Rumblings of War and the Prince of Peace
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Good morning.
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Good morning.
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It's good to be home. We're excited to be back with you. We've really are. A few quick comments before I dig into our study this morning.
The staff here at this church is stellar. They're so good, so committed, and so qualified.
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And I want to thank them. I'm impressed with them. And a special thanks to this young man right up here in the front, Dave Rowe.
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He's done a great job. That's right.
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It's actually fun to watch him get a little embarrassed.
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We're also very impressed with you as a strong body of believers. We love you. We can't wait to grow together with you into the future. And that's where we're setting our sails, is to find out what God has next for us.
Also, before we begin today there's, a group of folks sitting up here on the floor that are going to England on a missions trip tomorrow. Why don't you guys all stand up?
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And just stay. Stay right there. Stay standing. Can you stay standing? Just for the whole service, would you mind just--
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We want to pray for you before you go. Heavenly Father, it's thrilling to see these, what some of us would consider, young people, certainly myself included. So excited to see them on fire for you and desiring to not just travel to a foreign country, but to bear the name of Jesus in that country, to make you more famous, Lord, to spread your name, to tell others how they can have peace with God.
We pray You'd strengthen each one. We pray, Lord, that You'd keep them safe while they travel and bring them back home here safely. We're honored to be linked with them, and we pray that as they go out that they would see great fruit as a result of this mission endeavor. So we commend them to You. We're so thankful for them. In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
Thank you, guys.
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Now, would you open in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 24 as we begin a new series based on that chapter? Somebody once said that peace is that brief, glorious moment in history when everyone stands around reloading. And that could certainly be said of the Middle East as we look and find out what's happening with Israel and Lebanon, Iran coming into the picture, Syria, already a war that's been going on in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But this is an interesting battle that is going on right now. It's what Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House, has titled World War III. And it's virtually on every news outlet in the world right now, what's happening over there. Time magazine featured just this week the Middle East. And if you can see on the front is a picture of an AK-47 crossed with an M16. It says "Why They Fight and Why It's Different This Time."
You know the news. You know that over 1,200 Katyusha rockets have been fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon into Israel. You know that Israel has retaliated with airstrikes, and more recently, a ground incursion into that country. And we've heard the rhetoric that has gone on from the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah-- these are hard words to say--
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--who has basically said we are calling for the total annihilation of the state of Israel. And that doesn't surprise us, because the ones who back them, namely Iran, would say the same Hitler-like rhetoric. The leader of Iran, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, has called for the wiping away of all of the Jews because that is a blight to the Middle East.
So as we're watching all of this stuff, we're wondering, where does that leave us biblically? What state are we in terms of the end-time biblical scenario? Certain scriptures come to our mind, like Ezekiel 38 and 39, which predict an end-time invasion from the north of Israel named the Magog invasion. And what's very interesting to us is that the chief ally in that invasion is Iran, ancient Persia. So our ears perk up when we hear that Iran is behind this somehow.
Or we remember other texts of scriptures, like Isaiah chapter 17, which predict the total annihilation of the city of Damascus in Syria, which has never happened historically. And we're wondering, could we be on the verge of seeing some of these things take place?
And while we're wondering, what does this mean biblically for the world, we also wonder, what does this mean to us nationally as Americans? After all, we're the ally of Israel. We're the ones supplying them bombs and armaments to some degree to help fight this war. Where will America be in the end-time scenario?
And then even beyond that, what does it mean to us personally? How should we live in this present crisis? So I'm having you turn to the pages of scripture Matthew chapter 24. It says Jesus went and departed from the temple. And his disciples came to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down."
Now, as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming at the end of the age? And Jesus answered and said to them, "Take heed that no one deceives you, for many will come in My name saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many.
And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass. But the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines, pestilences, earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows."
If you open up the pages of scripture, and you start at the beginning in the Garden of Eden, you discover the Bible opens with peace. There is peace in the Garden of Eden. There is euphoria. There is utopia. It couldn't get any better. And if you go to that end of the Bible, the Bible closes in peace-- the new Jerusalem, the eternal state, everlasting peace.
