[0:00] Wow, what a passage. When is all this going to be? Well, in case you haven't noticed, it is not a description of the present.
[0:12] But this sounds utopian, and it is. It sounds like a veritable paradise, and it is. It is what is in store, it is what is coming.
[0:24] And there are dozens of similar passages in the Old and some in the New Testament that speak of this time. I suspect that most of you have seen one of the recent commercials on television.
[0:38] I'm sorry to say I can't even remember the name of the sponsor, which would probably give the writers and the people who are paying for it apoplexy, because you're supposed to remember their name, the product that they're selling.
[0:49] But this catchy tune comes on, and here are these jungle animals all cohabiting together. And they are running and walking side by side, and one is not chasing the other so that they can catch it and eat it.
[1:06] But they are frolicking together. And one, like a monkey, is on the head of a giraffe, and he jumps off and uses him like a high diving board and jumps into the water below. And all of these animals together, most of whom would be preying upon one another, are all just enjoying a good time of fellowship.
[1:25] And we all know that's not the way it is. That's not the way it was. The way it was, originally, was pretty much like that.
[1:41] Animals did not prey upon one another for food. But after the fall, everything changed. The world got turned upside down.
[1:54] And what God is about today, even though it appears to be making very, very slow progress, but what he is about today is restoring the earth to what it was before the fall.
[2:07] And this is what Peter refers to in Acts chapter 3 as the times of restoration or restitution. And how that is going to come about and through what medium it is going to be realized is going to be our subject for this morning.
[2:26] And it focuses, as a point of origin, in one man, Abraham. Technically, we could go all the way back to Adam because that one man started everything.
[2:44] But Abraham is going to be the human catalyst for a very dramatic enactment that I am referring to as scene 3.
[2:57] And what we are pursuing is the big picture. I don't know a better name for it. That's just the name that seems so appropriate. And we are presenting it in three acts or five acts or five scenes, if you will.
[3:11] And today is the third, the third scene. We are trying to consolidate a great deal of human history into just five segments and present them as a grand overview of what is going to be transpiring or what has been transpiring from the beginning and will be culminated in the book of the Revelation.
[3:36] So we began in scene 1 with why is there something rather than nothing? How did our existence originate? What is it doing here and why?
[3:47] Where is it going and how is it going to get there? What is the ultimate purpose of everything? Scene 1 dealt with creation that endowed the creator with volition, which we labeled the first institution.
[4:05] Human volition, the power of choice, given not only to humans, but to angelic beings as well. And they subsequently used their volition in a way that produced what we know as the fall.
[4:24] And what then was introduced as an abnormality has become normal. Now it is normal for death and disease and conflict to exist.
[4:41] But it wasn't normal originally. It has become the new norm. And we briefly looked at chapter 5 of Genesis, which is appropriately labeled the chapter of death.
[4:54] Virtually every verse in the chapter ends with, and he died, and he died, and he died, and he died. But that's not the way God created us originally.
[5:06] So, while God cannot be charged with the creation of evil, he did nonetheless create beings with the potential for evil.
[5:18] Evil that permeated and contaminated every aspect of humanity. This resulted in death, it is predictable, and they also predicted promised wages of sin.
[5:33] The reality of sin set in motion the desperate need for redemption, because God was confronted with a volition of his own, a choice of his own.
[5:44] He either has to go the route of redemption, or go the route of simple condemnation. And we are so grateful that our beneficent God chose the route of redemption.
[6:02] This redemption would be provided by the one whom God promised as the Redeemer in Genesis 3.15. So, in scene one of the big picture, human degradation intensified until the entire population was given over to wanton violence and cruelty, leading God to condemn it to a complete destruction under the flood of Noah.
[6:33] His redemption extended to eight individuals. Noah, his wife, Shem, Ham, Japheth, and their three wives.
[6:46] God started everything over again with what we would introduce as scene two of the big picture. And starting it all over again with a grand total population of eight couples from two different generations.
[7:03] And from those eight couples, everyone who exists in the world ever since that time has come from that parentage, one of those eight couples.
[7:16] Now we are prepared to engage scene three. The key person of scene one was Adam. The key person of scene two was Noah.
[7:29] The key person of scene three is Abraham. He is the, what shall we say, he is the catalyst that pulls everything together for this particular scene.
[7:46] And let me say with all of the sincerity that I can muster, as is with the case of Adam and with Noah, it is not possible for me to overemphasize the importance of Abraham.
