RvzH1g32hA4

Now, you know what's so incredible about this? The tomb was still, I mean, the temple was still under construction when Jesus was walking in those temple courts. In fact, I think it's Herod's grandson, Antipas II, who finally finished it about 30 years later, and then about three years later, the Romans totally destroyed it.

In fact, one of the verses we have today is Jesus saying, not one stone will stand upon another stone. And as far as the actual temple buildings, that prophecy is totally fulfilled. So it's really interesting. I don't know where this came from, Clyde, but I believe it's one of his famous quotable quotes.

He says, sometimes the Lord can draw a straight line with a crooked stick. And this doesn't quite apply, but in this case, the Lord, even as evil as Herod was, I think he allowed him to set a beautiful stage upon which Jesus gives forth some of his most beautiful discourses and some of the most incredible miracles that he does is within those two areas that we looked at today.

And this is Jerusalem at the time of Jesus, at the time of Herod. And of course, you see the temple over there dominated. You know, there's no official list of seven women. Wonders of the ancient world. I was kind of surprised teaching history to discover that fairly early on.

And some lists include the temple as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. And you've got to remember that at this time it is world famous. People come there from all over the world. Even some of the Roman emperors occasionally would send sacrifices to the God of Yahweh because basically they wanted to cover all their bases.

And so you have thousands upon thousands of people coming to the temple. And let's see, is my slide thing? Well, maybe I have to turn it on. Yeah, let's see if that works better. Yes. They weren't necessarily coming to worship. They were coming to see it right? They would usually come and offer sacrifice, yeah.

Yeah. Of course, majorities are Jews. You got Jews that are scattered throughout the, you know, the what's now the Persian Empire who are coming in. They were taken through the exile. You see, most of the Jews did not return. Most of them stayed over there. And so you had tons of Jews there.

You had tons of Jews throughout the Roman world, even before the, you know, the first dispersion after Titus destroys the city of Jerusalem. And then you got the Bar Kachba rebellion, which was the final dispersal of the Jews. Long before those dispersals, Jews were already, you know, Paul, just in the New Testament, everywhere Paul shows up.

He first went to a Jewish synagogue. Well, you know, these are in pagan areas. They're already, you know, the Jews are there, they've already got their synagogues, and his modus operandi was first go to the local Jewish synagogue, and then, of course, usually they get mad at him and kick him out, and, you know, then he started the first church in that community.

But, you know, they talked about, they showed that gate, that's what it, the staircase, the famous staircase there. And this, of course, shows the temple complex. Then over beside is Antonia, which we talked about last time, that big fortress that he had overlooking the temple. And then, of course, as you can see, you already had a Jewish, I mean, you had a Greek theater there in Jerusalem, same time that Jesus is there as well.

And you got a horse track over there, too. And then, you know, you mentioned that Herod's palace was away from the temple area, and it was a kind of a Hellenistic or actually a Roman type. That's his palace. That's what that looked like. That's Pool Saloon. Yes, sir.

When you say Hellenistic, would you tell us what that means? All right, well, when Alexander the Great conquers the Persian Empire, you have a syncretization of the architecture and art of the Persians with the Greek. And it's different. That's all I can say. It's not purely Greek any longer, and it's not purely Persian.

It's a syncretization. They call Hellenistic. Okay, and the Hellenistic art and architecture is pretty much stolen by the Romans. They used much of that. Okay, so, and my backdrop is not working back here, so I was hoping to have this as my cheat sheet. And I can't see this cheat sheet, y'all see it as I do.

So let me just try to stand over here and tell you the story of Herod. Herod basically was a collaborator with the Romans, and he really had no royal blood, should not have been king, and that's that's his big problem. He doesn't have, oh, what's the word for it?

Legitimacy. Okay, and he, of course, comes along at the end of the Hasmonean period. You know, some Bibles that, you know, like I think the Anglican and the Catholic Bible have these additional books, the Apocrypha, which should not be there. The Apocrypha, don't get too much of a diversion here, but basically, these were extra books during the intertestamental period, you know, between the ending of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament.

The Jews never recognized them as scripture, and for the early Christian period, they did not recognize them as scripture. You get down to the fourth century, you got Jerome is translating the first quality. Translation into Latin. One of the popes asked him to do that. And the question was: well, should I translate these apocryphal books?

