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00:00:00.000 | I am James Hong and welcome to the Surpassing Value Podcast.
00:00:15.620 | The fuel and desire for this podcast was born out of a compulsion to flesh out what's
00:00:19.740 | been going on in the midst of an ocean of megaphones that may not actually withstand
00:00:24.600 | the test of scrutiny.
00:00:26.620 | As a signpost theologian, I will do my best to filter out the impurities and point people
00:00:32.320 | in the right direction.
00:00:37.620 | For this episode, I wanted to spend some time talking about Christ through the lens of the
00:00:45.820 | greater than Solomon.
00:00:47.140 | Christ through the lens of the greater than Solomon.
00:00:50.140 | I stated in episode 1 that every now and then I will be taking portions of the scriptures
00:00:56.820 | and using these portions as the substantive material for the episode.
00:01:02.420 | My reasoning behind that is simple.
00:01:05.100 | The scriptures are the crown jewel of all thought and life, or as it's stated in 2 Peter
00:01:12.740 | 1.3, "For his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness
00:01:20.020 | through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence."
00:01:27.180 | Depending on the episode, it will be because of the design of the previous episodes that
00:01:32.780 | makes it necessary and/or these portions of the scriptures have made a particularly indelible
00:01:40.040 | mark and/or I just very plainly find them particularly fascinating.
00:01:46.860 | In this episode, I'm going to be reading large swaths of the scriptures.
00:01:52.140 | You're going to have to wait a bit as I connect them together, but I assure you they indeed
00:01:58.420 | do connect together.
00:02:01.820 | The first two swaths come from Matthew 6 24-34 and Matthew 6 24-34 and Matthew 6 24-34 and
00:02:11.500 | Matthew 12 30-42.
00:02:19.060 | No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he
00:02:24.780 | will be devoted to one and despise the other.
00:02:27.980 | You cannot serve God and wealth.
00:02:30.580 | For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or
00:02:34.980 | what you will drink, not for your body, as to what you will put on.
00:02:39.300 | Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing?
00:02:42.580 | Look at the birds of the sky, that they do not sow nor reap nor gather crops into the
00:02:47.020 | barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
00:02:50.140 | Are you not much more important than they?
00:02:52.780 | And which of you by worrying can add a single day to his lifespan?
00:02:56.900 | And why are you worried about clothing?
00:02:59.100 | Notice how the lilies of the field grow.
00:03:01.060 | They do not labor, nor do they spin thread for cloth, yet I say to you that not even
00:03:05.660 | Solomon in all of his glory clothed himself like one of these.
00:03:10.340 | But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown
00:03:14.140 | into the furnace, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith?
00:03:18.600 | Do not worry then, saying, "Where are we to eat?" or "What are we to drink?" or "What
00:03:22.940 | are we to wear for clothing?"
00:03:24.700 | For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, for your heavenly Father knows that you need
00:03:29.220 | all these things.
00:03:30.220 | But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you.
00:03:35.620 | So, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.
00:03:40.140 | Each day has enough trouble of its own.
00:03:44.300 | Matthew 12, 30-42 says this, "The one who is not with me is against me, and the one
00:03:49.620 | who does not gather with me scatters.
00:03:52.380 | Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against
00:03:57.420 | the Spirit shall not be forgiven.
00:03:59.940 | And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever
00:04:03.860 | speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in
00:04:08.820 | the age to come.
00:04:10.560 | Either assume the tree to be good as well as its fruit good, or assume the tree to be
00:04:14.740 | bad as well as its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit.
00:04:18.800 | You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, express any good things?
00:04:24.380 | For the mouth speaks from that which fills the heart.
00:04:27.500 | The good person brings out of his good treasure good things, and the evil person brings out
00:04:31.420 | of his evil treasure evil things.
00:04:33.380 | But I tell you that for every careless word that people speak, they will give an account
00:04:39.020 | of it on the day of judgment.
00:04:40.780 | For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.
00:04:45.140 | Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, 'Teacher, we want to see a sign from
00:04:49.300 | you.'
