Ruling Those Who Wish to be Ruled

I'd like to thank the Young Adult Choir for a beautiful rendition of Worship the King. Delightful to hear. Lovely voices. Lovely harmonies. Couple weeks ago, I was listening to Mr. Reeves begin his sermon and set all of you up by saying that if you'd heard one of his stories before, you could raise one finger or two fingers and I shuddered, knowing that I was going to be speaking two weeks later.

And my mind was imagining somebody with all ten fingers up and their shoes off. Don't raise your hands or fingers for my stories because you've heard them too many times. You don't have enough digits on your hands to repeat them if I go that particular route. I'd like to start this morning's Feast of Trumpets sermon with a question. We all know the meaning of the day. We have been through the rehearsal, and this is another rehearsal many, many, many times. With that in mind, what are the two greatest goals that God has for the day of trumpets? I'd like you to turn back to Revelation 19.

We'll simply read two scriptures, and those two scriptures will answer the question, what are the two greatest goals God has for the Feast of Trumpets? Revelation 19, beginning in verse 11. And then I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse. And he who sat on him was called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God.

And the armies in heaven clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed him on white horses. Now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should strike the nations, and he himself will rue them with a rod of iron. He himself treads the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God, and he has on his robe and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

This is simply one of the scriptures that identifies the coming of Jesus Christ to reign on this earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It is a transition of power, a transition of authority, the transition from the God of this world who currently rules and the replacement with an eternal ruling, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

The other great goal is described in Romans chapter 8. And again, there are multiple places that identify these particular goals, but I've simply chosen these because they are relatively succinct. Romans chapter 8, beginning in verse 18. The Apostle Paul was reflecting upon the time when this day becomes a reality, and this is how he reflected upon it. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.

For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly awaits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subject to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope, because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

For this, or for we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. And not only they, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, if even we ourselves groan within ourselves eagerly awaiting for the adoption, the redemption of our bodies. The two great goals pictured by the day of trumpets is the return of Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords, and the revealing of the sons of God, who will be changed from physical to immortal and will join him in ruling the earth.

These two goals are accomplished at the sound of the seventh of the trumpets that are a part of the day of trumpets. But right behind these two goals in priority is a goal that God and Christ begin working on even before the day of trumpets, and is directly connected with Christ coming to rule on this earth.

As we keep the day of trumpets, we're all aware, Mr. Ciprenco and his sermonette even addressed this particular area, we're aware that by the time we come to celebrate this day, that the end time plan of God is already fully in motion. In fact, we're well into the end time fulfillments of those things that were asked by the disciples. You know, the disciples said to Christ, tell us the signs of your coming and of the end of the age.

And in Matthew 24, Christ telling them what the end of the age is, the end of the age begins well in advance of the day of trumpets. We are, as it were, mid-stride. So when this day comes, the seventh trumpet blows, Christ returns, we are changed, and Christ is now ready to rule this earth. But you know, to rule the earth in the manner that Christ intends to rule requires subjects who want to be ruled. Stop and think about it.

To rule this earth in the way that Christ intends to rule this earth requires subjects who want to be ruled. When we skip to the return from captivity of the scattered children of Israel and Judah, we see a body pictured in prophecy who are fully ready to be subjects to Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords. You know, it's very easy as we move from trumpets to atonement to the beginning of the Feast of Tabernacles, and we look at the highlights of each of those.

It's very easy to overlook a key element of Christ's millennial rule.

He is not coming to rule an ambivalent people. He's not coming to rule an ambivalent people. Christ will populate His kingdom with people who want to be ruled.

Let's look at the priorities again, but this time in time order.

We mentioned the coming of Christ, the sound of the seventh trumpet, the resurrection of the saints to immortality. If we look at the priority issues in time order, the first would be preparing a body of physical descendants of Israel and Judah who want to be ruled by Christ, followed by Christ coming as King of kings and Lord of lords. And almost in the same instant, the change to immortality of the sons of God to join Him, to rule with Him. So God's first priority, time-wise, is to create a ruleable nation.

