Prologue

[Light] Well, good afternoon to all of you. It's always weird to compliment the choir when you're a part of it. It always feels kind of self-aggrandizing, I guess, to some degree. But I'm going to take my choir hat off, put on my director hat—or my festival coordinator hat—and say thank you to our choir. I appreciate all the hard work that goes into that, and thank you to our choir director, Andy McLean, who’s put in an incredible amount of hard work as well to get everything prepared and ready for all of you, so that we can present beautiful, special music before God.

Well, happy Feast of Tabernacles! It's good to be gathered here before God on this first Holy Day. It is a pleasure to have all of you here with us in Klamath Falls. We appreciate it. I mean, this room looks already pretty chock-full. Sounds like we're pretty full in the overflow as well. I'd be interested to find out what our high-water number is here and find out generally where we are.

But we are gathered here in Klamath Falls, where God has placed His name to keep His Feast, as was brought out in the sermonette this morning. This is our first year having the Feast here in Klamath Falls. I hope that it proves to be a spiritually enriching Feast of Tabernacles for you, and I hope that you leave this Feast looking forward to—you know—the long distance here to the end of the Feast. But I hope that you leave this week with your cup full. I truly hope that you leave with a spiritual cup full, that you are invigorated, and that you are excited about what God is doing with His people in this time. It's a very special time that He has called us to.

It’s nice to see so many familiar faces from the Northwest. It's nice to see, as well, so many familiar faces from distant lands. Looking forward to reconnecting with all of you and having the opportunity to spend some time and get acquainted with those that I have not yet met. Well, I have two speaking assignments this year at the Feast—both of which are on the Holy Days—which gives me kind of an opportunity to do something that we don't always have an opportunity to do.

My messages bookend the Feast of Tabernacles, so to speak. They're on the front end of the Feast and on the back end of the Feast, and it's an opportunity that's not all that frequent. And so, when you have it, you want to leverage it. You want to be able to leverage that opportunity. For those of you that have kept the Feast of Tabernacles for many years, you recognize that during the Feast there are going to be certain concepts and themes that are going to be discussed. There are concepts and themes that are going to come up regularly as a result of the symbolism of these days in particular, and the specific scriptures that we will be turning to this week that help to paint the picture—so to speak—of what the future fulfillment of these days is that we are here to commemorate.

In other words, there is going to be a certain story that is told these eight days that we are together. As that story progresses, we are going to learn more and more about what it is that God is doing. I don't know about you, but I love a well-crafted story. I love a well-crafted story. I like to read. Honestly, I wish I had more time to do it. As was mentioned, I have a few hats that I wear.

I have this old iPad Mini that I have turned into my e-reader, so I drag that thing with me just about everywhere I go. If I can catch a few pages here and there when I am stopped at the doctor's office or wherever, I like to be able to do that. But I really wish I could just find some time to really carve out, to just curl up with a good book. I tend to enjoy books that have lots of connections. I tend to enjoy books that have twists and turns that keep you on your toes. I like the kind of book that, when you least expect it, pulls the rug out from underneath you.

I love it when there's a crucial detail that's listed in the beginning of the story that you forget about—you don't even think about—and then it comes out to be the most important aspect of it all at the very end of that story. I like having the main character or the secondary character be more than meets the eye, and I like the author putting me in a place where I can't guess what happens next. Not everyone enjoys the same rollercoaster ride in their novels, but I do. I'm also the kind of person who has a very hard time putting a book down once I start it. Once I've gotten into it, once I start it, I have to force myself to put it down at intervals to make the rest of life work. If I could, I would just pound the whole thing out in one sitting and be done with it.

It's kind of the same reason that I struggle to watch serialized television, and I struggle to sometimes wait multiple years for the next book in a series to come out. It's actually so bad that at times I'll reach a point in the plot where, if the climax of the story is coming, I will look at the clock and go, “It's only 11. What's another couple hundred pages among friends?” Which I, of course, always regret the next morning.

