Do You Want What God Has to Offer?

I know there's a big controversy that's going on in our society this week because of what Mr. President Obama announced this week that he was in favor of homosexual marriage. And it was such a bombshell that went through our society as people took sides over it and has caused all this arguing and all this fighting.

What was amazing, though, about his decision was not that he said that because he actually represents about 50% of the people in the United States who believe that homosexual marriage is acceptable. What was amazing in his what he said was that he had come to this conclusion because of his Christian faith, that this was acceptable because of his Christian faith. I heard the report on ABC and I went and read the report on the online. It was interesting that in the original report, he actually, after he made the announcement, he called a Christian pastor who is an advisor to the White House and asked his opinion.

And the pastor said, you're wrong. That's not what the Bible says. And which he said that Mr. Obama was surprised because he said, this is the golden rule. Treat others as you wish to be treated, so should we not accept all people? And my purpose isn't to get up here and bash the president. Like I said, he represents a trend. He represents something that's going on in our society. We've been watching this happen for a lot of years. Some of you here have been around long enough to remember the 1960s, when these trends really started.

And they've progressed in our society. We just become softened by things and different things that happen until we actually, they become just part of our culture. There was a time when, if you said the word abortion, people were appalled by the very word itself. Do you realize, since the early 70s in the United States, we have aborted somewhere between 70 and 80 million children. That's the size of a major European nation. How many scientists, how many Christians, how many followers of God, how many people that would have helped society, how many doctors, how many teachers, how many bricklayers, how many good mothers were aborted?

What is the long-term effect on any society that's killing off millions of its children before they're even born? You and I are so used to the entertainment. I would wager, if I was a betting man, that most of us, and I have to include myself in this sometimes, will sit down and turn on the television. If we're not really thinking, we'll be watching something that 20 years ago we would have been so appalled we would have turned off.

And we don't even realize that we're watching it. Now, 20 years ago, there were sociologists and there were ministers telling this country that it was going in the wrong direction. Twenty years later, we're still shouting the same message. Fewer and fewer people are listening to the message because we're all becoming complacent.

We're all becoming used to it. We're used to the violence. We're used to the hatred. We're used to the propaganda, the propaganda that says, �Homosexual marriage is okay because it's what Jesus would have wanted.� So we just sort of get used to it. If we're not careful, it becomes part of the way that we think. So here we are in a deteriorating society.

You and I live in a deteriorating society. That's why we're uncomfortable so much of the time. Everybody you talk to is uncomfortable. There's something wrong. We always talk about the economy, but the economy is only a little piece of it. There's something wrong. Of course, economically, we are headed towards � we're on a train headed towards the Grand Canyon, but the whole world is headed towards that precipice. We're headed towards an economic disaster, and I don't want to depress everybody, but I don't care who gets elected. This economic disaster is going to happen.

For too many years, we've lived a certain way for too long without taking responsibility for ourselves. Common sense responsibility and moral responsibility, and we are a nation headed towards a precipice, and it's not going to get turned around unless people turn to God. Now, nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to hear to turn to God for the answers.

We think we have the answers. We think we can fix this. And so, to shout the message that we're headed towards a precipice, to shout the message that this doesn't work, to shout the message that abortion is wrong or homosexuality is wrong, or divorce is wrong, or that multiculturalism and acceptance of all religion as equal paths to God is wrong sounds more and more like a fanatic.

Fifty years ago, it was mainstream. Fifty years ago, that was mainstream. Now it's seen as fanaticism. But it is the truth, and unfortunately, we're headed towards that presence. Now, this isn't something that should shock us. We were told all through the Scripture that humanity can't work this way. That this isn't God's world. And that eventually we will come to the very edge of self-destruction.

Back in the first seminar we read from the Olivet Prophecy. I want to go back and read a couple verses. As I said, we'll cover a few places that we've covered in the first two seminars just to catch us up in continuing on what we want to discuss. Matthew 24, with the most profound prophecies given by Jesus Christ, about what it would be like before He returns. If you look in verse 3, now we stand on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately saying, tell us when will these things be?

And what will be the sign of Your coming in the end of the age? They were beginning to realize that He wasn't going to set up His kingdom on that earth. They didn't fully understand it yet. But they, okay, you've come the first time. When do you come to set up the kingdom? How does that happen? When does this age end? They thought it couldn't get any worse. They lived under Roman occupation, under a Roman Empire, which, by the way, was very violent. Its entertainment was people killing themselves in the arena. They lived in an environment in which the Roman world, homosexuality was accepted, and the Roman world, abortion was accepted. In fact, in many ways, there's not a lot of difference between the Roman world they lived in and the world you and I lived in.

