We are going to be looking tonight at
the subject of Bible prophecy.
So many things going on in the world
this evening, I thought it would be a
good time just to take a look at
a few of the prophecies that we have
in the Old Testament and then tie that
back to just what it is that God
has called us to be doing in these
days.
Now, yesterday, CNN.com carried this story, Medieval
Book of Psalms Unearthed.
Dublin, Ireland, Irish archaeologist Tuesday heralded the discovery
of an ancient book of psalms by a
construction worker while driving the shovel of his
backhoe into a bog.
The manuscript was open at Psalm 83.
Let me read you the first few verses
of the 83rd Psalm.
Do not keep silent, O God, do not
hold your peace, and do not be still,
O God, for behold your enemies make a
tumult, and those who hate you have lifted
up their head.
They have taken crafty counsel against your people
and consulted together against your sheltered ones.
They have said, Come and let us cut
them off from being a nation, that the
name of Israel may be remembered no more.
For they have consulted together with one consent,
they form a confederacy against you.
The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab
and the Hagrites, Gebel, Ammon, Amalek, Philistia, with
the inhabitants of Tyre, Assyria also has joined
with them.
They have helped the children of Lot.
Amazing.
This story went around the world.
This manuscript is over a thousand years old,
and digging it up out of the mud,
this is the psalm that it was open
to.
You think God might be wanting to say
something to the nations?
I mean, this is exactly what's happening tonight.
Exactly what's going on in the Middle East
is what is being declared here in this
83rd Psalm.
So, as I said, tonight I want to
take a brief look at some of the
prophecies found in Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah, and
see how things are moving in the exact
direction that the Lord said they would as
we get closer to the return of Christ.
So turn with me this evening to Ezekiel,
and we're going to pick up in Ezekiel's
prophecy in the 37th chapter of Ezekiel.
And in the 37th through the 39th chapters
of Ezekiel, you have the prophecy of, first
of all, the restoration of Israel to the
land.
And that is what is dealt with in
the 37th chapter.
And then in the 38th chapter and the
39th chapter, the prophecy goes into a great
confederacy of nations that will attack Israel in
the time of the end.
And so I wanted to just take a
look specifically at the 38th chapter and to
look at the nations that are going to
be allied together, and also to look at
some of the things that are currently happening
in our world this evening.
So Ezekiel chapter 38 says, Now the word
of the Lord came to me, saying, Son
of man, set your face against Gog of
the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh,
Meshach, and Tubal, and prophesy against him and
say, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I
am against you, O Gog, the prince of
Rosh, Meshach, and Tubal.
I will turn you around, put hooks into
your jaws, and lead you out with all
your army, horses and horsemen, all splendidly clothed,
a great company with bucklers and shields, all
of them handling swords.
Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya are with them, all
of them with shield and helmet, Gomer and
all its troops, the house of Togarmah, the
far north and all its troops, many people
are with you.
Now what I want to do is I
want to look at the nations that are
listed here and see if we can get
a picture of just exactly who these nations
are today.
Now some of the nations that we read
about, they are immediately familiar to us, but
in actuality, the familiar names are not really
the places that we think they are today.
And so I want to bring some clarification
to this.
The prophecy is first of all against Gog
and the land of Magog.
Now, of course, I think most of us
here tonight would immediately say, well, this is
talking about Russia.
And it probably is, but I just want
to tell you, it's not that easy.
You can go back and research all of
the Hebrew authorities and the ancient authorities and
trying to pin these names down and trying
to identify exactly the region that they're referring
to today isn't that easy of a thing
to do.
And so as you do the research, what
you do find is you're certainly in the
region, absolutely in the region that we would
know in the past as the former Soviet
Union.
And there's one little phrase here that I
think gives us the liberty to take it
all the way up into the farthest part,
which would take us directly into the area
of Moscow and maybe even further up into
St. Petersburg.
But it's the reference here to the far
north.
All of these nations are pretty much north
of Israel.
Well, not all of them, most of them,
but then there is a reference here to
the far north.
