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I suffer from deafness in my left ear. You probably heard me say that a few times in sermons. So when I sleep at
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night, I sleep on my right side. As when my wife talks to me at night, all I hear is wow, wow, wow. And then in the
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morning, she can legitimately say, but I told you. And I can legitimately say, but I didn’t hear you. And we’re both
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right. Uh which is a rarity in marriage. So it it’s a blessing uh to be coming and sharing with you here uh this
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evening. And um you know this this morning like I just sense that Satan was trying to stop myself, my colleague Dr.
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Serggo from getting here tonight. Um I I got out of the house this this morning. Was up at 3:00 our time. That’s like
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midnight your time. And uh I got out the house and uh got in the car and I
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pressed the garage button for the for the door to open and that the steel um the steel cables that hold it, the
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tension both snapped across my car. And so I was trapped inside my garage and
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thinking how am I going to get to see Dr. Sergio to pick him up to come to the airport in the South Bend. When we finally fixed uh getting out of the
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door, which took a while to do, eventually we discovered there was thick snow falling all around us. And so I
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thought, Lord, maybe Satan doesn’t want us to come here to Sandpoint tonight. Uh but by the grace of God, we’re here
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tonight. We’re in one piece and we’re looking forward to sharing these Sabbath blessings together with everybody. And
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so uh tomorrow I’m gonna be preaching on the the sermon is going to call be called the good shepherd. And uh uh you
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always come to an event like this prepared with like five or six sermons and you kind of say Lord which one which
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one I going to do here. And so the one tonight I I’ve called the cosmic constant. And uh tomorrow afternoon
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we’ll be looking at another um another sermon really relating to the second coming of Christ um and his role as our
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good shepherd. So um as we begin invite you to bow your heads with me and we will ask the presence of the Holy
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Spirit. Our dear heavenly father, we thank you for the blessings of the Sabbath day.
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Father, we thank you that we have the freedom to gather and worship you as the Sabbath hours fall upon us. Lord, we
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thank you for the week that’s just passed, but we’re even more grateful, Father, for this this holy time we’ve
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entered. Now we ask Lord that as we reflect on these teachings of Jesus today and tomorrow. I pray Lord that we
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will hear his voice that we’ll that the voice of your Holy Spirit will whisper into our ears. This is the way walk ye
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in it. Uh father we give these moments into your hands in the name of Jesus we humbly ask. Amen. Amen.
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All right. So um let me ask you a question. Is prepping big business in Idaho?
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Yes. Yes it is. Um, when you drive from Spokane airport up to here, you see, you
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know, these outfitters on the side of the road. You see various stores. They’re selling all manner of things.
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And um, the disciples actually were preppers in their own way. We’re going to come to them in a few minutes. But
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um, prepping is more than having your basement filled with beans, bullets, and band-aids. Uh, it is more than just
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having those three things in your basement. Um, have you noticed that the super wealthy in our world today are
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busy building bunkers in remote parts of the world? Uh, you know, the south island of of New Zealand, uh, they call
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them the southern Alps because there are two tectonic plates meet. That’s the southwestern part of the ring of fire.
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Um, there are there’s these massive Alps in South New Zealand. And every time you see a major um industrial giant visiting
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the south side of um New Zealand, the chances are they’re going to build a bunker down there. And the the superw
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wealthy are building these underground, not just bunkers, but mansions underground with with water and food and
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filtration systems for years. You know, I mean, uh they must be afraid of their mothers-in-law, I guess. But they’re
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building these bunkers um in in the south side of New Zealand. There are people in West Texas building huge
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bunkers um out in the the the mountains and deserts of West Texas. And as I travel around the country and other
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parts of the world, I see this wherever I go. And so it seems that um if you
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look on Facebook or social media these days, there are constant adverts for prepping items. Have you noticed that as
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well? You know, you can buy um military MREs, which apparently are kind of prepackaged meals. Um you can buy 30-day
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food kits. You can even buy a one-year food kit from certain food suppliers and
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it comes basically tin vegetables. Um it comes a big um pallet of tin vegetables
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for a whole year. I’m not sure you’d survive a whole year eating tin vegetables, but it’s a year supply of
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tin vegetables. Uh these days if you look on social media people are advertising trauma kits, water
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filtration systems, bugin bags, bugout bags, get home bags, walkie-talkies,
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bulletproof jest vests, guns and ammo. All of this is being marketed as necessary for what’s coming upon the
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world. Are you seeing this on your own social media feeds? Somebody please say yes somewhere. Yes. And I’m not the only
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one that’s seeing this kind of thing. Um, I I I never see I never see adverts for um habedasherie or um crocheting
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supplies. Uh maybe the internet knows my interests. I don’t know. But I’ve noticed that a lot of these ads keep
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appearing in my social media. Well, um in Matthew chapter 24, and if you have your Bibles with you, invite you to turn
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there. We’re going to be looking today through Matthew 24, uh the first half of that chapter. In Matthew chapter 24, uh
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Jesus gives a a prophecy to the disciples that really kind of catches their attention and takes their breath
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away. Uh in Matthew chapter 24 and um verse one, let me just see. Okay, there
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there’s there’s our journey today up on the screen. By the way, it’s not very it’s not imaginatively entitled at all,
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but we’re going to be looking working our way through Matthew 24 this evening up until verse 31. Um so um in Matthew
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chap 24 1 it says there as Jesus came out of the temple and was going away his
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disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. Then he asked them you see all of these do you not?
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Truly I tell you not one stone will be left here upon another. All will be thrown down. Now, has anybody here had
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the privilege of going to um the Holy Land and standing by the the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem?
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Okay. Yes. The one person, one hand’s gone up there. I I when I finished high school when I was 18, it was summer 1990
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and I I didn’t want to go to university just yet. I wanted to see some part of the world. And so, I decided to go to
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Israel to work on a kabutz for a year. And Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in early August of that year. And I flew
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out a week after that and my parents said, “Well, are you sure you should be flying to the Middle East? There’s going to be a war out there.” And I was 18.
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And when you’re 18, you really don’t have a sense of risk or anything like that. So I said, “No, there’ll be no problem.” This was in the era before the
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internet, before cell phones, before um email. And I used to send my parents a
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letter home once a month saying, “Hi, mom and dad. Um I’m now carrying a gas mask and an EpiPen in case of chemical
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attacks. And I have to give blood every six weeks to for the National Blood Bank. And we’re spending nights in
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bunkers because Hezbollah is shelling us every night. And uh I look back now I wonder what was my mother thinking when
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she was receiving letters like this. Um so but anyway um I was out there and I
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went to see the the wailing wall in Jerusalem. And the wailing wall is the western retaining wall of what was the
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the platform on which the temple of Sol Herod was built. and the wall the buildings sorry the stones on the
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western wall um some of them are about the size of this wall here that they are enormous some of those some of those
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stones are the size of a semi-truck they’re not small bricks they’re not cement blocks these are enormous
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enormous blocks of stone and they’ve all been carefully laid and it took about 40
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years to put the whole edifice together and so when Jesus says to the disciples you know not one stone of these is going
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to be left on another uh to For the disciples, this was an incredible thought because in their mind, the
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temple was where God met with humanity on planet earth. The temple was the meeting space between God and humanity
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and Jesus was transitioning us. So now we meet God, our heavenly father through Jesus Christ as a person. But um before
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then people thought that the temple was the meeting place between God and man. So Jesus says that not one stone of this
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temple is going to be left on top of another. And that’s true. It was all taken out by the Romans in AD70. And so
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the disciples were stunned about this. And so um on the screen, I think we’ll have the verse here. It says there
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Matthew 24:3. There it is. It says, “When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the
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disciples came to him privately saying, tell us when will this be?” That is the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem.
