{"id":19185,"date":"2017-02-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/the-coming-kingdom-005\/"},"modified":"2017-02-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-02-01T06:00:00","slug":"the-coming-kingdom-005","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/the-coming-kingdom-005\/","title":{"rendered":"The Coming Kingdom 005"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[73],"series_event":[470],"sermon_service_type":[474],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-19185","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-hosea","series_event-the-coming-kingdom","sermon_service_type-wednesday-evenings","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"The Coming Kingdom 005","sermon_date":"20170201","sermon_month":"2","sermon_year":"2017","sermon_notes":4322,"sermon_slides":4323,"sermon_mp3":4325,"sermon_id":"21171838536","series_or_event":470,"service_type":[474],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":73,"chapter_and_verse":"3:3-4","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nThe Coming Kingdom\n\n2-1-17\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hosea 3:3-4\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lesson 5\n\nLet\u2019s open our Bibles to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 17, verses 16-17.\u00a0 And if you are here for the first time we have started a series of studies on the kingdom, the Kingdom of God, which really takes you into the whole Bible.\u00a0 In the book that I wrote we\u2019re basically in chapter 5 but as I mentioned before the book I wrote really isn\u2019t supposed to be the authority, that book just organizes biblical data, so the Bible is the authority in the study.\u00a0 We\u2019re just doing a topical study on the whole subject of the kingdom.\u00a0 And the first major section of this study is what does the Bible say about the kingdom because in a lot of people\u2019s vocabulary, as I said in our first session, you hear this word \u201ckingdom\u201d thrown around a lot today.\u00a0 Ministries say they\u2019re building the kingdom or growing the kingdom and all these kinds of things and what people are not doing, for whatever reason, is going to the Bible to figure out what the kingdom is.\n\nSo from that vantage point we\u2019re really starting in Genesis and going all the way through Revelation and I\u2019m taking you through the high points concerning the kingdom.\u00a0 And on the bus so far we\u2019ve made three stops; our first stop was the Garden of Eden and that\u2019s where God set up the kingdom that He wanted over the earth where He was governing a man, Adam, and Adam and Eve together were governing creation for God.\u00a0 And you see that whole structure coming into existence in Genesis 1:26-28.\n\n[Genesis 1:26-28, \u201cThen God said, \u2018Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.\u2019\u00a0 [27] God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.\u00a0 [28] God blessed them; and God said to them, \u201cBe fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.\u201d]\n\nAnd what Satan did right at the beginning of human history is he subverted that office.\u00a0 The fancy name for it is theocratic administrator, or somebody who governs for God.\u00a0 So Adam and Eve, rather than ruling over the animals for God started listening to the animals; in particular they listened to a talking snake.\u00a0 And the moment Adam and Eve started listening to the animals and in the process rebelling against God is the moment the kingdom was lost to the earth.\u00a0 And who became the god of this age?\u00a0 Satan!\n\nSo what starts to happen really fast in the Bible is prophecy starts to be given concerning how God is going to restore this office.\u00a0 So the whole point of the Bible really, and we\u2019re part of it because we\u2019re going to be ruling and reigning with Christ one day in this kingdom, is how God\u2019s authority over the present earth gets restored.\u00a0 And one of these days God the Father is going to rule again, not over the first Adam but the last Adam, and He will govern creation for God; the last Adam would be Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Satan will be evicted and this structure has to come back so God wins, in essence.\u00a0 So He has to reassert authority over what was lost in Eden.\n\nSo as you move into the Bible the second stop on the bus is the covenant that God made with Abraham and this is where God creates a nation, the nation of Israel.\u00a0 He calls Abraham out of the Ur of the Chaldeans, tells him to walk by faith and He begins to unfurl promises to him.\u00a0 These promises all pertain to this earth; He\u2019s given earthly promises and things of that nature. So God then has purposed to bring His kingdom to the world through this nation, the nation of Israel.\u00a0 And that\u2019s really the significance of the Abrahamic Covenant, as we\u2019ve studied it.\n\nAnd the Abrahamic Covenant gives the nation of Israel ownership over three blessings; remember what those are?\u00a0 Land, seed and blessing!\u00a0 And that\u2019s the foundation and then God just goes through the Bible and just develops those promises, really all the way through the Old Testament.\n\nThe next stop on the bus is the Mosaic Covenant, and the Mosaic Covenant at Mt. Sinai introduces if\/then language, which we saw last time in Exodus 19:5-6.\u00a0 [Exodus 19:5, \u201cNow then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; [6] and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.\u2019 These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel\u201d]\n\nIf the Abrahamic Covenant gave Israel ownership of her blessings the Mosaic Covenant gives her enjoyment of her blessings.\u00a0 So in other words, you can be an owner without enjoying what you have; you can be owner without being a possessor.\u00a0 So I could own a beach house in the Hamptons but I\u2019m so busy working I never really enter in and enjoy or possess what it is I own.\u00a0 See that?\n\nSo the Abrahamic Covenant unconditionally gives to the nation of Israel land, seed and blessing, but whether a generation of Jews actually enjoys what they own is contingent upon their response to the Mosaic Covenant.\n\nAnd we saw last time that the Mosaic Covenant points ultimately to Jesus; remember we looked at those verses last time, Deuteronomy 17:15, John 5:45-47.\u00a0 [Deuteronomy 17:15, \u201cyou shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses, one from among your countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves; you may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your countryman.\u201d\u00a0 John 5:45-47, \u201cHow can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and<\/em> only God?