Scripture referenced
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Genesis 3:15 first prophecy of the Messiah as the one who will crush the serpent's head
15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”
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Keep this verse
Judges 4-5
Jael crushing Sisera's skull with a tent peg as a prophetic picture of the Messiah
4:1 The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, when Ehud was dead.
4:2 Yahweh sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth of the Gentiles.
4:3 The children of Israel cried to Yahweh, for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and he mightily oppressed the children of Israel for twenty years.
4:4 Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, judged Israel at that time.
4:5 She lived under Deborah’s palm tree between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.
4:6 She sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh Naphtali, and said to him, “Hasn’t Yahweh, the God of Israel, commanded, ‘Go and lead the way to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?
4:7 I will draw to you, to the river Kishon, Sisera, the captain of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into your hand.’”
4:8 Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.”
4:9 She said, “I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the journey that you take won’t be for your honor; for Yahweh will sell Sisera into a woman’s hand.” Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.
4:10 Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali together to Kedesh; and ten thousand men followed him; and Deborah went up with him.
4:11 Now Heber the Kenite had separated himself from the Kenites, even from the children of Hobab, Moses’ brother-in-law, and had pitched his tent as far as the oak in Zaanannim, which is by Kedesh.
4:12 They told Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam was gone up to Mount Tabor.
4:13 Sisera gathered together all his chariots, even nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people who were with him, from Harosheth of the Gentiles, to the river Kishon.
4:14 Deborah said to Barak, “Go; for this is the day in which Yahweh has delivered Sisera into your hand. Hasn’t Yahweh gone out before you?” So Barak went down from Mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him.
4:15 Yahweh confused Sisera, all his chariots, and all his army, with the edge of the sword before Barak. Sisera abandoned his chariot and fled away on his feet.
4:16 But Barak pursued the chariots and the army to Harosheth of the Gentiles; and all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword. There was not a man left.
4:17 However Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.
4:18 Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said to him, “Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; don’t be afraid.” He came in to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug.
4:19 He said to her, “Please give me a little water to drink; for I am thirsty.” She opened a bottle of milk, and gave him a drink, and covered him.
4:20 He said to her, “Stand in the door of the tent, and if any man comes and inquires of you, and says, ‘Is there any man here?’ you shall say, ‘No.’”
4:21 Then Jael Heber’s wife took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him, and struck the pin into his temples, and it pierced through into the ground; for he was in a deep sleep; so he fainted and died.
4:22 Behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said to him, “Come, and I will show you the man whom you seek.” He came to her; and behold, Sisera lay dead, and the tent peg was in his temples.
4:23 So God subdued Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel on that day.
4:24 The hand of the children of Israel prevailed more and more against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan.
5:1 Then Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam sang on that day, saying,
5:2 “Because the leaders took the lead in Israel, because the people offered themselves willingly, be blessed, Yahweh!
5:3 “Hear, you kings! Give ear, you princes! I, even I, will sing to Yahweh. I will sing praise to Yahweh, the God of Israel.
5:4 “Yahweh, when you went out of Seir, when you marched out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, the sky also dropped. Yes, the clouds dropped water.
5:5 The mountains quaked Yahweh’s presence, even Sinai at the presence of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
5:6 “In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied. The travelers walked through byways.
5:7 The rulers ceased in Israel. They ceased until I, Deborah, arose; Until I arose a mother in Israel.
5:8 They chose new gods. Then war was in the gates. Was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?
5:9 My heart is toward the governors of Israel, who offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless Yahweh!
5:10 “Speak, you who ride on white donkeys, you who sit on rich carpets, and you who walk by the way.
5:11 Far from the noise of archers, in the places of drawing water, there they will rehearse Yahweh’s righteous acts, the righteous acts of his rule in Israel. “Then Yahweh’s people went down to the gates.
5:12 ‘Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, awake, utter a song! Arise, Barak, and lead away your captives, you son of Abinoam.’
5:13 “Then a remnant of the nobles and the people came down. Yahweh came down for me against the mighty.
5:14 Those whose root is in Amalek came out of Ephraim, after you, Benjamin, among your peoples. Governors come down out of Machir. Those who handle the marshal’s staff came out of Zebulun.
5:15 The princes of Issachar were with Deborah. As was Issachar, so was Barak. They rushed into the valley at his feet. By the watercourses of Reuben, there were great resolves of heart.
