Feast of Tabernacles 2020: We Must See It

[Music] well today ends the feast of tabernacles right as we heard in the announcements uh tomorrow is the last great day it's a separate festival but picturing something absolutely glorious i know we're looking forward to mr suselka and mr weston's messages on the last great day so today really pictures in a sense the end of the feast of tabernacles and i'm sorry the end of the millennium for us it is the end of the feast of tabernacles right it's coming to a close and very soon they'd be the bearer of what seems like bad news it's not bad news but it seems like bad news we'll all be going home and all the things we've put off thinking about while we're here we get to start thinking about again and all the jobs we've taken a break from we get to go back to yay and i hope i hope you feel a little bit at least like i know i do is i'm chomping at the bit i can't wait uh the feast fills you with all the things you can't wait to get doing again to a certain extent uh setting a better example than you did before the feast um you know doing something different maybe with your bible study just getting back in the in the dew of everything actually doing things in fact i i would dare say at least for myself i i will feel like i had failed here at the feast if somehow i didn't take part of the millennium back with me right somehow take part of that millennium back with me someone said i wish i could say it was me i wish i could say with someone in the church it was something i heard a long time ago when i was a kid i don't know who said it but i thought it was a a well made point they said in many ways you and i individually you may be the only bible that some people ever read right in our lives and i know what i want other people to read about is is this i want other people when they see my life to be reading about the coming kingdom of god in the pages that that my life represents and for me to be able to do that i need to be filled with this i need to be filled with with what this day represents with what these days have represented you know it's interesting if you if you look at the brain has anyone got one on them a brain we could no you do don't take it out or anything you need it uh but if you were to look at the brain and you look at the neurons and the wiring in the brain and the cortex in particular it's a part responsible for a lot of very important things if you lose your cortex you're in trouble for the day so in the cortex and you look at the the neuronal wiring a lot of that wiring is devoted to vision being able to see things with your eyes and not necessarily purely vision but also the way in which you coordinate things with vision like touch i can i can pick up my iphone i can look at it and coordinate getting my hand to my iphone and picking it up or i can point to various people but we're wired in such a way that vision is a dominant sense it's very important to us if you actually look at how much is devoted to to sorry to touch or even a sound it's just it just doesn't compare to how much we're wind wired for vision i don't think that's i don't think that's just a coincidence when i see certain verses in the bible if you turn to hebrews chapter 11 hebrews in chapter 11. hebrews chapter 11 we often call the heroes of faith chapter or the uh hall of fame faith hall of fame uh different words we give given how honoring hebrews 11 is to those who have gone before us those who've lived this life those who've who've conquered in this life experienced blessings experienced difficulties and trials and have come through in a way that they stand as examples to all of us and there's something that i at least for me that i always stands out to me when i read the passages for instance after talking about several including abraham and sarah if we jump down to verse 13 of hebrews 11. we read of these and we read these all died in faith hebrews 11 verse 13 hebrews 11 13. these all died in faith not having received the promises but having seen them afar off were assured of them embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth you know we have the common saying that seeing is believing right i'll believe it when i see it we often say in fact sometimes even if we're not looking at something someone's trying to explain something to us and we can't understand it and then finally it clicks in our brain we go i see what you're saying we don't mean we literally see the words coming out of their mouths oh i see it floating in the air i see it it's just that's our word that's our that's our word we use for when things click when we get it i get it i see what you're saying and here is like seeing is believing talking about why did they embrace these things the bottom half of verse 11. why did they embrace these things why were they able to confess that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth why were they assured of them confident in them it says because they saw them afar off they could look down through the years of the future and they could see that it was coming and yet the bible doesn't talk about any special vision that they were given that doesn't talk about the heavens being parted you know jacob certainly saw the latter and such like that but it doesn't say that abraham was given this grand vision of the kingdom to come and all of its detail and glory but yes somehow they did see it in their mind's eye they they saw what was coming and by seeing it they were assured of it it was just as real to them as the world around them perhaps even more so in fact there's a similar thing said of moses a little bit later it's not specifically about the kingdom but it's very similar in speaking about moses later in the chapter how did he get through everything why was he able to put egypt aside when egypt was very visible egypt was very tangible he had lived in egypt he knew its power if you trust some historical sources and and nothing is inspired in the way the bible is inspired so we can't say they're all true but he potentially had even commanded those forces he knew the might of that nation and yet he was able to shun it all shunned the wealth shunned the privilege shun the access he had to luxuries and to comfort and able to choose actively voluntarily choose a far harder way of life a far more irritating way of life shepherding god's people and doing that work why well if you jump down to verse 27 of hebrews 11 it says by faith speaking of moses he forsook egypt not fearing the wrath of the king for he endured as seeing him who is invisible that is moses life was lived as one who could see the invisible god now admittedly moses later was given certain kind of visions even shown a powerful preview of god's glory god had to show him his back wouldn't show him his face it's a fascinating passage if you haven't read it and yet it's not talking about though it's talking about early on when he got a burning bush and he got a voice but he said it was as if he could see god and what a difference that makes in your life i mean i don't i don't i want you to reflect on your sins right now real deeply but if you were to think of the last thing you did poorly that you shouldn't have done um remember the thing you said to your wife this morning should have done better right uh you know a memoralized thing he said to the kids no i'm not going to raise my voice for the kids at all this feast you know whatever whatever it is and imagine how you might have done differently if you literally saw jesus christ there in your home as a guest right you might have already died a thousand deaths because of the way the floor looked and everything else you know but in putting that aside would you have behaved differently would we be bolder if we saw jesus christ how more devoted would be we this way of life if we literally saw him and yet at the same time he's there he's there and moses chose as if he saw him constantly there was pharaoh in all of his might and yet moses could look past pharaoh and see as if act as if he saw god and moses we