Well, some of the apocryphal books, they're called apocryphal for a good reason. Some of them, you know, they're just sort of like poetry. Some of them are just sort of fiction writings, but they teach good morals and virtues. And then you got 1 and 2 Maccabees, which are actually just history books.

And that tells you this whole period about the Hasmonean period, 1 and 2 Maccabees. And they're excellent to read, but they're not Scripture. And basically, they became Scripture to the Catholics during the Protestant Reformation. You have the Council of Trent, and the Protestants, Luther, especially, says these are not Scripture.

And so the Catholic reaction, well, if you're going to say they're not Scripture, we're going to say they are Scripture. And so basically, that's when they became Scripture. I just want you to know that Jerome, who the Catholics call Saint Jerome, when he translated the Vulgate, Augustine, another famous church father, begged him to translate the Apocrypha at the same time.

And there's a famous exchange of letters that are still preserved. And one of those letters, I'm paraphrasing grossly here, Jerome writes back to Augustine and says, I am not going to translate the Apocrypha. If I translate the Apocrypha, some idiot centuries from now is going to think. That these are actual scripture.

And so, Augustine is not nearly as bad as it was. He goes ahead and translates them, and sure enough, some idiots later tried to make them happen to be scripture. So, Herod, basically, he comes in at a time in which you have the winding down the Hasmoneans. Remember that area I told you last time, Israel had been fought over by three of the successor empires of Alexander.

You know, his empire split up. The three main splants were the Antigonids, the Seleucids, and all named for generals of Alexander. And then the Ptolemies in Egypt. Anyone know who the last Ptolemy Pharaoh of Egypt was? Yeah, Cleopatra's the last one. That's right. So, anyway, basically, did that change?

Okay, why isn't it changing? Did I go to? Yes. Okay. All right. So you have the Hasmoneans. I told you last time how this priest Matthias was ordered by the Antigonids to sacrifice pagan sacrifice in the temple. And they wanted him to sacrifice a pig. And if you know anything about Jews, that's like a triple insult to sacrifice a pig, especially in the Holy Holies.

And so instead of sacrificing a pig, he killed the soldiers that were ordering him to do that. And that begins the Hasmonean rebellion. And ultimately, they drive out these Hellenistic forces. Basically, they were taking on three different empires, and the Jews temporarily regained independence under the Hasmoneans. But unfortunately, the original Hasmoneans, who are very strict, religious, you know, by the book, so to speak, they are corrupted by power, you know, which the old cliché, absolute power corrupts absolutely, seems to be the case.

And they become liberal, and some of them become very Hellenized, which is what they were originally fighting against, you know, Hellenization. Kind of similar to what we're fighting against today, what we call it, though, is secularization. All right, so anyway, you have at the time of Herod, his father was serving one of the last Hasmonean kings, sort of like a prime minister.

And his father, of course, is from Idumea. In other words, he's descended from Esau, you know. And so that area had been conquered during the Hasmonean period, and all of the Idumenians had been forcibly. Converted to Judaism. And even after converting, though, the Jews still kind of look down upon them, and that's yet another reason that they don't like Herod.

You know, he's Edamean. And of course, 47 BC, Julius Caesar entrusted Herod's father, who's actually the person running the country. Arcanus, by this time, is sort of a figure king. He's not really in charge. And remember, the Hasmonean kings were also the high priest. They're high priest plus king.

Sorry, gave them a double whammy of power. But his father's Antipater, and he had two sons. One is made governor of Jerusalem, and Herod is made governor of Galilee. And by the way, Galilee was sort of the breadbasket of Israel. That's a large degree of what the wealth is later based upon, very rich agricultural area.

And Herod discovers that when he's made governor there. And of course, you know, you've got the Ides of March, March 15, 44 BC, and Caesar is murdered. And of course, you've got this big civil war breakout: first triumvirate, second triumvirate. In the first triumvirate, you got Octavian, who's the adopted son of Caesar.

He's also something like a nephew. And of course, his second in command, Mark Antony. And actually, there's a third one, Lepidus, but didn't put that up there. They announced that they would go after Caesar's murderers, and of course, that's Brutus and Cassius. If you did your Shakespeare, you know, Julius Caesar play.

