The Glenn Beck Program - Ep 200 ｜ End Times Prophecies Are Being Fulfilled ｜ Max Lucado ｜ The Glenn Beck Podcast

00:00:00.000 The world grows more chaotic, more scary every day.

00:00:04.420 And it goes way beyond rising prices or political tension.

00:00:07.980 We are now finding ourselves in a place where we could be actually surrounded by countries with leaders that are thinking about going to world war.

00:00:22.880 It's hard not to feel helpless.

00:00:25.840 But Jesus was very clear in his Sermon on the Mount.

00:00:30.000 Don't worry.

00:00:31.240 Don't worry.

00:00:32.500 Well, these days, that's a pretty hard thing to do.

00:00:37.040 I'm not supposed to worry, but I am worried.

00:00:41.460 Today's guest has cemented himself as a voice of calm in the terror all around us.

00:00:47.060 He has been widely described as America's pastor.

00:00:50.260 He's written 40 books, 145 million in print.

00:00:55.140 His sermons and writings have saved lives.

00:00:57.900 He is full of wisdom.

00:01:00.560 He played a fundamental role in the He Gets Us campaign, which strives to share the love of Jesus with all, right or left.

00:01:10.740 Unsurprisingly, the mainstream media was quick to label it corrupt, divisive, political, and any other number of snotty accusations.

00:01:20.120 But the far left's unquenchable desire to hurl insults won't stop him.

00:01:25.520 Today, on the Glenn Beck podcast, welcome, Max Lucado.

00:01:31.880 Max couldn't be coming at a better day.

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00:02:57.960 Hi, Max.

00:02:58.900 Hi.

00:02:59.380 How are you?

00:03:01.020 We're going to make it.

00:03:02.340 We are.

00:03:03.340 I mean, I just think it's such divine providence that you're here today.

00:03:13.460 Because I have so many questions about being a good Christian.

00:03:22.860 I'm really having a hard time.

00:03:25.600 There's, you know, just about 10 years ago, I swore off the word evil.

00:03:31.320 I'm not going to use evil anymore because I was like, this is evil, what they're doing.

00:03:37.300 And I didn't want to make bad evil.

00:03:42.800 Evil is something separate and apart.

00:03:45.860 What we're seeing today is evil.

00:03:48.780 And it looks, if you can't see the power of evil, I think you're pretty blind.

00:04:05.780 And I'm having a problem, let's just say, with, let's start with Israel and Palestinians. 1.00

00:04:11.440 That's evil. 0.99

00:04:12.680 That's evil. 0.99

00:04:13.080 What the Palestinians did was evil. 1.00

00:04:15.660 And there's a difference between hating the Palestinians and going in for vengeance

00:04:22.600 and doing what we did in World War II against the Germans.

00:04:27.760 We didn't hate the Germans.

00:04:28.940 We hated the Nazis.

00:04:32.040 How do we navigate this when we're living in a country that doesn't, half the country doesn't 0.63

00:04:41.240 understand evil or has the opposite view of evil than we do?

00:04:47.640 I've wondered, by the way, it's good to be with you.

00:04:50.400 I wish we had a happier season.

00:04:52.380 Yeah.

00:04:52.560 But it's an important season.

00:04:54.080 It is.

00:04:54.460 It is, I look at it as an honor to be alive today, to be part of the chosen billions that

00:05:05.520 he sent to earth at this time.

00:05:07.460 Because we're going to need to find that inner giant.

00:05:12.800 We are.

00:05:13.780 Yeah.

00:05:14.000 We are.

00:05:15.280 I think you were right to pull the word evil off the shelf in this case.

00:05:20.220 There is no redemptive answer to what they did.

00:05:24.720 None at all.

00:05:25.860 You can't manipulate this.

00:05:28.040 You can't massage it.

00:05:29.920 And I know we, you've seen probably a lot more than I, I've only seen probably a quarter

00:05:35.380 of what's out there.

00:05:37.220 It's not good.

00:05:38.020 It's just, you know, the atrocities are just simply beyond barbaric.

00:05:45.660 And I wonder, Glenn, I'd like to test this with you.

00:05:50.680 I wonder if, let's just say decent people have a hard time comprehending the mind of

00:05:57.080 an evil person.

00:05:58.900 I think so.

00:06:00.280 I think we are filtering all of this through a decent person's mindset.

00:06:06.740 A decent person says, well, okay, you know, we're at extremes here, but you know what?

00:06:12.900 We can live on the same block.

00:06:14.600 We can get along.

00:06:16.280 Let's meet.

00:06:17.020 Let's talk.

00:06:17.800 Let's arbitrate.

00:06:18.960 You know, that's what decent people do.

00:06:22.140 And so the mindset when we see evil like this is say, well, just, let's just call a ceasefire,

00:06:28.420 you know, or let's, let's get everybody around the table and we'll talk it out.

00:06:35.440 That's not how you respond to barbarism.

00:06:38.820 It really isn't.

00:06:39.940 I believe that scripture calls on the government to wield the sword in a case where there is

00:06:49.200 absolutely declared purpose to annihilate a people. 0.71

00:06:54.900 When that's declared, when that's a part of the written constitution, just the typical,

00:07:02.260 let's sit down and talk this out.

00:07:03.960 I just don't think it's going to, going to get very far.

00:07:06.980 So I feel that way though, about so much right now where we have so polarized and I honestly

00:07:15.680 don't feel it's all the Palestinians.

00:07:17.680 I don't feel it's, you know, on any subject, it's all the Democrats or all the Republicans.

00:07:23.480 But we're at a point now to where I look at things now and say, if you can't, if you can't tell me the

00:07:35.840 difference between a man and a woman, I can't, I have no place to go with you because you're so 1.00

00:07:42.940 off-centered on something so easy.

00:07:45.640 How are we ever going to get back together?

00:07:49.520 And I feel, I feel awful with that.

00:07:54.500 I feel like, you know, because I, another thing I, I, I've always promised myself to do is never

00:08:03.060 look at someone as if you know more than they do.

00:08:07.100 Um, never have your opinions so grounded that you couldn't sit and talk to somebody and say,

00:08:16.600 how did you get there?

00:08:18.400 You may disagree with them all the way along, but you'll learn something by sitting down with

00:08:23.860 somebody you disagree with and just saying, honestly, I want to understand how you got there.

00:08:30.560 I really don't want to understand.

00:08:33.100 You know what I mean?

00:08:34.900 I'm having a really hard time.

00:08:37.100 Well, I mean, what we have here is a classic collision of two worldviews.

00:08:42.360 You know, uh, Judeo-Christian ethics believes that there is a God, a good God overseeing the

00:08:49.740 affairs of mankind.

00:08:51.080 That's where, that's where I start in my philosophy.

00:08:53.840 I think that's where you start.

00:08:55.160 We unpack it from there.

00:08:57.220 But if you sit across the table from a person who says, well, if there is a God, he's disconnected,

00:09:03.680 but more than likely there is no God.

00:09:05.920 So I become my own God.

00:09:07.820 I'll do whatever the heck I want to.

00:09:10.160 And if I want to say that I am, you know, female one day and male the next, that's up to me because there is no truth.

00:09:17.360 And so here, one person sits on one side of the table.

00:09:21.140 The other person sits on the other.

00:09:22.580 And where do you find the common ground?

00:09:25.000 It's not easy.

00:09:27.100 You do all you can to be just respectful of a person trying to have an opinion.

00:09:31.760 But beyond that, the common ground has eroded.

00:09:34.900 Whereas when I was growing up, I get tired of people saying when I was growing up and I just said it.

00:09:40.240 But when I was growing up, at least we had this common ground.

00:09:42.660 The vast majority of us believe that there is a God involved in the affairs of mankind.

00:09:48.980 Okay, let's start there.

00:09:50.460 Now, what you say he said, what I think he said might be different.

00:09:53.600 We can work from that.

00:09:55.240 But if we don't even have that in agreement, Glenn, it explains the angst that there is in the world today.

00:10:05.540 It's just an angst, a sadness.

00:10:07.360 It's as if we are having a funeral dirge for a world that we cherished and we're seeing it pass down the street and the hearse just drives by and that deep, deep sadness.

00:10:22.320 And then I have not heard.

00:10:24.500 I have felt that way a few times when I see big things, big shifts in the country.