You can call it lack of discipline. You can call it lack of patience. I tend to consider it—well, I'm not a quitter. So that's kind of the way I look at it, I guess. But I can't be the only one who suffers from this particular affliction. Many of you are readers as well. You know, if you think back to a book that you've read recently—or the one that you've read most recently, perhaps—there's a very good chance that that book contained a prologue and an epilogue. Something that came before the story, so to speak, and something which came after the story. The prologue is the chapter in the story which provides all the necessary details that set up the story and its characters. It lets you know who these individuals are and what it is that is going to be coming.

The epilogue is the chapter at the end of the story that ties all the details together and kind of lets you know about those main characters and where they go from there. Like most of our words in English, we stole it from the Greeks. And so, with many of our English language words, it has roots that make it up. The word prologue is made of two Greek roots. One is the word pro, and one is the word logos, which you might be very familiar with. Pro and logos—pro meaning before, logos meaning word. Therefore, a prologue is quite literally what came before the word. The word epilogue is made up of epi, which means in addition to, and logos, which means words, so the epilogue is what comes in addition to the word. These two chapters bookend the story that you read in that novel.

This year at the Feast of Tabernacles here in Klamath Falls, we are going to have a story that is told to us during the time that we are keeping the Feast. That story involves God the Father. It involves Jesus Christ. It involves their plan for mankind. It involves a time in which the world will live without the influence of Satan the devil impacting mankind and his decisions.

It's a story that includes our role as kings and priests. It's a time that speaks of incredible healing and abundance, the restoration of all things, and the coming millennium and Kingdom of God. And it is a story that mankind needs desperately. It is a story that this world needs, as it is the ultimate fulfillment of 6,000 years of human history and our failed attempts at ruling ourselves. Humanity is incapable of ruling ourselves. What has brought us to this point where God has to intercede? How did we get here? And ultimately, where are we going?

How can we understand what has come before, and how can that understanding of what has come before inform where it is that we are going and the importance of this story that we are going to hear this week? In case you hadn't already guessed it, the title of the sermon today is Prolog. Would you begin, please, by turning over to John 1? John 1, we're going to begin today as we start to look at what it was that came before—what it was that brought us to this point—what it was that brought us to this point in which God is going to have to intercede.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1).

He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness. And John writes, "the darkness did not comprehend it" (John 1:5). You know, this particular passage of John 1, we see a lot of information recorded in a few sentences. And we get a lot of information here. We see that in the very beginning was the Word, was the Logos, the divine utterance or saying, the spokesman of God. We see that this being existed. We see that there is a relationship between this being and God. We see that there is an identification of this being as divine—all in this opening statement that John opens up his gospel with. He goes on to tell us that this individual was in the beginning with God, that He was pre-existent, that He was eternal.

Verse 14, down just a little bit here from the beginning part of John 1, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). This being here is identified as the one who became Jesus Christ. He became flesh. He dwelt among us as the only begotten of the Father. After a relatively short, at least in human terms, ministry on this earth, this being—Jesus Christ—was crucified, spent three days, three nights in the grave, was resurrected, and is now currently sitting at the right hand of God, awaiting the time when the Father determines it is time for Him to return.

This is all a part of the plan that God has worked out. And it is this return that begins this story that we’re going to hear this week. Because it’s at this return that the kingdoms of this world transition to their rightful ruler. It’s at this moment that Jesus Christ returns that the millennial reign of Jesus Christ—and ultimately the Kingdom of God—begins.

It is this return that marks the transition point between the prologue of the story and the story that we will hear this week. What is this prologue? What is prologos? What is before the return of Jesus Christ? What occurred before this point, and why is this Kingdom so critical? In the book of Genesis—if you would turn over there, please—we see God reach a point where He is so disappointed and angry with His creation that He determines the only way to fix it was to clean house, was to completely and totally start over.

Genesis 6, if you would turn over to Genesis 6. Genesis 6, we’ll pick it up in verse 5. Genesis 6 and verse 5—we’ll get a look into the mindset here of God, just a little bit of where He was sitting with regard to these things that were taking place. "Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, 'I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them'" (Genesis 6:5–7). God was sorry that He had made His creation—the creation that when He established, He declared good. It reached a point in which God looked down and said, this is all wrong. This isn’t the way it was intended to be.

