SPEAKER_01: You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: When you start having the mind of Christ, you start having insight into stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Where'd that come from?
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about as a doctor and a lawyer and a mechanic and a foreman of a construction company or whatever it should do, that God will give you insight because you're now tapping into the reservoir of the Spirit of God for which you were created to be tapping into.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you were made for.
SPEAKER_01: Today, Pastor Steve continues his series on the Book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_01: At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_01: We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: So today we're in the book of Revelation, and we've been going through the book of Revelation now.
SPEAKER_00: Probably the most exciting book, I think, in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And we're in chapter six, and we're just going to briefly touch on Revelation chapter six.
SPEAKER_00: For you that are new to the road, which is many of you, you can go online to theroad.org and you'll see when you get the when you get the website, you'll see at the top where it says it says uh what does it say?
SPEAKER_00: It says live, live streaming, I think it says at the top.
SPEAKER_00: Live streaming.
SPEAKER_00: You can click that and you'll see the entire section of the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: So you, if you want to catch up, you can go there.
SPEAKER_00: First uh five chapters are there.
SPEAKER_00: We've been going through Revelation now for a couple of months, several months.
SPEAKER_00: Um I believe that the book of Revelation is one of the most exciting books in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you, just raise your hand if you've been confused about our culture in the last year or two?
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Things are changing, men and women.
SPEAKER_00: The culture is changing.
SPEAKER_00: Our actually, our city is changing.
SPEAKER_00: Colorado Springs is changing.
SPEAKER_00: My son Daniel, who is one of the young men up here who's head of Teleos, the youth ministry, um, had his car stolen last night.
SPEAKER_00: It's the second time it's been stolen in an apartment complex on the northern end of town.
SPEAKER_00: And um and we are seeing more crime happen.
SPEAKER_00: It's moving our way, folks.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just going to be in other parts of the city.
SPEAKER_00: It's coming this way.
SPEAKER_00: We had some, I was out here uh working on some stuff um yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, the day before yesterday on Friday, some boys came by, took some large rocks, and threw the rocks at the windows here at the entranceway and put a pretty big dent in a couple places.
SPEAKER_00: Um, looked like they couldn't have been 10 or 11 years old.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's stuff going on, folks.
SPEAKER_00: It's coming our way, and culture's changing, and the book of Revelation is an intelligence report from God Himself on preparation for the coming of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is the most prophetic book on the coming of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and we're getting ready to go into, I think, some of the most exciting parts of the book of Revelation, because we're gonna be talking about the Great Tribulation period, the period of the rise of the Antichrist and a one-world government.
SPEAKER_00: We're seeing that.
SPEAKER_00: The EU is really struggling with its issues right now.
SPEAKER_00: Putin's on the rise.
SPEAKER_00: There's stuff happening in the Middle East that we don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: Um, President Obama is has struggled to figure out what to do with the Middle East.
SPEAKER_00: There's stuff happening in South America with the drug cartels that are that are that we that we in America don't know what to do about.
SPEAKER_00: That's probably part of the immigration question that's going on right now.
SPEAKER_00: There's stuff happening right now in China that wasn't happening before.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what you see, if we could think of kind of God giving us his view, because folks, this is not taking God by surprise.
SPEAKER_00: And so we've talked about Revelation chapter 4 and 5, which is the control room of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: The power room of the universe is Revelation chapter 4 and 5.
SPEAKER_00: And I had many years ago I had the opportunity to go on a battleship when I was a missionary in Japan, and we went on a battleship in a bay there, and there's a control room.
SPEAKER_00: And this control room's um, you know, about the size of just this section of seats right here, and yet the entire battleship with uh with hundreds and hundreds of young sailors on there is all controlled, and it was a nuclear uh battleship in that power room.
SPEAKER_00: And the power room is heaven, and God's not sitting there all flustered, he's actually working out a strategic, tactical plan, and he gave us that plan in the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're moving into that period.
SPEAKER_00: So look at Revelation 6.1.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible, um, you can download the app, and my notes are always in the app.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the road, Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: If you go to your app store, you can download it or um or share with someone near you.
