Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.gracespringfield.com/sermons/42542/a-wrap-up-of-endtime-events-israel-becomes-repentant-part-2/. Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions. Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt. [0:00] I should mention this more frequently than I do, but usually it just slips my mind, but people do ask about it, and they deserve an answer. It is true we do not ordinarily receive an offering, but that changes when we have communion service because it is an opportunity for folks to give to the Elder's Benevolent Fund. [0:26] And from time to time there arises a need that we have financial ability to meet, and we are able to do so through the generosity of folks who give to the Elder's Benevolent Fund. [0:40] We will take such a collection next Sunday, and that will also be Communion Sunday. And if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, whether or not you are a member of Grace Bible Church is beside the point. [0:54] That is not required for you to partake of communion because it is the Lord's table. It is in our table. And if you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you are invited to participate as we remember him and his death and his body and his blood. [1:12] So that will be next Sunday. And then the following Sunday, of course, will be Easter. And I really don't like that word. But it communicates and people know what you mean by it. [1:27] I much prefer the term Resurrection Sunday because Easter is actually a pagan word, whether you know it or not. And in the Bible, in the book of Acts, you find the word Easter one time, and it shouldn't even be there then. [1:43] It ought to be translated Passover because it was in connection with the Jewish Passover. So Easter is just one more thing that the adversary has slipped in to help secularize our culture and dress it up with eggs and bunnies and things like that, just like he has done with St. Nick and Santa Claus and all the rest of it. [2:06] And no, I'm not an old fuddy-duddy, and I'm not opposed to Christmas and the gifts and everything that goes with it. But you have to be on guard because the adversary is walking about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. [2:21] And right now he's in the process of devouring our whole culture. It's something that is taking place. And you know, even the days of the week, he has commandeered those. [2:34] In the Bible, you don't find any Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. You don't find any of those. Do you know what those words mean, what those days of the week mean? You research them, and by the way, you can Google them if you want. [2:47] And they are all days of the week that are named after a pagan deity. Every one of them. Named after an imaginary deity. Not only that, but so are most of the months in our calendar. [3:02] Even starting the year off with January. You ever heard of the god Janus? He's the figure that has two heads, two faces. [3:13] One is facing this way. One is facing that way. One is designed to look back. The other looks forward. That's the god Janus, after whom January is named. [3:25] That's pagan, too. So when the Bible uses the month, it is a Jewish month, like the month Nisan. And it's always the number of the day. It's never Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. [3:38] None of that. It's always on the first day, or on the second day, or on the eighth day of Nisan. And that's the way it is throughout Scripture. So I pass that bit of worthless information on to you, just so you have something to chew on. [3:51] All right. We are going to look this morning, ever so briefly, more briefly than I would like, at the continuation of the eight stages that are listed in the sheet that you've been given. [4:06] It is on the back of the map. And the eight stages are enumerated there. And geographically, you can see where each of these are going to take place. [4:18] We have already covered the first four and one half of the fifth, which is the national regeneration of Israel. And three weeks from today, we will look at the first segment of the second coming of Christ. [4:36] And it is beyond all description. It's beyond anything that I can indicate. We'll just have to let Scripture speak to itself. [4:48] And that will incorporate the end of the fighting at the Valley of Jehoshaphat, which is just outside the city of Jerusalem. It is also synonymous with the Kidron Valley. [5:01] And it is where this great onslaught is going to take place between our Lord Jesus Christ when he comes and the armies of the Antichrist. [5:13] And it is going to be Christ and Christ alone who will tread the winepress of the wrath of God alone. There will be armies of saints with him, but none of them will engage in the battle. [5:26] Christ alone. Christ alone will be the singular foe of the enemy, the armies of the Antichrist. [5:37] And it is something that we will behold as the Scriptures reveal it. But for now, we are going to continue with the second part of the national regeneration of Israel. [5:48] And that is the fifth of eight stages. And we have provided three Scripture sheets for you to consider. And in the sheet that you are given for this morning, you will find that there is a highlighting of the text. [6:06] And for time's sake, and only for time's sake, I'm going to focus upon that which is highlighted because we simply are lacking time to cover all of the texts. [6:18] So if you will note them, please, looking at sheet number one, which begins with Leviticus chapter 