5:16 Why did you sit among the sheepfolds? To hear the whistling for the flocks? At the watercourses of Reuben, there were great searchings of heart.
5:17 Gilead lived beyond the Jordan. Why did Dan remain in ships?…
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Judges 5
song memorializing Jael striking and crushing Sisera's skull
1 Then Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam sang on that day, saying,
2 “Because the leaders took the lead in Israel, because the people offered themselves willingly, be blessed, Yahweh!
3 “Hear, you kings! Give ear, you princes! I, even I, will sing to Yahweh. I will sing praise to Yahweh, the God of Israel.
4 “Yahweh, when you went out of Seir, when you marched out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, the sky also dropped. Yes, the clouds dropped water.
5 The mountains quaked Yahweh’s presence, even Sinai at the presence of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
6 “In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied. The travelers walked through byways.
7 The rulers ceased in Israel. They ceased until I, Deborah, arose; Until I arose a mother in Israel.
8 They chose new gods. Then war was in the gates. Was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?
9 My heart is toward the governors of Israel, who offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless Yahweh!
10 “Speak, you who ride on white donkeys, you who sit on rich carpets, and you who walk by the way.
11 Far from the noise of archers, in the places of drawing water, there they will rehearse Yahweh’s righteous acts, the righteous acts of his rule in Israel. “Then Yahweh’s people went down to the gates.
12 ‘Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, awake, utter a song! Arise, Barak, and lead away your captives, you son of Abinoam.’
13 “Then a remnant of the nobles and the people came down. Yahweh came down for me against the mighty.
14 Those whose root is in Amalek came out of Ephraim, after you, Benjamin, among your peoples. Governors come down out of Machir. Those who handle the marshal’s staff came out of Zebulun.
15 The princes of Issachar were with Deborah. As was Issachar, so was Barak. They rushed into the valley at his feet. By the watercourses of Reuben, there were great resolves of heart.
16 Why did you sit among the sheepfolds? To hear the whistling for the flocks? At the watercourses of Reuben, there were great searchings of heart.
17 Gilead lived beyond the Jordan. Why did Dan remain in ships? Asher sat still at the haven of the sea, and lived by his creeks.
18 Zebulun was a people that jeopardized their lives to the death; Naphtali also, on the high places of the field.
19 “The kings came and fought, then the kings of Canaan fought at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo. They took no plunder of silver.
20 From the sky the stars fought. From their courses, they fought against Sisera.
21 The river Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. My soul, march on with strength.
22 Then the horse hoofs stamped because of the prancing, the prancing of their strong ones.
23 ‘Curse Meroz,’ said Yahweh’s angel. ‘Curse bitterly its inhabitants, because they didn’t come to help Yahweh, to help Yahweh against the mighty.’
24 “Jael shall be blessed above women, the wife of Heber the Kenite; blessed shall she be above women in the tent.
25 He asked for water. She gave him milk. She brought him butter in a lordly dish.
26 She put her hand to the tent peg, and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer. With the hammer she struck Sisera. She struck through his head. Yes, she pierced and struck through his temples.
27 At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay. At her feet he bowed, he fell. Where he bowed, there he fell down dead.
28 “Through the window she looked out, and cried: Sisera’s mother looked through the lattice. ‘Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why do the wheels of his chariots wait?’
29 Her wise ladies answered her, Yes, she returned answer to herself,
30 ‘Have they not found, have they not divided the plunder? A lady, two ladies to every man; to Sisera a plunder of dyed garments, a plunder of dyed garments embroidered, of dyed garments embroidered on both sides, on the necks of the plunder?’
31 “So let all your enemies perish, Yahweh, but let those who love him be as the sun when it rises in its strength.” Then the land had rest forty years.
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Zechariah 10:3-4
Messiah described as the tent peg from the tribe of Judah, connecting to the skull-crusher imagery
3 My anger is kindled against the shepherds, and I will punish the male goats; For Yahweh of Armies has visited his flock, the house of Judah, and will make them as his majestic horse in the battle.
4 From him will come the cornerstone, from him the nail, from him the battle bow, from him every ruler together.
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Deuteronomy 4
Moses warning Israel that idolatry will lead to destruction and exile among the nations
1 Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and to the ordinances, which I teach you, to do them; that you may live, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, gives you.
2 You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your God which I command you.
3 Your eyes have seen what Yahweh did because of Baal Peor; for all the men who followed Baal Peor, Yahweh your God has destroyed them from among you.
