340: Jonny Stokes - Exhortation: Responsibility & Standing Up Straight

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:13

   Welcome to good Chris Selfian talks. I’m Levi. I’m Chris. I’m Jason. And I’m Brian, thank you for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one talk a week to help us get the Bible in our Daily News feed. Each week we post talk that we previewed from suggestions sent in by listeners from around the world.

2. 0:30

   Then we record a short intro beforehand as a personalized recommendation to you on why we are sharing the talk. And now let’s talk more about this week’s talk.

3. 0:50

   Welcome to the good Chris Adelphian Talks podcast. This is brother Brian. This week’s talk is an exhortation that was given recently by brother Johnny Stokes of the Wamaran Ecclesia. If I’m pronouncing that correctly, Brother Johnny’s exhortation was called responsibility and standing up straight. And he uses the reading from Luke chapter 13 to expound on the story of the Tower of Siloam, the overly leafy and barren fig tree, and the woman with the bent back.

4. 1:31

   And he weaves in the comparison between things that are prone to falling over or being cast down in life with the analogy of our standing before God, that we by nature are bent over like the woman with the disabling spirit, and we need to be straightened out. And how we can assist in this effort is by taking responsibility and standing up straight to be able to be it, to take all of the shots and to bear the heavy burdens that come from being a disciple in Christ.

5. 2:15

   I enjoyed the talk for tackling a chapter that I’ve personally not heard connected like that before. And Brother Johnny had a lot of little encouraging gems all throughout to aid our upliftment this week. So as always, we hope that this strengthens your faith and brightens your day. Brother Johnny Stokes responsibility and standing up straight.

6. 2:42

   Good morning, brothers and sisters. It’s great to be here with you again to share fellowship and reflection around the table of our Lord. And when when we’re together, our strength and our faith multiplies. And this is the perfect opportunity to come and remember who we are, who we’ve been called, why we’ve been called, and, and what we’re doing about it. And this really is on a Sunday morning, the very least we could do, isn’t it?

7. 3:09

   The least Meaning there’s a whole heap more that God expects of us if we are able. And we are able. Look at what we achieved last night at our prize night. Such a huge effort. We’re such capable of easier. And there’s so much time and resources that goes into making a night like that successful. So we are capable and we should ask ourselves, what does God require of us?

8. 3:34

   And if this is all we give, is that enough? And when we meet Jesus one day and he says, thanks so much for for coming on a Sunday morning and and remembering me with bread and wine, I don’t think that we’re going to say that’s all right. It’s just it’s the least I can do. We would never say that because we know that we should always be giving so much more.

9. 3:58

   I heard a brother say in a in a youth group talk just recently. But there’s a huge need in this last and desperate age to up the RPM in our cliches. And he wasn’t talking about Revs per minute and he wasn’t talking about being busy just for the sake of being busy. RPM stood for something he said that R stands for readings. We need to make it a family habit and one that we feel bad for missing because it’s how God speaks to us. P stands for prayer.

10. 4:35

    And what are we living for, brothers and sisters, if not first and foremost for a relationship with our God? And that’s how we speak to Him. And MI thought he was going to say M stood for meditation, but I didn’t. He said M stands for meeting not just Sundays, but all of our meetings and as many as we can. Upping the RPM is not about a performance thing. It’s about a reaction to an increase of saying, yes, I really do want to be your son and daughter, God, and I’m prepared to accept more responsibility in my life. And so we might ask ourselves the question, well, how much responsibilities does God expect me to have? Because we differ in capability and disability as well as our resources, they’re all different. And so as a result of that, our outputs differ dramatic dramatically.

11. 5:33

    But what I know for sure is that God expects 100% effort from us, not 100% accuracy. The accuracy part is that comes through forgiveness and faith. But 100% effort means taking all of the shots. And only we can answer that for ourself. Do we do that? Our recent men’s outing was a a perfect example of this.

12. 6:02

    Such an awesome afternoon and evening. We had bows and arrows and knives and axes and we hurled them and slung them at various targets. I’ll say it’s such a good night. The vast majority of those missiles missed the target, but the joy was in picking up the weapon, taking aim and giving it a go.