Verse 8, "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord" (Genesis 6:8)—that there was one man that found grace in the eyes of God. You know, when you add up the genealogies from Adam to Noah, you get a period of just a little over a hundred years—or, I’m sorry, a thousand years. Let me add a zero to that. Long-lived folks back then, it turns out. Just a little over a thousand years. We know Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters were on the earth. So roughly from the beginning of creation in Genesis 1 to this point, we’re talking about 1500 to 1600 years. That’s it. 1500 to 1600 years for man to reach a point that God determined something had to be done.

That was all it took. And that’s roughly 10 long generations in that time period. That’s all it took for every intent of the thoughts of man’s heart to be on evil continually—to go from the creation of man to the point where, save Noah and his family, mankind was a total loss. Now, in roughly 4,500 more years of human history—three more cycles of 1500—have subsequent generations improved their track record?

No. We might see some marginal improvement, at least at this point. Maybe not every thought of our heart is upon evil continually. But there’s still plenty of evil out there in this world around us today. The only thing that has prevented mankind from being wiped out again is God’s own covenant and His own faithfulness to His promise that has stayed His hand. That’s it.

As time went on, we see God began to work with specific individuals. He began to work with the nation of Israel. He began to work with the descendants of Shem, the Semitic peoples. Fast forward a little bit—God worked with Abraham, his son Isaac, his grandson Jacob. Through Jacob, his twelve sons—the tribes of Israel. God worked mighty miracles, freeing them from their bondage in Egypt. He led them through the wilderness. He sundered His law from Mount Sinai. And after 40 years in the wilderness, when the generation of those who had grieved God in the wilderness had died, their children were finally delivered into the Promised Land.

Israel grew into a powerful nation. They grew into a nation that cycled between periods of obedience and periods of disobedience, based on the godliness of their leaders and ultimately on the strength of their priesthood. But the weakness that Israel had time and time again was the heart of its people. Israel’s weakness was the heart of its people. Their heart was not continually inclined toward God. It was inclined toward other gods. It was inclined toward themselves. It was inclined toward what they desired—what they wanted—not what God wanted.

Deuteronomy 31—God tells Moses what was ultimately going to come after his death. We just concluded this read-through. If you want to turn over to Deuteronomy 31, we’re going to turn over there, ultimately. We just concluded this read-through in Deuteronomy as we kind of led up into the Day of Atonement.

As we saw the story progress, as we saw Israel go through this process, they've just gone through the instructions of the blessings and cursings in a pretty remarkable fashion. I don't know if you've ever pictured kind of what this would have looked like as they had these blessings and cursings thrown out to them. But what happened was Moses and the Levites shouted from the valley below up onto the mountains, through the slopes of Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, where the people of Israel stood gathered.

You had six tribes on one mountain on that slope. You had six tribes on the other. And as these curses and blessings were shouted up to them from Moses and from the Levites, the people shouted their agreement to those blessings and cursings as they were outlined to the priesthood. The entire nation participated in this exercise. The whole group was there. Through the explanation of these curses, God provides Moses with chilling detail what was going to come to pass should they disobey.

And He leaves Israel with a choice. He leaves Israel with a very dichotomous choice—to either live in accordance with His ways or to disobey. To live in accordance with what God has instructed in His law, in His way, or to choose something different.

Ultimately, what we see is He explained that He desired them to choose life. He wanted them to choose life. But that choice was ultimately up to each and every one of them, and collectively then, the nation.

“And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Behold, you will rest with your fathers, and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them’” (Deuteronomy 31:16).

God says this, Moses, is what is going to happen. It's not if, but when. This is what is going to take place.

“Then My anger shall be aroused against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured. And many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day, ‘Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?’” (Deuteronomy 31:17).

“I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil which they have done, in that they have turned to other gods” (Deuteronomy 31:18). Again, Israel's heart was not upon their God.

“Now therefore, write down this song for yourselves, and teach it to the children of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for Me against the children of Israel” (Deuteronomy 31:19). God says, compose this song, write it down. Do what I tell you here, Moses. Write this down and teach it to the children of Israel. “Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for Me against the children of Israel.”

