Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Right, so thou gracious Savior Ill.
Thrust in hand in the straightforward.
Change in every.
Voice, Lord and soul.
From you.
Joy.
Then we shall be wherever we want it. Then we shall begin what we should be grateful.
Luke's Gospel chapter 21. I don't think we need to consider the whole of the chapter.
I would suggest that we make the emphasis on verse 25 to the end of the chapter, but we might read from verse 20 just to get the connection and make a quick comment or two on that.
A set of verses between 20 and 24.
But the reason I suggested is that.
As we know.
Luke's Gospel and Clarence Lundin used to remind us of this is perhaps more connected with the introduction to Paul's ministry than any of the other three gospels, and what we get detailed here was.
An indication of what is going to take place after we are called home.
Yet is put together in such a way that I suggest it's a real voice to each one of us and speaks to our hearts as to what we are seeing already beginning to develop in this world.
In events and setting the stage for those events that will find their complete fulfillment after we're called home.
Would that be something we could take up? What do my brethren think of that?
I suggest that in the chapter there is both exhortation and some warnings.
But real encouragement, too.
Know that the desolation thereof is not. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountain. Let them which are in the midst of it depart out. Let not them that are in the country enter. They're into.
For these being the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days.
For there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people, and they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be LED away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down in the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
00:10:01
And there should be signs in the sun, and in the moon and in the stars.
And upon the earth distress of nations and perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring.
Men's hearts failing them for fear for looking after those things which are coming on the earth. For the powers of heaven shall be shaken, and then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power great and glory.
These things begin to come to pass. Then look up, lift up your head for your redemption draws knives.
And he speaks to them a parable. Behold the fig tree and all the trees when they now shoot for it. You see and know your own cells. That summer is now not at hand.
Likewise Ye, when you see these things come to pass.
Know ye that the Kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Early I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away.
They'll all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.
And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your heart be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, so that day come upon you unaware.
As a snares shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.
Watch ye therefore, and pray always that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.
In the daytime he was teaching in the temple, and at night he went out in a boat in the mountains called the Mount of Olives. All the people came early in the morning to him in the temple for to hear him.
As I mentioned earlier, we don't need to spend a lot of time on these first few verses, but only to get the connection.
When the Lord Jesus was crucified.
We know that was in our calendar approximately AD 29.
Or thereabouts, our calendars about four or five years out of whack, as we would say, so that the Lord Jesus was really born about four or five BC.
But if he were crucified on in the year 18.
AD 29, sorry.
Then the destruction of Jerusalem occurred approximately 40 years later under the Roman general Titus, and the Lord Jesus had predicted that in a figure when he gave the parable. I think it's in Matthew 22.
Concerning the vineyard and how that eventually when the.
Husbandmen of the vineyard kept persecuting and even killing the servants that were sent to receive the fruit of the vineyard.
Eventually, the king would send forth his armies and destroy those murderers.
And burn up their city. And when they crucified God's beloved son, Israel's trial was over. And ultimately, of course.
Man's trial in a general way, but God allowed Israel one more chance, as we know.
To receive the gospel, not this time from someone.
Like the Lord Jesus preaching on earth from a risen Christ in glory.
Through the apostles and sad to say, the nation at large rejected that too. So then this is what is described as the day of vengeance, when God allowed the Roman general Titus to come and to destroy Jerusalem.
00:15:05
And those who paid attention to this prophecy.
Realized what was coming.
Because when Titus surrounded Jerusalem with his armies, there was plenty of time for anyone that wanted to to get out of there and save themselves. And many did. But the large majority, of course, of the Jews were content to stay there, never thinking that they were going to be, as it says, here, taken captive into all nations and.
Followed by the edge of the sword and eventually the city destroyed and so on.
And God makes a prediction here that the city of Jerusalem would be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled.
And you and I know that it is Even so today.
Yes, Israel has military control over the city, but.
They can't do just what they want. The Mosque of Omar occupies the temple site.
And in that sense, the Gentiles have jurisdiction over it in a real way.