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And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?
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And so the disciples, they assume that the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the the world as we know it and the
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second coming of Christ are one and the same thing. They conflate all three ideas in their question. They think if
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the temple’s going to be destroyed, that must be the end of the world as we know it, and that’s when Jesus is going to
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come back and establish his kingdom. And so they’re worried about the end. Um uh the escaton there in Greek, that’s the
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word there. uh what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? And so Jesus responds, we’re going to
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look through his answers now in Matthew 24:4 onwards. Jesus responds by giving
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us the flow of history from um the Mount of Olives down to the fall of Jerusalem in AD70 through the years of Christian
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persecution all the way to the second coming of Christ. And so Jesus does give them a long answer. Um, but the last
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thing he says to the disciples before he goes back to heaven, he he he repeats
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back to them the phrase that they have asked him. They want to know about of the end of the age. And Jesus’ last
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words to them are these. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the
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age. And so they’re worried about all the events, the the wars, the destructions, the chaos, the pestilences
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that going to happen before the end of the world before Jesus comes again. And Jesus, his final words to them are this.
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He says, “No matter what else happens in this world, I’m going to be with you to the end of the age.”
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That as long as you keep your eye focused on that, you’re going to get through.
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And many years ago, I used to fly on Azaler Airlines. The theme tune for Azal
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was Nearer My God to Thee. Um because it was a faith-building exercise to fly on that airline. Um, I was with ADRA at the
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time back in the early 90s and no other aid agency allowed their staff to fly on Azal. You you were guaranteed to come
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down one way or another. You just weren’t quite sure how you’d come down. And we had many um faith-building
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exercises on those Azal flights. Um we we had to fly to this autonomous region
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called Nichavan which was between Turkey, Iran, and Armenia. And that was all hostile airspace. So you’d come in
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on a triple F1 154 which is like a 737 same size of plane and uh you fly in at
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30,000 ft and because it’s hostile airspace a mere few miles away you have
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to do a tight a tight spiraling corkcrew descent in this big jet then level out just before landing. And so um you
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basically like rocked over at a steep angle and down you went in this big jet and we were coming in once to land like
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this and the landing gear wouldn’t come down. And so um I was learning Russian at the
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time and um I learned very quickly that the Russian driver pilots are often use the words piani. It means drunk. And and
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I heard these exclamations in Russian. I said, “What what are they saying in there in the cockpit?” So you really
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don’t want to know. Um but the engineer came out and uh and he went he kind of
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clamored to the back of the plane and disappeared down a hole in the corridor. and we heard him winching the wheels down and we’re going doing this tight
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spiral and he’s winching the wheels down. I hope he gets those wheels down on time. Another time we were we
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depressurized the cabin and we all kind of fainted in the in the plane and we came to about 5,000 ft above the ground.
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wasn’t a good experience. And one of my colleagues was sitting in the plane once and um the the uh there were two pilots
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and um one of them went out to the restroom and the other pilot came out to get a hot drink of chai or tea and the
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cabin door locked behind him. Now the these were the times on those
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tops. There was nothing electronic. In fact, there was barely anything electrical. Everything was mechanical.
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And when we say this horsepower engine, they probably had horses out there as well. But they um the plane went very
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silent because the pilot took out a fire axe and was battering down the door. We were on a descent into Baku and we were
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just a fixed descent on a fixed flight plan and we were just gliding into the city and we were all sitting in the
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plane thinking, “Oh Lord, help him to get through that door cuz otherwise we’re in trouble.” So the point is we
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were nearer my god to thee on those flights. And my little son would carry my son with me and he was just newborn
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and he would be in his car seats. I get on the plane with my wife and I would certain I was praying hard so was my
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wife but my little boy always was in a peaceful sleep. Now why was that?
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Because he was with his dad. And he instinctively knew that if he was with his dad he was going to get
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through. Things were going to be okay. And so the disciples are like preppers. They want to know what’s going to
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happen. What are the signs of the end of the age? What’s going to happen before Jesus comes again? What’s going to cause
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the temple to be destroyed? What’s going to cause the collapse of the Jewish national economy and the end of time as
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we know it? And Jesus responds to them in summary by saying, “I’m going to be with you.
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And if your eyes are focused on me, you don’t really need to worry about much else. You can have peace in the storm
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when you keep your eyes fixed on Jesus Christ. I will be with you always. You’re worried about the end of the age.
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I’m going to be with you to the end of the age. That’s the most important thing we need to know. And so Jesus then goes
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on to describe in detail because the disciples did ask. He goes on to describe um what’s going to be happening
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before the end of the age. So the first passage we look at is Matthew 24 4-8.
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And you see in red there, I put the word the end there. Uh this is this this word appears again in this teaching of Jesus.
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It says there Jesus answered them, “Beware that no one leads you astray, for many will come in my name, saying, I
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am the Messiah, and they will lead many astray, and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not
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alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise
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against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there’ll be famines and earthquakes in various places. All this
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is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” And so what is Jesus speaking about here? Now we often say today in
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2026 we say yes Jesus spoke about nation rising against nation and kingdom
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against kingdom. Now that the rabbis in the end of the first century they looked back at the first century which was a
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century uh the time of Christ it was filled with earthquakes. It was filled with pestilences. It was filled with
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famine. remember Aquilla and Priscilla um had to leave had to leave Rome
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because of the persecution from the Roman emperors. Um there was um famine in the Middle East at that time. And so
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the the Jewish rabbis they referred to this period they call it in Hebrew the Mashiach which means the birth painans
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of the coming of the Messiah. The Jewish rabbis believe that that first century was so bad that all these bad things
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that were happening in the world surely announced the coming of the Messiah. And
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so um th those wars and rumors of wars and kingdom rising against kingdom and
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so forth. These all points to the the the uh destruction of Jerusalem in AD.70
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when the Romans uh destroyed Jerusalem once and for all and destroyed the destroyed the temple. But we also apply
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this today um to the natural catastrophes and wars that will take place all the way through to the coming
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of the Messiah. So in a sense the Jewish rabbis were correct. These things are the birth pangs of the Messiah. They
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just thought it was in the first and 2 century AD though. Then you come to Matthew 24:9-14.
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And Jesus in this passage here, he speaks about the persecution faced by
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the apostolic church. And you can apply this passage to what happened in the first century AD under the Romans. And
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you can also apply it to what is happening in our world today. And so Jesus starts out in verse 9 uh by giving
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you some really bad news. He says, “Then they will hand you over to be tortured and will put you to death and you’ll be
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hated by all nations because of my name.”
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So in our world today, you know, we have the United Nations, which is really the disun United
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Nations, and we live in the United States of America, which are really the divided states of America. And I was
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born in the United Kingdom, which is really the the uh falling apart kingdom these days. And whenever you see a
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democratic republic, such as the German Democratic Republic in the 1970s, that meant it was not a democratic republic.
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it was a communist republic. So oftent times the names of countries are the exact opposite of what they really are.
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But these days we living we’re living in a world that is divided along so many dimensions. Our worlds they are divided
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along religious lines along political lines along economic lines. We have NATO, we have the BRICS nations. Um we
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have the G7. We have the G20. We have the United Nations Security Council, United Nations General Assembly. um the
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the world around us is divided along so many lines and even in our own nation we are divided along so many lines as well.