Notice verse 20: “When I have brought them to the land flowing with milk and honey, of which I swore to their fathers, and they have eaten and filled themselves and grown fat, then they will turn to other gods and serve them; and they will provoke Me and break My covenant” (Deuteronomy 31:20).

Then it shall be, when many evils and troubles have come upon them, that this song—which was taught right before all of these things happened, this song they've been singing for generations, and they recognize—this song will testify against them as a witness. “For it will not be forgotten in the mouths of their descendants, for I know the inclination of their behavior today, even before I have brought them into the land of which I swore to give them” (Deuteronomy 31:21).

God tells Moses, write these things down before they happen. God declares the end from the beginning. Write these things down before they happen, so that they can see that that disobedience was foretold, that God saw it coming down the road for miles before Israel himself even realized what was happening.

So why did this happen? What was the cause of this? Israel did not have the heart to faithfully keep what God had instructed. Their hearts were inclined toward other things.

Mr. Shaby brought out in his opening night message the choice that we all have as part of God's people—to obey God, to live His way, or to choose in our own wisdom, as humans, to go a different direction.

A few chapters back in Deuteronomy 5—and we won't necessarily turn there—but a few chapters back in Deuteronomy 5, when God spoke the law to the people from the mountain, the people agreed to do everything that God instructed Moses to do. They agreed. They heard that statement, and they agreed.

God said, “I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken. Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever” (Deuteronomy 5:28–29).

What we see is the story progresses that Israel, on a whole, did not have that heart. They continued to disobey God. Some of God's people through the ages were given that heart, but the nation as a whole did not receive it. And when they disobeyed, as God said they would, God removed His hand of protection. He removed His blessings. Try to get Israel's attention. There were times in Israel's history where the law was hidden for so long that someone goes into this recess of the temple somewhere and pulls this dusty scroll out and blows it off and goes, huh, we're supposed to be doing this.

And then they do all right for a little while. You know, they have a revival in that sense. They do all right for a little while, but then right back to what was taking place before. God sent prophet after prophet after prophet to warn Israel of their sins. And Israel not only ignored them at times, they put those prophets to death in open rebellion against God.

The Bible even records that the city of Nineveh, the capital city of the Assyrian empire, heeded God's word via prophet when His own people would not. Let's turn over to the book of Jeremiah. The book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was sent to Judah in the time right before their captivity at the hands of the Babylonians, and he was sent with a prophetic message that Judah needed to turn back to God, to turn away from their idolatry, to return to Him.

And for his efforts, Jeremiah was mocked. He was ridiculed. And ultimately, he was imprisoned. Jeremiah 7, God outlines Judah's problems. He just lays it out. God says, these are the issues. He says, you walked after gods to their own hurt. They oppressed one another. They shed innocent blood. The list just goes on that God lays out. And despite Jeremiah's warnings, despite the numerous prophets who came before him, Israel and Judah simply would not hear.

“Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place—on man and on beast, on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground. And it will burn and not be quenched’” (Jeremiah 7:20).

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat. For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, “Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you”’” (Jeremiah 7:21–23).

Notice verse 24: “Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the counsels and the dictates of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward” (Jeremiah 7:24). “Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them” (Jeremiah 7:25).

“Yet they did not obey Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers. Therefore you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not obey you. You shall also call to them, but they will not answer you” (Jeremiah 7:26–27).

These were God's own chosen people. This was the nation of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, the ones whom the Word revealed Himself to and led through the wilderness. All the mighty miracles, all the aspects that God did during this time, as He delivered them from the Promised Land. And He continually delivered them from their enemies time and time again.

Now, the neighboring nations weren't any better. Israel copied their practices. At times in their history, they passed their children through the fire to pagan gods, committed a number of other abominations and atrocities in the eyes of God. And sadly, as we see Israel's story continue, this same pattern occurs through the post-exilic period.

