Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas
Bro. Ken — Wednesday evening service, October 14, 2026 1 Corinthians 10 · Ephesians 1 · Romans 11 · Revelation 1 · Zechariah 12
► Watch this lesson on video (31:41)
Bro. Ken brought the lesson this Wednesday evening. What follows is his lesson written up from the recording — his order, his words, and the places where he offered a thing as his own reading are marked as his.
What the Lesson Was About
Bro. Ken opened in First Corinthians 10 and spent the evening moving through the Bible the way he usually does — a verse in one place sends him to a verse in another. The thread that ties it together is the revealing of Jesus Christ: the Old Testament looking forward to Him, Paul saying the ends of the world had already come, and the day Israel finally looks on the One they pierced. He told the church up front that if time ran short he would skip some of it and go to the last part, because that was what he most wanted them to see before he quit.
How Long We Have Been Waiting
Before he read, he gave his own reckoning of the calendar. He believes the church has a good chance of going “the cloud route” — being caught up rather than dying — if we live a few more years. His count: about four thousand years from Adam to Christ, Christ crucified around AD 30, and roughly another two thousand years since, which puts us at about six thousand. He said plainly he is not a numerology man. He told of a cousin in Little Rock who had a friend who went crazy with numbers, counting this many squares in this verse and that many in the next. But he said there are numerals in the Bible a person can count on: six hundred sixty-six is the number of a man, and seven is the number of God, and the millennial reign is a thousand years. By his count we are knocking on six thousand years, and he put it that we are on borrowed time.
The Fathers Under the Cloud
“Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:1-4).
Ken pointed out who is speaking and who is being spoken to. Paul is talking about his own fathers, the Jews, but he is writing to the brethren at Corinth — a New Testament church made up mostly of Gentiles. And the Rock that followed them, he said, was Jesus Christ “all the way through the Old Testament, all the way back to Genesis chapter 3 verse 15.” He read it as the first promise of the Son: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). When God said “Let us make man in our image,” Ken said, it was an image that Jesus Christ was going to have to take on. Before the world was ever spoken into existence, God had said, My Son is coming.
He tied that to the word Revelation. It is the apocalypse — the revealing, the unveiling, of the Son of Man. All through the Old Testament and up into Matthew, Mark, Luke and John the Son of Man was talked about but not revealed. When Jesus took bodily form and came to the earth, He began the unveiling.
Egypt, the Sea, and What Came After
Ken read the passage as a picture of salvation. Egypt, in the Old Testament, symbolizes sin, and God brought them out of sin — the picture of our being saved. Then, immediately, they were baptized: the cloud above and the water on each side. After that they could go in and work for the Lord. He put the same order on the church: a born-again child of God, with the Spirit inside, baptized into a local New Testament church, can serve the Lord for the first time in his existence.
Someone might say you can serve the Lord in any church, since we must worship in spirit and truth. Ken’s answer was, “Don’t take the chance.” Be in a church that teaches the truth. And do not lean on a pastor’s say-so. He used himself and Bro. Chuck for the example: he cannot stand before the Lord and say, “Chuck told me this,” because the Lord will say, I do not care what Chuck told you — I gave you the Holy Spirit; what did you do with it? And if the answer is, “Lord, I just didn’t believe,” then, Ken said, that is your problem.
Examples, Not Leftovers
“Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted” (1 Corinthians 10:6). Ken’s point was that anyone who wants to throw away the Old Testament has nowhere left to find the examples the New Testament sends us back to. Look at what they did wrong; look at what they did right; do what they did right and do not do what they did wrong.
He skipped through the middle of the chapter and stopped at verse nine: “Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents” (1 Corinthians 10:9). That is the story of the fiery serpents and the brazen serpent on the pole — look at it and be healed. Ken said the people carried that brass serpent along for hundreds of years, he thinks all the way down to Hezekiah, before anyone got rid of it. Scripture says Hezekiah “brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it” (2 Kings 18:4). His lesson: a thing God used once can become a thing we worship. Do not do that.