So when we're talking about Magog, I think
we can safely say that we are talking
about Russia.
We're talking about that general region.
Now, notice in verse five, the other nations
that are listed here.
We have, first of all, Persia.
Most people realize that modern day Iran is
Persia.
And so here we have two identifiable nations.
We have Russia.
We have Iran.
But then we have, interestingly, we have Ethiopia
and we have Libya.
Now, I had a call the other day
on the Pastor's Perspective Program, and the caller
asked, now how in the world is Ethiopia
going to play into this scenario?
If you know anything about Ethiopia, Ethiopia is
predominantly a Christian nation and somewhat unique in
that region.
But the reality is the Ethiopia here is
not the Ethiopia of today.
We probably would be better off using the
ancient name, which is Cush.
And Cush covered, the land of Cush covered
a very broad area and it covered the
area of modern day Sudan.
So, when you understand it to be modern
day Sudan, it makes a lot more sense
that Iran is allied with Sudan, both of
them, of course, being fundamentalist Islamic countries.
But then we have Libya.
And, of course, for us, Libya, most of
us are familiar with Muammar Gaddafi and the
whole situation that's happened over the past couple
of decades in Libya.
With Gaddafi.
But again, Libya here in the scripture is
not necessarily the Libya that we have today.
It's actually probably a much larger area than
we would know as Libya.
The biblical name is Put.
And Put pretty much covered the area of
North Africa, everything west of Egypt.
And so what we're looking at there then
possibly would be Libya, as we know it
today, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.
So, those are the nations that are actually
included in these names Ethiopia and Libya.
But then we have two other names mentioned,
Gomer and Togarmah.
And these are probably the most difficult to,
Gomer, at least, is probably the most difficult
to positively identify.
But Togarmah is almost certainly the land of
Turkey.
But going beyond Turkey, as we know it
today, spreading out further to the east than
Turkey.
And so listen to the countries that are
potentially included in Gomer and Tomarga.
They are Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.
Now, here's the interesting thing.
Of course, every single nation that we have
just mentioned, with one exception, and that would
be with Magog being Russia.
Every one of these nations are Islamic nations.
And so, we're talking about a confederacy of
nations to the north, to the east, and
to the south of Israel that are going
to ultimately come against the land of Israel.
And evidently, apparently, it seems quite probably that
Russia is going to lead the charge.
Now, that's interesting.
And of course, this is something that modern
day Bible teachers have been speculating about for
quite a few years.
And there was all kinds of talk about
this back before the collapse of the Soviet
Union.
And interestingly, before the collapse of the Soviet
Union, the talk was all about the Russian
invasion, or the Soviet invasion, or the communist
invasion of Israel.
And the other nations were just sort of
seen as an incidental element to this prophecy.
But when the Soviet Union dissolved, and Russia
seemed to be becoming more compatible with and
friendly toward the West, then the Bible scholars
began to start to concentrate a little more
on the other nations that were mentioned.
And at the same time, interestingly enough, Islam
began to resurface as a dominant ideology or
force to be contended with in the world.
And so, then, for quite a few years,
there was sort of a shift away from
emphasizing the Russian aspect of the prophecy and
talking particularly about the Islamic aspect of the
prophecy.
But now, here is the amazing thing.
You know, if you wait long enough, it's
interesting how things will develop.
We've kind of come all the way back
around once again, because now we're beginning once
again to talk not only about the Islamic
nations, but to bring Russia back into the
picture.
And there are some valid reasons for that.
In June of 2005, an Islamic hardliner named
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he is the president of Iran.
It was in 2005 that he won a
landslide election and became the president of that
nation.
And in doing so, he vowed to, number
one, build a powerful Islamic society.
Secondly, he vowed to defy Israel and the
United States.
And thirdly, he promised to accelerate Iran's bid
to become a nuclear power.
Now, when this guy became the president of
Iran, analysts, politically minded people, people who are
watching the international scene, most people, especially in
the West, were absolutely stunned.
They were shocked.
