The video discusses the events of Palm Sunday, specifically focusing on Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. It highlights the fulfillment of prophecy and the significance of Jesus being hailed as the King by the people. The speaker emphasizes the reaction of the Pharisees and temple officials who were indignant at the people's praise of Jesus. The video also draws attention to the concept of stones crying out if the people were to become silent, emphasizing the importance of acknowledging and proclaiming Jesus as Lord.

My name is Jacob. The video you're about to watch is Palm Sunday. Give us prosperity now with a question mark. We seek to understand the original Jewish background of what happened on Palm Sunday, Pesach, or Passover, when Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and what it means for the church today and what's happening in the church today. Now there's a number of things we have to look at, first of all. On Palm Sunday, in Luke's version, in Luke chapter 19 verse 40, the Sanhedrin and the temple officials were quite indignant that the people were bringing Hosanna to Jesus. And Jesus tells them in verse 40, I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out. If these become silent, the stones will cry out. What did he mean? Well, first Peter was written to Jewish believers, and it's a very Jewish epistle. In first Peter chapter two, verse five, Peter says that we are the living stones of the temple. On Palm Sunday, Jesus was referring to the large Herodian stones of the enlarged temple complex. You can see stones of that size today at the wearing wall of the Kotel in Jerusalem. Some of those stones are more than 40 times as heavy as the largest stones of the great pyramids. You find that Egypt and Giza outside of Cairo. Also, these stones are the ones that the apostles would have referred to on the ultimate discourse, Matthew 24, where Jesus said not one stone will be thrown down upon another. Looking at these scriptures about the stones midrashically, that is the way that the rabbis interpreted scripture in the days of Jesus, we see what the stones mean. Peter says that we Christians believers are the stones of the temple. So on Palm Sunday, Jesus tells the temple officials, if these, that is the Jewish people, remain silent, the stones will cry out. What he was saying midrashically, in midrash, in Jewish metaphor, was this. If the Jewish people, the Jews, do not proclaim me to be the Messiah, the Christians will. John the Baptist uses the same metaphor. There were Jewish people who thought they were special simply because they were physically and culturally Jews, circumcised, or descendants of Abraham genetically. However, John the Baptist says God can raise up Abraham's children out of the stones, and so Christians too are descendants of Abraham by faith through the feet of Abraham, the Messiah, Jesus. That is the whole point. The Jewish people, most of them, not all, but most, made a series of tragic mistakes. Now Romans 11 tells us if God didn't spare the natural branches, he won't spare you either. My fear as a believer, from what I see from understanding and studying the scriptures from the traditional Jewish perspective, is that so much of the church in the Western world is making the same mistake as the Jews did. The Bible speaks of this. A time will come when the age of the Gentiles will come to a close, and God will turn his grace back towards his ancient people, Israel. And I'm convinced we already see the advent of that transpiring. It's already beginning to happen. We have an avalanche of posterity theology which will be addressed in this video. It's overtaken much of the Western world. We have to understand what it is. If we were to recontextualize scripture, that's perfectly biblical. Paul said, I became as all things to all men that I may reach them. When he spoke in Athens to the Greek, Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, he communicated the gospel to them within their famous lessons. When he spoke to Jews, he became as one under the law. It is perfectly biblical and entirely correct to contextualize. However, when we redefine, when we rewrite the gospel, when we give the word of God a new meaning to suit our worldview, it's a problem. To contextualize is to take the meaning of scripture and to give it to people packaged within the framework of their own culture. However, when you redefine, you give it a new meaning to suit that culture. This was a big problem in the early church when platonic philosophy entered and Christianity was rewritten as a platonic religion by Plato and later when it was rewritten as an Aristotelian religion by Thomas Aquinas. This kind of redefinition has always made all kinds of problems. We have to go back and understand the original meaning. What we have now is a redefinition. I'm speaking to you at the moment from Africa. Here in Africa, the gospel is exploding among native African people. When the Wycliffe translators came to a certain tribe in Equatorial Africa, the people had never seen snow. So how would they translate Isaiah 118? So your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. The Wycliffe translators said your sins shall be white as coconut. They recontextualize it. They gave it a new meaning. No, they gave it the same meaning, culturally packaged. They contextualized it. They didn't change the meaning. They just said coconut instead of snow, but the meaning was the same. That's perfectly acceptable. That's contextualization. But when you redefine it, you have a problem. We live in a Western consumerist society where people are rewriting Christianity as a Western consumerist religion. We have television networks in the United States, particularly, with no programming, no programs, only commercials. Call in, give us your visa number, and you can have this. This can be yours. Name it and claim it, consumerism. We have people, faith-prosperity preachers, so-called, who are attempting to rewrite Christianity as a religion based on consumerism. Name it and claim it. God wants you rich, you're a king's kid, you can have it. That's not contextualization. That's redefinition. More tragically, here in Africa, we have much poverty. There are many poor Christians. There are many persecuted Christians, particularly in places like Nigeria, where the Muslim tribes persecute the Christian tribes. Terrible situations happen here in Africa. People living in almost sub-human poverty. In fact, the area, one of the areas most devastated by the famines in Ethiopia was an area with many Christians, even evangelical Christians. And we have people coming from America, telling these people that they're not prospering, it's because of out of God's will, they don't have faith. Friends, these Christians who are being persecuted for their faith by the Muslims in Africa, from where I speak to you now, are people with tremendous faith. The kind of faith that people in the West once had, but have long lost. These false doctrines, which have destroyed so much of Western Protestant Christianity, are now being pumped into Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, and Asia, where the gospel is growing. The same false doctrines that destroyed Western Protestant Christianity are now being pumped into the developing world, where the gospel has exploded. We have to understand the basis of what these people are teaching. It is Gnosticism, an error in the early church, where the word of God is mishandled. Instead of using exegesis, you claim a subjective mystical insight, some personal revelation, making the scripture a matter of one's own interpretation. Now, the New Testament tells us no interpretation of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation. But that is what these people are saying. They have a Gnosoph, a subjective revelation, God has shown me. Well, God will never show anybody anything that does not agree with his words. Now, I point out that I myself, I'm a Pentecostal minister, I believe in the gift of the Spirit, and I practice the gift of the Spirit. In no sense am I a cessationist. But what we're seeing today with the faith posterity preachers is not the faith of the New Testament, as you'll see in this video. What these people are teaching is not faith in Jesus. They're teaching faith in faith. They're not teaching faith in the Lord Jesus. They're teaching faith in faith. Read Hebrews 11. Their faith is not the faith taught in scripture. But let's look further. Some people become very disturbed when teachers of false doctrines, even though they themselves may disagree with these false doctrines, are publicly challenged by name. They say it's wrong to name the names to stand up and challenge the teachers of error. Well, let's look at what the Word of God says. King Paul, writing in First Timothy, does the following. In First Timothy, chapter one, Saint Paul says directly, there will be false teachers in the church who would deceive the church, who would harm the church, who would hurt the church. And he says, some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. And in verse 20, among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered over to Satan. He named the names of those who were teaching aberrations and false doctrines. Indeed, we read in Second Timothy, Paul does the same thing. In Second Timothy, chapter four, verse 14, Paul says, Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. The Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Be on guard against him yourself, for he vigorously opposed our teaching. What was he doing? How did he harm Paul? Paul was not indignant because of what Alexander did to Paul. Paul was indignant because he was opposing the teaching of the apostles, the teaching of the New Testament, right doctrine. You also find from the apostle writing the same way in third John, verse nine. The apostle John says, I wrote something to the church to the church to be read out publicly, but biographies who love to be first among them does not accept what we say. For this reason, if I come, I'll call attention to his deeds. Wicked words. The teachers of false doctrine are men with wicked words. John says wicked words. The apostles named them. John