realized pharaoh was tiny compared to that we have to be able to see these things one of my favorite uses of of the language of sight versus other senses comes in job it won't turn there for the sake of time here in the introduction but when job is finally humbled and i dare say job was a man of remarkable faith i would say when it comes to faith if there were a faith-ometer he would probably peg the needle compared to many of us to say with passion and conviction that though he slayed me yet i will trust him job was clearly a man filled with faith and belief and yet god was able to take him to the next level where he says wow all the things that i've this is a paraphrase all the things i've been saying about you they may have been true and yet i didn't know the depth of how true they were it's like i didn't even know what i was talking about he says essentially in verse 5 is all this time it's almost like i've only been hearing about you and now i finally see you and his upgrade and the sense of who god is and what it means to be god have been supersized that much like going from hearing to to seeing you know god gives us this feast that we've been experiencing now today being the seventh day to help us see the kingdom to come more clearly to be able to begin to see the city to come as clearly as abraham did and as clearly as sarah did and to see the the god behind it all as clearly as moses did this feast is a gift for that and i hope we've been able to do that some i hope we've grown in that way i hope to help a little bit more in the time that we have remaining today what i'd like to look at today it's not going to be anything new if you've if you've labeled your notes today new revelation from speaker at the feast you can scratch that out nothing today is going to be is going to be new but that's part of the beauty of what god has given us you don't have to learn a bunch of brand new stuff you've never heard before before you recognize we have the greatest things in the world that are part of our heritage from god what i want to talk about today are just some of the ways in which the world is going to change and to ask us are we able to see these things can we see these things in our mind's eye god has given us imagination god has given us a mind that can create pictures where there are none in our minds and he wants us deploying that to be able to see the world that he's crafting for us because i guarantee you anything we imagine there's no way it's going to be better than what he's going to do you're never going to imagine something so wonderful you think well this is all right now that it's happened you know i imagine unicorns and macaroni and cheese every day and uh it's not that it's all right it's never going to be better in terms of what we imagine than what the reality is going to be and so cut loose imagine that world take the time to think about it today i want to talk about just some facts some realities about the world to come and ask if we can see them because we must somehow learn to see them the title of my sermon today is we must see it we must see it because those who will help jesus christ build that world will be those who have seen it coming before it arrived we must see it and i'll group these together in just a series of questions and there are so many questions if i leave myself time for the conclusion which i probably won't i'll try to reiterate i'll try to sorry list some of those questions you can ask yourself you don't have to stop thinking about this after the feast right it's not like after sundown today or sundown tomorrow you think oh no it's not a holy day kids you're not thinking about the kingdom of god are you cut it out stop stop no i see your face you're smiling you're thinking about it stop it doesn't stop now right hopefully this is is priming the pump so we're thinking about it that much more over the course of the next year so by the time we come we're prepped to go even to the next level ourselves all right so i'm going to phrase this as a series of questions and again it won't cover all the bases first question can you i'm asking you personally and hopefully these questions will form something you can you can ponder over the next year can you see a world of healing can you see in your mind's eye a world of healing like this world will experience over the course of a thousand years you know many ways jesus christ ministry was a preview of the kingdom to come so turn to matthew chapter four we'll look at some verses there in matthew chapter four but we know and many of you have come across this scripture or maybe even dealt with it as a as a quote unquote difficult scripture we have to be mindful god didn't put scriptures in the bible just for us to argue with our baptist friends about or our catholic friends they do argue but he gave them to us to teach us things right and one of those things is in in places where jesus christ says that the kingdom is within you or the kingdom is among you people often consider that difficult scripture or saying the kingdom something in your heart it's not rather jesus christ the king of that kingdom was among them when the queen of england comes to america it is england coming to pay respects or to visit or to to do whatever he represents that kingdom and in fact his works represented that kingdom when you read about the things that jesus christ did in his ministry it was a small picture of what we're all going to do for a thousand years you know in matthew chapter 4 starting in verse 23. let's just read a few of the things that jesus christ did while he was on earth in fact john says is it john or luke one of those guys said that you couldn't fill all the books in the world if you were to write all the things jesus christ did during that ministry it was just it was just amazing but we get a summary here matthew chapter four this is the beginning of his ministry matthew 4 verse 23 and jesus went about all galilee teaching in their synagogues preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people that his fame went throughout all syria and they brought to him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments those who were demon-possessed epileptics and paralytics and he healed them great multitudes followed him from galilee and from decapolis jerusalem judea and beyond the jordan because they saw these amazing things happening and so they followed it's easy to take for granted these things because we talk about them as if they're normal they're not normal in terms of it representing the kingdom if just a few chapters later in chapter 11 i think this passage sort of helps connect the two christ's ministry and the kingdom because a couple of disciples of john the baptist came to jesus christ and it has been different ideas was it john who had questions and sent his disciples to confirm jesus was the messiah i guess it could be i don't think so it seemed john's faith was really solid and john knew who his cousin was i personally suspect rather the two disciples needed confirmation and john said yeah go talk to him you know go talk to him go ask because there's an understanding some disciples of john were you know maybe a little bit jealous it says in the bible that suddenly john is diminishing and jesus christ is the rising star and john said from the beginning no no i must diminish he is the one who has to increase he's the one it's all about and so he sends his disciples regardless of the reason we read about this and to me it highlights what are they looking for they're looking for the future king of israel they're looking for the messiah and he says you go you go ask him if he's the messiah and that's exactly what happened so matthew chapter 11 and verse 2 it says when john had heard in prison about the works of christ he sent two of his disciples and said to him are you the coming one or do we look for another jesus answered and said to them go and tell john the things which you hear and see the blind sea and the lame walk the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them