewish. There is a division between the work God's doing with the church today and the work He will do with Israel. There's a division between the work that He did with Israel and the work He's done with the church now. Jeremiah 30. This is the tribulation He's speaking about in Matthew 24. And here Jeremiah is getting a similar thing. Why is that? Because God doesn't change, so He gives verily, verily, verily, verily, and life is not a dream. It's real. And there is an afterlife. That's not a dream. And the only way you'll know it is through the verily, verily. And He gives the prophets over and over and over because the mother of learning is repetition. And God repeats it in Jeremiah 30, verse 1, the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord God of Israel, saying, all the words that I've spoken unto thee in a book. And you're reading the words of God that were put in the book of Jeremiah, commanded by God, inspired by God, preserved by God, transmitted, translated, and delivered by God to you folks sitting right here in the 21st century. Because heaven and earth may pass away, but the Word of God and His words will not pass away. And you're getting to read them. And he says, verse 3, The days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of My people Israel and Judah, saith the Lord, and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it. And in 1948 that happened. And God caused them to return to the land. And they, well, in a matter of speaking, they possess it. I mean, they do have a charter from the United Nations, even though they get gifts of little missiles and bombs from the surrounding nations. Technically, they're supposed to have the land and they got it now. Verse 4, these are the words that the Lord spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah. For thus saith the Lord, we've heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. And since they've gotten in that land in 1948, that's kind of what they've heard. is they haven't really had peace in Israel. They had the war at their foundation in 1948. They had the six-day war in 1967. And they've had border skirmishes and problems going on with land, back and forth going on. And that's what they hear. Verse 6, "...ask ye now and see whether a man doth travail with child Do I see every man with his hands on his loins as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned to paleness? And here's what's coming in very near future. Alas, for that day is great, so that none is like it. It is even the time of Jacob's trouble." but he shall be saved out of it." And Jesus is answering these Jewish people about their father, Jacob, who God changed His name to Israel, and the fate of the Jewish people. Verse 8, "'It shall come to pass in that day, That would be the great day of the Lord, the time of Jacob's trouble, saith the Lord of hosts, that I, the Lord, will break his yoke, that's the yoke of the Antichrist, from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him. They'll serve the Lord their God. and David their king, whom I'll raise up to them in the resurrection of David. But what I'm trying to show you is this is the time of Jacob's trouble. Go to Daniel 12. This is not the church. And this was understood for about 100 plus years, but lately there's a falling away and Christians are getting confused about it. And I'll hear from pastor after pastor, well, we're going through the tribulation. Not unless you're a Jew. who has never received Christ as his Savior. Because if you receive Christ as his Savior, you're part of the church, you're going to be out of here when this time begins. Daniel 12, verse 1, another prophet to whom God gave... This is a great book of prophecy, Daniel. You know, half of the book is historical, chapters 1-6, and even in the history there's prophecy. And then half of it's prophetical, chapters 7-12, which nobody seems to understand. And there's debates and arguments. There's no controversy or debate in heaven. It's really straight to God. He doesn't understand why we can't get this. Verse 1, at that time, That would be the time of Jacob's trouble. "...shall Michael stand up, the great prince, which standeth for the children of thy people, and there shall be a time of trouble." The time of Jacob's trouble. "...as such as never was, since there was a nation even to that same time, and at that time thy people shall be delivered." Who's Daniel? Jew or Gentile? Jew! His people are the Jews. This is the delivery of the Jews in the nation. So back to where we are. Chapter 24, there's instruction for the church in terms of how to learn some spiritual lessons that Israel is going through that we will go through. But the time of Jacob's trouble, we will not go through. Because we're not unsaved Jews that need to be purified. We are now washed in the blood of Christ and we're part of His bride. And He's not going to put His bride through that. Jesus is not a wife abuser. The words in the very chapter, verse 1, the temple. Verse 3, the Mount of Olives. Verse 14, the gospel of the kingdom. That would be the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is found only in Matthew's gospel. It's found in, curiously, 31 verses. Teresa will get that. 31 verses. Because the Kingdom of Heaven will be set up probably around, well anyways, 31 verses. What else we got here? Verse 15, we've got Daniel the prophet, that's Jewish. The Mount of Olives, Jewish. The Temple, Jewish. The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven, Jewish. Let's see, verse 16, we've got Judea, that would be Jewish. Let's see, what have we got? End of verse 20. The Sabbath day, that's Jewish. Let's see, verse 22. The elect. Well, that's Jewish. Isaiah 45, verse 4. Israel mine elect, that's Jewish. We've got the fig tree later on in, what is it, verse 32. That's Jeremiah chapter 5, Jeremiah chapter 24. That's Israel. What are the key words in the chapter? They're all Jewish. You don't see the born-again Christian here. You don't see the apostle Paul here, who's the apostle to us to set up the church. You don't see the church mentioned here. This is Jewish. Are you following me? Are you tracking with me? This is Jewish. We won't be any part of this. We won't