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Yes. Uh the critical theorists would call intersectionality um but uh we are divided in America
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along political lines along economic lines along educational lines along income lines um along um um racial and
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um gender based lines. And so people have multiple identities any one time.
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And Jesus says that in a world that is divided, the one thing that’s going to unite this world is their hatred of you
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because you bear the name of Christ. So it doesn’t matter whether you’re living in a republican country or a
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democratic country. Doesn’t matter a nation. Doesn’t matter whether you’re living in the Muslim part of the world or the Hindu part of the world or the
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Buddhist part or the animist or the secular um parts of Western Europe and and Australasia, North America. It
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really doesn’t matter where you’re going to live at the end of time. The one thing that will unite the nations of the
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world more than anything else when they can’t agree on anything else is their hatred of those who bear the name of
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Christ. That’s what it’s going to be like from the outside.
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And then Jesus says he switches in verses 10, 11, and 12 to the inside in
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the church. And then he says, “Then many will fall away.” And that word fall away is apostasia. We get the word apostasy
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from it. Stasis means that you stand somewhere. Apo means you stand away from something. Um so um apostasy means that
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this means that there will be people in the church at the end of time who did stand on truth but as the end came they
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started to drift away from the truth. So the church at the end of time will be filled with apostasy.
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He then says they will betray one another and they will hate one another.
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Now, he’s talking about in the church here that people you think you can trust will
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one day hand you in the people you think you can rely on are really not going to
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be worthy of you can’t trust them when push comes to shove and they will they
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won’t just betray one another but they will hate one another in the body of Christ.
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It’s hard to imagine isn’t it? But hate in the body of Christ. I can tell you
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living through cancel culture. This is pretty accurate. This is pretty accurate. Many false
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prophets will arise and lead many astray. That is there’ll be schismatic movements in the church at the end of
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time. The church is going to be fractured. It’s going to be divided. We saw how our church North America when
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when the COVID mandates came, the church fragmented along so many dimensions.
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That’s just a foretaste of what’s going to happen when the mark of the beast comes. We’re not going to be united when
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the mark of the beast comes. Be ready to stand on your own and be finding people now who you can stand with because when
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that when when the flock is struck, when the mark of the beast comes, we’re going to scatter every which way. And there’s
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you can almost write out now the various positions in response to the mark of the beast. You can almost write out I won’t
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do it tonight, but you can almost say this is what the conferences are going to say. This is what the health institutions are going to say. This is
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what the rural Idaho Adventists are going to say. These are what the um the woke Adventists are going to say. You
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could actually chart it right now, but we’re not going to do that tonight. But that let’s just say for now, the church
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will be ridden by schismatic movements. Then it says because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow
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cold. Now that word lawlessness doesn’t mean lawlessness like like wickedness, like people mugging you on the streets.
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The word is anomia, which literally means without the law. So Jesus is
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saying that in the church at the end of time there is going to be Christians who live without the law. They deny the
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validity of the ten commandments. And so we know that the the mark of the beast and and false worship and coerced
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worship around the fourth commandment is going to be the major crisis of conscience at the end of time. But Jesus
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says in general in the church at the end of time there are going to be people who just reject the law of God
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and the love of many will grow cold. We won’t just be sitting in physically cold churches.
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We’re going to be sitting in loveless churches where there is just coldness once from
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the cold shoulders. Then Jesus says, “But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” That’s pretty good news. Yes.
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That is the one who endures to the end. This doesn’t say the one who kind of glides to the end. Nobody’s getting it
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easy through the final time of crisis. After the close of probation, the saints of God go through what is called Jacob’s
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time of trouble. That’s a time where persecution comes upon them. That’s a time for them to prove and demonstrate
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the depth of their faith in faith in Christ. And many will perish in that time. And the wicked are going to go
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through the seven final plagues. So nobody’s got an easy ride after the close of probation.
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Amen. And then Jesus says verse 14, “And this good news of the kingdom, that is the
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kingdom to come, not the kingdom on earth today, will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all the nations and then once again the
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end will come.” So this is the fourth time this phrase the end appears so far in this chapter. What Jesus is saying
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here is when when you are hated by the nations all around when you when you’re existing in a local congregation where
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there’s apostasy there’s schismatic movements there is betrayal people hate you for what you stand for there is a
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rejection of the law of god in the church there is coldness one towards another there is betrayal and there is
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false prophets and so forth and there is persecution from the outside then the f those who are faithful to Christ in
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those difficult moments their focus is on winning as many souls as possible for Christ. They’re not sitting around and
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complaining about, “Woe is me. Look at what’s happening to us, what’s happening to our church.” Their focus is on
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getting the everlasting gospel out while they can, however they can, despite the hard conditions they’re facing.
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We’re going to save as many as possible. Desmond Doss on that mountain with the Japanese firing at him continually.
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Lord, just help me get one more. Help me save one more. and he goes and risks his life time and again just to save one
24:25
more injured service member. And so this is the description of Jesus
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of what’s going to be happening in the church down to the end of time. And in his own time, Steven was stoned just
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after this was spoken. Paul was Peter was crucified upside down. The disciples were thrown out of the synagogue. And we
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say, well, that doesn’t mean a lot. Well, in those days, the synagogue was was like the social security fund of its
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time. And every third year there was a tithe went to the synagogue and that was the poor fund. And if you fell on hard
24:56
times then then the local rabbi would admin give you some money from the poor fund. And so to be thrown out of the
25:02
synagogue essentially meant to be cut off from social security, Medicaid and Medicare today. It’s a big deal to be
25:09
made a non-person within your community. So this all happened just within a few years of Jesus speaking this. A few
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years later James would be beheaded. Paul would speak before Fesus, Felix, Agria, and Nero before he was beheaded.
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And this persecution would be not because the world hated these disciples, but because the world hates those who
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bear the name of Christ. Because if you bear the name of Christ,
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you are a standing rebuke to the evil of this world, and you are a rejection of
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Satan’s claim to be the prince of this world. Amen. For as long as you publicly bear the
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name of Christ, you are refuting Satan’s claim to be the prince of this world.
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Satan may walk to and fro upon the face of the earth as in the time of Job. But God is God back then says, “Well, did
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you consider my servant Job?” And God is going to say today, “Do you consider my servant Dr. Saurin in Sandpoint?” He
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still bears my name. And as long as there is a disciple who bears my name in Sandpoint, you can’t claim to be the
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prince of this world because there’s still some resistance left to your rule upon this planet. And
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so this is the this is the church that Jesus is speaking about going all the way down to the end of time. Then Jesus
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switches his focus and he comes to what was going to happen before the fall of Jerusalem. And what he says there, he
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says, “So when you see the desolating sacrilege,” this is verse 15, “Standing in the holy place as was spoken of by
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the prophet Daniel.” Let the reader understand. Then those in Judea must flee to the
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mountains. The one on the housetop must not go down to take what is on the house. The one in the field must not
26:44
turn back to get a coat. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who were nursing infants in those days. pray that
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your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath day. And so Jesus is speaking now not so much about the end
26:58
of time before he comes again. He’s now switching the focus back to the destruction of Jerusalem, which is what
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the disciples were asking about. Um that happened in AD.70 AD. And what happened
27:09
was that um there Jerusalem was torn apart by different Jewish factions. they
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were killing each other in AD60 in Jerusalem because different factions controlled different parts of the city
27:20
and the Roman emperor decided to send an army. So um Cesus Galas the Roman
27:25
general he marched down from Damascus in the north with about three legions and he came down to the walls of Jerusalem.
