Signs of the Second Coming of Jesus — Zac Poonen

The Signs People Associate With Christ’s Return

I'm sure you've heard many messages about the second coming of Christ, and that's a very popular subject with many people, many preachers. But if I were to ask you, from all the messages you've heard about the signs that would indicate that the coming of Christ is near, what are the first signs that come to your mind from all the messages you have heard in your life about the signs that point to the second coming of Christ?

I've heard a lot of sermons in my younger days, and as I heard them, the signs that would come most frequently to my mind is wars and rumors of wars and tsunamis and earthquakes and Israel coming into the land, etc., etc.

Testing Tradition by Scripture

But one of the things that I have sought to do is to try and approach the Scriptures with a mind that is completely open, not bound by the traditions I inherited from my church background. I was born into a Syrian Orthodox Church family, so I was baptized as a baby, christened.

So when I was born again, when I was 19 and a half, I wondered, should I get baptized again? There's only one baptism. I was bound by that tradition for one and a half years, and I studied the Scriptures, and I saw there's not a single verse about child baptism in Scripture.

But there are millions of Christians who baptize their children. So millions of Christians are wrong. There are even born-again Christians in some denominations who baptize their children. John Wesley was one of the greatest men of God who lived in England 250 years ago, but he didn't baptize adults, he baptized children.

Martin Luther and many others like that. Great men of God. So that teaches us great men of God can be wrong. Millions of Christians can be wrong. So, there's only one guide for our earthly life, written guide, that's the word of the Bible.

And I find that many Christians say that the Bible is the word of God, but they don't read it as much as other books. Then they are dishonest. And I'll tell you one thing, God loves honest brothers and sisters.

If you were to make a list of the sins that Jesus condemned the most, if you were to make a list of the most serious sins, we would put murder, adultery, stealing, but Jesus hardly ever spoke about those sins.

He spoke about hypocrisy. The opposite of hypocrisy is honesty. He hated hypocrisy. It was not to murderers and thieves that he said, you will go to hell, it was to hypocrites. So I want to encourage you, my brothers, in more than 50 years of being a believer, I have discovered that God loves honest people.

And so, one aspect of honesty is this, if you say something, act according to it. If you say, among all the millions of books there are in the world, there is only one book that God has written, and that is the Bible, I'm sure all of you say that.

But if you're honest, you will study this book more than watching television, more than watching movies, more than other books. If you don't do that, I have to tell you, you're dishonest. You don't speak the truth.

Comparing Church Teaching With the Bible

You say something with your lips, you know, Jesus said that, these people draw a knife to me with their lips, but their heart goes after their covetousness. They study the stock market more than they study the Bible, because there you can make money.

Here, you get only spiritual riches. And they prove by their life that they're really interested more in material riches than spiritual riches, but theoretically, if you ask them a question-answer paper, is the Bible the word of God?

Yes, it is. Is that the only book that God has written? Yes, it is, but they don't go by it. Well, I decided to go by it, and when I compared what the Bible said with what I saw being taught in the Orthodox Church, I discovered a lot of it was not in Scripture.

What did I do? I just threw it away from my life. And then I came to another assembly. These were born-again people, and they emphasized certain things in the Scripture. But they studied the Scripture like we study history, or some other subject in school.

It was all academic. They didn't speak about the Holy Spirit, so I never knew anything about the baptism and the Holy Spirit in that church. But they really studied the Scriptures, and I'm thankful for that.

But I found I knew all this academically, but I didn't have power in my life. And again, as I read the Scriptures, I saw that this church, though they preached water baptism, did not preach baptism in the Holy Spirit.

And that's what I needed. And then the Lord filled me with the Holy Spirit, and then I knew that I needed supernatural gifts to serve Him. I can't serve Him with my natural ability. The Bible says I must covet to prophesy.

Every believer is urged to do that if I want to serve God. And I began to do that, and then I went to Pentecostal churches, and I found so many different emphases on the different gifts of the Holy Spirit.

And in every time, I said, just like I did with the Orthodox Church, I gave up that tradition, comparing it with Scripture. And then I was with the Brethren, and I compared them with Scripture, and then I saw what was taught in the Pentecostals, and I compared it with Scripture.