26. Bear in mind that these are all Old Testament references, with one exception. [6:34] I think I included. No, it isn't on this. So these are all Old Testament references. And they were written, of course, hundreds and hundreds of years before Christ ever came the first time in Bethlehem. [6:49] But these are related to the second coming. And it is important that you note this because it is critical information. And that is, the Bible has much, much more to say about the second coming of Christ than what it says about the first coming. [7:07] And I suppose there are probably no more than a dozen places where the Old Testament refers to Christ in his first coming. [7:19] And there are innumerable places where it refers to his second coming in both the Old and the New Testament. So this is going to be the final wrap-up. [7:31] Some people refer to it, for lack of a better term, the end of the world. It will not be the end of the world, but it will be the end of the age as we know it. [7:42] And it will be a time that will encompass seven calendar years. And it is referred to in two parts as the first half, three and a half years, and the second half. [7:56] The second half will be very, very intense because when the second half commences, it does so with the Antichrist revealing his true identity as he stands in the temple at Jerusalem. [8:13] They have just taken the city, destroyed the city. Multitudes of people will have been slain. Other multitudes will have made it out of the city, and they have headed for the mountains, and they will be in the mountains of Edom that is referred to as southern Transjordan today. [8:36] This will be the only geographical area on the globe that is not under the domination and control of the Antichrist. He is going to have ten districts set up worldwide, and there will be dictators of each of those districts who will answer to him during this time. [8:58] He will be the world Superman. The only territory that he will not have succeeded in commandeering is this land in southern Jordan, actually northern and southern Jordan, and it encompasses territory all the way down past the Dead Sea into Petra, and that is where God is going to have sequestered in safety in Petra the remnant of Israel. [9:26] But let me begin reading these texts before we go on. The first part of this is where we've already been, and I'm just going to briefly run through it again because I want to get to the actual second section. [9:41] And in Leviticus 26, this is all about Israel and their repentance as a nation. And what they are going to do is they are going to pick up the baton, if you will, that would have been handed off by their ancestors in Acts chapter 2 had they carried the baton, but they didn't. [10:07] Because in Acts chapter 2, when Peter preached that message on the day of Pentecost and presented Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus as the Messiah, to the nation of Israel, there were 3,000 Jews who responded positively to that message. [10:28] And they followed their belief. They completely reversed themselves, you see. Because the standard party line had been, especially among the intelligentsia, among the establishment of Judaism, the position had been that Jesus of Nazareth was not sent from God. [10:50] He was not the Messiah. And many people believed he was. And we are told that most of them were what you would call common people. But it was the Jewish establishment consisting primarily of the scribes, Pharisees, the Sadducees, the temple authorities. [11:11] They were the ones who were in the positions of power and clout. They were the ones who conspired with Judas Iscariot to facilitate the arrest of Jesus in the middle of the night, the day before he was crucified. [11:26] They were the ones who had denounced Jesus as being the Messiah. And they had a certain amount of influence and clout with the people who regarded them as experts. [11:40] And they are the specialists. And they know. So we just believe whatever they tell us because they know all about these things. And nothing has changed. There are still people that operate that way today, unfortunately. [11:52] So, out of the 3,000 who came to faith and then submitted to John's baptism and were baptized there in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost, they constitute but a mere pittance of the number of people who did not, who continued in a rejection mode. [12:19] And in Acts chapter 3, Peter is going to preach this same essential message over again in connection with the man who was born lame from his mother's womb, over 40 years of age, laid every day at the gate beautiful outside the temple, and begged for a living. [12:38] And this is the man to whom Peter said, Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I unto thee. Rise up and walk. And he reached down and grabbed that man's hand and yanked on him. [12:50] And up he came. He'd never walked on two legs in his life. Lame from his mother's womb. And now, he's not only walking, he's jumping up and down, looking at his legs, hugging Peter, hugging John. [13:08] Can't believe it, the crowd begins to gather. Peter, and Peter starts to preach. Why do you look upon us as if by our own power or authority we had made this man to walk? [13:19] It was Jesus of Nazareth who empowered him to walk. And Peter preached that same essential message over again. What will Israel do? [13:33] Will they embrace this Jesus who has already been crucified, raised from the dead? Now he's ascended to heaven. He's been gone. Sadly, when you move into chapter 4, we read