Sunday
Morning Bible Study
December
28, 2014
Introduction
Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel
preached? Does it address the person who is: Empty, lonely, guilty, or afraid
to die? Does it speak to the broken
hearted? Does it build up the church? Milk – Meat – Manna Preach for a decision
Is the church loved? Regular: 2900
words Communion: 2500 words
I have come to believe that it is a healthy thing to live each day as if
this could be the day that Jesus returns.
Jesus said,
(Matthew 24:45–51 NKJV)
—45 “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made
ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? 46 Blessed is
that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. 47 Assuredly, I
say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. 48 But if that
evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ 49 and begins
to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, 50 the master
of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at
an hour that he is not aware of, 51 and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the
hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
There are two kinds of “servants”.
One servant is ready for His master to return, and is careful to do all
that his Master has asked him.
The other servant thinks the Master isn’t coming back soon, and his
thoughts lead him to live the wrong way.
So as part of our annual Calvary Chapel Fullerton tradition, I want to share
some things I’ve collected from this last year’s news that would indeed give us
an indication of just how close we are.
Disease
The Bible says that one of the last days’ signs had to do with disease, or,
“pestilence”.
(Matthew 24:7 NKJV)
For
nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be
famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.
Deadly disease is nothing new. In
past years we’ve talked about AIDS and SARS.
This year it’s Ebola.
The current outbreak of Ebola has been traced to a two-year-old toddler who
died in December 2013 in Guinea. (click on slides to cycle from March to
November 2014).
There have now been 19,340 reported cases (as of 12-23-14), and 7,580
deaths.
The World Health Organization admits that these are underestimates of the
actual number of cases and deaths.
My point is not to make you panic about the spread of Ebola, but to simply
remind you that this is part of the signs of the times.
In our modern world, the way that
air travel connects the nations, it’s a bit alarming to think of how quickly an
outbreak could travel throughout the world.
China
In the 1970s, China instituted a “One Child” policy for families to curb
their population growth. Because China’s
culture, families have a preference for boys, and since that time, when a
mother gets pregnant and they determine the sex of the baby through an
ultrasound, if it’s a girl, the tendency has been to abort the baby.
As a result, of China’s total population of 1.3 billion, there are 33.8
million more men than women.
Bachelors in China may pay up to $64,000 to marry a girl.
Why is this a big deal?
Some studies have suggested that the imbalance of the population has led to
a rise in crime.
Years ago I remember reading that a rise in the male population of a
country often led to that country being an aggressor in starting a war.
John prophecies of an army coming from the east (Rev. 16:12),
(Revelation 9:16
NKJV) Now the number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred
million; I heard the number of them.
Could this be China?
He also speaks of an army coming
from the east –
(Revelation 16:12 NKJV) Then the
sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was
dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared.
Islamic State (ISIS)
Beheading
John prophecies that there will be many martyred during the Tribulation
because they refuse to worship the antichrist (Rev. 6:9; 13:15).
(Revelation 6:9 NKJV) When He
opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been
slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.
(Revelation 13:15 NKJV) …and cause
as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed.
One of the methods the antichrist will employ will be beheading the
believers.
(Revelation 20:4b
NKJV) …Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for
their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast
or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on
their hands…
Back in our study of Zechariah, we saw this interview with Andrew White,
the Anglican bishop and his testimony about what ISIS is doing to believers,
even children, in Iraq. (warning: the sound is scratchy)
We have seen many reports of the Islamic state carrying out the brutal,
bizarre practice of beheading its captives.
It makes you wonder if there’s going to be a connection between the
antichrist and Islam.
ISIS and Israel
We currently think of ISIS being active between Syria and Iraq, but things
are changing.
Syria is northeast of Israel. Syria
has been in the middle of a civil war for the past three years, and 200,000
people have died.
In
recent months, three small Syrian rebel groups (Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade,
the Banner of Jerusalem, Abu Mohammed Tallawy) expelled 90 percent of Syrian’s
army that was located on the Syrian border with Israel.
Even more recently, these
groups have now allied with ISIS.
There is another ISIS group (Ansar Bait al-Maqdis) located in the Sinai in
Egypt.
There is an old battlefield strategy that when things aren’t going well on
one front, start another front.
So as ISIS is starting to have troubles in Iraq, they now have the
potential of creating a war in Israel.
If any or all of these ISIS groups attack Israel, ISIS would gain some sympathy
from the other Arab nations (which they don’t have because they attack other
Muslims).
If Israel gets drawn into the Syrian civil war, things could get messy.
The U.S. backs some of the more moderate Syrian rebel groups.