And for those followers of Jesus Christ, they looked around and said, you know, I can't get any worse than this. They had no idea. It is going to get worse. And He told them it's going to get worse. And what you and I are going to right now is going to get worse. You say, wow, I drove over here this morning to be told all this bad news. I already have enough bad news. It's already bad. I already looked at the paper today.

I already saw that the stock market really didn't bad this week. I already know that my money doesn't stretch as far. I already know. So why did they come to hear this? Why did you come here to hear this? It's because there is a good news beyond this. And the question that's being asked today is, do you want that? That's what we're going to talk about today. Do you want it? Do you want what God is going to offer you?

You have to answer that, or you can continue to live in the mess that we're living in. Because you can't fix your life any more than the Democratic Party or the Republican Party can fix this world. Nobody can fix this mess except God. Jesus says to them in verse 4, Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name, saying I am the Christ, and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

They lived through horrible times, these people. The man that Jesus was talking to, most of them died horrible deaths, just in order to follow Jesus Christ. We know Jesus is scary at betraying, but the other eleven, probably only John did not die in violent death, and he died an old man. He died an old man watching the church that he helped form under the direct instructions of Jesus Christ deteriorate and fall apart. Because by the time you get to the end of the New Testament, the church was falling apart.

And he's wondering, when will Christ come back? He was asking these questions, and you know when the answer was in the book of Revelation. And it's not yet in this time. It's way off in the future, where you and I are a whole lot closer to that time than the apostle John was when he wrote it. We're a whole lot closer to that. Verse 7, for nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

There will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places, and all these are the beginning of sorrows. He says, when you get to that place, where our world is entering into this time, he says, that's just the beginning. In fact, he goes on in this very same discussion here, this very same prophecy in verse 22, unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved.

But for the elect's sake, those days will be shortened. The elect. In the last seminar, we talked about who are the elect, those who turn to God, those who wish to be part of the kingdom of God now, by living by its standards now, by being part of the family of God, by having God as Father, Jesus Christ, his elder brother, right now. We talked about that last time. Those are the elect. For their sake, God will intervene and not allow humanity to destroy itself. So, the question is, once again, are you ready to change your life?

We can read prophecies. Prophecies are exciting. Prophecies are great motivators. But, you know, prophecy of itself is just knowledge. We can know an awful lot about the Bible and not truly be Christians. That's what we're going to talk about today, this morning and then after lunch. We're going to talk about how we can, if we're not careful, have a lot of knowledge about the Bible, that in reality not truly be Christians.

Are you ready to have your life changed? So, let's go back to a premise we talked about in one of the other seminars in 2 Corinthians 4. Just a reminder, because nothing is going to change in your life until you really come to understand what Paul's talking about here in 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 3. We're breaking in the middle of a thought a little bit, but we'll see where he's going here. He says, but even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. He says the people who don't understand the gospel are dying.

Now, all of us are dying. We're all growing older. We all realize that the physical life has an end point. This is about eternal life. This is about salvation. This is about being part of the family of God forever. This is about why God made human beings. He made us because He wanted children. That's why God made us. That's what humanity is all about. The humanity has lost that purpose.

Humanity has lost the understanding of who we are and why we're here. And so, we zero in on the unimportant, how much money I can make today. Can I buy that boat? What's on TV tonight? Now, that thing is wrong to make money or have a boat or watch television. I'm saying, unfortunately, that's our focus of life. And because it's our focus of life, we don't understand why we're here. These precious little moments we have, the 60, 70, 80 years that we have, and sometimes it's even less. There's a reason for this.

Because there's an eternal reason for this if we are willing and want it and grasp it and let God work in our lives. He goes on, He says, the world is perishing, dying, whose minds the God of this age has blinded, and do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is in the image of God, should shine on them. They're blinded because of the God of this age.

This is not God's world. And if you and I are going to actually make the turn to turn back towards God, not just the name only, not just to be Christian by that term, but in reality of life, we have to understand that this is not God's world. Satan is the God of this world. The greatest lie that Satan ever told us that he doesn't exist. His fingerprints is on everything, and His fingerprints is on you and me.

We bear the fingerprints of the God of this world. The way we think, the way we feel, the way we act. Why is it that we are not like Christ? Why is it that we don't live our lives with that kind of purity?

Because deep inside of us, our very nature has been changed, because there is a God of this world. And so Jesus, when He came, He said, you have to have different priorities in life. You have to change at the very fundamental level of who you are. Christianity is more.