4 But you who were faithful to Yahweh your God are all alive today.
5 Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, even as Yahweh my God commanded me, that you should do so in the middle of the land where you go in to possess it.
6 Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who shall hear all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.”
7 For what great nation is there, that has a god so near to them, as Yahweh our God is whenever we call on him?
8 What great nation is there, that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law, which I set before you today?
9 Only be careful, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your children and your children’s children;
10 the day that you stood before Yahweh your God in Horeb, when Yahweh said to me, “Assemble the people to me, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.”
11 You came near and stood under the mountain. The mountain burned with fire to the heart of the sky, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness.
12 Yahweh spoke to you out of the middle of the fire: you heard the voice of words, but you saw no form; you only heard a voice.
13 He declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even the ten commandments. He wrote them on two stone tablets.
14 Yahweh commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that you might do them in the land where you go over to possess it.
15 Be very careful, for you saw no kind of form on the day that Yahweh spoke to you in Horeb out of the middle of the fire,
16 lest you corrupt yourselves, and make yourself a carved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,
17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky,
18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth;
19 and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky.
20 But Yahweh has taken you, and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance, as it is today.
21 Furthermore Yahweh was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I should not go over the Jordan, and that I should not go in to that good land, which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance;
22 but I must die in this land. I must not go over the Jordan; but you shall go over, and possess that good land.
23 Be careful, lest you forget the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he made with you, and make yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which Yahweh your God has forbidden you.
24 For Yahweh your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.
25 When you shall father children, and children’s children, and you shall have been long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a carved image in the form of anything, and shall do that which is evil in Yahweh your God’s sight, to provoke him to anger;
26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.
27 Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations, where Yahweh will lead you away.
28 There you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
29 But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God, and you shall find him, when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
30 When you are in oppression, and all these things have come on you, in the latter days you shall return to Yahweh your God, and listen to his voice.
31 For Yahweh your God is a merciful God. He will not fail you, neither destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore to them.
32 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and from the one end of the sky to the other, whether there has been anything as this great thing is, or has been heard like it?
33 Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the middle of the fire, as you have heard, and live?
34 Or has God tried to go and take a nation for himself from among another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
35 It was shown to you so that you might know that Yahweh is God. There is no one else besides him.
36 Out of heaven he made you to hear his voice, that he might instruct you. On earth he made you to see his great fire; and you heard his words out of the middle of the fire.
37 Because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their offspring after them, and brought you out with his presence, with his great power, out of Egypt;
38 to drive out nations from before you greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you…
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Isaiah 14
rebuke of Satan and the antichrist figure, describing his shameful end rather than a royal burial
1 For Yahweh will have compassion on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land. The foreigner will join himself with them, and they will unite with the house of Jacob.
2 The peoples will take them, and bring them to their place. The house of Israel will possess them in Yahweh’s land for servants and for handmaids. They will take as captives those whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.
3 It will happen in the day that Yahweh will give you rest from your sorrow, from your trouble, and from the hard service in which you were made to serve,
4 that you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, “How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased!”
5 Yahweh has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers,
6 who struck the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, who ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that no one restrained.
7 The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet. They break out in song.
8 Yes, the cypress trees rejoice with you, with the cedars of Lebanon, saying, “Since you are humbled, no lumberjack has come up against us.”
9 Sheol from beneath has moved for you to meet you at your coming. It stirs up the departed spirits for you, even all the rulers of the earth. It has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
10 They all will answer and ask you, “Have you also become as weak as we are? Have you become like us?”
11 Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, with the sound of your stringed instruments. Maggots are spread out under you, and worms cover you.
12 How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, who laid the nations low!
13 You said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne above the stars of God! I will sit on the mountain of assembly, in the far north!
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will make myself like the Most High!”
15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit.
16 Those who see you will stare at you. They will ponder you, saying, “Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms;
17 who made the world like a wilderness, and overthrew its cities; who didn’t release his prisoners to their home?”
18 All the kings of the nations, sleep in glory, everyone in his own house.
19 But you are cast away from your tomb like an abominable branch, clothed with the slain, who are thrust through with the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit; like a dead body trodden under foot.
20 You will not join them in burial, because you have destroyed your land. You have killed your people. The offspring of evildoers will not be named forever.
21 Prepare for slaughter of his children because of the iniquity of their fathers, that they not rise up and possess the earth, and fill the surface of the world with cities.
