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Jeremiah 44-45

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Chapter forty four and forty five here at Robin Vickie's home here in Bremerton. And so, welcome for those of you on Facebook to join us. We're gonna pray. Father, we thank you for the nice meal. We thank you for the fellowship and prayer. We thank you that Nancy is out of surgery doing better. We lift up Mike Goodson, and we pray that he'd gain weight, Lord. I wish I had that problem. And I pray that he'd hold on to the food that Shannon's given to him and that he'd be healed. We pray for Cora, Lord, that she'd be healed, that Sally be healed. We thank you for Judy. She's doing better physically, but Lord, emotionally, spiritually, we pray you undergird and strengthen her and help her as she's grieving over loss of friends and loved ones. And, Lord, we lift up Fred that he continued to gain his stamina. Bless Fred and Ronnie as they're planning to move to escape to Arizona, Lord. Bless them. And just we commit this night into your hands and all of our loved ones, Lord. You know, what each one needs, Lord. And we ask that you'd intervene, that you'd move and work by the power of your holy spirit. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. My life is in you, Lord. My strength is in you, Lord. My hope is in you, Lord. In you, it's in you, oh, my life is I will never let you go. You've taken me from the miry clay, set my feet upon the rock. Now I know I love you. Need you. Though my world may fall, I'll never let you go. My love you. Need you. Though my world may fall, I'll never let you go. My savior, my closest friend. Amen. Praise the Lord. Change my heart. Oh, Here you go. Alright. Thanks. Alright. Chapter 44. In case you don't know, Vicky has a podcast called be not deceived. Jesus said, take heed that no man deceive you. And we're living in a time of great, great deception, so you can check that out at where? YouTube. YouTube. Podcast on Apple. Podcast on Apple. I have it. Okay. And Email this So that's good. That's right. Jeremiah chapter 44. Father, we thank you for, again, the sweet time that we could spend here. And, as we sit at your feet, we ask that you'd open the scriptures to our understanding, Lord. We desire to learn. We desire to be doers of your word, not hearers only. So, Lord, speak to us, edify, build us up, strengthen us. Give us ears to hear, Lord, and hearts to apply. Help us to not be like the children of Israel that we're listening to here where they're just in incredible rebellion against you. So, Lord, even though we we lack so much, we find everything that we need in you. And, Lord, we we just ask that we would truly be those that have a voracious appetite for your word and that we're eager, and ready, to submit and to apply these truths to our lives, Lord, that we might grow thereby. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Alright. So the word that came to Jeremiah, this is gonna be the last chronological section that Jeremiah is writing. And and so the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews who dwell in the land of Egypt, who dwell at Migdal, at Tophanes, at Memphis, in the country of the pharaoh, saying so Greg asked last week how many there were. I said I didn't know. I didn't see. I speculated maybe, like, 200. But if you look over at verse 15, it says there was a great multitude. And so great multitude is how many? I don't know. Maybe maybe maybe 2,000. Right? Maybe a couple thousand? More than a multitude. A great multitude. Right? So now there's the previous verse, verse 14, the lord's gonna bring it down as he brings judgment against these guys, that it's gonna be a very small number of people, very few fugitives. So but such as shall escape. So, see, he's gone into the land of Egypt, sojourn there shall escape. There remain they that return in the land of Judah to which they desire to return and dwell there for none shall return, but such as shall escape. So that to me means a small group, maybe 200. So I don't know what the number is, but basically, much bigger group than I thought last week. I wasn't sure, but that's a good question. And there's rejoicing in heaven among the angels when just one sinner repents. So all these people have opportunity to repent. The sad thing is none do. None of them repent. Not only that, but they double down against God. They say, we understand what you're saying, Jeremiah, but we are not going to do it. I mean, that's why I that's why I titled this chapter, not my will, but thy will be done. So Jesus, when he's praying, he says, nevertheless, father, not my will, but thy will be done in complete submission unto his father. But if we rebel against God long enough and hard enough, he respects our free will, and then he says back to us, not my will, but thy will be done. You see, you don't want that. You don't want to be in a fight with God. You don't want to win a fight with God in the sense that you he gives into your will. The children of Israel were tired of manna. They're tired of the bread of life, which represented of Jesus, and they're tired of it. And they wanted savory food. They wanted food, like and they lie to themselves. They're delusional. We have better food when we're in Egypt. You know? We're gonna go back to Egypt and get savory food. They were lying to themselves. So the lord, gave into their request, but he added leanness to their heart when he allowed the quail to come in. They were getting meat. They were wanting to be carnivorous, and they're hitting homers of quail and tell it was coming out of their nose, their ears, and and but it says that the Lord put leanness in their heart. So one of the most tragic things is to expand your life and to run, run, run real hard after something you think you gotta have. I gotta have it. I gotta have it. And you're in that mode of begging God, asking God, and and even to the point of demanding God and then threatening God. If you don't give me this, I'm gonna hold my breath till I pass out. You know? And and so he finally gives in to you, but then you find out, god, that house I got a house, but it's not a home. You know? My husband's an alcoholic, and he's always working. And and I wish I had a better home. You know? And so you gotta be careful what you're demanding of God. You gotta keep the main thing the main thing. Nothing wrong with the house. Nothing wrong with the material things. But if you don't have Jesus as your first love, then things can be out of perspective. And you can be in a situation where you're approaching prayer as a means of demanding of God and giving him a list and and telling him what he must do to make you happy, where prayer really is discovering God's will for your life and entering into what he has planned. And so that's a much better definition of the purpose of prayer. So the word that the word that came to Jeremiah, this is God's word concerning all the Jews who dwell in the land of Egypt. Now remember, they got here because they had the offer of abiding in Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem, but this remnant, this group of people, God said, I'll take care of you. I'll take care of you. I'll restore you. I'll protect you. I'll provide for you. And I just want you to stay here. And they said, no. We're not gonna. We're not gonna stay here. And they forcibly took Jeremiah with them and others with them, and they fled to Egypt. And then Greg had a question about, well, what about the leader of Egypt? You know, what about him? Is he is he cool with all these guys coming there? Well, apparently, wasn't intimidated by them. Nebuchadnezzar left the poor. He didn't have very many you know, Johannan was a military guy, but not very much in the way of a threat against his kingdom. So he didn't look at it in that way, and so it looked like they were welcome there for a period of time. And and so this this description in chapter one, he Woah. Moses. Let my people go. Just turn it down right there. Second. Second. Tell Farrell. That's Charlton Heston there channeling them. Right? Oh, it's something. Okay. So so the it's it's it's given a geographical area of surrounding surrounding, you know, north, west, east, south. And so the whole general geographic region, the Jews are spread over Egypt. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, you have seen all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem. And so you've seen the the ruin, the ruins. You've seen the place come apart, and it all come down. So you're witnesses of my judgment against you. You're witnesses And and of all the years, Jeremiah's been at this for forty years warning these people of what's gonna happen. And the false prophets have been counter, you know, counteracting Jeremiah, lying to the people. They've been into idolatry, as we'll see here, worshiping the queen of heaven. And they're just so incredibly deluded spiritually that they're actually expecting going back to worshiping the queen of heaven and getting a different result. They they see God's they don't see God's being merciful in their time of prosperity and protection. They attribute it to this was a time where we were worshiping the queen of heaven. And then when we stopped worshiping the queen of heaven, then we got invaded by Nebuchadnezzar and wiped out. That's that's their line of reasoning. And so they're they're they're blind spiritually, and that's what sin does. Sin blinds us to the point we don't have discernment. We don't know which way is up, and we call good evil and evil good. So they they had a new start, so to speak, but an old heart. Their hearts were unchanged. And that's one of the problems of churches being filled with unbelievers is the false gospel, the easy believism, the doctrines of Ben, philosophy and psychology, doesn't have the power to transform and change hearts. So you have a group of people that as long as things are going well and they're kinda getting what they want and people are coming up with success stories and success formulas and how to make your life better and your family better, this, that, they'll stay there. But in a time of crisis, they don't have anything spiritually to, you know, to sustain them and help them through a storm. So it's evident that their house is built upon sand. They weren't doers of the word, just hearers, and they weren't even getting the word in many cases. And so they're soft. There's a softness to them that can't handle the time of adversity. And there's a soft they're desiring a soft life, a life devoid of any kind of trials or challenges and such, and life's just not that way. Especially as you draw closer to the Lord, you're going to be met with greater and greater opposition. If you're not facing opposition in your walk with the Lord, it's an indicator you're not a threat to the kingdom of darkness and you're being left alone because he wants to go after those who are filled with the spirit, proclaiming the truth, living the truth, and people observing and watching their lives as they endure trials, go through difficulty, and but have that triumphant spirit, that life of the spirit that that helps them get through. And so but you can't develop that just in a formula. It has to be something wrought within us, in the school of hard knocks in some cases, in most cases, and but also being a doer of the word. So thus saith the lord of hosts. So he describes himself the lord of horses. He's got armies, armies of angels that can come with him if he wants. He killed a 185,000 of the Assyrians with one angel. Peter, don't you know that I got 12 legions of angels that I could call upon, a minimum of 12 legion, call upon to fight for me? But my kingdom is not of this world. And so Peter pulled out a sword and cut off Malchus' ear. And Jesus, you know, like James and John wanted to call down thunder and lightning, call down fire upon the the Samaritans. And Jesus said, you know not what spirit you're of, and so shall I not drink this cup? And so he's gonna drink this cup of going to be crucified. And, but he's absolutely completely in control of our lord Jesus. Pilate says to him, don't you know that I have power to crucify you? And you can see in the spiritual realm, the angels, just give the command. Just give the command. I'll I'll pinch his neck off. You know? And and he he doesn't do that, does he? He's he's willingly coming as a lamb that's gonna be slain. And he told Pilate, you have no power except that which has been given you from above. You know? He challenged his enemies. He said, destroy this temple. Three days, I'll raise it up. And he's about ready to prove that. You know? But, the authority Pilate has is a delegated authority much like we see in Revelation seventeen seventeen where God puts it in the hearts of these wicked men to set the stage for the Lord to do what God intends to do, and which is raise his son from the dead. And in in in the case of Revelation seventeen seventeen, the second coming. Am I talking too fast? No. No. Oh, because I'm I'm getting in that habit of talking real fast because you guys won't let me take my time on Sunday morning. Is not us. You're doing just fine. Alright. So here we go. So maybe it's a coffee. I don't know, man. But I used to talk real fast, and then I slowed it down. Brownies. It is the brownies. I had five of them. Seven of them. Seven of Seven? Yeah. Yeah. Whoo. Yeah. That's it. I'm feeling the buzz. Alright. So you have seen in all evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem and upon all the cities of Judah, and behold, this day they are a desolation, and no man dwells in them. So if you're Lot and your family and you're walking out of Sodom and Gomorrah and you've been really hesitant to walk out, you've been wanting to stay there, and the angels have to grab a hold of your hand and pull you out as you're leaving the city and fire and brimstone's coming down, why would you look back? You know, why would you why would you even yearn wouldn't that just so sober you that, oh