The Jewish Final Solution to the World's Problem - Abraham: His Idolatrous Past 2

[0:00] And the reason we settled on that particular title was to simply provide a reminder and a takeoff on a statement that Adolf Eichmann uttered back in the 1940s when he devised the evil genius plan of being able to eliminate literally millions of Jewish people through the infamous gas ovens and the concentration camps.

[0:30] That were set up in Poland and in Germany and carried out their nefarious scheme for several months, effectively eliminating, incinerating, gassing six million plus people for the express purpose.

[0:49] Not that they had done anything, but simply that they were Jewish. And Adolf Eichmann labeled that scheme the final solution to the Jewish problem.

[1:07] Neither Eichmann nor most others today have any idea that God does have a final solution to the world's problem.

[1:18] And believe it or not, it is a Jewish solution. It was at least referred to in passing by our Lord Jesus Christ when he was talking with the woman at the well, Samaria, in John chapter 4.

[1:35] And he told this dear woman, You do not understand or know what you are worshiping. Salvation is of the Jews. What an enigmatic statement to make.

[1:49] Salvation is of the Jews. And of course, our Lord was a Jew, is a Jew, will always be a Jew. Jesus Christ is not a Christian.

[2:01] He is not qualified to be a Christian. A Christian is someone who has dealt with their sin in acknowledging their sin and has received forgiveness for their sin based upon the finished work of Christ.

[2:17] Christ had no sin, knew no sin. He was the pure, spotless Lamb of God. So he was completely unqualified to be a Christian. However, it was the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ that made it possible for those who are Christians to be Christians.

[2:33] And that's what we base our Christianity on. It is that which Paul referred to in 1 Corinthians 15 when he said, For I delivered unto you that which first of all I received, how that Christ died for our sin according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.

[2:54] That's the essence of the Gospel. God's solution for the world's problem is all wrapped up in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And that is principally why we have labeled this particular series with a general kind of title, The Jewish Final Solution to the World's Problem.

[3:14] It is a Jewish solution, and it is one that God has instigated himself and is going to bring to fruition. We will see that in our future studies that relate to biblical prophecy.

[3:26] So, what we plan to encompass in this series, which has just recently gotten underway, is an extensive investigation into the background and origin of the problem, how the provision of this problem or for this problem has been fought against tooth and nail, and is still being fought against even today from the very earliest inception.

[3:57] And the very earliest inception goes all the way back to the beginning of the problem in Genesis chapter 3. When our first parents disobeyed God, they brought the whole world and all of its potential progeny crashing down.

[4:13] And we live today in a crashed world. This is not the world that God created and pronounced very good.

[4:24] This is the world that God created that man has sullied, tarnished, ruined. We live in a fallen world as fallen creatures, and because of that, physical death is the finality of all of us, unless Christ comes.

[4:43] And we will address that later and what is involved with it. So, what we are going to do is examine how all of this began in its earliest origins, and we'll be looking at some Old Testament passages today, and the establishment and birthing of idolatry.

[5:01] Idolatry has existed and has proliferated in every generation of humanity from Adam and Eve on.

[5:14] So, we will look at idolatry, the basis for it, what people hope to get from it, why in the world would anyone worship some dumb idol? We'll be examining that.

[5:25] How the nation of Israel themselves became involved in it, what Satan's part and parcel is in this, and the demonic activity that goes along with it.

[5:36] We will examine modern-day counterparts that are offshoots of idolatry, even in our own culture today, that are easily identified, and you can see the connection between them.

[5:49] Then we will look at the future plan, particularly in Daniel and in the book of Revelation, how this wrap-up is going to take place, and the intensification of demonic and satanic activity in the Great Tribulation, that which yet has to do with the future.

[6:05] And this is that, of course, which precedes the second coming of Jesus Christ, that will finally and ultimately put this thing on ice in a very permanent way. So what we are going to get is a whole scope of the plan of redemption from the time it was first needed until the time it is fulfilled and culminated with the rule and reign of Christ.