Ezra and Nehemiah struggled mightily to get their people to turn to God, to restore the law, to restore the way of God. That continues on through this inter-testamental period, and to an extent, even into the time of Christ and on down through history today. Humanity has a disease of the heart. Humanity has a disease of the heart. And just as you have pain radiating down the arm, you get a pressure, you get a tightness in the chest, you get indigestion, you get heartburn, you get the cold sweat, fatigue, dizziness.

All those symptoms indicate that something more serious is going on.

The symptoms of idolatry, the oppression of others, the shedding of innocent blood, the disobedience, the outright rebelliousness of humanity, indicates that something more serious is taking place beyond just the symptoms. If you go to your doctor's office, you walk into your doctor's office, and you say, Hey, Doc, I had some pain in my left arm. I got a little tightness in my chest. I'm kind of having a hard time breathing. There's a little bit of pain kind of radiating down my neck, kind of going all the way down my arm to my fingers.

Chances are real good that your doctor isn't going to say, Go home, rest, here. A couple ibuprofen, take a couple of these. Tell you what, four hours, take two more. They're small, you know, and send you home. And honestly, if he does, it's time to find a new doctor. Let's be honest. If he does, it's time to find a new doctor.

No, your doctor is going to recognize that those are classic symptoms of a heart attack. It's something much more serious. You're going to be given a stress test. You're going to be given an EKG.

They're going to make sure that you're not actually having a heart attack in that moment before they send you home. They're not going to treat the symptoms, so to speak. They're going to treat the core issue taking place. And when that is done, the symptoms will go away. That is how your doctor will progress. They're not going to treat the dizziness by itself. They're not necessarily going to treat these other things. They're going to treat the core of the issue.

The actions of humanity throughout time—what we've seen humanity do over the past 6,000 years of human history—are symptoms of something much more serious. They're symptoms much beyond just disobedience, much beyond just rebelliousness, just beyond these things. They're symptoms of a problem that only God Himself can take care of, that only God Himself can cure, because they're problems of the heart. They're problems of the human heart—the issues that rely right here in all of us.

Now, as was mentioned in the introduction here today, I've had opportunity over the past few years to be able to travel as part of my area of service over to West Africa with Mr. Moody. We serve the brethren in Nigeria and Ghana. And in those countries, we have several hundred wonderful brethren—just some of the nicest, most wonderful people you would ever meet. They are just absolute gems. Absolutely love them to death.

As you might imagine, Ghana and Nigeria both are very economically disadvantaged countries when you compare that with, maybe, what we might say are more developed nations. Their economies have been declining over the past couple of years, and over the past few months for sure, inflation is roaring in West Africa, making an already challenging situation even more challenging. So it was already hard before, and now, as things have shifted and as things have changed, it's becoming even more challenging.

Rough median salary in Nigeria is about ₦275,000 a month. Current exchange rates—that's about $172 USD. So just to kind of give you a perspective, many of the goods are priced in US dollars. So you can imagine trying to make your ends meet in some ways with your pricing here—about $172 a month. Ghana is a little less—about $156 USD per month. And keep in mind, that's median income—so 50% of the population makes less. So it's already a challenging situation.

Some of these issues are population-related. Nigeria is actually the sixth-largest country in the world, with 235 million people. That's only 110 million less than the United States—and they fit all of those people in the space of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. 235 million people in the Pacific Northwest, everybody. It's an incredibly highly populated area. Reported inflation in Nigeria is 33%. The government will acknowledge 33%. Real, on-the-street inflation is significantly higher.

Ghana and Nigeria—this is where I'm going with this—Ghana and Nigeria are both rich in resources. Ghana is sitting on gold reserves that are unreal. They used to call the west coast of Africa the Gold Coast for a reason. They're sitting on gold reserves that are unreal. Nigeria, in its lower river delta area, is sitting on a vast wealth of oil and gas that puts them in the top five oil nations in the world. They're sitting on top of these resources. And yet, despite those resources, their people suffer.

The corruption and the backroom deals that occur make it so the funds from those resources don't ultimately see the light of day or even enter the local economy. They get funneled into somebody's back pocket somewhere—funneled into an offshore account—and ultimately get spirited into the hands of various corporations that do business. Sometimes money just disappears. No one can explain it.

