Podcasts about Euphrates

Keith discusses the new power shift in the housing market, where buyers now have more power in the Northeast and Midwest.  Ken McElroy joins us to discuss the current state of the real estate market, highlighting a significant decline in apartment building values and a predicted further drop in home ownership rates, potentially below 60%. They note that while some states, like Arizona, have surpassed pre-pandemic housing supply levels, others, like the Northeast and Midwest, still face shortages. Ken emphasizes the importance of affordability and the shift towards renting, predicting a significant increase in renters. He also shares insights on strategic property investments and the benefits of buying at current market lows. Resources: Use the discount code "KEN10" to get a discount on the Limitless Expo event. Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/559 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai  Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, apartment building values have crashed about 30% in the past few years. Well, it's the opinion of today's qualified guest that it's going to get even worse from here. We'll also discuss why rents in the Phoenix area are declining, and a bold prediction on a collapse in the home ownership rate and the hordes of renters that that will create all today on get rich education.   Mid south home buyers, I mean, they're total pros, with over two decades as the nation's highest rated turnkey provider, their empathetic property managers use your ROI as their North Star. So it's no wonder that smart investors just keep lining up to get their completely renovated income properties like it's the newest iPhone. They're headquartered in Memphis and have globally attractive cash flows and A plus rating with a better business bureau and now over 5000 houses renovated. There's zero mark up on maintenance. Let that sink in, and they average a 98.9% occupancy rate, while their average renter stays more than three and a half years. Every home they offer has brand new components, a bumper to bumper, one year warranty, new 30 year roofs, and wait for it, a high quality renter. Remember that part and in an astounding price range, 100 to 180k I've personally toured their office and their properties in person in Memphis, get to know Mid South. Enjoy cash flow from day one. Start yourself right now at mid southhomebuyers.com that's mid south homebuyers.com   Speaker 1  1:59   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Keith Weinhold  2:15   Welcome to GRE from the Tigris to the Euphrates to the Mississippi and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold GRE founder Forbes real estate council member, Best Selling Author, look for my work in the USA today as well, and you are back inside for another wealth building week of get rich education. What's all that really mean? Ah, I'm just another slack jawed mouth breather with a mic here. Before we get to today's guest, Ken McElroy, let me tell you about housing's new power shift and where we're at today. Three to five years ago, sellers held all the power in virtually every market because the housing supply was so miserably low everywhere. So you had more one tours of real estate and few that were willing to sell. That is still mostly true on a national level, but the new power shift is about the fact that the Northeast and Midwest are replete with home buyers. Queues of buyers are lining up for the few available properties like I've touched on before, and look low available housing supply in these areas, the Midwest and Northeast, that's not a symptom of mass in migration. Hordes of people are not stampeding into Buffalo for the nightlife. It's all due to chronic under building, partly from strict regulation, especially in the Northeast. A big part of the power shift, though, is that we now have fully 10 states that are above pre pandemic supply levels, and you'll notice that none of these are in the Midwest and Northeast. The 10 states are Arizona, which we'll talk about more today, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Hawaii, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Washington. Here in these places, is where the tables have turned, because supply is catching up with demand in those 10 states. So that's where we're seeing softer home price growth and where buyers have the power, these are some of the states where you can find better deals. Motivated sellers and builders in these places will often buy down your mortgage rate, give you closing cost credits or reward you with incentives, like a free year of property management. In fact, our GRE investment coaches guide you for free to exact property addresses where builders will buy down your mortgage rate to 5% today, one of them will even give you a $9,800 post close credit instead, if you so choose. Often do. Those like that are in those 10 states. They're elsewhere too. You can get started at GRE investment coach.com, conversely, 40 states have less for sale housing inventory than they did as compared to pre pandemic times. This is where sellers still have the power some of the most competitive markets in the nation are buffalo, Hartford, Providence and Boston, where more than 10 active home buyers vie for every single listing. That's per Zillow. That's sort of the real estate equivalent of a Taylor Swift or Beyonce ticket queue. At the other end of the spectrum, shoppers have an easier time in Miami with only 2.6 shoppers per listing, followed by Houston at 3.4 New Orleans at 3.5 and San Antonio at 4.3 nationally active listings are up 31% over last year. That's quite a bit, but we're still 12% below pre pandemic, 2019 inventory levels. And is all this good news or bad news? It totally depends on who you are. If you're holding property in the Northeast and Midwest, you're pretty happy about this strong appreciation in the single family space, but in the southeast, appreciation is non existent. There's even mild depreciation, especially in parts of Florida. If you're looking to own more property in the nation's southeast quadrant, you're now enjoying less buyer competition. In fact, sellers are competing for you, and let's avoid being too assuming. Here I've been talking about things on the state level. States are not monoliths. Philadelphia is not Pittsburgh, Seattle is not Yakima. Cities have different supply situations. Even within one city, the scenario varies, of course, really the bottom line here is that today's recovery from 2022 national supply abyss has been an uneven recovery, where builders are frozen, appreciation soars, where builders hustle, buyers win. So if you're looking for deals, find that short queue.    Today's guest is a familiar one to GRE listeners. He's based in Scottsdale, Arizona, which is the Phoenix Metro. Arizona, though it's fast growing, is still just the 14th most populous state, but Arizona is an interesting market, because we're going to get to see what happens when you have an overbuilt condition, like we do there. We'll discuss that market and the national market as well. Get a key gage on the direction of rents, occupancy and prices, first in the single family space, and then we'll talk about apartments. Anyone that's paid attention to real estate that past few years. Knows that when mortgage rates spiked in 2022 single family values have held up, apartment values plummeted due to their interest rate resets. We'll get insight on if the beleaguered apartment space has bottomed out price wise, or if apartment values still have further to fall.    I'd like to welcome in frequent GRE guest, and he was also one of our earliest back in 2015 Ken McElroy. Ken authored a bunch of successful books, both within and outside of the rich dad series. He's also a well known, successful apartment syndicator with over 10,000 units across several states, and he's also in other parts of the commercial real estate sector, including billboards and self storage. So it's really great to have back on the show. Ken McElroy   Ken McElroy  8:57   good to be here, Keith, thank you. It's been 10 years, man, since we've been doing   Keith Weinhold  9:01   this? Yes, 10 years back in episode 25 since you were first here, more than a decade of this. So we know each other's work really well, and it's such an interesting time in the apartment space. I want to get to that later in our conversation today and really find out if you think that the apartment space has bottomed out. But before we do that, let's talk about the single family space. The audience should know that you can meet both Ken and I in person, as we're both faculty members on the spectacular real estate guys Investor Summit C, which is actually underway now. We're recording this just before the summit. So let's discuss the direction of rents and occupancy. We'll get to price later and Ken although most states still have a housing shortage statewide, Arizona's active housing inventory for sale is 24% above pre pandemic levels. That's what realtor.com tells us, and this. Deeply due to a lot of building, a lot of building usually does not bode well for price growth or rent growth. So tell us about rent, direction and occupancy in the single family space in the Phoenix Metro.   Ken McElroy  10:15   There's a bunch of things happening in the Arizona market. First of all, one is we've had a lot of people move here right in the last 4,5,6, years. Yeah, post pre pandemic, post pandemic, all of that. We are a pretty small state. You got Phoenix, got Tucson, you got Flagstaff, a bunch of other small cities that kind of surround some of those. But it's not like a Texas or a Washington or a lot of these California, like a lot of states, and have a lot of cities to draw from. If people move to Phoenix, that's pretty much where they're they start a lot of times, not every time, but and so it's really interesting. When we have net in migration into Arizona, it really moves the needle for most of these cities. Is kind of the point. And so we're always going to be affordable, we're always going to have great weather, it's safe. We got pretty normal politics, I should say, as compared to some of the others, we really do have a growing population. And so what happened? We had a nice run on the real estate. As you do, you know, we had a nice run on the apartments. We had a nice run on the single family that tapered off when the interest rates went up, essentially, right? You know, we actually built too much. We built too many apartments. We built too many houses. When interest rates went up, people kind of pulled back. That's what you're seeing now. So right now, it's a great time to be a home buyer. It's a great time to be a renter in most of those cities in Arizona specifically. And why would that be? It's because they have a lot of choices. So on the single family side, the listings have gone up, and therefore some of the prices have you know, people are starting to negotiate a little bit more. Now here's the interesting thing, Keith, if you measure it on last year or the year before, it has huge numbers, like you just quoted, you know, 24% but what's happening is things are on the market like 40 days, you know, you know what I mean, like from a week or two, it's doubled or tripled, as you know, that's still not a very realistic market. The market is still, in my opinion, pretty healthy. It's not unbalanced, and before it was a seller's market, and so it's just normalizing. And normalizing, to me, if you go over year, over year, over year, is I think MLS says four to six months of inventory, right? I think things are just normalizing. But if you've been through the run, this is like the end of the world, right? But it's not. It's just things are settling down, and it's the greatest time because they're supposed to be a little bit of friction between the seller and the buyer. I believe there should be just about right. It's never just right, as you know, it's usually pulls on one harder on one side or the other. But we just went through an incredible time where the sellers pretty much got whatever they wanted and the landlords pretty much got whatever they wanted, and so this is just pulling back, you know, the tide's going back out. There's no cause for concern, at least in my world at all. It's supposed to be this way, and we need affordability. We need people to be able to buy homes. We need people to be able to rent. Yeah, I'm in the landlord business, but I don't want rents to run. There needs to be a balance there, even though it's good for me, if it does, but it's not good, because what happens is, then the government gets involved, and what they need to get involved in is adding supply, right? And not capping the rents. You know, what they need to do is just work with developers. And you know, because we're growing here in Arizona right now, we're seeing a pullback, but I think it's needed. There's nothing wrong with this. It weeds out a lot of, you know, realtors that weren't doing much, that just got their license, were hanging around, say, with mortgage folks and title people and lazy contractors and all that stuff. So whenever there's a pullback, the professionals win.   Keith Weinhold  14:01   Well, this is some really good perspective here. We're all victims of the recency bias, and, yeah, you're talking largely about market normalization. What sure wasn't normal or healthy, in a lot of ways, was back in 2021 when you might have had 50 offers for one available property, and people had to bid 50k over the asking price, and they might have waived their inspection, which is typically not a good idea when we talk about rents in the direction of rents, especially there in the Phoenix metro with single family homes, which I know your wife, Daniil, is pretty intimately involved with. Typically, this new supply increases competition. It increases the competition for landlords competing for more of those tenants, which is something that typically is not good for rents. Have we seen declining rents in the local market there in Phoenix?   Ken McElroy  14:54   Of course, yeah. And I'll tell you, there's a bunch of factors. So there's always cross currents. People want one. Answer, but there's not right, like, so let's just pick on a whole bunch of things that went wrong at the tail end of all of this. It was Airbnb. Like, Phoenix and Scottsdale are a huge Airbnb market. I've rented Airbnbs there. Sure. It's incredible, right? And so what happened was a lot of people said, oh, I can buy this house, throw some furniture in it. And, you know, I can get 10,15, 20 grand a month in rent out of these things. And they were right. And then what happened was, there just was too many, so became oversaturated. So you're definitely seeing those back on the market. And so interesting fact, Heath, all you got to do is look at the pictures. And if you see bunk beds. You know, it used to be an Airbnb like, you know what I mean? So that was the one, but two, let's don't forget this run that we just had put a lot of people into the rental market for the first time on the single family side too. So we never really had this many landlords on the single family side as well. And so there's all these mistakes that people made. They bought incorrectly. They had capex work. They bought with floating rate debt. And when rates went up, they weren't cash flowing. They wouldn't know how to manage them. So So there's all this stuff that was kind of going on behind the scenes, on the apartment side of the equation, which is where I hang out. Mostly, I watch all this. And because my class A buildings are competing for single family. They have single family typically wins because it has a yard, has a garage. Nonetheless, I gotta pay attention to it. So it's been interesting to watch. At one point you could not find a home in the Scottsdale area under 500 grand period like nothing. And now, of course, those are starting to come down a little bit more, and there's some softness in the rent, so the renters are have more choices. Now, why is that? There's a couple reasons. If you're a renter and you're looking for a place, you know, I'm sure you're considering a house, but not everybody wants a house, especially if you're single or maybe it's just you and somebody else, and maybe you don't have a pet. There's a lot of reasons that people just don't want to have to a home. So you've got condos and you've got apartments and you've got homes, and then you have school districts. So people definitely want to be in certain school districts based on their children. So you have all these cross currents going on, on where people want to be. And so what does all that mean? What that means is there are certain markets, from a rental standpoint, that are doing extremely well, still, both on apartments, on condos and houses. And then there are other markets that absolutely are not just depends on the concentration of all those things and all those factors that are going on. The one thing that's actually disrupting a market more than anything is apartments and condos. Because, for example, Danielle just had a condo that she owned, and the condo was worth, let's say, 300 grand, but it's probably 25 years old now, yeah, and there's apartments going up, you know, a block from there, right? So her renter is said, you know, I'd rather go over here. Brand new amenities, nine foot ceilings, brand new fitness center, all this stuff. So apartments really do reach into that rental market a little bit. And so there is some spillover between that. But primarily what's going on in Phoenix is there's a lot of new construction. And not just Phoenix. This is Tucson and Greater Phoenix. There's a lot of new construction that was started when rates were low. They were started in 2122 and you know, like, because I'm a builder, it could be a year to 18 months when we're opening a project from the time we put our the shovel in the dirt, we're not even open for a good 18 months. So there's a lag period. And those started opening in 23,24 and certainly 25 and these big projects, two, 300 unit projects, which I have several going right now, they're one to two year lease ups, so you could be looking at two or three year lag on some of the housing that's being provided. So that's all here now that is been good for renters. There's a couple horror stories going on, and I'll just explain. So downtown Phoenix, there was a whole bunch of apartment projects and condo projects that were built trying to attract people to live in downtown Phoenix? Well, there's challenges for downtown Phoenix too, and we won't have to get into that. I don't particularly think that there was ever the real demand for the amount of housing. So what you've done is people build a lot of housing in concentrated areas around the stadium in West Phoenix, near the Cardinal Stadium downtown Phoenix, you know, right in the heart of the business district. So if you were to rent something today, it would be four months free on a 12 month lease.   Keith Weinhold  19:48   Wow, that's about the steepest concession I've ever heard of in my life.   Ken McElroy  19:54   Yes, that's today. So all you gotta do is Google it and you'll see. And the only reason that happened, Keith, is. Is because there was too many units delivered at at a short period of time, and there was the demand, wasn't there? Gosh, now go 10 miles up to Tempe, go to Chandler, go to Scottsdale. No concessions, right? So again, you know, when you look at a market, you're going to see that it typically a lot of these concentrate in certain areas. And so there's a lot of areas in Phoenix where the consumer or the renter has an upper hand a lot. And so they're driving their choices based on their monthly rent. All of that plays into this thing, but the there's areas that are rock solid. And you know that would be Scottsdale, Tempe, Chandler, Gilbert, and there's areas that are over built that would be the west side, downtown Phoenix, the south side, there's areas that there's pockets that you know are in disruption you can kind of pick your poison, right? Like, if you're a landlord, there are areas that you want to buy in areas that you don't want to buy in. And as a renter, you have the same kind of choices. So when you blend it all together, you guys get the national news. But really it's pretty pocketed, just like it can be in any market.   Keith Weinhold  21:12   Well, you bring up so many good points there. Some of these markets that have done more building than usual are in this situation where there is landlord competition for tenants. Now, nationally, we're still under built, so it's interesting to talk about one of these overbuilt conditions in that competition for tenants, like we've been talking about, in general, a tenant prefers a single family home, and it's privacy for sure. They can't always afford that, but the apartment market and the single family rental market are somewhat interrelated, because if there's so much new apartment supply, it's got the appeal of being brand new, and there might even be concessions given, like you've mentioned there Ken and that can make it very attractive for a potentially wannabe single family home renter to go ahead and rent an apartment instead. So this glut of new apartment supply actually can affect the single family rental market somewhat, and competition is really interesting. I mean, certainly in my real estate investment career, I've experienced that. The first time I ever experienced that was that I owned several doors, and they were about 25 years old, and they had garages, each one of them a new apartment complex was built close to those so brand new, and you had to drive by this new apartment complex. Everything nice, shiny new, painted new parking lot, everything a prospective tenant had to drive by that in order to get over to look to my units. That softened my rent somewhat. The one thing that saved me a bit is that my running units were in Anchorage, Alaska, I had the garages with my units. The new apartment building didn't. They only had carports, so I did have a differentiator to help soften the blow in a rental market that became more competitive. Tell us more about the competition for tenants there in Phoenix, whether that's on the single family side or the apartment side can with concessions. And does that mean that you're altering the length of leases there in the local market? Or tell us more about how you're doing that competition?   Ken McElroy  23:10   It's a great question, yeah. So I would say generally, a home is going to be about 1000 bucks more on the average, like if you were just to put a number on it, three bedroom, Rambler type home with a garage in a yard. It's going to be maybe three grand. That apartment, the equivalent was is going to be maybe two grand. So roughly, those are kind of the numbers. But what happens if you're going to rent a house, you're definitely going to pay more money, that's for sure. And of course, depending on the area, depends on the on the rent. Now what's happening in a lot of these markets, like West Phoenix, for example, where you have 1000s of units being added at once, and you get this one month, two month, three month, and the extreme, of course, being four months free, if you're a renter and your rent is two grand, but you get three months free, let's say or four, you're going to take that deal, right? Because your your your average rent is, what 12,13, $1,400 a month, not 2000 so all of a sudden, it's going to impact those single families. So what's happening right now is the apartments that got delivered in in a lot of these geographic areas, these sub markets are definitely impacting the single family rental market. Now, if you're a family and you've got kids and you got pets and you want to be in a school district, you're not even looking you're basically just trying to find the best deal on a home. I get that. But if you have a choice, the rents are about the same, you're going to take the house, sure period I would, you would. So now what's happening is there's, there's such a difference between the rental price of a home versus the rental price of a brand new apartment that people are going to gravitate to the apartments, because those landlords trying to fill those things up are scrambling and marketing to anybody. And everybody and cutting whatever deals they can, because they're just trying to get out of those construction loans. It's a weird market right now. And of course, there are areas Keith that this does not exist at all, right, like you go into like Tempe, and you're not going to have because it doesn't have the available land, you know, which is around Arizona state for example, the Arizona State University. You go into North Scottsdale, you're not going to find this because North Scottsdale doesn't like apartments. And, you know, the homes are a million bucks and up, but there are definitely pockets where this is happening. So if you're a renter and you have choices, this is a great time for you and and to be honest, it's about time, because it was a seller's market and a landlord's market for a long time, and so it's just reverting back to the mean.   Keith Weinhold  25:46   Let's wrap up the discussion about rents and occupancy with what's happening nationally. Ken, since in apartment buildings, you invest in multiple states there, we know, for example, that the home ownership rate recently fell from 65.7% down to 65.1% fewer homeowners means more renters. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're all going to be absorbed immediately, either. So talk to us about that.    Ken McElroy  26:13   There's an affordability problem, right? We haven't seen a massive adjustment with house prices now you have in areas, of course, I saw your recent podcast on Florida. You know how right the price of a house is, is less than a car today? Yeah, you're right, like so, but what's happening is there are markets that are pulling back, right. There are markets that had a bigger bubble than others, and they're pulling back. And so there's great deals in those markets. A lot of areas in Florida being one of those markets, there are other markets where you don't have that. So we are definitely seeing the same thing. And so we're having, in my opinion, it's the greatest time, because you have people that are, I think, should be able to buy a home. But interest rates seem to be holding at Six 7% and the pricing, albeit, hasn't run like it has, but it's certainly not pulling back like crazy either. It's still over 400 on the average, you know. So if you look at the delta between what it costs to buy a home just mortgage only, and you look at what it costs to rent, it's never been bigger. So the difference between your rent, the rent and a mortgage, has never been bigger. And the other thing Keith, that doesn't get talked a lot about are everything non interest rate and everything non mortgage. So let's start talking about insurance. Let's talk about property tax. Let's talk about, you know, capex. So there's a really good survey that bankrate.com did that said that right now, the average cost to own a home, not mortgage, is 1500 a month. So now that's average. I'm sure there's some that's less. I'm sure it's some that higher. So when you take 1500 a month to own it, plus the mortgage you're talking about quite a bit. It's a heck of a financial commitment when you can just rent for 12, 1314, 1500 and call it a day, you're going to move the needle twice as fast, and you're going to be able to get out of whatever financial situation you're in twice as fast when you don't have all those other costs. So what's really going on now? And the reason why you're starting to see this home ownership rate go down, and I actually make a prediction, gonna do it right now on your show, I think it's gonna go down below 60. I think for the first time in our history, we're gonna see home ownership in the 5050 nines, which is a massive statement. But if you take a look at under Obama got up to 69 and then it was, first of all, it was Clinton, and before that, and then kind of ran, but then it kind of got pulled back under the Bush, and then Obama kind of took the brunt of it. You know, when all that stuff was falling out, but it's been falling, and it's falling. Why it's falling? Because people can't afford a home, and they need to be able to afford a home. So we can't build affordably. The single family market is not affordable, and inflation surpassing wage growth, so you have this massive shift of people, in my opinion, moving from home ownership to the rental side. And there was a time where 1% shift Keith was 1 million people,   Keith Weinhold  29:27   1 million new renters, with every 1% drop in the home ownership rate   Ken McElroy  29:32   was 1 million people. So imagine that it doesn't sound like much when you go 65.7 to 65.1 right? That's a lot of people. When you got about 142 million people in the US, or a billion, right? 340   Keith Weinhold  29:46   350 million in 300 Yeah, about 145 million houses,   Ken McElroy  29:51   45 million, yeah, something like that. So you start to take a look at these numbers. They're massive. So these little 1% movement. It is a lot of people. I think we're going to continue to see it. People need to put their stake in the ground here and get on the landlord side of this, because we're going to see a massive shift of people because they can't afford they're going to be permanent renters, renters for life. And it's not good. I'm not advocating, but it just is what it is, with wage destruction, with inflation, with the affordability, the way it is, people are going to be forced into the rental side of the equation, whereas before, we were always kind of working on the fluctuations of the interest rates and the policies of the President, let's say, or whatever it was, to try to get people to be homeowners, or whatever it might be. Now, we might be in some kind of a permanent state unless something really changes, because we're four or 5 million houses short in the US as a result of the last 20 years. As you know,   Keith Weinhold  30:54   I recently saw a media article that was titled The hidden cost of home ownership, and they were talking about hidden costs as things like maintenance, property taxes, property insurance, utilities. I don't know how in the heck those costs are hidden. Any prospective homeowner needs to be aware of those costs, and inflation impacts those costs, where inflation cannot impact your fixed rate, principal and interest payment. There we have it a brazen prediction from Ken that the home ownership rate will drop below 60% in this cycle and the hordes of renters that that's going to release, we're talking about the direction of rents and occupancy in both Phoenix and the nation at large. We're going to come back after the break and talk about the direction of real estate prices. You're listening to get rich education. Our guest is Ken McElroy. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold.   the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. 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So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing, check it out. Text family to 66866. To learn about freedom. Family investments, liquidity fund again. Text family to 66866   Naresh Vissa  33:25   this is GRE real estate investment coach. Naresh Vissa listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream.    Keith Weinhold  33:32   Welcome back to get worse education. We're talking with seasoned investor Ken McElroy, and he's also been one of the most recurrent guests here on the show. He's just consistently got some of the very best perspectives in the entire nation on the real estate market. And Ken the Fred data, which pulls their numbers from Kay Shiller, it shows that the value of a mid tier single family home in Phoenix, Metro wide, has basically been flat for the last year and a half. I know your wife, Daniil, deals with single family rentals there in Phoenix. Can you corroborate Is that what you're seeing as far as values go there on the ground, or is it different in the sub markets    Ken McElroy  34:20   it's definitely different in the sub markets, but I would definitely concur that it is flat, Keith, it's a very interesting time. People are used to selling things fast. Oh, I'm going to sell this and it trades, and then they're moving it right to something else. They're not used to the markets that you and I grew up in, right which is, you remember the old days where we would list something and it might be on the market for three or four or five months. These people, these kids, these let's last 10 years, they have never seen anything like that. So for me, I think we're just moving back to what I would consider to be normal. I don't see a problem with flat at all. In fact, I think homes are unaffordable and. And flat isn't necessarily bad. That means that both sides are kind of doing deals. That means the seller doesn't hold the cards, and it means the buyer doesn't hold the cards, and so right now is a great time to buy because if a seller is sitting on something for even a couple months, they're not used to it. There's deals to be had right now. And it's, I think, if you have the dry powder and you have the ability to move, is a great time to buy.   Keith Weinhold  35:26   You had mentioned, when we were talking outside this show, that your wife, Danielle has made some interesting moves in her single Yeah, yeah, tell us about that.   Ken McElroy  35:36   It's a fantastic move. I mean, one of the greatest, obviously, I'm doing these big apartment deals, she can't relate, and she's doing these small houses, which she loves. She doesn't like debt. She likes to pay them off, and she manages them all herself. And so she bought this condo years ago, and it's worth about 300 grand, and she paid like 164 years ago, and the rents have dropped. You know, per our last conversation, they were used to be around 1900 now they're around 1700 but the same time, rents have dropped. And why would rents drop? Because there's more competition. There's new apartment buildings being built around the area. The tenants have more choices. Again. There's, you know, rents came down a little bit. So she lost couple 100 bucks a month there, and the HOA hit her with costs. Our insurance went up, our landscaping went up, so all of a sudden their HOA fees started going up. So the rents came down, and the HOA costs went up, squeezes on, yeah, so all sudden she's got this squeeze and so she's looking at it. And I said, you really ought to take a look at your what we call imputed equity. In other words, she has no debt on this thing, so she literally has another way to say it is she has 300,000 sitting in a condo, an asset. What does it matter? What it is and she gets maybe, what does she make it 500 a month, maybe $6,000 okay? Net Cash Flow a year, right? Nothing. So you take your 6000 you divide it by your 300 and it's not a very good return. Yeah, eight. Okay, so she's looking at what we call imputed equity. What's your return on the equity you have? Okay, so she said, I'm going to start looking at these homes that have, like you said, the garages and the yards, because again, we know that should be able to get closer to $3,000 a month on those so she started scouring, and she found one, and it was about 450 grand. So she had to come up with another 150 grand. And so what she did was she sold the unit, the condo she had that had rising HOA and lowering rents for 300 she did a 1031 exchange into the $450,000 house, and then she had to come up with another 150 but her rent now is three grand, and she was able to increase her cash flow By almost $1,000 for a month. So that extra 150 generated about $12,000 of net cash flow gain. And so again, she just purely looked at the math on one and did a 1031 moved it into another one. And now she's super happy it's in a home. And as you know, in a lot of these homes, not always, but you tend to have people that don't move as much. So this the guy that moved in has his son. He has him in a local school. He's young. He's probably going to be there for years, so she's probably not going to have the turnover that she would in a condo project. That's really more like an apartment building. That's what she just did. And so don't forget, when prices are high, you're exiting high and buying high. When prices are in flux, a little bit like they are flat, you're going to be able to find deals. So it's a really good time to take a look at imputed equity and what's your real, true return, and is there a better asset class for you to be able to move that money into? Because this is truly about managing money and maximizing your return on your own dollars. And that's a move that she just made, and she's going to be on the cruise. She'll see you, and I'm encouraging her to actually do a talk on it, because there's a lot more detail to how she pulled it off. But it only took her, like, four or five months to do it, and it worked perfectly.   Keith Weinhold  39:22   Yeah. Well, congratulations there. I'm a fan of debt around here, as you know, on the summit, Daniel and I'll have to have a chat, and I'll talk about why financially free beats debt free and all of that. But I would love to hear her reply. She probably has some really good, sound reasoning for that can nationally apartment values have followed perhaps an astounding 30% because the way I see it is that three or four years ago, there were tons of new apartment starts with those freakishly low mortgage rates like you touched on. Start to completion of an apartment building can be as long as two years. So those starts have now become completion. Dollars, and they need to be leased up. So that's the glut, and that's why apartment vacancies are common in a lot of American markets today, with higher mortgage rates now, we have fewer starts and with less new future apartment supply coming onto the market, which would have been completed in 2025 to 2027 I mean, that's something that could portend well for the future, but the current apartment glut still needs to get absorbed by tenants. So talk to us about that.   Ken McElroy  40:29   That's a great, great tee up for me. Okay, so I'm going to do seven transactions this year. Now, that's all 200 plus units. So I bought 360 unit building and brand new in Las Vegas. We just closed on a 282 unit in north Scottsdale. We bought 152 unit in Phoenix. And on and on and on and on and on. We're really, really, really busy right now, because, to your point, why would we be doing that now? Here's why apartments are valued based on how they're operating period. So high vacancy, high concession, flat rents, high expenses. That's all bad if you own it, it's really good if you buy it. So you want to buy at today's numbers, and that's what we're doing. We're buying at today's numbers, and we think that there's a little window that we've got through 26 to be able to acquire a bunch of apartments at these low values. To your point, they've definitely dropped. There's another case as to why, because the next piece is when the mortgage rate's high, cash flow is less. So when your mortgage payment is higher, all things being equal, your cash flow is less. So when rates went up, then people could pay less, and that drove values down. So if we could lock in today with all this disruption, so that's what we've been focused on. And it's been a very exciting year for our company. And in addition to that, to your point, but you and I have never spoken about, we just broke ground on another deal, and we're just leasing up on a deal down in Tucson that we're we're a 300 unit building that we're just finishing, and we just broke ground on a 312 unit, and we got a couple more slated because we're trying to break ground today. And why would we would break ground today because there's not a lot of subcontractors bidding on the stuff. So we're getting better pricing. The interest rates are high. This is true. That's not necessarily a positive, but we're breaking ground in anticipation of opening in two years, when all this stuff gets absorbed, we're going to be opening and so, you know, if we could time it today with 25 we break ground, we're going to open in 27 this stuff will be absorbed by then the blood will be in the streets in 25 and 26 and maybe early 27 and then it's going to shift again, Keith, and you know, people are slow to react. And so we think we're going to hit this little window at optimal time to be able to open up brand new product in two years.   Keith Weinhold  43:05   That's great. Ken we've been having these conversations for over a decade now, I know, and the way that I see it is that MC companies, your company, was built exactly for times like this. Is that to say that you think apartment values have reached their bottom,   Speaker 2  43:22   so I actually don't think they have yet. That's a funny comment, and here's why, because we also went through this extend and pretend time with lenders, right? So the lenders, whoever bought something, was trying to hold on to it forever. But now, with this new administration and the battle with the, you know, Powell still in office for another year. Who knows really, what's going to happen with rates? Maybe a quarter here, quarter there, whatever. But the reality is, there's no relief in sight. It doesn't appear. Because now we have this high vacancy, we have high expenses, and I don't think there's going to be a lot of interest rate relief. And so I think the lenders are going, you know what? We're gonna start listing these. So we're starting to see just in the last few months, brokers call. I got a call the other day from a broker out of San Antonio. He said a lender called me. They gave me nine deals. He said the keys, they gave me the keys on nine deals now and then I got another one in Dallas. It was 35% occupied, and the loan was 25 million, and the guy said they would take 14, so that's an $11 million haircut to the lender. So you're starting to see these. These are coming into my emails, right? Because they flooded. We are kind of deal. Yeah, it's so good. Now I've passed on everything so far because I think the knife is still falling a little bit, and so I think we're in the first few innings of seeing these kinds of deals, and there needs to be a lot of them, right? Like they need to be everywhere. And then when they're everywhere, everything's listed, and people are looking at them, and there's all this interest, then I think we're going to be at the bottom, but we're darn close. I mean, we're darn close, I would say. Right? We're probably by end of the year close. That's why, if a prudent investor, is getting their dry powder together, now they're meeting with their broker relationships, now they're meeting with their lender relationships, now they're putting together their LPs, and they're starting to go out and look at deals. Now, even if it's no no, no, no, no, no, no. This is the time for you to build relationships and be ready to strike when you start to see stuff this year, toward the end of the year, will will be the bottom and then I also think next year is going to be rocky for a lot of things. Then you're going to see a lot of lender write offs.    Keith Weinhold  45:37   This is really good guidance for what you the listener, can accidentally do if you are a prospective apartment building buyer. Great insight there. Ken. Ken, yes, you and I are about to be together on the real estate guys Investor Summit to see but there's another great event that begins at the end of next month that you put together.    Ken McElroy  45:59   Tell us about that. This is great. I have now we have about 4000 investors. So these are all high net worth people that invest with us. And you know, this is our 24th year in business. So when I meet with all of them, we used to do these investor summits, they would say, What about gold? What about silver? What about oil? What about water? What about timber? What about self storage? What about Office? What about retail? So I'm like, I'm going to create a conference where I can have everything in one spot, and we can invite high net worth, accredited people be able to come there and listen to the best of the best. So no professional speakers, just people that are really doing deals. You know, like we have guys that are building wellness spas and hospitality. Obviously, we have some single family. We got multi family. Got a retail guy, industrial guy, commercial guy, office guy. We got a gold panel. And then we got these economists, and you probably know some of the names. So we got George gammon coming. We got Jeff Snyder, who's unbelievable Euro dollar University. He's coming. We got Brent Johnson, who created what's called the milkshake theory. And just Google it, you'll see it's all about the central banks. We got Jim Rickards, who wrote currency wars and a new case for gold. And we got Lawrence Lepard, who just wrote this book called The Big print. All coming as speakers unpaid, and they're just going to try to deliver the best value they can to the people. Because I tell you what, Keith, I don't know about you, but it's confusing. I'm reading about tariffs, I'm reading about inflation. I'm reading about unemployment. I don't know where interest rates are going. I'm feeling it at the street level, at the main street level, with my apartment buildings, they're harder to manage. The expenses are going up. I try to create this environment to where people can show up and hear real real things, and they can make real decisions and course correct, right, and also take advantage of of some other things. We're also having a manufacturing panel, and I got a whole panel just on the Trump tax bill, because the opportunity zones, the bonus depreciation, all the stuff, these are things that you can do to be able to take action. So this is limitless expo.com. Since we're on your show, they can do KEN10. KEN10, which is a discount, the prices do go up. Obviously they're the highest. They are in July, because that's when the event is but in June, they're still lower. So I would suggest that people go this year, especially with this new administration, and everybody's like, what is going on? Hopefully we can it's starting to clear up some of the confusion that we all have right now and try to figure things out.   Keith Weinhold  48:36   It seems like all we do know is that we don't know limitless ought to help clear some of that up. It is July 31 to August 2. Tell us where it's taking place.   Ken McElroy  48:47   Yeah, it's at the gaylord in Texas, in Dallas, Texas. It's called the Gaylord Texan. It's limitless expo.com. Now we did it last year. There'll be 2000 people. We have 50 speakers. We have five stages, 50 speakers. It's a really high end event. What I mean by that is these are real people doing real deals with real businesses, real investors. It's been fantastic. I haven't had to pay speakers because of the quality of the attendee. That says a lot. It's really been interesting and great. And by the way, I don't really think having big speakers to sell tickets is the way to go. I'd rather have a real quality event, and it's really interesting once you set your mind on something. Because my investors and other investors show up because they do more than invest in just what we do. Like real estate. Everybody wants a little piece of real estate, but they also want to know about Bitcoin. They also want to know about gold, you know. And these are things that I'm not that proficient in, you know. I want to hear from experts in those fields. So it's really been a great, great event.   Keith Weinhold  49:48   You kind of crowdsource the need. You listen to what your audience was asking about, and then you delivered it for them. Limitless expo.com, use the discount code KEN10 to get. Get a discount. Ken McElroy, it's been great chatting about the direction of rents and prices in the both single family space and apartment space. It's been great having you back on the show.   Ken McElroy  50:09   Yeah, for sure. Keith, always great. Man. Good seeing you.   Keith Weinhold  50:18   Yeah. Ken, decidedly bullish on buying real estate, even calling it a great time to buy. He basically believes that because buyers have more power than they did three and four years ago, and they have more options, an emphatic prediction that the home ownership rate will fall below 60% there is profundity here. I mean, the census figures on this go back to the 1960s and the lowest it's fallen in all that time was 63% by the way, homeownership peaked in 2004 at 69% apartment values have crashed about 30% and It's probably going to get worse. So the worst isn't over, but likely will be by about the end of this year. So in Ken's opinion, most of the worst is over. I'm reading in between the lines there on that one. Hey, I hope you've been enjoying this show lately. Next week, we're going to change things up somewhat here. Recently, we've had rather prominent guests on the show, like the father of Reaganomics, David Stockman, then Russell gray last week, this week, the owner of 10,000 running units, Ken McElroy. And you know their perspectives and experience and influence, they are terrific. And I trust that you've learned from them. Next week, we'll have two GRE listeners here on the show, regular listeners, perhaps people more like you, because you can probably relate well to their stories. Until then, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.   Speaker 3  51:59   Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively.   Keith Weinhold  52:22   You know, whenever you want the best written real estate and finance info, oh, geez, today's experience limits your free articles access, and it's got paywalls and pop ups and push notifications and cookies disclaimers. It's not so great. So then it's vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that adds no hype value to your life. That's why this is the golden age of quality newsletters. And I write every word of ours myself. It's got a dash of humor, and it's to the point, because even the word abbreviation is too long. My letter usually takes less than three minutes to read, and when you start the letter, you also get my one hour fast real estate video. Course, it's all completely free. It's called the Don't quit your Daydream letter. It wires your mind for wealth, and it couldn't be easier for you to get it right now. Just text gre 266, 866, while it's on your mind, take a moment to do it right now. Text GRE TO 66866   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building, get richeducation.com    

