[Darris McNeely] 50 years ago this summer, I began to learn about the spiritual realities of history. And I began to learn that there was more to history than meets the eye. I began to learn that God directs history. And God directs history on a big scale. In fact, 50 years ago, I really began to understand a number of big things. It was the summer of 1971. And yes, I am that old. But I had the opportunity to go to Jerusalem in Israel and spend a summer working on an archeological project excavating around the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Now, at that time, it was only four years after the Six-Day War, where the Israelis had reclaimed that part of Jerusalem. And they wanted to make a lot of things happen real quick. And they did in terms of finding out the history of that area. The church was their Ambassador College was a part of that experience, and that dig in a very direct way. We sent 70 students that summer, to Jerusalem, from all three of the campuses that we had at that time, to be involved in what we felt was a very significant project.

Now, I was explaining this to one of our staff here recently what we were doing, and he wanted to know, well, why was the church there? What was the college there for? What was that all about? It was billed as a project to uncover the sight of the throne of David, to get down to where David's throne was David's time in Jerusalem, in preparation for the return of Jesus Christ. And it was felt that the Church and the college should be a part of that as a part of its efforts and its work in uncovering that city where David had lived and where God would return, where Christ would return to establish His Kingdom.

Now, that's a big thought. Think about that. That's a big idea. Now, that's why we were there. That's why it was billed as such. And significant funds were expended for it. And I happened to be, along with many other students, a part of it and wanted to go there. We can quibble about the reason, in retrospect, but I've long thought about it. I think that God would… the Church had intentions. And I think God had intentions. And what we intend or thought may not always be what God has in mind. But we do certain things. And in time, we find out why.

Now, I've mentioned this, not only because it's kind of a 50th anniversary, or 50 years ago, it's more than that, because I think all of us realize in the last couple of weeks, the tensions erupted once again. In Israel, rockets began pouring down on Jerusalem. And when rocket start pouring down on Jerusalem, everybody takes notice, even people that don't normally think about those things, because it's big. And now there's been a ceasefire, fortunately, but a lot of people have been killed on both sides. Palestinians out of the area of Gaza, controlled by this terrorist group called Hamas, Israelis as well. There are more Palestinians that have been killed and injured, and a great deal of suffering has erupted as a result of this.

I was looking at an article that I had written the last time this happened, it's been six or seven years ago I saw… I looked at an article online, and I could write the same article today. Same facts just updated with a different date, terms of the issues, the people. It's an ongoing matter that is there in that land that has been taking place. I paid a little bit more attention to it this time because some of the factors that were involved in what were behind this eruption, I was well familiar with. They were saying that they had arms in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, I've been in that mosque. The summer I spent there we worked all summer in the shadow of that Mosque. The Arabs used to throw debris down on top of us to try to discourage us from doing our job there and we'd have to pull back for a few hours or a day, in some cases, until everything calmed down. I was watching a YouTube clip they were… the Israeli Defense Forces were actually detonating concussion bombs in that mosque. That's significant. And just scattering people around from the golden dome. The Mosque is there as well on the Temple Mount. Part of the story dealt with a neighborhood in Jerusalem called the Sheikh Jarrah district. That's where we stayed that summer in the Sheikh Jarrah. It's an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem, we actually took over an entire hotel that summer.

And that's where certain problems erupted because of land claims and tendencies and all. And that was in the news. And so I kind of perked up a little bit in regard to that and thought about that. And looking at it, it's subsided, for now, reasonable minds would conclude that it'll probably come up again. But why does this matter? Why talk about this, today, or at any time? As I said, when bombs fall on Jerusalem, that's not a small thing. That's a big thing. And I'd like to talk about this today in the context of some things that I think come down to the way we think and how we look at ourselves, as firstfruits in the Church of God, as firstfruits with a very unique calling of God. And work all this together because I think there is a connection.

As I said, 50 years ago, the Church thought big. Big things happened. I want you to remember that. I've mentioned that before, but just to send 70 students to Jerusalem to work for a summer and like that takes a bit of thinking and vision and big things, big things. What I'd like to do at this point, is look at what is happening there in Israel and the Middle East. And I'd like to go through three reasons why this is really important. And it is really big. And understand the events there today, in a larger context than we might normally get, and we won't get it. You will not get it from any news source. I've watched and read many different online sources, some of the big Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and other places, and none of them. None of them really cover it from the angle that it really does matter. And that is the Biblical context, the Biblical worldview, which is what we have.