Russia backs the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Just
this weekend, Russia has offered to host peace talks in Moscow to end the
Syrian civil war.
There is a potential of things brewing in Syria that could actually drag
quite a few of the world’s nations into the Middle East, and in particular,
Israel.
A few weeks ago, back in Zechariah 14, we had read…
(Zechariah 14:2a
NKJV) For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem…
Russia
Russia has not had a good year.
They got involved in the civil war in the Ukraine.
They are now under international sanctions by the rest of the world as a
result.
These sanctions have caused over $100 billion in capital to flee the
country.
The Russian ruble has been falling in value.
Ordinary Russians are watching their savings have half the buying power it
once had.
Russia is also an oil-based economy.
A large part of their prosperity is dependent on the price of oil.
Oil is hitting some recent lows – have you noticed the price of gasoline at
the pump?
What is good for the American economy is horrible for the Russian economy.
They are not getting very much for their oil right now.
I don’t know where this is going.
The Bible talks about a last days conflict in Israel where a land called
Magog is reluctantly dragged into the war.
(Ezekiel 38:4 NKJV)
I
will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out, with all your
army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with
bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords.
Could the war in Syria along with Russia’s own economic meltdown lead to
this?
Sun and Moon
What I’m about to talk about will sound a little hokey if you weren’t here last
January when we taught through Joel
2.
(Joel 2:30–31 NKJV)
—30 “And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: Blood and
fire and pillars of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon
into blood, Before the
coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.
This is describing solar and eclipses.
Some Bible teachers found an interesting connection when they placed lunar
eclipses side by side with the Jewish religious calendar.
Though it’s not unusual for a lunar eclipse to fall on a Jewish holiday
because the Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar.
Lunar eclipses aren’t rare, we have 2-5 of them (partial and total) every
year.
What is rare is when you have four total lunar eclipses in a row (a blood
moon “tetrad”), and they all fall on a Jewish holiday.
It has only happened twice in the last 1,000 years.
It happened in 1949, after Israel declared Independence.
It happened again in 1967, during the Six Day War when Israel defended
itself against the Arab armies, and ended up taking control of the entire city
of Jerusalem.
We are just about in the middle of the next blood moon “tetrad”.
April 15, 2014, the start of Passover.
October 8, 2014, the evening before Tabernacles starts.
April 4, 2015, the start of Passover.
The last total eclipse was November 13, 2012, and the next total solar
eclipse will be March 20, 2015.
Though this isn’t a Jewish feast day, it is the final day of the Jewish
calendar, something like Dec. 31 to us.
We are HERE.
What’s my point?
If God wanted to do something dramatic, this would be a good time over the
next year or two.
I think that God gives Himself “windows of opportunity” in which He might
accomplish things.
This may be nothing at all, but it could be something big.
Israel
Aliya
We’ve seen over the years thousands of Jews returning to Israel from
all around the world.
One of the more interesting groups
is known as “Bnei Menashe” (sons of Manasseh).
They are coming from India and
Burma where they have lived for a couple thousand years.
They are a group of people with a collective memory of
‘crossing a body of water to freedom’, not using yeast products for a week each
year, and with men named Jacob and Gilead.
In 2000 the first group of 400
arrived.
In 2005, Chief Sefardi Rabbi Shalom
Amar agreed that they were indeed a branch of ancient Israel, exiled from
Samaria by the Assyrians.
Today 1700 Bnei Menashe are living
in Israel, and as many as 9,000 remain in India and Burma.
The Bible says it would happen in
the end times:
(Zec 10:8–9 NKJV) —8 I will
whistle for them and gather them, For I will
redeem them; And they shall
increase as they once increased. 9 “I will
sow them among the peoples, And they
shall remember Me in far countries; They shall
live, together with their children, And they
shall return.
Ariel Sharon
First the bizarre…
Why is this a big deal? It might not
be at all, but there was something interesting that was in the news a few years
back.
Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri was born in Baghdad, and lived to be well over a
hundred years old.
He claimed to have met the Jewish
Messiah in November 2003.
In September 2005 he claimed that
the Messiah was already in Israel.
A few months before Kaduri died (2005), he gave a Yom Kippur address to his
synagogue and gave clues as to how to recognize the Messiah.
He told his audience that the Messiah would not come until former Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon dies.
He also claimed to have written the name of the Messiah on a note and asked
that the note not be opened until a year after his own death.
Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke on January 4, 2006, but was kept
alive in a coma.
Kaduri died in February 2006.
His “note” about the Messiah was read a year later and
stated in Hebrew, “Concerning the letter abbreviation of the Messiah's name,
'He shall lift the people and prove that His word and law are valid'”
In Hebrew the words form an anagram, spelling out the name
“Yehoshua”, or, “Jesus”.