be around when this happens, just so you understand. Now, what he's going to do as he answers the question, he's going to break it down into three portions. He's going to speak about the beginning of the tribulation as we saw in verses 4-14. And he's talking to the Jews in the beginning of the tribulation. For those of us, let's say, not going through the time of Jacob's trouble, but going through the troubles in our own life, it's a good spiritual lesson. Take heed that no man deceive you. And deception is a problem, but during the time of Jacob's trouble, deception is going to be a real problem. And you're going to see religious deception as the Jews who still don't know who their Messiah is. Have you talked to a Jew? I mean, I work with doctors. Almost all of them are Jewish. I remember a question on a game show once, and the guy on the game show was a Jewish man named Buddy Hackett, and they said, what country has the most doctors? He said, that's easy, the one with the most Jews. because Jews become doctors. And in medical school, half of my class was Jewish. 50%. Is 50% of America Jews? Is 5% of America Jews? No. So that's pretty impressive, that 50%. That's what they do. They're professionals. They're brilliant. One of the gifts that God left them, since they rejected the spiritual gifts, is He left them the physical gift high IQ and intellect so they can navigate this world since they pushed their Messiah way they were going to need to be able to navigate the world for 2,000 years without being exterminated so God left them with the intellectual gifts so that people would even if we don't like him we got to admit he just It had a Nobel Prize for inventing something that's going to help us out. And so we let the guy live because he's helped us. And that's what God has done with them. And deception. These people don't know who their Messiah is. They're going to be false messiahs trying to deceive them. Worldwide religious deception aimed at the Jews. And some of the heathen obviously will fall for it. Many of them will. There's going to be, he tells you, verse 6, wars. There'll be World War III. The first two world wars occurred before the fig tree was birthed. Now that the fig tree is birthed, the next world war will eventually occur. And God has been holding back that world war since 1948, but He's going to let it happen this decade, folks. Good news. We won't be here. We're going to be gone. but they're going to have to face that worldwide war. There's going to be a famine worldwide. There's going to be a disease worldwide. Not little viruses like the coronavirus. By the way, sometimes I'll have the TV on real low volume in the background just to pick things up. And there was this episode of this show from 15 or 16 years ago called Law and Order. And in that particular episode, there was some terrorist that wanted to have a terrorist plot in Manhattan. And he decided, instead of using a bomb, he'd use bioterrorism. So he had this little cooler full of something that they found in the back of a van. They opened it up, and there was that cooler there. And they got the hazmat team in there, and they worked it out. And they said, what is that thing there? They said, it's coronavirus. This is 2004, 2005, OK? Coronavirus has been known since the 1930s. I told you that when it came out. It's a little weak virus in animals. It was discovered in the 1930s. It was finally named, I think, in 1967 in Nature magazine when they got the first electron micrograph of it. And they saw all the little protein spikes. And it looked like a crown. And so they called it Corona, the crown. And it's been named since the 1960s. and known for a long time. And this TV show had it on back in 2004 or 2005. I should have got the season and episode number. It was minute 31 where the expert came on and said to all the police, you don't have to worry about this thing. It's a little weak virus. It's like a flu. It's not fatal. It can't hurt anyone. Amen. We know that. I told you when it started in 2020, they're going to lie to you about this little weak virus. Not here in the trib. These are going to be real diseases. They're going to kill people. People are going to get them. They're going to die. This is worldwide war, worldwide famine, worldwide disease, worldwide natural disaster, earthquakes in diverse places. End of verse 7. All over the place. a seven on the Richter scale, an eight on the Richter scale. I mean, major and strong and great quakes happening all over the world, gonna shake things up. And one of the reasons God does it is if there's an earthquake there, and everybody wants to go help, but just as they're about to get ready, there's an earthquake in their backyard, and then someone wants to come over there, there's an earthquake there, no one's helping anybody. And it's just every man for himself and fighting in this time. There's going to be death all over the place. And there's going to be verse 14, the gospel of the kingdom preached in all the world. Not the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel of the kingdom. That's the Jewish gospel. The gospel of telling the world, hey, the King is coming to set up His kingdom. Okay, he did his salvation work and preached his gospel for 2,000 years and none of you wanted it. And now all of you who have joined the United Nations and the Antichrist in his international whatever thing he set up, the real king is coming and he's going to set it up. And unlike Herod, you're not going to kill him. He's going to kill all of you and there's going to be the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom. And he says in verse 8, and all this stuff in the beginning of the trib is just The beginning of sorrows. That's all it is. We haven't really started here. We're just beginning to warm up. And you read the book of Revelation and everything that happens in the beginning of the trib is merely the opening of the six seals in Revelation 6. And then we've got 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 left to come. And these are the beginning of sorrows. Go to Isaiah 13. And again, the Lord tells prophet after prophet after prophet after prophet over and over. I've got the same message. By the way, he's