\u00a0 [John 5:47, \u201cDo not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. [46] For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. [47] But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?\u201d]\n\nAnd essentially when Israel becomes the owner and the possessor, she\u2019s already the owner but once she possesses what she owns by complying with the Mosaic Covenant, which points towards Christ, is the\u00a0 moment the kingdom comes to the earth.\u00a0\u00a0 So since the Mosaic Covenant points towards Jesus Christ, as long as the nation of Israel is not a Christ-accepting nation the kingdom is not in a state of cancellation, God can\u2019t cancel the kingdom because of which covenant?\u00a0 The Abrahamic Covenant.\u00a0 But the kingdom remains in a state, not of cancellation but of postponement.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the condition of the kingdom today.\u00a0 It\u2019s all riding on Israel\u2019s response to her Messiah and you see that spelled out in the Mosaic Covenant and I showed you several verses on that last time.\u00a0 So Eden is the original structure, the covenant with Abraham is ownership, the covenant with Moses is enjoyment.\u00a0 Are you guys with me on that so far?\n\nThe next stop on the bus is what\u2019s called the divided kingdom.\u00a0 This was the original structure that God had originally set up in Eden; God was going to govern Adam and Eve and they were going to govern creation on God\u2019s behalf.\u00a0 When they started listening to creation instead of governing creation that\u2019s the moment the kingdom was lost, the theocratic kingdom was lost to the earth.\n\nAnd remember last time we saw that very peculiar statement that Paul makes in Romans 5:14, \u201cNevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses\u2026\u201d so the time period from Adam to Moses is a very dark and difficult time because the theocratic arrangement is on planet earth and it\u2019s not until the covenant with Moses, around 1446 or so, the date of the Exodus, that you see this word kingdom, it\u2019s right there in Exodus 19:6, it says, [5b] \u201c\u2026for all the earth is Mine;\u00a0 [6] and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation\u2019\u201d\u00a0 So at this point the word \u201ckingdom\u201d is used really for the first time (relative to the nation of Israel) in the whole Bible, in the whole Old Testament up to this point.\n\nAnd so I believe that at this point the office of theocratic administrator returns to the earth, not over the whole earth the way it was set up in Eden but over this tiny nation called Israel.\u00a0 So God purposed to use Israel as sort of a microcosm, if you will, to give the inhabitants of the earth a taste of what life could be like with the reign of God and the office of Theocratic Administrator restored to the entire earth.\u00a0 So this is the arrangement; God now is governing through an agent, the first one would be Moses and then He governs through other agents.\u00a0 Who followed Moses as God\u2019s leader?\u00a0 Joshua.\u00a0 Joshua then becomes the theocratic administration, not over the earth but over Israel.\u00a0 And then the era of Joshua is followed by the Judges so they become the theocratic administrators.\u00a0 The era of the Judges is then followed by the Kings and so all the way through 1 Kings into 2 Kings, all of these kings become the theocratic administrators of God.\u00a0 And some kings did well, some didn\u2019t, most didn\u2019t.\u00a0 But God designed this to be sort of a foretaste of what the kingdom could be with someone governing God\u2019s people on God\u2019s behalf, something that Adam and Eve were doing over the earth, this is happening now imperfectly through most of Old Testament history.\n\nAnd who were the first three kings of the nation of Israel?\u00a0 The first guy is Saul, the second guy is David, and the third guy is Solomon.\u00a0 Each king governs for about forty years.\u00a0 Saul reigns from about 1051-1011 B.C.\u00a0\u00a0 And then after Saul would come David who would reign from about 1011-971 B.C.\u00a0 And then after him would come Solomon who would reign from about 971-931 B.C.\u00a0 So this takes us into what I would call the divided kingdom because prior to Solomon leaving the throne the first three kings of the nation of Israel governed over what\u2019s called the united kingdom, the kingdom was never divided during the reigns of those first three kings.\n\nNow in the Mosaic Covenant, which gives to the nation of Israel, not ownership but possession or enjoyment, there\u2019s a clause here related to how the kings are supposed to function.\u00a0 Notice if you will Deuteronomy 17:16-17, it says, \u201cMoreover, he\u201d that\u2019s the king, \u201cshall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since the LORD has said to you, \u2018You shall never again return that way.\u2019 He shall not multiply wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself.\u201d\u00a0 So this is actually a very advanced legal principle where the king is actually under the law of God.\u00a0 In the Ancient Near East the way it worked is the divine right of kings\u00a0 the king did whatever he wanted because he was a god.\u00a0 But not so in the land of Israel, there was a law given and the king was to be under God\u2019s law.\u00a0 In fact, the king, when you study Deuteronomy 17, was to write out the Law of God by hand in the presences of the priests (plural), to be sure he did the job right, so that he would know what principles he was to be governed by. \u00a0And I think that\u2019s a good rule, don\u2019t you think, for some of our politicians today; I think we should make them all write out the United States Constitution by hand so they know what\u2019s supposed to be governing them.\n\nBut Solomon woke up one day and if you go over to 1 Kings 11:1-8 it\u2019s almost like Solomon woke up one day, he\u2019s the third king of the united kingdom, and it\u2019s almost like he looked at Deuteronomy 17:16-17, which was written about 400-500 years earlier, and he just decided to do the exact opposite.\u00a0 What does he do?\u00a0 If you look at 1 Kings 11:1, \u201cNow King Solomon loved many foreign women\u201d now didn\u2019t the principle say the king should not multiply wives and it mentions all of these foreign women that he loved, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Hittite women, and then it says [2] \u201cfrom the nations which the LORD had said to the sons of Israel you shall not associate with them \u2026 for they will turn your heart away after their Gods.\u2019\u00a0 Solomon held fast to these in love.