13. 6:27

    And that’s what responsibility looks like in our lives, brothers and sisters. It’s easy to watch from afar. It’s also safer in the short term just to sit and watch. But taking aim and having a go and expending energy gives you a gauge of capability. And it feels good to fire all those arrows. My summary of that is taking up responsibility in a psychological sense is just like standing up straight with your shoulders back as opposed to slouching around hunched and downcast.

14. 7:01

    We need to stand up, look up, aim at something, and take the shot. And most importantly, take all of the shots that you have at your disposal. Because we might actually, if we do that, we might actually find that we achieved something. And not only that, but the things you would otherwise be wasting time on become insignificant. So all of those impulsive, low level pleasure activities that we waste time on, they’re, they’re transformed into something that is responsible and impactful and it has actual results.

15. 7:34

    So I definitely think he’s got a point here. However, like I said before, as followers of of God, if we’re going to learn anything decent from any resource like that, we have to start with the why. Like, why should we be interested and motivated to take that point on board? Do we want to take that point on because of our own ambition and pride? Or do we want to learn something from it to please God and help others?

16. 7:59

    And so I think with the right biblical overlay, this rule can paint a very powerful picture of the natural human condition that we all have, and also God’s calling to stand up straight in the truth and take responsibility forward.

17. 8:20

    So the human condition that we all bear in it’s raw form is, is destructive, it’s unfruitful and it’s crippling. But God offers a solution to that pitiful problem that we all have. Instead of destruction, God shows us a construction. He replaces barrenness with fruitfulness. And our bent and broken bodies that we walk around with are straightened by his call to responsibility. And there’s a really cool cameo of of those ideas in Luke chapter 13.

18. 8:56

    Because in Luke 13, there is a damaged and leaning tower that falls over and crushes 18 people. There’s a barren fig tree that’s hewn down to the ground. And there is a pitiful woman who’s been hunched over for 18 years, seized up and can only look downwards, closer and closer to the ground. And this morning, I’m not going to pretend to know the full context of this chapter or everything about it in its entirety.

19. 9:28

    It’s really just a surface look because that’s all I can manage just about. But I’m sure this message goes deeper and is right throughout the Bible. I’m, I’m really sure it is. So I hope that you enjoy this, this story and this lesson of, of Jesus. And I hope that going forward in our lives, we can strive to stay upright and be responsible in what is a very irresponsible and a down a downward trending world.

20. 10:01

    So the contact the the context to Luke chapter 13. There’s actually probably a whole heap of context in the whole last chapter, but just in the in the last few verses of chapter 12, verses 54 to 59, Jesus words are directed to the crowd of people that were around him.

21. 10:22

    And he warns them of a judgement to come instead that, you know, you watch the clouds and the wind and the the rain and the face of the sky and you can work all of that out, but you can’t discern this time or this season. How is it that you do not discern this season?

22. 10:43

    See the Jews were experts at navigating the natural world. In fact they were very successful and and rich a lot of them. But Jesus says you have no idea what’s going on in the spiritual world and what’s coming what’s coming ahead of you. He also says in verses 57 to 59. He warns them that if you if you want to tackle issues with your brothers and sisters in by by by pushing your case and what you think by law, then then just be careful because he says there in verse 58, when you go with your adversary to the magistrate as you’re in the way, give diligence because you might be delivered from him. Oh, sorry, give diligence that you might be delivered from him unless he hailed thee to the judge and the judge delivered thee to the officer and the officer cast you into prison because I tell you, you’re not going to get out of there until you’ve paid the very last mite.

23. 11:42

    That’s a big warning because if we think like that, if we think in a law based way and if we’re cast into prison and we think we can pay our way out, nobody’s paid their way out without paying the price of death. That’s a pretty, pretty important lesson. That’s just a bit of context to what those people will were thinking in their heads.

24. 12:04

    And then in verse in in chapter 13. Now he actually is talking to the same people because it says there they were present at that season and that’s the same word as time at the end of verse 56 of chapter 12. So these are the same people who was trying to tell that lesson.

