Do You Not See These Things? - Part 1

You and I have lived in one of the most unusual periods of human history. We have lived better than kings down through time, let alone the royals or the wealthy. You and I live in the most comfortable, most rich, as it were, environment with all of our needs taken care of, including temperature, comforts, food, water, clothing, transportation like nobody's ever had before, the opportunity to essentially see the world. It is so easy, it is so nice, and we have the type of foods that kings used to eat. Lots of meats and lots of specialty things, imported things, and spices, and various flavors, and various flavors of beverages, and international cuisine from all around the world. You know, pick one. What shall we have tonight? In James 5, in verse 1, let's notice something with regards to you and I as members of God's church. James 5 will begin in verse 1. Come now, you rich. We are the rich, and I'm not talking about you and me only. Our civilization worldwide are the new rich. Come now, you rich. Weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. We are in a time of unparalleled riches, and Jesus Christ says we're also in a time that's going to have untold miseries. Your riches are corrupted. Something about all this wealth that doesn't ring true with God, with His laws, with loving God, with your heart, soul, and might, loving your neighbor as yourself, obeying the laws of God. Your garments are moth-eaten. All of us know that even the garments we have weren't made quite right. They weren't done in a manner that is fair and equitable across the board throughout the international sphere. Your gold and silver are corroded. There's a lot of money in a lot of pockets, including yours and mine, but that money isn't always obtained or generated by the countries and the national banks themselves, the federal entities. They're fudging, and they're printing more, and they're trying to sell it to others, and they're doing things. And their corrosion will be a witness against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure. Do we have treasure? Yes, we do. And do humans have treasure? And do companies have treasure? And do the people with lots and lots of things have treasure? Notice, you have heaped up treasure in the last days. The last days are the time where humanity enters an end time scenario that is the worst of the worst. Verse 4, Indeed, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You know, there are people in minds. There are people gathering trace elements for modern gadgets that you and I use every day that are sending them into life-threatening circumstances and situations. People who are providing things that often are food or picking our crops that reach the Lord of Sabaoth. And he says, this is not my system. This is not love. This is not respect for others. This is not caring for others.

Indeed, you know, we see individuals globally break out and express, yes, I'm in a situation that is very unfair and nobody's doing anything about it. Sometimes exterminating people in their ethnic groups, while the rest of the world is really helpless to do anything about it. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury. You have fattened your hearts, as in the day of slaughter. You have condemned. You have murdered the just, and he does not resist you. So there's a personal responsibility here that all humans have to live properly in God's eyes, be counted worthy in God's eyes to escape the things that are to come, to be living as a true bride of Christ in preparation, submitting to him, be in harmony with God, a child, a son, and a daughter, really, of the God family, not just in their image, but also in their likeness, mentally, and developing that character that can be harvested. We have that responsibility. And in the meantime, God does not resist what we do as humans, not at this time. Let's go to Daniel 12 and verse 4. Daniel 12 and verse 4, Jesus said that there's a time coming that will be like a snare. It's a trap, in other words. I set traps for a certain little pest we have. I have to take a little hole and stick it in the ground, and this this pest comes along, right? Well, what that trap does, if I experiment with it, it'll get me in the fingers because all of a sudden it's sitting there and then all of a sudden, bam! It's just like that. So, things are going to come upon the earth like a snare. It's going to snap shut. Daniel 12 and verse 4 talks about a time when the snare is going to snap.

But you, O Daniel, after talking about the end time in the previous verses, the things that are going to happen, things just tore him up when he read them or he wrote them down. He just really shook him. He says, But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end. So, what is this time of the end? When will that happen? Well, going on. Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall increase. Now, we can just pass by that really quickly, or we can stop for a moment and think about that. First, he says, after the words time of the end, the word many. The word here means a great many, or in a bounding number. So, a huge number of people. If you go back to the world population in 650 BC, it is estimated that it was 1 sixtieth of what it is today. There are only 100 to 150 million people on the entire earth. Today, we have approximately 8 billion. So, we have 1 sixtieth. That's a small amount. And when Daniel says here, there will be many, a huge abundance. That certainly would speak of our day. The next is, they shall run. They shall, this many, as it were, shall run. The word run here means to go quickly. So, from what Daniel could see in the vision, these people were going very, very quickly, or they were rushing about. How do you go quickly? Anciently, you see, very few people ever traveled far from home. According to history, it says, travel in classical antiquity over long distances was a specialized undertaking. Most travel was done in the interest of warfare by troops, diplomacy, general state building, or trade. So, you see, this didn't come to the local agricultural farmer or herdsman or a fisher person. These weren't the travelers. They were your armies, your diplomats from various nations and trade. Most travel was difficult and expensive, both due to danger of violence as well as the scarcity of well-maintained roads.

