The Great Signs of the End Part V Matthew 24:1-51

Last week we continued our journey through Matthew 24.

Matthew 24 once again is known as the Olivet Discourse or more simply the

last times according to Jesus.

Our big idea of this long sermon is to anticipate the soon return of Christ and

Thus far we have seen 15 practices.

How you are to do this.

And here's a recap of that.

Let me give you the first eight that we've looked at thus far.

So you are to anticipate the soon return of Christ?

Through looking at prophetic certainty through what has already been fulfilled.

Taking seriously why Jesus provides end times details.

Watching out for the appearance of many false prophets.

Observing an increasing number of global wars.

Experiencing a rise in natural disasters.

Witnessing the rise of global persecution.

Noticing widespread disregard for God's law.

And Seeing the gospel advance to all the corners of the earth.

Points three through eight are signs that Jesus gives that

points to the reality that Jesus return is coming.

So this morning as we continue our sermon series through Matthew and our journey through Matthew 24, we are going to see points

9 and 10.

These two points are also signs that Jesus gives that point to the reality that he is coming

and his return is.

On.

The horizon.

So at this time I encourage you To turn in a Bible with me to Matthew 24 and if you see one of those red Bibles, it's on

page 986 986.

And once again the big idea Anticipates The soon return of Christ.

This is the great hope of the New Testament.

Someone said that one out of every four verses Has a reference

to the return of Christ.

So you see this is a big emphasis of the Bible and it's a big

emphasis of our church.

And we're seeing this play out here in Matthew 24 as Jesus tells us.

These are the signs that I give my return is coming.

When you see these signs it points to this reality.

So here is the ninth practice how you are to anticipate the soon return of Christ and that is through following

the rise of the final one world ruler.

Following the rise of the final one world ruler.

And we're gonna see this in verses 15 through 20.

So I'm gonna read these verses verses 15 through 20 and this is where much of our focus is gonna be this morning.

These are the words of Jesus.

So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the Prophet Daniel

standing in the holy place.

Let the reader understand.

Then of those who are in Judea flee to the mountains let the one who is on the housetop not

go down to take what is in his house and let the one who is in the field not

turn back to take his cloak and Alas for women who are pregnant and for those

who are nursing infants in those days.

Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a

Sabbath.

Thus far in this chapter we have seen that there will be wars at the very end and

widespread persecution as We see wars and persecution.

There is one man who is the driving force.

Behind all of this and that is the final one world ruler.

We will see this one man and the havoc that he caused is described in the verses I just read and we saw that

havoc.

But I want to zero in on verse 15 to start.

Where Jesus once again says when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the Prophet Daniel.

Standing in the holy place.

Let the reader understand.

What Jesus describes is what was predicted in the Old Testament.

It's the passage.

I read this morning during the call to worship.

What we saw earlier in this chapter is that the Messiah is Predicted numerous times

in the Old Testament and Jesus fulfills every prediction concerning the

Messiah to a tee.

Jesus came the first time 2 ,000 years ago on a rescue mission to save sinners and when he comes

again He will come to take his throne to reign in power.

But the Messiah is not the only significant figure predicted in the

Old Testament.

There's also a dark figure a dark ruler.

Predicted and that is the final one world ruler.

What Jesus tells us in verse 15 is that this final one world ruler is?

Predicted in the book of Daniel and those are the verses I read this morning.

Daniel chapter 9 verses 24 through 27.

Also known as Daniel's 70 weeks entire books have been written about those

four verses.

There he is predicted to rise to power.

During the final seven years of this age, and you might wonder how do we get this final seven year

tribulation?

Well, it comes from Daniel chapter 9 verses 24 through 27.

69 weeks have happened each week represents seven years.

There's one week that still has not yet occurred and in seven years and it's in the future at

some unknown time in Daniel 9 verse 26.

This figure is referred to as the prince who is to come and verse 27 says this about him.

He shall make a strong covenant with many for one week and for half of the week.

