As in The Days of Noah

[0:00] Well, good morning, everyone. Good to see everybody. Stay on task here.

[0:14] So, faithful brother John Wonsnider texted me this morning saying,! I'm praying for you, Jim. I know you're going up the bat. Amy always gives me encouraging words and everything else.

[0:26] How's it going? I said, the Lord tapped me on the shoulder about 3.30 this morning and said, I have a change of pace of what you wrote. I said, okay, give me just a few things. I keep a notebook and I write a few things down.

[0:39] A few things kept going and a few more things. I thought I could lay down and I wrote a few more things. The next thing you know, it's 6 o'clock in the morning and I'm thinking, boy, I better start getting ready for the day here. But praise the Lord. I told him it's all worth it.

[0:50] And like I said, I'll just probably have a shorter day than I anticipated. But before I start here, my teaching is going to be about, it's called, As in the Days of Noah. And if you remember last time I taught on Luke 18 about Jesus, and we will go back to that and about the king and about how this woman had something coming to her and she persistently came after them.

[1:12] And like I said, but he said he was a respecter of God. He wasn't a respecter of God nor a man. But he also went on and said, but this woman may wear me out. And I'll get to that to kind of highlight what we're going to highlight because that's going to lead in a few other things.

[1:26] But before I get into this, I want to read here from Ephesians 6. And I'm going to start at verse 13. It says, Therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, which it has arrived, you may be able to stand your ground after you have done everything to stand.

[1:47] I want you to keep that word in your head, stand. He goes on and says, Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, with your feet fitted with the gospel of peace.

[2:01] In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, which you can extinguish all flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

[2:11] God, pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert. And always keep on praying for all the saints.

[2:25] That's a lot, and I'm not going to break that down, but that's my opening prayer. And the reason I did that one is because, listen how Paul says something, a few things I'm going to dissect. Notice he tells us, the church, besides to be strapped up because we are going to be in warfare.

[2:40] And he uses the Roman uniform to give that great illustration. But notice he doesn't say, go on the offense. Go after him. Rattle that sword. Pull it out. He doesn't say that.

[2:52] He doesn't say shrink back either. He doesn't say, well, you know, get passive. Lay back. Just, you know, don't make waves. Just get along with everybody and move forward. He doesn't say that.

[3:02] In fact, he says, a couple, three times, he says, stand. And then he says, stand firm. That's what we are supposed to do as the church, as the bride, as members of the body of Christ.

[3:19] We are supposed to stand firm. So that gives you some idea how to approach this. It says, Jesus, John 1 says, Jesus came to this world, and he was full of truth and grace.

[3:34] And that's how we stand firm, using truth and grace. And that's what we need to continue to do. I know this is not here, a political moment. I'm not here. We have a new president. We know he's Donald Trump.

[3:46] And I know there's a lot of mixed reviews on that, and I'm not here to get to that detail. The detail I want to get to is we know this man's previous ways of doing business. And one thing for sure, he is friendly to Christians and Jews.

[4:00] That's important for us. We have four years of reprieve here that we need to stand firm, because the storm is coming. Anything you read in this book always tells you, and I'm going to lead through some of this stuff, that we know that man's heart just becomes more wicked, and once you think he's wicked enough, he's going to drop another level.

[4:18] He's going to drop another level. He's going to drop another level. It's not going to stop. It's going to continue. So again, about a month ago, I talked about Luke 18, verse 1.

[4:30] I'm going to go to that real quick here. I can find my little quick stub here, so I don't want to spend a little time. Luke 18, verse 1.

[4:40] I'm going to just jump around, because I read this and did this last about a month ago. It says, Then Jesus told his disciples a parable showing them that they should always pray and not give up.

[4:52] That is so powerful. Good job. We are supposed to pray. We are supposed to be prayer warriors. But also, we're not supposed to give up.

[5:03] I know for a fact that my family, I know my son and his wife is here and his two beautiful daughters, I know enough that we're networked, we're close, that we've been praying things for years, and we have not received what we have been looking for.