[6:25] How long is that going to take? At least a couple of months. Well, I'm being facetious, of course, and I have not put a time frame on it because I have learned.

[6:38] I have learned here at Grace over the last 40-plus years that every time I tell you about how long a series will be, I have never been able to fulfill that. So I'm not even going to make a prediction on this one.

[6:50] I hope to get it finished before the Lord comes. That's as far as I will go. So our work is cut out for us, and I want you to feel free to submit any questions that you may have or any disagreements.

[7:03] It doesn't bother me one bit that people disagree with some of the things I say. It just causes me to rethink my situation and see if the ground on which I am counting is really as certain as I think it is.

[7:15] So I do not take that as a put-down or embarrassment or anything, and I'll do my best today to try to get finished in time to give you a little bit of time for Q&A. So we need to begin.

[7:30] This isn't as far back as we'll go, but it's where we'll start. We'll be going back to Genesis, but I want to go to Exodus 32 now, and we will see how early the children of Israel were involved in idolatry.

[7:45] These people who really had a connection with God, the one true God, that no other nation or people on the face of the earth had, and yet they were still susceptible to going after strange gods.

[8:01] And I would like to begin with, well, let's keep your place. If you've got 32, keep your finger there, and let's come back to Exodus 24.

[8:14] I think it's 24 if it didn't move. Yes, Exodus 24. This is a really dramatic time in the history of Israel and the history of the world.

[8:26] This is in connection with Moses receiving the tablets of the law, from Mount Sinai. And in Exodus 24.12, and if you don't have a Bible, there may be one in front of you, on the chair in front of you.

[8:41] You want to look and see, because it would definitely help you to have it. 24.12, Now the Lord said to Moses, Come up to me on the mountain, and remain there, and I will give you the stone tablets with the law and the commandment which I have written for their instruction.

[9:03] So Moses arose with Joshua his servant, and Moses went up to the mountain of God. But to the elders he said, Wait here for us until we return to you, and behold, Aaron and Hur are with you.

[9:19] Whoever has a legal matter, let him approach them. Then Moses went up to the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.

[9:31] So, the camp of Israel, however many there were, perhaps as many as a million and a million and a half people, were encamped there below, according to all of their tribes, and all of their tents that were pitched.

[9:48] And Moses goes up into the mountain, and the people are told to wait there for him. How long do you suppose they will have to wait? And what do you think will take place in this company by way of conversation while they are waiting for Moses to come back?

[10:09] So let's fast forward, if we may, to Exodus 32 that we mentioned in the first place. Exodus 32. Well, let's look at verse 31, or chapter 31 and verse 18, just a couple of verses before.

[10:28] And when he had finished speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, he gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God.

[10:40] Now, when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron, and they said to him, now, what do you think is taking place here?

[11:00] How long was Moses in the mountain? Forty days. Forty days. You might as well say six weeks. That's a long time for all of these people to be shuffling around down there, playing dominoes or whatever they did, for forty days and forty nights, wondering, what's going on?

[11:24] Why hasn't he come back? Why is he taking so long? And of course, there are always some who speculate. I'll tell you what happened.

[11:36] Moses got up there and he died. Or God killed him. Or whatever. He's not coming back. And as the talk went among them, you can just imagine what these people are saying.

[11:51] They have been miraculously delivered from Egypt. The parting of the Red Sea, a whole host of miracles have taken place, but now they're starting to doubt.

[12:05] And let me inject something here because this is really very important to our humanity and nothing changes from one generation to the next.

[12:18] People can have a true relationship with God. Really know Christ in a personal way. And they consider their faith very firm and solid.

[12:32] And for the most part, it is. And they're sincere about it and they mean well. But when some negative circumstance comes into their life, we start the question.

[12:51] Is that normal? Absolutely. Don't beat yourself up for that. It's part of the human condition. Circumstances, negative, painful circumstances tend to automatically create an element of doubt.