my god. Look what just happened. You know? Oh, lord. You know, it should humble you. And Lot's wife looks back. Jesus said, remember Lot's wife, no man having put his hand on the plow looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. Right? So when the Lord used Moses to deliver the children of Israel out of Egypt later, you know, many of them wanted to go back. And Egypt is symbolic of the world. They wanna go back to the world. You and I, when we engage and we say yes to Jesus and we become Christians, many times, we're buying into a false gospel that says our life's gonna be better, that our life's gonna be blessed, that everything's gonna go our way. And then when we face trials, many of us say, you know, god, I was had it much better when I was in the world. You know, the the devil took better care of me, you know, than you are. And, of course, we're lying to ourselves, but, in some cases, it's true. Circumstantially, you might be a person that, when the devil tempts you, bow down and worship me, and I'll give you all these kingdoms of the world. You might be a Bill Gates or a Bezo or some of these guys that sell their soul. And the devil certainly can follow through and give you all kinds of worldly wealth at the expense of what? What's a profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what would a man give in exchange for his life? And so we we many times have an opposition against our life because we choose to defer the rewards now, and we're storing up our treasures in heaven. And a lot of times, as with Jeremiah, if we were to impose upon Jeremiah the definition of success in our culture, what is a successful church, Jeremiah would be an L seven loser. Right? Because he's got one convert, Baruch. Baruch, his secretary, is the only one in forty years. Right? And Baruch's name means blessed. That's his name, blessed. But Jeremiah's successful. Why? To the Lord. Obedient to the Lord. Right? And I've discovered that the greatest enemy that I face is me, and I've also discovered that the greatest degradation to who I am is my own sin. My own sin destroys me. It's not something external. It's internal. And when I sin, there's a corrupting a corrupting influence in our lives. And so what yearns in me is, Lord, I don't wanna sin. Lord, I wanna live a life pleasing unto you. Lord, does it matter circumstantially outward what happens, Lord? I wanna be filled with the spirit. I wanna be in fellowship with you because if I spend my time whining and complaining and angry because I didn't get my way, then I'm in the flesh, and when I'm in the flesh, I'm sinning, and when I'm sinning, I'm only hurting myself, you know? And so and maybe my family my family too. But Jeremiah tried to refrain. He was angry when he was put in prison, put in the hole, and I won't speak in your name anymore, and the word was like a fire within his bones. And he could not refrain, so he learned the lesson that we learn of the greatest moments that we have are moments that were flowing in the power of the spirit. When we're using our gifts to bless others, when we're using our gifts to glorify the Lord, even though it may be hard, even though we may not be getting, you know, and I'm not I'm using it loosely, the worlds, because the church has adopted, has Christianized the world. The church today, the health, wealth, and prosperity, that gospel crept into Christianity in America since World War two, and it's gonna be very, very difficult for the church in America today to extricate itself from the that what they've been taught is a definition of God's favor in that you have all these material things. And when those Kathy was talking, coming over here, that it used to be you couldn't get out of Costco for $200, and now it's very difficult to buy food and get out of Costco for under $500 or, you know, and we don't even have six kids to feed. You know? So it's getting so expensive. And as it gets more and more expensive, the dollar uses its buying power. Venezuela, they were they were they're down to eating dogs and cats and animals and stuff. People in Venezuela, when when your currency is is destroyed, the inflation, the hyperinflation that comes. So then what happens is now we don't have the money for luxuries, for new cars, new houses, new everything, and we have to put an order amount of percentage of our income toward food, staying alive. And and we're gonna consider that a blessing that we have food. So many of us are gonna have to make adjustments to downsize, to get rid of debt, and get in a position where the essentials, that which is essential, remains affordable. Our whole idea of what it means to be blessed by God is gonna change as that happens. And it's not because you sinned. It's not because you did anything wrong. And that's what you gotta get through your head. It's it's because times are changing. God is judging. God is preparing the demise of America to take America down to bring in the one world government, and we're looking up. We're letting go. And what a great time we had. What a great, great time we had in America, my childhood, and all that we've been able to enjoy. We've all been basically very, very wealthy. Anybody from another country that gets here now that walks in is very wealthy. They've got $3 a month. They've got housing. They've got everything they need. They even wanna give them guns now, you know? So it's just being in America makes you pretty wealthy. And and so the church the church, if riches increase, set not your heart on it, can become idolatrous. So we gotta have a loose hold on the things of the world and be very careful in the days ahead in how we measure a church. The churches, when I started out, were always measured by how big they are. Then pastor Chuck, as he saw people leaving his church, he told us to stay the course, stay the course, don't compromise, because the way that you could have a bigger church was to teach less of the Bible and move and in a direction more of self help and feel good messages and such. And that's where the people were have been going for the last twenty years. But now that we're facing difficulty, the soft Christianity, the soft Christians don't have the ability to navigate a time of difficulty. And we will see what God says about that in Jeremiah chapter 12. We have studied that. If you are wimping out in the time of the foot soldiers, what are you gonna do, church? What are you gonna do, Jeremiah? Jeremiah is having a hard time in chapter 12. What are you gonna do when the enemy comes in with his chariots and horses? You ain't seen nothing yet. If you can't handle it now, you ain't seen nothing yet. God doesn't say, oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You he doesn't do that. He says he says, can I use this term? I don't wanna use this term. It's overused. But let's see. We could say man up. We could say woman up. We could say buckle up buttercup. We could say Grow up. You know? But basically, it's grow up. Mature. You know? Trust on the Lord more. So if your strength is waning and you don't have the strength, then that's when you trust on the Lord that His grace is sufficient for His strength perfected in weakness. It compels us, it forces us, when we reach the end of our strength, to trust in His strength. And that is why these guys are in this predicament. They did not want to trust in God and remain in Jerusalem. Instead, they were trusting in themselves, they were trusting in Egypt, that they would have it better off if they'd go to Egypt. So that's why they find there's some here, and this is basically what we would call unbelief and selfishness. So because of their wickedness, there's there's a reason there, which they have committed to provoke me to anger in that they went to burn incense and to serve other gods whom they knew not, neither they, ye, nor your fathers. So here's a history lesson for you. If you don't know history, you're what? Doomed to repeat it. Right? So this is why the communists wanna remove our history. Everything about our past, the communists wanna move because if God was involved, if Christians were involved in the establishment of this country, and what makes America great? America is great because America is good. If America ever ceases to be great, America won't be good anymore. So the demoralization of America and these next generations that are growing and gonna enter into adulthood, they don't have the historical background you and I are taught. Everything's being torn down. So they're going to be fed a whole propaganda full of communistic lies that Lenin and Stalin and Mao and others have tried before and have used before, and they remove the, you know, the like in China, when Chiang Kai shek was in, communism comes in, and there's a huge belief system in China, they are Christians. And a lot of the seeds that were planted then there in China, the evangelists that were there spreading the gospel, those seeds germinated and grew even during the since the fifties with the advent of of Mao's communism. And the communism in China is funded by the Rockefellers. The communism in Russia, funded by the globalists, like six, seven, eight different times, Russia almost imploded on itself and went went broke. But because they the globalist need fear to manipulate us in our freedom, they need they need to have a boogeyman always that can, scare us into compliance with the changes that they're wanting to make. So that's why they propped up Russia. That's why they propped up China and, and over the last hundred years to try and destroy America, to destroy the freedom. Freedom is what's, in the way. The the sovereignty of sovereign nations is in the way of of a centralization of a demonic communistic power that ends the age, the tribulation period, the seventh seven of Daniel. So so the people, if they don't know history, they don't know civics. Like pastor Jack Hibbs, and he keeps trying to teach people, Charlie Kirk and others come on his show and teach people civics, try and get people to understand their their responsibility to vote and how they can be in the school board, how they can have bible clubs in schools now and different advancements with Pastor Joe Kennedy. Robbie talked about how his that decision of him being able to pray at Brampton High School opened the door for a lot of other usage of schools and freedom in schools to bring the gospel and things like that. And so but a lot of us, if we're ignorant of it, we don't know it, we don't apply it, then we lose that freedom because of, you know, we don't know history, we don't know the current state of things either. So so they because the wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger, in that they went to burn incense and to serve other gods whom they knew not, neither they ye nor your father. So what is spiritual idolatry? What is it? The burning incense. It's adultery. It's adultery. You're you're you're to have a passion and a love for the true living God. You're to be in love with him. So you're committing a spiritual adultery and giving your first love to a to a, you know, an idol, to a demon, that which the Gentiles, sacrificed unto Paul said they sacrificed unto demons. So demons are behind this. So that's why Paul said, I'm jealous over you, church of Corinth, with a godly jealousy, for I've espoused you to one husband, even to Christ. Right? Do know what that means? And he says, I fear lest as the serpent in this beguiling of Eve, so to you would be seduced away from, beguiled from, tricked from the simplicity that's in Christ. So if anybody comes along with a different Jesus, a different gospel, or a different spirit, don't buy into it. Don't follow it. So Paul is liking it. I've espoused you to one husband even to Christ. You're married to Christ, church. Nation of Israel is the wife of Jehovah. You're married to him. So when we study the book of Hosea, we saw where God used an analogy there of Hosea's wife, Gomer, was a prostitute. She was very, very unfaithful to Hosea. And so Hosea went and searched her out and forgave her and brought her back home, but she still went back out. So that's what the Lord says concerning Israel. You're unfaithful to me. Your pursuit of idolatry is an unfaithfulness to me. It's spiritual adultery. So God told the church of Ephesus, you've left your first love. So the very first commandment, you know, is to love the Lord thy God with all of our heart, all our mind, all of our soul, all of our strength. Have no other gods before me. You're not to have any other gods. So these are little g gods. These are satanic, deceptive gods. They aren't they're counterfeits, if you will. And this is who the people went after. So the false prophets come along, and they begin to present a a false deity, and we're gonna see this as we move through here, maybe worshiping of the moon, maybe worshiping of the sun. And then you give names to it, and you give a background to it. If you want power, which god do you worship? If you want pleasure, a fertility goddess, you know, Ishtar, Aphrodite, Ashtroth, Venus, Isis, and and and Egypt and all. And so the false prophets would present these false gods, and then they would mix in central activity. So church needs to be sensual. Church needs to be touchy feely. I need to feel goosebumps. I need to cry. I need to laugh. I need pleasure. I I wanna use my six senses, smell, touch, taste. You know? This is what the appeal is to, but not to the spirit. Not to your spirit. Only God can speak to you in your spirit. Right? And build you up spiritually. So the word of God through the power of the spirit is how we're fed and and ministered unto. And we might exhibit emotions of of tears and fear and joy and blessing and all, but it's first and foremost, the primary priority is the speaking to man spiritually, the spiritual part of our being, rather than the central lower level that the natural man can even, you know, understand. So howbeit I sent unto you all my servants, the prophets, rising early and sending them