And it won't be until the times of the Gentiles are completed that all of the things that we read next year will be fulfilled. And once again, the Lord will give that city back to His beloved nation of Israel.
The times of the Gentiles is an interesting time frame and I think it's very helpful to understand that it began with Nebuchadnezzar.
Coming and taking away the descendants of the House of David, who God promised would have.
Son sitting on his throne and took it away from the House of David and gave it to the Gentiles.
And the person of Nebuchadnezzar. So I still remember our brother Clem Buchanan saying you could put over the book of Daniel, the title, The Times of the Gentiles. And that's a very helpful thing to think about because.
Then it takes up that time frame and at the end, in chapter 12, we have the time when the Lord Jesus is going to come back at the end of the great Tribulation.
And take back the authority, the government of this world into the lineage of the House of David, and the Lord Jesus is going to reign supreme in this world. So all the time between Nebuchadnezzar and the end of the great tribulation is the times of the Gentiles, the times of Gentile domination.
And so, like you say, Brother Bill, Israel is there in the land.
But you're only there because of the sufferance of Gentile powers. United States has been a big help to them, and I don't know which way that's going today. It's very interesting to see what God is allowing. And I sometimes say God is promised blessing to the descendants of Abraham, but the children of Judah, what we call the Jews.
2 tribes were there in Jerusalem when the Lord Jesus came the first time.
And they said his blood be on us and on our children. They have never repented of that. And so they can't have peace.
Until the Lord Jesus comes back and they recognize him, and they repent, and then the Lord is going to raise them up as number one in the world again #1 authority. But today it is not that way.
So it's very helpful you young people to understand what is the times of the Gentiles begin.
With Nebuchadnezzar taking away the lineage of the House of David and reigning instead, God gave it to him. And then we have in the whole book of Daniel the character of the times of the Gentiles. Get that into your mind and that helps to understand.
It's not going to end until, like it says, verse 24.
00:20:04
Till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled, when the Lord Jesus comes back.
In person at the end of the great tribulation in power and glory. And this is what we have in the rest of the chapter and it's going to be brethren, the most glorious event that ever was in human history. I really believe rather than there will be no other glorious event like the one when Jesus comes at the end of the great tribulation and.
The last time the world saw him, he was hanging in that mangled body on the tree.
And the next time they see him, he will be coming in power and glory, and God is going to vindicate him fully in that day. What a tremendous day. And you and I are going to be with him. We're going to be eyewitnesses of that glorious event. What a tremendous thing.
MMM.
Greatly helped by an expression that the older brothers used about the times of the Gentiles.
And they said it's a great parentheses.
I think by around 8th grade by our member right, it's been a while. You start to learn algebra and you have these long mathematical expressions with a bunch of parentheses, and sometimes you have parentheses inside of parentheses and you're smiling. You know this, right? And and you do the math inside the print. Then you move out.
And so the brethren used to say that the Church of God.
Is a parent. It's it's time here on earth. It's a parenthesis inside a parenthesis.
And so most of us are pretty well schooled on the church, and we know it started in Acts chapter 2. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down and united the believers together into one body. It was a while before they realized that, but it was so. And that parentheses will end of the Church of God on earth, perhaps today when the Lord descends into the clouds of heaven and calls.
First, those which are asleep in Jesus up he raises their bodies.
So that they are spirit, soul and changed body with the Lord, and we which are alive and remain caught up with them.
So that's the inside parentheses. But the times of the Gentiles as Bob has been referring to started back around, and I've always rely on Bill for these dates around 600 BC plus or minus.
When through the failure of God's earthly people, of the two tribes that are carried away captive, and God gave the authority and power in this world to a series of Gentile kingdoms. Really.
In the book of Daniel we see that great image, that head of gold, Nebuchadnezzar. And so that's when the times of Gentiles started. When will they end? Well, after you and I are up in heavenly glory, when the Lord Jesus, as Bob has described, comes visibly into this world in power and great glory, and he puts down the Gentile power and removes it.
And establishes himself.
In his Kingdom.