got the same message today for you. Same one he gave to Nicodemus. You must be born again. That's God's message to you. And I just saw on YouTube, there was this guy that died for 30 minutes, and he was pronounced dead, and he saw a light, and he came back. Really, and what did the light tell him to do? Did it tell him to get born again? Then it wasn't the light of God. It was the false light of a false God. Well, it told him how to come back and make lots of money. Then it wasn't the light of God. Because Jesus said, what profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose his own soul? You must be born again. God hasn't changed His message. God doesn't change His message. God's desire is to get you to repent and to change your mind and to follow what He says. Isaiah 13, the beginning of sorrows. Pick it up in verse 6. Howl, ye, for the day of the Lord is at hand. This is the day, you see, there was the day when Jesus hung on the cross and He took the beating. Now he's going to get his vengeance and the day comes back where you take the beating. All the people that killed him by denying his gospel. The day of the Lord at hand, it'll come as a destruction from the Almighty. I heard someone saying, you know, I think it's going to be nuclear war. Oh, no, no. God is probably not going to let one nuclear bomb explode again. The last one was, was it Nagasaki? You're probably not gonna let another one, yeah, you're not gonna let another one go. Because if nuclear bombs went off, they'd say it was a destruction for man. No, no, no. I want everyone to know, God says, this is my hand at work here. And by the way, and I had to tell the one individual, and I've said it before here and you guys all know if you've been in attendance here, nuclear bombs become duds after six months. They're good for about six months. For a nuclear bomb to work, either type, there's two types, there are fission bombs and fusion bombs. Fission bombs use uranium and plutonium, and to fission means to split the big nucleus of a big atom like that. And it's a small bomb like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's measured in the kiloton range. Kiloton, thousands of ton. I think Hiroshima was 13 kilotons. That'd be 13,000 tons of TNT equivalent in that little bomb. And that's a fission bomb. Fusion bombs are fusing hydrogen together into helium like the sun does. And those are megaton bombs, not kilo, not thousand, mega, million tons of power. And so that would be something, let's say, a 13 megaton would be a thousand times bigger than the one that hit Hiroshima. and by the way for those bombs what you need is a trigger and a trigger is a fission bomb inside a fusion bomb the trigger to get the fusion chain reaction started is a fission bomb so they have to put the uranium plutonium get that to blow up to get the hydrogen to start to get the whole cycle going but but getting all the way back so you need a fission either way either if you want it to be a bomb alone you want to start a fusion But when you have uranium or plutonium, they naturally degrade. Have you ever noticed everything kind of falls apart with time? Like your body, like your car, like the carpet, like just about everything. The whole world corrupts. It's called the laws of entropy that God put in everything. They go from order to disorder. And those bombs degrade in six months. You need like 99 point, is it 8% fissile, pure fissile material and you give it a couple of months and all of a sudden it's down to 99.6, 99.2 and at that point it can't explode. So this is going to be destruction from the Almighty. What's going to happen is while those earthquakes are going off every place, there's not going to be anyone on the bomb crew going, we need to restock that bomb. They're going to be running around going, I've got to save my wife and my kids and get to my house and do stuff like that. And no one's going to be taking care of bombs. And after six months, there won't be one bomb on this planet that can go off. So God can let the whole universe know, this is me. This isn't those little nitwits, the German scientists with the V2 rockets. No, this is me. It's a destruction from the Almighty. Verse 7, Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt, and they shall be afraid. Pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them. They'll be in pain as a woman that travaileth." Again, the time of Jacob's trouble, the beginning of sorrows like the sorrows a woman has when she has the birth pangs. They'll be amazed one at another. Their faces shall be as flames. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel, both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate, and He shall destroy the sinners out of it." For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof give not their light. The sun shall be darkened and is going forth. The moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil and the wicked for their iniquity. And I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease. And I will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible." This is the tribulation. This is Jewish. We're reading the book of Isaiah. We were reading the book of Jeremiah. We were reading the book of Daniel. Those are Jewish prophets. They're not written to the church. They're written for our instruction to learn spiritual lessons, but they're not to us. And what he's showing us right here is that this is the beginning of the sorrows. Now, back to where we are in Matthew, because he's answering this question, and he's going to answer it in three parts. And he's going to answer the first part as the beginning, and then he's going to do the middle, and then he's going to do the end. And I don't know how far we'll get today. I hope we can get as far as the middle. I'm kind of a slow teacher, so it's my fault if things don't get done up here. Listen to Brother James Knox. He's much better. You'll learn more. But in the meantime, since you're stuck here, you listen to me, and I'll give what I can. In the beginning of Saros, which is verses 4-14, and in the beginning of Saros, the 144,000 are out there the first three and a half years, and they're preaching the gospel of the kingdom everywhere