Greg Jenner is joined in ancient Mesopotamia by Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid and comedian Phil Wang to learn about the history of cuneiform, the oldest writing system in the world.In the 19th Century, European scholars began to translate inscriptions found on ruins and clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia - an area of the world between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that encompasses modern Iraq, as well as parts of Syria, Iran, Turkey and Kuwait. The script they deciphered became known as cuneiform, and this distinctive wedge-shaped writing system is perhaps the oldest in the world. The earliest cuneiform tablet is in fact over 5,000 years old.These clay tablets reveal much about the daily life of people in this part of the ancient world, recording everything from the amounts of beer sold by brewers and the best way to ask the gods for advice, to squabbles between husbands and wives and even the lullabies used to get babies to sleep. The first recorded epic poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh, is also preserved thanks to cuneiform. This episode traces the history of cuneiform, exploring how this script worked, who used it and what they used it for, what it tells us about the inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia, and how it was finally deciphered.This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Hannah Cusworth and Matt Ryan Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: James Cook

SCRIPTURE- Jeremiah 13:7"So I went to the Euphrates and dug a linen loincloth out of the hole where I had hidden it, but now it was rotting and falling apart. The loincloth was good for nothing."REFLECTION- Sr. KathleenMUSIC- "Imagining" Instrumental- "We Are Many Parts" InstrumentalNOTES-

Send us a textWho are the great spiritual avatars that appear throughout human history, and why do they come when they do? Dr. Douglas James Cottrell takes us on a profound exploration of divine consciousness made manifest in physical form.These awakened beings—Buddha, Christ, Sai Baba, and others—embody what Sai Baba himself described perfectly: "The only difference between you, the seeker, and me, the teacher, is that I know who I am. God is inside of me." Understanding this single statement illuminates the entire purpose of avatars in our world.Dr. Douglas reveals why these spiritual "crossing guards" appear at critical junctures when humanity has drifted from its divine path. Like cosmic traffic officers stopping us before we rush headlong into spiritual disaster, they redirect us toward love, integrity, and awareness through example rather than force. Their miraculous abilities—from Christ's transmutation of water to wine to Sai Baba materializing objects from thin air—serve not as mere spectacle but as awakeners of faith.Most fascinating is Dr. Douglas's explanation of the three prophesied incarnations of Sai Baba, with the final avatar now appearing as a young man destined to guide world leaders through our planet's current "renovation time." The signs of this transformation surround us: biblical prophecies fulfilling as the Euphrates dries up, climate shifts accelerating, and social structures destabilizing—all part of Earth's necessary rebalancing.Yet within this challenging transition lies hope. By 2035-2040, Dr. Douglas foresees humanity emerging transformed, with future generations barely remembering the upheavals of our current time. His message is clear: stay on the path of love and service, for "if you're living the right things and trying to help, you cannot go wrong." A timely reminder that even as the world transforms around us, our spiritual compass remains our surest guide.Support the show

The Lord our God spoke unto us in Horeb, saying, You have dwelt long enough in this mount:Turn you, and take your journey, and go to the mount of the Amorites, and unto all the places near there, in the plain, in the hills, and in the lowland, and in the south, and by the sea side, to the land of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon, unto the great river, the river Euphrates.Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the Lord swore unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their descendants after them.Deuteronomy 1:6–8 KJ2000

You have friends, snacks and a great new game all ready to go… but uh oh. This game is not color blind friendly and your non-gamer friend is… well this is a drag! We have moments like these a lot in gaming. Inviting non-gamers into a gaming space and having little hiccups take some of the fun away. So how can we avoid that? Want to ask a question or give us your two cents about the state of euros? Hit us up at cardboardphilosophypod@gmail.com! Want to play some of Robert's games? Grab them here! - https://www.allplay.com/board-games/partner/bitewing/ Cites and Sources Azul - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/230802/azul Bridges of Shangri-La - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8190/the-bridges-of-shangri-la Captain Sonar - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/171131/captain-sonar Flip 7 - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/420087/flip-7 Fruit Fight - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/339214/fruit-fight Heat: Pedal To The Metal - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/366013/heat-pedal-to-the-metal High Society - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/220/high-society Hot Streak - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/446497/hot-streak Jungo - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/424816/jungo Just One - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/254640/just-one Go - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/188/go Medici - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/46/medici Mexica - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2955/mexica Monopoly - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1406/monopoly Nanatoridori - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/387388/nanatoridori Pax Pamir - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/256960/pax-pamir-second-edition Quantum - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/143519/quantum Rheinlander - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/111/rheinlander Risk - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/181/risk Scout - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/291453/scout Spring Cleaning - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/387015/spring-cleaning Stephenson's Rocket - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/204/stephensons-rocket The Game of Life - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2921/game-of-life Through The Desert - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/503/through-the-desert Thurn & Taxis - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/21790/thurn-and-taxis Ticket to Ride - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9209/ticket-to-ride Tigris & Euphrates - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42/tigris-and-euphrates Uno - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2223/uno Veiled Fate - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/315695/veiled-fate Viking See-Saw - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/351810/viking-see-saw Wingspan - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/266192/wingspan

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 216 - Innovation and Games without Guard Rails (Look Mom, No Hands!) Look mom, no hands! Brendan and Pete are diving into a discussion without guard rails (games) and then review Carl Chudyk's, Innovation. Timestamps Show Business - 0:00 Games without Guard Rails - 3:08 Innovation - 20:54   Games Mentioned lost ruins of arnak, Keyforge, Magic: the Gathering, Tigris & Euphrates, Modern Art, Root, and Innovation Preplanners Game design discussion on balancing for player count hosted by Paul coming up soon?! Also, "wow" factor in games!   Music and Sound Credits Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You can listen to the full song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQuuRPfOyMw&list=TLGGFNH7VEDPgwgyNTA4MjAyMQ&t=3s You can find more information about Hembree at https://www.hembreemusic.com/.  Thank you to Flash Floods for use of their song Palm of Your Hand as a sting from their album Halfway to Anywhere: https://open.spotify.com/album/2fE6LrqzNDKPYWyS5evh3K?si=CCjdAGmeSnOOEui6aV3_nA Rules Overview Music:  Way Home by Tokyo Music Walker https://soundcloud.com/user-356546060​ Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/tokyo-music-walker-way...​ Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/pJThZlOuDtI Intermission Music: music elevator ext part 1/3 by Jay_You -- https://freesound.org/s/467243/ -- License: Attribution 4.0 Bell with Crows by MKzing -- https://freesound.org/s/474266/ -- License: Creative Commons 0 hammer v2.wav by blukotek -- https://freesound.org/s/337815/ -- License: Creative Commons 0   Contact Follow and reach us on social media on Bluesky @decisionspace.bsky.social. If you prefer email, then hit us up at decisionspa@gmail.com. This information is all available along with episodes at our new website decisionspacepodcast.com. Byeee!

