Transcription
John Barnett here, and welcome to another window on prophecy. We're doing the month of August. We're using the word of God like a window to look through to understand what is going on around us, and how to put it all into perspective, and also how to use those opportunities that will come to us. As you have co-workers and friends and relatives who say, "What do you think of what's going on? Did you see what happened today? Uh, did you see? Have you heard?" are kind of common words nowadays about whether it's the weather or wildfires that seem to be on the news every night. Uh, or the fastest hurricane or the out-of-the-blue flood. Whatever it is, it just seems to be, uh, that we're living in unprecedented times.
So, let's just jump in and look at some of those unprecedented times. Uh, this is, uh, what filled our screens as we went through the end of July. In fact, since the last time we met, this, I've seen played over and over and over. Uh, it's, it, it's an event that occurred just about three hours south of us. Uh, the rains in the mountains came down a valley and just swept all those houses away.
Um, then yesterday, I mean, what is that? I was showing it to a friend of mine. He said, "What is that?" And I said, "Well, that's, uh, what meteorologically is called a haboob." Now, I'm not sure. It's a dust storm in English, but look at that. That's Phoenix. That was yesterday. You should read the testimonies. Uh, the newscasters talked to people who were trapped in their cars, and one woman said her, she had all of her children in the car, and they were screaming and crying, and she said she tried her best to calm them, but she said she had to pull over, and for 15 minutes, she said she couldn't see, uh, the distance between her face and her hand that far away was totally blackened by this dust storm.
So, what, what's going on? Well, that's, that's what we're doing this month. August 2025's previews of global weather disasters. Now, what I want to share with you is that bottom line that you see there: storm fuel is building. And I'm going to share with you, uh, a number of articles that have nothing to do with the Bible. They're just, uh, scientists, oceanographers, meteorologists, uh, historians. I read an amazing historical account looking back at the agricultural crops of Europe in the Roman Empire. Of course, the Roman Empire. I was preparing for our Life and Letters course, and I was looking at the spread of the gospel throughout the, um, 50,000 miles of roads in the Roman Empire, and I came across an article that talked about the ebb and flow of the weather that increased and decreased the crops, and also the dangers of sailing. Have you ever wondered why there are so many ships at the bottom of the Mediterranean from the Greek and the Roman Empire? It's because of the incredibly violent storms that came so rapidly across, uh, the Mediterranean and, and just swamped and, and, uh, sank many, many, many ships. And that's how we know so much about that time period.
But that's what we're going to do as we go through the scriptures and as we go through these slides and look at those global disasters. Uh, and, and what I want you to see is, uh, what scientists and others are saying are just ahead of us. Um, remember this: Luke 21 said that one of the signs of the end is going to be this increasing awareness of bad weather. Bad weather. Bad weather disasters.
Now, I like this. See those four screens? There's a channel online that's just, I just, uh, recorded a few seconds of that from this channel that uploads all the people's social media posts that are in the middle of weather disasters. And you can see, uh, there's one there on the left, the upper left is New Mexico. Uh, the bottom left is the recent end of July flood in Texas. And the two on the right are in New Jersey and New York City. And they said that that people just are just transfixed by this weather. They, they just can't explain. It just is, in their terms, apocalyptic.
I thought this was great. We, we returned, uh, from teaching down in Florida, and it was just normal in Florida, and all of a sudden, uh, at the end of July and the 1st of August, a heat wave came through. And look at that. For the first time in recorded history. I, I like that. In recorded history. Now, weather history, as you probably know, wasn't really recorded systematically till 1850, when the British began, at the, as a part of their, uh, doing the, the preparations for the expansion of all the trade around the British Empire, they started recording the weather that they heard from all the different outposts they had business-wise and had them sent back to London. And they kind of have for us, uh, a compendium of weather from about 1850 on. But before that, what we find are a lot of records of previous high temperature, low temperature, and violent weather. But just to set the tone for today's study, uh, Luke 21 said people are going to see weather and think of it as a sign and a kind of an end-of-the-world sign. Well, the very first time in history, Tampa, uh, exceeded 100 degrees.