00:10:32.260 And, I mean, I feel it's better to mourn so you can move on to, you know, past your anger and everything else.

00:10:42.560 But it does feel like, everything feels like, and again, is that just my perspective that I grew up with this and now it's passing?

00:10:56.220 Glenn, it's not just your perspective.

00:10:57.980 How else do we explain the spike in anxiety and depression?

00:11:02.780 I mean, one statistic after another.

00:11:04.900 The most disturbing statistic I keep mentioning is, you know, suicides are up 24% since World War II.

00:11:11.960 I mean, it's just there's a sadness in the world already.

00:11:16.440 And I think it's because the moorings that we held on to and that we aspire to hold on to, we're seeing everybody abandoned.

00:11:25.780 And what do we do?

00:11:28.800 How do we respond?

00:11:29.820 It's all changing so fast.

00:11:31.740 The speed at which the world is changing, it's just, I mean, we can barely even understand what AI is, and then it's everywhere.

00:11:41.440 It happens that fast.

00:11:43.840 And I think that sends us down these spirals of stress and anxiety.

00:11:51.700 I'm going to get all the bad stuff out first.

00:11:53.620 Okay, we're going to find some solutions.

00:11:55.580 I know, we are.

00:11:56.500 I know.

00:11:58.300 And this may, I kind of look at this as a solution.

00:12:01.020 But if you didn't think World War II was the possibility of Christ returning, I don't know what was wrong with you.

00:12:12.780 Except maybe you had read enough of the Bible to go, there's not enough, you know, to say it's this time.

00:12:19.940 We've got Gog and Magog for the very first time conspiring against evil, against Israel. 0.87

00:12:30.920 I mean, nobody knows.

00:12:35.600 Nobody knows.

00:12:36.740 Nobody knows.

00:12:37.280 But doesn't it, it looks.

00:12:39.100 Brother Glenn, it, I mean, all the players are in place.

00:12:42.760 Okay, so the big difference between right now and even World War II is the existence of the state of Israel.

00:12:50.520 I mean, that's the prophecy.

00:12:52.400 Nobody, I'm sympathetic with some student of prophecy from 200 years ago who says, well, this is never going to happen.

00:13:00.400 How in the world could the Jews ever repopulate the nation of Israel? 1.00

00:13:05.120 I mean, it's just the greatest miracle.

00:13:06.860 And so that miracle, that sign, it seems to me, Glenn, announced that we're in the final days because so many things, Israel has to be a nation for many of the prophecies to be fulfilled, namely the reconstruction of the temple.

00:13:26.200 And so there has to be a national Israel in order for many of these things to happen. 0.90

00:13:30.700 Well, now it wasn't there 200 years ago, 300 years ago, 400 years ago, but it's there right now.

00:13:38.600 And so I think the discussion of what we're seeing on the world stage is a discussion that we need to have both politically, but even more important, spiritually.

00:13:49.660 Because something is happening here that has never happened in any generation in history.

00:13:55.300 I don't know when Christ is returning.

00:13:57.280 I don't.

00:13:57.700 No one knows.

00:13:58.320 But we are told to look for the signs.

00:14:01.920 In fact, Jesus was critical of those religious leaders.

00:14:05.860 He said, you see Red Sky at morning, you know it's dawn, but here I've given you sign after sign and you have not watched.

00:14:11.980 And so there's an expectation that in addition to viewing what's happening geopolitically, we have to interpret it spiritually.

00:14:20.600 I will tell you that I've said so many times here recently, you know, when the Bible was being put together, it's not like, it's not like God said, you know, the Jesus part, we went all soft.

00:14:36.920 Let's go out with a bang, you know, let's freak everybody out in the last book of the Bible.

00:14:42.020 He didn't do that.

00:14:43.800 He gave that to us so we would not be freaked out.

00:14:48.480 He gave it to us so we'd look and we know and we'd know that great change is coming.

00:14:55.960 Yes.

00:14:56.780 Right.

00:14:57.360 Yes.

00:14:57.880 He did these things not to scare us, but but to prepare us.

00:15:01.640 He told us these things so that we would not panic.

00:15:05.300 See to it that you are not troubled.

00:15:07.360 Jesus said the night before his crucifixion.

00:15:08.960 crucifixion and then in the Olivet discourse or the sermon about end times, Jesus said in Luke 21, lift up your eyes.

00:15:16.600 Your redemption draws near when you see these things coming.

00:15:19.880 So rather than panic, which nobody faults anybody for their anxiety these days, but knowing what's next prepares us to face what's now.

00:15:31.400 And if we can know what's next, if we can begin to get a semblance of what's about to happen, then I believe that it allows us to land at a spot that says, OK, God said something like this was going to happen.

00:15:45.800 I'm going to look up.

00:15:46.980 I'm going to make sure my relationship with him is solid and I'm going to pray.

00:15:51.480 I'm going to pray and I'm going to lean heavily into God's word for help.

00:15:55.300 It may just be me, Max, but I don't know why everything that's good for me, I don't like and everything that is not good for me, I do like, you know, chocolate milk, not good for me, ice cream, not good for me.

00:16:17.500 Help me out on prayer and scripture study and it takes such discipline to do it.

00:16:31.440 And then I've been in periods of my life, long periods, where I've just been, you know, just voracious appetite for it.

00:16:41.900 And then other times, and it seems to go in the times when I need it the most.

00:16:45.640 Hmm. Seems to leave you.

00:16:48.760 Yeah.

00:16:49.240 And rather than turn to it, you turn to something else.

00:16:52.700 Yeah. No.

00:16:53.280 Or I just.

00:16:54.520 Or turn away.

00:16:55.540 Yeah. Just I just don't.

00:16:57.920 Just I get to the place where I'm tired of thinking.

00:17:00.300 Yeah.

00:17:00.840 You know what I mean?

00:17:01.560 Yeah.

00:17:03.320 Is that just I have?

00:17:04.600 No, no, no, no, no, no.

00:17:06.880 Part of our worldview says not only is there a good God, but our other part of the worldview says there's an evil being.

00:17:13.740 Uh, not just, uh, not just evil, but an evil being.

00:17:19.180 And that is Satan.

00:17:20.580 And Satan has never told a word of truth ever.

00:17:24.140 And whenever he sees a person like you or any person, uh, try to deal with the anxieties of life by turning to faith or turning to God, he's going to step in.

00:17:38.040 And so one doubt after another or interrupt one with one interruption after another.

00:17:44.480 We can just expect him to do that because the last thing he wants us to do as people right now is turn to God in faith.

00:17:52.160 He wants us to turn on each other in anger.

00:17:56.020 He never, he's all for that.

00:17:58.360 He's all for division.

00:18:00.280 Uh, he, he is, he's the, the source of all, uh, wherever there's a, a, a division between two human beings, that's the footprints of Satan or the fingerprints of Satan.

00:18:10.180 Uh, that's why when he sees you opening your Bible, he's going to interrupt it, or he's going to bring some type of ethereal thought in and say, well, this can't be true.

00:18:19.880 Or he's going to cause doubt, or he's going to cause you to think I'm too bad to deserve.

00:18:25.020 He's got a million and one tools, but everything is settled on keeping you from drawing close to God.

00:18:31.200 Because where you are at peace with God, then you can be at peace with others.

00:18:35.780 But when we're not at peace with God, then we see what the world sees right now.

00:18:40.220 And that is calamity everywhere.

00:18:43.280 That's why I really appreciated your call to the country to return to the promises of God.

00:18:48.260 You have to.

00:18:49.020 Yeah.

00:18:50.060 What else?

00:18:50.620 We either hold on to the problems of life or the promises of God.

00:18:54.820 It comes down to that.

00:18:55.980 Yeah.

00:18:56.160 You know, our life's going to be dominated today by the problems we see or the promises we trust.

00:19:01.340 And we get to choose.

00:19:02.540 So thank you for reminding us to come back to the covenants.

00:19:06.320 I just gave a speech a couple days ago on the covenant.

00:19:10.780 And, you know, I guess you're coming at a good time and a bad time because right now I just feel like a punching bag.

00:19:22.820 You know, I just feel like.

00:19:24.760 But I said last week.

00:19:31.440 We look at all of the problems and there's tons of them.