And that leads to three questions that I'd like to answer this morning.

Why aren't we ruleable now? What will it take to change that?

And what will a ruleable nation look like? You know, the answers to all of these appear really as early as the blessings and cursing chapters in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The end of Deuteronomy already begins to show the answer to that question. But the prophets, both major and minor, are absolutely full of it. There is so much in the major and minor prophets that it literally becomes dizzying to parse out those scriptures and passages which describe the answer to the questions that I've posed to you. But let's start at the beginning. Why can't we be ruled now? You know, there isn't a single answer. We're not all cut out of the same fabric. We're not all walking the same walk. People's cases are different, and their reasons are different. But they can be classified. While we're here in Romans—in fact, if you haven't changed where you were, all you need to do is probably move over to another page—here are the classes, if we break them down into broad bodies, here are the classes of un-ruleable people and their reasons why they're un-ruleable. Romans 10, verses 1 through 3, the apostle Paul said, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.

But I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. This is a very interesting class of people because they're zealous for God.

They're ambitious for God. They, on the surface, are people who, by the world in general, would be seen as godly people. But as Paul lamented, he said, their godliness is wrapped up in their own righteousness rather than submission to the righteousness of God.

He went on to say in chapter 11 about these same people in verses 25 and 26 of chapter 11, I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that hardening in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved as it is written.

The deliverer will come out of Zion, and he will turn away on godliness from Jacob, for this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.

These are people right now who are not ruleable because they have exchanged the righteousness of God for their own righteousness. Matthew chapter 7 describes another class that are only slightly different, but nonetheless different from the one we just described.

Matthew chapter 7 Matthew chapter 7 and verse 21 Jesus Christ said to the audience of his day and time, Not every one who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. For many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. You know, it's interesting the way he ends it, because in ending it, he truly identifies a class of very religious people to this very day. Lord, Lord, are we not demonstrating those things that say we're fully committed to you and fully involved in your way?

And he said, Depart from me those who practice lawlessness.

It's not the byword of religion in general today the quote, doing away of the law, the quote, we are not under the law. All of those statements that basically say we are devoted to you, we praise you, we worship you, we adore you, but we don't want anything to do with your law.

Titus chapter 1.

Two classes so far of those who currently simply are not ruleable. Titus chapter 1. 1. Titus 1.15 says, To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but even their minds and consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.

Any time you read either a Gallup or a Barna poll, Barna being today the most well-known religious pollster, but Gallup has been a religious pollster before Barna ever came along, so you could go either direction. And there's a dichotomy that exists between those by poll who profess to be Christian and those who attend church.

There's an even greater dichotomy between those who claim to be spiritual and those who are committed to this walk. The terminology of our society is, I am a nominal Christian, which means by name, if you ask me to fill out a category, and these are the categories, I will check the box that says Christian. So nominally, by name, I choose that box.

Do I go to church? Well, no, maybe a couple times a year. Do I practice the practices of my church? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. And as the questions go on, you find out that for all intents and purposes, other than identifying categorically to the category marked Christian, there's not a lot of evidence in my life that I do it, that I live it.

So far, we have three categories, and I think it's appropriate. I'm going to give you five categories, but I think it's appropriate because in terms of the polls, the majority of Americans still see themselves when it's check a box, as Christians. So, I'm going to give you five categories. One is the Christian. Romans chapter 1 will provide us the last two categories.

Romans chapter 1, verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because what may be known of God is obvious.

It's evident. It's manifest in them. For God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.

I sat recently and read a National Geographic special edition, larger size, on the history of civilizations. And I told my wife, I said, it's absolutely infuriating to read it. I said, they can go through every culture and the history of every culture and simply describe it until that culture happens to overlay in some way with biblical record. And it is an automatic knee-jerk.