Number one, why this matters. Things that happened in the Middle East, in Israel, and in Jerusalem, are all part of a larger Biblical story, a larger Biblical story. And that is something that is missing today. What we're looking at when we see Palestinians who were displaced Palestinians are a unique group of the Arab world, largely those that were uprooted by the 1948 declaration of the State of Israel in that land and a war that was fought. And it has been going on ever since. These people have been displaced, these Palestinians, they are frankly a very sad lot. They have been forgotten by their own people, the fellow Arab nations in the region. They have been agitating, they have been seeking return of some of their homelands. Part of the dispute even in the Sheikh Jarrah district was over a land dispute that originally was in Jewish hands and then taken over by Arabs under a different regime and then legally returned to Jews.

So it's land, it's who should be there. And why? But these two groups, the Palestinians and the Israelis especially, are at the kind of the face of the conflict. And when you understand both groups, the Israelis and the Palestinians, from a Biblical perspective, you realize that they are both of the Abrahamic family. They are both as one commentator was calling in this week, in one report that I watched, they are two providential groups. Another way to look at them they've been both divinely chosen because they are descendants of Abraham, the father of the faithful. And this conflict has gone on for thousands of years and no one has brought peace to the region, even among the displaced Palestinians, and Israel has taken their course of action. But we still have these conflicts, two peoples, both claiming that land. When you understand the story, though, God is the one who gave the land.

Turn, if you will, back to Genesis 17, I'm going to read one scripture and why God gave this land just to make a point that we know but must understand as we frame our reaction, and our approach, and our understanding, to all the things we see and hear lest we get caught up in some of the rhetoric, and the ideologies, and the differing ideas that don't have all of the facts, to help us come to a correct truthful conclusion. In Genesis 17, we find the commitment that God made to Abraham and to His descendants regarding the land, the promised land, the land that became known as Palestine, and that's called that by the Romans, and today has officially the State of Israel there, and we refer to it by all of these names. But in Genesis 17:8, what God says to Abraham is this, "Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger,” He's speaking to Abraham, "all the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”

And so at this point, he's making this promise. And who are the descendants of Abraham? Well, he had Ishmael, and you know that story. And then he had Isaac. And then Isaac had Jacob and Esau. And from Esau and from Ishmael have descended these Arab peoples that are a part of the mix of the story. But look at who gave the land, it is God. God owns the land, in the story. And today, the descendants of Abraham, are found there in these boundaries. And the problems and the troubles are really a part of an ancient feud that has gone back almost 4000 years. And it's over who owns the land, who has the right to the land, and the right to exist within the region. And so you see, Jew and Arab today, contending over an inheritance, a relatively tiny sliver of land, in that sense. A piece of land that ultimately belongs to God. And that's critical to understand. When you look at the Scriptures that talk about Israel, and then even Ishmael, you come to certain understandings. In Genesis 16:10-12, you find that Ishmael, it is said of him that he is a wild donkey of a man. Unless we think that that's a pejorative term, it really isn't. To understand that it is actually a positive sign because of the role of a donkey and its regal standing within that desert world.

It says that his hand, Ishmael's, will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him. And he will live in hostility toward all of his brothers. And those words from God about these peoples are true. We can't escape that, in our evaluation of everything. And it reflects the history and the politics among the Arabs themselves, as they have fought among themselves historically, through the years. And certainly, as they have fought in the modern world, against the Jewish Israeli presence there, as well. This saying, this teaching has come true.

And it is, it must be understood as part of the context of this larger biblical story. If we're to understand why the Middle East matters, we've got to understand it from the scriptural setting, and especially the present matters. Frankly, it will take the return of another descendant of Abraham to solve the problems. And that other descendant is Jesus Christ. There will be peace treaties, and there have been some that have held. The Oslo Accords, the treaty between Jordan and Israel, between Israel and Egypt that have been essentially a generation old have kind of kept a stability there. The Abrahamic accords of the Trump administration, teetering right now, but at least they were steps forward to create a better situation there. But again, ultimately we have to recognize that it is going to take the return of Jesus Christ to settle this, this dispute that erupts time and time again. This is a big matter, this is important.

