Matthew 24, and I've been in Matthew quite
a while.
We've been talking about the Antichrist, the rapture,
is it fact or is it fiction, for
about three weeks now.
And I wanted to, actually I'm not gonna
talk too much about the rapture tonight, unless
I get to that.
The reason is I had so much from
last week carrying over, and I didn't wanna
just remove it and delete it.
And there's a lot of, I don't know
if you're aware of this, but if you're
not, I'll tell you up front, that there's
a lot of dispute in this area.
There's churches, such as the Presbyterian Church or
the Reformed Church, that would be, have a
much different theological view of this area than
modern day, say, Calvary Chapel, the Vineyard Movement,
and they call it eschatology, they call it
the study of the end times.
And the reason it's challenging is because you
can read a lot of the scriptures in
Matthew 24, and you can see how those
were possibly fulfilled in AD 70, when Titus
conquered Jerusalem.
And you can also, though, read a lot
of the texts, and you can see that's
where we're heading.
So is that where we're heading, or did
we already go through it?
And so, in a lot of, it's called
hermeneutics, is how that you interpret the Bible,
with allegories or a literal interpretation, and one
group is very literal.
This generation will no means pass away, means
the generation in which Jesus was talking, where
many other groups will look at it as
the nation of Israel, the people group there,
and we're gonna see these things.
And it actually can get pretty ugly.
I just talked to a friend of mine
this week, who's spoken here a few times,
Anton, you know Anton, if you've been here
for a while, he speaks and fills in
for me.
Good Bible teacher, I love listening to his
CDs, and a lot you can glean from
that.
But he has friends that are what would
be called pre-wrath, and he is pre
-trib.
There we go, I've heard that before, I'm
not sure what that means, many of you
know exactly what it means.
Pre-trib is short for pre-tribulation, and
that's short for we're outta here before it
gets tough.
So as soon as the tribulation hits, we're
already gone, the church is gone, they're raptured,
and then there's a tribulation.
But there's another group called pre-wrath, which
means we will go through the tribulation of
the Antichrist, but we will be raptured out
before the wrath of God is poured out.
And if you look in Revelation, you see
the bowl judgments, the trumpet judgments, where all
hell breaks loose, literally.
But there's one group, a large group actually,
a segment of Christianity that believes all of
that has already occurred.
And we're not gonna go through that, and
I actually like that view.
But there are some challenges with that view.
And many people ask me, what I was
trying to say is because he's my, Anton
was pre-tribulation, and the other group is
pre-wrath, that they have disowned him and
not fellowship with him anymore, a term such
as heretical.
And I'm just, what?
I mean, when great men of God are
divided on this issue, we need to be
careful, because you'll take, I can name off
tons of names, Chuck Smith, Jack Kafer, John
MacArthur, John Piper, Gary DeMar, Sam Storms.
You can Google all these people, well-versed
in theology, and they're divided on it.
And I spoke about that the last few
weeks.
If you get time, make sure you listen
to those messages.
And people are often wondering kind of where
I'm at.
And I usually kind of sit back and
read both sides, read the Bible, and then
read the Bible again, then read Daniel, and
read Matthew, and read Revelation, and try to
do this.
And a lot of the views that believe,
the view that believes that a lot of
this has happened have some strong points.
But when I look overall, and you see
the nation of Israel being reborn in 1948,
you see the armies, talked about Ezekiel gathered
around her, Magogog, and is Syria, is modern
-day Syria, Iran, you see these nations, you
see earthquakes, are they decreasing, or are they
increasing?
You see the sign of the times, you
see where this could possibly be a one
-world leader coming up.
You see where there could possibly be a
one-world system.
And you can see that a lot of
these things are possibly coming to pass.
So I would, I'm in that position, I
pray, I pray for the rapture, but I
prepare for tribulation.
And I think that's something you would wanna
consider, is you wanna, especially if you have
kids or grandkids, you want to prepare them
for the future, that they might go through
persecution.