And they had fled to the east. Actually, they originally didn't flee, they'd been made governors of eastern provinces. And so, the civil war is shaping up. So, Brutus and Cassius orders the eastern provinces to basically raise the money, you know, to enact harsh taxes. And Antipater tries to carry out the order to collect the taxes.

And that, of course, touches off a revolt. And Antipater is killed. And, of course, Herod is not too happy. So, he manages to get help to kill the killers of his father. But then, shortly after that, he's going, oh, he also, partly because he's connected with the Hasmoneans, he manages to get the princess, granddaughter of Hyrcanus, who's the priest-king, to marry him.

And this is Mariami, who's supposed to have been legendarily beautiful, Mariami. And so, he marries her. War breaks out between the Romans and the Parthians in the meantime. And you got Hyrcanus had a brother who wanted to have the throne, and he goes, talks to the Parthians, who know the Persians, and he gets them to attack.

And he says, Basically, I think the Jews will back me. They're mad at Hyrcanus because he's become a Roman. Puppet. And so, sure enough, the Jews rise up and join with the Persians. They capture Harkanus. He's taken Babylon to be a prisoner. And you have Antigonus, his brother, becomes the king, priest-king of Israel.

Meantime, Herod has to flee. In fact, where he fled to initially was Masada, which is probably where he got the ideal to build that. famous palace there later. But he then takes the brother of his wife, at this time just a kid. I don't recall what his age was, but he's literally a kid.

And he goes to Rome. His other brother, by the way, Herod's brother, commits suicide and all this. And he goes to Rome and he takes this little kid named Aristobulus and he's hoping that the Romans, you know, since Hyrcanus is captive, that they will recognize him, this little kid, as the new king, and he, of course, will be the real power behind him, like his father Antipater was with the previous king.

And he gave a presentation. And I don't know, no recording the presentation he gave, but it must have been a mighty impressive presentation because at the end of it, they say, to heck with this kid, let's just dispense with fiction here and make you king. And he apparently said, oh, okay, that's a good idea.

He goes along with that. And so he returns, and of course, the Jews hate his guts. They see him as a puppet. Plus, he's doubly, he doesn't have royal blood, even though he's married to a princess. And so it's a nasty war, but he brutally represses it. And then, even after that, of course, the Jewish Sanhedrin was not too happy with him, and they're giving him all kinds of trouble.

There's about 70, I don't remember, 75 or so members of the Jewish Sanhedrin. And after he killed about 45 of them, they suddenly decided they would accept him. But anyway, he's made king, and he had to repress the Jews very brutally. And from that point on, of course, he can't be a priest-king.

He's not of priestly blood. And so he has to raise and lower different ones to be high priests. And we'll get into that more later. Now, all that colored area there, minus Syria to the north, the green, that is going to ultimately be the areas ruled by Herod, which is quite sizable.

It's actually bigger than Israel is today. It's really quite amazing. In every power play in Rome where you have one guy overthrow another guy for emperor, the big guy in Rome, he's able to switch sides just in time. In one case, even after he was on the losing side, he goes and persuades Mark Antony.

He was one of the ones that was a big, that was a loser, right? Ultimately. But at first, Mark Antony and Octavian are. You know, at least temporarily, piles. And, of course, Anthony is going to be a big supporter of Herod, greatly increases his territories. But then, after Mark Antony and Octavian have their big civil war, and of course, you know, Octavian later becomes Augustus Caesar.

Octavian and Augustus Caesar are synonymous, and that's also where we get the month August, which is yet another reason I've already told y'all previously: our months are all messed up. Y'all thought about that? December is supposed to be the 10th month, right? October is supposed to be the eighth month.

But, you know, you got these two Roman emperors, Julius, they make him July, and Augustus makes him August, and our calendar has been messed up ever since. But you learned something today, okay? So, anyway, you got Octavian, and it really is amazing. I don't know, Herod had to be impressive, particularly if he's sucking up to somebody because everyone thought that Octavian, Augustus, was going to sack him because he had so firmly supported Mark Antony.

But Herod goes to him, doesn't wait for him to pull him in. He goes to him, and everybody thought, you know, he ordered him dead. And he basically fesses up and says, Hey, I was a staunch supporter of Mark Antony. I was loyal to Mark Antony, but Mark Antony's dead now, so I'll support you just like I supported him.