[13:11] Does God really care? Does God really know? Does God really exist? Does God know what I'm going through? This is perfectly natural.

[13:22] We are all human. And circumstances will cause us to doubt when otherwise we wouldn't. But you must understand also that it is the adverse circumstance.

[13:36] It is the difficulty. It is the trials and the adversity. That's the stuff that develops you and matures you as a believer.

[13:48] This is what Paul was talking about in Romans when he said that trials produce patience, staying power, stick-to-it-ness, an ability to hang in there.

[13:59] A faith that is not tested or tried can't be determined to be worth all that much. It's when you are put into the crucible of testing and time that you find out what you're made of.

[14:15] And that's across the board. Now, I don't know of anybody in their right mind who's going to say, God, I would really appreciate this next week if you'd just give me a big heap of trials and troubles and problems so I can just see my faith grow.

[14:32] Well, we're not quite that eager, are we? Of course not. We don't volunteer for this stuff. But when it comes, it comes with the purpose of strengthening us and drawing us closer to the Lord.

[14:45] And yet, for doubt to slip in there is a perfectly natural thing. and circumstances, circumstances will cause some of the most staunch believers to doubt and question God.

[14:59] And then, to add to that, then we often feel guilty for doubting and then that adds to our misery.

[15:11] But I can assure you, as I've said before, God can handle your doubts. And God knows that our frame is but dust and he takes into consideration that we know not as we ought to know.

[15:23] And God will not hold your doubt against you. But when you come out on the other side, you will be better able to believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts.

[15:35] And it's all part of a growing process. So these people have been subjected to a circumstance. Forty days, this guy's going. He's supposed to be our leader.

[15:47] It sure doesn't look like he's on the job. He's absent. And as they began talking among themselves, somebody came up with some of the most harebrained ideas. From what nation were they delivered?

[16:03] Egypt. What did they have in Egypt? Slavery. They were in bondage. And some of them yet had the audacity to say, you know what, I was just thinking the other day how good it was in Egypt when we had the leeks and the garlics.

[16:23] And how pleasant it was. And here we are in this forsaken desert with nothing to eat and nothing to drink. And just going on and on.

[16:34] I just wonder. I just wonder. And maybe I'm guilty of reading into white spaces. That's not my intent. But we've got to get to this golden calf some way.

[16:45] Do you know what one of the principal gods of Egypt was? His name was Apis. A-P-I-S. Apis. What was Apis?

[16:59] Apis was a bull. An animal. If you've seen any of the ancient Egyptians' bas-reliefs, many of them have the head of an animal, the body of a man, or the body of an animal, and the head of a man.

[17:19] You've all seen pictures of the sphinx in Egypt. Some of you have been there and have actually seen the real thing. What is it? It's the body of a lion, but it's the head of a man.

[17:32] What is that all about? That is idolatry. That is what these people were steeped in. It was what Paul was referring to in Romans 1 when he talks about although they once knew God, they glorified him not as God, but they became foolish in their vain imaginations, and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made of four-footed beasts and creeping things.

[18:03] they even had scarabs, beetles in Egypt that were gods and deified. But one of their chief gods was this bull god, Apis.

[18:19] I can just hear some of those complaining Israelites now saying, you know what? When we left Egypt the way we did and we came out of there and the whole army was destroyed behind us, I'll bet you anything we really upset Apis, the god of Egypt, I'll bet we really offended him and really made him in virtually all of the military encounters that the Israelites are going to be in, with the Philistines, with the Moabites, with the Amorites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, and all the otherites, virtually every battle that they entered into them, it always came down to a contest as whose god was the greatest, the most powerful, and whichever one won, then that's the way they figured that their god was with them.

[19:14] So, if my speculation is at all accurate, and if they had thought about the possibility of having offended Apis, the god of Egypt, how do you make amends to a god that you offend?