“The Ends of the World Are Come”
“Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). Ken made much of the word are. Paul wrote that to the Corinthians as a present fact. How long ago was that? Two thousand years. In the time Jesus Christ walked the earth, it was already called the last days.
He believes that when the man Jesus Christ began to unveil Himself — when John said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) — the end of time started. All through the Old Testament they had been looking and asking what is going to happen, and Paul said he knew more perfectly the mystery of God, that all things were gathered together in Jesus Christ.
Ken added a qualification. The end does not come all at once. Certain things end here and certain things end there: the time of the Gentiles ends, the Jews begin again, then the millennial reign, and then the world ends. But he said it all began in Paul’s day, when Jesus Christ became flesh and walked among us.
Chosen Before the Foundation
He turned to Ephesians 1. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will” (Ephesians 1:3-5).
Ken gave his own reading, and he was emphatic about it. Before the world was ever spoken into existence, God chose the method of salvation — and the method is trusting Jesus Christ, who gave His life on the cross. It was not God choosing that one man goes to heaven and another goes to hell. We are predestined to the adoption in Jesus Christ, and that is the predestination. It is not God’s will that anybody should perish; it is God’s will that all be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. He said, with some heat, that the idea that God picked who goes to hell is contrary to God’s Word.
He said a man must hold to the whole Christ: if you do not serve a resurrected Christ, forget it; if you do not serve a Christ who died in the flesh, forget it; if you do not serve the Son of God, you are dead wrong. He also said the right hand of the Father is not a seat beside God — it is the power side, and the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.
The Mystery of His Will
“Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him” (Ephesians 1:8-10).
Ken said the Old Testament saints did not know the mystery — they did not know Jesus Christ was going to come and die on the cross. They looked for a king and a deliverer who would set up the kingdom. Even the apostles asked at the end whether He would set up the kingdom now. When He said He was going to Jerusalem to be crucified, Peter said no, no, no — and was told to get behind Him because he savored not the things of God. The mystery given to Paul and the church is that Jesus Christ is the culmination of all things in heaven and in earth; everything is going to be drawn into Him. And that gathering began when He died on the cross.
He put the nearness of it this way: a thousand years since “the last days” began, and “that’s pretty last days.” He repeated what he had said the other night — the church is living in the toenails of Daniel’s statue. The stone cut out of the mountain without hands (Daniel 2:34) is going to fall on those toes, the “666 government” will collapse, and the seven government — the millennial reign — will be set up. Ken said he is not trying to scare anyone, but this is about over. He allowed that it may be hard to believe a person could see it in a lifetime, but there is a possibility, and some of the younger folks may well see it. He believes most of those sitting there will see the coming of Jesus Christ, in a cloud, and hear Him say, “Come up.”
Israel and the Veil
He then went to Romans 11, which he said to read sometime along with Hebrews 9:23-28 and 10:1-10 — he skipped Hebrews that night and said they would come back to it.
“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins” (Romans 11:25-27).
His question: when does God turn back to full-fledged dealing with the nation of Israel? When the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. He said he does not know where some people get the idea that the church is going to bring in the kingdom. In his words, the church is not going to bring the kingdom in; the church is going to be gone. What brings in the kingdom is Jesus Christ, who will come back, set His feet on the earth, and start the millennial kingdom, dealing through the Jews. The Gentile history will be done, and “we’ll be gone.” He said he does not know what the Gentiles will have in the millennial reign, but he knows they will send people up to Jerusalem to worship at the Feast of Tabernacles, and he supposes they will send delegates from Israel to teach the people out in the world.
He said there is a veil over every Jew’s heart when Moses is read — he said the verses he had in mind were probably not the ones he turned to. They can understand the law and history and the nation of Israel; what they cannot understand is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only when a Jewish heart turns to Jesus that the veil is lifted. He added that people look at the nation of Israel in place today and say it will never be uprooted. Ken said it will be: the Antichrist will overrun Israel and tread Jerusalem for forty-two months, and they will be in the wilderness until the Lord deals with the Antichrist and brings them back and starts the kingdom.
