Participants:
Series Code: IIWSS
Program Code: IIWSS025022S
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00:11 ♪♪♪ 00:14 >>Eric Flickinger: Welcome to "Sabbath School," 00:15 brought to you by It Is Written. 00:17 Glad that you're joining us today. 00:19 We are looking at how to study the prophecies of the Bible. 00:23 And this is lesson number nine of 13, an incredible journey 00:27 that we are taking into the prophecies of the Bible 00:30 and how we can better understand them 00:33 and apply them to our lives today. 00:35 We're going to begin with prayer and then dive right in. 00:38 Father, we're grateful to be here today. 00:40 We thank You for drawing us together and drawing 00:42 our attention to what we're going to be looking at today. 00:45 As we do so, we ask that You will bless us, 00:48 and we thank You, in Jesus' name, amen. 00:51 So this week we're looking at part two of understanding 00:54 the Psalms, being in the Psalms 00:55 and seeing how they connect us with the book of Revelation. 00:57 We're being guided and led through this study 01:00 by the author of this quarter's "Sabbath School" lesson, 01:03 Pastor Shawn Boonstra. Shawn, glad you're here. 01:05 >>Shawn Boonstra: Thank you, and it just goes to prove 01:07 they'll let anybody write the "Sabbath School" quarterly. 01:09 >>Eric: Well, shh, we won't tell anybody. [Shawn laughs] 01:11 But we are glad that you are here. 01:13 >>Shawn: Thank you. >>Eric: Glad that you're here. 01:14 This has been a journey so far, and we're not there yet. 01:17 We've still got four more, five if you include today. 01:20 And this is part number two of being in the Psalms. 01:23 So we covered several Psalms, 01:25 well, at least a couple last week. 01:27 >>Shawn: Yeah, two or three. >>Eric: Two or three, 01:29 and now we're going to take a look at a few more. 01:30 You open this week's lesson with Psalm 46, verse 8. 01:35 How does Psalm 46, verse 8 help someone 01:38 to understand the great controversy theme 01:40 that is so prominent, well, honestly, 01:43 throughout the entire Bible, but certainly 01:44 over in the book of Revelation? 01:45 >>Shawn: It is probably the overarching--I mean, 01:47 there's all kinds of overarching themes 01:48 in Bible prophecy, but really if you're reading 01:51 Revelation 12, the great controversy 01:53 comes down to it; war in heaven, begins in heaven. 01:55 There is controversy over God's name, His character, 01:59 and so this is an overarching theme. 02:01 And I think that there is material in Psalm 46 02:04 that kind of, at least, sheds some light on what is going on. 02:09 It's maybe not obvious, but let's take a look at it, 02:12 Psalm 46, beginning in verse 8. 02:14 It says, "Come, behold the works of the Lord." 02:18 And of course "Lord" is all caps. 02:20 That's Yahweh; it's His name. 02:22 "Behold the works of the Lord, how He has brought desolations 02:26 on the earth." Wait a second. Wait a second. 02:29 He brought desolations on the earth? 02:30 Who really did it? Who really did it? 02:33 And here's what I find interesting, 02:34 and we can't unpack this today, 02:36 you'll never get through this in your "Sabbath School" class, 02:38 I promise you, but somehow God owns the world, 02:43 in spite of the things that we did. 02:45 He just says, "No, it's still all mine." 02:47 And we talked about it a little while ago. 02:48 At the end, who handles the final destruction of the wicked? 02:54 Not the person who caused wickedness, 02:56 but God Himself steps up to the plate: 02:57 "It's my world, it's my universe. I'm going to do this." 03:00 And I can admire a God who does something like that. 03:02 We talked about Old Yeller-- you know, 03:05 eventually you're going to have to deal with it, 03:07 and God deals with it. 03:09 Here in verse 8, we have a recognition 03:10 that the world is painful, it's broken, 03:13 and that God allowed it. 03:15 That's a major part of the great controversy theme. 