And I said, nobody's going to convince me about anything. I don't care if a million people say something, if I don't see it in the Word of God, I won't accept it. And I want to tell you, that is what saved me from going astray.

And I would recommend that to you. Let me show you a verse in Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 17. In Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 17, we read about Paul and Silas going to a place called Thessalonica, preaching the Word of God, and there were verses of one, and a number of people were converted, we read there in verse 4.

And joined Paul and Silas, and there was a little church in Thessalonica, and that's the church to which Paul wrote the letter to the Thessalonians. Earlier he was with a church in Corinth, and he wrote a letter to the Corinthians.

We read later on in Chapter 19, he was in Ephesus, he wrote a letter to the Ephesians. He had the habit of writing letters to the churches. He was in Galatia, you read earlier in Chapter 16, and he wrote a letter to the Galatians.

But there was one church, one place he went to and planted a church, he never wrote a letter to them. Have you wondered why? And that was in a place called Berea. A lot of people don't know about that.

They know about Ephesians, Ephesus, and Corinth, and Thessalonica, some Christians have never heard about Berea. Let me tell you about Berea. From Thessalonica, Chapter 17, verse 10, Acts 17, 10, the brethren sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and they came there and did the same thing, went to the synagogue and preached.

Now listen to this. The Holy Spirit's commendation and certificate of the people in Berea is this. They were more noble-minded than the believers in Thessalonica. I'd like the Lord to say that about me, that Brother Zach was more noble-minded than certain other believers.

I say, Lord, can you say that about me? Don't you want the Lord to say that about you? How did the Holy Spirit give them the certificate? The reason is given is, first of all, they received the word with great eagerness.

They didn't sit there in the meeting with their mind wandering here and there, wondering what should I do tomorrow, or what should I do this week, or worried about something that happened last week. They sat in the church listening with great eagerness.

That's the number one quality. And not only does it apply to listening to God's word in the church, when they read the scriptures, we had to read it with great eagerness. That's number one. That's why they were noble-minded.

People who read the scriptures casually, people who listen to God's word in a church casually, they are not noble-minded. The Holy Spirit compares believers in Thessalonica with believers in Berea, and the Holy Spirit will compare you with believers in some other place.

He'll compare one church with another church, and say, they are more noble-minded, or this believer with that believer, and say, this believer is more noble-minded. I want a certificate like that from God, and the Bible tells me how I can get it.

By going to God's word, this book, with great eagerness, they received the word. See, those days, they didn't have a Bible. This type of Bible has been available only in the last 500 years, since printing was invented.

In the early days, there was no Bible. The only Bible that was in the synagogue, where they had a scroll, and that also only the Old Testament. Most of these letters were not even written. So these early Christians, how could they study the Bible?

When they came to the meeting, they couldn't come with a Bible in their hand. There were no Bibles. And there was no Bible in their home. If they wanted to study the scriptures, they had to go to the synagogue, and look at the scrolls, and search the scriptures.

There was absolutely no other way to do it. Maybe a few rich Jewish people could afford to buy one of these expensive parchments of the Old Testament Bible. Most poor believers just couldn't afford it.

So when it says to search the scriptures, they examined, verse 11, the scriptures daily. This is why they were called noble-minded. I mean, if the Bereans had a Bible like this, they would have been thrilled.

They'd say, we don't have to go to the synagogue now. We can sit at home and search it daily. They took the trouble to go to the synagogue, look at the scriptures, to search the scriptures every single day.

They had their work. They were not all full-time workers, you know, doing God's work. They were in a secular job. They had to earn their living every day. And then when that was over, they went to the synagogue to search the scriptures daily.

I'm not surprised the Holy Spirit calls them noble-minded. And what were they searching the scriptures for? They were searching the scriptures to find out this great Apostle Paul, what he's saying, is it right or wrong?

Isn't that amazing? That they knew this man was a great man of God. He had planted churches. He'd healed the sick and done miracles, and he'd seen Jesus face to face. That's all very good. But I still want to check whether this so-called great man of God who has seen Jesus face to face and done miracles, all that is great, but I still want to check whether he's preaching according to the scriptures.

I'll tell you this. If you can look at every man of God, a so-called great man of God who does miracles and tells you about all the wonderful things he did in different places, et cetera, and no matter what he preaches, you say, brother, that may be all right, but I still want to check whether what you're saying is in God's Word, you'll be safe.