Now, what I want to walk through with you is looking at past weather history, looking at current weather events, and then kind of making a bridge and, and bridging between the past, right now, and the future. And, and those are three very, very, uh, fixed points we can have in our mind. The future is clearly recorded right here in God's word. Current weather. Uh, all you have to do is pull out your digital device and, uh, look at what's trending in weather news or, or in global news or in disaster news, and you can get better pictures than I have clipped for you.
Let me start, though, on that left side, uh, of the screen, uh, the slide there. Past weather history. And so, let's begin using the scriptures because I'm going to a biblical source, uh, a wonderful ministry that has a Bible-based view of science and of interpreting through the window of scriptures, uh, scientific research. So, to do that, let's, let's go right here to this display. And this display is in the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum. And other things I'm going to show you were in their other site, which is called the Ark Encounter.
Now, if you've never heard of Answers in Genesis, uh, you ought to type that into Google and look up that fantastic ministry. For all the years that Bonnie and I served in local churches, uh, we would invite Ken Ham. He, he has, like we have aged over the years. I think the first time we invited him was in the '90s, so 30 years ago, he came to our church and, and shared what God was, uh, doing through their ministry as they were presenting what the scriptures say about creation. Well, I went, he, he gave us, as a host of his ministry, he gave us, uh, these lifetime family passes to visit his Creation Museum that he built down near Cincinnati, Ohio, down south of there in Kentucky. And that's, that's called the Creation Museum. His ministry is called Answers in Genesis.
When you walk through that museum, what you see in front of you is one of the displays. Uh, I just think it's amazing. I was walking with Bonnie, and I said, "Whoa, I'm teaching a prophetic update, and all we're reading about in the news is climate change." And so this, the whole, you can read all of this over here, is just the scientific study of what you see right here: the kind of up and down ebb and flow of global mean temperature and the temperature anomalies. And, and what this display has is from the time of Christ right through to the present. Okay.
So, so that, that was what I was looking at. Now, this is what caught my eye, and, and I wanted to zoom in on this. Do you see Christ's crucifixion? Uh, the last circle there is the birth of Israel, and then from our current time right here, 2024. So, in the time between Christ and now, uh, this, this is the global mean temperature, and this is when it's been lower. Now, look at this. From about right here, about 13,400, right here, through about 1750, right there, there was what was called a Little Ice Age. And that's just an amazing time when, uh, the canals in, in Holland froze, uh, when the English Channel began to look like it was going to freeze, when people didn't even have time to grow crops because it was so cold, and the, the summers were so short. They call it the Little Ice Age. We know about it from history because, uh, it caused the, the oak trees to have very dense wood for those, what was that, 1400s, for those 350 years. It caused, uh, the hardwoods to be harder than normal because it was such, uh, just very, very bad and severe weather in Europe. So that's interesting. And, and you can read about the Stradivarius violins made from that unique wood that there is no other wood like it because there was only this Little Ice Age.
But look at this. Have you heard much of this at the top of the slide? The Medieval Warm Period. You can type that into Google now. It'll have all those disclaimers on it that, that, you know, this is very debated and everything, but it is true, especially if you study some of the things I bumped into secular sources on the Roman Empire that talk about the most recent article I read on the airplane two weeks ago from the National Geographic and from the, um, BBC and a couple of others that were all in the Roman Empire. They all agreed to something that the decline and fall of the Roman Empire wasn't just the arrival of all those tribes, the, the, uh, hordes that came in, the Huns and the Goths and the Visigoths and, you know, all those things. You know what it was? There was a growth of disastrous plagues. There was a growth of horrible weather that both was cold and hot and caused terrible crop failures.