[5:15] And there's at times I question, am I barking up the right tree? Am I saying the right words, God? Is there something in me that doesn't work? Am I offending you some way?

[5:28] I don't think it's any of that. He's just telling me, don't give up. So what is that relating to? As we watch things continue to digress down, to continue to go downward and spiral, and watch man's depravity just keep getting out of control.

[5:46] That's why I'm calling this as the days of Noah. As we watch this, it's going to be hard. We're going to want to give up. We're going to start wondering, is this worthwhile, God?

[5:58] What am I teaching? Who's listening to me? I tell somebody who Christ is, and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's your God. But you know what?

[6:08] That person may be a tribulation person. That person may somehow start thinking, when I talked to that crazy guy Munson, and he was talking about somehow rapture, getting in this ark, he might have something there.

[6:24] So we need to continue to always pray and not give up. And so it goes on, I told you the story, but he's refused this woman, but he said he's going to give in to her.

[6:37] Now again, this is a paradigm, this king who seems disrespectful and doesn't seem to care about people and everything else, the paradigm is really God, not that disrespectfulness. In other words, God is no respecter to any other gods.

[6:50] He's above that. Second, he has no respecter to man. So what is it? This is the king. But he's telling that we are the woman.

[7:02] We are that lady that has justice coming to us. We are the people that have given our life to Christ. And we paid a price for that, and we will continue to pay a price for that.

[7:15] But he tells us to keep being persistent, to stand firm. Listen to his last words. He says, however, when the Son of Man comes, will I find faith on earth?

[7:31] I broke this down, but I'm not going to go deep in this. And I question, why does he say that? Are you aware that when rapture happens, there will be not one faithful believer on earth?

[7:48] First time ever. There won't be a remnant. There will be nothing. Every person that's left behind will be an unbeliever. Maybe this makes sense a little more, why he would say something of that nature.

[8:01] Will I find faith? But we also know, and I broke this down last time I talked, that a third of the Jews give their life to Christ. And they are there. They're the ones that call out, not us to church.

[8:12] You ever notice that when people say we don't pre-rapture, and I'm not going to get dogma on this, but we don't call them back. If you think anybody would be us, the Jews are blind. Why would they call them back? But we're gone. They're on their own.

[8:24] They have to now call on him or they're going to die. Two-thirds get wiped out. Not only that, we also learned, I think it is in Revelation 6, that we know that there is Gentiles who give their life to Christ during the tribulation and lose their life.

[8:42] In fact, they say they're underneath the altar of God, and they're crying out to him. They're saying, when are you going to avenge our blood? Now, you think about it, that sounds a little saucy.

[8:53] They're saying, get up. Release those bulls. Get down there. Like I said, this is what's going to happen. They continue. So, yes, there will be faith.

[9:04] But we also know that one time, this world, there will be no one with faith. And you talk about a time of mayhem and all kinds of unpredictable things. That's why the man with the plan can walk in so quickly and influence and deceive people to follow him.

[9:20] So, again, Jesus is asking a valid question. He says, will I find faith on earth? I would like to expand further, and I did. But, again, when you look at Hebrews, and I'm going to break this down, Hebrews 11 says, because faith, faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain what we do not see.

[9:40] You know, those are easy words to say. The next easiest words you ever say is, oh, not my will, but your will be done, God. There's no way do I want to say those words.

[9:53] I do not like when I have to get to that point. He has to put a headlock and drag me along to say it's my will. I'm not. I like when people just kind of flippantly throw that out there. You know, not my will, but, whoa.

[10:05] Lord, I want my will. I don't like what you're putting before me. And that's the same here. Think about it. Again, we are, like I say, faith is being sure of what we hope for.

[10:19] Yeah, that's going to happen. Again, like I said, and certain what we do not see. All five of our senses do not count now.

[10:31] That's faith. We have that, and we accept Christ. You ever notice how your heart changes, how realistic he comes, how he's always talking to you, how you feel this presence?