that the scribes and the Pharisees and the temple police sent a delegation to lay hands on Peter and the apostles. [14:00] They arrest them. They charged them with disturbing the peace and preaching false messages. And they arranged to have them beaten with many stripes. [14:13] Then they set them free. So, the persecution got underway. And Israel's official national position became one of a rejection of Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. [14:29] That became the standard line. And it has been to this day. The Jewish people, as a result, at least partly as a result of that, have been subjected to persecution, vilification, brutality, every kind of ill treatment that you can imagine. [15:00] They've been the scapegoat of this and that. They were Hitler's scapegoat for the failure of Germany and Europe. And they have just paid an incredible price that was capped off with the Holocaust, where six million Jews were summarily executed in labor camps and gas ovens and torture chambers and everything else. [15:25] And we look in the unimaginable way. And we look in vain to understand how in the world can human beings do that to other human beings. [15:37] How is that possible? It is possible when you understand the depth of human blindness and human arrogance and human ignorance. [15:50] There are two engines. There are two principal engines that drive anti-Semitism and things like Hitler's supremacy, superiority of the white race and all of that baloney that went with it. [16:12] And the two engines that drive it still drive it to this day. And the first engine is ignorance. People just don't know. [16:26] They don't understand. In fact, one of the prophets said, My people, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. And folks, at the expense of sounding like a broken record, this is why I try to place so much emphasis here on information. [16:45] Because you cannot act on what you do not know. You've got to take in information. You've got to make yourself available so that you can get information to process it and reach a conclusion and take action. [16:59] And information is critical. Reading is absolutely essential. One of my favorite sayings is, He who reads but does not is none the better than he who cannot. [17:13] And if you're not in the habit of reading and taking in information, because tons and tons of good stuff is available. We make it available here in handouts and books and everything. [17:25] And we try to encourage people to do it. And I know a lot of men don't like to read. And I didn't either until I learned how valuable it was. And now I'm hooked on it. [17:35] And it's not unusual for me to read two or three books a week, depending on what's going on. And I'm not talking about those kind of books. But I'm talking about, you know. [17:46] And information is critical. You cannot act on what you do not know. So avail yourself of good information. And we've got the best information in the world right here in front of us. [17:57] And it deals with Israel's national repentance. But the only thing that's left of the nation now is a minority. [18:13] Because the Antichrist set about to destroy all the Jews worldwide. And he is going to succeed in destroying two-thirds of them all over the globe. [18:29] It's going to be open season on Jewish people. A Jew might as well have a bullseye painted on his back. I wouldn't be surprised if the Antichrist isn't offering a bounty for Jews slain. [18:44] And they're going to be persecuted in a way that will make the Holocaust look like a picnic in comparison. It's going to be absolutely horrible. [18:55] Because this man, this Antichrist, is energized by none other than Satan himself. And the scriptures make that so very, very clear. [19:07] But the repentance that is going to be realized will be involving that one-third of the Jewish population of the world that will survive. [19:22] And they're all going to be here in Petra. And they are all going to come to faith in Yeshua HaMashiach as their Messiah. [19:37] So let's read this. Verse 40, Leviticus 26. The highlight. And this is referring to the Diaspora. [20:08] The Jewish people scattered all throughout the earth. All over the globe, there are Jews found. And it is all the result of this scattering, this dispersion. [20:19] And God told them when he gave them the law through Moses. He said, listen, if you obey me as you said you would. You signed on to this contract. If you obey me as you said you would, I'll look out for you. [20:34] I'll protect you. I'll be your guardian. But if you throw me over, I'm going to punish you. And I'll tell you what I'll do. [20:45] I'm going to scatter you throughout the whole world. I've given you this land here. It's called the land of Canaan. The land of promise. It's the only land in the Bible that God calls my land. And if you disobey me and you go after other gods and you worship false deities, I'm going to scatter you throughout all the nations of the earth. [21:07] And then I'm going to bring you back. I'm going to bring you back from all those nations where I've scattered you. [21:18] Back to this land. Well, let's read on. Verse 41. That I have also walked contrary unto them and have brought them into the land of their enemies. [21:29] If then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember, and I will remember the land. [21:50] The land also shall be left of them, and they shall enjoy her Sabbath while she lies desolate without them. They shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity, because even because they despise