Now, look at this. This is the Medieval Warm Period. Uh, let, let me get a little closer view of that after I show you this. Okay. Uh, this is another, um, current article. I think this is the Washington Post. It says, "Water vapor is the fuel for storms. When vapor condenses into clouds, it releases heat energy. It causes storms to intensify. Weather systems to have more of this fuel can produce more rainfall." More rainfall. Have you noticed the flooding? I mean, if, if I had unlimited time, I would show you graphics of, of just July's flooding in America. You all saw it in the news. What's causing that? The fuel. You see, more heat equals more storm fuel. You say, "What, what connection does that have to the Bible?" Well, past weather history, I'm going to show you right now, current weather events, and God's plan for the future are really all connected. Because you see, the tribulation starts with God just amplifying globally what has always happened throughout all of history. That's what Jesus said. You will always hear of these things. But in the tribulation time, it expands to be globally happening and global awareness. And we're seeing, especially because everybody now is connected. Uh, last night I was looking up in the dark, standing out on the, the deck, just to see what was going on in the sky, and I couldn't count how many Starlink satellites I saw crisscrossing overhead. We're connected. We're seeing live, real-time events all over the world. What are we seeing? Floods, heat, fires.
Okay, now, for just a minute, I want to take you back to the Answers in Genesis Museum. Show you what you can find verifiably scientifically, though debated. You will find secular scientists all over the world that are finding evidence that there was a Medieval Warm Period. That's, I mean, I don't think anybody debates that. What they're debating is whether it was global. I don't know if it was global. How could we even know if it was global? Because nobody had a record-keeping system. But at least the one thing they all agree on is there was a warm time somewhere in different places like in the Roman Empire. Okay, so back to the slides. Uh, this is the Medieval Warm Period, and I put this yellow line here. It was about 6, uh, percent over the, the mean temperature. Right now, we're seeing global warming, and remember they want to get to net zero and all that stuff. This is where we are. We're at 0.2 right now. Now, look at this. Take that yellow line. Did you know our world has been at this 0.02, uh, actually, 2024 shows that we're at, uh, about 2.62 degrees Fahrenheit over, uh, the global mean? But look how much more from where we are to where they were during the Medieval Warm Period. Now, we know there was a Medieval Warm Period. We know that that happened. I mean, the Roman, even the Roman poets talked about it. They talked about how, uh, they were able to, to grow crops. The Scandinavian countries talk about how there was a period of time where all the way up toward the Arctic Circle they could grow crops, and, and it just was amazing.
Now, let's look at the implications of that. Okay, in AD 950, it was 5.12 degrees Fahrenheit or 2.5 degrees centigrade warmer, hotter. So, climate disasters are fed by warmth. The fuel, remember, the fuel is warm water vapor, the fuel of storms. This is where we are right here. Do you see this down here at the far right? This, if you notice, it's on this upward incline like this. We know it's headed to at least this right there, and we're only right here, and it's headed all the way up to where it was. That means at least twice as bad storms are coming.
So, if we talk about past weather disasters in history, what we conclude, in fact, everyone, every historian, every meteorologist, every scientist will say there were local mega-disasters. You've heard of all these. You've heard of Krakatoa. You've heard of the, you know, uh, the destruction of what we would call Santorini, you know, that probably was Atlantis. You've heard about all these tidal waves in the past and, and great storms and the Youngstown flood. You know, I mean, that's in recent history. But we, we know about all these things, local mega-disasters. But now look at current weather events and add what the Bible says. This is what Matthew 24 tells us: greater visibility. What's that right there? Greater visibility, greater frequency. We'll just, just start taking your time to pay attention to the news. Greater intensity. I'm going to show you some headlines. Greater impact. Remind us and warn us and prepare us for the fact that God, in his word, Jesus Christ, the creator of this universe and our redeemer and savior and risen and coming Lord and King, He said in this book, what this slide says, God's plan ahead for this world is that these mega-disasters are going to be global, and it's going to go to the point where He finally, to clean everything up and to start over, is going to burn up the universe. Okay? And that's prophecy.