God allows them to preach. And it's a witness unto all nations. And then shall the end come. And then will be the middle and the end, and then that's it. But notice he says something The truth of the matter is, verse 11, there will be false prophets. Verse 12, iniquity shall abound and lawlessness and hatred and wicked and bitter and angry and wrathful spirits are everywhere. You've got a disaster, you've got tornadoes, you've got hurricanes, you've got earthquakes, you've got members of your family dying. Other members of your family just disappeared a few years ago and you don't know where they are. All you could find was their clothes and a heap of blood. And there's just utter confusion and perplexity of nations. And this is going on. And verse 12, the love of many shall wax cold. But, here's the verse, the problem text. He that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved." Now I foolishly heard this verse aimed at Christians. You're not in the picture. You're not in the chapter. It's got nothing to do with you. And furthermore, and I've tried to answer this on Ask the Pastor, I was on for 10 years on that program. And in would come the question, and I would be the first one to go to the Bible and answer. And as soon as I was done, four other guys who didn't read a Bible went in different directions with it, and all that left was confusion. But the answer is in the chapter. which I've pointed out many times. Verse 13, He that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved. Verse 22, there's your answer. Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved. It's got nothing to do with the salvation of a soul. It's talking about if you're living during that seven-year period of Jacob's trouble, If God didn't shorten the days for you, and you have to follow exactly what He says back in verse 15, Whoso readeth, let him understand it. Do what I tell you to do. If you don't do that, you're going to die in the trib. But if you do what God tells you to do in the trib, He'll be able to preserve you. But even then, there's going to be so much death. If He didn't shorten it to a seven-year period, really, everyone would end up dying in that time. But it's got nothing to do with the salvation of a soul. Do you see that? Is there anyone confused on this passage in this room? It's got nothing to do with the salvation of a soul. All flesh will be saved. Now, how do I know? Verse 22. Except the days be shortened, there should no flesh be saved but for the elect's sake. And again, I just want to show you. How do you learn what a word means? You have to find when God used it the first couple times in the Bible. You go back to Isaiah 45 and verse 4. This is how you define words. You let the Bible define them. Isaiah 45, verse 4. And we know in verse 1, it's God speaking, thus saith the Lord. We know in verse 3, it's God speaking, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob, My servant's sake, and Israel, Mine elect. Look, I don't know if, what's his name, John Calvin ever got saved. I don't know. For his sake, I hope he did. I gotta be honest with you, I don't think he got saved. I think, you know, but he talks about the elect being us and God choosing certain people, electing people to be saved and electing people to go to hell. You know, can we just, do we have time? I hate to slow down, but do you have time? Can we just think for a minute? Okay. Well, if God knew Adam was going to sin, why did He use that badge? Okay, okay. Alright, let's answer these questions again one more time, one last time. Let's answer them again. We go all the way back to eternity before God even wrote a Bible, before Genesis 1, verse 1. And who's up there? Nope. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, that's it. There ain't nobody else up there. There's just God, the eternal God, inhabiting eternity. Three in one. And they love each other. And they're a tight family. And there's no schisms or arguments amongst them. And they're sitting around and they've got a couple of choices. Somebody says, you know, it's just the three of us. What do you want to do? Get another beer and just enjoy? What do you want to do? No, I don't know, probably cold cuts, probably kosher, okay? Kosher cold cuts and new wine, but what do you want to do? And then one of them says, hey, We got it so good, we don't need anything. Let's just stay like this for the rest of eternity. So we're not going to create. There won't be a Genesis 1-1. We're not going to make a heaven. We're not going to make an earth. We don't dwell in heaven. We dwell in eternity. We don't need to make a heaven and an earth. We just hang together. That's one option. Somebody got a second option. Second option is this. Well, why don't we make creatures? We'll make spiritual creatures and mortal creatures. We'll make angels. We'll make people. And then somebody says, yeah, what if they do wrong? And then one member of the Godhead says, well, I'll tell you what, let's make them so they can't. We'll program like robots. And they're just programmed to love us. No mistakes permitted. So no creation or we create robots. And then someone else says, yeah, but You know, that's like having a little wind-up doll that says, I love you, I love you, but that's all it's programmed to say. I mean, wouldn't you prefer to have someone that really loves you? Why don't we create them and give them free will and give them a choice? And then they can choose between loving us or loving anything else. And if they love anything else, we'll let them live for a while, and then when they're all done living, we'll, you know, get rid of them. And if they choose to love us, we'll give them the gift of eternal life, and we'll go back into eternity now with a whole family of creatures that love us, both celestial creatures, angels, and terrestrial creatures. And that makes sense, and so they decided to go with that option. Now here's Calvin's option, which makes no sense at all. Let's make robots, but let's make some of them that will love us and a whole bunch that we can destroy in a lake of fire forever and burn the tar out of. What the hell kind of stupid option is that? Why would God do that? Now you know why? Because the devil