Israel in Biblical Prophecy: Covenant, Expectation, and Prayer

Thank you, Connor. You guys can have a seat. Hey, as you're taking a seat, would you uh not just sit alone, could you just slap somebody and say shalom. Shalom. Come on. You might have to run around just a little. Shalom. Shalom. Shalom. Shalom. Cow. Shalom to you. Come on, somebody. Shalom. Shalom. Shalom to those watching online. A very special greetings to our friends, the Gillons in Texas who are watching right now. Shalom. Shalom. If if you're not familiar with that saying, it simply means what does it mean? Shout it out. Peace. Uh it's God's perfect peace. It's not it's not just any peace. It's God's perfect peace. It's so important that we know that. In fact, if you join us in Israel, you'll say shalom quite a bit everywhere we go. It's it's not just a a a state of mind. It's actually a

greeting. It's a goodbye. It's it's it's what you you should say to one another. It's what you speak life over one another. We ought to bring back that shalom. Hey, before we get into our time tonight, and uh I appreciate Connor's prayer. I see several shirts that say Yeshua. Uh James over here has one and Dena has one. And we just sang that song, Yeshua. And I really felt the need tonight to remember why we're even gathered right now. And and my heart of of doing this prophecy night specifically about Israel. The name Yeshua is actually the name that Jesus would have been called daily. So when he was born and when he was raised and uh when Mary was looking for him on the journey back home to Nazareth

and she asked Joseph and she would have said, "Where's Yeshua?" That's what she would have said, "Yhua." Uh it's it's really important that we understand that was actually the Hebrew name that was given to Jesus. And it's a combination of of two meanings. Number one is Yah, which is just a shortened version of Yahweh. I am who I am. It's the most sacred holy name of God. It's not used in Israel. Instead of saying Yahweh, they say Hashem. Does anyone know what Hashem means? It's Hebrew. What does it mean? It just simply means the name. Because the name Yahweh is so sacred, they don't even want to say the name

because of the deep reverence of the name Yahweh. It's so beautiful and so holy and so sacred. Instead of saying Yahweh in Israel, you will commonly hear, and it's important when you go there, you'll hear them refer to God as Hashem. And we're not really used to that in the western culture because we just throw out names so liberally and loosely. But the name Yah is so sacred and so serious that even to this day it's it has a deep reverence. So Yeshua is Yahweh. Yah. And then it's it's literally uh Yahweh saves or we could put it this way. It's not just the verb like he saves. Yahweh is salvation.

So there's only one way to be saved. It's through Yahweh. So when you think of the name Yeshua, God has revealed himself, John chapter 1, in the flesh through the person Yeshua, Jesus. He is the only way that we can be saved. So when we sing the name Yeshua, it's so eternal and ancient. It should never get old. that should always have a reverence, a sacredness, a beauty, a seriousness that he is the only one that saves. Actually, although it's a a small group of us tonight, it's like a living room. I almost don't need a microphone, but it's for those that are watching online, it there there's such a beauty. Is isn't Pastor Brandon when he just leads with

that guitar by himself? Sometimes there's just there's like a like a holiness. and uh Connor, just to have your your presence in this house. And there's just it's a beauty there. And I just before we got going, I just want to remind you the seriousness and the sacredness of Yeshua. We throw out the name Jesus and we sing Jesus and we speak of Jesus. And I'm speaking of the church in general, uh in general, but we don't ever want to lose the seriousness and the sacredness of Yeshua. He's our Messiah. In Hebrew is uh he's Yeshua Hamashiach. Hamashiach is Messiah, the anointed one. We say Christ, but Christ just means he is the anointed

one. And uh I just love it. This morning I spoke of John 15. Jesus is the true vine and we are the branches. And Jesus over and over says, "Abide in me. Abide in me. Abide in me." meaning connect in me, remain in me, remain in me. Because if you don't stay connected, the obvious and the implication is you're disconnected. Uh and if you stay in a relationship with someone, you have to constantly fight for that connection. Do you know what I mean? You have to fight for it. Uh and when I say fight for it, I mean in a good way. Paul says, I fought the good fight. It's a good fight. Uh like right before me is uh my daughter who turns 21 in December and I've been married to my wife uh in December 22

years. So do the math there. Uh we were not even married a year uh not even one full year when we had our first daughter. So nine months of that first year my wife was pregnant with child. And so here we are just I would say we were kids cuz we were in our 20s. Uh getting ready for a baby, but we don't even know how to be married yet. And uh thank you Jesus that she found a godly amazing man that she married, my new son-in-law. And uh so she's married. My son is at college in Los Angeles and my oldest is able to drive now. And so my wife and I are like realling in love. It's like we're dating again. We have like the house to ourselves again. And it's like I just look at her with fresh

new eyes and it's like we made it this far. This is so good. Like cuz like having kids is no joke. It's so hard. I talked to two different new mothers this morning who brand new babies born in the last month or two and they both want to dedicate their children at the church and I'm like, "Oh, I love baby dedications. I love baby dedications." But it's like raising kids is not for sissies. It's like it's hard. It's really hard. Uh and the only thing harder is being married with kids. And so it's like when you get to that season, it's just it's good. Come on, Kara. Give me a shout out amen or something. Uh I feel like I'm left alone here. Like but it's good. It's really good. And I tie that all the way back to Yeshua.

If you don't take care of your relationship with Yeshua, it will grow cold. You know, Jesus warning to the church is do not lose your first love. In fact, he warns the church that you have lost your first love. And so, there's this urgent call back to like love that name Yeshua. Do not let it get old. So, little side note tangent. Uh shalom. And we're going to I want to start this scripture is not going to be on the screen before we get into tonight. Matthew 16, Jesus is speaking. Uh it says the Matthew 16 verse1. I just want to set the stage for where we're going tonight. The Pharisees and the Sadducees came to test Jesus and they

asked him to show them a sign from heaven. So I need you to picture this. The most religious people of Jesus age, they come to him and they're testing him. Prove to us, give us some miraculous sign to show us that we should trust you or could trust you or that you are who people are saying you are. And Jesus answered them. Here was his response. When it is evening, you say it will be fair weather for the sky is red. And in the morning it will be a stormy day, for the sky is red and threatening. You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.