was the beloved disciple. He named them. Paul named them. I look at the book of Jeremiah 28. We have people making false prophecies, like the prophet Hananiah. Jeremiah says he's a nebuchadnezzar, a false prophet, and he says you've made God's people trust in a lie. Hananiah Jeremiah named him several years ago at the Docklands Arena. John Wimber of the Vineyard came with Mike Bickle from Kansas City and the Kansas City Prophets, led by Paul Kane, a man who was influenced by William Branham, who said the Trinity was of the devil and who practiced the occult, who also claimed to be the angel of revelation. Chapter three, verse 14. John Wimber and the Vineyard and the Kansas City Prophets made wild false predictions. They claimed that a lot of day rain of some kind, a fire was going to fall on Great Britain and revival would sweep across Britain in October of 1990 and would fan out across Europe, particularly Germany, said Mike Bickle. They said this on video was documented in the five years since the great revival predicted by the Vineyard by John Wimber and the Kansas City Prophets and Mike Bickle. More and more have been built in England and churches. Now the book of Deuteronomy chapter 18 warns us if people predict things in the name of the Lord that don't happen, they're false prophets. Get away from them. Jeremiah 23, the same thing. Get away from them. It doesn't matter if they do it by a demon or by the futility of their own mind. They're a false prophet. We don't stone people like Mike Bickle to death anymore or John Wimber to death or Paul Kane were under grace, not law. But the sin is no less serious to continue. Follow men who predict things that don't happen. The word of God says the false prophets is rebellion. The prophet Jeremiah says the prophets prophesy falsely and my people love it so. So it is also with the book The Harvest written by Rick Joyner. He predicted a worldwide avalanche of communism that would take over almost the entirety of the developing world and much of the developed world. The categorical opposite happened. These men are false prophets. They're false prophets because their doctrines are wrong. The dominion is manifest sons of God, man child. They believe things that are not biblical because their doctrines are wrong. It says in second Peter, so are their prophecies. But let's look further. Why is it necessary to name the names and point these things out? Because God's people are being deceived. That's why John pointed them out. That's why Ezekiel pointed these men out in Ezekiel chapter 11. That's why Jeremiah pointed them out. That's why Paul pointed them out. The Gospels openly named the names of the religious and national leaders who were misleading God's people. Caiaphas, Herod, go tell that fox. If we say we shouldn't name the names and confront error, well, you better tear first Timothy out of your Bible and second Timothy and third John and Ezekiel and Jeremiah and much of the Gospels. As a matter of fact, if you think that we should not stand up and challenge those who persist in teaching false doctrines and making false prophetic predictions in the name of the Lord, if we should not challenge those people publicly, as the apostles and prophets did, you may as well throw away the whole book. You see, that's what Laodicea means in Greek, the lukewarm materialistic church that's blind to its own faith. Laodicea in Greek is the church of people's opinions, men's judgment, redefinition. If the apostles had the attitude that we should not stand up and name the names of the false teachers, as Paul did, as John did, we have no church today. Satan would have destroyed it in the first century. If the Old Testament prophets of the Tanakh, the Jewish prophets, did not stand up and name the names of Ezekiel did and as Jeremiah did and the other prophets did, Jesus never would have been born. Satan would have seduced Israel and the Messiah never could have come. If the pre-Nicene Fathers, the patristic writers, did not stand up for the Gnostics in their day, the way we need to stand up for the Gnostics of our day, and that's what you have, you understand John Wimber, for instance, John Wimber does not teach biblical Christianity, he's a Gnostic who teaches Gnosticism. His entire treatment of Joel chapter 2, Joel's army, that is Gnosticism, it is not biblical exegesis. He does not teach biblical Christianity, John Wimber is a Gnostic. If the pre-Nicene Fathers did not stand up to Gnosticism in their day, we have no church today. Satan would have seduced it in the second and third centuries and so today. When you understand the Kingdom Now theology and its presuppositions, how it's Gnostic, and the faith posterity teachers, how it's Gnosticism, you'll have no church if you don't stand up like the pre-Nicene Fathers did for all of their mistakes and faults. If the Reformers, Luca and Calvin and Dringley, and if Erasmus of Rotterdam, if they did not stand up to Pope Julius and the Popes of the Middle Ages, and to John Eck, and to Tetzel, the indulgence merchant, if they didn't stand up to these people and name them by name, we'd all be going to Mass today, because that's the only church we would have, the Councific Church of Rome. When I name the names, it is only because there is no other choice. It is because the Word of God does it, when these men will persist in prophesying things in the name of the Lord that don't happen, misleading God's people, and teaching doctrines that are utterly, not only contrary to His Word, but destructive to His people. I would also point out two further things before we conclude. The Bible says, concerning the false teachers and the false religious leaders of Jesus' day, Jesus made a public spectacle of them. Indeed, the prophet Elijah mocked the priests of Baal, who led God's people into false worship. And we have many instances of people from the Church Fathers onward, certainly the Church Fathers, mocking the Gnostics. Erasmus of Rotterdam, the harbinger of the Reformation, who inspired Luther, etc. If you were to read his writings, like Julius' exclusives on the trades of folly, he openly mocked the medieval pathoses. It is fully consistent with the example of Scripture, and consistent with the modus operandi of the heroes of Church history who God used to stand up and deal with false teachers and false prophets in that way. The Word of God mocks them. The Bible says directly that God mocks His enemies, and those who will mislead His people have made themselves the enemies of God. I do not desire these people's destruction. I desire their repentance. More than that, I desire a restoration of those who they have misled. May the same God who will judge them, and will also judge me, keep me faithful, and prevent me from ever teaching error to His people or exploiting them financially. Finally, a word about division. We have an unbiblical attitude towards division. The Bible says to yearn for a unity of the Spirit. Father, let them be one, as we are one. The Holy Spirit, however, haroach ha-kodesh in Hebrew, the Spirit of Holiness, is also called the Spirit of Truth. He is not the Spirit of Error. You cannot have a unity of the Spirit based on error, based on false doctrines. We have dangerous people today teaching the lie of the devil, that doctrine brings division, therefore we should have no doctrine, because doctrine goes against love. That is what such people you'll see saying today. We actually had Paul Crouch on the TBN in America, Rick Godwin's mentor, one of his mentors, saying, don't talk to me about doctrine, I don't want to know about doctrine. They want love. Well, let's see what the Word of God says. In Philippians chapter 1, verse 9, and this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment. Without real knowledge, knowledge of God's Word, and without discernment of what is of God and what isn't, based first and foremostly on Scripture. Without knowledge and without discernment there's not real love. With some man-be-pan-be-foolishness, people are calling love, but it's not the love of Christ. God's love is a love based in truth. If you have real love, you'll seek the truth. If people don't love the truth, they really don't love Jesus. Jesus said, I am the truth. And He said, in the last days, God himself will set a deception upon those who did not love a knowledge of the truth. If you don't want to know the truth about God's Word and what it's really saying, it means you don't love Jesus. If you don't have a knowledge of the truth, the Bible says a time will come when God himself will deceive you, if you want to be deceived. If you want to believe men who teach error, who tickle your ears, as Paul says, a time will come in the last days when men wanting to have their ears tickled will accumulate for teachers in accordance with their own desires. If that's what you want, if you want men to tickle your ears with doctrines of their own invention, God himself will bring you to a time where He says you don't love the truth, it means you don't love my Son, and I myself will deceive you. This is in 1 Timothy, it's in 2 Timothy, you should read it carefully. But let's move on. Division? 