Of all the civilizations, the only civilization that they treated in a particular way was that of Israel and Judah. And for that civilization, they had a box that had three choices, what the Bible says, what archaeologists say, and what critics say. And so, every single solitary thing about the history of Israel and Judah had a pushback. For those countries that are in the early part of Genesis, I told my wife, I said, it's interesting this subtlety because rather than using the biblical names, they covered the same areas, Eric, Akkad, Colna, Babylon, Nineveh, but they couldn't use the names, Babylonian Empire, the Assyrian Empire. They had to choose the Akkadian and the... And I said, you know what? I sit here and read, and the writers of this are absolutely as transparent as a freshly windexed window. I cannot allow the biblical record to simply state the fact and leave it alone. I have to have an alternative.

I have to have a pushback. Those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

And the last category is verse 28 of the same chapter. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting. If you want a simple answer as to why we're not ruleable now, you have all the categories.

You have everyone from people who are zealous to hear for religion but will not obey God. To those who have so abandoned the way of God that they can't even identify what is good, bad, constructive, destructive any longer in their lives.

You know, in our current world there are believers, agnostics, and atheists, and each treats God in a different way. But only the crucible of tribulation will tell who is willing to change and obey God. I've learned over the years, I've worked with enough people over enough decades, I've learned that you simply can't stereotype people. That you can't do religious, nominal, agnostic, atheist.

When God puts our society through the crucible of tribulation, ruleable people will come from every class that I have just read to you. And unruleable people will die in every category that I have just read to you.

There isn't a good class here and a bad class here in terms of who will be ruleable.

When you sing the words to Amazing Grace and you know the backstory that goes with it, you know that ruleability comes from a change of heart, not from where you started.

Not from where you started. How will God take this mixed multitude of people and change them into a nation that want to be ruled? How will He take all these categories and bring them to the place where He can identify those who will eagerly want to be part of His kingdom?

Turn with me to Hosea 5.

I'm going to take one scripture out of Hosea 5 because that one scripture all by itself absolutely screams an answer. Hosea 5 and verse 15.

I will return again to my place, till they acknowledge their offenses.

Then they will seek my face. In their affliction, they will diligently seek me.

I'd like to read that scripture to you from three modern translations, each one capturing different nuances. One, the Good News Bible.

I will abandon my people until they have suffered enough for their sins and come looking for me.

Perhaps in their suffering they will try to find me. The contemporary English version says, then I'll return to my temple until they confess their guilt and worship me until they are desperate and beg for my help.

And last of all, the easy read version that says, I will go back to my place until the people admit they are guilty, until they come looking for me.

Yes, in their trouble, they will try very hard to find me.

How do you produce a nation that can be ruled?

For those who are the easiest to touch, for those that are the quickest to think, you simply back off and leave them to their own devices. You withdraw.

You know, we live in a world when surveys are made, and Mr. Sexton and I have an inside track on this since we've discussed some of these things at the last council meeting. I think Mr. Kubik's message will probably go to all of his sites, but this will be an area that he's focusing on, so I don't want to steal his thunder. But he did comment on the fact that the number one question that comes to the home office is, why does God allow all the suffering that we see in this world?

People don't understand that God is not the God of this world at this time. He grants authority, and he respects authority. This world is not his world. When Christ comes, it will be his world, and the former authorized ruler of this world will be replaced, and we will all celebrate that next Holy Day, won't we? The removal of the God of this world. They, first of all, don't realize that God is not the God of this world, but God does care for his own, and he is very, very tender-hearted to those who are pliable and who yield to him. I have watched with a level of passion the hurricanes from Harvey onward that have come through and ravaged. They probably mean more to me than they would to some. Diane and I, both young adults from different parts of the country, were assigned to Mobile, Alabama, and lived there at the time that the strongest hurricane ever to hit the mainland of the United States occurred. You know, there are a dozen different ways of measuring hurricanes, but wind speed being the measurement that I'm referring to right now. When Hurricane Camille in 1996, 1969, got my letters reversed, hit between Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi. It was a naval station in Gulfport, Kiesler Air Base in Biloxi. The hurricane destroyed their measuring instruments at a sustained wind of 190 miles an hour as it hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

It was a few weeks before we were allowed back into that area to check on all of our members and how they were doing. And I will never forget that, first of all, none of our members who lived in an area that had winds stronger than any of the hurricanes that you have been watching during the last two weeks, none of them were harmed. But the most spectacular was the most vulnerable, one of our members who lived on the beach in Pascagoula, 25 miles from the eye. When we were allowed to go in to see her, the storm had eaten the entire beach to within six feet of her back door, and it dropped straight off about eight feet. She had a screen porch that looked out on the Gulf.