An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. So he left them and departed. And Jonah is a an Old Testament prophet, one of the easier prophetic books to read, only four chapters. And uh Jonah was a prophet who was called to go witness to Nineveh, a wicked and evil people. And like many of us that follow the Lord, he was rebellious and didn't do what God called him to the first time. And as we see with God over and over, he was gracious. And uh Jonah went and preached a message of repentance. And

uh but during that time of course there was the in between Jonah found himself in the belly of a fish. Do you remember that? Uh for for how long? Three days. Uh it was a simple sign of what would happen to Jesus. That's a greater sign of who he is. But I wonder today for those of us, you know, we're we're in a context that we live in such a great nation. I love America so much. But as much as I love America, there are so many um faults that come with it. So many distractions that come with it. Uh namely the capitalism and consumerism that we live in that we can so easily distract ourselves that none of us are even caring about signs of the end of the age.

And Jesus gave a simple warning to the religious people. You know about a lot of things, but you don't know about the signs of the times. I would kind of say the same thing to our generation. You know how to use this device that can give you any information in the world, but do you know that Jesus is coming and how to know he's coming? Because that's probably more important than anything else. Like, why is this room not filled with people? every seat filled and us warning our friends. Jesus is coming and I know where he's returning. It will not be central Oregon. It will not be California. Nor will it be Texas, nor will it be Washington DC.

It will be, we know with a confidence, in Jerusalem. It will be in Israel. And we ought to hunger and long for that day. And just because some time has passed, I believe like a little more than two days have passed according to what Peter says. Peter says that God is not slow to keeping his promise. A thousand days can be like a day to the Lord and a day can be like a thousand. So although for us we're like, "Oh, 2,000 years. When is Jesus going to come?" Come on, somebody. It hasn't been that long. uh we're about to celebrate 250 years as a nation. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt for longer than that.

So when you just start to look at a concept of time, it's important that we're doing this because I want us to look at the signs of the time. The purpose of this time together is to help us understand God's story of Israel and to deepen our love for Israel because God loves Israel. So, if you've missed anything, these are really casual. This is more like a living room time, but we have recorded all of these. So, you can always go back and rewatch as a foundation because there's a lot I won't cover tonight that if you feel like you've missed something, I want you to go back and you can even study on your own and even do some quick Google research or chat to PT. Uh, don't let that be your theology rabbi, but you can at least get some foundational facts to understand historically. God has a plan for Israel. And I want to tell you, it's a redemptive plan.

No matter how far and bad it looks lost, it's a redemp redemptive plan. The last time we got together to talk about prophecy, Israel, and the Bible was October 5th. And on October 5th, I just stumbled upon a I say stumbled like in my own words, like sometimes I feel like I don't even have a mustard seed of faith to pray things. And I I prayed with you all for the hostages of the Israelites to be released out of the hands of Hamas that they would go back home to Israel. And it would but be a week later after we gathered here on a Sunday evening that we prayed that prayer that by the grace of God and the sovereignty of the world leaders at power, our own President Donald Trump

and working together with world leaders, he he got those remaining hostages home. So don't neglect or as the prophet Zachchariah says, don't despise small beginnings that when you pray and you wonder, does God even hear my prayer? He might be waiting just for the right people to be praying. And if you ever wonder God's purpose and plan for your life, your purpose and plan is to align with God's. And we live in such an American culture, we can all of a sudden think God's world revolves around us and be careful with that. It's a very consumeristic version of uh God. So uh we want to know God's redemptive plan. So Jesus warns us, if

you know how to look at the weather, uh you should know how to look at the the signs of the times that he's coming. And I love central Oregon because just like Jesus described uh the the sunset and the sunrise, don't we have the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets? So every time you see those, it should remind you that we can determine the signs of the time just like we can determine the weather. We weather when it's dark and gray and you have no sunset. Well, you know, it's gloomy. It's not that good outside when it's just gorgeous sunset and it's, you know, cresting and orange and pinks and purples and you got just enough clouds to resonate the the different colors and creativity, you know, it's going to be okay. It's it's going to be beautiful. So, we want to be open. I'm

just going to give you five five reasons tonight that we care about Israel and uh many of the things that I' I'm sharing. I'm not going to go into detail because I've already shared about um but I want us to understand our heart. One thing you'd be certain of. So today was the end of daylight saving and now the sun went down early. Did you notice that? Uh but I'll promise you this. I promise you this. The sun's going to come back up tomorrow. And then tomorrow as you God willing we have some sunshine because the weather looks gloomy for the next week. Uh God willing we have sunshine. It's going to go down again and then it's going to come up again and it's go down again. And so the five things I'm going to share with you are as sure and certain as the sun rising and the sun setting.