And amazingly, he not only accepted him, but he gave him more territories, you know. And he was a very useful puppet. Basically. So Herod has this huge area now, and I am still not quite sure where all his money came from. And I'm not convinced what different historians say.

But he just fabulously wealthy king. And actually, you stop and think about it. He did more building than Solomon did, and on a much more epic scale. So he is going to, of course, have terrible family problems. He gets his father-in-law out of prison, gets the Persians to allow him to come back.

And the problem was there in Babylon, there's a lot of Jews, and the Jews were very impressed, you know, when Hyrcanus is brought over there, and they were threatening to rebel in Babylon quite a bit. And so the Persians at that point decided, let's get rid of this guy, send him back.

And so they brought him back, and Herod allowed him to be, you know, the high priest for a while. Then he decides to kill him. All right, now that's his wife's grandfather. Then, of course, Mariami has two sons by her. And his deal with Mariami is just weird, bizarre, warped.

He says he loves her, but when he leaves town, he leaves orders that if he gets killed, that she's be killed. And by the way, she finds out about that on one occasion. That's another reason she really turns on him. The major reason she turns on, though, is because after a period of time, he makes her younger brother, the kid he's going to try to make king.

He's 17 years old now, and he makes him high priest. Really, he's too young to be high priest, but they make him high priest. And on the first big public occasion where he officiates as priest, the people just go nuts. He apparently is a very attractive young man, had a lot of charisma.

And of course, this huge success on his first dedication there at the temple was also his death sentence. Because guess what Herod thinks? Green-eyed monster jealousy, right? He becomes fearful that the Jews will rise up and try and make him king. So he invites him to his palace down in Jericho.

Showed you pictures of that last time. And they have swimming pools there. Error Herod went, he always had to have a lot of water there. And even if it's in the middle of the desert. And they entice the kid to the swim pool, and some of his bodyguards start playing the game of dunking.

And they just kept dunking him till he's drowned. And so they drown. And that actually got, at the time, you know, one of the Roman power brokers was very upset with him about that. But he took care of his brother-in-law. And then he finally becomes. Suspicious of Mariami, and of course, his sister Salome hated Mariami, and she was always putting rumors out about her.

And basically, he accuses her of adultery. There's no evidence for it at all. And he's going to have her executed. But then, according to legend, I think Josephus refers to this, he put her in this big stone sarcophagus filled with honey, which is a preservative, and then put her body in there.

And then he would surreptitiously go down just to look at her body there in the sarcophagus. So really, really weird guy. And so he kills her, had at least ten wives, at least ten more wives after this. He actually had a wife before her. His eldest son, Antipater, was by Doris, a previous wife.

And of course, as years go by, it becomes questionable as to who's going to succeed him. The two sons of Mariami, he becomes suspicious of them. His sister Salome, she also puts out rumors about them, and he has them executed, executes his two sons by Mariami. And that pretty much ends the Hasmonean line.

And there was actually a little bit of Hasmonean blood because Aristobulus, one of the sons, actually had kids before he was killed, and they lived on. We'll talk about them next time. And so you have three surviving sons and one daughter who's actually going to inherit what's left of the kingdom when he dies.

By the way, Augustus had a pretty famous quote about Herod when he found out that he killed his two sons. He says, It would be better to be Herod's pig than to be Herod's son. Now, that shows you what Augustus really thought about him. And by the way, that is like a triple insult, you know, because Jews aren't supposed to have pigs in the first place, but you'd be better off to be Herod's pig than be Herod's son.

Okay, and of course, I think you all know the famous story that when Herod, when Herod dies, he had arrested some of the most important people of the kingdom, had them in this arena, and left instructions that when he expires, they're all to be executed because he wanted people to cry when he died, and he knew they weren't going to cry for him.

And now, fortunately, his family countermanded the order immediately after he does expire. And the results of the aftermath of this, we'll see next time, these sons and grandsons even are going to have a major role to play in the New Testament, particularly the book of Acts. And we'll run through them real quickly.

So, famous incidents. This is not in the temple. Where is this? Where's my mic guy? Okay, why don't you start with the first one? Okay, this pool of Salaam. And read that verse real quick. After this, there was a song? After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, Do you want to be healed?