So, let's, let's talk about what we're looking at and these studies. And I, I love sharing this with you. It's kind of thrilling. Okay, Jesus gave the birth pang trends: visibility, frequency, intensity, and impact. Whoa. Now, that's fascinating. Uh, all of these, all of these are headlines from this month. Okay? And it's only the 26th of August. Okay? We're not even through with the month. That's why I started with what happened after my July update. I mean, that, that house going down the river in New Mexico, all of that happened after we last had a prophetic update together.
So, back to what's going on in the news. Italy, Turkey, Greece, and a whole lot of other places are facing wildfire. Hey, there's a word right out of the Bible. Apocalypse type condition. Whoa. How about this? Hurricane Aaron is one of the fastest rapidly intensifying storms in Atlantic history. That just happened. It, it went from from 1 to 5 faster than any Atlantic hurricane has ever gone in intensity growth. The, the speed that it went from 1 to 5 has never been seen before. Do you know what, what I'm thinking? We're only at two degrees over the mean. We're headed to almost six. If we even do what happened in the, in the medieval time period, that's at least a doubling. And if you round downward from two to six, it's a tripling. Can you imagine storms that are twice as powerful as what we're watching on the news? Can you imagine wildfires that are twice as, you know, explosive growth as what we're seeing? Oh, well, let, let's get back.
How about this? The world's biggest quake in 14 years. A massive 8.8 magnitude right there on the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia, right off our Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Wow. Well, it's only the greatest in 14 years, but it sure made global headlines. Okay.
In August of 2025, I would like to show you the previews of the Four Horsemen of the Great Tribulation. Where I get that from is what Jesus taught in Matthew 24. And this column is what Jesus taught on the Mount of Olives. It's called the Olivet Discourse. You can look all these up in Matthew 24 and in Luke 21. They show up. The Olivet Discourse is enlarged and illustrated. Do you remember what Jesus taught? John illustrated. What Jesus kind of gave a framework for, the Apostle John on the island of Patmos gives a complete 404-verse expansion and illustration of, that's what the Book of Revelation is: an expansion and illustration of everything that Jesus taught there on the Mount of Olives. And Jesus said there would be false Christs, war, famine, death, martyrdom, and signs that cause people to panic and die. And you can read all those right there in the Gospels.
Now look what Revelation says. These verses right there in the third column are references in the Book of Revelation, chapter 6. Only the same, the same description. The false Christ becomes the white horse. The war becomes the red horse. The famine becomes the black horse. The death stalking the planet becomes the pale or chloros, the, the sickly green gangrenous color pale horse. Martyrdom is, and by the way, that's Seal 1, 2, 3, 4. The fifth seal of Revelation 6 is martyrdom, and then these signs and earthquakes and, and frightening events.
Okay, let's, let's talk about the white horse of deception. What is the buzz right now? What, what is using up all of our electricity? What is everybody testing out? What are we seeing in the news constantly? AI. Okay. Uh, if you're interested, and for some of you, I, if I don't know how you bumped into this, some of you watch it every month, and, and there's a large number of people that it's the very first introduction to Discover the Book Ministries. My name is John Barnett. I, I'm a Bible teacher, pastor, seminary professor. I love God's word, and I have many of the classes that I teach, you know, formal, uh, classes with students and, and quizzes and tests and everything, and they're posted online on YouTube. Uh, right here is a clip out of one of them. It's from the Revelation class, and it's on YouTube, and here's the title of it: "A 2,000-Year-Old Prophecy on AI." It totally illustrates what we're seeing in this white horse of deception.