[8:02] All of these key figures that we have been dealing with that provide the main player in each of these scenes is absolutely indispensable.
[8:15] The author, of course, the author, producer, and director behind all of this was none other than the infinite creator. And because Abraham occupies so much time and space in the Old Testament, and we cannot engage a detailed study of that and maintain the format that we have intended, we are going to refer you to a greatly condensed version, if you will, of the history of Israel as is related in Acts chapter 7.
[8:53] And a man who provided this was an individual who was under a great deal of stress at the time. In fact, his life was on the line, and by the time the chapter concludes, his life will have been taken from him.
[9:08] We are talking, of course, about the stoning of Stephen, as it is recorded in Acts chapter 7. He was having enormous success as an evangelist.
[9:22] Bottom line is simply this. Stephen was being used of God to convince many of his fellow Jews that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the Messiah, and that Israel was responsible for his death.
[9:42] Because he was having so much success, he became an embarrassment to the religious establishment that, of course, remained firmly entrenched in Judaism, a corrupted Judaism, as it was practiced at that time.
[9:56] And they secretly suborned men, they hired, if you will, some ne'er-do-wells from the street, from the marketplace, who would make accusations against Stephen that they had heard him blaspheme and provide a basis for bringing him up on charges.
[10:17] And that is precisely what happened. The whole thing was a setup, much the same way that our Lord Jesus was set up as well. So, in Acts chapter 7, the high priest presents to Stephen the question, are these things so?
[10:37] Let's go back to chapter 6. We just have to inject this. Look at verse 8. Stephen, Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people.
[10:53] It's really hard to argue with those. But some men, from what was called the synagogue of the freedmen, including both Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and some from Seleucia and Asia, rose up and argued with Stephen.
[11:10] And yet, they were unable to cope with the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking. In other words, they couldn't answer his arguments.
[11:21] They had no response to the claims that he made. He was more than a match for them when it came to laying out the apologetics of the case.
[11:33] And they simply were embarrassed. They were out of their league. And the reason is simple. Stephen had the truth on his side.
[11:44] And when you are armed with the truth, lies may be leveled against you, but they cannot prevail because the truth is so powerful.
[11:55] They were unable to cope with the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking, and they secretly induced men to say, we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God.
[12:10] And they stirred up the people. This is agitating a mob. This is the way you incite a crowd. You send the infiltrators out there who make accusations and egg on people and get them stirred up.
[12:27] Communists have a reputation for this and they are professionals at it. We saw it repeated time and again in the riots of the 60s and the anti-war protesting and how they manipulated the crowd and in many cases used and manipulated young energetic minds to their cause.
[12:50] Nothing new about that. It's been going on for a long time. They stirred up the people, the elders and the scribes. They came upon him, dragged him away, brought him before the council. This is the Sanhedrin.
[13:03] And they put forward false witnesses. Well, that's what you have to do if you don't have any true witnesses. You have to put false ones. And that's of course what they did. Again, reminiscent of the trials that were conducted regarding our Lord Jesus.
[13:17] They said, this man incessantly speaks against this holy place and the law. We have heard him say that this Nazarene Jesus will destroy this place, alter the customs which Moses handed down to us.
[13:28] And fixing their gaze on him, all who were sitting in the council, saw his face like the face of an angel. And the high priest said, are these things so?
[13:46] You've heard the accusations that have been leveled against you. Is it true? What do you have to say? And then in verses 1 through 5, he begins his answer.
[14:00] Hear me, brethren and fathers. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran. Now, how far back is Stephen going when he begins to recount his answer?
[14:15] He is taking a quantum leap back in history of 2,000 years. When he says our father Abraham, what he really means is our ancestor Abraham.
[14:26] He was their father, but in actuality he would have been their great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, however many greats there were, father. That's how far back he is going.
[14:38] This is the origin of the nation of Israel. He is speaking about the birthing of Israel that began with one man, Abraham.
[14:52] Well, where did he come from? With one man, Seth, the son of Adam who replaced Abel.
[15:05] So we go from Adam to Seth to Noah to Shem, and here we are at Abraham, with several generations in between, but these are the key figures that we are focusing on.
[15:18] The calling of Abraham is laid out here. We'll not take time to read it, but the actual account is given in Genesis chapter 12, and if you haven't read it before, you should.