Here's a great lie that's told, that Christianity is just accepting Jesus in your heart. And somehow you give a prayer of repentance, and you receive eternal salvation. And so you see the little tracts, and you open them up, and they say, save this prayer, and you save this prayer, and then it says, you are now eternally saved. That's not true. I'll show you in a minute. Jesus Himself said that's not true. You say, but I gave the prayer.

This is about becoming the children of God. Matthew 6, 33, right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. We'll actually come back to the Sermon on the Mount and discuss it a little bit here today, later. Matthew 6, 33. Here's the priorities. The Sermon on the Mount has been called the Constitution of the Kingdom of God.

And I think that's a good explanation of what it is. It lays the foundation of how Jesus Christ said, this is how people who now have let God be their ruler, we have to reject the ruler of this world, but we don't understand. We have to come to the realization that you and I have been influenced by the ruler of this world. Now, I know that's hard for us independent Americans. No one influences me, especially someone I can't see, but he has. And so we've lived our lives in rebellion against God.

Matthew 6, 33 says, let's seek first the words of Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. If you read the verses before this, this passage is Jesus Christ saying, you worry about your life, you worry about your food, you worry about your clothes, you worry about the roof over your head. And He says, you know, stop worrying about those things and start spending your energy seeking God's rule in your life, the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, His ways, and God will take care of the rest.

That's a huge jump that's hard for us to take. Seek God, follow God, and He'll take care of the rest. No, no, no, no. Let me take care of the rest, then I'll seek God. That's how we think. When I get enough time, you know, then I'll follow God. When I get enough money, I'll follow God. When I get the right husband, I'll follow God.

When I get the right job, I'll follow God. When I get finished sowing my wild oats, now, if you're at a certain age, you have no idea what that means. It's an old saying that people would go out, you know, wild oats aren't planted, they just grow wildly.

It was an old saying that young people had to go sow their wild oats. They had to go to a period of rebellion. I don't know when it started. That was long before I was born. Sowing your wild oats. Now, as soon as I get over sowing my wild oats, then I'll go talk to God. But I want to have a little fun first.

So what do we do? Well, we turn to God after you're pregnant and an alcoholic, and then you say, I've had my fun now, God, I want to come to you. It doesn't work that way. We come to God damaged, yes, He'll forgive us, yes, He'll work with us. I'm not saying, out of here, what state you're in, God will forgive you if you turn to Him. I'm just saying there's an easy way and there's a hard way. There's an easy way and there's a hard way.

And I can tell by the lines on the faces in this group, many of you have done it the hard way. Well, let's make this easier. Let's make this easier. Let's turn to God. This message that Jesus brought isn't new. If you go through the Old Testament, there's prophecy after prophecy after prophecy, which talks about how human beings were cut off from God, but God was going to send His Son, the Messiah, and He would come and He would save humanity. Last time we talked about there were two comings. The first time He came was to take our sins upon Himself and to die a horrible, torturous death for us and be resurrected for us so that we can become accepted into the Kingdom of God, the family of God, which shows something.

God did not throw out His standards. He did not throw out His law because He would not have had to kill Jesus if He would have thrown out His law. Because if He threw out His law, there's no death penalty on you and me.

It is the law of God that requires our deaths because we're corrupted. Satan has corrupted us. You go back to Daniel. We won't turn to Arabic. Daniel 2. It talks about where Nebuchadnezzar was given a vision of an image of a man, and it was gold and silver and bronze and iron. When you go through that chapter, Daniel is given special inspiration by God to explain what it means.

He says, these are four kingdoms that will come. He says, you're the first one, Babylon. Then, after Babylon, will come a silver, a different kind of kingdom. We know that that was Persia. Then after that will come Greece. You look through history, and that's exactly what has happened. He didn't tell them what the fourth empire would be. We know that Greece was taken over and conquered by Rome. When Jesus came along, his followers lived in the time of the Roman Empire. But the Roman Empire is stretched on through history, and we know there comes a time in the future where it's going to come on the scene again.

Because if in the days of that fourth kingdom, that's something very important to happen. That fourth kingdom seems to have disappeared, but it hasn't. It's coming back because it's in the days of the fourth kingdom. Then verse 44 is fulfilled. Let's go to Daniel chapter 2. Let's just look at one verse.

Daniel chapter 2 is a very well-known passage. Because of its importance in this, this prophecy stretches out over history. Let's look at verse 44. And in the days of these kings, what happens is that the Roman Empire, the Empire of Iron, would split into two, which is exactly what happened in the Eastern and Western Empires. The Western Empire fell in the 400s.