00:04:50.540 | But he answered and said to them, 'An evil and adulterous generation craves a sign, and
00:04:55.340 | so no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet.
00:04:59.180 | For just as Jonah was in the stomach of the sea monster for three days and three nights,
00:05:03.580 | so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.
00:05:07.580 | The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn
00:05:11.540 | it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah.
00:05:14.140 | And behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
00:05:16.860 | The queen of the south will rise up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn
00:05:21.040 | it because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon.
00:05:26.100 | And behold, something greater than Solomon is here."
00:05:31.740 | In these two passages, the common theme you see here is the comparison to Solomon.
00:05:37.820 | In the first passage, not even Solomon was comparable in all his glory to just the lilies
00:05:44.500 | of the field.
00:05:46.180 | In the second passage I read to you, the inference and context is that not even Solomon's wisdom
00:05:53.980 | was comparable to the wisdom of Christ.
00:05:58.600 | So you have glory and wisdom, you have wisdom and glory.
00:06:03.380 | It would appear then that Solomon was the gold standard, and in fact he was, and the
00:06:09.100 | epitome of both of these given the way these passages are read.
00:06:13.700 | Why else would Solomon be used as a standard bearer in the words of Christ?
00:06:19.420 | This is corroborated by what we see historically and what we see in the Old Testament Scriptures.
00:06:26.460 | Up until that time and since the coming of Jesus Christ, nobody had exceeded Solomon's
00:06:32.300 | glory and nobody was even heard to have had such wisdom.
00:06:39.420 | In the first passage I read to you, Matthew 6, 24-34, Jesus is encouraging his hearers
00:06:44.820 | to do something remarkable and something that requires an incredible amount of trust.
00:06:50.500 | He's telling his hearers not to worry.
00:06:53.860 | As he tells his hearers not to worry, Christ begins to rationalize why they should not
00:06:58.300 | worry by reeling examples that are clear and contemporaneous.
00:07:03.820 | Christ not only gives examples, but employs bulletproof logic and reason to his argument.
00:07:13.100 | Look at the birds of the air.
00:07:15.020 | They are fed and they are fine.
00:07:17.940 | You, being a human being, being made in the image of God, are more important than a bird.
00:07:24.940 | Birds are not made in the image of God.
00:07:26.940 | So if the birds are taken care of and they are not made in the image of God, by science
00:07:32.800 | of necessary inference, you would also be taken care of.
00:07:37.540 | That is bulletproof logic.
00:07:39.780 | Here's more bulletproof logic and reasoning.
00:07:42.100 | He goes on to state, Christ goes on to state, "And even if you do worry, what does worrying
00:07:48.060 | do?
00:07:49.380 | Does it add to your life?
00:07:51.540 | The answer is a resounding no.
00:07:53.780 | It does nothing anyway.
00:07:55.260 | Worrying doesn't do a thing.
00:07:57.460 | So consider the lilies of the field.
00:08:00.420 | You accept them to be beautiful, and objectively they are.
00:08:04.500 | They are beautiful and they are glorious.
00:08:07.500 | But even Solomon, in all of his glory, was not like one of these lilies.
00:08:15.020 | And if there was one human being throughout history, not just in the history of Israel,
00:08:20.220 | but throughout the history of mankind up to that point, that would have shown as human
00:08:25.500 | majesty, it would have been Solomon.
00:08:29.460 | Yet even Solomon, in terms of appearance, could not compare to a lily.
00:08:34.580 | The lilies do nothing, yet are all the more glorious than Solomon with respect to outward
00:08:42.100 | appearance.
00:08:43.860 | If all of these things are indeed true, and they are, then does it stand to reason that
00:08:50.580 | we kill ourselves worrying about circumstances we cannot control anyway, and does not really
00:08:58.140 | add anything positive to our lives?"
00:09:02.140 | Again, bullet-proof logic.
00:09:05.500 | In the second passage, Matthew 12, 30-42, Jesus has just implicitly called out the Pharisees
00:09:11.260 | for being bad fruit.