\u201d\u00a0 And it goes on, it says, [3]<\/strong><\/a> \u201cHe had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives\u201d plural, there\u2019s a lot of them here, \u201cturned his heart away. [4] For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.<\/em>\n\nAnd it goes on here talking about all these things that Solomon did, how he burned incense and did all these detestable practices.\u00a0\u00a0 [5, \u201cFor Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites. \u00a0[6] Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not follow the LORD fully, as David his father had done.<\/em> \u00a0[7] Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon. [8] Thus also he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.\u201d]\n\nAnd beyond that he multiplied wealth for himself.\u00a0 So everything the law of Moses said don\u2019t do about 400, 500 years later Solomon did the exact opposite.\u00a0 Now remember the Mosaic Covenant, see the section I\u2019ve got\u00a0 underlined there, there\u2019s blessings for obedience and what, curses for disobedience.\u00a0 That was the type of arrangement that God put the nation of Israel under.\u00a0 And the curses, you can find in Deuteronomy 28:15-68, these are very real curses.\u00a0 Does anybody recall the height of the curses?\u00a0 What\u2019s the ultimate thing that\u2019s going to happen as the nation of Israel persists in unbelief.\u00a0 Exile!\u00a0 Over in Deuteronomy 28:49-50 it says there, remember Moses is articulating these things all the way back in the 15th<\/sup> century, \u201cThe LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you shall not understand, [50] a nation of fierce countenance who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young.\u201d\n\nSo the ultimate curse that God would bring against His own people as an act of discipline would be an invasion by a foreign power.\u00a0 So these are spelled out in Deuteronomy 28:15-68, it\u2019s part of the Mosaic Covenant.\u00a0 They\u2019re also spelled out in the book of Leviticus, chapter 26, verses 14-46.\u00a0 And if you wanted to understand Israel\u2019s history in advance these two chapters have been called the spine of the Old Testament because they graphically depict everything that happened to this nation, Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28.\n\nSo Solomon is in disobedience to the Mosaic Covenant, he\u2019s the third king of the United Kingdom. God has to bring discipline against His own people because of this Mosaic Covenant, which as we mentioned before is not like the Abrahamic Covenant.\u00a0 This is a bilateral covenant.\u00a0 You want to be cursed, disobey; if you want to be blessed and enjoy what you possess then obey the covenant.\n\nSo what does God do?\u00a0 Right after Solomon left the throne He brings His first wave of discipline which happened around 931 B.C.\u00a0 You\u2019ll find a description of it in 1 Kings 12 where God divided the kingdom.\u00a0 So the division is between the ten northern tribes that took on the name Israel throughout the rest of the biblical Old Testament history.\u00a0 And does anybody know where their capitol was located?\u00a0 The ten northern tribes? Samaria.\u00a0 And then down south you have the two remaining southern tribes, Benjamin and Judah; the southern kingdom takes on the name Judah because that was the more dominant tribe and their capital was in Jerusalem.\u00a0 So you go all the way through the Old Testament and what you start to see is this divided kingdom and this is actually an act of discipline by God, I believe against Solomon for his gross violations of the Mosaic Covenant.\n\nThe northern tribes, Israel, they continued on into apostasy and idolatry.\u00a0 So what God did is He ultimately brought discipline against the north.\u00a0 He had to do it because of which covenant?\u00a0 The Mosaic Covenant.\u00a0 And didn\u2019t God say in Deuteronomy 28:49-50 I\u2019ll bring a pagan power against you.\u00a0 So the northern tribes were taken into discipline, they were basically scattered, in the year 722 B.C. by the Assyrians.\u00a0 And\u00a0 the key chapter that describes this is 2 Kings 17.\u00a0 And again this is a very real form of discipline that was just as real as what God implemented there against Solomon.\n\nSo God is taking very seriously what He said in this Mosaic Covenant.\u00a0 He told them exactly what would happen, at this point about 700 years had passed, which is a long time when you think about it, the United States of America has only been here for what? 240 years, something to that extent.\u00a0 So this would be the United States of America a little more than two, almost times three.\u00a0 And so God was very patient with the north but they went so far that God finally had to make good on what He said He would do, they wouldn\u2019t listen to the prophets.\u00a0 So here come the Assyrians in 722 B.C. and it\u2019s at this point the north is scattered.\u00a0 So the ten northern tribes at this point are scattered.\n\nNow wouldn\u2019t you think that the remaining two southern tribes would have learned their lesson?\u00a0 But they didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Now one of the things I want to bring up here is God showed more grace to the south than He did to the north and there\u2019s a reason for that.\u00a0 He showed them more grace because the south was not scattered the way the north was but they were taken into captivity. So he gave them a little bit more grace.\u00a0 He also allowed them to exist for an additional 136 years.\u00a0 So the south was really not taken into captivity until 586 B.C. so thy lasted at least 136 years longer than their northern counterparts.\n\nAnd beyond that, the north has 19 kings as you study the books of 1 Kings and 2 Kings.\u00a0 How many good kings do you have in the north?\u00a0 Zero, so they went 0 and 19; that\u2019s quite a season isn\u2019t it, your team going 0 and 19, that\u2019s not a very good\u00a0 year.\u00a0 The south on the other hand had 20 kings and at least they had 8 of the 20 which were good.\u00a0 And even those which were considered good were really partly good, they did some good things but they weren\u2019t perfectly good because they committed sins as well.\u00a0 But at least in the south you got 8 good kings and so what you see from this, by the fact that the north is scattered and the south is taken into captivity, the north has no good kings, the south at least has 8 and the south lasts 136\u00a0 years longer than the north. What you see is God dealing in more grace with the south than with the north.\n\nAnd the question becomes why did God extend more grace to the south than He did to the north. The answer to that is Genesis 49:10 which prophecies that a ruler, who is ultimately the Messiah, is going to comes from which tribe?