25. 12:23

    And unfortunately they didn’t think that he was talking about them as usual. They thought that he, he must have been talking about someone else, probably these Galileans or some, someone not as good as them. So they applied the lesson of judgement to others and not themselves. And here in chapter 13, we’re going to look at 3 examples of the natural human condition that highlight the common problem. We’re going to look at the example of the tower, the tree, and the cripple.

26. 12:53

    And we’re going to see that all of them are looking down and falling down. And so these Jews, the same ones in the in the previous chapter, they come to Jesus and they tell him about these Galileans whose blood pilot had mingled with their sacrifices. I’ve no idea really what that story is about. Maybe some of you have have an idea. But from having a bit of look on online and doing a bit of research, it seems like people think that the Galileans had, and they were quite sort of open and, and free sort of people, maybe a bit abrupt had possibly come into the temple to protest or something like that.

27. 13:39

    Right at the time when a sacrifice was happening and an animal had been killed on the altar. Blood was dripping off and onto the ground. And these Galileans rushed in for whatever reason and ended up being killed by, by Pilot or his Roman soldiers and their blood spilled on the ground at the same time as the sacrifices.

28. 13:58

    And the Jews, you know, they, they might have taken a bit of bit of joy in that really to see those hated Galileans slain in the temple. And so they bring that question to Jesus. They, they tell him about what had happened. And Jesus answers in verse 2. And he says to them, do you think that these Galileans were sinners above all of the other Galileans because they suffered in such a way? And so here is I think Jesus is sort of highlighting their subtle dig at the Galileans and probably a subtle dig at himself as well coming out of Galilee.

29. 14:40

    And Jesus says then do do you believe in something like exact retribution, like one sin is bigger than another? He says in verse three, I tell you, no, but except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. So that actually happened, didn’t it? 8070 wasn’t too far away at all. And when the Romans came in, they slew thousands and thousands of Jews and their blood ran through the streets.

30. 15:13

    This was actually going to happen. It’s a little prophecy that Jesus told them and he said, beware of that sort of thinking to thinking that you’re higher than anybody else, because if you don’t repent and take on that attitude of repentance and responsibility, then that’s going to happen to you. And then he he puts forward a another current event that had happened in in verse 4, Jesus says, what do you think about those 18 people that the tower of Siloam fell upon and killed? Do you think that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?

31. 15:50

    So Jesus sort of shifts the, the focus from Galileans back onto Jews just to just to show them that everybody, everybody’s actually the same. This is a story that the Jews didn’t bring up. They brought up the one about the Galileans being killed. That was OK. And Jesus brought up this one. He said this is a current event as well. Some of your own people who you think are better than the rest, Well, they, they were killed by an unfortunate event as well. So does that make them, those 18 people, any more of a Sinner than the rest of the people dwelling in Jerusalem? So whether it’s a man made tragedy like pilots, soldiers killing the Galileans or a natural cause tragedy like the the tower unfortunately falling over, it’s wrong to assume that the victims are somehow worse sinners than everybody else and deserves to die.

32. 16:40

    And I forgot to mention something about the tower. If if you’re wondering what the tower of Siloam was, Google told me, and I think they get it from probably Josephus, that the pool of Siloam that was there wanted to be used as a an aqueduct to feed other parts of the city. And so Pilot had actually built a tower to somehow get water up the top of the tower.

33. 17:00

    I don’t know how they do it with buckets or something like that and then feed the water off to different parts of the city. And that’s the tower that that fell over. So it’s got some relation to Pilot as well, that tower of Siloam. Anyway, verse 5, Jesus says,

34. 17:21

    except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. And again, it’s a reference to 8070 and what was coming on this people, lots of towers in Jerusalem were about to be destroyed, lots of people crushed. And if this generation did not repent and prepare themselves, then that would happen to them as well. And we can contemplate this as well 2000 years later, because this is the way for for all of us and for all of mankind because we’re all falling. We’re all falling downwards terribly just like that tower. And there’s no man made way to stop it. The only escape is repentance and and getting up and out of that system.