And I don't know about you, but sometimes we take it for granted that happens. But it should be a blessing that the sun rose again on another day. It's a new day full of new mercies. And so, uh, my hope and my prayer is that we would be a witness to the world that this church stands with Israel, that we love Israel. Uh, it's a promise of God. Here's number one, Israel is God's chosen people. There's no question about that. Israel is God's chosen people. We don't have to be afraid of using language like that because it's just true. And for those of us that are true Gentiles, which I'm a pure-hearted Gentile, which means I'm just a mut. Uh I did one of those ancestry DNA tests hoping I would just even have 1% a half

a percent of some type of Jewish heritage in me. I don't even have any Israeli in me. I am a true Gentile mut. Uh, but Israel, if you have any Jew in you, does anybody know if they have any Jew in them? Do we? All right, we got one in the house. Hey, you're going to be like the chosen one tonight. Uh, we got one in the house. Some of you guys got to do some We got another Oh, okay. VA is too. Okay. Uh, Israel is God's chosen people. Now, if you have Jewish blood, for clarity, it doesn't mean you're better than everyone. It just means from the beginning this has been God's plan. We saw this in Genesis 12 with the Abrahamic covenant

when God spoke to Abram the promise out of you would come a great nation. This is so important that you always remember this was God's promise and those who bless you I will bless and those who curse you I will curse. And so we see from the beginning and you can study from that point on Genesis, the first book of the Bible. As you continue to read, God has a plan for Israel. And you see it over and over. And tonight in the prayer rally, I shared Isaiah 43:15. And you should remember who our God is. The Bible says that the Lord our God is the creator of Israel. Isaiah 43:15, the creator of Israel. It wasn't like man's idea to come together and say, "Hey, we're Jewish. Let's create a nation." It didn't work like that. America is cool like that because it was created and the

sovereignty of this great nation was hey let's not work under the oppression of a king. Let's have the freedom of our faith, a freedom of religion and let's have a freedom to practice for for people. But Israel is is unique in that it was created by God. You can go look this up. Isaiah 43:15. Not only is he the Lord God, not only is he a king, but he is the creator of Israel. Let me just give you an example. Isaiah 43:es 1-3 earlier in the same chapter says, "But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, oh Jacob." So the Lord who created you, if you're new to the language Jacob, they're interchangeable because when God meets with Jacob in Genesis, Jacob wanted a blessing and he

wrestled with God all night until he blessed him and God changed Jacob's name to Israel. So from that point forward, they're they're really uh interchangeable, Jacob and Israel. Of course, Jacob had 12 sons. Those would be known as the 12 tribes of Israel. We later just see out of the mess of of Judah, two of them would be little changed. But uh we see that God chose to use Israel. So 43 verse1 of Isaiah, but now thus says the Lord, he who created you, oh Jacob, he who formed you, oh Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. Say these next three words with me. You are mine.

God says this to Israel. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, you sh they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom. Kush and Siba in exchange for you. Israel is chosen not because they were the easiest and best people to work with. Come on, somebody. You should be glad that God doesn't love you because you're the easiest and uh best person to work with. It's just because God made you that he loves you. It's God's grace.

is for his for his honor, for his glory, that he chose you as well. That just as God says to Moses in Exodus 6:7, that you may know that I am the Lord. That I am the Lord, that you may know this. Because of that, the the failures of Israel have have through the years uh created different narratives. So, we always want to know what is God's narrative for Israel. What is God's story for Israel? Even today, it breaks my heart that there are so many today in the church that misunderstand Israel. And anti-semitism is at a high in in at least my lifetime that I've ever seen.

And you would think that we would never repeat what's happened in history. But I see Christians speak ill of Israel. how how we as a nation should not support Israel and just the false narrative of the war that happened over the last few years. And I was reminded when I went to Israel why that war happened with Hamas in Gaza. And it wasn't because Israel was trying to be mean and bullies. It was because they were invaded and more people were killed on October 7th, 2023 in Israel since they reformed as a nation in 1949 or 48, excuse me, in 1948. So they were simply retaliating and wanting their people home.

And then the narrative of so many frankly ignorant Americans was free Palestine which is isn't even a whole state. It's it's Palestine is a name of a place and that name was given by Rome. You start to do some research on Palestine, it's it's not Gaza. Gaza was given to the Arab people after they went to war with Israel. I'm really getting on a tangent now. I'm sorry. But Gaza was given in their sovereignty to the Arab people that attacked them in the 1960s and they lost.

What kind of people give a land and say, "We're going to go ahead and give you this land to dwell in even though you attacked us." God's people. Israel did that. And less people think that Israel, I've shared this before, but uh more than 20% some 25% of of Israel uh the citizens are Arab. So somehow we think that Israel is like only pure uh uh Jewish Hebrew people, but it's not true. Uh there are Africans, a lot of Africans there in Israel. There are Arabs in Israel. Uh many Americans in Israel. I've told you before there's more than 700,000 Americans who have made Israel their home. I mean, there there's a

there's a whole diverse people. But so I I've digressed and I told myself I wouldn't do that tonight. Uh but I just wanted to warn us that the the narrative of Israel does get distracted on who Israel was, God's chosen and created people and who it is now and as we're going to look at in just a moment who it is uh always going to be. Number two tonight, uh certainty of Israel, Israel's restoration and the present reality. Israel's restoration and the present reality. Scripture has constantly told us that God does not give up on his people. Uh he has allowed judgment over his people and we've talked about that here at these prophecy nights. Uh when he allowed the destruction of Israel

through the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, and then the Romans. Do you remember that? Uh we we've talked about how God's allowed those things, but God never gave up on his people. Remember Jeremiah 29:11 was in the midst of exile, God promised still a future and a hope. He always promises a future and a hope. Let me just give you two quick scriptures that support this in the Old Testament. One is the prophet Ezekiel chapter 36:4. Uh, in fact, did you prophesied uh Ezekiel 36 this morning, Mike? Uh, if you want a really good chapter to look at after you prophesied that, I shared it with several others. So, if you want just a further study of what we studied this morning, John 15 and God's heart

for Israel, remember God says, I will take your heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh. Uh, that's found in Ezekiel. And God says in verse 24, I will take you from the nations and gather you from all countries and bring you into your own land. That doesn't have much significance to you because Israel is a nation today. But prior to 1948, Jewish people were scattered all over the world. Think about this. They were scattered all over the world and they had no place to call home. No nation. Can you just think about that for a moment?