1 Corinthians 11, 19 says there must be factions among you to prove which is true. The Greek word here is heresy. Well, we get the word heresy. False doctrine is supposed to bring division. Writing in Romans chapter 16, verse 17, Paul says, Mark a factious man who causes suspensions, that being one who departs from the teaching of the apostles. When you find people teaching things contrary to the teachings of the New Testament, they're supposed to be in division. The Greek word here is dichotesis, or dichotasia. Well, we get the word dichotomy. When false doctrine is being taught as it's being taught today by the kingdom now, by the propounders of ecumenism, and by the faith prosperity preachers, they're supposed to be a dichotomy, they're supposed to be a division. A split in the road, a dichotomy. One road leads to paradise, the other to Babylon. Which road will you walk down? These are not my words, these are not my opinions, these are not my judgment, this is what the word of God says. You pray, you ask Jesus, you read his word for yourself, the way the Bereans did in Acts chapter 17. With these things in you, please sit back, prayerfully and carefully with your Bible open, and watch this video on Palm Sunday. God bless you. Today's subject, Matthew 21. So Jerusalem, and they come to Bethpage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples saying to them, go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. And if anyone says something to you, you shall say, the Lord has need of them, and immediately he will send them. Now this took place, so what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming to you, gentle and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the fowl of the beast of burden. This is from Zachariah chapter 9 verse 9. And the disciples went and did just as Jesus had directed them, and bought the donkey and the colt, and laid on them their garments on which he rode. And most of the multitude spread their garments in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees, and spreading them in the road. And the multitude going before him, and those who followed him, were crying out, saying, Hosanna for the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. And when he had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, who is this? And the multitudes were saying, this is the prophet Yeshua from Nazareth in Galilee. And Jesus entered the temple, and cast out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers, and the seats of those who were selling goods. And he said to them, it is written, my father's house could be called the house of prayer for all people, but you are making it into a den of robbers. And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. And when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he had done, and the children who were crying out in the temple, saying, Hosanna for the son of David, they became indignant. Stripping on them, they silenced him. And it says this in verse 23. And when he had come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him, as he was teaching, and said, by what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority? And Jesus answered and said to them, I will ask you one thing as well, which is you tell me, I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of God was from what source, from heaven or from men? And they began reasoning among themselves, saying, if we say from heaven, he will say to us, why did you not believe him? But if we say from men, we fear the multitude, for they all hold on to be a prophet. And Jesus said, they answered Jesus, they said, we do not know. And so he also said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. Now just turning over to Matthew 23, one more verse where Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, Matthew 23, 39. For I say to you from now on, you shall not see me until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Heavenly Father, we just ask you now in the power and presence of your spirit to open our eyes, our minds, and above all our hearts to the glory and meaning of your word. Help us, Lord God, to be not only hearers of your word, but in your grace and your strength to be doers also, in Jesus' name, for Jesus' sake. Amen. So when Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, he says to the Jews, you will not see me again until you say, Baruch haba b'Shem Adonai, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. However, just a few days earlier, that's precisely what they did say to him. Baruch haba b'Shem Adonai, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. They say, Hosanna to the son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. A few days later, Jesus tells them, you're not going to see me again until you say those very words. It's as if they had not said it to him. What does he mean? You're not going to see me until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Well, that's precisely what they did say to him. Why the apparent contradiction? Now, obviously, just as the first coming of Jesus depended on the Jews and God's prophetic purposes for them, so does his return. The Jews have to see him and recognize him as Messiah. To understand this, we have to understand something about the Jewish faith. Jesus was a rabbi. Christianity in its real form does not come from the Protestant Reformation, nor from Roman Catholicism, nor the Church Fathers. It comes from the Jewish faith of the Tanakh, the Old Testament. In the Jewish faith, we have two pictures of the Messiah as the rabbis came to explain it. Two pictures. One is called the Messiah, the son of Joseph. The other is called the Messiah, the son of David. Hamashiach ben Yosef and Hamashiach ben David. The rabbis came to define it that way, but Jesus was the first one who was really trying to tell them about it. There's some suggestion from the Dead Sea Scrolls that it might have been known by other people in his lifetime. We can't be sure, but Jesus certainly knew it, and in time the rabbis themselves grasped it. Two different pictures of the Messiah. One, the son of Joseph, and the other, the son of David. The son of Joseph was a suffering servant like Joseph in the book of Genesis. It's fortuitous that Jesus' foster father's name was Joseph. Yosef, God shall add, he shall add. Let me explain. In the book of Genesis, we have Joseph. Joseph was betrayed by his Jewish brothers into the hands of Gentiles. God took that betrayal and turned it around and made it a way for all of Israel and all the world to be saved. So Jesus, the son of Joseph, was betrayed by his Jewish brothers into the hands of Gentiles. God takes that betrayal and turns it around and makes it a way for all Israel and all the world to be saved. Joseph was betrayed by his brother Yehudah, Judas, for 20 pieces of silver. After inflation, Jesus, the son of Joseph, was betrayed by Yehudah, Judas, for 30 pieces of silver. They bring Joseph's coat to prove he's not in a tent. They bring Jesus' shroud to prove he's not in a tomb. Joseph is condemned with two criminals. One lives and one dies. Jesus, the son of Joseph, is condemned with two criminals. One lives, and as it were, one dies. Joseph goes from a place of condemnation to a place of exaltation in one day. So Jesus, the son of Joseph, goes from a place of condemnation to a place of exaltation in a single day. When Joseph is exalted, for him every knee has to bow. And to the Lord Jesus, every knee shall bow. Joseph, upon exaltation, takes the Gentile bride. In figure, Jesus, the son of Joseph, takes the Gentile bride. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. There are a few dozen parallelisms like that between Joseph and Jesus. We have a tape on it called One Messiah, Two Comings. That's the son of Joseph. The rabbis identify him correctly with the suffering servant of Isaiah 52 and 53, the fourth servant song of Isaiah, Yishayahu Hanavi, who has believed our reports to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed, not Jesus. That's the son of Joseph. But there is another picture of the Messiah who has to be a descendant of King David. He'd be a conquering king. He would be somebody who would drive out the enemies of God and set up the Messianic kingdom reigning from Jerusalem in the way David did. They all knew the Messiah had to be like David. Now, the son of Joseph, as it were, was a kind of priestly Messiah offering a sacrifice for sin. The son of David, a legal Messiah reigning from Jerusalem. One Messiah, Two Comings. For Jesus to be the Messiah of the Jews, he has to fulfill all of the Old Testament prophecies in the Old Testament, all of them about the Messiah. In fact, Jesus did not fulfill all of the Old Testament prophecies. He's only fulfilled the son of Joseph prophecies. He has still to fulfill the son of David prophecies. The son of David prophecies can only be fulfilled in a spiritual sense, but they're not being fulfilled in any kind of a literal sense. Most Jewish people will reject Jesus as the Messiah for two reasons. One is because of the history of Christian anti-Semitism. And you have a resurgence of that even in this country. You have people coming to South Africa, like Rick Godwin, who are teaching the Jews get nothing. The Jews have no right to be in the land. Israel is nothing but wasted money. People who preach against Israel in Christian, mainly Pentecostal and charismatic churches. Men like Rick Godwin, who hate Israel and teach Christians to hate Israel. That's one reason Jews will reject Jesus, but that's not the main reason. The main reason Jews will reject Jesus is because he did not bring in worldwide peace, set up his kingdom in Jerusalem. If he's the Messiah, why are there still wars? Why is there still racism and social injustice? Why is there still hatred? Why is there still crime, etc.? The answer to that is in the prophet Daniel. Daniel chapter nine says that the Messiah would come and die before the second temple would be destroyed in 70 AD, which it was. So whoever the Messiah was, he had to come and die already. Then it says wars and desolations are determined until the end. It's when he comes the second time that he brings in the worldwide peace and prosperity. In other words, as Christians, we know it's one Messiah, two comings. In his first coming, he's the son of Joseph. In his second coming, he's the son of David. Understand? That's why the pre-Nicene fathers tell us the apostolic church was premillennial. If there's no millennia, if there's no literal reigning of Jesus from Jerusalem, the rabbis would have to be right. He's not the Messiah of the Jews, and if he's not the Messiah of the Jews, neither is he the Christ of the church. All of this amillennialism and post-millennialism was invented after Constantine Christianized the Roman Empire, and followers of Augustine puffed it up, and Augustine began it, actually, and then it developed from there. They had to find a way, saying, what are we going to do about the millennia now that Christendom is the religion of the state? So they began saying the millennia is fulfilled in the church. Amillennialism and premillennialism, they're inventions of incipient Roman Catholicism. They have no basis whatsoever in Biblical Christianity. People who believe it are in error. One