Joel and Lynn Rosenberg dive into a compelling discussion about China’s role in biblical prophecy and the end times. Drawing from Revelation 16, Joel unpacks what it means for China to be a “prototype of the tyrannical Antichrist society” and explores the idea that China could lead the coalition known as the “kings of the East” in the prophetic battle of Armageddon. The conversation covers the signs of the last days, China’s persecution of Christians, and the miraculous growth of Christianity within its borders despite overwhelming oppression. The Rosenbergs also highlight the geopolitical challenges posed by China and encourage listeners to pray for the persecuted church, for America’s leaders, and for wisdom in facing these end-times realities. If you’ve ever wondered how today’s global headlines fit into biblical prophecy—or what the future might hold for China and the world—this is an episode you don’t want to miss. (00:02) "Revelation 16: The Sixth Angel"(03:24) "Stay Awake: Rapture Nearing"(07:06) Literal Interpretation of Revelation(12:45) "Isaiah 49: Global Divine Message"(13:45) "Messiah's Global Salvation Mission"(17:23) Pray for China and Global Leaders Learn more about The Joshua Fund: JoshuaFund.comMake a tax-deductible donation: Donate | The Joshua FundStock Media provided by DimmySad / Pond5 Verse of the Day: Revelation chapter 16:12. The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings of the East Prayer: Praying that God will give the persecuted church in China the boldness to continue preaching God's Word.Pray for the hundreds of millions of Chinese to have the courage to continue renouncing communism and abandoning atheism. Pray that American leaders will have the courage to stand against this regime.Related Episodes:The Russian-Iranian-Turkish Alliance of Ezekiel 38 & 39 (The War of Gog & Magog) #18Is The War of Gog & Magog Coming? #40Is The War of Gog & Magog Coming? Part 2 #47China's Complex Relationships with the US and Israel #276 Links for Reference https://www.inspirationtravel.com/tjahttps://www.joshuafund.com/learn/latest-news/join-us-on-our-alaska-cruise Donate a generous monthly gift to The Joshua Fund to bless Israel and Her Neighbors now and for the long haul. Become an Epicenter Ally today! Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Revelation 16:1-21   16:1 Then I heard a loud voice from the temple, saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.” 2 So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth; and a harmful and painful sore afflicted the people who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped his image. 3 The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood like that of a dead man; and every living thing in the sea died. 4 Then the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of waters; and they became blood. 5 And I heard the angel of the waters saying, “Righteous are You, the One who is and who was, O Holy One, because You judged these things; 6 for they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and You have given them blood to drink. They deserve it.” 7 And I heard the altar saying, “Yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments.” 8 And the fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun, and it was given power to scorch people with fire. 9 And the people were scorched with fierce heat; and they blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues, and they did not repent so as to give Him glory. 10 And the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became darkened; and they gnawed their tongues because of pain, 11 and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pain and their sores; and they did not repent of their deeds. 12 The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates; and its water was dried up, so that the way would be prepared for the kings from the east. 13 And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs; 14 for they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the entire world, to gather them together for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty. 15 (“Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes, so that he will not walk about naked and people will not see his shame.”) 16 And they gathered them together to the place which in Hebrew is called Har-Magedon. 17 Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, “It is done.” 18 And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since mankind came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. 19 The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the great was remembered in the sight of God, to give her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath. 20 And every island fled, and no mountains were found. 21 And huge hailstones, weighing about a talent each, *came down from heaven upon people; and people blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, because the hailstone plague *was extremely severe.     BIBLE READING GUIDE - FREE EBOOK - Get the free eBook, Bible in Life, to help you learn how to read and apply the Bible well: https://www.listenerscommentary.com     GIVE -  The Listener's Commentary is a listener supported Bible teaching ministry made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you! Give here:  https://www.listenerscommentary.com/give     STUDY HUB - Want more than the audio? Join the study hub to access articles, maps, charts, pictures, and links to other resources to help you study the Bible for yourself. https://www.listenerscommentary.com/members-sign-up   MORE TEACHING - For more resources and Bible teaching from John visit https://www.johnwhittaker.net

To fully understand what is happening here, we must return to the scene on earth where the final war—the War of Armageddon—is reaching its peak. The Antichrist, still in power and enraged by the destruction of his headquarters in Babylon, now targets Jerusalem to establish his final seat of authority. Stages of the Campaign of Armageddon So Far: Stage I – Movement Toward Jezreel Valley: This happens as the Euphrates is dried up and the Antichrist begins advancing westward across the Euphrates into Israel, aiming to invade Jerusalem in his last-ditch effort to defend his empire from God. Stage II – Babylon Attacked and Destroyed: God ensures the final and complete destruction of the city with the final vial judgment, as the Antichrist marches on Jerusalem. We mentioned how God possibly could have used Russia for this. Daniel 11:44 speaks of the moment the Antichrist receives this news about this. Stage III – The Siege of Jerusalem and the Battle at Bozrah (Petra): The Antichrist being enraged over the report of the total destruction of Babylon, desires the total annihilation of all believing Jews and Christians and launches a final offensive: At Bozrah (Edom): He targets the protected Jews hiding in Petra. Prophets like Jeremiah foretell the Lord's defense and destruction of the Antichrist's forces there. And at Jerusalem: Armies from all nations besiege the city. Prophets Joel, Isaiah, Micah, and Zechariah describe the siege in vivid, prophetic detail. Jerusalem will be surrounded, humbled, and pressed—but will cry out in repentance and faith. Contact us @ 4faithfoundations@gmail.com For more Bible lessons, teachings, books, video teachings, and resources please visit our website @ faithfoundations.church

Joshua 24:14–15  14 “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.15 But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Ephesians 5:21-25, 6:1-4 21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord... 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her... 6:1Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” 4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.  I Peter 1:13-1613 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” Hebrews 12:14 14 Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.           May: Focus on the Family Month            Building a HOLY FAMILY           1. A Holy Family Starts with a Holy Choice                    Joshua 24:15 "But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."          2. A Holy Family is Built on Biblical Roles.                   Ephesians 5:22–6:4                     Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord...                 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her...                 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.                    Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.          3. A Holy Family Practices Personal Holiness.                           1 Peter 1:13–16 "Be holy, because I am holy."           4. A Holy Family Pursues Peace and Discipline.                          Hebrews 12:14 "Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord."        Our Response 

Welcome to Inside The Epicenter with Joel and Lynn Rosenberg. In this episode, Joel and Lynn unpack China’s rapidly growing influence in the Middle East—especially its support for Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities—and how this impacts Israel, the U.S., and the prophetic landscape. Joel draws direct connections between China’s actions, biblical prophecy about the “kings of the East,” and the dangerous spread of anti-Israel sentiment and propaganda. You’ll hear why Joel sees China as a prototype of the antichrist spirit and a significant threat to Israel, as well as why it’s so critical for Christians to pray for both China and global leaders. Dive into this episode for timely insights at the intersection of current events, biblical prophecy, and urgent calls to faith and action. (00:02) China's Support for Iran's Nuclear Ambitions(05:38) China-Israel Tensions Escalate(10:11) "Warning Fiction for World Leaders"(11:28) "Pre-9/11 Events & 'The Last Jihad'"(16:24) Ignored Warnings Lead to Global Crises(18:29) "Taking Evil Seriously" Learn more about The Joshua Fund: JoshuaFund.comMake a tax-deductible donation: Donate | The Joshua FundStock Media provided by DimmySad / Pond5 Verse of the Day: Revelation 16:12 - The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings of the East Prayer: Praying that God will give the persecuted church in China the boldness to continue preaching God's word.Pray for the hundreds of millions of Chinese to have the courage to continue renouncing communism and abandoning atheism. Pray that American leaders will have the courage to stand against this regime. Related Episodes:China's Complex Relationships with the US and Israel #276Can Lebanon BREAK FREE From Iran #266Exploring China’s Role in Bible Prophecy: Joel Rosenberg’s Sermon at Cornerstone Chapel #265Special - Israel's Historic Strike on Iran #228 https://www.inspirationtravel.com/tjahttps://www.joshuafund.com/learn/latest-news/join-us-on-our-alaska-cruise Donate a generous monthly gift to The Joshua Fund to bless Israel and Her Neighbors now and for the long haul. Become an Epicenter Ally today! Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

This week on the show we are throwing down with an age old question – why? But we aren't throwing down with it, how is! In this episode we talk about how the why we do what we do in games differs from the how we do it and how that impacts the end result! Want to ask a question or give us your two cents about the state of euros? Hit us up at cardboardphilosophypod@gmail.com! Check out Robert's latest games on Kickstarter - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bitewinggamesnick/gazebo-and-gingham-travel-friendly-board-games   Cites and Sources Agricola - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/200680/agricola-revised-edition Azul - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/230802/azul Blood Rage - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/170216/blood-rage Bohnanza - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11/bohnanza Bridges of Shangri-La - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8190/the-bridges-of-shangri-la Bus - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/552/bus Cat Blues - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/414351/cat-blues-the-big-gig Ethnos - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/206718/ethnos Hearts - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6887/hearts Heaven & Ale - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/227789/heaven-and-ale Imperial Steam - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/338760/imperial-steam Just One - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/254640/just-one Kanban - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/284378/kanban-ev Lisboa - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/161533/lisboa Lost Ruins of Arnak - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/312484/lost-ruins-of-arnak Medici - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/46/medici MLEM: Space Agency - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/387378/mlem-space-agency Modern Art - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/118/modern-art On Mars - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/184267/on-mars Orongo - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/165556/nyakuza The Palaces of Carrera - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/129948/the-palaces-of-carrara Ra - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12/ra Renature - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/300001/renature Schotten Totten - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/372/schotten-totten Seti - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/418059/seti-search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence Tash Kalar - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/146278/tash-kalar-arena-of-legends Tigris & Euphrates - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42/tigris-and-euphrates Vikings - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/27173/vikings Vinhos - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/175640/vinhos-deluxe-edition Weather Machine - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/237179/weather-machine Wheedle - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5393/wheedle Yellow & Yangtze - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/244114/yellow-and-yangtze

Teaching Text - Deuteronomy 1This is what Moses said to all of Israel in the Transjordanian wilderness, the arid rift valley opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di Zahab. 2 Now it is ordinarily an eleven-day journey from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by way of Mount Seir. 3 However, it was not until the first day of the eleventh month of the fortieth year that Moses addressed the Israelites just as the Lord had instructed him to do. 4 This took place after the defeat of King Sihon of the Amorites, whose capital was in Heshbon, and King Og of Bashan, whose capital was in Ashtaroth, specifically in Edrei. 5 So it was in the Transjordan, in Moab, that Moses began to deliver these words:6 The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb and said, “You have stayed in the area of this mountain long enough. 7 Head out and resume your journey. Enter the Amorite hill country, and all its neighboring areas, including the rift valley, the hill country, the foothills, the Negev, and the coastal plain—all of Canaan and Lebanon as far as the Great River, that is, the Euphrates. 8 Look! I have already given the land to you. Go, occupy the territory that I, the Lord, promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants.” 9 I also said to you at that time, “I am no longer able to sustain you by myself. 10 The Lord your God has increased your population to the point that you are now as numerous as the very stars of the sky. 11 Indeed, may the Lord, the God of your ancestors, make you a thousand times more numerous than you are now, blessing you just as he said he would! 12 But how can I alone bear up under the burden of your hardship and strife? 13 Select wise and practical men, those known among your tribes, whom I may appoint as your leaders.” 14 You replied to me that what I had said to you was good. 15 So I chose as your tribal leaders wise and well-known men, placing them over you as administrators of groups of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, and also as other tribal officials. 16 I furthermore admonished your judges at that time that they should pay attention to issues among your fellow citizens and judge fairly, whether between one person and a native Israelite or a resident foreigner. 17 They must not discriminate in judgment, but hear the lowly and the great alike. Nor should they be intimidated by human beings, for judgment belongs to God. If the matter being adjudicated is too difficult for them, they should bring it before me for a hearing.18 So I instructed you at that time regarding everything you should do. 19 Then we left Horeb and passed through all that immense, forbidding wilderness that you saw on the way to the Amorite hill country as the Lord our God had commanded us to do, finally arriving at Kadesh Barnea. 20 Then I said to you, “You have come to the Amorite hill country, which the Lord our God is about to give us. 21 Look, he has placed the land in front of you! Go up, take possession of it, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, said to do. Do not be afraid or discouraged!” 22 So all of you approached me and said, “Let's send some men ahead of us to scout out the land and bring us back word as to how we should attack it and what the cities are like there.” 23 I thought this was a good idea, so I sent twelve men from among you, one from each tribe. 24 They left and went up to the hill country, coming to the Eshcol Valley, which they scouted out. 25 Then they took some of the produce of the land and carried it back down to us. They also brought a report to us, saying, “The land that the Lord our God is about to give us is good.”26 You were not willing to go up, however, but instead rebelled against the Lord your God. 27 You complained among yourselves privately and said, “Because the Lord hates us he brought us from Egypt to deliver us over to the Amorites so they could destroy us! 28 What is going to happen to us? Our brothers have drained away our courage by describing people who are more numerous and taller than we are, and great cities whose defenses appear to be as high as heaven itself! Moreover, they said they saw Anakites there.” 29 So I responded to you, “Do not be terrified of them! 30 The Lord your God is about to go ahead of you; he will fight for you, just as you saw him do in Egypt 31 and in the wilderness, where you saw him carrying you along like a man carries his son. This he did everywhere you went until you came to this very place.” 32 However, through all this you did not have confidence in the Lord your God, 33 who would go before you on the way to find places for you to camp, appearing in a fire at night and in a cloud by day to show you the way you ought to go.34 When the Lord heard you, he became angry and made this vow: 35 “Not a single person of this evil generation will see the good land that I promised to give to your ancestors! 36 The exception is Caleb son of Jephunneh; he will see it and I will give him and his descendants the territory on which he has walked, because he has wholeheartedly followed me.” 37 As for me, the Lord was also angry with me on your account. He said, “You also will not be able to go there. 38 However, Joshua son of Nun, your assistant, will go. Encourage him, because he will enable Israel to inherit the land. 39 Also, your infants, who you thought would die on the way, and your children, who as yet do not know good from bad, will go there; I will give them the land and they will possess it. 40 But as for you, turn back and head for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.”41 Then you responded to me and admitted, “We have sinned against the Lord. We will now go up and fight as the Lord our God has told us to do.” So you each put on your battle gear and prepared to go up to the hill country. 42 But the Lord told me: “Tell them this: ‘Do not go up and fight, because I will not be with you and you will be defeated by your enemies.'” 43 I spoke to you, but you did not listen. Instead you rebelled against the Lord and recklessly went up to the hill country. 44 The Amorite inhabitants of that area confronted you and chased you like a swarm of bees, striking you down from Seir as far as Hormah. 45 Then you came back and wept before the Lord, but he paid no attention to you whatsoever. 46 Therefore, you remained at Kadesh for a long time—indeed, for the full time.

The most important decision any of us will make is the decision to place our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. All other decisions pale in comparison. Why? Because this decision has eternal implications. Placing our faith in Jesus' death and resurrection for our sins provides us with forgiveness of our sins, and gives us the promise of eternal life.Main Points:1.  While many know Jesus, they have yet to believe. They still haven't decided to make Him their Savior and Lord. They are living in a place of indecision. I've heard people say, “I'm not ready yet. Maybe someday I'll become a Christian.”2. We must see that indecision is a decision. Failing to act, is an action. We don't know what the future holds. We have no promise of tomorrow. But we do have this moment and this opportunity to decide to follow Jesus. We cannot postpone life's most important decision. 3. Listen again to the powerful words from Joshua. “Choose today whom you will serve.” I believe this is a word from the Lord to you and me today. Choose whom you will serve. Make a decision. Place your faith in God. Settle the issue. Move forward as aß Christ-follower whose mind is made up.Today's Scripture Verses:Joshua 24:14-15 - “So fear the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly. Put away forever the idols your ancestors worshiped when they lived beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord alone. But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”Matthew 6:24 - “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” Quick Links:Donate to support this podcastLeave a review on Apple PodcastsGet a copy of The 5 Minute Discipleship JournalConnect on SocialJoin The 5 Minute Discipleship Facebook Group

“So fear the lord and serve him wholeheartedly. Put away forever the idols your ancestors worshiped when they lived beyond the Euphrates river and in Egypt. Serve the Lord alone. But if you refuse to serve the lord, then choose today whom you will serve… as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:14-15

1. Their Spiritual Assault2. Its Deadly Results3. Hard Hearts

Revelation 8:2-9:21, pt. 2   2 And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. 3 Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. 4 And the smoke of the incense ascended from the angel's hand with the prayers of the saints before God. 5 Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and hurled it to the earth; and there were peals of thunder and sounds, and flashes of lightning and an earthquake. 6 And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound them. 7 The first sounded, and there was hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. 8 The second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was hurled into the sea; and a third of the sea became blood, 9 and a third of the creatures which were in the sea and had life, died; and a third of the ships were destroyed. 10 The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters. 11 The star is named Wormwood; and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the waters because they were made bitter. 12 The fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars were struck, so that a third of them would be darkened and the day would not shine for a third of it, and the night in the same way. 13 Then I looked, and I heard an eagle flying in midheaven, saying with a loud voice, “Woe, woe, woe to those who live on the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!”  9:1 Then the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth; and the key to the shaft of the abyss was given to him. 2 He opened the shaft of the abyss, and smoke ascended out of the shaft like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened from the smoke of the shaft. 3 Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power. 4 They were told not to hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5 And they were not permitted to kill anyone, but to torment for five months; and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a person. 6 And in those days people will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death will flee from them! 7 The appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle; and on their heads appeared to be crowns like gold, and their faces were like human faces. 8 They had hair like the hair of women, and their teeth were like the teeth of lions. 9 They had breastplates like breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, of many horses rushing to battle. 10 They have tails like scorpions, and stings; and in their tails is their power to hurt people for five months. 11 They have as king over them, the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek he has the name Apollyon. 12 The first woe has passed; behold, two woes are still coming after these things. 13 Then the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, 14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15 And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they would kill a third of mankind. 16 The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them. 17 And this is how I saw in my vision the horses and those who sat on them: the riders had breastplates the color of fire, of hyacinth, and of brimstone; and the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths *came fire and smoke and brimstone. 18 A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire, the smoke, and the brimstone which came out of their mouths. 19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails are like serpents and have heads, and with them they do harm. 20 The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands so as not to worship demons and the idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; 21 and they did not repent of their murders, nor of their witchcraft, nor of their sexual immorality, nor of their thefts.     BIBLE READING GUIDE - FREE EBOOK - Get the free eBook, Bible in Life, to help you learn how to read and apply the Bible well: https://www.listenerscommentary.com     GIVE -  The Listener's Commentary is a listener supported Bible teaching ministry made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you! Give here:  https://www.listenerscommentary.com/give     STUDY HUB - Want more than the audio? Join the study hub to access articles, maps, charts, pictures, and links to other resources to help you study the Bible for yourself. https://www.listenerscommentary.com/members-sign-up   MORE TEACHING - For more resources and Bible teaching from John visit https://www.johnwhittaker.net

Revelation 8:2-9:21, pt. 1   2 And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. 3 Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. 4 And the smoke of the incense ascended from the angel's hand with the prayers of the saints before God. 5 Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and hurled it to the earth; and there were peals of thunder and sounds, and flashes of lightning and an earthquake. 6 And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound them. 7 The first sounded, and there was hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. 8 The second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was hurled into the sea; and a third of the sea became blood, 9 and a third of the creatures which were in the sea and had life, died; and a third of the ships were destroyed. 10 The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters. 11 The star is named Wormwood; and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the waters because they were made bitter. 12 The fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars were struck, so that a third of them would be darkened and the day would not shine for a third of it, and the night in the same way. 13 Then I looked, and I heard an eagle flying in midheaven, saying with a loud voice, “Woe, woe, woe to those who live on the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!”  9:1 Then the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth; and the key to the shaft of the abyss was given to him. 2 He opened the shaft of the abyss, and smoke ascended out of the shaft like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened from the smoke of the shaft. 3 Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power. 4 They were told not to hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5 And they were not permitted to kill anyone, but to torment for five months; and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a person. 6 And in those days people will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death will flee from them! 7 The appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle; and on their heads appeared to be crowns like gold, and their faces were like human faces. 8 They had hair like the hair of women, and their teeth were like the teeth of lions. 9 They had breastplates like breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, of many horses rushing to battle. 10 They have tails like scorpions, and stings; and in their tails is their power to hurt people for five months. 11 They have as king over them, the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek he has the name Apollyon. 12 The first woe has passed; behold, two woes are still coming after these things. 13 Then the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, 14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15 And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they would kill a third of mankind. 16 The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them. 17 And this is how I saw in my vision the horses and those who sat on them: the riders had breastplates the color of fire, of hyacinth, and of brimstone; and the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths *came fire and smoke and brimstone. 18 A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire, the smoke, and the brimstone which came out of their mouths. 19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails are like serpents and have heads, and with them they do harm. 20 The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands so as not to worship demons and the idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; 21 and they did not repent of their murders, nor of their witchcraft, nor of their sexual immorality, nor of their thefts.     BIBLE READING GUIDE - FREE EBOOK - Get the free eBook, Bible in Life, to help you learn how to read and apply the Bible well: https://www.listenerscommentary.com     GIVE -  The Listener's Commentary is a listener supported Bible teaching ministry made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you! Give here:  https://www.listenerscommentary.com/give     STUDY HUB - Want more than the audio? Join the study hub to access articles, maps, charts, pictures, and links to other resources to help you study the Bible for yourself. https://www.listenerscommentary.com/members-sign-up   MORE TEACHING - For more resources and Bible teaching from John visit https://www.johnwhittaker.net

"Eastward" (Ancient) of Eden?; Two creation accounts; How to get back to Tree of Life; Visions of Abraham; Euphrates = fruitfulness; "Help meet"; nun-gimel-dalet; What is woman?; Vessels of Holy Spirit; Gen 15:1; The word of God; "Vision" - biet-mem-chet-zayin-hey; Law of nature; Damascus; Eliezer = "helper"; Abraham's journey; Ur; God's prophecy to Abraham; Sons; Bondage opportunity; Righteousness; Giving purpose and value; Respecting the small things; Altars of stone and clay; "this land" = "erets"; aleph-resh-tzedek; freewill vs force; right to my body?; Charity alone; Turtledoves; Sophistry; Biblical "goat"; Red Heifer; Recognizing meaning; Driving away "fowls"; Moneychangers; Basics of who Abrahm was; Why Abraham?; Great darkness?; aleph-yod-mem-hey (horror); city?; gimel = cause/effect; sitting in darkness; v13: Bondage of Egypt; Satisfaction of righteousness; Virtue; Procreation a burden?; Selfishness; Revelation; Gathering in tens, hundreds and thousands; Giving to strengthen; Amorites = blood lickers; "President"; Where is love?; Are you a vulture? Amorite?; Abraham's altars; gimel-vav-zayin-lamad (turtledove); Welfare by forced giving; Lady Godiva; Gen 15:9 "Heifer"; Num 19:2 "Heifer" pey-resh-hey; Sacrifice; Doing what Christ/Moses/Abraham said to do; v18 - covenant for what land?; Living by faith; Covetous practices; Egypt (bondage) to Euphrates (fruitful); Kingdom of God AT HAND; Living by force; V19 List of names; Kenites - associated with Cane; Rolling back socialism; Weakened societies; Individual repentance; Spoiling; Giving your best; Division; Find fruitfulness.