saying, oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate. And so, this abominable thing speaks in terms of the idolatry. God likes it, it is an abomination, which thing I hate. And so, I am sending you prophets. He sent more than just Jeremiah. He sent in Ezekiel, sent Isaiah, sent Hosea, you know, Jeremiah here, and Habakkuk, many different prophets he is sending over a period of time. And Jesus said, which of the prophets did not your fathers kill? You you kill everybody I sent to you. You kill the messenger. Oh, no. They've got a snitch line. Oh, man. They're gonna snitch on me. So there it is. $2, baby. Yeah. Snitches get stitches. You know? Right? But they hearken not nor incline their ear to turn from their wickedness to burn no incense unto other gods. So they they don't have a true spiritual ear to hear. They they won't hear. They turn their heart. They they can't hear. So Jesus said to the churches of Revelation, the seven churches, He that has an ear to hear, let him hear what the spirit is saying to the churches. You and I are living in a time where we have to be discerning, and it's such a joy and a blessing to have fellowship with people that have spiritual ears. So we compare scripture with scripture, and we look at the authority of God's word, and then we interact with each other, and we say, no, this is what I learned. You know? I listened to pastor Chuck on Word for Today, and this is what I learned. And, you know, the God was speaking to me there. And I said, well, I was listening to one. This is what I heard. You know? That's the Holy Spirit speaking to each of us through the teaching of his word. And that's that's an exciting thing because we don't come with doctrines of men or plans or schemes or formulas or a book we just read. We come with the Word of God, and eyes not seen nor ear heard, neither has an end in the hearts of men the things which God has prepared for them that love him, but God has revealed them unto us by his spirit. So if we're spirit filled and we're willing, God will continue to speak to us. And it's so exciting to learn. It's so exciting for him to reveal his plan and purposes for our life and how we fit into the body of Christ, how how we can glorify him. But they hearken not nor incline the air to turn from their wickedness to burn incense unto other gods. So they refused to repent. They wouldn't listen. They got selective hearing. Wherefore my fury and my anger were poured forth, and were kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, and they are wasted and desolate as at this day. So just like he warned. He warned them. And they they now here they are doing it again. You know, this remnant of people, this group of people here that are in Egypt. Final final message of Jeremiah. I've done this for forty years trying to wake you up. And I often think of of Moses being with the children of Israel murmuring, complaining, murmuring, complaining, and getting him in trouble because he smoked the rock a second time. He got a little angry, you know. And and then he's not allowed to go into the promised land. Right? Doesn't get to go. And so I'm feeling bad for Moses, all that hard work and everything. And he's on top of Mount Nebo and he looks across and he can't go. And then I realized, oh, the Lord used death to deliver him from those people. You know? And he's on the mount of transfiguration, isn't he? He's on the mount of transfiguration. Right? And when Jesus transfigured in Matthew 17, so God's like, man, I'm doing you a favor, bro. Get you out of there. You know? And Jeremiah is like, man, this has been a hard calling, man. Forty years in Bremerton. Lord, take me home. You know? It's it's gonna be glorious. And if we're talking about death, people that we love right now that are the Lord might take home, I like to think in terms of Isaiah fifty seven one. Do you know what that is? You guys know it. I quote it a lot. Somebody wanna read Isaiah fifty seven one? Death can be a huge blessing for a Christian. Huge, huge blessing. Death, oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? Right? Don't want anybody I love to die. I don't wanna go through that mourning, that sorrow and all, but there is a day appointed, and death is our moving day. It's the day that we move as Christians out of this body into our new glorified body. But Isaiah fifty seven one is one I quote when I hear about the pastor's dying and in anticipation of the times that's coming, the days ahead. It's a blessing when the righteous are removed because they're not gonna see the evil that's to come. They don't have to be here for the collapse of America. You know, pastor Chuck got taken home in 2013 or whatever. He doesn't need to be here to see see all this, you know? And other pastors have have went home to be with the Lord. Jeff Johnson recently went home to be with the Lord. Ray Bentley went a few years ago during COVID, and Steve Mays and others. And these are guys that faithfully taught, you know, and served the Lord, and and they're in heaven. And Steve Mays had a really bad back, and he doesn't have a bad back anymore. He got a new body and all, and Jeff Johnson had cancer. He doesn't have cancer anymore. And when your work's done, why would you wanna hang around? Lord says, it's time for you to come home. And so work hard, work faithfully. Jeremiah is about done with his service, forty years there of people who didn't appreciate him. They're not throwing a party for Jeremiah. Jeremiah gets no birthday parties. He gets no party he gets no pastor appreciation, you know, moneys from from any he's not married, doesn't have kids, doesn't have a family, got a little piece of land. What's he get for his effort? Very, very little. You know? And he gets a little bread and water from the king when he's thrown, you know, into prison. They're plotting to kill him. They do kill him. Tradition says in Egypt, they're such sore losers. So, I mean, who would want that calling? And yet, Jeremiah, the only way he's gonna be content, the only way he's gonna have peace, the only way he's gonna experience fellowship with God is being faithful to God. He only needs one friend, and that's to be the friend of God like Abraham. That's all we need. And he'll hear the Lord say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. So we don't measure our ministry by the reception or rejection by people. Pastor Chuck said it this way. He said, we as servants of the Lord are not paid by commission. It's not by commission, by how many people you get saved, how many notches in your belt, how big your church is. Our reward is just based on faithfulness, just being faithful to what he's called us to do, and he's gonna reward us for that, being faithful. So I've sent you there. The people have witness. When God judges people who are obstinate, they're they're not without witness. There's witness against them. You call the witnesses in. At the great wine throne judgment, nobody's gonna say, I didn't know. I didn't know. No. You knew. You heard over and over again. You chose to reject it. I respect your decision. And so you wouldn't turn. And so in Revelation seventeen five and six, the harlot was drunk with the blood of the martyrs that she martyred, and she's a harlot. And that's what spiritual idolatry is. You seduce people and they follow you as a harlot, the queen of heaven. But they hearken not nor inclined their ear to turn from their wickedness to burn no incense under the other gods, wherefore my fury and my anger were poured forth. They were kindled in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, and they are wasted and desolate as at this day. So wouldn't that sober you up? Wouldn't that make you consider that, alright, Jeremiah was right, all this stuff happened, it is happening, it happened, I saw it, the streets are wasted. Now remember, Jeremiah wrote the book of Lamentations before he wrote this last chapter. So Lamentations is already written. The description of Jerusalem and the people eating babies and the nobles and all the stuff that happened in Lamentations already written. So these people got knowledge of what happened. They lived it. They saw the seeds. They experienced it. How could they be so delusional? How how could they possibly you're talking about a seduction. You're talking about a strong delusion that's coming upon the world because they reject the truth. It's it's very frustrating for us to deal with the lack of spiritual clarity and discernment that people have today. Very difficult to find fellowship and to be with like minded people that have a have a clue and understand what's going on. That's why when I say stuff like, hey, I like JD Frog. He he we're like minded. He sees a lot of things and understands a lot of things, you know, that we understand. And then you're around a group of people that refuse to mention it. They won't even mention it. The elephant's in the room. They won't even talk about it. They're acting like it didn't happen. And it's it's mind boggling to me how you could not speak these things. Bonhoeffer is talking about, you know, the heresy is is evident of what they won't talk about, you know, a heretic. They're afraid to. And so you have to speak up. You have to just expose them. And Klaus Schwab, today, I posted an article. He's angry. He wants the help of the technocrats and the bankers and the big boys to help him bring in a greater censorship because the people are starting to wake up. And I'm reading more and more articles talking about the alternative news media. Do you know how long I've had in our bulletin a list of alternative news media for people to begin to delve into? Because I knew they were only looking at mainstream media all these years. Over ten, fifteen years, I've had those in there. And so that's why I said, you know, be informed. Be informed because you need to see the people that are investing in exposing the lies and have the facts, and they put the facts on the table. They got the numbers. It's not a conspiracy theory. It's true. It's facts. But then again, you can't talk to people about it. You give it to them. They don't wanna hear it. They wanna stay in the ignorance of you know, the ignorance they're in, the bubble they're in. They don't want it to end. And so, but Klaus Schwab is recognizing we need greater censorship. We need we need to let people know that if they listen to pastor Rick, that their social credit score is gonna drop. You know? And they can get $2, but if they continue to go there, you know, they're not gonna be able to get a loan. Their kids aren't gonna be able to go to college, and we need to force them, you know, to toe the line and believe the lies, you know, and to you know, so they create these lies of, like, climate change, and they want people to believe it and follow it and go along with it. But the farmers in Norway are saying no, and they're putting manure and everything all there. So the the the politic the politicians, the government has to back off of some of the tyranny that they're imposing upon the farmers because the farmers are waking up. Right? And then it's spreading more and more. So this 2030 agenda can only happen. They're accelerating and trying to pedal to the metal. But if the people wake up, then it may be delayed. They've been trying a hundred years to accomplish this. Actually, from the Garden of Eden, the devil's been trying to accomplish this where he can be God, you know, upon the planet and to have his antichrist in place of Jesus Christ. But these globalists, these Satanists, if the people wake up, and it's so simple, they don't even have to bear arms. They just have to simply be awake enough to say no and to state what's right. And then those the guys have to back off. So the only way they can govern is with the compliance of the governed. If the governed don't comply, don't give in willingly, then they have to back off. They have to figure out another way to take their weapons and force it like in China. And with food. Food's gonna be used. 7,000 head of cattle on the Panhandle Of Texas. These are Angus cattle. 