With Israel at the head of the nations then.
As the Kingdom of God upon earth, so that's the end of the.
Out of parentheses, and it's been going on now for over 2500 years.
And it will go on after we're gone for a little while, until the Lord Jesus.
Whose right it is overturns it, overturns it, overturns it.
And then takes up the Kingdom himself. He returns the headship and the domination of this world and its government to the line of David, because he is the son of David, and also in a broader glory, the son of man. So I found it helpful to think of it in those parentheses inside a parentheses.
Just to get an expression for that, would you agree, Bruce, that the inside parenthesis is what is referred to as?
The fullness of the Gentiles in Romans 11. The expression is slightly different from the times of the Gentiles. Isn't it excellent? Yes, very good.
00:25:04
Good. So the fullness of the Gentiles, which you say ends at the rapture? Yes, I believe so.
Very good.
Something else is noticeable here too. In Luke. We just mention it by the way. But it's important to have clear in our souls.
And that is that at the end of verse 24, the Spirit of God says.
Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
But then, even though Luke's gospel introduces perhaps more than any other, Paul's ministry.
Yet you find that immediately the Spirit of God jumps.
Right over the church period and begins to talk about what is going to happen.
Essentially after we are called home. And of course that is very, very typical of prophecy and important to realize.
Some brother once told me when I was young, he said, Bill, remember in reading any prophecy.
God stops the clock of prophecy at the beginning of the church period.
And does not start it again until after we are called home. Why is that? Because prophecy concerns the earth and the churches of heavenly company. We are not the subject of prophecy. And so it's often very difficult to understand that. And it does make prophecy, if I can say it.
Very hard and almost impossible for the natural man to understand.
Because the church period is totally left out.
I don't want to take a lot of time on it, but it's a bit of a almost amusing story where a brother called me several years ago and referred me to something written on the Internet.
Where a man of the world was trying to make some sense out of the 11Th chapter of Daniel.
And of course, like most men of the world, he refused to believe that Daniel wrote what is in that 11Th chapter.
As prophecy, he concluded that Daniel must have lived afterward and written it as history.
But then he commented, he said I don't know what happened to the man. He said everything he wrote up to verse 35.
Everything is perfect and relates absolutely correctly to what takes place in history, but from verse 36 on it doesn't make any sense at all. Nothing corresponds to it that ever took place in history. I don't know what went wrong with his mind and I guess I and the other brother had a good chuckle over it because of course what happens.
The dear man didn't realize. I shouldn't say the dear man, the poor man didn't realize.
That the church period occurs between verses 35 and 36, so everything from 36 on is future.
Very simple to the spiritual mind to understand, but the man of the world can't make any sense out of it. We just mentioned that and so here.
It talks about the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and then immediately jumps right over everything since then to talk about what is going to happen after you and I are called home. But it's written in such a way that you and I can look at what is around us in these last days and say.
Oh yes, everything that we are seeing in the world seen today.
Is setting a stage for what will happen after we are called home.
And the exhortations even though.
In.
Actual fact do apply to the godly ones of the Jews who will, I believe, be able to be intelligent as to those prophecies and to those exhortations. You and I can take them up and apply them to ourselves in a very real way, both the warnings and the encouragement that God's Word gives us. And I believe they're meant for us.
00:30:12
And I believe that's what we should try and take out of the chapter more than anything else.
So what you're saying, Brother Bill, is that from verse 25 forward, we have what relates to what will happen in this world after the rapture takes place, But we can see things moving in that direction, and that's what makes us realize we must be getting close. Is that right? Yes.
In the news if you play a little bit.
When's the last time since the days of Mr. Darby and the early brethren it was in the news? Something about the red heifers.
Recently when Hamas attacked Israel, some of the talk and conversation that they had recorded amongst the terrorists, they were actually talking about that, that they can't be allowed to do that. You know, it's been.
Brought out that they had five red heifers that qualified according to the rabbis, and that they're down to I think 2 now that they think they're qualified.
And there are people who want to offer that red heifer and mix the ashes and begin to do that.