They could not believe that somebody as hardline
as this guy is could be elected to
the presidency of Iran.
Now, while the Western world was in shock,
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, congratulated the new
leader of Iran and said that Moscow was
eager to continue selling nuclear technology and research
facilities to Tehran.
And Putin went on to say that the
development of a Russian-Iranian tie contributes to
global peace and stability.
Putin has come out consistently on the side
of Iran.
As the UN has been seeking to slap
sanctions on Iran over their refusal to comply
with the nuclear proliferation treaty, you notice in
the UN Security Council, Russia is refusing to
take a hard position against Tehran, Russia and
China.
And so you see that there is an
allegiance there between these two nations at this
point.
Now, just a side note, remember, Putin says
that this is going to contribute to global
peace and stability.
Just a side note, the president of Iran
has publicly denied that the Holocaust ever occurred
and he has vowed publicly to wipe Israel
off the face of the map.
So I don't know how that contributes to
global peace and stability, but Vladimir Putin thinks
that somehow it's going to result in peace
and stability.
Now here's the thing.
This stuff is all intensified again, hasn't it?
It's all flared up again.
We have on the northern border of Israel,
we have Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is basically a colony of Iran.
It is a state within a state.
It is just as though Iran invaded Lebanon
and expanded its borders into Lebanon because Hezbollah,
which means the party of God, they are
completely loyal to the government of Iran.
And so all of this stuff is continuing
to escalate over there even as we speak
tonight.
Now here's the question.
The question is this, is the current crisis
going to develop into the invasion prophesied here
in Ezekiel?
Is that where it is headed?
You know, I was looking on the internet
today and on CNN, on a particular program
there, Paula Zahn, I think is her name.
There she is.
She's on camera and, you know, they'll have
a little headline underneath their picture there, which
is sort of indicating what the topic is
they're discussing.
You know what the headline read?
The headline read, is this the end?
Is this the end?
So they're not just talking about this stuff
in churches.
This is the conversation that's going on all
over the country today and around the world.
People are asking the question, is this the
end?
Is this Armageddon?
Is this Ezekiel?
Is this what the Bible said would happen?
So is the current crisis going to develop
into this invasion?
Well, if you look at all the nations,
as we have done, that will ultimately be
involved, I would have to say no, that
it is not yet to that point.
Because as we look at the current situation,
notice Iran is sort of the instigator in
this.
In Ezekiel's passage, the instigator is not Iran.
The instigator is clearly Magog, or as we
would understand it, Russia.
Russia is the leading force in this invasion,
and Persia is an ally of Russia.
And then as we look at the other
nations that are here, as we look at
Northern Africa, and as we go up into
Turkey, and as we go across that region
there, we see that at this point, those
nations haven't really been stirred and brought into
this.
But remember, those various nations that we mentioned,
Turkmenistan and some of these others, these were
all at one time part of the Soviet
Union.
They were known as the Southern Republics of
the Soviet Union.
So you can see how, even though at
this moment things are not to this point
where this kind of a thing could practically
happen, we see that the stage is definitely
being set.
So the stage is being set in regard
to the situation in Israel and to the
prophecies in Ezekiel.
But we have other prophecies.
And I want to look quickly at a
couple of more of the Old Testament prophets.
Turn with me to the 7th chapter of
the book of Daniel.
In the 7th chapter of Daniel, Daniel now
has a vision.
Maybe you remember in the 2nd chapter, Nebuchadnezzar,
the Babylonian king, had a dream.
And Daniel was the one who interpreted the
dream.
And the dream, remember, was in the dream
there was a great image with a head
of gold and a chest and arms of
silver and so forth.
And Nebuchadnezzar saw this great image.
And then he saw a stone that was
not made with hands, that was cut out,
smote the image, reduced it to dust, and
the wind blew it away.
The stone that smote the image became a
great mountain and filled the earth.
Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that God had given him
a vision of the future.
God had shown him the kingdoms of the
world in succession, particularly the kingdoms that would
have dominion over Israel.
