Episode Transcript
Well good morning.
It's 10 o'clock and we've got a fine looking crowd here this morning and I'm sure we have one online that looks like this.
2 Kings chapter 24 and verse 4 is our beginning place this morning.
Second Kings chapter twenty four and verse four And as I studied for this lesson yesterday, well, earlier this week, I thought what a privilege it is to be able to teach God's word to people who want to learn about it.
Nothing better than having a willing audience.
And I appreciate your faithfulness, the people who come and the people who show up online.
To our weekly Bible study, and I pray God would bless you greatly because of it.
And I know He already has, and He will.
We began reading verse 4 last week, and we had to leave off in the middle of the verse.
So if you found your place.
I want to back up and begin reading in verse 3 and read through verse 4 so we can get our context and then we'll get after it.
2 Kings chapter 24, and I'll start reading in verse 3.
Surely at the commandment of the Lord came this upon Judah, to remove them out of his sight.
For the sins of Manasseh according to all that he did, and also for the innocent blood that he shed, for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood.
Which the Lord would not pardon.
And we had to leave off with those words, which the Lord would not pardon.
And those are words that may have had you scratching your head as well.
So I didn't want to hurry through the exposition of that at the very end of the lesson.
We can take our time with it this morning.
Speaking of God's punishment, he said, For all these sins that Manasseh committed, God would not pardon.
And we read about that innocent blood of which Manasseh was blood guilty, if you remember that word from last week.
And when we studied his reign over Judah, and it was a long one, fifty-five years.
Then we learned that he did evil most of that time.
And he led Judah to do the same.
And as some of the details of his reign are recorded in 2 Kings, others are recorded in 2 Chronicles.
So I'm going to read to you about this evil king and what happened toward the end of his reign in 2 Chronicles 33, verses 12 through 13, if you're taking notes.
2 Chronicles 33, verses 12 through 13.
It says this about Manasseh.
And when he was in affliction, He besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.
And prayed unto him, and was entreated of him, that means God heard him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom.
Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.
After all the time he spent being mad at Manasseh when you're reading about it.
And then you see that and you think, look at there.
He found grace in the eyes of the Lord, just like Noah did.
Noah didn't deserve it any more than in Manasseh.
And he repented of his way and he trusted in the Lord.
He became a Christian.
That's just a real simple way to put it.
He would be one in the Old Testament who would look forward.
To the coming of the Messiah.
He would believe in that same Messiah, the one we believe came, the one that many people saw in their day.
He came in their day and died on the cross in front of them.
That's who Manasseh believed in.
He knew the Lord, and it wasn't just in a factual way.
He didn't just agree.
Well, yes, he seems to exist.
All things seem to have been created by an intelligent designer.
No, he knew the Lord by embracing that truth.
That Jesus saves, and now there was a relationship, a different relationship between God and Manasseh.
And it took Manasseh being carried away captive by the Babylonians, by the Assyrians, into the Babylonian kingdom there.
To realize that he was lost.
Now, Babylon hadn't been the dominant kingdom at that time.
It was Assyria, but Babylon was on the way.
When God delivered Manasseh out of this captivity back to Jerusalem God was showing Manasseh that he was the God who delivers, the God who saves.
And boy, Manasseh was in a hopeless condition.
He was an evil king, had been captured by the enemies and taken to a foreign land.
Nothing he could save himself from.
And it's the same beautiful picture we saw when God delivered Israel out of Egyptian bondage.
And their celebration of the Passover was to commemorate that deliverance.
In Manasseh's case, God had forgiven his sins.
Now knowing this, we come to this part of our text this morning that may be troubling to some of you.
Regarding this innocent blood Manasseh shed in Jerusalem before his captivity, verse 4 said, which the Lord would not pardon.
Now we need to properly understand the word pardon here.
That's essential.
Or we might get even more unsettled.
The Hebrew word, translated pardon, is normally translated as the word forgiven.
And it was connected to the sacrifices that were performed by the Levites on behalf of the children of Israel.
And you study those back in Leviticus and Exodus and Numbers and Deuteronomy.