2,000 before that, I heard. And so if you look at the food destruction over the last couple years, what's coming? Famine. Famine's coming. Higher food prices. Does anybody care? Does anybody talk about it? Any anybody gonna bring that up? You know? Is that politics? Is that conspiracy theory? I'm not allowed to talk about that. But if enough people wake up, then you push back enough and people aren't gonna eat the bugs. Doctor Berg, he showed a huge pile of crickets and mealworms that you'd have to eat to gain the amount of protein that just the burger would give you. You you can't eat that many crickets. You know? I can't even eat one. But, I mean, I mean, it's just it's impossible. This stuff is idiocy. Did did you see that Nicole Kidman is, like, a really known actor, so I think almost everybody knows who Nicole Kidman is. She's gone on eating a four course meal of bugs trying to sell it. Yeah. Oh, this is so good. And you can see she could it's hard to describe the taste. It's unforgettable and unique. Like, she's trying to sell it. And mean, it doesn't taste like chiffy? She does yeah. But, I mean, and she eats all these bugs trying to sell it. And I'm like, wow. They're really trying to sell it using her I heard a illustration years ago that I've never forgotten where you talk about watching a movie, and the movie's got a couple scenes in it that are questionable. You know, kissing, whatever, sex scenes, whatever. So you tell yourself, well, it's just a little a little section of it. The whole rest of the movie is really good, and we'll fast forward it. You know? We'll cut it out or whatever. And I remember what they said is that is that's like bringing cookies in that people start to eat and they what's that taste? Well, it's just a little bit of dog poop. Just a little bit. It's just a tiny bit of dog poop in that cookie. You know? And the thought of just a tiny bit of corruption would so enrage you. You know? But it's just a tiny bit. It's just a tiny bit. You know? So that's what that reminds me of. But influencers, whether it's, you know, all those Hollywood people and stuff, they're blackballed and don't have a career if they don't do that kind of stuff. If they do that stuff, then BlackRock, the corporations push them, and and they wind up continuing as influencers. Think of all the brain dead people that are gonna follow her Nicole Kidman example. You know, to me, it's like it's like, how could you do that? So so why? It comes down to verse seven. Why? Therefore now, thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts. Remember, the God of hosts, the armies of heaven, the God of Israel. So he's identifying who he is. Why? Why commit ye this great evil against your own souls? You're destroying yourself. So if you're in Romans one, and you're denying the God of creation, and you're saying we're gonna worship and serve the devil, and we believe in evolution, we don't believe in creation, you suppress the truth. You're suppressing the truth. You're pushing it down. You're not looking at the obvious. So you're without excuse even if you haven't heard the gospel because you can look at the stars, you can look at creation, and you're without excuse. You know there's a creator because of the design, creation, the design that's there. And but when you suppress the truth and you push it down, then God says he'll give you over to the lies. He'll give you over to the strong delusion. He'll give you over to your base desires, men with men, women with women, which is unnatural. It's unnatural, God says. So right there, you can get $2,000 if I say that. That that would get me in trouble right there. And that it's unnatural. So then what you have is a push with the sodomites to to normalize their aberrant behavior. That's what they want. God says it's unnatural. Their push from the devil is to get everybody to accept the normalization of this aberrant behavior that that's goes against design. But God's saying, you're bringing the judgment upon yourself, the sexually transmitted diseases and the the huge void within your heart. You're trying to put a round peg in a square hole. It doesn't fit. It doesn't work. It's not gonna happen. And well, I probably shouldn't use that one, but but it is part of the vernacular, you know? So like Mick Jagger, you can't get no satisfaction. It doesn't work no matter how hard you try, because it goes against the designer. And so it goes against his design. It's like your car runs on diesel, you put water in, it's not gonna work. You gotta put the right according to the manufacturer's handbook. So because of that, you bring judgment upon yourself. So then you're inclined to blame God when your plan doesn't work out. Hey, God, I got AIDS. Hey, Lord, I got this sexually transmitted disease that won't go away now. My my thing is falling off now. My legs don't work. My whatever. You know? But it's God's fault. It's God's fault. Right? If you'd have done it God's way, you wouldn't have any of that trouble. I don't worry about getting a sexually transmitted disease because why? Because I'm only with Kathy for forty two years. You know? So I I had a friend in the church that told me about a a guy he knows that brought home herpes to his wife. And she's like, I got herpes. How'd that happen? Well, he cheated on his wife with with a coworker who had herpes. Thought he got away with it. Thought nobody would know. Brought it home to his wife, and he must have a godly woman cause she forgave him. They had kids and they're still married. That's amazing, isn't it? Wow. So the power of God's love and forgiveness, but we don't wanna do that to one another. It goes against God's design. You bring judgment upon yourself when you when you go against God's way. So your sin will find you out, Moses said. God's not mocked. Whatsoever man sows, that shall he also reap. So why commit ye this great? When Adam sinned, what did God say? Adam, why? Why, Adam? Adam, where are you? What what happened? Where are you at, man? What's going in through your head? The other night, Ezra flew like 20 feet, came through the air, and with his knee, hit Evie in the face. So when that happens, you look at a kid and you say, why? What was going through your head, man? Why would you do that? And it's incomprehensible. Well, God's looking at Adam. Adam, you had a perfect environment. And then I say to Kathy, Kath, I wish I was a better father. And she says, Rick, Adam and Eve had a perfect father. Look what they did. Aw. You know? It still doesn't matter. We're sinful. And so Adam and Eve have had a perfect environment. When we sin, we can't blame. Well, it's the home I came from. It's the neighborhood. My hood was really bad. It's my father's fault, my mother's fault. You can't play in the blame game. You have God. And he's given you a conscience, and you make a conscious choice. And it's a continuation of choices, not just one necessarily. So think about it. Why are you doing this? Why? Why would I want to destroy my marriage? Why would I want to destroy my children? What profit is this? You know, what profit is there in this behavior, this thing I think I have to have or do? What's the upside? What's the downside? All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. The word expedient means profitable. Will it draw me? And I define the word profitable as will it draw me closer to Christ? Or does it have the potential to drive me further from those I love and from Christ? And I won't be brought under the power of any. Does it have the potential to overpower me and take me down? So sin is very seductive. The devil's very good at trick tricking, and there can be a a huge lust that develops that's hard to overcome. So that's why we sow to the spirit. That's why we starve the flesh, and we try to compartmentalize the lies of the wicked one. We take those lies and we bring them to the obedience of Christ, and we allow God's word and his truth to expose the lie of that feeling or that desire or what the devil is trying to trick us into thinking it'll make you wiser. It'll bring you more pleasure. That's what he told Eve in the garden. You can be as God, you know? And but it's all lies. So Adam, why? And then in Isaiah one eighteen, the Lord says, come now, let us reason together. So we're reasoning right now. We're evaluating sinful behavior. We're trying to reason with our teenager, reason with our kids about alcohol, drinking, drugs, illicit sex, all these things. Come now, let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they'd be white as snow. Though they'd be red like crimson, be white as wool. So why would you do this? God's saying, let's reason. I wanna forgive you. I wanna wash away your sins. I wanna give you a new heart. I wanna give you the power of the Holy Spirit. Why would you persist in going after I liken it this way. God offers filet mignon, and you're gonna go after a rotten bologna sandwich. Why? Why? You know, he has something so much better for us. And in many cases, we don't value, especially if we're raised in a Christian home, we don't value that Christian home, We don't value our Christian parents. We don't value what we have. And somehow we can be seduced by the world, and we can go engage in the world. We wanna experience it ourselves, and we wind up bringing destruction and hurt and pain upon our lives. And we'd have been much better off if we'd have just We've been having a lot of fun star season recently, so we've been getting a lot of Woah. We're gonna have a party. Somebody talking on their phone? Okay. Get it behind me, Satan. Yeah. Alright. So here we go. So just like he warned, and so you commit this great evil against your own souls to cut off from you, man and woman, child and suckling, and out of Judah to leave you none to remain. So when we talked about abiding, and I we had Ravi read John 15, when you abide, when you're connected to the Lord, there's blessing. You're connected to Jesus. He's the vine, we're the branches, and his father's the husbandman, and God's life flows through us, the Holy Spirit, his love, the fruit of the spirit, and our lives bear fruit. But if we disconnect from him, that branch is cut off and thrown into the fire. It's your choice to disconnect. It's your choice to walk away from the Lord. He's promised us he'll never leave us nor forsake us. And he's only a prayer away if we ever do. If we ever act like the prodigal and wanna go whatever, he's a prayer away. You don't wanna continue in that way. So he's asking the question, why are you so suicidal? Do you think the globalists today are suicidal? They're gonna take it all down? If they can't have it to themselves, they're gonna take it all down, aren't they? Take every take it all down. And you're like, you guys are crazy. It's nonsustainable. You can't sustain these policies. You're suicidal. I yesterday, I didn't mention, you know, the oil. I mean, you you think of oil production. There's enough oil just in Texas to provide for America for two hundred years, we're told. And it's not according to the lies. Like, I listened to pastor Chuck, and I'll hear him, you know, twenty, thirty years ago. He's listening to mainstream media, he's talking about the planet being too populated and, you know, peak oil and all these terms that are a bunch of lies, but he didn't realize it at the time. But you buy into that, and you begin to apply these things and talk these things, and it resonates because people are listening to the same mainstream news that you're listening to and all. But bottom line is it's a lie. Mhmm. It's it's you're told it's unsustainable. The population of plants unsustainable. But what you're not told is they're purposely starving people in Africa, purposely not providing food, purposely not providing nitrogen, that there's all sorts of land out there with no people on it that could be irrigated and used and and utilized, and especially with God's blessing. But, these guys wanna play God, so you cut yourselves off. You cut yourselves off from, from the Lord. You you hew out cisterns, broken cisterns, which can hold no water. So you wanna stay close to the spout where the glory pops out. Right? You wanna stay close to the Lord and allow his life to flow, you know, into your life. That's why I like going to church. That's why I like being with God's people. That's why I like being in the word and listen to worship music. I wanna stay close. I want God's holy spirit to continually be filling me and overflowing my life. Things of the world, a lot of it's, you know, can be enjoyable for a period of time, but it pales in comparison to simply, you know, being with the Lord and being with his people and and serving him. So in that ye provoked me unto wrath with works of your hands, so the idols, burning incense unto unto other gods in the land of Egypt, where ye are gone to dwell that ye might cut yourselves off, and that ye might be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth. So God had a higher purpose for you, nation of Israel. You were to be a light unto the Gentiles, but now you're gonna be a curse. So according to Deuteronomy 28, God promised blessings for obedience and cursing for disobedience. You have forgotten, have you forgotten the wickedness of your fathers and the wickedness of the kings of Judah? And notice how many times wicked are wickedness. The wickedness of of their wives and your own wickedness and the wickedness of your and the wickedness of your wives which they have committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. Man, this is a wicked time. This might be like Mardi Gras. This might be just a total breakdown of all morality. Vegas, the whole thing, just a huge Sodom and Gomorrah, wickedness. And, they are not humbled, even unto this day, have they feared nor walked in my law, nor in my statutes that I have set before you and before your fathers. So when the Sodomites go down the street, what do they call it? They call it a gay pride. It's a gay pride parade. They're parading, and a lot of them are naked, and there's children nearby. And they're parading with their flags and their fags and all that down the streets publicly, riding bicycles, just freak freak show, but they call it a gay pride celebration that they're not gonna be in the closet anymore. They're gonna come out publicly and rub it in everybody's faces with their with their Noah's Ark rainbow flags. It's our flag, not theirs. I think they got one other color in it. But the White House, when Obama acted like a tyrant, and he said, you guys got it wrong, and we're gonna legislate same sex marriage. He lit up the White House with his gay, you know, flag lights and everything. He should've charged him $2,000. Should've. And, but it's pride. They they, haven't humbled themselves. And so there's no peace to the wicked. Right? You want peace? I mean, think in terms of anxiety and emotional problems and that sin brings, the guilt, the neurosis, the overwhelming thoughts and things that come in a person's mind as a result of sin. So what you're doing is you're fighting with God. You're resisting the Holy Spirit, especially if you're a Christian that's backslidden, you're the most miserable person on the planet, because you've tasted, you've seen that the Lord is good, and now you're fighting directly against the Holy Spirit. And for an unbeliever, in a lot of ways, they don't they don't know what you know. And so they're moving in a direction, the only thing they do know, they gotta violate their conscience, They gotta become psychopaths. They've gotta have their conscience severed with a hot iron that where they're past feeling. They continue going in that way. But there's no peace, saith the Lord of the wicked. So when these wicked men and women die, they die in torment, don't they? Voltaire dies in torment. And and you and I have we have peace. The Lord's given us peace. And these guys are are promising peace, but there's there's no peace. And so in Isaiah 53 verse five, it