SPEAKER_00: Look around.
SPEAKER_00: Is everybody if somebody sees someone without a Bible?
SPEAKER_00: Be willing to share your Bible with them.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 6.1 says, Now I saw when the Lamb opened the seals, one of the seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, come and see.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're new with us, I go verse by verse through the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a chapter by chapter, verse by verse teacher of the word.
SPEAKER_00: But today we're gonna veer off from this opening verse, a little bit different than usual, and what I'm entitling this is The Times of the Signs, part one.
SPEAKER_00: The Times of the Signs.
SPEAKER_00: So, what I'm gonna do before we actually dive in the in the uh coming weeks into Revelation 6 and 7, I want to talk about the times of the signs.
SPEAKER_00: So we are here in Revelation 6 talking about the opening of the seven seals, and that opening of the seventh seal, in my opinion, is gonna open up the great tribulation period.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want you to listen to what I'm gonna say next, because some of you may have heard it differently, and I'll explain it in the weeks to come.
SPEAKER_00: I do not believe that Revelation 6 and 7 is the great tribulation period.
SPEAKER_00: I believe it is actually what we might call the beginning of sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: So now, turn to Matthew 24.
SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna have to do a little bit of turning today.
SPEAKER_00: I don't normally do this, but we're gonna do it today.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be in Matthew 24 briefly and some other passages.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to turn to all of them.
SPEAKER_00: Just follow my thinking on this.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is being asked by his disciples, how do we know the signs of the last days?
SPEAKER_00: How do we know about, you know, what's gonna be happening on the earth that for the Jesus follower and the Jesus disciple, you go, oh, that's exactly what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's what he says in verse 3 of Matthew 24.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, Tell us, when will these things be?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, people are always wondering about, how do you know about this idea of the second coming of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's nothing new.
SPEAKER_00: 2,000 years ago they were wondering.
SPEAKER_00: And what will be the sign of your coming, and that's that's singular, and of the end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: Do you guys realize this this is this is wrapping up?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is God's linear.
SPEAKER_00: Uh-uh.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, most New Age teachers kind of indicate that we're kind of living in a cyclical age of life and death.
SPEAKER_00: Um there's been so many movies about this, about that I won't even go through all of them, but ten or five, five or ten of them are just popping up in my head right now.
SPEAKER_00: About this the cycle of life.
SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, Jesus is linear.
SPEAKER_00: There's actually a beginning, and there's actually an end.
SPEAKER_00: And so the disciples in Hebraic thinking at that time was also linear of the end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what he says, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no one deceives you.
SPEAKER_00: Now he says that because there's gonna be a lot of deception out there.
SPEAKER_00: For many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many.
SPEAKER_00: And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.
SPEAKER_00: See that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
SPEAKER_00: For nation will rise up against nation, or ethnos against ethnos.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just meaning geographic, boundaried political nations.
SPEAKER_00: It's talking about tribal ethnic groups will rise up against each other.
SPEAKER_00: Allah.
SPEAKER_00: The Middle East right now, especially, and especially in Africa also.
SPEAKER_00: Kingdom against kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna go into all of it, that's coming up next week and in the week after, but I'll tell you, there's more famines and earthquakes and pestilences happening in our world than ever in the history of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Now look at verse 8, though.
SPEAKER_00: This is the key, and I would underline this.
SPEAKER_00: All these are just the beginnings of sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: So, folks, you know, whether you believe in the rapture coming before the tribulation or during the tribulation or after the tribulation, the reality is this is just the beginning of sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go through this.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go through these things.
SPEAKER_00: So you gotta be prepared.
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you, if you're not prepared spiritually, you will get blown out of the water.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you will.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be so much stuff happening that's gonna be so deceptive.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not a Bible-believing, spirit-filled, word-rooted believer, it's gonna be, you're not gonna know where to turn.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna turn to our politicians?
SPEAKER_00: Hello?
SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00: You know, are you gonna turn to the Congress?
SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna turn to um your bank accounts?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we could continue to read Matthew 24, and there's gonna be economic upheaval like the world has never seen before.
