Discerning the Signs of the Times — Zac Poonen

We are so blessed that in this time of pandemic, where many have to stay in their own homes, we have the privilege and opportunity to meet like this. Never take this for granted. I mean the very fact that you have some technology available with you to be able to watch and see and listen is itself something that you really need to be thankful for.

There are so many things in the Christian life we take for granted. We don't realize that perhaps 70 or 90 of the world don't have some of the things we have. One of the first lessons we need to learn is to be grateful.

Gratitude as Protection Against Backsliding

I want to begin with that. What shall we think of in these last days when there's so much of suffering, disaster, wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, and pandemic? One of the first things is be thankful.

The first step to backsliding is ingratitude, not being thankful to God. That's where I want to begin because that's something I keep on emphasizing. The Bible says give thanks in everything, in all situations.

You read Ephesians 5, 18 onwards, it says be filled with the spirit and then it goes on to say give thanks in everything. Sometime when you get time, if you turn to Romans 1, if you all have a paper and a pen, I would encourage you to have a paper and a pen just to write down some of these verses that you can look up later on.

In Romans 1, verse 18 to 32, this last half of that chapter, it describes the descent of man from greater and greater degrees of sin. In that passage, three times it says God gave them up, verse 24 and verse 26 and verse 28.

God gave them up, God gave them up, God gave them up at three levels. He allowed to give them up and they sank lower and lower into sin. Where did that backsliding begin? What is the first step downwards?

Let me tell you that Romans 1, 21, when they knew God, they did not honor him by giving thanks. The first step downwards in backsliding is an ungrateful heart, not thankful for whatever God has given.

There are so many things we don't have, nevermind. We still have much more than 90 of the world, the very fact that you're able to watch this indicates that. So dear brothers and sisters, let us develop this habit of thankfulness because around us is a world that is not grateful to God for all that God has given.

Many have even stopped believing in God and many Christians also have only got a form of godliness. The doctrines are right, the language is right, they go to church, they sing songs, they believe the right things, they are evangelical in their faith, but there's no spirit of thankfulness and when there's a lack of spirit of thankfulness, even your home atmosphere becomes heavy.

Imagine if you have a husband and wife, we're always thankful for each other, if your wife brings you a cup of tea or coffee in the morning, to have a spirit of thankfulness, not to say, well, that's our duty, it's not our duty.

We're not obliged to do anything for anyone else. God has been merciful to us and good to us, so we are good to others. Please develop this habit. So our subject today is discerning the signs of the times in which we live and that's a word that Jesus himself spoke, if you turn with me to Matthew chapter 16, let me read this verse.

Discerning the Signs of the Times

The Pharisees and Sadducees, Matthew 16 came to him and said, show us a sign from heaven. And he said, well, you people, in the evening you say it's fair weather, when the sky is red or there'll be a storm today, the sky is red and threatening, they could read the signs of the weather, just like we can, you know, weather reports nowadays are very, very accurate.

But he says, you don't know the signs of the times, you cannot discern the signs of the times. You can discern what the weather is going to be like tomorrow or day after and you plan your life accordingly.

Oh, it's going to rain, so we can't go out for a picnic. You trust the weather report. What about the signs of the times in scripture? That's what the Lord rebuked the Pharisees for not knowing and not discerning.

Discerning is different from, is more than knowing. Knowing is just an intellectual thing. Discerning is in your spirit, you sense something which goes beyond your mind. You know, man is body, soul, which is his mind and spirit and discerning is a thing of the spirit, in the heart, I sense something which is beyond what my mind tells me.

So we need to be alert to the times in which we live. And the way we can be discerning is, first of all, I told you by developing a spirit of thankfulness, just think of the number of things God has done for you and God has given you, which you don't have physical health, for example.

The fact that you're able to hear and see and speak, be thankful for all these things. And the other is to keep a good conscience. Whenever you do something wrong, confess it immediately. Whenever you hurt somebody, ask forgiveness immediately.

You keep a good conscience, your sense of discernment is like sharpening a knife. You just touch that piece of bread and it cuts. You touch something hard and it cuts because you've sharpened the knife.