00:19:36.140 I mean, there is every indication that this just doesn't last much longer.

00:19:40.780 You know what I mean?

00:19:42.280 But there was every indication in my life that I wasn't going to last much longer.

00:19:49.300 Good word.

00:19:49.840 You know?

00:19:50.080 And it just takes a simple choice.

00:19:57.100 And then all of the stuff that we've done wrong, all of the things that our country has done wrong, once we turn it over, he is amazing.

00:20:11.120 It's all used for good.

00:20:12.440 But there's no waste in his world.

00:20:16.400 You know?

00:20:17.460 And it gives me hope that I've seen it in my own life.

00:20:24.000 And so I know it to be true.

00:20:26.700 Because I know God because I saw forgiveness.

00:20:29.800 And we just have to surrender.

00:20:35.340 You know, what if our response to this global crisis was really a nation of repentance and prayer?

00:20:42.320 I mean, what if we really got to the point where we said, Lord, we don't have any solution?

00:20:50.220 We see bitterness in Iran. 1.00

00:20:53.960 We know that some deranged leaders just one bad mood away from pushing a red button.

00:21:00.600 We're living in fear.

00:21:02.260 Our kids don't know their gender.

00:21:04.520 There's a suicide crisis or epidemic.

00:21:06.680 I think taking – what if there was just this collective desire to get down on our knees and say, Lord, we're crying out to you in desperation?

00:21:23.580 It's what it's going to require.

00:21:24.880 It's going to require.

00:21:25.480 I don't know – that's not something you can orchestrate or fake.

00:21:32.240 But I believe that's our next step.

00:21:35.720 That's our only next step.

00:21:38.120 We're not going to diplomatically talk our way through this, you know, Glenn.

00:21:42.700 This is a spiritual battle.

00:21:44.440 This is a spiritual battle.

00:21:47.320 You know, the last time I was here, I talked about my new book, God Never Gives Up on You, Jacob.

00:21:52.360 But, you know, Jacob's brother was Esau.

00:21:56.580 And in the womb, Jacob and Esau were struggling with one another.

00:22:01.560 They were fighting.

00:22:02.400 The womb of Rebekah was like a cage fight. 1.00

00:22:06.020 And so Jacob, the story, you know, was born second, but he's promoted to be firstborn.

00:22:13.060 And Esau and Jacob kind of reconcile.

00:22:16.420 But then we learn that there's tension all the way down their bloodline.

00:22:20.600 Esau is the progenitor of the Amalekites. 1.00

00:22:26.580 And the Amalekites – can I tell about this for just a second? 1.00

00:22:29.260 Because I think it's really relevant.

00:22:30.580 No, no, please.

00:22:31.660 The Amalekites appear later in Scripture when the children of Israel are coming out of Egyptian captivity.

00:22:39.440 And the Amalekites, listen to this, are the ones coming around behind the children of Israel, 0.97

00:22:45.620 killing the women and the children. 0.98

00:22:48.080 They're not fighting the men. 1.00

00:22:49.400 They're fighting the stragglers.

00:22:53.420 This is –

00:22:54.240 Ooh, this is just –

00:22:55.780 It's like beasts.

00:22:56.280 They're beasts.

00:22:57.580 See, we're seeing the beginning of what we're – of this bloodthirsty Hamas tribe. 1.00

00:23:04.040 We're seeing it all the way back in the days of Moses.

00:23:07.600 Well, Moses reacted to that, not by battling the Amalekites, but by going up on a mountain to pray. 0.96

00:23:15.380 And when he prayed, Aaron and Hur had to hold his arms up.

00:23:18.860 You might remember that great story.

00:23:20.240 Oh, yeah.

00:23:20.480 Because he prayed so long and so feverishly that he was growing weary.

00:23:25.020 So they held his arms up.

00:23:26.860 And that prayer held the Amalekites back. 1.00

00:23:30.940 But the Amalekites just lingered around. 1.00

00:23:33.720 They were this mosquito on the children of Israel. 1.00

00:23:36.500 They kept, you know, biting them and snapping them.

00:23:39.060 They appear later – Glenn, you'll remember this – Saul, the first king of Israel, was told by God to destroy Agag.

00:23:52.080 Agag was the king of the Amalekites. 1.00

00:23:55.540 So Saul did destroy the people of the Amalekites, but he didn't destroy the king. 0.92

00:24:02.380 Agag – Saul kept him alive.

00:24:04.980 So there, that spirit of anti-Semitism, of barbarism, is still alive and well.

00:24:12.260 The next time that Agag's name appears in Scripture is in the book of Esther. 0.72

00:24:19.000 And in the book of Esther, there was a cruel despot that made Hitler look like a puppy dog. 0.59

00:24:24.880 And his name was Haman. 0.95

00:24:26.820 And he wanted to destroy the children of Israel. 0.96

00:24:29.960 And he was willing to pay King Xerxes $20 million for the privilege of killing. 0.76

00:24:35.960 He wanted – it's the first holocaust. 0.93

00:24:38.400 Well, when you read that story in the book of Esther, Haman is introduced as the son of Hamadathah.

00:24:46.800 I don't know if I said it correctly.

00:24:48.480 But Hamadathah, the Agagite. 0.95

00:24:51.280 So Haman himself was a descendant of Agag, who was an Amalekite. 0.82

00:24:58.720 And every time you see the Amalekites, they are trying to destroy the children of Israel. 1.00

00:25:03.640 I say all that to say, Glenn, anti-Semitism is a spiritual issue.

00:25:07.840 I know.

00:25:08.660 Because God, from the very beginning, said through this covenant people, he was going to bless the world.

00:25:14.280 So Satan says, well, I'm going to destroy the covenant people. 1.00

00:25:17.240 Right.

00:25:17.540 And that's what he's been trying to do ever since.

00:25:19.180 I'm absolutely convinced of that.

00:25:20.260 If Satan – if you understand Satan as a real separate entity, which some people don't, but I do,

00:25:28.540 and if you look at him, he thinks he can beat God, which is arrogance beyond imagination.

00:25:36.820 He thinks he can beat – how many people were there?

00:25:40.080 How many people were there when – a couple hundred? 0.99

00:25:44.080 And he thinks, all I have to do is just kill those people, and he ceases to be God because God can't break a promise. 1.00

00:25:50.260 Well, I've got to kill them. 1.00

00:25:51.800 And that's what he's been doing ever since. 1.00

00:25:54.080 How else do we explain?

00:25:55.560 You don't.

00:25:56.120 These millennia of anti-Semitism.

00:25:58.920 Yeah.

00:25:59.300 Nobody else – no other people group on the planet have such illogical hostility toward them.

00:26:07.680 I mean, we're seeing academic people.

00:26:10.160 We're seeing people that we have teaching in our universities or elected to Congress who are behaving with this inexplicable hatred.

00:26:23.080 Inexplicable hatred.

00:26:24.000 And it's been so deeply rooted in the DNA of humanity that it's only – we can only explain it by spiritual explanation.

00:26:37.360 I tell you, there was a time when I had so much pain I couldn't move my hands.

00:26:48.220 I couldn't do this just with my fingers, let alone learn to play the piano, which is not going well.

00:26:54.140 I just want to say, not going well.

00:26:56.300 But it's not because my hands hurt, because I take Relief Factor.

00:27:00.140 Relief Factor, ReliefFactor.com.

00:27:02.280 If you want to get out of pain, just try this.

00:27:07.520 I can't – I can't guarantee anything is going to work for you.

00:27:13.040 But millions of people have taken this now, and in the three-week quick start, it sorts people out.

00:27:20.200 About 70% of them go on to order more month after month because it works for them.

00:27:24.180 That means there's 30% that don't.

00:27:26.140 But I like the fact that Relief Factor tells you that up front.

00:27:30.540 Try it for three weeks.

00:27:31.820 Take it as directed.

00:27:32.840 If it's not working, it most likely won't work for you.

00:27:36.580 But 70% of the people, it seems to.

00:27:39.840 ReliefFactor.com.

00:27:41.040 Call 800-4-RELIEF.

00:27:42.780 800-4-RELIEF.

00:27:45.200 ReliefFactor.com.

00:27:46.240 When you see the Lord talk about, you know, he'll come back when the blood of the innocents is just too much.

00:27:56.500 Oh, yeah.