The Eastern Empire did not fall really until the 1400s, about the time Christopher Columbus was coming here to the New World. You find the collapse of the Eastern Empire. But according to that prophecy, it's going to come back again with ten kings. It'll be a very mixed, very partly strong, partly weak empire. And in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed.

The kingdom shall not be left to other people, but shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. See, in the image, there was a stone that comes out and crushes the feet of this image, and it collapses. And it destroys the entire image. All empires, all peoples, come under this one everlasting kingdom established by God. Verse 45 says, Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, that of broken pieces, the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, the gold, the great God is made known to the king what will come to pass after this.

The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure. We can look back through history and see that that's all been fulfilled except the very last part of it. All of Daniel chapter 2 has been fulfilled except the last part. The time when that empire of iron mixed with clay comes on the world scene, and this stone of God, the rock as he is called, the Messiah, the Christ, comes and crushes that, brings it down and establishes God's kingdom on this earth.

When I say establishes, he actually re-establishes. God's kingdom is everywhere. It's not like God's kingdom doesn't exist. God still sits on his throne. Satan has only allowed the be on this earth for a short period of time as the God of this world because God allows him. And there's going to come a time when God says, it's enough. I don't allow you to do this to my children anymore.

That time is coming. Do you want to be part of it? Do you want to be part of it? We have to ask these questions. What's going to happen? And our world over the next few years is going to change everything so dramatically. You need to ask that question now. You can't say, well, I'll start asking those questions later. Do you realize what happens if our country, which will happen eventually accepts homosexual marriage? I'm not beating up on homosexual. That's just one of many sins. But I'm saying homosexual marriage should just fundamentally be the foundation of all society.

It changes fundamentally society as described in the Bible. What was the first institution ordained by God? Well, actually, the first one was the Sabbath. You go back to Genesis 1 and 2. And marriage. Marriage. So how important is that? Well, now you're tearing up the foundation of what God created. This is the way humanity goes. This is the way the whole world is going to go. This is the way Europe is going to go. This is the way everybody is going to go. I mean, we talk about abortion in the United States. In China, abortion is enforced by the government, especially if it's, you know, they're supposed to have one child and everybody wants male children, so they kill the girls.

It's horrible! Because now what do you do with a society that's going to end up with three or four or five times more males than females? How sick will that society become? Because eventually those males are going to go find females. They're setting up a demise in China. They're setting up violence. It's going to be almost unbelievable. What are you going to do with that? They found that's one of the ways the Roman Empire survived for so many years.

They killed the girl babies, because boy babies were considered much more desirable. So there were always more men than women in Italy. So they always had an army big enough to keep the empire together. For hundreds of years they kept the empire together, strangely enough, because they killed enough women that all the men had to go into the army to go get a woman. So they would go conquer other places and take women. So how bizarre is that? I think that's going to happen in China sooner or later.

See, the whole world is setting up for absolute collapse, just like Jesus said, just like Daniel said. Now, that doesn't mean we should live in despair. It means we must understand the questions that God is asking us. What happens when Jesus returns? I want to talk about a few things that will happen specifically when Jesus returns. Now, a few of these things are similar to some of the things we talked about in one of the seminars, but I want to expand it, because this afternoon we're really going to talk about what you must do if you want to be part of this.

When I say part of this, I'm talking about what God is doing. You want to be there when Christ returns. You want to be part of that kingdom, which means you have to stop letting Satan and our own corrupt human nature control us now, and we have to give ourselves over to the control of God. That's where we have to go. The first thing that happens when Jesus returns is talk about in 1 Thessalonians 4. 1 Thessalonians 4 and verse 13.

Paul here is talking to Thessalonica, the church of Thessalonica, where people had died in the church, and they were distraught over that. If you read through the New Testament, you'll see that for much of the early New Testament, people thought Christ was coming back right away. So they didn't expect bad things to happen. They didn't expect to get persecuted. They didn't expect people to die. They didn't expect their congregations sometimes got very small. They didn't expect the things that happened that happened, and they struggled.

So he's talking to those people there at Thessalonica about Christians who had died.

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. Though he didn't say, don't sorrow. Grief is normal.