03:18 God has let us go our own way and reap the consequences 03:24 of what it is that we did. 03:26 So this helps me in verse 8 understand it's our decision 03:29 to make the world this way, but God allowed it, 03:32 and for our instruction, He continues to allow it 03:35 so that we're learning from it and we come back to Him. 03:39 And because He stakes some ownership in this world, 03:42 He's there through the entire process. 03:44 It tells me that as bad as we've made this place, 03:47 God has not abandoned us to ourselves. 03:49 All right, He could have. He could have said... 03:51 [makes pop sound] and then it would have lasted 03:53 all of six minutes because the Bible tells us 03:56 in Colossians, chapter 1, not only did Jesus 03:58 create the world; He holds it together. 04:00 It consists in Him. 04:01 If He wasn't still here, it would have been done. 04:04 God didn't abandon us in this. 04:06 We made it bad. He stays with us 04:09 through the experience; 04:10 He's completely absorbed and wrapped up 04:13 in what happens to me, what happens to you. 04:16 He's not guilty, but He stayed anyway, 04:20 and He stakes ownership in it: 04:22 "I'll take control of this." That's mind-blowing. 04:24 That's probably enough for an entire "Sabbath School" class. 04:27 How could God lay claim to something that He didn't start? 04:29 How is it that He created the universe, 04:32 and it still came out this way? 04:34 All right, and I love that statement 04:35 in "Great Controversy," that sin has no reason. 04:39 It's like, "Okay, that really I struggle with." 04:41 On a human philosophy level-- we've talked about this 04:43 in previous lessons-- 04:45 if I just want to be rational without what God reveals, 04:48 I don't like the idea that sin has no reason. 04:50 Got to be a good reason for it. 04:52 But we're told in the "Great Controversy," 04:53 whatever page it is-- you'll have to read 04:55 the whole book; it's near the end. 04:58 If there was a reason, it wouldn't be sin. 05:00 >>Eric: It would cease to be sin, yeah. 05:01 >>Shawn: It's not sin if you can give a good reason for it. 05:03 So there's no good reason for it. 05:04 God's not guilty, but He stays here. 05:06 Now look at verse 9--the nations come into play here: 05:11 "He makes wars cease to the end of the earth." 05:13 Here's a promise that the current state 05:16 of things, what's going on in Gaza, 05:18 what's going on out-- that's going to come to an end. 05:20 "He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; 05:22 "He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; 05:24 He burns the chariots with fire." 05:28 Suddenly I have the music playing from "Chariots of Fire" 05:30 in my--anyway, God's hand is in warfare. 05:37 That's a troublesome thought, but He's present there. 05:39 So now when you get to Daniel 7-- 05:41 we looked at this already-- we have the nations. 05:43 Israel thinks of themselves as an island 05:45 of God's mercy and grace in a sea of the nations. 05:49 The nations are self-directed, selfish, sinful, 05:53 paradise-replacement nations. 05:55 That's what they are: "We will bring paradise on our own. 05:58 I'll take charge of this." 06:00 The water is whipped up. 06:02 These are one nation after another going to war. 06:05 Does God cause them to go to war? 06:07 No, I can't see God authoring war. 06:09 Is His hand on it? Oh yeah, it's on it. 06:12 God already tells us in advance: It's going to be Babylon, 06:15 Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, the divided Western Roman Empire, 06:19 the second coming of Christ. 06:21 He's got His hand there. He allows this to go on. 06:24 And we get a lot of light on what's going on. 06:28 God is present. 06:30 That happens in Ezekiel. 06:32 I don't know that I put this in the lesson, 06:34 but Ezekiel opens with Ezekiel in captivity. 06:38 The world looks like it has ended. "Where is God? 06:40 I'm in Babylon." 06:42 Even though they were told they would go to Babylon 06:44 if they didn't repent-- he's in Babylon. 06:46 And how does that scene open? 06:48 It looks like chaos. 06:50 A whirlwind is not an orderly thing. 06:53 He compares what he sees to a whirlwind. 