On today's episode, Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid sheds light on the history of Ancient Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, gave rise to writing, literature, astronomy, and law - shaping human history in ways that still resonate today. Drawing on her new book Between Two Rivers, Al-Rashid brings to life the stories of ordinary people from thousands of years ago: working mothers, enslaved individuals seeking freedom, and even a princess who may have founded the first museum. In conversation with archeologist and author Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Al-Rashid discusses the earliest written records, from economic tallies to personal letters, and explores how Mesopotamians grappled with timeless human concerns - love, illness, ambition, and the quest for knowledge. Why does Mesopotamia often remain in the shadow of Egypt and Greece? And what can we learn from this ancient civilization today? Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Oxford's Wolfson College, where she specialises in the languages and history of ancient Mesopotamia. She has written for academic and popular journals, including History Today, on topics as diverse as mental illness in ancient Mesopotamia to Late Assyrian scholarly networks. If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events  ...  Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series … Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content and early access. … Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

736 I Will Not Leave You Or Forsake You, A Guided Christian Meditation on Joshua 1:4-6 with the Recenter With Christ app The purpose of this podcast is to help you find more peace in  and connect wi h the true source of peace, Jesus Christ.  Outline: Relaxation, Reading, Meditation, Prayer, Contemplation and Visualization. Get into a place where you can sit comfortably and uninterrupted for about 20 minutes.You should hopefully not be driving jor anything tensing or unrelaxing.  If you feel comfortable to do so, I invite you to close your eyes.   Guided Relaxation / Guided Meditation:   Breathe and direct your thoughts to connecting with God. Let your stomach be a balloon inflate,  deflate. Scripture for Meditation Joshua 1 ESV 4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. 5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. RSV 3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I promised to Moses. 4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphra′tes, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. 5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. 6 Be strong and of good courage; for you shall cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Meditation on Scripture: This time of this scripture was a great transition for Joshua, who was to lead the Israelites into the promised land after Moses. It is interesting how different the demands on these two leaders was. Moses was predominantly responsible for leading the Israelites through the desert. Joshua was a warrior leader. Each had a very different mission. God used their different perspectives, temperaments and strengths do do His important work. Humans dont know what is required to do what God needs but God does. God guided Moses just enough for him to be able to do what was needed. There were many times when Moses didnt know exactly what to do but worked it out. Sometimes he failed but God helped him resolve the problems. Similarly Joshua received the support he needed to do what God called him to. Whatever God calls us to, He prepares us for. This is what gave Joshua courage. God was fulfilling his promises through Joshua. God would not allow Joshua to fail because He had called him. God will not allow you to fail if you are accomplishing God's purposes. This is why discernment is so important. When we do our own will we can fail.  Each one of us has things we are called to. Similar to Moses and Joshua, we don't know or understand what those things are until it comes, or even later than that. Also similarly, with God's help you can accomplish all that God truely calls you to. Have trust and confidence in the Lord. God will never fail or forsake you.  Meditation of Prayer: Pray as directed by the Spirit. Dedicate these moments to the patient waiting, when you feel ready ask God for understanding you desire from Him. Meditation of God and His Glory / Hesychasm: I invite you to sit in silence feeling patient for your own faults and trials. Summarize what insights you have gained during this meditation and meditate and visualize positive change in your life: This is a listener funded podcast at patreon.com/christianmeditationpodcast Final Question: If you consider the invitation and command to persevere in the faith, what change in your life does that bring to your mind?  FIND ME ON: Download my free app: Recenter with Christ Website - ChristianMeditationPodcast.com Voicemail - (602) 888-3795 Email: jared@christianmeditationpodcast.com Apple Podcasts - Christian Meditation Podcast Facebook.com/christianmeditationpodcast Youtube.com/christianmeditaitonpodcast Twitter - @ChristianMedPod  

The sixth angel sounds his shofar releasing four rogue angels from their prison at the Euphrates. A 200-million-man army is also summoned.  Revelation 9:13-21; 10:1-7 plus many references from other parts of the Bible.  #everydaychristians

We've spent a lot of time over the years singing the praises of the games we love, but they can't be perfect right? Surely there's something, one little thing, that bugs us - a small blemish in our otherwise most beloved games? Before we come clean, we talk about Classified Information, Starline Hill, Panda Spin, and SHASN: AZADI. 03:13 - Classified Information 11:54 - Starline Hill 13:35 - Panda Spin 25:32 - SHASN: AZADI 41:56 - Things we hate about games we love 42:39 - Throught the Ages: A New Story of Civilization 44:14 - Tigris and Euphrates 44:36 - Archipelago 45:09 - Cthulhu Wars 45:17 - Cosmic Encounter 45:57 - Diplomacy 46:09 - Innovation 48:28 - El Grande 49:26 - Age of Steam 49:26 - Arboretum 49:26 - The Estates 49:26 - Fresh Fish 50:28 - Marvel Champions: The Card Game 51:22 - Brass: Lancashire 51:30 - Barrage 51:38 - Agricola 53:57 - Blood on the Clocktower 54:08 - A Feast for Odin 56:22 - Sidereal Confluence 56:22 - Stationfall 56:22 - Alchemists 57:30 - Yellow and Yangtze Get added to the BGB community map at: https://boardgamebarrage.com/map Send us topic ideas at: https://boardgamebarrage.com/topics Check out our wiki at: https://boardgamebarrage.com/wiki Join the discussion at: https://boardgamebarrage.com/discord Join our Facebook group at: https://boardgamebarrage.com/facebook Get a Board Game Barrage T-shirt at: https://boardgamebarrage.com/store

[Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished…] Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, “Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.2 So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.3 The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing died that was in the sea.4 The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood. 5 And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say,“Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was,     for you brought these judgments. 6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets,     and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve!”7 And I heard the altar saying,“Yes, Lord God the Almighty,     true and just are your judgments!”8 The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire. 9 They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.10 The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish 11 and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds.12 The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east. 13 And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. 14 For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty. 15 (“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”) 16 And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.17 The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” 18 And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake. 19 The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. 20 And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found. 21 And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people; and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe.1.     Have you ever mistaken God's patience with your sin as a lack of interest in it?2.     Did the sermon lead you to identify any areas where you have been avoiding repenting? Share if appropriate.3.     Have you ever thought that God's mercy has run out for you? Is

Greg Jenner is joined in ancient Mesopotamia by Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid and comedian Phil Wang to learn about the history of cuneiform, the oldest writing system in the world.In the 19th Century, European scholars began to translate inscriptions found on ruins and clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia - an area of the world between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that encompasses modern Iraq, as well as parts of Syria, Iran, Turkey and Kuwait. The script they deciphered became known as cuneiform, and this distinctive wedge-shaped writing system is perhaps the oldest in the world. The earliest cuneiform tablet is in fact over 5,000 years old.These clay tablets reveal much about the daily life of people in this part of the ancient world, recording everything from the amounts of beer sold by brewers and the best way to ask the gods for advice, to squabbles between husbands and wives and even the lullabies used to get babies to sleep. The first recorded epic poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh, is also preserved thanks to cuneiform. This episode traces the history of cuneiform, exploring how this script worked, who used it and what they used it for, what it tells us about the inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia, and how it was finally deciphered.If you're a fan of historical puzzles, amazing archaeological finds and the intimate details of everyday life in the ancient world, you'll love our episode on cuneiform.If you want more from Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid, check out our episode on Ancient Babylon. And for more ancient history with Phil Wang, listen to our episodes on the history of Kung Fu and the Terracotta Warriors. You're Dead To Me is the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Every episode, Greg Jenner brings together the best names in history and comedy to learn and laugh about the past. Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Hannah Cusworth and Matt Ryan Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: James Cook

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 206 - What We Talk About When We Talk About If Games Can Be Mean Pete, Brendan, and Jake debate whether games can be mean with our usual sense of decorum and mastery of the oral argument.  Timestamps Can Games Be Mean - 0:00   Games Mentioned In the year of the Dragon, Terraforming Mars, Magic: the Gathering, Barrage, Root, The Resistance, Tigris and Euphrates, Catan, The Estates, Game of Thrones: the Board Game   Preplanners Guild of Merchant Explorers will be our next deep dive.   Music and Sound Credits Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You can listen to the full song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQuuRPfOyMw&list=TLGGFNH7VEDPgwgyNTA4MjAyMQ&t=3s You can find more information about Hembree at https://www.hembreemusic.com/.  Thank you to Flash Floods for use of their song Palm of Your Hand as a sting from their album Halfway to Anywhere: https://open.spotify.com/album/2fE6LrqzNDKPYWyS5evh3K?si=CCjdAGmeSnOOEui6aV3_nA Rules Overview Music:  Way Home by Tokyo Music Walker https://soundcloud.com/user-356546060​ Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/tokyo-music-walker-way...​ Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/pJThZlOuDtI Intermission Music: music elevator ext part 1/3 by Jay_You -- https://freesound.org/s/467243/ -- License: Attribution 4.0 Contact Follow and reach us on social media on Bluesky @decisionspace.bsky.social. If you prefer email, then hit us up at decisionspa@gmail.com. This information is all available along with episodes at our new website decisionspacepodcast.com. Byeee!

Sequence Hymn #455 O Love of God, How Strong and TrueOffertory Anthem "Pie Jesu" from Requiem (Rutter) Lawren Casagrande, soloistCommunion Hymn #571 All Who Love and Serve Your CityPost-Communion Hymn #150 Forty Days and Forty NightsTHE COLLECT OF THE DAYO God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from thy ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of thy Word, Jesus Christ thy Son; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.FIRST READING Genesis 15:1-12,17-18Reader A reading from the Book of Genesis.The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.Then he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.” But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.”ReaderThe Word of the Lord.PeopleThanks be to God.PSALM Psalm...

Reading IGenesis 15:5-12, 17-18The Lord God took Abram outside and said,“Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can.Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.”Abram put his faith in the LORD,who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.He then said to him,“I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeansto give you this land as a possession.”“O Lord GOD,” he asked,“how am I to know that I shall possess it?”He answered him,“Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat,a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”Abram brought him all these, split them in two,and placed each half opposite the other;but the birds he did not cut up.Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses,but Abram stayed with them.As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram,and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him.When the sun had set and it was dark,there appeared a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch,which passed between those pieces.It was on that occasion that the LORD made a covenant with Abram,saying: “To your descendants I give this land,from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River, the Euphrates.”Reading IIPhilippians 3:17—4:1 Join with others in being imitators of me, brothers and sisters,and observe those who thus conduct themselvesaccording to the model you have in us.For many, as I have often told youand now tell you even in tears,conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ.Their end is destruction.Their God is their stomach;their glory is in their “shame.”Their minds are occupied with earthly things.But our citizenship is in heaven,and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.He will change our lowly bodyto conform with his glorified bodyby the power that enables him alsoto bring all things into subjection to himself.Therefore, my brothers and sisters,whom I love and long for, my joy and crown,in this way stand firm in the Lord.GospelLuke 9:28b-36Jesus took Peter, John, and Jamesand went up the mountain to pray.While he was praying his face changed in appearanceand his clothing became dazzling white.And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah,who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodusthat he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep,but becoming fully awake,they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus,“Master, it is good that we are here;let us make three tents,one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”But he did not know what he was saying.While he was still speaking,a cloud came and cast a shadow over them,and they became frightened when they entered the cloud.Then from the cloud came a voice that said,“This is my chosen Son; listen to him.”After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.They fell silent and did not at that timetell anyone what they had seen.

Second Sunday in Lent Old Testament Genesis 15:1-12,17-18 The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, "Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." But Abram said, "O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" And Abram said, "You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir." But the word of the Lord came to him, "This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir." He brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be." And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness. Then he said to him, "I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess." But he said, "O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?" He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon." He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him. When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates." The Psalm Psalm 27 Dominus illuminatio 1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? * the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid? 2 When evildoers came upon me to eat up my flesh, * it was they, my foes and my adversaries, who  stumbled and fell. 3 Though an army should encamp against me, * yet my heart shall not be afraid; 4 And though war should rise up against me, * yet will I put my trust in him. 5 One thing have I asked of the Lord; one thing I seek; * that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; 6 To behold the fair beauty of the Lord * and to seek him in his temple. 7 For in the day of trouble he shall keep me safe  in his shelter; * he shall hide me in the secrecy of his dwelling and set me high upon a rock. 8 Even now he lifts up my head * above my enemies round about me. 9 Therefore I will offer in his dwelling an oblation with sounds of great gladness; * I will sing and make music to the Lord. 10 Hearken to my voice, O Lord, when I call; * have mercy on me and answer me. 11 You speak in my heart and say, "Seek my face." * Your face, Lord, will I seek. 12 Hide not your face from me, * nor turn away your servant in displeasure. 13 You have been my helper;  cast me not away; * do not forsake me, O God of my salvation. 14 Though my father and my mother forsake me, * the Lord will sustain me. 15 Show me your way, O Lord; * lead me on a level path, because of my enemies. 16 Deliver me not into the hand of my adversaries, *  for false witnesses have risen up against me,  and also those who speak malice. 17 What if I had not believed that I should see the goodness of the Lord * in the land of the living! 18 O tarry and await the Lord's pleasure; be strong, and he shall comfort your heart; * wait patiently for the Lord. The Epistle Philippians 3:17-4:1 Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. The Gospel Luke 13:31-35 Some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you." He said to them, "Go and tell that fox for me, 'Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.' Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

Sometimes, we can be walking in the promises of God, and things start getting tough.  Opposition.  Battles.  What's going on?  Is it time to give up? What happened to all those promises?   THE SPIRITUAL BATTLEFIELD Well over these last weeks on the program we've been looking at the fact that it's time to take the Promised Land. God makes so many promises of peace and of joy and His protection and forgiveness and eternal life, the list goes on and on and you know you and I can come up with so many excuses in our lives as to why those promises couldn't possibly ever be for us. It's true, we do. In a sense those excuses are completely natural and understandable. There was a young woman who wrote recently in response to a program, I want to share with you what she wrote because it's kind of a road we all travel sometimes, this is what she said: For a while now I've been getting negative thoughts and saying negative things, I know the devil's doing it and not God but it won't stop. I want so much to do Gods will and to walk in His ways, am I going mad? Will this wreck my relationship with God? I so much want to do His will for His glory and not mine. I want to be a serving and faithful servant for Him. I have all these problems; I say bad and negative things. I can say things without thinking, I tell lies and other unchristian things, what does it mean for me? Is it going to ruin my relationship with God? See this young woman is struggling with the realities of life. She wants to live in that Promised Land but somehow she's just, she just can't see how it's for her, she just can't seem to get there. We all struggle with these things, we struggle with doubt, we struggle with our failings, will this wreck everything with God? We go over that over and over again. Listen to me, it is time to take the Promised land. Over the last three weeks on the program we've been looking at Israel. God promised to Abraham, the father of Israel, this land of the Canaanites, the Promised Land. And centuries later, centuries, after Israel had grown into a large and mighty nation in slavery in Egypt God brought Moses and through a series of miracles he brought the nation of Israel, His chosen people, out of Egypt, through the Red Sea and they wandered in the desert for forty years as God purified them. And then one day under the leadership of Joshua because Moses had just died, they're standing on the banks of the Jordan River and finally ready to cross into the Promised Land. And what they discover is that there's already a whole bunch of other people living there, the Canaanites and the Jebusites and the Amorites and all those other little vegemites were already there. And even though this was Gods Promised Land it wasn't going to be delivered to them on a platter like a pizza, they had to go out and take it, they were on a war footing. They had to fight battle after battle beginning with Jericho, they went through a lot of battles to take the Promised Land. You know something, it's the same with you and with me and with that young woman, we live on a spiritual battlefield. That is the reality of life. And the moment we step out and we believe in Jesus, the moment we step out and say, "Lord, I'm going to follow you in your promises", we step onto that spiritual battlefield. John Eldridge in his book Waking The Dead makes this powerful statement, he says: Things are not what they seem, this is a world at war. And then he goes on to explain what he means, he writes this: The world in which we live is a combat zone. A violent clash of kingdoms, a bitter struggle unto the death. You were born into a world at war and you will live all your days in the midst of a great battle involving all the forces of heaven and hell and played out here on earth. Until we come to terms with that war as the context of our days, we simply will not understand life. See this is why over the last few weeks we've been working our way through this series in the Book of Joshua called, "It's Time To Take The Promised Land" because the context is war. The devil is not going to hand us God's promises on a silver platter. In fact, he is going to try to rob us of Gods promises at every turn. We'd like to think, particularly those of us who live in the affluent west that being a Christian means living in the blessings of God and having a comfortable life and having plenty of money and taking it easy. Well I don't know if you've noticed but life is not like that especially when we step onto the spiritual battlefield by giving our lives to Jesus Christ. The moment we do that all the forces of hell are unleashed against us. That's the reality, we shouldn't be surprised. I think that the surprise element is what makes it worse. We have these expectations of an easy and comfortable life and when satan unleashes all his devils against us, of temptation, of doubt, failure and opposition and trials and on and on and on, over and over and over, we start thinking 'wow there must be something wrong with me'. Au contraire! Inevitably when we decide to take hold of the promises of God in our lives there will be a battle involved. Don't be surprised by this, it's in the Bible. C S Lewis in his book Mere Christianity put it like this: One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New Testament, seriously, was that it talked so much about a dark power in the universe. A mighty evil spirit who was held to be the power behind death and disease and sin. This universe (writes Lewis) is at war. Wake up! The world is at war. The context of our lives following after Jesus Christ is a spiritual battlefield. See Israel was promised this land through Abraham centuries before they even got there. Do you think when God made that beautiful promise to Abraham that he expected battles and wars and stuff? Listen again just briefly to this beautiful promise to an old man, this impossible promise in Genesis chapter 15. The word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision. He said 'don't be afraid, I'm your shield and your very great reward'. But Abraham said, 'O Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus.' Abraham said, 'you have given me no children so a servant in my household will become my heir. And then the word of the Lord came to Abraham, 'this man will not be your heir but a son who comes from your own body will be your heir' and God took Abraham outside of the tent and said, 'look up at the heavens and count the stars if indeed you can count them' and then He said , 'so shall your offspring be. And Abraham believed the Lord and God credited it to him as righteousness. And God also said to him, 'I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.' But Abraham said, 'O Sovereign Lord how can I know that I will gain possession of it? So the Lord said to him, 'bring me a heifer and a goat and a ram, each three years old along with a dove and a young pigeon'. Abraham did that he brought all of those things and cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other. The birds however he did not cut in half. And then the birds of prey came down on the carcasses but Abraham drove them away and as the sun was setting Abraham fell into a deep sleep and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him and then the Lord said to him, 'know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and they will be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years but I will punish the nation they serve as slaves and afterwards they will come out with great possessions. You however will go to your father's in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. And when the sun had set and the darkness had fallen, the smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham and said, "To your descendants I give this land. From the river of Egypt to the river of the Euphrates. The land of the Kenites and the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites and the Rephaites and Amorites and Canaanites and the Girgashites and the Jebushites. This was a serious promise, who would have ever had expected that is would involve battle after battle after battle after battle.   IT'S TIME So let's go from that promise of God to Abraham centuries before into the midst of the taking of the Promised Land. Israel, under the leadership of Joshua, crossed over, they fought battle after battle, they'd taken Jericho and city after city has fallen before them. Why? Because that's what God promised and we're going to pick up the story in Joshua chapter 18, they're not quite half way through taking this Promised Land. There are twelve tribes in Israel, five tribes have their land and seven are left to go, seven have yet to get their Promised Land. It must have seemed like an eternity. You know when you face battle after battle, we're tempted to pull over and stop, to take a breather that kind of turns into a lunch break that turns into a holiday that turns into long service leave and before you know it we haven't got what it takes to keep going again. I tell you, in my life in this ministry Christianityworks, I've been involved now for just on three years and the call on my heart as I took over to start producing radio programs again we weren't on any stations three years ago and today we're on over seven hundred stations in eighty countries around the world. I have to tell you it was hard work, battle after battle after battle. Sometimes there were not enough funds and people said they'd help but then they realised how hard it was to do this work and they just didn't deliver and they fell by the wayside. And people criticised and people didn't understand, you know what I'm talking about and you get tired, you get exhausted. It would have been so easy just to pull up, to slow down, to give up, what a temptation. And yet there was this promise of God in my heart that He'd called me to do this. But we're all tempted to give up half way. You know the only reason I haven't is because along the way I've had some great teaching on this subject from a wonderful teacher called Joyce Meyer and there was just one message and God wrote this stuff on my heart, 'to keep going' and that's my prayer for you today, just this one message that in these few moments we spend together that He will write His word on your heart to keep on pressing forward into the promises of God. Whether we're struggling with fear or sin or addiction or a tough relationship and we hear about Gods promises so we set out on that journey of faith but after a while, oh it's hard work and there is opposition and there are battles and we want to give up, you know what I mean. In fact my hunch is you know exactly what I mean. And it was the same with Israel, they were almost half way into taking the Promised Land, if you've got a Bible open it up, lets listen to Joshua chapter 18. The whole assembly of the Israelites gathered at Shiloh and set up there the Tent of the Meeting. The country was subdued before them but there were still seven Israelite tribes who had not yet received their inheritance. So Joshua said to the Israelites, 'how long will you wait before you begin to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers has given you. Appoint three men from each tribe, I will send them out to make a survey of the land to write a description of it according to the inheritance of each then you will return to me. You are to divide the land into seven parts. Judah is to remain in its territory on the south and the House of Joseph in it's territory on the north. After you have written the descriptions of the seven parts of the land bring them here to me and I will cast lots for you in the presence of the Lord. The Levites however do not get a portion among you because the priestly service of the Lord is their inheritance and Gad and Rueben and the half tribe of Manassah have already received their inheritance on the east side of the Jordan, Moses the servant of the Lord gave it to them. As the men started on their way to map out the land Joshua instructed them, 'go and make a survey of the land, write a description of it then return to me and I will cast lots for you here at Shiloh in the presence of the Lord'. So the men left, they went through the land, they wrote its description on a scroll, town by town, in seven parts and returned to Joshua in the camp of Shiloh. Joshua then cast lots for them in Shiloh in the presence of the Lord and there he distributed the land to the Israelites according to their tribal divisions. I love this passage because they're almost half way through and it begins by saying, "the whole land, the whole country was subdued before them". See so much of the work had already been done , God had done so many things, they were so far down the track and sometimes when we're tired of the battle after battle we lose sight of how far we've come. We look back and then, then we see the mighty hand of God at work in the victories. Isn't it the same in our lives? You get tired and you think, "argh Lord this is too hard". It's time to just take a quick look back and see all the mighty things that God has done in our lives. I get such great courage from just looking back, even over these last three years in the ministry of Christianityworks and I think, "man, look at what God has done." And once they've looked back Joshua asks the sixty four million dollar question. Joshua said to the Israelites: How long will you wait before you take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers has already given you? How long will you wait? See you're almost half way there. You take a breather, you pull over, you stop, you get set in your ways, you can't go any further, you lose heart, what are you people doing, how long will you wait? What came next? There was work to be done. They sent the men out, they looked forward, they divided up the land into seven portions. See God always, ALWAYS involves us in what's going on, He never lets us become spiritual couch potatoes, He sent three men from each tribe out to survey the land, to record the land and to choose the seven divisions. And next they came back to Joshua and in the presence of the Lord Joshua cast lots. Really what Joshua was saying there is, "we're going to leave this up to God, we've got some work to do but God is in charge. We're going to cast lots for this land between the seven tribes in front of God and we will let God choose through the lots who gets what land." See there's a message for us here. If we're a people thats pressing forward into the promises of God don't stop, don't pull over, don't give up. If it's a tough relationship that you've been praying over and the Lords has been leading you to do good things, to serve and to support, to humble yourself and you're tired and you want to take a breather and you think, "augh, it's just not going to happen" and get to thinking, "this isn't working, it's not going anywhere, it's time to give up". Or God's called you to something, a ministry or a job or whatever it is that somehow, as you look back you can see all the good things He's done. But the promises seem like such a long way off. Whatever the situation, how long will you hang around here before you take the land that God has already given to you. Come on! Get up and do the things you know you have to do, do them under God and, and what? Do you think God is going to fail you? Do you think God is just leading you up the garden path? Do you think that God has put you up the creek in a barbed wire canoe without a paddle? Are His promises faithful, are they worth following, are they worth it?   THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD Well are the promises of God real? In a sense in theory we can all answer, "sure, I mean if God is God and He makes a promise then it has to be real". But you know something, the theory and the reality can be two different things. I shared a little before about the battles over the last three years that I've travelled through in taking this ministry from, I guess, pretty much nothing to reaching millions of people each week. Now I don't want any of that to seem remarkable because it's nothing that we did, God opened door after door and performed miracle after miracle to do that and it's what God's called me to do, He's called you to something different. So let's not compare as I share my story, hear what God is saying to you today about your story. Now I'm someone who knows the theory of God's promises as well as anyone. I mean a big part of my job is to study God's Word to put together these programs. So I'm "in the theory" if you like all the time but the reality has been that it's been lots of hard work and there have been disappointments and setbacks. And one of the hardest things has been often the people closest to us, people in our own Church, who haven't understood what we do or supported us or encouraged us, there's so many times the finances looked critical. It's still something that happens now and I find myself thinking, "why is it that the people in our own Church don't even support us?" Or one station where we've had a huge audience for a number of years was talking about taking our program off air and we've had to pray and pray and pray and then finally see God's victory. And sometimes I think, "God why can't it be easier than this? God why does there have to be so many battles along the way?" And you know what Gods answer has been to me, so that you my child would discover my faithfulness for yourself. See God wants us to experience his faithfulness, not in theory but in practice and you know something, I know so much more today about the faithfulness of God than ever have simply by travelling through battle after battle and seeing the victories that God has brought along the way. And there is such an intense satisfaction as I look back on that and I can truly say, "yes Lord, it's been hard work but all the glory goes to you and not to me because I could never have done this". The Book of Joshua that we've been travelling through these last weeks is about Israel's battles on the journey of taking the Promised Land. And when finally all the land is taken and allocated to all the tribes have a listen to what God's Word says, if you've got a Bible open it at Joshua chapter 21 beginning at verse 43. So the Lord gave Israel all the land that He had sworn to give their forefathers and they took possession of it and settled there and the Lord gave them rest on every side just as He had sworn to their forefathers, not one of their enemies withstood them, the Lord handed all their enemies over to them, not one of all the Lord's good promises to the House of Israel failed, every one was fulfilled. WOW! Let's just let that sink in for a minute. Not one of all the Lords good promises to the House of Israel failed, every one was fulfilled. When God makes a promise he never ever fails to deliver. When Jesus promised that He came that we would have life in all its abundance, that is a promise of God and it's a promise He intends to keep in your life and in mine. And as we travel through battle after battle and hang close to Him and just let those promises of God glow in our hearts and we hang on to them through this spiritual battlefield the devil comes after you with a meat cleaver and you fail some days and you stumble and you remember Jesus on that cross, you remember He purchased that life for you, we can know in our hearts that now, now it's time to take the Promised Land. And not one of all the Lord's good promises to you or to me will fail; every one of them will be fulfilled. It is time to take the Promised Land.