of the mistakes of the reformers was they went back to Augustine instead of back to the New Testament. Nonetheless, if there's no millennia, he's not the Messiah, because he didn't fulfill the prophecies, and he has to do it. So we have one Messiah, two comings. On Palm Sunday, they were singing Hosanna to the son of David. They should have been singing Hosanna to the son of Joseph. Do you understand? Now let me explain further. We have to have a 10-minute Bible study on the typology of the Jewish calendar. This is the Jewish calendar from Leviticus 23. It is a type of what theologians call Child Geschichte, salvation history. It had three purposes. It was a civil calendar, a religious calendar, and an agricultural calendar. It followed the annual agricultural cycle. The first purpose was, it was a polemic against paganism. The Canaanites had agricultural feasts on the same days as the Jews, only they were giving thanks to pagan gods. God wanted the Jews to thank the true God for the rain, the sun, the harvest, etc. So there is the first reason. It is a polemic against the pagan religions of the ancient Near East. The second reason is this. God wanted the Jews to remember the needs he met in the past. These holidays, like Passover coming out of Egypt, and our goods, God's provision in the wilderness, and so on, they always recall God's past provision for them. He wanted them to remember the needs he met in the past, so his people would have the faith to trust him for the present and the future. So it is for us as Christians. We should always remember the needs the Lord Jesus has met in our lives in the past. The difficult situations he's brought us through, the times of difficulty he's delivered us through. We should always remember his past deliverances, his past provisions, because that is the way that God has ordained to engender faith to trust him for the present and the future. In other words, if he did it for us in the past, we can trust that he's able and willing to do it for us today and tomorrow. But then the third reason is again, Heil Geschichte. Pay attention, it's a little bit complicated if you're a new Christian. These are the spring holidays. These are the autumn holidays, separated by a long, hot summer. Jesus fulfills the spring holidays in his first coming. He fulfills the autumn holidays in his return. Now I'm not going to go into all of it. Rosh Hashanah simply means the head of the year. The rabbis changed it from roughly from the first of Aviv, roughly the first of April, to the Feast of Trumpets, but in Leviticus 23, it's not that time of year, it's spring. The first holiday is Pesach or Passover, combined with the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt through the water into the promised land. Just as Moses went to a mountain, made a covenant with blood and sprinkled it on the people, so the Lord Jesus went to a mountain, made a covenant with blood and sprinkled it on the people. We're told in 1 Corinthians 10 that Egypt is a figure of the world, right? Sparrow's a figure of faith and the God of the world. The same as Moses delivered the Jews out of Egypt through the water and brought them to the promised land, it's the way the Lord Jesus brings us out of the world through baptism into heaven. 1 Corinthians 10, okay? He's the Passover Lamb. On Yisra'il we're told to say Katamundi, or if you didn't go to Catholic school and learn Latin, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The Passover begins with something called Habebi Chav Chamet, the search for leaven. 1 Corinthians 5, put away the old leaven for Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. Leaven is a symbol of three things all relating to sin. First of all, in the Middle East you make bread by a sourdough method. You take a lump of dough from one batter before you bake it and use it as the base for the next one. But before you bake that, you take a lump from that one and put it into the next. Biologically yeast spores multiply very rapidly. So original sin, it goes from generation to generation very quickly. Secondly, it puffs up as pride does. Pride is the kind of sin that underlies other kinds of sins. If somebody has a greed problem, underneath their problem with greed is pride. If somebody has a lust problem, underneath their problem of lust is pride. It is the kind of sin that undergirds other sins. It was Satan's first sin, wasn't it, in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. Then it is false doctrine. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. False doctrine always involves sin and pride. The Jews had to get rid of all the leaven from their house, to this day we do and purge the leaven from the house. False doctrine and sin. We'll come back to that. The first fruit, the first day of Passover week, the feast of unleavened bread, the high priest would have to go into the Kidron Valley, which lies between the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives, precisely at sunrise, at dawn. All four Gospels tell us that Jesus rose from the dead at sunrise. The rising of the S-U-N is the metaphor in Biblical typology for the rising of the S-O-N. Precisely at sunrise, the first stalks of the spring grain harvest would be coming up out of the earth in the Kidron. And at sunrise, he'd have to go out the first day of the week and ceremonially harvest the first stalk, call it the first fruit, and bring it into the Temple. At the very hour when the high priest was bringing the first fruit into the Temple, the Lord Jesus was told in 1 Corinthians 1520, what does it say? Look at 1 Corinthians 1520. The first fruit of those who are asleep. So the very hour when the high priest is bringing the first fruit into the Temple at sunrise, the first day of Passover week, Jesus, at that very hour, was raising from the dead. So he fulfills Passover, and he's the first fruit. In the synagogue during this week is read the Song of Solomon, the story of King Solomon's romance with Suleiman, which is a metaphor for the Messiah's romance with the Church. Turn to the Song of Solomon, chapter 4, verse 6. Song of Solomon, chapter 4, verse 6. Might say song of songs in your Bible. Does it say? The bridegroom sings to the bride, I will go to the mountain of Myrrh, Myrrh anointed for burial, to the hill of frankincense to offer a sacrifice. The bridegroom goes anointed for burial to Mount Calvary to die for his bride. Now the Song of Solomon is constructed around two dreams. One is chapter 3 when the bride is ready for him, and the other is chapter 5 when it's her worst nightmare. The bridegroom comes and she's not ready, and she misses him. It was at this time when Jesus speaks, when this is being read in the synagogue at Passover, in Matthew 25, the wise and foolish virgin. He takes what was being read in the synagogue, got very weak, and explains it for the church. When he comes, it's either going to be our best dream or our worst nightmare. There's going to be Christians who are prepared and Christians who aren't. There's going to be churches who are ready for the bridegroom and ones who are not. That's what's being read this week. But seven weeks later is Chag Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, what you call the Day of Pentecost. On the Day of Pentecost, the Book of Ruth is read in the synagogue, the story of a rich, powerful Jewish man who takes a Gentile bride and exalts her. And we know the Day of Pentecost is the birthday of the Gentile church, okay? After that comes a long, hot summer, very little rain. You see, you've got two rainy seasons. You've heard of formal amount of rain, right? And early rain and later rain are all this. You have a rain here that prepares the spring harvest, and a rain here that prepares the autumn harvest. What is this rain? Turn to Isaiah 44, 3. Thirsty land, streams and the dry ground, I'll pour out my spirit on your offspring. As you farmers know, no rain, no grain, right? No rain, no grain. Unless the Holy Spirit's poured out, there'll be no harvest. The Holy Spirit being poured out forms something known in Hebrew as Mim Hayim, living water. John 7, 39, Jesus said living water is the Holy Spirit, didn't he? The 3,000 saved the Day of Pentecost for the first harvest, the first thing gathering. The same as the first harvest of the crops, the 3,000 saved for what the first harvest typified. But then you go to a long hot summer, and our summers in the Middle East are longer and hotter than yours even in South Africa. Very little rain. Here and there, now and then, Israel is agriculturally reliant upon the rainfall that's already accumulated in the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan Basin, etc. That summer corresponds to the age of the Gentiles. Between the 69th and 70th week of the Prophet Daniel, the time of the Gentiles will be completed, Jesus said. Israel is God's time key to the nations. You know why Jesus says I'm coming soon, I'm coming quickly? Let me explain. It says in John's epistle, little children, it's the last hour. Well, how could that be 2,000 years ago? He's saying it's the last hour. You have to understand, Israel is God's time key. Think of a, you play rugby in South Africa? You're on rugby. Well, you have football, right? There's soccer. You're watching the soccer game, the football game, and your wife says, what time you want your dinner? And you say, I'd like my dinner, please, when the game is over. What time's the football game going to be over? You say the game will be over at six o'clock. But five minutes to six, a player becomes seriously injured, and the paramedics go out into the field and say, we have to get a doctor. So the referee stops the clock, there's five minutes left in the game, and the clock stops. Then the doctor comes out and says, we can't move him, we have to get an ambulance. So meanwhile, they're waiting and waiting and waiting. And it's now 10 minutes after six, and your wife asks you, do you want your dinner, and the dog are in the microwave. When you want it, when the game is over. How much longer left in the game? Five minutes. Yeah, but there was five minutes left in the game five minutes ago. Time freezes, you understand? At any moment, the clock can begin again. The time