06:56 And if you're in, like, hurricane or tornado alley, 06:58 you've seen a whirlwind. 07:00 It looks like chaos, and he's having trouble. 07:02 There's thunder and lightning, and then he sees the creatures. 07:05 And by the end of chapter 1, he looks up, 07:08 and there's a throne above the chaos. 07:11 It's seated up-- God is sitting on His throne. 07:14 He's allowing us to run our own course, do our own things. 07:16 He's allowing the nations to express themselves all the way 07:19 to the logical end zone of human systems of government, 07:23 but He never leaves. The throne is still above it. 07:27 I see that here. "He makes war cease." 07:28 At some point He's going to blow the whistle 07:32 and say, "Everybody, out of the pool!" 07:34 He's allowing us to run the course of wickedness, 07:38 but He never quite gives up 100% control. 07:40 If He did, you'd know it. We would fall apart. 07:43 There's still the guiding hand. 07:44 I mean, in prophecy, you see a situation where the angels 07:46 are holding back the winds of the earth in the last days. 07:50 God still has a hand. 07:51 He stops it from getting out of control 07:53 so that the plan of salvation plays out 07:55 without violating our free will. 07:57 There's an hour's worth of discussion. 07:59 How does He do that? I don't know. 08:02 I think about it like this sometimes. 08:03 If I took a basketball and put it in a culvert, 08:07 angled at 45 degrees and bounced it in there-- 08:09 it's a big culvert, 3 feet wide-- 08:11 it's going to bounce around, got lots of freedom of choice, 08:13 but it's going to come out the end at the bottom 08:15 because gravity can't be beaten. 08:16 The kingdom of Christ can't be beaten. 08:18 Gravity, everything's going to pull us in that direction. 08:22 Verse 10--ah, we saw this in the life of Nebuchadnezzar. 08:25 God allowed him and allowed him and allowed him. 08:27 He got to the right conclusion, 08:29 "Be still"--verse 10, I love this--"know that I am God. 08:33 "I will be exalted among the nations, 08:35 I will be exalted in the earth!" 08:37 There's the end point in the book of Revelation. 08:40 The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom 08:43 of our Christ. 08:44 Daniel 7, verses 13 and 14, at the end of the judgment, 08:48 the Son of Man is given a kingdom that will never fail, 08:50 and every other kingdom is subject to it. 08:53 Look at this, Psalm 46:8-10 08:55 shows us, in very brief statement, 08:58 how this world is operating and where it's going to land. 09:00 God will be exalted above the nations, 09:02 and our system is going to disappear. 09:05 >>Eric: That gives us some description, some way for us 09:09 to comprehend what's happening today, at least a hope, 09:13 anyway, of doing so. 09:15 You also mention on Monday's lesson--you bring up 09:17 Jeremiah, chapter 4. >>Shawn: Yeah. 09:19 >>Eric: Again, it has to do with the kingdoms of this world. 09:22 How does this kind of broaden our understanding 09:24 of the Bible's treatment of human government? 09:27 >>Shawn: Yeah, I know. 09:29 Human government--again, I think the nations are central. 09:33 You can't understand Bible prophecy 09:34 unless you understand Genesis 10 09:36 and the way that most of humanity went its own way: 09:40 "We'll build our own kingdoms." 09:41 I mean, you can't avoid human kingdoms throughout the Bible, 09:44 whether it's Babylon, Assyria, God's own people going astray 09:48 and so on--it's very, very big. 09:50 Jeremiah, chapter 4, the first time you read it, 09:53 you'll wonder if it's talking about creation. 09:55 This is pretty famous to Seventh-day Adventists, 09:57 this passage. Jeremiah 4, verse 23, 10:00 Jeremiah has shown something fascinating: 10:03 "I looked on the earth, and behold, 10:07 it was without form and void." 10:09 All right, my first instinct is, oh, creation-- 10:12 "The earth is without form and void." 10:14 That's its original state. 10:15 "To the heavens, and they had no light." 10:17 Oh yeah, God still hasn't said, "Let there be light," 10:19 must be creation. 10:21 Except if you keep reading, 10:22 it rules out that this is talking about creation. 