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And when he came down to the walls of Jerusalem the fighting factions on the inside looked at each other and thought
27:37
well we all have a common enemy. Let’s defend Jerusalem against the Romans. And the Roman um general, he set up his
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banners. He set up those banners um in um just outside the east wall of the
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temple of Jerusalem. And that was known to the Jews at the time as the holy
27:54
place. Now um there was the holy place in the temple. But that’s not what Jesus is speaking about here. When you look at
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the parallel in Luke’s gospel, uh Jesus explicitly talks about the planting of the standards in the holy place which
28:06
was just outside the walls of Jerusalem. It was the announcement to the Jews on the inside of the walls that the Romans
28:13
have now arrived. Now, for some reason that historians still don’t understand.
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The Roman general chose to withdraw his forces having cir encircled the city of
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Jerusalem. He withdrew the Roman legions all the way back to Damascus and the
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Jewish fighters chased them all the way back to Damascus and inflicted heavy casualties on the retreating Romans.
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Nobody knows why the Roman general marched his troops down to Jerusalem and suddenly turned tail went back to
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Damascus. But what we do know in addition to this is that the the
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Christians in Jerusalem remembered this teaching of Jesus and they said it’s time to get out of dodge
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and they crossed over the Jordan and went slightly north to the modernday city of Pella. And it’s believed that
29:00
when the Romans came back and they finally conquered Jerusalem in AD70 and they destroyed the temple, over a
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million people perished in the final conflict. They were selling so many Jewish slaves
29:12
that they were selling them in batches of 30 in the marketplaces of Alexandria. There were so many slaves to be sold.
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But the incredible thing is not one single Christian is believed to have died in the fall of Jerusalem because
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everybody knew this teaching of Jesus. And when they saw the Roman standards outside the city, then they saw the
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Roman standards disappearing and the Roman armies leaving even if temporarily the Christians said it’s time to leave.
29:38
And they all got out of Jerusalem. Praise God. Before the Romans came back to destroy the city a final time. So
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having discussed the fall of Jerusalem, Jesus then goes on to discuss um the the
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events leading down from the fall of Jerusalem to his second coming. And he says that he says uh for at that time
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there will be great suffering such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now. No, and never will be.
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And if those days had not been cut short, no one will be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be
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cut short. Then if anyone says to you, “Look, here is the Messiah,” or, “There he is,” do not believe it. for false
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messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens to lead astray if possible even the elect.
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Take note, I have told you beforehand. So if they say to you, “Look, he’s in the wilderness,” do not go out. If they
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say, “Look, he’s in the inner rooms,” do not believe it. For as a lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the
30:40
west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. And so Jesus
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in this passage is talking about the suffering that’s going to come upon the world uh from the time of the fall of
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Jerusalem all the way through to the second coming of Christ. He’s speaking about the suffering that will come upon
30:59
the Christians um from the time of Nero onwards in the mid 80 AD60s uh from the
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time of the killing of Peter, the killing of Paul um all the way through to um two 300 years later when you get
31:12
to the emperor Constantine. And the Romans didn’t just kill Christians. They will continue devising new ways to kill
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them as painfully as possible. And so when they cru when Nero crucified Christians, he didn’t just crucify them.
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He would doorb their bodies with oil and he he crucify them along the main roads going in and out of Rome, north and
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south. Then he set their bodies on fire as they were being crucified. So they formed like living torches. people would
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walk in and out of the city of Rome watching these writhing Christians, their bodies burning with oil on them um
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as they were being crucified there. So the Romans were were were pretty good or
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pretty evil, you might say, at developing these excruciating excruciating forms of killing
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Christians. Jesus is also speaking here about the years of papal supremacy. uh
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the the fourth beast of Daniel chapter 7 um that that period of great suffering or some versions say the great
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tribulation which went from 538 to 1798 when it’s believed that almost 50
32:12
million people perished at the hands of the papacy. Now I don’t know has anybody ever here
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read um Fox’s book of martyrs? Yes. Yeah. I encourage everybody with
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kids buy Fox’s book of martyrs and each there are many many stories there and each
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story is like three or four pages and you get stories of young girls and young boys and elderly folks and families all
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of whom paid the ultimate price um as they were being persecuted in England. The English queen was called Queen Mary.
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She was a daughter of Henry VIII and she goes down in history as Bloody Mary. That’s how she’s known in England,
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Bloody Mary. because she killed so many Protestants in her desire to turn back the Protestant Reformation and to make
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England Catholic again. And so Fox’s Book of Martyrs is a really it’s a
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really good book to read for young people because they realize that they can also be witnesses for Jesus. You
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don’t just have to be old with a gray beard to be a witness for Jesus. You can be a faithful witness for Jesus and have
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your testimony ring throughout the nation as a 5-year-old or a six-year-old or as a sevenyear-old.
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You know, when when when the when Queen Mary soldiers would find children, they would say to them, “Could you tell us
33:25
the Lord’s Prayer?” And if the child could recite the Lord’s Prayer at the age of five or six, they assumed this
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was a Protestant child because the Catholic kids wouldn’t know those things. So the children as as small
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children, they were a living witness and testament to the gospel even as they were very young. And so it’s believed
33:43
that over 50 million people died during the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, its torture chambers, the genocidal
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military campaigns such as the extermination of the Cathars of southern France by Simon de Montford and his
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crusaders, the executions, the burnings, the drownings, the starvation, the lifelong imprisonment, the list of
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horrors is incomprehensible. And then Jesus speaks about the false messiahs
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and the false prophets who will appear uh before the end of time. And if you look at say Adventist history, you look
34:13
at 1844 was significant, you know, in salvation history. But in 1844, that’s
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when you get Sigman Freud, Charles Darwin, and um Karl Marx all publishing
34:25
their theories in the same year. And so in opposition to creation, fear
34:30
go fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come. And worship him who made the heavens and the earth and sea and all that is in them.
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Worship God as creator. Satan gives us evolution with Charles Darwin who publishes the origin of the species. And
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then um in in in opposition to fearing God and give glory to him, the first angel’s message, we’re living a life of
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holiness. We get Charles Darwin teaching us from 1844 um that that we’re basically we’ve we’ve come from monkeys
34:55
there is no revealed morality and therefore you can do as you wish. and Sigman Freud starts publishing his
35:01
theories about the the subconscious and the and and the fact that if you repress
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your your physical desires that’s going to harm you psychologically.
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And then you have Karl Marx coming out with Das Capital and the Communist Manifesto again in 1844 and saying there
35:18
is no God. We’re going to build a utopia on planet Earth without God. And so just as God raises the advent movements in
35:25
1844, you see these false secular prophets rising as well in evolution in
35:30
in creation in in psychology and in um economics that have diverted millions
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and millions of people over the last 180 years into paths of destruction.
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Exactly as Jesus foretold, Jesus says that Satan is going to, if
35:52
possible, deceive or lead astray the elect.
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It doesn’t say he’s going to coersse the elect. It says he’s going to deceive or lead astray.
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Have you noticed there’s been a surge of AI videos on the internet recently?
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I mean, I see AI videos of myself. Apparently, people put me next to the Virgin Mary. They take my face, they put
36:16
me next to the Virgin Mary, and then they have me saying things. I’m not quite sure I said some of those things, actually. So, be very careful what you
36:23
see under my name on the internet. Go to my YouTube channel, Conrad Vine, and that’s where the original videos are.