22 “I will rise up against them,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son and son’s son,” says Yahweh.
23 “I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water. I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” says Yahweh of Armies.
24 Yahweh of Armies has sworn, saying, “Surely, as I have thought, so shall it happen; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:
25 that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and tread him under foot on my mountains. Then his yoke will leave them, and his burden leave their shoulders.
26 This is the plan that is determined for the whole earth. This is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations.
27 For Yahweh of Armies has planned, and who can stop it? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?”
28 This burden was in the year that king Ahaz died.
29 Don’t rejoice, O Philistia, all of you, because the rod that struck you is broken; for out of the serpent’s root an adder will emerge, and his fruit will be a fiery flying serpent.
30 The firstborn of the poor will eat, and the needy will lie down in safety; and I will kill your root with famine, and your remnant will be killed.
31 Howl, gate! Cry, city! You are melted away, Philistia, all of you; for smoke comes out of the north, and there is no straggler in his ranks.
32 What will they answer the messengers of the nation? That Yahweh has founded Zion, and in her the afflicted of his people will take refuge.
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Daniel 11
prophecy describing the Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties and the type of the antichrist, Antiochus Epiphanes
1 “As for me, in the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up to confirm and strengthen him.
2 “Now will I show you the truth. Behold, three more kings will stand up in Persia; and the fourth will be far richer than all of them. When he has grown strong through his riches, he will stir up all against the realm of Greece.
3 A mighty king will stand up, who will rule with great dominion, and do according to his will.
4 When he stands up, his kingdom will be broken, and will be divided toward the four winds of the sky, but not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion with which he ruled; for his kingdom will be plucked up, even for others besides these.
5 “The king of the south will be strong. One of his princes will become stronger than him, and have dominion. His dominion will be a great dominion.
6 At the end of years they will join themselves together; and the daughter of the king of the south will come to the king of the north to make an agreement; but she will not retain the strength of her arm. He will also not stand, nor will his arm; but she will be given up, with those who brought her, and he who became the father of her, and he who strengthened her in those times.
7 “But out of a shoot from her roots one will stand up in his place, who will come to the army, and will enter into the fortress of the king of the north, and will deal against them, and will prevail.
8 He will also carry their gods, with their molten images, and with their goodly vessels of silver and of gold, captive into Egypt. He will refrain some years from the king of the north.
9 He will come into the realm of the king of the south, but he will return into his own land.
10 His sons will wage war, and will assemble a multitude of great forces, which will come on, and overflow, and pass through. They will return and wage war, even to his fortress.
11 “The king of the south will be moved with anger, and will come out and fight with him, even with the king of the north. He will send out a great multitude, and the multitude will be given into his hand.
12 The multitude will be lifted up, and his heart will be exalted. He will cast down tens of thousands, but he won’t prevail.
13 The king of the north will return, and will send out a multitude greater than the former. He will come on at the end of the times, even of years, with a great army and with much substance.
14 “In those times many will stand up against the king of the south. Also the children of the violent among your people will lift themselves up to establish the vision; but they will fall.
15 So the king of the north will come and cast up a mound, and take a well-fortified city. The forces of the south won’t stand, neither will his chosen people, neither will there be any strength to stand.
16 But he who comes against him will do according to his own will, and no one will stand before him. He will stand in the glorious land, and destruction will be in his hand.
17 He will set his face to come with the strength of his whole kingdom, and with him equitable conditions. He will perform them. He will give him the daughter of women, to corrupt her; but she will not stand, and won’t be for him.
18 After this he will turn his face to the islands, and will take many; but a prince will cause the reproach offered by him to cease. Yes, moreover, he will cause his reproach to turn on him.
19 Then he will turn his face toward the fortresses of his own land; but he will stumble and fall, and won’t be found.
20 “Then one who will cause a tax collector to pass through the kingdom to maintain its glory will stand up in his place; but within few days he shall be destroyed, not in anger, and not in battle.
21 “In his place a contemptible person will stand up, to whom they had not given the honor of the kingdom; but he will come in time of security, and will obtain the kingdom by flatteries.
22 The overwhelming forces will be overwhelmed from before him, and will be broken. Yes, also the prince of the covenant.
23 After the treaty made with him he will work deceitfully; for he will come up, and will become strong, with a small people.
24 In time of security he will come even on the fattest places of the province. He will do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers’ fathers. He will scatter among them prey, plunder, and substance. Yes, he will devise his plans against the strongholds, even for a time.