The Holy Spirit will say you're noble-minded. That's what I decided. I said, I don't care even if it's the Apostle Paul. Whichever great man of God today there is, I want to see if he is preaching according to the scriptures.

And so, you know, when they heard the Apostle Paul speak on the synagogue one Saturday, they'd come to him and say, praise the Lord, brother Paul, good to hear you, but we'll have to check up the scriptures and tell you next week whether we agree with you or not.

Isn't that great? To walk up to an apostle and say that? And so, they would check and come back to Paul and say, yeah, now we accept what you say. Now, today we don't have to wait a whole week. You've got the Bible right in front of you.

And if a man preaches to you anything, anything under the sun, and he cannot show that to you in scripture, I'd say, don't believe it. It may be his own theory. It may be his experience. Experience is not scripture.

A lot of people have experiences. You know, Paul was thrown off a horse and saw Jesus face to face. Is that a doctrine? That was his experience. Okay. But his experience, I don't have to be thrown off any horse, and I don't have to necessarily see a vision of Jesus on a road.

That was an experience he had, which was a genuine experience, but it's not for me. And you didn't have it either, because the Acts of the Apostles, let me tell you one simple thing, is not a book for getting doctrine.

It's a history book. And many people are dishonest when they come to the Acts of the Apostles. They pick out certain verses to prove doctrines, which are their favorite doctrines, and they will reject other verses, which are also in the same book.

That's what I mean by being dishonest. The Bereans search the scriptures daily. Now if you go to the Acts of the Apostles, I remember once, I was with a group of people in North America, God-fearing, born-again believers, who were called the Hutterites.

Reading Acts as History Rather Than a Complete Doctrinal Manual

Now, I don't know whether you've heard of them. There's a group of Christians who were persecuted in Europe in the 15th, 16th century, Amish, Mennonites, Hutterites, Anabaptists. They're all part of the same group.

And they had slight differences among them. The Hutterites are people who believed in communal living. That means they did what it says in the Acts of the Apostles. They all had a common purse. Nobody earned his own money.

They had worked together in a farm, and one leader would keep all the money. And they'd eat together in a common hall. They said, this is how the early Christians lived. This is how we're going to live.

And they had a verse for it. Acts 2, verse 44, all those who believed had everything in common. They got their doctrine from Acts of the Apostles. All those who believed had everything in common. All people had all things in common.

They said, we're just obeying scripture. But they were against the doctrine of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. They didn't believe in speaking in tongues or any of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So I was invited to speak there once, and we had a question time with a number of young people sitting in a home, and they were trying to grill me.

And the leader said, Brother Zach, doesn't it say in Acts 2, verse 44, that all those who believed had all things in common? Why don't you practice that? I said, before we go to verse 44, let's go to verse 4.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, I said. They all spoke in tongues. Why don't you do that? End of discussion. End of argument. They had, for years, picked out one verse and neglected the other.

That is what I mean by dishonesty in coming to the Acts of the Apostles. And then I told them, you cannot get doctrines from the Acts of the Apostles. It's a history book. You read there that Paul circumcised Timothy, Acts chapter 16.

What doctrine do you get from that? You go to Acts 20 and 20 to 22, you read Paul shaved his head in the temple. What doctrine do you get from that? Paul fought with Barnabas. They separated. What doctrine do you get from that?

Many, many other things like that. It's a history book. If you want to get a doctrine, go to the epistles. Don't go to the historicals. I mean, I've studied the Bible for 54 years, and I'll tell you a simple principle of understanding scripture if you want to listen to me.

If you try to get a doctrine from the historical sections of scripture, you will be dishonest. You will pick out the ones that prove your favorite tradition and doctrine, and you will neglect things which contradict what you believe.

That's what these Hutterites were doing. So I go to a Pentecostal group, we have a discussion, and they say to me, Brother Zach, doesn't it say in Acts 2 .4, they were filled with the spirit and they all spoke in tongues?

I say, right. I say to the Pentecostal, let's go to Acts 2 .44. They all believed and they all had all things in common. Why don't you preach that? End of discussion. Because the Hutterites picked out one verse and the Pentecostals pick out another.

Both are wrong because they got their doctrine out of the Acts of the Apostles and they pick out the verses which they like, and they're absolutely dishonest by not taking everything. You either take everything or say, that's not a book for doctrine.

