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🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 Those who need salvation, I pray that you'd give us the opportunity and give us the boldness to preach to them. Please soften their hearts and please give them a receptive ear. And I pray that you'd also just give our church favor and that we would continue to give you all the honor and glory for all the works that we do. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. That's all we have for announcements. Go ahead and sing our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 150. We have the special handouts if you'd like to sing that. Psalm 150. All right. Psalm 150. Everybody sing it out together on the first. Psalm 150. Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him in the firmament of His power. Praise Him through His mighty ash. Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Praise Him with the sound of the droning. Praise Him with the psaltery and bars. Praise Him with the temporal and dance. Praise Him with strict instruments and organs. Praise Him with the loud cymbals. Praise Him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let every thing that happens. Praise the Lord. Praise Jesus. Praise God the Father. Praise God the Son. Praise God the Holy Ghost. Praise God in freedom. All right. Great singing everybody. Now as the offering plates are being passed around, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Zechariah chapter number six. That's the book of Zechariah chapter number six. Zechariah chapter number six. Zechariah chapter number six. The Bible reads, And I turned and left up my knives and looked, and behold, there came four chariots out from between two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of brass. In the first chariot were red horses, and in the second chariot black horses, and in the third chariot white horses, and in the fourth chariot grizzled and bay horses. Then I answered and said unto the angel that talked with me, What are these, my lord? And the angel answered and said unto me, These are the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth. The black horses which are therein go forth into the north country, and the white go forth after them, and the grizzled go forth toward the south country. And the bay went forth and sought to go, that they might walk to and fro through the earth. And he said, Get you hence, walk to and fro through the earth. So they walked to and fro through the earth. Then cried he upon me, and spake unto me, saying, Behold, these that go toward the north country have quieted my spirit in the north country. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Take of them of the captivity, even of Haldai, of Tobijah, and Jediah, which are come from Babylon. And come thou the same day, and go into the house of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah. Then take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua, the son of Josadec, the high priest. And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is the branch, and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord. Even he shall build the temple of the Lord, and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne, and he shall be a priest upon his throne, and the council of peace shall be between them both, and the crowns shall be to Helam, and to Tobijah, and to Jediah, and to Hen, the son of Zephaniah, for a memorial in the temple of the Lord. And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord, and ye shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you, and this shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for allowing us to be in your house today again, Lord. I thank you for the souls that were saved today, Lord. I thank you for this chapter. I just pray that you bless Pastor Shelley, Lord, as he preaches your word unto us, and that we may be able to learn from it, Lord, and apply it to our lives. Praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Got it. So, in chapter number six, we are kind of encapping a series of visions that we've been going through, and in chapter number seven and verse one, it talks about another vision he's going to have. It says it came to pass in the fourth year of King Darius. So, we end up switching gears a little bit in chapter seven, and the reason why I want to point that out is because I feel like these first six chapters have really kind of given us a loose timeline of some prophetic events, and I find that kind of interesting. It's also kind of just interesting how the book of Zechariah is kind of laid out and just how other books of the Bible kind of follow similar patterns, but in chapter one, just as a quick recap, it talked about red horses going out throughout the earth and recognizing that there was peace. In chapter two, I kind of label this as some idea of there being great exploits because in chapter number two, we talk about their successes and the fact that they're the apple of God's eye and how he's going to bless them, and then in chapter number three, we kind of see in my mind a little bit of a picture of the rapture here with Joshua and the children of Israel being, you know, not able to be touched by Satan specifically, and we talk about Jesus Christ. In chapter four, you get an allusion to the two witnesses that are kind of brought up as that two olive trees, and then in chapter five, we were kind of talking about Babylon, and we have this woman that's pictured as wickedness in this ephah. We also have a lead talent lid that's kind of cast down upon her, and that could perhaps even be a picture of Jesus Christ and just how he's going to come and crush Babylon specifically, and so then when we get into chapter number six, we talk about specifically four horses, and it's pretty clear that there has some tie to the book of Revelation, especially in chapter six when we talk about the four horsemen of the apocalypse, but chapter six also kind of ends with this idea of the return of Christ, and so kind of loosely, it seems like one through three is kind of detailing this idea of Christ's return with the rapture specifically, and then we kind of have those end times events of the two witnesses. We have Babylon, and then we have the return of Christ for the millennial reign, and so in chapter six, I believe that we're really kind of encapping and looking at the millennial reign. Now, I understand it brings up the four horsemen aspect, but sometimes the Bible does this where it'll start back over a little bit and overlapped, but then it'll still bring you to a new event. It'll kind of bring the timeline forward a little bit, and so there's definitely this interesting kind of just illusion that kind of weaves through a lot of these specific chapters, but the thing about the Bible, especially at this time, is it has a lot of dual fulfillment, so while I believe that Zechariah has some significance to the books of Revelation and some of the end times events, it also had prophetic significance to that specific time in history, and so I want to kind of first talk about that before we kind of go into some of the bigger pictures, but I wanted to at least give you that idea that it is about revelation, so I'm going to go back to that, but I also want to talk about maybe the early application, the early fulfillments of prophecy that were being described here. Verse one, it says, And I turned and lifted up mine eyes and looked, and behold, there came four chariots out from between two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of brass. Typically, mountains in the Bible can be symbolic of kingdoms or some kind of a king specifically, and since it's bringing up two and it's brass, it kind of gives an immediate picture of what Daniel talks about. Keep your finger here and go to Daniel chapter number two. Go to Daniel chapter number two. And the book of Zechariah is coming on the heels of Daniel pretty shortly after this book, because Daniel is written at the time of the Babylonian captivity. It's kind of going through that 70-year period of time that Daniel's in captivity. Zechariah is just shortly after that 70-year captivity. The children of Israel have gone back to the land. They started to rebuild. Then they were halted, and we've gone through a few kings, but in King Darius' reign is when Zechariah is prophesying. Well, some of the things that Daniel had prophesied were very future, so it wasn't even necessarily just the immediate future. Daniel had prophesied about the Medo-Persian Empire. Well, we're in the Medo-Persian Empire as we speak. That is the current timeline. But then he also prophesied of more future things with this giant image. There was a giant image in chapter number two that was described. There was the head of gold, which was Nebuchadnezzar, but his kingdom has ceased at this point, and he was replaced by the Medo-Persian Empire, and that was pictured with the breast and the arms, and it's mentioned in chapter number two. But then it goes on beyond that, and look what it says in verse 32. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass. So we have the silver, it's kind of representing the Medo-Persian Empire, and you've got the two arms, so you kind of have that two-pointed throng. Well, then you also have a belly and thighs of brass. Well, thighs, again, is in a pair. So I believe that that is symbolic of this concept of the two brass mountains that are signified in the book of Zechariah. Well, what comes issuing out from those two brass mountains is four horse chariots, or four chariots of horses. Well, go to Daniel chapter number seven now, and we're going to see it also being mentioned here in Daniel chapter seven about this same similar prophecy, and look at verse number six. It says, And after this I beheld in low another like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl. The beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it. So in this vision, it's talking about certain beasts that come out of the sea. One's a lion, has eagle's wings, and then there's a bear, and those are representative of what we already talked about, Nebuchadnezzar with the Chaldean Babylonian kingdom, and then the bear represents the Medo-Persian Empire, and then we have a leopard, which is what we know today through hindsight, the Greek Empire, or the Grecian Empire. This is Alexander the Great. This is approximately 323 BC. That's when Alexander the Great comes on the scene. Well, it's around 576, I believe. Historians argue on the date, don't quote me, but it's approximately around like 500, and I'm getting the numbers mixed in my head. Is it like 576 or 537? It's one of those numbers. Somewhere in the 500s was the Cyrus Proclamation. I think it's 537 now that I'm thinking a little bit harder about it, but that's when Cyrus approximately gave the decree for them to go back. So it's probably only been 10, 20 years at max or something like that, the Book of Zechariah. So in history, we're probably around 515, 520 BC, and so when he's talking about these two mountains of brass and these four chariots of horses, this would be several years into the future, arguably almost another 200 years into the future that is being described and being prophesied by the Book of Zechariah with the Greek Empire. Notice it had four wings here, and that's representative of the fact that Alexander the Great, he only lived 13 years from his campaign. So from his campaign, when he starts going forward to conquer the entire world, he only lives about 13 years of that particular military conquest. I think he died in his 30s, maybe his early 30s is when he died, and so he didn't have the kingdom for very long, and upon his death, that entire region was then broken up into four kingdoms. So that's why we have this kind of picturing of the four wings, or as we have mentioned here, I believe, the four chariots of horses. If you look it up in history, these four kingdoms are known as, given to these specific generals, Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus. So that's really the two that are kind of the prominent ones, are Ptolemy and Seleucus, and they're known as like the Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic Empire. And you may have heard those words before, but that's basically just how this kingdom was divided. Now the Seleucid Empire is what's referred to in the Bible as the North Kingdom, and in Daniel chapter number 11, it goes in this great detail about talking about how there's like this South King, and then he goes and invades the North King, and then the North King ends up marrying somebody else, and they come down, and there's just like all this conflict between this North King and the South King. Well that's what we're talking about, is we're talking about specifically the Seleucid Empire as the North Kingdom, and we're talking about the Ptolemaic Kingdom, which is the Southern Kingdom. The Ptolemaic Kingdom is basically Egypt, and just kind of the surrounding countries around Egypt. So that's basically, if you can kind of think of a map, and you're looking at Egypt, and you're looking at kind of just the few surrounding countries right there, that would be known as the Ptolemaic Empire. The Seleucid Empire is kind of what we think of as that little bit north section above Egypt of the Middle East, and then mostly going west, or east I guess it is, actually I'm sorry, east towards Babylon, towards India, and it had a lot more landscape, just a lot more geography. So just like almost all of that whole area of Babylon, India, that kind of whole range, basically wherever you think Ben's from, that area, okay? If that kind of helps you. Then there was like a little sliver of Asia Minor, where Turkey is, like modern day Turkey, just like a little sliver, and I believe that's what Lysikomis had, and then, I could be mixing these up, but then you get Sandor, the other one just had basically what we think of as Greece. So like one guy gets basically just Greece and that area, Macedonia, and then one gets a sliver of Asia Minor, then you have the Seleucid Empire, which is just almost all of that rest of Israel, Jordan, all of that, plus Babylon, plus all the way to India, and then you have the southern kingdom, which is approximately Egypt, and just that, which is down south. And of course, at any point in time, boundaries change. Boundaries of countries are changing every single year, every single decade, all the different times. So you know, this is just a general idea, a general picture of how those things were settled. So when we talk about Zechariah, chapter number six, I believe that this is one of the applications, one of the prophecies that's being delivered here. So let's go back to Zechariah, chapter number six, and we'll keep reading. But I believe when we talk about the two mountains of brass, and these four chariots that are coming out from the two mountains, we're talking about the Greek Empire that's going to come. And that's pretty significant in just the context of the fact that God is just delivering with such great detail prophetic and future events. I mean, this is before the time of Christ, and God is explaining and describing the exact world landscape and history perfectly. How in the world could anybody do that? I mean, how can you sit here and say there's going to be this many kingdoms, this is how it's going to be divided, this is exactly what's going to happen, here's who's going to follow who, and how it's going to be laid out. I mean, that's very, it's just literally impossible. So typically what people have to do is they have to just claim that all the Bible is written after the fact because of the fact of how accurate it is, and books like Daniel have been corroborated to have been found of antiquity and of times past, and that causes a problem for skeptics and people that don't believe, considering the accuracy of the biblical text. And when we look at history and see it match the Bible perfectly, it should give us confidence that the things that we believe are going to happen in the future are going to happen. I mean, think about reading the book of Zechariah at that time. These things are going to happen for 200 years, meaning no one alive will ever see that or experience that. But that doesn't mean it's not true. Just like there's many people that read the book of Revelation, and none of those things ever happened for those individuals. That doesn't mean it's not true, it doesn't mean that it's not going to happen. Sometimes there's big gaps in time when it comes to the word of God being delivered and then when it actually happens, and we see huge gaps throughout history of God giving His word and then a delay in the word being given again. And so, just because we have a big gap from the apostles to the book of Revelation doesn't make me think the Bible is any less trustworthy or isn't still as reliable. The Bible just has gaps. That's just how God works when it comes to delivering His word, and we have to trust it by faith. But it's nice that everything in the Bible always matches history and science and mathematics and everything perfectly, because it's the truth. It's always the truth. Zechariah chapter 6 then goes on to describe these chariots of horses. It says in verse 2, ... So, he talks about how there's these four spirits from the heavens. What are these four spirits that are being described? Well, I think if we look at Revelation chapter 6, we would get an idea, but I don't want to go there just yet. But I believe that that's going to give us kind of an indication. In chapter 1, we already talked a little bit about the red horses, and the red horses are described in the book of Revelation as being a war-type animal. And in Revelation, it's signifying war beginning. In Zechariah, it's signifying that there is no war, signifying peace. But for some reason, it seems like that red horse is related to the concept of war, and just whether there is war or there's not war, this red horse has some spirit attached to that particular ideology. And the Bible kind of alludes to the idea of God intervening in the worldscape and causing spirits of warfare and peace, where essentially at different times throughout history, God's caused it to where mankind would desire to kill each other through horrible wars, and then other times, he's taking that out, and so this red horse is symbolic of that particular attitude, of that particular spirit that's going throughout the earth. It gives us a little bit of indication here in chapter, I'm sorry, verse 6. The black horses which are therein go forth into the north country, and the white go forth after them, and the grizzled go forth toward the south country, and the bay went forth and sought to go that they might walk to and fro through the earth. And he said, Get you hence, walk to and fro through the earth, so they walked to and fro through the earth. Then cried he upon me and spake unto me, saying, Behold, these that go toward the north country have quieted my spirit in the north country. Now, after this, he kind of goes into another dialogue. So if we just think about kind of what's being mentioned here, I believe that he's trying to allude to some of the events that are going to take fold in Daniel chapter number 11, and kind of what's going to happen with some of these