my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes. [22:06] These Jews were doing nothing more than demonstrating their humanity. And I want to make something very, and I want to make something very, very clear, because a lot of people don't understand this, particularly Gentiles don't understand. [22:21] And you surely know by now that everyone living on the face of the earth who is not a Jew is automatically a Gentile. [22:32] Jews comprise not 1% of the world's population. No, there aren't that many Jews. They don't even have 1%. [22:43] They have two-tenths of 1%. That's the Jewish population of the whole globe. And all the rest are Gentiles. [22:56] And this is talking about a time when this two-tenths of 1% is going to be subjected to this tribulation period, and two-thirds of them are going to be destroyed, and one-third will remain. [23:14] Let's read on now. Verse 44, And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them to destroy them utterly and to break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. [23:28] In other words, he's saying, Israel, they broke the covenant with me, but I'm not going to return the favor in kind. I'm not going to break the covenant just because they broke the covenant. [23:40] That's the way people behave. But God is above that. He's better than that. And he's going to keep his end of the bargain, even though the enemy, in this case, they are spoken of as the enemy, the foe, those who did not keep the covenant will. [23:55] But I will, verse 45, for their sakes, remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt. This goes way, way back to Moses. In the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God, I am the Lord. [24:09] And in verse 13 of Jeremiah 3, in the middle column, the plea is, only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree. [24:27] And this strangers under every green tree is a disguised way of saying, these are places of prostitution. And they were not only physical prostitution and sexual prostitution, but they were idolatrous, and they were spiritual in nature as well. [24:48] And you have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord. You know when this was written? Jeremiah wrote this. [24:59] Five hundred years before Jesus was ever born in Bethlehem. This is all second coming stuff. These things have never occurred. There's nothing in history that will answer to these. [25:11] Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord, for I am married unto you. And I will take you one of a city and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion. [25:23] And I will give you pastors, according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. He's talking about this time of national repentance. [25:36] And they are going to repent because they are going to be given information. You know who one of these information providers is going to be? It's going to be Elijah, raised from the dead. [25:50] Remember we told you that during this period of tribulation, there is going to be an enormous upsurge in supernatural activity. [26:01] There's going to be angelic involvement. There's going to be demonic involvement. There's going to be signs and wonders in the heavens, the likes of which this planet has never seen before. All of this is prophesied. [26:13] It's all predicted. It's all coming. It's just as certain as if it had happened. In fact, someone has said that that prophecy, biblical prophecy, is nothing but history written in advance. [26:25] That's precisely what it is. All of these things are going to transpire. There will be the ministry of the 144,000 who will be preaching during the first half of this tribulation period. [26:38] They are found in Revelation chapter 7. They surface again in chapter 11. We noted them when we went through our verse-by-verse exposition of Revelation, which, by the way, is available for anybody who wants it. [26:52] And in addition to them, there will be the two witnesses who will be virtually indestructible. The Antichrist will do everything he can to eliminate these two and without any success. [27:06] But, when the Antichrist is restored because he is going to die physically and he's going to come back to life, which is nothing more than a counterfeit Messiah having been put to death and come back to life and he's going to fulfill that role. [27:28] And when he does, guess what his success will be capped off with? It will be dispatching those two terrible witnesses who were indestructible. [27:43] They tried everything they could to kill these people, but they couldn't. And the Antichrist will succeed and he will immediately become the world's hero and he will be given all kinds of authority and power. [27:57] All of these things are coming together. Well, let us move on to Hosea 5. [28:08] I will go, in the third column, I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offense and seek my face. In their affliction, they will seek me early. [28:22] What this is saying is, what Hosea is prophesying here is the time is coming when Israel is going to be on the brink, under the gun, threatened with complete annihilation. [28:37] That will be a sobering time for them. They will come to their senses because these people that I just mentioned earlier are going to be pouring information into them and they're going to be processing this. [28:52] They're going to be going over their own scriptures and there is going to be a time of national mourning and outpouring and weeping and wailing for their having and for their ancestors having rejected the Messiah. [29:08] This