[10:43] And we don't see him. If somebody asks you to describe what the Holy Spirit looks like, what's it feel like? Almost impossible. Maybe breathe on him.

[10:55] Like that. No. But he's there. It says in Ecclesiastic 311, states that he has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom what God has done from the beginning to the end.

[11:16] Now, I'm not here to blame. That is the truth. We can't fathom what God is doing. We know what Isaiah says. My ways are not your ways. Again, my thoughts are not your thoughts.

[11:28] But we also know this because of our finite conditions, our understanding of God's ways. We can't grasp God's plan for mankind from the destiny from the beginning.

[11:40] But we do know what's going to happen with man. We do know what's going to happen because we are given this. This tells what God's plan is for mankind.

[11:51] We know from the beginning of Genesis to the back of this to Revelation, we know what's going to happen. Now, we may not accept it and people may not believe it, but that's the truth.

[12:04] And when Jesus said in Matthew 25, man's heart's going to be like Noah's days, and it grieved him so when he saw this, that we know that's what's going to happen.

[12:15] But we also know how it ends, that we return back, set this up right. And you know what? At night during the millennial, we won't have to lock our doors.

[12:29] At night, you won't have to worry about your child being left somewhere as far as technically speaking, someone doing something wrong or taking it. It's going to be a powerful moment.

[12:40] No sirens in the background. No hospitals. No ER rooms. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. We will have complete utopia for once again. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

[12:52] That's what right now our folks that we are now gone from us and are in heaven are enjoying. They never worry. In fact, they can get up at 3.30 and don't feel like I'm feeling tired.

[13:03] They can do all that stuff. It'll be a great time. You know what I think that's missing with them? And I just digress a little bit. They do not have those glorified bodies. And you can bet their bottom dollars every day they're going to Jesus and say, is today the day?

[13:16] Is today the day we get our glorified bodies? Because we see yours. And boy, is that awesome. And I want some of that. I got a spiritual body, but I want my physical body back because I want to someday say to my body, no more power.

[13:32] No more sin. No more death. I can say, oh, grave, where is your victory? Powerful. So, again, we're going to go to Matthew 24.

[13:46] Matthew 24, if you read that, you find out that Jesus is talking to a Jewish audience, and he's talking mainly about the tribulation. That's what he's talking about. And, again, like I said, the church is not there.

[13:58] Again, like I said, because, again, everything tells me in this Bible we cannot be there. We would be like a fifth wheel, I don't know, or something. I don't know what we'd even do. We'd prophesize like crazy.

[14:08] We could tell everything that's going on. But, anyway, we're not there, but he's telling them this. Even some people take this thing where he talks about one will be taken away, one will be left in the field, one will be taken away.

[14:19] He's really talking about Jews that don't grasp what he's saying. He's saying, when you see this man desolate that temple, get out of Dodge. Run. Don't go back for your cloak.

[14:34] Go back for that precious picture. Run. Because they know he's going to be on the slaughter. That time, Satan gets tossed out of heaven. He's bouncing on earth, and he is upset.

[14:47] We get to witness that. That's three and a half years. We're up there. We get to watch Michael say, gone. So, as we see this, I'm going to get to eventually the point.

[14:58] Matthew 24, verse 36 through 39. It says, no one knows about the day or the hour, not even the angels in the heaven, nor the Son of Man. But only the Father. As it is in the days of Noah, so it will be as the coming of the Son of Man.

[15:12] For in those days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. And they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.

[15:29] Again, I taught on this. I said anywhere from 350 million to maybe up to a billion people around the earth. But I think it's 300 to 700 million, I'll say. Only eight.

[15:40] Eight. Eight people got on that. Eight people got on that. They ignored the signs. Trust me, we are no different than those people. For some reason, maybe we think we have something.

[15:51] I'll get to that. About this form of godliness. But we don't have anything different. We are the same broken Adam that started in that garden. We are to this day. We are no more further educated. No matter what our phones try to tell us.

[16:07] Yes. So, it goes on and says, that one might get the impression that the reference to days of Noah is a naive, carefree, marrying, being married, eating and drinking kind of era.