How do you like this? This was yesterday, and I couldn't believe it. Uh, I'm, I'm a YouTube user and a YouTube contributor. Look what YouTube, as discovered by the investigative arm of the BBC, YouTube has secretly been using AI to edit people's videos to make them better so they can get more ad revenue from them without permission. The results, it said, could bend reality. What is that talking about? Well, it's kind of like when, when, you know, the grocer is putting out something on the shelves, and they kind of move it to make it a little nicer. They're selling somebody else's produce, but they're doing things to make it sell better. That's all YouTube is doing. But the, the problem is nobody knew they were doing it until the investigative reporter looked. It's just people kind of said, "Wow, I posted that. It looks so much better than when I took it." It was, it was edited using artificial intelligence to make it less distracting and more riveting. Hah, they can do that without a blink of an eye, in an instant, without us even noticing. Wow.
Well, let's keep thinking about that because I told you last month, AI is poised to rewrite history, and it's happening before our eyes. Uh, we're going to see it coming out more and more. A revised account of what happened here and there. It, it just, uh, is just staggering as, as a person who follows history, how quickly this is happening. And I, I see it all the time. Uh, for me, I, I'm noticing that they're updating and revising the accounts of early American history and Native American history. And now much of it is more analysis of scientific data. But just as there are good and bad historians and good and bad scientists and good and bad business people, there are good and bad revisionists. And, and beware, Jesus said, of being deceived when history gets rewritten and God is written out of it.
Well, how do you like this? Uh, "In pursuit of godlike technology, Mark Zuckerberg amps up the AI race." There he is. He's wearing those. I talked about it last month. Meta has launched the world's most advanced glasses. Are they going to replace smartphones? But, but look at the deeper, uh, kind of theological implication that's going on here. AI glasses will become your primary computing device, according to Zuckerberg, as he ushers in the era of personal super intelligence. In a letter that resembles one of Sam Altman's long, rambling blog posts, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described his vision of the future where there is personal super intelligence for everyone. What's going on? Well, I, I mean, there are bits of this that are very fascinating to me. If you wear these glasses, these are not the glasses. They're, they're usually much thicker and they're kind of fancy, and, and you can see, uh, a little light comes on when the camera's going and all that, but they have a speaker back by your ear. One of the enhanced abilities of these glasses is that you can be in a group of people speaking in French or Spanish or whatever, Russian, Chinese, and your glasses are translating real-time for you what they're saying. Did you catch that? Uh, that is personal super intelligence for everyone. Uh, by the way, he doesn't even talk about his old, you know, the augmented reality metaverse that he was pushing a couple three years ago. But Zuckerberg also delivered on his Instagram, uh, account a monologue entitled "Personal Super Intelligence." The 600-plus word article, uh, stamped his ownership onto super intelligence. And then he said this: "Developing super intelligence," he confidently says, "is now in sight."
What's, what's the implication of that for us? Well, first of all, don, the word demon actually just means intelligence. If you want to know who the real super intelligences are, they're the demons. Do you know who the greatest super intelligence is among created things, among creatures? Satan. Satan is the ultimate super intelligence. And if there's a way he can have something talking in the ear of everybody on earth and something that he can guide them with and something he can make them think of themselves as being highly, highly important, he would be behind it. Beware of super intelligence when it's detached from God. Okay? God is the one who gives us our intelligence and gives us wisdom from above.
Well, let me get back to the slides. That's only the white horse that we can just see it galloping our way. How about the red horse? Okay. "Russia reports Iran will make the next war with Israel its last." Oh, that's almost a claim of Gog and Magog and the future invasion of Israel. It could be Ezekiel 38. It could be Armageddon. But that was an interesting, uh, claim to make in the news. But what happened yesterday? The Houthis have escalated their attacks on Israel, the Houthis. Do you remember the, the Psalm 83 alliance, the, the desire of a group of nations to destroy the nation of Israel and to get rid of them? Uh, one of them that's been plaguing the shipping lanes of the Red Sea are the Houthis. Well, look what they did. They shot missiles. And this now has become alarming to Israel. Cluster ballistic missiles, can't be intercepted like all the rest of them. You know, the vaunted, uh, amazing Iron Dome and, and David's Sling and all those other Israeli inventions. Well, they shot and shot and shot and couldn't bring down the one yesterday. It said it fell in pieces. Cluster bombs. So, it's all that means is that they've upped it another level. Now, the Houthis did not invent this. It's from Iran. And we already know from the word of God that Iran is leading the pack in Ezekiel 38, uh, to destroy the nation of Israel. Okay.