Grief is not a lack of faith. But the point he's making is, it's not like you have no hope. We're not to grieve like people who wonder what happened. What happened to the person that died? He says, we know these people died in the faith. He's telling them we know what their future is. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will break with him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. Now, interesting, Paul must have believed that he was going to be alive when Christ returned. He says, we who are alive. I think every generation of Christians struggles with this. It's my generation he comes back in. I think every generation of Christian has to live as though it is the last generation. As sooner or later, it will be the last generation. I think you and I are supposed to live as this is the last generation. I don't know about you, but I believe it is. But what if it isn't? What if it is fifty years from now or a hundred years from now? It should not change the fact that you and I must respond to the questions that God is asking us. We must respond to those. Because what if it is the last generation? And what if it isn't? You walk out here and get hit by a car today, but you are the last generation for you. Life is pretty fragile. Life is pretty fragile. Do we live it with God's purpose or do we live it with our own purpose? That's the only question. Is God involved or not? Do you want God involved? He says in verse 16, for the Lord Himself, those who have died in the faith, don't worry about them. Don't sorrow too much over them because here is what is going to happen. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. When Jesus Christ returns, the dead rise and the Christians who were alive at that time are changed. We could go to 1 Corinthians 15. What it talks about is that at the sound of this trumpet, they are changed. They were given a spirit body. Now, I don't know how to explain a spirit body. I just know it's better than this one.

I know Jesus has one and He walks through walls and He doesn't...all the physical laws don't apply to Him. And He says, you will be like Me. Paul tried to explain it. He said it's like the difference between the moon and the sun. You and I are a piece of rock with no eternal light. He says it's like the sun. That's what we'll be like. This is the promise. Do you want to be part of this? Do you want to be part of this resurrection?

Whether you're dead or alive doesn't matter. The question is, do you want to be part of the resurrection? Do you want to be changed at this point? In Revelation it says, those who are resurrected at this time will reign with Christ for a thousand years. He begins what is called the Millennium. He sets up God's kingdom on this earth. And He begins to change humanity. And the question is, do you want to be part of this? The kingdom of God is for visionaries. The kingdom of God is for people who don't want to live normal lives, but want to live for something greater. Who want to live for their Creator Almighty God? Who are committed to a life, looking forward to a time when they can help Jesus Christ change the world. And God is saying, do you want it? You don't have to have this. Do you want this? Do you want to be part of this? That was what God is asking you. And He is waiting for your answer. Do you want to be part of this? Do you want to be part of this First Resurrection? You say, okay, I want to be part of the First Resurrection. Christ comes back and you can read all the prophecies. It gets real exciting, a revelation where the armies come up to fight against them and fire comes out and destroys them. Oh yeah, I want to be part of that. Then He comes down and He stands on the Mount of Olives there in Jerusalem. Yeah, I want to be part of that. Well then, what are you going to do? Well, I don't know. I'm going to be with Him. Well, the question is, what is He going to do? Because if you know what He is doing, you're going to know what you're going to be doing. If you want to be part of the Kingdom of God, you've got a lot of work.

Ahead of you. And the work is now being prepared for that. Your life must be a preparation for your work. I heard a pro football player in an interview this week. He was talking about how hard it was to leave pro football. He said, but what helped him was that when the team that he went to, their first team meeting, the coach said, I want you men to understand this is not your life's work. This is a game. So be sure and prepare for your life's work.

Because most of you, if you're lucky, will do this for the next five years. And he said, most guys didn't listen to that. But those who did prepared and realized the professional football was a little bitty piece of their life and that they would have to go on with life. And the way this coach cut members from the team was he called them into his office and sent them down and said, it is now time to prepare for you to go out and do your life's work. The game's over. Go do your life's work. Well, you are preparing for your eternal life's work. That's what Christianity is. That's why Christianity is more than just saying, I gave my heart to the Lord. It's more than an altar call. Now, some of you are old enough to know what an altar call is. You know, we're not going to call anybody to come up here and give your heart to the Lord and then you're saved. It's a whole lot more important than that. It's your life being prepared for the work of the Almighty God because you, those who wish to respond to this call, are being trained to help Jesus Christ change the world.

Do you understand that? That's how big this is. That's how big this is. It's being called as little people to be changed by God so that when Christ comes back, do you realize who's going to be in this resurrection? Abraham and Sarah, the Apostle Paul, Mary, the mother of Jesus, thousands, tens of thousands of people during the Middle Ages that nobody knows their names. People who made God a hundred years ago, some farmer someplace that no one knows their name. No one knows much about him. But he obeyed God. He turned to God and God was in his life and prepared him and he'll be in that resurrection. And you could be there too. But you have to understand, this is so much more than sort of a soft grace. We take advantage of the grace of God. This is all about being changed. We're going to talk about that this afternoon. To be part of that change in the future, you have to be changed now.