[16:20] But that's not the case in those days. Every inclination thoughts of man's heart was on evil all the time. Open your phones up. Think we can find evil all the time?

[16:35] Where our hearts are at. They say it sells, but I don't know. But it goes on and he says this. But he says, but this is not the case.

[16:49] Again, like I said, but this is not the case in those days. Again, like I said, that man's heart is always on it. It said, does this sound familiar to us to this day? Politics, world affair, wars and rumors of wars, kidnapping, hostages, killing, drugs, abuse, hatred, constantly bombarding us every day.

[17:09] That time, God saw how corrupt the people on earth had become in their ways. And it grieved him. I'm sure he's thinking the same thing now. He's grieving him.

[17:21] Think how we have gotten. We have such great technology. We have such wonderful things. For medical field and everything in that field. Technic. We're not living any longer.

[17:33] We're not getting any better. I don't know if anybody's been to the doctor lately, but you know what? I'm not here to knock them, but you know, it's kind of like, I got this prescription. I don't want to see the side effects because I look at that.

[17:43] I'm like, I don't know if I want to take this. You know? My kidneys can fail. I'm only in there for a low infection. And I don't want my kidneys to drop on me yet. That's what I'm saying. It's scary.

[17:53] Like, well, don't really read. What do you mean don't read? They're real. And I'm that guy, probably, most likely. I don't gamble because I know my luck. It's bad luck. So, anyway, so this is what's going on.

[18:05] Honesty is replaced with dishonesty. Killing every day is just a daily affair. Doesn't that seem like it's going on? We're just watching. We've become desensitized.

[18:16] We went to every reason. I mean, you look at Israel, just those hostage beings. You know how many aren't going to come back? You know how many are already dead? And those women and men that come back, you know how much mental health that they've got to get done to them to rehab them back to life?

[18:34] They probably don't even sleep right at night anymore. Yes, I'm living, but how am I living? But this is what we go to. And again, no big deal.

[18:46] Media barely wrote. There were six Americans that were there, seven or something like that. Don't even know if they're existing. No negotiation for them. Tells you where our life is valued at.

[18:57] I'd like to continue on the witness of man's heart, but biblically, we know it's present. So I'm going to give you another example without offending anybody, but I'm going to say this, and it says, for an example, I'm going to give you, are you aware that 73 million babies die worldwide?

[19:14] Usually out of inconvenience. 73 million children come back to God. Return to Sunday.

[19:30] Some people give anything to have a child. And we return 73 million back. That's just in one case. One or what, 25, 30 people are killed every day in Chicago?

[19:41] Eight or nine something like veterans commit suicide every day? That's just one little stat, but it's a huge stat. More than any wars, any world wars we ever combined. We just do it.

[19:53] I know it's tough. It's not anybody's fault. Again, my heart goes out for post-women that had abortion. Again, I don't want to sound like I'm very insensitive about this. I'm not. But if we don't value life during conception, then I think we're going to struggle to value life overall.

[20:11] To devalue it. This is one of the main side effects of ignoring God as our creator. If there is no God, then there's no supreme maker.

[20:28] Who gives life intrinsic value. There remains only relative value. Therefore, apart from God, life is determined by adjustable standards based on laws and moral society.

[20:44] Whoever's ruling to decide who lives or not. I'm going to give you a little bit of a rule. I'm going to give you a little bit of a rule. I'm going to give you another example. I don't know if anybody knows a man named Yavol, Yavol, Noah Harari, if I'm saying his name correctly.

[21:06] Yavol. If you don't, he works a little close with the World Economic Forum, which is not favorable to life people. But he's a historian, a philosopher, an author.

[21:17] He's a very smart man. Very smart. Teacher. He teaches on the topic. Listen to this. Will the future be humans? You're like, say what?

[21:30] What do you mean, will they be humans? That's exactly what he means. Will they actually be human beings? He goes on. He claims that those who control the data will control the world.

