Last time we ended up on Revelation 16 talking about Har-Megiddon. Remember that most people know it as Armageddon, the place where evil and good battle it out in the final conflict. That was the theme of C.S. Lewis’ book, The Final Conflict, the third of his “space trilogy” books. But all of this is based on a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding not only of what it says in Scripture, but of the geography of the place. It really is Har-Megiddon. It’s the mountain of Megiddo. ‘Har’ is the Hebrew word for mountain. John says in Hebrew it’s called Har-Megiddon, so it’s the mountain of Megiddo. The problem with that is that there is no mountain of Megiddo. It does not exist. So the problem for the literalists is that there is no place where this final conflict can take place. Chilton says: “The problem for the literalists arises here for Megiddo is a city on a plain, not a mountain. There never was a literal battle of Armageddon for there is no such place. The mountain nearest to the plain of Megiddo is Mt. Carmel, and this is presumable what St. John had in mind. Why didn’t he simply say Mt. Carmel? One commentator answers, ‘One can only suppose that St. John wants to refer to Megiddo and Carmel in one breath. Carmel because of its association with the defeat of Jezebel’s false prophets and Megiddo because it was the scene of several important military engagements in Biblical history.’” When you go back through the Old Testament, you find that Megiddo was a very important place, there were several battles there – Joshua defeated some kings there; Deborah defeated the kings of Canaan in Judges 5:19; King Ahaziah of Judah (2Kings 9:27), the evil grandson of King Ahab of Israel died at Megiddo. Chilton says: “Perhaps the most significant event that took place there was the battle between Josiah and Pharaoh Neco.” I mentioned briefly a couple of weeks ago that Pharaoh Neco is the first biblical person that we know of from extra-biblical material. Pharaoh Neco was an actual Pharaoh that we know of from extra-biblical accounts, and he defeated Josiah in battle at Megiddo and Josiah was mortally wounded, 2 Chronicles 35:20-25.

            The problem then is that there is no Armageddon. There is no place where the forces of evil are going to gather against the forces of good. We’ll talk a little more about that later on in Revelation because it mentions that final conflict and we’ll talk more about what actually happens there.

Q: In the context of all of this, what would be the meaning of it?

A: Remember that the context of Revelation as I see it, and Chilton and Sproul, is that Revelation is a letter of comfort to Jewish Christians who were very shortly going to undergo terrible persecution – they were already in the midst of persecution by the apostate church, by the Jews, because the Jews saw them as a threat to their political stability and a heretical sect of Judaism. And, they were undergo terrible persecution by the Romans. I was reading last night in Chilton and was reminded we tend to think of the Romans as the ones who really persecuted the Jewish Christians, but in fact it was Judaism who did the majority of the persecution. The terrible things that we read about, Nero’s garden parties, etc., happened. But the majority of the persecution was done by the Jews.

            Chilton says: “Megiddo thus was for St. John a symbol of defeat and desolation, a waterloo signifying the defeat of those who set themselves against God.” So again, the message of Christ through John was that even though you’re going to go through this terrible persecution, don’t worry, God’s in control and God is going to bring judgment not only upon the apostate church, not only upon the Jewish leadership, but also upon the beast – Rome. We’ll get more into that this morning.

Q: So they’re gathering together to the place Har-Megiddo, is this the enemies of God being brought together for His wrath?

A: Right. Notice in verse 13: And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs; Remember we talked about the dragon, the beast and the false prophet. Satan is the dragon, the beast is the political entity Rome, and the false prophet is the Jewish leadership – the apostate church. So you see they’re all acting in consonance here. (14) for they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them together for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty. (16) And they (the spirits of demons who are gathering the kings of the whole world) gathered them together to the place which in Hebrew is called Har-Megiddon. To this place of judgment, to this place of battle.

Q: Ok, so if you’re having a polite conversation with somebody who has read three or four of these books about Armageddon, but you don’t have three hours to read Revelation, what would you say is your best way to diffuse the situation? Is it that Armageddon is not a literal place?