I have to be changed now. I want to be part of that future. I want to be part of that vision. But I have to be changed now to be part of it. We have to be prepared for that, for what God is doing. You know, after this resurrection, you know what the next thing Jesus Christ does? Let's go to Revelation 20. Revelation 20. Verse 1. Revelation 17, 18, 19 talks about the return of Jesus Christ.

And He comes in the clouds, and He fights against the armies who amass against Him. It is one of the great ironies of life that when the King of Peace, the Prince of Peace, comes, humanity tries to fight Him. The only one that can solve the problems is humanity tries to fight Him. Verse 1. Then I saw these angels coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in His hand. And He laid hold of the dragon, that is the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound Him for a thousand years.

He cast them into the bottomless pit, and shut Him up and set a seal on Him, so that He should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. Then He's going to be let out for just a little while. And then He's going to be removed forever. Christ, when He returns, this earth will be in an absolute mess.

It's called the Great Tribulation, a time like no other time on earth. When we read just a few minutes ago from Matthew 24, the verse right before the one verse I read said there will be tribulation like no other time. This earth will be in absolute chaos and destruction. If you read through Revelation, this world will be in such a state that you can't even grow food most places. What it describes is nuclear war. What it describes is biological war. What it describes is chaos. What it describes is collapse of civilization. What it describes is earthquakes of volcanoes and disease epidemics, horrible things. You couldn't create a science fiction movie that could capture the horror of what that sounds going to be like.

And just before humanity destroys itself, Christ is going to come back and say, stop it. And in order for that to happen, He has to remove the God of this world. And He's going to do that. I believe that we are affected by Satan so much and don't know it, that when He's removed, the average human being will feel a state of shock. Because I think He affects us so much, we don't even know He's doing it.

He destroys everything about us. Our minds, our spirits, our hearts, our human bodies, everything is destroyed by Him. And we don't even know it. And I do believe that when He is removed, the average person will feel a state of shock. Something has happened and they don't even know what it is. But what it is is Satan influencing their minds.

You and I have to reject that now if we want to be part of that kingdom. Jesus Christ returns and He resurrects the saints. Jesus Christ returns and He removes Satan. Then He begins to set up God's government on this earth. Government means He's going to rule. Jesus Christ is going to say, guess what? There's no more democracy, there's no more communism, there's no more socialism, there's no more of all these different things, no more isms, no more fascism, no more dictators. He said, I'm going to teach you how this works. He's the only one that can heal agriculture.

He's the only one that can heal families. He's the only one that can do these things. You know, human history is nothing but a history of failed governments. We can't rule ourselves. We just keep failing. I don't know how many of you read the book The Man Who Would Be King or saw the movie that was made, well, probably 30 years ago now. Roger Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King.

It's back in the 1800s. Two British soldiers decide they're going to go off into what is now Afghanistan, up into the mountains where no European has ever been. They're going to take a bunch of rifles and they are going to conquer the different tribes and they're going to become kings. So off they go. Mules laying down with rifles. Off they go, the first tribe they come up to, you know, they shoot a guy.

Everybody thinks, wow, that's some kind of magic. Then they get them to worship them as kings or accept them as kings and then they train them to be an army. Then they march into the next tribe and do the same thing. And they're building an empire up in these mountains. And people start thinking that they're gods. So they start worshiping them as gods. Now that wasn't their intent, but, you know, they started to accept it. And so they accepted worship from people and sacrifices from people and they became gods until one of them decided he wanted to marry a local girl.

And when he went to Marrier, one of the tribes people said, why does a god need a wife? So they decided they weren't gods. So they killed the one and tortured the other and he got back to civilization just in time to tell the story.

They had been gods for a short period of time until their worshipers overthrew them.

That's basically the history of human governments. They all fail at the end. And this is very hard to say. I love the United States of America. But you know what? This will fail.

Anytime human beings under Satan's rule does anything. This is the best. What we have is the best human beings I've ever done. You and I are very privileged. We live in the best the human beings have ever done. And guess what? It's still not gods. In its elements of God's way, that's why it's worked. It's just elements. And those elements are being thrown out.

That's what scared all of us or many of us when we heard what Mr. Obama said.

We realize it's just another piece of what makes this work a little bit thrown out until it's all gone. And it will fail just like every other government has always failed.

There was a British historian years ago, Barbara Tuchman, wrote some fantastic books on history.