00:27:57.340 That even he has to say, enough.

00:27:59.280 Yeah, enough.

00:28:00.660 Yeah.

00:28:01.640 My gosh.

00:28:02.920 Except for the elect, he said.

00:28:04.740 Yeah.

00:28:05.700 It would continue.

00:28:07.420 My gosh, that's a lot.

00:28:08.640 It's a lot.

00:28:09.420 It's a lot.

00:28:10.060 And I'm sorry.

00:28:12.140 We've not got.

00:28:13.800 How do you find good news in such bad times?

00:28:19.360 You look for, I think, the miracle or the planting of miracles.

00:28:27.780 It takes us to recognize them and to enact them and be them.

00:28:34.740 But the only thing I can think of in all of these are we're going to see spiritual giants.

00:28:47.100 And we are going to see leaders like we haven't seen in a very long time.

00:28:53.480 And we're going to see, I really think we're going to see maybe the whole arm of God, not just the finger of God.

00:29:00.280 I mean, I think we're going to see Moses style miracles because it's what will happen.

00:29:05.500 It has to happen because it's all around the world.

00:29:07.840 It is.

00:29:08.260 It is.

00:29:08.860 I got this text from a friend just yesterday.

00:29:16.260 He did a cut and paste and sent me this text.

00:29:18.980 Caleb Global reports that literally millions of Iranians are accepting Christ.

00:29:23.800 Thousands report being visited in dreams by a man in white with scars on his hands.

00:29:31.560 And they want to learn about the man in white.

00:29:35.140 Wow.

00:29:35.340 That's an amazing report.

00:29:37.160 That's the kind of miracles.

00:29:38.580 Yes.

00:29:39.020 You know, in the darkest nights, God always has his brightest lights.

00:29:43.020 He always does.

00:29:44.140 He has to.

00:29:45.140 Do you know much about the 12ers, the people that believe in the 12th, the mom, that really kind of are the clerics of?

00:29:52.780 I don't.

00:29:54.100 Iran.

00:29:55.220 Their end times philosophy is when, you know, when their leadership says, oh, Allah, give us a strength to hasten the return of the promised one.

00:30:10.340 Their promised one is the 12th, the mom.

00:30:12.780 And he climbs out of a well he's been hiding there for, I don't know, a thousand years, 1500 years.

00:30:17.140 And he comes out and he gathers the strength of the Middle East and he destroys Israel. 0.98

00:30:27.460 In their book, Jesus comes to back him up and says, you know, I'm here because this is the real Messiah. 0.89

00:30:37.700 And we'll behead anybody who disagrees with it.

00:30:43.260 But as you look at it, it's almost as if it was written to freak people out.

00:30:50.320 You know, it's almost like, let's write this because I just read the Christian's ending. 0.61

00:30:54.620 Let's write this exactly like theirs except the reverse.

00:30:58.380 There are people that are working for the end times.

00:31:07.380 How does one make sure that you're not duped by that?

00:31:12.780 It's hard.

00:31:13.460 Yeah, yeah, boy, it is.

00:31:16.100 For the Christian, everything begins with the resurrection, with the empty tomb. 0.99

00:31:21.740 Our Savior defeated death.

00:31:24.760 He rose from the dead, thereby authenticating everything he said and everything he would do.

00:31:31.800 And so for that reason, when I was 20 years old, a friend of mine asked me, well, what happened to the body if he wasn't risen from the dead?

00:31:40.420 And I couldn't come up with a good answer.

00:31:42.240 And it still took another couple of years before me to solidify my faith.

00:31:47.680 But I think that's the question.

00:31:49.800 So if the answer is Jesus did come out of the grave, then he authenticates everything else he has said about what he's going to do.

00:31:58.940 And that includes a period of severe tribulation.

00:32:02.940 I believe it includes a time in which Christ will call for his people.

00:32:06.720 He'll rapture us.

00:32:07.520 He'll bring us into heaven.

00:32:08.520 And while tribulation is happening on earth toward the end, it's going to be severe.

00:32:13.680 It's going to be very severe.

00:32:14.820 That will be concluded by what we discussed, just the phrase, Gog and Magog.

00:32:20.680 The enemies from the north will come down and they will encircle Israel. 0.96

00:32:24.680 And it will appear that Israel has no help, not even from us, because who knows where we'll be at that time.

00:32:31.540 God will intervene, and that's when the return of Christ will happen.

00:32:37.180 That's when the evil will be destroyed, and that's when Christ will set up his kingdom on earth.

00:32:41.660 That hope for me, Glenn, is what gives me life in really dark times.

00:32:50.520 Me too.

00:32:50.860 If all I had to do was look around and see this chaos around me, I don't know what I would be drinking tonight.

00:32:57.780 I would be too.

00:32:58.960 But I have such faith that, well, I know the Lord is a promise keeper.

00:33:05.500 And so what he says will be, whether we're living in that time or not, but I also know that, you know, Bonhoeffer, I'm sure, thought he was a failure.

00:33:15.260 He wasn't.

00:33:16.340 He was an amazing man, an amazing man.

00:33:19.760 And still gives people like me hope every single day, you know.

00:33:25.820 And, Glenn, you give a lot of people hope.

00:33:28.300 You really do.

00:33:29.920 I can see on your face this is all heavy, but you're helping a lot of people.

00:33:34.920 You know, just the fact that you're talking about this from a heart instead of just a head viewpoint, you're saying this really is heavy.

00:33:43.740 Man, we can relate.

00:33:45.460 Millions of us listening say, I get that.

00:33:47.540 I get that.

00:33:48.520 We all have it.

00:33:50.380 We're facing crises now on every front.

00:33:52.860 We've not even mentioned North Korea.

00:33:54.680 We've not mentioned Russia and China and their collaboration.

00:33:58.060 We haven't mentioned the people who are living on the edge right now and are trying to figure out how to make ends meet.

00:34:06.860 Yeah.

00:34:07.240 And their kids are going to school and being indoctrinated.

00:34:10.660 And maybe mom and dad have two jobs.

00:34:13.100 They can't stop this.

00:34:15.520 They don't know what to do.

00:34:16.960 I mean, there is deep pain and despair, you know.

00:34:23.220 Every time in the Bible, God's people got to this point, God interrupted it with a miracle.

00:34:31.960 Now, sometimes it seemed like 400 years before that miracle would come, right, for those people in Egyptian slavery. 0.67

00:34:37.620 But you think about how God interrupted the enslaved Jews in Egypt, how God interrupted with Joshua being able to retake the promised land with the collapse of the Jericho walls. 0.69

00:34:53.740 How God interrupted the exile of the Jews with Nehemiah being not only invited to return, but funded in his return to rebuild the city of Jerusalem.

00:35:05.140 And then, of course, for the Christian, there's the resurrection of Christ, just when it seemed the darkest, when God on earth was going to be destroyed, killed. 0.60

00:35:14.780 Look who comes out of the grave.

00:35:16.280 So, what our hope is, Glenn, what our prayer is, God, do it again.

00:35:22.180 Do it again.

00:35:23.360 But we need one more.

00:35:24.840 We need one more.

00:35:26.000 At some point, that one more will be the end of this age as we know it.

00:35:30.740 And that's okay.

00:35:32.140 Explain what the next age, because people think, oh, it's the end of the world.

00:35:35.720 No, it's not.

00:35:36.300 No, no, no, no.

00:35:37.500 Well, I'm fascinated by end times.

00:35:41.860 I know there are many opinions, okay, so I'll preface it.

00:35:45.080 But it seems to me that the next big event after Christ returns to the earth is going to be that thousand-year reign of Christ on earth.

00:35:52.800 Have you talked much about that or thought much about that?

00:35:55.160 I've thought a lot about it.

00:35:56.180 I don't talk about it much, but I've thought a lot about it.

00:35:58.600 I think it's, one, to naturally get people to change.

00:36:07.800 I mean, we saw people change for about, maybe if you're lucky, a week after 9-11.

00:36:14.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:36:15.060 So, the change to affect that kind of change in people means the suffering prior to has got to be very memorable.

00:36:27.080 Yeah.

00:36:27.300 And then the joy of truth returning through him has got to be just wonderful.

00:36:38.260 Yeah.

00:36:38.580 Wonderful.