SPEAKER_00: And so the question that I want to delve into for the next couple weeks is what are the signs of the times?
SPEAKER_00: What are the times of the signs?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what Jesus said.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to turn there.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read it to you.
SPEAKER_00: From Matthew 16.
SPEAKER_00: He says this.
SPEAKER_00: Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came testing him and asked that he would show them a sign from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He answered and said to them, When it is evening, you say it will be fair weather for the sky is red.
SPEAKER_00: And in the morning it will be fair, foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.
SPEAKER_00: Hypocrites, you know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.
SPEAKER_00: So red sky in the morning, sailor's warning, red sky in the evening, sailors, what is it?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_00: I had that in, I remember in physics class we studied that.
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't learn it very well, did I?
SPEAKER_00: But red sky in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you really see it in Colorado, and you saw it last night.
SPEAKER_00: It was a beautiful sky in the evening over the front range mountains, and we've had a beautiful day today.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is saying, look, you guys know how to discern physically and geographically and weather-wise what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you understand spiritually what's happening?
SPEAKER_00: And so, right now, if you go down to Cimarron, you know, if you've been to I-25 South and you get to Cimarron, what a mess, you know.
SPEAKER_00: It's a mess right now because they're they're clearing out that road, they're making that intersection wider.
SPEAKER_00: And so you have all these signs around that say work ahead, expect delays, right lane ending.
SPEAKER_00: And then you even have the C DOT guys out there, you know, stop, slow down.
SPEAKER_00: And um they they always go like, I don't know, this, I don't know if it's if there's something of an anointing on me.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's an anointing or something.
SPEAKER_00: And it seems like when I drive closer to the guys with slow down, they start having the shakes.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what the problem is.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they start going like this, and I don't know what their problem is.
SPEAKER_00: So they've got issues out there at CDOT, need to train their guys a little bit better.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not very trustworthy when the guy looks like, you know, epileptic fit every time I drive by, but I haven't figured that out yet, you know.
SPEAKER_00: But no, but the reality is that when you start seeing signs warning you, it's because something's going on, right?
SPEAKER_00: You don't have signs when they're gonna do it in two months.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have signs when they're gonna do it in in three months.
SPEAKER_00: You have it right there when it's happening.
SPEAKER_00: That there's there's stuff that's coming your way that you need to be aware of, or you could have an accident.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the first sign.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to go through just one sign because this is the most important sign of all the prophetic signs in our modern times here in the 20th and 21st century.
SPEAKER_00: This is the most important sign, I believe, of the coming of the Lord in our generation.
SPEAKER_00: So here it is: Israel becoming a nation.
SPEAKER_00: Israel becoming a nation.
SPEAKER_00: The first sign of the coming tribulation, the first sign of the rise of the Antichrist, the first sign of the end of the age was on May 14th, 1948.
SPEAKER_00: And that's when Israel became a nation.
SPEAKER_00: And I had the privilege of leading a team, about 70 of us, over to Israel in 2008, on May 14th, we were there.
SPEAKER_00: So we were in Jerusalem on May 14th for the 50th anniversary of Israel becoming a nation.
SPEAKER_00: All of the world is constantly fixed on Israel and the Middle East.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, doesn't it seem strange to you that geographically there's no state, there's not even a state in our union as small as the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And this little state causes all the leaders of the world to have their crosshairs on it, and not to even understand its significance, but the reality is that the newscasts about Israel are constant.
SPEAKER_00: Here, let me give you a perspective to this.
SPEAKER_00: Mexico City is the largest city in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And do you ever hear about Mexico City in the news?
SPEAKER_00: Hardly ever.
SPEAKER_00: Unless it's something about drugs.
SPEAKER_00: Singapore, one of the most thriving countries in the world, and listen, where Singapore is located, if you took a 2,000-mile radius around Singapore, 50% of the world's population is found there, and you never hear anything about Singapore.
SPEAKER_00: Shanghai is the largest city, 22 million, of the largest country in the world, 1.4 billion, China, and you never hear about Shanghai.