Because if you, and I've talked to people
in China or India or in what we
call the persecuted church, and sometimes I wish
I could just get one of those speakers
to come and tell you what it's like.
Air conditioning, comfortable seats.
No, you're sitting on dirt, and there's 10
roofs, or you're in hiding, and you're just,
this kind of equipment, we just take so
much for granted.
I remember a friend of mine, he's a
pastor actually, he's my cousin, went and the
bathroom is just this little room off to
the side covered with tin, and watch out
for scorpions, they'll tell you, watch out for,
and it's just this, you're just living on
the dirt, and you're going through tribulation.
You could be killed, you could be martyred
for your faith.
And so you have to weigh all of
what's going on in Christendom, in Christianity, in
the whole world.
And I quoted J.
Vernon McGee, and I wanna quote him again.
He said something along the lines of the
Bible, of course, the Bible was written for
us, but not to us.
And a lot of times when we read
it, I'm gonna be careful here, I'm gonna
come back to this.
When we read it, we say, oh, this
is exactly for me, this is in my
time period, this is my historical context.
Now, the Bible is for us, but a
lot of it was not written to us.
This wasn't written to America, it was written
to a lot of the, the Isaiah wrote
to the nation of Israel, the Babylonian captivity,
Ezekiel wrote to the nation of Israel in
captivity, Judges was written showing the time period
in Kings, but we can gleam insight, we
can gleam principles, and when God is the
same yesterday, today, and forevermore.
So the Bible, even though it wasn't written
to me, per se, it was written for
me.
So when you read Revelation, when you read
Matthew 24, it's so easy for us to
go, okay, 2,000 years, but they were
not, many times, looking 2,000 years ahead,
they were looking at their immediate context.
Antichrist, John would say the Antichrist spirit is
here.
When John wrote the book of Revelation, if
you look at chapter three, four, he's talking
about the churches, and then he says something
along the lines of, now, let me tell
you what's coming next.
And we say, oh, that must be 2
,000 years ago.
But in that context, they took it as
coming pretty soon.
So that's why the church is divided, because
of hermeneutics, how you translate the Bible.
Does let me tell you what's coming next,
or coming soon, mean 2,000 years, or
does it mean soon, meaning when that book
was written, and what was to come?
So let's start again, Matthew 24, verse 15.
Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation
spoken by Daniel the prophet, standing in the
holy place, whoever reads this, let them understand.
Let those who are in Judea flee to
the mountains.
Let him who is on the housetop not
go down and take anything out of his
house.
And let him who is in the field
not go back and get his clothes.
So again, looking at the context, historical context,
looking at hermeneutics, and how you study the
Bible, there's urgency, right?
I mean, if that doesn't speak of urgency,
I don't know what does.
And what some group would say, and what
I would agree with, is those who are
in Judea, that area, Judea was pretty big.
If you had a map of Israel, you
could see it taking up a lot of
that area.
So the context could be local, localized, not
necessarily applying to the whole world.
Let him who is on the housetop not
go down and take anything out of his
house.
Well, that doesn't make sense.
Well, if you understand their houses were flat
and they had pat porches on their homes,
you could almost get the picture of them
running from roof to roof to get out
of the town because destruction is coming.
He's saying, don't go back in your house.
Well, what do I need to pack?
We need this and we need to take
this for a journey and grab some of
this.
And he's saying, no, no, no, get out
of Dodge, get out of town.
And let him who is in the field
do not go back and get his clothes.
Go, leave.
But woe to those who are pregnant and
to those who are nursing babies in those
days.
Why?
Because it's hard to flee with little ones,
especially if a nursing an infant.
And so you have this imagery of a
proper hermeneutics on studying the Bible is there's
urgency.
When you see the abomination of desolation spoken
of by the prophet Daniel, apparently the Antichrist
or whoever this person is is going to
set up some type of abomination in the
temple of God.
And when they do, get out of town
is what he's saying.
So if you tie that back to what
I talked about last week, Titus came in
a Roman emperor to Jerusalem and ransacked all
of Jerusalem.