00:09:13.180 | Challenged by this seeming new teacher who had crowds following him out of hunger and
00:09:17.300 | curiosity, the jealous Pharisees ask Jesus to prove who he says he is.
00:09:22.620 | They ask him to perform a sign, but at their own whim.
00:09:26.220 | Jesus had already been performing many signs to verify who he was and had already fulfilled
00:09:31.820 | much of the prophecies concerning who the Messiah would be.
00:09:35.380 | Jesus had already been preaching to the crowds as well.
00:09:38.180 | He had been spending his life exercising power and speaking truth, healing the masses physically,
00:09:44.520 | but more importantly, spiritually.
00:09:47.740 | Concerning Jonah, since Jonah is explicitly alluded to here, Jonah was a reluctant prophet
00:09:52.780 | who had been begrudgingly sent to Nineveh.
00:09:55.660 | He hated the Ninevites because of who they were and what they had done.
00:09:59.640 | So when he gets there, his sermon to the people of Nineveh is merely the following, and that's
00:10:04.380 | in Jonah 3-4.
00:10:05.960 | This is Jonah's sermon to the Ninevites, the reluctant prophet.
00:10:10.420 | "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown."
00:10:15.340 | Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.
00:10:18.400 | There's nothing else recorded except those words.
00:10:22.380 | Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.
00:10:27.020 | And the Ninevites repented at that preaching.
00:10:33.640 | So Jesus states that the Ninevites, who had repented when they were given much less, that
00:10:41.180 | there will be a time and a place in the future where the Ninevites, who had repented at the
00:10:47.260 | preaching of Jonah, will actually condemn the generation that saw and heard Jesus preach,
00:10:53.940 | but not repent.
00:10:55.720 | In the same way, the queen of the south will rise up with that same generation, who heard
00:11:01.500 | and saw the preaching of Christ, and also condemn it because she acknowledged God via
00:11:08.180 | Solomon and Christ was much greater than Solomon.
00:11:14.180 | What you have to understand here is that this isn't some imaginary pie in the sky, by and
00:11:20.660 | by.
00:11:21.660 | Jesus is talking about an actual, future, real, definite event that will occur.
00:11:31.980 | It will absolutely come to fruition.
00:11:38.900 | The Ninevites that repented at Jonah's preaching, the queen of the south that acknowledged God
00:11:45.380 | because she saw Solomon, they will rebuke the generation that saw and heard Jesus' preaching,
00:11:54.100 | but not repent, because Jesus was so much greater than Jonah or Solomon.
00:12:00.860 | Regarding the queen of the south and Solomon, I want to read to you 1 Kings 10 verses 1-10.
00:12:08.580 | 1 Kings 10 verses 1-10.
00:12:12.420 | Now when the queen of Sheba, that's the queen of the south, now when the queen of Sheba
00:12:16.020 | heard about the fame of Solomon in relation to the name of the Lord, she came to test
00:12:20.460 | him with riddles.
00:12:21.800 | So she came to Jerusalem with a very large entourage, with camels carrying balsam oil,
00:12:26.380 | and a very large quantity of gold and precious stones.
00:12:30.100 | When she came to Solomon, she spoke to him about everything that was in her heart.
00:12:33.780 | And Solomon answered all her questions, nothing was concealed from the king, which he did
00:12:38.420 | not explain to her.
00:12:40.040 | And the queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon, and the house that he had built,
00:12:44.220 | and the food of his table, the seating of his servants, the service of his waiters in
00:12:48.180 | their attire, his cupbearers, and his burnt offerings which he offered at the house of
00:12:51.980 | the Lord.
00:12:52.980 | She was breathless.
00:12:53.980 | Then she said to the king, "It was a true story that I heard in my own land about your
00:12:58.140 | words and your wisdom.
00:13:00.260 | But I did not believe the stories until I came and my own eyes saw it all.
00:13:04.900 | And behold, the half of it was not reported to me.