kingdoms. Well, it's a little difficult when we just look at the colors, but keep your finger, and let's go to Revelation chapter 6 for a moment, and let's kind of just get an idea of what these colors represent again. And I know we've studied this, but we'll just kind of do a refresher. In Revelation chapter 6, these are the six seals that are being broken. There is seven, but there's essentially six that are being broken in chapter number 6, and the first that's broken is revealing a white horse. It says in verse number 2, So the white horse kind of symbolizes conquering power and authority, if we think about it from that perspective. Then in verse 3, it says, And there was given unto him a great sword. So notice that this red horse has the ability, or the power to what? Take peace from the earth. So in Zechariah chapter number 1, the red horse goes around and checks, oh, there's peace in the earth, but the red horse has an ability to do something. What? To take the peace from the earth and to cause people to want to kill one another. So this is a spirit that's coming from God, in a sense, that has power and authority to potentially cause warfare on the earth. That's what the red horse is symbolizing. It says in verse 5, So the black horse symbolizes famine, where essentially people are not able to afford foods because the prices have gone up. Why have the prices gone up? It's called supply and demand. This is economics 101. So if you've ever taken an economics course, it's basically you're going to learn about supply and demand, and everything after that's all fake and dumb, so don't worry about it. But that is basically, I mean, really, economics is common sense. Obviously, if you don't have much of a commodity and you have a lot more that want it, you jack up the price, and you can get more out of it. When you have so much quantity that nobody even wants it, you start lowering the price to get rid of your commodity. So it's basically describing that phenomenon, and that phenomenon leads us to the idea or the belief that there is a famine, that essentially products are in rarity. Now, I guess you could argue maybe it's not famine. It's just a supply only issue. But in times of warfare, there's going to be supply lines that dry up, routes that get cut off. You see this as a major form of warfare throughout the Bible, and it's where essentially, it's called a siege, and it's where a specific country or army will besiege a certain area, and they're cutting off their supply lines is what they're doing. So you'll see Nebuchadnezzar and other people doing this. The Assyrians also try this as well. But they'll simply just circle a city, and all they're doing is just waiting them out. They're saying, we know you guys only have so much food, only so much water, and we're just basically going to wait you out because we don't have a cut off supply line. We can keep receiving resources and food and water from all of our trade routes, and so it's just a way to try and kill them because in the city, they're protected by their wall. They can shoot arrows. They have catapults. It's a lot more difficult to slaughter someone on the offensive than it is on the defensive. On the defensive, you have a tactical advantage. So from their perspective, they just sit there and wait. Plus, in the city, they may not have that many horses or that many chariots or that many bulwarks or different devices, and so they just encamp, build their own little bulwarks, and just set up shop and just wait and just try to wait it out. And typically what happens, especially if a city decides to take the idea of just waiting, well, what's going to happen when you start getting hungry? You can get weak, too, right? It's just going to weaken that armed forces. Their morale is going to be low. It's just going to make it so much more likely to win in a particular battle. Of course, you have famous battles throughout history like Troy, which I don't know if this is a legend or not, but essentially they couldn't breach Troy, so they had to have the Trojan horse, right? And essentially it was a gift to go in and open up the doors so they could get into the city because they weren't able to win through a siege, okay? But again, this is just an idea of warfare. It's similar to how in World War II, American citizens didn't want to go into Germany and kill anybody or go die in Germany, and so what America did is we basically took our naval fleet and we blocked the trade routes of Japan. Now, that's an act of war. Now, did we classify that as an act of war? No, we didn't, okay? And then the Japanese are stuck because the Japanese are a major import country. They don't have enough natural resources to survive. They're importing all kinds of goods. They're a port country. They're shipping in all kinds of goods, so if you block their passageways through which people are not able to trade, bargain, they put sanctions on them, we block with our military, well, all of a sudden, they're in a bad spot. So what did they do? They bombed our Pearl Harbor, right? And then that's what gave Americans the morale to enter into World War II because Japan was allied with Germany and then Adolf Hitler, for some reason, decided to declare war on America, and then the rest is history, Jewish history, if you like it. No, I'm just kidding. But that was a method of siege, so it's possible, and again, there wasn't famine in the world in World War II. It wasn't like crop failures or whatever, but if you lived in certain parts of the world, you could have been starving, or prices of goods could have gotten jacked up because supply routes had been blocked, and so you could see the same thing potentially in the end times that certain parts of the world, certain trade routes have been cut off or maybe sanctions or it's illegal for certain countries to trade with other countries. Maybe they're a major importer of goods, and as a result, well, now they're starving. Now the price of goods has been jacked up. So it could be a multiplicity of things, right? It could be famine-related. It could be a supply line issue, but typically when there's warfare, someone's going to be starving. Someone is going to be hungry. Something bad is going to happen, and the black horse is just kind of generally picturing the starvation, the scarcity of resources, and possibly even famine here. As we keep reading, it says in verse 7, And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the fourth of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. Now this is what's interesting. In the book of Revelation, it describes the fourth horse as having someone else there, and it describes it as being a pale horse, and it's described as death and as hell. Well, in the book of Zechariah, we have a perfect match for the first three. We have white for white, red for red, black for black, but then we have grizzled and bae, and then here we have pale, but grizzled is basically a really pale gray, and bae is like a pale green, and they're very muted colors, they're very similar looking colors. So I would argue, and I think it makes perfect sense here, that the grizzled is picturing here death, and the bae is picturing hell. And so you kind of have that grizzled and bae horse as you have death and hell followed after with him. So that's kind of what we have pictured. Go back to Zechariah 6. I want to keep elaborating on this point, but that's just to give us a little bit of an idea of what we're talking about when we're talking about some of these colors. We see the same consistency, too, in the book of Zechariah that these horses with their colors seem to be lining up and matching similar things that were brought up. So in chapter number 6 verse 6, it says, which are therein go forth into the north country, and the white go forth after them, and the grizzled go forth toward the south country. So if we kind of, you know, extrapolate on that, what is the black horses? Well, the black horses was what? The scarcity of goods, right? Of food and essentially just supply lines drying up, famine, not having that. Plus it says the white goes in after them. That picture's conquering. And then we have the grizzled going forth. What is the grizzled? Death. Well, if you read Daniel chapter number 11, the initial part of that chapter, it talks about how the south king goes up and enters into the north kingdom and just decimates that area and takes them over in the initial stages. So again, I think it's really difficult to necessarily get dogmatic about all of these things, but from my opinion, it seems like this is probably alluding to that initial stage of those things happening. And you can read Daniel chapter 11. It's a very dense book. If you're talking about deep things, Daniel chapter 11 is about as deep as you're gonna ever go, okay? I mean, if you want the hardest parts of the Bible, I mean, Daniel chapter 11 and pairing this up with Zechariah 6 is probably the most difficult. You say, I don't even know what the heck you're saying right now. Don't worry, okay? 99.999% of people never even read this or care about this at all. So we are talking about some deep subject here. It's not entirely important at this point apart from just recognizing, wow, the Bible's very accurate. I mean, because those things have happened. History, we're looking through a glass darkly, and when we're looking at this, we're looking through a glass darkly. So it's like I'm looking through two different glasses darkly. Well, it's really hard to know for sure. Okay, but I'm sure for them and back in time, they're probably, it made a lot more sense, and they're probably like, wow, look at what Zechariah said about what's happening