A million people were killed.
Blood was spilled everywhere.
And it was an abomination of desolation.
They would say, this group would say.
And that's why I say that's a good
point.
But the point that I wouldn't agree with
is, well, when your city is besieged and
you're surrounded, you're not gonna be able to
leave.
You're not gonna be able to flee.
You're not gonna be able to not go
grab things and leave.
You're besieged.
You are going to die.
So if we look to the future, we
could see this cataclysmic event that is coming
upon the earth and to flee, to get
out of the area.
But that's why people are divided because there's
not real clear indication.
For then, I'll pray that your flight may
not be in winter or in the Sabbath.
For then there will be great tribulation such
as not been since the beginning of the
world until this time, nor ever shall there
be.
And unless those days were shortened, no flesh
would be saved.
But for the elect's sake, those days were
shortened.
So this would tell me, if you're just
reading hermeneutics, you're looking at what this says,
you look at the original language, that there
will be great tribulation unlike anything that has
ever happened.
So that, again, in my opinion, wouldn't apply
to AD 70 when Titus conquered Jerusalem.
As horrific as that was, there's been things
that have been worse.
Remember, we discussed the numbers.
A million people died in 70 AD under
Titus.
But six million Jews died under Hitler in
the concentration camps.
And we see this coming.
So when Jesus says, and nothing again ever
is going to take place, I can't just
kind of scoot that out of the way
to fit a certain system of theology because
it sounds to me like all hell's gonna
break loose much more than what was experienced
in AD 70.
Matthew 24, 23, then if anyone says to
you, look, here is the Christ, or there,
do not believe it, for false Christs and
false prophets will rise and show great signs
and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the
elect.
So I've mentioned that word twice now.
Elect is a, I need a whole sermon
for this topic too.
But elect goes along with the word election.
You can read about in Ephesians that I
clearly believe in election, but not necessarily how
some people define it.
You'll see that the word election is always
used in reference to God's chosen people.
Whether that's Israel or whether that's us, they
are the elect of God.
They are elect, they're chosen.
And that's why he says, if those days
were not shortened, even the elect would have
perished.
And these false Christs and false prophets will
rise up and show great signs and wonders
to deceive, if possible, even the elect.
So in my understanding, I can't see how
these false Christs and false prophets came in
AD 70 and did these miracles that we
don't read about some miraculous things happening.
So it points to possibly a future of
where the world's gonna get so chaotic, the
world's gonna be so desperate that false Christs
and false prophets will come in and deceive
many.
What's a false prophet?
We talked about that last week.
Telling you what you want to hear, not
what you need to hear.
I mean, we could go over seven signs
of a false prophet, but that's in a
nutshell.
They take you away from this and to
this.
Teachers telling you what you want to hear,
building an audience, not what you need.
That's a false prophet.
A true spokesman for God will preach the
Bible.
A false prophet will, and that's a big
concern we're seeing in the church now.
A lot of these guys on TV, they're
not upsetting people.
They're not ruffling those feathers.
They're not convicting.
They are cheerleading and telling people what we
want to hear.
So you have to be careful there.
Would I label all of them a false
prophet?
No, of course not.
If you weren't here last week, listen to
that message.
I talked a little bit about that.
But a false prophet is those who intentionally
deceive with smooth words, basically saying peace, peace.
Safety, don't worry about it.
Church, don't worry about it.
And they'll come on the scene and they'll
say, listen, the church in America, America's pleasing
God.
God is so pleased with us.
Don't worry.
Don't worry about any of this.
God loves us.
We are his chosen people.
Is God happy with the direction of the
nation or the church?
Hello, Target?
Let's get controversial, right?
But let's be honest.
There's a false sense of security.
False Christ will be people claiming to be
Jesus.
And you might say, well, Shane, that doesn't
happen.
Does it?
Yeah, Google people claiming to be Jesus and
you'll see, and they have followers.
I mean, I told you about that guy
who lives very nice in Florida, I think
it is.
And he'll sit down with CNN or whoever.