Conscience is like that. I want to keep my conscience sensitive. So the place in scripture where Jesus spoke most about his second coming is in Matthew chapter 24. So I want to turn there for a moment.

You turn with me to Matthew and chapter 24. It says there the disciples, when Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him and said, Lord, tell us when are these things going to happen?

When is this temple going to be destroyed? And the other, what about the end of the age? They were interested in the end of the age. And what is the sign of your coming? And I want you to see in Matthew 24, what Jesus said was the very first sign of his coming.

Many people are looking for things out in the world, wars, famines, earthquakes. He did mention that in verse six, there'll be wars, there'll be rumors of wars. And verse seven, he said about famines and earthquakes.

I agree all of that. But what is the first thing he said? Many people don't recognize that. What is the first sign of the last days? Deception. Matthew 24 and Jesus replying to the disciples, they asked three things.

When will this temple be destroyed? That is the first question. Jesus said about the temple being destroyed in verses one and two. Second, what will be the sign of your coming? Verse three. And third, the end of the age.

And the answer, he answers all three in sequence. And the first thing he says is, don't be deceived. So deception, widespread deception, is going to be one of the characteristics of the last days, and especially in Christendom.

There's so much deception in Christendom nowadays. A tremendous amount. In fact, if you read through Matthew 24, you find that Jesus didn't speak about famines and earthquakes and wars so much, but he kept on speaking about deception.

For example, he says in verse 11, we already saw what he said in verse six and seven. Further down in verse 11, we read he says, many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Again, he's talking about deception.

And then he goes on further down in verse 26 and 27. Turn with me to verse 26 and 27. Behold, when people say to you, behold, he's in the wilderness. Don't go out. Behold, he's in the inner rooms. Don't believe them, because my coming will be like the lightning that shines from the east to the west.

There are many people who speak of a secret rapture where Christ will come and nobody will know it, and only the believers will know. You know what Jesus said? Verse 25, I told you in advance, don't believe those who say he's here, he's there, he's gone.

No. When he comes, it'll be like the lightning coming from the east to the west. And lightning is not something seen only by believers. Lightning is something seen by everyone. When Christ comes, everyone will know it.

The true saints of God who have walked with God with a clear conscience will be raptured, taken up to greet the Lord in the air and welcome him to the earth where he comes to establish his kingdom. But that's another subject.

Loving the Truth to Escape Deception

What about the times in which we live? That's what we want to think about right now. First of all, deception. So I want to share with you something more important than the types of deception, which I will come to.

How can we escape deception? I want to turn to 2 Thessalonians in chapter 2 and verse 10 and 11. It's speaking here in verse 9 about the activity of Satan. Now, many people think of Satan as witchcraft and demons and all types of evil.

That also he does. There are false signs and wonders mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 9. But he goes on to say this deception will come through all types of wickedness for those who perish. Why do people perish?

Here's the reason given. It's not just because they have fallen into sin. All of us have fallen into sin, but we repented, come to the Lord. The reason they perish is because they do not receive the love of the truth to be saved from sin.

Whenever the New Testament speaks about being saved, it is never being saved from hell. It's always being saved from sin. The very first promise in the New Testament, you shall call his name Jesus, Matthew 121, because he will save his people, not from hell.

He will save his people from their sins. And because they are saved from their sins, they're also saved from hell. But he didn't come primarily to save us from hell. He came to save us from our sins right now.

Being saved from hell is in the future. So this is very important. 2 Thessalonians 2 10 and 11. This is the verse that's helped me when I live in the midst of a Christendom, which is full of deception everywhere.

So many doctrines, so many people who appear to be holy. And yet, as time goes on, you find these people who claim to be very holy, pursue after money, pursue after honor, fall into sin, fall into sexual sin.

And you wonder what is happening. What is happening? Godly men, supposedly godly, disappoint you. I'll tell you how you can all be saved from deception. This has helped me for many, many years. 2 Thessalonians 2 10 and 11.

Why does God, verse 11, send a deluding or a deceiving influence on people to believe what is false? This is an amazing verse. I told you the primary sign of the last days is deception. Why does God himself allow people to be deceived?