\u00a0 The tribe of Judah.\u00a0 Benjamin and Judah are not in the north but they\u2019re in the south.\u00a0 So that\u2019s probably the primary reason why God preserved the south, at least in the captivity, in Babylon, and allowed them to come back into the land because He\u2019s got to make good on His promise here in Genesis 49:10.\n\nNow remember the Abrahamic Covenant gives to the nation Israel land, seed and blessing and the seed is developed in which covenant?\u00a0 The Davidic Covenant.\u00a0 We\u2019ve studied 2 Samuel 7:12-16 where we learn that there\u2019s coming a descendant from the lineage of David who\u2019s going to bring in an eternal dynasty.\u00a0 And we know that figure is ultimately Jesus Christ.\n\nNow where did these kings coming from David\u2019s line, where did they reign?\u00a0 Did they reign in the north or did they reign in the south?\u00a0 They reigned in the south.\u00a0 So what you see is God giving more grace to the south than He did the north, because of two Scriptures that He has to fulfill; God can\u2019t lie, Genesis 49:10.\u00a0 Messiah has got to come from the tribe of Judah, and 2 Samuel 7:12-16, the Davidic Covenant, because there has to come one from the lineage of David whose going to fulfill all of these promises.\n\n[Genesis 49:10, \u201cThe scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.\u201d\u00a0 2 Samuel 7:12-16, \u201cWhen your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. [13] He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.\u00a0 [14] I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, [15] but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it<\/em> away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. [16] Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.\u201d]\n\nSo God is showing a little extra grace to the south than He did the north.\u00a0 And you would think the south with her blessings and seeing what happened to the north would learn her lesson, but she didn\u2019t.\u00a0 And that\u2019s where Ezekiel 23 becomes such a big deal.\u00a0 Ezekiel 23 talks about two sisters.\u00a0 Remember Ezekiel is prophesying in the days of the Babylonian captivity for the south.\u00a0 There\u2019s two sisters, Oholah is sister one, that\u2019s the older sister, Oholibah is sister two, that\u2019s the younger sister.\u00a0 So Oholah represents the northern kingdom in Ezekiel\u2019s prophecy here, and Oholibah represents the southern kingdom.\u00a0 And he\u2019s talking about these two sisters and the older sister, Oholah became very promiscuous, and she was brought into discipline by God in Ezekiel\u2019s parable here or prophecy in Ezekiel 23.\n\nAnd Ezekiel says you would think Oholibah, the younger sister would have learned her lesson and not imitated the detestable patterns of her older sister so she would not be brought into discipline as her older sister had been brought into discipline.\u00a0 But he says the younger sister actually became worse than the older sister.\u00a0 She became\u2026 whatever sins were committed by the older sister the younger sister compounded and expedited those sins and she became wildly promiscuous.\u00a0 So if you want to read some, what I would call Christian pornography, and I say that because this chapter is very\u2026 now everybody is getting out their Bible, where is that again\u2026 it\u2019s very sexually graphic and it\u2019s being used as a parable to describe the spiritual sin committed by first the northern tribe and then the southern tribes.\u00a0 So I call this actually Christian pornography, it\u2019s borderline pornographic what it says here.\n\nAnd another chapter that\u2019s like that in the book of Ezekiel is Ezekiel 16.\u00a0 So Ezekiel 16, which describes Jerusalem\u2019s sins, comparing them to sexual sins, and Ezekiel 23, are used by the prophet Ezekiel to describe from God\u2019s vantage point what the sin of, first of all the north, the south, felt like to God\u2019s heart because the nation of Israel is God\u2019s what? Wife!\u00a0 See, the church is the bride of Christ, we haven\u2019t even gotten to the subject of the church yet.\u00a0 Israel is the wife of Jehovah so when Israel wandered off into all of these sins it was akin to adultery as far as God is concerned.\u00a0 That\u2019s why He\u2019s using all of this type of imagery to describe what was happening here.\n\nSo the south, Benjamin and Judah, actually become worse than the north according to Ezekiel 23.\u00a0 So what does God have to do?\u00a0 Ultimately He\u2019s got to bring discipline; He can\u2019t discipline the north and then let the south off the hook.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 The discipline is spelled out in which chapter of the Bible?\u00a0 Deuteronomy 28, and which verses depict a pagan power coming against God\u2019s people?\u00a0 Verses 49-50.\u00a0 [Deuteronomy 28:49, \u201cThe LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you shall not understand,\u00a0 [50] a nation of fierce countenance who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young.\u201d]\n\nSo the identical pattern that Moses said.. now this would be about 800 years in advance that Moses is saying this, the identical pattern that happened to the north now happens to the south and the south is taken off into captivity in Babylon in the year 586 B.C.\u00a0 And the key chapter that talks about that in the Bible is 2 Kings chapter 25.\u00a0 And it is at this point that the office of theocratic administrator, which was established in Eden and lost in Eden and then restored in a very limited sense in the time of Moses and governs Israel all the way from Moses to Joshua to Judges to all the Kings, it\u2019s at this point in history that the office of theocratic administrator completely disappears from the earth.\u00a0 And that is the significance of the Shekinah glory of God departing from the temple.\u00a0 That is what the prophet Ezekiel sees happening in Ezekiel 8-11.\n\nSo prior to the instrument of discipline, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, prior to him destroying the temple that Solomon built, going all the way back to 966 B.C. the Shekinah glory of God which entered the temple, remember, in the days of Solomon, 1 Kings 8, 7, \u00a06, right in there, talks about it, that Shekinah glory entered the temple and now that Shekinah glory leaves the temple.\u00a0 And what you have to understand about the book of Ezekiel\u00a0 is it\u2019s a symmetrical book.\u00a0 Chapters 1-24 are counterbalanced by what\u2019s going on in chapters 33-48.\u00a0 So in the first part of the book Ezekiel\u2019s mouth is closed; in the last part of the book, chapters 33-48 Ezekiel\u2019s mouth is opened.