What else is going on? The black horse, famine. I thought this was fascinating. Uh, this was today. Nope, yesterday, the 25th. Scientists, by the way, in the UK, in a laboratory there, have created a new life form. What, what is that? Well, they've, they've altered how many, uh, strands are needed in the DNA. They keep taking out the ones they don't know what the use for them is, and they've reduced it down to a minimum. And they have now added in other little strands of genetic code, and they came up with this. This is a form of E. coli that's never existed before. And they gave it a name. It, and so what does that have to do with the black horse of famine? Well, if you read the article, they said, now, this is only in the laboratory, and it's only experimental. It has nothing to do with anything outside the laboratory. Haven't we heard that before? Do you remember? Maybe the COVID, uh, global pandemic started in a laboratory somewhere. In a laboratory in the United Kingdom, they've created a new life form from E. coli that's never existed before. And that has abilities, simplified abilities, that have never been seen before in any, any life form. And what the article said is it was written, of course, by a detractor who said, "What happens if this escapes, goes out into nature, and as happens through through mutations, bits of, of part of the DNA from one, uh, organism, bacterial, viral, goes into another, and it changes them?" What it said is it could infect organisms that could destroy the food system, that could destroy the water system, that could destroy life. Now, it sounds now like an alien movie or, you know, some horror movie, but we're talking about yesterday in a laboratory in the United Kingdom. And you know, if the United Kingdom is doing it, that so is China, America, and probably many other places around the world.
Next, death from the pale horse. Uh, this was tragic. "Another child dies from brain-eating amoeba after doing their favorite summertime activity." 164 have been infected. Only four survive. So, that is a lethality rate that is unbelievable, and that's, that's what's, uh, lurking and knocking at the door.
How about this martyrdom that is talked about when Christians are the target? I thought this was a fascinating article. "Missionaries are using secret audio devices, actually their solar-powered Bible players, to evangelize Brazil's isolated people, despite strict laws protecting the indigenous groups." You see, the Brazilian government has said, "You can't evangelize our native peoples. We want to leave them like they are. Don't disturb them. We, we want to leave them alone." It's kind of like, um, you know, unspoiled natural, uh, beauty, and there's unspoiled cultural beauty, and we want to leave it alone. And yet the Bible says that we're to go into all the world and share the gospel with every creature. And this is close to home because, uh, Bonnie and I, in March, sat right next to a man who was in his mid-80s who spent his entire missionary career designing and building these evangelistic boats that would go up the Nile to the furthest reaches of the Nile River in Brazil. And on the boats were everything to help them with their farming, with their water, and with medical things, and also evangelists. And they went up there, and they helped them. They helped them medically. They helped them, uh, learn how to have pure water and how to have better farming practices. And in the process, they offered to them a time they could hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's starting to show up in the demographics of Brazil. Uh, there has been such a growth in evangelical Christians in the Amazon River basin that is just, the Washington Post did an article that showed the percentages of people claiming to be Christian from these places that never claimed to be born-again evangelical Christians before. So this man and many others, uh, the article, by the way, was saying that New Tribes Missions, which is called, uh, Ethnos now, I think, was secretly flying in these devices in their airplanes, but it also said that others come in riverboats. But look back at the slide, it's against the law, and right now they're just going to court, and there are groups kind of like the ACLU, only it's to keep the indigenous peoples indigenous. But they're saying there should be a penalty for people that do this.