[19:27] How do you get back on good terms with this god that you offend? You make a likeness of him. You honor him by making a likeness of him.

[19:42] So, we have in verse 1 of Exodus 32, that people assembled about Aaron and said to him, come, make us a god who will go before us.

[19:59] As for this Moses, your brother, Aaron, remember, they were brothers. What happened to your brother?

[20:10] We don't know where he is. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And you know what they're doing? They are intimidating Aaron into going along with this cock and bull scheme.

[20:27] No pun intended. Cock and bull. Going along with this, I can see the public pressure mounting. And I can see Aaron caving in.

[20:42] And he acquiesces and says, okay, okay, we'll do it your way. Here's what I want you to do. Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.

[20:57] Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he took this from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf.

[21:13] And they said, this is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Well, for crying out loud, can you imagine anything more absurd than that?

[21:37] And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings and the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play.

[21:55] And then the Lord spoke to Moses, go down at once for your people. Do you know how many times God calls the children of Israel my people?

[22:12] It almost looks like he's not owning them here, doesn't it? Moses, these are your people. I don't blame God. Your people whom you brought up from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.

[22:33] They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. How long did it take for them to abandon me and adopt a strange God? Six weeks, tops.

[22:45] Some, of course, can manage it more quickly than that, but these it took six weeks. They have made for themselves a molten calf and have worshipped it and have sacrificed to it and said, this is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.

[23:07] And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people and behold, they are an obstinate people. Well, God threatens to wipe them out.

[23:18] Moses interposes for him and for them and offers himself in order to save the people and it is quite a set to. It is remarkable what is taking place here regarding idolatry from the very earliest ages.

[23:37] And let me assure you something before we go further. we do not have these little graven images and idols today made of stone and wood and ivory that people bow down and worship to.

[23:52] At least for the most part in most places we do not have them. But don't you kid yourself for one moment. This is a nation. The good old USA is a nation that is as steeped in idolatry as any other nation in the world.

[24:15] And I'll make my case later. But I want you to be thinking about that. Come back if you will to Genesis Genesis well before we get there.

[24:34] Oh my my my let's go to Joshua first. All right trying to set a stage here. Joshua 24 the last chapter of the book of Joshua and remember now when you get into Joshua Moses is dead.

[24:52] Moses is off the scene and Joshua is going to bring the children of Israel into the land of Canaan. Now at the end of the book Joshua is about to die and he's going to be turning the leadership over to someone else and I want you to begin reading with verse 14 of Joshua 24 and Joshua is giving his farewell speech.

[25:18] This is his swan song and he says Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and truth and put away the gods plural which your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt and serve the Lord.

[25:40] Who are these gods? Gods which your fathers served. And when the Bible uses this term the fathers usually Old or New Testament it means ancestors in general not necessarily your father just one generation removed but it more specifically refers to those who are considered the fathers or the patriarchs the patriarchs the word patriarch simply means the first fathers and the first fathers of the nation of Israel are and always will be Abraham Isaac and Jacob they will comprise the fathers of the nation of Israel and they are the ones of whom he is speaking here in chapter 24 and in verse verse 14 which your father served beyond the river and in Egypt and served the Lord and if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord choose for yourselves today whom you will serve in other words you have a volition you've got a will make up your mind you are a free moral agent you do not have to serve the Lord while it's true you ought to and you're foolish for not doing it you don't have to

[27:04] God will not make you serve him so choose for yourselves today whom you will serve whether the gods which your father served which were beyond the river that's the river Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living and Joshua says but as for me and my house we've already made up our mind we know who we're going to serve we will serve the Lord now I want to give you a little more insight into the origins of this satanic idolatrous activity and for that we need to go back to Genesis 31 Genesis 31 this is an amazing passage of scripture and it's easy to just read without getting the significance of it but I trust we'll be able to provide a little bit of enlightenment let me create the scene for you as quickly as I can Jacob has gone down to