of the Gentiles comes to an end. When you see Jews returning to faith in Jesus in significant numbers, in fulfillment of Romans 11. Paul uses the Greek terms, and Jesus the same thing, Jerusalem would be trampled down by the feet of the Gentiles, same Greek terms in the text, until the Gentiles. These things you see in the Middle East, both the Jews coming to faith in Jesus in bigger numbers, even in your country, I'm meeting every day in Johannesburg, one Jew after another who's accepted Jesus. It's happening all over the world. According to the American College of Rabbis, more Jews have turned to faith in Jesus in the last 18 years than in the last 18 centuries. In North America, there are tens of thousands of Jewish born again Christians, more than 90% of them saved in the last 15 years. It is while the size of the Hebrew body of Christ has quadrupled in five years. In Russia, we're astounded how many Jews are being saved. At one meeting in St. Petersburg, 3,000 Jews came forth to give their lives to Jesus at one meeting. That's as many as were saved on the day of Pentecost. Jews are no longer coming to Christ one here, one there. Jews are not even coming to Christ in the thousands anymore. Jews are coming to Christ in the tens of thousands. The time of the Gentiles is coming to an end, Romans 11. Jerusalem trampled under the feet of the Gentiles. Now the ultimate meaning of sounds up with the prophecies of the Antichrist and Daniel, but we see it happening, beginning to happen. A long hot summer. God is beginning to let the clock go again. And then comes the autumn feast. Feast of trumpets is what the rabbis do, the last trumpet sound and all this kind of stuff. I won't go into it. Yom Kippur. But then we have another take, which we explain the autumn feast. The final holiday is the Feast of Booths, Chag Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles is when the Jews remember God's provision in the wilderness, in the fine isles. It represents to them the millennia. Look at the book of Zechariah, chapter 12. Verse 10. Let's begin in verse one. The burden of the Lord concerning Israel. Thus declares the Lord who stretches out the heavens and lays the foundations of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him. I'm about to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the people round about it. And whoever tries to lift it will hurt themselves previously. Jerusalem will be the issue before Jesus comes. Not the West Bank, not the Golan, not Gaza. Even left wing Jews who are amicable to land for peace. When you touch Jerusalem, you touch the heart of a Jew. They won't want to give up Jerusalem so easily. And all who lift it will hurt themselves previously. And you'll see this happening. So let's look further. Look at verse 10. I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication. So they will look upon me who they have pierced and mourn for him as one mourns for an only son. Do you see that? When Jesus comes back, the Jews will see the ones who they betrayed to the Romans and who was pierced and mourned for him. Pay attention. Chapter nine, verse nine of Zachariah, he comes on a donkey, the son of Joseph. Chapter 12, he comes back and the references in Revelation, he seems to be on a white horse, doesn't he? One Messiah, two coming. Joseph's brothers, the Jews, didn't recognize him at the first coming, but at the second. And they wept bitterly, didn't they? Jesus, the son of Joseph, his brothers don't recognize him at the first coming. They recognize him at the second and they weep bitterly. You understand? Remember, Joseph sent the Egyptians, he sent the Gentiles away and personally revealed himself to his brothers. The church got fractured and Jesus personally shows himself to the Jews. What's going to happen? Don't let these false teachers who are telling you these events in the Middle East have no prophetic meaning. Don't believe them. These things are signs that Jesus gave so we would not be deceived and unprepared. Watch out for God when these false teachers. Let's look more carefully. Now let's look what happens when he comes. Look at chapter 14, verse 16. Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went up against Jerusalem, they'll go up from year to year to worship the king, the Lord of hosts, to celebrate the feast of foods. Verse 18, they will come up to celebrate the feast of foods. Verse 19, they'll come up to celebrate the feast of foods. Foods to the Jews represented the millennia. You understand? When the Messiah would come and set up his kingdom, subduing the enemies of God, reigning from Jerusalem. When Jesus was transfigured with Moses and Elijah, Peter wanted to build three. What do you want to build? Foods. That's it. Moses, Elijah, the Messiah, the kingdom has come. It's for millennia. You understand? The Jews could not see the difference. They could not understand it was one Messiah, two comings. They had an over-realized escapology. The Bible teaches inaugural escapology, now but not yet. Just like the triumphalists you have today, they were thinking it's now. Bang. In his first coming, he comes to deal with sin. In his second coming, he comes to establish his kingdom in the fourth sense. The feast of foods. Peter couldn't see it. Let's build the foods, set up the millennia. Here it is. What more do you want? Even John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus, couldn't understand it completely. What does he do? He says to his disciples, go to Jesus and ask, are you the one or shall we look for another? Even John couldn't understand it. What's the last thing they say to Jesus on the Mount of Olives when he ascends to heaven? Lord, is it at this time you're restoring the kingdom to Israel? He didn't deny it would happen. It has to happen if he's not the Messiah. He has to fulfill the son of David's prophecies. In other words, when they say to him, Lord, is it at this time you're restoring the kingdom? What they were saying is, we know you're the son of Joseph now, but when are you going to come as the son of David in the sand? Now the Jewish people have a liturgy in their worship called the Siddur in the synagogue. But you have a special Siddur for the holidays called a Mahzor. The Mahzor for Passover is called a Haggadah. Haggadah. They have a special kind of worship. In this Haggadah, you sing something called the Hallel Rabah from 113 to 118. Only you sing it twice. You sing it at Passover, the first holiday, corresponding to the Lamb that was slain, right? But you sing it the last holiday, the Feast of Booths. The difference being, when you sing it at the Feast of Passover, you sing it with your hands waving. When you sing it at the Feast of Booths, you sing it with something called Lulavim, palm branches. In other words, what did they do on Palm Sunday? They picked up palm branches and began singing Psalm 113 to 118. We're going to read it. They began celebrating Passover as if it were the Feast of Booths. You understand? When you see these churches giving people palm on Palm Sunday, they're commemorating a mistake. Palm Sunday is the most ridiculous, stupid thing imaginable. When you understand the original Jewish background of the text, they're commemorating an error. It's absolute nonsense. They began celebrating Passover as if it were the Feast of Booths. They began singing it with Lulavim, palm branches. Why? They didn't want to know about the son of Joseph, the suffering servant, the Lamb who would be slain. They wanted the conquering king like David, who set up the kingdom. You understand? Turn to Psalm 113 to 118. Let's just look at 118. Save time. The stone which the gold is rejected, which Jesus also elaborates on at Passover time, has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord doing its marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. O Lord, do save, we beseech thee. That word do save in Hebrew is Hoshana, Hoshana, Hosanna. O Lord, Hosanna, do save us. O Lord, we beseech thee. Look at verse 25. Do send prosperity. You see that? Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. And so they sing to Jesus with palm branches at Passover as if it were the Feast of Booths. Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna to the son of David. They were singing Hosanna to the son of David. They should have been singing Hosanna to the son of Joseph, understand? So when Jesus says to them, you won't see me until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. What he meant was, you look upon me who they have pierced in Zachariah. You'll see the son of David, the conquering king you're looking for, was the one who died for your sins. You have to say it to the son of Joseph before you can say it to the son of David. You have to know Jesus as your sin bearer before you can know him as the one who's going to give you triumph. You have to have Passover before you can have food. You have to know the Lord Jesus and his cross and in his suffering before you can know him and his dominion and in his prosperity. You understand? You put the lights back on, please. What happened was this. They had the right messiah, but they had the wrong messiah. They understood about Jesus, but they had them all wrong. They said the right thing, but they said the wrong thing. Let's look again at their mistakes. Let's look, first of all, at Psalm 118, verse 25. Oh Lord, send us prosperity. The Jews had three mistakes on Palm Sunday when Jesus made his triumphal entry. The first is they had a prosperity theology. They wanted a messiah who was going to make them rich. You're a king's kid. Name it and claim it. You understand? He says, no, pick up your cross and follow me. Trust me to meet your needs. But as far as riches, throw up treasure in heaven. What do you have being taught today in this country by Ray McCauley and Kenneth Hagin and these other liars? Prosperity theology. Name it and claim it. God wants you rich, which they do on the basis of gnosticism. The same thing that caused the Jews not to be ready for Jesus to come the first time, is causing Christians not to be ready for him to come back. A gospel of man and they wanted prosperity. You don't have to suffer. You're a king's kid. They