[15:29] why Abraham? Why not Abraham? If God is going to choose anybody, he has to choose somebody, and he focused on Abraham.
[15:44] I submit it could have been any individual. We are not given any criteria by which God evaluated Abraham and found him somehow worthy any more than we are with Noah.
[15:57] Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. That means that Noah didn't have a worthiness in and of himself. Abraham is referred to as a man of faith, but he did not have merit or value in himself that God looked at Abraham and said, you know, I just can't resist this guy.
[16:15] I just have to choose him because he's such a sterling candidate. No, both of these are recipients of grace, and God could have chosen anyone, but he chose Abraham. And much of the world has held it against God ever since, even to this day.
[16:32] But Abraham becomes the father of three significant world faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
[16:45] All claim Abraham to be their spiritual, and in some cases, biological father. God loves God loves us because he loves us.
[17:03] It is not because we are irresistible and he finds us so lovely. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So this is God's grace active on behalf of Noah, God's grace active on behalf of Abraham, God's grace active in all of the progeny of Abraham, leading ultimately to the production of the one who will be the Messiah.
[17:31] The one who will be responsible for restoring a fallen earth to the place that Isaiah 35 describes. He will turn the world, not upside down, it already is.
[17:45] He will turn it right side up. And God is going to accomplish this through a key nation out of the loins of this one man, Abraham.
[17:58] He is going to use a race of people to provide the Messiah. And that will be our Lord Jesus Christ. When Christ was speaking to the woman at the well, there was a controversy over where they were supposed to be worshiping.
[18:15] And of course the Samaritans thought they were supposed to be worshiping there in Samaria, and the Jews thought they were to be. And Jesus said, you worship, you know not what. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
[18:33] Mind you now, Jesus said that. And who was Jesus? Well, he was a Jew. Salvation is of the Jews.
[18:44] Today, that would be looked upon as a politically and religiously incorrect statement. You ought not to go about making statements like that, because that has an exclusivity to it that the world just doesn't want to tolerate.
[18:59] But it is true. Jesus made many claims which, if they were not true, they were actually audacious and irresponsible and unjustifiable unless they were true.
[19:14] And of course, they were. So, here, dealing with Abraham, we are told in verse 6 and 7 that Stephen recounts their 400 years of Abraham's descendants in Egypt.
[19:27] Now, bear in mind, when they go down to Egypt, when Joseph is sold into Egypt, and he later brings his whole family, all of his brothers and their wives, some 70 souls, down to Egypt, to sojourn there in Egypt.
[19:42] Abraham has been dead for a long time, and so has Isaac. Jacob will die there in Egypt, and they will carry his bones back, and Joseph will die there as well.
[19:58] And eventually, the children of Israel will be led out of the land of Egypt, 400 years after Joseph and his brethren went down there, 400 years, and God will raise up a new key figure, who is one of the star players in this third scene, and his name is Moses.
[20:20] Moses will lead them out of the land of Israel, and, well, let us begin, if we may, with, I'm going to skip much of this in chapter 7, and we will come all the way down to verse 22, Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians, he was a man of power and words and deeds, but bear in mind, he was a Jew, you know the story, how his mother, Jacobed, put him out in the little ark and the bulrushes, and he was found by Pharaoh's daughter, raised in Pharaoh's household, educated, with probably the best education that money could afford at the time, in the Egyptian university, and he is very educated by their standards, and he was approaching the age of 40, and he found himself guilty of having taken the life of an Egyptian who was persecuting and abusing one of his
[21:23] Jewish brethren, and as a result, Moses took it on the lamb, he went to the land of Midian, which is today, southern Arabia, and there he dwelt for 40 years, there he took a wife, Jacobed, and there he received a certain kind of wisdom from Jethro, his father-in-law, as regards administrative practices, etc., and he became very astute, eventually God appeared to him in the burning bush, the mystery and the miracle of that, and the bush was not consumed, and God spoke to him from the bush, and told him that he wanted him to go back to Egypt, where he had been gone from for 40 years, returned to Egypt, and there he was to present a case before Pharaoh, and his people were in bondage because a Pharaoh rose up who knew not Joseph, and I want you to lead my people out.