[28:07] Ur of the Chaldees and he has become employed by his uncle Laban and Laban has two daughters and these daughters are of course Rachel and Leah they are first cousins of Jacob so Jacob will be marrying his first cousin he falls in love with Rachel he wants to marry Rachel you know about the trickery of Laban how he slipped in Leah in the tent under the cover of darkness and he spent the night with Leah and they consummated the marriage and he woke up the next morning and says when it was daylight you are not you are not Rachel you are not the girl that I worked for for so he worked seven more years for Rachel and he ends up with two wives Leah and Rachel finally he gets so tired of the way his uncle Laban has been ripping him off with the livestock and everything he decides he is going to leave but he knows that his uncle

[29:10] Laban will not give up easily and just let him walk out because after all he would be leaving with Laban's two daughters whom he has married and there are grandchildren involved now and Laban would be deprived of his grandchildren plus the flocks he is going to take with him so he knows that his uncle Laban is going to be out of town on a business trip that will take quite a while and he decides to use that opportunity to skedaddle with his two wives and their children and their animals and everything while Laban is gone and that's precisely what he does so Laban is off on a business trip and Jacob tells his wives get everything packed were leaving and of course they're leaving their father and their homeland and all the rest but their loyalty now is to their husband so when we begin reading then if we just jump in with verse 17 of chapter 31 we read that

[30:12] Jacob arose and put his children and his wives upon camels and he drove away all his livestock and all his property which he had gathered his acquired livestock which he had gathered in Paddan Aram to go to the land of Canaan to his father Isaac and when Laban had gone to shear his flock that's where Laban was on the business trip he's off shearing his sheep and there's a whole lot of sheep involved takes a lot of time and everything then Rachel Rachel is Laban's daughter married to Jacob Rachel stole the household idols what are these these are little household idols probably no more than four or six inches high probably made or carved out of stone probably made to look or to resemble some kind of a figure they were in reality nothing they had no objective reality to them at all unless you were superstitious and you believed there was some kind of inherent power in that little idol or that the god behind that idol had the ability to do things for you in which case you would care for the idol you would polish the idol you would hold it close to your heart you would bow down to the idol and in doing so you were giving obeisance to the deity that represented that and you can see if you just give it a little bit of thought as to why god labeled this no no number one thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or idol or likeness thereof that was the very first of the ten commandments and I suspect it is because he knew that this is where a lot of these things are going to begin and it is always born out of two things one is superstition there is a lot of superstition in the mid east still is to this day and perhaps the only place that you will find greater superstition in the mid east is in the far east and there is a lot of superstition in china in japan in tibet and all of these countries superstition is abounding and in addition to that we've already talked about the inability of man to think correctly and this too is because of the fall because mankind in everywhere we exist in every generation that we have existed mankind has been under the handicap of a fallen intellect that means we are prevented from seeing reality as it often is we think with skewed logic we reach conclusions that are simply not true at all but they seem true to us that is our faulty thinking the only thing that can correct that is correct thinking and the only source for correct thinking is the word of

[33:41] God because it is the word of God that gives light the entrance of thy words give light and God's word offers a corrective to man's thinking man looks not as God looks man looks upon the surface and he draws conclusions from things that are often wrong but God reads the heart God knows what's inside and so on that's just one example and Paul tells us when he writes to the Corinthians the natural man the natural man we were talking about this with the Les Feldeck video just this morning the natural man does not this is the unconverted man the man in his natural born state he does not receive the things of the spirit of God for their foolishness unto him their foolishness neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned an unregenerate man does not have the internal spiritual equipment that he needs for right thinking

[34:43] I don't care if your name is Einstein you still don't and it doesn't make any difference what your IQ is or how many PhDs you have if you are unregenerate you have this same flawed tendency for skewed thinking that we all have I have it too I'm certainly not exempt from it and the only thing that can correct and countermand my warped thinking and my erroneous ideas is the scriptures that's why we have to elevate this book and hold it as our authority and not man because if you're going to make man your authority which man which man you're at a complete loss there is no man who is a human being who is capable of being the authority for all of us nobody is nobody is his thinking is skewed too so we're always thrust back upon scripture so let's keep these things in mind and as we move along here we've got these household idols and