and this stuff's happening. Plus, it helped some Christians because some Christians were able to recognize like, oh, wow, there's about to be a famine here in the north country. So maybe I should leave, you know? Like that was probably a hint, hint, wink, wink, nod, nod. Like this might not be the best place to live right now. Okay, and so I think that there's always benefit to knowing this information, especially the timely information, because it can help Christians knowing how to navigate world affairs. It's just kind of giving us that light onto our path, that lamp into our feet where we know exactly where we should go. It also mentions here in verse seven, and the bay went forth and sought to go, that they might walk to and fro through the earth. So you notice that it says, hey, south, in the south, they're coming up, there's famine in the north, they're conquering the north, and there's a lot of death. But what is the bay? And again, this is just my understanding here. I think the bay represents hell. Notice that hell is not limited to this part of the world. What's hell going for? The whole world. Why? Because the vast majority of the world is just dying and going to hell. Especially in the Greek empire. Because the Greek empire is a pagan false religion that is spread out throughout the earth, and it's killing people and sending them to hell. It is a fake false religion. And you know what? There have been false religions of time past that have spread all over the earth, and they're a wicked false religion. Islam is spreading like a cancer all over the world, and it is dragging people into hell with it. Catholicism, in times past, of course a lot further in the future than we're talking about here, but times past for us, through the dark ages and through other periods of time, we have the holy crusades, we have periods where the Catholic church spread themselves almost all over the face of the entire earth. But you know what they're bringing with them? They're bringing the bay horse, which is hell. They're bringing damnation with them, which is a false doctrine and a false salvation and another pagan religion. It's not that much different than the Greeks and the Romans and their pagan ideologies, and we see that, unfortunately, the vast majority of this world is going to die and go to hell. And that's why we go out and preach the gospel. That's why it's important for us to go to all nations and to preach the gospels, because of the fact that this bay horse is sending people to hell in the broad way. Broad is the gate which leadeth the destruction, and many be there which go in thereat, because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth them to life, and few there be that find it. Very few. How do Calvinists understand that verse where it says, and few there be that find it? How can it... I was listening to this dumb Calvinist online. He was attacking me for preaching against Calvinism, and I even said in the sermon, like, I don't have a choice, so you can't get mad at me for preaching against... You can't get mad at me for not believing in Calvinism because it's not even in my control. God just made me to not want to believe in Calvinism, okay? According to your view, at least. So why are you getting mad? Why do you get mad at anything that happens? Because if you get mad at anything that happens, you're just getting mad at God because the only reason that happens is because God did it. And then it was so funny because he's like, oh, these people are so prideful and they're like the Catholic church because they're teaching work salvation. So I was saying the fact that you don't have irresistible grace and you just, you're sitting over here like, I don't want to go to heaven, I hate God, and then you're just like, bam, I just love God, I want to be saved. Like, just irresistible grace. And we believe that you actually have free will and you choose to believe in Jesus. He was making fun of that concept and saying, oh, so I guess God looked down from heaven and looked through the future and saw, well, this person's smart enough to choose to believe in Jesus so he's going to get saved and this person's too dumb to believe in Jesus and so he's going to go to hell. And I'm like, got it right. Yeah, that is true. That's why some people are called wise and some people are called fools. I mean, the fool has said in his heart there is no God. That's not me, that's the Bible. I guess you just don't like the Bible. And then I like how he says this, oh, well, us Calvinists, we have the clearest understanding of faith alone. Well, wait a minute. If you believe in Calvinism, you don't believe in faith alone. You believe in nothing alone. Because I described faith alone, I'm the one that said we chose to believe and that based on our belief we got saved. You're saying it wasn't based on that so you don't believe in faith alone, you believe in nothing. That's what Calvinists believe in. They believe in God electing someone not even based on the faith. In fact, they'll say this, God gave them the faith. So then you don't believe in faith alone. You believe in nothing because you have an empty doctrine, an empty head and you have an empty salvation because you know what? Salvation is by faith alone and what does that mean? It means we believe it's based on something. It's not based on nothing and it's not based on works. It's based on what? What we believe. If someone says I believe in faith alone, well you can't be a Calvinist because they believe in absolutely nothing saving them. And in fact, I listen to this guy and he in the same breath of criticizing me was explaining to his congregation of maybe one of how to be saved and he's saying if you're sitting there worried about how do you go to heaven or like what can you do? Well the answer is nothing. He's like you just need to, you just need to immerse yourself in the things of God and just read the Bible and just, I guess you just gotta hope that you're gonna get chosen based on nothing. But why would it even matter if I immerse myself in the things of God if it's irresistible grace? And you know what? Of course that churns out reprobates very quickly because think about it. In order to think that you're even saved, you have to just have this burning, innate desire inside of you, this unquenchable thirst for the things of God that can't be extinguished and you have no desire to sin ever again. Who in here has no desire to ever sin? Liar. I didn't see any hands but you're a liar if you raise your hand. I mean can you imagine if you're sitting to a guy just, of course they're not screaming, but just I'm a Calvinist, you know. I don't wanna sin. If you wanna sin, you're not saved. You gotta have God give you the gift of irresistible grace and then you'll never wanna sin again. I mean I'm just, I could just see how most people are sitting here like, I kinda wanna sin. Like I wanted to sin earlier. I'm probably gonna wanna sin when I get out. I guess I must be a reprobate. I guess I wasn't chosen. I guess I wasn't called by God. And then they just reject the things of God because of that stupid, wicked, false ideology. And that is another bay horse that's out there is Calvinism, is Catholicism, is Hinduism, is all of the false religions of this world just dragging people into hell with them. And that's why it's so important that we go out and preach the gospel because so many people are just hearing lies today. And you know what's so much more frustrating than some of these false religions? Is Calvinism because people are actually using the Bible and hearing about Jesus and they're getting turned off from the right thing. No one should have to hear this Calvinism junk, this Calvinism garbage because it's a lie. It's not true. It's not what the Bible teaches. There's no legitimacy to it. And how can they even dare say they believe in faith alone? They don't even believe that. They're liars. Now of course some people get mixed up in Calvinism. I'm not saying they're bad people. Of course we'd wanna win them over. But you know these preachers of Calvinism are bad people. And they're not reaching the youth folks. I saw recently a video cause I was just looking, I was like I just wanna listen to some hymns or something. And I was just listening to this hymn and it was like a big church and all these people singing. And I was like oh this is really, sounds nice right? And I just noticed like the congregation is kind of the same demographic. And it was like 50 plus and like all white people and it was like you know 50, 60, 70. I mean just like the whole room, like this huge sanctuary, beautiful sanctuary. And it's like panning around and I'm thinking like this is kinda, it's kinda weird. And then I noticed the pulpit and I'm like I've seen that pulpit. And it was John MacArthur's church. And I was like the thing that struck me though was how there was virtually no one under the age of 50 in there. And it's just like why? I guess this is baby boomer generation just got sucked into this stupid Calvinism and he's like drug all these Calvinists out there with him. But like if John MacArthur was really of God why isn't he bringing all the youth too? Cause he has a weird wicked message and he's a cult leader. John MacArthur is a cult leader. He doesn't preach the Bible. He's not saved. Yeah he's an elegant orator. Boy is he good at speaking. And I've noticed a lot of these people that believe weird stuff. The only thing they have going for them is they're good at speaking. In many cases they're even better than me. Flat earthers. I've seen these flat earthers have big movements. It's like they're really gifted with their tongue. They have