so he's asked are you the coming messiah are you the one who's going to rule the world under god and he says you go tell him these things and he tells them the hallmarks of his ministry because those are hallmarks of the kingdom the kingdom will be a time when the blind see the lame walk lepers are cleansed the deaf here the dead are raised up and even the poor who don't have access to the good things everyone else does have the good news of the gospel preached to them it was a hallmark those things are a hallmark of the kingdom and the one who will reign over it again we take these things well i say we i don't mean to indict some of you but it's easy to take these things for granted because we read about them in our bible a lot because a lot of it was happening but can you imagine living in a world can you see a world where that kind of healing is the norm let's just start with us we have a few hundred people here and i know because i've talked with some of you i know some of you suffer from ailments all right some of it's eyesight some of you it's your legs it's your back it's you're tired of being tired are you tired of not being able to think straight because of something that happened when you were a kid some of you suffer from ailments that none of us know because they're not visible and they don't show themselves and you suffer in silence and no one can look at you and tell but you don't want to be that person that goes and tells every person about the things you're suffering can you imagine if through those doors someone walked in didn't have to be wearing like a movie bathrobe you know and have hippie hair you know and all the rest just somebody walks in some someone nondescript and it's not during service because that would be disruptive maybe it's during fellowship or something and they begin going to these people and just laying a hand on them and saying you know be healed god has relieved you of this and next thing you know somebody's walking that can't walk or someone who's been 95 percent blind for the last 15 years sees as well as a child with with 20 20 vision or better and maybe we're over here and we don't really know what's going on but we hear a buzz over there and we know something is going on the next thing we know we see mr ceiling wall who we saw being pushed around in a wheelchair running around and shaking everybody's hand and there'd be a press to go over there and imagine that happening and imagining it to you those who suffer in silence and nobody knows but that person comes to you and says god knows you've told no one be relieved of that burden and you are imagine what that would do to this room imagine what it would do to all of us how hard would it be to not somehow break into song like some musical out of disney with that's good and quality i just want to get into that but how hard would it at least in our hearts to be singing about the god who does wonders like it says in the psalms and then imagining that breaking out all over the world in a world that doesn't have half the access to the things we do in the united states can we see a world in which that's the norm we're told that it will be i'm sure they're familiar and you've read these verses several times even this feast but turn to isaiah chapter 35 isaiah chapter 35 this world is filled with those who are fearful hearted those who do not feel strong and those who need saving we read in isaiah chapter 35 starting in verse 4. we're commanded say to those who are fearful hearted be strong do not fear behold your god will come with vengeance with the recompense of god he will come and save you then the eyes of the blind shall be open the ears of the death shall be unstopped then the lame shall leap like a deer the tongue of the dumb sing the waters burst forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert when god says something shall happen it is more sure than anything you or i could say shall happen i can tell you right now and be pretty sure about it the sun's going to rise tomorrow i look at prophecy and none of it seems to talk about the world ending in the next few hours right i feel pretty good about it i feel pretty confident the sun's going to rise tomorrow and i gotta admit maybe something could happen maybe the earth there's a you know starts reversing direction because god it's time to start messing with everybody's minds or something i you know i don't know all i know is i don't have the power to guarantee it i know individually it may not rise for me right when god says this is going to happen it's more real than anything you or i could say and he is saying in this time this will happen more than that how will these things happen in the world if we're trying to see that world to come how is this going to happen because it's easy it's easy for me to picture jesus christ walking around and doing these things we read the gospels we picture these things but turn to john in chapter 14. turn to john chapter 14 and among the many things that jesus christ told his disciples before his crucifixion among the many things he wanted to be able to tell them face to face and make sure they understood so that when those apostles shared these truths with others they could picture in their mind the very face of their savior saying these things and assuring them of these things that he says something marvelous in john chapter 14 and verse 12 john 14 and verse 12. he says most assuredly i say to you he who believes in me the works that i do he will do also and greater works than these he will do because i go to my father now i'm not saying he's not talking about the works that the apostles and others would do after that i'm sure that is a part of that but do you understand that it doesn't end there do you understand that god looks forward to doing these things with you jesus christ doesn't just look forward to putting his hands on the eyes of the blind and taking them away so the first thing that those eyes see are their children or their parents he looks forward to enabling you to do that he looks forward to enabling me to do that what illness what malady that this world is currently rife with do you personally long to rid human kind of forever what scourge of the flesh gnaws at you maybe you personally or because someone you know suffers from it then you long like nobody's business to make sure no one ever has to feel that again and ever has to suffer from that again paint that into your painting so you can see that world that jesus christ longs to bring and enact through us because he longs to create a world of healing and longs to do that through all of you and me all right another question can you see a world of compassion can you see a world of compassion and i'll populate at least this part of the sermon with a little little confession can you see a world of compassion we read earlier i won't turn there again but in matthew chapter 2 jesus christ talked about how one of the one of the representation one of the evidences that the king of the kingdom was present is that the poor had the gospel preached to them the poor had the gospel preached to them so confession i'm not here to confess all my sins because they're none your business right uh between me and god regrettably my family to a certain extent because they have to live through them so i'm not going to confess everything but i will confess this and i i do it because i i know i've seen it in others sometimes and i know i've seen it myself sometimes i have a hard time having compassion for the poor or for those who are needy for whatever reason you know it's interesting i read an article just this week that was really helpful on one hand confirming some things i knew at the same time helping expand my my brain a little bit about it it was talking about the the homeless situation in i'm going to get the city wrong i think in san francisco i think it's san francisco because it is just skyrocketing because they keep passing measures to try to help the homeless and the measures just keep making things worse you know