A: Yes, I think I would ask them where is Armageddon? What you’ll probably get is a place mentioned in the Bible. Then you take them to Revelation 16 where it says the place which in Hebrew is called Har-Magedon, the mountain of Megiddo, and ask them where is that? They’re not going to know. Then you explain there is no mountain of Megiddo. It’s a plain. It was a plain where there were multiple battles where God poured out His judgment basically upon Israel. So what’s being talked about here; God’s final judgment against Israel.

C: There have been times when my wife and I have shared what we’ve learned through Chilton and so on and shared it with a Christian brother and have had hysterical reactions where they wanted to call our Pastor and tell him I shouldn’t be teaching Bible Studies and I should be excommunicated…

R: Because you’re teaching heresy as far as they are concerned!

C: We went back to friends and even the reaction in our church in the beginning was quite hysterical.

R: You’re going to get that no matter what, and you might as well face up to that. I’ve talked to a couple pastor friends of mine since my views have changed and they politely call me a heretic.

C: I get the same response when I teach literal Genesis. When I talk about scientific creation, and I’ve gone to other churches and had resistance from the pastors along those same lines. Not so much the heretic aspect but you silly fool, what’s your problem here? I think it’s the same reaction. They’re so steeped in that, that’s the tradition, that’s everything you read and see on television. From Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth, etc. that that’s what they’re expecting to see.

R: That’s the point. What I would encourage you, when you’re talking with Christian friends, is, and you hear me say this constantly up here, I’m not trying to change your minds. What I’m trying to do is get you to read the Scripture. If you start studying Scripture, start reading the Scripture, you will be changed. R.C. Sproul, and I told you this a few weeks ago, has changed from an amillennial position to a preterist, partial post-millennial position, because he studied Scripture. In fact, he just wrote a book called The Last Days According to Jesus, from a preterist position. Dr. Kennedy is moving in that direction also because when you actually start studying Scripture, you will find that all of this Armageddon stuff doesn’t hang together. I’m not trying to convince you here. What I want you to do is read Scripture. I may have told you before but when I taught this course down in Artesia at New Life Church, a PCA church, when I first started out there was an older lady who quit coming after the first two weeks. It turned out that her father was a Baptist minister who was pre-millennial dispensationalist. Well, think about the position that put her in. Here she is hearing me preach ‘this is what Scripture says,’ and she’s heard all her life from her father, ‘this is what Scripture says.’ So she’s placed in a position of either believing me and realizing that her father was all wet, or ignoring what I’m saying and depending upon her father. She kept coming to church so I had an opportunity to talk to her and I kept saying to her ‘I’m not trying to change your mind here. All I want you to do is start reading Scripture. Look for yourself.’ She finally started coming back and the last week she came up to me before the class and said ‘I want you to know I’m doing what you said, I’m reading my Bible.’ And I went, ‘Yes Lord!’ Because, she’s going to learn if she’s reading her Bible and studying her Bible.

C: What we tend to overlook is the Holy Spirit is helping us as we’re reading to understand the truth. So whatever the truth is in the Bible that you may have a cloudy picture of, the more we study it, the more we pray for understanding, God will give us an understanding of the truth. It sure seems to me that the preterist perspective is the truth as we read the Scripture…

R: Right. As we read the Scripture, not what people tell us it says, but what does it actually say?

C: (inaudible)

R: But the problem is that most of those people, and they are Christian – we’re not saying they’re not Christian – but they are accepting what they have been told. They’re not reading and studying the Scriptures. There are pastors who study the Scriptures but they study it in the light of what they have been taught.

C: But then we’re setting ourselves up as saying we’re the only ones who truly ask for the Holy Spirit’s help and truly search the Scripture to see what it really says.

R: No. I don’t think we’re doing that at all.

C: You’re saying that anyone who has a position different than you isn’t truly searching Scriptures, they’re just hearing what other people have said.

R: If that’s what you hear me saying then I’m not explaining it correctly. I think that we need to understand that Scripture is the authority. Now I use a lot of Chilton, but I don’t use some of Chilton because I don’t agree with everything Chilton says and I don’t think it fits with what Scripture says. So what I do when I’m studying is to read commentators, and I look at the Scripture and I say to myself, does it really say that? Is there anything else in Scripture that might contradict that? Be a Berean.