Doctrinal Caution in the Gospels

Well, if you want to be protected from deception, there's a simple principle there. In the New Testament Epistles, we have everything necessary for doctrine. Now, the same thing applies in the Gospels.

If you go to the Gospels and read the historical sections of what all Jesus did and say, we've got to experience all that, you'll get a wrong doctrine. For example, there are numerous places in Scripture in the Gospels where we read, Jesus healed everybody who was sick, not 99%, 100%.

Another place, he healed them all. What doctrine do you get out of that? Which place do you see every single person being healed? There are as many sick people in Pentecostal churches as there are in brethren assemblies who don't believe in healing.

Now, I'm not against praying for healing. I prayed for the sick. I've experienced healing in my own life and I've seen healing in answer to prayer with numerous people in our own church. I've seen barren women giving birth to children in answer to prayer.

I believe in it, but I still do not believe that everybody is healed among believers. I don't preach that doctrine because I don't find it in the episodes. I know it's there in the Gospels, Jesus healed them all, but I don't get a doctrine from the historical sections of Scripture.

And I want to say just one thing about healing. There's something better than healing and that is health. I don't pray for healing, I pray for health. And I would recommend that you pray for health. Say, Lord, give me wisdom to preserve my body and health so that, you know, prevention is better than cure.

And if sickness comes, then we ask God for healing, but let's not assume that everybody is going to be healed. Paul was not healed of his thorn in the flesh. 1 Timothy 5, we read that Timothy had a stomach's infirmity that frequently troubled him.

All the time Paul laid hands on Timothy, he was not healed. That was Timothy's thorn in the flesh. It kept him humble. I'm just saying that in passing. If you want a doctrine, get it from a clear teaching of Jesus.

All the teaching of Jesus is clear, absolutely clear. For example, Luke 9, 23, you cannot follow Jesus if you don't take up the cross every single day. It is impossible. Anybody, you have to die to yourself every day if you want to follow Jesus.

Not just go to church and sing songs and read the Bible. You've got to deny yourself and die every day. And anybody who thinks he can follow Jesus or she can follow Jesus without denying themselves every single day has not read Luke 9, verse 23.

That's not history. That's doctrine. So when I go to the Gospels, I take all the teachings of Jesus literally, exactly. But when I read the history of what he did, I say that's history. There's no doctrine there.

Healing, the Leading of the Spirit, and Human Compassion

Because I also read in John chapter 5, where Jesus went to the pool of Bethesda, where it says there was a great multitude of sick people, and he healed one person and walked out. He didn't heal them all.

Because Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit. We read in Acts chapter 4, there was a lame man sitting at the gate of the temple. We read in Acts 4 that he was 40 years old. And from birth, he was lame. And he'd been kept at the gate called Beautiful.

He was always begging for alms. And he'd been there, if he was 40 years old, he'd been put there probably for 30 years to be a beggar. And when Peter came, you know, he asked for gold, silver and gold.

And Peter said, I don't have any. And he healed him. But long before Peter came, Jesus walked by that beautiful gate of the temple numerous times in three and a half years of his ministry. And he saw that man.

And the man would ask him for money. And Jesus would tell Judas, give him some money. Because Jesus didn't live by rules, such as thou shalt heal everyone who is sick. No. He lived by the leading of the Holy Spirit.

And so whenever he saw a sick person, he would seek the will of the Father. Father, what do you want me to do for this person? Now, Father, you're leading me to go to the pool of Bethesda. And there's so many hundreds of sick people sitting here.

Father, what do you want me to do? Go to that man sitting there in the corner. Heal him. And Jesus would heal him. What next, Father? Walk away. That's how Jesus lived. He didn't live by rules. He lived by the leading of the Holy Spirit.

We tend to form rules and say it must always be like this. That's law. We don't live under law. We live by the leading of the Spirit. And it's a wonderful thing to live by the leading of the Spirit. Jesus lived like that all the time.

Sometimes he would do something and sometimes he wouldn't. He was led by the Spirit. And so he came by this man at the beautiful gate of the temple. Father, what shall I do? Give him some money. So he'd say, Judas, give him some money.