SPEAKER_00: Yet daily, weekly, monthly, the center of the world's attention is on the nation of Israel and what's happening in the Middle East.
SPEAKER_00: Every presidential candidate, as far back as I can remember, is judged at least partially on their view of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Not China, not India, not even to the degree that it would be with particular cities like Mexico City and Mexico, but they're judged by their view of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason is that Israel, even in our current rebellion from God, is still the apple of God's eye.
SPEAKER_00: It is the center of a storm which is beginning to get brewed here in our day.
SPEAKER_00: It all started, the ticker started, we had a ticker today.
SPEAKER_00: The ticker started in 1948.
SPEAKER_00: All of the Old Testament prophets prophesy that the last days' events would occur most centrally in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Armageddon or the Tel Megiddo, found in Revelation 16, the great valley will be the place of the final great battle before the coming of the Lord is found in present-day Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And I've stood in that valley.
SPEAKER_00: I actually ate at McDonald's in Armageddon.
SPEAKER_00: Can you believe that?
SPEAKER_00: I did.
SPEAKER_00: I had a Big Mac.
SPEAKER_00: So there, there, so McDonald's is there, okay?
SPEAKER_00: It will be in Jerusalem that the temple will be rebuilt.
SPEAKER_00: It will be in Israel that the two witnesses will appear.
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation chapter 19, it is in Jerusalem that Jesus will return victorious on a white horse with a tattoo on his thigh, King of kings and Lord of Lords, and a sword coming forth from his mouth.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, he comes on a white horse.
SPEAKER_00: So all of you that are wondering, will my animals be in heaven?
SPEAKER_00: They will be.
SPEAKER_00: There's a white horse.
SPEAKER_00: We know that the animals will be in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about cats.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 21.
SPEAKER_00: There'll be a new Jerusalem coming down from heaven on the recreated earth.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible predicts again and again that the Jewish people must return back to the land for these end times events to begin to occur.
SPEAKER_00: Again, you don't need to turn there, but let me just read them to you.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 30, 1 through 3 says this the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Thus speaks the Lord God of Israel, saying, Write in a book for yourself all the words that I've spoken to you.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I'm reading from.
SPEAKER_00: This is this he was writing the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: For behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will bring back from captivity my people, Israel and Judah, saith the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel 34.
SPEAKER_00: Thus saith the Lord God, indeed I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out.
SPEAKER_00: As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among the scattered sheep, so will I seek out my sheep and deliver them from the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day, and I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land.
SPEAKER_00: I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, in the valleys, and in all the inhabited places of the country.
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel thirty-seven.
SPEAKER_00: Then they say to me, Thus saith the Lord God, surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations wherever they have gone, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land again.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 11.
SPEAKER_00: It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set his hand against the again the second time to recover the remnant of his people who are left from Assyria and Egypt, from Patros and Cush, from Elam and Shannar and from Hammoth and the islands of the sea.
SPEAKER_00: He will set up a banner for the nations and will assemble the outcast of Israel and gather together to the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And there's just hundreds more.
SPEAKER_00: I watched a video last night on the prophetic nature of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And I and there's there's about a there's about 200 prophecies of God gathering Israel back to their land.
SPEAKER_00: Do you guys realize how impossible that was in 1945 and in 1946 and in 1945?
SPEAKER_00: Nobody wanted to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And then Truman, President Truman, because of his understanding, and I'll go through this in just a moment, not so much on Truman, but the Balfour Declaration, began to have a vision for a homeland for the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: And then what happened in 1948 with the first war, and then in 1967, and then in 1972, and then in 1986.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just like it's almost every war they've been in was impossible odds.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, some of the greatest uh warfare and battles ever fought, there's something supernatural.
SPEAKER_00: I was even talking to a brother who's a Palestinian, a Palestinian believer, and he said, you know, with all the stuff we've got going on, all the struggles we have, you know, we as believers believe in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that they should be here.
SPEAKER_00: And um, and even though we've got a lot of things to work out socially and racially between the tribes and stuff, the reality is that we understand as believers what God's up to.