00:36:40.800 Well, in case somebody has never heard this conversation, what we're talking about is described in Revelation chapter 20.

00:36:49.460 Six times there's a reference to the millennium, and it's a thousand-year reign of Christ on earth.

00:36:56.720 And it fulfills many prophecies and keeps many promises.

00:37:01.340 The reason it's really relevant to our discussion, and especially what you're emphasizing, is because the thousand-year reign of Christ announces that Christ will have his garden of Eden.

00:37:13.800 What was established and announced in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, that God would reign in a paradise with his people.

00:37:22.320 They would reign together.

00:37:23.440 That was his declaration from the beginning.

00:37:25.700 Now, the assumption that many people make is, well, Adam and Eve blew it, so God changed his plans.

00:37:31.680 That verse is not in the Bible.

00:37:33.020 No.

00:37:33.500 Not in the Bible.

00:37:34.460 Like you said, God is a covenant-keeping God.

00:37:36.580 So he has announced this.

00:37:39.000 He has declared that this planet would be a paradise, and we would reign with him.

00:37:44.260 That's what Adam and Eve were told to do.

00:37:46.040 They walked with God in the cool of the evening.

00:37:48.160 It was intimate.

00:37:49.100 It was warm.

00:37:50.680 It was moral.

00:37:51.820 They weren't hiding.

00:37:52.620 They're hiding behind clothing, even.

00:37:55.280 It's just a beautiful setting.

00:37:56.500 So the teaching on the millennium says God's going to keep that promise, and Revelation chapter 20 describes the day God does it, and it's after he returns, Revelation chapter 19, and then Revelation chapter 20, and then Revelation chapter 21 announces the new heaven and the new earth.

00:38:16.500 And so for a thousand years in between this life and our eternal state, the new heaven and new earth, you and I will reign with Christ on earth, and we'll be in glorified bodies, that is to say, bodies that are made perfect, equipped for eternity, and then there will be people who are still on earth in mortal bodies, and I know this sounds fictional and fantastical, but it's part of the story, and I'm excited about it, but there will be people who become Christ followers even during that time of tribulation.

00:38:46.500 And they will enter into that time of the thousand-year reign, so we will—it's just like when Christ, after he rose from the dead, was in a glorified body with mortal people, so it'll happen yet again.

00:39:00.540 I love the fact that, at least the way that I read this, is that you still have a choice, even when he's here.

00:39:10.220 Absolutely.

00:39:10.460 He's not executing people who don't.

00:39:12.820 There'll still be people who are like, I like this guy, but I don't know.

00:39:16.500 You know, that will change over time and join, and that's exciting.

00:39:22.640 And events like this right now make us think, okay, people are going to change.

00:39:28.560 I hear what you said about 9-11.

00:39:32.000 You know, when on September, I guess 13th, our church held a special worship service, and it was packed.

00:39:40.980 It was packed, Glenn.

00:39:41.940 And I remember we couldn't even find hallways for people who were coming.

00:39:46.100 I thought, okay, this is it.

00:39:48.080 This is it.

00:39:49.300 But within two or three weeks—

00:39:51.220 Gone.

00:39:51.840 Gone.

00:39:53.000 Gone.

00:39:53.440 Gone.

00:39:53.500 So, you know, we've touched on depression and sadness and hopelessness.

00:40:04.460 Let's talk about your book, God Never Gives Up On You, because I think there's a lot of people that feel like he has, or he's not answered, or he's not been around.

00:40:14.700 What do you mean by God Never Gives Up On You?

00:40:20.360 Well, we interpret the presence of pain as the absence of God.

00:40:25.120 That's the default human reaction to pain.

00:40:28.240 If God was here, I wouldn't be hurting.

00:40:30.240 If God was here, I wouldn't be battling with this particular struggle.

00:40:33.480 So, the declaration from God throughout Scripture is, no, I never give up on my people.

00:40:40.500 I never do, and I will be there.

00:40:43.760 And Jacob's story is a picture of a person who I would think God would have long since given up on, but he never did.

00:40:52.420 He never did.

00:40:53.940 You look in the Bible at the stories of great Bible characters.

00:40:57.700 There's Abraham, there's Moses, there's Daniel, there's Joseph, there's Mary, there's Paul, there's Peter.

00:41:03.720 Some of the, they just feel spiritual.

00:41:06.500 Right.

00:41:06.620 But when you look at the story of Jacob, Jacob was a scoundrel.

00:41:11.000 He was always working the system.

00:41:13.220 But he was a part of the promises that you've urged us to remember, Glenn.

00:41:17.480 That promise made to his grandfather that God would bless the world through the children of Israel.

00:41:22.840 Jacob was the grandson of Abraham.

00:41:24.640 I'm the head of the 12 tribes of Israel.

00:41:28.620 And so, God has to keep that promise.

00:41:31.820 And God's promise is he's going to use the children of Israel to be the courier of hope to the world, which he has, which he has.

00:41:39.520 But there was a, the story of Jacob is a perfect example for God to abandon that promise if he was ever going to do so.

00:41:47.620 Because in the Jacob story, Jacob negotiates with God.

00:41:52.700 Jacob ends up marrying the wrong woman and then has to marry her sister.

00:41:58.160 And then he has two handmaidens and he has 12 children and they're all squabbling and fighting.

00:42:03.100 Then he has to go through a encounter with Esau, his brother, where he thought Esau was going to kill him.

00:42:09.340 But they did at least reconcile.

00:42:11.960 And then on the way home to Bethel, his sons attacked Shechem, a village, and it's a bloodbath. 0.89

00:42:18.480 It's one of the most ugly chapters in the whole Bible.

00:42:21.340 Every time you turn the page, you think, okay, God's done with Shechem. 1.00

00:42:25.180 But he never was.

00:42:26.320 He never was.

00:42:27.620 That's why I think there's hope for people like me, you know, that God never gives up on us.

00:42:32.780 It's his grip on us that matters more than our grip on him.

00:42:39.960 Does everybody have something as grand as Jacob to do?

00:42:46.040 Are you assigned this?

00:42:50.260 I tend to think that the example of Martin Luther King, that he was, I think, the fourth or fifth pastor that they had come to and said,

00:42:58.260 hey, we need you to do this.

00:43:00.140 He was just the first guy who said, okay.

00:43:04.240 He wasn't the best.

00:43:05.780 He was just the one who would pray on it and go, okay, I'll do it.

00:43:11.300 Yeah, yeah.

00:43:13.920 Does everybody have a job to do?

00:43:16.940 Uh-huh.

00:43:17.300 Everybody has a unique role.

00:43:19.500 Everybody has a unique to them assignment in life.

00:43:23.180 Some respond and say yes, and it appears God blessed that with a small harvest.

00:43:30.260 Some say yes, and it certainly appears God blesses them with a great harvest, but they receive the harvest that's right for their work.

00:43:38.140 Some people just say no.

00:43:40.240 They don't want to part.

00:43:41.400 They don't believe in God.

00:43:42.620 They turn away from him.

00:43:43.760 And they really walk out on the opportunity of an adventure.

00:43:48.820 And life becomes nothing more than that little tiny dash between the dates on the tombstone.

00:43:54.440 You know, born here, died here.

00:43:56.160 And that's it.

00:43:57.300 That's it.

00:43:57.980 And when you suck the goodness out of life, you're left with the bitterness and the sadness that we see in so many.

00:44:06.400 So even someone like Jacob, who, for crying out loud, as far as we know, the one, let's see, one of the two times he prayed, he was negotiating with God.

00:44:18.300 It wasn't a very spiritual prayer.

00:44:20.080 Lord, if you do this, I'll do that.

00:44:21.860 And he was back and forth with God.

00:44:25.040 There's never a time he preached a sermon, never really a time he gave a great message.

00:44:30.860 But you know what?

00:44:31.820 God chose to use him.

00:44:33.040 And in the end, he was still following God.

00:44:36.040 He died worshiping, the scripture says.

00:44:39.500 So when you get, you know, this is one of the things that brings me back to how I, how difficult it is to live at this time when there's so much wrong and evil.

00:44:58.020 And I think that's because I know God's not given up on him.

00:45:03.580 That's right.

00:45:04.400 That's right.

00:45:04.760 You know, he wants all of his kids home.

00:45:06.640 Yeah.