Understanding inspired scripture; Tree of Life; vs Tree of Knowledge; Hiding from light; Nakedness; Aleph; Jacob's wrestling; Seeing the whole truth; Blame game; Spiritual guidance; Entering bondage; Systems of God vs of the "world"; Abraham's journey; "Beersheba"; Abraham's land; Freewill offerings; Living by faith, hope and charity; Essenes; Blessing those that curse you; What is God teaching you today?; Representative money; Legal title; Agreement with government; Wrath of God; Euphrates river?; Gen 48:1; vav+yod+chet+tav-zayin-kuf?; Jacob vs Israel; Praying for daily bread; Allegories; Income tax?; Bondage of Egypt; Seeing your fault; Brothers of Joseph; Exploring whole truth; Ephriam and Manasseh; Rachel's death; Seeing with God's eyes; Blessing sons; Appetite for benefits; Which son was first?; Israel's blessing; Living by God's righteousness; "Displeased"; Foresight; Right and left hands; Golden calf; Another way of government; Hebrew (written) language; Sword and bow?; Making recompence; Pure republics; Tithing; Caring for others; Moses sword and bow?; Red Sea?; "Altars"; God's social security; Sacrifice by choice; Not to be like the world governments; "Civil law"; Individual responsibilities; Prodigal sons; Consequential choices; Learning lessons; Repentance; Blessing Egypt; Sitting in darkness; Darkness and Light; Bloodlines?; Purpose-driven life?; Making Godly choices; Giving choice to others; "darkness"; Separation; Absence; Gen 3:24; Flaming sword turning every way; Beacon?; Willingness to see and know self; Learning patience; NATO?; Knowing history; Divine spark; Things that obscure our vision and thinking; Curses being blessings; hey-pey-kuf; (hey-mem-tav-hey-pey-kuf-tav); Whirling?; Power of HolySpirit; Christ's kind of sacrifice; "Leaven"; Forced sacrifice; Living stones; Covetousness; Welfare snares; Are you Israel?; Stop sitting in darkness; Repent and seek His kingdom and righteousness.

On this week's Hopecast, David and Marilynn Chadwick join Jenn Houston as David breaks down the 8 great events that will take place before Jesus' second coming: including the drying of the Euphrates river, the spiritual revival of Israel, the final battle, and more. 

You know something – you and I can read about and listen to the promises of God until the cows come home.  But eventually, eventually the day comes when we have to cross over into the promised land. Eventually the day comes for us to lay hold of God's promises and live in them.   Sending Spies into the Land We've been talking the last couple of weeks about taking hold of God's wonderful and outrageous promises in our lives. It's not easy sometimes; it seems that we face uphill battle after uphill battle. And we're left wondering is this really what God's promises are all about? But my hunch is that when God makes promises he means us to believe them and to press through those battles like we believe them. A bit like Joshua: when he was about to lead the people of Israel into the Promised Land after centuries of slavery in Egypt and 40 years wondering through the desert, he was standing on the banks of the Jordan river, ready to cross over into that promised land. As we've seen over the last couple of weeks, God told Joshua that there would be lots and lots of battles. But he also reminded Joshua that this was the Promised Land and then, then Joshua did something that's bothered me for a long time. He sent some spies across the Jordan to check out this so called Promised Land. And you see here's the dilemma for me: on the one hand we're supposed to trust God. Without faith it's impossible to please God, right? And look at what God said to Joshua about the battles that they were going to face when they headed into the Promised Land. You can read this: grab a Bible and open it up, Joshua chapter 1, beginning of verse 5 this is what God says, he says: No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you so be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to inherit the land that I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and courageous, don't be terrified, don't be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.  Isn't that just the most awesome promise from God? And when you get a promise from God like that, that's serious stuff. God is calling Joshua into a difficult place but encouraging him with his promises. And Joshua had a decision to make: to step across the Jordan, to head down the path that God had called him to and encounter battles one after the other, trusting in God, battling his way through to keep going. And it's exactly the same for us. When we step forward into the promises of God we're going to encounter battles. So Joshua gets this amazing promise from God but look at what he does. He hears the promises of God but before he heads off, before he crosses the Jordan to go into the Promised Land, he sends some spies across to check it all out. To go to the very first city that they were going to have a battle with which was the city of Jericho. Read it: in Joshua chapter 2, beginning of verse 1: Then Joshua secretly sent two spies into the land telling them: go and look over the land, especially in Jericho. So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.  Can I ask you a question? Is that really trusting God? God promises you the land, he promises you that he's going to be with you, he promises you that no one will be able to stand against you. And then, it's almost like Joshua doesn't trust him: he sends out spies into the land and they go and stay with a prostitute. Now the rest of the story is, we're not going to read it now, is that they check out the land. The king finds out and comes to try and kill them and Rahab the prostitute helps them to flee and they promise to keep her and her family safe when they come against Jericho. And when they came back to Joshua on the other side of the Jordan this is what they said, "The Lord has surely given the whole land into our hands. All the people are melting in fear because of us." Now this has bothered me for a long time. Why did Joshua do that? Why didn't he just trust in God and go and take what God had promised him? And why is it that God didn't get upset with Joshua for sending the spies and checking it out for himself? Well they're all good questions and the answer came to me one day when I was reading a story centuries later in the New Testament. It was when the apostle Peter was in jail and the angel came and sprung him out of jail. The angel woke Peter up in the middle of the night and said, "Get up quickly", and the chains fell off. And the angel said to him, "Fasten your belt, put on your sandals", and Peter did. "Wrap your cloak around you' said the angel, "and follow me." And Peter did that and the gates swung open. You can read about it in Acts chapter 12, beginning over verse 6. Do you notice something about that? The angel didn't dress Peter because he could do that for himself. The angel didn't put his sandals or his belt or his cloak on, the angel didn't get him to stand up; Peter did those things for himself because he could. What the angel did were the miracles that Peter himself couldn't do. The angel did the miracle of causing the chains to fall off him; the angel did the miracle of flinging the gates open. Now for me, I'm a doer: I plan and execute and achieve. I've been like that all my life. I go and get it. I'm a Type A personality. And the struggle for me is when God comes along and promises me all these things that for my whole life have eluded me: relationships and peace and joy and a quiet, calm delight. The promised land of God. I've a choice either to try and do this in my own strength, well that would never work, or I let God have the driver's seat and let him be in control and follow after him in faith. It's obviously the latter but you know something? We can say I'm not going to do anything and we become spiritual couch potatoes doing that. But God calls us to do our bit too. Joshua receives the promises of God and then he sends spies ahead into the land. Why? Because any good military operation always does its forward reconnaissance to see what's out there to plan ahead. And there's an important principle here: Joshua receives the promises of God. He had to cross over into that land to do the things that he could do and should do to plan and to look ahead and to organise the people and the armies and to get them through and then rely on the miracles that God could only do. Jericho was a fortified city, Jericho was impregnable but when they crossed over into the land God said to them march around for seven days blowing your horns and the walls will fall down. And sure enough, that's what they did; that's exactly what happened. God did the miracle. The problem with us is we receive the promises of God and then we kind of expect it all to go smoothly. We expect God to put everything on autopilot and we never want to think ahead or do the forward reconnaissance to look at what's likely to happen. There are obstacles, there are battles and you know as we follow after the promises of God the enemy and the world are going to come against us. And we need to get our minds around those things, in a sense we need to think forward and look forward and plan to know what to expect. To use the brains that God has given us and then to rely on the miracles that he is going to do along the way to do the things that we can't do to get us into that Promised Land.     My Way or the Highway Now most of us like to be in control of our lives but at the same time we like to experience the promises of God. Problem is, those two don't always go together. It turns out that there's only one way into God's Promised Land. Joshua sent those spies and they came back with a good report. I want to have a look now at how Joshua led his people through the Jordan and crossed over into the Promised Land. See, we have to take the Promised Land just like Joshua and the Israelites. God doesn't deliver it like a pizza; it's there to be taken. Now I have a confession to make: I used to be a very much my way or the high way kind of guy. And every now and then that attitude still raises its ugly head. So it was a major thing for me to hand my life over to God. Not just kind of to believe in Jesus from a distance but to live my life for him, to truly call him the Lord of my life. There's a big difference and what I've discovered is that on the one hand you have to give up some things if you want Jesus to be the Lord of your life but on the other I can do so much more because instead of having to do everything in my own strength. He shows up and does miracle and after miracle in every department of my life and I look back on that journey and think wow I could never have done those things. But our natural instinct is to do things our way, to be in charge and in control and that problem is that that job belongs to God. And anyway, it's hard work. So what is it? What do we have to do to make Jesus the Lord of our lives? We've been looking at these last few weeks at taking hold of the promises of God, taking the Promised Land. Joshua leading Israel into the Promised Land after centuries of slavery in Egypt and 40 years wondering through the desert on the exodus. And this book of Joshua recalls the history. You go back to the promises of God and God promises to Abraham that he would give the descendents of Abraham this Promised Land. And God comes to Joshua when he's about to lead Abraham's descendents into the Promised Land and he says, "Everywhere where your foot will tread, I have already given to you." So Joshua, as we saw before the break, sent some spies across to check it out. He did the normal military thing that you'd expect any commander to do. Now, now comes time to cross over the Jordan River. They're going to have so many battles when they get there. Cities and nations who don't want them to have the Promised Lands. So it was so easy for Joshua to say, "Well, I'm in charge here, it's my way or this high way." But what Joshua did next, well there are some pretty amazing things that he did, four things in all. And it tells us who Joshua thought was really in charge. The first is he sent his officers through the camp to tell his people this, "When you see the arc of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the priests, then you shall set out from your place. Follow it so that you may know where you should go for you have not passed this way before." You can read that in Joshua chapter 3, beginning of verse 3. See, this whole nation of Israel was about to cross over into the Promised Land, who did Joshua put at the head of the nation? Was it Joshua? It was the arc of the covenant, the symbol of their relationship with God, the place where the presence of God rested. For Joshua God was at the head of the nation. And then there was another thing they did. You can go to Joshua chapter 4, beginning of verse 4. So Joshua called together the 12 men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each of the twelve tribes. And he said to them, ‘Go before the arc of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder according to the number of tribes of the Israelites. To serve as a sign among you. In the future when your children ask "What do these stones mean?" Tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the arc of the covenant of the Lord. See, Joshua got them to pick up these stones and on the other side of the Jordan River they built a monument honouring God. And what that monument was all about was saying: he did this, God did this, God achieved this. This is about recognising God's goodness for generations to come. It's about honouring God first. And then you think right, we must definitely be ready now to cross over into the Promised Land. Now this next bit is going to seem bizarre to us and even in their context it must have been a big call. Joshua decided to circumcise all the men in the nation because circumcision was a sign, an outward sign, of the covenant relationship between God and his people. Abraham did it to all his household and all Israelite males under the law of the Jews should be circumcised on the eighth day, it's part of their law. It's a symbol of the relationship between God and Israel and on the exodus in the desert between Egypt and the Promised Land for 40 years they hadn't been doing that. So it was time to set things right between God and his people. God said make flint knives and circumcise them. Makes me wince, my eyes water. They're ready to go, they're ready to cross over into the Promised Land. They must all have been there with such anticipation and Joshua says, "Woah, stop! Got a great idea! We're going to have a circumcision. All the males"' And not only did they circumcise all the males, they then had to wait there for several days for them all to heal. This was about getting the nation of Israel right before God in their relationship. And fourthly, before they went. Can you imagine this huge logistical operation of crossing over into the Promised Land? It was the time of the Passover, the time when they remembered back 40 years to when God had taken them out of slavery in Egypt. To the time when the angel of death passed over and killed all of the first born in the land of Egypt except for the Israelites because they killed the lamb and put the blood on the top of their doors and the angel of death passed over them. It was time to celebrate the Passover, to remember how 40 years before God had taken them out of Egypt. To look back and remember God's goodness. And see the four things that Joshua did? He put God at the head of the procession. He built an alter, a monument to God that would be remembered for generations. He got the nation right before God by circumcising all the males and then he celebrated the Passover to honour God. Sure, we want to cross over in the Promised Land just like the Israelites did but what this is saying to us is that God comes first. The arc goes first, we follow him, we take his lead. We put a marker here in faith to remember for generations to come what God's done. We get right before God, we honour God for what he's done. See here's the crunch: there's this huge promise ahead of them but they were going to take hold of that promise not in their own strength but honouring God first. It's not my way or the high way, it's God's way. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the outcome, his way and it's the same for us today. So many people believe in Jesus and they want to lay hold of the promises of God for their lives but they want to do it their own way. Jesus is Lord, we sing. Really? Then let's do it his way. No little compromises, no little shortcuts, no "I'll forget about him and not pray today", no "Oh well, I don't have to read his word the Bible today." Wake up! God's promises only happen one way, his way and Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." This radical, edgy saviour. Not into pampering himself; he was into going out there and following God.       The Promises of God I truly believe that the promises of God are for each one of us. Now let me share a part of my story with you because I'm sharing this not from a textbook but from a changed life. Twelve years ago my life was an incredible mess, I can't tell you the dysfunction and pain. Now that stuff happens to us. I'm not some kind of loser; I was a competent, successful businessman with all the trappings of wealth and success but inside, inside I was an incredible mess. And when you're in that place the promises of God seem to be, well, so difficult to accept. When God records in John chapter 10, verse 10 what Jesus said: The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that you may have life and have it in all of its abundance.  Literally superabundantly. Boy that can be hard to take when you feel down and out. When you think of Joshua there on the banks of Jordan, he really was on the threshold of a promise made to Abraham centuries before. And from Abraham the nation of Israel grew and they were in slavery and they were part of God's miraculous escape plan as Moses led them through the red sea and then 40 years in the desert. And now, here they are and Moses has just died. How impossible must it have seemed to Joshua when God spoke to him on the banks of the Jordan and said, "I have given you every place where you will set your foot as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to the Lebanon and from the great river Euphrates through all the Hittites country to the great see of the west. No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life because as I was with Moses so I will be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you." You know what our problem is? Sometimes when we look at God's promises and then we look at our circumstances, in our hearts we let our circumstances win every time. Because that's what we can see and it's the circumstances and the difficulties and the obstacles that fill our vision. Today I just want to say that God wants to remind us of what Joshua did. It was a step of faith against impossible odds. Moses was dead, all those people and nations and kings and armies were in this so called Promised Land. Jericho was fortified and Joshua sent some spies in the land to check it out. And they came back with a rosy report despite the fortifications around Jericho and he mobilised his people and he crossed over. But not only his own strength but by honouring God, by putting God first. You know something? I think it's time for us to do the same. No matter what circumstances we face, no matter how big the obstacles, no matter how big the fortifications of our enemies or how powerful they appear, I believe with all that I am that Jesus died so that we could live in the Promised Land, the kingdom of God, in a dynamic and vital relationship with him. And it's time to count the cost, to look at what that means, to send a spine to that land in a sense by opening up God's word and reading those promises for ourselves. Because there is a cost, we need to read about that cost. The things that we might have to give up, the sin in our lives that we have to lay down in order to realise the promises of God and then stepping out in faith. Just start honouring God, even when it's a mess, even when things aren't going well, even when it all looks impossible. Just as Joshua and the nation of Israel did, to start honouring God. Put him first in everything, draw close to him in prayer, in Bible reading, in the way that we live our lives. Come on, honouring him with all that we are and all that we have and with every hope and with every dream just laying that down before him. Just believing in faith that his kingdom will come and that as we simply walk in faith, putting him first, he'll step into those battles for us and with us and win them for us. And before we know it, before we know it, we'll look back and say, "Wow, look at what God's done, I really am in the Promised Land." What do you think? Where are you in your life? What are the battles that lay before you? Is it time to take your eyes off the battles and set them firmly on God and believe his promises and honour him and step forward in faith into his Promised Land?  

I'm not sure why you'd make a hall of fame that's not also a sidewalk, but that's exactly what BoardGameGeek have gone and done - they've curated 25 games into their hall of fame, and we're here to judge them for their choices. It's weird that they didn't come to us first, honestly. Before we deck the halls, we talk about Arborea, Beyond the Horizon, and Taiwan Night Market.  02:49 - Arborea 10:32 - Beyond the Horizon 20:43 - Taiwan Night Market 32:00 - BGG Hall of Fame  38:57 - Diplomacy 40:35 - Acquire 41:55 - Cosmic Encounter 43:25 - Civilization 45:05 - 1830: Railways and Robber Barons 45:46 - Magic The Gathering 48:02 - Catan 49:03 - El Grande 49:58 - Tigris and Euphrates 51:04 - Ra 52:07 - Carcassone 53:29 - Power Grid  53:49 - Ticket to Ride 54:16 - Caylus 55:26 - Twilight Struggle 56:26 - Through the Ages 58:17 - Agricola 59:35 - Brass 01:00:25 - Race for the Galaxy 01:01:53 - Dominion 01:02:38 - Pandemic 01:03:39 - Seven Wonders 01:04:51 - Castles of Burgundy 01:05:14 - Terra Mystica 01:06:54 - Concordia   Get added to the BGB community map at: https://boardgamebarrage.com/map   Send us topic ideas at: https://boardgamebarrage.com/topics   Check out our wiki at: https://boardgamebarrage.com/wiki   Join the discussion at: https://boardgamebarrage.com/discord   Join our Facebook group at: https://boardgamebarrage.com/facebook   Get a Board Game Barrage T-shirt at: https://boardgamebarrage.com/store

In Episode 238 we each talk about 5 board games that have the types and level of player interaction that we really like. We also discuss a poll on whether complexity and price should have a correlation.Timestamps:00:00 Introduction00:44 Poll Time: Do you correlate complexity with price?14:02 Player Interaction19:52 Parks (Agricola)25:35 Ankh: Gods of Egypt (Carnegie)30:31 Clans of Caledonia (Gaia Project)34:35 My Little Scythe (Wolves, Gaia Project, Sol: Last Days of a Star)40:01 Stockpile (Pan Am, Lancaster, Modern Art)45:24 Nidavellir (Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest)48:54 Great Wall (Lancaster)53:10 Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory56:44 Troyes1:01:00 Carcassonne (Barrage, Terraforming Mars)1:07:44 Baseball Highlights 2045 (Blood Rage, Magic: The Gathering)1:12:31 Rebirth (Tigris and Euphrates, Samurai, Blue Lagoon)1:17:17 Fractal (Rising Sun, Blood Rage, Dune, Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy, Battle for Rokugan)1:25:34 Bruxelles 1893 (Lancaster, Barrage)1:30:33 Final ThoughtsIf you enjoy the show, please consider supporting us at https://www.patreon.com/boardgamehottakesFollow us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/boardgamehottakes.bsky.socialJoin our Board Game Arena Community: https://boardgamearena.com/group?id=11417205Join our Discord server at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://discord.gg/vMtAYQWURd

ISRAEL'S PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu says he doesn't intend to allow the armed forces of Al Qaeda offshoot HTS south of Damascus. Is this a step toward fulfilling the land promised to Abraham's descendants in Genesis 15?We discuss a new report from Avi Lipkin in Israel where he describes a new Middle East, with an Israeli-Druze autonomous zone across southern Syria from the Golan Heights to the Euphrates River, and a Kurdish autonomous zone east of the Euphrates connecting to the Kurdish zone in Iraq, linking to Israel's allies in Azerbaijan.Would this fulfill prophecy? That's up for debate, but one thing is certain—we are living in prophetic times.