So you've got the Garden of Eden, and the garden of eternity. Peace in the beginning, peace in the end, but everything else between point A and point B is not peaceful. In fact, the things that Jesus predicted here in Matthew 24 are things that to some degree have filled the pages of world history.
Author and historian Will Durant, who wrote that famous set of books The Story of Civilization made an interesting comment, and he did so almost 40 years ago. He said, out of the 3,421 years of recorded history, only 268 years have seen no war. If you average that out, that means only 8% of world history has been at a time of peace-- only 8%.
People everywhere of all times have always wanted world peace. They'll do anything to get it. I heard about a couple. They retired, and they were so alarmed by the threat of nuclear war that they wanted to find a place on Earth that was safe, impervious to any nuclear war. So they did a prolonged and intense study of all of the inhabited places on Earth, where they could sell everything, move to, and be protected, having ultimate security.
And they found it. And they moved everything and themselves to this new island paradise. And they wrote to their pastor at Christmas in 1981 from their new paradise, the Falkland Islands. And if you know your recent history, you know that a few months after that, there was an all-out war in the Falkland Islands between Argentina and Britain. No place is safe on this Earth.
The name of this message is The Rumblings of War and the Prince of Peace. And this morning, what I'd like us to do is look at Matthew 24. There are three facts we have to have under our belts before we can even understand what Jesus is talking about here in Matthew 24 and 25-- three very important facts. All of them emerge in the first few versus.
The first is the place from which this was given. The second is the prediction that Jesus made about the future in verse 2. The third is the problem that this posed for the disciples that they asked him about in verse 3. So the place, the prediction, and the problem, those are the three things we want to look at today.
You'll notice the place is the Middle East there in Israel. Jesus with his disciples are in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the city mentioned 821 times in the Bible. No other city is given as much press in the Bible as the city of Jerusalem. Now, it's also interesting to note that the second most mentioned city in the Bible next to Jerusalem is Babylon-- Iraq. So that's very interesting. And we even see that play out in the very end of times in the tribulation period in the Book of Revelation.
So they are in the Middle East, in Israel, in Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives overlooking the city of Jerusalem, especially the temple area. And that's why Matthew 24 is called the Olivet discourse, simply because Jesus is saying it on the Mount of Olives. And it's one of four major sermons that Jesus gives in his ministry, the first being the Sermon on the Mount-- Matthew 5, 6, and 7. The second being the kingdom parables of Matthew 13. The third being the Olivet discourse here. And the fourth being the upper room discourse of John chapters 13 through 16.
But what makes this one so fascinating to us is the subject matter. In the Olivet discourse, Jesus is talking about the future, the future of Jerusalem, the future of the Jews, the future of all the world, and most principally, his own future coming to rule and reign upon the Earth. So the point is this. Jesus Christ and his disciples were in the very same place that all of this conflict, all of this controversy that's happening today is.
You say, well, Skip, that's not really that true because they were in Jerusalem. This conflict is taking place on the border of Israel and Lebanon. But understand, the very center of this conflict is in Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the very heartbeat of the Jewish nation, the place where the temple once stood, the place where the Muslims say Muhammad ascended into Heaven to receive the Quran and come back down to the Earth. It's still all about what goes on in Jerusalem, and who owns that city, and especially that volatile piece of real estate called the Temple Mount.
Benjamin Netanyahu, former prime minister of Israel, this week told us what this conflict is about. He said, these people do not believe that we should even exist as a nation. The fact that we are living and breathing air on planet Earth in the Middle East is an affront to them, and they want to get rid of us.
Now, this war is not new. Since 1948, May 14th, 58 continual years of conflict has been in that region, and here's why. Because Jerusalem has always been and will always be the center of God's program on the Earth. That's why it's mentioned 821 times. It's the center of God's prophetic and salvation program for the world.