25 “He will stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south with a great army; and the king of the south will wage war in battle with an exceedingly great and mighty army; but he won’t stand; for they will devise plans against him.
26 Yes, those who eat of his dainties will destroy him, and his army will be swept away. Many will fall down slain.
27 As for both these kings, their hearts will be to do mischief, and they will speak lies at one table; but it won’t prosper, for the end will still be at the appointed time.
28 Then he will return into his land with great wealth. His heart will be against the holy covenant. He will take action, and return to his own land.
29 “He will return at the appointed time, and come into the south; but it won’t be in the latter time as it was in the former.
30 For ships of Kittim will come against him. Therefore he will be grieved, and will return, and have indignation against the holy covenant, and will take action. He will even return, and have regard to those who forsake the holy covenant.
31 “Forces will stand on his part, and they will profane the sanctuary, even the fortress, and will take away the continual burnt offering. Then they will set up the abomination that makes desolate.
32 He will corrupt those who do wickedly against the covenant by flatteries; but the people who know their God will be strong, and take action.
33 “Those who are wise among the people will instruct many; yet they will fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by plunder, many days.
34 Now when they fall, they will be helped…
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Psalm 27:8
Brian sharing a word for Elisha about cultivating intimacy with God in the secret place
8 When you said, “Seek my face,” my heart said to you, “I will seek your face, Yahweh.”
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Matthew 24
Jesus describing the period before his return as birth pains in the Olivet Discourse
1 Jesus went out from the temple, and was going on his way. His disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple.
2 But he answered them, “You see all of these things, don’t you? Most certainly I tell you, there will not be left here one stone on another, that will not be thrown down.”
3 As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? What is the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?”
4 Jesus answered them, “Be careful that no one leads you astray.
5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will lead many astray.
6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you aren’t troubled, for all this must happen, but the end is not yet.
7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be famines, plagues, and earthquakes in various places.
8 But all these things are the beginning of birth pains.
9 Then they will deliver you up to oppression, and will kill you. You will be hated by all of the nations for my name’s sake.
10 Then many will stumble, and will deliver up one another, and will hate one another.
11 Many false prophets will arise, and will lead many astray.
12 Because iniquity will be multiplied, the love of many will grow cold.
13 But he who endures to the end, the same will be saved.
14 This Good News of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.
15 “When, therefore, you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),
16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
17 Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take out the things that are in his house.
18 Let him who is in the field not return back to get his clothes.
19 But woe to those who are with child and to nursing mothers in those days!
20 Pray that your flight will not be in the winter, nor on a Sabbath,
21 for then there will be great oppression, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever will be.
22 Unless those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved. But for the sake of the chosen ones, those days will be shortened.
23 “Then if any man tells you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or, ‘There,’ don’t believe it.
24 For there will arise false christs, and false prophets, and they will show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the chosen ones.
25 “Behold, I have told you beforehand.
26 If therefore they tell you, ‘Behold, he is in the wilderness,’ don’t go out; ‘Behold, he is in the inner rooms,’ don’t believe it.
27 For as the lightning flashes from the east, and is seen even to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
28 For wherever the carcass is, that is where the vultures gather together.
29 But immediately after the oppression of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken;
30 and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. Then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.
31 He will send out his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together his chosen ones from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.
32 “Now from the fig tree learn this parable. When its branch has now become tender, and produces its leaves, you know that the summer is near.
33 Even so you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.
34 Most certainly I tell you, this generation will not pass away, until all these things are accomplished.
35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
36 But no one knows of that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
37 “As the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
38 For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ship,
39 and they didn’t know until the flood came, and took them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
40 Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and one will be left.
41 Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and one will be left.
42 Watch therefore, for you don’t know in what hour your Lord comes.
43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what watch of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched, and would not have allowed his house to be broken into.
44 Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don’t expect, the Son of Man will come.
45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his lord has set over his household, to give them their food in due season?
46 Blessed is that servant whom his lord finds doing so when he comes.
47 Most certainly I tell you that he will set him over all that he has.
48 But if that evil servant should say in his heart, ‘My lord is delaying his coming,’
49 and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eat and drink with the drunkards,
50 the lord of that servant will come in a day when he doesn’t expect it, and in an hour when he doesn’t know it,
51 and will cut him in pieces, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. That is where the weeping and grinding of teeth will be.