He also read on to the end of the thought: “As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes” (Romans 11:28). And when the Messiah takes away their sins, he said, the nation will no longer be “Lo-ammi” (not my people) — they will be His people. He did not turn to the verse in Hosea; it is described here, not quoted.
Every Eye Shall See Him
In Revelation 1, Ken read the seventh verse: “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen” (Revelation 1:7).
He said Christ comes in the clouds two different times. The first time He comes for us, in a cloud, and not every eye sees it. The world will ask what happened to Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — nobody’s down there anymore. They will be gone. He did not name the passage, but his words — that we “shall not prevent or go before them that are in the grave” — are the language of First Thessalonians 4:15: “we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.” The dead in Christ are brought with Him, the soul is joined to the old body again, and those who are alive and go “the cloud route” are changed. As Ken put it, this old body is not going to heaven — what goes is what is inside it, the soul — and he believes the creation will be glorified and put back as it was before Adam fell.
The second time, every eye will see Him. The lost will wail when He comes back. They will not see Him come down out of heaven as a man, he thinks, but a great, huge light going over to Jerusalem, and that will be Jesus Christ. And when someone on television says the “they also which pierced him” in Revelation 1:7 means the church, Ken said no — it is the nation of Israel.
They Shall Look on Him Whom They Pierced
He went to John 19:37: “And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.” That is about the Jews, he said, not the New Testament church, and John is quoting the Old Testament — so he went to Zechariah 12. He said, with a laugh, that the more a person looks at this Book, the more he realizes how dumb he is, and how smart the Lord is.
“The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him” (Zechariah 12:1).
Ken stopped on that last clause. God is the Creator. He thinks Satan was cast out of heaven because he wanted to be like God and tried to be a creator, but he cannot be. He is a manipulator, a deceiver, a perverter; he could never put a soul into anything because he cannot create life. God breathed into Adam’s nostrils and he became a living soul: “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). Nobody can do that but God.
Then he walked through the chapter. Jerusalem becomes a cup of trembling and a burdensome stone to all the nations that gather against it at the end — the same stone cut out without hands that falls on the toes of the statue. He read that God will make the governors of Judah like a hearth of fire among the wood and a torch of fire in a sheaf, and Jerusalem will be inhabited again in her own place. He said Scripture indicates they will be walking on the bones of the ones who came against them. And he told of a friend who was over in Desert Storm, where Iraqi soldiers came out of the hole and bent down to kiss his boots. Ken thinks the nations will have the same attitude toward the Jews when they come out of the Negev: God will have destroyed their enemies, and they will have to say, “Look what the God of Israel has done to us.”
From there to the key verse: “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10). That, he said, is when they will be saved — Revelation and John are quoting this and it is the Jews, not the church. And the mourning is as large as Zechariah says: “In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon” (Zechariah 12:11).
The Close
Ken said that after Jesus Christ has come back on a white horse and fought against an unbelieving world, and he believes — “I make a case for it” — that Christ Himself administers the vials, telling the angels where to pour them. The lost will say, “Hide us from him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb” (Revelation 6:16), and all the way through those passages, Ken said, the answer is that He has every right. He will destroy the great part of those who come against Jerusalem and then set up the millennial kingdom with the Jews, who will look upon the One they pierced. And then: “God won’t deal with us Gentiles. He’ll be dealing with the Jews.”
The recording ends there, at about 31:24. Whatever closing prayer or invitation followed is not on it.
Scripture Used
1 Corinthians 10:1-4, 6, 9, 11 · Genesis 3:15 · Genesis 2:7 · 2 Kings 18:4 · John 1:29 · Ephesians 1:3-5, 8-10 · Daniel 2:34 · Romans 11:25-28 · Revelation 1:7 · Revelation 6:16 · 1 Thessalonians 4:15 · John 19:37 · Zechariah 12:1, 10-11 — all KJV. Referred to but not read aloud: Numbers 21 (the fiery serpents), Hosea 1:9-10 (Lo-ammi), Zechariah 14 (Feast of Tabernacles), Hebrews 9:23-28 and 10:1-10 (named as a reading assignment).
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