C: My point is that I don’t think you can deny that you have Christians who felt the Holy Spirit, sit down, read it and ask the Holy Spirit to lead them, don’t take a pre-formed idea from someone else and come up with interpretation that is contrary to yours.

C: Well they don’t come up with a dispensational view…

R: I don’t want to get off on that. I understand your point. What I am saying is that if someone came to the Scripture without coming with a grid of someone else’s teaching, I would say almost 100% they would not come up with a pre-millennial dispensational point of view. That would be impossible. Other issues, baptism, yes, there are questions there. We’re specifically talking about pre-millennial dispensationalists and their view of Revelation.

C: I honestly think, having been around Christians for so long and been in different circles for so long, that most people have read books and not the Scripture.

C: Jody might argue that this is subjective, it’s such a small sampling. But that’s to say that in my experience I’ve been confronted by people who have only read the Hal Lindsey books, not studied the Scripture. I think that if I want to play devil’s advocate for Jody here, it’s just as equal for dispensationalists to sit there and say, ‘these reformed people – they sit there and they listen to their preachers and they just buy into what they’re telling them. They don’t study the Scripture.’ That’s an easy argument. It cuts both ways.

C: That’s why we’re always insisting ‘read the Bible.’ Don’t believe the commentators, read the Bible and see what it tells you.

R: I want to go on here but I want to use just one more example. I had a man that was in the church in Bakersfield who left and I went to him. Good solid Christian. Studied the Bible – I mean he had commentaries and all this kind of stuff, very knowledgeable in the Scripture. I went to him and met with him and his wife and encouraged them to come back and they actually came back to the church for several months. They started coming to a Bible study at our home. We were going through (I believe it was) Romans and in the study Paul says ‘Not all are of Israel who are circumcised. It is only those who are children of the promise who are Israel.’ The question came up and I said very obviously what Paul is talking about here is the church and that we are Israel, and that’s very clear to me. There’s no question about that in Scripture. He was infuriated, because he was a student of a commentator whose name I forget now, who was a dispensationalist, and who believed that the national entity Israel was the Israel of the Bible. So he was offended and left the church and never came back.

            My point here is to say that very clearly in Scripture, we are Israel. Those who are circumcised of the heart by the Holy Spirit are Israel. We are Jews and it is not the national entity that is Israel. But he was influenced by this commentator that he admired, so that he read the Scripture through that grid.

C: One last comment – the only thing that really bugs me about all this and God know that I love Jody – but what happens in these kinds of cases – well you say that you pray and you ask the Holy Spirit for guidance and we say that we prayed, the end result to me is there is no objective truth. We can’t come to the conclusion that dispensational theology is aberrant, it’s at many points heretical.

C: Your whole theory is you’re absolutely right and everybody else wrong…

C: …That’s there’s no objective truth and we might as well throw the Bible away because we can’t declare something to be aberrant. We can’t say two distinct groups of people of God is an aberration. We can’t say that because well… these people pray and they have the Holy Spirit and they came to this conclusion and we can’t reject that thought.

R: God’s word is truth, and God’s word is what we stand on as reformed Christians. Sola Scriptura – only Scripture – nothing else. We can use other things and compare them to Scripture, but ultimately it is Scripture that is…

C: You’ve got someone like R.C. Sproul who if he’s acting like you, had a firm conviction that what he believes now is totally wrong, according to that he should have went around telling people, ‘you’re absolutely wrong. Scripture doesn’t teach that.’ And what’s he got to do now, he’s got to back peddle and say, ‘I was wrong.’ And look at all the people he’s offended along the way.

R: He is doing that.

C: That same thing could happen to you. You could have some belief right now…

R: It has! I did not believe this about Revelation initially. I taught Revelation using Hendrickson’s Seven Cycles of History the first time I taught Revelation, because that’s what I firmly believed that’s what Revelation was talking about. I was sincere, but I was sincerely wrong.

C: I think you’ve made your point. I think if you were to go into the Scripture completely without any bias, a lot of Christians come in with the dispensational view because that’s the predominant view in the evangelical church, but if you were to come into it without it, I don’t think you would come out of Scripture with a dispensational view.

R: No you would not and that was my comment.

C: You may not come out with a post millennial view, but I don’t think you can come out…

R: Because dispensationalism is contrary to Scripture, is my point.