[22:21] They'd been there 400 years, and by the way, this was all a subject to prophecy, where they would be, how they would be treated, and how long they would be there, and how they would come out. All of that was prophesied many years before it happened, and we have that recounted by Stephen in the message that he gives here in verses 29 on down through, and look to the passage, if you will, as it concludes, we are just moving along now, in chapter 7, and when Stephen begins to present his conclusion, he has moved through Solomon, the building of the temple, and all the rest of it, and then he comes down to the pay dirt that is going to cost him his life, and that is in verse 51 when he says, you men, you men, to whom is he speaking?
[23:25] He is speaking to this august religious establishment, this body called the Sanhedrin, or the council, that when it is in full session, has 70 participants, they are the most respected, revered, considered to be the wisest men in all of Israel, and the council is chaired by the high priest, they are those to whom Stephen is speaking when he says, you men, who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart.
[24:06] What does that mean? It means that he acknowledged their biological Jewishness, and that surely they were physically circumcised on the eighth day of their birth just as prescribed by Moses.
[24:22] But do you know something? You can be circumcised in the foreskin of your flesh, and officially be declared a Jew, but if you are not circumcised in your heart, with a heart that is devoted to God, and surrendered to God, the physical circumcision doesn't count for a thing.
[24:47] That's what Stephen was saying. You are uncircumcised in heart. Because you see, when a Jewish baby was circumcised, the foreskin was considered that which was dedicated to God, and it was a symbol of being a child of the covenant.
[25:06] But the circumcision of a heart depends on the will of the owner, not the physical circumcision of the parents who provide this upon an eight-day-old baby.
[25:24] And your ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit. You are doing just as your fathers did. He's talking about their ancestors, going back into the Old Testament, which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?
[25:45] Every one of them. You know, all of the prophets received some kind of abuse and ill-treatment. Virtually every one of them. Why? Because they delivered messages that people didn't want to hear.
[25:58] And in many cases, it cost them their life. They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.
[26:14] This was the same religious body that gave their voice for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. He's saying, you are the ones responsible for the death of the Messiah.
[26:32] God sent the Messiah to us, and you crucified him. You who have received the law as ordained by angels and yet did not keep it.
[26:45] And when they heard this, they were cut to the quick. What does that mean? It means that Stephen's message really got through, connected, penetrated.
[27:03] it was like a knife to the heart. And they got it. And because they got it, they've got to do one of two things.
[27:18] It's created a crisis. You've got to do one of two things. You can't sit on the fence. You've got to take the drastic position. Hold it!
[27:29] Wait a minute! Listen! Do you hear what this man just said? It's true! He nailed it!
[27:45] What he said is right. We cannot deny it. We might as well just own up to it. We need to bite this bitter pill of reality and say right on.
[28:01] We've been nailed. He's right. That's exactly what happened. And if you don't do that, then you've got to find some way to silence him.
[28:15] All through scripture, when men could not defeat an argument, they tend to kill or destroy the one who makes it. By the way, there's a lot of that that goes on today.
[28:28] they don't result to murder, but they do result to character assassination, and they attempt to destroy people's lives because they take positions and they make statements that they can't refute.
[28:45] So when you can't refute the argument, try to defame the one who makes it. That's old political ploy.
[28:56] back in these days, it could cost you your life. They would kill you if they could not defeat your argument. That's exactly what they did with Jesus Christ, and that's exactly what they did with John the Baptist, and that's exactly what they are doing here with Stephen.
[29:11] Man, when confronted with a choice like this, has to go one of two ways. He can repent, which means change his mind, and get in line with the truth. Admit it, acknowledge that you are at fault, and that this is the right way, and this is the way you need to go.
[29:29] And let me tell you, there is nothing more unlikely or more difficult for a man to do. Because he is shouting in big bold letters, I am wrong.
[29:48] I have been wrong. I have messed up. I have missed it. Oh, woe is me. It takes a really, really big person to do that.
[30:02] Take responsibility for your actions. There is not a lot of that going around. Or the other thing you can do is, as I have said, find some way to silence this guy.
[30:14] He is an embarrassment. Get rid of him. And that is of course what many times happens, and that is what happened in the case of Stephen. they were cut to the quick, and they began gnashing their teeth at him.
[30:28] He, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And thus, the rest is history. Stephen became what we commonly refer to as the first martyr of the Christian faith.
[30:43] So, what he is recounting here is much of what we have described as scene three involving Abraham and what was happening to Abraham and his descendants following this time.
[31:00] This leads me to the question about present day Israel, and I think it is very well established that throughout history, almost from the time of their inception, Israel has been, and remains, a persecuted nation.