10:25 "I looked on the mountains, and behold, 10:27 "they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro." 10:29 Verse 25: "I looked, and behold, there was no man." 10:33 Well, if this is creation, that makes sense; 10:34 he hasn't been created yet. No, no, no, no, no, 10:36 "All the birds of the air had fled." 10:40 Oh, living creatures, the earth's been depopulated. 10:43 That's why it's without form and void. 10:45 "I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a desert, 10:48 and all its cities were laid in ruins." 10:53 Those are the nations. They were nation states. 10:55 The cities were the independent kingdoms at that point. 10:57 They didn't have massive empires-- 11:00 till we get to the Persians, really. 11:01 Babylonians had an empire-- 11:03 the first truly international empire is the Persians. 11:05 "The cities are laid in ruins before His fierce anger." 11:08 In other words, human government ran its course. 11:11 Now God says, "Everybody," again, "out of the pool, 11:15 "I'm draining it. 11:16 Time for new water. It's time for my kingdom." 11:19 "For thus says the LORD, 'The whole land shall be 11:21 a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.'" 11:24 All right, we don't have the time for that, 11:27 but we know that, prophetically speaking, 11:29 this is pointing forward to the moment Jesus comes, 11:33 and the wicked are slain by the brightness 11:35 of His presence. 11:37 This is a long study-- you need to get into it 11:40 if this seems like unfamiliar territory. 11:43 And the devil is left alone, not buried with the rest and so on. 11:47 It's not the full end yet. 11:48 We go to heaven, God opens the books. 11:50 Because He's so thorough, He says, 11:51 "I want you to be happy with the way 11:53 this is going to play out, and I want you to understand." 11:55 He takes us up, Revelation 20 says we get to look at the books 11:58 before He makes a final move. 12:00 So yeah, cities break down, but before God 12:03 finally deals with humanity, there's a pause, and we get to-- 12:06 anyway, there's an awful lot packed into those few verses. 12:09 It anticipates a huge chunk of the book of Revelation. 12:13 >>Eric: And like you said, we don't have time 12:15 to delve into all of that here. 12:17 There is a companion book, though, 12:19 that gives us more. Tell us about that. 12:21 >>Shawn: Yeah, the companion book, I think we call it 12:23 just "How to Study Prophecy." 12:25 And again, it's not blow by blow "this symbol means this, 12:28 this symbol means that." What we're looking at 12:30 are the major themes in prophecy, 12:31 where they come from in the Old Testament, 12:33 some stories that anticipate last-day events 12:36 and that kind of thing. 12:37 I think it'll make your study more fruitful and maybe 12:39 your "Sabbath School" discussion more fruitful. 12:41 You'll find it anchored in Christ and in hope. 12:44 >>Eric: And that's reason enough to pick it up. 12:46 It is an excellent book. 12:47 You will want to, not just add it to your library, 12:50 but on that stack of books that you have 12:52 in your to-read pile, put this one right at the top. 12:56 In fact, crack it open as soon as you can 12:58 because you're going to be able to get a lot 13:00 out of it for yourself, but you will also be able 13:02 to get a lot out of it that you can share 13:04 in your class, whether you are a teacher 13:07 or a participant in the class. 13:09 It's going to strengthen your walk with Christ, 13:11 and you can strengthen others with it as well. 13:14 We're going to be back in just a moment 13:16 as we continue taking a look 13:17 at understanding or how to study Bible prophecy. 13:21 As we go through the book of Psalms, 13:23 we're gaining insight, 13:25 wisdom, hope, encouragement as we do so. 13:28 We'll be right back in just a moment here 13:30 on "Sabbath School," brought to you by It Is Written. 