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Daniel 12
closing prayer referencing the wise shining like stars in the last days
1 “At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who stands for the children of your people; and there will be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time. At that time your people will be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.
2 Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
3 Those who are wise will shine as the brightness of the expanse. Those who turn many to righteousness will shine as the stars forever and ever.
4 But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end. Many will run back and forth, and knowledge will be increased.”
5 Then I, Daniel, looked, and behold, two others stood, one on the river bank on this side, and the other on the river bank on that side.
6 One said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, “How long will it be to the end of these wonders?”
7 I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by him who lives forever that it will be for a time, times, and a half; and when they have finished breaking in pieces the power of the holy people, all these things will be finished.
8 I heard, but I didn’t understand. Then I said, “My lord, what will be the outcome of these things?”
9 He said, “Go your way, Daniel; for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.
10 Many will purify themselves, and make themselves white, and be refined; but the wicked will do wickedly; and none of the wicked will understand; but those who are wise will understand.
11 “From the time that the continual burnt offering is taken away, and the abomination that makes desolate set up, there will be one thousand two hundred ninety days.
12 Blessed is he who waits, and comes to the one thousand three hundred thirty-five days.
13 “But go you your way until the end; for you will rest, and will stand in your inheritance at the end of the days.”
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Joel Richardson, a close friend of the Hunter family and author who works extensively with ministries in the Middle East, brought the message on January 6. He drew on his own difficult years of personal trial and the events following October 7, 2023, to make the case that biblical prophecy is not abstract but is visibly unfolding right now. The sermon moved from the structure of the Bible's big story through specific prophetic texts and into a direct call for the congregation to stand with the Jewish people in this hour.
What was said
Joel opened by describing the personal weight he has carried over the past four years: his wife's serious illness, the moral collapse of several close ministry associates, and the disorientation that came from watching trusted leaders exposed as predators. He noted that challenges to faith are far more often emotional than intellectual. It is trials, not philosophical arguments, that move people toward or away from belief.
He then laid out what he called the Bible's central story: paradise lost, paradise restored. From the moment God tells the serpent in the garden that someone is coming to crush his head, through the warrior-king imagery of the Old Testament prophets, the whole arc of scripture points toward a Messiah who returns to reestablish the throne of David, defeat a final deceptive dictator, and restore creation. Our ultimate destiny, he said, is not a ghostly existence in clouds but resurrection on a renewed earth.
To show how the Bible's authors wove this story together, Joel walked through three connected texts. The first promise of a head-crusher in Genesis finds a historical echo in Judges 5, where Jael drives a tent peg through the skull of the enemy commander Sisera. Zechariah, writing centuries later, then describes the Messiah coming from the tribe of Judah and calls him, among other things, the tent peg. Joel's point was that the biblical writers framed historical victories as prophetic pictures, echoes pointing toward one final fulfillment, without claiming that any individual echo was that final event.
That same framework, he argued, is what makes the events of October 7 so striking to anyone who knows these texts. The blessings and curses of the Mosaic covenant in Deuteronomy and Leviticus are specific: disobedience would bring sudden calamity, then exile, then eventual restoration to the land. Joel said this cycle has happened to Israel in a way that has never happened to any other nation, and that the modern reestablishment of Israel in his parents' lifetimes is itself a fulfillment of those same words. He was careful to add that pointing to these patterns is not an indictment of the victims of October 7, and that nothing about the attack was deserved.
He then turned to Isaiah 14 and Daniel 11 to describe the figure the Bible calls the Antichrist, a king of the North who is the primary human instrument of Satan at the end of the age. Antiochus Epiphanes, the Seleucid king who invaded Israel, made Judaism illegal, and killed tens of thousands, is the most detailed historical type of that figure in the entire Bible. Joel placed a recent image of Yahya Sinwar's death alongside the language of Isaiah 14, which describes a tyrant who refused to let prisoners go home and who is denied a royal burial, thrown out like a rejected branch. He was direct that Sinwar is not the final Antichrist, only another echo, but the correspondence was the thing that had been strengthening his faith through one of the hardest years of his life.
He closed the argument by connecting it to the present geopolitical map, referencing Netanyahu's appearance at the United Nations using the very language of Deuteronomy's blessings and curses, and noting the recent fall of Assad in Syria as a shift that reshapes the Daniel 11 picture of a king of the North in conflict with a king of the South. His broader point was that two thousand five hundred years ago these prophets described in outline what is in the news this week, and that at some point the accumulation of specific correspondences moves past coincidence.