They didn't actually have roads back in the day like we do today that just go any and everywhere. There were some major routes, but roads really began to come in under the Roman Empire that began to build a travel system, a road system. Most travel was difficult and expensive. Last year, US residents logged 2 billion personal leisure trips. Now, we only have 300 and some million people here, but just leisure trips, Americans logged 2 billion leisure trips. 1.4 billion people arrived in countries last year in arriving ports and airports and crossing borders. 1.4 billion people. There's only less than 8 billion on the earth. One and a half billion of them traveled internationally. 2.5 billion people arrived in the USA. People in the USA drive a combined 38 trillion miles a year. This is unheard of. So when Daniel is saying here, many shall run to and fro, they'll go here and there in a hurry, they'll go quickly, and you have just one country that has 38 trillion miles covered by its residents. That's incredible.

And it says finally, and knowledge shall increase. I'd like to read something. Back in 1982, a man named Buckmeyer Fuller estimated how long it took for all accumulated knowledge on earth to double. How long did that take to double? In BC times, it took a long time. And then they developed writing, and there was some limited travel. By Christ's time, let's say, he says, AD 1, 1 AD, knowledge was doubling every 1,500 years. You come down to AD 1750, just before, you know, the United States, for instance, and in Canada, and some of those events that happened in the mid to late 1700s took place, and before the French Revolution. This is before then. By AD 1750, knowledge was increasing. It was doubling every 250 years. Now, right after that, in the 1770s, classrooms were invented over in Prussia, and it was a new technology for the dissemination of knowledge that they wanted to get out to the state. Students to know what the state wanted. It was to efficiently deliver a standardized curriculum to as many young people as possible, and that began to speed up knowledge transmission. So, by the year 1900, it was down to 150 years for knowledge to double. By 1945, at the end of World War II, it had dropped to 25 years. It was doubling every 25 years. By the year 2000, it was doubling every one to two years. One to two years. We have so much information now in so many different... it comes to us in so many different ways, you begin to have to compartmentalize what's doubling.

Some parts of our knowledge advances faster than others. For instance, some technical advances are doubling every two years, very technical things, while advances in clinical knowledge doubles every 18 months. You have to have the research and development and then the rollout, and then you learn from that and then you go back. But get this. Interartificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence. When someone needs... this is now what is provided to that company and the employees of that company. When someone needs additional knowledge on the job, quote, artificial intelligence helps intelligently surface the right information at the right time, regardless of where the information originated. It intelligently interprets the intention behind the employee's queries. Employees then discover useful resources they didn't even know existed. So by going to an artificial intelligence portal and starting to enter something, that then decides what it is you're thinking about, what you're looking for, and pulls in things you never even dreamed existed. It's hard to even quantify how quickly things doubled today. But IBM did a study. They produced a paper analyzing the increasing computer speed, storage, internet input, and it forecast that all of human knowledge, the entirety of human knowledge, will double every 12 hours. Every 12 hours. So here we see there's a time of the end when people will go to and fro many people, and knowledge will be increasing at an incredible rate. Now while the world's population seems normal to us, we're used to these figures, while travel is convenient and consistent, while knowledge is easily available, let's just notice verse 1. At that time Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people, and there will be a time of trouble such as was never since there was a nation. Even to that time. And at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book of life. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. Verse 3. Those who are wise. We are to be the wise. We're to be the lights. We're to be the salt. Not our wisdom, but the wisdom of God through his Holy Spirit. God is to us wisdom. The wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. We can be, we take personal responsibility, coupled with God's help, coupled with repentance and baptism, the Holy Spirit putting on all the armor of God, and really thirsting and hungering and pursuing righteousness or doing right in the eyes of God. We can be in this category where we can assist after this time of the end in restoring God's rule to earth. But the time of the end is upon us. These are days to be watching, to be prayerful, to be washing, and being washed by the water of the Word, Jesus Christ, by being cleansed and purified. I'd like to go over to Matthew chapter 24. Before Jesus gave his Olivet prophecy, he made an incredible statement to the disciples when they did not understand at the time.