00:13:07.900 | You have exceeded in wisdom and prosperity the report which I heard.
00:13:12.220 | Blessed are your men, and blessed are the servants of yours who stand before you continually
00:13:16.700 | and hear your wisdom.
00:13:18.380 | Blessed be the Lord your God who has delighted in you to put you on the throne of Israel,
00:13:24.000 | because the Lord loves Israel forever.
00:13:27.960 | He made you king to do justice and righteousness."
00:13:32.320 | Then she gave the king 120 talents of gold and a very large amount of balsam oil and
00:13:38.000 | precious stones.
00:13:39.680 | Never again did such a large quantity of balsam oil come in as that which the Queen of Sheba
00:13:45.200 | gave King Solomon.
00:13:48.500 | The Queen of Sheba was most likely the Queen of Ethiopia or the Queen of Yemen.
00:13:53.600 | Either kingdom would have been a relatively strong and influential kingdom.
00:13:59.080 | Even an extremely powerful international female figure coming to test to see if this so-called
00:14:05.560 | new ruler is everything people have stated him to be.
00:14:10.880 | Solomon during this time built a kingdom and in terms of sheer international power and
00:14:16.160 | influence was greater than any other kingdom this world had ever seen or has seen.
00:14:24.040 | His wealth and his wisdom had reached legendary status.
00:14:27.640 | During Solomon's own lifetime, the Queen of Sheba hearing about this decides to test
00:14:32.320 | for herself if all the reports people saying about him are true.
00:14:38.080 | Is it perhaps one of those rumor mill stories that end up just getting exaggerated as more
00:14:43.400 | people speak about him or are the rumors based on objective facts?
00:14:48.400 | When she sees for herself and tests Solomon for herself, not only is everything said about
00:14:52.920 | him true, Solomon far exceeds everything the Queen of Sheba had heard about him.
00:14:58.280 | Notice also that she was keen in understanding that the wisdom Solomon had wasn't because
00:15:03.920 | he himself was inherently special, rather she gave God all the glory.
00:15:10.840 | She stated that it was God who put Solomon on the throne of Israel because the Lord loves
00:15:16.000 | Israel forever.
00:15:17.500 | It was apparent in Solomon's life that his wisdom and glory came supernaturally.
00:15:27.400 | This echoes Matthew 5.16, let me read it to you, it says this.
00:15:32.040 | Jesus says, "Your light must shine before people in such a way that they may see your
00:15:37.720 | good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven."
00:15:42.840 | We should do our works in a way that glorifies, who?
00:15:48.040 | Us?
00:15:49.040 | No.
00:15:50.040 | We should do it in a way that brings attention, even just a little bit to ourselves, no.
00:15:57.320 | We should serve in such a way that glorifies our Father completely.
00:16:03.920 | Where people understand the root and source of strength of our good works belongs to our
00:16:11.760 | Father.
00:16:12.760 | Moreover, Solomon's kingdom was a model for justice and righteousness.
00:16:21.440 | So picture this scenario.
00:16:23.700 | For the Jews, there was one central figure that they could relate to that showed the
00:16:28.640 | greatness of Israel politically and physically.
00:16:33.080 | This was a greatness that would one day be again achieved because of the promises of
00:16:37.760 | God.
00:16:38.760 | They were once again looking forward to a political and physical kingdom that would
00:16:43.400 | have Israel once again as a capital of the world.
00:16:47.360 | This would be accomplished by the Messiah.
00:16:51.040 | The Old Testament scriptures do indeed make that clear.
00:16:55.960 | The Old Testament talks about the future Messiah.
00:16:58.320 | Once again, restoring Israel to its proper place as the political capital of the world.
00:17:05.000 | Indeed, Jerusalem is pictured as such.
00:17:09.080 | So even after Jesus' resurrection, after the apostles had spent time with the risen
00:17:14.440 | Lord, they believed in the same.
00:17:17.480 | Acts chapter 1, 6-8 states, "So when they had come together, they began asking Him,
00:17:24.360 | saying, 'Lord, is it at this time that You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?'