a nice sounding voice. But boy their doctrine is as dumb as it can be. And you know there's a lot of great speakers out there. That's not how we determine our doctrine. Herod. Herod was a great orator. And in fact they even said this guy's like a god. He's got a voice of a god. But you know what it doesn't matter if you sound like James Earl Jones if you're preaching lies. You know. And in fact the Apostle Paul said though I be rude in speech I'm not a knowledge. How many people would go to the Apostle Paul's church and say like I don't really like the sound of his voice. Or I don't like some of the words he used. Or I don't like how he talked to me or whatever. Or they said that he was even contemptible as far as his bodily presence. Meaning he wasn't anything to look at. He had a face for radio as it were right. But you know it was the Apostle Paul. And they're like man his letters they're weighty. But in the flesh he's contemptible. Meaning there wasn't really. You weren't going to get. Like if you were to see the Apostle Paul you'd probably be let down in your mind. If you heard him speak you'd probably be let down in your mind. Why? Because it's not about man. God didn't want to send out you know a bunch of Tom Brady's to reach the world of the gospel. He didn't want to send a bunch of Hollywood actors and actresses to go out and reach the gospel. He wanted to use people that were weak. People that weren't necessarily the most gifted physically. Or looked the best. Or acted the greatest. Or had the most talents. He just wanted people that were rich in faith. And you know what? God can use people today that are rich in faith to go out and reach the loss of the gospel. You say like I'm not some great talented athlete. I'm kind of awkward. I'm not going to win a beauty contest. I'm not going to win some strong man's contest. It doesn't matter. You can still be the greatest Christian to ever live. Being a great Christian is not dependent upon your physical structure. It's based on the faith that's inside your heart. It's not based on being rich. Praise God that's the case. It's not about having money. It's not about having looks. It's not about having all the things that this world says. It's about being rich in faith. It's about understanding that there's a bay horse out there sending every single person to hell and if you don't go out and preach the gospel to them many of them will go to hell. I mean just think about this area alone. This area alone has about 8 million people in it. Who's going to reach all of them with the gospel? I can't do that. Our church probably can't even necessarily knock every single door. But we're going to try. We're going to try. And you know what? We need every single person in the church and you know what? We need every single person to get into the fight. To say that church is important. To say that going out soul winning is important. To recognize the reality of the world that we live in and to realize that most people are going to die and go to hell and there's really only one thing we're taking out of this world with us. It's souls. We're not taking our paychecks. We're not taking our houses, our 401ks, our trophies, any of that stuff. We're not taking our clothes. We're not taking our cars. We're not taking any of that stuff with us. The only thing we can take out with us is souls. And it's important to recognize the most important truth that most people are on their way to hell. It's sad to think about how many people die in war. I mean there's so many people throughout history, especially young men, that were 18, 19, 20, 21, have barely even lived their life and they go out on some war field, they go out on some battlefield and just get stabbed in the stomach, shot in the head, arms blown off, just die and they go straight to hell. I mean you've only lived 18 years of life, not even married, not even get to enjoy a lot of your strength and your youth and just go get your head blown off. I mean millions upon millions of people have just gone out somewhere and died and just bled and gone straight to hell and the only way for that person to have not gone to hell was someone to go and find that 16-year-old boy, that 15-year-old boy, that 10-year-old boy and to preach them the gospel. You know some people get mad at us for going to these apartments or going to parks or running into the neighborhoods and finding some teenager and giving them the gospel. Oh dear, you give this teenager the gospel. But they'll literally send them to the battlefield to die for all of eternity. It's like, shouldn't they get an opportunity to be saved before they're going to literally die and split hell wide open? And I mean war is a gruesome thing. The population of Ukraine has been decimated. How many young men were in Ukraine are now in hell in the last four years? How many Russians have died and gone to hell? How many people in the Middle East? How many people all over the world are constantly just dying and splitting hell wide open? You know we need to be bold to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to every man, woman, boy, girl, all of them. And of course I'm not saying that we shouldn't be cautious when preaching to children and be careful in making sure that we're not overstepping our boundaries. Of course we want to do things that are safe. We want to make sure that everything we do is on the up and up. But you know what, if I run into a 13-year-old out somewhere and they want to hear the gospel, you better believe I'm going to give it to them. You better believe that even younger children, especially if their parents don't mind, I'm giving them the gospel. And you know if your kid's allowed to just wander miles away from their house unattended, they're okay getting the gospel. I mean it's kind of insane what they're allowing their children to do. It's like, hey, you can at least hear the gospel. I mean you're sending them into a den of iniquity called the public school with all kinds of random strangers and trannies and who knows what all day long, at least you can let them hear the Bible out in public every once in a while. And let me tell you something, you know who's really receptive to the gospel? Children. Especially ones that haven't heard a bunch of this Calvinist garbage yet. Especially ones that haven't heard a bunch of lies yet. They're the ones that need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. And in fact, Jesus even said that when we're talking about little children, children of such is the kingdom of heaven. When he was talking about little children. So, you know what, don't be shy about giving the gospel to young people because they need the gospel. Old people aren't even that interested most of the time, at least in America. Let's keep going, it says in verse 9, And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Take of them of the captivity, even of Heldai and Tobijah and of Judea, which are come from Babylon, and come thou the same day, and go into the house of Josiah the son of Zephaniah. Then take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua the son of Jozatec the high priest. And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is the branch, and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord. Even he shall build the temple of the Lord, and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne, and he shall be a priest upon his throne, and the council of peace shall be between them both. This is really interesting because of a few points. Number one is the idea that Joshua is being called here the branch in verse number 12. Now, we had a similar mention in verse 8 of chapter 3. It also said, I'll bring forth my servant the branch. So, what I believe the Bible does here is it's kind of like in the New Testament, and I know there's varying opinions on this, but just my personal opinion is that when Jesus is talking to Peter, and he says unto Peter that he's going to build the rock of the church on him. Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Well, I mean, Peter literally means stone. And so, I believe it's a double meaning. And so, Peter is that rock, but of course the Lord Jesus Christ is that rock. So here, I believe it's the same where Joshua is the branch, but of course we're also alluding to how the Lord Jesus Christ is the branch. So, we have, I think, many times in the Bible a dual name. You also have in the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel is called the Son of Man. But who is that referring to? Jesus Christ as well. So, Ezekiel is the Son of Man. Jesus Christ is the Son of Man. So, a lot of times, some of the old prophets of the Old Testament share some names with Jesus Christ so that we kind of get the picture or the foreshadowing. Adam is the first Adam. Jesus Christ is the second Adam. So, Adam himself is called the Son of God, and Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So, I could show you a lot of examples of this, even if you don't agree with me on the Peter thing. You can be wrong. It's okay. But, I believe that there's a lot of dual naming when it comes to Biblical names. But this is what's even more interesting about this, is just the name Joshua. Okay? Because think about this. He's saying in verse 12, Behold, the man whose name is the branch. Okay? Well, here's the thing. The name Joshua in the Old Testament is, in the New Testament, the name Jesus. Like, it is the same name. It's just, they're the same root, but essentially they kind of have two different alternatives here. It's kind of similar to other names. I was trying to think of, like, James. Like, James, what we think of, if we were to translate that into