People got pretty upset a couple of years back. Former First Lady Patience Goodluck was investigated for misappropriating US $31 million. Misappropriating US $31 million. And just recently, in recent history, US $2 billion that were allocated for the fight against Boko Haram in the north just disappeared into thin air. No one knows where that $2 billion went. Someone knows. It's in somebody's account somewhere.

You know, honestly, it's not much different than our own system in some ways with lobbying and backroom deals. You know, lest we make them out to be more corrupt than what we see in our own country at times. I think the divide is just easier to see in Nigeria. I think it's more in your face in there. But it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking.

When you drive through Accra or Lagos, and you have individuals who are racked with polio begging for money on the streets, and you know there's no social network. There's no welfare. There's no Social Security. There's nothing to take care of them besides the alms that they're receiving from the people who go by. Individuals are destitute. And there's literally nothing that you can do to fix it.

There's no amount of money in the world that is going to cure that problem. You can give them money for food—it's like putting a Band-Aid over an arterial bleed. And it's not just Nigeria and Ghana. The developing world as a whole is experiencing these same issues. Brethren, the only hope—the only hope—literally the only option for these individuals who are living this lifestyle day in and day out right now is the Kingdom of God. It is what we are gathered here this week to explore, to look at, to commemorate.

You could throw all the money in the world at these issues, and you wouldn't see a change. Because the system itself is broken. The system itself is broken. More money won't fix the problem. All it's going to do is exacerbate existing issues. The issue is one of the heart. The issue is one of lording oneself over someone else—of filling your pockets while you watch someone else starve.

That's the issue. Humanity is in desperate need of a heart transplant. Let's turn over to Ezekiel, because God promised a time of restoration to come—a coming time when this problem of the heart will be dealt with.

In Ezekiel 11, He describes to Israel the events of this time, a time in which He will gather them from the Gentile nations to which they have been scattered to ultimately restore them to their homeland.

“Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “I will gather you from the peoples, assemble you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.”’ And they will go there, and they will take away all its detestable things and all its abominations from there. Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them. And they shall be My people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose hearts follow the desire for their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their deeds on their own heads,’ says the Lord God” (Ezekiel 11:17–21).

We see the people of Israel will receive a new heart.

They will receive a heart that is malleable, that is open to God's instruction. They'll be willing to obey. They'll be cut to the heart by their collective sins and repent, to turn to God, to receive His instructions with joy and with gladness. They will be restored. They will be restored.

But you know, this promise is not just to physical Israel. On the Day of Pentecost in 31 A.D., when those prophesied events from Joel 2 began to be fulfilled in part, we see God’s Spirit was poured out upon those who were gathered. That God’s Spirit was poured out upon those gathered, and that that Spirit enabled them to have the proper heart, to be able to accept that gospel of the Kingdom of God, to be able to accept those words, to be able to repent of their sins, and to turn to God. The Israel of God, so to speak—the Ekklesia, spiritual Israel—began on that day. A small group of brethren united in their belief in God and Christ, with the Spirit of God dwelling in them, enabling them to transform their lives, to transform their heart of stone to a heart of flesh, began this process.

The beginnings of that Ekklesia were small, like a little mustard seed. But what ultimately happened, as those believers grew in this way, increased, the people around them became worried. And we see the stories of these in the book of Ephesus in particular. Why were these people so worried? Why were they so concerned? Big deal! People come and go? Because these individuals lived their lives with conviction. They lived their lives with conviction. People of Ephesus saw the manner of income being destroyed as they built these idols and sold these idols, as they sold and trafficked in spell books and things like this. They saw their manner of income being destroyed. Everywhere the people of this way of life went, the world was turned upside down because of the conviction with which they lived their lives. These individuals followed through on what they said they believed in, and these individuals were willing to die for it. They were willing to lose their lives for it. The changes in their life was evident.