SPEAKER_00: So there's two gatherings.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to get this now.
SPEAKER_00: There's two gatherings of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So don't miss this.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is a physical gathering.
SPEAKER_00: So the physical gathering from the four corners of the earth of Israel coming back and becoming a nation began in 1948.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: But then there, listen, there's gonna be a spiritual gathering of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: There's a physical gathering, and then secondly, there's gonna be a spiritual gathering.
SPEAKER_00: That hasn't happened yet, and that's gonna be a great revival.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be a great and mighty spiritual revival that's going to hit Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul talks about it in Romans and the scriptures talk about it, Isaiah talks about it, and we're gonna look at actually Ezekiel 37, that there is going to be this work of the Spirit, and it's crazy, because if there's any more obstinate people, it's Jews.
SPEAKER_00: Do we have any ethnic Jews in here?
SPEAKER_00: Any ethnic Jews?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, if you're married to an ethnic Jew, then you know you know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna look now at Ezekiel 37.
SPEAKER_00: So I would like you to turn to Ezekiel 37.
SPEAKER_00: That's in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So if you don't know where that is, just go to your table of contents in your Bible, and you see Old and New Testament, go to Old Testament, Ezekiel.
SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's pretty, it's pretty close to the center of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: If you go and you open up and you find Psalms, turn right, and you'll find Ezekiel.
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel chapter 37.
SPEAKER_00: And this is this is one of those chapters that pastors really like to preach from because it really preaches.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's about dry bones.
SPEAKER_00: You know, most pastors think everybody's dry bones except them.
SPEAKER_00: And um and so they always preach that.
SPEAKER_00: But this is actually Ezekiel 37 is actually not uh just a metaphor for our.
SPEAKER_00: Own lives where if you feel dry and maybe even spiritually burned out, which a lot of us can and do at times, maybe you do today.
SPEAKER_00: But it's actually for the prophecy of Ezekiel 37 is for the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11, we read this Son of Man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So Ezekiel 37 is specifically about the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And it's very apropos today because of the spiritual state, the spiritual deadness of Israel right now.
SPEAKER_00: So let's start at the beginning, Ezekiel 37, and we're going to march through this.
SPEAKER_00: The hand of the Lord came upon me, this is Ezekiel, and brought me out in the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of a valley.
SPEAKER_00: And it was full of bones.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of spooky, kind of a spooky thing.
SPEAKER_00: Then he caused me to pass by them all around.
SPEAKER_00: And behold, there were many in the open valley.
SPEAKER_00: So it's just probably millions of bones.
SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, he's kind of floating.
SPEAKER_00: The kind of picture I have is not walking in this, but he's kind of floating across in this vision.
SPEAKER_00: See bones, dry bones.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to me, Son of man, can these bones live?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure Ezekiel's like, man, are you what?
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, Oh Lord God, you know.
SPEAKER_00: So he's basically saying, No way.
SPEAKER_00: These bones can't live, but I guess you're showing me something here, and I've got to take heed to it, so you know what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: But this represents the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: This represents the nation of Israel today.
SPEAKER_00: He's prophesying that the nation of Israel was spiritually dead at the time.
SPEAKER_00: And he's speaking here of the captivity of the Babylonians.
SPEAKER_00: But as I've shared with you many times before, and I don't have time to go into it all here, but the reality, men and women, is that prophecy in the scripture always has a present meaning and a future meaning.
SPEAKER_00: You hear that?
SPEAKER_00: You understand that?
SPEAKER_00: So when we talk about the destruction of Jerusalem, for example, in Matthew 24, which we're not going to go into today, there was a present meaning in which, in that 70-year period between that word and actually about a 40-year period, between that word and when Titus came in with the Roman Empire and destroyed Jerusalem, there was that meaning, but there was also a secondary meaning of the last days.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the reasons why we believe that the temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem in the last days.
SPEAKER_00: So the question that Ezekiel is faced with is, can these bones live?
SPEAKER_00: And Ezekiel's like, I don't know, but you know, Lord, because the nation of Israel today, not unlike the Babylonian period, is spiritually dead.