35. 18:09

    So let’s have a look now at this fig tree in verse 6. It says there he spake also this parable. So he adds this parable to these two current events. He says a certain man had a fig tree that was planted in his vineyard. A fig tree symbolised all of Israel. So this wasn’t just like a Jew or Galilean thing. Jesus brings up something now that sort of relates to all of Israel representing this this fig tree. And it’s been an idea right from the beginning of the Bible, the fig tree.

36. 18:48

    There’s probably lots of ideas about the fig tree, but one certain 1 is that its leaves were not an adequate covering for sin and it was unable to save. And you can sort of relate that to when, you know, when these Jews, these big leafy fig trees of people that had no fruit, were standing in their city thinking they were going to be fine. The Romans came along, surrounded the city and these naked Jews just thought that they, they were going to be fine by covering themselves with all their different fig leaves like their, their laws and traditions and customs and all that sort of stuff.

37. 19:26

    But really they were naked and unable to save themselves. And all of that work in, in growing that fig tree. And then the nice bushy leaves was wasted in the end.

38. 19:37

    So that’s the, that’s the little that’s a little lesson of, of the fig tree. And there’s two characters in this parable, the certain man and the vine dresser in verse 7. And the certain man represents God. And there’s an obvious, obvious echo back to Genesis where God planted a garden Eastwood in Eden and he put Adam in there to to dress it and to keep it. And so this parable definitely echoes back to to what what God did 4000 years ago.

39. 20:12

    And this time around, the vine dresser wasn’t Adam, it was Jesus, and he was looking after the vineyard. And so we have this carefully tended vineyard we could say carefully looked after for 4000 years. That’s how old this this vineyard was at this point. And there was also a big old fig tree growing right in the middle of it, nice and tall, nice and shady and well and truly overdue for fruit. And that represents Israel.

40. 20:46

    And Jesus had been with these Jews for three years, and still they had not produced any fruit. And so in verse 7, God says to to Jesus, behold, these three years I came seeking fruit on this fig tree and found none. Cut it down. Why does it come by the ground? Why let it suck up the moisture and energy that could otherwise be going into the vine and supporting it when it doesn’t even grow any fruit on it?

41. 21:20

    This fig tree. And so this is a real heavy lesson for the Jews. Jesus is saying that people around here might seem tall and they might throw out a big old shady shadiness underneath them, but if they’re unfruitful, then judgement is going to be harsh because they knew better and they were lazy. And not only that, if that wasn’t bad enough that they didn’t bring forth fruit to God, he also adds that they were being detrimental to everybody else, sucking the moisture out of the place just to make more useless leaves, robbing the fertility of the ground that the vine was growing in, with their cumbersome roots hindering the growth of the vine. And that’s a perfect picture of the scribes and Pharisees, wasn’t it?

42. 22:10

    It’s a pretty, pretty scathing look and example of what was happening that the Jews were actually sucking the life out of the vine. And I definitely would have hit home for for those people listening. But it should also hit home for us brothers and sisters because Jesus parable applies to us too. And perhaps in years gone by we produced a lot of fruit at one stage.

43. 22:37

    But God doesn’t want us to retire in the truth. As someone once told me, you can’t retire in the truth and just sit around being an irresponsible nuisance and just make bigger and bigger leaves. He wants constant growth and constant fruiting and he wants to see a tree that is symbiotic with the vine and supportive of everything else around it.

44. 23:06

    So that’s Jesus. Harsh, harsh message. Harsh message to the people and what’s what’s actually amazing is that in verse 8, the vine dresser says to God, let it alone this year also until I dig about it and dung it and if it bear fruit well and if not after that you can cut it down.

45. 23:30

    That’s pretty amazing, isn’t it? The vine dresser had been looking after this tree for three years trying to get it to grow fruit. It had done nothing. God said, cut it down and Jesus said please, just just one more year and we’ll see if it bears some fruit.

46. 23:45

    So despite Jesus perfectly fertilizing it for a couple of years, for three years, he asks for one more year. And in fact, God’s long-suffering waited 37 more years, brothers and sisters, until 8070 came. So Jesus in his parable here says one more year, but the people actually had about 37 more years before the Romans came and destroyed Jerusalem. That’s pretty amazing.