There is a set of books called the Midrash, Jewish ancient commentaries on the Old Testament. And one of the rabbis in commenting said, the land of Israel is at the center of the world. Jerusalem is at the center of the land of Israel. And the temple is at the center of Jerusalem. In other words, the very heart of the Earth is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Now, from a biblical perspective, Jerusalem is the geographic center of the world biblically. Interesting scripture in Ezekiel chapter 5 verse 5, where God says this is Jerusalem. See? I have set her in the midst of all of the nations and countries all around her. Right in the middle.
And I grew up looking at a map of the world. And it was always interesting because if you look at a map of the world from America, guess what is in the center? We are-- America. But if we would have read our Bible before we produced those maps, we would have put Israel, Jerusalem, right in the middle. It's on a land bridge, that map will show, that connects three major continents-- Africa, Asia, and Europe, right there in the middle.
In the Bible, north is always north of Jerusalem. South is always south of Jerusalem. East is always east of Jerusalem. West is always west of Jerusalem. So Jerusalem is the geographic center of the world biblically.
But more than that, Jerusalem is the salvation center of the world spiritually. Remember that woman at the well of Samaria? She was talking to Jesus in John chapter 4, and she said, well, you Jews say Jerusalem is the place to worship. We worship on this mountain right here behind me. Remember what Jesus said?
He said, you don't even know what you worship. We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews-- very interesting statement. Salvation is of the Jews. Well, the only salvation. God ever provided for planet Earth was provided just outside the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem at a little place called Golgotha or Calvary.
Not only that, but Jerusalem is the storm center of the world prophetically. You could ask any world leader, any world government, and they will tell you what happens in Buenos Aires, or London, or Los Angeles, or New York, or any other city, though it might be significant, doesn't hold a candle to what happens in Jerusalem. Whatever happens there, that is huge. And the Bible predicts that-- Zechariah. The Lord says, I will make Jerusalem a very burdensome stone for all peoples.
But there is more, and here's the best part. Jerusalem is the glory center of the Earth ultimately. You see, Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 2 said the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. So God still has his plan centered in Israel in Jerusalem. And when Jesus comes back the second time, he's going to touch his foot on the very mount he's saying this from, the Mount of Olives.
Look at it this way. Over in Israel right now is a kingless throne. It's the throne of David. It has not been occupied for 2,500 years, ever since Jeconiah sinned, and there was a blood curse placed on the household and the lineage of King David. For 2,500 years, that throne of David has been unoccupied. There is a kingless throne in Jerusalem.
In Heaven right now is a throneless King. And when Jesus comes back and the throneless King meets up with the kingless throne, it will be what the Bible calls the restitution of all things. And peace and glory will fill the Earth. So the place that this takes place in is very, very significant.
Here's my point. God's calling upon the Jewish nation is irrevocable. You read Romans 9, 10, and 11, and it will tell you that the plan that God has for the Jews is still intact. And you can read through the Bible, and you see that even in the end of times in the tribulation period, God will seal 144,000 whom? Jews. 12,000 from each of the tribes of Israel.
You go a little further on, and you find in the thousand-year reign of Christ on earth called the Millennium, Jesus Christ reigns from Mt. Zion. Later on, there's a new Heaven, and a new Earth in the eternal state, and there's a city that comes out of Heaven toward the Earth called the New Jerusalem. Not the new San Francisco, the new Jerusalem. And there are 12 gates to that city, and each gate is named after one of the tribes of Israel.
So we support Israel, not because they're politically perfect. They've made a lot of blunders. They've made a lot of mistakes. Not because of their economic policies or their humanitarian policies, but simply based upon the covenant that God has made with those people.
One pundit had an interesting little quote. He said, how odd of God to choose the Jew? But not so odd as those who choose the Jewish God, but hate the Jew. See, to choose God is to choose the one whose son, the Messiah, will ultimately rule and reign from that place, Jerusalem.
We'll now go to verse two. And notice the prediction that Jesus makes. Jesus said to them after they said, look at these beautiful buildings. Do you not see these things? Jesus said, assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down.
Now, the text doesn't tell us this, but I'm convinced that as soon as the disciples heard this, they did this.
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It was a jaw dropper. If you read the other accounts, Mark 13, Luke 21, those authors tell us that the disciples pointed specifically to some of the huge stones in the temple. Check out those stones. Look at that building.