[21:43] I've always said it's about technology, then age of life. Future masters, that's what he calls them. Future masters will decide who lives, who dies. He's doing a public speaking, and he's got a couple, 300 people listening to him.

[21:57] They're full. They want to hear this. I'm doing short little dissects. He does tons of speech. This one was 30 minutes long. But anyway, he says, the data is the most important asset today.

[22:11] That is the truth. Those who have the data will control the world. We know that the Antichrist is a finite person because he's like us. We know Satan is finite.

[22:23] He, again, is like us in that capacity. So some way, he has to get this world to a point that something can operate by a click of a mouse or a tap of a key.

[22:35] Well, there's going to be a vine or a struggle for data. We know AI is out there. We know it's operating freely now. Before it was kind of, we'll just kind of let it sneak in.

[22:46] Now they're like, hey, we got AI. We can run our whole company to them. So again, like I said again, he says, data is the most important asset. He speaks of hacking. Listen to that term.

[22:56] Remember when somebody hacked in, you could be like, ah! He's talking about hacking into human beings. Make different species. Listen to these terms.

[23:07] Not classes. Not male and female. Not black and white. No. Species. Like something in a jar. Beaker. This is how they change that terminology to make it dehumanized.

[23:21] Don't make it sound like it's a child in the womb. Don't make it sound like this is actually a human being. It has feelings and it cares. Let alone say it believes in God. Don't bring that before me. He says, now we have those capabilities to collect biological data about our bodies, our minds, and our thoughts, and our emotions.

[23:41] They are now providing this eventually that they can tap into you and they can know exactly what you're thinking. And if you're not for them, you'll be shut down. Again, like I said, to accomplish such a task is we must have two things.

[23:56] Lots of data. Woo! We have that. And biological information or records. We have all that. And it's all on a database. Yuval claims that between AI and medical science, we have what it is that needed to advance.

[24:13] He says, again, like I said, I can't go in great details, but my point is we are getting closer to his return as we advance in technology. Now, it's a good thing. I'm not saying we've got to stop that.

[24:24] But as you watch this thing leap and bounds, this is what's controlling that. Because if we get to a point where they can do transhumans, where people are no more human beings, they put a chip in you, and you can no more have independent thought.

[24:38] You have no more free will. And they can reprogram you so well that they don't even need procreation to have children. Bring up new. And Satan now is on this earth.

[24:51] What's that going to be like? Can't happen. God is not going to allow that to happen. That's why I'm saying as we read this, even though it does scare my heart a little bit, I know he's coming back soon.

[25:05] Because he isn't going to allow that to happen to us. And I'm not talking to the rapture. I'm talking about human beings all across the map. Believers or non-believers. So now it says, now we can understand when Jeremiah 17, 9 states this, the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.

[25:25] Who can understand or fix it? We are that. We were that. Now, we are in Christ.

[25:35] So it says, again, what is that answer to that? Somebody who isn't saved here, somebody who doesn't quite say, well, how do I change things?

[25:46] God gave us this answer. In fact, after the cross, praise God, we can, we can, we can get to heaven by faith and faith alone. Nothing else, just by truly believing what Jesus Christ did on that finished work of the cross.

[25:59] But Jesus made it clear to this side. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one, but no one comes to the Father except me.

[26:13] That's how we know. Who can fix my heart? Christ did. Christ fixed me. So I go on and I say this next.

[26:25] We learned just a peek on how people were back in Noah's day and mankind is still born broken and will try his most everything in the world, anything to fill in that void.

[26:37] Something to make them feel good. Therefore, what will mankind be toward the end days? Well, our Bible tells us to say that people will be rebellious, drugged up, hostile, and deceived.

[26:52] Now, that's just a few. There's much more than that we know in 2 Timothy. We know in Romans 1. But I'm just going to refine it down. Jesus said in Matthew 24, 12, because of the increased wickedness, not the goodness, not the kindness, not the faithfulness.

[27:07] These are all from the fruit of the Spirit. But because of the increased wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. Love is going to be, as Yavall says, the greatest asset will be data.