36:28
But the other stuff, be very, very wary of unless you know exactly who it’s coming from. But Satan wants to deceive
36:35
the elect. I’ve seen videos where it says there’s a grandma comes out of a porch in Alaska and there’s a big
36:41
grizzly bear coming up and she’s feeding it with her hand and it looks very realistic.
36:46
Yes. Have you seen some of his videos? And so we’re we’re watching things on the internet now and think is that real?
36:51
I’m not sure. Is it fake? I don’t know. And um so uh we’re reaching the point
36:57
where um if if you don’t know whether what you’re seeing is true or false, that means you’re not going to want to
37:04
commit to anything. Because when you have a radical uncertainty about everything, if you
37:09
assume that everything you see is somehow false, you’re not going to want to commit to anything.
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And if nobody’s going to commit to anything, who’s going to give their life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Because you
37:20
may you may you may be just pushing another theory here, another conspiracy theory here. Or the saints of God get
37:27
pushed off into various conspiracies um because we’re being deceived by what we’re seeing with our eyes. So, Satan is
37:34
going to seek to deceive the elect of God. Only those who love the truth in their heart and mind will survive the
37:41
final deceptions that will lead up to the impersonation and the coming of Christ by Satan himself. But says Jesus,
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there is good news at the end of this passage. He says, “As lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the
37:53
west, so will be the coming of the son of man.” And it doesn’t matter what country you
37:58
go to on planet Earth today. You can go to any part of the world and when people see lightning, they know that was
38:04
lightning. What Jesus is saying here is that when Jesus comes again, it’s going to be
38:10
unmistakable in every part of the world. That nobody’s going to question even
38:16
after Satan has had his impersonation of the coming of Christ. When Jesus comes again, it’s going to be unmistakable.
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And what we’re going to look in a few seconds, the reasons why it’s going to be unmistakable. And then he says, “Wherever the corpse is, there the
38:28
vultures will gather.” You know, if if wherever the vultures are circling overhead, what does that mean? Is down on the ground. There’s something that’s
38:35
dying down there. Yeah. They’re waiting for it to die so they can come and peck it apart. And so, you know, there’s a body on the ground because of the
38:41
vultures. And so Jesus is saying there will be signs that will come that will be unmistakable that will let us know
38:48
that his coming is near. So then he goes on to say in 29 through31 some of the
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signs that are going to appear before Jesus comes again. And he says immediately after the suffering of those
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days that’s that’s the the great um tribulation in Matthew 24 21 or the
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great suffering. So immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give
39:11
its light. The stars will fall from heaven and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then the sign of the son of man
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will appear in heaven. Then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the son of man coming on the
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clouds of heaven with power and with great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call. They’ll
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gather his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other.
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And so Jesus is now coming down to the events just before his second coming. And these are the things that make his
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second coming unmistakable. And as we go through these, they they build in a crescendo to a climax. We’re going to
39:48
see why the coming of the son of man is going to be unmistakable. And the first sign that Jesus speaks about um is the
39:55
sun is going to the sun will be darkened. And that happened on May the 19th, 1780. It’s a it’s an event that
40:03
astronomers still can’t explain. Why? Because the night before was a full moon, which means the night before the
40:11
the sun was dark, the moon was on the other side of planet Earth. So it can’t possibly have been a solar eclipse.
40:18
So it wasn’t a solar eclipse, but the sun went dark on that day in 1718. So
40:24
deep was the darkness that the stars and the moon were invisible to the human eye across the northern hemisphere. Then on
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November the 13th, 1833, there was the greatest meteor storm in recorded
40:37
history, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico all the way up to northern Canada. and tens of thousands of meteors
40:44
um flew across the sky. Then astronomers traced their origin back to the constellation Leo in the sky. Frederick
40:52
Douglas at the time that this happened was then a slave in the deep south of America and writing later while he was
40:58
in the north and a leader in the abolitionist movement. He wrote of seeing the stars flying across the sky
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and he says this. He said, “I witnessed this gorgeous spectacle and was aruck. the air seemed filled with bright
41:10
descending messages from the sky. I was not without the suggestion at that moment that it might be the harbinger or
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the announcement of the coming of the son of man. And then just before Jesus returns, he
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refers to one final cosmic sign. He says, “And the powers of heaven will be
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shaken.” Let me go back there. says that then and it says the stars will fall from the
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heavens and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then the sign of the son of man
41:41
will appear in heaven. So what does Jesus mean when he says the powers of heaven will be shaken?
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What is he talking about? There’s something going to happen in the heavens just before Jesus comes again. Well, to
41:56
understand the significance of this prophecy of Jesus, let’s just pause and remind ourselves of what I’ve called
42:01
here tonight the cosmic constants. Now, I’m not a mathematician and I’m not an
42:07
engineer, but I do know that the universe is a mathematical machine.
42:13
There are dozens and dozens of mathematical formula which are so finely
42:18
tuned that if there were any change in any of these formula that this universe could not exist in the form that we have
42:24
it today. It’s like the universe is built on one formula then another then another then another and they all are
42:30
finely tuned. If there was any change in any of those mathematical formula um then the universe could not exist as we
42:37
know it today. And Jesus says that the powers of the heavens are going to be shaken. And so what is he talking about?
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Well, the world, the the universe to support life has what we call cosmic constants. And I put up on the screen
42:51
there a list. Those are just some of the dozens of cosmic mathematical constants
42:58
that exist in our universe that make life possible for us today. Let’s just look at those for a few moments. The
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first the first four um the first four of those are called the fundamental forces. So the first of the fundamental
43:10
force is called the gravitational force constant. We just know that as gravity
43:15
and this is a large scale attractive force. It holds us on our planets and it holds planets and stars and galaxies
43:22
together. Gravity is why if you jump in the air you come down with a bump.
43:31
And so the gravitational force constant is one of the most significant of the constants in our universe. Then you have
43:37
the electromagnetic force constant that is a small scale attractive and
43:42
repulsive force. It holds the atoms of electrons and atomic nuclei together. If
43:48
this were either more stronger or weaker, we would not have chemical bonds.
43:55
And chemistry is the building block of life. Then you have the strong nuclear force
44:01
constant. This is a small scale attractive force that also holds the nuclei of atoms together. If it were any
44:09
weaker, we would have far fewer stable chemical elements that would eliminate several chemicals that are essential to
44:16
human life, such as Taco Bell and McDonald’s. No. Uh
44:21
I’m joking when I say that. Okay. Then you have the weak nuclear force
44:26
constant. This governs radioactive decay. Again, if it were either stronger or weaker, then life essential stars in
44:33
the universe could not be forming around us. Then you have the cosmological constant that controls the expansion
44:40
speed of the universe. If it was slightly more positive, the universe would simply blow apart. If it was
44:46
slightly negative, the universe would expand like then like a balloon. It would collapse in on itself and we
44:52
wouldn’t have the big bang. We’d have the big crunch. I can assure you that’s a long way away. You don’t need to worry about that tonight. And then you have
44:59
the initial conditions of the universe. Um some physicists have calculated um
45:04
that the chances of the almost zero entropy state of our universe occurring by chance alone are in the order of 1 in
45:12
10^ the 10 to the 123rd. Now that’s a mathematical ratio beyond our
45:17
comprehension. Basically what the physicists are arguing is that our universe exists for one reason and that
45:24
is to support life. The mathematics are so finely tuned to support life. Then
45:29
you have the ratio of masses for protons and electrons. If it was slightly different, the building blocks of life,
45:35
such as DNA, could not be formed. Then you have the velocity of light, the speed of light in the universe. If it
45:40
were faster, the stars would be too luminous. If it was smaller, the stars would not be luminous enough. Then you
45:46
have the mass excess of neurons over protons. If it were greater than what it is now, there’d be too few heavy
45:52
elements for life. And if it was smaller, the stars such as the sun would quickly collapse as black holes or
45:59
neuron stars. And so these are just some of the the mathematical constants. Are
46:04
any of you familiar with the Nathan Green series of paintings, the seven days of creation?