follow Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland, who were influenced by E. W. Kenyon. You know what that man believed? You know what Copeland believed? Satan got the victory on the cross. On the cross, the Lord Jesus took my sin and yours, and he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. It is finished. They say, No, we did not. When Jesus died on the cross, he became a satanic being in hell of one nature with Lucifer. He was tortured in hell as a satanic being of one nature with Satan, and then Jesus had to be born again. Copeland says he could have died on the cross instead of Jesus Christ. They have another gospel. You understand? Paul says, If even an angel of God comes with another gospel, or get away from them, they have another gospel. What Raymond is pushing and promoting is no more the gospel of Jesus Christ than what the Roman Catholic Church, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons, the Moonies, or any other cult teaches. It's another gospel. So because the cross of Jesus is not central to their view of salvation, the cross of Jesus is not central to their view of the Christian life. Instead of pick up your cross and follow me, cling to the old rugged cross and exchange it one day for a crown of the traditional Hingos, forget about the cross. That's not what Jesus got to victory. Name it and claim it. You're a king's kid. God wants you rich. You understand? That's the lie that caused the Jews not to be ready for him to come the first time. And that's the same lie that's going to cause so many Christians not to be ready for him to come back. One Messiah, two comings. Once again, you cannot know the Lord Jesus in his prosperity until you know him in his suffering. There is no food without Passover. They've got the right Messiah, but the wrong Messiah. They say the right things, but they're saying the wrong thing. They understand about Jesus, but they have them all wrong. That's what happened on Palm Sunday, and that's what's going on now. But let's look further. Turn back again, please, to Matthew 21. In the days of Jesus, the fortress Antonio, a symbol of Roman dominion, powered over the Temple Mount right next to it. If you come with me to Jerusalem in October, I'll show you. And it was actually taller, protruded above, overshadowing the house of God about 150 years before the Maccabees liberated the Temple Mount from the Seleucid Greeks, Antiochus Epiphanes. The Jews of Jesus' day wanted a political Messiah to get rid of the Romans the way the Maccabees got rid of the Greeks 150 years earlier. You understand? They wanted a political Messiah who would bring in the kingdom. Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world. He refused it. They said, No, we want a Messiah who's going to set up the kingdom now. What was the second era of the Jews? Kingdom now, theology, triumphalism, dominionism, David Chilton, Rick Godwin, Gerald Coates in England, Roger Foster, Austin Sparks, Kevin Conner. The same garbage you see today was around then. That lie prevented the Jews from being ready for him to come the first time. And those Christians, following the lies and deception of dominionism, are not going to be ready for him to come back. When you understand the theological presuppositions of men like John Wimber and Paul Kane, the Kansas City Fourth Prophets, you understand why the predictions are always coming false. If somebody's doctrines are wrong, their prophecy will be wrong. They had a dominionist eschatology. The kingdom is now, but not yet. Any time the church went into reconstructionism and tried to turn itself into a political power, it brought social and moral death. Look at it. Look what Constantine did. It destroyed the church and gave rise to Roman Catholicism with immorality and decadence and idolatry. The reformers, for all their good points, look how the Reformation degenerated. Calvin's police stayed in Geneva. Look what happened with it. Ringley, what he did to the Baptists. You want to be baptized again? We'll cut a hole in the ice and drown you. If you're a Baptist or a Pentecostal, if you don't believe in baby baptism, never call yourself a Protestant. If you don't believe in the church of the state, if you don't believe in Erasmus, if you believe in a separation between church and state, never call yourself a Protestant. If you believe in gifts of the Spirit, never call yourself a Protestant. And above all, if you believe in believers baptism instead of infant baptism, Peter baptism, never call yourself a Protestant. The Protestants would have murdered people like you. During the Reformation, if you hold to believers baptism, you would have been called an Anabaptist and the followers of the Reformers would have killed you as fast as the Catholics would have. You would have been called an Anabaptist. Your doctrinal heritage does not come from the Reformers. It comes from people before the Reformers, like the Bohemian Brethren and the Waldensians and people like this. Now, let's look further. They had a benignist eschatology, triumphalism, kingdom now. They wanted the kingdom now. They wanted prosperity now and they wanted kingdom now. But then they had something else. You see, they wanted Jesus to get rid of the Romans. Instead, he enters the temple and gets rid of them. Judgment begins in the house of God. Do you hear what I said? Judgment begins in the house of God. God is always more concerned with the sin in my life and in your life as believers than he is with the sin in the lives of the unsaved. He's much more concerned with what's wrong in here, in here, and in here than what's wrong out there. He wasn't so interested in getting rid of the Romans, despite their idolatry and corruption. He was more concerned with what was wrong in the temple. What was happening? As I told you last night, the religious leaders turned the blood of the lamb into a way to exploit God's people and get money out of them. He needed a lamb without blemish for the Passover. As I told you last night, listen, you need a lamb without blemish, you go to my cousin Smulik, the culture butcher, tell him I sent you to get 10% off, the lamb will be all right. The religious leaders were profiteering on the blood of the lamb. You hear what I said? The religious leaders were profiteering on the blood of the lamb. They were twisting the word of God in order to financially exploit God's people. Why did the PTL collapse and Jim Baker go to jail? It's the same reason. Judgment begins in the house of God. They're perverting the word of God to exploit God's people by profiteering on the blood of the lamb. God's judgment will not come on South Africa as a secular society until it comes on the church. God's judgment will not come on the United States of America as a nation until it comes on the church. It will not come on Great Britain as a nation until it comes on the church. What are they doing in Ramah? Poor people in council estate, poor people in Soweto and Alexandria and the townships have nothing and they're financially exploiting them out of money. Just claim it. God wants you rich. Give us this, a pack of lies. They're flying around in Lear jets, riding in limousines, milking the poor. That's what happened on Palm Sunday and that's what's going on today. So what does Jesus do? The search for leaven, the purge for leaven. Before the Jews could have the Passover, they had to get the leaven out of the house. What leaven? False doctrine, religious pride and sin. All the Sanhedrin got the physical leaven out of the temple, but not the real leaven. So Jesus got it out. He drove out the money changers. When Jesus drove out the money changers, he was fulfilling the Bedi Hachametz, the search for leaven. You understand? They did more. They had a third expectation. They heard about the Nisim, the Niflaot, the signs and the wonders, the miracles. They wanted Jesus to put on a show. He refused. Now, his miracles were not like you see today. They were real miracles. On the Pentecostal, I believe in gifts of the Spirit. I believe in signs and wonders. I believe in healing. But I also know a lot of what we see is hype and bogus. The phenomena of leg pulling. There was a Christian orthopedic surgeon, a professor, I believe, of orthopedic medicine and surgery in Australia. He said the condition of one leg shorter than the other is an extremely rare phenomena. Unless it happens by accident, unless the femur is severed by trauma and accident, the difference is usually very slight if it's congenital. So slight it's difficult to diagnose. They can measure it with a laser. And usually, easily corrected with an orthopedic shoe. It's a rare thing. He said most medical doctors never see it. Most orthopedic specialists who specialize in such disorders will only see it a couple of times in the course of an entire career. These guys have it at every meeting. Pull the other one. He refused to put on a show. We have people today saying power, power, power. It's an obsession with power, not an obsession with Jesus. Signs and wonders have their place, but their place is never in place of the real message of repentance. Never. These signs follow. Today, instead of a repentance gospel, we have a signs and wonders gospel. Come see the show. Put your hands up. Sheep grace. See the miracle crusade. The Lord Jesus refused to have a miracle crusade. The only miracle he was interested in is people repenting and getting saved. I don't negate the biblical place for signs and wonders practiced biblically. But what you see happening today in most of Pentecostalism and throughout the charismatic movement is what Jesus warned against. A wicked generation seeks a sign. They're not seeking Jesus. They're seeking a sign. Jesus called this wickedness. When you see people going to Wimber and these other guys teaching false doctrines to seek a sign or these Toronto nonsense, Jesus called that wickedness. After he drives the money changers out of the temple, it says, verse 14, the blind and lame came to him in the temple and he healed them. These signs follow. So what did they have? A prosperity gospel, a kingdom now gospel, and a signs and wonders gospel. What did they not have? The gospel of Jesus Christ. What do we see