Now, Daniel has a dream here and a
vision.
And the interpretation of Daniel's vision, although it's
a different picture, the interpretation is pretty much
the same as was the interpretation for Nebuchadnezzar's
dream.
Now, in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, the image had 10
toes.
And there it was declared that in the
days of those 10 kings, God would set
up a kingdom.
Now, here Daniel has a vision, but he
has a vision of four different beasts.
And the fourth beast is the one that
is intriguing to him.
But as we pick up in verse 17,
I want to pick up with the interpretation.
Rather than going into all the details of
the vision, suffice it to say there are
four beasts that Daniel sees in this vision.
And now here in verse 17, we have
the interpretation of what those four great beasts
are.
Those great beasts which you saw are four
kings or kingdoms which will arise out of
the earth.
But the saints of the Most High shall
receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever,
even forever and ever.
Then Daniel says, I wish to know the
truth about the fourth beast, which was different
from all the others, exceedingly dreadful with its
teeth of iron, its nails of bronze, which
devoured broken pieces and trampled the residue with
its feet, and the 10 horns that were
on its head, and the other horn which
came up before.
Now, listen in verse 23.
The fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom
on the earth, which shall be different from
all other kingdoms and shall devour the whole
earth, trample it, break it in pieces.
The 10 horns are 10 kings who shall
arise from this kingdom, and another shall arise
after them.
He shall be different from the first ones,
and he shall subdue three kings.
Now, we just shifted geographically.
We've moved from the Middle East and that
whole surrounding region.
We've moved now over to the other side
of the Mediterranean.
We've moved now over to Europe.
This is a prophecy about Europe.
The thing that I want to remind you
of is that there are many different factors
that play into this whole end times scenario.
And so right before us tonight, front and
center is Israel and their ongoing struggle to
live in their land.
But while that is sort of taking up
everybody's attention, there are other things that are
still at work in other areas that are
contributing to the overall picture of what we
have laid out in scripture regarding the last
days.
And so we come to this fourth kingdom.
Now, this is a beast that it's, as
Daniel describes it, it's exceedingly dreadful.
And the messenger tells him this is a
fourth kingdom.
But then on this beast, there are 10
horns.
And notice he goes on to tell us
the 10 horns are the 10 kings.
Now, the 10 kings are the second phase
of what we would know historically as the
Roman Empire.
The beast itself is the first phase, which
is past.
But there is a second phase that is
coming.
And it's going to be seen in the
emergence of 10 kings out of what was
formerly known as the Roman Empire.
So we can expect 10 kings to arise
out of Europe.
Now, for many, many years, Bible commentators, Bible
teachers have been talking about the European economic
community.
And they've been pointing to Europe.
And they've been talking about 10 kings coming.
And then just a few years back, we
began to see this thing really start to
unfold.
But there's only one problem.
In looking at the European Union and many
people believing and predicting that that was going
to be the fulfillment of these things back
before they reached the 10-nation point, it
all seemed to fit so well.
But then something happened.
They exceeded 10 nations.
They went to 15 nations.
And then they went to 25 nations.
So now we have within the European Union,
we have 25 nations making up this confederacy
of nations.
And we have several other nations that have
applications in to become part of the union.
So here's the big question.
How is it ever going to get back
to 10?
And there are people who have different solutions
for that.
Some people say, well, what's going to happen
is they're going to divide the whole world
up into 10 separate regions.
Or some say they're going to divide Europe
itself up into 10 separate regions.
That is a possibility.
But there's another possibility that is even with
us tonight.
The European Union, unbeknownst to most people, is
actually already divided.
It's divided into two portions.
The Western European Union is the primary powerholder
within the union.
And the Western European Union sees itself as
a distinct entity from the European Union in
its overall sense.
And guess what?
10 nations make up the Western European Union.
You can go, if you'd like to do
a search on the internet, go to Google.
Just type in Western European Union.
It will take you to the website of
the Western European Union.