SPEAKER_00: Most Jews now live in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Worldwide, the biggest concentration is in the nation of Israel, but we have the second largest contingent of Jews in the United States of America, and 50% of them are agnostic or atheist.
SPEAKER_00: 50% of Jews today in America are agnostic or atheist.
SPEAKER_00: So we're talking dry bones.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Again he said to me, Prophesy to these bones and say to them, O bones, hear the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know that great awakenings always occur from great preaching?
SPEAKER_00: Great awakenings of the Lord have always been preceded by prayer and powerful teaching of the word.
SPEAKER_00: So he's saying, speak the word of the Lord to these dry bones.
SPEAKER_00: Thus says the Lord God to these bones.
SPEAKER_00: Surely I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live.
SPEAKER_00: So the Spirit, remember it's called in the armor, helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, belt of truth, shodding our feet with the gospel of feast, shield of faith, and sword of the what?
SPEAKER_00: Sword of the Spirit, which is Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: So the Spirit follows preaching.
SPEAKER_00: So the Spirit is on preaching.
SPEAKER_00: When the word goes out from an anointed preacher of the Lord, a prophetic word goes out into our hearts, the Spirit is on it.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Spirit that breathes on it.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you had boring Bible teachers?
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, my seminary was full of them.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and I was like, I could see why they were seminary professors because nobody else would hire them.
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, we sit there and it's like we're going through the Old and New Testament survey, and so we're going through Old Testament, and it's like, dude, this is hot stuff.
SPEAKER_00: This is fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, you're making, you're killing me.
SPEAKER_00: And we're just thinking, oh, you're just killing me.
SPEAKER_00: It's just so boring.
SPEAKER_00: The word of God needs to have the spirit on it.
SPEAKER_00: That's what changes life.
SPEAKER_00: So he says, look, the word is gonna go out, and the spirit's gonna go out.
SPEAKER_00: Surely I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So Ezekiel is being commanded by the Lord to prophesy these words to the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: But men and women, here we are.
SPEAKER_00: Here we are in the third millennium.
SPEAKER_00: Here we are in the 21st century, and we are here today, and some of you are here today, and you feel like this.
SPEAKER_00: I know, I've been there too many times to count, where I am spiritually dead.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I I like God, God's cool, you know.
SPEAKER_00: If he'll just stay out of my way, I'll stay out of his, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And I need the word, and I need the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Because when you start opening up God's word and reading it for yourself, not just from me or from some pastor, it speaks to you.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're called a priest and a king if you're a Jesus' disciple.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not a follower of Jesus yet, then you're not a priest or a king yet, but you're gonna become one.
SPEAKER_00: And when you do, breath from the Spirit of God is gonna enter you, and you're gonna quit looking around and going, why is everybody raising their hands in here and stuff?
SPEAKER_00: This is really weird.
SPEAKER_00: They got armpit problems?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's the issue?
SPEAKER_00: Try to be Superman?
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are some people are supermen, some people are waiters, right?
SPEAKER_00: But whatever.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and and they're and you're gonna you're gonna get it.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get it because it's gonna be the Spirit of God that's gonna start to anoint you with a passion for intimacy with Jesus Christ, who loves you, who died for you, who wants to come and fill you with his spirit and set you free in new and powerful and exciting ways.
SPEAKER_00: It's the best way to parent your children, it's the best way for your marriage, it's the best way for your college years, it's the best way to find a job.
SPEAKER_00: Depending on Jesus, he's way smarter than you.
SPEAKER_00: He's way smarter than you.
SPEAKER_00: And when you start having the mind of Christ, you start having insight into stuff.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, where'd that come from?
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about as a doctor and a lawyer and a mechanic and a foreman of a construction company or whatever it is you do, that God will give you insight because you're now tapping into the reservoir of the Spirit of God for which you were created to be tapping into.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you were made for.
SPEAKER_00: It's exciting.
SPEAKER_00: So Israel hasn't discovered that.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: So I prophesied as I was commanded, and as I prophesied, there was a noise.