Matthew chapter 24 will begin in verse 1.

Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and his disciples came up to show him the buildings of the temple. If we're not careful, we'll be just like this. We look at it and we say, oh, society! My society is where I'm born, it's where I'm from, it's what I'm used to, I identify with this at various levels anyway, I just really want to see it succeed. And his disciples came up to show him the buildings of the temple. These 12 Jews were proud of their cultural cornerstone. This was the cornerstone of the Jewish culture, the temple of God, the beautiful temple that Herod the Great, under Roman authority, had constructed. He was half Jew. He was also the provincial ruler from Rome. And this modern marvel was not only constructed of stones, impressive stones, and an altar. Again, it was the showplace of their culture, of Judaism. It had a mixture of God's laws, it had Jewish traditions, and it also had raw politics laid out on those stones. And Jesus, in verse 2, said to them, Do you not see all these things?

When you and I look at our culture, do we not see all these things? When we look at any part of society that we grew to have an identity with, whatever country we're in or from, do we not see all these things through the lens that we just read in Daniel? Through the lens of God, through the lens of the coming kingdom of God, through the lens of the king of kings as the bride, the wife of Jesus Christ, betrothed at baptism into the new covenant? So today, let's ask, what do your eyes see? What do my eyes see? Do we see certain countries being blessed by God for doing right in His eyes? Or do we see a global and local society that others are blinded to seeing?

Jesus came to save people from themselves. We, as humans, are living a way of death, and our way is the way of death. And Jesus came to bring life. He came to bring us redemption and eternal life in the family of God. And yet, what they were seeing and what they were pointing at was the opposite of godliness.

The opposite of godliness always kills. The opposite of godliness, the opposite of God's loss, His commandments, His spirit, His mind, always kills. One is life, the other is death. The way that seems right to a man is the way of death. It kills. However, it's attractive, and right there the Roman Empire was very attractive because it had brought in travel, it had brought in roads. It had built up their building from a kind of the shambles, you might say, of what was left after the second temple was rebuilt under Ezra and Nehemiah some 600 years before, or maybe a little shy of that. But it was, you know, a 500-year-old building, and now it's bright and shiny and new with all the marvels, and the sun would hit those bright stones, and it was fabulous. And you had the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and you had the scribes, and you had the high priests, and some of these were Roman appointments and special favors going on, and it was kind of exciting to be part of a society that had food and culture and entertainment and all kinds of wonderful things. But the mindset was anti-godliness, anti-godliness, and they stomped out godliness wherever they could find it.

In verse 2, Jesus said, continuing, assuredly I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down. What you're seeing and what you're very excited about here and what you feel like you're part of is actually an anti-godliness culture that's going to destroy everything that you hold dear and everything that is related to God and to Judaism, including yourselves. They're going to try to exterminate you, and you stand here so proud of it.

They weren't proud of Jesus. They ended up killing Jesus, talking about the Jewish people, his own people. They were proud of other things. Let's take a look today at a history of the 12 tribes. What I'd like to do here in a series of sermons is look at the story of the 12 tribes of Israel, that first bride of God. The Bible says, an analogy that Jesus, or the one who became Jesus, said, I am married to you to Israel, yet she would not submit to him.

She would not follow him. She would not do his will or fit in with his plans. Let's follow this down through time. We're going to follow it all the way down until today. We're going to get a glimpse of where the 12 tribes of Israel are now, how they got here, where they were on the way, and what they've been doing all along.