The application Joel pressed toward was personal and historical. He described the church's widespread failure during the Holocaust, where most people closed their curtains and said nothing, and connected it directly to what Christians do or do not do right now. He said the single most hunted and persecuted people group in human history deserves people who will stand with them openly, not explain theology to them from a distance. He also named the parallel pattern he had watched inside the church, where institutions protect powerful men and turn on the women who report abuse, and said that both failures share the same root: siding with the powerful against the small. The call was to be a people who fight for the underdog, beginning with the Jewish community in this hour.
Touch points
Things you could actually do this week.
- Show up to the gathering on the Town Square at 5pm this evening, dressed warm, and stand alongside the local Jewish community for thirty or forty minutes.
- If you have been sitting on the sidelines, pick one way to serve at Tribe this week, whether that is setup, teardown, Tribe Kids, or greeting, and tell Adam or Kelsey today before you leave.
- The next time you see a headline about Israel, resist the urge to scroll past it, and instead let it prompt you to pray specifically for the hostages still being held.
- Ask yourself honestly what you are actually doing right now for the oppressed and the persecuted, since Joel pointed out that your answer to that question is your answer to what you would have done in 1940s Europe.
- If you have never surrendered to Jesus the way Joel described, find a quiet moment this week and simply tell him you give up and you are done trying to do it on your own.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- Joel talked about emotional arguments versus intellectual arguments when it comes to faith, and said trials and difficulties tend to shake people more than intellectual doubts. Has that been true in your own experience? What has most challenged or most strengthened your faith?
- Joel described the Bible as telling one big story of paradise restored, and said our ultimate destiny is not a detached existence in the clouds but resurrected life on a renewed earth. How does that picture of the future change, if at all, how you think about the life you are living right now?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Resumen en español
El mensaje resumido, en español.
El predicador invitado fue Joel Richardson, autor y ministro con décadas de trabajo en el Medio Oriente. Comenzó compartiendo algo de su historia personal: años de pruebas muy duras en su familia, y luego una serie de escándalos dentro de ministerios cercanos a él. En medio de todo eso, los eventos del 7 de octubre de 2023 en Israel lo sacudieron profundamente. Pero en lugar de alejarlo de la fe, lo que vio en las noticias fortaleció su convicción de que las profecías bíblicas se están cumpliendo con una especificidad sorprendente.
Joel explicó que la Biblia cuenta una historia coherente desde el principio hasta el fin: la restauración del paraíso, la venida del Mesías como guerrero y rey, y el establecimiento de su reino en la tierra. A lo largo del Antiguo Testamento, victorias históricas de Israel sobre sus enemigos funcionan como imágenes o ecos de ese cumplimiento final. Usó como ejemplo la historia de Jael aplastando el cráneo de Sísara, que refleja la primera promesa bíblica del Mesías como el que aplasta la cabeza de la serpiente, y cómo Zacarías llama al Mesías "la estaca de la tienda", conectando esas mismas imágenes. También habló del contexto geopolítico actual, señalando que el mapa del Medio Oriente de hoy se parece mucho al que describe Daniel hace más de dos mil años.
La aplicación fue directa: el pueblo de Dios tiene la responsabilidad de ponerse del lado del pueblo judío en este momento histórico, no porque Israel sea perfecto, sino porque son la minoría más perseguida en la historia del mundo, y porque la Biblia llama repetidamente al pueblo de Dios a defender al débil y al oprimido. Joel dijo que lo que los cristianos hicieron durante el Holocausto, cerrar las cortinas y guardar silencio, no puede repetirse ahora.
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Pasajes bíblicos mencionados:
- Génesis 3 (la promesa sobre la simiente que aplastará la cabeza de la serpiente)
- Jueces 5 (el cántico de Débora, Jael y la muerte de Sísara)
- Zacarías 10 (el Mesías como piedra angular y estaca de la tienda)
- Deuteronomio 4 (las advertencias de Moisés sobre la idolatría y el exilio)
- Isaías 14 (la caída del rey de Babilonia y Satanás, imagen del anticristo)
- Daniel 11 (los reyes del norte y del sur, tipo de Antíoco Epifanes)
- Salmos 27:8 (citado durante un momento de oración personal al final)
- Mateo 24 (el discurso del Monte de los Olivos, los dolores de parto)
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