All over the world, like all over the continent of Europe, Asia, all over the continent of Africa, we know that Ethiopia has uh many Jews that live there. Uh dates back to Solomon. uh all over Africa, all over the Americas, Jewish people, and no nation. And what does God say in his word? I'm going to take you from all of these nations. And don't worry, I'm going to bring you back where? To your land. To the land that I promised you in Genesis 12. What a great God. Like, don't allow that to like just be simple to you that God said it and he did it and that we just go on

with life. This is a very holy land and there's a reason we call it holy because uh God's promises are true. Deuteronomy, this is the Torah, the instructions of God. Deuteronomy 30:es 3-5. Then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you. He will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord God will gather you. I love that language. Use your imagination. And from there he will take you and the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.

We see in our time and wow what a great time we get to live in a modern state of Israel. We shouldn't take that for granted because many of our great-grandparents or your great greatgrandparents did not see that there were Jewish people all over the world but they didn't have a state of Israel just as I'm telling you there is no such thing as a state of Palestine. And what we see is no matter how bad the world gets, God's always going to have a plan and a purpose for Israel. This was true when they were in exile. He brought them back. This You want to go on a tangent because we don't have time and I'm going to really run out of time because I'm only on point number two and I promise I'll go a little faster. But um

you know King Cyrus, he allowed the Jewish people to go back to Israel after they were in exile. Remember how God promised in Jeremiah chapter 29 it would be 70 years and then you can go back and then you can go read about this in the historical books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Do you remember that? And King Cyrus says, "Go ahead and go back." And and and here he is, a pagan king blessing blessing the Jewish people to go back to their land that God promised. Do you know what was all over Jerusalem when President Trump of America helped get those hostages home? Do you know what they called him? Does anybody know? King Cyrus.

There were billboards, digital billboards, digital billboards. Everyone said, "Thank you, King Cyrus. This I'm not kidding you. Like, this book is active and alive." And there are things like I was sitting on the sofa with my wife today after church with just total like holy hangover, like just exhausted. And we were talking about people and things and conspiracy theories because there's so many wicked weird conspiracy theories. But every once in a while there's conspiracy theories just with such big nuggets of truth that you're just like I got to get a little bit deeper in this. And uh we are living in in that age right now that as believers it should posture us in humility, prayer,

and as I've tried to teach you on these nights on Sundays. We are the ones that the prophet says we should be watchmen on the wall. We are the ones. It wasn't just the prophets of old. God is asking and crying out, "Where are the watchmen on the wall?" And I just I want to be one that says, "Yes, yes. I I'm here. I I want I don't want to ignore it. I don't want to um be so ignorant and naive that when Jesus comes uh we're shocked. Okay. Number three, what the Bible speaks of Israel's future. We should care about Israel because of prophecies yet to be fulfilled. Because of prophecies yet to be fulfilled. The Bible speaks that Israel does have a future. Uh, if you want to know a nation that's not

mentioned in the Bible, and some people try to find it somewhere, it's America. We can try to like find symbolic things in there like eagles, but a lot of times like the eagles representative of of Babylon. Um, I mean there's there's all kinds of images in there. Uh, we can search for it. But if there's one nation I by the way, I I will go to my grave and say, "God bless America. I love this nation. I love our country. I I honor uh whatever president we have, he will be our president or she. I I I love the freedom of of our our nation. Um but I will say that God does have a plan for Israel that includes in great trials.

I'll just give a couple of quick examples and then maybe just uh go quickly over some scriptures. Jeremiah 37, the prophet speaks, "Alas, that day is so great there is none like it. It is a time of distress for Jacob, yet he shall be saved out of it. Now, when we look at nations going to war with Israel, every single time that happens, let me just tell you which side you should be on. Israel. Even if they have, and I'm not giving a commentary on this, but even if they have wicked leaders, it should be the same in the nation we live in. It's a disgrace when people say of whoever's in office, not my president. Yes, they are.

Unless you're willing to to go make yourself a citizenship of another nation, they are. And so until Christ returns and there's a new Jerusalem, we should constantly see that God still is prophetically speaking towards this specific nation and we want to stand with them. Zechariah 14:2, "For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken, and the houses plundered, and the women raped. Half of the city shall go out into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city." This happened on October 7th, 2023. Young teenage women were raped. Uh there were women beheaded. I'm not talking about hundreds of years ago or thousands of years ago. I'm talking about two years ago this happened.

Why do so many people hate this particular nation and these particular people? Over and over we see prophetic pictures that many many nations will come against Israel. Psalm 83 speaks of this. The Bible over and over says Israel will be under attack. It's going to be geopolitical violence just like we're seeing today. And something inside of you should put your shoulder back, fill your lungs with air, and say, we're living in such a time as this. Please have a holy expectation that there's a divine deliverance planned for Israel and Jesus is going to return. This is a a promise of God. Now, we've talked about uh three major

covenants in the scriptures. Uh remember the first one I already mentioned, the Abrahamic covenant. Does anybody remember the second one? Oh, come on, Cal. I wish y'all would study the Bible like this young man. Uh he said the Mosaic Covenant. Uh do you know and I Cal I've told so many people this. This young man, he's eight years old. He's read through the whole Bible. That is so stinking cool. Uh, you should read through the whole Bible. You really should. Uh, if you want a Bible reading plan, I believe James, do we still have them at the next steps table there? The Bible reading plan. No. Okay. We will have them there in the next month to get you ready for the next year. So, our goal, I'll just say it till I'm blue in the face. We want to be more like Cal.

So, you want to read through the Bible in a year. If he could do it at eight years old, I mean, literally just opening the Bible. Uh he he is a brother that gets into the word of of of God. Uh when you get in Oh, so the I was talking about the three covenants. So the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, and then what's the third one? Do you remember happened on the night Jesus was betrayed? The new covenant, the new covenant. There is a Davidic covenant. Um but we're looking at the three major covenants. And it's the new covenant that Jesus gave the night he was betrayed in the upper room when he took the bread and the cup of the seder meal for the Passover, which is prophetic to who he is. Jesus is the Passover lamb.