When those things become a conversation in the news, something's going on and they're paying attention and people are at, well, what's that guy? Why are they? Why are the terrorists talking about the red heifer? What? What do they know? Well, then they start inquiring, well, what's that about? And get the experts in their Bible scholars, and they start explaining to them how the Jews need to have a perfect red heifer. They can be sacrificed and the ash is mixed with water.
To purify the instruments of the temple, the priests, all kinds of things. Well, whoever heard of such a thing? Now people are asking questions about it, searching on the Internet. What's this about? Another one I think in the news that's pretty interesting. Is Euphrates River drying up?
And all of a sudden Google search and the search engines are filled with people searching the drying up of the Euphrates. And then they're asking Bible scholars and people what's it about?
Yeah, there are things percolating. The stage is being set. We're right at the door.
Well, this 25th verse I believe is.
Again, being fulfilled to some degree, not totally, but the stage being set.
Right. In the world seen today, generally in prophecy, the Sun represents supreme authority or higher authority, the Moon perhaps derived authority, and the stars.
Individuals who in this world have a place of influence and maybe authority as well.
And it says there shall be signs in all of those areas.
Are we seeing that today? Indeed we are, without wanting to.
Isolate anyone situation.
Look at the kind of and I'm a Canadian by citizenship, but look at the kind of an election.
That the United States is facing in a few months later this year.
Who would ever have thought that we would be looking at that kind of a situation?
In a country like the United States.
And look at the difficulties in other nations. Look at what is happening in Russia.
They thought they had a democracy 25 years ago. How quickly that changed over.
00:35:07
But it has to in order for Russia to become the kind of power and to exert the influence that it will have.
After we are called home and signs in derived authority, the breakdown of morality, the difficulties and problems that are occurring at every level of government. We thought that at least in many nations that we are aware of that governments would be continue to be reasonably stable, but.
Here we're finding all kinds of problems and difficulties in the world today.
And individuals who have an influence in this world and might be thought to be.
Stable in their influence and then all of a sudden you hear that they have been discovered to have committed some fraud in the past and there they are being hauled up in court and taken to jail or.
Maybe they've been guilty of.
Crimes in the moral sphere, sexual immorality and so on, of such a nature that they're being called up in court, all kinds of things going on in the world and an interplay of economic and political and other forces that are totally unable for men to control. We're seeing all of that, aren't we? And in a widespread way, not just in one area, but.
Pretty near everywhere things are going on like that.
And then at the end of the verse it says the sea and the waves roaring.
I don't have the Darby with me, but it reads a little differently and perhaps a little stronger in it. Have you got it there, Bob? Yes.
The stress of nations and perplexity at the roar of the sea and rolling waves.
And that's what we're getting today in this world. The sea is a picture in scripture of the nations in turmoil, the nations in turmoil. The sea is always in motion, waves one size or another going this way and that way. Sometimes severe storms, sometimes not so severe.
But we are seeing more and more of that today. Aren't we in the world?
And everyone is being filled with fear today, wondering what's going to happen. Oh, men may gloss over it and say, well, it's we can still live a reasonable life. You and I in North America can still go to the grocery store and fill our cart with groceries and go home and eat. We still have relative.
Peace and quiet. But it's very precarious, isn't it?
Very precarious and everyone is wondering which way are things going to go? How are things going to turn out?
With the polarization.
And it's happening in our country where I live in Canada, happening here in North America.
Happening just about everywhere, and Ben's hearts already are beginning to fill with fear, as they say. Where is it all going to end? What is going to happen?
Waves of politics, waves of religion.
They strongly move the population of this world. Even in our country, we're kind of in a divided state.
It's so evident that these are taking place.
And so the result, like you say in verse 26, men's hearts failing them for fear.
They have reason to be afraid.
When we consider the awfulness of the judgments.
That will fall in that great tribulation period. The Lord Jesus himself says there is no time.
Before or after that will equal the severity of the judgments that will call.
Fall in this world, they have reason to fail for fear their hearts.