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly a rattling.
SPEAKER_00: This is really weird.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is like one of the spookiest passages in the Bible, I think.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm not, I mean, I take that back.
SPEAKER_00: The rest of Revelation is gonna be way spookier than this.
SPEAKER_00: And the bones came together, bone to bone.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh started to come upon them, and the skin covered them over, but there was no breath in them yet.
SPEAKER_00: So he starts seeing physically they're coming together, but there's no spirit, and this rattling, listen now, it's the gathering of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: It's the gathering of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And the physical gathering of the nation of Israel really began about 145 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: The modern return to Israel by the Jews began in a trickle as early as 1871, when a few Jews began to leave Europe and Russia.
SPEAKER_00: By 1882, about 25,000 Jews had settled there.
SPEAKER_00: At the first Zionist Congress in 1897, led by Theodore Hersell, the goal of reclaiming the land for the Jewish people was officially adopted.
SPEAKER_00: By 1914, the number of Jews in the land was about 85,000.
SPEAKER_00: During World War I, it's a really interesting story.
SPEAKER_00: I was trying to get this straight yesterday when I was watching some stuff, but during World War I, the English were on the verge of losing the war.
SPEAKER_00: England was desperate to find a rapid method for manufacturing TNT in smokeless gunpowder.
SPEAKER_00: A brilliant Jew named Shyme Wiseman invented a formula that made it possible for the rapid production of these vital materials, thus changing the course of the war.
SPEAKER_00: In return, David Lloyd George, representing the British government, told Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Wiseman to name the price.
SPEAKER_00: Rejecting personal reward, Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Weisman requested that the Palestine area be declared the international homeland for the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: As a result, the Balfour Declaration was drawn up and signed on November 2nd, 1917.
SPEAKER_00: The famous letter said, quote, His Majesty's government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: After this signing, Jews began to pour into Palestine.
SPEAKER_00: By 1932, there were over 180,000.
SPEAKER_00: By 1935, 300,000.
SPEAKER_00: By 1937, 430,000.
SPEAKER_00: And by 1945, over a half a million.
SPEAKER_00: The British never kept their promise.
SPEAKER_00: But the United Nations, on May 14th, 1948, proclaimed the new nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: David Ben-Gurion was appointed Prime Minister, and Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Shaim Weissman was elected president of the Provincial Council.
SPEAKER_00: Both the United States and Russia both recognized the new nation.
SPEAKER_00: The population was 2 million in 1960, 5 million in 1993, and today the population is over 8 million and growing.
SPEAKER_00: Over 40% of the world's Jews now live in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Prophetically, men and women, the bones are coming together.
SPEAKER_00: Now let me stop.
SPEAKER_00: No, fourth quarter.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, fourth quarter.
SPEAKER_00: Time out.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, here's a timeout.
SPEAKER_00: I do not advocate all that happens in Israel just because Israel is Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Just because Israel is the apple of the eye does not mean I advocate the way in which they've treated the Palestinians in that land.
SPEAKER_00: That's a whole nother issue.
SPEAKER_00: But let me just say this: I love America.
SPEAKER_00: I do stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and for the national anthem, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: I do not take a knee, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I love our country.
SPEAKER_00: Now, but but but but by me saying that I love my country in no way means that I advocate everything that's happening in our country.
SPEAKER_00: We're just a bunch of sinners.
SPEAKER_00: I don't advocate everything happening in the road.
SPEAKER_00: In the whole family.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Liz and I had a really good fight yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: I wish we could have done it better.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't fight very well, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So just because we recognize Israel as being the apple of God's eye and that God in his prophetic work brought Israel back together, doesn't mean everything Israel does is is something we should necessarily support, but we can support the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: So I want you to understand that.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the part of Ezekiel's vision that has not occurred yet.
SPEAKER_00: This is what's going to happen in the last days.
SPEAKER_00: And also he came to me, prophesied to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.
SPEAKER_00: So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet an exceedingly great army.
SPEAKER_00: Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: They indeed say, Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, O my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves and bring you into the land of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up from your graves, I will put my spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land.