See, to the disciples, the fact that there was a temple standing was evidence that God favored and blessed the Jewish nation. Here is a building dedicated to the glory of God. God is inhabiting it. Its standing shows that God is here, and blessing and favoring our people. Then Jesus said, well, boys, I got news for you. Every one of those stones is coming down. It was a shock to them.
The temple at this time was still under construction. Did you know that the temple started construction around 20 BC and ended in 64 AD? So just over 80 years, it took 18,000 people to put that thing up. It was a 45-acre complex of buildings, and the temple proper stood 90 feet from its bases upward. We're told that the temple itself was marvelous-- white limestone and white marble. And at the top of that limestone and marble edifice was a solid gold cornice that adorned the top so that for miles away, you could see it.
The Babylonian Talmud said, he who has never seen the temple of Herod has never seen a beautiful building. Some of the stones measured 12 feet by 12 feet by 40 feet and weighed over 100 tons. One stone-- we could even show it to you were we there today in Israel-- they say weighs up to 400 tons.
So you can understand these disciples going, look at those stones. Wow. They're coming down, Jesus said. Every one will be overturned.
Very interesting prediction, because we know it came true. In 70 AD, just a few years later, when Titus and the Roman armies surrounded Jerusalem, Titus specifically said, keep the temple intact. But a Roman soldier threw in a torch into the holy place. It caught the veil on fire. It burned the temple so hot that the gold cornice began to melt through the cracks in the stones. And the soldiers took every stone and overturned it, every single stone, to get the gold out of the cracks so that not one stone was left upon another. All were thrown down.
Flavius Josephus, Jewish historian around that era, said, so complete was the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem that if you were to visit the city after the destruction, you wouldn't believe that anyone ever lived there. And you could certainly not find where the temple once stood.
That's the prediction. Jesus made it. It happened. And folks, the prediction Jesus made of what would occur to Jerusalem in 70 AD, Hezbollah would love to see repeated all over again. The prediction Jesus made of what would happen to Jerusalem in 70 AD, Hamas would love to see happen all over again.
What Jesus predicted what happened to Jerusalem in 70 AD, the PLO, the Al Aqsa martyrs brigade, and a host of other factious groups would all love to see happen again and will not be content, they said, until it happens again. And what causes our attention is that Iran, which funds Hezbollah, from between $100 to $200 million per year, wants to see it happen again.
This week, you might have caught it, in Nablus, a 20-year-old Israeli soldier by the name of Osher Damari was killed in a bomb blast in the city of Nablus. His body was evac'ed out, except for his leg. One leg was severed in the blast. That remained-- pieces of clothing.
And the news reported that after they took his body out, some of the inhabitants of that city of Nablus all stood around the remains of this 20-year-old dead soldier and began to sing, and celebrate, and chant in Arabic, [NON-ENGLISH]. God is great. God is great. Because there has been an agenda in that place to see this happen again.
Keep this in mind, what Jesus said would happen happened in incredible detail. He just didn't say, yeah, it's going down. He said, not one stone will be left upon another. And every single stone was overturned, which once again shows us that the book that we read from and study every day in our quiet time is the word of God, and it's very accurate. In fact, one of God's calling cards is prophecy.
Isaiah 46, the Lord says, I am God, and there is no one else like me. Only I can tell you what is going to happen, even before it happens. That's why every time there's a problem, every day of our lives when there's an issue, we open this book for answers.
So the place is interesting, the prediction striking. The third, there is a problem that comes up from the prediction that Jesus made verse 3. Now, as He, Jesus, sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, tell us when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?
I'm so glad the disciples asked that question. In fact, I'm really glad they asked questions period. Because unless they would have asked that question, we wouldn't have had this answer. In fact, Matthew 24 is the longest answer to any question in the New Testament. It's all about the future. Now, we're not told this unless you read the geography into these verses, but there is a time lapse between verse 2 and verse 3. Because it says, now, as he sat on the Mount of Olives, and they had just been in the temple area.
And I've taken that route on many occasions. If you walk outside of the temple, you walk down into the Kidron Valley. Then you have to walk up a very steep ascent to the Mount of Olives. It's like the La Luz trail, only not as long.