And if you're a thinker, you're probably thinking something like this.
If the Lord saved Manasseh and forgave him of his sins, How could he not pardon Manasseh's sins in the shedding of innocent blood?
How can the two happen at the same time?
Isn't that sin that should be forgiven?
Well, let's use God's Word to figure this out because the answer is there.
We're going to use the example of the thief on the cross.
The one, there were two of them next to Jesus, one on either side.
And we see the thieves mentioned in several of the Gospels, but I want.
To start with Matthew chapter 27, verse 38.
Matthew 27, verse 38.
Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand and another on the left.
Now those thieves had been condemned by the Romans to die for their crimes.
They'd been convicted of theft or robbery and sentenced to death.
And no, theft and robbery are not the same in our day.
Theft is stealing, robbery is stealing by force.
That's simple.
But they'd been convicted of theft and sentenced to death.
Now that'd cut down on shoplifting, wouldn't it?
Auto theft.
You wouldn't have your car stolen again because somebody'd be afraid to die.
Well, the thieves have been condemned physically.
For their earthly crimes.
Now, that's important to remember.
In fact, those crimes were not only violations of Roman law.
They were also violations of God's commandments.
He said, Thou shalt not steal.
They stole.
But there was another condemnation that rested upon those two thieves.
They were spiritually condemned as well.
Listen to what those thieves did as they were bleeding out on their crosses.
As they were trying to suffocate on their crosses.
It's in Matthew 27, verses 40 through 44.
And they that passed by, meaning by the crosses where Jesus was, and they that passed by reviled him. wagging their heads, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself.
If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.
Likewise also the chief priests mocking him.
With the scribes and elders, said, He saved others, himself he cannot save.
If he be the king of Israel, Let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.
He trusted in God, let him deliver him now.
If he will have him, for he said, I am the Son of God.
The thieves also which were crucified with him cast the same in his teeth.
Now, that phrase, cast the same in his teeth, is not one we use.
But it means they reviled him in the same way.
The same insults the people hurled at him when they walked by, the same insults the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.
Hurled toward Jesus, these thieves did the same thing, both of them.
It says, the thieves.
Also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.
And so, all of them were unbelievers.
All of these people were unbelievers.
They believed not in the name of the only begotten Son of God, and what is the consequence of that?
John 3:18 John chapter 3, verse 18.
He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not Is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
So there are two condemnations.
This is to help us understand our text about God not pardoning the sins of Manasseh when it came to Judah.
There are two condemnations that rested upon these thieves.
One was the Roman condemnation, the earthly law.
They said, no stealing around here or you die.
And that's what was happening.
And the other was the spiritual condemnation.
These were unbelievers.
He that believeth not is condemned already.
So you have two thieves on crosses.
And because of their own choices, they've been condemned by worldly authorities.
And because of their own choices, they've been condemned by the heavenly authority.
Now watch this beautiful transaction that takes place.
And it's actually recorded in Luke chapter 23.
Verses 39 through 43.
Luke 23, verses 39 through 43.
It's speaking of the same thing that happens.
We're still at the cross where Jesus and the thieves were.
And one of the malefactors, that's the thieves, which were hanged, railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.
But the other, answering, rebuked him.
Now, what had this other been doing before?
He'd been insulting them too.
They had quite a bit of time to get their insults together.
They were up there for several hours.
But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost thou not fear God?
seeing thou art in the same condemnation, and we indeed justly.
In other words, we should be here.
For we received the due reward of our deeds.
But this man, speaking of Jesus, hath done nothing amiss.
And now he turns to Jesus, his voice to Jesus.
And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.
Now, this gives the Campbellites, the Church of Christ, the fits.
They don't know what to do with this because this guy can't come down and be baptized into their church.
But it doesn't give me any trouble because that man believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and he was saved.
So, if you ever think, well, I don't think I've done enough to be saved, you haven't.
You can't.
If you could hang on a cross and repent and trust the Lord, that's all that needs to be done to be saved.
So all that work's been done for you.