There was not a single solitary hole in the screen.

She had a little mobile home beside the house for her husband's mother. It was untouched.

As close as I stood on that screen porch, as close as to where I'm standing right now in the sound booth, was the neighbor's house. It didn't exist. It wasn't that it was down. It didn't exist. It was a concrete slab heaved up in three pieces, and nothing else. The house was gone.

God said here in Hosea, I will return to my place till they acknowledge their offenses. Then they will seek my face. God always starts in the gentlest way, hoping the gentlest way will bring a response, and He only turns the screws as gentle doesn't work.

So simply to begin with, God begins to create a pliable people by taking away His presence and blessings. Smart people stop and say, because they can't add to and to, there's something wrong here. There's something wrong here. Some of them actually look in the mirror and say, what do I need to do? It's this time of year with this kind of season that those of us who've been in the ministry for a long time, and you also, one of the first things I did last week, I met Harvey and Dan Cooper in the hall. We were chatting, and Harvey said, I'm going to Jekyll Island. I said, give me a report.

As the Hurricane Irma marched up Florida, worst damage in Jacksonville in 90 years, first question on my mind is, how is Jekyll Island? He says, it's fine. Stan Martin said, everything's okay, all systems go. As I watched going up the west side, and the prognosis was it'll go right over St. Pete, I looked at my wife and said, our prayers need to be for Panama City. This is big enough if it goes right up the west coast, Panama City's, even though it's going to be off the eye, it's going to take a significant hit.

In this room are people who can tell all sorts of stories about going to the Feast of Tabernacles. The most spectacular I've ever watched was a year we went to Jekyll.

A hurricane was coming in on the path that you've watched it come in.

The Hurricane Harvey is, well Harvey and whoever the one is that did the loop-de-loo just in front of was a Jose that's been going crazy.

The hurricane that year at feast time was a Jose. During the Feast of Tabernacles, it parked over the top of Cuba and went back and forth for seven days, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And when the feast was over and everybody left, it came off of Cuba and came up its traditional path.

I will withdraw Amos chapter 9. Amos chapter 9.

Incrementally, as God works on people, and people begin to have the lights come on, they begin to register. They begin to add two and two, and it comes up to four. God is looking toward the next step. In Amos 9 verse 8, he says, He says, I'll destroy the nations. I simply will not destroy the body of people.

As grain is sifted in a sieve, yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground.

All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword.

That's those who say that will calamity shall not overtake us, will not be defeated. You know, I am invincible. He says, all the sinners will die. But he says, of those who will listen to me, those who are pliable, he says, I will sift them like grain in a sieve, and not a single solitary grain.

Of those who will listen to me, obey me, and follow me, not the tiniest grain will fall through that sieve, and I'll lose it.

You know, God is not the least bit ignorant as to who is willing and who isn't.

And when he sees a willing heart, when he sees a heart that will listen, is pliable, that is beginning to understand, that is workable, it's not, whoops, I missed that one.

Got here a day late. I was so busy looking over here that that one, I missed that one, not God.

He says, I will sift them wherever they've gone, and I won't lose even the smallest one of them.

Ezekiel chapter 36, speaking on this same thought.

Ezekiel chapter 36, and verse 19 says, So I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed throughout the countries.

I judged them according to their ways and their deeds.

So I said, the scattering, when you read the millennial scriptures about where they return from, they return from all over the place as returning captives. But he said, I've scattered them all over the place, but in that scattering, I've got my eye on all of them. I am assessing, I'm evaluating, I'm judging, and I'm judging according to their ways and according to their deeds.