will be a time of repentance the likes of which the world has never seen. And you know what? What is going to happen is that every single last Jew who comprises this group called the remnant every single one of them is going to come to faith in Jesus as their Messiah. [29:37] And they will plead and mourn and cry and weep over the sins of their ancestors and themselves. It will be a huge outpouring of tears. [29:54] Come let us return unto the Lord for he hath torn and he will heal us. He hath smitten and he will bind us up. [30:05] After two days will he revive us in the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight. These three days in verse 2 are the last three days of the tribulation period. [30:19] this will be day twelve hundred and fifty eight fifty nine and sixty of the second half. [30:32] This immediately precedes our next stage which will be the return of Jesus and that will be a result of their pleading and begging for him to come back. [30:44] they're not going to be begging for him to come. They're going to be begging for him to come back because they will have already come to the conviction that he has come and we rejected him and our fathers rejected him and their fathers before him rejected him. [31:04] and Jesus said when he left walked out of the temple he turned the crowd and he said you will not see me again until you say blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. [31:21] And that's what they'll be saying. Then verse 3 Then shall we know if we do follow on to know the Lord his going forth is prepared as the morning and he shall come unto us as the rain and the latter and former rain unto the earth. [31:41] And then Zechariah 12 It shall come to pass in that day I want you to look at that phrase in that day we're going to see it surface again and again he's talking about the same day the same chronological time the same period and there's no reason to limit it to a 24 hour period but he's talking about in that time slot in that precise area of time I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem and this will be the second coming and I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced this is not really a good rendering the upon me means that they will be seeing him visibly and that's not what the text actually says what it says and it's a better translation for the 1901 edition it says and they shall look unto me he will not be there yet for them to look upon although that will come later but now they are looking unto him whom they have pierced well actually it wasn't they who did the piercing it wasn't even Jews who did the piercing it was the [33:07] Roman soldiers that did the piercing but these are all culpable and they recognized that because it was it was a Jewish mastermind conspiracy that entered into the situation with Judas Iscariot to arrange to hand him over so even though the Romans carried out the actual execution physically it all came about at the instigation of the Jewish religious establishment and that is that for which this repentance is being poured out they will look upon me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for his only son and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn and look at sheet number two if you would please chapter 53 this is a passage this is a passage Isaiah 53 which if you have an opportunity to read to a Jewish friend don't be surprised if he says something like this well what you just read to me was from your [34:14] New Testament and we don't accept the New Testament but this isn't from the New Testament this is from the prince of their prophets this is from Isaiah Isaiah is as Jewish as Jesus is who has believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground he hath no form nor comeliness and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him he is despised and rejected of men man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him he was despised and we esteemed him not surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we did esteem him stricken smitten of God and afflicted this passage is a prayer of penance it is a prayer of contrition it is a prayer of admission it is a prayer of accepting responsibility this is what we did this is what our forefathers did this is how we treated the [35:36] Messiah when God sent him he was wounded for our transgressions and by the way when did Isaiah write this 700 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed all we like sheep have gone astray we have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all he this Messiah was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth he has brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before his shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth he was taken from prison and from judgment and who shall declare his generation he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people was he stricken Jesus wasn't on that cross for anything he did he was on that cross for these others he was on that cross for us made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death because he had done no violence neither was any deceit in his mouth now here following the great prayer of contrition and requests for forgiveness and repentance once they have done that now the pleading begins the begging please come come oh come oh come [37:13] Emmanuel come and deliver your people and chapter 64 of Isaiah oh that thou wouldst rend the heavens that thou wouldst come down that the mountains might flow at thy presence as when the melting fire burneth the fire causes the