SPEAKER_00: Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So men and women, there is a day coming when there's gonna be a revival.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be a work of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And we know in uh actually in two weeks we're gonna, no, in three weeks, we're gonna look at um Revelation chapter 7 of the 144,000.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be 144,000 word-rooted, spirit-empowered, prophetically driven Jews that are gonna evangelize their own country.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, that's not the Jehovah's Witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And so God's gonna move in a mighty way upon the nation of Israel, and He's gonna raise up 144,000 little Billy Grams running around, you know, all over the country in a mighty way.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 14, 1 says this.
SPEAKER_00: Then I looked and behold, a lamb standing on Mount Zion with him, 144,000, having his father's name written on their foreheads.
SPEAKER_00: One of the rabbis in America who was recently interviewed, an expert on the Old and the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: He's a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: He's not a completed Jew.
SPEAKER_00: He's not a messianic Jew.
SPEAKER_00: He said on national television that Jesus fulfilled so many prophecies in the Old Testament during his lifetime on the earth, he was the Messiah for the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: But there's another Messiah coming for the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: He's getting really close, man.
SPEAKER_00: That's really, really close.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh boy, you're getting yourself in some really hot water with your synagogue when you get back home.
SPEAKER_00: I mean saying stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00: So Jews, listen, Jews are beginning to take the breath test.
SPEAKER_00: They're kind of, there's gonna be a day where the Holy Spirit's going to come in mighty power upon Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And in Revelation and in Romans, Paul prophesies that there will be a national spiritual revival.
SPEAKER_00: So where are we today?
SPEAKER_00: Where would you envision yourself today?
SPEAKER_00: Because we in the service in a few minutes after we go into worship.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna stand and we're gonna take communion.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're a Jesus disciple, we invite you to take communion during the worship.
SPEAKER_00: But where are you right now in your walk with God?
SPEAKER_00: Are you spiritually dry?
SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of believers.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of believers.
SPEAKER_00: The worst place you can be, you guys, is where you've known and you've touched the power of God, but you're not walking in it anymore.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost better if you never knew it because you don't even know what you're missing.
SPEAKER_00: But but I want to I want to challenge you to come back to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: To be, to be his disciple, maybe for the first time or for the second time or the 18th time.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know anybody that's had a spiritual walk that just went like this.
SPEAKER_00: All of us have kind of, you know, been like this, you know, the road less traveled.
SPEAKER_00: We like to get in the river of the culture, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: And just kind of flow with it and everything.
SPEAKER_00: He says, ah la la la la la la.
SPEAKER_00: And yet God calls you guys here today.
SPEAKER_00: He calls me here today to sometimes just get out of that boat and say, you know, I'm kind of tired of these rocks.
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of tired of getting slammed against the limbs of this river because this river is not the river that I signed up for.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna get out of the raft and I'm gonna stand against the tide, and I'm gonna start living against the tide because I'm gonna start reading God's word and being filled with his Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Men and women, I'll tell you right now, that's the adventure.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I signed up.
SPEAKER_00: And so when I was 18, man, I loved adventure.
SPEAKER_00: I was adventuring in a lot of things that I shouldn't have been adventuring in, but I was.
SPEAKER_00: And when I heard about Jesus, who said, I came that you might have life and might have it abundantly, I signed up.
SPEAKER_00: And all the ebbs and flows through the years, that's still the team I'm on.
SPEAKER_00: And so, and so when I put on my hat, and a lot of you guys have Bronco jerseys today, you know, I'm I'm gonna put on my construction hat here.
SPEAKER_00: Which team are you on?
SPEAKER_00: Because really the scriptures are pretty clear, there's a demonic, satanic team, and then there's a Jesus team.
SPEAKER_00: And the Jesus team wins.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, but I'm an American through and through.
SPEAKER_00: I like to win.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like to lose.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I want to be on the winning team, and the winning book is revelation that shows us the game plan.
SPEAKER_01: You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: We hope you have been blessed by today's message.
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SPEAKER_01: If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.
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SPEAKER_01: Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.