Now, the Bible says in Jeremiah 17 that the heart is deceitful about all things. Here's something that deceives me. The Bible says in Ephesians 4 that we have got deceitful lusts that are desires in our flesh that are deceitful.

Our heart is deceitful. Lusts in our flesh are deceitful. The Bible says in Revelation 12 that Satan is a deceiver of the whole world. Here are the deceivers. A heart, if you're not converted. The lusts in the flesh for everyone.

And Satan. So how shall we escape this? On top of all this, like it says here, God himself begins to deceive us and there's no hope for us. I mean, we can battle the deception of the heart, the deception of the lust of the flesh, and even the deception of Satan, provided God himself is keeping us in the truth.

But here it says God himself will send a deluding, deceiving influence on certain people. And don't say because I'm a believer, I will not be deceived. I've seen numerous believers in my life. I've been a Christian for 61 years, nearly 62 now.

I'm 81 years old. But I've seen in my lifetime so many believers deceived, falling away. Why are they deceived? How can we escape it? Here it is. For this reason, 2 Thessalonians 2 .11. This is the reason why God sends that deceiving influence on people.

Why God does not allow them to escape deception. Some of us may sit saying, we believe in the scriptures. We believe in the Bible. We will not be deceived. Dear brother, dear sister, the more proud you are, the more likely you are to be deceived.

God resists the proud. He gives grace to the humble. And it doesn't matter what you're proud of. You can be proud of your good looks. You can be proud of your intelligence. You can be proud of your position, your job, your money, your house, your car.

You can be proud of your spirituality, your knowledge of the Bible. There are 101 things you can be proud of, but the word of God is true. James 4 and 1 Peter 5. God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

That's a verse I've lived by for many, many years. Remember this. I pictured it like this, that if I'm humble before God, not before men, we can all act humble before men, it's worthless. But if God sees I really live in low thoughts about myself, grace means he'll come behind me and push me forward.

Nobody can stop me then. My spiritual progress and growth will be amazing, phenomenal, because the devil can't stop me. The world can't stop me. My lust can't stop me. God is giving me grace, pushing me from behind.

But the moment I become proud of anything, proud of my spirituality, proud of my Bible knowledge, proud of my accomplishments, proud of what I've done for the Lord or any type of foolishness like that, God will come in front of me and push me back.

That's the meaning of God resists the proud. I want to ask you, brother, sister, do you want God to come behind you and push you forward? Or come in front of you and resist you? God himself will delude people who for this reason, the reason is important.

Here it is. Second Thessalonians 2 .10, two things. They do not love the truth. And secondly, they don't want to be saved from sin. If you have these two qualities, I'm not giving you a list of 25 qualities and the Bible doesn't give a list of 25 reasons or qualities.

Only two very easy to remember. But difficult to practice. Love the truth. Seek with all your heart to be saved from sin. You may not actually be saved. You may still be defeated in a number of areas.

Never mind. Don't give up. Do you have a desire? God looks at the desire. If the desire is there, overcoming sin is a progressive thing. Little by little by little, like the Israelites, when they occupied the land of Canaan, they didn't kill all the giants in one day.

And you will not overcome all your sins in one day. No. They killed. They went and occupied Jericho. And they occupied that whole land. All the giants there were killed. And the land where they killed the giants, they possessed it.

And then they went to the next territory. And in one place, they failed because they were not walking with God in obedience. In I, they were defeated. Then they repented and they overcame that. Then they killed those giants.

And little by little by little, they occupied more and more. And Joshua, towards the end of his life, God told him, there's still so many giants to be killed, so much to be possessed. So overcoming sin is like occupying the land of Canaan.

That's very clearly mentioned in Hebrews 3 and 4, coming into the rest of God. And it's little by little by little. But if you have a desire, Lord, in the Old Testament, it says the land of Israel was called from Dan to Beersheba.

It's the top to the bottom, north to south. And if you have a desire from the crown of your head to the sole of your feet to overcome sin, to kill every giant from Dan to Beersheba, that desire is there.