[27:24] The most devalued asset will be love. It'll be the rarest thing. You wonder why they can hack into a human being. If there's no more creator and there's no such thing as love, then it's just survival of the fittest.

[27:40] This is why I want to bring across that we are getting closer to this. This is all going, yes, not so much even behind scenes. They're hiding in plain sight. Don't get me wrong. This is happening. And they're not bashful. Go to World Economic Forum or any of these guys, they'll tell you that's what we're going to do.

[27:53] But the point trying to get at is we see this. I don't want to lay too heavy on everybody's heart, but we know that then our Savior dropped. We know he's coming.

[28:04] So I'm going to jump back to those four years, not that I got a base all on Trump, but I'm getting at is that we need to get strong now. We really need to stand firm. Say, hey, Jesus is coming back.

[28:17] We need to go back in those 70s, back in that hippie day and whatever his name, Lonnie Frisbee, whatever his name was, was doing his thing. I was part of that era, so I never met Lonnie. But this is what we need to do and be bold.

[28:30] Say, do you know Jesus? Tell him, because believe it, they may be a tribulation person and they should. They'll remember what you said to them. So I'm going to jump to 2 Timothy 3.5.

[28:45] I'm just going to jump to you real quick. And I'm going to tap here just a little bit too because like I said, I don't want to go real, and I know I'm getting close to my time, but 2 Timothy 3.

[29:01] So I'm going to start here at verse 5. Now I'm going to jump here a little bit. It says again, my top of my chapter says godlessness in last days.

[29:12] So you know what you're going to get, that flavor. And it says, Mark this, there'll be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful. Again, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

[29:25] I'm just jumping around, but here's the part. Having a form of godliness but denying its power, that's what we're going to see. That's going to be the new love.

[29:37] I look good, but inside, as Jesus told the Pharisees, nothing but a whitewashed grave. They're dead inside. Botox is going crazy. People are trying to somehow look younger, trying to hang on to something.

[29:53] Instead of saying, you know what, Jesus is going to take this thing and run it, and I hope, you know, I say this to my children, when I die, I want there to be nothing but a carcass for Satan to have. He can have that dead carcass. I want everything used up out of it.

[30:06] There ain't nothing in it. He can have the dead because he's going to be with the dead. What I want, is that glorified body. I don't want both. I don't want a temporary. I want the real thing.

[30:19] 1 Corinthians 15. Read about it. But he goes on and says, they deny the power. What's the power? The power of the Holy Spirit. They look. They're a fake bake. They're everything else.

[30:31] They're pure deception. Listen to these tough words Paul says in the next sentence. Have nothing to do with them. I know this is going to rub.

[30:42] I'm not here to say that you don't witness to people that are not believers. I'm not getting to that. But Paul is saying, don't do business with them. Okay? He's saying, don't rub elbows.

[30:53] Don't get too close because you're going to fall into it possibly too. Continue to witness but at a healthy point. I've seen people do that. They've had troubles.

[31:03] They get with someone else who has similar troubles and they're back on their own. Again, be careful. He's trying to get us to understand. So again, like I said, a form of godliness but the dying power.

[31:17] Whose power? The Holy Spirit. Today's language, outside form. Again, this Botox is everything but it's denying the reality. Again, like I said, Jesus called them whitewashed graves.

[31:29] They are deceived and they're deceiving others. That's what this is going on. And again, we read verse 6 through 9 through here. It says, they are the kind who worm their way into a home getting controlled over weak-willed women who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires.

[31:49] Always learning. My wife and I just went out to eat. Guess what everybody was doing? Now, I don't mind doing some but I mean just steady. Always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.

[32:02] You get that? That is the keyest thing that you can get to understand. When Jeremiah says that my heart is deceitful above all things, he says, your number one priority should be your heart.

[32:14] When you hear that, you should say, is my heart right with God? It should be number one. Seek first the kingdom of God, Jesus says, and then all things shall be added onto you.

[32:25] You want those things? Then seek me above all things. The first commandment, to love your God with all your might, all your strength. There shall be no other God.