I am the Christ.
I am the Messiah.
Yes, I'm the chosen one.
And I just, oh.
And people are like, really, he's here.
So, you know, it'll happen.
And here's the thing.
People sometimes are so hungry spiritually that they'll
consume anything.
So, that's a nugget to Twitter or whatever
that calls.
You can be so hungry, you can be
so hungry.
I probably said something wrong.
I'm not gonna go back there and think
about it.
You can tweet it.
But you can be so hungry spiritually that
you'll consume anything.
And that's the warning here.
They're looking for Christ.
They're looking for their Savior.
And they're so hungry to see him that
they'll be led astray by false teachers and
false prophets.
But he says, see, I've told you beforehand.
Therefore, if they say to you, look, he's
in the desert.
Do not go.
Or look, he's in an inner room.
Do not believe it.
So, what's out in the desert?
That's basically, oh, I know where he's at.
He's out in some secret place.
Let me go show you.
What's an inner room?
An inner room is hard to get to.
It's a secret place.
Jesus is saying, it's not gonna be a
secret if they say, oh, he's out in
the desert.
Let's go see where he's hidden in this
place.
No, as lightning comes, that's how the Son
of Man is going to come.
Nobody will be able to fool you.
And why is he telling us this?
To prepare us.
Do not believe it.
For as lightning comes from the east and
flashes to the west, so also will the
coming of the Son of Man be.
For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles
will gather also.
Now, carcass, dead animal, you see that sometimes.
You can see a lot of crows or
vultures circling and they're looking.
And so Jesus is saying, where are you?
It's gonna be clear that something is happening.
Now, so that's one view, right?
This view.
He will not be hard to find.
He'll be very hard, very easy to find.
You'll know when Jesus has returned.
So that's what Jesus is trying to do,
I believe, preparing.
Don't be deceived.
Don't, false cries, false prophets.
When I return, it will be crystal clear.
Now, this group, believe it or not, says
this already happened.
And one of the proponents, Gary DeMar, it's
the anti-bodily coming view of Jesus, predicted
coming in this passage that Jesus would come
just as lightning comes from the east.
That is quickly and without warning.
What the people saw was the manifestation of
the Lord's coming back in AD 70, even
though they did not actually see him.
Was God physically present?
He was not.
Did he come?
Most certainly he did.
So that's what they say that Jesus, it
came, God came, but you couldn't see it.
Almost like, and I was trying to figure
it out, probably like when Jesus said, the
kingdom of God is within you.
I didn't see anything coming, but here it's
within me.
But when I just look at this passage,
false cries, false prophets are visible.
As the lightning strikes, you will see it.
When I read this hermeneutically, and you look
at the hermeneutic laws, there's hermeneutic laws of
biblical interpretation, it would tell me that this
is going to be, Christ is going to
come again, a sign you'll see in heaven.
It'll be clear that he is here.
That's why he's paralleling it with a false
prophet, false teacher.
You'll know when I'm coming.
So again, to me, this is talking about
a literal, physical return of Jesus Christ, and
that's what we're looking for.
So how do you tie in the great
tribulation with the Antichrist?
Couple things on this.
I want to reiterate that I talked about
last week.
You will not find the word Antichrist in
Revelation.
Antichrist is mentioned in 1 John, I believe
2 John, and John says, and the Antichrist
is already here, talking about the Antichrist spirit.
What is Antichrist?
Anti, against, Christ.
Basically, it's anybody, any movement, any organization that
denies both the Father and the Son, they
are Antichrist.
So I can name some cults for you
right now that would be Antichrist, against Christ.
They go knock on doors, that's why we're
doing it tomorrow too.
We're bringing the true Christ, where Antichrist has
been delivered before.
So just keep that in mind.
An Antichrist, it's a spirit in the church,
or in the, wherever it's at, it's whoever
rejects the Son, rejects the Father.
And when you have the Son, you have
the Father.
You can read 1 John.
I'm not gonna tell you where, so you
have to read the whole thing.