16:17 And the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air; and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, “It is done.” Remember these are bowls of seven plagues of God’s wrath against unbelievers in Rome and in Israel. It is not, very clearly it is not the end of the world. Remember all of these relate back to the plagues of Egypt.

16:18 And there were flashes of lightning and sound and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake, (earthquake is mentioned as I pointed out seven times in Revelation) such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. (19) And the great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And Babylon the great was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath.

What is Revelation talking about here? Is it talking about some cataclysmic geological event at the end of history? No. If John is thinking in symbols, which he clearly tells us at the beginning of his letter, what might he be symbolizing by a great earthquake? A great shaking up of the present order. I think very clearly that’s what he’s talking about. It says . (19) And the great city was split into three parts, We’re going to talk more about the great city. I happen to think, and I recently changed my view on this, I used to think it was Rome. I did not read the Scripture clearly and I’ve just recently read it and very clearly the great city is Jerusalem. Not Rome. The great city is Jerusalem.

Q: What’s the cities of the nations in verse 19?

A: The rest of the world.

            Remember, we’re going to get more into this next week, you see the harlot sitting on the beast, who is the beast? We already established that is Rome. Who is the harlot? Israel – the false church. She is sitting on Rome and her authority through Rome goes out into all the world. In a theological sense because she has the power and backing of Rome. Remember there was this coalition between the Roman government and the Jewish leadership.

Q: So Israel is clearly the harlot because they, rather than be faithful in their marriage to God, turned an affection to the state Rome, so that makes them a harlot. So it can’t be anybody else.

A: Right. It can’t be anybody else. ‘We will have no king but Caesar.’ Exactly the point. Even though they knew who the proper king was, they turned away from their husband and climbed into bed with the Roman Caesar. That’s exactly what you see going on here.

C: It’s funny how God uses that kind of imagery.

R: Have you ever read Ezekiel in the Hebrew? Chilton points that out. Most preachers won’t preach on Ezekiel. It’s very, very graphic. Have you heard many sermons on the Song of Solomon? You know why? It’s extremely graphic. In Hebrew, they use words that we don’t use in polite company, and it’s talking about a husband and wife. So God’s word is not ashamed of things like that.

Q: If the woman is Israel, so I guess you’re saying … the beast and the seven hills and all these things are considered Rome.

A: That’s right. It is Rome. We’ll get to that next week. It’s the beast that sits upon the seven hills, not the woman, and that’s the point that I missed. Jumping ahead…17:8 The beast that you saw was and is about to go to destruction… and in verse 7, it is the beast that carries her which has seven head and the ten horns. V9 “Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads (on the beast) are seven mountains on which the woman sits.” So the seven mountains are associated with the beast, not the woman. That’s the point that I missed until very recently.

C: I find it interesting that this calls for a mind with wisdom.

R: Absolutely!

C: That’s an understatement!

R: Know your Bible.

            As a matter of fact, going back to 16:19, where it says And the great city was split into three parts, that figure of speech comes from Ezekiel 5 verses 1-12. Chilton has them in his book and says: Ezekiel was to shave his head with a sharp sword and then carefully divide the hair into three parts. Then he quotes: ‘one third you shall burn in the fire at the center of the city. Then you shall take one third and strike it with the sword all around the city and one third you shall scatter to the wind and I will unsheath the sword behind them. Take also a few in number and bind them in your robes.’” He goes on and he gives Ezekiel instructions on how to divide his hair into three parts. Part of it he is to burn, part of it he is to throw to the winds, and part of it he puts in the hem of his garment. “Therefore, thus says the Lord God because you have more turmoil than the nations that surround you and have not walked in my statutes nor absorbed my ordinances, nor observed the ordinances of the nations that surround you, therefore, thus says the Lord God behold, I, even I, am against you.” Who is he talking to? Jerusalem! “And I will execute judgments against you in the sight of the nations. And because of all your abominations I will do among you what I have not done and the like of which I will never do again. Therefore, fathers will eat their sons among you and the sons will eat their fathers. For I will execute judgments on you and scatter all your remnant to every wind.”