today? Morris, T.V.N., Raymer, Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Jerry Saville, John Ivanzini. What do you see today? Look at it. A prosperity gospel. The gospel of Mormon, not the gospel of Jesus. It says in Timothy, if our basic needs are met, we should be content, doesn't it? Isn't a middle class lifestyle good enough for these guys? Isn't it? That's way more than 75% of the people in the world are ever going to have. Not only that, but most of these guys are uneducated men. Pearl was educated, Peter wasn't. But Peter knew the word of God. It doesn't bother me that Kenneth Hagin is an uneducated man. It doesn't bother me that your Ray McCauley and Rodney Howard Brown are uneducated men. I don't care that they're uneducated men. What I care about is they don't know the word of God. You look at the academically low standards of Pentecostal Bible colleges. There are people who are not good enough to go to an academic school. So many of the people who go into Pentecostal and charismatic ministry and are not a Pentecostal minister are people who would not have been good enough to make it in the secular world. They would not have been clever enough to make it in the secular profession or in secular business. So they turn the ministry of the gospel into a business. The church becomes an enterprise and a calling becomes a career. Do you understand? Do you think these guys would be riding around in limousines and flying in executive jets if they weren't ministers in a Pentecostal church? Ray McCauley would be working at McDonald's. Do you want fries with this? He used to be a thug, a bouncer. I don't care that the guy's uneducated. I care that the guy doesn't know the word of God. He doesn't have a clue. Listen to his doctrines. It's nonsense. First Timothy chapter one. If you do not know how to rightly divide the word of God, you have no right to stand in the pulpit of Jesus Christ. That's not what I say. That's what God says in his word. They set themselves in the feet of Moses. God didn't put them there. Debate me. Come on, Ray McCauley. Debate me. I'll debate you, Rick Godwin in public anytime. We'll have scholars watch the debates. We'll test your doctrines. Come debate me. You won't, but I'm ready. Let's look. He points to the law. What does Jesus say? Was the baptism of God from God or from man? They said we can't tell you. Now, what Jesus meant was not, well, if you don't tell me, I'm not going to tell you. What he meant was, if you can't accept the Torah, if you can't accept the message of John, who was the epitome of the Torah, if you can't accept what he has to say, if you can't accept the law, you can't possibly accept grace. If you can't accept the Torah, if you can't accept the law and the prophets as taught by John, you can't possibly accept me. Why? The law was our Tudor, Pagan in Greek and Galatian. It teaches about our need for salvation. Unless somebody knows they're condemned and on their way to hell, they're not going to appreciate grace. They understand. So instead of preaching the law first, as Jesus does, I don't mean the literal law of Moses. I mean, what the law means telling people they're lost. I'm not talking about preaching at people, turn the burn that's preaching at them. I'm talking about preaching to them on the basis of scripture. Unless you tell people they're lost and the nature of the commitment, they're not going to want to get saved. You're giving them a prosperity gospel, a signs and wonders gospel, a kingdom now gospel, of course they're going to put their hand up. But when tribulation comes, we're going to be the first ones who fall away and lose their faith. The people taught the Ramah lie. Many will fall away and betray one another. You know who's going to betray you and your children? The people in Ramah churches. They have a false gospel. You think about a ferry boat going from Durban to Madagascar and on this boat you have a casino, a pub, and a discotheque. And everybody's in the casino, in the pub, and in the discotheque having a party. But if you'll put on a life jacket and you go out at night in the cold rain and you get in a light bulb and you tell the people in the discotheque and in the casino and in the pub, here put on one of these and get in the boat with us. We're having a wonderful time. You might get them to put it on, but as soon as it begins to rain, they're going to get out of the boat and go back into the pub. You tell people the law, this boat is never going to reach Madagascar. It's going to sink. They're not going to get out of that boat. They're not going to take that life preserver off. When the buzzer goes off and the boat is sinking, what does it say? The kingdom men enter it violently. Now in its context, men take it by force, violently is the same word. Matthew translates it one way, Luke another, but the Greek word is the same, diazetai. What diazetai means is the mad rush of people trying to get into the lifeboat to save their life. Marvis Perillo, a total ignoramus in America from England, his name is Andrew Shearman. All these kingdom now guys are saying we're the violent men. We're going to take the kingdom violently and establish the kingdom now. Isn't that what they're saying? That's not even what the verse means. It's not even what the word means. It means forcing their way into the lifeboat so they know they're in trouble. It is to divert the word of God out of all context. We're going to take the kingdom by force. It's total rubbish. It's not what the word even means. It's certainly not what it means in Greek. And if you read this thing carefully, it's not even what it means in English, which again, you're dealing with ignorant, uneducated clergy. I don't mean academically uneducated. That doesn't bother me. I mean, men who don't know the word of God, clowns, imbeciles, people who could not even make it in secular business or professions. That's why they become Pentecostal ministers. I'm a Pentecostal minister. I'm not saying they're all like that. Probably 80%. Probably. The older generation of Pentecostal preachers. We never had too many Greek or Hebrew scholars in our Pentecostal churches, but at least the old timers knew the word of God. They knew their doctrine. That's gone now. Now it's all heist experience. Man-made doctrine. That's what Laodicea means in Greek. Church of Laodicea. Laodicea means people's opinions. They tell you faith, faith, prosperity. Look at Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11 says more about faith than all the rest of the New Testament put together. The Hebrew word for faith is emunah. The Greek word for faith is tison. However, the Hebrew word for faithfulness is also emunah, and the Greek word for faithfulness is also tison. Neither the Hebrew language, nor the Greek language, nor the word of God make a distinction between faith and faithfulness. The righteous shall live by faith. Yes, the righteous shall live by faithfulness. You're saved by grace through faith. Yes, you're saved by grace through faithfulness. We're making a distinction. The Scriptures don't understand, but let's look further. The faith life in Hebrews 11 is a combination of good and bad. Let's look at the end. Verse 35. Others were tortured, not accepting their release in order that they might attain a better resurrection. You've got the prosperity preachers saying you don't have to suffer. You're a king's kid. The only reason our Western societies have the level of affluence and freedom we have is because it was bought for us by the blood of martyrs who were tortured, who did suffer. You understand? It's only because of the influences of biblical Christianity and our models of government, culture, and economy that we have the level of freedom and the standard of living we've had in the Western Protestant countries. Now that our countries are turning away from the Bible towards new age and God knows what else, we're losing our freedom. We're losing our prosperity. Let's look. There were stones. Others experienced markings, scourging, chains and imprisonment, stones thorn in two. They were tempted. They were put to death with the sword. They went about in 5,000-ram suits, staying in five-star hotels and riding in Mercedes limousines. Sorry, I thought I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Went about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, men of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts, mountains, caves, and holes in the ground, all of these having gained approval through their faith. Whose definition of faith you want to believe? Either the person who wrote this is a liar or Raymond is a liar. Either this is a lie or Kenneth Hagin is a liar. Either this is a lie or Ray McCrory is a liar. Somebody's lying. You can't believe both. That's not what I say. That's what the Bible says. Name it and claim it. Look what it says in Timothy. 1 Timothy 6.10. The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. Some by longing from it have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many a pang. If you chase money, you're going to pierce yourself with pangs. What's the biblical attitude? If I'm absolutely wealthy, I consider myself to be poor. It doesn't belong to me. It belongs to Jesus. I'm only a sewage. And if I'm flat broke, I consider myself to be rich because I'm a co-heir with Christ. Our kingdom is not of this world because Christ's kingdom is not of this world. That's the biblical attitude. They're saying claim it faith. It says that those who want to get rich will lose that faith, doesn't it? Those who want to get rich and chase money in this world are going to lose their faith. Who's the liar? Jesus Christ or Kenneth Hagin? The way they pervert the Bible is unbelievable. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 8. Continuous manner, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, that your clothing did not wear out, nor did your foot swell these 40 years. He let them be hungry. He let them have difficult times, but he met their needs. Affluent white South Africa. What happened when the people left the cave and came over the mountains over to this area of South Africa? Didn't people die of disease and everything else? Lions eat them and halt his tusks? The Dutch Reformed Church has made a lot of mistakes, but its first and foremost mistake was that it went away from the heritage of his father. Let's look further. Verse 16. In a wilderness he fed you manner, which your fathers did not know, that he might humble you, that he might test you to do good for you in the end. When the Lord lets us go through difficult times of want and hardship, why is it that he may do good for us in the end? He does not willfully afflict the sons of men. When you go through hardships in your life as a believer by God's will, not by your own will, not something you get yourself into, but things that God allows to happen or brings on you, brings on me, it's always that he may do good for us in the end. Why verse 17? Otherwise you may say in your heart, my power and the strength of my hand has made me this wealth. I've got this money because I'm clever. I got this money by my own initiative. No. What does it say? Verse 18. You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who is giving you power to make wealth, that he may confirm the covenant, which he swore to your fathers. God shows us how to make money. Why? So we can have a good life in this fallen world? No. So we can confirm the covenant. So we can take care of the poor and preach the gospel. So we can support missions and evangelism. That's why to confirm the covenant. His kingdom is not of this world. You can't have the son of David till you have the son of Joseph. You can't know Jesus and his prosperity till you know him and his cross. What did Moses say? When you enter the land of milk and honey and your flocks multiply, you'll forget the Lord your God who showed you how to make the money. What did John Wesley say in England? If real revival comes to Great Britain, because the society is governed by biblical principles, social injustice will decrease and affluence will increase. Once that happens, the church will become lazy, lukewarm, proud, and backsliding. Boy, was he right. Laodicea. God never promised individuals wealth. He promised a nation wealth. Now you can take the principles God gave to Israel and apply them generally to the church, but his covenant with the Jews is his covenant with the Jews. His covenant with the church is something different. We have a better covenant. It's true, but it's something to do with wealth in this world. Look at the principle. Why are countries who have false religion and idolatry the most poor? Why does India have that kind of poverty? The caste system. Apartheid was, apartheid was evil. I do not defend apartheid for one second. It was evil, but you know what? Compared to the caste system in India, it was a joke. You want to see real social injustice, look at the Hindu religion. It teaches it. The guru, the Brahmin priest, he's the top of the pyramid. People starving to death give them everything. Somebody giving a little baby cow urine to drink because they think it's holy. People drinking water from the Ganges and dying of cholera because they think it's holy, but if they die, that doesn't matter. If your baby dies, that doesn't matter because that's his karma. It's the most, I traveled a lot. When I go to the Far East, I see people turning from Islam, from Hinduism, from Buddhism towards Jesus. Only to come to the Western world and see people turning from Jesus towards Eastern religion. If you want to see what those religions will do for a society, come with me to India in April, I'll show you. Look at the poor countries. The Roman Catholic world, Latin America, poverty. Central Africa, African traditional religion, Islam, poverty. Buddhism, Hinduism, poverty. The only reason the Western countries have had this affluence is because of biblical principles. But these guys are perverting these principles. God never promised us wealth. Christians through most of history have been persecuted. You want somebody to look up to, don't look up to one of these con artists from America riding around in a limousine, staying in a five-star hotel and preaching in Ramah. You want somebody to look up to, you look up to the Christians in Northern Nigeria who are being persecuted for their faith. You look up to the Christians in Iran who are seeing their children murdered for their faith. You look up to the Christians in China who are being persecuted for their faith. Those are the people to look up to. Those who wandered around in caves, mountains and holes in the ground, made of whom the world was not worthy. That's who to look up to. Not these con men from America. And South Africa. Why does Satan raise these false prophets and false teachers up? There are several reasons. The first reason is when unsaved people see the Ramah message, they think the gospel is a financial con job and won't want to get saved. That's the first reason. I saw Ray McCrory's advert. The only thing it takes to stop crime is a minute of silence and a black ribbon. You think you're going to stop crime with a minute of silence and a black ribbon? Not from the South African police that I've talked to. And he says in the advert, bring your checkbook to the moment of silence. Unsaved people see right through it. The sons of darkness are more clever than the sons of light. Unsaved people see right through that stuff. It takes a born-again Christian to be that stupid. There's very few unsaved people capable of being that stupid. The innocent as a serpent? No. The innocent as a dove. But wise as a serpent. Satan was a serpent, wasn't he? The deceiver. We're supposed to be as wise as he is, but as innocent as a dove. Unsaved people, Jesus said, are wiser in the ways of the world. There's very few unsaved people who will be taken in by the likes of Kenneth Hagin or Ray McCrory. It takes a born-again Christian to be that stupid. Second reason, most of these con men like Oral Roberts and those guys who saw the 700-foot Jesus in the sky, if you don't clock up a couple of million by the end of the month, I'm going to kill you. Unsaved people see this. It discredits the gospel. They think it's a con job, and they're right. Most of these guys began as honest men of God. Their gifts were real. Their gifts are real. Their gifts will go forth without repentance. I'm not saying that people don't get healed through it. For his own glory and for the good of others, Jesus might even use these people. Lord, did we not do miracles in your name? Yeah, you did. Get lost. He didn't deny they did the miracles. He never said you'd know them by their gifts. He said we'd know them by their roots. Even to get some calling of God, it has to do more with the Jews in its context than it does what we see today. Touch not my anointed. When you say to these guys for their corruption, don't touch me. I'm God's anointed. Where does the verse come from? It comes from the story of David and Paul, doesn't it? No, King David would not touch Paul because Paul was God's anointed. That's true. In the cave of Iron Gate, when he had to drop on him, he wouldn't kill him. David would not touch Paul because Paul was God's anointed. But did that ever stop King David or the prophet Samuel from telling the truth about Paul? That he was a phony, treacherous, back-footed murderer? No, it did not stop David or Samuel from telling the truth about Paul. That he was a phony, treacherous, back-footed murderer. And it's not going to stop me from telling the truth about Kenneth Hagin. Kenneth Hagin, if you are watching, you are a false prophet. Neither should it stop you from telling the truth about Ray McCauley. Ray McCauley, you're a Bible-twisting, money-grubbing practitioner of slimeball Christianity who's discrediting the gospel and exploiting and misleading God's people. That's assuming they are God's anointed, which is a big assumption. But let's look further. Why else? Most of these guys are charismatic for Pentecostals, aren't they? Almost all of them. 1 Corinthians 14, 21 to 23, if the unsaved or ungifted enter, and I say you are mad, why does the text put the unsaved and the ungifted together? The Greek word is idiotai. Idiotai. Because the context tells us not only are those who practice the gift of the Spirit supposed to practice them in a way the unsaved will want to get saved, but those who practice them should also practice them in a way that the ungifted will want the gift. Instead, when these guys see this charismania and financial exploitation, and Toronto and the rest, they say that's your gift of the Spirit, we don't want it. There's everything that Paul warned about. Satan uses these guys to discredit the gift of the Spirit in the eyes of the ungifted, and to discredit the gospel in the eyes of the unsaved. There's everything Paul warned about. Why else? Many will fall away and betray one another. Who's going to lose their faith when persecution and hardship comes? Those who have said the faith prosperity message. It is not the prosperity of Deuteronomy 8, and it's not the faith of Hebrews 11. False prophets will come if possible to deceive the elect. Why is it happening? I defy any of these guys to come and challenge me and debate me on the basis of Scripture. We'll video it. We'll do it in public. But they won't. Look. They had the right Jesus, but they had the wrong Jesus. They said the right things, but they said the wrong things. They understood about Him, but they had them all wrong. You can't know Jesus and His prosperity until you know Him and His cross. You can't have the son of David until you have the son of Joseph. You can't have the kingdom until you have the crucified Christ. You can't have the Feast of Booths until you have the Feast of Tabernacles. You can't sing Hosanna to the son of David until you've sung it to the son of Joseph. They had a prosperity theology. They had a signs and wonders gospel. They had a kingdom now theology. That's why the Jews were not ready for Jesus to come the first time. What do you see today in contemporary Pentecostalism and Charismaticism? A prosperity gospel, a kingdom now gospel, a signs and wonders gospel. Those Christians are not going to be ready for Jesus to come back. My hope and my prayer for you people and for your families and for me and for my family is that we will be ready for Jesus to come back. God bless you and have a good evening.