00:40:00
But oh brethren, this is a challenge to us.
Let's live in view of that calling whereby wherewith we are called that heavenly calling. And the scriptures are so clear about not fearing it says in first John chapter 4. I just better read it to get it straight, but I I love this verse when it comes to.
Fear, brethren, and I think it's something we need to meditate on.
First John chapter 4 and verse 18.
There is No Fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
Another verse two Timothy, chapter one.
That is beautiful to keep in focus.
Versus 7.
God has not given us the spirit of fear.
But of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Oh, brethren.
Is there fear? I must say, brethren, it was a challenge with the COVID.
Thing that came on us, how much fear was expressed even by God's people.
Lord, help us brethren, to keep our focus right. There is No Fear.
A lot.
I almost hate to bring this up, but.
I'm going to.
When the older ones here when we were young if we wanted to.
Read about prophecy.
The older brethren in our home meeting had plenty of books.
Or if we went to a conference, we bought them.
And we read and we we gained understanding of these important things.
But today?
Most, and I noticed this when I was still working, young people rarely read on a piece of paper, they read on screens and.
The young people in this room that are interested in spiritual things will get online. And I know they do because I get emails and texts and they listen to meetings, conferences that they have not been to. They listen to talks online by by Bill, by Bob, by Don and and that's good.
And and I do too.
But my computer is pretty clever. And if I get on and listen to these brothers, then the next time I log on to listen to a brother it, it has this program in it that says, oh, he likes Christian things. So, you know, while I'm on my way to listen to the Europe Zoom meeting or whatever, up comes all of this, all of these talks.
And.
And so I've become more aware than I ever was of what's being taught throughout Christianity.
And it is sobering. And one of the things that that you will read is a form of of error. I have to call it that, that basically says that.
These times of of tribulation and wrath, and that that Bill referred to especially in the beginning of our reading.
In verse 21 and verse 22, days of vengeance, they say well.
00:45:05
Titus came in in 70 AD and he devastated Jerusalem, and all of these prophecies were fulfilled right then. They're all behind us.
There's no tribulation ahead of us, it's just going to be more of the same.
Peter and his second epistle says that that error will it will be dominant at the end of the Christian era era. There will be mockers amongst Christians who say where is the promise of his coming. For since the fathers fell asleep, things have just been this way. And so this, it's ironic, isn't it, that even amongst the Lord's people.
We are removing.
What hungover the heads of even the unbelievers?
50 to 100 years ago in this country. And that is that there is wrath, that there is wrath ahead, that there is judgment ahead, not just individually for us after we die and are raised at God's Son's great white throne, but there is judgment coming on the living.
And so even amongst Christians today, there is just, well, the gospel is just going to spread and everything is going to be good and it's just going to go on. And they measure how many people are evangelized in countries and they say, we'll see the gospel is going to spread. And when when we're all done with this wonderful work of evangelizing, the Lord will come and, and put his seal of approval on the whole thing.
I don't think I'm wrong in expressing this.
But one of the ways they do it is to say everything took place in 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem. But if you go back to Daniel, I don't want to take any more time on it. But if you go back to Daniels prophecy or to Jeremiah, let's just do one or two. Go to Jeremiah 30.
I just want to plant the seed in your mind.
That there are passages throughout the word of God that are real.
Key verses.
To negate that idea that there that judgment is all past.
70 AD or any other period of time because of this kind of language. Jeremiah 30.
Verse seven speaking about.
The travail of judgment coming verse seven, Jeremiah 30, alas, for that date is great.
So that none is like it.
It is even the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it. None like it.
Was it a million people were massacred in 70 AD? I'm, I'm not very good in history, but it was something like that. It was a devastation. But no historian, I don't think would ever say that what took place in 70 AD in Jerusalem is unmatched in human history if you go forward to Daniel, which again was before.
The time of the Lord Jesus coming into this world, Daniel.
Chapter 12 I think it is.
Similar language.
Daniel, 12.
I'm going to jump in the middle of verse one.