00:17:30.600 | And He said to them, 'It is not for you to know periods of time or appointed times
00:17:35.520 | which the Father has set by His own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit
00:17:40.160 | has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria,
00:17:46.520 | and as far as the remotest part of the earth.'"
00:17:50.520 | Notice Jesus doesn't correct them about the restoration of Israel.
00:17:54.760 | Rather, He says to them that it is not their place to know the exact timing of such restoration.
00:18:02.720 | However, the Old Testament also talks very explicitly about the Messiah coming as a suffering
00:18:12.520 | servant who would be rejected by His own people, which we see very poignantly in Isaiah 53.
00:18:22.460 | It is within this context that Jesus comes on the scene, claiming to be that Messiah.
00:18:29.120 | People are confused because if He is indeed the Messiah, then when is He going to set
00:18:33.900 | up the kingdom, politically?
00:18:36.700 | What they didn't understand was prior to setting up the kingdom, the Messiah would
00:18:41.760 | fulfill man's greatest need, and man's greatest need is the need for a Savior.
00:18:50.040 | A Savior who could bring sinful man into a right posture with a holy God.
00:18:56.600 | So as man looks on the outside, God cares about us so much more deeply, and cares for
00:19:02.760 | us on the inside.
00:19:05.840 | People were looking at the long-promised and prophesied greatness of the Messiah, and as
00:19:12.320 | they were looking at the face of God, His goodness, His beauty, and His truth, they
00:19:19.520 | didn't recognize Him.
00:19:22.800 | Isaiah 53, 1-6 states, "Who has believed our report?
00:19:28.280 | And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
00:19:31.360 | For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground.
00:19:35.320 | He has no stately form or majesty that we would look at Him, nor an appearance that
00:19:40.000 | we would take pleasure in Him.
00:19:42.440 | He was despised and abandoned by men, a man of great pain and familiar with sickness,
00:19:47.600 | and like one from whom people hide their faces, He was despised, and we had no regard for
00:19:52.320 | Him.
00:19:53.320 | However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore, and our pains that He carried, yet we
00:19:58.940 | ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted, struck down by God, and humiliated.
00:20:04.120 | And He was pierced for our offenses, He was crushed for our wrongdoings, the punishment
00:20:10.160 | for our well-being was laid upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.
00:20:15.240 | All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord
00:20:20.840 | has caused the wrongdoing of us all to fall on Him."
00:20:28.800 | He was greater than Solomon in glory, but wasn't recognized.
00:20:33.960 | He was greater than Solomon in wisdom, but wasn't recognized.
00:20:38.720 | The question is now personal to every individual who has walked this earth.
00:20:46.160 | Will you recognize Him?
00:20:48.880 | Do you recognize Him?
00:20:53.120 | Listen to what Zechariah says in Zechariah 14.
00:20:56.640 | This is a passage that trips up many people, so listen to it in full.
00:21:03.920 | Zechariah 14, "Behold, a day is coming for the Lord when the spoils taken from you will
00:21:10.840 | be divided among you.
00:21:12.880 | For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be
00:21:17.400 | taken, the houses plundered, the women raped, and half of the city exiled, but the rest
00:21:22.800 | of the people will not be eliminated from the city.
00:21:25.720 | Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day
00:21:29.800 | of battle.
00:21:31.200 | On that day, His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem
00:21:38.080 | on the east, and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west,
00:21:43.800 | forming a very large valley.
00:21:46.120 | Half of the mountain will move toward the north, and the other half toward the south,
00:21:49.800 | and you will flee by the valley of My mountains, for the valley of the mountains will reach
00:21:53.800 | to Azel, yes, you will flee just as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah
00:21:58.920 | king of Judah.
00:21:59.920 | Then the Lord, my God, will come, and all the holy ones with Him.
00:22:04.520 | On that day there will be no light, the luminaries will die out, for it will be a unique day
00:22:09.760 | which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but it will come about that at the
00:22:14.200 | time of evening there will be light.