they want to stop aids amongst the people who are using uh syringes for drugs and so in mercy it's easy to think ah they're trying to encourage drug use stop thinking that way just because someone does something you think is dumb doesn't mean they do it for evil reasons it's a lot easier just to assume that people are stupid and not judge them right don't judge them as as evil judge them as stupid it's easier sometimes give me a break and don't judge me as evil just consider me stupid no i'll appreciate that and some people think well you know i know it seems crazy they're going to do these things anyway let's just make sure they have clean needles and offer services that might that might clean them up well often these people aren't taking advantage of those services but they are taking advantage of the clean needles and what they're finding in the trash and in the gutters are these same used syringes partially filled with heroin partially filled with human blood and they're multiplying in the trash of the city so that now everyday people that don't have these problems are having to be careful where they walk because their syringes bare naked and open and exposed here and there sometimes used by people who have hiv and so it's something that seemed like a compassionate solution just makes things worse it talked about those who who have found that then man if you're going to be homeless this is the place to be homeless and sometimes they're not taking advantage of the care that's available because it would be a change in their life and it's easier to take advantage of the services than to strive to give up the addictions and sometimes it's it's it's too easy for me again for me maybe it's none of y'all if so fine be that way but at least for me it's too easy sometimes to write those people off and go you know what's wrong with them they should want to get their act together they should want to do better and i have to think of a few things one is how many times is god irritated at me that i haven't gotten over blank yet right and is he up there just going man get over it what is wrong with you i'm so irritated i don't want to talk to you anymore thankfully he still does right and also then i have to look in the bible because the bible is our mirror the bible is meant to reflect to us what we really are as well as show us what we should be and all i know is while the bible does give a lot of advice about doing well for yourself and the wise things to do when i look at verses about the poor in the bible i see the god of heaven expressing more sympathy than condemnation i'm not saying you know it's it's it's difficult we live in a world where it's it's a great phrase it's a true phrase give a man a fish and feed him for a day but teach a man to fish and he can feed himself for a lifetime and i look forward to a coming world where we're not just handing out fish we're teaching people to fish mr weston will probably be in charge of that particular part of the kingdom teaching people to fish but in this world you see people that just keeping sorry continue giving people fish not even seeming to care though surely they do that it's making them more dependent more and more dependent on the handout even though it's ruining the rest of their life continue thinking that's compassion then you have others who will spout the phrase ah giving people fish you're ruining their lives teach them to fish teach them the fish but then doing nothing to teach them to fish like somehow the little proverb gives them an excuse to do nothing and to just forget the poor because they don't impact their lives all i know is god has compassion on them and don't get me wrong i'm not saying that people who come into poverty like that or at least in these homeless circumstances it's not always poverty is not because of actions of their own and not because when they're asking for money for a sandwich they really want a sandwich i remember one particular case my wife and i were doing a circuit i think it was between cincinnati and columbus and happened to have some subway sandwiches for for lunch in the in the car still wrapped up and everything and it was at a gas station where i'd fill up for the for the rest of the trip and uh ostensibly homeless guy i don't know if he's really homeless but he he saw him he's there on the parking lot he's there in the in the gas station he's going person-to-person so you know what's you know what's coming i'm sitting in the car and he knocks on my window so i roll down my window and he says hey man i'm embarrassed to even ask but i just want to i just i just need a little money for a sandwich i haven't eaten all day i just need a little money for a sandwich and if you've got even a dollar or two i said this is your day i've got more than a dollar too i've got a new brand new rap subway sandwich never been open here and he went uh and he just they waved his hand and went away because he didn't want a sandwich right he was probably looking for drugs or hooch you know moonshine or whatever i don't know what it was you know that's what he was probably looking for i don't know i don't know so i'm not pretending i'm not trying to say that that all these people are somehow saints one of the great things about the bible is it is not a respecter of persons it doesn't raise the poor above the rich nor the rich above the poor well i know i was changed in one circumstance when my wife and i were in berlin and we were on a metro train between between cities i think we were actually leaving i think we're on the way to the airport i'm not sure all i know is i think i was just about out of cash that's important for the story i'm not giving anybody a credit card and saying go have fun uh but on the train the trains it was it was multiple cars but the the door between them was open somehow so you could actually walk between the cars even as it's bending and such and on the far end that you could get in at one stop some fella got on and i i knew he was on by the smell before i could see him and i i freely say and i've raised four boys um i've never smelled anything like that it was it almost seemed inhuman but she knew it wasn't and i saw him and his clothes were matted and they weren't matted like an actor or hollywood mats clothes they were matted by real life and what he had been living and what he had seen and what his day-to-day life was and he's walking down the car and there weren't that many of us on there but he's shuffling not even making eye contact he's just looking at his feet and he's got a card of some sort and he he'll walk to someone and kind of show it to him and then wait a while and then just keep moving and he's getting closer and closer and you wouldn't think that the stench of the person could get any stronger but it did it just continued to be intense i just kept thinking this is not a place i want to be is on this train right now both for my physical it was i really did feel nauseated and just the discomfort of the situation he came to me and showed the card and honestly i can't remember the details of the card but if if i do recall it all it was essentially that that there was an address there and and if i wanted a subscription to something like a little magazine or something that it was it was a legitimate thing it was like someone makes these these magazines to help the homeless and gives them an opportunity to to sell them you know so they're not stealing money they're literally trying and i all i can say is i didn't i didn't have anything then he never even made eye contact with me and i was close to the door and that was the last place he could have gone and we stopped again and he and he got off now let me say i don't know how that man came to be in that condition i have absolutely no idea i don't know if it was drinking and drugs if he had truly actively made sinful purposeful choices in his life and had done wrong willingly by his family i have no idea i don't know if it was some sort of a mental disease that is part of the reason that it's a great challenge