Little by little, you will overcome them. Your life will progress. If you have a desire to be saved from sin. The other is to love the truth. This is very important. When you read the Bible, let me give you one example of loving the truth.

You read the Bible and you discover that something written there is contrary to what your church has taught you for so many years. You have believed something from childhood because you grew up in a particular church.

Your parents took you to a church. You believed something for many, many years. And there were many preachers up there who preached in a very convincing way. And you believed it. But one day you read something in the New Testament, something that Jesus said or something in the epistles.

And you find, hey, this is not exactly like what I heard in my church. There at that point, you don't realize it. God is testing you. Will you love the truth, which you saw in scripture? Or will you love what your parents taught you?

Will you love your church? Whichever church it is, I don't care which church it is. And you say, oh, but what will happen if I disagree with what this church says? I'll tell you what will happen. You'll be deceived.

If you want to please your church leaders and you want to please your parents, I guarantee you, you'll be deceived. Seek to please the Lord alone and say, I don't care who's going to turn against me if I see the truth.

Now, I'm not saying you jump at something you read because you misunderstood scripture. Perhaps seek advice from some godly person. What does that verse mean? And compare scripture with scripture. And you will get the truth.

You see, for example, in our website, cfcindia .com, we have a complete study of the New Testament from Matthew chapter one to the last verse of Revelation, verse by verse. If you go there and go to that, it's at the bottom of the first page, you open up in cfcindia .com, you can go through the whole New Testament and get an explanation of every verse if you want and see whether it's truth or not.

I'm not asking you to believe me. Ask the Holy Spirit to tell you whether it's the truth or not. But love the truth when you read the scriptures. Face up to it and be willing to change anything. Be willing to displease anybody.

Not in an arrogant way, but in a humble way. The other area where we need to love the truth is in some situation, God tells you, you are wrong. That was not right. What you did was not right. The way you spoke to your wife was not the way you should be speaking as a Christian husband.

The way you spoke to your husband is not the way you should be speaking as a Christian wife. You can resist that. You can say, no, no, no, but she deserves to hear that or he deserves to hear that. Yeah, there are people who argue with God in their mind.

They are opening themselves to deception. Love the truth. Say, I'm sorry, Lord. Go to your wife, go to your husband and say, darling, I'm sorry for the way I spoke. Please forgive me. You will not be deceived.

The proud are deceived. What is it that prevents you from going and asking an apology? Pride, nothing else. How can I lower myself in the esteem of my partner? Better that your partner thinks less of you and that you're not deceived rather than to have your partner have a high opinion of you and you live in deception.

So love the truth and seek to be saved from sin. That's all. Those who don't love the truth don't want to be saved from sin. For this reason, God will send a deluding influence on them. I mean, I say that in connection to what we read.

Testing Prophets by Scripture

The first mark of deception, what you saw in Matthew 24 was many false prophets will arise. That's the other thing. Deception again, false prophets. Now, all of us listen to preaching. How do we know who's a false prophet?

Well, first of all, if he doesn't speak according to scripture, a man who hardly ever quotes scripture, I would not listen too much to him. If a person just quotes one verse in the beginning of his message and then keeps on preaching for the next half an hour or one hour, airing his thoughts, I'd say, listen, brother, where do you get this from scripture?

I prefer to root all my preaching on scripture and all the books I've written. You see, that's another thing. You can go to cfcindia .com and read all my books there free or some of them, listen to them online free.

Every one of them and all those 30 books I've written. If you open any of them, almost on every page, you open any page on one side or the other, there'll be some verse of scripture. That's the way I've written my books based on scripture.

I say something and I say, look at this verse. I say something else and look at this verse. All the books I've written, almost every page, there'll be quotation from scripture because I say my words are not important.

You don't have to be convinced by what I say. I may be a very clever person arguing and proving something like in a court of law. Your faith should not be rest on the wisdom of men. That's why I point people to scripture.

I say, go to God's word. Faith comes by hearing God speaking to us through his word. Romans 10 verse 17. So that's very important to get to know the scriptures. So how do we know who's a false prophet?