But look at what the one thief acknowledged.
He acknowledged that he and his fellow thief were justly condemned, that they deserved everything they were getting.
He admitted deserving his condemnation.
Another thing he admitted is that Jesus was innocent.
Jesus did nothing that could have condemned him.
Thirdly, the thief recognized that this world was not Jesus' kingdom.
Boy, he was sharp, wasn't he?
He got a spiritual enlightenment.
This world was not Jesus' kingdom, but that there was another kingdom over which this innocent man reigned.
Because he said, Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.
If you're not there yet, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.
And fourthly, This thief trusted in the king of that kingdom.
He called Jesus Lord.
He asked Jesus to remember him.
And when Jesus said, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise, he showed his acceptance of that man's faith.
Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.
Now, had this thief not repented and placed his faith in Jesus, had he not done that?
Had he been like the other thief, or like all of those unbelievers who walked by and shook their heads and wagged their fingers at Jesus.
Then it would not have been paradise where he went, it would have been hell.
So the condemnation spoken of in John chapter 3, verse 18 had been lifted from this man and placed on Jesus.
Now let's see what happens after that.
These details are recorded in John chapter 19.
Verses 32 through 33.
John 19, verses 32 through 33.
Again, telling of the same scene, just from a different gospel.
Then came the soldiers and brake the legs of the first and of the other which was crucified with him.
But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already, they broke not his legs.
Now that fulfilled a scripture that not a bone of him shall be broken.
But the two thieves were not dead yet.
And to hurry this thing up, because the Jews didn't want any bodies hanging on the cross on the Passover, on the Sabbath day, boy, they were really religious, weren't they?
And so from that passage, you may infer that the purpose of breaking the legs Of those who were nailed to the cross was to speed up their deaths.
The person hanging on the cross would use their legs to push themselves their leg muscles, to push themselves up.
Because crucifixion, if you don't know, is the death not by bleeding somebody out.
They bleed.
It's asphyxiation, it's a death of suffocation.
Because their arms are stretched out, out of joint, and it makes it really hard to breathe, and they're sagging down, they can't catch their breath, and so they use their leg muscles to push up.
Crucifixion was death by suffocation, and it's among the cruelest inventions of men.
Now we're about to tie this together with our passage in 2 Kings 24:4.
What we've read so far tells us that not only Jesus, but both thieves died on their crosses.
All three of them died on their crosses.
And going back to when Jesus told this repentant thief, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.
He wasn't talking about some earthly paradise like a garden or a nature preserve.
Jesus did not remove this thief's earthly condemnation.
He did not remove his earthly condemnation, which was the death penalty.
That condemnation ran its complete course.
Jesus removed that thief's spiritual condemnation.
The one that would send him to hell after he took his last breath.
So in an earthly respect, Jesus did not pardon the criminal act of this thief.
But in an eternal and spiritual respect, Jesus did pardon The thief's criminal act.
And going back to our text in 2 Kings 24, verse 4.
It tells us the Lord would not pardon Judah for the shedding of Manasseh's Or Manasseh's shedding of innocent blood in Jerusalem.
And although Manasseh was in the presence of the Lord immediately upon dying.
The earthly penalty of his sins would still be carried out just like the earthly penalty of the thief on the cross's sins was carried out.
So when you read that the Lord would not pardon for Manasseh's sins, it doesn't mean God refused to forgive Manasseh in a spiritual sense.
Only in an earthly sense.
Does that help?
It sure helped me to see that.
Okay.
And if you'll remember that.
Then, any time you see something like that, where you say, Well, it looks like that person's condemned anyway, even though they believe.
It looks like God's not pardoning that person's sins.
They're having to go through the consequences, even though they believe.
Then you understand there are two condemnations here: one earthly and one spiritual.
Isaiah chapter 55, verses 6 through 7.
Isaiah 55, verses 6 through 7.
Says, Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Manasseh forsook his way.
He returned to the Lord, and the Lord had mercy upon him.
He abundantly pardoned Manasseh.
So that he could spend all eternity with the Lord.