13:33 ♪♪♪ 13:37 >>John Bradshaw: It's one of the most fascinating books 13:39 in the Bible, written with signs and symbols in almost a code, 13:44 written by John, who was under house arrest when he wrote it, 13:48 on the island of Patmos in the beautiful Aegean Sea. 13:52 Don't miss "Great Chapters of the Bible," 13:55 Revelation, chapter 14, where we investigate 13:59 a chapter of the Bible that contains 14:00 what the Bible refers to as "the everlasting gospel," 14:05 God's final message of warning and mercy for the world. 14:10 Revelation, chapter 14, introduces us to the 144,000. 14:15 Who are the 144,000? 14:18 And can you be in that group? 14:21 And then three messages from angels that fly 14:24 in the midst of heaven 14:25 proclaiming their God-given message 14:26 with a loud voice. 14:28 Don't miss "Great Chapters of the Bible," 14:31 Revelation, chapter 14, 14:33 on It Is Written TV. 14:37 ♪♪♪ 14:41 >>Eric: Welcome back to "Sabbath School," 14:43 brought to you by It Is Written. 14:45 We're looking at how to study Bible prophecy, 14:47 especially as it connects with the book of Psalms. 14:52 Shawn, we left off talking a little bit about Jeremiah, 14:55 chapter 4, and the millennium. 14:57 We didn't title it as such, but there's that pause, if you will. 15:02 I want to come back to Monday's lesson again. 15:05 And you ask people to think of the hardships 15:08 that would disappear along with the kingdoms. 15:11 I think many of us would like to see 15:13 a lot of hardships disappear today, 15:15 if yesterday's not a possibility. 15:18 But there are many hardships that are going to disappear 15:20 in the near future. What are some of those? 15:22 >>Shawn: Yeah, and here's the interesting thing. 15:23 There are hardships that come on us 15:25 because we've all collectively sinned. 15:26 And I want to be careful-- it doesn't mean 15:28 that if something's going wrong in your life, 15:30 it's specifically because of your sin. 15:31 Jesus made that clear with the man born blind. 15:33 "What did his parents do?" 15:35 Nothing, nothing, that's sometimes the case. 15:37 Job was tormented; it wasn't his fault. 15:40 There are other occasions, however, 15:41 where it becomes pretty obvious. 15:44 You know, when Israel's prosperity started to fall 15:46 and the Assyrians had no problem conquering them, 15:48 that was clearly because of their own sins. 15:51 So there are issues. 15:53 The human race is not what it used to be. 15:55 We suffer with disease and death 15:58 because of our collective problem, our collective problem. 16:01 But there are other problems that are caused 16:02 by human government. This entire method 16:06 of taking control of the planet, 16:08 the nations, the Gentiles-- however you want to call it-- 16:11 the nations running the earth, 16:12 the kings, earthly systems of government 16:14 create all kinds of problems. 16:16 And what we find in Scripture, in Isaiah, chapter 65, 16:20 in particular, I find it fascinating. 16:22 Chapters and verses came much later, like in the 1200s, 16:26 but there are 66 chapters in Isaiah, 16:28 and they roughly parallel the themes 16:29 of the 66 books of the Bible. How does that happen? 16:33 But 65, we're getting to the new earth 16:35 and some of the themes we find in Revelation. 16:38 Isaiah 65:21, "They shall build houses and inhabit them." 16:44 Well, let's think of just the 10 years that just went by. 16:47 Maybe you had a house, maybe you got caught up 16:51 in the housing bubble burst. 16:54 You know, what triggered all that? 16:56 I don't want to get political, but clearly government 16:58 had a hand in creating that situation. 17:01 Government forced banks to go out and write loans to people 17:04 who probably couldn't qualify. 17:06 That's as far as I'm going to go. 17:07 It's not a condemnation or an affirmation of one party 17:09 or the other, but we know that many of the problems we have 17:13 when it comes to resource allocation in this world 17:16 is due to the way we manage things. 17:18 And here God says, "How about you build a house 17:20 and you live in it?" Wait a minute, no mortgage? 17:23 Nah, no mortgage. 17:24 Can't be taken from me if I don't pay the taxes? 