            Did that actually happen? Yes, it actually did! We have extra-Biblical evidence that they actually did that in the siege of Jerusalem. So here Ezekiel is talking about the city being divided into three parts for God’s judgment. That was the symbolism of the hair. John brings that up in Revelation. But there may be even more to this. Chilton says: “While St. John’s image of the cities division into three parts is clearly taken from Ezekiel, the specific referent may be that conjectured by Carrington.” (Another commentator). He quotes Carrington: “This refers to the division into three factions which became acute after the return of Titus. While Titus was besieging it from without, the three leaders of rival factions were fighting fiercely from within. But for this, the city might have staved off defeat for a long time, even perhaps indefinitely for no great army could support itself for long in those days in the neighborhood of Jerusalem.” There wasn’t much water. In Jerusalem they had dug a well, and they had dug a tunnel which still exists today – you can walk through the tunnel and see the spring which runs in underneath the walls of Jerusalem. They had a constant supply of water so they could have withstood the siege of the Roman army for years. They did withstand it for two years. The only reason the time was cut short is because those three factions were fighting among themselves within the city while the Roman army was outside.

Q: Does this all correspond with God sitting and alluding influence over them?

A: Yes. I think clearly it does. God had prophesied that judgment clear back in Ezekiel. God had prophesied that judgment through Christ in Matthew 24. He prophesied it in Daniel 9. He prophesied it again in Revelation and it came true in great, great detail.

Q: How does he know there was in-fighting in Jerusalem?

A: Because Josephus documents it. Josephus was allowed to go into the city and actually saw what was going on. He talked to these people and described things that were going on. We have other documents that talk about these three factions.

17:20 And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. (V21) And huge hailstones, (we talked a little bit about this before) about one hundred pounds (or a talent) each, came down from heaven upon men; and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, because its plague was extremely severe. I want to read some more from Chilton on this: “As with the other plagues, the imagery is borrowed from the plagues that Moses brought upon Egypt. In this case the seventh plague, Exodus 9:18-26. The plague of hailstones also caused up association with the large stones from heaven that God threw down upon the Canaanites when the land was being conquered under Joshua, Joshua 10-11. A specific historical referent of this hailstorm may have been recorded by Josephus in his strange account of the huge stone missiles thrown by the Roman catapults into the city. The stone missiles weighed a talent [exactly like Revelation says] and traveled two furlongs or more and their impact not only on those who were hit first but also on those behind them was enormous. [If you got hit with a hundred pound stone…The effect would be disastrous!] At first the Jews kept watch for the stone for it was white and it’s approach was intimated to the eye by its shining surface as well as to the ear by its whizzing sound. Watchmen posted on the towers gave the warnings whenever the engine was fired and the stone came hurtling toward them shouting in their native tongue, ‘the Son is coming!’ [Why are they saying that? Listen.] Those in the line of fire made way and fell prone, a precaution that resulted in the stone’s passing harmlessly through and falling in the rear. To frustrate this, it occurred to the Romans to blacken the stones so that they could not be seen so easily beforehand. Then they hit their target and destroyed many with a single shot.” J. Stuart Russell, another preterist, writes: “It could not but be well known to the Jews that the great hope and faith of the Christians was the speedy coming of the Son.”

            Now think back to Matthew 24. Matthew 24 and Luke and Mark, when you take them all together say in essence, ‘when you see the abomination of desolation standing before the temple, flee.’ Why? ‘The Son is coming.’ The Son of man is coming on the clouds in judgment. The Christians when they saw the Roman army coming into Palestine under Titus, they fled to the hills, because they knew judgment was coming. The Jews went into Jerusalem.

            “It was about this very time according to Hegesippus, that St. James, the brother of our Lord, publicly testified in the temple that the son of man was about to come in the clouds of heaven, and then sealed his testimony with his blood. It seems highly probable that the Jews in their defiant and desperate blasphemy, when they saw the white mass hurtling through the air, raised the ribald cry ‘the son is coming’ in mockery of the Christian hope of the Parousia, to which they might trace a ludicrous resemblance in the strange appearance of the missile.”

            In other words, the Jews were blasphemously saying, ‘here comes the Son!’ They were mocking the Christian hope that in the siege of Jerusalem and the Roman army surrounding Jerusalem, Christ was coming.

