A good subtitle to this PODCAST would be, God Always Keeps His Promises.
More to the point, God always keeps His promises to you!
During these days of societal and personal distress, my prayer to God is that this study will bring enormous encouragement to your soul, as it has my own.
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Easter is almost upon us. Consequently, for the next four weeks, I would like to take you on a virtual tour of four places that factored most prominently in Jesus’ final hours.
In this PODCAST, we will visit the Garden of Gethsemane together.
From there, we will move in the coming weeks to the house of the High Priest, the Antonia Fortress, and finally–on Easter weekend–we will walk together on the stones of the Via Dolorosa.
I will be privileged to serve as your humble, awestruck tour guide. My prayer is that with every step we take, we will again and again be reminded that the Bible is God’s written record of…
Real people who lived in real places, who had real experiences, all of which point to a real God.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, after his customary-yet-warm greeting, Peter could have begun his first foray into his rather short-lived, two-letter, dual-epistle-writing career with these words:
“And just when you thought all was lost…”
Because for Peter’s original readers, All.Was.Lost!
For these now-“scattered abroad exiles” had just been forcibly removed from their homes, had their lives permanently disrupted, and their families dramatically displaced.
Many-if-not-most of them were barely holding on, more surviving than thriving. Precious people precariously perched on the precipice of the abyss of uncertainty, just trying to make it through yet-another threatening day.
All of that to say that Peter could have begun this First Epistle of Peter with the words,
“And just when you thought all was lost…”
Because that was how they felt.
Just.Like.Some.of.Us.
Our challenges may not actually be as dire as theirs. But it sure feels that way some days, doesn’t it? Like we’re just barely hanging on? Like we’re more surviving than thriving? Like we’re maybe one step away from giving up?
“And just when you thought all was lost…”
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As you will hear in this PODCAST, this fisherman-turned-preacher’s initial foray into the world of sermonizing is memorable in extreme.
And whether you realize it or not, Peter’s first sermon out of the gate is all about… Grasshoppers. As in locusts. Lots and lots of locusts.
A plague of locusts. A past-plague of locusts. A coming plague of locusts. And a future (even future for us) plague of locusts. See it there in Acts 2:14-16?
Listen as I read it to you, and see if you can hear ominous chomps of locusts:
Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, “Listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residents of Jerusalem! Make no mistake about this. These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o’clock in the morning is much too early for that. No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel.”
See any locusts in that? No? Well, then, keep listening. Because as you are about to hear, it is vital that we do.
His name is Joel. He is one of so-called 12 “Minor Prophets.” But make no mistake about this: Joel may have been a “Minor Prophet.” But there was absolutely nothing minor about his message.
Let me ever-so-briefly remind you of structure of the Old Testament…
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As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, with Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:15, words that describe a singularly hair-raising event, the Great Tribulation will begin.
A 3½-year period of unprecedented spiritual defection and oppression, along with its resultant worldwide suffering on a scale never seen before on this planet.
Don’t take my word for that. Take Jesus’ word for that. In Matthew 24:21,
“For then there will be great tribulation, greater anguish than at any time since the world began. And it will never be so great again.”
The Great Tribulation, that will begin with the singular event to which Jesus alluded in Matthew 24:15, and will end with the climax of human history as we know it — the glorious Second Coming of Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords.
Permit me the briefest of reviews. It is absolutely vital that we keep the end-times timeline straight.
The next event on God’s prophetic timetable is that wondrous event we commonly call The Rapture, where Christ-followers throughout the world will “meet the Lord in the air.”
Nothing needs to happen before the Rapture, that awesome event described so vividly in 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Corinthians 15, and alluded to by Jesus in John 14. The Rapture, or as Paul called it, Our “blessed hope.” Titus 2:13,
“While we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Please note that Paul described our “blessed hope” as Jesus’ “appearing,” not His “coming,” a distinction of monumental importance.
Now again, nothing has to happen before the Rapture, where Jesus will appear in the clouds and we meet Him in the air, all of this near the beginning of Tribulation. Yes, you can indeed wake up every morning of every day with the hope-filled words flooding your troubled soul, Perhaps Today! Nothing has to happen before the Rapture.
That said, much, much has to happen before the Second Coming, where Jesus will literally come down to the earth, setting foot on the Mount of Olives, this at the very end of the Tribulation.
Most notably, what has to happen before the Second Coming? The event described by Jesus in Matthew 24:15, and by Daniel in Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11.
Hear it from Jesus’ lips to our ears:
“So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains” (Matthew 24:15).
“Let the reader understand.” Why that particular exhortation? Precisely because there is so much confusion about this prophecy, and so many who therefore do not understand.
Confusion which we will bring to a conclusion in this podcast.
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