[31:21] More than anything else, international hatred against the Jew is the machination of God's archenemy, Satan himself.
[31:33] Satan is instrumental in orchestrating hatred, revulsion, and opposition to the Jew, all the way from ancient Egypt to the present day United Nations.
[31:51] Piling on, ganging up on the Jew, has been a blood sport of the UN almost from the time of its inception. And isn't it amazing how that little, tiny Israel, no bigger than the state of New Jersey, you realize you can drive across the width of Israel at its widest point.
[32:19] You can drive clear across it in the time and in the distance it would take you to drive from here to Columbus, Ohio. That's all the wider it is, and about three times as long.
[32:30] Tiny. Few million people in Israel surrounded by hundreds of millions of hostile neighbors who want nothing more than their death.
[32:45] And yet, they haven't been able to bring it about. And here is tiny little Israel surrounded by 12 to 15 times the population that they have, and guess who the bully is?
[33:01] Israel. Isn't that amazing? Well, that's the way the world views it. Israel has blossomed into a top contender on the international stage for productivity, modernity, science, medicine, and whatever else you can name.
[33:22] There is no logical human explanation for the birthing, the existence, or the perpetuity of Israel. There just isn't any. There is none.
[33:34] There is a divine intervention there. And do you know what? Do you know who the first ones are to deny that? Israel. God is orchestrating events and situations behind the scenes, and he is committed to using the descendants, the seed of Abraham to bring about not only his Messiah for the first coming, but to bring about his Messiah for the second coming, and guess who some of the major disbelievers are in that?
[34:07] Israel. They, for the most part, do not see themselves at all as evangelical believers see them. In fact, they wish that we would stop making claims like that about them because it tends to get them in trouble.
[34:24] It's remarkable. And when I look back on some of the first unbelievers, who were the first unbelievers in Christ as the Messiah, were of course those to whom he came.
[34:35] He came unto his own, and his own received him not. Who were they? The Jew. Today, they remain in judicial unbelief, a la Romans 9, 10, and 11.
[34:50] They have been blinded in part until the fullness of the Gentiles become in, until God is ready to move again on behalf of Israel.
[35:00] And when he starts to, I suspect that the first unbelievers will be, you guessed it, Israel. The time is going to come, however, when they will be in such desperate straits.
[35:12] They will be right on the verge of annihilation. I don't know if this is going to be nuclear activity or what, but we are told in no uncertain terms that this great conflict is going to occur in the Mideast, which is the hotbed, and that when Israel stands within a hair breadth of being literally wiped out, then look up.
[35:37] Your redemption draws nigh. And then Jesus Christ will come and every eye will see him. Matthew chapter 24 spells it out very, very clearly.
[35:48] Abraham and his descendants constitute the vehicle through whom God will one day bring about the restitution and restoration of all things.
[35:59] They are key, and they don't even know it or believe it. You talk to most Jews today about what I'm saying, and they will be just dumbstruck by it, that we believe that.
[36:11] They don't believe this about themselves. Oh, I'm sure there are some of the Orthodox who do believe that one day Messiah will come. They don't believe he has come, but they're still looking for his first coming, and that when the Messiah comes, he will fix everything.
[36:27] But the vast majority of Jews throughout the world today do not see it that way at all. They just see themselves as an unfortunate segment of society that has had a difficult history.
[36:39] God's intent upon using the nation of Israel is to provide his Messiah. Let me ask you this.
[36:54] Do you think that Israel as a nation was worthy of producing and birthing a Messiah? Of course not.
[37:06] There's any worthiness there. When Jesus Christ came and was born of Mary in Bethlehem, Israel as a nation was in the pits of corruption, apostasy, under Roman rule, a virtual has-been, if you will.
[37:33] It isn't that this nation was of such sterling quality that God chose them for the vehicle of the Messiah. They weren't worthy. Noah wasn't worthy.
[37:45] Abraham wasn't worthy. And you aren't worthy either. And neither am I. But God's grace makes us accepted in the beloved. And the nation of Israel, despite their unbelief, despite their lack of cooperation, they are the vehicle through whom God is going to restore the fallen planet and its inhabitants.
[38:13] Israel will repent nationally and individually by embracing the same Messiah at his second coming, whom they rejected at his first coming.
[38:26] And we base this position on the nature of the promises and covenants that God made with the Jewish people. They are unconditional. I'm talking about the Abrahamic, the Davidic, and the Palestinian covenants.