And again, we have to think beyond the bias headlines and ideas that are out there that the positions that are taken by people on all different sides, some cases well-meaning, others perhaps with other motives. But as we look at it, we must keep ourselves focused on certain priorities. A second reason that this matters is that key prophecies, key biblical prophecies hinge on the presence of Israel, in the land, in this land given by God to Abraham. And by Israel, at this point, I mean, the Jews and Judah, the one tribe of Israel that has maintained its identity. And at least in parts of it, keeping the Sabbath, the observant Jewish element of the ethnic group, keeping the Sabbath, keeping Torah, keeping their identity. But they know who they are, the other tribes of Israel have lost that identity. That's another part of the story. But there are prophecies that are critically important. And one that is well known to us is in Matthew 24, where Jesus Christ Himself in His Olivet prophecy, referenced an event prophesied by Daniel, hundreds of years in advance of the first type of this action.

Christ then references it, which in effect affirms that it happened. It also affirms that Daniel was a real man living when he did in Babylon, testifying to Nebuchadnezzar in his day. But in Matthew 24:15, and part of the answer to the question put to Him by His disciples of what will be the signs of your coming at the end of the age, he mentioned specifically that, “'When you see the “abomination of desolation," spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place,’ (whoever reads, let him understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains." A key explicit clear reference to an event that we read about in the book of Daniel 11:31. That was a prophecy then in Daniel's time of an event that did take place during the Greek rule of the land. The successors to Alexander the Great then a man named Antiochus Epiphanes who came into Jerusalem, madder than a nest of stirred hornets at the time, and sought to actually obliterate the Jewish faith, the Jewish people, but also, more importantly, the truth.

They forbid the Sabbath. They forbid them to circumcise their male children to give sacrifices, they desecrated the temple, they offered pig's flesh upon the temple, set up a statue of pagan deity in the temple, and they abomination it, they desolated it. This is what happened historically. And Jesus affirms it. And He says, "When you see," pointing to a final time of the end, "When that will happen again," he's talking about a prophecy that must require in the land, the presence of at least a remnant of the people of God, who had those laws, who had those sacrifices. And it's pointing to the reinstitution of some of sacrifices in some way at some point in time, quite likely. And the only way you can read the Scriptures is there's going to have to be some type of a temple structure there. That lies ahead. But for that to happen, you have to have a presence of those people who are a part of this story.

That's why the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 was so important. And so much a part is more than just a geopolitical or a historical event. And of course, there has been conflict in the land ever since. But there's always been conflict in the land. Those of us who know our history go back and whether it's the Crusaders, the Byzantines, the Jews, and the Romans in the first century, after the time of Christ, and even before then with the Babylonians and the Assyrians, there's always been conflict in the land. It is a part of the story. In Zechariah 12, when it says that, "Jerusalem is a cup of drunkenness," it is a true statement, a heavy stone. There's a great scene from the movie The Kingdom of Heaven when they met Khalif Salah al-Din, who was at that point conquering Jerusalem, he's made a deal to take over Jerusalem. And as he's walking away, the Crusader says, "Why is Jerusalem so important to you? What is it? It's so violent?" He turns and he says, "It's everything. And it's nothing." He said, "It's everything. And it's nothing." And in a sense, that's what the city of Jerusalem has been historically, with all the contentions and the armies and the bloodshed there. It's everything and then it's thrown away. And it's nothing for others, nothing more than a pawn in politics and in history, and religion, and everything else.

Muslim nations have fought Israel's right to exist in the land today. And they have resorted to a false narrative, fake news, if you want to look at it that way, to discredit that ever since 1948. A few years ago, we had a group when we were going over to Jordan, we had a couple of Feasts in the nation of Jordan, and we were there. And one night our tour leader knew a Jordanian senator. And he invited him to our hotel to talk to our church group there just during the Feast of Tabernacles. And the Jordanian senator gave a short speech but in it, he comes to a point, he came to a point where he made the statement that "There was never a temple in Jerusalem. Never a temple." And several others just kind of, you know, "What did he say? Did he really say that?" But it's part of their story, to discredit the idea that the Jews have any claim to the land.

The summer that I spent there in Jerusalem, you go to a dig like this, and you think, "Oh, we're going to really going to have some fun, we're going to find the Ark of the Covenant. We'll find it." This was long before the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" came out. But you think, "Man, what are we going to find? All these things?" And what you find is a lot of dirt and rocks. And that's basically what we found. There were some other significant things. But they were in such a hurry to clear off this piece of land right next to the Temple Mount and get it done. They wanted to find out what was there because they didn't know how the politics might force them to give the land back. And I remember, after being there several weeks, we had dug down and we had exposed huge stones that were part of the wall and the foundation around the temple mount at the time of Christ, the Herodian temple. These huge stones and we had exposed them. And one of the dig operators came by and said, "That's the most important thing you found this summer." We said, "Really? The big rock? This big stone? He said, "Yes, that's the most important thing you found. That proves that the Jews were in the land 2000 years ago." That's what he said.