Spanish, it could be Yocobo, or it could be Santiago. Can I get a witness? Yeah? Okay. All right. There we go. So, James in English, we don't need an interpreter here. Okay? Into Spanish it's Yocobo or Santiago. But it's the same root. It goes back to James. Okay? So, when we're looking at Joshua or Jesus, they're going back to the same root from a Hebraic or an Aramaic perspective. So, what's interesting about this to me, is how, somehow, in the Old Testament, they could have known the name of Christ, even in the Old Testament, because it was Joshua. And, of course, Joshua is really significant, because he's the one that leads them what? Into the Promised Land. First came Moses with the Law, but then came Jesus Christ, right? Which is also the foreshadowing of Joshua coming in with the children of Israel into the Promised Land, which is a foreshadowing of Christ. And what the Law could not do, Christ did. What Moses could not do, Joshua did. He's talking about Joshua, whose name is the branch, and then it just happens to be that in the New Testament, when we have the branch, what's his name? His name is Jesus. Which, for those that know the Bible, would think, like, wow, of course that's his name, because that's what the Bible literally even said. The Bible was giving us and foreshadowing to us this name of Christ, even here in the Old Testament. So, I believe, of course, this is talking about Joshua as the branch, in what context? That he's going to build this temple, and he's going to sit upon this throne, and he's going to be their leader at this time, but then it's also foreshadowing Christ, and how he's going to build the temple, and that could be two different things. That's, of course, the spiritual temple, which we're the temple, and that's also foreshadowing the millennial reign, which I believe will also be built by Jesus Christ, and he's going to literally sit on his throne, and he's going to rule and reign, and he's the branch. Of course, it's interesting, again, that he's the branch, because he's coming from this lineage, Jesus Christ showing that he's the root and offspring of David, which is also another interesting thing that's a mystery. How in the world can Jesus Christ be the root and the offspring of David? I have no idea. Great is the mystery of godliness, God is manifest in the flesh. I mean, that's a great mystery. But you know what? There's so many people and so many doctrines out there that deny this, and really what they're doing is they're denying the mystery. Like, Jehovah's Witnesses or other cults will deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, and by that, they're not making Jesus a mystery anymore. What's mysterious is how Christ can be God, the Lord from heaven, and create mankind, and then somehow enter in through his own creation and become literally the root and the offspring of David. How he can literally be the alpha and the omega. He can be the beginning and the ending. How he can do all of those things, but of course, what does that do? That gives him all the preeminence, as Colossians chapter 1 clearly tells us, that he is before all things, and all things were created by him and for him. Okay, and so we just see the significance of Jesus Christ threaded throughout the entire Bible. Even the name is alluded to, I believe here, with Joshua. I just find that pretty cool because it's like, hey, this is the guy whose name is the branch, and it just happens to be the same guy that has the same name, that's the same root that we would have of Jesus Christ. So, take that for what it's worth. Here's another thing that's interesting in verse 13. Did you notice this? And this just like jumped off the page to me, but at the last part of this verse, it says, shall be between them both. Well, let's first understand that this is talking about Joshua, right? So, who's it talking about? It's talking about Joshua and the Lord. So, it's saying, Joshua's going to be ruling, and their power and their might and their kingdom is going to be before what? Both Joshua and the Lord. But then we also have the picture of Christ. So, we have between both who? Christ and God the Father. So, we have both here being alluded to again in this specific passage because whenever Jesus Christ comes to rule and reign, he'll be reigning in his Father's kingdom, and it'll be both of them. It'll still be the Lord and the Lord. So, again, we get that double symbolic meaning here as well. Now, in verse 14, it says, and the crown shall be to Helam, and to Dabijah and Jediah, and to Hinn the son of Zephaniah, and to Hinn the son of Zephaniah, for a memorial in the temple of the Lord. And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord, and ye shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me unto you, and this shall come to pass if you will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God. So, he ends this series of visions that we've been going through. Again, just to kind of recap, in chapters one, two, and three, I believe we have an allusion to kind of that rapture event where there's peace, there's the apple of God's eye, we have Joshua being crowned, and we just kind of have this idea of God's people being sucked out. Then we have the two witnesses, which their ministry is mostly consisting of the second half of Daniel's 70th week. And then we have Babylon being destroyed towards the end. And then what happens immediately after Babylon? We have the millennial reign of Christ, okay? Of course we brought up the four horsemen, but if we think about this, you know, these are foreshadowing the Greek empire. I believe it's just kind of an allusion back to how that, just the over-encompassing attitude of what happened. We start Daniel's 70th week with the four horsemen, we end with what? Christ returning and building the temple. And similarly, you know, if you think about what's happening from a historical perspective, they're going to have this Greek empire, okay? They're going to have those four Greeks go out, and if you look at the Greek empire, it basically ends around 31 B.C. So then what's right on the tail end of the Greek empire is we're going to usher in who? Jesus Christ. And then he's going to set up that spiritual kingdom that's going to be built. And not only is he going to build it, notice what it said in verse number 15, and they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord, which is also another allusion to what? To the Gentiles coming in and them building the temple of the Lord. So when do we have the Gentiles coming in? When Christ comes in, okay? So I believe there's a lot of things being foreshadowed, a lot of kind of layers here, but I like that notice in verse 14 that the crowns are not just given to Joshua, but it's also given to other people. And what is that a picture of? That's a picture of the fact that when we go into the millennial reign of Christ, there will be some people that have crowns. It's not everybody, it's some people. And here's the thing the Bible warns, let no man take thy crown from thee, meaning that some people in the millennial reign, some of us, and I'm not saying just our church, I'm just saying some of us that are saved will have crowns. Of course, God willing, many of us in this church will have crowns, but we'll only have them if what? How will we get the crown? What does it say in the last verse? If you will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God. How do you get a crown? You have to diligently obey the voice of the Lord all the way unto the end. Of what? Of your life. Okay? And so we're all running different races. We all have different talents. We've all been given different plots in life. How do you get crowned? You have to finish the race. Have you ever seen a race where it's like, I completed two-thirds of the race, and they're like, well, here's your crown. Not unless you're in a leftist weird hippie area or something, okay, where you get participation trophies. You've got to literally cross the finish line if you want to get the crown. And the reality is, that's the same with Christ. He wants us to understand that if we want to get the crown He set before us, that we have to finish the cross line. We have to finish that line. Now, of course, you know, I've done some long-distance running, not a lot, but I'm not that great at long-distance running. Sometimes when I'm doing long-distance running, I start walking. Has anybody else done like a 5K or longer and they actually walked at parts of it? Okay. Praise God for those hands, all right? Now, I remember the first 5K I did, I'd never, it was really the first and last, probably, okay, but the first 5K that I did, I never had done this before, so I didn't know what to expect, and I thought, like, adrenaline might carry me further than I'm anticipating. That was the wrong idea, okay? So, like, the first, 5K is about 3.1 miles or something like that. It's a little over 3 miles. So the first about mile is downhill, and I'm just like, all right, I'm just going to run, I'm just going to stay with all the people up front. So I'm just like running with all these other people that are probably like expert runners, okay, albeit, I don't know. And I'm guessing that they're all running like a five, six-minute pace or something like that, right? About when we hit the one-mile mark, though, this track starts going straight uphill. And I, I mean, I could see the leader. I was probably, it was only like four or five of us that are just like right here in the front. Once we hit that, I'm running at a walking pace or slower, okay? It was kind of, it was kind of like one of those like, ah, ah, ah, and then just like, just hordes of people