with the homeless many of them are people that that that have problems with their brain and that's just where they end up it's a place where they collect i don't know if it was an addiction that drove him there i don't know what it was all i know is i am about as certain as i can be as a human being there is no way on this earth that he ever had a day when he thought to himself i can't wait till i'm covered in my own filth and have to walk among other human beings like an animal or human refuse no one chooses that it's not that we don't come to these places in our life by not making choices choices are often involved but turn to jonah chapter 4. you know the tale of jonah jonah was sent to prophesy so that nineveh would not be destroyed and we're not getting distracted by it nineveh was eventually prophesied to help destroy you know god's people you know the physical people there uh you know you've got the assyrians that are going to be coming in and we're going to be wiping out israel and jonah didn't want to it's kind of like imagining you somehow know world war ii is coming and it's going to be devastating to france and you're a frenchman and and berlin's sinning and god sends you as a frenchman oh we'll go go prophesy to to berlin i want him in good shape you know i want him i don't want him i want him to be able to repent it's like oh i'm not gonna do it you know he tries to hide and he can't and so he's a reluctant prophet he does his job and they repent and jonah feels bad about it jonah wishes they didn't repent he's moping stupid ninevites getting their act together and everything you know so he goes to a place to pout about it and god wants to point something out to him and so god makes this tree grow i won't go into detail it shades jonah he's he's he takes delight in it he's got some food and such and then next thing you know you know a hot wind comes and blows the tree we just withers away to nothing and i was in a worse mood it's a good tree you know all this at least i had a tree not a tree's gone man what a terrible day anyway god talks to jonah about it and in verse nine god says to jonah is it right for you to be angry about the plant and this is what a bad boob we know jonah's in is he talks back to god i god does not allow this to happen a whole lot let's understand that i don't recommend this for your prayers but jonah says yes it is right for me to be angry even to death yeah right wow right jonah come on man right but god was trying to make a point to jonah you know god hasn't given up on any of us when maybe we've even done things that are similar verse 10 it says but the eternal said you've had pity on the plant for which you have not labored nor made it grow which came up in a night and perished in a day sorry came up in a night in perished in a night should i not pity nineveh that great city in which are more than 120 000 persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left and much livestock to boot animals that don't know any better now people have debated don't know they're between the right hand and their left often we think of children that way don't know their right hand from their left and maybe he's just referring to to children but there's other thoughts that he's really talking about all of nineveh notice they didn't know all of god's laws they certainly weren't just returning to god's laws god never gave them the revelation that he had given israel and in nineveh a lot of these people did not know their right hand from their left he's telling jonah look you didn't do anything for this plant right none of your effort went into it it came up in a day it's a plant it's gone every human being in nineveh he says i know by name those are lives and i watch them i've seen them born i know what's ahead for them i have a future for them it may not be in this time but there is a time when they and israel and egypt will be together a part of my heritage a part of people i love i've seen every moment of their lives and you care more about a plant that lasted a day than people i've been cultivating for my own purposes whose lives i'm invested in when regardless of why that fellow on that train was in such a circumstance god and jesus christ know his every day they know his every experience and they long to bring a world in which not only he will not experience life like that again but no one in the world will now turn to luke chapter nine as we're talking about christ bringing a world of compassion luke chapter nine in verse 54 we have the time where jesus and his disciples want to go through a samaritan village but they found out he was going to jerusalem and everybody was racist back then so uh they said oh no you're going to jerusalem you're you're not the kind of jew we want going through here because you don't like our kind we don't like you you want to go jerusalem you can go around right you can go around you're not going through our village and james and john were upset and it's easy to pick on james and john as being hot heads because apparently they were they don't name you sons of thunder unless you got a little bit of heat under the collar but same time who knows what they endured where were the people spitting at them were they throwing rocks saying keep it a distance around our city you know it's easy to pick on people and then we get shortchanged at the grocery and what happens to our brain right so keep in mind they're just human beings so it says when his disciples james and john saw this they said lord do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them just as elijah did and he turned and rebuked them and said you do not know what manner of spirit you're of you are that quick to punish like that even when the offense is great he says do you know what spirit that is he said it's not mine he's saying rather verse 56 for the son of man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them but to save them you know there will be punishment in the kingdom i will get to that here in just a moment but i feel the need to highlight that's not what christ is coming for he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked he wants to save these lives now who's going to help him do that you know we won't turn there for the sake of time but in isaiah it talks about how beautiful the feet of those who bring the gospel are upon the mountains anyone bringing the good news someplace that does not have it they're very feet or beautiful and think about i don't know about you but my feet are not my comeliest uh feature right especially back then you're close to the ground and there's rocks and there's thorns and there's the rest they had some tough feet they had tarzan level tough feet some of them you know back in that time and yet if it's someone who's bringing the good news of the kingdom of god that it has come to this place as well it says beautiful are those feet that's isaiah 52 and verse 7 those will be your feet those will be my feet that fellow on that train will have one day the opportunity to turn to someone that could be you or me we don't other verses again i'll just note it for the sake of time but in micah it talks about how everyone will sit under his vine and under his fig tree and no one shall make him afraid why because the mouth of the eternal of host is spoken a man that has nothing in this world but his filth crusted clothes and a card we'll have a vine and a fig tree and that implies more it implies a home a place to live you know it should be rough just a vine and a fig tree you know imagine that same fellow on the train if somehow he survives into the millennium and imagine a completely different circumstance where he's clean and he's healthy and the air smells of lilacs or something like it ought to and he's sitting under his vine because he had told his neighbor to come over and he's waiting for him to show up under his fig tree rather and he's looking at his house and looking in the windows and there's a wife there's a wife and though he can't see them because the window's not all the way to