There shall be a time of trouble such as never was, since there was a nation even to that same time, and at that time by people shall be delivered. Again, it's language that points to the extremity, to the difference in character of this judgment that is coming. If you turn, and thy people shall be delivered.
I'm not aware that anybody in any that the nation of Israel was not delivered in 70 AD. Far from it.
And they are not yet today.
Go to Matthew 24.
In verse.
21 Matthew 24 and 21.
We then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, nor ever shall be again. I I don't want to keep repeating these scriptures. When you go to the Book of Revelation, you read about that time of great tribulation, and you read of Gentiles being saved out of it.
00:50:07
You read of elect Israelites being saved through it and there is great rejoicing in deliverance of which the prophets, all the prophets have spoken. And so whether you look at the Old Testament prophets looking forward to it or the New Testament prophets looking forward to it, it is not yet come. And when it comes, it will be of a character that is incomparable to anything that has ever happened in this world as a as a young.
In school we read about the Holocaust that was surrounded the time of World War Two, and we were just, we were overwhelmed with what we read.
But as you get older and have more time to read, at times more history, sad to say, this world has been stained with so much blood and so much sorrow.
Mr. Lundeen, Clarence Lundin used to say if you knew the sorrow in the hearts of the people in one city block, he said it would it would drive you insane. Something like that is what he said. This world has seen incomparable suffering and sorrow, and it's going on today.
There's nothing new under the sun, but the character of things that are warned about in the prophetic scriptures are unparalleled. We need to keep that in mind. Plus the basic and simple passages in the New Testament that there is wrath these young Thessalonian Christians who were only saved at the most three or four weeks.
And Paul writes back to them. Let me just close my remarks by referring to one verse in First Thessalonians, chapter one.
I.
First Thessalonians, chapter one.
Babes and babes in Christ being addressed here.
Middle of verse nine you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God.
And to wait for his Son from heaven. They had been instructed in the blessed hope to wait for his Son from heaven.
Back then, just like we have been.
To wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus.
Which delivered us, or I think another translation has it, our great deliverer.
From the wrath to come.
Its future. Sad to say, its future.
If you put your trust in Christ.
Young boy, young girl, you'll not see this time of horror. The Lord will catch you up and take you out of this world before those waves burst upon this world.
Just want to assure you of that.
But if you decline God's offer of salvation.
You'll be here and you'll be more intelligent as to what's going on than anybody else, but it won't bring you any deliverance.
Very solemn.
Want to encourage?
Our younger brethren, especially to get an understanding of the prophetic picture. It is so helpful and gives you understanding of the times that we are passing through now.
I must say brother and IE when we translated Bruce Anstey's book.
Future events.
Into Spanish. Well, I read it to make sure that it was.
Understandable, and I got my understanding through other authors.
But I was astounded at how what he had to say in that book was so clear, and perhaps even more clear than my understanding. And so I encourage you to read Bruce Anstey's book Future Events. It probably is over there in the book display, but.
It's worth well worthwhile reading and I think it might even be online. Don, is it online? Yes, it is.
OK, so you can get it online if you want to do it that way, but read it. It is a resume of future events that is very helpful in understanding what's going to take place in those times of the great tribulation and as the Lord comes back to establish His Kingdom. It has been a very helpful.
00:55:13
Thing to me to understand that and it's been as as we view things where this world is going.
You know where you belong and it is extremely helpful. I want to really encourage you to get into the study of the prophetic picture. Those of us who are older too, but I really recommend that book.
Bill, you mentioned.
The Lord Jesus came into this world and he was rejected.
And the overwhelming sentiment was we will not have dismantled.
Away with this man.
And so.
The Lord was crucified.
Rose from the dead and we find early in the book of Acts.
The Spirit of God coming in and the church, period.
Being ushered in. I appreciated your comments, Bruce, about the parentheses. That's where we are today. There is a false understanding. I believe in general Christian circles about is the Lord reigning right now?
The Lord will reign. It says that in First Corinthians 15. He must reign. He came into this world and they said we will not have this Mandarin over us kill him. And that's exactly what happened.