00:22:18.520 | And on that day living waters will flow out of Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern
00:22:23.040 | sea and the other half toward the western sea, it will be in summer as well as in winter.
00:22:29.360 | And the Lord will be king over all the earth, and on that day the Lord will be the only
00:22:34.080 | one and His name the only one.
00:22:37.440 | All the land will change into a plain from Geba to Rimen south of Jerusalem, but Jerusalem
00:22:43.160 | will rise and remain on its site from Benjamin's gate as far as the place of the first gate
00:22:49.160 | to the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananel to the king's winepresses.
00:22:53.840 | People will live in it, and there will no longer be a curse, for Jerusalem will live
00:22:58.280 | in security.
00:22:59.840 | Now this will be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the peoples who have
00:23:03.200 | gone to war against Jerusalem.
00:23:05.240 | Their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets,
00:23:11.080 | and their tongue will rot in their mouth.
00:23:13.280 | And it will come about on that day that a great panic from the Lord will fall on them,
00:23:17.240 | and they will seize one another's hand, and the hand of one will be raised against
00:23:21.360 | the hand of another.
00:23:22.920 | Judah also will fight at Jerusalem, and the wealth of all the surrounding nations will
00:23:27.120 | be gathered, gold, silver, and garments in great abundance.
00:23:30.600 | And just like this plague, there will be a plague on the horse, the mule, the camel,
00:23:35.320 | and the donkey, and all the cattle that will be in those camps.
00:23:39.260 | Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem
00:23:44.440 | will go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of armies, and to celebrate
00:23:49.400 | the Feast of Booths.
00:23:51.120 | And it will be that whichever of the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to
00:23:54.880 | worship the King, the Lord of armies, there will be no rain on them.
00:23:58.740 | And if the family of Egypt does not go up or enter, then no rain will fall on them.
00:24:04.080 | It will be the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations that do not go up to celebrate
00:24:09.080 | the Feast of Booths.
00:24:10.880 | This will be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not
00:24:15.160 | go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths.
00:24:18.400 | On that day there will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, "Holy to the Lord."
00:24:23.960 | And the cooking pots in the Lord's houses will be like the bowls before the altar.
00:24:28.600 | Every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the Lord of armies.
00:24:32.600 | And all whose sacrifice will come and take of them and boil in them, and there will no
00:24:38.320 | longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord of the armies on that day.
00:24:46.760 | So the Messiah will come when there seems to be absolutely no hope for the nation of
00:24:54.280 | Israel.
00:24:57.080 | The Messiah will literally touch down on the Mount of Olives with His Holy Ones.
00:25:05.800 | The Messiah will physically touch down on the Mount of Olives with His Holy Ones.
00:25:14.180 | They're going to touch down and take care of business.
00:25:19.480 | It's interesting because it seems like the manner in which He comes parallels lightning.
00:25:24.840 | It would seem like He comes at an extremely dark time, not only in terms of the context,
00:25:31.900 | but also celestially.
00:25:35.140 | Then with a flash of bright light, He comes and He takes care of business.
00:25:42.860 | After that, Jerusalem will once again be the capital of the world.
00:25:48.320 | And the nations will be required to come and pay tribute.
00:25:53.680 | And if you don't, there will be consequences.
00:25:58.640 | This is what we know as the millennial kingdom of Christ.
00:26:04.600 | This is the millennial kingdom of Christ.
00:26:09.040 | Towards the end of the tribulation, as Israel is being devastated and ransacked, when there
00:26:18.100 | is absolutely seemingly no human hope, Christ will come after the luminaries, after the
00:26:27.760 | sky gives up its light.
00:26:30.720 | And you're going to see His bright light.
00:26:34.160 | He's going to physically touch down and it's going to cause a great, great shattering of
00:26:40.880 | the earth.
00:26:42.780 | And He's going to appear with His Holy Ones, vanquish Israel by killing Israel's enemies.
00:26:53.640 | And they will see Him as plain as day and they will know who their Messiah is.