And if you want one more little thing
that will absolutely blow your mind, in the
charter for the Western European Union, they have
all of these different sort of pieces of
legislation, different things that they want to implement
within the Western European Union.
They have various recommendations.
And the 666th recommendation, so it's called
recommendation 666, you know what they recommend in
recommendation 666?
They recommend that we find a man that
can represent us, one individual that can stand
before the world as representative of the European
Union.
In essence, that's pretty much what the recommendation
suggests.
So, you see, again, things are moving in
this direction.
It's all unfolding.
It's all slowly but surely developing.
Now, there's all kinds of speculation, and there
has been for many years, as you know,
regarding the person of the Antichrist.
Somebody called the other day and said, was
the Antichrist born in the 80s?
I don't know.
Perhaps he was.
We don't know that.
But what we do know is things are
moving in that direction.
Now, over in the ninth chapter of Daniel,
we have another vitally important prophecy, but this
is the one that actually links the two
topics together.
This is the one that links the European
Union and its leader with the land of
Israel.
Daniel chapter 9, verse 24.
Seventy weeks are determined for your people, for
your holy city to finish the transgression, to
make an end of sins, to make reconciliation
for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to
seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint
the most holy.
This is the 70-week prophecy of Daniel.
And I think most of you realize this,
but let me just define it for those
of you that might not quite understand it
at this point.
The 70 weeks are 77-year periods.
And so what's being shown to Daniel, interestingly,
this is at the end of the Babylonian
captivity.
Seventy years have already been completed, and now
Daniel is inquiring, what is the future of
my people?
They've gone into captivity in Babylon, and now
they've left Babylon, and they're going back to
their land.
The 70 years have come to a conclusion.
What is in the future?
The angel says, 77-year periods are now
determined upon your people.
And in that period of time, which is
a total of 490 years, there are things
that are going to be accomplished.
Transgression will be finished, sin will be made
an end of, reconciliation will be made for
iniquity, everlasting righteousness will be brought in.
Basically, what we're describing here is the coming
of the kingdom.
So the kingdom will come at the end
of 77-year periods.
But here's the thing, as you go on,
notice what it says.
Note therefore and understand that from the going
forth of the command to restore and build
Jerusalem until Messiah the prince, there shall be
seven weeks or seven 7-year periods and
62 weeks, which brings us to a total
of 69 7-year periods.
So here he tells us about 69 7
-year periods, but there's one 7-year period
that is left.
Now, from the time that the command was
given to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, which was
in March of 445 BC, 483 years later,
that would be the 69 7-year periods,
483 years later or 173,880 days later,
something happened.
The Messiah came until Messiah the prince.
But look at verse 26.
After the 62 weeks, Messiah shall be cut
off, but not for himself.
This is all history.
Jesus came 483 years after the commandment was
given to Nehemiah to restore and rebuild Jerusalem.
Jesus came, but he was cut off, not
for himself.
We know, of course, that he died for
the sins of mankind.
But listen, and the people of the prince
who is to come.
Now, notice this terminology, the prince who is
to come.
These are the people of the prince who
is to come.
They shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
Anybody who knows their history knows who destroyed
the city and the sanctuary.
The Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem in
70 AD.
So the prince is connected to the Romans,
but he's not yet come.
Notice verse 27.
This prince who is going to come, he
shall confirm a covenant with many for one
week.
There's one week left.
There's one 7-year period left.
This is where we get the understanding that
there's a final 7-year period.
The prophecy right here in Daniel.
But notice what it says.
He's going to make a covenant with many
for one week.
But in the middle of the week, halfway
through, three-and-a-half-year point, he
shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering,
and on the wing of abominations shall be
one who makes desolate.
So you see this man that will rise
up out of Europe, the prince of the
people who destroyed the city and the sanctuary.
I believe that his headquarters will ultimately be
back in Rome.
Today, the European Union is headquartered in Brussels.
I myself feel that it is just a
matter of time before the headquarters are moved
to Rome.
He's going to be based in Rome.
And this is the one who is going
to confirm a covenant with the people of
Israel.