He shall put an end to sacrifice and offering and on the wing of abomination shall come one who

makes desolates until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator in our passage in

verse 15 of Matthew 24 this is the verse that Jesus is referencing to

his disciples.

This final one world ruler is the abomination of desolation as Daniel 9 says

In the class on Daniel that Keith is leading we talked about Antiochus Epiphanes he

actually sacrificed in the temple of God in a very horrible way and.

I.

He is kind of a type of Antichrist sometimes there's these figures from history who are not the Antichrist,

but they they represent someone Who will later

fulfill that in one man and Antiochus Epiphanes is one of those guys

from before the time of Christ.

So to be called the abomination of desolation means that this man is going to cause enormous trouble.

While he rules over the earth in the previous point.

I explained that he is going to get to power through seducing the population.

He is going to start off looking good as the leader of the people and As time goes on

his true colors will show.

This future one world ruler goes by many titles in the Bible.

The book of Daniel calls him the little horn The prince who is to come and the abomination of

desolation.

Second Thessalonians calls him the man of lawlessness.

The book of Revelation calls him the beast.

Lastly the book of first John calls him by the title that most people

know him as the Antichrist.

What is interesting is that he is only called the Antichrist once and that is in

first John 218 but that is the title that normally sticks with this future

one world ruler.

The reason this title Probably sticks with him more than the others maybe because this

title the Antichrist Really sums up who he is.

He is the ruler who opposes the true ruler Christ Jesus.

During the Sunday school hour.

We just finished going through the chronicles of Narnia.

We went through the first book.

Technically is the second book right the lion the witch and the wardrobe in this book.

There is a false ruler and a true ruler.

The false ruler is known as the white witch.

While the true ruler is named Aslan.

The white witch does not like to be called the white witch.

She wants to be called the Queen.

But the story presents her for who she truly is.

She is the villain of the story who desires to take the throne from the one to whom the

throne truly belongs.

Just as the white witch Does not like her true title in the same way this future

one world ruler does not like these titles.

That are assigned to him in Scripture, but of course Scripture tells us the way it really is.

He will much prefer to be called king.

But in reality he is called negative titles like the man of lawlessness the beast and

the Antichrist.

This final ruler as I have indicated is going to rule the entire world.

This is a sign of the end because after his reign is when Christ

is going to come back.

His reign will begin as Daniel 926 says when he makes a treaty with

the many.

The question is who are the many?

Well when you look at the context.

There's gonna be sacrifices going on in which people are gonna be sacrificing in

Jerusalem and that of course is the Jews.

As there's even talks right now of a of a third temple being built in fact.

He's talked something going on for a very long time.

And you might wonder well How is that gonna happen.

Because on the temple grounds is the Dome of the Rock and the Dome of the Rock is?

Run by the Muslims.

Why would the Muslims ever allow the Jews to build a temple there?

Well the final one world ruler is gonna make this happen.

He's gonna be the one in charge, and he's gonna let them build in this location.

So this.

Future ruler is going to make a treaty with the Jewish people.

Where they will be able to offer sacrifices again as they haven't done.

Since the temple was destroyed in 70 AD.

But as the text says Halfway through this 70th week so

halfway through the seven years these final seven years.

He will break this covenant.

Showing his true colors.

2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 3 and 4 describes what he will do when he breaks this covenant.

For that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is

revealed.

The son of destruction.

Who opposes and exalts himself against every so -called God or object of worship?

So that he takes his seat in the temple of God proclaiming himself

to be God.

This is not your ordinary ruler.

Now while certainly the devil influences world leaders, and we see that influence in our world today.

I mean his agenda is Godless and we see a godless agenda in our world.

This final one -world leader Will be far worse than anyone

who is even on the scene right now.

He will be possessed by Satan.

Satan's power will be shown to this person unlike any other person in history.

I've stated before something that my professor shared with our class.

When we were studying Eschatology or at the end times in seminary.

He said something very fascinating.

It's his belief that Satan doesn't know Who the end who the Antichrist is going to be?