You know, there are preachers who preach and preachers who write. And there are some people who claim to be prophets predicting the future. Okay, let me begin with, nowadays, a lot of people, particularly in certain denominations who claim to predict the future.

I predict who will get elected in this election. I, political election. I predict this is going to happen. Well, it's very easy to find out if he's a true prophet. Wait till the event, time for that event is over.

And then what happens? If it did not happen, mark that guy down as a false prophet. Don't ever believe him again, no matter what he says. And many of these false prophets, they don't even repent after the prophet's prophecies fail.

It's happening today. I've seen it numerous times in my life. Let me turn you to scripture again to prove that. Deuteronomy chapter 18. If you don't have time to look at it now, just write it down. Deuteronomy chapter 18.

The Lord says in verse 18, Deuteronomy 18, 18. I will raise up a prophet. And he's referring to Jesus from among the Jewish countrymen. And I'll put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them. And I shall command him.

And Jesus submitted to the father. Deuteronomy 18, 19. And she'll come to bat that whoever will not listen to my words, which he shall speak in my name. Jesus spoke in the father's name. I will require of it.

I will require it of him. So, you remember on the Mount of Transfiguration, when Jesus was up there with Peter, James, and John, you read that in Matthew 17. Moses and Elijah appeared there. And when Peter was so amazed, he said, Lord, let's bid three tabernacles here.

One for you, of course, you're the most important tabernacle. And one for Moses, one for Elijah. Immediately a cloud came over them. Whenever you equate the Lord Jesus with any human being, even if it's Moses or Elijah or the greatest preacher on earth, a cloud will come between you and God.

You won't see him. And you wonder why your vision of God has become a little dim nowadays? You have put some man as equal to Christ. You put his words as equal to Christ. You don't compare his words with scripture.

No wonder there's a cloud between you and God. And when the cloud was lifted, a voice came from heaven in the Mount of Transfiguration, Matthew 17. The voice from heaven said about Jesus, this is my son.

Moses and Elijah disappeared at that time. This is my son. Listen to him. That's what we read in Deuteronomy 18. I'll raise up someone. You must listen to him. And then further in Deuteronomy 18. But if a prophet says something, verse 22, Deuteronomy 18, last verse, verse 22.

If a person who claims to be a prophet speaks something in the name of the Lord, in the name of the Lord, I'm saying this is going to happen. This will happen on so and so date or whatever it is. And the thing does not come to pass.

That is not what the Lord has spoken. He has spoken presumptuously. Presumptuously means in arrogance. He claimed to be a prophet and spoke. Thus said the Lord and multitudes of dumb believers believed him because they did not read Deuteronomy 18, verse 22.

They did not read the Bible. I have often said to people, if you have a Bible in your language and you don't read and study it, you deserve to be deceived. You deserve to be deceived. If you have a Bible in your language and you don't read and study it.

You just believe what this man preaches or that man preaches. You listen to YouTube messages. I praise God for the opportunity we have on YouTube to preach. There are 2000 messages of mine. You can listen on YouTube, but be careful about all the messages you listen.

See whether the preachers go to God's word. Don't just swallow everything you hear there. Some people are very powerful communicators, but they are not anointed with the Holy Spirit. Deception. So prophecies, when they are not fulfilled, I'm amazed at the number of people who listen to these so-called prophets who prophesy something.

It does not happen and they still go and listen to them again. You deserve to be deceived. Because you're ignoring what it says in Deuteronomy 18, the last verse. I want to speak strongly, my brothers and sisters, because I love you in Christ and I don't want any of you to be deceived.

I've been preaching now for 55 years or more. And one of the burdens God's given me is to deliver people from deception by pointing them to the scriptures. Here is this scripture. Here is that scripture.

And thus to protect them. It's only the word of God that will protect us and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. You know, one of the things I have, I'm absolutely convinced today, I've studied the Bible for 60 years, and one of the things I'm absolutely convinced is this book, the Bible, is the word of God.

When I began my Christian life, how could I know? First of all, today I can say it's the word of God because it's changed my life. I've proved it in my life that this is God's word. In different situations, I found an answer here.