That's one of the things, again, with hermeneutics,
study the Bible, homiletics is sermon preparation, but
hermeneutics is studying the Bible, and it will
tell you often to read the entire context,
because chapters and verses were just put in
about 500 years ago, and I'm glad they
were.
Back then, they didn't have chapter, that's why
Jesus would say, it is written.
It is written.
And it's funny, I'll quote a lot of
scriptures, and people will email me, you didn't
name the chapter and the verse.
Well, neither did Jesus.
It's good company, right?
Just does it line up?
It is written, have you not read?
It's written, and that's, so it was added.
So read in context.
Daniel, read that with Matthew 24, and it'll
start to, the more you read it, the
more you start to internalize, it will help.
So keep that in mind with the Antichrist.
So where does the Antichrist concept comes in?
It comes in from Revelation, the book of
Revelation, that there is a beast, this one
world leader, they say, that comes up, and
he's called the Antichrist.
Now, there's nothing wrong with that term, because
if anybody's Antichrist, it's this guy, unless you
believe this guy has already came.
So see, this group, again, will believe that
the beast talked about in Revelation has already
come in AD 70, where the other group
is waiting on this one world leader to
come.
So let's read that, Revelation 13, I'll explain
it a little bit.
Then I stood on the sand of the
sea, and I saw a beast rising up
out of the sea, having seven heads and
10 horns.
Does this beast have 10 horns?
Probably not, it's imagery.
It's using imagery to show what is coming.
And I saw a beast rising up out
of the sea, having seven heads and 10
horns, and on his horns, 10 crowns, and
on his head, yeah, there's heads.
Let's get this picture here for a minute.
This beast is rising out of the sea,
having seven heads and 10 horns, and on
his horns, 10 crowns, like a king's crown,
and on his head, a blasphemous name.
Now the beast, which I saw, was like
a leopard.
His feet were like the feet of a
bear, and his mouth like the mouth of
a lion.
So it's this one complete beast that has,
he looks like a leopard, he has the
feet of a bear, and a mouth like
a lion.
And the dragon gave him power, which could
many interpret as Satan gave him his power,
his throne, and his authority.
And I saw one of the heads as
it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly
wound was healed, and all of the world
marveled and followed the beast.
So they worshiped the dragon, who gave authority
to the beast, and they worshiped the beast,
saying, who is like the beast?
Who is able to make war with him?
So this group, again, that person is coming.
This group says he already came.
And you're saying, what is wrong with this
group, right?
That's what I thought 10 years ago.
I just couldn't believe.
Like Hank Hanegraaff, you listen to him?
Bible Answer Man.
I remember when he switched over to this
side.
I said, Hank, what are you doing?
What's going on?
I've been taught this side all my life,
and I can't believe it, and it was
a big deal.
But when you start to read why they
switched, it gave me a little bit more
grace.
And then, okay, I can see why there's
differing views.
Let's talk about that for a minute.
10 crowns, had 10 crowns.
Well, back in AD 70, the Roman Empire
had 10 providences, and the governors of each
one gave their authority over to Rome and
also exercised authority on behalf of Rome.
So you see these 10 providences in Rome
having this authority in the time that John
is writing.
This group says there will be a revised
and renewed Roman Empire.
That's what like probably Hal Lindsey, this group
would say, and it's possible.
You might see, but right now we don't
see that.
But we also have to remember that the
Roman Empire, sometimes people forget about the Eastern
Block of the Roman Empire that included Syria.
So you could see that future leader if
they're coming.
I actually met with a person yesterday for
two and a half hours, talking about a
lot of this subject.
And I said, so if you see a
one world leader coming, you see this mark,
you see one world system of currency, you
see all these things, would you change your
mind?
He's like, no, not really, because I'm already
in this, stuck in this, already have, I've
already studied, and I believe in this view.
And I said, so what's it gonna take
to get you to this view?
So sometimes people have already made up their
mind what's gonna happen.
But if you see Rome and that Eastern
Block there and a leader coming out of
that area, but again, there's 10 horns and
seven heads, and there's just so much there
that that's why it gets complicated.