46:09
Yes. Have you ever noticed? Look at day one of that series of paintings, and there’s a picture of Jesus kind of
46:15
standing in the clouds of heaven with one of his hands out to you. But if you look closely at that painting and Nathan
46:22
Green has painted into the sk into the space around Jesus all of these mathematical formula. Take a look at it
46:28
for yourselves. Um you you got to look very carefully. But he’s painted as Jesus is looking at you. These
46:34
mathematical formula are flying out of space towards you. And Nathan Green is recognizing that the universe is a
46:41
mathematical engineering masterpiece. And so you’ve got these particular
46:46
mathematical formula coming at you out of the painting. If you never noticed, take a close look at it tonight. If you
46:52
got the original painting, praise the Lord. If not, go to nathan green.com and you’ll see it there. But take a look at
46:57
that painting. And Nathan Green gets it that the universe is a finely tuned mathematical machine. But then we also
47:04
live in a privileged planet. Those are some of the uh 12 factors there that make life possible on our
47:10
planet. When we moved to a town many years ago with my son, he was four years old and with the conference said, “Would
47:17
you like to go and pastor in this town?” And we drove through and my boy says, “Dad,” he said, “the’s no,” he said, “Dad, there’s no Taco Bell.” He said,
47:23
“God doesn’t want us to come to this town.” And but that’s not quite um the the fact
47:31
that makes life possible to a four-year-old, that’s probably the case. Just so you understand, when we first
47:36
came to America in 2007, um we didn’t have a house, didn’t have car, we had nothing. We had like four suitcases with
47:42
four people. And so, um the first thing we did was buy a car. And then somebody
47:48
says, “Well, if you want to feed your family cheaply, just go to Taco Bell.” So, for the first three days of living in America, we would go and get all
47:54
these tacos and burritos from Taco Bell. We thought it was just wonderful living off this food. And then we got sick of
48:00
it. And then we eventually rented a place and we could start cooking our own food. But we remember Taco Bell saved our lives when we came to America. But
48:08
that’s not what makes life possible on planet Earth. You see some of the things there. So for instance, we have steady
48:14
plate tectonics with the right kind of geological interior. What does this mean? It means that this set supports
48:21
what we call the carbon cycle and it generates a protective magnetic field around our world. We have the right
48:28
amount of water in the crust. Sometimes we call it rain, sometimes we call it snow, but also underneath the surface as
48:34
well. That provides for the universal solvent of life. We have a large moon with the right planetary rotation
48:41
period. Why is that important? It stabilizes the tilt of the planet and it’s and it means
48:48
that as as the earth is spinning around all that water on the surface, if the earth is spinning and the earth the
48:54
water is not keeping up with it, you’re going to end up with these massive tsunami waves constantly. And because of
49:00
the moon, the gravitational force of the moon keeps the water where it is on the planet. So you get tides, but you don’t
49:07
get these global tsunamis as the earth is spinning. And the water can’t keep up with it as we spin. So praise the Lord
49:13
for the moon. Then you have a proper concentration of sulfur in the world. Why is that important? That’s critical
49:19
for many of our biological processes. We have the right planetary mass. Why is this important? If we if we were a
49:25
smaller planet, we wouldn’t have the atmosphere that we have today. the solar winds would blow it away. So having a
49:31
the mass that we have gives us the allows us to hold the atmosphere in place despite our fast speed through
49:37
space. We’re on the near inner edge of the circumstellar habitable zone that allows us to maintain the right amount
49:43
of liquid on planet Earth. If we were just a few degrees closer to the sun, we’d be frying a few degrees further
49:50
from the sun and we’d all be freezing to death. Maybe like in Minnesota right now or Michigan. But it would be a
49:56
perafrost. we be living like Pluto and life would not be possible. Uh we also have a low eccentricity orbit outside of
50:04
spin or on the outside of the spin orbit on our galaxy and we have giant planet resonances that allows our planet to
50:11
maintain a safe orbit over extended periods of time. We’re also s um surrounded by a few large Jupiter mass
50:18
planetary neighbors in large circular orbits. You say, “Well, what does that matter?” Have you ever wondered why
50:24
stuff doesn’t hit planet Earth in the Milky Way? is because we have large planets like Jupiter and any space junk that’s going
50:31
to fly through the Milky Way gets drawn by the mass and the gravity of these larger planets to those planets. Those
50:38
are like giant vacuum cleaners in the universe. They suck the giant the space junk away from planet Earth and it keeps
50:45
our planet free from junk hitting us in our atmosphere. I mean, it’s pretty amazing how how God has designed not
50:51
just the universe but where we sit um within the Milky Way. And then there there are a few other variables there
50:57
that I I won’t go through um al together here. So the bottom line is Jesus says
51:02
that before he comes again Jesus says in Matthew chapter 24 if I may find it in
51:07
my Bible here says there are going to be let me find it in my the word of God here. Matthew chapter 24 Jesus said um
51:17
uh then where is it and the powers of heaven will be shaken.
51:23
So, what does the Bible say about what’s going to happen to the universe above our head that that explains that the
51:29
powers of the heaven or the heavens are going to be shaken? And we’ve just had a look at some of these things here. So,
51:36
uh the the first text we’re going to look at here is Matthew 24:29. This is the text we’re working from.
51:43
Jesus says, “Immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened.” That’s happened. The moon
51:48
will not give its light. That’s happened. the stars will fall from heaven. That’s happened. And the powers
51:54
of the heaven in Greek tone uranon, that’s a plural genative there of the heavens literally will be shaken. And
52:00
that word for heaven is uranos. And um we’re going to come across that word in a number of verses right now. So that
52:07
hasn’t happened yet, but that’s the sign that happens immediately before the coming of Jesus uh for his second
52:14
return. And so uh the the Jesus spoke in Revelation 6:14. This is the first text
52:20
we’re going to look at that it’s a comparative text and this is from the book of revelation. Now the book of revelation is the revelation of Jesus
52:28
Christ. It’s a revelation he gave to us. It’s not just revelation about him but his his revelation to us is a subjective
52:35
and an objective genative those two uh those two constructions. But this here is Jesus explaining to us what it’s
52:42
going to be like before he comes again. And notice you got the same elements. says, “When he opened the sixth seal, I
52:48
looked and there came a great earthquake.” Well, that’s not in Matthew 24, but it is found elsewhere. The sun
52:53
became black as sackcloth. That’s what Jesus says in Matthew 24. He says, “The full moon became like blood and the
53:00
stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree drops its winter fruit when shaken by a sto a gale.” That’s what
53:07
we’ve already seen in Matthew 24. Then Jesus says, “The sky hot ranos.” Now, this is the nominative singular rather
53:13
than the plural genative. So, it’s the same thing he’s talking about here. That is that the the heavens, they’re going
53:19
to vanish like a scroll rolling itself up and every mountain and island was removed from its place. So, just before
53:25
Jesus comes again and as he’s coming again, the sky is going to vanish like a scroll rolling itself up. So, when Jesus
53:33
says that the powers of the heavens will be shaken and this is going to be this is why his coming is going to be unmistakable. Imagine looking up
53:40
tomorrow and you see the sky just being torn apart in front of your eyes.