It was at least an hour from the time they left the temple to the time they got on the Mount of Olives. Jesus finally sat down. They've had about an hour to ponder this very solemn prediction that Jesus made. And they're dying to ask him this question.
So Jesus finally sits down. The disciples come up, panting. OK, Jesus, you've got to tell us. When is this all going to happen? And what are the signs of your coming and of the end of the world? Three questions-- when is what you predicted going to happen? Number two, what are the signs that denote your coming is here? And number three, the signs of the end of the world.
Now, in the disciples minds, all of those things were one event. This posed a problem to them. And here's the problem. Here's the core sentiment behind the question.
OK, Jesus, you're the Messiah. We got that. As the Messiah, as the Deliver, as our Savior, as our Peacemaker, you're not talking much about peace here. You just predicted total destruction of our city, especially its temple.
So how could you be the Prince of Peace-- we know Isaiah 9:6 unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Everlasting Father, Mighty God, Prince of Peace. How is it that you're the Prince of Peace when you predict this? This was a problem for them.
OK. Let's draw a little frame around chapter 24, shall we? There is a context in this chapter. The context of Matthew 24 is not a Baptist context. It's not a Presbyterian context. It's not a Methodist context. It's a Jewish context.
And in the mind of the Jews, including the disciples 2,000 years ago, they already had a fixed eschatology in mind. That is, in their minds, from their reading of the Bible, they had a scenario of end-time events. And this is what they believed would happen.
Number one, before Messiah comes, there will be worldwide turmoil, which they believe they were in. The Romans had occupied the land. Before that, the Greeks had occupied the lands. Before that, the Babylonians, the Persians, all of these people occupied their land. And there is this turmoil they are experiencing.
Number two-- an Elijah-like forerunner would come on the scene, pointing people toward the Messiah. That's why people drew a great interest when John the Baptist showed up. He reminded them so much of Elijah.
Number three-- the Messiah would come. And when he would come, he would destroy the enemies of the Jews-- they thought at this time the Romans-- set up His kingdom. All the scattered Jews from around the world would come back to Israel. And Jerusalem would be restored, not destroyed, restored. And that there would be worldwide peace.
So the disciples believed in this question that they were somewhere between phase 1 and phase 3. There's been trouble. The Romans are here. John the Baptist, Elijah-like forerunner, he's come. The Messiah is here. A couple days ago, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and for the first time presented himself as their Messiah.
Where's the peace? The next logical step is he's going to set up his kingdom. There's going to be peace. Now they've got a problem because Jesus just predicted the destruction of the city, which happened in 70 AD.
Here's the point. You've got the Prince of Peace predicting war and devastation. By the way, you know what Jerusalem means? City of peace. [NON-ENGLISH] To this day, you go to that city, and they'll wave their hand and go, shalom. That's their greeting. It means peace. At this point, it's a prayer. Peace. Shalom.
So they asked this question. And today, we would ask the same question. In fact, don't we ask this every time some new news erupts in the Middle East? Don't we say, are you coming soon? Is this the end? Is there ever going to be peace? We all ask that we all yearn for the Prince of Peace to come.
But we also know, once again, between creation and consummation, between Eden and eternity, there is these wars, rumors of wars, and even these detailed predictions of destruction. So where's the peace? Right in here. Right inside of us.
See, the Bible doesn't say that peace means the absence of conflict on the inside, but the presence of Christ on the inside. It doesn't mean that there will be no wars outside, but Christ will be with you inside. So the Prince of Peace came the first time 2,000 years ago to take away sin. The Prince of Peace will eventually come the second time to take away sorrow. The Prince of Peace came the first time to bring peace inside. He will come the second time to bring peace outside.
Remember that prediction when Jesus was born over Bethlehem, and the Angels said, glory to God in the highest, and on Earth, peace goodwill toward men. I'm so sorry that translators translated that wrongly. The literal translation is glory to God in the highest. Peace on Earth to men in whom God's favor rests. Meaning you can have peace on the inside in the midst of conflict.