One more to make this same point. We're still on Amos 9, but these just simply give more depth to what I read to you in Amos 9. There's also a scripture in Amos 5, and I will simply read this one to you. You don't need to turn there because the minute I start reading it, many of you will say, oh, I already know that one. For thus says the Lord God, the city that goes out by a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which goes out by a hundred shall have ten left to the house of Israel. He says, I will judge, I will sort, I will evaluate, but you do need to be aware of the fact that in my evaluating, in my assessing, it's not going to be a large body of people who will bend.

It is not going to be a higher ratio of people who will yield, who will listen, who will be pliable.

The majority of these people are going to come up in the last great day. They simply are not willing, in this day and time, in the environment they've grown up in, to bend sufficiently to be a ruleable people. One last scripture to answer the question that we have posed right now, the question of how do you produce a nation that is ruleable, takes us to Ezekiel chapter 20.

In Ezekiel chapter 20, beginning in verse 33, God says, as I live. You know, you can't hear anything more serious coming out of God's mouth than as I live. Though it doesn't carry the label of vow, it is a vow.

I am vowing by my eternal existence, says the Lord, that with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, I will rule over you. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out.

What you're seeing here in verses 33 and 34 is simply a repetition of what we go through if we go through the Old Testament side of the Days of Unleavened Bread.

These very same terms are the terms that God used with Moses and Israel when he brought Israel out of Egypt and he brought them into the wilderness.

I'll bring you out with outstretched arms and with fury poured out. I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will plead my case with you face to face.

You know, the commentaries, rightly so, anyone who would claim to know what that means, they would be suspect in my eyes. And so most of the commentaries I respect in that, they say, we don't know what the wilderness of the peoples means, meaning we don't know geographically where that is. The more insightful ones say it's probably not a particular location, a specific, pull out your map and I'll put my finger on the wilderness of the nations.

Some of them speculate it may be while they are in the nations, while they're in their captivity, then I will plead with them. But what you see here is God pleading.

God is very passionate, extremely passionate.

Scripture that I was reading while I was going through this in preparation for the sermon, God literally used the term, I was crushed by your conduct. I was crushed by your conduct. We look at the might, the power, the invincibility, the immutability, you know, all the words that we use toward God in His greatness.

And it's hard for us mentally to bring ourselves down to the place where God can emotionally feel like we feel. Yet He says over and over and over and over again, He does. But it's like, how can He? How can He? He's Spirit. He's eternal. He can be anywhere, everywhere. He's made everything. How can He feel like I feel? And yet He said to Israel, you've crushed me with your unfaithfulness. I love you with such a passion. You can't imagine, and you have crushed me by your infidelity and your indifference toward me.

When you know that's how He feels, God saying, I will plead with you is not hard to understand.

Every one of us as ministers have dealt with cases of infidelity. And what it does to the person who wants very much to be married, to stay married, and finds out they have a mate who is unfaithful, and all the emotions that go through it, all the pleading, all the crying, all of the hoping. And when God describes Israel as an unfaithful mate, it's hard to understand mechanically those steps. And so He says, I will plead, I'll plead my case. You know, it's not just, please come back to me. It is a matter of saying, you have been unfaithful to me.

So the pleading is not the pleading of somebody who's on the weak side of the leverage. It is the pleading of somebody who's on the strong side.

So as we were reading, I'll start again in verse 34.

I'll bring you out from the countries and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will plead my case with you face to face.

Just as I pleaded my case with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will plead my case with you, says the Lord God. You know, it does provide provocative food for thought, doesn't it? I can go back to Exodus and see how God pleaded his case face to face with Israel in the wilderness. How will God, with those who are coming out of captivity, plead his case face to face with them? I don't exactly know, but I know the parallel that he's using, and it's very intimate. I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. I will purge the rebels from among you and those who transgress against me. I will bring them out of the country where they sojourn, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord. How will God create a ruleable people?