She wrote a book called The March of Folly, which was how human governments always fail. Just went back to history and how governments always fail. And she made this comment, a phenomenon noticeable throughout history, regardless of place or period, is the pursuit of governments of policies contrary to their own interests.

Mankind, it seems, makes poorer performance of government than almost of any other human activity.

And this fear wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment, acting on experience, common sense, and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be.

In other words, you put the best and brightest of us into a room and put them in charge, and guess what they usually do? Mess it up.

Until Jesus Christ rules, we will always mess it up.

We have to come to that reality.

Now, you and I live in a very messy world. It will always be messy until he comes back.

But there's no use agonizing over the eventual fall of the United States.

As much as that hurts, and it may be in the lifetime of us here, it may not. It may be.

Eventually will. Micah 4. One of the minor prophets. Let's go to Micah 4.

Even in the minor prophets, there are various prophecies about the time when the Messiah will come and rule on earth.

Micah 4.1.

Now it shall come to pass in the latter days of the mountain of the Lord's house, mountain in Hebrew poetry. Actually, most of Micah has written it in a poetic form.

Many of the prophets prophesied and wrote down what we would call a poem, just like the songs or song lyrics. The mountain is an imagery for a government.

So the government, the mountain of the Lord's house, shall be established on top of the mountains, and he shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow to it. Many nations shall come and say, Come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

People are going to say, It's failed, it's miserable, we're living in a devastated landscape, we're living where governments have failed, and armies have killed each other off, and towns and villages are destroyed. And people are going to say, Let's go. We've heard about that Jesus. You know, it's amazing. Even Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims have heard about Jesus Christ. We've heard about this Jesus. Maybe that God really is God.

He said, That's amazing what's going to happen. But you know what's even more amazing?

Somebody's going to help Jesus Christ do this. And that is the work a Christian is preparing for.

Somebody's going to help Jesus Christ heal the world.

That is your work if you want it.

You've got a school here you have to learn. That's what the rest of your life will be, is the school learning how to prepare for this. The rest of chapter 2 says, For out of Zion the law shall go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and he shall judge between many peoples, and rebuke strong nations afar off. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

Someone's going to sit down with the Japanese and the Chinese and tell them, Stop fighting. I mean, those people have been at war for centuries. They're not at war right now.

Just give them time. Somebody's going to sit down with the Israelis and the Palestinians and say, Stop fighting. Someone's going to sit down with all the different tribes and nations in Africa that are at each other's throats all the time, killing each other by the millions, and say, Stop it. And someone's going to go teach them how to stop it. Someone's going to have to teach them how to take care of themselves as physical human beings. Someone's going to have to teach them how to eat and how to have cleanliness. Someone's going to have to teach the world that's an absolute chaos, how to bring order out of it. And there's going to have to be some way that people are taught an educational system that works, an educational system that just doesn't teach knowledge, but teaches character, that teaches at the very core of who God is.

I know this sounds strange in our society, and we shouldn't try to enforce this in our society. I'm not saying we should have it that way. But in this society, there will be prayer in school, and there will be one God taught in every school, whether it's Egypt, or whether it's South Africa, or whether it's China, or whether it's the United States. There will be one God taught, and one Lord Jesus Christ. That's pretty strange in our multicultural society, isn't it?

That's the way it's going to be when the Mount of the Lord is established. Because until that happens, we will fight over who is God.

We will fight over who gets the biggest piece of the pie.

We'll fight over who has the land or the water rights, or whatever reason that people fight for, or just because some people like power.

Nations, then, will be reconciled one to another.

Families will be brought together. Let me just look at another Scripture here, Zechariah, once again in the Minor Prophets. Because I want to capture this vision, because this afternoon we're going to talk about what you must do now.

We're going to talk about some things this afternoon that we have not discussed in any detail throughout the last three seminars. Getting down to, if you want to be part of this, what you must do now. Zechariah, Chapter 8.

This is a prophecy about the time when the Messiah rules from Jerusalem.

He talks about what it's going to be like in Jerusalem, but you understand this is the way God is going to set it up all over the world. There will be no starvation. There will be no crying. It will be safe to walk through the streets. I mean, this place is in San Antonio. You don't walk it through the streets at night. It won't happen anymore.

There will be any children that starve to death in some place in the end.

We don't even, we're so caught in our own little worlds, we don't think about the child that starves the death in Mongolia this week. We're so distant from that child, but God isn't.

God isn't. That child is just as important to God as you are.

And Christ is going to make sure that stops.

Children won't be lying awake at night scared because when the bombs come again tonight, it stops. Do you want to be part of that?