So here's the question we end with. What now? It's happening again over there. God willing, it might stop in the next couple weeks, but that would only be temporary. So what do we do? Number one, we pray. The Bible says specifically pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May they prosper that love Thee.
So we pray, God, bring a cease fire. Bring peace to that region. Pray that the gospel would be heard by Jews and Arabs. Listen, God loves the Arabs. God loves the Muslims. Jesus Christ died on the cross for every single person, including every Muslim, every Jew, everyone in the world. Pray that many of them would come to Christ, even through this.
Second response-- be calm. Jesus here even said, don't be troubled by this. The end is not yet. These things have to happen. You know the end of the story. Approach it from that. Be calm.
Number three-- have a light touch. The things that are happening in the Middle East remind us we're just passing through. This is not home. We know what we're about. We know where we're going.
In fact, Jesus put it this way. He said in Luke, when these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads because your redemption draws near. I always have a twofold response when I turn on the news. One is oh no. The other one is all right because I know where this is going to lead.
Now, if you don't know Jesus Christ personally you ought to look at this as a wake-up call. You ought to look at the events in the Middle East as a warning because all of those things those crazy Christians told you for years is really starting to shape up.
I want to close with this it's from Billy Graham's book Approaching Hoofbeats. It's called a parable. Mount St. Helens belched gray plumes hundreds of feet into the blue Washington sky. Geologists watched their seismographs in growing wonder as the Earth danced beneath their feet. Rangers and state police, sirens blaring, herded tourists and residents from an ever widening zone of danger.
Every piece of scientific evidence being collected in the laboratories and on the field predicted the volcano would soon explode with a fury that would leave the forests flattened. Warning, blared loudspeakers on patrol cars and helicopters hovering overhead. Warning, blinked battery-powered signs at every major crossroad. Warning, pleaded radio and TV announcers, shortwave, and citizen-band operators. Warning, echoed up and down the mountains. The lakeside villages, tourist camps, and hiking trails emptied as people heard warnings and fled for their lives.
But Harry refused to budge. Harry was the caretaker of a recreation lodge on Spirit Lake, five miles north of Mount St. Helens' peak. The rangers warned Harry of the coming blast. Neighbors begged him to join them in their exodus. Even Harry's sister called to talk sense into the old man's head. But Harry ignored the warnings.
From the picture postcard beauty of his lakeside home, reflecting the snow-capped peak overhead, Harry grinned on national television and said, nobody knows more about this mountain than Harry, and it don't blow up on him. But on May 18, 1980, as boiling gases beneath the mountain surface bulged and buckled, Harry cooked his eggs and bacon, fed his 16 cats scraps, and began to plant petunias around the border of his freshly mowed lawn. At 8:31 AM the mountain exploded.
Did Harry regret his decision in that millisecond he had before the concussive waves traveling faster than the speed of sound flattened him and everything else for 50 square miles? Did he have time to bemoan his stubbornness as millions of tons of rock disintegrated and disappeared into a cloud reaching 10 miles in the sky? Did he struggle against the wall of mud and ash 50 feet high that buried his cabin, his cats, and his freshly mowed lawn?
Now, Harry is a legend in the Pacific Northwest, where he refused to listen. He smiles down to us from posters, t-shirts, and beer mugs. Balladeers still sing songs about old Harry, the stubborn man who put his ear to the mountain, but would not heed the warnings.
We've heard these warnings. Some of us have heard them for years. But my question is, have you placed your faith in the one who is coming in the midst of these events at some time in the future? If not, it's time to listen, and to act upon it, and give your life to Christ.
Heavenly Father, for me, this has been a wonderful family reunion. How I am thankful, Lord, that in the midst of these days in which we live, we find ourselves in, we have clear answers that come to us from the pages of scripture. We see what's happening around us. I pray that we would reflect a steady calm of assurance in the midst of yet another crisis in the Middle East.
Lord, be in the middle of the Middle East. Be in the middle of the conflict. May Your name be more famous. Help us here to glorify You and anyone who doesn't know You to make their decision to follow You this morning. In Jesus' name, amen.