He did not pardon the earthly consequences of his sin.
All right, look in verse 5 now, back in 2 Kings 24.
Now, the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, that he was the king of Judah there, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
And from that point on, the readers of those chronicles that are being referred to would know that Judah once had a king.
Who gave away their gold and their silver and taxed them to pay off a Gentile enemy king?
And then died an unrepentant man.
Jehoiakim died an unrepentant man.
We don't read that he turned to the Lord.
We don't read that he knew that the Lord He was God.
He died.
He went to the same cold ground as Manasseh from four generations ago.
But his spirit did not go to the same place as Manasseh.
Verse six So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiakim his son Reigned in his stead.
As is the case in the kings and in the chronicles, one king dies and another takes his place.
And that's the way earthly kingdoms are.
And because that's the case.
We have to go through this election process every two years for representatives, every four years for Presidents or mayors or governors every six years for senators, and we have a lot of other Public politics that we have to deal with.
We have to elect sheriffs and council members and so on.
But when Jesus sets up his kingdom on this earth, it will never be written and it will never be said that Jesus died and his son reigned in his stead.
Never.
Because his kingdom is eternal, it's always had only one king, and it will always have only one king.
And there is no division within the kingdom of heaven like there was between Judah and Israel. like there is between all of the countries.
I mean, we've got California wanting to split their state up into and I don't blame them, the conservatives, and then leave the other group down there by the seaside.
And we've got other states wanting to do that, and countries all over the world wanting to add land or divide land.
It just never ends.
And we're not immune to it.
But in this kingdom that's unlike earthly Judah and earthly Israel, there's one king, and he has one kingdom.
And if you're a Christian, you're in that kingdom.
You don't have to wonder, well, how do I get there?
Am I going to be in that kingdom?
You already are a member.
And you can't ever be taken captive by the enemy again.
Oh, you may be your body may be captured.
You may go spend the rest of your days in a Chinese prison.
I don't know what the future holds.
But you're a member of a kingdom from which you can never be captured.
And that's the kingdom of God because your faith in Christ Jesus.
But here in our text, We've got to go on to this new king over this divided earthly kingdom in verse 7.
And the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land.
Now this would be a great lesson for all kings and national leaders to learn.
Stay in your own land.
And every time, and boy, the United States struggles with this.
We really do.
We don't want the foreign enemy to get on our soil.
That's already over with.
We handed this country away years ago in many ways, but we're still trying to fight to keep it, aren't we?
And I'm thankful.
But we find ourselves in all parts of the world with air bases and all of that, and we find ourselves in other people's wars, and we say, well, If we don't go at all, then they're going to come here.
And that's very true.
And we want to try to protect our.
Our brothers and sisters across the world, but then we get overextended, don't we?
We get taken advantage of by some of these countries.
And so there's always this battle.
Do we go to that one or do we stay?
You know, the children of Israel had that same thing.
Lord, do we go up and fight against this enemy or do we stay home?
And God would tell them what to do.
But the king of Egypt Now didn't come out of his land anymore.
And every time one of Israel's and Judah's enemies made war with him.
The enemy had to come out of his own land to do that.
They didn't know how to mind your business, did they?
In the case of Shishak, the king of Egypt, he came out of his land.
Against Jerusalem when Rehoboam reigned.
That was Solomon's son, one of his sons, who reigned over the first divided kingdom.
There in Judah.
And there was much wickedness during Rehoboam's reign.
And that provoked the Lord.
To jealousy, which resulted in this incursion by the Egyptians, by Shishak.
But now in our text, we see that Egypt began to stay home.
Let's see why.
It says, looking back in the verse: for the king of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates all that pertained to the king of Egypt.
One kingdom falls and another kingdom rises, just like we've been studying in the book of Daniel.
And in verse 6, in our text or in our passage here, we looked at how one Jewish king died and another took his place.
Now we see where one kingdom rises and another takes its place.
Another kingdom is weakened.
In Egypt, this once mighty and strong nation.
Had to run back to its homeland.
Babylon had conquered from the Nile River How many of your geography buffs?