He is the great deliverer, Yeshua. And he promised this is a new covenant fulfilling the words of Ezekiel and Jeremiah of a new covenant. Of a new covenant. Well, here's what we should pay attention to that hasn't happened. Covenant and peace treaties that are still to come. Every one of us have lived in a generation where world leaders have tried to create peace in the Middle East. You know what I'm talking about. Now, when we see the signs of those times, that's when you start to get on the edge of your seat, be like, "Oh, something's coming." And what I'm talking about is a covenantal peace for the nations of the world that are centered around Israel.

Daniel talks about this, a prince who's going to make a covenant for one week. we start to see these signs of the times where uh not only will Israel have peace among the nations of the world, the temple will be rebuilt and restored right where it was. And tonight I'm going to show you some pictures of the Temple Mount that you can go visit with us because now it's where the um Dome of the Rock is. It's the second most sacred site for the Muslim religion and they intentionally built it right on top of the Temple Mount, the most holy and sacred uh site of the Jewish people.

Uh in Daniel chapter 9, and uh you don't have to put the scripture up because I'm going to skip to Matthew 14 for the sake of time. Uh not 14, Matthew 24. Let me go there. I'm going to read you a section of scripture and then I'll put some scripture on the screen. Jesus was leaving the temple right before he's crucified. He left the temple and he was going away with his disciples and his disciples came to Jesus pointing out the buildings of the temple and he answered them. He says, "Do you do you see all these to the temple? Do you not? Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." So Jesus looks at the temple of his day and says, "Every single one of these stones is coming down." Now as he sat at

the Mount of Olives, which is right outside, it's a visual site of the temple. You can see it from the temple. And from the Mount of Olives, you can see where the temple was. From the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Jesus privately saying, "Tell us when will these things be? What will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?" So you can imagine they're sitting in an olive grove looking at the temple. And by the way, you can go there. You can go there next September with us. You can go to the Mount of Olives and you can look right over where the temple was and you can see the remnants. You It's now you take pictures and it's a big golden dome. You'll often see that in Jerusalem. So that's where the disciples were talking to Jesus and they said, "When will when when is the temple coming down? When will you reveal yourself as Hamashiach, Messiah, King, conqueror, emperor? When will these things happen? Jesus said, "See that no one leads you astray? For many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ. They will lead many astray.

You will hear of wars and rumors of war. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes and in various places." And all these are just the beginning of birth painans. Could we agree over the last 2,000 years there have been a lot of wars. Just do a quick like Google or chat GPT search. There have been thousands of wars the last 2,000 years. I don't think there's ever been a year that there's not been a war. We often don't hear about it, but there's always war. Like even civil wars like in Sudan, we you don't hear about it as much, but these are wars that are happening. Jesus says this is just the beginning. So when there's peace, that's when in our gut we say, "Oh, now now listen up." Then they will deliver you up for tribulation, put you to death. You will

be hated by all the nations for my name's sake. Many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will rise and lead many astray because lawlessness will be increased. The love of many will grow cold, but the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout all the whole world as a testimony to all the nations. Then the end will come. Guys, we're in bend, Oregon, so far from when Jesus said this on the Mount of Olives. We're closer to this time than ever before. Now, let me share this verse with you. Uh Matthew 24:15. You could put it on the screen now. So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken by the prophet Daniel, this is in Daniel chapter 9. Standing in the holy place, let the reader understand.

Then let those who are left in who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let the one who is on the housetop not go down and take what is in his house. And let the one who is in the field not turn back and take his cloak. Alas, the women who are pregnant for those days are nursing infants in those days. Pray that your flight may be not in winter or on the Sabbath. I I'm going to just stop there. Uh Jesus says, "When these things happen, you ought to look for the abomination of desolation spoken by the prophet Daniel." These things will happen. Does anybody know where you could shout it out? Where will these things happen? The abomination desolation. Thank you. The temple. The temple.

Currently, we don't have a temple. Now, if you want to go on one of those rabbit trails that I'm telling you, go research the temple in our day. They are so ready to build the temple in our day, it could probably be built in days or weeks, not months or years. There's a group I follow on Facebook called the Temple Institute. You should follow it. The Temple Institute. You can go to their website, the templeinstitute.org. They have every preparation for the temple in place every single day of the year. They examine every red heer in Jerusalem to get ready to sacrifice the red heer when the temple is rebuilt.

I constantly see them say, "We have found a red heer." And then they post pictures and I'm like, "This is crazy." and and we're over here liking like worthless memes and reals about nothing. And meanwhile, like right behind you, God's getting ready for his second coming. Jesus is he's coming. And lest you be naive, there will be a covenant from the Antichrist to create peace. And and we're going to get into this next year much more closely in the book of Revelation. But those times are are coming where there will be two witnesses. And if you go to Jerusalem with us and oh, I beg you to go with us. You will witness the

very streets where there will be two witnesses who are prophesying and they will be killed and left there and the whole world will watch live on their devices. They will be streaming this. Millions of people will be streaming these witnesses that John wrote about in Revelation on an island of Patmos on those streets of Jerusalem and they will come back to life just like Lazarus came back to life and everyone will witness it streaming it. It's prophesied. That should get you a little bit eager that God has aligned everything in our time. Okay, I got to go quickly. I'm going to jump to number four implications for us at Journey Church. Here's the implications. Uh we're going to be judged. Uh we're told that even as I mentioned this morning in Revelation

1, Jesus has eyes of fire. So we want to be engaged, but not just engaged. We say there's hope for everyone. So we want to be hopefully engaged. So when we see Israel in the Bible, when you read the Bible, we we want to constantly look at how do we as a church get engaged? And tonight tells me that we have an army, but God doesn't need a massive army. He just needs people who are willingly wanting to get engaged. We want to be prayerful. The Bible invites us to walk in wisdom when it comes to prayer. And we want to pray for what God prays about when we see tensions in the Middle East like we've seen in our lifetime over the last few years. Do you know what we should do more than ever? Pray. And you know why I brought it back up last month and we prayed about it? I had to repent that we're not praying enough about this.

