Now Is Not the Time to Check Out

In one paragraph

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...

Read together

1. Genesis 3:15 first prophecy of the Messiah as the one who will crush the serpent's head
2. Judges 4-5 Jael crushing Sisera's skull with a tent peg as a prophetic picture of the Messiah
3. Judges 5 song memorializing Jael striking and crushing Sisera's skull
4. Zechariah 10:3-4 Messiah described as the tent peg from the tribe of Judah, connecting to the skull-crusher imagery
5. Deuteronomy 4 Moses warning Israel that idolatry will lead to destruction and exile among the nations
6. Isaiah 14 rebuke of Satan and the antichrist figure, describing his shameful end rather than a royal burial
7. Daniel 11 prophecy describing the Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties and the type of the antichrist, Antiochus Epiphanes
8. Psalm 27:8 Brian sharing a word for Elisha about cultivating intimacy with God in the secret place
9. Matthew 24 Jesus describing the period before his return as birth pains in the Olivet Discourse
10. Daniel 12 closing prayer referencing the wise shining like stars in the last days

What was said

• 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.

Talk about it

1. 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?
2. 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?
3. Joel walked through how historical events in Israel's story, like Jael killing Sisera, were understood as echoes pointing toward a final fulfillment rather than the fulfillment itself. Is that way of reading the Old Testament new to you, and what questions does it raise for you?
4. Joel said that when he looks at the church's response to the Holocaust and then looks at what is happening now, he sees the same moment arriving again, and that what we are doing right now is the answer to the question of what we would have done then. How does that land with you, and what does it actually look like in daily life to stand with the Jewish community?
5. Toward the end, Joel said that in many of the ministry scandals he described, the institution protected the powerful person and turned on the person with less power, and he called that a failure of basic biblical values. Where do you think the line is between loyalty to a church or ministry leader and the responsibility to protect someone who has been hurt?