Verse 1 of Zacharias 8. Again, the word of the Lord of hosts came saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, I am zealous for Zion with great zeal, with great fervor I am zealous for her. Thus says the Lord, I will return to Zion, and that's exactly what Jesus does, and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem shall be called the city of truth, the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain, the holy government. And guess what? We won't elect Him.

That's why when people ask me, what's my political affiliation, I say I'm a monarchist.

I believe in a king. That's my political affiliation. I believe in a king.

Because it's the only government that will work.

10. Thus says the Lord of hosts, Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each one with his staff in his hand because of great age. The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets.

He gives us a glimpse of a society in which people are older, people aren't afraid anymore.

You walk into a store, you walk down the street, and people are going to treat each other properly, and older people will be honored. And children will play in the streets, and you won't have to worry about someone coming along and kidnapping a child and selling a child. You know, all over this world there are millions of children sold every year. That doesn't happen in our lives, so we don't think about it. Think about the families where that does happen.

God's going to make sure that doesn't happen again. Do you want to be part of that? To be part of the first resurrection? To help change the world.

Verse 5, the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing. Verse 6, that says the Lord of hosts, if it is marvelous in the eyes of the remnant of the people in these days, but also be marvelous in my eyes, says the Lord of hosts. He goes on and says how He will save people. The whole rest of this chapter is about how He is going to save humanity.

This is God's purpose. This is what He is doing. We know that if you go through the scriptures, He is going to heal the entire environment. He is going to have to. When you look at what happens in Revelation to the environment of this world, it will be to the point where humanity will starve itself. When you look at nuclear winter and the different things that can happen, just from one volcano, one volcano can cause a nuclear winter over a certain period of time on the face of the earth. The whole world will be so destroyed by what happens during the Great Tribulation that nature will not be able, the way God designed it, will not be able to fix it itself.

It is amazing the abuse that we can do. God designed this world to fix itself, the earth. It fixes itself, doesn't it? All the time. I grew up in Pennsylvania and it used to frustrate me. I used to love to go up the Appalachian Mountains. It used to really frustrate me when they would strip mine because they would come in, take out the trees, dig down three or four feet, strip out all the coal with leaves, and all you would have are giant pits that nothing would grow in.

And they would fill up with water and it would be like... I remember just feeling, this is horrible to leave the land this way. What's amazing now, I go back 40 years later, it's forests. It fixed itself. God designed it. But at the end of the Tribulation, we'll have destroyed this earth to the point because of the wars and the things that are going to happen. It can't be fixed. So you read in passages like Isaiah 11 where he has to fix the environment. And you know, one of the things he does even changes the nature of animals.

He actually changes the nature of animals.

My wife and I and family members were going to go to a big band national park and do some hiking a couple weeks ago. And my brother-in-law ripped a tendon in his leg so he didn't get to go. My wife was really nervous because a few weeks ago, a little boy was mauled by a mountain lion right outside the little cabins that we were going to stay in. Because I'm thinking, wow, that's... wow, I want to see a mountain lion. You know, she's saying... but it may be mauled us. Nah, you know, guys, we think none of this will ever happen to us. Somehow, women think it will always happen to them. So we sort of balance each other.

Can you imagine the time when you never have to worry about that? You never have to worry about whether you're picking up a rock in your place and there's a rattlesnake? Because it will hurt you.

That's what Isaiah says. He's going to actually change the nature of animals.

That's not an allegory. That is the foundational truth of what God is going to do when Jesus Christ returns. Those prophecies are real.

He's the only hope we have left, and that's part of what we have to come to the realization.

We think we can fix everything, including our own lives, and at some point we have to come to the absolute realization before God, I can't do this. We can't do this. Only you, God, can do this.

Through your Son, Jesus Christ, you will do this. Therefore, I want to obey now. I want to follow now. I want to live my life the way you want me to live my life right now, so I can be part of that.

This isn't just about personal salvation.

It's about being part of what God is doing in history. This is about being part of salvation history. It's about being part of the solution. And I guarantee you, if you live God's way now, you'll have a positive effect on other people. You can't help it. That's just the power of God.

You can be part of that kingdom. You're hearing the advanced news of it right now. It's coming.

We're here to proclaim that it's coming. We're here to ask you the question, do you want to be part of it? Can you picture it? Can you see that vision? Can you want it? Can you want it enough to let God rule in your life now?

That's the question. That's what we're going to talk about this afternoon after lunch. Do you want it enough to let God rule in your life now? Can you say yes to God?