[38:39] They are all unconditional, depending solely upon the faithfulness of the God of Israel and not of Israel. They are unconditional, and we have arrived at that via a literal interpretation of the several passages involved from Genesis through Revelation.
[38:59] So, there is no basis whatever for the worldwide anti-Semitism that exists, other than to say it is irrational and satanic at its base.
[39:18] And I do not think there is any more evidence of satanic involvement than what there is in radical Islam. These people, who are so filled with hatred, deem it wise and advisable to kill themselves if you can only kill a Jew.
[39:39] That, by all human standards, is an irrationality. It is fueled by their interpretation of the Koran, and the Koran is a book that contains many such directions.
[39:55] Many people, many Christian people, have never read the Koran. If you want an eye opening experience, you ought to read it. You can understand how and why these radicals believe and do as they do.
[40:11] They interpret the Koran quite literally. And let me tell you something. That's exactly the way Muhammad intended them to interpret it.
[40:23] It is scary when you read it that way. So, God has a plan and program, and Israel is smack dab in the middle of it.
[40:35] He is committed to using them, and he is going to use them with or without their cooperation. That's what God is going to bring to pass. Someone says, well, you sound like a Jew lover.
[40:50] Well, I hope so. I'm also a Muslim lover, lover, and I'm also an atheist lover, because when we have the love of Christ in our heart, that will permit us to hate every false way, but it will not permit us to hate people, our fellow human beings who were made in the likeness and image of God just as we are.
[41:23] It is tragic that the Jew is viewed the way he is, throughout much of the world. And people say, well, he's brought it upon himself. He controls all the banking interest, you know, the Rothschilds, they tie up all the money, they pull all the strings.
[41:37] A lot of that is nonsense, but Jews have been financially and materially successful in many phenomenal ways. There's no denying it.
[41:48] And I think that too is all part and parcel of the promise that God made to Abraham and his seed. Through you and your seed, all nations of the earth, will be blessed. And they are.
[42:01] In our next session, which will be scene four, and there are going to be five in this series, we're going to look at the coming of the Messiah, his first coming and his second coming, and try to put all of those together and then get ready for the grand finale and the big wrap-up that will come in scene number five.
[42:18] Now there is a question that I want to deal with. I didn't have an answer for at all, and I'm embarrassed by it because the answer is right there in the context, and this is the very thing I've been preaching to you for years and years.
[42:30] A question arose from Genesis chapter 9, and it was beginning with verse 3.
[42:42] This is after the flood, Noah and his sons have come off the ark, etc. And in verse 3, every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you. I give all to you as I gave the green plant.
[42:53] Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And surely I will require your life blood from every beast.
[43:04] I will require it, and from every man, from every man's brother. I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.
[43:16] Why? For in the image of God he made man. And the question was, what does that mean when it says in verse 5, surely I will require your life blood from every beast.
[43:29] I will require it. How is it possible that God could make some requirement from what we call a poor dumb animal? Well, in the context, and I'm talking about verse 3 of chapter 9, every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you.
[43:51] I give all to you as I gave the green plant. Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Surely I will require your life blood from it.
[44:03] So in some fashion that I don't profess to understand, God is making animals accountable as well as humans accountable. And that's a little perplexing to me, but you've got to remember that we're talking about a day and time when animals were of a different nature than they are today, as well as man.
[44:23] So that's the best answer that I can give right off the top here. And have you questions about the session this morning? Questions or comments? Got a few minutes.
[44:36] Harleen? What do the Muslims believe? I mean, who do they believe in? Like we have God. What do they have to believe in? I'm sorry, I don't have my hearing aid with me.
[44:49] What does who have to believe in? The Muslims. Well, the Muslims believe in his God, Allah.
[45:00] And as Allah is revealed by Muhammad in the Quran, that's what they believe. Islam, Islam did not begin until the seventh century with Muhammad.
[45:18] And many of his converts were forced converts. He preached, he preached the Quran and he preached the Islamic faith, but he also converted people at the point of the sword.
[45:33] And it, let me just put it this way. President Bush, I admire the man, I have great respect for him.
[45:46] I still have great respect for him, but he was absolutely dead wrong. He got lousy advice from his handlers or whomever when he said, Islam means peace.
[45:58] It does not mean peace. It never has meant peace. Islam means submission. That's what it means. It means submission.