That that's what they wanted, then. And that's what they want now, because the idea is, the story is, "You were never here. This was our land," as the Arabs would say, "And you have taken it illegally." That's part of the political narrative there. But the State of Israel exists to fulfill Bible prophecy. We have to understand that. It is yes, a political state with borders. But it's also more than a historical fact. It is a part of God's purpose and the time of the end. And that's big. That is important because there are certain prophecies that hinge on that, that they could only happen if there was a presence of Israel and the people in the land. And so that's the second point.

Now, the third reason this all matters is it has to do with God's faithfulness, the enduring faithfulness of God, and His promises. When you understand the story and the Scriptures, God has unfinished business with Israel. He is bringing history to pass in anticipation of Christ's return and His rule on the earth. There is going to be a rebuilding of the tabernacle of David after that time, which is now in ruins, but that is to come. But the Jews scattered around the world as they have been throughout history in what is called the diaspora, they have maintained an identity that is rooted in that knowledge of who they are. There is the law of God among the observant Jews, the Sabbath certainly shapes their identity. But the fact that they are there is a visible sign today that Israel, the Israel of God, even the physical Israel that God worked with, beginning with Abraham, exists, and is there. And it means that God did make a promise, a covenant with the people who were descended from a man named Israel. And part of that promise in that covenant is that they will play a key role in God's plan, not only in this age but in the future for all of mankind.

This is what Paul reveals, in chapters 9, 10, and 11, of the book of Romans. But don't panic, we're not going to go through all three of those chapters right now. But I do want you to turn over to chapter 11. The apostle Paul had a great question in his mind is, and it is, "What about Israel? What about my people? Has God cast them off?" He was a Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin, as you know. And he works this question out over three great chapters in the book of Romans 9, 10, 11. And verse 15 of chapter 11, he makes this salient point he says, "If their being cast away” that is Israel's being cast away, in captivity, as the story is, “is that the reconciling of the world,” the other nations the opening of salvation to the Gentiles, “what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?” brought back into, and as he goes on, in these other verses, of the olive tree and the Gentiles having been grafted onto that, there's going to be life there.

And in verse 26, he says, "And so all Israel will be saved,” Israel is not lost. You know, there's a movement today I was reading something about it just recently, there is a movement and has been for years among Christians to evangelize the Jews. They feel that it is an evangelical Christians, there's a subset of them that feel that they must evangelize the Jews. And this is a very, very touchy subject among observant Jews, and especially in the land of Israel. And recently, they found out that some supposed rabbis setting up in Israel, little yeshivas that's schools where they teach Torah, were or are actually clandestine Christian evangelicals, who were luring Jews and to convert them. And they got exposed. And this has created a little stir, at least in Israel. But it speaks to the idea that today now the Jewish people have got to accept Christ.

I mean, we understand as we do by God's Holy Days, and the plan of God, that that's not going to happen in this age, doesn't need to be engaged with. It will come in the Millennium, in the future. We get the story, right. And we know that all Israel and again, not just the Jews here, but all the others, all parts of Israel, and thereby all the other nations, Gentile alike, will be saved. But Paul said, in essence, "Well, I don't have to worry about that now because of the glory of God's purpose." God keeps His promises. God's faithful promises endure forever. Israel does matter. And not just the Jewish state, in the Middle East today, and certainly, all nations matter in that way. But all the tribes which includes those that are among today's nations, they matter to God, they matter to the world, and all nations and peoples matter to God. That Israel exists means God is faithful. He will bring His plan to pass. And this is part of what this helps us to understand and again, why it matters. And why it matters to understand it from a biblical perspective.

The key of… the understanding of who Israel is the fullness is the key to understanding today's world history, prophecy, all of this marching toward the Kingdom of God. And the understanding of Israel, not just the political State of Israel, but the larger Israel of God shows us the enduring promises of God's salvation ultimately for all nations. And this is what these Scriptures show. Because God is faithful to the promises He made to Israel, He will be faithful, in His promise through Christ, to all peoples, to all nations, Jew, and Gentile alike, including all of us here. And that's the good news. That's the good news of the gospel. That's part of that. And that's big. That is very important.