He'd come by that same gate two weeks later. What about now, Father? Give him some money. Regularly, for three and a half years, he walked in and out of that beautiful gate of the temple. Every time that man begged for money, he gave him money.

If Jesus had healed him, he would not have been sitting there when Peter came by. And we read in Acts 4, 4, 5 ,000 people were saved seeing that man healed. They would not have been saved because Jesus did something on his own.

Two years earlier, you see the wisdom of listening to God. And when the father tells you, don't heal him, just give him money, do that. A lot of people don't understand that we live too much in our soul.

We don't understand the difference between soul and spirit. We act on human compassion. And that's the normal way there are Hindus and Muslims who act on human compassion. You don't need the Holy Spirit to act on human compassion.

I know numerous organizations in India. I know Hindu leaders who have who set up hospitals in India where they give free treatment out of compassion. Hindus. You don't need the Holy Spirit for that. There's an element of human compassion in a lot of people, even atheists.

Not everybody is hard hearted. So if if we act on human compassion, I think of the story of the prodigal son. Supposing you were living next door to the prodigal son. And you saw this poor boy about to eat what the pigs are eating.

I know what you do. You'd give him some food. And every day you'd give him some food and make sure that he never goes back to his father's house because you're feeding him. But the father out there has got more wisdom.

He says, I'm not going to send any money to my son. And he hears a message that his son is living with the pigs. Yeah, let him live with the pigs. I want him to come back home. I wanted him to get so sick and tired of his life that he comes back home.

But some soulless Christian next door can keep on giving him money and food and make sure he never goes back to his father's home because that soulless Christian does not see God. He doesn't know how to live by the spirit.

Trusting God Rather Than Human Understanding

And you and I don't realize how much we have hindered the work of God by acting according to our reason. The Bible says in Proverbs chapter three. Now I'm talking about the type of Christian life which most people don't know anything about.

But that's the life you're supposed to live if you're really filled with the Holy Spirit. That's the way your life can be most effective on Earth. Not just to do what other people say. Come here, go there, do this, do that and do everything.

They say Jesus never lived like that. The Bible says, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Proverbs three, five heart. Or spirit, Proverbs three, five, and do not lean upon your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, listen to the spirit and he will tell you exactly what you're supposed to do.

Have you read Proverbs three, five and six? You know, as the as a child of Adam, we all have grown up. Responding to particularly two sources of information, one what comes through our eyes and the other what comes through our ears.

What we read, what we see, what we hear. This is our main sources of information. We have a little bit of information from touch and smell, et cetera. But mostly 90 of our information comes through what we see and what we hear.

You look at your own life and our mind is influenced a lot by what we see and hear. And if you don't filter, I mean, if you're not spirit filled, if you're not really wholehearted, then you live by what you see and hear.

But when you're filled with the spirit and you want to walk in the spirit, you're not going to just respond to what all that you see. Like I said the other earlier about an advertisement, this advertisement says you cannot live without this.

You filter that with the Holy Spirit and say, I can live without it. I don't need to buy that expensive stuff in order to live on this earth. So it says about Jesus, I want to show you a wonderful passage about Jesus which shows what a spiritual life is, which many people don't understand.

Jesus as the Spirit-Filled Example

You know, we are not supposed to. I'm not talking about milk now, and this is what I'm sharing is meat. And I trust that all of you have drunk enough milk in your life that you're ready for some solid meat.

We're not supposed to be babies forever. We're supposed to grow up. And this is solid meat. Isaiah chapter 11. In Isaiah chapter 11, it is talking about the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus. And he's our example.

Jesus is the perfect example of the spirit filled man. There was there's nobody more perfect than him. And so whenever I want to know what what does it mean to be filled with the spirit? I look at Jesus.

He's my example. I can't go wrong. When I see people laying hands on somebody and pushing them down and saying that's the Holy Spirit, OK, I want to compare it with Jesus. I go to the scriptures and I see where do I see Jesus laying hands on people and pushing them down?

Never. I see Jesus picking people lying on down on the ground and lifting them up. And these people are doing the opposite. And there is a verse and there's a word for that which is the opposite of Christ in scripture.

You know what it's called? Antichrist. Antichrist. Christ lifts people up. You push them down. But how many Christians have discernment on that? How many Christians are bold enough to speak about it? I've had people tell me, Oh, be careful, brother.