And then the sixth seal are those signs. And let's talk about that. Here's the Gifford fire. I mean, doesn't that look, uh, like an apocalyptic scene? You saw earlier the apocalyptic word that was in the news headline. It's a mega-fire that's burning right now in California. And then, I mean, just this look, these are just all the clips I've shown you. And think about these words: the Bible teaches us is going to be a greater visibility, frequency, intensity, impact. Uh, whether it's houses floating down rivers, uh, whether it's all the social media of people in, in New Mexico, in, uh, Texas, in New Jersey, and in New York seeing, uh, flooding that's unprecedented, or look when yesterday, that's Phoenix, right here in the United States of America.
So, so what should that tell us? Well, as world events get worse, it's time to get serious about God. It's time to get really consistent spiritually. That's the whole reason I'm sitting down here. Bonnie and I are ready. We are packing our bags. We're leaving. We just got back from from teaching Massachusetts, New York, and Canada. And now we're back home packing, and we're headed down to teach in Texas. And then we go from the United Kingdom to Korea, and don't get home till after Thanksgiving. So why would I, when my clothes are getting wrinkled in the dryer, why would I drag Bonnie down here to help me record this class? Because it's time to get serious about consistently growing spiritually. It's a time to plan to study, uh, the whole Bible. It's time to get a solid grasp on biblical doctrine. Uh, it's time to understand and apply the attributes of God. And now, you know, uh, I, I, I'm down here in the same place that I do all the other classes. I recommend you getting a systematic theology to see the historical perspective of what all branches of Christendom have believed and, and held to. I, I tell everybody that if you get a MacArthur Study Bible, it's just like going to Bible college. If you read it, especially if you read the, the footnotes that are at the bottom of every page, there are 25,000 of them. And when you're reading above the scripture and you wonder what it means, you look at the footnotes, it's like raising your hand and asking one of the greatest professors you could ever ask, "What does that mean?" And that's the benefit of using a study Bible with those notes. But it's time for us, fifthly, to understand and believe biblical prophecy and understand what God wrote that for. It was to get us doing what He left us to do. Number six is time to get prepared for spiritual deception. And I'm going to talk about that in just a moment. And it's time to memorize verses and share the gospel.
So, what, what would be my suggestion for you? Well, the upper right of that slide, that's my dissertation at Dallas Seminary to get my doctorate. And it took me 10 years to get my doctorate at Dallas because they made me write and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite my dissertation because they said they wanted me to write a popular presentation of the impact that the Book of Revelation can have on someone's life. And I taught this in, in messages to the church I was pastoring then, Tulsa Bible Church. And our church amazingly grew, and people were evangelistic and sacrificial and, and, and involved in discipleship. And so that dissertation was published by a man in Tulsa, a, a person from our church, into that book you see there. And, and it's a 365-day devotional. So my challenge to you is, how about spending a whole year of your life getting to know the Book of Revelation? How about spending six minutes a day to read that book that you see there in the upper right-hand corner? I, I'll read to you the description: "This book is a course for believers who say, 'I want to tune up my view of world events.' Do you ever get scared, depressed, troubled by the news? God's word teaches us how to live in hope." Living Hope is available right through our web store, dtbm.org/bible-resources.
But here are my challenges that I, that I always give to you in every time that, that I teach a class: Start a personal study of God's word. Uh, any form. Uh, I would, right now, what I'm teaching currently every Wednesday, I meet with my small group, and this summer, even as we're traveling, I mean, I've been teaching this. We just got back from a teaching site where I was teaching where it was a primitive cabin, and it had no running water. The only running water was running a tenth of a mile down to a water source and carrying two buckets that weighed 30 pounds of water back and forth that were used for everything, for washing everything, for boiling, for, you know, pouring it into this crude, uh, toilet system. It was amazing. But this summer, look, look what that says: "As we travel and teaching the Book of Romans to students enrolled in the academy about living the truth in an artificial world." I mean, if YouTube is secretly editing people's videos, it won't be long until those who hate Christianity and the gospel and the Bible and don't want us evangelizing are going to start contaminating online content, revising, redacting. So, how do you prepare for that? Unleash the Book of Romans daily into your life to heed Christ's warning: "Take heed that no one deceives you."