Q: How do they know they said that?

A: Because it was recorded by Josephus and others.

Q: I had something pop into my mind. To counteract dispensationalism, we could say that once Jesus Christ came, God stopped dealing with Israel and Gentiles differently. They’re all wanderers one way of Salvation. This was clearly 30-40 years after Christ has come, God is dealing with Israel Jewish people in a unique way.

A: He’s dealing with biblical Israel in a unique way – that’s right – He says He will scatter them among all the nations and He will raise a sword against them. Now, are you talking about the nation of Israel? That is not Israel according to the Bible. That is Zionism…

Q: But didn’t you make a comment in the past that it is because of the fact that they were the Israelites, they should have known that it was Jesus and they didn’t, that they were getting this punishment?

A: Yes, absolutely.

Q: But everybody else should have known too. All gentiles should have…

A: Yes, absolutely.

Q: God has dealt with the blind Jews and punished them severely?

A: Yes. God is going to deal with disobedience the same way. Scripture is very clear on that. But because Israel was in a covenant relationship with God, because Israel had the benefit of God among them, God dwelling with them in the Holy Spirit, in the Shekinah glory cloud, because of God overwhelming their enemies in battle, because of all of these incredible things, they were in a special relationship and because then they refused to believe, they were singled out specifically. Why do you think that every time we have communion I tell people ‘if you’re in a covenant relationship with God, particularly for children, if you’re talking communion, you’re in a particular, special relationship with God. You now have a responsibility to turn to God and obey God and if you don’t, this is not a blessing, it’s a curse.’ Same thing in Israel. Because they were in a special relationship with God, there was a blessing as long as they believed God and obeyed Him. If they disobeyed, their relationship became a curse.

C: The fact that He is specifically punishing apostate Israel for their crimes, doesn’t change the truth of what Paul says here in Ephesians, ‘Therefore remember that you once Gentiles in the flesh who were called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands that at that time you were without Christ. Jews were with Christ, believing Jews…were being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenantal promise.’ That was the state of unbelievers. They didn’t know of the covenantal promise. But now, you’ve been brought near by the blood of Christ for He himself is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, having abolished in His flesh the enmity that is the law …So as to create in Himself one new man from the two and therefore making peace that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, both Jew and Gentile reconciled in one body, Christ. For through Him we all, Jew and Gentile alike have access by one spirit to the body.’ (Ephesians 2:12-16) That refutes dispensationalism.

Q: Like he said, why is God so uniquely dealing with Israel, doesn’t it have something to do with showing how the old covenant is being done away with? The finality in the new… Is it Matthew where it says He gathers His elect from the four corners of the earth? The beginning of the church. He has to get rid of the sacrificial system and everything to show the finality of the old covenant and new covenant.

A: Right. There are several things going on. God is dealing specifically with the Jews in a specific way because they were in a specific relationship with Christ with God and they refused to believe and turned away, so God is pouring out His wrath upon them. And, He had prophesied throughout the Old Testament that the church was for all people and through Christ He was showing that, and the Jews instead of accepting that and embracing that, were persecuting the Christians whom God was bringing in to the church. So you’re right, the old covenant was being superceded by the new covenant which is better. He was showing that dichotomy between the old way of doing things, the old administration is what we would say theologically, and the new administration of the covenant.

C: I hadn’t noticed before, but in the plagues in Genesis, it got the Egyptians attention in a positive way when they had these plagues. They realized…

R: Initially…

C: But here, every time the Jews react by cursing God. There is no softness to their hearts.

R: Right. And that’s what you see in Exodus also, is that initially some of the Egyptians believed. But then their hearts were hardened. God says ‘why did I do this? To show My great glory. To raise My name before all the people.’ Why is God doing this in Revelation? To show His great glory. To raise His name before all the people. That’s what we need to hand on to, that all of these things need to put God first. We as Christians need to hear this message too. You get tired of me I’m sure, talking about this. God says ‘I will do this, if you obey Me.’ Granted, God reaches out to us first. God changes our heart. God gives us faith. God pours out His grace in our lives and what does He expect in return? Obedience. If we do not obey, what can we expect? Punishment. Curse. That’s the message of the Bible.