Don't speak against the Holy Spirit. I see you're going you're not going to scare me with verses like that. When the devil also quoted a verse to Jesus saying it is written and that Jesus said, Don't scare me.

It's also written. You shall not tempt the Lord your God. So when people say to me, it's written, don't blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. I say it's also written in one John four, one beloved. Don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits.

See whether they are of God. If you don't know the scriptures, people will scare you with verses. If you know the scriptures like Jesus, you know how to counter one verse with another. Do you know that the devil can quote scripture?

He quoted scripture to Jesus. Don't you think he'll quote scripture to you, perhaps through a preacher? You've got to be careful. So Isaiah chapter 11 speaks about the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus.

Verse two, speaking about, you know, the one who came out of Jesse and David in verse one, that's Jesus. The spirit of the Lord will rest upon him. You know, in the book of Revelation, you read about the seven spirits of God or the seven fold Holy Spirit, seven characteristics of the Holy Spirit.

All seven are here. The spirit of Jehovah, spirit of wisdom, spirit of understanding, spirit of counsel, spirit of strength, the spirit of knowledge and the spirit of the fear of the Lord. That's the seven fold Holy Spirit.

And that was upon Jesus. And out of all these seven, one particular characteristic is picked out. The fear of the Lord, the spirit of the fear of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, if he fills a person, brings within him a tremendous reverence for God.

Fear means not that being afraid of God. I'm not afraid of God. He's my dad. I'm not afraid of my dad. But I have a tremendous respect for him. And the more filled with the spirit I am, the more I respect him because the Holy Spirit is a spirit of reverence for God.

And if you don't have reverence for God, I say you're not filled with the Holy Spirit. I'll tell you this. When I hear some of these modern, cheap, charismatic songs, I say these are not there's such a lack of reverence in some of them.

I'm not against them. Some of them are really good. But some of them, when I hear that, I say these are love songs. Some half converted cowboy, when he was in his unconverted days, wrote love songs for his girlfriend.

Now he's half converted and he writes love songs to Jesus like hold me close, never let me go. Who are you talking to, brother? Are you talking to Almighty God? Or you converted all those love songs you sang to your girlfriend now to Jesus.

I can't imagine Peter singing songs like that. Hold me close, never let me go and all that type of stuff. I'm just telling you how I hear songs like that. And I say in that church, never again, we're not going to sing that.

The spirit of God is a spirit that brings reverence for God. And everything we sing must have reverence. We must mean what we say. And that's why I often tell people, when you sing a song, pay attention to the words, because we are saying a prayer or a thanksgiving or a praise.

Don't just sing it just because it's a nice tune or because somebody wrote it. Mean it. And if you don't know the meaning, find out the meaning. For example. For so many years, maybe 20, 30 years of my Christian life, I used to sing a song to sing many songs of Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna.

I never knew what it meant. I was saying to God something which I didn't even know the meaning. Many of you sang Hosanna today in that song. Tell me, what does it mean? What did you tell God? What exactly did you tell God when you said Hosanna in that song?

You know the answer? I mean, hallelujah, you know, it means praise the Lord. Hallelujah is short for Yohwah. Praise the Lord. What about Hosanna? Oh, you say it's there somewhere in scripture. It says in Matthew 21, Hosanna, Hosanna is a Hebrew word, just like it's a combination of two words.

Just like hallelujah is Hebrew. Amen is Hebrew. Many people don't know the meaning of amen. We say amen so many times. I've done it, I'm telling you from my own mistakes, I'm trying to teach you from my own mistakes.

I said amen, amen, amen. To me, amen only meant the prayer is over. We can open our eyes. But that's not what amen means. The word amen is a Hebrew word. Which you could translate it as it shall be so.

It says the first time it comes in scripture is an ax. Sorry, Genesis 15, six, where it says God said to Abraham, you'll have children like the stars of the sky. Abraham said, amen. Abraham believed in the Lord and it's called amen.

Abraham, amen, the Lord. So when I say amen to a prayer, it's not just the prayer is over. It means what that brother said. I believe it will be so. It's an expression of faith. When I say amen to my own prayer, I say something and I say amen.

Sometimes we repeat amen when some brother says something. I hope you mean it shall be so. It's an expression of faith. Well, the times of ignorance, God overlooks. But now onwards, you know what you're going to say.