He doesn't know the future like God knows the future.

There have been certain people down through history that have been extraordinarily evil

people like Nero Diocletian and in the modern world Adolf Hitler.

It may be that Satan Planned for these men to be the Antichrist, but it was not

God's will for the end to come at those times but there will be a time in the

future when Satan grooms a man as He has done before.

For this position and it really will be this guy because it

accords with the will of God.

It'll be God's timing.

When we think of evil rulers from history, it's hard to imagine rulers worse than some of them.

I once watched a documentary on Adolf Hitler who of course was the Nazi leader during the

1930s and 1940s in Germany in.

This documentary talked about his rise to power and all the evil that he did during his time

in leadership.

The documentary closed by describing his legacy in this way.

You think about think about legacies.

Think about what legacy you want to have.

This is the legacy of this man.

He is regarded as being responsible for both the Second World War and

the Holocaust.

Which combined led to the deaths of upwards of 50 million people?

One man did all of that.

Wow.

It's amazing how much evil one man can cause and Hitler did that.

But to cause that evil is Not just the evil of one man's heart.

It is the power of Satan working through that person.

Hitler is a great example of how much evil Satan can accomplish through one man.

Whatever man Satan grooms and possesses in the future to rule the world.

The goal of this man's leadership will be to defame God and to destroy

God's people.

Revelation chapter 13 verses 5 through 7 describes his reign and the beast was given a mouth uttering

haughty and Blasphemous things and it was allowed to exercise authority for

42 months.

It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God Blaspheming in his name and his dwelling

that is those who dwell in heaven.

Also, it was allowed to make war on the Saints and to conquer them and Authority was given it

over every tribe and people and language and.

Nation.

This is gonna be the will of God.

Sometimes the will of God is.

It's called his dark Providence where for for reasons unknown to us He

allows certain things to happen that we look at it and say well Why would he allow that.

And the answer is he always does it for his glory, right?

God could destroy say in right now if you wanted to we have to affirm that because God is all -powerful.

He can do that.

But he chooses not to and it's interesting right every story that you love every story that you read that you

love.

When is the bad guy defeated?

In the in the end right the best stories the bad guy always loses.

In the end it looks like he's gonna win.

But then good prevails and that's the story of life that we live in.

It's gonna get really really dark at the very end.

There's gonna be one ruler who's gonna rule the world.

Satan is gonna possess him.

It's gonna look like evil is gonna win.

But all it is pointing to as we've seen in Matthew 24 is that Christ's return is coming.

It's a sign of the end.

It's birth pains.

Birth pains once again our thing the the pain increases in frequency and intensity

as the birth nears and the signs increase in frequency and intensity as

Christ's return nears and all the evil

leadership in world history is Gonna reach its peak in this one man.

Satan is gonna have more advancement at this time than any other time.

But all it is is birth pains.

And he's gonna lose.

And we've already seen in this chapter that there will be widespread persecution during these final seven years.

This final one world ruler will be on a mission to annihilate not only Gentiles who believe in

Jesus, but also Jews.

The Jewish people Have faced enormous opposition down through history enormous

persecution.

No people group has experienced more persecution than the Jews.

But their greatest persecution has not yet arrived.

It will come during the reign of the Antichrist.

He will have a deep hatred for Christians and Jews.

Think about this.

Satan hates God's image bearers.

Johnny it says that he's a murderer.

What's a murderer?

It's it's the taking of a life.

He's going after God's image bearers.

So he loves murder.

He loves when a human life is ended.

How much more does he love it when the image bearer belongs to God?

Is eliminated?

That's his goal.

He will have a deep hatred for Christians and Jews.

But let's see what verses 16 through 20 says concerning the Jews.

That's what these verses are focused on.

He says again that let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

But the one who was on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house.

And let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak.

And a loss for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days.

Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath.

What Jesus is saying is that the persecution from the Antichrist will be so severe

the Jews will be desperately trying to flee the region and the region

is Jerusalem.