00:45:06.780 All of them.

00:45:07.260 Every one of them.

00:45:08.080 And he's counting on us to go help them.

00:45:12.220 That doesn't sound fun.

00:45:15.440 Well, God is up to the task, even though we're not.

00:45:19.180 You know, Glenn, I love to tell this story.

00:45:21.500 I told it last night at a church where I preached.

00:45:23.600 So it's kind of on my mind, if you don't mind.

00:45:25.420 When I, when my daughters were small, kindergarten and diaper age, I have three daughters, our bedtime routine involved the very last thing after songs, after bath, after songs, after stories, after jokes, after books, you know, the very last thing.

00:45:43.440 They would say, flex your muscles, daddy.

00:45:46.780 And Glenn, I used to have muscles.

00:45:48.620 I don't anymore.

00:45:49.900 I flex and nothing happens.

00:45:51.940 But there was a time I had a, you know, pretty good set of guns on my biceps.

00:45:55.440 And this one, the kids were small and I would go from bed.

00:45:59.640 They all had three beds in one room.

00:46:01.920 So they would all stand up and I would go pop those biceps and they'd put their hands on my muscles and they'd say, oh, you're strong, daddy.

00:46:10.280 It's the last time I ever had women fall over my muscles. 1.00

00:46:14.460 But, you know, I, I like to think that they slept better having just felt the strength of their father.

00:46:23.360 And I think that's what we need now.

00:46:25.120 I think we need to somehow feel the strength of our heavenly father.

00:46:29.140 I know this is terrible.

00:46:31.500 I know we're facing multiple crises on multiple fronts.

00:46:35.600 And I know that God's hand is still on Israel, though we can't quite figure out what's going to happen next.

00:46:42.440 But in times like this, the scripture says, just be anxious for nothing.

00:46:47.300 But in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

00:46:52.920 And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

00:46:59.000 All right.

00:47:01.020 Back with more from Max Lucado in just a second.

00:47:03.900 First, grip six.

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00:48:25.380 Let's talk about the covenant.

00:48:27.280 Because covenant is different than a promise.

00:48:32.620 A covenant is something that you don't want to take unless you're.

00:48:37.640 Serious about it, right?

00:48:39.340 What's the difference between a promise and a covenant?

00:48:42.080 Well, a covenant.

00:48:42.780 That is a good question.

00:48:50.580 I'm trying to find a real concise brief.

00:48:55.300 A covenant has divine origins in it.

00:48:59.560 A covenant is more than just I agree to pay for your offense if I knock it over.

00:49:08.740 Right.

00:49:10.100 A covenant is my commitment to you for your best to bring out the best in you.

00:49:17.240 Does that work?

00:49:18.180 I don't know if I've ever tried to articulate what works for you.

00:49:21.100 A promise to me is I'll do this if you do that.

00:49:27.700 Yeah.

00:49:28.040 A covenant is I will do this and you must do that.

00:49:32.420 Yeah.

00:49:32.940 Yeah.

00:49:33.860 Yeah.

00:49:34.000 We cannot, this one is not, there's no divorce court here on this one. 0.89

00:49:40.000 You take and make the covenant.

00:49:42.120 Right.

00:49:42.340 And if I'm not mistaken, he makes it through the generations.

00:49:46.240 There's only seven covenants in the scriptures.

00:49:49.260 There's like, I don't know, 3,700 promises.

00:49:51.740 Yeah.

00:49:52.240 Yeah.

00:49:52.400 But there's seven covenants.

00:49:53.860 And it always seems to center around the children that you will take this covenant and then you will plant it deep into the children so it continues on.

00:50:05.780 So it continues.

00:50:07.020 Yeah.

00:50:07.340 It's a generational promise, if you will, I think.

00:50:11.460 And to abandon these covenants has consequences.

00:50:15.040 Right.

00:50:15.800 But to keep these covenants has promises or blessings.

00:50:19.280 So there's blessings and burdens.

00:50:21.340 We can choose life or we can choose, we can choose death.

00:50:25.800 Some of the covenants, the strongest covenants I think that govern the world right now are these unilateral covenants.

00:50:32.500 For example, here we are talking about Israel again, but God made a covenant in Genesis 12 and then Genesis 15.

00:50:39.180 He reaffirmed that covenant.

00:50:40.640 He gave Abraham this land and he gave them soil.

00:50:45.260 And then he said, through your seed, the world will be blessed.

00:50:49.220 So it's a covenant of soil and a covenant of seed.

00:50:53.580 And then God affirmed that in Genesis 15 with that mysterious moment in which there are there's a carcass and he passes between the carcass, the torn carcass of the animal.

00:51:05.820 And there's a flaming pot and a burning flame, a flaming pot.

00:51:11.700 And it's God walking between that.

00:51:13.840 And that was the way of saying, may what has happened to this animal happen to me if I break this covenant.

00:51:21.260 And so here's God making a covenant.

00:51:23.420 Now, we can acknowledge the covenant or we can ignore the covenant.

00:51:26.600 But the covenant is there and it's a governing principle in history.

00:51:32.440 So I think really that if you want to understand what's about to happen in the future, you go back and you look at these covenants that God has made.

00:51:38.980 You can tell that's where we're headed.

00:51:41.160 You say that bearing the past is not always the best thing.

00:51:46.960 What do you mean by that?

00:51:48.040 Well, there's a there's a issue that so many people have that they they they carry the regrets of the past.

00:51:57.760 They carry him with us.

00:51:58.620 And that's what Jacob was doing.

00:52:00.120 He was he knew that he had messed up with his brother, Jacob, and he could not bring himself face to face with his past.

00:52:07.560 But, you know, Glenn, sometimes to move into the future, we got to deal with our past, have to deal with our past.

00:52:13.520 And that's why grace is so important.

00:52:15.740 The grace of God washes our sins away completely, completely.

00:52:21.900 Explain why that's unique.

00:52:23.240 That's unique to the Christian gospel, because every other world religion has says you do this and God may do that.

00:52:31.640 Right.

00:52:31.860 You build this altar.

00:52:33.100 Maybe God will forgive you.

00:52:34.500 You keep these rules.

00:52:35.760 Maybe God will forgive you.

00:52:37.220 You tithe or give this money.

00:52:39.920 Maybe God will forgive you.

00:52:41.040 The Christian gospel says, by contrast, we are saved by grace through faith, not by works.

00:52:47.760 So no one can boast.

00:52:49.780 So Max can spend his life saying, I'm a sinner saved by grace.

00:52:53.780 I'm a drunk redeemed.

00:52:56.000 And I'm not.

00:52:56.680 It's in the past.

00:52:57.780 It's not who I am anymore.

00:52:58.980 And God saved me, not because of what I did, but because of what Christ did for me.

00:53:05.320 And that liberates me from the fear of out sinning his grace.

00:53:10.100 That liberates me from the fear of thinking I have to do more to get him to love me, because it wasn't what I did to get him to love me to begin with.

00:53:18.340 So it's a whole different mindset.

00:53:19.680 And he's your dad.

00:53:19.880 He loves you.

00:53:20.520 That's right.

00:53:21.100 No matter what you do.

00:53:22.000 It's that worldview question again, Glenn.

00:53:24.440 So if my worldview has a God that loves me and has paid the price so I can spend forever with him in heaven, in the new millennium and then in heaven, then armed with that, I can face the challenges that we're going through right now.

00:53:39.140 So God never gives up on you as a way to give hope and to show that even you weren't perfect.

00:53:51.420 Go over the main thing that you think people need to know about that's in the book.

00:53:58.480 Yeah, I think the big idea, Glenn, with the story of Jacob is here is a man who is a descendant, a grandson of Abraham, whom we call the father in the faith.

00:54:11.580 And yet before he's even a chapter or two into the story, he's already swindled his brother and lied to his father.

00:54:20.640 And he's on the run away from his own family.

00:54:24.320 And he has to enter into modern day Turkey without a penny, without a servant, even though he comes from a family of affluence and wealth.

00:54:35.580 Before we're even into a chapter or two, he's been deceitful, he's lied, he's on the lamb, he's a fugitive.

00:54:46.200 And yet we still hear Jesus speak about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

00:54:51.780 I would have thought that Jesus may have said Abraham and Isaac and that one guy who never did anything.