\u00a0 The first part of the book Ezekiel prophesied judgment on Judah, but in chapters 33-48 he prophesies blessing of the future upon Israel.\u00a0 In the first major section of the book the Shekinah glory of God departs from the temple.\u00a0 In the last section of the book what happens with the Shekinah glory of God in the millennial temple?\u00a0 It goes right back into it.\n\nSo the time period when the Shekinah glory of God is gone is the time period when the office of theocratic administrator is vacated from the earth.\u00a0 And what counterbalances those two major sections, chapters 1-24 and chapters 33-48 is God\u2019s judgment on the surrounding nations, which is the fulcrum which you find in chapters 25-32.\u00a0 I know that\u2019s a lot of information, I\u2019ll go back to that but the point I want you to see is the removal of the Shekinah glory of God.\u00a0 And this happens at the beginning of the Babylonian captivity, actually just prior to the Babylonian captivity.\u00a0 And Ezekiel has all of these visions about what these priests are doing in this temple and it\u2019s just outrageous what they\u2019re doing, they\u2019ve got all these idolatrous paintings all over the walls and all of these things and the sin got so bad that God finally couldn\u2019t look the other direction and He brought discipline on the south just like He did on the north.\n\nSo people say are we in the kingdom now?\u00a0 No, because the Shekinah glory of God is not in the temple.\u00a0 It will go back into the millennial temple and that\u2019s when the office of theocratic administrator is restored to the earth.\u00a0 So we\u2019re living in a period of time now where the office of theocratic administrator, which existed in Eden, was lost from Adam to Moses, restored in a limited sense at the time of Moses , with the Mosaic Covenant, governed Israel in a limited sense all the way through Zedekiah, the last reigning king on David\u2019s throne.\u00a0 That office of theocratic administrator disappears from the earth and we\u2019re not going to see it again until the millennial temple is rebuilt in the millennial kingdom and the shekinah glory of God returns.\u00a0 So that\u2019s the whole significance of the divided kingdom.\u00a0 That\u2019s what happens to God\u2019s kingdom program with the kingdom\u2019s division and the subsequent discipline on the northern tribes first, in 722 and then the southern tribes in 586.\n\nSo now Israel enters a time period, and this takes us to number 5 where we\u2019re trying to trace the kingdom program through the Bible, it takes Israel into a time period called the times of the Gentiles.\u00a0 And if you\u2019ve been tracking with us on Sunday morning this should kind of ring a bell. Does that ring a bell at all to anybody?\u00a0 Okay, because we\u2019re studying Daniel right now and Daniel is raised up to give the prophetic picture of God during the times of the Gentiles when the office of theocratic administrator is absent from the earth.\n\nThere\u2019s a prophecy in the book of Hosea, Hosea is one of the earlier prophets, and Hosea says in Hosea 3:3-4, \u201cThen I said to her, \u2018You shall stay with me for many days. You shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man; so I will also be toward you.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 And then it says in verse 4, \u201cFor the sons of Israel will remain for many days without king or prince, [without sacrifice or sacred pillar and without ephod or household idols.\u201d]\u00a0 And I believe Hosea is making a prophecy, if you will, that one of these days the office of theocratic administrator is going to disappear and Israel is going to go through a whole season where she doesn\u2019t have this office of theocratic administrator any longer.\u00a0 And that is a time period that Daniel calls the times of the Gentiles.\u00a0 Actually Daniel never uses the expression \u201cthe times of the Gentiles,\u201d that\u2019s an expression used by Christ, you might want to jot down Luke 21:24 because that\u2019s where Christ uses the term.\u00a0 [Luke 21:24, \u201cand they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.\u201d]\n\nAnd I think there\u2019s a reference to the final forty-two months of the times of the Gentiles in Revelation 11:2.\u00a0 [Revelation 11:2, \u201cLeave out the court which is outside the temple and do not measure it, for it has been given to the nations; and they will tread under foot the holy city for forty-two months.\u201d]\u00a0 But what are the times of the Gentiles?\u00a0 The times of the Gentiles is the period of time when there is no king reigning on David\u2019s throne and the nation is being trampled down by various Gentile powers.\u00a0 Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel 2, has a dream about it because he\u2019s the first king in the times of the Gentiles.\u00a0 And as we\u2019ve studied Daniel 2 on Sunday mornings you know that Daniel was given the task of both revealing this dream and interpreting it, which is only information he can get from who?\u00a0\u00a0 From God!\n\nSo Daniel interprets the various body parts on this metallic statue that Nebuchadnezzar saw, and then Daniel saw, as empires\u00a0 that would trample down Israel during the time of the Gentiles.\u00a0 First you have the head of gold, then you have the chest and arms of silver, then you have the belly an\u00a0 thighs of bronze, then you have the legs of iron and then you have the feet of iron and clay.\u00a0 Then and only then does the stone cut without human hands which is the kingdom, shatter the statue and then the stone cut without human hands grows and grows and grows until it fills the whole earth.\u00a0 And as we\u2019ve studied Daniel 2 on Sunday morning you know that the head of gold was the first empire during the times of the Gentiles, which was Babylon, which trampled the nation of Israel down from about 605 to 539.\n\nThe chest and arms of silver was the next empire to come to power and does anybody remember when that next empire comes to power in the book of Daniel?\u00a0 The handwriting on the wall chapter, Daniel chapter 5.\u00a0 That\u2019s where Daniel himself sees his own prophecies come to fruition, a few decades later, because that\u2019s the beginning of the Persians overthrowing the Babylonians and the Persians trampled down the chosen people from about 539 to about 331.\n\nAnd then you have the belly and thighs of bronze and that would represent the third kingdom in the time of the Gentiles; that would be who?\u00a0\u00a0 Greece.\u00a0 And they trample the chosen people down from about 331-63 B.C.\u00a0 And then Greece would be followed by who?