17:26 No, can't be taken. That system is gone. 17:30 You will build a house, and you get to live in it. 17:33 Verse 22, "They shall not build and another inhabit." 17:36 Think about all the people put out on the street in 2009. 17:40 "They shall not plant and another eat." 17:42 Think of all the people who work and they can't afford the goods 17:44 they produce for others. 17:47 "For like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, 17:50 and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands." 17:53 I took a political science major, pretty much 17:55 useless degree, unless you go to law school. 17:59 And at the end of four years, I remember a professor saying, 18:01 "Okay, basically politics is the study of who gets what, 18:06 where, and when." 18:07 It's like, "I'm sorry, I paid how much 18:09 for four years of this, and that?" 18:11 Yeah, it's the study of who gets what, where, and when. 18:15 Politics, at the end of the day, is the allocation 18:19 of scarce resources. 18:21 Self-interested people allocate more of those things 18:23 to themselves, and so we have huge disparities 18:26 in wealth and poverty in this world. 18:28 We have people fighting and going to war over such things. 18:32 Who's going to control that oil in Kuwait? That kind of stuff. 18:34 God says, "That's gone. It all belongs to me. 18:38 There is no scarcity." 18:40 There's not as much scarcity in the earth 18:42 as we think there is. 18:43 Most of that scarcity is created by us, right, 18:46 the stuff that we do. 18:48 God says, "That's gone. You built the house; you live in it. 18:51 You plant the crop; you eat it." 18:53 That system, I can't wait for this one. 18:55 I can't wait for this one. 18:56 Verse 23: "They shall not labor in vain." 19:00 Oh, wow, how many times have you done that one? 19:02 Just labored and you felt like, "What was that for?" 19:04 "Or bear children for calamity." 19:06 I won't even comment on that one as a parent, 19:08 but every parent knows that's a potential. 19:11 "They shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord, 19:13 and their descendants with them." 19:14 Verse 24: "Before they call I will answer; 19:18 while they are yet speaking I will hear." 19:22 Ever prayed and wondered when God was going to answer? 19:25 In the earth made new, He answers 19:27 before you're done asking. 19:28 That's mind-blowing. Why is that even possible? 19:31 It's because we've become so aligned with God's system 19:34 of government, with His character 19:35 written in our foreheads, 19:37 that we're not going to ask for anything 19:38 that isn't God's will anyway. 19:40 You know, prayer gets answered every single time 19:42 in the new earth. 19:43 The distance between us and God...disappears. 19:46 Right now there's a tangible difference. 19:48 I feel separated from God, even if it's just by the fact 19:50 I can't actually see Jesus face to face. 19:53 Separation disappears. Verse 25: 19:55 "The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; 19:57 "the lion shall eat straw like the ox, 19:59 "and dust shall be the serpent's food. 20:01 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain." 20:04 The destructive, dangerous nature 20:06 of the world we live in, restored. 20:10 There's something in us that still wants that. 20:12 What's your screen saver on your computer? 20:16 It's not a picture of your office. 20:18 Maybe it is--that's messed up. 20:20 Probably nature, something that you-- 20:24 we all, every culture on earth instinctively senses 20:27 we lost something big in the distant past. 20:29 Something used to be different, it used to be better, 20:32 and now we have to live the hard way, and God says, 20:34 "No more hard way. How about this? 20:38 "You build; you enjoy. You plant; you eat. 20:41 "No more danger. You can let your kids play in the yard. 20:44 You don't have to worry about the mountain lions." 20:46 That's a Colorado story. 20:47 They have to worry about that here. 20:49 There's so much--Isaiah 40, 20:51 there's so much of this in Isaiah. 20:53 Isaiah 40, verse 28: "Have you not known? 