are passing me. I mean, grandma's walking or, you know, going past me or whatever, okay? But I didn't quit. I wasn't going fast. It probably looked ugly. People are probably thinking like, what's this guy's problem, okay? But, you know, and after we got past the like major uphill, I kind of went back to maybe like a jogging that was actually jogging. And, you know, I, but here's the thing, and I finished the race, and I did not win it, okay? Or anywhere close. I probably was like a hundred out of how many? I don't know. But here's the thing. The only way for me to technically get crowned, and I didn't get crowned in this, but was to finish the race. And I think in the Christian life, we have to realize sometimes we walk. And even if I had fallen, there could have been a possibility that at some point I may have a trip to even fall. But you know what? You just get up, and you just keep going. And that's what the Bible says. The just man falls seven times, but rises up again. You know, the Christian life is not about being the guy that can literally sprint the whole time. There's only some people like that. Hey, the apostle Paul, he was a sprinter, folks. He was great. But you know what? Even if you're just going to walk the race, just keep walking. Even if you fall, just get back up. Hey, if you have to jog some, walk some, whatever, just keep going, though. Don't give up. That's pretty much the worst thing that you can do, is give up. I mean, if you're saved, really, the worst thing you can basically do is just give up. Or possibly, I guess, drag others down with you. That's what Matthew 5 says. If you're not only breaking the commandments, you're teaching people. You're giving up and saying, hey, get out of this race. Quit walking. You're trying to slow other people down. But you know what? Just keep walking. Just keep going. And look, there's going to be a lot of people that quit. There's going to be a lot of people that give up. There might even be people that are trying to get you out of the race. Like, hey, this race isn't very much fun. How long is this going to be? Last night, our tribe got to go see a Rangers game, and unfortunately, someone fell or got hurt. And so they had the easy way to get out blocked off. And this person might even have died. So, you know, it's sad. A very sad thing. But we were kind of forced to take the ramp. And the ramp, you have to go down like this. And it's just kind of the same thing over and over. And it was like, after the third time through, my kids are like, what are we doing? We just keep doing the same thing. And it's like the fourth time, when is this going to be over? And it's just like they started getting weary because it just kind of seemed to them that it was like repetitive. It was just like, ugh, this is over. But I just think that's the only way to get out. I don't want to live there. I don't want to stay there. They weren't going to let me stay there. I had to keep going. And you know, sometimes in the Christian life, I think people are kind of thinking like, haven't we done this before? Oh, it's just church again. It's just the Bible again. Oh, it's the book of Zechariah. But you know what? Sometimes you need a little boring in your life. Sometimes you have to just keep going down the same path because that's the only way out. And that's where you need to go. That's what God asks for. Hey, I'm sure going through the wilderness was kind of boring at times. In fact, they might even tread the same area a few times, didn't they? They might have even gone to the same spot. It might have even started looking all the same. It's just sand, right? It's just dirt. It's just wilderness or whatever. It could have been frustrating. But that was the only way to get to the promised land. You know, our life is the same way. And we need to make sure that we're just staying committed to this work. Because by walking, you're also doing another thing. There's another analogy that he has here. Because he says in verse 15, and it says, And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord. So what we're doing, all of us right now, we're building. I want to go to one more place and we'll finish this evening. We'll go to 1 Corinthians 3. 1 Corinthians 3. Every action that we have in this world is going to profit something. But it may not profit in eternity. And 1 Corinthians 3 brings up the idea of all of our works being judged. I want to look at verse 9. The Bible says this, For we are laborers together with God. Ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. Husbandry is an interesting word. Why? Because it's picturing someone taking care of produce. Taking care of maybe, how about this, a garden. What was it that God first wanted Adam to do? To tend to the garden. To tend to the fruits of the field. It's like, what does God want us to do? He wants us to be husbandry. He wants us to tend to the fruits of the field. He wants us to go out and gather fruit. Amos was a gatherer of sycamore fruit. He's one that's going out and gathering fruit. And in this process what we're doing is we're building. So he uses all these different analogies of building. Now, when it comes to this construction project, some of it's already been built. Verse 10 says, According to the grace of God, which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest. For the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire. And the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. So Paul is saying, I'm going out building foundations. And that's the only thing that he can build. The only thing that you and I can build for other people is a foundation. And that foundation is Jesus Christ. And then it's every other person's responsibility to then build on the foundation that has been built, which is Jesus Christ. So there could be a lot of people in heaven that they only have a foundation. And you know what, you can't really live in a house that's just a foundation. You need the other aspects of the construction project. And he's saying, us by every action that you're doing in your life, you're doing something. You're either building wood, hay, and stubble, or gold, silver, and precious stone. And you say, well, how do I build on this foundation? Well, you know what, you go out and you knock on someone's door and you get them saved, and then it's like you're putting another brick into your mansion in heaven. It's like, hey, I want another bedroom in my mansion in heaven, well, I'm gonna go on a missions trip. And I'm gonna get a third car garage. Right? Hey, I want a pool. I'm gonna go to the Bahamas, okay? And I'm gonna even swim in the ocean a little bit, all right? You're like, hey, I want a football field in my backyard, I'm gonna go to the Philippines. Hey, I want, you know, maybe just like, I just want nice curtains, so I'm just gonna go in my neighborhood. You know, the actions you're doing are actually building that house. And I mean, we're all building something, unless you're just lazy, it's easy to be lazy. If you're lazy, I'm not talking to you because you don't do anything, you don't build anything. But the people that are actually working, doing something with their life, they're either building their bank account, they're building their current house, they're building their accolades, they're building trophies, they're building whatever, but a lot of that's just not gonna carry with them. What would be more important? It'd be more important to build that house that's gonna last. It's kinda like if you're renting. It's like, let's say you go out and you buy a nice piece of land and someone comes by and builds you the perfect foundation, but you can't move there yet because it's not a house and you're renting. And you say, you know what, I'm gonna spend all day repairing my rental. I'm never gonna go to my lot and I'm never gonna lay a brick, I'm never gonna work on the framing, I don't care about the house that I have, I'm just gonna replace all the stuff in my rental house. That wouldn't make a lot of sense. You would think like, no, I wanna go and work on that house so that I can leave my rental and go and live in that mansion, right? But there's so many Christians today, they're not investing in their new property. They're only investing in their rental and their rental has a lease and it's gonna expire and they're gonna take nothing with them. Nothing with them. This world, this life is the rental. And there's gonna be some people that are crowned because why? Because they were building with God, they were laborers with God, they were good husbandmen. But you know, you can get off the building project, how? Sin, isn't that what kicked Adam out of the garden? And Eve, they got distracted. They're concerned with the things of this world, with this pleasures of this life and they go down a path of sin. And of course, that's why it's important to go to church and to read your Bible, is to stay away from sin so that you keep building. Oh, I don't need church. Show me the guy that's going out soloing all the time that doesn't go to church. Show me the guy that goes soloing all the time that doesn't read his Bible. Show me the guy that is doing soloing that's not a Baptist. Show me the guy that's dedicated his life to serving God that hasn't gotten baptized. You know what? The common theme of the people that are doing great things to the Lord is people that have been baptized. They go to a Baptist church that read the King James Bible. They go to church every time the doors are open that actually care about the loss, that actually go soul winning. And you know what? They're running the race and they live by faith and they like the book of