Then we'll find out why the time of Jacob's trouble, why the time is coming of the great tribulation called the time of Jacob or Israel's trouble. So let's begin looking at the history of the 12 tribes of the United States and British Commonwealth and Prophecy booklet. It talks about the blessings of Joseph's sons. And we'll go to Genesis chapter 48 and verse 14. Genesis chapter 48 and verse 14. Then Israel, this is Jacob named Israel, his name was changed to Israel, he stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim's head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh's head, guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the firstborn.

So let's just pause here a moment and kind of catch the scene. Israel, Jacob, he had 12 sons. Those 12 sons did what they did, and they sold one of their brothers Joseph into slavery in Egypt. Now Joseph married, and Joseph had sons, and eventually the rest of the family came down to Egypt during a famine and found that Joseph now was the second in charge of all of Egypt.

He was essentially a co-ruler in Egypt. He had immense power to make decisions and provide favors. And Joseph, the father of Ephraim and Manasseh here, is sort of directing what takes place for probably a long time over the house of Israel. We see his father Israel now blessing two of Joseph's children, Ephraim and Manasseh, and this would put them into a unique position in that community in Egypt that was highly favored by the Pharaoh Joseph, his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.

And all the other tribes were, well, they weren't as special. They weren't sort of maybe in charge or directing things as much. So when you think of Ephraim and Manasseh down through time, when you think that Israel eventually would even be called by the name Ephraim in some cases, you can see the roots of this take place right here. And he says here in verse 15, and he blessed Joseph and said, God before me whom my fathers and Abraham walked, the God who fed me all my life long to this day, the angel has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads, let my name be named upon them in the name of my fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

So let my name Israel be named on Ephraim and Manasseh, and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. And when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him. So he took hold of his father's hand to remove it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head.

And Joseph said to his father, not so, my father, for this is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head. But his father refused and said, I know, my son, I know, he also shall become a people.

This is Manasseh. And he also shall be great, but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations. So Ephraim would become a multitude, a very commonwealth of nations. Now, let's just pause right here. Some might construe that prophecy as being some future blessing that God would give because they did right in God's eyes. Ephraim and Manasseh would be blessed and become so great because they did so wonderful in the eyes of God. It certainly was a statement that they would become great, and it certainly has come to pass that they would become great, but why did it transpire?

You ever feel that, well, if this country or that country or my country would just return to what they were doing x number of years ago, then then God would bless them again because somehow we think we're here because our forefathers did it right in God's eyes, and therefore he blessed us with this. Do you find that in the scripture anywhere? Actually, I'll show you in a little bit. Quite the opposite. How many years would you go back? I mean, pick a time. Would you go back 10 years, 20 years? Would it be 40 years, 42 years? Is that when everybody was just peachy in the eyes of God? Everybody was keeping all the commandments and the laws?

Would it be 100 years, 200 years? When would it be? You want to go back to the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages, time of Christ? One can have that concept, but only if you ignore why they've reached that status today.

Let's go to Micah chapter 6 and verse 11. Micah chapter 6 and verse 11. Shall I count pure those with the wicked scales and with the bag of deceitful weights?

You and I are used to this. We're not dummies. We don't believe the advertising anybody says. You know, we know that things are cheating and false and defective and all kinds of things. Nobody trusts. For her rich men are full of violence. Her inhabitants have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.

Therefore, I also will make you sick by striking you, by making you desolate because of your sins. You shall eat, but not be satisfied. Hunger shall be in your midst. You may carry some away, but shall not save them. What you do rescue, I will give over to the sword. We need to understand the difference between a prophesied state or a prophesied situation that God said would happen versus God blessing a people for doing right in his eyes. An example would be if the Bible says that people will be rich and have a lot of territory, but it doesn't say how they got rich and how they got the territory, we shouldn't jump in and decide that that is somehow a blessing from God for what they did, rather a fulfillment of a promise that he made. Let's go to Isaiah chapter 58. Let's start in verse 1. Isaiah chapter 58.

And verse 1, cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, tell my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins. Now, when you read those words, what do you hear? Do you hear? Cry aloud, spare not, tell everybody else, especially the ancient Israelites, their sins. It said, tell my people their transgression. Who are God's people? Well, back when this was written, God's people were the 12 tribes of Israel and the house of Jacob, the 10 northern tribes and the southern tribes of Jacob, Benjamin. Who are God's people today? Do you count yourself as one of God's people? And when the end times are coming, Christ said, watch, be careful, watch yourself, be ready, you know, do all to stand. If we have transgression, should not that be to us as spiritual Israel and spiritual Jacob? Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a nation that did righteousness, it did not forsake the ordinance of their God.