Now, brethren, it is.
It leads to a great deal of error and frustration.
To think the Lord is reigning right now and it's our duty and responsibility to.
Get things fixed and get things right and get things on the right trajectory and track. It's a mess.
And I would I want to be corrected or if this isn't right, I don't believe in that sense that the Lord is reigning now. Now obviously God is in control of everything, but the time is coming when the Lord Jesus will set foot back on this earth and he will reign and set things right. So you look at the political scene, the economic scene.
You know, for those of us here in the States, you know.
Donald Trump is not going to make America great again, folks. Is that going to happen?
Or anybody else?
The Lord Jesus, when he is reigning, we'll do that. And to say, well, the Lord is reigning now. It looks like a big mess to me. And I, I don't believe the Lord is reigning per SE now like he's going to when he comes back and is appearing in the Millennium is ushered in. So I hope I haven't gone too far in that. But young people.
Don't be frustrated by falsely thinking that it's on your shoulders to fix it.
It's not. The Lord is the one that is allowing this to happen. And as we have mentioned before, the seas and the waves crashing together, the masses of philosophy and people.
Striving to find peace in this world without the Lord Jesus? Not going to happen.
I hope that's not.
It's resumed in Hebrews chapter two. I think is beautiful what you say.
In verse.
Verse eight it says it's talking about the Lord Jesus as the Son of man.
And it says, I'll reverse. 7 Thou hast Thou makes them a little lower than the angels. Thou cronest him with glory and honor, and it set him over the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet, that is now, or in that He put all in subjection under him. He left nothing that is not put under him.
But now.
We see not yet all things put under him. That's what you're talking about, right?
01:00:08
Brethren of the former day, who knew more Latin than we do?
Said it is his desire. It is his by right. He bought the whole field.
And he has brought, bought back to God that inheritance that is forfeited by a fallen man.
But when he comes out of heaven with 10 thousands of his Saints, he's going to take it. De facto, it'll be his.
In in practical reality, he sets his feet in this world. I know you get they try to petrify you in school about how the world is going to come to an end by fossil fuels or oil or climate or whatever, whatever it's been. But I was taught in my first year as a believer, God is going to present and he's quoting Peter.
God is going to keep this world together for the most important reason.
That he's going to vindicate the honor of his son. Like you said, Bernie, it's vital to God. It's vital to you that you'd be born again. You must be born again. It was vital to God to righteously bless you and me. He must be lifted up than he has been. But now the other shoe was going to draw. He must ring, and he must ring here.
Because if that didn't happen, then it's as if there's a perpetual, everlasting loss to God.
Well, he wanted to reign, and he wanted to have him reign here. He wanted to have a willing people under him, and he wanted to bring peace and prosperity. But no, it never happened. But he has them all in heaven now. He's going to fill heaven with children, and it's going to be full of blessing and delight, as we sang in those early hymns this morning. But it's imperative to God that he reigns here, and God is going to see to it that it happens.
And if you look forward to that in your soul beyond the rapture, Paul said, there is a crown to all those.
Who love his appearing, and that's the sense of the delight and the satisfaction we get.
By wanting to see that man who was spit upon him received a crown of thorns. Come into this world, and every knee shall bow.
To God the Father's glory and delight.
So I think you're exactly right on. Would you want to be in charge of this world right now, Bernie?
Everything that you walk around from country to country, since all Bernie's, Bernie's in charge. No, it's a dishonor to the Lord to think that he is reigning now in that way. He is behind the scenes. When he reigns, we all know it's going to be very different.
Didn't mean to get the reading off track to build, so maybe we can get back on it this afternoon.
Well, the odd off track is often very good as long as it doesn't get too far. So that was a good comment though because this Reconstructionism or Covenant theology is sweeping much of Christendom today in North America.
#40 in the appendix.
To take away transgression and rolling back.
01:05:35
Went from the.
Down like.
Showers.
Upon the new moon.
Christ and joy and of light flowers.
Spring up where it goes out.
From Hell to.
Holy, oh, we shall all now be for him and.