Zechariah because they say, hey, that crown, that's a crown that I'm gonna get and no man's gonna take my crown away from me. But how many Christians today are giving their crown to some cheap substitute of today? They're giving their crown for the Burger King crown. They're giving their crown to Ronald McDonald. It's okay, you can eat McDonald's and still get a crown in heaven, okay? Don't hear me wrong. They're just giving their crown to, you know, anything, to sports. You know, it makes me sad. Like, I like sports and I have no problem going, but it just kinda makes me a little sad when I think about the only thing that can unite hundreds of thousands of people is a game. It's like, shouldn't we have this many people uniting to like worship God, the God of the universe? And it's just kinda sad and pathetic that so many people just don't even care about church, which is so much more important, has so much more value, is gonna make you so much better of a person than to go get drunk and watch a bunch of grown men play a game. And again, I'm not trying to be down on sports. I like sports, and they have their place, but it's just kinda sad that, you know, America, the only things that we have in common is just liking games. That's a pretty superficial relationship we have with our country. It makes us a weak country. Strong countries and strong nations are ones that can rally behind a common ideology. You know, the strongest our country's been has been when the most people are rallying around Christ. And a lot of people wanna rally around Donald Trump, but that's superficial. The only thing that will really fix this country is a bunch of people rallying around the King James Bible, rallying around salvation by faith, rallying around the right doctrines of the Bible. And, you know, I'm all for that, but it's very unlikely. I mean, look how many people come to a church on a Wednesday night. Like, how many people are interested in the fundamental truths? It makes what Jesus said really come to life when he said, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the labors be few. I wanna read one more section here of this chapter. There was one more thing I wanted to bring up, and then we'll finish. It says in verse 15, if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. So the salvation's not of works. Know ye not that you're the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy, for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, for it is written, he taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Here's the thing. Our life that we live and the life that I'm projecting that you live to the world is foolish. The world thinks that it's crazy to have six children, seven children, eight children. The world thinks it's crazy to go to a church. The world thinks it's crazy to harken to this book. The world thinks it's crazy to believe Genesis and Leviticus and Deuteronomy and all of the Psalms. The world thinks it's crazy The world thinks that we're nuts. The world thinks that our lifestyle is nuts. The world thinks that we're crazy. You're not getting every vaccine? No! You're homeschooling your children? Yes! You're having as many children as you can? What? You think people should get married young? What? You're going to stay with one woman your whole life till death do you part? What if she's bad? Still going to be married to her? What if you're bad? She's still going to be married to me? Case in point. No, I'm just kidding. What if, you know, you're going to just go to church every time the doors are open? Yeah! You're going to be a Baptist? Why don't you change with the times? Because I'm steadfast. Unmovable. Always abounding in the work of the Lord. You know, it's just people look at our lifestyle. Oh, you go to a church where the guy yells and screams. Well, you go to a concert where they yell and scream. You go to a baseball game where they, I mean, I've never heard anything louder in my life than the baseball game or the hockey game or the football game. I mean, you'll blow out your eardrums going to those things. You didn't have a problem with them screaming goal when they scored in the soccer game. Goal! I mean, they don't think that's weird. It's actually longer than that. I can't even do it service. Probably in Spanish, too. I don't even know. I mean, you listen to music so loud it'll burst your eardrums out. Oh, you're going to go, you're going to wear nice clothes and waste your whole Sunday. You're going to go out in the afternoon where it's hot and knock on people's doors and talk to people and how many of them are going to come to church. You're nuts! You're crazy! You're a fool! You have all these atheists and all these people out there. Oh, you deny the historicity of the Catholic Church, you fools! Oh, you don't have the oldest religion like us, the Hindus. I mean, they're going to, oh, you're so anti-Semitic because you believe the truth. You're going to get censored. You're nuts. You guys are bozo. You're crazy. But you know what? If you want to be wise in God's sight, you're going to be a fool to this world. Why would you waste your time not chasing money and chasing pleasure, but chasing souls? It's because you have what the Bible says, the wisdom of the soul winner. But you know what? It's nuts to this world. They'll never understand it. But why don't you just become a fool to this world and say, I'm not here to chase money and fame and fortune. I just believe whatever this book says. And I'll tell you, you don't even have to ask anybody to hate you. You don't even ask anybody to say that you're stupid. They'll come out of the woodwork. Family, friends, colleagues, co-workers, the internet. To the whole world, you'll just be crazy. You'll be a fool. You'll be a psycho. Me and Pastor Thompson did an interview with an atheist and he uploaded it and every comment, he's like, these people are psycho and crazy and a weirdo and I can't believe these freaks exist. And I'm like, I feel like I'm at the zoo looking at you. Thinking like, I'm the freak, you blue-haired leftist liberal. I'm the freak. I mean, I saw this disgusting post today and it was this lady who said she had 47 abortions and she wants to have so many more. And I'm like, how am I the freak for wanting to have my beautiful, wonderful children? That person's the Satanist freak. You know, why can't you soulless yourself in knowing that the Bible's true even if everybody else doesn't get it? Hey, this is right. I know it's right. It doesn't matter if 10,000 are armed against me, compass me about, you know what, I'm just gonna trust in the Lord and I'm just gonna keep building. I'm gonna learn Spanish and I'm gonna put Mexican bricks in my building, you know? And I'm gonna put Filipino bricks and I'm gonna put Spanish bricks and I'm not gonna discriminate. I'll put white bricks and red bricks and black bricks and albino bricks and I'll put any bricks in there. But I'm just gonna keep building and just keep building until God says, you know what, you can't build anymore. But don't quit on your, don't be the one that quits. Let God be the one that takes you home. And then he can set on your head a crown at the end of the day. I thank the Father so much for giving us work to do and giving us a Bible so we can know what's right and wrong and what's true. I pray that you would help motivate all of us to just keep running the race, to keep building, to see the light at the end of the tunnel, to realize that many are gonna come from the East and the West and they're gonna come build the temple of the Lord with Jesus Christ in the millennial reign. I pray that we would not set our affections on the things of this earth, but we'd rather set our affections on things above, and help us to compel other people to come with us as we know that the harvest is plenteous. So much work to do. I pray that you could help use us to motivate other people to keep serving you, not just today, not just tomorrow, but for the rest of their lives and that they'd be steadfast. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. Closing, let's go to song number 439. Song number 439, Count Your Blessings. Song number 439. All right, sing it out together on the first. When upon ice pillows you are tempest-tossed When you are discouraged thinking all is lost Count too many blessings take them one by one and it will surprise you what the Lord has done Count your blessings take them one by one Count your blessings see what God has done Count your blessings take them one by one Count your blessings see what God has done Are you ever burdened with your load of care? Does the cross seem heavy or tall to bear? Count your many blessings every now will find and you will be singing as the days go by Count your blessings take them one by one Count your blessings see what God has done Count your blessings take them one by one Count your blessings see what God has done When you look at others with their lands and gold Make that Christ has promised you His will for His hope Count your many blessings money cannot buy Your reward in heaven for your whole life Count your blessings take them one by one Count your blessings see what God has done Count your blessings take them one by one Count your many blessings see what God has done Soap in the conflict whether great or small Do not be discouraged God is over all Count your many blessings angels will attend Helping one who may return to his end Count your blessings take them one by one Count your blessings see what God has done Count your blessings make them one by one Count your many blessings see what God has done All right, great singing, everybody. You're all dismissed. Thank you.