00:27:04.480 | I want to read to you Matthew 24 verses 1 through 28.
00:27:08.960 | Jesus left the temple area and was going on His way when His disciples came up to point
00:27:13.100 | out the temple buildings to Him.
00:27:15.400 | But He responded and said to them, "Do you not see all these things?
00:27:18.920 | Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn
00:27:23.800 | down."
00:27:25.080 | And as He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately saying,
00:27:33.080 | "Tell us, when will these things happen?
00:27:36.000 | And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"
00:27:42.200 | And Jesus answered and said to them, "See to it that no one misleads you, for many will
00:27:46.040 | come in My name saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will mislead many people.
00:27:50.240 | And you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars.
00:27:52.940 | See that you are not alarmed, for those things must take place.
00:27:56.460 | But that is not yet the end, for nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom,
00:28:00.880 | and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
00:28:03.820 | But these things are merely the beginning of birth pains.
00:28:06.120 | Then they will hand you over to the tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all
00:28:11.540 | nations because of My name.
00:28:12.920 | And at that time many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one
00:28:17.280 | another, and many false prophets will rise up and mislead many people.
00:28:21.880 | And because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will become cold.
00:28:26.200 | But the one who endures to the end is the one who will be saved.
00:28:29.160 | The gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the
00:28:33.960 | nations, and then the end will come."
00:28:37.080 | Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel
00:28:41.200 | the prophet, standing in the holy place, let the reader understand that those who are on
00:28:45.880 | Judaea must flee to the mountains.
00:28:48.040 | Whoever is on the housetop must not go down to get the things out of his house, and whoever
00:28:52.000 | is in the field must not turn back to get his cloak.
00:28:54.640 | But woe to those women who are pregnant, and to those who are nursing babies in those days!
00:28:59.000 | Moreover, pray that when you flee it will not be in the winter or on a Sabbath, for
00:29:03.280 | there will be a great tribulation as such has not occurred since the beginning of the
00:29:06.800 | world until now nor ever will again.
00:29:09.720 | And if those days had not been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the
00:29:13.560 | sake of the elect, those days will be cut short.
00:29:17.040 | Then if anyone says to you, "Behold, here is the Christ," or "He is over here,"
00:29:20.800 | do not believe him; for false Christs and false prophets will arise and will provide
00:29:25.920 | great signs and wonders so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.
00:29:30.040 | Behold, I have told you in advance, so if they say to you, "Behold, he is in the wilderness,"
00:29:35.720 | do not go out; or "Behold, he is in the inner rooms," do not believe them; for just
00:29:41.080 | as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming
00:29:49.800 | of the Son of Man.
00:29:52.120 | Wherever the corpse is there the vultures will gather.
00:29:58.760 | Jesus is here looking at the very place he will touch down upon in the future.
00:30:07.960 | And he is telling his disciples about a future event that is to occur.
00:30:14.920 | His coming is real.
00:30:15.920 | His second coming is an absolutely real and certain event.
00:30:22.960 | And let me tell you, even if we never see it in our lifetime, we all die.
00:30:29.000 | The death rate for all human beings is one hundred percent.
00:30:33.480 | Nobody has survived death itself.
00:30:36.260 | We will all see the Lord one way or another.
00:30:40.520 | You are not Enoch and you are certainly not Elijah.
00:30:45.520 | The question is, do you recognize him?
00:30:49.860 | Do you recognize him?
00:30:52.240 | Or will you be someone who should have recognized him, only to be condemned by those who did?
00:31:04.080 | Thanks for making it to the end.
00:31:05.880 | I'll continue to try to make the journey worth it.
00:31:10.940 | To him be honor, glory, and eternal dominion, James Hongel.
00:31:15.320 | God bless you.
00:31:22.320 | God bless you.
00:31:38.320 | God bless you.
00:31:42.320 | God bless you.
00:31:43.320 | God bless you.
00:31:44.320 | God bless you.
00:31:44.320 | (upbeat music)
00:31:46.900 | (upbeat music)