says, he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and that with his stripes we are healed. That's you and I. In Isaiah 4eight 22 and Isaiah 5seven 21, who wants to read those? Isaiah forty eight twenty two. Isaiah fifty seven twenty one. Oh, man. Fifty seven twenty one? I'll read that one. Yeah. Let that guy and that speaker read it. 48. Isaiah forty eight twenty two. Isaiah fifty seven twenty one. I got that one. So they're promising them peace. God's saying, you're in for a horror show, destruction. When the Antichrist comes, he's gonna cry out peace and safety, and then sudden destruction's gonna come on him. Right? They sell peace. They sell make America great. Do you know what Hitler's phrase was? Make Germany great. Make Germany great. Yep. Make Germany great. Yep. I thought you'd like that. Okay. Isaiah forty eight twenty two. Isaiah forty eight twenty two, but there is no peace for the wicked says the Lord. Isaiah fifty seven twenty one. There is no peace, saith my god, to the wicked. How much do you value peace peace of mind? Can you sleep at night? Yeah. Do a whole lot of people have sleep problems being able to sleep? My dad, when he went through his divorce, my mom, when she divorced him, he was so incredibly heartbroken. It'd take two six packs of beer every night to pass out to be able to sleep. He was so incredibly tormented, the hurt that he experienced. And then he became a Christian, and he didn't need to do that anymore. Ain't that amazing? Amen. Amen. God gives you peace. He gives his beloved sleep. Right? I'm I'm finding I'm so I'm sleeping like I'm in a coma lately, and Kathy says it's because they're spraying the skies. And it's like a it's like a coma. I don't know if it's the weather, this whatever, but very seldom do I have difficulty sleeping. The only time it's kind of a good thing is on Saturday nights when I'm thinking about Sunday. My my my brain is engaged, and I I can't shut it off. That's the that's the hard part. So they're they're not humbled even unto this day, neither have they feared nor walked in my law. So we saw on Sunday, we talked about the fear of the Lord's beginning of wisdom, fear of the Lord's beginning of knowledge. They don't fear the Lord, nor in my statutes that I set before you and before your father. So it doesn't matter if America is founded upon a Judeo Old Testament Christian New Testament ethic, if we don't follow it, if we don't live by it, if we don't know it, if we don't know the Bible, if we don't practice, if we don't apply it to our lives. Doesn't matter. You're in essence, you're living like a heathen, living like an unbeliever, doing that which is right in your own eyes. So you've been rebellious, you've been prideful. Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I will set my face against you for evil and to cut off all Judah. So he saw down in verse eight, the cutting off. You're gonna be cut off. You're gonna be cut off from the source. You may cut off from the blessings. I'm gonna cut you off. And we wanna be connected. I wanna be connected. I wanna be connected to Jesus. I don't wanna be cut off. And it's because of my evil. And I will take the remnant of Judah that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall be consumed and fall in the land of Egypt and shall even be consumed by the sword and by the famine and shall die from the least even unto the greatest by the sword by the famine. And they shall be an execration and a horror and a curse and a reproach. So we would look at it as vessels of dishonor. We you and I wanna be vessels of honor. We want the Holy Spirit to we wanna be the temple of the Holy Spirit. We want the Lord to use us as a vessel of honor. We don't wanna bring shame and reproach under the Lord. Nathan said, David, you've given great occasion for the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme his name because David sinned with Bathsheba and killed Uriah the Hittite, one of his mighty men. And so it gives great occasion for the unbelievers to say, hey, I know this Christian guy that committed adultery. I know this Christian guy that killed Uriah. And and so it shames the Lord. For I will punish them that dwell in the land of Egypt as I have punished Jerusalem by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. So there is no escaping the judgment that is coming because the very reason is you didn't trust the Lord. All this could be solved if you would be walking by faith instead of trusting in men. So that none of the remnant of Judah who are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there shall escape to or remain, and they should return into the land of Judah to which they have a desire to return to dwell there. For none shall return, but such as shall escape. So the Lord says, I got some fugitives, very few that are gonna escape what's coming, a very small number that are gonna make it. He says, verse 15, then all the men who knew that their wives had burned incense unto other gods, and all the women who stood by a great multitude, even all the people who dwelt in the land of Egypt in Pathros answered Jeremiah saying, as for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee. Oh my gosh. I will not. That's brutal, isn't it? Holy moly. That's some serious from rebellion. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad we saw that. I'm glad I mean, that's just, like, in your face. In your face. Oh gosh. Alright. They're honest, aren't they? Yes. Biden is honest. Obama is honest. He's honest. He's telling you, I don't want nothing to do with your god. Right? Although he lied to George Stephanopoulos, and he lied to the American people in the beginning, postured himself as a Christian, but then he had it slip his Muslim faith. And George Stephanopoulos said, you mean your Christian faith. Right? And Rick Warren was used as a tool to present Obama to the American people as an evangelical and did it twice. And but after he got elected, then he comes out with his honesty, what he's really doing, you know? We're taking you down. One of his guys in this cabinet, I I forget which one it was, we're gonna destroy the dollar. Flat out. We're gonna take the dollar down. And it's happening ever, you know, incrementally. And we're gonna take America down. We're gonna fundamentally transform America. And they have predictive programming and movies and statements, and they're they're not hiding it. It's it's out in the open. Mhmm. The ones you gotta watch out for, because it's a uniparty, are the Republicans that are lying to you telling you what you wanna hear as evangelicals. That's where your that's where your greatest deception is. Until you realize it's a uniparty, they all work for the devil, they work for the globalists, you're not gonna understand the good cop, bad cop, if that's a a term we can use. So these guys are honest, and that's why I said, not my will, but thy will be done. God is respecting their free will. When we talk about free will, sometimes I like to think in terms of Jonah. Jonah had free will. But how did God make Jonah willing? He's putting in fish. He made him digest it. So God told Jonah to do what? Go tell the Nineveh. Nineveh to repent. They got forty days. Yeah. And what did Jonah do? Ran. And he said no. He went the opposite direction. I don't think so. Got on a ship headed to Tarshish. Right? Now opposite direction. So he's on that ship. He's exercised his will. He's on his way. And how did God make the prophet Jonah willing? Put him in the bud. Sung all the fish. Fish. Threw him in the water, put him in a fish. He's in the fish three days. It's a picture of the death, burial, resurrection. But when he was in hell in chapter two, right, seaweed all over his head, gastric juices bleaching him white. Like bad Bob the albino or something. He's barfed onto the shore, says the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Now he's willing. Now he's willing. He's hating it. He hates it because he hates the Ninevites. He knew that God would be merciful to him. He's a patriot. He's a Jewish patriot, and the Ninevites are enemies. The Assyrians are enemies. God needs to wipe them out. So Jonah's not gonna be popular with all the Jewish patriots by saving Nineveh. But God and this is the picture of Nineveh that we need to have, not a, you know, the nation of Israel, if my people are called by my name, second Chronicles seven fourteen, but we need to look at it as Nineveh. The key is repentance. When they repented from the king on down, God repented, or God gave them a reprieve of over a hundred years before they were finally backslidden once again and judged. But I like the idea of free will. I like the idea that God doesn't force me to love him, doesn't force me to do things, but God is a master chess player. And he can let me make a move, and I make a move, and he makes a move, and I make a move, and he makes a move, and I'm praying. And next thing I know, I'm backed into a corner. And the only way out is his way. And so I choose to do it his way rather than destroy myself. Right? Jump off the board. So he's he's definitely sovereign. He's in control, absolutely completely in control. He gives me the power of choice, but as a child of his, he loves me too much to sit there and allow me to destroy myself. Right? So he has a way of making us willing. Making us willing. But in this case, he's not gonna force these guys to love him. He's given them forty years to make these choices. They've made it real clear they they don't want to do things his way. And and so they're incredibly obstinate, bold, bold rebellion against God. As for the words that thou hast spoken unto us, so they know it's God's word in the name of the Lord, he's been speaking the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee. So these are the God haters. These are the ones that killed Jeremiah. These are the ones that killed Jesus. But we will certainly do now notice this. This is this is the phrase that comes out of the book of Judges. It's the phrase every man did that which was right in his own eyes. This is what's called existential humanism or relativism. Man is God. He's on the throne, and he determines what's right for him. What do you feel is right? And so now you're making up the rules. You're making up what you think is right. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goes forth out of our own mouth to burn incense under the queen of heaven and to pour our drink offerings under her as we have have done, we and our fathers and our kings and our princes in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. For then had we plenty of food and were well and saw no evil. So they're playing the blame game. They're blaming God for what's happening for what's happened. And they have no love for God. They're users. In John chapter six, when Jesus fed the to the loaves and the fishes, people would follow him for the loaves and the fishes. But when you cut off the economy, we're not gonna follow you anymore. We're not gonna follow you because we bought in because you would make it so we didn't have to work and universal basic income, and we could stay at home and game all day and eat all the food we wanted, including bugs, and ride our bikes and do whatever we want. And but now that we can't do that, we we don't like you. So we're gonna follow the Queen of Heaven. And the queen of heaven, boy, she really blessed us. She really made America great. You know? So who is the queen of heaven? The devil. The devil. The absolutely. The queen of heaven is the devil. The deception of the devil. So the devil doesn't come right out and say, hey, look at me. I'm the queen of heaven. But the devil will will trick people in in following after the moon, worshiping of the moon, worshiping the sun. In Egypt, they would worship the sun, that of Isis. Remember when Isis was roaming all over during their Arab spring? There's nothing new about Isis. Isis has been around for quite some time. So she's known as Astroth to the Babylonians. She's known as Venus to the Romans. She's known as Aphrodite to the Greeks, and she's known as Ishtar, fertility goddess to the Canaanites. And in acts 19, she's known as Artemis, And then in Latin, she's known as Diana, greatest Diana of the Ephesians. So one of the common things in the worshiping of this false deity is, number one, she's a fertility goddess. She'll make you fertile. She'll make you productive. So what they would do is they'd use pornography, and they don't have the Internet and none of that sort of stuff, but pictures. And they would use carved images when we went to Ephesus, when we visited the seven churches, they had for sale, they had these idols, and they would be like a woman, but multi breasted. So it was like saying this is she'll make you productive, she'll make you fruitful and a fertility goddess. And so you're gonna be prosperous is the is the key thing, and also pleasurable and power. So pleasure, power, you know, and prosperity and is basically what's behind this, the craving of men to have these things. And and so that's the false belief system. They would also have temples, and in these temples, they would incorporate priestesses. And I'm sure with the corruption of Rome and these other cultures, they'd have little boys too, but primarily women. And these women would come down in Corinth. There's a temple to Aphrodite there in Corinth. And as we're studying on Sundays in the church of Corinth, and it's up on the hill, and these priestesses would come down for the sailors. Like when the sailors come into port, what are the sailors looking for? Bars and women. Right? Harlots. So they would come, and they would sell themselves, and these monies would go back, you know, to the temple, but they were temple priestesses, and then they would have orgies and this total debauchery and decadence. In the city of of the Ephesians, when the Ephesians are crying out for the space of two hours, great is Diana of the Ephesians, is because Paul's there showing the people Jesus, and they're no longer needing the coppersmiths, Alexander