I could give you numerous examples where from God's word, I got a clear answer. All types of complicated situations. But when I began my Christian life 61 years ago, I did not know. I didn't have experience.

How did I begin by believing the Bible is God's word? Whenever I met a truly godly man, and I'll tell you, I've met very few, very, very few truly godly men in my life. Some appear to be godly, but when you get close to them, you find they're a bit arrogant or stubborn, not humble.

They don't value all human beings. They value a certain class of people or something like that, or they love money, or they are unfaithful in the area of sex, something like that. So I met very, very few people in my life whom I can really look up to and say, that was a man of God.

And if you met even two or three like that, you're very, very blessed because there are not many. But one of the things that I found in the few men of God that I met when I was very young, there were two things that stood out about all of them, all of them.

They all believed, number one, they all believed the Bible as the word of God. And secondly, they all believed in being filled with the Holy Spirit. And they had an experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Those are the two things I pursued. I said, Lord, I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, not just once, but continuously. I want to believe the word of God. That's how we are protected from deception.

Spiritual Gifts and Discerning False Healing Claims

And I want to say something more about other, you know, other than the gift of prophecy. For example, there are people who claim to have the gift of healing. But let me introduce this by saying this. In my entire life as a believer of 61 years, and I've traveled to many countries, I've read many books of many, many, all types of denominations, Pentecostal and other words.

I have gone to numerous healing meetings. And let me tell you this. This is my conviction. You don't have to agree with me. I have never, I believe in a gift of healing. It's one of the gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12.

Gift of prophecy, gift of teaching, gift of healing, miracles is all there. 1 Corinthians 12. I believe in all of them. The gift of speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues. I believe all of them.

I don't have the gift of healing. The gift God's given me is the gift of teaching, not even evangelism. I tried to be an evangelist in my younger days. I'd give out tracts in every bus or train I traveled in and stood in the streets for years preaching, but I hardly found anybody converted.

I found I'm not an evangelist. Let me accept it. I wanted to be. I was eager to go to the unreached when I decided to quit my job in the Indian Navy. I said, Lord, you send me anywhere, I'll go. But I can't go and preach to the unconverted if you don't give me the gift of evangelism.

I don't want to be arrogant and say, well, I know the basic gospel. No, we can witness to everybody. But to go out as a missionary, you have to have the gift of evangelism. I didn't have that. But I found that God had given me the gift of teaching.

That when I preached the gospel, very few people were converted. But when I got up in a meeting and began to teach, so many people began to understand the scriptures. And I discovered what my gift was.

And in the beginning, I reluctantly accepted the gift of teaching instead of evangelism. But today I can see that God wanted that gift in the church. And that's why he equipped me for what he saw the church needed.

And what is it? How do you know whether a person is a good doctor? Let's take an example. You go to him with a sickness and he tells you the exact cause of it and tells you what you need to do, what medicine you need to take or what actions you need to take to be cured.

And you do it and you're cured. That's the mark of a good doctor. But you go to somebody else who's a quack and he tells you certain things, it doesn't work. How often will you go to that doctor? Or once in a while by accident, something works.

No, a good doctor will tell you exactly. When he doesn't know something, he says, I'm sorry, I don't know. So by the fruit, you shall know them, Jesus said. So I said, how do I know that I was not an evangelist?

I tried preaching the gospel and hardly anybody was converted. But when I began to teach, I found people coming to me and say, Brother Zach, I never understood that scripture till you explained it. It became so clear to me.

I've read that so many times and I discovered gradually, not just one or two or everybody in the room would be edified by teaching. I discovered gradually that is my gift. I did not have the gift of healing.

I prayed for many sick people because the Bible says in James chapter five, lay hands on the sick. Elders must pray for those who are sick. And I prayed for the sick. You know, I don't pray for fantastic things, serious sicknesses, but somebody comes with a cough or a cold or fever and I just pray for them.

And in a limited measure, I've seen occasionally somebody healed in answer to prayer. One in a hundred. Yeah, I believe in healing. I always pray for the sick. Whenever my children and they're growing up at home were sick, I would lay my hands on them.