47. 24:15

    And we can sort of think about that for our time as well. How, how overdue are we to see the return of Christ? It’s 2024, perhaps we’re a couple of decades overdue, if you like. That’s pretty, pretty important to think about. So we’ve seen the lesson of the tower and the tree, both warnings to the Jews of what was coming and what God expected of them.

48. 24:43

    And the last one we want to look at now is the cripple in verse 10 and 11. And in fact, all the way down to verse 17 or something, we’re only going to look to verse 13. So verse 10 says, and he was teaching one of the synagogues on the Sabbath and behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity 18 years and was bowed together and could in no wires lift up. And so here’s the third example trending downwards, isn’t it? These are symbols of the human condition. A once productive stone tower that was giving water out to the rest of the city eventually and suddenly crashed over and killed 18 people.

49. 25:29

    A once fruitful tree, big and shady, was now just big and shady with no fruit and it was cut down, hewn down to the ground and now once probably upright and capable woman has for 18 years been bowed together and defeated. And this is the single occurrence of the word bowed together. If you have a King James, it’s only ever used in in this spot and it means bent all together overcome. And it says and she could in no wires lift up and lift up actually means to unbend.

50. 26:13

    So it sounds like pretty strong language, at least in my Bible that they’re that it’s using. So this wasn’t just a lady with a few bulge discs in the back of her, in her back and you know, she could sort of bend up and give it back a bit of a crack like I do every now and again. It wasn’t like that at all.

51. 26:31

    This lady was so bent over, so folded together that she could in no wise lift herself up. It’s pretty serious. I’ve actually seen some of these people. You might have seen them too. I’d do a bit of aged care work and you go into some of these houses and these little old people, they’re so they’re so bent over that their back is higher than their head, which should be absolutely terrible to, to try and get around like that.

52. 26:58

    But they, they seem to still get around. But it’s a terrible condition. And it’s not like I can just go to the Cairo and get and get it cracked out of you. That’s, that’s their spine just twisting and bending over. So that’s pretty serious. This lady had not a chance of, of bending of unbending at all. And it’s a familiar condition to to all of us as well, because it’s a symbol of our condition.

53. 27:24

    We are bent in a certain way. Our natural inclination is down and we get around all that for 70 odd years before we eventually fold up and fall over and return back to that fetal position that we were born in. And so in verse 12 it says there when Jesus saw her, he called her to him and said unto her, woman, you are free from your infirmity.

54. 27:58

    And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and glorified God. She stood up straight. We’ve heard the same call as this woman. We’ve accepted, brothers and sisters, that our fallen state is one that we can’t overcome by ourselves, and we’ve allowed God’s hands to be the ones to straighten us out, to stand us up and to point us in the right direction.

55. 28:27

    This woman also was straightened up and unbent. And when I was reading this, I sort of thought to myself, well, where’s the woman’s show of repentance? Like, why did why did Jesus just heal her like that? She didn’t do anything. And I think that’s probably the point. The point was that she was bared together and she knew that there was not a chance that she could lift herself up. Nothing she could do about it.

56. 28:54

    And I think that’s why that’s why Jesus saved her. That’s why Jesus unbent her, because she realized that there was nothing that she could do about it.

57. 29:11

    So I think that’s a really interesting, interesting section of scripture here in Luke 13. And the story goes on, but probably out of time and we need to sit down quietly and think about a couple of things before we take the emblems. And I haven’t got you to turn up any quotes this morning.

58. 29:28

    A bit lazy of me, but I did think of some quotes to, to look up just before we finish. And I think they, I think there’s many more passages we could look up, but these, I think these suit really well. There’s about 5 or so you can either write them down and just listen to them or look them up with me. But they relate to exactly what we’ve covered this morning. That man is in a fallen state.