the coppersmith, and those who are making these idols, no longer needed them. So it's affecting their economy. People aren't buying them. And and so they're angry, and they wanna get rid of Paul. They eventually got rid of Timothy when he took over the pastorate there. He spoke up against their Mardi Gras. They'd have the celebration of greatest Diana of the Ephesians, and the people are in the streets and all. And Timothy spoke up against it, like John the Baptist spoke up against Herod taking his brother Philip's wife, and they beat Timothy to death. They beat him to death. So they're serious about their Mardi Gras in in Louisiana. People are serious in our cities with their decadence, and and they're after your children. They're after your children because they don't have children, and they wanna bring as many people into this cult as they can. And so the eyes of the wicked are never full. And notice it says in verse the latter part of verse 18, and they've lacked and we've lacked all things and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine. So we we don't like what happened to us in Judah. The sword, the famine, the pestilence came at us, but back when we were worshiping the queen of heaven, man, we were prosperous. Everything was going good. And so basically, they're attributing their Satan worship as a time of prosperity. So if Jesus casts out demons, and then the religious leaders come and say, hey, he's casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub, the lord of the flies. Jesus said that you're on the verge of blasphemy. When you take the blessings, when you take what God's doing and attribute it to the devil rather than giving God the glory, you're on a slippery slope. You're on the edge of what would be called blasphemy, the rejection of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit bears witness of Christ. And so that's what the warning was that Jesus gave when they tried to invert what was really happening that the power was through, you know, Beelzebub. And and so who wants to read Lamentations three seventeen? My my bible says that one part with the the women. Mhmm. It says making cakes and marked with her image. Yep. Well, that reminded me when you said New Orleans because king cakes. I never what they have king cakes there? Yeah. They put little they put little what is it? A baby? Babies. They put little babies in the king cakes. Oh, I didn't know that. If you get the baby, it's supposed to mean Fertility. There I would that's maybe a connection, though. It goes back all the way. So the devil's all the way back in the book of Genesis in the time of Nimrod, there's a counterfeit virgin birth with Nimrod, Semiramis, and Tammuz. So the Catholics in their worshiping of the queen of heaven have incorporated the worshiping of Mary into this whole belief system. So in New Orleans, they're incorporating this thing that's been here for Babylonian, Babylon, a worshiping of the the apostate church in Revelation 17, you know, the the whore that rides the beast, is many feels the Catholic church riding the beast in the in the last days as part of the one world religious system. So a lot of this this imagery and a lot of this belief systems carried forward. So what you're describing does tie in with the fertility goddess and, you know, the cake and, you know, the whole thing. So if people knew the words, the proper words, what's described there, some would say a Latin person would say, well, that's the worshiping of Diana. People from Iraq would say, oh, that's Ashtoreth. You know? People from Egypt might be, oh, it's ISIS. You know? So they're holding on to this belief system, and the queen of heaven, the worship being of Mary. So Nimrod was a Nephilim, and he was the one that wanted to have a one world government, a one world religious system, and he's building this sarcophany thing, you know, up to heaven. And God confounded the languages in Genesis 11, and he made nation states. But in their belief system, a counterfeit came along that we have at Easter, and as part of the Babylonian things why we call it Easter, we call it resurrection Sunday. Amen. But even like Christmas I like Christmas. I like Easter. It doesn't matter. But even like the eggs, the eggs that we color, that's an image of fertility. And according to their false doctrine, Nimrod married a woman named Cimmeramus, and she claimed that she birthed Tammuz, and she was a virgin or whatever. And so the virgin birth of of a, you know, like like Jesus, and so she being the type of Mary, the queen of heaven. And so that Babylonian false belief system is carried forward even to this day. And what we're alluding to here is at this particular time in history, they're worshiping Astrith in as Babylonians, Venus to the Romans, Aphrodite to the Greeks, Diana to those of Latin and the Latin word. Ishtar to the Canaanites, so it's a it's a like a global belief system tied back all the way back to the garden with the devil deceiving and wanting to bring about a a counterfeit religious system, something like that. Under the sun. That's every what's that? Nothing new under the sun. Right. Right. Exactly. And we so thank you for mentioning that. I never went to New Orleans or knew about the cakes. I have to deliver Oh, I certainly eat one, but Yeah. They're not very good. It's kinda like getting a fruitcake. Oh, well, I'd pass it on to someone. And you might bite in on something. Yeah. But if someone gave me one, I wouldn't ask where they got it from, because if it was offered unto idols, I don't wanna know. So Don't let it. So you give me some meat. Don't I'm not gonna ask where it came from. Alright. I might. But thank you for saying that. Lamentations three seventeen. If you're not there yet, I might as do it. Alright. And thou hast removed my soul far from peace. I forgot prosperity. So they have no peace. There's no peace, saith the lord of the wicked. These guys are claiming that they're getting peace and prosperity by worshiping the queen of heaven, but the opposite is true. They're not getting any peace. They're a tormented people. And in Jeremiah six fourteen, they're claiming peace, peace where there is no peace. Jeremiah eight fifteen, same thing. And we'll pick that back up in a minute here, but turn to Jeremiah chapter 12 verse five. It's one of my favorite sections of scripture that sobers me when I'm starting to whine, when I'm starting to wimp out. Wait. Jeremiah what? What? 12 verse 15. He says, and it shall come to pass after I've plucked them out. No. That ain't it. 125, you said? 125. 125. 125. There you go. Can't read. Alright. Twelve five. Twelve five. If so Jeremiah is complaining. Right? And the Lord says, if you have run with the footmen and they have wearied thee so you look at the times we're living in, they're still relatively good times, but we're starting to feel the pressure, and a whole lot of people are melting down, self medicating, and trying to deal with the stress and anxiety of the world in which we live. And we as Christians, even we as Christians, are being challenged. So if thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, then how can thou contend with the horses? And if in the land of peace, so it's a time of peace right now, we're not even at war, In which you trust, so you're trusting in the peace, you're trusting the politicians, everybody to bring in that peace, prosperity, that power, make America great, and you're weary, then how will thou do in the swelling of the Jordan? When the enemy comes in like a flood, what are you gonna do? You better be trusting in the Lord. Right? You better be looking to him because now you're being overwhelmed. So I would say that when we're talking in terms of soft Christians as a result of soft living and soft churches, they haven't exercised their faith muscle. They haven't been forced to trust in the Lord. So their ability to trust the Lord is so weak. It's like these people, they'd rather go to Egypt than to trust the Lord. Jeremiah is letting them know clearly, you're gonna have to develop faithfully. You're gonna have to develop your faith muscle. You're gonna have to learn to trust. And, our marriages are based upon trust, trusting, you know, your spouse. And, Jesus said, except you become as a child, you'll no wise enter the kingdom of God. It's because the children trust their parents. They trust God. And so without faith, is impossible to please God for that the come to must believe that he is and that is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. So in first Thessalonians five verse three, the Antichrist theme after wars, the Ezekiel war and and other cataclysmic events, the antichrist comes along with a message of peace and security. Same message as Hitler, same message as any group of people after a swan event. Some are saying America's gonna face a swan event, a black swan event. The black swan event could be New York City hit with a nuke. It could be the dollar crashing. It could be biological. It could be a number of different things that bring us to our knees as a nation. And it's going to be COVID on steroids. So the objective is fear. They've got to get us afraid again because people are starting to wake up to the lie. But if they can if they can negotiate with Russia to take out, let's say, New York, just take it out. We'll stand down. The Chinese, we let the Chinese know everything where we're at. And I was I was watching a thing of Jammer Kelly yesterday. It's mind boggling to think that the Chinese have many biological places in America already in place. The one that was caught up in floor up in Frisco, where inspector found it in the Newsom's area, and they've got rats in there, and they're doing experiment. Biological, just like in Wuhan, biological facilities here in America. What what why? Why would you allow the Chinese to have by law? So that tells me again, like I've been saying to the guys, they don't wanna be shot back at. They're they're gonna biologically spray you. You know? And then the other one is Bill Gates has promised by 2025, there's gonna be one that's so bad that it's actually there's no cure for it. It can actually kill children. So if something like that hits and they say, hey. The only way to get back to normal is hand in your guns because civil war breaks out, everybody's going crazy, and we can't stop the crazy war civil war because Obama's putting a movie out there called civil war. Right? So in all that craziness, the phoenix rises out of the ashes. Right? The phoenix comes out of a time like that, crisis reaction solution, and the antichrist comes with the solution or whoever the savior is prior to him. It's the same modus operandi or the breakdown of society, the Hegelian dialect where they take all these 17,000,000 invaders in our country, and it breaks our system down. So now you can't you can't service the system because you overwhelm the system. And so what happens? A guy comes along with the solution. And like Hitler, he he had his own men light up the government buildings, the Reichstag buildings, and then he blamed it on the communists. And then he got the German people to agree to change their constitution so that he could provide security because the people wanted peace. So the first World War was riddled with reparations. They couldn't pay. The Weimar currency and stuff was was inflating, and they couldn't keep up with the payments. So now they're gonna go into World War II, they're gonna make America great, and they but he's gotta get greater control. So he's he's gotta promise them peace and security by giving him more, by them giving up their freedom in exchange for for his leadership. So the Antichrist do the same thing in first Thessalonians five verse three. He's gonna have a message of peace and security, but the lord says, no. There's gonna come sudden destruction upon a woman in travail. It's gonna happen very quickly. So That's kinda like here, defund the police. Yeah. And and so in New York City, they're bringing in National Guard to go into the subways. That's what they want. And Chinese trips. So when we burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings under her, did we make her cakes to worship her and pour out drink offerings under her without our husbands? So is this a women's lib? Is this because men aren't Christ like, so it leaves a void, a vacuum, and allows women to be women pastors and women upfront and women in careers and leadership and all that. And a big part of it has to do women will follow according to God's design if there's godly leadership to follow. But if there's not godly leadership, Christ like leadership in the home, then the woman feels insecure and God's made the woman with the greatest need of security to be loved supremely. If she doesn't feel loved supremely, then she's not gonna trust, you know, a husband or a guy to take care of her. So really all of us gotta be looking to Christ and we trust first in him, and he needs to be the head of the home. So in the family, guys like to act like, hey, you should be in submission to me. But if he's not in submission to Jesus, then why should a woman be in submission to him? There's a breakdown there. There's a division that takes place. And and then you begin to see in that breakdown in society more and more women taking positions of leadership because men have abdicated their role of being Christ like in leadership. So that's what's happened here. This is a time of apostasy. And in the book of Numbers, the women need to get the permission of the husband to be able to do this offering, do these things and such. So they they're approved by their husbands. Hey, go for it. I don't care. So then Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men and to all the women and to all the people who had given him that answer saying, the incense that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your priests and the people of the land. So everybody's involved in it. Did not the Lord remember them and came it not into his mind? And so it's