the ground he knows just under the sill our three kids he's been able to have because of the new life that he's been given and the opportunity he could not find his way to reach in this world because he doesn't know his right hand from his left in this life but now he knows and he looks toward the east and sees a glow on the horizon and knows that's where that king lives that's where my king lives who brought these things to me can we see a world of compassion a world that surely jesus christ longs to bring here himself we have to see it next can we see a world of real peace not pretense you know often peace is really just people waiting to start fighting again right it's it's like okay well we're keeping the bullets and we're keeping the guns we're keeping the tanks we're keeping the boats because eventually we're gonna want to kill each other again so it's not peace it's a pause right it's not peace it's a pause and yet familiar verse we won't turn there also for the sake of time but please note if you hadn't read at least once this feast you need to in isaiah we hear about the names that jesus christ will be called in the millennium says i said be called wonderful counselor mighty god everlasting father and prince of peace it's isaiah 9 and verse 6 prince of peace he'll be known for peace that peace that will eventually not at first but eventually spread over the whole world will be achieved in multiple ways i'd like to read a passage from zechariah i'm going to turn to zechariah 14. and i'm going to start reading in verse 16. however i'm not going to read from a good bible i'm not going to read from the king james or the new king james i'm going to read from a terrible bible in fact if your bible matches what i'm about to say please throw it away you have permission to burn it safely because it's not a real bible you know if the devil will pass no bibles it might be this one uh it's the wiv the woefully inaccurate version and i'm going to ask you i know as ministers we don't generally do this but don't read your bible right now we'll read we'll read the next part but if you read your bible you're going to read the real words and it's just going to mess you up so let me read from this version first then we'll read from a real bible zechariah chapter 14 and i'm going to start in this terrible bible in verse 16. we read there and it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came up against jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the king the eternal of host and to keep the feast of tabernacles and it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to jerusalem to worship the king the eternal of hosts they shall receive from the king a strongly worded letter the letter will give them 30 days to respond and if there is no response they will receive another letter and another 60 days because clearly 30 days wasn't enough and they need more time and if there is still no response then the king shall submit his wishes to the united nations and the united nations shall vote as to whether or not they shall officially declare that nation to be a very very naughty nation but only if there is no veto among the other nations all right that's garbage right that's essentially the world today and we might wish that we're different we might wish there was strong power to fix the problems in the world but it's just in the hands of other men and next thing you know you're the problem right mr armstrong used to say we need a strong hand from somewhere a particular somewhere and the world will have that what does it actually say in verse 17 it actually says in zechariah 14 it shall be that whichever the families of the earth do not come up to jerusalem to worship the king the eternal of host on them there shall be no rain because it will not simply be a dictator or a warlord or an emperor even it will be the creator of the planet reigns in jerusalem you know i imagine this is me this is fantasy and i have to be upfront i don't think it's gonna be anything like this but i do love picturing this so much and so it is the movie i play in my head so i imagine a nation we always pick on egypt because the bible mentions egypt you know the bible says if egypt doesn't come up give egypt a break they might actually do it right you know maybe it'll be some other country you know poor egypt but maybe it's egypt so let's say egypt doesn't come up someone doesn't come up and the warlord of that nation is standing on the border of his country because he knows the threats he says you better come up he's like yeah i'm not coming up right so i got my army here of course it's after the tribulation and stuff so it's a lot of sharpened sticks they're still working on making swords again or what are spears but you know they're ready it's sharpened sticks they want to go to that feast of tabernacles because they hear it it's a jewish god that's supposed to be in charge now right yeah yeah my mom and dad taught me he said you know i'm not going to worship any jewish god and so he's got his army of men with pointed sticks and they're on the border waiting for it to come not even care if they win right because if he's going to go down it's going to be all bon jovi a blaze of glory right you know if he's gonna go down he doesn't care right because he's gonna show this jewish god in jerusalem that he will not bow to his wishes so he's got his guys you know sharpen sticks and it starts raining on all of them and he's like oh this is even better because i remember seeing that super bowl on american cursed devil american television once and the players were playing in the rain and it did look so glorious and now it's on me now you know he's standing there and the rain's on him and it's dripping off his elbows this will be even better i can't wait come bring it bring it king from jerusalem and then the strangest thing happens is it stops raining like that like a snap but oddly he's right at the border and it's raining right over there why is it raining there and it's not raining here so he tells his vast army of pointed stick man hey hang on hang on a minute and he walks over to the rain but somehow everywhere he walks in the rain there's nothing like above him like a dry spot following him like the opposite of eeyore for those that remember winnie the pooh right if anything the sun's hitting him and it's hot it's like what in the world what is going on so he runs back and it's still not raining then he looks at the rain-soaked ground and seemingly supernaturally the water just seeps away from the soil and you see it start to crack under his feet because it's so dry and he thinks yeah we might be in for a little bit of a difficult time now let me say i personally don't think it's going to happen like that i just think it's fun to talk about because uh i really think it could be far more normal they're just waiting for rain and it's not coming what's going on what's going on i have no idea really but jesus could jesus christ do that he's god right kind of showing off maybe a little bit right but you know for some people you want to show off some people need to see that you're not dealing with a human ruler this isn't a tyrant it's not it's not a sodom hussein or a hitler it's not even a president or a prime minister it's god almighty who said you have an appointment with me show up and there will be peace it won't be willingly for some after a while they will show up that next feast of tabernacles they'll be hungrier they'll be more compliant but they'll show up and see a world and what it's like to live in a world that is obeying that god and they'll want some of that for themselves nations will either learn to fear the lord at the feast of tabernacles like we should or they'll learn to fear him in their homes but all we'll learn to fear him there's a reason also in isaiah 9 6 he's called mighty god he will have the ability to make sure there is peace let's look at one additional passage ezekiel 38 in terms of peace by force ezekiel 38 as we understand it this is a prophecy of a time in the