[35:53] Jacob deceived Laban I'm in verse 20 Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he had and he arose and crossed the Euphrates river and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead and probably every mile he could put behind him and Laban he was feeling safer and safer a little bit more and we've got it made we're going to be out of reach and the old man won't be able to and he gets they just keep trucking along but they're a handicap because they've got all this livestock and they've got the children and they've got women so they're moving as fast as they can and verse 22 says when it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob had fled uh oh then he took his kinsmen with him and pursued him a distance of seven days journey and he overtook him in the hill country of Gilead and God came to Laban the Aramean in the dream of the night now remember Laban is Jacob's uncle and he said to him you be careful that you not speak to

[36:58] Jacob either good or bad and Laban caught up with Jacob now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country and Laban with his kinsmen camped in the hill country of Gilead and then Laban said to Jacob what have you done by deceiving me and carrying away my daughters like captives of the sword why did you flee secretly and deceive me and did not tell me so that I might have sent you away with joy and with songs with timbrel and with lyre and did not allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters now you have done foolishly now Jacob you really hurt this old guy in the heart you took off with my daughters and you left that guy and I'm just heartbroken well that's not altogether true either he says it is in my power to do you harm but the God of your father spoke to me last night be careful not to speak either good or bad to

[38:02] Jacob now you have indeed gone away because you long greatly for your father's house okay you were homesick and you wanted to go back to Canaan I understand that but why did you steal my gods now this is the real rub this is what this guy is really upset about it's not his daughters it's not his grandkids but why did you steal my gods what were these gods these gods were these little four to six inch teraphim little idols and Rachel stole them and put them in her saddle bag what's the significance of these anyway these are the family heirloom these people in their superstition believed that prosperity and blessing was afforded the family who possessed those gods and if you were devoid of those gods you were out of luck

[39:06] I mean you something terrible could befall you we look upon that and we say well now that is so foolish to believe that grant you that's true it is so foolish to believe that but that doesn't prevent people from believing it it's really really foolish to believe that if you take a fully fueled 747 and crash it into a skyscraper and kill a whole lot of people that you're going to go to heaven and you are assured of having your 42 dark eyed virgins to wait on your every pleasure well we look upon that as foolish too but do you know what the people who did it don't regard it as foolish is that superstition absolutely of course it is it ranks right up there with the black cats Friday the 13th and walking under ladders and all the rest of it only the basis for this happens to be in what they regard a holy book the

[40:08] Quran so it doesn't matter whether something like this has validity and truthfulness to it or because how am I going to get my day underway without that horoscope and we look at that with amusement and we say I can't believe anybody could be that stupid well let me tell you people can be that stupid they can how how can they think that way they think with a warped intellect that's how they can think that way there is no validity to that at all and people get involved with the zodiac and the sign under which you were born and they think that the stars and their arrangement are already determining your future and your prosperity or your lack thereof and everything else and we look upon that and we say

[41:23] I can't believe anybody believes that but believe me there are tons of people who believe that and listen they are serious about it why would anybody do that for the same reason I've been mentioning it's that skewed warped intellect so Jacob is so sure he knows he didn't take those idols and he is so sure that no one in his company took those idols Jacob really went out on a limb he said well I didn't take your household gods nobody in my company took your household I'll tell you what if you find those household gods among in the person of anyone in this company as far as I'm concerned they deserve death you can kill them of course he didn't realize what he was saying he had no idea that Rachel stole them and he went through everything he went through all the saddlebags and what not and he came to Rachel she was the only one that he hadn't searched and