When we look at the physical application of this, his people, the lost 10 tribes, and also the house of Jacob, and we are to tell them their sins, he says, yet they seek me daily. They're religious, they delight to know my ways, a nation that did righteousness as if and did not forsake the ordinance of their God in their minds. They ask of me the ordinance of justice, they take delight in approaching God, but as Jesus said in vain, do they worship me teaching for doctrines of the commandments of men. They put their own laws, human-devised laws, just like from Adam and Eve's day, the knowledge of good and evil, humans deciding right and wrong. Here's a key to understanding what's wrong with the United States, the British Commonwealth, Jacob, the lost 10 tribes. It's found down in verse 14. And one shall say, or verse 14, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord. When Christ returns, then you will delight yourself in the Lord. When they repent, when humanity has gone through the great tribulation and a remnant of Israel returns, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord. And I will cause you to rise on the high hills of the earth and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. What's the heritage of Jacob your father? The Promised Land. He's going to put them in the Promised Land. The mouth of the Lord has spoken it. He's going to bring the remnant back there. What may be construed as God's blessings may be just what we find in 2 Timothy chapter 2. When we look and say, oh, this is God blessing you fill in the country, it might just be 2 Timothy 3 verses 3 and 4. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, there's the riches, boasters, proud blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unloving, unholy, unforgiving, slanders, without self-control, and brutal. Right there you have the money, you have the brutality to take things, including possessions and lands from other people, to be without self-control, traitors, headstrong hotties, and lovers of pleasure. Is that the blessings of God when we have those things? Or when a country has those things? Or when a society or the global society has those things? Do we stand back and say, oh, this is wonderful. God has blessed humanity. Or do we say, oh, this is like pride before the fall. This is like it said in Daniel when suddenly the time of the end happens. God blessed the 12 tribes with a promised land. We go to Genesis 48 and verse 12. Genesis 48 and verse 12. So Joseph brought them beside his knees and he bound down with his face to the earth, dropping down to verse 21. Then Israel said to Joseph, behold, I am dying, but God will be with you and will bring you back to the land of your fathers. So the heritage of Jacob, or Israel right here, he's saying to Joseph, God will be with you and bring you back to the land of your fathers. That's where they're supposed to be. The question today is, why are they where they are? Right after this, Israel was in Egypt for 450 years, and at the end of the 450 years they had departed God. They didn't even know who they were. They had no identity as to who they were, and they were a very pagan people, godless people. If you fast forward today, those same 12 tribes have long abandoned God over millennia. They don't know who they are for millennia. Are the modern 12 tribes given some new promised land somewhere in the scripture that God forgot to mention in the Bible? Notice where when they do finally come to the time to obey God, they will be taken. Ezekiel chapter 36 verse 24. Ezekiel 36 and verse 24.

For I will take you from among the nations.

What are they doing among the nations? I will gather you out of all countries. I will bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take out the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgment and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land I gave to your fathers. You shall be my people, and I will be your God. So why are the 12 tribes located where they are today? Were they blessed? Being there? Getting there?

Blessed for what? Millennia of disobedience to God? Blessed for spreading false religions around the world? Blessed for taking others' lands that they were not given by God? For killing off indigenous people? For participating in the global slave trade that's been taking place since about the time man showed up? Sweatshops? Bribery? Swindling? Selling debt? Desecrating the environment? Ruining health? Spreading evolution as if it's a divine doctrine? Sexual perversion? And the promotion of the breaking of all of God's Ten Commandments? Take every one of the Ten Commandments. Just look at any country and they are disseminating the breaking of those Commandments. Actually, some legally requiring the breaking of God's Commandments. Notice verse 22. And I will, well verse 20, therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord, I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for my holy namesake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went. Let me just read that again. Therefore, say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord of God, I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for my holy namesake, which you have profaned, we have profaned God, godliness, among the nations wherever you went. I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. And the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. For, verse 24, notice this, for I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you to your own land.