Have you ever been standing on the threshold of something good – perhaps one of God's promises – and all of a sudden it's as though everything starts to go wrong?   On the Threshold Have you ever stood on the threshold of something good, I mean something really good, something fantastic? Maybe it's the promise of a promotion, or the promise of a pay increase, or you've just fallen pregnant or your wife has and in the not too many months, there's going to be this new life in your family, or a great holiday, or a new home, or peace where there was conflict and you stand there and you think, "This is going to be faaaannntastic. I just can't wait". And then all of a sudden, it's like all hell breaks loose. Everything and everyone kind of comes after you with a pickaxe; at work and at home, in your heart and in your head, there's turmoil. And you think, "Hang on a minute. I'm about to step over into this Promised Land and well, it's supposed to be fantastic. What is going on?" We've all been there, right? So has God and today we are going to look at His specific Word that He wants to speak right into that. This week on the programme, we are going to look at this ‘Promised Land' thing. And the Promised Land was born when God promised a land to Abraham, the father of Israel, and centuries later Israel crossed over into that Promised Land. It started with this beautiful promise to Abraham that we looked at last week. If you have a Bible, grab it, open it up at Genesis chapter 13, beginning at verse 14. This is what it says: The Lord said to Abraham, after Lot had separated from him, ‘Lift up your eyes now and look from the place where you are, to the north and the south and the east and the west, all the land that you see, I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can count the dust of the earth, your offspring will also be able to be counted. Get up, walk the length and the breadth of this land for I will give it to you'. So Abraham moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which is at Hebron and there he built an altar to the Lord. What a stunning promise! What an incredible promise! What an impossible promise! See, Abraham was an old man and he and his wife Sarah hadn't had any children and from that promise began a long and winding road for the nation of Israel. Centuries later they travelled through the exodus, they went through this desert and they'd gone on this long journey. And Israel ultimately is about to cross over into the Promised Land and all of a sudden their leader Moses, whom God used to set them free out of slavery from Egypt; to go through the Red Sea; that amazing miracle, to guide them through the desert for forty years – all of a sudden Moses, their leader dies. And God comes along to his successor, Joshua, with some godly advice – more than advice, admonition. Now we are going to have a look at that today. It's in Joshua chapter 1, beginning at verse 1. This is what God said: After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, son of Nun, Moses' assistant, ‘Moses, My servant is dead. Now then you and all these people, get ready to cross over the Jordan River into the land that I am about to give to them, the Israelites. I have given you every place where you will set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to the Lebanon, from the great river, the Euphrates, all the Hittite country to the great sea on the west and no one, no one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead this people to inherit the land that I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong; very courageous. Be careful to obey all My law that the servant Moses gave you. Don't turn from it to the right or to the left so that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let the Book of this Law depart from your mouth but meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything that's written in it, then you will be prosperous and successful. Haven't I commanded you, Be strong and courageous? Don't be terrified; don't be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.' Just think about it. They have been on this long journey for forty years, the exodus in the desert and they are about to cross over into the Promised Land and Moses dies. Oh, fantastic! What lousy timing. They had this tried and proven leader and he is gone, and so the reins get handed over to Joshua, his assistant and God repeats the promise that He made to Abram and that He made to Moses; He repeats that promise to Joshua: "I have given you this land - I have promised this land to you and no one will be able to stand against you." Oh, that's not good; that's not good at all. If God has to promise you that no one is going to stand against you. All these different tribes and nations that are already in the land; they're not going to invite Israel in to take their land. They are not going to say, "Oh, God said you could have it, well sure, go ahead, take all our land." Not likely! Israel is in for a bunch of battles and then God says: "I will never leave you or forsake you." This is not looking good. God says: "Be strong and courageous," and again, He says: ‘Be strong and very courageous.' And a third time in that passage we just read, He says: "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged." Now you are Joshua, you were there forty years ago, on the other side of the Red Sea. You saw the miracle when Moses lifted his staff and the Red Sea parted and Israel passed through and all of a sudden Pharaoh's army tried to chase them and the sea came together again and Pharaoh's army was drowned. You were there. The euphoria of God's amazing miracle. You've spent forty years in the desert and you think, "surely it must be over by now. We are just days away from crossing over into this Promised Land, from realising the promise that God made to Abram centuries before". And now God's setting you up; preparing you for a tough time. He talking about battles and wars and being strong and courageous. This is life and death stuff. Is that what you expected of the Promised Land after all this time? That's why I've called this series of programmes, "It Time to Take the Promised Land" because it doesn't get delivered to your front door like a pizza. God's promise of a land flowing with milk and honey is accompanied by God's reality - battles along the way. You have to take the Promised Land. And it's the same today. You know what I've noticed? The rest of the world doesn't want me to have God's peace and joy. The rest of the world doesn't want me to live in God's promises. The devil wants to spoil God's plan for my life and every time God is about to do something amazing in my life, all hell seems to break loose. The devil just doesn't want me to have the Promised Land. Now Joshua could have sat up on his side of the Jordan River, heard what God was saying about not getting discouraged and about the battles and thought, ‘No, I'm outa here', but he didn't. He believed in God‘s promise and he crossed over and he went about taking the Promised Land. He knew it was time to take the Promised Land.   Courage in the Promises Well, here they are. They are standing on the threshold of the Promised Land after forty years in the desert and all the trials, after the nation being in slavery in Egypt. Centuries before, God had promised to Abraham this Promised Land and they are standing on the Jordan and they are looking over the Jordan and what they see is this so-called Promised Land but there are all these people and tribes and kings and fortified cities and armies. On the one hand, they believe in God's promise, but on the other hand, they're looking at this reality. God calls us into His Promised Land here and now, today. There are promises all through the Bible about our relationship with God. Jesus said in John chapter 10, verse 10: The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that you may have life in all its abundance. That's a promise! Jesus wants us to have an abundant life. He said: The Kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again and then in his joy, he went and sold all that he had and he bought that field. Again Jesus said in Matthew chapter 13: The Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant who is looking for fine pearls when he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and he bought it. Do you get the picture? When we give our lives to Jesus, lock stock and barrel, He invites us into a land of promise and He is saying that this land of promise; the Kingdom of God, it's like … it's like a treasure – that's what it is meant to be like. And the promises are so different to what the world promises. Not a physical land or physical wealth or all that other stuff but a Promised Land that is quite different. In Luke chapter 17, verse 20, Jesus put it this way: Once having been ask by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus said, ‘The Kingdom of God doesn't come because of your careful observation nor will people say, ‘Here it is,' or ‘There it is,' because the Kingdom of God is within you.' The Promised Land isn't something out ‘there' – it's not a new house or a new car or all that stuff. The Promised Land; the Kingdom of God is in our hearts. And so often we feel like Joshua standing on the threshold, looking back and then looking forward, wanting to believe in the promises of God but … they are so hard to believe-in some days aren't they? I'm going to talk right now about taking courage in the promises of God. This is so important because we normally focus on the things that we can see – all the problems and the obstacles that are in front of us. But God calls us to set our eyes on the things that are above; to set our eyes on heavenly things. Look again at what God said to Joshua about this Promised Land. Joshua, chapter 1, verse 3: I have given to you every place where you will set your foot as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to the Lebanon, from the great river, the Euphrates, through all the Hittite country to the great sea on the west. No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you. Isn't it interesting, he uses the past tense; actually the Hebrew perfect tense. He says, "Every place where you will set your foot as I promised Moses, I have already given you." It's a done deal! As far as God was concerned, the Promised Land was absolutely a done deal. It was given and when God gives, who can block that? That's God's perspective, even though our perspective is all about the things that we can see – the obstacles and the enemies and the fears and the broken relationships and the people who are bugging us who are never going to change. I tell you, when I became a Christian twelve years ago, I had so much dysfunction in my life, I can't begin to tell you. And through that passage in John chapter 10, verse 10, where Jesus said: I have come that you may have life in all its abundance. I just let Him write that on my heart. Jesus wants you and me to have an abundant life. And if I looked at me and my life and the predicaments I was in, I had no right to believe that promise from Jesus! But the Holy Spirit takes His Word and He writes it on our hearts and He gifted me to lift my eyes to look at heavenly things. I believed so imperfectly, going through some things, I was so afraid some days and so lonely some days. But at the end of the day, what Jesus did on the cross for you and me was to remove all sin, all of the reproach of the past, and open the door to an abundant, outrageous, wonderful relationship with God. It's a done deal! It's past. It's completed. The abundant life has been purchased for you and me. And it's now time to walk in it. And the point of what God said to Joshua was there will be battles: I have given you every place where you will set your foot as I promised Moses. No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you. See, the promise is a done deal. When people come against us, they won't be able to stand against us and rob us of the promises of God. And God will never leave us or forsake us. It's a completely different way of looking at things. Instead of looking at the problems, we look at the promises. It's completely different. And for me in my life, over these last twelve years, in every day, here and now, where I get my courage is in the promises of God, because when God promises something, nobody can take that away. And the focus of that promise; our relationship with Him, the Kingdom of God, the peace and the joy that flows from that, is where it's all at. All that other stuff - that will come and go – relationships and health and money – they're all temporary. What will last forever is our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Joshua literally means "God saves" and that's the same name that Jesus had, (Joshua was His actual Hebrew name), to lead us into the Promised Land and it is an act of faith to take courage in the promises of God. And we can do that because they're a done deal.   Prospering in God's Word Now, God is expecting some stiff opposition for Joshua and his people when they cross over the Jordan to take the Promised Land. Remember we looked at that passage, Joshua chapter 1, verse 1 and the following verses. And three times – there is Joshua with all that he has been through, standing on the banks of the Jordan ready to cross over into the Promised Land – and three times God says to him; "Be strong and courageous", "Be strong and very courageous", "Be strong and courageous, do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go". I always a worry a little bit when God tell us "not to be terrified", you think, "Uh, oh, this is not going to be pleasant." That's often the way as we decide to lay hold of God's promises in our hearts. Things so often get a whole bunch worse before they get better. Jesus said: Peace, My peace I leave with you - My peace I give to you. Yeah man, that's what I want; that's God's peace; that's God's promise, I want that promise. Jesus promised that to His disciples just before He was about to be crucified at a dangerous and fearful time where there would be pain and loss and fear for their own lives. So He explains what He is on about. He says this: My peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I don't give it to you the way the world does. Don't let your hearts be troubled and don't let them be afraid. (John 14:27) We often have to deal with obstacles and fear to lay hold of the promises of God in our lives, I do, you do, we all do. And it's at those times that we grow, when we understand that that's the reality and that the promises of God stand amidst all the obstacles, all the uncertainty, all the things we look at and think, "I can never get through those on my own." That's the whole purpose of God's promises. So what's our part of this? Well, let's see what God said to Joshua. He said: Be careful to obey the law that My servant Moses gave you. Don't turn from it to the right or the left, that you might be successful wherever you go. Do not let the Book of this Law depart from your mouth, instead meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything that is written in it, then you will be prosperous and successful. See, God was saying to him, "You know where it's at. Let My Word come to life in your heart. Don't forget about it. Don't let it depart from your mouth". In other words, "don't let it leave your mouth permanently; instead meditate on it day and night. Do what it says and then you will be prosperous and successful." Meditate so that it becomes part of you, so that you start living your life My way, says God, then you'll be prosperous; then you'll be successful. You know, I know so many Christians who own a Bible. "Well, it's somewhere, I think. It's up in the cupboard or maybe it's at the bedside table or gathering dust somewhere." I want to tell you something about the Word of God. I would be a nervous wreck by now if I didn't spend time in God‘s Word every day. I'm in the front line of ministry, my job is leading people into the Promised Land through what I am doing right now, through these programmes; helping people to take a hold of God's promises and the devil is not happy about that. The world is not always happy about that, even other Christians sometimes, they don't always understand. And here we are, my wife and I and the team here at Christianityworks, in a ministry that's building and growing. Three years ago I started recording our first radio programmes. I didn't have a single radio station who had committed to airing them. Nothing. Just this call from God in my heart – a promise from Him written on my heart by His Holy Spirit. And today, just three years later, these programmes are being heard on seven hundred stations in eighty countries. There are millions of people listening. Now you might think, "WOW, that's fantastic; that's great," and it is. But do you have any idea how many trials, how many battles, how much opposition, the lack of funds, the uncertainty – any idea how hard that was along the way, and some days continues to be? We all have to go through this stuff in our lives. Whatever story and plan God has written for our lives. Yours is going to be different to mine. But as we step out into the Promised Land, into what God has called us to do, we are going to go through some stuff. And we will have a temptation to do it in our own strength or to give up or to compromise here and there. And the promise of God was, "Josh, get My Word into your heart. Meditate on it day and night; soak it in; let it never, ever depart from you and you will be prosperous and successful in what I've called you to do." In other words, do it God's way and not our own way. See, in His Word God reminds us of His promises and the Holy Spirit comes and writes them into our hearts in a way that we never could. What soldier would walk onto a battlefield without a weapon? The Apostle Paul, when he was talking about the armour of God in Ephesians chapter 6 says: The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. So many Christians walk out onto that spiritual battlefield and they leave God's Word, the sword of the Spirit, in the cupboard and wonder why they suffer defeat after defeat. That's nuts! God's promises are a done deal. People will come against us and they won't be able to stand against us. God said: I will never leave you or forsake you. And when we meditate on God's Word, when we let it become part of us, when we live it out through faith, that's when His success and His prosperity show up.

  “The Angel of the Lord”  - there are 52 occurrences of the phrase "the angel of the Lord" in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament.  You can see the verses starting in Genesis to Exodus 3 below.  Also, check out the links to two previous Bible studies that dealt with the Angel of the Lord.  Link – Gen. 15-16 – How to See God and Not Die - https://lightofmenorah.podbean.com/e/the-gospel-according-to-moses-genesis-gen-15-16/ Link – Exod. 3 – Who is that in the Burning Bush? - https://lightofmenorah.podbean.com/e/the-gospel-according-to-moses-exodus-lesson-7-part-1-xod-31-8-the-angel-of-the-lord/ Below are the verses with the phrase THE ANGEL OF THE LORD. Gen_16:7  Now the angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. Gen_16:9  Then the angel of the LORD said to her, "Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority." Gen_16:10  Moreover, the angel of the LORD said to her, "I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count." Gen_16:11  The angel of the LORD said to her further, "Behold, you are with child, And you will bear a son; And you shall call his name Ishmael, Because the LORD has given heed to your affliction. Gen_22:11  But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." Gen_22:15  Then the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven, Gen_24:7  "The LORD, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my birth, and who spoke to me and who swore to me, saying, 'To your descendants I will give this land,' He will send His angel before you, and you will take a wife for my son from there. Exo_3:2  The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. Who is the Angel of the Lord?  What is it?  What do the rabbis say?  Some Christian scholars say it is Jesus!  However, they never ever give backup to support their view that it is Jesus.  They just say it.  This is so frustrating.  How can that be if one studies and asks the question what does the Bible say?  The question is does the Bible hint at the fact that the angel is Jesus?  If so this would be related to John 5:39 and Jesus teaching us that scripture testifies of Him.  How?  How does the Bible hint that the Angel of the Lord is a manifestation of Yeshua?   In this podcast we will get at this in detail. Once again we need to BRING OUR BRAIN to the Bible.  We all agree this is the inspired word of God.  In short we say the Bible is God's word.  If so and God never said the angel of the Lord is Jesus, then how do some of our Christian scholars say it is Jesus?  It is dangerous to put words in the Bible that are not there.  I would rather it be taught with words like "is it possible" that the angel of the Lord might be a manifestation of Jesus.  Perhaps some Bible verses suggest this might be true.  But there are many that seem to say they know the answer and it is their way or the highway.  Not a good way to teach God's word. An excellent article on this topic can be found at this link.  Link - https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/bible-study/who-is-the-angel-of-the-lord.html I mentioned Rabbi Jonathan Cahn's book entitled, “The Return of the Gods.”  This is a must read to see what is happening in our day.  To know it is to understand a mystery – the mystery is that Yahvay, the Lord, God, is helping us SEE the return of the gods from ancient days.  The book is an awesome study that shows us the evil in our day was the evil in the ancient Middle East under the pagan nations and their gods which are only demons.  Here's the link - https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+return+of+the+gods+jonathan&hvadid=701821827340&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9019560&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=14598189095742890310&hvtargid=kwd-2314157865763&hydadcr=8292_13544362&mcid=c8af577108d6391eb2f402d3d4271cae&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_4wmyc557fa_e Another interesting topic studied in this lesson is what is are boundaries of the Promised Land.   What did God say regarding the borders of the land He promised to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all Israel?  Check out the list of Bible verses at the link below.  It is a very comprehensive list that will give you a good understanding of the borders of the Promised Land. It goes way beyond the current borders of Israel today. LINK – Open Bible – the exact boundaries of the land - https://www.openbible.info/topics/promised_land_boundaries Below is a free download of what is likely the actual Promised Land as outlined in the Bible by the ord.  You'll notice it encompasses much more than the present land of Israel. Yahvay, the Lord, God, will bring back His people.  He'll do it in the true RAPTURE – the Jewish Rapture.  Check out the video series entitled “The Rapture Restored” –   https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvcIXun2BQDIjNNTBWSQ_23MIODTFzknn It is known as the Day of the Lord when He gathers His people to the land.  Check out the verses below.  Gen 15:18  On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: Gen 35:12  "The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give it to you, And I will give the land to your descendants after you." Gen 26:3  "Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham. Deu_11:24  "Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours; your border will be from the wilderness to Lebanon, and from the river, the river Euphrates, as far as the western sea. Jos 1:3  "Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses. Jos 1:4  "From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and as far as the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun will be your territory. Jeremiah 16:15: "For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers." Isaiah 11:11: "He will raise a banner for the nations and will gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." Ezekiel 37:21: "Say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land.'" Rev. Ferret - who is this guy?  What's his background?  Why should I listen to him?  Check his background at this link -  https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/8qth6w4e56oub9js1w1gu/BackgrndTeacher-mar-25-2020.pdf?rlkey=f14fr2wmde5fezjmnrny8cycl&st=8dy5sa2s&dl=0

He was born sometime in the mid-fourth century on an island in the Aegean. For a time he lived successfully in the world, receiving a good education in Constantinople, then serving for a time for the Prefect of the Praetorium. But, becoming aware of the vanity of worldly things, he answered Christ's call, gave away all his goods to the poor and entered a monastery in Syria. After four years in obedience, he came to feel that the security of monastic life was inconsistent with the Gospel command to take no thought for the morrow; so he withdrew to the desert, taking with him only his garment and the Book of the Gospel. There he lived alone for seven years.   At the end of this period he set out on an apostolic mission to Mesopotamia, where he brought many to Christ: the city prefect Rabbula was converted after Alexander brought down fire from heaven, and a band of brigands who accosted the Saint on the road were transformed into a monastic community. He finally fled the city when the Christians there rose up demanding that he be made bishop. He once again took up a solitary life in the desert beyond the Euphrates, spending the day in prayer and part of the night sheltered in a barrel. There he remained for forty years. His holiness gradually attracted more than four hundred disciples, whom Alexander organized into a monastic community. Each disciple owned only one tunic, and was required to give away anything that they did not need for that day. Despite this threadbare life, the monastery was able to set up and run a hospice for the poor!   Alexander was perplexed as to how the admonition Pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17) could be fulfilled by frail human flesh, but after three years of fasting and prayer, God showed him a method. He organized his monks into four groups according to whether their native language was Greek, Latin, Syriac or Coptic, and the groups prayed in shifts throughout the day and night. Twenty-four divine services were appointed each day, and the monks would chant from the Psalter between services. The community henceforth came to be known as the Akoimetoi, the Unsleeping Ones. (Similar communities later sprang up in the West, practicing what was there called Laus Perennis; St Columban founded many of these.)   Always desiring to spread the holy Gospel, Saint Alexander sent companies of missionaries to the pagans of southern Egypt. He and a company of 150 disciples set out as a kind of traveling monastery, living entirely on the charity of the villages they visited. Eventually they settled in some abandoned baths in Antioch, setting up a there a monastery dedicated to the unceasing praise of God; but a jealous bishop drove them from the city. Making his way to Constantinople, he settled there with four monks. In a few days, more than four hundred monks had left their monasteries to join his community. The Saint organized them into three companies — Greeks, Latins and Syrians — and restored the program of unsleeping prayer that his community had practiced in Mesopotamia. Not surprisingly, his success aroused the envy and anger of the abbots whose monasteries had been nearly emptied; they managed to have him condemned as a Messalian at a council held in 426. (The Messalians were an over-spiritualizing sect who believed that the Christian life consisted exclusively of prayer.) Alexander was sent back to Syria, and most of his monks were imprisoned; but as soon as they were released, most fled the city to join him again. The Saint spent his last years traveling from place to place, founding monasteries, often persecuted, until he reposed in 430, 'to join the Angelic choirs which he had so well imitated on earth.' (Synaxarion)   The practice of unceasing praise, established by St Alexander, spread throughout the Empire. The Monastery of the Akoimetoi, founded by a St Marcellus, a successor of Alexander, was established in Constantinople and became a beacon to the Christian world. 'Even though it has not been retained in today's practice, the unceasing praise established by Saint Alexander was influential in the formation of the daily cycle of liturgical offices in the East and even more so in the West.' (Synaxarion)

It's Friday, February 21st, A.D. 2025. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 125 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com. I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Jonathan Clark 10th anniversary of Muslim beheading of 21 Libyan Christians Saturday was the 10th anniversary of when 21 Christians died for their faith in Libya. Islamic State militants beheaded them on February 15, 2015 for refusing to deny Christ. Most of the believers were Egyptian Coptic Christians. Vicky Hartzler with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said, “Today, we remember the 21 young men who were brutally murdered by ISIS solely for being Christian. The U.S. government must continue to be an unrelenting voice against violence that targets religious communities, including Coptic Christians.”  In memory of the 21 Christian martyrs, More Productions released a short, 13-minute animated film last year called “The 21.” You can watch it through a special link in our transcript today at TheWorldview.com.  Libya has been in turmoil since 2011 and the overthrow of its then-leader, Col. Muammar Gaddafi. Since then, numerous other militia groups have battled for control. According to Open Doors, Libya is the fourth most dangerous country worldwide in which to be a Christian. 74-year-old pro-life woman arrested for praying outside abortion mill Authorities in Scotland arrested a 74-year-old pro-life woman recently for standing silently outside an abortion mill in Glasgow. Rose Docherty was holding a sign that read, “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want.” Officials charged her with violating a new “buffer zone” law that limits activities around abortion mills. It's the first arrest under the law.  The arrest comes days after U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance called out European leaders for violating the religious freedom of pro-lifers.  Kash Patel confirmed as FBI Director In the United States, the U.S. Senate confirmed Kash Patel as FBI Director on February 20th, reports The Epoch Times. PRESIDING OFFICER: “The Yeas are 51; the Nays are 49. The confirmation is confirmed.” Senators voted 51–49 to confirm Patel who gained prominence for exposing alleged FBI and Justice Department malfeasance during the Crossfire Hurricane probe into the Trump campaign. Crossfire Hurricane was the code name for the counterintelligence investigation undertaken by the FBI from July 2016 to May 2017, into links between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia. Republican Senators  Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine crossed the aisle to join Democrats in voting against Patel's nomination. Surprisingly, GOP Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky supported Trump's nominee. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, age 91, serves as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Before the vote was cast, he made this last-minute appeal. GRASSLEY: “Mr. Patel has spent his whole career fighting for righteous causes. He's been a public defender, representing the accused against the power of the state. He's been a congressional staffer, investigating the partisan weaponization of our legal system. And he served in key national security roles, protecting Americans from foreign enemies. He's received support from former FBI agents, former federal and state prosecutors, and organizations representing more than 680,000 law enforcement officers. “But Mr. Patel's resume, his accomplishments, aren't why he's the best person for this job. Mr. Patel should be considered our next FBI director because the FBI has been infected by political bias and weaponized against the American people. Mr. Patel knows it. Mr. Patel exposed it. I've got plenty of examples to show what's wrong with the FBI.” Kash Patel wrote the 2024 book entitled, Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy. Military chaplain fired for citing Romans 1 in sermon A Veterans Affairs chaplain is fighting for his religious freedom.  Rusty Trubey served as a chaplain at the Coatesville Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Pennsylvania. However, Veterans Affairs removed him from his duties for preaching a sermon from Romans 1. The sermon was entitled, “When a Culture Excludes God,” and included homosexuality as an example.  First Liberty Institute and the Independence Law Center are representing Trubey. Last week, they sent a letter to Douglas Collins, the U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs. The letter noted, “This is a systemic problem. We know that you will do the right thing to correct not only the unconstitutional policies at the Coatesville Facility, but also throughout our [Veterans Affairs] system.” 2 Timothy 4:2 says, “Preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” U.S. poll: Only 40% believe in God of Bible; 4% have Biblical worldview Dr. George Barna released his latest American Worldview Inventory report. The study found that 46% of Americans agree that there is only one Supreme Spiritual Being who created and rules everything in existence. That number rose to 60% among self-identified Christians.  Dr. Barna noted many have a mix-and-match approach to faith: “The latest research finds that while two-thirds of Americans identify as Christian, only 4% hold a Biblical worldview. Even more alarming, just 40% believe in the God of the Bible, down from 73% three decades ago. Instead, Syncretism—blending elements from multiple worldviews—has become the dominant perspective.” Joshua 24:15 says, “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Meta plans to build 30,000-mile-long sub-sea cable And finally, Meta announced last week it is building the world's largest sub-sea cable. The tech giant is known for its social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.  Under its new plan called Project Waterworth, it will bring industry-leading connectivity around the world. The cable will connect five major continents and measure over 30,000 miles. That's more than the earth's entire circumference! Close And that's The Worldview on this Friday, February 21st, in the year of our Lord 2025. Subscribe by Amazon Music or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. And now to close the newscast is my youngest child, Valor Tyndale McManus, who is turning 10 today. He's finally hit the double digits! Seize the day for Jesus Christ. (Adam@TheWorldview.com). 