But this group would believe that there are
those 10 provenance of Rome that were given
authority.
And like a lion, like a lion, the
apostle Paul was referring to his trial before
Nero, testifying that he was rescued from the
lion's den in 2 Timothy 4.
So this group would believe that this beast,
this person is Nero, Caesar Nero, who persecuted
the church, who persecuted Christians.
He came and that fulfills this role.
Now, we would look at this group over
here, three successive kingdoms that Daniel prophesied of,
the lion, the bear, and the leopard as
one world power, one world system coming up.
What about mortally wounded?
This person is gonna be mortally wounded and
be resurrected again for the whole world to
see.
Well, that's kind of hard to fit that
into this group, again, in my opinion, because
the whole world is gonna see this person
morally offended and reborn.
However, Nero, who I talked about, committed suicide
in June 16 AD.
His death brought civil war and chaos and
the empire almost collapsed.
Josephus said that every part of the habitable
earth under the Romans was in an unsettling
and tottering condition, but then it was rebuilt
again.
And just throw this in the mix.
This is real interesting.
And you can look it up.
I did today and earlier a few weeks
ago.
Nero, Caesar Nero spelled out those letters in
the Hebrew as 666.
And depending on how his name is spelled,
adding a letter in there could get 616.
So just food for thought.
So in other words, when people said, oh,
I'm like, yeah, right, you've lost it.
But if you look up, like this letter
carries a value of 200, this letter carries
a value of 50, this letter carries a
value of 25, this letter carries a value
of six.
So when you add up his name, Nero,
Caesar, you get 666.
Interesting?
Yeah, highly.
The number of man.
And so you can, the thought goes like,
and I'm really not trying to persuade you
this side because I'm really caught more on
this side, but I want to show you
that these people haven't lost their mind.
You can see how this could all fit
together.
And the number of the beast is the
number of a man.
So if John is writing from the island
of Patmos, and another argument is, did he
write the letter?
Did he write Revelation in 1895?
If he did, then this side, their whole
argument falls apart because it was written 25
years after this happened.
Or was his letter in Revelation written before
70 AD?
Well, the theologians are divided on that, so
we're not gonna answer that question tonight, that's
for sure, because nobody knows.
You might as well guess who wrote the
book of Hebrews.
Just something to think about.
This term is gonna give you a headache
when you get out of here, because it's
gonna be like, wow, too much information.
Yes, yes, too much information, I agree.
But John is writing on the island of
Patmos.
He's been barred, he's excommunicated.
So they would say that that's how he
got the message to the people, to the
church, to let them know 666.
They knew exactly what the Hebraic letters and
numbers represented, because it spelled it out.
And that's how they got underneath that, they
got that letter through to them without actually
pointing out Nero.
Now, as this progresses, and I'm talking about
now 2,000 years, as it keeps progressing,
that the 666 is gonna be hard to
identify, because is it a number of a
man, or is it a name?
Is it an actual tag that we're gonna
have to have?
There's some holes in this theory that I
see as well.
And I talked about Walid Shabbat talks about
it as a terrorist on your hand and
on your forehead.
But it's not an actual mark, it's a
way of thought.
You have to agree with a certain way
of living.
And you have to agree with the Antichrist,
worship that person, and that's how you'll be
able to buy and trade.
So it might not necessarily be a number
or something.
People are worried.
I remember when credit cards, or little chips
came out of different people, oh, okay, that's
the number of the beast.
You'll know it.
You will not, they will not catch you
off guard.
You're not gonna sign up for Visa and
go, they got me.
You know, people, I don't want computers, I
don't want this.
No, you're gonna have to take a mark
or make some profession and deny the Lord
Jesus Christ.
It will be crystal clear.
They're not gonna pull a fast one on
you.
You're gonna have to know what you're doing
as if that is coming.
And I believe, if you look at all
the Scripture, what I try to do is
I weigh everything I'm talking about, this side,
I weigh everything on this side, and I
would probably lean towards what a lot of
this is coming.