00:54:57.900 Call him the asterisk.

00:54:59.680 But he didn't.

00:55:00.580 He didn't.

00:55:01.060 And, you know, that brings such hope to many people who are listening right now.

00:55:06.240 Maybe they're in a prison.

00:55:07.640 Maybe they're in a hospital.

00:55:08.760 Maybe they're in a rehab clinic.

00:55:10.340 Maybe they're recovering from making some bad decisions.

00:55:14.840 And they really think God has given up on them.

00:55:17.980 But he never does.

00:55:20.000 And it's the trick of our brain and the trick of Satan to tell us what the world tells us all the time.

00:55:27.560 And, you know, there's no forgiveness because there is no God.

00:55:30.680 So there is no forgiveness.

00:55:32.200 And, you know, even if you think it might be you and you think it might be God giving forgiveness out, you're not good enough for it.

00:55:41.580 He didn't mean for people as bad as you.

00:55:43.440 And that's why we create these legalistic systems that say, OK, I'll go light another candle.

00:55:50.340 Maybe he'll forgive me.

00:55:51.320 I'll go give more money.

00:55:52.380 Maybe he'll forgive me.

00:55:54.020 Never knowing if we've lit enough candles or given enough money.

00:55:58.720 Whereas grace says, oh, no, no, no.

00:56:01.100 You know, when Jesus died on the cross, he received all the punishment that was due all of humanity on him in my place.

00:56:09.360 And then he rose from the dead.

00:56:10.940 So he not only paid for my sin, he defeated my death.

00:56:16.220 And when I say yes to him, he says yes to me.

00:56:19.260 And I become a part of that forever family.

00:56:22.520 Now, that doesn't mean life is going to be easy now.

00:56:25.540 But it does mean there's hope at the end of this life.

00:56:30.480 And without hope, that's where people really struggle.

00:56:34.740 So this is the hope that we have to turn to in a season like this.

00:56:38.500 That is the only hope that you have.

00:56:41.120 I mean, hope has been dashed on the rocks in men and in institutions and everything over and over again relentlessly.

00:56:48.160 But I believe in God.

00:56:50.180 And I believe in those people that you can just feel God jump off them.

00:56:54.440 You know, there's something about, I don't know, I think there's something coming in the future that we're going to need to know just by looking to each other in their eyes.

00:57:04.420 We are.

00:57:05.300 You know.

00:57:05.720 How does this season that we're going through, there's anything in the last 40 years you've paid attention to, I'm assuming.

00:57:13.220 Oh, yeah.

00:57:13.540 Or maybe longer.

00:57:14.380 Yeah, yeah.

00:57:15.140 How does this right now compare with any other tough season we've been through?

00:57:21.000 It doesn't.

00:57:22.500 It doesn't.

00:57:23.020 We're probably in 1863.

00:57:29.880 We might be at 1863.

00:57:34.160 What is it?

00:57:35.600 Eight, 1793 with the French Revolution and World War II.

00:57:44.540 Except we have bombs now.

00:57:46.060 I mean, we're probably at all of those inflection points where man had to have God.

00:57:56.880 You weren't getting through it without God.

00:57:59.860 And most people don't, I mean, I see the polls.

00:58:04.760 They don't go to church.

00:58:05.700 They don't read the Bible.

00:58:06.580 And that doesn't make you a good person.

00:58:10.120 But, you know, it's one of these things.

00:58:13.680 If you don't know who you are now, how are you going to stay on the right team?

00:58:18.420 That nails it right there.

00:58:20.580 Yeah.

00:58:21.200 If you don't know who you are, you know, if you think we're just flotsam, we're just a coincidence of molecules, then for crying out loud, turn the party off.

00:58:33.220 I've had enough.

00:58:33.900 It makes sense to me in some ways.

00:58:38.420 If you didn't believe in that, you'd just be like, what am I doing this for?

00:58:42.120 There's no point to it.

00:58:43.420 There's no point.

00:58:44.040 There's no point to it.

00:58:46.420 You have said, you talk about how a person's truest view of God is how they see him at their lowest point.

00:58:55.440 What's that mean?

00:58:56.200 Yeah.

00:58:56.760 Which is kind of what we're talking about today, isn't it?

00:58:59.620 Yeah.

00:58:59.800 Is God still on the throne when my problems have me surrounded?

00:59:06.820 Is God still mighty when I feel weak?

00:59:10.440 Anybody can trust God on a beautiful Sunday morning or Saturday Sabbath when everything is nice and we're out in the meadows looking at springtime.

00:59:20.820 But when you see one report after another of atrocity and you see how evil and barbaric and bloodthirsty humanity can get, when we see yet again what man can do against man, can you trust in a good God then?

00:59:37.100 I turn off into the story of Joseph in the Old Testament.

00:59:43.380 Remember the son of Jacob who was sold into slavery, but then eventually became prime minister of Egypt.

00:59:50.540 And then when he had that encounter with the brothers who did sell him into slavery, he did not retaliate because he said that part of the story.

00:59:58.900 Yeah, Genesis 50, 20, what you intended for evil, God used for good.

01:00:06.080 What you intended for evil, God used for good.

01:00:09.080 So intended evil can result in ultimate good.

01:00:13.400 It did in that case.

01:00:15.080 And God used Joseph to actually save the children of Israel from a famine.

01:00:19.480 And so our prayer is, Lord, do that again.

01:00:23.240 We need a Joseph. 0.95

01:00:25.220 We need deliverance.

01:00:26.520 We need a miracle.

01:00:28.620 Do you think it will be a Joseph, a leader, one leader, one, or will it be several?

01:00:35.400 Can you answer that question while I think on it?

01:00:38.160 No.

01:00:39.120 I'm just wondering if Billy Graham said to me, it's not going to happen that way this time.

01:00:45.040 I said, where's George Washington?

01:00:46.760 Where's Abraham Lincoln?

01:00:47.480 Where's the next you, Billy?

01:00:49.360 He said, it's not going to happen that way this time.

01:00:51.660 I said, what do you mean?

01:00:52.440 He said, he's tired of giving all the credit to people like me and other individuals who

01:00:59.140 stand up and say things.

01:01:00.780 He said, everything I've done that was wrong in my life is me.

01:01:04.860 I know.

01:01:05.420 I made that decision.

01:01:06.820 He said, everything that was good, it happened because I would just be obedient and do exactly

01:01:12.320 what he said.

01:01:13.320 He said, this time, the Lord's going to ask for everybody to be obedient.

01:01:18.640 And just stand in place with whatever he tells you to do.

01:01:22.880 You might think, this isn't going to work. 1.00

01:01:24.820 This is stupid. 1.00

01:01:26.100 You know, why am I doing it? 1.00

01:01:27.620 But if you just listen to him, he'll tell you where to stand.

01:01:30.860 And he said, it's like the Lord is throwing a giant surprise party for Satan.

01:01:37.100 He said, pretty soon, somebody is standing there in the dark because he's making you step

01:01:43.040 out of the light, his guidance light or your comfortability light and step out and trust

01:01:51.660 in him and stand there holding something you may not really believe in, you know, as part

01:01:57.520 of it.

01:01:57.840 And he said, you're going to stand there and somebody's, you're going to say, what am I

01:02:04.380 doing here? 1.00

01:02:04.920 This is so stupid. 1.00

01:02:05.840 And you'll hear somebody else standing right by you. 1.00

01:02:10.140 Is there somebody else here?

01:02:12.320 And he said, that's when the lights come on.

01:02:14.700 And he said, it'll be a mosaic that only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob could have

01:02:21.720 done.

01:02:22.440 He said, that's when every knee will bow.

01:02:25.700 He said, God wants all the credit this time and he's going to get it.

01:02:29.600 Hmm.

01:02:31.960 Isn't that interesting?

01:02:32.600 That's wise.

01:02:33.560 That's wise.

01:02:35.320 So I think that urges us to try to come up with some coping strategies because it's going

01:02:44.080 to get worse before it gets better.

01:02:45.980 And I think you just mentioned one of them.

01:02:48.640 Rather than despair, just do the next decent thing.

01:02:52.260 You know, if there is such evil in the world, then right now I have to decide, okay, I'm

01:03:01.280 not going to treat people that way.