Salvation of the Chosen (audio) David Eells, 2/16/25 I have declared the former things from old; yea, they went forth out of my mouth, and I showed them: suddenly I did them, and they came to pass (Isa.48:3). Predict means to tell the future in advance. What the world calls predictions rarely come to pass. It seems they have a warped idea of what a prediction is. When God predicts the future, He declares it and then does it. Not only does God's Word show the future but also it brings it to pass. The worlds (Greek: “ages”) have been framed by the word of God (Heb.11:3). The word “framed” in this verse means “to make complete.” The history (or His-story) of all ages was completed before the beginning. (Isa.48:4) Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass; (5) therefore I have declared it to thee from of old; before it came to pass I showed it thee; lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them. He is a jealous God (Exo.20:5). He will not share His glory with the idol of self or an idol of man's creation (Isa.42:8). God receives glory from telling of His works hundreds or thousands of years beforehand. His works were finished from the foundation of the world (Heb.4:3). Because His works were finished from the foundation of the world, no one can say, “My might, my power, my god has done this.” It is important to God that we know He is sovereign. Our God has done something that no other “god” has done; He accurately tells the future long before it comes to pass. It is hard to live the Christian life without knowing that God is sovereign. Without this knowledge, we will not have the peace, rest, and the fear of God that we need in the midst of trials. We will always be wrestling with people and circumstances and trusting in our own strength, instead of seeing God's hand and trusting in His strength. (Hos.4:6) My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge… (Isa.46:8) Remember this, and show yourselves men; bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors. (9) Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I [am] God, and there is none like me; (10) declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not [yet] done; saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. God does all of His pleasure so that only His counsel comes to pass. The proof, that God is the only God, is that He declares the end from the beginning. All the prognosticators, psychics, seers, and stargazers of the devil have only come up with slightly better than random accuracy on the future because their lord is not sovereign. The devil does have an edge. He knows the prophetic Word better than we do, and he predicts what he plans to do, but God is sovereign and often overrules him. (Isa.46:11)… I have spoken, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed, I will also do it. God is very self-willed. He has a right to be. His self is not corrupt, but ours is. He brings to pass what He desires because it is right. In the text, God is speaking of Cyrus, the pagan king of the Media-Persian Empire. God raised up Cyrus to destroy Babylon in order to set His people free from bondage. At that time, Cyrus had no idea that the Lord had put the desire in him to do exactly what He wanted. (Isa.44:28) That saith of Cyrus, [He is] my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and of the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid. How can God be so sure that a man who has been a pagan all his life will do everything that will please Him? We see here that nothing or no one can resist God's good purpose for His people. God is sovereign over the future of the great empires of the world in order to deliver and prepare His people. (Isa.45:1) Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of kings; to open the doors before him, and the gates shall not be shut: (2) I will go before thee, and make the rough places smooth; I will break in pieces the doors of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron; (3) and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that it is I, the Lord, who call thee by thy name, even the God of Israel. (4) For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel my chosen, I have called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. The Euphrates River passed through the city of Babylon. One of the gates spoken of here crossed in the Euphrates River to keep the enemy out. Cyrus by the help of God performed a monumental feat in diverting the Euphrates so that his army could enter the city beneath this gate. After they had entered the city, they discovered that the gates on either bank leading into the city had been left unlocked (by God, verses 1 and 2), which was strange, considering that the Babylonians were at war. After Cyrus conquered Babylon, the high priest showed him these prophecies and more that were written about him hundreds of years before he was born. The Jews say Cyrus was very impressed to see his name and works written in prophecy before the fact and became a believer in the God of Israel. God stated clearly that He was going to open those gates for Cyrus to do His Will. After hearing these revelations, Cyrus knew that God had empowered, planned, and made his way. Christian leaders have turned God into a mere prophet, claiming God sees into the future and then reveals it. Every type and shadow in the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament to prove that God sits on the throne and One Mind rules over time and the future. One loose canon, would change everything. According to the law of geometric progression, one change at the beginning makes an immense change at the end. Chance or more than one in control could not possibly bring to pass what we see. The Armenian thinkers teach that God predestines and predicts by seeing into the future then tells us how the dice rolled. “Predestine” means “to determine destiny before it happens.” “Foreordain,” which is the same Greek word, means “to ordain an event before it takes place.” (Eph.1:4) Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love: (5) having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. You who are manifesting sonship by bearing fruit have been chosen and are being drawn by God. (Rom.8:29) For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained (predestined) [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. God foreknew and decreed all who come to the likeness of Jesus, but not the apostate. “Foreknew” here does not mean He looked into the future and saw what would be. “Foreknew” here means, “to know before” and is not connected with actions or events, but persons. God knew these people before the foundation of the world because He does not dwell in time. God knows what He creates before He speaks it into existence just as we conceive and design something first in our mind before we make it. “Knew” speaks of intimate knowledge, for instance, Adam knew Eve. Jesus will say to those who called Him Lord but do not do the Will of the Father, (Mat.7:23) And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you (meaning, from the foundation of the world): depart from me, ye that work iniquity. To the foolish virgins without the oil of the Spirit, Jesus said, “I know you not.” The ones that God intimately knew He “foreordained” before the creation to be conformed to the image of Jesus. God creates us through His gift of faith and the Word in us; His people who are on the narrow road. This is grace. (Rom.8:30) And whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. This says all who are foreordained will be called, justified, and glorified. They will not fall away but will bear the fruit of Christ. Are there others who are called but not foreordained? (2Ti.1:9) Who saved us, and called us with a holy calling… Notice that only the saved are called. Called is from the Greek word kaleo, which means, “to invite.” Called is an invitation given only to God's people (more proof: Heb.3:1; Hos.11:1; 1Ti.6:11-12; Mat.25:14; Rom.1:6-7) to partake of his heavenly benefits in Christ in order to bear fruit. Those who bear fruit 30, 60, or 100-fold will be proven to be the chosen or picked. If at harvest time you have no fruit, rotten fruit, or unripe fruit, you will not be picked. The called are the vineyard of God (Isa.5:7). The chosen are the smaller percentage who bear fruit (Isa.5:10). (Mat.22:14) For many are called, but few chosen (Greek: eklektos, “elect”). The called can fall, but the elect or chosen will not. (Hos.11:1) When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. (2) The more [the prophets] called them, the more they went from them…The Lord saved those that ate the lamb and were baptized in the Red Sea. He then tried them in the wilderness to see who would be a believer in the midst of trials, and only those entered the Promised Land. Jude warned the called of this very thing. (Jud.1:1) Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are called… (5) Now I desire to put you in remembrance, though ye know all things once for all, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. Notice that the called were saved, but some did not continue in faith and were destroyed. Friends, God is not looking for what we loosely call “Christians,” but believers or disciples, as they were called. Jesus gave us very clear examples of His servants who are called but do not come and partake in order to bear fruit. Jesus shared a parable in which a king made a marriage feast for His son. (Mat.22:3) And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden (Greek: “called”) to the marriage feast: and they would not come. They were full of excuses (a farm, merchandise, etc.). (Mat.22:8) Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they that were bidden were not worthy. Even one who appeared to come did not have on a wedding garment which implies putting on Christ (Rom.13:14) or putting on righteousness (Rev.19:8). (Mat.22:13) Then the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and cast him out into the outer darkness; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. (14) For many are called, but few chosen. A few of the called are chosen or elect because they bear fruit. (Mat.25:14) For [it is] as [when] a man, going into another country, called his own servants (Greek: “bondservants”), and delivered unto them his goods. (15) And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to each according to his several ability; and he went on his journey. Obviously, the man who went away was the Lord, and His bondservants are His people. Two of these example servants brought forth fruit of the talent given them (Mat.25:20-22), but one buried his in the earth (used his talent for the earthly, Mat.25:24-25). When our Lord returns, He will say, And cast ye out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth (Mat.25:30). The apostle Paul, who said of himself that he was called in Galatians 1:15, also said, But I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage: lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected (Greek: “reprobated”) (1Co.9:27). There is much more proof that the saved and the called can fall (2Pe.1:9-11; 1Ti.6:11-12; Heb.3:1,6,12,14; Rom.11:1-7,19-23). Friend, you probably know if you are called, but are you chosen? You must be diligent in your walk of faith to prove this. (2Pe.1:10) Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election (choosing) sure: for if ye do these things (the attributes of Christ, verses 5-7), ye shall never stumble: (11) for thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. God at the cross has already given us everything that we need to bear fruit through faith. (2Pe.1:3) seeing that his divine power hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that called us by his own glory and virtue. Faith in the promises in the midst of trials will give us the fruit. (2Pe.1:4) Whereby he hath granted unto us his precious and exceeding great promises; that through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust. The called have the power and the opportunity. The called and the chosen, or foreordained, use the power by faith and take the opportunity. The only ones who will ultimately be with the Lord are identified in this verse. (Rev.17:14) These shall war against the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings; and they [also shall overcome] that arewith him, called and chosen and faithful. Notice that the called that are chosen will be faithful. I did not make these verses up; they are the Word of God. Those who have eyes and ears will see and understand, but the rest will justify their religion and ignore the Scriptures. Before time and the future, God sovereignly spoke the end from the beginning, bringing these things into existence in time. Some would argue, “How could God make a promise to all of His called and then not keep it for those who do not bear fruit?” Every promise in the Bible is useless until someone walks by faith in it. Our part of the covenant is faith; God's part is power and salvation. We can break the covenant through unbelief. (Num.14:11) And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people despise me? and how long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have wrought among them? (12) I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a nation greater and mightier than they. Notice that God is saying to His own people who did not believe that He would disinherit them. Lest any believe that God cannot make a promise and then take it back when they do not walk in faith, pay attention to this: (Num.14:23) Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that despised me see it. (30) surely ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware that I would make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. (34)… and ye shall know my alienation (Hebrew: “revoking of my promise”). Unless we mix faith with God's promises, they are void. (Heb.4:2) For indeed we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they (God's people): but the word of hearing did not profit them, because it was not united by faith with them that heard. The Israelites who walked in sin were disinherited and blotted out of God's book. (Exo.32:33) And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. The same is true of the Christians who do not overcome sin. Notice what the Lord said to the Church. (Rev.3:5) He that overcometh shall thus be arrayed in white garments; and I will in no wise blot his name out of the book of life…Those who do not overcome will be rejected from the body of Christ. (Rev.3:16) So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth. God's people Israel were broken off because of unbelief, and Christians who were grafted in but do not walk by faith will be, too. (Rom.11:20) Well; by their unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by thy faith. Be not highminded, but fear: (21) for if God spared not the natural branches, neither will he spare thee. (22) Behold then the goodness and severity of God: toward them that fell, severity; but toward thee, God's goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. Those who are still grafted in at the end are called “all Israel.” (Rom.11:26) and so all Israel shall be saved… Those who are still in the book of life, still grafted in, are the elect (Greek: “chosen”). (Rom.11:2) God did not cast off his people which he foreknew… (5) Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election (chosen) of grace. A remnant is those who are left. Notice they are foreknown and chosen. Sovereign God will have those who are truly His. Abiding in Christ is where salvation is. Some say God gave us the gift of eternal life so He cannot take it back. In Galatians 3:16, we are told, To Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. So the promises were given to Christ, not to us individually. The only way the promises are ours is if we abide in Christ. Abiding in Christ is bearing fruit (Joh.15:1-6), walking as He walked (1Jn.2:3-6), believing the same teachings given by Jesus and the apostles (1Jn.2:24; Jud.1:3; Mat.28:20), not adding to or subtracting from the Word (Rev.22:18-19), not walking in sin (1Jn.3:5-6), and keeping His commandments (1Jn.3:24). In Christ is the only place we can claim the gift of eternal life. (1Jn.5:11)… God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. God does not have to take His gift back; His people walk out of it. (1Co.6:18)… Every sin that a man doeth is without the body…When you walk in willful sin, you are not abiding in His body for in him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: (1Jn.3:5-6). For instance, fornication, spiritual or physical, takes away the members of Christ and makes them members of a harlot (1Co.6:15,18). Only Christ and those abiding in Him are chosen. (Eph. 1:4) Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world… Only Christ and those abiding in Him are going to heaven. (Joh.3:13) And no one hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended out of heaven…The manna from heaven, the Word Jesus Christ, who takes up residence in those who love Him, is the fruit that God is coming to choose. By this time, I am sure some are thinking that they do not measure up. We must first abide in Christ by faith accepting the Gospel report that I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me: and that [life] which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, [the faith] which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me (Gal.2:20). Those who walk by faith that they are dead to sin and Christ now lives in them are accounted as righteous until God uses that faith to manifest righteousness in them. (Gal. 3:6) Even as Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness. God does not dwell in time, but eternity. He sees the beginning and the end at the same time, therefore, He can answer a prayer before we pray. We do not have to worry that we have waited too late to pray because He can have the answer coming long before we ask. (Isa.65:24) And it shall come to pass that, before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. I had a friend, who went to the local trade school, offer to take my broken washer for the students to work on. It was only going to cost me for parts. By faith, I told him to go ahead. He called back in a couple of days to say that he would be bringing it back and the cost was $90. My wife and I accounted that we only had $40. In a moment of inspiration, I pointed my finger at the mailbox and said, “$50 is coming in that box today.” In the mail that day was a letter from a brother in Maryland. (I had absolutely no foreknowledge of this incident.) He wrote, “It is after midnight, and I just cannot get to sleep until I obey God and write this check for $50.” I looked at the post date on the letter and discovered it had been lost in the mail for a whole month! Obviously, God had it found at just the right moment. He had it coming a month before I spoke those words of faith. He merely used me to bring to pass what He had already planned. I asked God to do something that I believe He may have changed time to accomplish. Many years ago, this very young girl made a mistake and tested pregnant. As I prayed about her situation, a thought came into my head and right out of my mouth. I asked the Lord to make this girl as though she were never pregnant. I believe that this did not come from my mind, but God's Spirit. Because of the way this prayer came, I received it as a confirmation from the Lord that it was the Will of God. Later, tests proved that she was not pregnant. I do not know what God did with the baby, but I am sure He is taking better care of it than that girl would have. Nothing is beyond God's ability to help us, unless it is beyond our faith. How can God change His mind when He knows and speaks the end in the beginning? Then changing your mind makes you a liar. (Isa.46:10) Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not [yet] done; saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. If He sees all from the beginning, why would He ever need to change His mind? God will not change what is written in His Word. (Psa.119:89) For ever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven. His Word is likened unto a rock, immovable and unchangeable. However, God can change or delay what He speaks to you personally as a warning through prophets, dreams, visions, or His Spirit. When the Word ultimately comes to pass, it will be fulfilled as the Bible says it will. God gave us an example of this in the book of Jonah. Jonah cried and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown (Jon.3:4). God told Jonah to preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee (Jon.3:2), so he did. He was not a false prophet. God spared Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, because they repented. This angered Jonah because Assyria was the mortal enemy of Israel and the prophets had already been prophesying that Assyria would conquer rebellious Israel. He wanted them to be destroyed for what he perceived was Israel's sake. Jonah knew that if he preached to Nineveh and they repented, God would not destroy them, so he fled. (Jon.4:1) But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. (2) And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I hasted to flee unto Tarshish; for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and repentest thee of the evil. God spared Nineveh around 752 B.C. so that Assyria could conquer the northern ten tribes of Israel around 720 B.C. and then Judah around 701 B.C. Nineveh ultimately did fall around 612 B.C. God knew before He threatened Nineveh that He was going to spare them for the purpose of using them to chasten Israel. From Nineveh's perspective, they changed God's mind by repenting, but from God's perspective, He changed Nineveh's mind and fulfilled His plan from the beginning for them, which was to chasten Israel! Jonah's Hebrew word for “repentest” here is nacham meaning “to sigh” and by implication “to be sorry.” In itself, nacham does not admit evil doing, or even a change of mind, only sorrow. As Father, God must do many things that He sorrows over. When the Scriptures speak of God repenting, it is for our perspective because it appears to us that He changed His mind and did not do what He threatened. As a parent five times over, I have done this many times. The difference between God and us is, He plans and sees the delays and repentances from the beginning. (Num.23:19) God is not a man, that he should lie, Neither the son of man, that he should repent. (1Sa.15:29) And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not a man, that he should repent. Here is another thing that proves the sovereignty of God in time and the future, and that God plans delays or “repentances” beforehand. Israel and the United States share a unique identity. Each was entrusted with the Gospel in their respective time. From 887 B.C., Israel was at war every seventeen years for a period of fifteen cycles until 631 B.C. The United States also has been in a war every seventeen years for a period of fifteen cycles from the forming of the thirteen original states to Grenada in l983-l984. For both nations, in the sixth and tenth cycle there was no war. The only possible exceptions to the parallel are that Israel appears to have had a devastating famine in the forth cycle instead of a war and there seems to be no record for a war in their thirteenth cycle. The cycles could be more exact than our knowledge, but no sane person could think that this is chance. The repetitions of history clearly show that one mind is in control of past and future. Stay with me because I would like to encourage you about your family and loved ones who may be running after worldly desires and not yet saved. No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him: and I will raise him up in the last day (Joh.6:44). Some parents feel very guilty that, though they did the best they could, their children seem to be going the wrong way. The following teaching is not against those who have faithfully served the Lord from their youth but rather for those who feel that the Lord has passed them or their children by. Walk by faith for those wayward children, not sight. Believe in your prayers, expect miracles, but be patient. God has a plan that starts for them long before their salvation. Give some deep thought to this. It will free you from worry, strife, condemnation and self-effort to bring about God's will in them. They will have to be saved after tribulation and failure of their worldly expectations, as we were. Children who are raised knowing about the Lord are sometimes very self-righteous. They think they deserve what they have and do not understand grace. They will also have to see themselves as sinners in order to be the dirt that can receive the Word and bear the fruit of Jesus. God only saves sinners. We have all been one. This is a necessary revelation in order to appreciate the great value of salvation and to be saved by unmerited favor. I remember my oldest daughter when she was three years old going around our lost friends and relatives saying, “God does not like that.” She was quickly deflecting what we had taught her. We thought, “You little Pharisee.” Our heavenly Father has had many prodigal sons just as Jesus' parable shows, but that does not make Him a bad Father (Luk.15:11-32). In this parable, the “good” son who never left home was self-righteous, judgmental, and merciless. On the other hand, the younger son, who spent his inheritance on riotous living, realized his low estate and came to his father very humbly saying, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight: I am no more worthy to be called thy son. (Luk.15:21). The once rebellious son now understood mercy and grace and was a much better man for it. Prophetically, the firstborn son who never left the Father was the righteous among Israel, but they did not understand grace. The younger, second son of the Father who fell away through the dark ages for 2,000 years is the Church, who is returning in these days to understand the grace of God. The Father said to these, Bring forth quickly the best robe (the robe of righteousness [Isa.61:10]), and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand (symbol of authority and of the Bride), and shoes on his feet (the walk of separation from the world) (Luk.15:22). The prodigal son will have more of everything than the first son. Those who have been sinners know their need of God, but many times, those who are raised as God's people do not. (Mat.21:28) But what think ye? A man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to-day in the vineyard. (29) And he answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented himself, and went. (30) And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I [go], sir: and went not. (31) Which of the two did the will of his father? They say, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. (32) For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not; but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye saw it, did not even repent yourselves afterward, that ye might believe him. Many times, it is not the son who says he will go to work in the Father's vineyard who actually goes, but the son whose first inclination is to rebel. This rebel who comes to see himself as a sinner goes while the other son who feigns righteousness does not. Many career Christians are bored with the work of God and are distracted by the allure of the world. The publicans and harlots are so appreciative of a place in the kingdom that they throw their whole heart into it, willing to be servants rather than be served. They understand the great value of the gift of grace that is given them and their own unworthiness. In the last days of the Gentiles, it will be the same as it was in the last days of the Jews. There are many self-righteous “Christians” today who are not the creation that the Father desires. Those who have been raised in the church should humble themselves to the Word of God and not religion so that no man takes their crown (Rev.3:11). It appears Jesus had this in mind when He shared this parable. (Luk.18:9) And he spake also this parable unto certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and set all others at nought: (10) Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. (11) The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. (12) I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get. (13) But the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote his breast, saying, God, be thou merciful to me a sinner. (14) I say unto you, This man went down to his house justified (Greek: “accounted righteous”) rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled; but he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. The self-righteous child who kept all the religious traditions was not accounted righteous while the poor sinner who was repenting of his unworthiness was. Jesus told the Pharisees that He had not come to call the righteous but the sinners. He was after those who knew they had been sinners to be His children. Look at the following verse carefully. (Rom.11:32) For God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all. God has designed that forgiven sinners become His sons. Those who have been disobedient have a great appreciation for mercy and grace and do not offend God quickly. God has subjected us to this fallen creation for the purpose of a higher creation. (Rom.8:20) For the creation was subjected to vanity (the fall and corruption), not of its own will, but by reason of him (God) who subjected it, in hope (Greek: “firm expectation”) (21) that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. He wants those who have been corrupt, as good soil is, to be delivered to appreciate Him. The children of God can only be created from the fallen creation, and God is the one who subjected them to it to humble them. The Scriptures show us our unfaithfulness and unworthiness so that we might have a reason to truly repent. (Gal.3:22) But the scriptures shut up all things under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. God chose us to be saved in Christ before Adam even fell. (Eph.1:4) Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love. He knew we would need a savior before the world was made and Adam fell. He knew the fall would happen, and He went ahead with the creation anyway. From this you can see that the fall was in His plan. Children who are raised with Christ many times take Him for granted and do not really understand grace as unmerited favor. God has a plan for them that may involve the temporary lifting of His grace that has been taken for granted. Do not fear this, or walk by sight, but continue to believe God for them. Peter was Jesus' little one whom He raised up to be a disciple. He self-confidently declared to the Lord that he would never be offended and deny Him but would go with Him to death in (Mat.26:33-35). God hates self-confidence but loves God-confidence. So how does God deal with this sin? (1Co.10:12) Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. Failure is the best treatment for self-confidence. (Luk.22:31) Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat: (32) but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not; and do thou, when once thou hast turned again, establish thy brethren. (33) And he said unto him, Lord, with thee I am ready to go both to prison and to death. (34) And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, until thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me. Jesus prophesied failure for this proud man. Jesus, who had authority over Satan, did not forbid him from sifting Peter. Satan sifts to get what belongs to him. In this case, it was Peter's pride, self-righteousness, and self-confidence. What fell through the sieve was what God wanted, the humbled Peter. The sifted Peter who had “turned again” or been converted, could now establish the brethren. Before this failure, he would have been a good Pharisee. (Luk.7:40) And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon (the Pharisee, not Peter), I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Teacher, say on. (41) A certain lender had two debtors: the one owed five hundred shillings, and the other fifty. (42) When they had not [wherewith] to pay, he forgave them both. Which of them therefore will love him most? (43) Simon answered and said, He, I suppose, to whom he forgave the most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. (44) And turning to the woman, he said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thy house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath wetted my feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair. (45) Thou gavest me no kiss: but she, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. (46) My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but she hath anointed my feet with ointment. (47) Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, [the same] loveth little. Big sinners make big saints, for they know the value of grace. According to the previous verses, God wants people who are forgiven of their many sins and saved by grace so that they love and appreciate Him much. This is the creation that He wants, not Adam before the fall. The creation that springs from the last Adam, Jesus Christ, is the ones who have fallen and then are saved by grace through faith. We need not worry about our children or loved ones becoming sinners, just “hold fast the confession of our hope that it waver not; for he is faithful that promised.” We must gracefully sow seeds of truth, as we can, without frustrating them. They cannot be convinced without grace. God “worketh all things after the counsel of His will” and “a man can receive nothing, except it have been given him from heaven,” and “no one comes unto the Son except the Father draw him.” God will do it when the time is right, and He will use our faith because “faith is the substance of things hoped for” (KJV). We can see why sometimes God does not save people until they are a little older and have tried the world and found it wanting. However, if you have faithfully served the Lord from your youth, you have a great reward. God can save anyone anytime He desires. It is important that we not try with our own works to save the lost but first honor God's sovereignty with our faith for Him to do it. (Joh.6:37) All that which the Father giveth me shall come unto me… (44) No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him… Father will draw everyone that He chooses to Christ. God chooses us and gives us a desire to come to Him and only then do we choose Him. (Psa.65:4) Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach [unto thee], That he may dwell in thy courts… God sometimes chooses the worst in our estimation. If God can save Paul or Mary Magdalene, who had seven demons, he can save those we believe for. Do you remember the conversion of Saul who persecuted the saints with a vengeance? (Act.9:3)… And suddenly there shone round about him a light out of heaven: (4) and he fell upon the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? (5) And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And he [said], I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. A monkey would get saved with such an experience, which was totally at the discretion of God. This same omnipotent God says, All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive (Mat.21:22). God uses His gift of faith in us to manifest the salvation of those He has chosen from the foundation of the world. Pray and thank God for those salvations. I can hear someone say, “Goody, we will believe God to save the devil; that will solve a lot of problems.” I do not think such faith would endure to the end since faith is a gift from God (Eph.2:8), to give or to take, and there is no precedent in the Scriptures for such a request. Besides that, the devil is needed in his job for which he would be totally unfit if he got saved. There is precedent for household salvation though (Act.11:14; 18:8). Paul and Silas offered this to the jailer. (Act.16:31) And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house. They believed and were saved. (34)… with all his house, having believed in God. Peter preached this, too. (Act.2:39) For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, [even] as many as the Lord our God shall call unto him. In Exodus 12:3, the lamb was slain for a household. Unbelieving family members are sanctified by our faith. (1Co.7:14) For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. Some object that God would be unrighteous to choose some and not others. We are too late for He has done just that. (Psa.147:19) He showeth his word unto Jacob, His statutes and his ordinances unto Israel. (20) He hath not dealt so with any nation; And as for his ordinances, they have not known them. Praise ye the Lord. God did not attempt to share His first covenant with any of the world but Israel. The New Testament He shares only with spiritual Israel. (Deu.7:6) For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God: The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples that are upon the face of the earth. (7) The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all peoples. God is not worried about multitudes, for He has chosen the least. He still only chooses little spiritual Israel on the narrow road. Abraham is the father of spiritual Israel, the Church: those who walk in the same gift of faith that Abraham walked in. (Gal.3:7) Know therefore that they that are of faith, the same are sons of Abraham. Paul told the Gentile church at Rome that the people of all nations who believe the promise were Abraham's children in (Rom.4:16) For this cause [it is] of faith, that [it may be] according to grace; to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law (natural Israel), but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (17) (as it is written, A father of many nations [the Gentiles] have I made thee)… True, spiritual Israel believes the promises even now. (Rom.9:6)… For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel: (7) neither, because they are Abraham's seed (naturally or physically), are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. (8) That is, it is not the children of the flesh (natural Israel) that are children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for a seed. Those who believe the promises are born again children of the promises. These are Abraham's seed. A New Testament spiritual Jew is circumcised in heart, not flesh. (Rom.2:28) For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly (physical); neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh: (29) but he is a Jew who is one inwardly (spiritual); and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter… Notice that a Jew now is not a physical Jew. A Jew now has the flesh cut off from his heart through the new birth. (Gal.6:15) For neither is circumcision (in the flesh) anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. (16) And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace [be] upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. The Israel of God are they who walk as new creatures. The unregenerate physical Jews who worship in synagogues are not Jews until they are born again through the New Testament. (Rev.2:9) I know thy tribulation, and thy poverty (but thou art rich), and the blasphemy of them that say they are Jews, and they art not, but are a synagogue of Satan (the same in Rev.3:9). We were not Jews but now are in Spirit. (Rom.9:25) As he saith also in Hosea, I will call that my people, which was not my people; And her beloved, that was not beloved. (26) And it shall be, [that] in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, There shall they be called sons of the living God. We were not His people but are now beloved sons of God. (Rom.9:27) And Isaiah crieth concerning Israel (natural or physical), If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that shall be saved. A remnant of natural Israel will be born again mostly after the elect Gentiles have been saved. (Rom.11:25)… A hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. “In part” here means that the line between Gentiles and Jews is not a sharp demarcation. Neither was it in the book of Acts. Jews are even now being saved more than ever. This is a sign that we are nearing the end of the times of the Gentiles. Most of the physical Jews will come in after the Gentiles. We who sought not after God were given the gift of faith to be spiritual New Testament Israel when natural Israel turned her back on God. (Rom.10:20) And Isaiah is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I became manifest unto them that asked not of me. God revealed himself to the Church who on their own neither knew nor sought Him. (21) But as to Israel he saith, All the day long did I spread out my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. (Rom.11:7)…That which Israel (physical) seeketh for, that he obtained not; but the election (chosen) obtained it, and the rest were hardened: (We see here that only the few chosen among the many called of Israel accepted Christ and the New Testament. The rest were reprobated.) (8) according as it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, unto this very day. In that day and in this, those who walk by faith are chosen from among the called to be the eternal people of the living God. Paul said “all Israel” is the physical Jews and Gentiles who are part of the olive tree by faith, not those who are broken off by unbelief (Rom.11:19-25). All have sinned and deserve destruction. Is God wrong for giving some mercy and grace and others justice? All deserve justice instead of unmerited favor.   Letter to a Prodigal Son Anonymous My Son, The Lord has chosen you as part of 3% of this world's population to be His own. I saw this in a vision I would like to tell you about. You are probably wondering, how could this be since I have been through hell? Hell is the best place to learn that you really want to live in heaven. I've loved you since you were a baby and I've known the Lord has too. Even your stubborn rebellion didn't change my mind or His. He has known you from before the foundation of the world. He has a special plan for your life that I would like to tell you about. You think, why would God love me since I have been so sinful? Jesus said, "Who loves much, he that has been forgiven of much or he that has been forgiven of little? Simon said, 'He that has been forgiven of much'". Jesus said that this answer is correct. Since you will be forgiven of much you are now capable now of loving Him the way He wants you to. You might ask, "If He loves me then why has he been so hard on me?" It is the devil who has been hard on you. He hates you and when he is through with you then you are like him, destroyed. God said, "His servants you are whom you obey". It's a simple matter to change Masters and Fathers. It happened to me when I was younger than you. I guess I wasn't quite as stubborn as you. :o) Once when you were younger you asked God to save you. You think He ignored you or forgot about that but He didn't. He was very glad and He took you very seriously but He also knew you were stubborn and would have to know the consequences of serving the devil before you would fear Him as your Father and serve Him. You are almost there. When you get there understand this about Him. He is seeking you and listening to you and if you make one step towards Him, He will be very happy to make ten towards you. You have His Word for that. Luke 15:1 Now all the publicans and sinners were drawing near unto him to hear him. 2 And both the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. (Jesus is now seeking you out where you are.) 3 And he spake unto them this parable, saying, 4 What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? (He is after you to save you.) 5 And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. (He will be very happy to receive you.) 6 And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and his neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. 7 I say unto you, that even so there shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, [more] than over ninety and nine righteous persons, who need no repentance. (Your heavenly Father and all of heaven will be happy at your turning to Him.) 8 Or what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and seek diligently until she find it? 9 And when she hath found it, she calleth together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I had lost. 10 Even so, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. 11 And he said, A certain man had two sons: 12 and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of [thy] substance that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. 13 And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country; and there he wasted his substance with riotous living. (What God gave you as a child you have now wasted.) 14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that country; and he began to be in want. 15 And he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. (Now you are just feeding the flesh and the children of the god of this world, Satan.) 16 And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. (Its a hard road and you are near total death.) 17 But when he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with hunger! (You are starving for the bread of His kingdom, the Word of God.) 18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight: (Just tell Him that you have sinned and you are sorry) 19 I am no more worthy to be called your son: make me as one of thy hired servants. (Tell Him that you know you are not worthy of Him but you will serve Him with His help.) 20 And he arose, and came to his father. But while he was yet afar off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. (You are far from Him but He sees you when you make a step towards Him and He will run to you in love.) 21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight: I am no more worthy to be called thy son. 22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: (He will meet your needs for righteousness and authority.) 23 and bring the fatted calf, [and] kill it, and let us eat, and make merry: (He will feed you with the best.) 24 for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. (He will give you His life.) And they began to be merry. (...And He will be very happy; more so than over those who are serving him now.) 25 Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he called to him one of the servants, and inquired what these things might be. 27 And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. 28 But he was angry, and would not go in: and his father came out, and entreated him. 29 But he answered and said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, and I never transgressed a commandment of thine; and [yet] thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: 30 but when this thy son came, who hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou killedst for him the fatted calf. 31 And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that is mine is thine. 32 But it was meet to make merry and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive [again]; and [was] lost, and is found. Please think about this, son. Love, Dad