That's going to be the Central place of the Jews and that's going to be the place where this Antichrist

declares himself to be God.

He's going to try to annihilate the Jews and Jesus is saying these

people are going to try to flee.

They're gonna try to get out.

And when Jesus mentions fleeing to the mountains in verse 16 He's probably referencing the Dead Sea region where there were many

caves for people to hide in.

This is the place where King David fled to when King Saul was trying to kill him.

What Jesus is saying in verses 17 and 18 is that when persecution ramps up the Jewish people will be fleeing in

large numbers.

And what he's saying is that when this happens do not go and grab your things from your house.

You're not gonna have time.

It will be imperative to leave.

Immediately.

He also says in verse 19 that it'll be very difficult for pregnant women and those women nursing babies during this

time.

This circumstance will obviously make it difficult for them to flee.

Then Jesus says something interesting in verse 20 when if you read it like what's he talking about?

Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath.

Interesting.

What is he talking about here?

It's not hard to understand that the escape from Jerusalem will be easier in warm weather than in cold.

You can imagine people will not just be able to drive out of the region.

There will certainly be checkpoints.

The people have to find a hidden way to the caves and it will be difficult to do this in the heart of winter.

But what is he talking about when he's talking about the Sabbath?

Some Jews are so legalistic That they will insist that fleeing on the

Sabbath is working.

So some Jews will hinder other Jews from leaving the area to escape from the terror of the

Antichrist.

The Jewish leadership showed their legalism to Jesus when he healed people on the Sabbath.

Legalistic Jews will do the same to their fellow Jews who try to flee from the persecution in

Jerusalem during the height of the reign of the Antichrist.

The goal of the Antichrist will be to defame God destroy God's people both his

ancient covenant people Israel and Gentiles who believe in Christ and his

goal will also be to receive worship for himself.

The desire for worship will come from the one who possesses this man as I've already said Satan

as Revelation 13 for describes they worship the dragon for he had given his authority to the beast

and they Worshiped the beast saying who is like the beast and who can fight against it?

Revelation 13 8 also says.

And all who dwell on earth will worship it.

Everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of

the Lamb.

Who was slain?

This is the sobering reality of life.

Every person on earth either belongs to Jesus Christ or the devil.

So when you're in a big crowd.

Those are the two groups that people belong to.

People belong to the prince of the power of the air who's Satan.

He is the god of this age.

It says that the god of this age has blinded the minds of Unbelievers to keep them from seeing

the light of the glory of Christ.

John 8 says that Unbelievers their father is the devil

and so people are gonna follow the devil during the final seven years when the Antichrist reigns

as The devil possesses this man.

This will be a very dark time on the earth, this will be the darkest time in world history.

As we have seen many many will be martyred for their faith in Jesus.

Revelation 13 10 gives this word to the Saints.

Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the Saints.

This echoes what Jesus said in verse 15 or verse 13 or rather the one who endures to the end will be

saved.

Those who trust in Christ and Do not worship the beast will be the ones who

save their eternal soul.

The evidence that they are saved is that they do not submit to the Antichrist reign.

Jesus calls his people to be faithful unto death.

Earlier in Matthew Jesus said this in chapter 10 verse 28.

Do not fear those who killed the body but cannot kill the soul.

Rather fear him who can destroy Both soul and body in hell.

But the believer is forever secure in Christ as the Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 121 to live as

Christ and to die as game.

Things will be dark, but the Lord will take care of his people as he always does.

Because I've already explained one week ago.

Some Jews will be supernaturally spared.

They'll be preserved To the end of the tribulation so that when the Messiah comes they will

receive him.

Largely speaking the ones who will be martyred are the Gentiles as Revelation 7 explains.

The other major casualties will be unbelieving Jews whom the Antichrist hates because of their

association with God's ancient covenant people.

This will be ethnic cleansing.

The same thing Hitler tried to do with the Jews in the 1940s.

Let's just get rid of them all let's annihilate them.

