Over the years, Satan has stealthily integrated his evil agenda into the operational systems of the world. Today, he all but dominates the political, religious, and educational systems of our society. In other words, this is what it looks like with Satan as the god of this world.

However, Satan is not done yet. Satan’s goal is to convert his temporal dominion into a global political kingdom through which he will rule the whole world. To achieve that goal, he must persuade the world leaders to move toward the unification of all mankind under a one-world government and condition the world to accept and submit to a new world order and a one-world leader. In effect, the god of this world is setting the stage for the arrival of the Antichrist.

This is the subject of our next sermon in this series on Spiritual Warfare. The title is “The god of this World.”

Dear Heritage Family and Friends,

As we consider the amount of suffering the Jews have endured over the years for rejecting Jesus as the Messiah, is it possible to define one particular event, action, or attitude that caused them to suffer such tribulations and triaWe will attempt to answer that question in tonight’s Bible Study: “Israel, and the purposes of God,” or as I have renamed it: “What is so special about Israel?” This will be study number five in the series.

We will continue our sermon series, “Follow the Lamb,” tracing the types, examples, and illustrations of the Lamb of God in the Old Testament.

In Genesis 3:15, God promised Satan that one day the “seed” of Eve would crush the Serpent’s head! God also promised Adam and Eve, one would come through the seed of Eve who would be their Redeemer.

He would be a human; born of a virgin girl who conceived Him by the power of the Holy Spirit.
He would be Deity, and yet willingly give His life to pay the penalty for every man’s sin so the separation between God and man could be removed.

That “seed” of  Eve became that “Holy Thing” in Mary’s womb, who was Jesus Christ our Savior, the “Lamb of God.”

According to the Pew Research Center, 7% of the world’s population – 450-500 million people are atheist, i.e., they do not believe in God. Adding those people who are agnostic or just irreligious, the number rises to 16.5% of the population or over 1.1 billion people. Atheism is on the rise today, especially among 18–29-year-olds.

Among the reasons given for the rise in atheism is the problem of evil. Their question is, if God is the compassionate and gracious God the Bible says He is, how could He have designed a world filled with natural evil, or how could He allow man’s inhumanity to man to cause such suffering? They conclude that God doesn’t exist orHe cannot be a God of love.

Beloved, even many Christians do not understand the power of the curse, the presence of evil, and the person of the devil, which is the title of next Sunday’s sermon.

Tonight at 6:00 PM, we continue our study of Israel and God’s purposes, or as we have titled it, “What’s so special about Israel?”

God made four unconditional and eternal covenants with Israel, and while each covenant was a further development of the one before it, each covenant also brought its own, unique blessings to the Hebrews, i.e., the Land, the Seed, the Blessings, and the Holy Spirit. The ‘seed’ represents not only the Messiah, but also Israel who will one day occupy all the land she has been promised, and the blessings are the spiritual gifts that are also available to all believers. So, it is through these four covenants that all of God’s blessings are mediated.

Because of this, the blessings which were contained in the covenants are also available to Gentiles, but only because of our relationship with Israel, for, in effect, the Church was grafted into the Olive Tree, which is the symbol of God’s blessings upon Israel. Therefore, rather than having replaced Israel as the benefactor of God’s blessings, the Church is being blessed through Israel.

Sunday evening, at 6:00 PM, we will continue our sermon series, “Follow the Lamb,” tracing the types, examples, and illustrations of the Lamb of God in the Old Testament. In our next sermon, we will focus on the “Ark of Salvation,” as found in Genesis 7:1-24. 

While more than 7 billion people were drowned in that worldwide flood, the eight people who were in God’s Ark were saved. You see, it wasn’t Noah’s Ark, it was God’s Ark, because Noah built it according to God’s divine blueprint! Salvation from God’s judgment was given to those few who were in the Ark of God. Therefore, the Ark is a picture; a type of the Lamb of God.

Every born-again believer is engaged in a cosmic spiritual war. This war began in the Garden of Eden when Satan rebelled against God’s authority and led Adam and Eve to do the same. It will not end until Jesus casts Satan into the bottomless pit of hell, where he and his fellow rebels will live forever.
The Bible is a narrative of this cosmic struggle between God and Satan, good and evil, light and darkness, righteousness and sin, the kingdom of God, and the kingdoms of this world. This spiritual warfare is manifested today in the battle for control of the world, in the desire for positions of power in our nation, in the growing apostasy of our churches, in the breakup of our marriages and families, and in the moral depravity of individual lives. We will explain this further in our introductory sermon for this new series on Spiritual Warfare. Sunday’s sermon is entitled, “Know Your Enemy.”

Tonight, we continue our sermon series, “Follow the Lamb,” tracing the types and examples of the Lamb of God in the Old Testament. In tonight’s sermon, we start on that day when John the Baptist pointed his crowd to Jesus of Nazareth and said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

Certainly, every person on the bank of the Jordan River knew what it meant to sacrifice an innocent lamb as a substitute for their sins. But John said the daily and annual sacrifices they had shared for hundreds of years all pointed to the day when the one, perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice would be made for all men. That’s why John said we should “behold” this man, for He was sent from God to pay the debt of our sins.

Just as God brought Israel out of Egyptian slavery by His mighty power, God has brought us out of our spiritual slavery to this sinful world through the powerful blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus established “The Lord’s Supper” to remind us to be thankful for His sacrificial death for our sins.

The Unleavened Bread symbolized His body that would suffer for our sins – Isaiah 53:1-11
The Red Wine symbolized His blood as the only agent that could cleanse us of our sins – 1 Peter 1:18-21

In 1 Corinthians 11:26, the Apostle Paul said, “For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord’s death till He comes.”

We will explain and observe “The Lord’s Supper” in our sermon on August 27; “This Do, in Remembrance of Me.” 

Hardly a day goes by without some major news event being reported from the nation of Israel, and especially from the Old City of Jerusalem.
Beloved, when we want to determine where we are on God’s timeline in terms of the Last Days, we need look no further than God’s timepiece and the epicenter of prophecy: Israel and even more specifically, Jerusalem.
We will continue our study tonight as we look at the eight blessings God gave Israel years ago, including the covenants, and how they are being fulfilled in our day. As you prepare your hearts and minds for this study, ask yourself this question: If God did not keep His promises to Israel, on what basis could we be sure He would keep His Promises to us?