20:56 "Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, 20:59 the Creator of the ends of the earth." 21:00 There's that theme again, it's Revelation 14, 21:02 "Worship Him who made." 21:03 "He does not faint or grow weary; 21:05 "His understanding is unsearchable. 21:07 He gives power to the faint." 21:11 Oh, the older I get, the more that verse 21:15 makes some sense to me. 21:17 I mean, I wasn't born strong. 21:19 I was born with an affliction that required 21:21 corrective surgeries as a kid. 21:23 I wasn't the best on the track team by a long shot, 21:26 but I keep reading this, and I'm thinking, 21:29 I could do with this power to the faint. 21:31 "Even youths shall be faint and weary, 21:32 "and young men shall fall exhausted; 21:34 "but they who wait for the LORD 21:36 "shall renew their strength; they shall mount up 21:38 with wings like eagles." 21:41 I'm always exhausted. 21:42 I've never slept through the night in my life. 21:44 I was born with a sleep issue. 21:47 And I've discovered by doing a little ancestry.com 21:49 and talking to some relatives, it's genetic. 21:52 We've had it forever, and God says, 21:53 "How about a good night's sleep when you get to my kingdom? 21:55 That's fixed. Isaiah 35: 21:57 "Say to those who have an anxious heart"--there I am, 21:59 that's half the reason I don't sleep. 22:01 I can't let go of stuff. 22:02 I don't know what you're like. I just can't let go. 22:05 If at 2:00 in the morning I don't know where 22:06 the tax receipts are for tax time, 22:07 it might be October, but I'm going to get up 22:09 and find them before I can sleep. 22:11 I'm going to go. I can't let it go. 22:13 God says, don't be anxious. "'Be strong; fear not!' ... 22:16 The lame man shall leap like a deer." 22:19 I was born-- 22:23 I had surgeries, corrective surgeries as a kid, 22:25 reconstructive surgeries. 22:26 I never walked well, I couldn't run well, I couldn't jump, 22:31 and here God says, "Leap like a deer"? 22:33 I've always said, you know, "I'm going to have the one house 22:36 in heaven that actually has a fence around it." 22:38 "Why do you need a fence, Shawn, in heaven? 22:40 You're not going to have a burglar problem." 22:41 I don't care. It's going to be 6 foot high 22:42 because I've watched those deer. They can go over that thing. 22:45 And you're going to come over, and you're going to watch me 22:47 jump that thing because this says I'm going to jump. 22:50 That might not mean much to you who can jump, 22:52 but to me, I get everything back. 22:55 I get stuff I've never had. 22:58 The pain is gone, the suffering is gone, 23:00 the man-made problems are gone, 23:02 and here's what's interesting to me. 23:04 All these promises appear to be a reversal 23:08 of what Jesus predicts in Matthew 24. 23:11 What does he predict in Matthew 24? 23:13 "Nation will rise against nation." 23:16 There's Daniel 7, "The winds of war being whipped up." 23:19 It's not going to end until the very end. 23:21 All right, there's famine, earthquakes. 23:23 That's a natural disaster, but the whole earth is groaning, 23:26 the book of Romans says, because of what we did. 23:29 Famine, pestilence, disease, all gone. 23:32 And I've sometimes asked myself, "Why, Lord, 23:35 why would You let all of that happen?" 23:38 You read Matthew 24, and my gut instinct says, 23:41 "Why in the world would God allow that to happen?" 23:44 Well, number one, it's the natural consequence 23:46 of what we did to this place. 23:48 Number two, how much am I going to crave 23:51 the new kingdom if I'm perfectly comfortable in this one? 23:54 God has to let it unravel. 23:56 So I don't drop too many anchors as one of His children 23:59 in this world. And it's getting easier by the day. 24:01 I don't know how you feel out there, 24:03 but it's getting easier by the day to let go of this place. 24:05 There's no hope here. There's no hope here. 24:07 God's going to reverse it all, give it all back. 24:10 It's falling apart before your eyes now, and God says, 24:12 "No, no, no, no, just hang in there. 