thought that up and wants to convince you that's how God thought. You know why? Because then the devil says, well he just made me this way. It's just like the gay guy that says, I'm just the way God made me. God didn't make you that way, gay person. God made you a male or a female. That's how he made you. And if you want to be gay, which isn't gay at all, it's pretty sad and pitiful, and the end of it is horrible because it's an abomination, you did that to yourself. And Satan, you did that to yourself. I made you perfect in the day I created you, and you put iniquity in you. So the reason you know Calvin is nuts is he's got an option that really doesn't fit there. It's kind of like the option of saying Jesus is a good man, but He's not the Lord. That's not an option. Jesus is either the Lord or he's a liar or a lunatic, but he's not a good man if he's not the Lord. Satan comes up with these fourth options that he puts on the table, which are no options at all. Sorry to go that far just to get back to where we are. The elect is Israel. Now, I want to contrast the fact that in this verse, and he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved. It's speaking of the body getting through the trib at the time where there's death everywhere and you have to obey God to do it and you have to be one of God's that you've elected in your heart to trust the Lord and to follow His word, and He'll get you through. It doesn't have to do with New Testament salvation of a member of a New Testament church, the body of Christ, by being born again. How do I know? Go to Romans 10. I've got to clear this stuff up. I shouldn't have to do this stuff. I'm wasting a lot of time up here. Romans 10. Look what it says in verse 4. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Verse 8, what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and even in thy heart. That is the word of faith. Salvation comes by speaking words of faith in thy mouth, which we preach, that if thou, listener, hearer, shall confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. You believe that there is a Lord, you believe there is one Lord, and you believe that one Lord is not my attire, whatever those names are they got over there in the East. It's Jesus, the name given above all names, and shall believe in thine heart. that God hath raised Him from the dead. You believe in the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, conquering Satan and sin and death. You don't believe He swooned on the cross and then ran away to Europe with Mary Magdalene. You believe that He really died, He was there for three days, and then He rose according to the Scriptures, and He is the one Savior that lived a sinless life and can offer you a way to get through the grave and to the resurrection. If you'll do that, Verse 10, "...whether thou shalt be saved. With the heart man believeth to righteousness, not endureth he that shall endure to the end." Not endureth. Not even behaveth. Because if you've met any born-again Christians, who grew up in America, who have a kind of Burger King Christianity, and God bless them, I'm thankful for their sake, they're saved. And they still know what their favorite brew is, and they know what their favorite R-rated movie is, and she knows what her favorite tank top is, and whatever, God bless them, have a good time, enjoy. It's not behavior, it's not enduring, it's believing. And I know this is getting people angry. I see Christians looking at me mad right now. I'm sorry. It's great salvation. Look at it again. With the heart, man, woman, child, believeth unto righteousness. What's that? That's the righteousness of God. That's the one day when you finally figured it out, I need His righteousness. And at that moment, you fall on your knees, maybe in a hotel room. I know of an older businessman who heard it and fell on his knees in a hotel room while he was out doing some work in another city for his company. And he got saved. And I've known that guy for decades afterwards. And right now, he goes to a Catholic church. And I'm thinking, blink, blink, blink, blink, blink. You grew up in a Catholic church. You never got saved in a Catholic church. You had this Baptist preacher preaching to you for six months. You finally figured it out in the hotel room. You got saved. And he believed at that moment. And at that moment, God took him. Now I'm going to show you. This is a great salvation. It's not dependent on your spiritual IQ. It's dependent on being of a broken spirit and a contrite heart and getting the message of that great eternal gospel in a moment of time, and it's good for eternity. That's grace, folks. And with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation. Not unto a priest in a phone booth. Not unto, well, these are the sins I committed. I'm heartily sorry for my sins. It's unto salvation. You're the Savior. I've confessed You, Jesus. I don't even know what most of my sins are. And the Scripture saith, whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed. And he won't be, because one day God's going to get all that shame out of him, and he'll be set for all of eternity. Now, it's not enduring to the end. Go to John chapter 10, because you have Paul telling it to you. How about Jesus telling it to you? he that shall endure to the end." It has nothing to do with the born-again Christian and his salvation. It has to do with a Jew getting through the tribulation alive, by the skin of his teeth, with everything happening around him. The only way he avoided the last tornado is God told him where to go. Talk about having to trust the Lord to direct your steps. You go that way, there's a tornado. You go that way, there's an earthquake. You go that way, there's the Antichrist's army. You go this way and you'll be safe. And they'll be praying and listening to the Lord every moment of the way. John 10. And a great chapter. And this is, I think, the only chapter where Jesus gives two of the I Am's in the same chapter. And He says, I am the door, in verse 9, and I am the good shepherd, in verse 11. And then he says, verse 27, my sheep hear my voice, and here's the three great words, and I know them. Because some of my sheep get so dirty and so malnourished and