The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going, another steps down before me. Jesus said to him, Get up, take your bed, and walk. And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath, so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed. But he answered them, The man who healed me, that man said to me, Take up your bed, and walked.

They asked him, Who is the man who said to you, take up your bed and walk? Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. After Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, See you are well, sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.

Okay, so that was there. You know, talk about crooked stick, get a straight line from it. This animation is one of the best ones I've seen of the temple, just what it looked like. And part of this, the furnishings, especially, you know, a lot of this is speculation, just some of the interior design.

But this one was actually done by the Mormons. But anyway, I thought that's pretty funny. Would you click that? They got the Antonia there. They have that wrong. Those doors, it took 20 people to shut them. They're so huge. All right, this is before the veil. There, you got the showbread table there, the menorah over to the side, and that's the altar to incense.

And then the veil, which ripped, and there, they're imagining that the Ark of Covenant was sitting there. That's good. Okay, now, by the way, that's what's sitting there today, right over that. Dome of the Rock of the Red Dome of the Rock. And that, of course, has got the Jews very upset.

And yeah. See the rock? Yeah, you go to Dome of the Rock, but I don't think you can get in there because you're not Muslim. Okay, Dome of the Rock, and the one of the Mos Muslims operandi in their conquest, whatever the most sacred holy building is, tear it down, build a mosque on top of it.

And then anybody ever says, you know, we want to rebuild our temple. No, no, you can't do that because it's a Muslim mosque. And it's worked quite effectively. Now, in India, some of the Hindus have started tearing down mosques, what used to be Hindu temples, and that's causing big ruckus.

But anyway, can I go to the next slide? Okay, so that's animation, the temple. And what's this, y'all tell me? What does it take place at? At the temple. Okay, and of course, you got Simeon and Anna. And I couldn't do both of them, but somebody read that for me.

Why don't you just hand it to Jeff? And at the end of eight days, he was circumcised. He was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.

As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. And to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. Now there is a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came in the spirit to the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.

That is such a beautiful passage. Okay, and we all know this one. I mean, when I was a little kid in Sunday school, that picture was very familiar to me. What's that? Yeah, and where is it at? All this at Temple, you know, Herod's Temple. Okay. You want to read first, Robert?

Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, but submissive.

Supposing him to be in the group, they went a day's journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances. And when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. After three days, they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.

And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress. And he said to them, Why were you looking for me?

Did you not know that I must be in my father's house? And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. Okay, this was not such a happy occasion. We'll just pass it back. Who wants to read back there? Anyone who wants to read? Oh. I got to go back to that in a second.

I want to read. And they came to Jerusalem and he entered. To the temple and began to drive out those who had sold and those who had bought in the temple. And he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of all those who sold pigeons.

And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, Is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it a den of robbers. Okay, now y'all know what was going on here, right?

In order to sacrifice at the temple, there are thousands and thousands of people and Passover, multiple thousands of people. That's one reason the temple complex was so huge, is it can't accommodate these huge crowds. And everybody has to sacrifice, and everybody had to contribute, and he had to use a Hebrew half-shekel to contribute.

And of course, there was a big scam going on there amongst the Sadducees who were in charge of all running of the temple. They would gouge and overcharge in the money changing. And that's what Jesus did. Plus, they would sell you pigeons there because, you know, traveling from far away, you can't bring a pigeon with you all the way from Spain, you know, or the lamb or whatever.

So they had lambs that these foreign tourists could buy, and they would overcharge and gouse people to buy this lamb or buy the turtle doves. And of course, that's what Jesus was so upset about. But it's kind of funny, even today, people are making money off the temple.

And so I couldn't resist to put this in here. That's a half shekel. Okay. All right. Well, there's a group trying to build the temple back, and they're trying to raise money to do it. All right, this has been going on for some time. And so they just recently concocted the scheme.

You see, the Jews have sort of friendly opinions of Cyrus, the Persian, that allowed them to return to Israel. And here recently, in case you didn't know it, although Trump's very controversial in this country, in Israel, he's like a superstar, you know, mainly because of the moving the embassy to Jerusalem just recently.