\u00a0 Rome; Rome is the two legs of iron because we know historically there was an Eastern Roman Empire and a Western Roman Empire.\u00a0 And that Empire is the empire that crucified our Lord, as you know.\u00a0 \u00a0And that tramples the chosen people down from about 63 B.C. and actually pushes them out of the Promised Land in 70 A.D.\u00a0 So here are the empires: Babylon, and I have the Scripture verses where you can see these as different aspect of the statue, followed by Medo-Persia, followed by Greece, followed by Rome.\n\nThen you get to these feet of iron and clay, and I believe it\u2019s at this point that Daniel\u2019s prophecies flash into the distant future, into something which is still future from our point of view and this is the empire of the antichrist.\u00a0 Sometimes people call that a Revived Roman Empire; I call it Rome Phase II, but what you have to understand is in between the ankles and the feet is the time period of at least 2600 years or more, we\u2019re still waiting for the feet of iron and clay to materialize and we see semblances of it coming together through a one-world government system that excludes God.\n\nAnd the reason I put this into the future is the ten toes represent ten kings; Rome never had a ten kingdom federacy, ancient Rome.\u00a0 So the feet have to be talking about something future.\u00a0 And that empire is overthrown in an instant by the stone cut without human hands.\u00a0 When you study the fall of the ancient Roman Empire what you discover is Rome was not overthrown instantaneously but deteriorated gradually, so if you were to read Edward Gibbons, The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire<\/em>, where he historically tracks how Rome went out of existence, he doesn\u2019t talk about a cataclysmic sudden instantaneous overthrow; he\u2019s talking about a general petering out of existence as the weakening of the Roman culture and morals took hold.\n\nSo therefore this ten king confederacy that\u2019s overthrown instantaneously can\u2019t be something yet past if you take this literally, which I do.\u00a0 It\u2019s got to be something yet future so people think this is kind of a strange way of interpreting the Bible, how can you put 2600 years or more between the ankles and the feet?\u00a0 Well, the reality of the situation is you do this all the time, you just don\u2019t realize it probably, because we just celebrated Christmas, didn\u2019t we?\u00a0 And on our Christmas cards didn\u2019t most of us have Isaiah 9:6?\u00a0 Have you read what Isaiah 9:6 says, \u201cFor a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us,\u201d is that the First Coming or Second Coming?\u00a0 That\u2019s the First Coming.\u00a0 Then it says, \u201cthe government will rest upon His shoulders.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s the Second Coming.\u00a0 And it goes on and it says, [verse 7] \u201cThere will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it\u2026.\u201d\n\nSee what Isaiah has done here right in the middle of verse 6, he\u2019s put two prophecies in a back to back fashion and he hasn\u2019t revealed (because he didn\u2019t know about it because God didn\u2019t disclose it to him) a massive gap of time between those prophecies.\u00a0 So this method of interpretation I\u2019m giving you is really not that strange; you\u2019ll see the Holy Spirit doing this quite frequently in some of the most popular prophecies of the Bible.\n\nSo the Old Testament prophets were kind of looking at two mountains in the distance.\u00a0 And if the further mountain is raised above, a little bit higher than the nearer mountain what do you really see in the distance?\u00a0 You see these two mountains but what don\u2019t you see?\u00a0 The valley between the mountains.\u00a0 That\u2019s what Isaiah never got to see, that\u2019s what Daniel didn\u2019t see.\u00a0 And this is why these prophets were frustrated with their own prophecies.\n\n1 Peter 1:10-11 says, \u201cThe zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come<\/em> to you made careful searches and inquiries, [11] \u00a0<\/sup>seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.\u201d\u00a0 I mean put yourself in poor Isaiah\u2019s shoes, once second the Holy Spirit gives you a prophecy about a suffering Messiah, like Isaiah 53, the next second another prophecy, like Isaiah 11 or Isaiah 2 or Isaiah 65, you get a whole different picture of the Messiah ruling and reigning, and Isaiah is saying to the Lord what\u2019s going on here?\u00a0 I mean, is He going to be a suffering Messiah or is He going to be a ruling and reigning Messiah, and how could He be both.\n\nSo many times, and we\u2019ll see this on Sunday mornings when we\u2019re in the book of Daniel, Daniel wanted to know the meanings of his own prophecies but he\u2019s told very expressly by God, through the angels that gave Daniel the prophecy to go his way.\u00a0\u00a0 You\u2019ve done your job Daniel, you\u2019ve written down what I\u2019ve told you, the meaning is not going to become clear till a distant generation.\u00a0\u00a0 And here we are, little ole us in the year 2017 with a completed canon, and the hindsight of history, hindsight is always what?\u00a0 20\/20.\u00a0 We understand it, we understand that the First Coming he suffers, the Second Coming He rules and reigns and in the interim is this vast expanse of time called the age of the church that we\u2019re in now, because we have the vantage point of Paul\u2019s epistles which go into detail.\u00a0 Daniel, Isaiah, none of these prophets of old had this vantage point.\n\nSo what is happening here with the statue, going back to Daniel 2 is you\u2019ve got about 2600 years or more between the ankles and the feet.\u00a0 One of these days the empire of the antichrist will rise to power; I think that will happen after the rapture of the church because the antichrist can\u2019t come to power until the restrainer is gone, 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 talks about that.\u00a0 [2 Thessalonians 2:6-7, \u201cAnd you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. [7] For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so<\/em> until he is taken out of the way.\u201d]\n\nAnd don\u2019t make me prove this or we\u2019ll be here till midnight, this will be a Eutychus sermon, you don\u2019t want that, but I believe the restrainer is the work of the Holy Spirit through the church.\u00a0 What the Lord is doing through His church right now, the body of Christ, worldwide is preventing Satan from bringing forth his man of the hour, the antichrist.