Now, just exactly what that covenant entails, we
don't know.
Some have speculated that he's going to allow
them to rebuild the temple.
Maybe so.
He's certainly going to obviously work out some
sort of a solution for the problems in
the Middle East.
What do we have tonight?
We're at a stalemate.
We've got world leaders gathering in Rome today.
We had the Secretary of State over in
Lebanon today and in Israel today.
And what's the news this evening?
Nobody can come to any conclusions on how
to deal with this.
And that's the way things are going to
continue to go.
Things are going to become more and more
perplexing.
And solutions are going to be fewer and
fewer.
And so there's the necessity of somebody to
come along who can solve these world problems.
This man is coming according to the prophecies
of Daniel.
Now, Zechariah 12 and 14.
These are the last two prophecies I want
to look at really quickly.
In the 12th chapter, Zechariah prophesies of the
coming battle for Jerusalem.
The first three verses of chapter 12.
The burden of the word of the Lord
against Israel, thus says the Lord who stretches
out the heavens, lays the foundation of the
earth and forms the spirit of man within
him.
Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of
drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples when they
lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem.
And it shall happen in that day that
I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone
for all peoples.
All who would heave it away will surely
be cut in pieces, though all the nations
of the earth are gathered together against it.
You already know the animosity of the nations
toward Israel and toward Jerusalem.
And if you don't realize this, everything that's
going on in the Middle East, every conflict,
not just the current one between Israel and
their northern and southern neighbors, but even what's
going on in Iraq, it all centers around
the city of Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is the epicenter of world conflict, and
it's going to increasingly become that as time
goes on.
But in the 14th chapter of Zechariah, we
have a description, I believe, of how things
will ultimately culminate.
Verse 12 of chapter 14, And this shall
be the plague with which the Lord will
strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem.
Listen to this.
Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on
their feet, their eyes shall dissolve in their
sockets, and their tongues shall dissolve in their
mouths.
This is a description of various types of
nuclear activity.
I was watching on the news last night,
and there was a specialist there on the
news, and he said that there is no
doubt whatsoever that within the next 10 years,
we will experience various nuclear exchanges in various
parts of the world.
He predicts there will be nuclear activity in
the United States itself, because of course, we
have sworn enemies who want to nuke us,
and they're doing everything they can to be
able to do that.
And of course, we see with Iran, we
see the development there of their nuclear program.
We see over in North Korea, the development
of their nuclear program.
I read in the paper today where now
the Venezuelan president, who is a Marxist, he's
been visiting Russia and seeking an air force.
And he has openly stated he wants to
break the monopoly, wants to break the power
of the US.
And all of these activities, it's all coming
together right before our very eyes.
Now, we don't know how long it's going
to take for all of this to escalate
and come to its culmination.
Nobody knows that.
And if you look back over the past
50 years, you find that there are times
when everything seems to be radically accelerating.
And you would think within the next few
months, we are going to be there.
But then interestingly, God has this way of
just sort of slowing things down.
And you know why he slows things down?
He slows things down for one reason, because
God is not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance.
Now, if things escalate, and all of this
stuff happens very rapidly, and it means that
we are going to be evacuated in the
rapture within the next few months or year
or whatever, that is great.
I'm ready to go.
That's thrilling.
But I don't know if that's going to
happen.
I need to always be ready for that
to happen.
But rather than sit around and try to
figure out exactly when it's going to happen,
there is a lot that we are still
to be doing.
And that's what I want to wrap things
up with tonight.
I want to, having just sort of, you
know, looked at where we're at in this
prophetic scenario, close with what do we do
about it?
What is our response to be to the
things that we see going on around us?
And let's look at 2 Peter chapter 3.
And we'll wrap things up with 2 Peter
3.
And we'll pick up in verse 10.
2 Peter 3, 10.
But the day of the Lord will come
as a thief in the night.
Will come as a thief in the night.
The implication is that he will come unexpectedly.