53:46
It’s unmistakable. Satan may try and um counterfeit the
53:51
coming of Christ like physically as a person, as an angel of light, but when
53:57
Jesus comes again, the sky above our head is going to vanish like a scroll rolling itself up. Um, President George
54:05
Bush W came to England many years ago and he stayed in Balmor Moral, the
54:10
Queen’s Palace up in Scotland and he decided one morning it’d be a good thing to open his window in his tidy whites
54:17
only and he forgot that the English newspapers all there with their telephoto lenses. So George W. bush. He
54:24
He stood there and he and he opened up the curtains and he was just standing there just relaxing in the morning
54:30
sunlight and all the British press was taking pictures of him in his just on his underwear. He you because the the
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sky was the the the the curtains vanished like a scroll rolling itself up and everything was revealed. Let me ask
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you the question. If the sky vanishing like a scroll rolling itself up over
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your head, if that’s happening when Jesus comes again, it means all of the mathematical constants that hold this
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universe together are being done away with when Jesus comes again. That is the very fabric of the universe is
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disappearing in front of our eyes. It means that life is no longer possible on planet Earth. all of the rules of
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gravity and electromagnetism and and all the rest of it. The whole universe is crumbling in front of our eyes in this
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passage here. Um we also go on to read in 2 Peter 3:10 Jesus he’s talking about the coming of Christ. Peter says, “But
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the day of the Lord will come as a thief. Then the heavens,” now we’ve got hoy or which is a plural nominative that
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he’s talking it’s the same thing that the sky above our heads. That’s the that’s the sun, moon, and stars in the universe. the heavens will pass away
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with a loud noise and the elements will be dissolved with fire and the earth and everything that is done on it will be
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disclosed. So when Jesus comes again, he says the the powers of the heaven will be shaken. And in Revelation 6, he says
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the sky is going to be torn apart as a scroll when it’s rolled up. And then Peter says that the heavens are going to
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pass away with a loud noise. So even if you’re blind, you’re going to hear this taking place. We’re not just
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going to hear the trumpet of God calling the dead from their graves and the voice of the archangel, but the heavens are
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going to disappear or pass away with a loud noise and the elements are going to be dissolved with fire. I’m not so
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worried these days so much about global warming. I’m worried about a global meltdown.
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When Jesus comes again and the elements are melting around you, you understand why people are burrowing
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into the ground to escape from what’s happening because it’s cooler down underground. Uh back in the year 2015 2014 I was in
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northern Iraq and I was in Urbul the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS was in Mosul which was 50 miles away across the
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desert and they drove the Christians out and the temperature midday was about 55 Celsius.
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That’s about 135 140 Fahrenheit. And those people were walking, many of
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them bare feet with the skin was gone off their feet across the desert, those
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Christians, to Urbil, finding refuge. And while I was there, I noticed that you could walk on the the the tarmac or
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the ashfelts on the road and you’d leave all their footprints behind you. The roads were melting around you. It was so
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hot. Uh ladies were just sitting down under a tree and giving birth in that extreme heat. Their bodies couldn’t take
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it. And so I’ve seen what the world is like when it’s 55 Celsius. Uh but Jesus
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uh Peter says here that the elements of this earth that make our that make you know the ground under our feet, the rock
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and all the rest of it is going to be dissolved with fire and the heaven is going to disappear with a loud noise.
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This is not something you’re going to miss. And then in Luke 2150 20 25- 28 we
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have another parallel passage. And once again you got the same things. It says there’ll be signs in the sun, the moon,
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and the stars. We’ve had that in Matthew 24. And on the earth, distress among nations, confused by the roaring of the
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sea and the waves. Well, if the mathematics of the universe are being torn apart, and the moon is no longer
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where it needs to be, and the sky is being torn apart with the sun, moon, and stars, that means the water on planet
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Earth look like it’s going crazy. Huge tsunamis flowing over the surface of the
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earth. says people will faint from fear and foroding of what is coming upon the world or some versions say men’s hearts
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will be failing them for fear of what is coming upon the world and then Jesus says why the word for is because gar in
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Greek it means because because the powers of the heavens toneron tonan
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that’s exactly the same expression in Matthew 24 the powers of the heavens will be shaken
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and so when Jesus comes again um men’s hearts will be failing them for fear because the sun, the moon, and the
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stars, everything is going crazy. The earth is melting around us. The the atmosphere and the universe is being
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torn apart in front of our eyes and there’s a global earthquake. And then Jesus says, “Then they will see the son
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of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your
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heads because your redemption is drawing nigh.” What a beautiful promise. So when Jesus
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comes again, there are two groups of people. And it’s not Republicans and Democrats. It’s not black and white. It’s not rich or poor. It’s not male or
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female. It’s those whose hearts are failing them for fear for what is coming upon the world. And those who realize
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that this is the beginning of all things being made new again. And we can choose today which group we
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want to be a part of. We can either be overwhelmed with fear or we can be standing high and say this is our God
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whom we have waited for. What happens at the second coming is that the sun, the moon, the stars of the Milky Way, and
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the wider universe will all be moved out of their places and the universe will
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dissolve before our eyes. The cosmic constants that make life possible. Those mathematical principles that that govern
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our universe will all be broken and swept aside, rendering life on planet Earth impossible. Why? Because the
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atmosphere will be stripped away from above our heads. It’ll be impossible to breathe. The planet’s going to heat up so rapidly that the the world is going
1:00:04
to melt under our feet and a global earthquake will dislodge every island and mountain and destroy every city and
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town. And as our planet is being destroyed in front of our very eyes and that the whole universe is is melting
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away in front of our eyes, um then we see that promise.
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Then we see that promise. Lo, it will be said on that day, lo, this is our God, and we have waited for him so that he
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might what? Save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited. Let us be glad
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and rejoice in his salvation. What a beautiful promise of Jesus. Yes. So, you
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see that Satan will try and deceive us in so many ways. But Jesus says, “There are certain signs that announce my
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coming. The sun will be dark. The moon will glow red. The stars of the earth will will fall to the ground, the
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meteors. But the the one sign that above all else is that the the powers of heaven will be shaken. The universe is
1:01:01
going to dissolve and be destroyed in front of our very eyes and life on planet earth will no longer be possible
1:01:08
because the mathematical constants will all be gone when Jesus comes again.
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It’s why Jesus promises in Revelation 21, John says, “Then I saw a new heavens
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and a new earth.” God doesn’t just insert a new planet earth into an old heavens. He’s going to create a new
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heavens and a new earth based along maybe new mathematical principles, at least ones I can understand.
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So what then is the cosmic constant that really matters?
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Because there is something that endures through all this chaos and cataclysm.
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And this is it here. Psalm 136 3-9.
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It says, “Oh, give thanks to the Lord for his steadfast love endureth forever.
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Who alone does great wonders for his what endures forever? Steadfast love. Who by understanding
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made the heavens for his steadfast love endureth forever. who
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spread out the earth on the waters for his endureth forever. Who made the great
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lights for his steadfast love endureth forever. The sun rule over the day for his
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endureth forever. The moon and the stars to rule over the night for his.
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So if you notice in this psalm here that everything that Jesus says is going to be destroyed. the heavens, the waters,
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the great lights, the sun, moon, and stars. All of that’s mentioned there.
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He created it. And one day, he’s going to destroy it by the glory of his coming.
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But the one thing in this psalm that endures more than the heavens, more than the earth on the waters, more than the
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great lights of the universe, more than the sun, the moon, and the stars. The thing that’s going to endure beyond all
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of these things, the one thing we can put our trust in is his steadfast love.