Once again, as Jesus asks, do you not see these things? Do we not see these through the lens of Scripture and through the lens of the family of God, through the lens that is not part of this world, part of this society? When we look at the threat of Israel from its inception, we see back in Deuteronomy chapter 9 and verse 3, we see Abraham, a type of a grandfather, as it were, of Israel, maybe a great grandfather, a type of the father of the faithful, of the church, those who will be in God's kingdom, Deuteronomy chapter 9 and verse 3. Therefore, understand today that the Lord your God is he who goes over before you as a consuming fire. So here's Israel. They're now going to cross the Jordan River. They're going to take Jericho and they're going to move into their promised land. Is this because of God's blessing for their righteousness? He will destroy them and bring them down before you. So you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has said to you. Now this is what he said to do in their own land. He didn't say, go around the world and wherever you go and whoever you annihilate, oh, that's just fine. Verse 4, do not think in your heart after the Lord God has cast them out before you saying, because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land. But it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you. Verse 5, it is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness that those nations that the Lord your God drives them out from from before you and that he may fulfill the word, notice, which the Lord swore to your fathers to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So God made that promise and it's being fulfilled, not because of their righteousness, because God said it would happen. Daniel also said that the nations of Israel will end up here and there, and they did. God said that would happen. He didn't say it was because of their righteousness. Now God had also chosen an earthly place to replicate his heavenly throne at a specific site. Let's go to Genesis chapter 22 and verse 1. Genesis chapter 22 and verse 1. Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, Here am I. And then he said, Take now your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I shall tell you.

Now if you look on this slide, you'll see here an ancient Jerusalem. And you notice right here the word Moriah. This is one of the oldest maps, obviously before people were there and had a town.

There would not be a temple there. But here is the name Moriah, and on one of the mountains, Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac. You'll notice that's right where the temple would be built. If we go to 2 Samuel 24 and verse 18, 2 Samuel 24 and verse 18, God came that day to David and said to him, Go up, erect, and alter to the Lord on the threshing floor of Aruna, the Jebusite. And so David did that. We skip across to verse 25. So David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. And the Lord heeded the prayers for the land, and the plague was withdrawn. So same place. At this point in time, that was the threshing floor. Now let's come up to a time when it would be called Zion. Also it would become the Temple Mount in 1 Kings chapter 8 and verse 1. 1 Kings chapter 8 and verse 1, we come to the time of Solomon.

And the dedication of the temple would be taking place. 1 Kings chapter 8.

Now Solomon assembled all the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the chief fathers of the children of Israel to King Solomon in Jerusalem, that they might bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from the City of David, which is in Zion. So let's come up here.

We see that Abraham made this journey up to Moriah. Then we see here Mount Moriah. And later we have a temple with the Holy of Holies. And at this Holy of Holies now is coming, the Ark of the Covenant. And so we see in verse 18, that the Lord said to my father David, whereas it was in your heart to build a temple for my name, you did well, that it was in your heart. Nevertheless, you shall not build the temple, but your son who will come from your body, he shall build the temple for my name. So the Lord has fulfilled his word which he spoke, and I have filled the position of my father David, and sit on the throne of Israel as the Lord promised, and I have built a temple for the name of the Lord, God of Israel. Within that temple is the Holy of Holies. Now, this is, you might say, God's headquarters in a way. Obviously, God is everywhere, and he met people and has done things all over. But he did, down through time, specifically put a spot where an altar and a place of worship, a place of formal assembly, would take place. And then around him, he invited the Israelites to have their land, their promised land. Now, if you look right here is Jerusalem, right there, and you can see the tribes all the way around. What we're going to do in the next installment is we're going to see what happened here with all of these tribes and their God, whether they obeyed God, whether they were united under God, and what the people did. When we look at that map, hopefully we can look at it through the lens of Jesus Christ's eyes. Do you see these things? Do you see these things the way they really are? Or do you say, oh, I have this romantic view of a time in the past, or sort of a romanced idea of what Israel and the people of God in their promised land were really like? Next time, we'll take a look at that in part two of Do You Not See These Things?