You like to look at maps and globes?
So Jonathan and I and Rebecca are the only weird people in here.
Because when I was a kid, I could sit down with a globe or a map all day.
Almost starved myself doing it, just looking at where everything is and what the names of places are and trying to memorize the names of entire continents, what all the countries were.
And anyway, but the Nile River is the river, that's the great river of Egypt.
And the Babylon had conquered from that Nile River, which is the longest river in the world.
The mouth of it is in the The northern part of Egypt, there, and then the headwaters known as the White Nile.
It's got the Blue Nile and the White Nile.
This is probably way too much for y'all.
If this gets too complicated, you just raise your hand and I'll move on.
But the White Nile, the headwaters, are about 4,100 miles from the mouth, river miles.
So this river is a critical piece of geography.
And it's got fish and wildlife, and of course, it's a water source and a waterway to move goods on boats, and it's a boundary as well.
The other river that you read about there, it says he took from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates.
The Euphrates River is located in modern-day Iraq.
Or Iraq, if it's East Texas.
I don't want you to get lost in the translation or the pronunciation either.
And the area between the two rivers Depending on where you measure, it is roughly nine hundred miles wide.
So included in that area are Judah And Israel, right smack in the middle, in the days we're reading about.
And our text tells us that the king of Babylon Had taken from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates all that pertained to the king of Egypt.
And that king was Pharaoh Necho, who we read about over the last few weeks.
The same king who killed Josiah.
And now the Egypt of Pharaoh Nico, this mighty king who stretched from river to river, his reign, has been cut in half by the king of Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar.
Now, one of the things this shows us is that no matter how powerful they are, no earthly kingdom can stand for very long.
It certainly can't stand forever.
But it can't even stand for very long.
And when Egypt was at the top of its dominance I'm sure there were very few Egyptians who could even imagine that one day they would play second fiddle to Babylon.
And Americans have probably felt this way for some time.
Man, when I was a little boy, We had a captain, William Spencer, was his name, and he was a Vietnam veteran.
We had a parade for him in this huge apartment complex where I lived in Mac Allen.
He had just come home from Vietnam.
And let me tell you, we put on a shindig out there.
We had banners hanging everywhere.
Welcome home, Captain Spencer.
And Captain Spencer lived just below us in the apartments.
His family lived in the apartments below us.
I'd never met him because he'd been in Vietnam.
And I remember at that time in my life beginning to think, wow, we live in the greatest country in the world.
The most powerful country, and I always had great respect for our military and all the things.
And the more I read about history, about the world wars we'd been in and won, I thought, well, we're something else, aren't we?
And that's that uh that that innocent view of a little boy of his country We'd won two world wars.
We'd been successful in some other smaller wars since then.
And for a while, we had the most powerful military force on this globe, and we still may.
But just like Egypt, there is a Nebuchadnezzar waiting in the wings to divide and conquer this country, and they're at work.
And I want us to be reminded of something when it comes to the land between the river of Egypt and the river Euphrates.
Genesis chapter 15, verse 18.
Genesis 15, verse 18.
Now this goes way back before the time we're reading about.
In the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land.
Listen to it.
From the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.
God purposed And gave all of that land that we're reading about right now to Abraham's seed.
And in Joshua, beginning in chapter 15.
You start reading about the distribution of the lots of land that were given to the various tribes of the children of Israel, and they're very specific.
And included in those passages are references to the two rivers we read about.
Joshua chapter 1, verse 4.
Joshua 1, verse 4.
God told Joshua this: From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates.
All the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast.
That means your borders.
Now, concerning the assignment of the land for the tribe of Judah, Joshua 15, 4.
Joshua 15, 4 says, From thence it passed toward Asmon and went out unto the river of Egypt.
And the goings out of that coast were at the sea.
This shall be your south coast.
Now, what does this tell us?
It tells us that God promised to give this land to Abraham's seed.
And he showed that by giving.
All of that land to the tribes of the children of Israel when Joshua began to lead them following Moses' death.
So why then did all this land now belong to Babylon?