We should be a praying people. We should be a praying church. When we see things that are happening around the world, we should be praying. You know, President Trump this week brought up nigeria. Christians are being slaughtered every single week in Nigeria by Muslims simply for being Christians. And the world's kind of been silent about it. It should like burn in our hearts. We don't need the president to say it. We as a church should wake up and say it. I was just sharing with my wife. I've had two two young people in the past week tell me they have a burden for the nations of the world. And God gave me a prophetic cry from a woman in our church in 2022 to ask for the nations. And that prophetic picture was like it was too

big for me. Little old me, Keith. Like I came from a small town. Me in Bend, Oregon. Asked for the nations. But that has always stuck with me because it's biblical promise to ask for the nations. And over the time, we've had people from all over the nations make Journey Church their homes. And one young man came to me on Thursday night at pursuit night and says, "Hey, God continues to put a heart for China on my heart. Uh, what do I do about this? I think we as a church should do something about this." And it just kind of sparked me. I'm like, "Oo, God's calling you to be missionary. Here we go." And by the way, God's doing a lot more in China than he is in America right now. There are way more Christians in China than in America. That church is exploding. And as they explode, you know what the nation's trying to do? Oppress

it and shut it down. But they ought to learn from Pharaoh. The more you do that, the more they multiply. So that was on Sunday. And then this one I'm going to give to you as well. I think my wife and I are going to talk about this on Confessions of a Pastor tomorrow on our podcast. But I had a young boy come to me this morning and say, "Pastor Keith, I continually have the same dream that I'm going to other nations collecting their coins." And uh I what do I do with this? He says, "I've had the same dream three times." And I said, "Well, in Luke chapter 15, Jesus talks about a story about God. And when he talks about the lost, do you know what he likens the lost to? A coin. and God will do anything until he collects that coin.

And then he says, "Well, there's someone else in my dream dream and he's trying to steal the coins." I said, "Well, who do you think that is?" And just this boy speaks up, "Satan." I said, "Yes." I said, "I think God's calling you to the nations to reach the lost." And I'm just like, my heart is stirred within me that we're we're to be a prayerful church, a faithfilled church, expecting God's best for this. The last point tonight is number five. There's a call to faithful living. A call to faithful living. Here's what I beg for you. A call to faithful living. I beg you uh to receive this tonight that we would be a repentant people. I hope the word repentance never has a sour taste in your mouth. Uh if we're called to a faithful living, we ought to constantly acknowledge the church's role in today's times. So, we should not

ignore the issues of the world. We should be prayerful. Uh the worst thing we could do is is marginalize ourselves in the rest of the world. Uh in Romans 10:1, this is what Paul says. Romans 10:1 says, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them." And he's specifically talking about the Jews, the Jewish people. My heart's desire is that they may be saved. If you're just joining us on this journey of studying about Israel, uh the best place you could study in the New Testament is Romans 9:10 and 11 to see God's heart, not only for Israel, but for Gentiles because he grafts us into the tree of Israel. So when I joke about not having Jewish blood in me, I can joke about it because I've been grafted in. I've got every promise of

Israel because of Yeshua. And so we ought to have that heart. And so we want to pray for Israel. We want to be a witness for Israel. And so tonight, I want to just close and ask you, would you join me in prayer uh with an expectation that God's promises are still to be fulfilled in Daniel chapter 9? That we have a holy expectation that Jesus is coming again soon. That God has a plan for this land of Israel. He's got a a plan and a purpose for his people and that we get to be a part of that plan. And then lastly, I'm just going to share with you how you can also go to Israel. So Yahweh, Lord our God, tonight we thank you that we got to get into your word and that your word would get into us and burn. That we would understand your covenants that th those are still true. You've never broken a covenant promise.

So we thank you that the promise given to Abraham is ours. The promise given to Moses is ours. Even as mentioned tonight, the Davidic covenant, the promise given to David is ours. Fulfilled in you, the son of David, Yeshua, Jesus. Oh Lord, I pray for a church that burns for for what burns you. That that our heart's desire would be yours. So Lord, in a world of distraction, and it's no fault to any person here in our church, but we live in a world of distraction of Instagram and Tik Tok and YouTube and just current affairs and all the things the devil wants to distract us with. God, would you align our hearts with yours? that we would be the generation that God, you would be so well pleased with that the moment we see you, we just feel your mighty right hand on our shoulder. And I prophesy over your people that one day we get to hear,

"Well done, good and faithful servant." That we will have been good stewards with what you've given us. May we take your talents and invest them and do great things with them. Oh God, we love you. We just want to say out loud as we pray to you, we love Israel. We know when we say that we disrupt the heavens that the the devil and the legion of uh of his armies are are very upset with us. So protect your people, God. Protect your church. Uh we pray that in this war that we're in that we would fight the good fight and you would see us as faithful in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Uh well, I want to conclude tonight and invite you to Israel. Um it's always our invitation when we have these nights. We're going next year. Uh I'll just give you the details. It's going to be in September and the date specifically September 28th

through October 9th. September 28th through October 9th, 2026. That seems like a long way out, but it's not. It's really not. Particularly if you don't have the money and you say, "Oh, I can't afford a trip like this." Yes, you can. Uh you can afford a trip like this. Uh many of you have a device like this. A device like this costs about $1,000. Um, you don't really know this because they trap you into it and you pay about $30 a month for the next five years. And so you like, I don't really think I know that it costs $1,000. It does cost $1,000 and each month you pay a lot of money so you can use this device. And undoubtedly, does anybody have any streaming services like Netflix or Hulu or Paramount or HBO or YouTube or um there's like a bazillion others. I remember when we got those, we're like, we'll never need cable again. so long.