The day of the Lord will come as
a thief in the night in which the
heavens will pass away with a great noise
and the elements will melt with fervent heat.
Both the earth and the works that are
in it will be burned up.
Therefore, now listen.
Here's the instruction to us.
In light of all these things.
Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved,
what manner of persons ought you to be
in holy conduct and godliness looking for and
hastening the coming of the day of God
because of which the heavens will be dissolved
being on fire and the elements will melt
with a fervent heat.
Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for
a new heaven and a new earth in
which righteousness dwells.
Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be
diligent to be found by him in peace
without spot and blemish.
Let's just take a quick look at each
of these things.
Here's the question.
What manner of persons ought we to be?
Well, first of all, he says that we
need to be conducting ourselves in holiness.
We need to be conducting ourselves in holiness.
We need to be living right.
Now, I honestly, I marvel at what I
see happening in the body of Christ today.
I see people who have been walking with
the Lord for years for a long time
and even involved in ministry, serving.
And I see those kinds of people dropping
out of the race, giving up, compromising at
this stage, at this time saying, well, you
know, I'm going to take a little break
from my service to God or I'm going
to go out and try to, you know,
catch up on some of the years that
I lost out on or I want to
go out and discover, you know, who I
really am.
This is not the time to do that.
It's never the time to do that, really.
Because Jesus said, if you seek to save
your life, you'll lose it, right?
But, you know, listen, if there was ever
like a really, really bad, bad time to
make a decision like that, this is it.
So listen to me tonight.
If you are thinking that, if you're pondering
that, if you're moving in that direction, slap
yourself in the head and get going back
in the other direction because it's just, this
isn't the time to do it.
We're to be living holy lives, conducting ourselves
in holiness and godliness.
You know what godliness means?
It means God-likeness, being like God.
How do you become like God?
Real simply, you know how you become like
God?
You spend time with Him.
God, when you spend time with Him, He
impresses His life upon yours and you start
to look more and more like Him.
You start to become like God.
That's how you attain godliness.
Remember, Moses went up on the mountain and
spent 40 days in the presence of God.
And when he came back down, what happened?
The glory of God was impressed upon the
face of Moses.
And here, Peter says, in these days, cultivate
godliness.
Spend time with the Lord.
And then he says, looking for the day.
We're to be looking for the day.
We're not to be obsessed to the extent
that we're not doing anything and we're just
sitting here looking.
But we're to always be keeping our eye
on the world situation and recognizing this thing
is all coming to a culmination.
It's all coming to a head, just like
the Lord said it would.
So looking for the day.
But then listen to this.
It says, hastening the day of God.
Hastening the coming of the day of God.
Now, think about that for a moment.
Hastening.
What does it mean to hasten something?
It means to hurry it up.
This is a really interesting exhortation.
Peter seems to be implying that there's something
that we could do to bring this culmination
about more quickly.
That's what he seems to be implying in
this term.
Hastening the coming of the day of God.
How can we do that?
Well, I think there are two things.
Jesus said, pray what?
Pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.
As we pray for God's kingdom to come,
that is a means, I believe, of hastening
God's kingdom, bringing it about more quickly.
But secondly, I believe that this would have
something to do with getting the gospel out
to people.
You see, that's what we're to be doing
today.
We've said it before.
Many times you've heard Pastor Chuck say it.
You've heard many Bible teachers say it.
There's some person out there somewhere who is
going to complete the number of Gentiles that
are going to be saved.
And when that person's saved, this thing known
as the church is over.
There's somebody out there.
We just have to find that person.
And there's over 6 billion people.
So what does that tell you?
We got to get out there.
We got to get the gospel out.
Jesus said, this gospel of the kingdom shall
be preached in all the world and then
the end shall come.
Now I know that the angels are going
to preach the gospel during the tribulation period.
I know that.
But you know, I don't think Jesus was
necessarily talking about that.
He could have said this gospel is going
to be preached.
And by the way, the angels are going
to do it.
But he didn't say that.
He said this gospel is going to be
preached.
And I think the implication is you're supposed
to preach it.