Now, I just, before I came down here to the studio, into Google, right there is my search bar. I typed "Romans course John Barnett." Now, this, this comes out every Wednesday. Uh, we, we just finished chapter 8. We're heading into chapter 9, one of the most difficult in the whole book. And if you type that into Google, look what came up first: "Romans 1: The Descent of Humanity Away from God." And here is the playlist that came up also. Now, I don't know. I know that Google, the search bar, tailors to what we search for. And since it's mine, it, it knew what I wanted. But if you add a few more words, like maybe DTBM in there, DTBM Romans course, you'll be able to find this course. And I would encourage you, if you want to do something currently with us, just get onto that playlist and subscribe. You know, just hit that little bell button, and it will notify you every time I upload a new course on Wednesday. So, every Wednesday, you'll get a little notice from Google, from YouTube, and they'll say, "There's a new class," and the whole class. And, and right here's my gear that, that I teach with. Uh, that's the, the Romans book that we're using where we're writing out every word of the Book of Romans, and we're writing our lessons and application prayers, and we're marking our Bibles. All I'm saying is, get involved in a personal Bible study and find someone with whom you can share your findings and applications.
Number two, invest in a scripture memory plan. Uh, no matter what, uh, when I used to smuggle Bibles into the communist countries and the Muslim countries, the one thing that I did in every free moment we had before we went on trips was memorize scripture because I was ready. I was getting ready to have my Bible forever taken away from me. And I wanted as much of it as possible written on my heart and in my mind so that if I was in solitary confinement, uh, for being caught for smuggling Bibles, I wanted to be able to meditate on God's word. All of us are headed toward physical and mental decline. That's just the, the way, uh, as Job said, you know, we're destined for trouble like the sparks fly upward. It's part of the fall and part of the curse that we're diminishing our physical strength, headed toward death. Usually, the last round of people's lives, there's a lot of downtime, a lot of being sick time, in bed time, being isolated time. Do you know what the best thing you can do is? Have this arsenal of scripture that's more powerful than any temptation Satan can throw at you, and you can overcome by the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Finally, pray for us. There's my wonderful wife, Bonnie, who prays me through every one of these. Uh, this is where we're headed starting in, uh, September, as we go from, uh, across from Scotland all the way to Korea. If you want to get our prayer card ministry brochure, and by the way, we post a complete report every month for all of our donors. It's available right there at where you go with this QR code. I would love for you to, uh, to be a part of that.
So, before we go, this is just an August prophetic update. But before we go, I want you to know the purpose of prophecy is for us to live the way Christ left us to live. To live like He's coming today. And that changes our lives. It changes our goals. It changes our direction. It changes what thrills us. What thrills me is getting the privilege of hearing God's voice every day and going through life, uh, through my life when I was a, a delivery man driving a truck, I was in the word every day and enjoying the power of the word of God to change my life. When I was a student, same thing. When I was a salesman, a corporate salesman, while I was in seminary earning my way through school, I was in the word every day. "Thy words were found, and I did eat them." Jeremiah 15:16 says, "And thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart." Do you have joy? Do you consider yourself a rejoicing person? Do people that know you consider you a joyful, rejoicing person? Would you like to be? "Thy words were found, and I ate them." The whole purpose I ran down here to do a prophetic update was to have these moments challenging you to get into the word and let the word get into you. God bless you. Expectant of Christ's return at every moment. But if He doesn't come back, I'm looking forward to September's update and sharing even more reasons that we should live for the Lord in these last days. God bless you. See you then, Lord willing.
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