millennium and we know it's not the current day some actually in the protestant world and others try to use this as a prophecy of our current day because it's clearly an attack on israel it talks about you know here's israel living peacefully and without walls but i tell you israel is not living peacefully without walls as in we were in israel just recently and there are literal walls right there are walls there there's barbed wire they're patrolled every 15 minutes dragging the sand so they can see if there's footprints on the other side of the fence i've seen more machine guns now in my life in the airport there at other places in israel because they don't live at peace this is not a prophecy of today there's a prophecy of the millennium when israel has been restored and there truly are no more need for walls because when god is fully present and living among you there is no need for walls so we have an event early in the millennium it says in ezekiel 38 and verse 10 thus says the lord eternal on that day it shall come to pass that thoughts will arise in your mind and you'll make an evil plan you will say i will go up against a land of unwalled villages i will go to a peaceful people who dwell safely all of them dwelling without walls having neither bars nor gates and these were people that haven't lived in this kind of circumstance for a long time and when they saw some place without bars and gates it was a vulnerability and so in verse 12 it says it's in their mind to take plunder to take booty to stretch out your hand against the waste places that are again inhabited and against a people gathered from the nations who have acquired livestock and goods and who dwell in the midst of the land jump to verse 16. god says here you will come up against my people israel like a cloud to cover the land it will be in the latter days that i will bring you against my land so the nations may know me when i am hallowed in you o gog before their eyes thus says the lord eternal are you he of whom i have spoken in former days by my servants the prophets of israel who prophesied for years in those days that i would bring you against them and it will come to pass at that time at the time when god comes against the land of israel says the lord eternal that my fury will show in my face you ever been a kid and you know you're not on the happy side of mom and dad but it's still kind of going all right and you're not repenting like you should already and then that face change happens god's face change happens at this point he says i will show my fury in my face he says verse 19 for in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath i've spoken surely in that day there should be a great earthquake in the land of israel so the fish of the sea the birds of the heavens the beasts of the field all creeping things that creep on the earth and all men who are on the face of the earth shall shake at my presence he wants the world to know what has happened they will hear word they will hear word the ground will shimmer i think wow something's happened and they'll find out what this was it says the mountains shall be thrown down the steep places shall fall and every wall shall fall to the ground i will call for a sword against gog throughout all my mountains says the lord eternal every man's sword will be against his brother and i will bring him to judgment with pestilence and bloodshed i will rain down on him on his troops on the many peoples who are with him flooding rain great hailstones fire and brimstone thus i will magnify myself and sanctify myself and i will be known in the eyes of many nations then they shall know that i am the eternal he will want to make sure everyone in the world is put on alert the united states did that with an atomic weapon the world learned the united states could wreak more devastation in the world than anybody else at the time god wants that but up to several levels recognizing this isn't just a nation that can blow up your city this is a being who will throw a mountain at you there's going to be some peace because that's all some people know and yet others will be willing to learn uh we're already in oh no we're actually not in isaiah let's turn to isaiah chapter 59. those who have been forced to want to learn to realize there's a better way and those who just simply already do and may not need forcing because there are wise kings out there striving to serve their people leaders who care about their people and just can't figure out a way just can't find a way why isaiah 59 and verse 8 it says this is verse 8 of isaiah 59 the way of peace they have not known there's no justice in their ways they've made themselves crooked paths whoever takes that way shall not know peace even when they're trying they can't put it together but the prince of peace will be on the earth and he'll require them send people to me at least once a year and let me teach them and they will take it back to you the bible says that kings of other lands will send their princes to serve in israel not as lesser people because somehow they're slaves unless they're human beings but because they want to learn what israel has to bring it back to their own to bring it back to their own people they will want to learn a familiar passage won't turn there for the sake of time but in isaiah chapter 2 it talks about how they will beat their swords into plowshares weapons of war being turned into implements of peace and i have to give credit to mr marshall moloff last year at the feast in texas he he really opened my mind about what it means to be a sword uh in this day and age and i remember imagining a scenario imagine in hawaii for a particular reason hawaii and imagine a people in hawaii now hawaii probably won't be in the same place because all the mountains and islands will be moved it might be a different shape but let's say there's still a hawaii of some sort and there's people there and it's the millennium and they're reigning and they've had peace but they've been given a huge task and one that doesn't really make sense even though the the plans and details are incredibly specific and they're to build on this long stretch near the mountains there these weird structures they're super sturdy with not a thing on top of them and they're at various angles that every once in a while either one of the foremen or even one of the children of god themselves has to come and say i'm sorry uh mr ceiling wall you're gonna have to do this one again it really needs to be at 22 degrees and you've got it at 23. i know that's very specific but there's a lot to be done i need it just right maybe there's a little frustration but okay all right they start over and they build these strange structures out of metal and wood they just extend for a few miles even until finally it's done and they see the plans are done and a child of god appears and says thank you all for working so hard because you've set up the next work to come and while he's talking they see over the horizon and floating in midair are these old battleships and carriers and tankers that have been destroyed in years past weapons of war things that have been used for wrong purposes as they float over the heads of the people they're still dripping water and they feel the salt and tasted in their mouths and the ships just floating in mid-air rest on these structures till they creak under the weight but do not break because they've been built to specifications and the child of god looks at all of them and says make us some plowshares then all of that gets turned into something wonderful purposes that we could possibly even scarcely imagine remember they're going to have to be getting ready for the last great day could be 60 to 80 billion people coming up or so can we imagine scenes like that because even if that's fantastic even if it seems strange we know the world to come will be better we know that wonders await a world of peace can you see a world with no fear can you see a world with no fear the bible says that old men and women will be in the streets of