01:03:03.600 And perhaps the best way to mount a personal resistance toward this flood of evil is for

01:03:12.860 me to be kind to the person at the grocery store, you know, or to give up a parking spot

01:03:17.720 to generate a season of decency.

01:03:21.180 And some of the listeners who aren't even, who are not spiritual, you're saying, well,

01:03:27.400 I can do that.

01:03:28.500 Yeah.

01:03:28.640 Good.

01:03:29.240 Yeah.

01:03:29.580 Let's all start right there.

01:03:31.360 Let's be the most decent people that we can be to one another.

01:03:36.160 You know, my faith, we are told to be peculiar people.

01:03:43.280 And I think we got that down, but that's not the way they mean it.

01:03:48.300 And I was just talking to a group of people a couple weeks ago, and I said, all Christians

01:03:54.120 need to be way beyond a peculiar people.

01:03:58.580 We need to be really so odd that the rest of the world doesn't understand because the rest

01:04:07.420 of the world is going to be angry and confused and in chaos, and we need to be so in line with

01:04:17.580 him that we are happy.

01:04:19.240 We are comforters.

01:04:21.380 We are helping hands.

01:04:24.560 We stand out from the crowd.

01:04:27.240 I remember reading a story, Glenn, of some chaplains on a ship, on a battleship in World

01:04:34.680 War II that had been torpedoed, and the ship was going to go down.

01:04:39.700 And the chaplains were going to the soldiers saying, you take the life jacket because we

01:04:47.220 can die better than you.

01:04:49.060 Yes. 0.67

01:04:49.400 One of the great quotes, we can die better than you. 0.99

01:04:53.120 Christians can die better because we know what's next. 0.98

01:04:56.740 That doesn't make it easy.

01:04:58.320 It doesn't mean there's no fear.

01:05:00.300 But because of that, we are a peculiar people.

01:05:03.680 We're not excited about the evil that's going to come, but we do believe that Satan is going

01:05:09.200 to get a big surprise.

01:05:10.340 The Nazarene Fund is the organization I put together to save persecuted religion, Christians,

01:05:20.520 anybody who's persecuted for their religion, and help get them to safety.

01:05:25.300 And we use that mission to help get people out of Afghanistan. 0.89

01:05:31.460 And I was just with one of the guys in his family that we saved.

01:05:36.280 And he was Muslim, but he was one of the guys who was helping one of our commanders stay

01:05:47.260 alive, and heroic guy.

01:05:50.840 And he sat in my office, and I said, so what do you think of America?

01:05:57.140 Because he lives in Virginia now, and he lives right next door or right down the street from

01:06:03.300 the guy who saved him.

01:06:06.280 And he said, I really find it a wonderful place, but I'm having trouble with one thing.

01:06:18.400 I said, what's that?

01:06:20.080 He said, I don't understand why you Christians would save people like me.

01:06:29.560 Why would you go to all of this trouble to do this?

01:06:37.380 It's pretty remarkable.

01:06:40.040 Pretty remarkable.

01:06:41.040 Was he asking for an answer, or are you just speculating?

01:06:44.120 Just wondering?

01:06:44.440 No, he wanted to know.

01:06:45.880 And my answer to him was, because you're my brother.

01:06:49.580 Yeah, yeah.

01:06:50.620 You're really, literally my brother.

01:06:52.560 And even if you're a brother who is misbehaving, dad wants all of them home.

01:07:01.880 That's our worldview.

01:07:03.540 Every person is created to be an image bearer of God.

01:07:07.580 You know, Adam and Eve were made in God's image, and that includes Glenn and Max.

01:07:11.660 Now, that image has grown tarnished and tainted many times in many of our lives, but that image

01:07:19.520 is still there.

01:07:20.800 So the way you see the person is that regardless of their faith, they deserve to be rescued.

01:07:27.320 They deserve to be respected.

01:07:29.380 I know.

01:07:29.780 They deserve to be cherished.

01:07:30.920 I know, Max, that with my kids, and I've really struggled with my kids in the last couple

01:07:36.200 of years.

01:07:37.940 We've had suicide attempts and just horrible stuff. 0.98

01:07:43.240 And I know when one of my kids does something stupid to one of the others, or they feel like 0.98

01:07:54.460 you're being selfish, you know, you're hurting the whole family, you're being selfish. 0.98

01:08:01.420 I say to my kids all the time, don't leave a mark.

01:08:06.280 Don't leave a mark.

01:08:10.400 Because I, like my Heavenly Father, I want all my children.

01:08:16.140 And if my children are not, if they leave a mark on each other, it will cause a rift and

01:08:22.660 division, and it will get bigger and bigger.

01:08:25.340 And in the end, family's all we have.

01:08:27.960 It's all we have.

01:08:29.920 And I know my Heavenly Father.

01:08:34.700 I know him.

01:08:36.420 And he won't be happy if I come home and go, Dad, I'm home.

01:08:42.560 He's going to say, did you see how many brothers and sisters you left marks on?

01:08:48.900 What did you do?

01:08:50.420 What did you do?

01:08:52.660 Would you pray?

01:08:56.680 And we'll end this with prayer.

01:08:58.700 Thank you again, Glenn.

01:09:00.160 No.

01:09:00.540 Thank you for just all you do and the tone you set.

01:09:03.800 You're a good man.

01:09:05.460 You're putting it out there for all of us, and we struggle with you.

01:09:08.960 Thank you.

01:09:09.160 Yeah.

01:09:12.220 Well, gracious God, we come to you in this hour of great, great need.

01:09:17.760 Great need.

01:09:18.620 We feel whiplash by what we're going through.

01:09:21.880 I feel like we just came out of the pandemic.

01:09:25.160 We're catching our breath, and then one crisis after another comes our way.

01:09:31.280 But we see you coming.

01:09:33.680 We see you walking on the water.

01:09:36.320 We see you making provision when there is no provision.

01:09:40.100 We see your ability to heal, to answer, and to solve.

01:09:45.800 So we cry out to you as your people.

01:09:49.640 We cry out to you.

01:09:50.960 If you don't help us, we don't have help.

01:09:53.220 But when you help us, we have plenty of help.

01:09:56.140 So we ask you.

01:09:57.340 I thank you for my brother Glenn.

01:09:59.920 I thank you for even the heaviness on his heart because he represents all of us, Father.

01:10:06.460 Our hearts are very heavy at what we see.

01:10:09.660 We pray that those who would bring evil against innocent people would either be converted or eradicated.

01:10:18.540 Don't let that happen, Father.

01:10:20.300 Don't let more innocent people suffer.

01:10:23.200 Let your righteous rule occur.

01:10:25.260 Let your kingdom come, and let there be once and for all peace on earth.

01:10:30.380 We turn to you, our Savior Jesus, for strength.

01:10:34.940 We pray in the name of all that is good.

01:10:38.560 Amen.

01:10:55.260 Amen.

01:10:55.740 Amen.

01:10:56.940 Amen.

01:10:58.380 Amen.

01:10:59.120 Amen.

01:10:59.240 Amen.

01:10:59.780 Amen.

01:11:00.000 Amen.

01:11:00.620 Amen.

01:11:00.920 Amen.

01:11:01.820 Amen.

01:11:03.260 Amen.

01:11:04.000 Amen.

01:11:04.520 Amen.

01:11:04.900 Amen.

01:11:05.100 Amen.

01:11:05.460 Amen.

01:11:05.560 Amen.

01:11:06.360 Amen.

01:11:07.080 Amen.

01:11:08.120 Amen.

01:11:08.500 Amen.

01:11:08.580 Amen.

01:11:09.140 Amen.

01:11:09.500 Amen.

01:11:09.520 Amen.

01:11:09.560 Amen.

01:11:11.640 Amen.

01:11:13.660 Amen.

01:11:15.400 Amen.

01:11:15.720 Amen.

01:11:16.120 Amen.

01:11:17.000 Amen.

01:11:17.560 Amen.

01:11:17.580 Amen.

01:11:20.140 Amen.

01:11:21.200 Amen.

01:11:21.680 Amen.

01:11:21.760 Amen.

01:11:22.780 Amen.

01:11:23.320 Amen.

The Glenn Beck Program - October 28, 2023

Ep 200 ｜ End Times Prophecies Are Being Fulfilled ｜ Max Lucado ｜ The Glenn Beck Podcast

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