[42:23] I'm not sure how to interpret this with Rachel I don't know for sure what she meant but Laban came to Rachel and said I'm going to search you and she said well father I am in I am in the way of women and that might have meant one of two things it either meant that she was with child and she didn't think that he wanted to disturb her being pregnant and we don't know maybe she was six months maybe she was eight months maybe she was nine months pregnant I don't know the text doesn't tell us or it may have meant that she was in the process of her monthly cycle with the way of women which would have made her and touching her ceremonially unclean in his thinking so he backed off and did not insist on searching her or her possessions and they went on then with the household gods how could something like that play such a big part in the lives of intelligent people and these were intelligent people these weren't a bunch of hicks

[43:37] I mean they were they were intelligent people behind all of this idolatry there are demons involved in their activities and that gets into the angelic spheres and we'll have to examine that a little bit as well so what we're doing is trying to build a case from the earliest time so that you will have an appreciation for how the plan and program of God has been opposed by the adversary in every imaginable way from the time Eve was tempted by the adversary in the garden clear up including our present time clear up into the tribulation period which will involve a severe intensification of demonic activity before Christ comes and then the final wrap up will be when he breaks through the clouds and the sign of the son of man is seen in the heavens and that will be the

[44:45] Jewish final solution to the world's problem we've got a lot of material ahead of us and I hope we can keep it coherent and cohesive so that you will be able to build in your own mind a picture and something that will enable you to connect the dots not only of history but of the present and of the future that is coming so I'm going to take a couple of minutes if you have Q&A we'll entertain Q&A we don't have a microphone do we okay well perhaps they can protect your voice I don't know but that's an interesting thought that that could very well be

[45:51] Rachel died Rachel died with the childbirth of Benjamin yeah yeah that's an that's that's an interesting thought that there could very well be something there yeah other other thoughts or comments anyone well I sincerely hope you will be with us okay there's John this may be jumping ahead but later on in scripture it says that the fool has said in his heart there is no God and that kind of fits the same thing we think it's foolish that people would believe those things about idols and stuff yeah yeah but saying you don't believe in God is just as bad yeah well there are the two extremes some people make a God of everything and some say there is no God and you know what both of them are thinking with a warped intellect with a skewed thinking and it's just natural to come to these kind of conclusions yes in the back all the way in the back there this question is in regard to

[47:07] Joshua 24 14 when you read that verse in your translation it said specifically the other side of the river I think and mine says flood yeah well it should be translated river it's talking about the fathers and by the way and we didn't get to this so we will perhaps next week we will get to this how that Abraham who is regarded actually as the first of the fathers Abraham Isaac and Jacob Abraham was either involved in moon worship and idolatry himself or he had come out of that and God addressed him we don't know the details there but that's very interesting that you bring that up because we will have to look at that next week and it is Abraham and the moon worship and by the way this is the very same geographical area

[48:13] I mean it is spot on where Mohammed held forth this is southern Iraq and the deity of the moon gods and goddesses prevalent there and that's what these Arabs were involved in and idolatrous practices that went with it and it was Mohammed who out of that climate arrived at the concept of their being but one god and Allah is his name and even though I cannot prove this I am confident that it is true that that Mohammed got his concept of the one god from the Israelites of course Muslims today would flatly deny that even though they have a commonality in their father Abraham they would of course deny that because they wouldn't want you to think anything from the

[49:16] Jew but that's not the case so interesting observation and we'll look at that a little further next week anything else before we dismiss would you stand please father we recognize that even as in old times so there is today a great many things that would lure us and detract us from the worship of the one true God as manifested in the person of Jesus Christ and we recognize that all of us are susceptible to going after strange and alluring things for all kinds of fulfillment that we suppose would come from it only to be disappointed because you are the only one who can really deliver in accordance with what our need is and we are so grateful that you are that God we trust that as we continue to examine this you will give us enlightenment and help us to see where we as a nation today may either be on track or astray from what you have set for us thank you for having preserved these records for our understanding and our edification and our warning we bless you for it we thank you in the name of our

[50:42] Lord Jesus Christ Amen