waters to boil to make thy name known to thine adversaries that the nations may tremble at thy presence and believe you me that's exactly what they're going to do they are going to tremble at the presence of the august appearance of this individual who has a majesty and the might about him the likes of which has never been written or seen before you talk about all inspiring when this one comes and every eye shall see him it is going to be the climax of the planet since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear neither hath the eye seen [38:19] O God beside thee what he hath prepared for them that wait for him thou meetest him that rejoices and workest righteousness those that remember thee in thy ways behold thou art wroth for we have sinned in those is continuance and we shall be saved but we are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousness are as filthy rags you know what they're doing here they're doing nothing more than being honest that's all they're doing they're just admitting they're just admitting what they are no cover up no pretense no excuses no blaming somebody else it is us like the old spirits will used to go not my brother not my sister but it's me oh lord standing in the need of prayer repentance begins here before [39:20] I talk to you about it I need to do something about it and that's the burden here all of this is designed for nothing more than these people coming to a position of reality which they have never been in for thousands of years as a nation and these people these Jewish people God's chosen people they are the catalyst and they are the principal reason for which he is coming this time it is to rescue them and do you know the irony of it all and I find this so ironic it isn't all that difficult to get Gentiles to believe this especially Gentiles who give authority to the word of God because we see it here and we say yeah this is what the word says and this is what it means and this is the way it's going to be but do you know who would be the first to deny this they are those who are the beneficiaries isn't that remarkable you talk about irony these these [40:32] Jews this surviving Jewish remnant they're going to be the heroes and the catalyst for whom Christ is coming at that time and yet if you were to tell what I've been telling you to the average Jew today do you know what he would say I don't buy that I don't believe that well so what else is new but the time is coming when Israel will repent right down to the last person this is just amazing here's an admission we are always an unclean thing no excuses no blame pardon no nothing just admitting it all our righteousness are as filthy rags this I call this this I call the hard part of the gospel the hard part of the gospel is for men and women to come to the realization that there is nothing they can do or become that can make them acceptable to [41:45] God can't be done it's impossible and it is so hard for us as individuals because of our ego because of our pride to think well speak for yourself preacher I'm not that bad oh yes you are you just don't know it because if you knew it you would be the first one to admit it but those of you right now who are denying it if you're one who is denying it you are self deceived you really think you're a lot better than what you are but the truth be told you're no better than the rest of us we're all cut from the same bolt of cloth all have sinned and come short of the glory of God the only difference is some of us are willing to face the music and admit it and others are not and they are to be the most pitied of all because you see it isn't until you are willing to face the reality and recognize your need that you can do something about it you can't you can't treat a condition that has not been diagnosed and this is a diagnosis all of sinned and come short of [43:18] God's standard and if anybody is still under that delusion and you're wondering what just exactly what is God's standard how do I know that I come short of God well the answer is very simple God's standard is Jesus Christ and if you measure up alongside of him you've got nothing to worry about I don't know about you but I've been living this thing called the Christian life for over 60 years and nobody has ever mistaken me for Jesus yet it probably won't you either so we need to come to the end of ourselves we didn't just all we're doing is facing reality we're just saying hey you know what I am exactly what the Bible says I am I'm lost I'm undone and there's nothing I am who can deliver me from this body of death and we look up and we see a cross and somebody on that cross and it's not just somebody it's [44:27] God somebody Jesus was on that cross because God is righteous God is just and Jesus was on that cross because God is also loving and Jesus was on that cross because that was where he wanted to be for you he wanted to be there rather than you be there that is love the likes of which escapes me let's hasten on if we may verse nine be not wroth very sore O Lord neither remember iniquity forever behold see we beseech thee we are all thy people hey we're Israel remember you established this covenant with our great great great great great Abraham way back in Genesis we are descendants of Abraham we belong to the covenant we are your children you've got to fulfill your promise and you know something [45:34] God does not resent people holding him to his promise and you don't ever have to worry about him going back on it he just he wouldn't know how to even do that wouldn't know how to go about it he is