And so, understanding why Israel matters, getting it into a bigger picture of God's great purpose, is extremely important. The headlines surrounding today's tensions and fights between Israelis and Palestinians, they're meant to polarize people against the Jewish state. None taken what I've just described to you in three brief points, and one of the spin-offs of what has happened in the last two weeks is an increased amount of anti-Semitism. And all of us should take note of that. When you read the end of Revelation 12, you recognize that there will be a time when Satan's wrath will be stirred against any who keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. And that will be anti-Semitism against anyone who keeps any part of the law of God and follows Jesus Christ in that moment before the return of Jesus Christ, and that system that will arise.

And so anti-Semitism is rearing its ugly head in America, Great Britain, and in other places. And so as we look at all of this, yeah, people suffer. Innocent Palestinians are caught in the crossfire of human greed, power struggles, political factions, all of which are outright evils. Frankly, they are the idols of today's geopolitical conflicts. And both sides, Israel and Palestinians have blood on their hands.

My wife was given a book to read called Old Jerusalem, it came out 30 or more years ago, and she's been going through it and tells me bits and pieces of it as she reads it. And it describes what the events surrounding the formation of Israel in 1948. And when you know that part of the history, the Israelis at that time the Jews were terrorists. They were bombing British, killing innocent Britain's there. That's part of the story. They wanted to Britain… they wanted the English out so that they could found their state. So there's blood on everybody's hands.

The scripture that says “there is none righteous, no, not one,” applies to everyone. And some might be tempted to take the sight of the Palestinians and to see Israel as the bad guy. But the Bible shows us why things are the way that they are. And it also shows us how we should react. So what should we do? Well, I turn to the scripture that I always turn to 2 Peter 3, what should we do?

2 Peter 3, Peter's talking about the events that culminate the entire age and talks about people who scoff thinking that the Lord delays His coming and all things we're going to continue on. And he says in verse 10, "The day Lord will come as a thief in the night,” but look at verse 12, he said, "looking for…” or verse 11, saying that “all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,” what type of person? Prophecy should bring us to the point that we live righteously. We get right with God. How do we look at this? We… Steve Myers did a BT Daily the other day, I was listening to him and he was answering the question that people might ask, "Well, is this going… is this conflict the last two weeks the final one we were asking, answering that with a pandemic a year ago,” and everyone raises that question at a time like this.

You know, prophecy is kind of like the way prophecy speeds up. And you think things are going to happen and then it seems to… it stops. I liken it to the way the tectonic plates of the earth's lower surface, the crust of the earth, slip a little bit. Pressure builds up on the place of the earth's substructure. And they slip just a little bit. You know what happens when they slip? Freeways fall down in Los Angeles. Rivers change their course. And people are hurt. And then it stops. And life goes back to normal. And then a few years later, pressure builds up and it might slip again. Prophecies kind of like that. And of course, they're waiting for the big one for California to fall off. That hasn't happened yet. And the part of prophetic end-time is earthquakes in different places. But there's a tremor and a shake, and everybody gets excited and worried and things happen, and then you rebuild and life goes back to normal. The progression of prophecy is kind of like that. You think this might be it. And then we go back to normal. “Eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,” as Christ said. And so we always have to keep that in mind here. Peter says, "What type of person should we be in godliness and righteousness?" That's what we should learn. The Bible shows us why the things are the way they are.

Today, as we look at this latest episode, and who knows what yet other event might come in other ways, we're coming out of the pandemic, aren't we? We're looking forward to June 2nd, aren't we? Independence Day will come early this year. Get back to normal. And what will we have learned? For all of us in the Church, the firstfruits? Are we thinking big? Today when I look at this Scripture, what type of person should we be? There's a thought that I've had, that I'd like to leave with you. I think we should think big. We should think big.

We've just kept Pentecost rehearsing the Scriptures that teach us that we're the firstfruits, part of a group called the firstfruits of God's salvation. That's big. That's huge. To be a part of that group, seeing clearly from the Scriptures, who will are being prepared now, in a smaller harvest, for the resurrection to come, the firstfruits, we're part of that group. That's big.