[46:10] You submit to Allah. You submit to the Quran. It does not mean peace. It never has meant peace. He was just badly informed. I think there was a scurrying about on the part of our politicians, including our president, to dissociate the horrendous acts of 9-11 from what is generally considered to be Islam.
[46:34] And it ought to be dissociated from it, because this is a radical element of Islam that brought down the Twin Towers that's conducting the terrorist activities throughout the world.
[46:46] Many of them. dozens of them. They are a radical element of Islam. But let me tell you something. This radical element derives its justification from taking the Quran seriously and literally.
[47:06] All they are doing is what that book tells them to do. And they are being consistent in their belief. They look at so-called moderate Muslims who would never do anything like fly an airplane.
[47:21] They look at moderate Muslims as wimps who have sold out Islam. Their goal, their objective is the same as the Christian's objective.
[47:34] to make Islam and Allah the dominant controlling, reigning religion and belief and practice in the world.
[47:49] So what is the Christians? Same thing. Only to make Jesus Christ the head, God, to make Christianity throughout the world, to produce converts to Christianity throughout the world, we call this missionary endeavor.
[48:10] That's our goal. We do it through the proclamation of a message. They do it through the proclamation of a message plus whatever else it takes, including blowing people to pieces if they have to, because in their mind the end justifies the means.
[48:34] We have a goal as well, seeing Jesus Christ conquer the world, but it has to be through the proclamation of the truth of God with a heart of compassion and love, recognizing that this is a message that we urge people to believe, but we will in no wise try to force anyone to believe it, make them believe it, intimidate them into believing, or persecute them into believing.
[49:00] That we cannot do because we respect the volition that every person has been given. And that is very, very important. Someone said, would you make all the world be Christians if you could?
[49:12] Absolutely not. Absolutely not. If it meant violating their will and their volition by overriding it with mine, absolutely not. And do you know what?
[49:24] God feels the same way. That's why he hasn't already done it. He allows man the right to the exercise of his free will, even when he disagrees with it.
[49:37] Someone else. Lois. Well, it is believed the official position of Islam is that Muhammad wrote the Quran and he wrote it in a direct dictation form from Allah, word for word.
[49:58] However, they believe that the only reliable rendition of the Quran is in Arabic, not in any of the translations like English or anything else, which of course is, in my opinion, completely illogical, but that's their position.
[50:21] So they believe it's a holy book. And you know the big brouhaha over the last couple of days about this pastor in Florida, which is I'm embarrassed by that, frankly.
[50:39] I can't describe how it makes me feel. I just feel, oh, no, grief. we don't need this. I'm glad he backed off of that, because it very well could have been responsible for igniting these extremists throughout the world, and it could even be responsible for pushing some of the more moderate quote-unquote Muslims over into their radical camp, because this is the kind of thing that would incite it, and it could be very, very incendiary.
[51:18] I'm really glad that he didn't go through with it. Got time for maybe one more? Yes? 있다는 of this.
[51:35] I Yeah, yeah.
[52:00] Well, it's an in-your-face thing. It's an in-your-face thing and attitude, and it's their attempt to make Islam superior and dominant. And you've got to understand that Islam is militant.
[52:17] It is encouraged to be militant. Christianity is not militant. It is evangelistic. And our gospel, our message, is designed to compel men to believe based on the evidence that we give them.
[52:41] It is not to coerce them or to threaten them, but to allow them to see the love of God in Christ as a substitute for our sin and to embrace him out of the exercise of their free will.
[52:54] That's the gospel that we preach, and it's the only one that's valid as far as I'm concerned. So, that situation that grounds you know right now, that the attempts to build you are opposite, how do you see that resolve?
[53:11] I don't have any idea how it will be resolved. Frankly, I am disgusted and disheartened by the politicos who say, oh, well, they have a right to build it anywhere they want.
[53:27] And that's, you know, there are a lot of things that are legal that are not right. They may be legal, but they're not right.
[53:38] And that is a poke in the eye of every American to build that mosque there. And frankly, I'll tell you what, I think it indicates something of the true heart posture of the Muslims to even want to do that.
[53:54] You talk about brass, chutzpah, nerve, gall. It's pathetic. And for an American politico to roll over and play dead and say, hey, the Constitution says they can go get out of here.
[54:09] Oh. Well, I don't know that I've ever ended a message on an applause before, so I'll let this be the first, and you are dismissed.
[54:22] Thank you for being here.