And as time has gone on, as we’ve moved down through history, this opportunity has been offered to a number of individuals whom God has called in preparation of developing a group of individuals—a team, an advanced force, so to speak—of those who will serve in the Kingdom of God to come. Brethren, you are that advanced force. You are a part of that advanced force. You are the small group of people at this time who have been chosen to bear the name of God, who have been chosen to bear His Spirit, to learn, to grow, to become the servants of this coming kingdom. You are the group that’s been offered an opportunity to live God’s way of life in a world that is contrary to His ways, ultimately lighting up the darkness around us.

You become ambassadors. You’ve been given the chance to make sense of God’s culture, to make sense of His kingdom, to a world that doesn’t understand and to a world that largely has rejected that way of life. This coming Kingdom of God that we’re here to commemorate and that these days symbolize is the only hope for mankind. It is the only solution that is going to effectively solve the problems that we’re experiencing. It will not be solved by the next president of the U.S. It will not be solved politically, economically, socially. The U.N. can’t take care of it. Science is not going to solve the problems no matter how hard they try. It is not something that man can improve by his own actions. Humanity cannot pull itself up by its bootstraps. The only solution is that God must come and set this world straight.

That’s it. Jesus Christ must return and must bring about the Kingdom of God. But it’s important for us to consider: none of what is coming in that kingdom, none of those things that we’re going to hear about this week, none of what we’re going to discuss matters one iota if the heart of man is not changed. If the heart of man is not changed, if that heart of stone that dwells in man is not replaced with that heart of flesh, that heart of flesh as God promised—that malleable, obedient heart that’s willing to change, that’s willing to transform itself—then there’s going to be no difference from what we see right now, outside of a different group of rulers in place.

This disease of the heart is what’s brought us to this point. It is the core of the story Prologos—before the return of Jesus Christ, the return of the Word—the prologue, so to speak, of the story. This is the core of the prologue and the reason why the story we’re going to hear this week is so incredibly important. You know, this core issue that we are dealing with, that humanity is dealing with, has resulted in atrocities. It’s resulted in genocide. It’s resulted in corruption and injustice. Jeremiah says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

We look at the things that have taken on today and fast-forward even to today. It’s resulted in a world of people that are just carrying on with their lives, just going on with their lives—in some cases, blissfully ignorant in their sins; in some cases, in open rebellion to God. A world that’s just churning forward with no idea that just as the day of the flood came in Noah’s time, so too, ultimately, will the return of Jesus Christ be.

You know, we live in a world today in which some scoff and mock God and His people. Others refuse to acknowledge God, refuse to believe in Him at all. But the return of Jesus Christ that begins this millennial time period is going to be something that is impossible to deny. It’s going to be something that’s going to be impossible to deny. That change in attitude that is going to come as a result of the events of Christ’s return, and ultimately God’s Spirit dwelling in the people, is stark when it’s compared to the attitude that we see around us today.

Let’s turn over to the book of Isaiah. We’ll conclude here in the book of Isaiah today. Isaiah 2, we’ll pick it up in verse 1 of Isaiah 2. Verse 1 of Isaiah 2, just to paint a slight picture of where this story goes this week, as we look at this change from prologue to the story itself: “The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, ‘Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:1–4).

These are the words describing a people whose hearts have been changed. A people who are malleable, a people who are teachable, and ultimately thirst for the knowledge of God. That time is not now. But that time is coming. It is that time that we are here to commemorate this week in a crucial aspect of the story that we’re going to hear unfold before us these next days of the Feast of Tabernacles.

At this time, you and I—we are in this prologue. We are in this time period before the return of Jesus Christ. We are living in the midst of the events of this prologue. Someday, hopefully very soon, Messiah will return, and this story that we’re about to hear about this week can begin in earnest.

So, settle back in your chairs this week. Get comfortable. And listen to the story that God has written for mankind. It is a story of restoration. It’s a story of redemption. It’s a story of transformation and joy. And brethren, it is a story you are not going to want to put down. It is a story you are not going to want to put down. You’ll want to talk about it with others. You’ll want to discuss it. You’ll want to meditate on it. You’ll want to think about your part in it. And you’re going to want to live it during these eight days that we have together. This story that we’re about to hear this week—it’s not the conclusion of the story of humanity. It’s only the beginning.