You know, as we walk through Revelation, we reach the time as we open the seals of Revelation where before the day of the Lord and the day of trumpets is the day of the Lord.

We are celebrating right now a time that is within the day of the Lord. But before the day of the Lord begins, we have the sixth seal. We have, as it were, an intermission where God looks to see how many have gotten the point. And he says those don't have to go through what's yet ahead.

God is keenly watching all the way along the line. All God wants is for a people to come back to that covenant relationship and be ruleable that he has wanted all along.

And when they reach that point, he has no reason to go any further in chastisement of them.

And so, before we ever get to the day of trumpets, there will be the 144,000 and the innumerable multitude who are already given, if we want to use the term, special treatment.

This is how God will produce a people who can be ruled once his kingdom begins.

It's critical to understand that God is not bringing back a people from captivity in the hopes that this might work out. He's not going into this on a hope basis. He is going with the assurance that when we arrive in the millennium at the Feast of Tabernacles, and you begin hearing the sermons during the feast, that the people who are there are 100% with God.

So, what will they look like? What does a ruleable person look like?

Those who return, and God establishes them in their lands around Jerusalem.

What will they look like?

Ezekiel 6. Ezekiel 6.

I have three scriptures. All of them will be in Ezekiel, and probably appropriately so, if you stop and think about it, because what's the setting of Ezekiel?

Well, Ezekiel is a captive in Babylon. He's living in the community of people who thought it could never happen. We have the true God. We have the temple of God.

Nothing can happen to us, and now they're all sitting in Babylon. Captives.

What better place for God to plant end-time prophecies about this subject than in a book written by a man who was living it among a nation that was living it? Ezekiel 6.

And verse 8.

We've already read—or we didn't read—I gave you Amos 5 about the city that goes out by 100, will come back by 10. In verse 8 he says, Yet I will leave a remnant. So he's saying the same thing here that Amos said, so that you may have some who escape the sword among the nations when you are scattered throughout the countries. Then those of you who escape will remember me among the nations where they're carried captive. Because I was crushed by their adulterous heart, which has departed from me, and by their eyes which play the harlot after their idols, they will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all their abominations.

What's the first element? What's the first flag to go up to indicate that they will be ruleable? They can put things together. They can take things that God has said to Israel in ancient and modern times, a hundred times over, that goes right over their heads. But this one will go right square to the bull's eye in the middle of their forehead, and they will put together their spiritual infidelity, and they will detest their conduct.

loathe, detest, abhor. You know, when David came to the place after the prophet of God nailed him on the issue of Bathsheba, he said, I abhor myself. I abhor myself. You can use the word abhor, you can use the word detest, you can use the word loathe. They all speak to the same thing. A true, crystal clear, ultra-high-definition mental picture of what I have done wrong.

As God said, you've crushed me with your infidelity.

You don't know how badly you have hurt me.

You know, one of the disservices we may do to ourselves—you may not, but if you do, then this will be of benefit to you. One of the disservices we can do to ourselves is we can read through these scriptures where over and over and over again, God says you have played the harlot with your idols. And we can simply say, it doesn't apply to us. We don't have idols. And in the sense that they had idols, we don't.

We don't have the carved, we don't have the cast, we don't have those things.

Our idol is evolution. Our idol is there is no God. Our idol is these things all happen spontaneously. Our idol is it doesn't take anything to make all of this. We worship at the throne of nothingness. We bow down and worship. This made itself. It just happened.

Do you think that doesn't offend God every bit as much as a substitute maker?

You ever done anything really outstanding and have somebody look at it and says it's a piece of trash or I don't even think you made it? Couldn't be made by you. You're not bright enough.

You know, we can manufacture all the insults we want to manufacture, but we have been insulting God with our Godless-ness every bit as badly as people who took a stone, a stick, or something cast of bronze and bowed down to it. So when you see idolatry, don't think it doesn't apply to us today every bit as much as it did to them. We simply have changed our form of idol worship.