Sharon finally died this year on January 11, 2014
Could he be correct that Jesus could come soon?
What should we make of this?
Perhaps nothing. But it’s
interesting.
Kaduri seemed to have gotten one thing right (Jesus). We’ll see about the other thing.
Temple Progress
The Bible indicates that in the last days there will once again be a rebuilt
Jewish Temple.
It’s in this rebuilt Temple that the antichrist will have his defining
moment:
(2 Thessalonians
2:4 NKJV) who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that
is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that
he is God.
There is a group known as the Temple
Institute, founded in 1987, that is dedicated to one day rebuilding a
Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount.
Right now that seems impossible since there are Islamic mosques on the site
of the Jewish Temple.
Right now, it’s illegal for Jews to pray on top of the Temple Mount (video
from November 2014)
But if the Bible says it will happen, it will happen.
The Temple Institute has been working to construct the sacred vessels for
the service of God in the Temple, as well as making priestly garments, and training
the Kohanim, the priests.
Priest Training
ONE STEP
CLOSER TO THE HOLY TEMPLE: THEN AND NOW: THE CHAMBER OF PINCHAS THE OUTFITTER
On the evening of Tuesday, August 20th, 2013,
the 14th day of Elul, 5773, the Temple Institute, in cooperation with Mishmeret
Kehunah (the Organization for the Renewal of the Priestly Shifts) and other
Temple organizations inaugurated a new school dedicated to teaching kohanim the
'lost' art of performing the daily Tamid service in
the Holy Temple.
That evening, for the first time since the
destruction of the Holy Temple, a historic practice drill of the daily Tamid
offering was reenacted by a group of contemporary kohanim-in-training. As you
can see in these side-by side comparisons of "then and now," this
event brings the time of the renewal of the Divine service closer than ever
before!
In the Second Temple there was a special chamber
called "The Chamber of Pinchas the Outfitter." In this chamber the
garments of the both the High Priest and the ordinary were stored. Each week,
when the new shift of kohanim would arrive, they would open the particular
closet of that shift and each kohen would take garments according to his size.
Olive Oil
Just last week something special happened in Jerusalem. Here’s the promo that the Temple Institute
put out before the event.
Apparently this is the first time in 2,000 years that olive oil has been
produced according to Temple standards and used for the lighting of the menorah
for Hanukkah.
Red Heifer
The book of Numbers has an obscure ritual that involves water mixed with
the ashes of a special “red heifer”.
(Numbers 19:9b
NKJV) …and they shall be kept for the congregation of the children of
Israel for the water of purification; it is for purifying from sin.
purification – niddah
– impurity, filthiness, menstruous, set apart
Moses goes on to write how this “water” would be used to cleanse people in
certain situations such as when you tough a dead person.
Ezekiel talks about the restoration of Israel and talks about “clean water”
(Ezekiel 36:24–25
NKJV) —24 For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all
countries, and bring you into your own land. 25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on
you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and
from all your idols.
clean – taher
– to be clean, be pure
Orthodox Jews look at this being a vital component in restoring Temple
worship, and they haven’t had the ashes of a red heifer for 2,000 years.
Jewish tradition has it that there have only been nine red heifers
throughout history, and the tenth red heifer will come with the rebuilding of
the third Temple, and the coming of the Messiah.
In 2002, another red heifer was born in Israel, but later two white hairs
were found in its tail and it was disqualified.
What now?
What do I do with all this? Jesus
said,
(Luke 21:25–36
NKJV) —25 “And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars;
and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves
roaring; 26 men’s hearts
failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on
the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 Then they
will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 Now when
these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your
redemption draws near.”
Lesson
Look up
Keep your eyes on heaven.
Keep your focus on Jesus.
Jesus came the first time to die on a cross and pay for your sins.
Have you put your life in His hands yet?
This is the time to turn your life to Jesus.
29 Then He
spoke to them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. 30 When they
are already budding, you see and know for yourselves that summer is now near. 31 So you also,
when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near. 32 Assuredly, I
say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all things take
place. 33 Heaven and
earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.
Lesson
Get ready
The fig tree is symbolic of the nation of Israel.
The nation has come into existence and is blooming.
The generation that sees these things come to pass will see His coming. We are close.
34 “But take
heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing,
drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. 35 For it will
come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 Watch
therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these
things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
Lesson
Walk straight
There is a lot of temptation today to just join the rest of the world and
forget about God.
We need to keep doing the right thing.
You might find yourself asking, “How much longer can I resist these
temptations?”
Just one more day.
One more day.