24:14 Buckle up, I'm not done yet." 24:16 >>Eric: Yeah, something to look forward to in a big, big way. 24:21 >>Shawn: Why is anybody scared of prophecy? 24:23 Read this, read this stuff. 24:24 >>Eric: There's good stuff coming-- 24:25 >>Shawn: Oh yeah. >>Eric: ...good stuff coming. 24:27 Shawn, you mentioned about good things to come. 24:29 There's not much better things to come 24:32 than what we find in Psalm 47. You talk about this in the study 24:35 on the Second Coming. Walk us through this. 24:37 >>Shawn: All right, take a look at this. 24:39 And again, because it's the Psalms, 24:41 we could go for 150 weeks and still not get through all of it, 24:45 but Psalm 47, verse 1: "Clap your hands, all peoples! 24:49 Shout to God with loud songs of joy!" 24:52 Sound like God wants you to be afraid of what's coming? 24:55 Not at all, not at all. 24:57 If you're in Christ, you're on Mount Zion; you're fine. 25:00 "For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared." 25:03 "Fear God, give glory to Him, 25:04 "for the hour of His judgment has come. 25:06 Worship Him who made"-- 25:07 "A great king over all the earth. 25:10 He subdued peoples under us"-- 25:13 literally did that for literal Old Testament Israel-- 25:16 "and nations [to be] under our feet." 25:20 That's the end game. God says, "I'm taking 25:22 all those worldly nations, and they're under you." 25:26 How can they be under me? 25:28 Well, because Jesus promises in Revelation 3 25:31 He's going to share His throne with us. 25:33 You don't deserve heaven to start with, but then He says, 25:35 "How about you sit on the throne with me?" 25:37 Revelation, chapter 11, we've mentioned this a few times, 25:40 verse 15: "The seventh angel blew his trumpet,... 25:43 "there were loud voices in heaven, saying, 25:45 "'The kingdom of the world has become 25:46 'the kingdom of our Lord and...His Christ, 25:47 and [we] shall reign forever and ever.'" 25:50 Daniel 7, verse 14: "And to Him was given dominion"-- 25:54 this is Jesus--"and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, 25:56 nations, and languages should serve Him." 25:59 Psalm 47 anticipates it. 26:01 I mean the Psalms are full of these things. 26:04 God continually holds out the promise of what He's going to do 26:08 with this disaster of a planet over and over and over again. 26:12 "He chose our heritage for us, 26:14 the pride of Jacob whom He loves." 26:16 He chose my heritage for me? Heritage? 26:20 Well, Jesus has got a heritage. 26:22 He hung on the cross "for the joy 26:23 that was set before Him." And the Bible says that we-- 26:26 He is the heir of this planet. It's rightfully His. 26:29 And then Romans, chapter 8, verse 16 says that 26:31 we are heirs with God and fellow heirs with Christ. 26:33 He's going to share it with me. 26:36 And I get to sit on the throne with Him. 26:40 How can you be scared of this stuff? 26:42 It doesn't add up. 26:44 It's nothing but good news for those who just say, 26:47 "You know what, I choose to be with Christ." 26:49 That's where you need to be. 26:50 Can you think of one good reason, one good reason 26:53 to not follow the Lamb wherever He goes? 26:56 You know there's no such thing. 26:58 Some of you have resisted; some of you have said, 27:00 "Yeah, but"--there's no buts; there's no ands. 27:03 Read it, read this book, and tell me 27:05 where you'd rather be at the moment 27:07 that Jesus appears in the eastern sky. 27:10 >>Eric: Everything that this world offers is finite. 27:13 >>Shawn: Yeah, and disappointing. 27:14 >>Eric: And disappointing, its pleasures and joys are fleeting, 27:18 but time with the Lord, that'll never end. 27:22 You'll never get tired of that. 27:24 We're going to be taking a look more deeply 27:26 into Bible prophecy 27:28 as we continue this journey for the remaining weeks, 27:31 looking at how we can gain faith and strength and hope 27:36 through the Scriptures. 27:37 We look forward to seeing you next time 27:39 here on "Sabbath School," brought to you by It Is Written. 27:43 ♪♪♪ 28:24 ♪♪♪ 28:26 [Captions provided by Aberdeen Captioning www.abercap.com] |
Revised 2025-05-22