And the stupidity of all of what God spent, who knows how long, making, engineering, designing, manufacturing in ways that are beyond our wildest imagination to simply dismiss them with a shrug of the shoulders that just happened is about as insulting as insulting can be to our Creator.

Blows my mind when somebody says the genetic code would take so many pages per volume and so many volumes just to record the genetic code. Oh, it just happened.

Can you think of a way to be more insulting? I can't.

When we realize who our gods have been and how stupid those gods are, we will loathe ourselves.

Ezekiel chapter 20.

Ezekiel chapter 20 and verse 41.

He says, I will accept you as a sweet aroma when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will be hallowed in you before the Gentiles.

This is the other end of it. He says, once you're really there, once you're fully there, he said, I will accept you as a sweet aroma.

I don't know where your nose goes, where your brain goes, and where your nose goes with that.

Every once in a while you can smell an absolutely beautiful perfume, so you can go that direction.

Or a couple days ago, I came downstairs and said to my wife, you're making it really tough to be upstairs with that smell that you're creating in the kitchen.

And there was a combination of a... I could smell the chocolate of brownies, and then I could smell a meat that was cooking in the oven. And it doesn't matter which way I go, main course or dessert, they're driving me nuts up here. God says, I'll accept you as a sweet aroma when I bring you out from the people and gather you out of the countries where you've been scattered, and I will be hallowed in you before the Gentiles. When you are a ruleable people, you're my pride and joy. I'll be able to do like every button-busting grandparent does when they have the first grandchild. Look at my pictures. Look at my kids. Then you shall know that I am the Lord when I bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for which I lifted my hand in an oath to give to your fathers. And there you shall remember your ways and all your doings with which you were defiled, and you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight because of all the evils that you have committed. You know, the beauty of an absolutely profoundly repentant heart is that God is so totally thrilled to have the person or the body of people as He is right here.

And those who are being accepted by God are absolutely thrilled to be accepted by Him.

But they always keep in their mind a profound understanding of how completely and totally unworthy I am to be here, which makes my being here all the greater thrill. Because I shouldn't be here, but I am. I know that I'm not qualified to be here, but I am. I know that I'm not worthy to be here, but I am. The two of them in concert produces a sense of loyalty and fidelity that is phenomenal. The icing on the cake is Ezekiel 36.

In both of the cases we've read so far, we have people who have been able to contrast where they are now with where they were to see that they are absolutely totally unworthy to be where they are, which makes them all the more grateful.

But then God adds the icing on the cake.

And in Ezekiel 36, verse 24, For I will take you from among the nations, Gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. And then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all the filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.

I'll take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers. You shall be my people, and I'll be your God. I will deliver you from all of your uncleanness I will call for the grain and multiply it and bring no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you'll loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and your abominations. So again, we have the same coupling. You know, for profoundly repentant people, they never forget those things that made them unworthy to be a child of God.

And it's an impetus. It's a driver. It says, if you care about me that much and I'm that unworthy, that drives me all the more to want to please you.

It's the old, to whom much is given, there is much gratitude. To whom little is given, there's little gratitude. These are people who will see that they have been given profound blessings, and they will return to God profound gratitude.

It's no wonder when you look at what a ruleable returning peoples of Israel and Judah look like, that God will say, now I have the model that I asked ancient Israel to provide when they came out of the wilderness that can model my ways to all the nations. You and I will arrive at the Feast of Tabernacles, and you can almost count on it. Somebody is going to read those scriptures about the Gentiles who come and say, come, let us worship, teach us your ways. Those that will grab the skirt of a Jew and say, you know God, teach us His ways. Those that talk about all the nations flowing. God will have a ruleable people. They will provide a powerful model, and they will initiate the millennium. As we keep the day of trumpets rejoicing in the coming of Christ to rule as King of Kings and our resurrection to eternal life, just remember that this day is sandwiched in the middle of God's plan to prepare physical descendants for Israel to be the model nation that will usher in the kingdom of God.