It belonged to Babylon because of the sins of the children of Israel.
Causing it to be taken away.
It's the same way, it's exactly the same way the Garden of Eden was taken away from Adam and Eve.
God gave it to them.
He put them in that garden.
And they sinned and forfeited their right to live in it.
So God took it away and He shut the door, didn't He?
He put those cherubims with flaming swords to guard the way of the tree of life.
And that Garden of Eden would no longer be available to mankind on this sin-cursed earth.
And the reason is that sinful man, who had dominion over that garden, had now yielded that over to Satan.
Who is the God of this fallen world?
So we need to understand in our text that God didn't lose the battle to Nebuchadnezzar.
When it came to this large swath of land that he had originally promised to Abraham's seed and had given to the children of Israel in Joshua's day.
The tree of life, which was in the midst of the garden of Eden, was taken away from this sin-cursed earth.
You think, well, I'll go find it.
You're not going to find it.
But Revelation chapter 2, verse 7 gives us great light into the disposition of this tree of life.
And it says, He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
Where is that tree of life?
It's in the midst of the paradise of God, and it's not a tree that's going to rot and have its branches fall off.
On earth, it was in the midst of the garden God made.
But because of sin, man could not eat from that tree.
But because of Jesus, man can again eat from that tree in the midst of the paradise of God.
Now let's apply this same principle.
To the land God promised the seed of Abraham, the land that was given to the children of Israel in Joshua's day, the same land taken by the king of Babylon in our text.
Galatians chapter 3, verse 7.
Galatians chapter 3, verse 7.
Know ye, therefore, that they which are of faith The same are the children of Abraham.
Well, that's a little different, isn't it?
So, whether you are a Jew or a Gentile doesn't matter.
If your faith is in Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are of the children of Abraham.
A lost Jewish person is not of this seed because he is not of the faith in Christ.
Now keeping this in mind when it comes to the promise God gave Abraham about this gift of land, about giving it to his seed.
I'm going to read Galatians chapter 3, verses 16 through 19.
Galatians 3, 16 through 19.
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.
He saith not, and to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.
And this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was 430 years after, Cannot disannul that it should make the promise of none effect.
For if the inheritance now we're talking about this land, aren't we?
For if the inheritance be of the law It is no more of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise.
Wherefore then serveth the law?
It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.
And it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.
Now, that's a meaty verse.
There are a lot of things in there.
But I want you to notice this.
The children of Israel could neither receive nor keep that land, that promised land.
By keeping the law, they just couldn't do it.
They were lawbreakers, just like their parents, Adam and Eve, just like our parents, Adam and Eve.
And they forfeited their land, and they would never gain it back by keeping the law.
However, the Galatian text tells us that this inheritance was not by the law.
It was by promise.
And the giving of that inheritance awaited the seed, the people, to whom the promise was made.
God made that promise about that land to Abraham And his seed, the Christians of all ages.
And he said, that seed is Christ and by extension, all who are in him by faith.
So if you're in Christ, you're the seed of Abraham.
I'll read as we begin to close here Revelation chapter 20 verses 6 through 9 Revelation 20 verses 6 through 9 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection.
On such the second death hath no power.
But they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog. to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about in the beloved city And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.
So the Revelation text tells us: we will reign with Christ a thousand years over this earth.
It will be our inheritance through Christ.
And the devil will be loosed after that thousand years and gather his army to go against the Lord before he's devoured by fire.
Israel still looks for the first coming of their Messiah to restore all this geographical land to them.
They've not only missed him, but they've rejected him.
And until he comes, the nation of Israel has no hope.
Of receiving again that land that God gave them.
But if their hope is in Jesus, they will, and they'll receive a greater inheritance than just a patch of dirt.
Father, thank you so much for the people and for their interest, for their love for your word and for each other.
And Lord, I just pray you'd bless them greatly for being here and bless our pastor as he preaches during the next hour.
Draw the lost to you through the gospel and edify the saints.
Build us up in the most holy faith.
That we may be bright and shining lights in this dark world.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