This final ruler will rule the world through Satan's power and the kings of the earth at this time

Will submit to his authority Through Satan's power and the kings of the earth will have

no problem following him at Revelation chapter 17 verses 12 through 13 describes when

these kings Follow the leadership of this final one world ruler.

Everything I have described concerning this final one world ruler Has been what he will do during these final

seven years.

But his activity takes place before then.

It's not like he's just gonna appear and things are just gonna get bad.

The table needs to be set before he can come back.

Once again as we ponder this sign as We have seen with the other signs the

rise of the final one world ruler.

We must keep in mind the bait birth pains.

Illustration.

As Jesus says in verse 8 the signs are but the beginning of birth pains.

Once again the pains increase in frequency and intensity as his return nears.

The revealing of the Antichrist has been going on for 2 ,000 years and one day.

He will finally be revealed in 1st John 2.

The Apostle John in chapter 2 verse 18 said that the spirit of the Antichrist is already here and

This is shown through many smaller Antichrist.

So who are these smaller Antichrist?

I've already alluded to it.

Anyone who denies Jesus as 1st John 2 22 says who is the liar, but he who

denies that Jesus is the Christ?

This is the Antichrist he who denies the father and the son.

It's interesting.

Unbelievers, whether they know it or not are ushering in the end of the world by

pushing forward immorality by creating an environment where he will be able to come

in and Take leadership without any difficulty.

Sometimes Bree and I tell our kids That some people do not believe in Jesus and

They're shocked when they hear this like like why would not why would anyone want to believe in Jesus?

But the world is full of those who do not confess Jesus as the Christ and through default instead

follow the evil one.

1st John 3 verse 10 the Apostle John wrote by this it is evident who are the children

of God and who are the children of the devil.

Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God nor is the one who

does not love his brother.

Anyone who does not follow Christ follows the evil one and is an Antichrist according to the

Apostle John.

Sounds severe sounds harsh.

That's what scripture says.

But this one man this final one world ruler is the worst Antichrist this world has ever

seen.

It all finds its fulfillment in him he is the poster boy

and this is why He is not called an Antichrist.

But the Antichrist in Our day we see his rise coming.

The table is being set right before our eyes.

What other time historically can a man of this stature rise up.

There have been men who tried to rule the world.

But a lack of technology prevented them from doing so.

In ancient times empires like Egypt Assyria Babylon Persia and Rome

Desired to rule the world.

But in reality, they only ruled a region.

For example, there were empires in the Far East in the region of China.

Well, these empires were around in the center part of the earth.

Many evil men have desired to rule the world, but no one has ever ruled the world.

They have been bound by limitations.

But what prevented men from ruling the world in the past has been removed.

Right before our eyes we have a global economy and all it takes is one giant crash.

For us to have a global currency.

When there is a global currency in the future, there won't be dollars and euros and all other currencies there will be

one currency.

With a global economy we have now we can see how this is going to work.

We live in a world that is moving toward globalism and away from nationalism.

With nationalism you are less connected to other nations and the interests of your own nation

are chiefly in mind.

With globalism every nation is closely connected making it easier for everyone to be under the rule of

one man.

The goal of globalism is to is to get the interests of all nations to be

one.

Globalists do not care about national decline.

In fact, they promote it whether they say it or not because the decline of a nation means

That all nations are in decline and all nations will have to be dependent upon one another.

Hence Globalism it's all a part of the plan.

What we also see is that technology has made the planet small.

The pressure that will come from submitting to this rule will be immense because technology will not make

it difficult to control the population.

Through technology.

It is easy to bring everyone under one tent and it makes it harder for people to be dissenters of the

authority.

Because in this system liberty is not the goal.

The goal is tyranny.

Where the government wants to be involved in every aspect of your life in order to control you to push

forward their agenda.

At the root of the final one world agenda will be to defame God.

Persecute his people and Worship of the one world ruler who is

possessed by Satan ever since the beginning of time when Satan rebelled this has been his

desire and He's he's looking ahead to this day.

He's looking forward to it.