$100, you know, and now all of a sudden if you want to watch anything, you need like 15 different things and $200 later you got like all these different shows. You know what I'm talking about? But I would just say if you really want to go to the Holy Land, all it takes is you aligning your priorities. You can go. I don't care how poor you are right now, you live in America, you can go to Israel with us next year. You can go. We have a God of abundance. He can make a way, but you have to determine by faith to say, "I'm going to go to Israel." If you say you don't have enough money to go to Israel, you don't have enough money to go to Israel. I regret that I waited so long to go to Israel. I regret it. I was 47 years old the first time I went to Israel. I'm 48 years old now and I get to go to Israel again. And uh I I waited too long. I wish I would have gone earlier. And I'm telling you that so that you uh don't wait until it's too

late to go to Israel. Um, so when we go, I'll just give you a couple of quick things about the price um of Israel so that you understand uh how much it costs and what those costs mean. Uh, let me just pull this up real quick. There's two costs that you'll see when you go. The first cost you'll see is the land only package. That's uh $4,195. It requires $1,000 deposit. Then you'll still owe $3,195. That means that you're going to take care of your own airfare. Now, why would you take care of your own airfare? If you have your own points and you want your points to take you there and or a portion of your points or if you want to upgrade your seat to uh first class, the price of Israel air and land package is for a regular seat on the airplane, not first class. So, if you want to do that, you would only pay for the land package.

Uh now, the air and land package goes from Redmond to Israel. Uh and that's 57.95. So, it's about uh what is that? $1,500 difference. Uh and that's all airfare. Uh that includes all airfare. That includes all travel while we're in Israel on nice charter buses. Uh that includes uh all of our hotels and very nice hotels. That includes most of your food. I'd probably say about 85 to 90% of your food. All of your dinners, all of your breakfast, and some of your lunches. So, some lunches you'll be on your own in some of the places that we go to. That also includes all of your fees into every site. Um, that includes all of your tips to all of our tour guides. So, you don't have to pay for any of those things. Uh, the only thing it doesn't cover is a few of your lunches and anything you want to purchase while you're there. Anything you want to purchase and you want to

purchase olive oil uh from Israel or you want to purchase um some trinkets uh some olive wood or whatever you want to do, you would get that on your own. Now, tonight I mentioned the abomination of desolation and the the third temple that will be rebuilt. I want to just show you a glimpse of this. I just think it's kind of cool. And uh and then I'll wrap this up with you. So, let's just bring up some pictures real quick. Oh, any questions about Israel. I'm not going to uh you can sign up on our website, go to our events page, click Israel, put your deposit down. It is filling up fast. Uh so, at some point, we're going to put a cap on this and say, "Oh, we're full." Uh, so I do want to warn you. How many of you are signed up to go? You've already paid your deposit. All right. So, a a good group of you in this room.

Very cool. So, those you don't have your hands up, uh, this is a good opportunity to just put a little burn on you because, uh, I haven't put a cap date on it, but it's going to come soon because 20 26 is right around us. So, um, I want to make sure that you don't miss it. Um, any questions about Israel? I'll answer. Yes. Insurance affairs. Yeah, you you can totally um purchase um uh what's that called? Travel insurance. And uh it'll cover your cost and stuff, but also if you cancel for any reason, you would be refunded everything of this trip uh less $250. So whatever you put into it, so if you put $1,000 down today and you cancel tomorrow, you would get $750. So, um, so

it kind of has its own, uh, but if you do want to get your own, uh, traveler's insurance, that's that's a good question. Um, we will plan on going no matter what. Um, but I would love you to go with us. Um, uh, yeah, I I was just one day away. One day away. But I I'll give God the credit that he knew exactly what he was doing. Um, I did make it back. Praise be to God. uh the because the next day within 24 hours that airport was shut down. Um but even those who got stuck there, they got they made it back. Um America loves Israel. The last time I was there, I met with Ambassador uh Mike Huckabe, who's the ambassador to Israel, and we're going with a very good group called Eagle's Wings, and they have so many

cool um partnerships in there. Okay, I'm just looking for uh the information I'm trying to share with you. Um, can we pull up some of the pictures? And I want to just go through those really briefly. And uh, I want to just pull up here. Um, this is, uh, the actual steps on the Temple Mount. So, uh, to get to this place where this picture was taken, you've gone through really extreme security, just like the security you go through at the airport. And they've tapped you. They've made sure you have no weapons. Uh, they've made sure you have no Bible. uh they make sure that you don't have uh any of the things that are not welcome on the Temple Mount. It's actually controlled by uh the Muslims, by Islam. Um but yet it's Jewish security forces that are there,

the best of the best of the best that are there. They all wear black security guards with like three or four guns each and they're all over there. So this is these are the actual steps inside the temple. So if if if you can reminisce in the scriptures of of where would Jesus have walked inside the temple, this would have been inside the temple. If we could just scroll through these, I'll just I'll give um some um these are some olive trees that are inside the temple mount. So as you uh go inside there, you can just uh picture if you will. These olive trees would not have been there in Jesus day. um for the size of people that would have been there. Hardly anyone goes there today because although it's the holiest site for the Jewish people, it's occupied by the Muslims. And so they only use it for their purpose a few times a year like with massive amounts of people. So it's a

it's a very um curious things. We could just keep scrolling through some of these um as as we look through. Um I I just shot Kaylee over just several different pictures. Um so um this is a building that's a part of that rock of the dome um just facing what would be um where the holy of holies would have been. So if you can imagine like the place where I'm standing taking the picture would have been where only the Jewish males could have been allowed to go. Um so ladies if you go you would be allowed to go there and Gentiles would not have been allowed to go there but I snuck in there and uh let's keep going. Um, so this just gives you an idea inside there. You can see how empty it was because uh we did go during it was last June during the war and uh there just wasn't a lot of tourism going on.