\u00a0 But one of these days the church will be gone through the rapture; the restraint will be gone, I think Satan has always had a man waiting in the wings, that\u2019s why so many people in history look like they could be a great antichrist because Satan doesn\u2019t know when this event is going to happen but he\u2019s always got somebody prepped.\u00a0 You know, some of these world leaders, the way they act it\u2019s almost like they\u2019re auditioning for the role of antichrist.\u00a0 But Satan is not omniscient and he doesn\u2019t know when this restraint will be removed so he\u2019s always got somebody ready and but one of these days the restraint is removed, the rapture of the church will take place, the antichrist will come forward, he\u2019ll bring forth his kingdom which is called in Daniel\u2019s prophecy the feet of iron and clay.\u00a0 The good news is it only lasts for 42 months, Revelation 13:5, the second half of the tribulation period.\u00a0 [Revelation 13:5, \u201cThere was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies, and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him.\u201d]\n\nAnd then this giant stone cut without human hands, which represents the kingdom of God, will strike the feet of the statue causing the whole thing to crumble, the pieces will lie on the floor as Daniel describes it and the winds will drive the pieces away and this stone cut without human hands will grow and grow and grow until it fills the whole earth.\u00a0 The stone cut without human hands is the restoration of the office of theocratic administrator to the earth.\u00a0 It\u2019s what God original set up in Eden, so it will one day come back and this time God is not reigning over the first Adam, He\u2019s reigning over the what?\u00a0 The last Adam and that\u2019s why Ezekiel predicts what returning to the millennial temple?\u00a0 The Shekinah glory of God.\u00a0 See how the whole things fits?\n\nSo we\u2019re, as I\u2019ll be explaining in this series, in a very unique period of time now which is not that kingdom; God is at work today through the age of the church but it is not this kingdom program.\u00a0 And that\u2019s where people are getting confused because they\u2019re taking these prophecies that are yet future and just willy-nilly ignoring the rules of grammar and context and applying them to the church through a method of interpretation called allegorization which is not a right way to approach Bible prophecy because all of the prophecies about Christ\u2019s First Coming were fulfilled what?\u00a0 Not symbolically or allegorically but literally.\u00a0\u00a0 Was Jesus literally born in Bethlehem?\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, check, got that one.\u00a0 Was He born of a virgin?\u00a0 Yeah, check, that literally happened.\u00a0 Were His hands and feet literally pierced?\u00a0 Yeah, check, that happened.\u00a0 Was He buried in the tomb of a rich man?\u00a0 Yeah, Joseph of Arimathea talks about that.\u00a0 See, all these prophecies I\u2019m rattling off here I\u2019m getting from the Old Testament, and I could go on and on.\n\nSo if the First Coming prophecies were all literal why would the Holy Spirit switch horses in midstream and say oh, by the way, the Second Coming prophecies aren\u2019t literal.\u00a0 That wouldn\u2019t make sense, would it?\u00a0 But most of the body of Christ, by way of denominational affiliation, believe that these prophecies yet future are non-literal.\u00a0 If you believe they\u2019re non-literal you can just make it sound like they\u2019re happening today.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But the more you become a consistent literalist the more you start putting these off into the future and you start to see that this age of time that we\u2019re in now is not the kingdom.\u00a0\u00a0 God is clearly at work doing some wonderful things but it\u2019s not the kingdom that\u2019s prophesied.\n\nNow on Sunday mornings we\u2019ve talked about a chiasm; Daniel 2-7 is organized like a chiasm, which is a literary structure; it kind of looks like an X which is the Greek word kai<\/em>, X.\u00a0 So that\u2019s why it\u2019s called a chiasm.\u00a0 And we know that Daniel 2-7 is an independent literary pattern because unlike the rest of Hebrew Bible which is written in Hebrew Daniel 2-7 is written in Aramaic.\u00a0 So in a chiasm the information in chapter 2 is restated in chapter 7, and you move into the chiasm the theme of chapter 3, civil disobedience is restated in Daniel 6.\u00a0 You move in the inner section of the chiasm and the information in chapter 4, God\u2019s revelation to a Gentile king, Nebuchadnezzar, is restated as God reveals Himself to another Gentile king, a man named Belshazzar.\u00a0 So in the intersection of the chiasm God is revealing Himself to the first king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Nebuchadnezzar, the first king in the sense he was the first king on the throne to trample down Israel.\u00a0\u00a0 And then God reveals Himself through the handwriting on the wall to the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.\u00a0 So in chapter 4 He deals with a king through grace; in chapter 5 He deals with a king through judgment.\u00a0 But you see how it\u2019s the same theme restated?\n\nSo if this chiastic structure is accurate, and all the scholars see this here, it\u2019s not something I\u2019m just making up, I mean, you get into the literature you\u2019ll see that almost every scholar out there that I know of sees this as a literary pattern.\u00a0 So the information in chapter 2 is restated in chapter 7.\u00a0 What\u2019s the information in chapter 2?\u00a0 It\u2019s the statue which reveals the various empires during the times of the Gentiles.\u00a0 What\u2019s the information in chapter 7?\u00a0 The exact same theme but it reveals the times of the Gentiles as various beasts.\u00a0 So what you\u2019ll discover is in chapter 2 it looks like a beautiful statue; in chapter 7 it looks like four disgusting beasts.\u00a0 Why the difference?\u00a0 In chapter 2 who originally receives the vision?\u00a0 Nebuchadnezzar, he\u2019s the one doing the trampling.\u00a0 So to him it looks like a great time period, doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Chapter 7 who receives the vision?\u00a0 Daniel, he\u2019s being trampled on so to him these various empires that will trample down Israel look like four disgusting beasts.\u00a0 Do you see that?\u00a0 So chapter 2 is the Gentile perspective on the times of the Gentiles; chapter 7 is the Jewish perspective on the times of the Gentiles.\n\nSo one of these days the empire of the antichrist is going to run its course according to both chapters 2 and chapter 7, and ultimately be replaced by God\u2019s coming kingdom.