And so this group decided that they would take Trump and superimpose him. Limited edition, thousand coins. They're scared nobody will buy them. People have gone berserk. All right, this coins have probably already increased 1,000% in value. The Chinese especially are buying them like nuts. So people are still making money off the temple.

It isn't even there now. Okay, so. So, of course, we're quickly running out of time, so I'm just going to run through these. You can look these verses up on your own. Of course, you've got the widow's mic. Y'all can sort of read that on your own real quickly.

And of course, so many of the parables and stories Jesus, when he was teaching in the temple, are done there. This is the famous confrontation with the chief priests and elders. They come up to him and say, by what authority are you doing these things? And Jesus totally shut them down.

And of course, now this is one that kind of surprised me. How many of y'all ever knew that the woman caught in adultery is actually brought to Jesus in the temple? If you go back and read it, Jesus went to the Mount of Olives early in the morning.

He came again to the temple. All the people came to him. He sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees, see why he's sitting there in the temple, they bring the woman to him. Now, I don't know, just in the back of my head, I'd always had not read that closely and did not realize that's in the actual temple there where this whole incident occurs, the woman caught in adultery there in John.

And of course, that passage there. Now, this is at the end of the complex. This is the colonnade of Solomon. And it's probably there that he did a lot of the teachings because that's open to everybody. You know, you've got these courts that separate the core of the Gentiles, core of the women, and you've got the inner court there where only the purest of the purest could go in there.

And that, of course, is a famous passage where he's walking. There in that area, and you know, you said this is where he made this very famous statement. At that time, feast and dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was in winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon, just what I just showed you.

So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and you do not believe. The works I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.

My sheep hear my voice, I know them, they follow me, I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. All right, good Baptists, that's a famous verse for us, especially. Okay, my Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one's able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

I and the Father are one. Okay, so anybody, and by the way, he's using a tetragrammathon there, I believe, isn't he, in that point? I think that's one of the places where he uses the tetragrammathon, which is the I am, okay, that is used with Moses at the burning bush.

All right, and that, and of course, you don't question that, that's why they pick up stones to stone him. Okay, and then later on, he makes that famous statement. You know, oh, isn't this temple incredible, incredible? And Jesus says, Not a stone will be on top of a stone.

And this, of course, Titus, the Roman. It's going to tear down the. Actually, Titus didn't want to destroy the temple. He tried to save it, but his soldiers were in such a frenzy. And I must say, the Jews and the great Jewish rebellion, they were nuts. You had three factions that would not cooperate with each other.

The Romans are besieging the city, and they know they're going to kill them if they get in there. Instead of uniting, they're fighting each other inside Jerusalem as much as they're fighting the Romans. And one faction, big faction, wanted to go on one of the holy days to worship in the temple, and this other faction says, okay, you got to disarm, and then we'll let you in there.

Because one faction controlled the Temple Mount, and a different faction was outside in the city. And says, okay, we'll disarm, truce. They come into the temple complex, and the other faction killed them all, just massacred them. And that killed half the fighting force against the Romans. It's totally insane.

You know, just crazy. Josephus, you read Josephus, he describes the whole event. So I just would leave you with this thought. Once again, it is incredible that this incredible edifice, all these buildings were built by Herod the Great. People were so impressed and awe over it. And yet, Jesus, who just walked through there, he left a legacy that is eternal.

And you can go there. And they're somewhat impressive ruins, but they're ruins. But think about what Jesus has done, hopefully, each person here in your heart. And if you haven't accepted him into your heart, please do so. It is just incredible to think of the millions and millions and millions of people.

Lives are changed. And we are about to enter into a building period. And I think we have the right attitude about it. We know that that building we're about to build is not going, well, it'll be metal, so it won't burn right away, but it's not going to be eternal, that's for sure.

But it's the lives of the people that come through here and us being the children of Jesus to lead them to him. That's what's important about that building or any of these buildings. And it really touches my heart to see, I think we have been faithful and don't need to pat ourselves on the back too much here, but it is, I think it's great and wonderful that it's not just Sundays that people are here.

You know, we pretty much got stuff going on witnessing for the Lord all seven days of the week. And I hope that we would even better facilitate usage of this property building we build here to help lead people to Christ. And so with that, Brother Russell, would you close us out in prayer?