59. 29:57

    He’s not able to straighten himself up. But God calls us to accept that state and repent and turn to him. And then in faith and forgiveness, we are straightened out and as a result, we accept a new responsibility and motivation in our lives from that point on in appreciation for what’s been done for us, despite literally doing nothing. And if our aim is right, brothers and sisters, then we we won’t just continue in our lives to do the least. We will take on everything will take all of the shots available to us, walking uprightly, looking up and increasing the RPM in our lives.

60. 30:44

    So have a look first at Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12 and verse one and two says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And don’t be squeezed into the mould of the world and bent up, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

61. 31:23

    Come to Galatians chapter 5, verse one. Stand fast, therefore stand fast, therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with the yoke of bondage. And that’s why the principle of standing up straight is so important to remember because we’re so prone to entangling ourselves and bending back down to earthly bondage after God straightened us up.

62. 32:02

    And we have to remember that it’s, it’s not I that I’m straight, but it’s Christ that’s straight within me. And we identify with his body, don’t we? That’s why we identify with him on a Sunday morning, because we want to be straight like he is. And we need to acknowledge that we can’t unbend ourselves with our own strength.

63. 32:21

    Only he can if we’re prepared to take up the responsibility for God. Have a look over the page, couple of pages of Ephesians chapter 2.

64. 32:32

    Ephesians 2 and verse one to 10 says, And you who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked hunchbacked, according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air, The spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath even as others.

65. 33:02

    But God who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in our sins. Unbendbackable. That’s a new word I’ve just made-up. Even when we were unbendbackable, He’s quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye saved, and he’d raised us up together to sit and made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

66. 33:32

    So not only does he he reinstate us to to somewhere resembling upright, but he elevates us all the way up to a brand new purpose that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. Because by grace he is saved through faith, and not of your own selves.

67. 33:56

    It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast, For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained, that we should walk in them. Philippians chapter 3.

68. 34:19

    Hopefully you can see that these ideas are like this is an idea that runs through the Bible. Philippians chapter 3, verse 17 Brethren be followers together of me and mark them which walk so as ye have for an example for many walk of whom I’ve told you often and now tell you even weeping that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and who, like a big fat pig, glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things just like that woman who was bent over and couldn’t look at anything except the ground.

69. 34:58

    What’s our policy? Our conversation is in heaven from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the direction we’re looking is up. Who’s going to change our vile body, that it might be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working, whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto himself?

70. 35:23

    Colossians chapter 3 verse one says, If ye be risen with Christ risen, then seek those things which are above where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, and not on things on the earth, for you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

71. 35:46

    When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Mortify there for your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil, concupiscence and covetousness, which is idolatry, for which things sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience in the which you also walked hunchbacked sometime when you lived in them.

72. 36:14

    But now you also put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you’ve put off the old man with his deeds, the old hunchback man that he was, and have put on the new man which was renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.

73. 36:36

    And what’s the image of God? I think you know Isaiah somewhere it says Isaiah calls God the upright one. That’s how He made man. That’s how He wants us to be, His upright. The last one I want to look at is Luke chapter 21 and just think about brothers and sisters, the very critical time that we live in.

74. 37:07

    It’s exactly the same time as when Jesus was warning those people in Luke 13. The times are just as dire. The circumstances in the current events are just as hectic. What are we doing? Are we walking around hunchbacked, got our eyes on earthly things, dollars, pleasures, leisures, etcetera? Are we a big tree with no fruit?

75. 37:36

    Or do we choose to leave all that behind, joke, and to accept the call and stand up straight and alert and ready? Luke 21, verse 20. And when, when you shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let them which are in the midst of it depart out, and let not them that are in the countries enter there into. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.

76. 38:14

    Woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days. For there should be a great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people, and they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be LED away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And this is a bit more related to our time than 8070, but there’s going to be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars and upon the earth.

77. 38:45

    Distress of nations with perplexity. And the word means no way out. There’s no way that humans can save themselves. The sea and the waves roaring, men’s hearts failing them for fear and for looking down after those things which are coming on the earth. For the powers of heaven shall be shaken, and then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, unbend yourself, lift up your heads, for your redemption draws nigh.

78. 39:26

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79. 40:01

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80. 40:34

    God bless and talk to you next week.