It's going to be the day when he is worshipped when the whole planet Explicitly worships him

and I'm not saying any of this to scare you.

I'm saying this to tell you that we see the table being set for the rise of the one world ruler.

We don't know when it will be.

We could have years before it happens.

But it will happen as scripture says it will.

The Antichrist is not going to rise to power out of nothing.

The conditions need to be prepared Before he can rise and what we see in our world is the environment is being

prepared for him and eventually It will be his time.

We see all the signs around us that his time is coming and this should motivate us all the more.

To follow Jesus closely because it's a sign that Christ's return is getting closer.

It's birth pains.

We see the signs all around us Far from it being depressing.

It's encouraging to the Christian because it tells us we are that much closer to leaving This

devil -ruled world to dwell with our God Savior King and friend Jesus.

He's the rightful King.

He's not the White Witch.

He's the King.

He's the true King.

And as I've said before I don't think we'll be here during the final seven year tribulation.

I believe in a pre -tribulation rapture that the church will be raptured before that time as The

table continues to be set for his rise we must understand that any moment Christ may snatch his

church He may delay for a while.

But we need to be ready to meet him on the day when he gathers his church to be with him and all these signs.

That we see in our world.

That are setting the stage tells us that that day is getting that much closer.

Anticipate the sooner turn of Christ and the ninth practice how is through following the rise.

Of.

The final one world ruler.

And here's the tenth practice how and this is a shorter point, but here's the tenth practice how you were to anticipate

the sooner turn of Christ.

That is through going through worldwide cataclysmic events

and you're visiting today you might wow this is intense.

If you're visiting today, I just want to say we've been preaching through the whole book of Matthew.

We've gone through every verse.

This is where we are, okay?

We're not a doom -and -gloom Church.

I hope what people see what about our churches that we're a church that's full of joy that Wants to love each other that

wants to live out our faith.

And we cover every portion of the Bible.

Including these hard ones that are that are hard to to look at.

But it's what the word says so I don't set the agenda the Word of God

does and I'm gonna summarize All the destruction that is going to take place as

verses 21 through 22 describes.

These are the words of Jesus once again for then there will be great tribulation.

Such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now no and never will be.

And if those days had not been cut short no human being would be saved but for the

sake of the elect those days Will be cut short.

When we talk about the final seven years it is commonly called the Great Tribulation.

But technically the Great Tribulation is the final three and a half years the second half of

the seven years.

As Jesus says here.

He says then There will be great tribulation.

We know this because of what verse 21 says here.

It is at this point as we have seen that he will pour out his wrath on The Jewish

people and on believers and that is of course the Antichrist.

During this time he will persecute and kill many many people.

Well, we also will be seen at this time and again.

I don't think we'll be here, but what the world will be seen at this time is That there's other things going

on there's gonna be wars going on that are gonna cause an enormous amount of damage.

Earlier in this chapter we talked about wars and rumors of wars as a sign.

That Christ's return is getting closer and my personal conviction is the Gog of Magog.

Which is described in Ezekiel.

Will start before the seven -year tribulation and there will be war going on till the end of the tribulation which is

called Armageddon.

As we have seen Revelation 14 20 describes how extensive the carnage is going to be

during these wars.

After Armageddon the carnage will stretch over an area of 200 miles.

So during this time there will be death from persecution and from war but as we have also seen there will be

extensive destruction from the wrath of God that is poured out on the earth and This will cause the

most death.

We wonder okay.

When is God gonna judge the world?

Why does God let evil go on forever?

He doesn't want to go on forever.

He's gonna bring judgment on this earth and it's gonna happen as he pours out these natural disasters.

He controls nature and he's gonna unleash nature on the godless world.

That we live in what is interesting here is what

Jesus says.

He says.

Let me read this here.

Then there will be great tribulations such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now no and

never will be.

And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved.

But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.

What is interesting is that as we hear Jesus say this it should cause us to think of the flood.

Thousands of years ago a flood happened.

And we live in an area by the way where we see evidence of the flood all around us the the St. Croix River.