like a jealous husband. He's jealous you've turned you've abandoned him and you're going to these how insulting that is to God to be going for these little g gods that aren't really gods. You're worshiping demons. So that the Lord could no longer bear because of the evil of your doings and because of the abominations which ye have committed therefore in your land, a desolation and a whore and a curse without an inhabitant as at this day. So how long will God suffer what's going on in America and around the world the way that we're praying upon little children in the name of the worshiping of Satan, and worshiping serving gods of pleasure, sexual pleasure, that these elites in Epstein Island and the whole world's involved in it. Because you have burned incense and because you have sinned against the Lord and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies, therefore this evil has happened unto you as at this day. So the only way that that I can get any peace is walking in obedience unto God. And if I'm walking in disobedience, I restored to a place of peace by confessing my sin, not trying to hide my sin. So if I confess my sin, he's faithful and just to forgive me of my sin and to cleanse me of all unrighteousness. Now Ezekiel thirteen ten, he says, because even because they have seduced my people saying peace and there is no peace, And one built up a wall, and the others daubed it with untempered mortar. So they build up a wall that can't stand against any kind of adversity, any kind of problem. So they're basically you know, they're making it look like, hey. There's security here. We're strong. Our military is strong, but it's full of holes. It's it's it's just an illusion of string. Then he says down in verse 16, to with the prophets of Israel who prophesy concerning Jerusalem and who see visions of peace for her, and there is no peace, saith the Lord God. So are the YouTube prophets? What are they seeing? Are they seeing seven hills that they're gonna take control of and bring peace back to America, bring prosperity, bring a Utopian age, the new age. The false prophets are prophesying in the churches today that, hey, everything's gonna be okay. We just we just need to get Trump back in there. And he's gonna overcome all this evil. Everything's gonna go back to normal. And it's amazing during the selection cycle how many people we're losing in our church because of that statement I just made? It steals their hope. They they want to hope that through this election cycle, they can fix what's broke. They really, really want to believe that. So when you expose Donald Trump and I'm talking even Christian yesterday, listen to Jan Markel. The guy thinks and she thinks if Trump gets in there, they're gonna fix this. If they don't see Trump as one of the globalists, they don't see nothing. They can't see it. They keep thinking left, right, left, right, left, right, when it's a uniparty. It's globalism. He's a player, but they gotta see it. They they really gotta see it. They gotta quit making excuses that he just didn't know. And his advisors and the deep state and and all that. That's idiocy. That's just idiocy. So the the place that he would sort of maybe get me to think he might be somewhat credible is if he'd come on the stage, and apparently he was interviewed by Alex Jones, and he would admit that the wart speed jab was disastrous and twenty million people have died as a result. Take responsibility. That's what a leader does. But to double down and to not that's a narcissist. That's a psychopath that's never done anything wrong. They asked him about asking God for forgiveness of sin. He's like, I don't know that I've ever sinned. What kind of guy is this? Come on, Christians. But that's the guy you want? That's the guy that's your guy? Well, pastor, we gotta vote for the lesser of two evils. Where does the bible say that? Well, that's true. He's more evil than Biden. He's killed more people than Biden. Nine eleven happened on George Bush's watch, a Republican. COVID happened on a Republican's watch. But you can't get people to to trust Jesus enough to let Jesus fix it. They keep going back to Egypt. They keep going back to, you know, we're gonna fix it. We got a hero. We got a champion. He's gonna do it. Yeah. Like he helped those January 6 people. And I know that's not a popular thing. So then Jeremiah said unto all the people and all the men of the women and all the people who had given him the answer saying the incense that you burned in the city of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem and all your fathers and all your kings and all your princes and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them and came it not into his mind, so like a jealous husband, so that the Lord could no longer bear because of the evil of your doings and because of the abominations that which you committed therefore in your land, your desolation, a whore, and a curse without an inhabitant as this day. And so I would I would say corruption, so corrupted that God says, alright. We're gonna take it down. And judgment begins at the house of God. If anybody's looking for a solution, the solution I would say would be repentance in the church. I don't expect Biden and Obama and those people to repent. But if we in the church would lay down our idols and we would worship the Lord in spirit and truth, then we stand a chance of God cleansing and bringing the fear of the Lord back into the land where people would know that they're not going to get away with their evil, a reestablishment of the rule of law. But without the reestablishment of the rule of law and righteousness, there's no way. There's just no way to fix the corruption. Because you have burned incense and because you have sinned against the Lord and not obeyed the voice of the Lord, nor walked in his law, nor in the statutes, nor in his testimonies, therefore this evil has happened unto you as at this day. So God gives you the reason. This is the reason this is happening because you disobeyed the Lord. Moreover, Jeremiah said unto all the people and all the women, hear the word of the Lord all Judah and all that are in the land of Egypt. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel saying, ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths and fulfilled with your hand saying, we will surely perform our vows that we have vowed to burn incense to the queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings under her. Yeah, we will surely accomplish your vows and surely perform your vows. Therefore, hear ye the word of the Lord, all Judah that dwell in the land of Egypt. Behold, I have sworn by my great name, saith the Lord, that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in the land Egypt saying, the Lord God liveth. So you polluted my name. I don't want you speaking to my name anymore. And and so behold, I will watch over them for evil and not for good. And all the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine until there be an end of them. And so your destiny is hell. So their life is facing evil. Our life as Christians is all things are working together for good, for those who qualify, those who love God. And and so these guys on the opposite side, since they hate God, everything's going against them. God's saying, everything's gonna work against you. So Joseph who was sold into slavery, he's able in his walking relationship with the Lord to say that which you meant for evil, God meant for good to save many people to stay. He's a man of faith. And so God can take evil, that which people mean for evil against us, and turn around for good. For these guys, because of their disobedience, they're gonna reap what they sow. And I don't wanna reap what I sow. I want mercy. Not that I wanna sow to the flesh and reap corruption. So yet a small number that escaped. So Greg's question, this is a small number. I don't know how many. They're fugitives. And Richard, do you wanna get shot? So something like that. That escaped the sword shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah, and all the remnant of Judah who are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there shall know whose words shall stand. Mine are there. So it's like Elijah on Mount Carmel. Let's see who's gone. Call down fire from heaven. And they're calling down fire to Baal and all that, and they can't get anything to happen. And well, maybe he's in the bathroom and Elijah's mocking him and all that, you know, maybe he's asleep. And then add some water to the trough, and you know, the whole thing. And then the fire comes down, then Elijah kills the four fifty prophets of Baal, and there is a challenge there. And I like that kind of a challenge. Show me what you got. But they want a monopoly. The globalists want a monopoly. The Satanists want a monopoly. They don't listen to a creation scientist that can go through the factual science to prove a designer, creation, you know, intelligent design. Instead, they want a monopoly with their lies that nobody can, you know, challenge. And so God says, guess what? Let's see if your words come true, or, you know, my words come true. And this shall be a sign unto you, saith the Lord, that I will punish you in this place that ye shall know my words shall surely stand against you for evil. And thus saith the Lord, behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies and into the hand of them that seek his life, as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, his enemy, and who sought his life. So what's gonna happen here according to Herodotus, a historian, this general named Amasic, who is the general of pharaoh Hofna, he rebelled and created a coup against this pharaoh in May, and gave him over to the people, and the people were so disgusted with this pharaoh that they strangled him to death. And then the Babylonians came in thereafter under the leadership of this general and destroyed all of Egypt and wiped out the Jews that were there. And then I think held the city for close to thirty years, Babylonian rule, maybe it was sixty years, but for a period of time where they were subservient to the Babylonians for a period of time. And so no hope there. Now, turn to Revelation chapter nine. I want to show you in the future. I've always looked at unbelief as a a mystery to me. I don't understand unbelief. Do you understand unbelief? Do you understand that sort of rebellion? When you share the gospel with somebody, don't you say, what do you have to lose? If if I'm wrong, you can still go to hell. But if I'm right, why are you so obstinate? Why are you so angry? Why would you why would you persist and want to go to hell? So theologically, we we let people know God sends nobody to hell. God doesn't send people to hell. So how do people go to hell? They choose to. They do it. They choose to by rebelling against God, by saying no to Jesus. Isn't that sad? Isn't it sad to meet somebody that chooses? I mean, forty years, God's been trying to get these guys attention. And we have people in our lives where we've been trying to minister to them for ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years. What is it about unbelief that's just so incredibly powerful? That's why you and I cannot convert one person. Only God can convert them. So our job is to sow in another water, and God brings the increase. So when we see somebody actually born again, saved, like Cheryl here, and then we observe her life over a period of time, and we say, I think she's a real one. Poor mister b. I think she's real. I I think she's really saved. You know? There's fruit. Jesus said you know them by fruit. Then and it's so exciting, isn't it? Isn't it incredibly exciting? There is rejoicing in heaven among the angels when just one sinner repents. Because the flip side is, notice in Jeremiah, or excuse me, Revelation nine, this is a mindblower. Mean, already one fourth of the planet's population has been wiped out. And then in chapter nine, the Lord unleashes demons upon the planet that are like scorpion tails stinging people and lions' faces, you know? And the number of the army was 200 thousands and horsemen, 200,000, so like 2,000,000, 200,000,000. And they are stinging men. And notice back in verse five, And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months. And their torment was like the torment of a scorpion, and they strike a man. In those days shall men seek death and shall not find it. Remember when I said that death is release? For us, it's good. For them, it's bad. But in their torment, they just wanna die, and God won't let them die. And shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. Now, go over to verse 18. By these three was the third part of men killed. Third part of men killed by the fire, by the smoke, and by brimstone which issued out of their mouths. So you've got one fourth already gone, now you got a third. So you've got 8,000,000,000 people on the planet. In a very short period of time, you've lost 2,000,000,000. Now you've got 6,000,000,000 left, now you lose a third of them, so that's another 2,000,000,000. You've lost half the world's population, just in the seal judgments. Right? And and it says, for their power is in their mouth and in their tails, for their tails were like serpents and had heads with two of them they do hurt. And the rest of the men who were not killed, watch this. Now that would be a wake up call for me. And the rest of the men who were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which neither can see nor hear nor walk. Same thing, nothing new under the sun, as Greg said. Same thing. Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorrows, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. So unrepentant sinners, unwilling to repent, unwilling to cry out to God for forgiveness. And, that's just mind blowing to me, the hardness of heart. So your heart is soft because God prepared your heart. And that's why I cherish the day that the Lord saved me because I know how there's so many people that I know that that have heard the gospel but still aren't saved. Thus saith the Lord, behold, I will give Pharaoh off Alright. We already read all that. They're dead. Chapter 45. They're dead. They're all dead. Just not yet. I gave Zedekiah king of Judah under the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and his enemy who also sought his life, so they're dead. They're all dead. Alright. God wins. Chapter 45, five verses. The word of the Lord the word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke under Baruch, the son of Niriah, when he had written the words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah and in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying. So this is a a little footnote under Baruch when Baruch was writing recording on the scroll in chapter thirty six one through eight. So here's a little letter to Baruch in June earlier when when that was written. Thus saith the lord, the god of Israel, unto thee, oh, Baruch. So this is like Jeremiah's only convert, only guy that believed, and he was his secretary. And Baruch's brother was a high up in the government of Zedekiah, and and Baruch's got this lowly job of being Jeremiah's secretary. Boy, what a thankful thankless job. Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, unto thee, O Baruch. Thou did say, woe is me now, for the Lord has added grief to my sorrow. I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest. So Baruch's saying, I'm a failure. I'm hooked up with this Jeremiah, and we're not getting any good position. There's you know, we're we're being railroaded. We're just gonna be killed, man. You know, it's like it's like, Paul describing you and I as a a sheep for the slaughter, you know, in that respect. And, Paul describes himself, we're gonna see this Sunday as a the off scouring, which is the bathtub ring. That's how he's treated. You know, off scouring, that's what it means, like a bathtub ring. And when he talks about a minister in first Corinthians four, I want you guys to watch Ben Hur because the description there is of an under rower. You know what an under rower is in Ben Hur? Under rower is a condemned slave. Paul says that's what we are. We're ministers. We're just under rowers. We're the lowest of the low. And in the movie, the guy will tell him, your only reason you're alive is to row in the galleons to serve the ship serve the ship. So what kind of speeds are they? What kind of speeds? Battle speed? Ramming speed? What's the other speed? Attack speed. There you are. There it is. So remember that. You're gonna hear that Sunday. What about trolling? No trolling. They didn't fish. You couldn't fish on that boat. You need to watch the movie. What? Are you still a heathen? You still heathen? Movie? Yeah. Ben Hur? What? It's my favorite movie. Oh, you got it. Oh, boy. You got a movie you want. There's some imagery in there that we see these words. If you look them in the Greek, there's there's so problem has inversion. With meaning. Yeah. Watch the So there's a picture of it. Yeah. Alright. So what was me? For the Lord has added grief to my sorrow. I fainted in my sign and I find no rest. So for you and I, we hear Jesus in Matthew eleven twenty eight through 30, come on to me. Right? All you that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for a meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest under your soul. So Baruch is agitated. Baruch, as we'll see in the last verse here, he was aspiring for great things. He wanted to be a great man, and it bothered him that he was a loser in the eyes of everyone around. His brother was brilliant, and he's hooked up with Jeremiah, and Jeremiah is like a loser prophet. How do I get hooked up with this loser prophet? You know? And I thought God would bless us. And so he's looking at it purely from a, you know, a worldly standpoint. But watch what the Lord says. Thus shalt thou say unto him, the Lord saith us, behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted, I will pluck up even the whole land. So way back in chapter one verse 10, God told Jeremiah, I'm gonna use you to build up and pluck down, to tear down. I'm gonna use you over this forty years to build some people up, try and build up, and then I'm gonna pluck it. It's time for the country to come down, time for the nation to be destroyed. Do you think it's time for America to be destroyed? I don't want it to be. I pray it won't be. But every nation has a shelf life. Every nation is raised up and brought down. Nebuchadnezzar found that out. Isn't this not great Babylon which I have built? And God let him eat grass for seven years, humbled him. Then he came out of that and he began to give God the glory that the Lord raises up kings, the Lord raises up nations, and gave the Lord the glory. So Baruch here, he needs to basically walk by faith is what's happening here. The just shall, you know, live by faith. And it seekest thou great things for thyself. Do you seek great things for yourself? The disciples were fighting over who is gonna be the greatest. Right? Who's gonna sit on the left hand and right hand when you come in your kingdom? And you know, you're you're gonna overthrow the Romans, Jesus. You're gonna overthrow the Romans. And mom here, Salome is coming over and she's she's negotiating. Good Jewish mom, she's negotiating. When you come into your kingdom, let James be on one side and John on the other. Right? And Jesus said, you guys know not what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I'm drinking? Oh, yeah. We can drink that cup. It's the cup of his wrath. Yeah. The father's wrath. You can't drink the cup of my father's wrath. And so in any event, the Lord let them know that those positions would be given to whom, you know, the father has predestined them to be. So Jesus taught us the way up is down. Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up. If you're puffed up with pride, pride is the way of you to be going down. God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. So the value system that God has is the greatest among us to be the servant of all. Jesus came not to be ministered unto, which means serve, ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. So he came to give. Right? And seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not, for behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the Lord. But your life will I give unto thee for a prize in all the places to which thou goest. So seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. All these other things to be added unto you, Baruch and Jeremiah. And you started walking by faith. You need to continue walking by faith. And turn to Habakkuk three, another one of my favorite passages. What's wrong with that? What's wrong? So Habakkuk notice what God's saying, and I I tried this one on Kathy. In Habakkuk chapter one, when I was wanting to go into the ministry and I was dreaming, I was imagining I was imagining great things for us. And so in Habakkuk chapter one verse five, God says, behold among the nations and regard and wonder marvelously. So here's where I used to con Kathy. I used say, look at what the Lord's gonna do with us, Kath. I will work a work in your days, which you will not believe though it be told you. Kathy, God's gonna use us, and it's gonna be beyond what we we can even conceive. It's it's just amazing. For, lo, I'll raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, and they shall march through the breadth of the land to possess the the dwelling place that are not there. So what he's going on to say is, I'm gonna bring such a horrific destruction of Jerusalem that if I told you right now, you wouldn't even believe me. And I use it in the positive. Hey. God's gonna do such a great thing. We wouldn't even believe him, you know, if he told us. Okay. So now go over to chapter three here. Habakkuk, once he realizes this, once he realizes how evil the Babylonians are, I know how evil we are, Lord, but these guys are even more evil. And so Habakkuk can't process the thought that God would use the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem and the temple and all. And so over here with Habakkuk, we're gonna see verse 16. He says, when I heard my belly trembled, So there can be a huge storm coming after these guys. So when I heard my belly trembled and my lips quivered at the voice of rottenness entered into my bones, I trembled in myself that I might rest in the day of trouble. When he cometh upon up under the people, he will invade them with his troops. So the overwhelming realization, he's got a reality check here, that Nebuchadnezzar can be used by God to destroy God's people. And Habakkuk is having a really hard time. And I think there's a lot of people today having a hard time processing what's happening right before our eyes to America. Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labor of the olive shall fail and the field shall yield no food. The flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. So what's that mean? Famine. Famine. Economy. Stock market goes down. Everything's lost. So although that happens, yet I will so it's you gotta like Daniel, you gotta determine in your heart ahead of time that in the event this happened, I'm not gonna eat the king's food, Daniel one. I'm not gonna defile myself and worship the image of king Nebuchadnezzar. I'm not gonna quit praying when they make new laws that say, I can't pray three times a day. You gotta you gotta finalize that in your heart that if they do this, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna continue to be faithful. So the Lord God, yet yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will join the God of my salvation. Yet, in spite of all that, I'm determined I'm gonna be a worshiper. And when it talks about rejoicing here, in the Hebrew, it means I will spin around. I'll jump up and spin around the joy of dancing like David did. The Lord God is my strength and He will make my feet like hinds feet. He will he will make me walk upon mine high places to the chiefs, singer, and stringed instruments. And so, it's a determination in his heart that he's gonna continue to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. And now look at chapter one verse 14, God's instruction to Habakkuk. Verse three, Chapter two verse three, I'm sorry. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie. Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come it will not tarry. Behold, his soul that is lifted up so when we're back over here with with Baruch, he's saying, seek out great things for thyself, seek them not. The soul that's lifted up, you're lifted up, aspiring onto great things. Now it's okay to aspire to great things for God, but let God do it. Don't don't be ambitious and do it in the arm of the flesh to try and, you know, jockey for position, and they're all fighting over who's gonna be the greatest. And Jesus washes their feet and says, this is how you become great. Behold, his soul that is lifted up, be filled with pride, is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith. So that's the key that the Lord is saying to Baruch, you're gonna have to walk by faith and I'm gonna give your life as a prize. If you seek me and trust me and continue to trust me as the children of Israel were unwilling to, and they left Jerusalem and they went to Egypt, and now I have to discipline them and destroy them here, you Baruch, in your faithfulness in serving me and being a scribe for Jeremiah all these years, I'm gonna give your life to you as a prize. You're gonna escape the judgment that's coming upon all them. And as you continue to seek me, I'm gonna continue to protect you and provide for you. But you're gonna have to learn what it means to walk by faith. We never graduate from walking by faith. Always, always, always, always, every day, give us this day our daily bread. There's a dependency and a trust in in you know, that we have in the Lord that he will provide, that he will protect, that he will complete that work that he's begun in us. These guys were so angry. They wanted to do it themselves. They wanted to trust in false gods. They wanted to trust in the queen of heaven. And the Lord is saying, trust me, but they wouldn't. So we have access where we can go to the Lord to his throne of grace. Right? So, father, thank you for the lessons tonight. Lord, we pray that there would be no heart of bitterness. There would be no root of bitterness within our hearts that would lead to stubbornness, an obstinance, an abdured heart. And, Lord, we pray that our heart be soft in your hands. You're the potter and that we're the clay, and that when you take your knuckles and you press against that clay, that blob of clay, Lord, I pray that the bubbles would pop out and that all the impurities would be scraped away, and Lord, that you would fashion us into that vessel that that you've imagined, that vessel that you've designed, and that we'd be a vessel of honor, that you would fill and use, Lord, and the intrinsic value that of being dirt, that of being a little clay, that a little spittle. But Lord, you can do such great things because you're the God of all creation. You fastened us from the dust of the ground. And Lord, we desire to be used for you, for your kingdom and glory in these last days, Lord. Let our lives glorify you. Let us let us be a light and a blessing to those around. And Lord, may we never ever, ever, ever compromise with the world, Lord. Let us stand strong. Make us strong, Lord, to be courageous in these last days. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

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About This Podcast

Calvary Chapel Bremerton - Home Bible Study

Listen to Rick Beaudry, Pastor of Calvary Chapel Bremerton, lead our home Bible Study session in worship and teaching the Word of God. Be edified and built up in your faith with solid Bible teaching. New episodes released on Tuesdays in the Pacific Standard Timezone.

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