jerusalem again and that children will be playing in its streets it says that in zechariah chapter 8. you know there are places in the world and there will be a time definitely in jerusalem where old men and children would not want to be a see in the streets why old men and women because those are the most vulnerable amongst us and they're playing out in the open again because it's a world that is safe a world that doesn't have fear can you see a world with no fear what would it be like to live with no locks on our doors well ours hopefully we're in the family of god but for the people there to have no locks on their doors they have no bars on their windows turn to isaiah chapter 11. many chapters back isaiah chapter 11. a familiar passage and i and i i do not mean to say that it means something different than it does isaiah chapter 11. we'll start in verse 4. we all should read this passage at least once during the feast isaiah chapter 11 and verse 4 we read of jesus christ but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with his breath with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked righteousness shall be the belt of his loins and faithfulness the belt of his waist the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb the leopard shall lie down with the young goat the calf and the young lion and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them the cow and the bear shall graze their young ones shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox the nursing child shall play by the cobras hole and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den how can they do this because it says in verse 9 they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the eternal as the waters cover the sea now hopefully we believe this and take it for face value as we've heard many times mr ames has said he's quoted another fellow but it's a great thing that when the when the word of god makes common sense then don't try to make it make any other sense just accept it accept that the nature of animals will be worked with and changed we're feeding this huge huge bowl i'm not kidding biggest bowl i've ever seen in my life and i come from texas so you know and it was huge and in in mount snow we're feeding it hay and it's eating all day you can give it it was gigantic and someone said now imagine this is a lion and suddenly was a lot cooler you know you know imagine you're feeding hay you know to to a lion uh predators won't be predators anymore you know it's why would a child stick its arm down a hole what's a child right uh you know or even four boys i'm always terrified they're gonna stick their arm down a hole uh i remember i'll one boy in particular i won't say which one because they're here and it'll embarrass them but anyway the second one said uh we were at the zoo once and this squirrel we saw a squirrel running there were littles we saw a squirrel run into a trash can and just was like oh there's a squirrel and he runs up and sticks his face in the trash can and that thing was like a ninja the squirrel like brah you know it jumped out because all i saw was the sun being blotted by something and who knew he didn't know it was a predator and i can tell you what some nerd too didn't know as a prayer and he's like one he backed up and he's scared and and oh boy that was terrifying for both of them the squirrel land and the sun because it's a world of that's red in tooth and claw everything is out for itself the scroll doesn't know any better and my son didn't know any better right it was just teeth and claws and danger and the idea that there will be blood right it was terrifying and so in that world you'll have children do what children do there's going to be a hole where a snake lives they're not thinking they're going to be sticking their arm in there i wonder what's in here oh i hope it's a snake right i hope it's a snake and the bible says you know what they won't have to fear predators anymore no one will have to fear predators anymore and what is the greatest predator of all it's humanity i'm not anti-hunter just so you know kill it and eat it i love nothing then freshly killed animal nothing better right i'm not saying don't i'm speaking of the different kind of predator how man will prey on man to take advantage of him to abuse him especially the weakest of our society you know today the cobras dens can even be our schoolyards it can be neighborhoods where a sexual predator lives that no one has identified yet you know we were in atlanta uh on the way to the feast the trip that went better we were in atlanta and saw these signs that i'd never seen before that maybe i mentioned in the previous sermon if i did i apologize i'll just mention one more time about about human trafficking why because it happens all the time if you're traveling with your children be careful i hate to have to say that you know even now there are are children living in places where all they know is abuse that's their whole world do we not think that jesus christ doesn't long to fix that i don't mean this as a blasphemous metaphor and i think you'll understand but can you imagine how jesus christ must be straining at the leash just waiting for his father to say go save them go stop that we've waited long enough and it's time to make sure this never happens to anyone ever again and can you imagine being a part of that because how will jesus christ do that it says in psalm 149 that this honor have all the saints that is bringing justice to the world stopping the wrong crushing if necessary those who would harm and those who would hurt i can imagine i can see a world in which a child that has never known anything but a terrible life and hears those noises coming down the hall again and knows what happens next and is trembling in a corner and then out of nowhere for a reason the child could not understand and will not be told the noises stop and they don't keep coming closer but then the door does open and it's you and you have the opportunity to walk up to that child who suddenly for some reason does not know why it feels so much more calm and scoop it up in your arms and say don't worry in the name of the king of jerusalem i can guarantee you those things will never happen again they will never happen again can we see a world like that god needs us to be filled with that world because the more we are filled with it the more we will long to make it so and even the work will benefit because we'll long to make sure others know it's coming as well there's so many more things we could ask i'd love to sit down with some of the kids and talk about what cities will be like because i have no idea i thought well they're going to be big like mega cities and just beautiful and shiny like star trek land or something are they going to be rural villages of some sort and everybody's got gardens in this and that i don't know all i know is i see kids trying to build them out of lego and they look really cool right there are so many things to talk about as are we converse with one another as we try together working together to try to picture a world that we all want but more than all wanting it a world that he says i will bring i'm coming to bring that world and i so want you to be a part of making it with me don't let this feast end without starting that kind of process that will continue through the rest of the year where you ask yourself those kind of questions where you talk to each other about them where we strive strive hard to the limits of our imagination asking god for more imagination if we need it to be able to see the world that he sees so clearly himself a world that to him is more real than the world we have with us today and a world that he longs to be more real for us than the world around us today because those who will get to make that world with him will be those who can see it today [Music] you

Channel: Living Church of God

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Length: 72min 49sec (4369 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 06 2020