\u00a0 So Merrill Unger writes this; he says, \u201cHence, the iron kingdom with its feet of iron and clay and the nondescript beast of 7:7-8 envision\u2026the form in which it will exist after the church period<\/em>,\u201d see that? \u201cwhen God will resume His dealing with the nation<\/em> Israel.\u201d\u00a0 And notice what he says? \u201cHow futile for conservative scholars to ignore that fact and to seek to find literal fulfillment of those prophecies in history or in the church,\u201d which is what most of the body of Christ is doing today, \u201cwhen those predictions refer to events\u201d what? \u201cyet future\u201d because we\u2019re taking them what?\u00a0 Symbolically or literally?\u00a0 Literally, \u201cand have no application whatever to the church.\u201d\n\nWhat he\u2019s saying is this stone cut without human hands is not something that happened in the first century; it\u2019s something that\u2019s going to be fulfilled in the Second Advent.\u00a0 And see, what we\u2019re dealing with is what\u2019s called amillennialism, which is the belief that we\u2019re in the kingdom now.\u00a0 And people are trying to argue that this stone cut without human hands \u00a0is being fulfilled now.\n\nTo do that you have to take it not literally but allegorically.\u00a0 See that?\n\nLet me ask you a question, all of those empires that we marched through, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, were those literal empires?\u00a0 Yes!\u00a0 Did they reign for a literal period of time?\u00a0 Yes!\u00a0 Did they reign over actual land or real estate?\u00a0 Yes the did!\u00a0 Did they have borders?\u00a0 Yes! Did they each have capital cities?\u00a0 Yes!\u00a0 Okay, then why would I switch horses in mid-stream and make the stone cut without human hands something different?\u00a0 Do you follow me on that?\u00a0 The stone cut without human hands is just as literal; it\u2019s going to reign over an actual land, it\u2019s going to reign for a particular time, John in Revelation 20 calls it a thousand years, it\u2019s going to have actual borders, some of the borders are described in the Abrahamic Covenant, \u201cfrom the river of Egypt to the Euphrates,\u201d and it\u2019s going to have a capital city called the city of Jerusalem.\u00a0 So why would I interpret most of the statue here with one method of interpretation and then switch horses in midstream and interpret the stone cut without human hands with a totally different method of interpretation?\u00a0 That\u2019s a totally inconsistent approach to the Bible.\n\nAnd what we promote here is what\u2019s called not just a literal approach but a consistent literal approach, where I\u2019m not free as an interpreter to take parts of it literally and parts of it symbolically.\u00a0 Do you see that?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And that\u2019s really the difference between our way of thinking and what\u2019s called amillennialism or replacement theology; they just switch horses in midstream and take some prophecies one way and some prophecies a different way.\u00a0 The word \u201cliteral\u201d is great but you have to have the word \u201cconsistent.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 We strive not just for literal interpretation, of course taking into account figures of speech and things like that when you\u2019re self-evident but we strive for a consistent literal approach.\n\nSo did this stone cut without human hands, was it fulfilled in the first century?\u00a0 Did Christianity or the church suddenly fill the whole earth in the first century?\u00a0 Not the way it\u2019s described in Daniel 2.\u00a0 It took decades for the gospel to even reach Rome according to the book of Acts.\u00a0 Did Christianity destroy Rome in the first century?\u00a0 Christ did not destroy Rome, Rome continued on for several centuries after Christ left the earth.\u00a0 Were there ten simultaneous kings in the time of Christ that He overthrew?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Was Christ a smiting stone in His first coming?\u00a0 Now He was a cornerstone and a stumbling stone but He\u2019s never called a smiting stone till His Second Coming. \u00a0Did Christ destroy all the kingdoms of the world when He came the first time?\u00a0 Obviously not, Satan and his world system continued on right to the present day after Christ left the earth through the ascension.\n\nAnd beyond that the church is not a political kingdom.\u00a0 I mean, we\u2019re the church, the body of Christ spread out throughout the world\u2014do we have a capital city?\u00a0 No!\u00a0 Do we have borders? No!\u00a0 So the church is a work of God to be sure but it\u2019s of a different character than the way the kingdom is described.\n\nSo what I\u2019ve tried to labor today is to continue our discussion of the kingdom from the Mosaic Covenant through the divided kingdom and through the times of the Gentiles.\u00a0 And what all of this is teaching is do not expect the kingdom to materialize on planet earth until after the rapture, until after the antichrist kingdom, the feet of iron and clay runs its course, and then, only then, when Jesus returns at the end of that time period, then He\u2019ll set up His kingdom.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 So if you understand these prophecies you\u2019re not falling for the propaganda that we\u2019re in the kingdom now, we\u2019re bringing in the kingdom, we\u2019re doing kingdom work.\u00a0 No, because the Old Testament reveals not just how but when the kingdom comes.\u00a0 Are you with me?\u00a0 The kingdom cannot come until this whole statue, including the feet of iron and clay runs its course.\n\nNow next week I\u2019d like you to read chapter 6 of the book because what the prophets start to do as the kingdom is not in cancellation but what? postponement, they start to lay out a beautiful portrait of what the kingdom will be like.\u00a0 That\u2019s why Peter calls the prophets as like a lamp shining in a dark place; the world is dark right now because the kingdom is not here but the prophets function as a light or a lamp shining in a dark place, giving us a description of what the kingdom is going to be like once it materializes.\n\nSo I think you will enjoy chapter 6 and next week because we\u2019ll get into the specifics of what those prophets say as they give us a beautiful portrait of the coming kingdom.\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s complicated stuff, I hope I haven\u2019t lost everybody but I\u2019ll stop talking at this point and we\u2019ll let people go to pick up their kids and if\u00a0 you have any questions I\u2019ll try to answer those for a few minutes, those of you that want to stick around for Q and A.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t