You know, I am here today 50 years later, from what I started to explain the adventure that I had 50 years ago, in part not just because of that summer excursion to Jerusalem, but because of what the Church was at that time. I'm here and many of us are because of the Church and its members thought big. Big. That was the idea of the Kingdom of God, that was the idea of the world tomorrow that caused many to forsake all for Christ and commit to that. A lot of people did. And they thought big. I wonder sometimes if it goes on for another 50 years, will another group look back on our day and say they thought big? They thought big. They did big things. I talked about it was a big thing to go to Jerusalem and to… with the idea that you were uncovering history down to the throne of David in anticipation of the return of Christ, how audacious? How preposterous some might say.

And we could quibble over this. But I choose not to. You know why? Because I believed it. And some of you here did too, listening to this. And we believed the big idea of the Kingdom of God, of the work of God, and what we were called to do. And I still believe that. And you do as well. Will people look back on us and say, "They did big things." I think so. That's my answer. I think so. You know, we've started aggressively in recent years buying local church buildings. That's a big thing, culturally, in the Church of God.

Those of you in Indianapolis may not know the full story but 26 years ago, we put the first dollars into the account there to build a building you're in right or to buy something and you're in the result of it now. We had to wait 25 years to get to that point. And just a little bit every month kept building it up. And we bought a number of other buildings for our congregations in Tulsa, and Cleveland, in Big Sandy, and Houston, and other places, and hope to be able to buy more, that's big. That's a down payment. That's an investment in the future. I was thinking it was, well, we graduated two weeks ago our latest class of students at Ambassador Bible College. For any student, whether age 18 or 80, I don't think we have any 80-year-olds come close, yeah, we did close. For any student to come take a year of their life out and sit and study the Bible at Ambassador Bible College for a year, that's big.

That is a big decision. The dollars are nothing. It's the investment of your life and the knowledge that is there. The idea to do it if any of you are listening watching this and you've ever thought about that, think some more, do it. When will you do it? "Well not now." "If not now, when?" Is what one of my friends says, "If not now, when?" You know when a young adult applies and participates in an overseas Youth Corps project that we've had, and we hope and plan to get those started again, as the world reopens, and God willing, that's big. To go to Guatemala, to go to the Ukraine, or the other places where we have had Youth Corps projects to help people who need help, even if it's only for a few weeks, to be exposed to a different culture, that's big. Thinking that you can do that, you can make a difference, that you can help somebody.

Just behind me here is a media center. A few people thought big on that. And some very generous people made some donations to make that happen. And it's there today. And it's serving the needs of the church. That took big thinking. Big thinking. To utilize it as we do and will in the future takes big thinking as well. But people made it happen. Recently, some significant donations were made to buy a regional summer camp property in the Northwest. The council approved a restricted fund to take those funds for the explicit use of buying a church or a camp property somewhere in the northwest to serve the needs of our young people, and the church, and many other programs that we do in the Northwest. And God willing, and if it bears fruit, we actually need and I hope that we could buy a regional camp property in other parts of the United States as well in other areas. But some people thought big and put down some money. That's how things happen sometimes. To make a regional camp happen, that takes big thinking. So what other big things do we need to envision in the Church of God today?

Well, I pray that God will bring that to our attention. And He will lay upon the hearts and the minds of people to make certain ideas known or a proposal, or even a sum of cash that would make something happen. How God works is very interesting at times. These were unsolicited matters with the camp project that we're currently looking at building up and hoping that we can, we'll be able to do that. But God working through firstfruits can make it happen, can make any big thing happen because firstfruits think big. And the biggest thought on our hearts and our minds is the Kingdom of God. And that idea.

And so we look at things that are happening in the Middle East. And I think we should be motivated to look at what verse 11 here of 2 Peter 3 tells us to, "Consider what type of person we really are. That it may be the time to get our life together, get right with God finally, get serious about our calling. To think big about that first. To get both feet into God's way of life, into this commitment, because that's what it takes to maintain, and to bring together and to maintain a unity, and to get a synergy to make things happen. We should be motivated in that way." The hour is very late in today's world, and the times call for an inner toughness to maintain our spiritual integrity. It is a perilous time. And it is going to continue to grow worse. Lawlessness will abound.

There are a lot of evil ideas that are ascendant in our world today. And we must note that, keep a biblical worldview, and understand how God works in history, through prophecy, in His Church, and among the firstfruits. And keep that big picture in our mind. I began to see that 50 years ago with the kind of the adventure of a lifetime for me. And however it comes to us now, we all need to see that and let that motivate us to godliness, to godly conduct. It is a time to think big.