the faithful God great is his faithfulness verse 11 our holy and our beautiful house where our fathers praise thee is burned up with fire this will be fulfilled after the antichrist has completely destroyed it decimated it and all our pleasant things are laid waste wilt thou refrain thyself for these things O Lord wilt thou hold thy peace and afflict us very sore give ear O shepherd of Israel thou that lead us out of the flock thou that dwell between the cherubins shine forth turn us again O God and cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved O Lord God of hosts how long will you be angry against the prayer of thy people turn us again O God of hosts and cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved verse 14 return we beseech thee [46:45] O God of hosts look down from heaven and behold and visit this vine that vine is a word that's synonymous for the nation of Israel this is the vine that God brought out of Egypt vineyard which thy right hand is planted in the branch that thou made a strong for thyself verse 17 let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand upon the son of man whom thou made strong for thyself so will we not go back from thee quicken us and urgent pleas pleading begging requesting this God whom their fathers rejected centuries ago to come back to the planet and to save them my oh my what a time this is going to be sheet number three [47:45] I'm going to ask you if you would please read at your leisure we will not take the time to go into it even though I would really like to but I do want you to notice a few things if you would please look at verse 3 of Zechariah 12 see that in that day verse 4 in that day verse 6 in that day verse 8 in that day verse 9 in that day verse 11 in that you almost get the impression he's saying something here don't you this is a chronological plotting he's saying this is when these things are going to happen and it continues in verse chapter 1 or chapter 13 and verse 1 in that day this is this is an incredible verse hymn writer wrote a song about this there there there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains that's what he's talking about there shall be a fountain open to the house of [48:52] David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and uncleanness and it shall come to pass in that day saith the Lord of hosts I will cut off the names of the their own children who have been propagating a lie and they will do it with conviction sadness but still out of allegiance and obedience to God verse eight it shall come to pass that in all the land saith the [49:53] Lord two parts therein shall be cut off and die this is Israel two thirds of the population is going to be eliminated in the Holocaust in the 1940s one third one third of all the Jews alive in the world were killed during this time it will be two thirds will be killed and the third part shall be left therein and it is that third part that will be at Petra and I will bring the third part through the fire and will refine them as silver is refined and will try them as gold is tried and then they shall call on my name and I will hear them I will say it is my people and and and and and and what a day that will be when the [50:56] Savior they shall see and verse 32 of Joel 2 and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord and he's talking about this element this remnant shall be delivered for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance as the Lord hath said and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call my oh my let us pray father our hearts are stirred perplexed in many ways encouraged in many ways and afraid for this world and what's coming in many ways because we see it as a time of reckoning when the curtain is coming down and your long suffering will have been exhausted man has tried your patience all these years and you have withheld judgment but now your fury is unleashed and it is so rightfully deserved we are grateful for your long suffering and we believe that you do all things well even in the bringing of judgment upon those deserving we are so grateful we have provided a way whereby anyone can escape the wrath of an angry [52:35] God that is so justly poured out upon sin and we can do so by clinging to that substitute that you provided for us he is our safety he is our refuge he is our savior and because he took your wrath and your judgment upon himself we can escape it and our prayer is that each and every one of these dear folks gathered here this morning young or old may already know the reality of the joy of sins forgiven and salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ but for any who do not our prayer is that they may understand the implications of the message how that we justly deserve the judgment of God but you've made a way of escape may they be encouraged and have the courage to use that way of escape by putting their faith and trust in the [53:35] Lord Jesus turning away from sin and self and pride and religion and good works and all the rest of it and look unto him who alone is mighty to save to that end we continue our study that will follow in weeks ahead and for this time together in Christ's name amen going to dismiss you if anyone has questions or comments I'll be around feel free to stop by my study for any questions or information you may be seeking and if you have a question you'd like to write out feel free to just write it out and drop it in the offering box and I do apologize for not leaving time for Q&A I did it again isn't it nice thank you God bless you you are dismissed