Um we can keep going. Um uh so this is actually that's the Dome of the Rock right there. Um that was uh built I believe in the 600s somewhere around then. Uh so built in the 600s on top of that holy site which would have been the remnants of the temple that was destroyed in 70 AD. And so from that point forward from 70 AD to present day there's not been a temple for the Jews to worship. And again if you want to go to the templeinstitute.org you can see that the Jews are ready. They're ready but that there's some sensitivity to what's going on right now. So this is the closest place. If we could just stay right there for just a moment. This is the closest place that you can get to the Holy of Holies. The closest place. If you if you start

taking steps up those steps, the police stop you in force. They'll physically push you and say, "No, you can't go there." So, at this particular place, the rabbi that was giving us a tour, and I'm going to show you a picture of him in just a moment, Rabbi Yehud Glick, Rabbi Yehuda Glick, uh he he was known as, and he might still be to this day as the most dangerous man in Israel. And the reason why Rabbi Glick is known as the most dangerous man in Israel is he goes to the temple, and this is why he's so dangerous. He prays. He sings psalms out loud and he he quotes scripture out loud. That's why he's known as the most dangerous man is in Israel. And in 2014, he testified that

the Jews are going to get this back and build a temple. And as he testified this on national t not national, international TV, as he was saying these things, a man with a helmet and full what's that stuff called? Um body. body armor. Body armor comes up to him, shoots him three times in the chest as he's speaking about building the temple, leaves, gets on a motorcycle, and flees. He ends up getting caught and shot and dies within minutes of being shot. Rabbi Glick got to give me the tour of this temple. And as I'm right there, the closest place to the Holy of Holies,

Rabbi Glick prayed for us in America, prayed for our president, whom Israel absolutely loves, out loud. Prayed for these things near the Holy of Holies, and then he prayed for Israel, and then he says, "I'm going to do a dangerous thing. You pray." And we are surrounded by Israeli police who are fully garbed. And he lays down on his face and begins to pray out loud and all of the police come over and lift him up. It's not his first time doing this. Let me show you a picture of Rabbi Glick. Uh this is him. This is him praying right now over America. Uh that just shows you what one of the police looks like. uh because he kept getting closer to the Holy of

Holies and they kept pushing him. This man was such a man of faith and he's yet to believe in Yeshua. He made me feel like I don't even believe in God. His faith was so huge and he knew so many scriptures and he was so bold and he was so willing. He only has one lung because of being shot and speaking about this temple site. And it's my desire, by the way. I'm going to beg to see if I can get Rabbi Glick to give us the tour of this Temple Mount as well. Uh, and he and his wife, this kills me. I because I actually I wanted to donate money to him and I still haven't. I'm going to say it out loud so my wife hears me on this. He and his wife, they spend their whole lives taking care of widows and orphans.

That's all they do. Uh, it's just an incredible guy. So, uh, this is Rabbi Yehuda Glick, and he's just he's what he's reading from is his phone because you can't bring any scriptures or anything like that. And he's just he's reading a prayer that he wrote specifically for uh, President Trump and America and our role in what's happening in Israel. So, I just wanted to show you a glimpse of that. We will go there. Uh, we will go through the security and you will get the opportunity. And he's like, he's a Jewish rabbi and he's like, I don't know many of your songs, but I do know some of them. So he's like, "Let's just sing Walking into it right now." And we're going right by the wailing wall and there's thousands of Jews praying and he sings from the top of his lungs in this baritone voice to get all of us pastors singing, "This is the day.

This is the day that the Lord has made." And he's singing this. So all the pastors join in and everyone at the wailing wall goes and they look up at us as we're walking uh into the Temple Mount. So, um, those are the kind of risks we'll take if you join Journey in Israel. Uh, everywhere we go, we're going to make sure to sing, uh, because, uh, that's that's a part of what we do is we praise God where we go and we pray God where we go and it's going to be just a really sacred time. I think that's all the pictures. Kay, is there any Oh, um, those are remnants of, uh, the temple that was destroyed in 70 AD. So, that's kind of fun just to just to be like, oh man, that would be cool. Oh, thank you. This is from the temple in the temple mount looking out at the Mount of Olives where Jesus would have said what he said. So this is looking out from the temple to the Mount of Olives. And I I should have shown a

picture from the Mount of Olives to the temple, but I just thought it was kind of a cool visual like it's that close. And the temple sits on what they call Mount Zion. Uh if you look on Google Maps today, they call it old Jerusalem because Jerusalem now is a lot bigger. Well, I've taken much of your time. Uh you've been gracious with me. I thank you so very much. I love you. I'm grateful for these times. This was really kind of like an experimented journey. Would anybody show up if we do this? And some of you have been faithful and true. So, thank you so much. Uh right now, we're just looking at the first Sunday of the month. I don't know if we'll do one in December. So, stay tuned if we will. Uh I'm grateful that you've joined me. My challenge to you is go get in the word of God. Go get into the Bible and see what it is. I I've given you some homework if you want to go study the Temple Institute. So, you can go to the templeinstitute.org or or on social media platforms, particularly Facebook. Uh you're going to get on a rabbit trail. This is a Jewish group

getting ready to build the temple. And uh we should not be naive to these things. We should be a praying people. So uh Lord, would you bless your people tonight? Would you bless your people with revelation of your word, with an understanding? I thank you for the short yet um intimate time we've had uh in Jesus name. Get us ready to go to that Holy Land. If there's anyone that's just uh questioning whether or not they should go, would you give them a confirmation? Uh maybe it's even just a mustard seed of faith that God uh you will uh provide. Uh you will make a way. Uh you're still the the God of Isaiah 43:19 where you make ways. You make ways where we can't see it. So uh Lord, may may we be a church that does that and uh get to celebrate who you are and what you've done in Jesus name. Amen.