So you see, we are to be praying
God's kingdom would come and we are to
be proclaiming God's word.
We're to be getting the word of God
out to people.
And we all have a different sphere of
life.
We all have a different calling.
We all have a different thing that we're
involved in, immersed in, but it's in that
context that God wants to use us.
And as we do that, I believe that
we will be hastening the day of God.
And then he said, notice in verse 14,
he said, be diligent to be found by
him in peace.
Be diligent to be found by him in
peace.
What is he referring to?
You know, I think he's referring to peace
amongst ourselves within the family of God, within
the body of Christ.
There's so much inner fighting and bickering that
goes on in the body of Christ.
The body of Christ, to some extent, gets
neutralized.
You can't fight the devil if you're fighting
each other.
And that's what much of the church is
doing today.
We're fighting one another.
And we're getting all hung up on a
bunch of petty types of things.
Now there are serious issues out there and
we need to contend for the faith.
There's no question about that.
But there are a lot of things that
are just a matter of opinion and a
matter of preference.
And Christians get into these battles and these
conflicts and these wars and we're distracted from
the real battle.
I think he's referring to the need to
be at peace with one another.
And then finally, he says that we might
be found without spot and blameless.
Without spot and blameless.
Again, taking us back to the first thing,
conducting ourselves in a holy manner.
Living the right life.
Living the life that God has called us
to.
Living the life that God has equipped us
to be able to live by the indwelling
of the spirit, by the cleansing blood of
Jesus Christ.
Living in that place of vital communion with
him.
This is what Peter says.
The Lord's coming as a thief in the
night.
Therefore, what manner of people ought we to
be?
We ought to be people who are living
entirely for him in these days.
Not just because if I don't, I might
miss the rapture or something like that.
I mean, if that's what you need as
an incentive, then fine.
But take it to another level.
How about because of what Jesus did for
you?
How about because he endured the cross despising
the shame?
He did that.
He went through that affliction.
He went through that suffering.
He went through that agony.
He went through that unspeakably horrific experience for
you and for me.
And so why not simply as an act
of love for him and a show of
gratitude say, Lord, I want to live for
you.
I want to live every moment of my
life for you.
Jesus Christ is coming again.
We don't know exactly when, but the signs
are all before us.
And you know, I think the Lord, I
really do think that he lets this stuff
flare up to just once again get people's
attention.
Finding this manuscript, this thousand-year-old manuscript
in a muddy bog in Dublin, Ireland, and
have it open right there to Psalm 83
to be speaking to the whole world about
what's happening right now.
What do you think about that?
I think God is trying to get people's
attention.
And so of all the people on the
earth, he ought to have our attention so
he can use us to get the attention
of others.
If you're not right with him tonight, get
right with him.
Don't leave this place in a compromised state.
Don't leave this place waffling between the flesh
and the spirit.
Just tonight, you and you only can do
this for yourself, but just say, Lord, I
want to give it all to you.
I want to follow you.
I want to be serious about you.
I want to be living the kind of
life that you want me to be living
and be ready for you when you're come.
Because remember that solemn word of Jesus, they
that were ready went in.
They that were ready went in.
Let's pray.
Lord, we look at our world and Lord,
we realize that your word is absolutely true.
Every jot, every tittle is absolutely true.
And we see it tonight unfolding right before
our eyes.
Lord, I pray for myself.
I pray for each one of us here
tonight that we would be the kind of
people that we ought to be, that we
would be conducting ourselves in holiness, that we
would be becoming more like you, that we
would have our eyes fixed on that day
and that we would do all we can
do to hasten the coming of the day
of God, that we would live in love
and peace with each other and that we
would be pure.
And Lord, I pray tonight for any person,
young, old, in between.
Lord, anyone tonight that's come in and hasn't
been where they need to be, but they've
been moved tonight.
Lord, help them to be moved, not just
in their emotions, but help them to be
moved to the extent that they would turn
and surrender completely to you.
We pray this in the mighty name of
Jesus.
Amen.