[32:38] He says, above all things, and he tells you it's beyond cure. You can't put enough booze, pornography, I don't care whatever you think, your ego, money, I don't care whatever you want to put.

[32:52] You can't put enough in there to cure it. So this is what we're learning. We're looking at Timothy at the end days. He's telling us that these men, they go in and take advantage, and I'm not going to go real far in this, but I just want to just share a little bit.

[33:10] We're going to be closing. But I work with the homeless population. I go in the female shelter here regularly, and I see this happening. These women are burdened down.

[33:21] I don't want to undersell them. They're burdened down raising children by themselves. And they get tired. They don't want to be lonely anymore.

[33:34] These men, that I can't even call men, will wooze them enough only to hurt them more. This is what Paul says at the end times. These women will be vulnerable because of men.

[33:50] Again, we'll always be learning. Daniel goes as far as says that deceitful will prosper in the Antichrist's hand. So deceit will prosper.

[34:04] So anyway, we will close this down here pretty soon. So I'd like to shift gears just a little bit here. If a man's heart is so wicked, what are the duties and responsibilities of the members of the body of Christ?

[34:15] I don't say church anymore. You'll notice I'll start saying it because I don't, since post-pandemic, church doesn't fit no more. Those who are in the body of Christ, those who are believers of Jesus Christ are in the body.

[34:28] They are the ones that are going to get raptured. They are the ones that have the power of the Holy Spirit. They are the five virgins. So anyway, there's multiple, but again, like I said, I'm going to narrow them down to two here.

[34:43] Number one, we should be watchmen on the wall. We should be always crying out for Israel. We should be praying for her. We should be giving to her. We should be advocating for her.

[34:56] It is our responsibility as watchmen. We saw that flared up in that short week. Israel loses 200 and some people in a very nasty captivity and then slash kills thousands or 1,100 or somewhere, a little over a thousand, I can't remember.

[35:11] And as soon as they retaliate, they were considered the enemy. We got to pray for them. Second thing we need to do is we understand we are the restrainer.

[35:27] We are the thing that holds back this dyke that I just now just read briefly. We hold it back. It is our responsibility. God isn't looking at a sinner saying, what are you doing?

[35:38] Are you holding on? Are you living up to your sinful ways? He's not saying that. He's looking at the body of believers. And again, he's in his body. If anybody knows anything about body, you get an infection in there, you know what it's like?

[35:49] Blah. And if one of us ain't walking and doing what we're supposed to do in his body, he knows it. He's concerned about us. He says to us, what are you doing, Jim?

[36:04] How are you expanding the kingdom? When's the last time you've given? He's questioning me. He wants to know what am I doing. This is what we are.

[36:15] We are the restrainer. We hold back, so to speak, the dyke, the evil one. So I'm getting close to the end. I'm going to teach next month, so I'm going to kind of go just one little short step here.

[36:26] I'm going to go to 2 Thessalonians since we're close in the neighborhood, and I'm going to talk about the restrainer just a little bit. And like I said, then we'll close off with prayer and enjoy this Sabbath day.

[36:40] So here at 2 Corinthians verse 2, I'm going to start on the top here. It says, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and us being gathered to him, so do we know what that is?

[36:54] The rapture, because these people thought they missed the rapture. We ask your brothers not to become so easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, some deceitful, these are my words, some false report, false news, again, we see it, we hear it, report or letter, listen to their type of things.

[37:11] We can get it in a second. Supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come. Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs.

[37:29] I just talked 25 minutes about rebellion. It's occurring now. Paul tells us, what's the first signal? We need to know when people are being rebellious, where they think they're above the law and there is no law, and there is no God.

[37:43] I will do what I please. Paul tells us the rebellion must occur, so we saw that. I would say, Paul, you got me there, but he says, and the man of allness is revealed, the man of doom of destruction.

[37:56] He'll oppose himself, exalt himself over everything that is called God or his worship. So he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God. Now you know how egotistical this man is going to be.