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And what is that steadfast love? Well, um there’s if there’s one word in the
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New Testament that summarizes the character of God, it is agape. That
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means self-sacrificing love. But if there’s one word in the Old Testament that summarizes the character of God,
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you have to kind of clear your throat when you say this. It’s like like cleanet.
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H E S E D is the English transliteration. When Moses asked to see the glory of God
1:03:42
in Exodus 33 and God hid him in a cleft in the rock in Exodus 34 and said, “Yahweh, Yahweh or Jehovah, Jehovah or
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the Lord, Lord, merciful and gracious.” That word merciful is. It’s the first
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word that describes the character of God. And this psalm here, David says that even though God created the heaven,
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the moons and the stars, the heaven, the moon, the sun and the stars, and the whole universe, we know at the end of
1:04:08
the of the gospels that all of these are going to be stripped away, but one thing is going to endure forever, and it’s the
1:04:13
character of God. That’s the constant we can build our lives upon. That’s the constant we can
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trust in. It’s not the mathematical principles of gravity and electromagnetic force. No, it’s the
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character of God is what God is inviting us to turn our eyes to tonight and to
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put our trust in. That worded, it has multiple meanings in the Hebrew. It means merciful, compassionate,
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kind or kindness. It means grace or gracious. It means long-suffering love.
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It means steadfast love. It means covenant faithfulness. It means that
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when God enters into a covenant with you, he is to that covenant, he is
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faithful to that covenant regardless of whether you are faithful to that covenant yourself. That God is faithful
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to us regardless of our faithfulness to him.
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The one and only cosmic constant that we can rely on is this, the character of our heavenly father. For God is love.
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When he says in Jeremiah 31:3, “And I’ve loved you with an everlasting love.”
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There’s nothing we can do to make him love us more. There’s nothing we can do to stop him from loving us. His mercy,
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his compassion, his kindness, his grace, his steadfast endur, his steadfast love,
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his covenant faithfulness to us is the one constant in the universe that we’re
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invited to put our trust in. Even if the sun, the moon, and the stars and all the universe is torn apart by the coming of
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Christ. And even if our homes here in Idaho and maybe our bunkers as well are going to be melted by the glory of the
1:05:52
coming of Jesus, the one thing that’s going to stand, the one thing we can trust in is the
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character of our heavenly father. Amen. Because when Jesus comes again, he’s coming for his own. He’s coming for
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those in the Lamb’s book of life. And he’s engraved us in the palm of his hands.
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Can a mother forget the child of her womb? No. But yet, even though she may forget you, but says God, I will never
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forget you. See, I’ve engraved you in the palms of my hands. He’s coming again for his own. So, Revelation 21:4
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says, I saw a new heaven and a new earth. This is the end of the millennium as the saints of God come down from
1:06:32
heaven to planet Earth. And after the chaos and the catastrophe and the collapse of the universe, when
1:06:38
Jesus comes the second time, when Jesus returns to earth with the saints, the first thing we’re told is there’s going
1:06:44
to be a new heaven and a new earth cuz all the old has been destroyed.
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The taint of sin will not be found in the new universe. For the first heaven and the first earth have passed away,
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and the sea was no more. Now we understand why all this is mentioned. because all of it was destroyed when
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Jesus came at his second coming. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
1:07:09
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “See or behold, the
1:07:15
home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself shall be with
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them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. mourning
1:07:29
and crying and pain will be no more for the for former things or the first things have passed away.
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So it’s not just the universe has passed away and it’s not just planet earth has passed away but everything that brought
1:07:43
a curse to life on this planet will have passed away and the one who creates a new heavens
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and a new earth. You know, when you think how about how big the sun is and
1:07:54
God spake and the and the stars came into existence. He spake and it was says the psalmist. You think of the power of
1:08:01
God just to speak galaxies into existence by the billions of stars. The
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power of God and yet he condescends to us that he will wipe those tears from
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your cheeks. Is an almighty God, but he’s an a
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personal God. And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Not till after the end of the millennium. You
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notice there’s no mention here that the tears will disappear in heaven. The tears will disappear after the
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millennium. Maybe because we grieve in heaven during the millennium for our loved ones who don’t make it into the
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book of life. As we understand as we look in the books why some were saved and some were lost. But after this the
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the demands of justice have been satisfied, God himself having created a
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new heavens and a new earth will wipe away every tear from my eyes and from yours. And death will be no more. And
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all the causes of suffering, mourning and crying and pain will be no more. There’ll be no trace of these things.
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There’ll be no trace of sin in the new heavens and the new earth. I’m looking forward to the coming of Jesus. Aren’t
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you? It’s an unmistakable event. Satan will try and deceive us about
1:09:14
everything else that he possibly can. And so tonight, I want to encourage you
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rather than looking at social media and Facebook and YouTube and Instagram and Snapchat,
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most of which is turning into a pack of lies these days, but to turn your eyes upon Jesus in the Gospels
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and to know your savior for yourself and to learn to recognize his voice when
1:09:37
he speaks to you. I was going to speak about the 23rd Psalm tonight and tomorrow, but I will spoke about Jesus
1:09:43
as the good shepherd. Jesus has sheep in many flocks, he says. And our job as
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preachers, our job as elders in churches is to train the ears of the flock so they recognize the voice of the good
1:09:54
shepherd and they follow the good shepherd so that the congregation doesn’t follow the pastor or the elders,
1:10:01
but the congregation has learned to follow the good shepherd. Amen. I want to encourage you tonight in a in
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an era of deception where Satan is seeking to deceive the elect of God to put away those things that you know are
1:10:13
filled with lies and to choose to feast your mind and focus your mind on that which is true
1:10:20
and pure and honorable and just and of good repute. Know the truth. Love the truth is the
1:10:27
best antidote to deception. And when Jesus comes again, you’ll not be found among those who are calling upon the
1:10:33
rocks to fall upon them and hide them from the face of the one who sits upon the the throne and the lamb to his side.
1:10:39
No, we’ll be standing tall and saying, “This is our God whom we’ve waited for, and he’s come back to save us.”
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It’s my prayer that we will live our lives today in anticipation of that glorious event. And we will train our
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minds and focus our minds on the things that going to prepare us to get through this final crisis before Jesus comes
1:10:58
again. So when he comes again, he’s coming looking for each one of us. May God bless us as we wait for that
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glorious day when Jesus comes again. Amen. I invite you to bow your heads with me. We’ll close with a word of
1:11:10
prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for these teachings of Jesus flowing
1:11:17
from the fall of Jerusalem to the fall of planet Earth. Father, we thank you
1:11:23
tonight that though the heavens will pass away, though the sun, moon, and the
1:11:28
stars will be torn out of the sky, though the earth will melt under our feet and every island and mountain be
1:11:34
moved out of its place. I thank you, Father, that we can stand on the rock. That rock is Jesus. That he is coming
1:11:40
back for his own. So, Father, until that day, I pray that we will feast our minds
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and focus our thinking only on that which is true and makes for building up
1:11:52
and draws us closer in worship and adoration and trust and intimate knowledge with our Lord and Savior Jesus
1:11:58
Christ. So, Father, we ask tonight as we go through these Sabbath hours, our love
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for Jesus, our following of Jesus, our ability to discern the voice of Jesus,
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and our obedience to his teachings will grow and flourish in each of our lives.
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May that promise come true, Lord, and that prayer in each of our lives until Jesus comes. In his holy name we pray.
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Amen.