In today's episode of Devotions with Dre, we look at the second half of Revelation chapter 9. We'll talk about rebellious fallen angels, a global crisis, the Euphrates river, and what repentance really is. Book I Referenced: The Unseen Realm by Michael Heiser My worship band's Insta is @BinleyWorship My pop music Insta is @HopefulAndrea You can find today's featured song on Spotify here: For links to this podcast on all podcast platforms, visit www.DevotionsWithDre.com

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 201 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Action Point Systems It's a throwback to the early days of Decision Space. Jake and Brendan have a wide-ranging, loosely planned conversation about a topic in board games. Today that topic is action point systems, which we've explored recently in Tikal and Mexica. We also bring cooperative games into the conversation and think about implication of action points for game design. All aboard! The Interdecisional Spaceship sets off for the next 200 episodes.   Games Mentioned Tikal, Mexica, Torres, Pandemic, Arkham Horror: the Living Card Game, Tigris & Euphrates, and more.   Preplanners Age of Innovation and Fromage coming up soon as deep dives!   Music and Sound Credits Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You can listen to the full song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQuuRPfOyMw&list=TLGGFNH7VEDPgwgyNTA4MjAyMQ&t=3s You can find more information about Hembree at https://www.hembreemusic.com/.  Thank you to Flash Floods for use of their song Palm of Your Hand as a sting from their album Halfway to Anywhere: https://open.spotify.com/album/2fE6LrqzNDKPYWyS5evh3K?si=CCjdAGmeSnOOEui6aV3_nA Rules Overview Music:  Way Home by Tokyo Music Walker https://soundcloud.com/user-356546060​ Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/tokyo-music-walker-way...​ Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/pJThZlOuDtI Intermission Music: music elevator ext part 1/3 by Jay_You -- https://freesound.org/s/467243/ -- License: Attribution 4.0 Contact Follow and reach us on social media on Bluesky @decisionspace.bsky.social. If you prefer email, then hit us up at decisionspa@gmail.com. This information is all available along with episodes at our new website decisionspacepodcast.com. Byeee!

Transcript:Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Our God is a God of abundance and generosity. This is seen in who He is and in all that He does. Just consider something as common as the earth God created, the ground we all walk on. It's made of dirt and rock. It's so cheap and mundane we trample it underfoot without thought. It's just “dirt”! Yet, that dirt is so rich and diverse in its elements that we can dig into it and draw out materials to produce stunning works of art and powerful supercomputers. We can fashion its elements into cars and smartphones. We can use it to construct buildings so tall they literally reach the clouds. We can split the atoms of some of these elements to create power for modern civilization. We can use other elements to make spaceships that explore the outer reaches of our solar system. This inherent abundance is why in Genesis, God commanded humans to “cultivate” the earth (Genesis 2). The word cultivate implies a generous potential hidden in the dirt under our feet—that God created the earth in such a way it can be developed and fashioned into something greater than it is. In this we see we need not have a scarcity mindset with the resources God has given to us. We can have a generosity abundance mindset, giving our stuff away to the glory of God, “cultivating” it, knowing God is able to return it multiplied to meet our every need. Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective. “After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord, saying: ‘Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you. You show steadfast love to thousands, but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them, O great and mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts, great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of man, rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.'”~Jeremiah 32:16-19 (ESV) “Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.”~Genesis 2:10-15

Watch the Smoke In The Gift Horse newsletter, we located the spiritual gifts the Bridegroom gave to Israel as a result of her gifts to build the Mishkan. Two main points emerged: ·     The Bridegroom's spiritual gift is a re-gifting. Having received the Bride's gift into the Heavenlies, He completes it in spiritual realms, and returns it to her completed in splendid beauty. For that matter, the Bride re-gifted as well, for the earth was created by the Bridegroom and her resources belong to Him. ·     The bridegroom doubles his gifts. If she gives this much, he gives that much doubled, or even more, because it's not just a doubling. It's an eternal bounty. It's way more than a double portion. It's a forever portion. The forever portion is mentioned by the Bridegroom in Is 4:2-6. It will occur when “The Lord will wash away the filth from the daughters of Zion and purge the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning.” Jerusalem and the Temple Mount will be maintained in a state of perpetual holiness so that her covering of glory gift is never lost, nor does it decay. So how will the Bridegroom remove those who aren't fit for this most holy place? I read a news article that stated since the war began on October 7th, 82,700 citizens have left Israel. People have gone to other nations. They just didn't want to be there with the war going on. It wasn't worth fighting for. He's washing away some unbelief and godless motivation. He's washing it off of us as well in the nations where we're exiled. Judgment and burning has and will expose our own relationship with The Holy One of Israel. He's purging bloodshed even though we're right in the middle of heavy bloodshed. Sometimes to purge something, it takes more of it in order to remove it. Let any unrepentance go up in smoke. According to so many of the prophecies of Scripture, filthiness becomes more exposed and bloodshed increases before we see the filth washed away and removed. When this process is complete, there will be those who are recorded for life in Jerusalem, not simply visitation. The nations will be recorded for life in their assigned coastlands. They'll have visitation rights, especially at the feasts. They'll want to go up. They'll want to be instructed and know how to go up to experience His Presence at those appointed times. But there will be a Bride who is not required to return to her nation because she is recorded for life in Jerusalem. She will have an inheritance in the land. She is a permanent citizen by the gift of the Bridegroom. The eternal gift passage in Isaiah says, ·     Then at that time the Lord will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies... Assemblies. That's what we emphasize all the time, Shabbat. The moedim. This is why we observe them, to rehearse living under the holy gift. ·     ...over her assemblies a cloud by day, even smoke and the brightness of a flaming fire by night, for over all the glory will be a canopy and [like a wedding chuppah] there will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain. This is the eternal gift that the Bridegroom gives to the Bride. She has more than eternal protection from the elements of the natural earth; she has eternal privileges in His Presence, for the cloud represents His hovering, covering Presence. She won't have to go out from it anymore. She might be dispatched with a mission to the nations, but it is entirely possible that an individual so designated would never leave the Holy City. The land itself, according to Ezekiel, will extend from Egypt all the way up to the Euphrates. The Land will be stretched out to accommodate the population of the obedient, protecting them from the natural elements. The cloud of His Presence may extend over that entire full territory of Israel,

Shownotes Do you ever feel unequipped to handle life and all it throws you? Sometimes walking in grief means being brave enough to move forward even when you don't feel prepared. Today's episode navigates through the bible passages of Joshua 1:1-9. Andrea looks at the story of Joshua after the death of Moses. This story reminds us that God equips us even in the midst of our grief and even goes before us to prepare the way. Listen in and explore this beautiful scripture that gives hope even in our moments of darkness.  Scripture  Joshua 1:1-9 Divine Promise of Assistance. 1  After Moses, the servant of the LORD, had died, the LORD said to Moses' aide Joshua, son of Nun: 2  * Moses my servant is dead. So now, you and the whole people with you, prepare to cross the Jordan to the land that I will give the Israelites. 3  a Every place where you set foot I have given you, as I promised Moses. 4  * All the land of the Hittites, from the wilderness and the Lebanon east to the great river Euphrates and west to the Great Sea, will be your territory.b 5  No one can withstand you as long as you live. As I was with Moses, I will be with you:c I will not leave you nor forsake you. 6  Be strong and steadfast, so that you may give this people possession of the land I swore to their ancestors that I would give them. 7  d Only be strong and steadfast, being careful to observe the entire law which Moses my servant enjoined on you. Do not swerve from it either to the right or to the left, that you may succeed wherever you go. 8  Do not let this book of the law depart from your lips. Recite it by day and by night,e that you may carefully observe all that is written in it; then you will attain your goal; then you will succeed. 9  I command you: be strong and steadfast! Do not fear nor be dismayed, for the LORD, your God, is with you wherever you go. Journaling Questions 1. Why does grief sometimes feel like a burden to take on responsibilities? How does Joshua 1:1-9 remind us that God is with us?  2. God reminds us he will never abandon us. He also provides people in our lives to help us in loss.  Who in your life can be a source of comfort in times you feel all alone?  3. Do you ever feel overwhelmed in grief at the responsibilities that lay out before you? How can you rely on God to know he is ahead of you on the journey?  4. How can reading the scriptures be a place of comfort?  5. What reminder does Andrea share about the relationship of the Father and Son role in grief?  6. Even in times of hard times, these are the times of thanksgiving. Find something(someone) you are grateful for right now. How has this been a gift to you?  7. In Joshua 1:6 Andrea points out suffering produces greatness. How can you see your suffering as a way of preparing you for something greater?  8. What are ways God helps you when you can't help yourself?  9. What do you think it means to be steadfast? How can you be steadfast as you endure grief?  10. Meditate on Joshua 1:1-9. Read through this several times. Record your thoughts or feelings and listen to his words.  Let God speak to you. What do you hear in the scripture?  11. What is your mourning glory? Be sure to check out our website, www.mourningglorypodcast.com. There you will find links to all of our episodes as well as resources to help you on your journey.

Passage: 1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. 7 And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” 8 But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. 11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. 12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” 17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” (Genesis 15:1-21 ESV) Song: Promises (https://open.spotify.com/track/1l4XUxfkBwv43NMRzDe4Mj?si=db82e92dbb3d4bcc) by Jonny Robinson, Matt Boswell, Matt Papa, and Rich Thompson Lyrics: I can always call you father You chose me as your child And your word is always faithful You will not turn aside Now I live in full assurance For my savior paid that price Every promise that you made me Is yes in Jesus Christ You are faithful to your promises We will trust in what the cross has said Through the ages hallelujah you are Faithful to your promises Are you with us in the fire Will you keep us in the storm Are you still the light that guides us When the darkness overwhelms Through the doubts and through the valleys Through the passing years we find Every promise you have spoken Is yes in Jesus Christ You will be our God We will be your people You will be with us Keep us from all evil Every promise made Is a promise kept You are faithful to your promises You began this work within us You will bring it to the end You're the one who goes before us You will have the last Amen So we set our hope upon this An on this we build our lives All your promises forever Are yes in Jesus Christ Prayer: Most loving Father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who care for us: Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. -The Book of Common Prayer

6 Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them. 7 The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and these were thrown upon the earth. And a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up. 8 The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. 9 A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. 10 The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. 11 The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter. 12 The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light might be darkened, and a third of the day might be kept from shining, and likewise a third of the night. 13 Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead, “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow!”9 And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. 2 He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. 3 Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. 4 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5 They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. 6 And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.…11 They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon. 12 The first woe has passed; behold, two woes are still to come. 13 Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, 14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15 So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind. 16 The number of mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number. 17 And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur, and the heads of the horses were like lions' heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths. 18 By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths... 20

He was a Galilean, the son of Alphaeus, and was originally named Levi. He was a tax-collector (an occupation despised by the Jews of Palestine) until he met the Lord, who said to him, "Follow me." From that day he was one of the disciples.   After the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Apostle was appointed to bring the Gospel to his fellow Jews, for whom, according to the Church's tradition, he wrote down the Gospel for the first time, in the Aramaic language, eight years after the Ascension. Some years later, this book was translated into Greek by St James, the first Bishop of Jerusalem. No copy in the original language has survived.   Later, St Matthew traveled to Parthia and the city of Hierapolis (on the Euphrates river) to proclaim the Gospel to the pagans there. One tradition holds that he reposed in peace in that region at a great age. Another tradition holds that he was martyred by a king of that region, who later repented and was baptized, taking the name Matthew. The king then cast down the idols and established the Christian faith in his realm.   When St Matthew is portrayed in icons, the likeness of a man is shown with him, one of the four living creatures spoken of in the first chapter of Ezekiel. St Irenaeus writes that the man symbolizes Christ's Incarnation.