get in the wrong pen with the wrong shepherd, they don't even know me anymore. And you'll hear, you'll hear, and I've heard this testimony at the hospital, you know, taking care of a family. That's a long story and I'm not gonna go through it, but anyways, talking to one of the older members of the family, and I'm trying to work with him through the Bible so I can get his consent on a blood transfusion for his daughter. And he's a Jehovah's Witness and I'm trying to work with him, and as I work with him, I begin to realize this guy got saved at 11 years old when his grandma took him to a Baptist church, and now he's in a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom hall, utterly as confused. I mean, he would make Harold Camping look like a good teacher. Those are old references. You've got to go back. Don't waste your time. But anyways, utterly confused. He didn't know who Jesus was anymore, but Jesus knew him. Yeah, yeah. Just like you can get real Alzheimer as a human being, you can get spiritual Alzheimer as a babe in Christ. And it happens, and a lot of them are confused, but I know them. I know them. Verse 28, and I give unto them. Eternal life. Not temporal life. Not probational life. I give them eternal life. That's eternal salvation. They shall never perish, whether they endure to the end or not. They may quit church. They may quit Bible reading. They may quit giving, which they never started in the first place. They may quit praying. It doesn't matter. I'm the Good Shepherd. And I know them. Yeah. And they'll never perish. And neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Not the Antichrist, not anyone. They're not going to meet the Antichrist. Because my Father, which gave them me, is greater than all. And no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. You talk about being safe. You know, they used to talk in all states' hands. You're in the hands of the Father and the Son. You can't lose it. Can I lose my salvation? I'll ask you a question. Can you earn it? Can you earn it? Did you earn it? No. Then you can't earn it, you can't keep it, you can't lose it. It's Christ's to give to you and to keep. And thank goodness for all the train wreck Christians that we've seen allitering the landscape of humanity for the last 2,000 years. They're still the Lord's. And Matthew 22.13 has nothing to do with them. Do we understand? Any problem? He that shall endure to the end. I hate when they beat up Christians with these verses out of Matthew. You know, these moronic preachers that don't know anything. We're going to hit a couple in the next chapter of the 25th. You know, in the 7th chapter, beating up these poor, simple Christians. Not everyone that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? Have we not cast out devils and in thy name done wonderful works? And I'll profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. And scaring little sheep in a pew, that isn't aimed at the sheep. Read the chapter. It's aimed at the false prophets. It's aimed at the shepherds. Which one of you sheep has ever prophesied in His name or done a work in His name? Come on, who are you kidding? Cast out a devil in His name. The average sheep, if he hears the devil's in the next county, he's already hiding and buying in his basement. Come on. No sheep has done spiritual warfare. Shepherd's job is to do that. And Jesus was talking to false shepherds, taking Matthew and beating up Christians. Just woe to you pastors that do that. I guess that's the 23rd chapter. Go back to the 24th. I'm sorry, but someone's got to try and straighten this out. Okay, we're done with the beginning of the trip. Okay? That's the first three and a half years. Now we get to the middle of the trip. Now the middle of the tribulation. There's a sign that Jesus gives that you'll know when you've hit the midpoint of the Trib. It's in verse 15. When. It's a time word. When ye. That's who? The Jews. Reading this. Because He's going to say at the end of the verse, Whoso readeth, let him understand. When ye see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet. By the way, I'm looking at a bunch of Americans here. When you grew up in school, middle school, high school, I don't know where, how often did you guys discuss Daniel the prophet? Seriously. Seriously. Your social studies teacher? Your English teacher? How often was Daniel brought up? How much did you know about Daniel the prophet before salvation? Yeah. So Gentiles don't know this stuff. He's speaking to Jews in the Tribulation. Because these people have gone to the synagogue. Even Jews that don't believe in Christ have spent some time in a synagogue somewhere. Some place they've been at a Passover meal. Some time they've been at a Bar Mitzvah. I know. Again, I grew up with Jewish doctors. Once in a while, I would go with them to one of the bar mitzvahs to someone. And the reason I think it was, you know, is a lot of money changed hands. I mean, the kid getting bar mitzvahed was thrilled with the amount of money being passed his way. Just like you like your confirmation and communion money when you were growing up. We understand how the human heart works. But at those things, they would hear from Daniel. And so these Jews now, they're in the middle of the tribulation and they're reading. And when you see with your eyes the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, when you see that thing stand in the holy place, whoso readeth, let him understand, then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains. Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house, neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. and woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! And now we hit the middle of the trib, the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet." So now we've got to go back. Do you want to take the time to learn some of the prophecy? Okay, then we're going to be here a few weeks. I'm sorry, this chapter is going to take a while. Daniel 9. And now I'm winging it, Justin, so just have fun. Okay, now you know the story about Daniel. He was a young man that was living in Jerusalem when in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, came to the holy city and besieged this city. And the Lord let Nebuchadnezzar take this city and carry part of the vessels of the house of God off to the land of Shinar in Babylon. And at the same time, He said, find some of the smartest young men in Jerusalem, well-favored, skillful in wisdom, knowledge in science and ability, and bring them over to Babylon so we can train them. Maybe they can be counselors here. And Daniel was one of the men that was carried off. A young man by the name of Daniel. And he was maybe, I don't know, 16, 17, 18 when he was carried off. And I'm sure it was difficult for him to watch. It would be like you perhaps watching America overtaken by Soviets or Chinese. You know, you grew up in this land and then all of a sudden a foreign occupying force comes in and takes over. You think this can't happen. And these things do happen. And God permitted this because of the disobedience of the Jews. And Daniel was there, and a year passed. And two years passed. And then a decade passed. And then another decade passed. and then four decades passed, and then five decades passed, and then six decades passed, and he's still captive over there in Babylon, and now he's 77 years old six decades later. And in the ninth chapter, In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, because the Medes had now finally conquered the Babylonians. And his thought was, wow, now that another country has conquered the country that conquered us, we're going to be let go. And he's waiting to be released, but he's not being released yet. And it says, verse 2, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by books the number of the years whereof the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet. And finally, he's getting understanding of prophecy. Now, here's something that, Daniel, you think these guys are like multi-Bible geniuses and they get everything. They don't. The Bible is a revelation that's progressive, not only over the centuries, but over the decades of your life. I was just listening to James Knox the other day. He was teaching a Friday morning conference at the Antioch Bible Baptist Church. I think it's in Alabama, Mississippi. I always get these places confused. And I was listening to him at the morning conference, and he was saying, I've been reading this book since I got saved, and I don't know if it was 47 years ago, he said, and I'm always amazed that all of a sudden I'll read it and go, how did I not see that before? Because God is progressively opening your eyes to new things. This is a deep book. And you can't get it all in this lifetime. That's why we've got the Millennium. And during the Millennium, we're going to get 1,000 years to open this book up, and God's going to teach us. But right now, we're doing what we can. And Daniel's reading, and he's reading. And finally, he reads Jeremiah 25, verse 11, if you want to know where he was reading. He was probably reading the scroll of Jeremiah, and when he came across the 25th chapter, God had warned Jeremiah that this was going to happen before Daniel was born. And verse 8, you don't mind taking this time because we're going to go ahead. Jeremiah 25, verse 8, Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, Because ye have not heard my words, Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land." And he's just warning that, you know, you guys aren't listening. I'm going to take my hand of protection off you. And when my hand of protection is taken off, northern armies are going to sweep in from Assyria and Babylon and clean this place up. The only reason you're there is because I'm protecting you. And if you don't listen to me, you're asking me to take my hand of protection off you. America, you don't want to listen. I'll lift my hand on September 11, 2001. America, you listen. You stay in church. Those towers don't come down. You don't listen to me. I'll take my hand off. I'll let something happen to you. And God doesn't change. And here he does this, and he says, verse 10, I'll take from them the voice of mirth, the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, the light of the candle. Verse 11, and this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the King of Babylon 70 years. Back to where you are in Daniel 9. And Daniel, I understand, he says, okay, it's 70 years. But something's wrong, Lord. So verse 3, what did he do? I set my face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes, and I prayed unto the Lord my God. Boy, isn't that a good idea when you don't know something? Isn't that to follow Daniel's example? I don't know what's going on. There's a problem in my life. I don't know what to do. I looked in Jeremiah. There's nothing in Jeremiah about it. But, Lord, Thou knowest all things. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God. Deuteronomy 29. And those things that are revealed belong to us and our children. So let me go to the Lord and seek by prayer. I'll go to the book. If there's nothing in the book, I'm going to seek by prayer. If there's something in the book I don't understand, I'm going to ask you, God, what does this mean? And then he makes this prayer, and it's an amazing chapter. And basically what he's doing is, verse 4, I made my confession. I said, O Lord, the great, the dreadful God, keeping covenant and mercy to them that love Him and to them that keep His commandments, we've sinned. We've committed iniquity. We've done wickedly. We've rebelled. even by departing from thy precepts and thy judgments." If that doesn't sound like the American church, I don't know what does. I can't get one out of 100 Christians to have an interest into which Bible is God's. They've departed from the book that he wrote to believe anything else. Here's the newest version. Here's the ESV. Here's the NIV. Here's the NNIV. Here's the NNNIV, the new, new, new improved version. I mean, what the heck is going on? If God doesn't change, how are the words changing? If the word is settled in heaven and yours is changing, it can't match the one settled up there. And the church has departed from the words of God. We've sinned. by departing from the pure, perfect words of God. You didn't see Spurgeon do that. You didn't see Wesley do that. Do you ever read