[38:09] And they call it charismatic. I call full of himself, probably. But anyway, he says, don't you remember that when I was with you, I used to tell you these things. I wish that we could get a little more about that.

[38:20] And now to know what is holding him back so that he may be revealed at the proper time for the secret power of the lawlessness is already at work.

[38:32] I ain't a bit surprised that the lawless one, the Antichrist, is already existing today. He may not know it. And Satan may not have thrown his power, obviously, in him, but he always has a man that he's grooming.

[38:47] So if something happens, he reads the word, he knows what's going to happen until he doesn't believe and he's deceived, he's always doubling down. But he might have 10 or 12 Antichrists ready to go. There'll be one.

[38:59] But hear me out. The secret power of the lawless one is already again in progress, but the one who holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.

[39:13] What needs to be taken out of the way? Us. We. It's said we don't fit. What are we going to do during the tribulation?

[39:25] Prophesize? Are we going to say, well, those are the two prophets that actually were dead, they came back, it's Elijah, or it's Moses, or it's Enoch, and it's, you know, what are we going to, oh yeah, this guy's going to get a fatal wound in the head.

[39:38] Watch this, he'll be Kennedy, but he's going to come back to life. No, we aren't here. No reason for us to be here. We don't fit. So we are removed.

[39:51] Now the gates are wide open. Now you can see when Paul talks about this godlessness, why it's going so crazy. If we think it's bad now, just imagine without us here what it's going to be like.

[40:03] And you wonder why God says, I've shortened the days, I've knocked a third of the moon out and the sun out, I'm going to make only like 12 hour days, because you can't take that kind of stress. And God's judgment, 21 of them are flying one after another, after another, and Satan's doing his thing.

[40:19] Three quarters of the world dies. Israel ends up with one third out of, I'll just say roughly, 18 million people, so let's just keep simple math, six million people of Israel will be living when Jesus returns, and they will be the majority of the population.

[40:34] I know this is hard to fathom, but this is what the book of Revelation and Daniel is telling us about. This is what's going to go on. Murdering will be nothing. So that's why we need to hold true.

[40:48] We need to stand firm. We need to continue to stand with that full armor, suit on, and contend for the Lord. Don't be bashful.

[40:59] Talk to somebody. Tell them. Use truth and grace, but tell them. I wouldn't say these things to you unless I was concerned about you. So we're going to close off in prayer here, and we're going to, like I said again, I'm going to read out of Revelation for a prayer, so Harold, whenever you're ready, come on up.

[41:18] I'm going to just finish off here. I want to read something here for those who maybe haven't given their life to Christ. I notice John does this, and he does a great job. I'm going to kind of do my best here, but I want to read from Revelation as a prayer.

[41:31] It says, then I saw in the right hand of him who sat at the throne, a scroll writing both sides of the seal. I saw a mighty age proclaim loud voice, who is worthy to break the seal and open the scroll? But not one in heaven or on earth or under earth could open that scroll and look inside.

[41:53] John says, I wept and I wept because no one was found who was worthy to open that scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said, I love this, do not weep.

[42:10] See, the lion of tribe of Judah, the root of David, has triumphed. It's triumphed for us. He is able to open that scroll and it's seven seals.

[42:22] And this is where I think we're all going to be. This is the end times. And there in the center, and here are what you're going to say, then I saw a lamb looking as if it's been slain. I think among all the whistles and bells and the beautiful skies and all us in beautiful resurrected bodies, but we'll be looking at that slain and at the very end, remembering when I gave my life to Christ.

[42:46] What a price was paid. It says there, looking as if I've been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and elders, he had seven horns, seven eyes, which are all seven spirits.

[43:01] God sent it into all the earth. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him, God the Father, who sat on the throne. And then when he had taken it, the four living creatures, the 24 elders, all of us, bowed down before the lamb.

[43:17] That is going to be one glorious day. Kneel down before him and all of us will have vividly in our mind the day we gave our life to Christ. Father, we thank you in the name of Jesus for this time.

[43:28] Thank you for giving me the strength. Thank you for waking me up to do it. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.