The glacier rocks, oh, where did that come from?

Well, I came from the flood.

A flood happened which caused an ice age which caused the rocks to be this way.

That's the explanation.

I once heard Ken Han say.

If there was a global flood there will be there would be billions of dead things all over the earth.

What do we find billions of dead things all over the earth?

All these fossils, where do they come from?

They came from a flood.

God judged this world.

Long ago and in second Peter it talks about scoffers.

It is these secular people scoff the the reality that there was a flood so much time

has passed that of course the generations don't pass on the news and It eventually they don't believe it happened.

And what Peter does is he connects the flood with the second coming to Christ?

Judgment happened long ago.

Judgment will happen in the future.

Only eight humans survived the flood and the only reason they

survived is Because God told Noah to build a big boat To save

he and his family.

But what Jesus is saying in verse 21 is that the destruction of the final tribulation is worse than the flood.

Yes, you heard that.

How could it be worse than the flood when millions of people will survive the carnage of the tribulation?

There's gonna be people alive at the end of it.

The answer is that if the destruction continued Everyone would die as

Jesus says in verse 22 if those days had not been cut short.

No human being would be saved.

The destruction Will be very severe for only a few years as we have seen that God

is going to preserve one -third of the Jews who will receive their Messiah and

Jesus says it's going to be cut short for the sake of the elect.

He's preserving these people.

The one he preserves to the end these days will only go on for so long.

With seven years with the worst of it happened in the second three and a half years.

But as Jesus says it will be the greatest disaster and the greatest carnage this world has ever seen.

But once this very dark period ends that is when Christ will come to this earth to take his throne.

There's an old saying it's always darkest before the dawn.

No time is the same more true Than when the seven -year tribulation is described.

It's gonna be the darkest time in history, but what comes after it is the brightest time.

Things will be very bad.

But it will bring in the greatest era when Christ reigns from his throne.

This is the hope of every believer the day when Christ comes to this earth.

But I've said before I Believe we are alive at the we who are

alive at this time will be raptured before the seven -year tribulation

but even before the rapture we see the ramping up of events that show Christ's

return is nearing and We the point of these signs is to show

us he's coming back.

He's coming back and they increase in frequency and intensity and as we ponder the reality that

he's coming back.

How are we to respond to this?

We're supposed to respond by living godly lives for Christ's sake by walking closely with him

by Praying more by doing more evangelism by reading our Bibles more by spending more

time with other believers where we can encourage one another by supporting missions.

All these things should motivate us.

The Bible never tells us to hide in a bunker right and to move to Alaska and

The most remote place we could possibly imagine to hide from the the destruction that's going to happen.

No, we should stay and live where we are and make a difference and make our

lives count here.

And all these things are pointing ahead to this day.

So anticipate the soon return of Christ and the tenth practice.

How is through worldwide?

Cataclysmic events.

That will reach their pinnacle during the final seven years.

Now next Sunday We will be looking at The big events,

okay, we've gone through the tribulation and.

And it's all been pointed ahead to this grand event when Christ comes back.

And that's what we're gonna look at next Sunday, but this time let's bow our heads in prayer.

Father in heaven what a wonderful book.

This is.

It tells us the story of life.

And the one who listens to it is wise.

And will shine like the brightness of the Sun.

And so my prayer is that everyone would take heed to the words of this book.

Listen to it and live accordingly.

Help us as a church to do that.

And Lord as we look at this dark future when the Antichrist reigns and the world

Experiences enormous carnage.

We are reminded that that's not how the story ends.

That you will win that you will reign that you will be victorious and

It's the most humbling thing to say that we who are in Christ will conquer

with.

With your son we are conquerors alongside him.

Not because we deserve it.

We don't.

But because of your grace you have designed it this way.

Thank you for saving everyone in this room who knows Christ and if anyone doesn't know Christ.

I pray that they would Enter into that relationship with him today as the scripture says believe in the

Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.

So Lord apply this to everyone right where they are at And I ask this in Jesus name.

Amen.