about the Great Awakening in America? When John Wesley and his brother preached across America and swaths, towns, God, saved entire towns. Bars closed down. Brothels were finished. Everybody started going to work. I mean, the movement of the Spirit of God. And by the way, when Wesley preached, he never gave an invitation. Never once did he invite anyone to receive the Lord. All he did was go, he'd open the Bible, thus saith the Lord, he'd preach, he'd preach out of Romans, he'd preach out of John, he'd get on his horse, he'd drive away. And when people heard the words, the Spirit of God moved in and changed people and a new birth occurred. And the fruit was evident. And he preached out of a King James Bible. And Spurgeon preached out of a King James Bible. And Whitefield preached out of a King James Bible. And Edwards preached out of a King James Bible. And 270 years of revivals came out of the King James Bible. Then came these new things. How many revivals have you seen in America? We've departed. Yeah. We've rebelled, v. 5. We've departed from Thy precepts and Thy judgments. Oh Lord, v. 7, righteousness belongeth unto Thee, but unto us confusion effaces. What does yours say? What does yours say? I don't know. What does that one say? I'll tell you what God says. Thus saith the Lord. I'll tell you what God says. There's only one authority, His Word. Well, you've gotten 15 Bibles. You can pick the verse from each one like a smorgasbord that you like. God's not interested in what you like. He's interested in what He said. God wants to make me feel good. No, He doesn't. God wants to pamper me. No, He wants to perfect you and He wants to teach you holiness. And it comes out of a holy Bible, not out of a scholar's Bible with changed words. Confusion of face. Verse 8, O Lord, to us belong confusion of face, to our kings, our princes, our fathers, because we've sinned against Thee. What they had done in their day rather than writing modern Bibles is they wrote the Talmud, and they wrote the Mishnah, and they wrote the Gemara, and they wrote all these extra writings. God doesn't need you to add any extra writings. Daniel understands this. He saw the entire thing carried off captive. Thankfully, even though end of verse 8, we've sinned against Thee, to the Lord our God belongs mercy and forgiveness, even though we've rebelled against Him. Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants, the prophets. Yea, all Israel have transgressed Thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey Thy voice. That's why they like the modern version, so they don't have to obey. I've given the example over and over and over, and I'm sorry to have to give it again, but you're a child of God. You're to listen to your Father. And if you live in a household, and you're a child, and you walk in at 14 years old, you're supposed to listen to your father. Now, if you walk in at 14 years old after school, and your mother says, son, I need you to go upstairs and straighten up your room, and then come down and help me. I'm peeling some potatoes. You can take these skins out to the garbage, and then set the table, and then we'll eat. And you're 14 years old going, my friends are playing a football game. I don't want to listen to that. Dad, what do you say? Listen to your mother. Okay. But how about if there were 15 dads in the living room? One dad says, listen to your mother. The other says, no, that's okay. You don't have to take those potato skins out of the garbage. And the other one says, no, you don't have to clean your room. I think your room is clean enough. And the other one says, you want to play football? Go ahead and play football. What does yours say? What does yours say? I like that one. And there's no authority. And that's what's going on in the church. And it was like a round-robin pinball game when I was on Ask the Pastor. And this one says that, and this one says that. And nobody knows anything. Hey, God knows something. And He's made it plain and clear. But all Israel transgressed, and today all the church has transgressed. Why? That we might not obey Thy voice. Verse 11, therefore, the curse is poured upon us. and all that's written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, because we've sinned against Him. That's God. And He, God, hath confirmed His words. And boy, has He ever. And Daniel is praying and he's really pouring his heart out and saying, you know, we're in the mess we're in because we just wouldn't listen. and we've been locked up for 70 years, but I'm wondering if this is going to come to an end. And it says, verse 20, and while I was speaking and praying and confessing the sin, my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God, for the holy mountain of my God. Yea, while I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation." So he's praying from morning to evening. And he really wants an answer from God. And he informed me, and he talked with me, and he said, O Daniel, I have now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. At the beginning of thy supplications, the commandment came forth, and I am come to show thee, for thou art greatly beloved. Because you really understand what the issue is. The issue is the God of the Word and the Word of God. And you understand. And everyone else is running away and you're right there. And I want to commune with someone like thee. You know, when God was looking all over the planet after the Tower of Babel, and they had all made up their phony gods, some like creeping images, some like flying birds, and all those idols were everywhere, and Abraham is growing up in Ur of the Chaldees, and there's idolatry all around him, and God is trying to call. And He's sending the Word of the Lord forth. And the Word of the Lord came to Abram, and Abram believed the Word of the Lord. And God said, I'm going to take you. I'm going to make an entire nation out of you. I'm looking for one man that will hear my word. And we didn't get far, we're out of time, and next week we'll go through, this always takes time, is this okay? We'll go through it next week, I wanna show you the prophecy. You wanna go another hour? I can go hours here, folks. You turn those cameras off and I'll keep you going.