And a lot of you are going, oh,
thank God.
Woo, I'm glad you don't, but I wanna
show you that this side doesn't have, they
haven't lost their mind.
They're actually, technically, they're being more literal in
their application of the Bible than this group,
because Jesus said, this generation will not pass
away until you see these signs.
This person will, and they're taking this very
literally.
Actually, it's more literal than this group would
take it.
The whole earth would worship him.
What are you gonna do with that?
The whole earth would worship him, and all
who dwell on the earth will worship him.
Well, this is a whole nother interesting topic,
because all doesn't have to be all, and
whole doesn't have to mean whole, necessarily.
When the Bible, in Luke, I believe it
was Luke 2, when they said, and they
sent out a census for all of the
world.
It wasn't all of the world.
It was just for that area.
And we say this sometimes in our own
language.
I'm about to die here.
Are you about to die?
No.
Everybody, everybody in California's mad at me.
Is everybody?
No, it's emphasizing.
Now, just to make you feel better, I
believe that all who dwell on the earth
will worship him.
It will be this encompassing all of us.
But it could mean, this group would say,
that all in the area of Judea, and
where this was written, and this whole land
of Israel, nation, tribe, and tongue, referring to
Israel, will worship him, and this whole Roman
Empire, and that's exactly what happened.
That's exactly what happened.
Nero worship, it was terrible.
Worshiping Nero involved offering sacrifices to his spirit
in the public square, even after his death.
Rulers from other lands also had to worship
him.
One statue hailed him as savior, and another
as almighty God.
The whole earth may refer to the Roman
Empire, or to Israel, is what this side
would say.
And those of us who take the literal
view that the whole earth would be under
his control and forced to worship him, we
take earth and the whole world to mean
exactly what it is.
For God so loved the, just a little
small segment there, the whole world.
But you can see, because sometimes all doesn't
mean all.
Again, the context.
And whoever this person is, was it Nero
or is he coming?
Verse five, he was given a mouth speaking
great things and blasphemies.
Did Nero do that?
Absolutely.
Is this future leader going to do that?
Absolutely.
He was given authority to continue for 42
months.
Now this is interesting.
Nero persecuted Christians throughout the Roman Empire in
64 AD.
The persecution ended when Nero committed suicide in
June 68 AD.
Thus he made war on the saints for
a period of 42 months.
So this side's got some ammunition.
Now you can do what I did and
just take anybody's, you research it, go to
historical references, go to Josephus, read if any
of this is fairy dust, pixie dust, or
if it's real.
And that's why a lot of men of
God have gravitated towards this side.
However, is it possible that this person will
speak blasphemies and he was given authority to
continue for 42 months, it's coming?
Yes, could it be joining parallels of these
people?
Sure, of course.
Then he opened his mouth with blasphemy against
God to blaspheme his name, his tabernacle, and
those who dwell in heaven.
That's what he did.
There's no tabernacle in this view.
But it's being rebuilt, supposedly.
So see, there's a lot of things I'm
waiting to see.
The tabernacles rebuilt, a one world system.
I mean, you can kind of just watch
and see what view, well, like I told
the guy yesterday, or I was thinking, I
don't know if I told him.
But someday, we're both gonna know who's right.
Right, I mean, at some point, you're gonna
know what side of this argument is correct.
It was granted to him to make war
with the saints and to overcome them, that
happened in AD 70, or it's coming to
happen.
And authority was given to him over every
tribe, every tongue, and every nation.
That's the concept of world domination.
But they would say every tribe, tongue, and
nation is often used of Israel.
Every tribe, 12 tribes of Israel.
The tongue, the nations, all those gathered in
the Roman Empire there.
So they can try to, either group, it
can make these work.
And all who dwell on the earth will
worship him, whose names have not been written
in the book of the life of the
Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.
People say, how do I know if my
name is in there?
Well, how do you know?
Did you repent and did you believe?
Did you repent of your sin and did
you believe on the only name that saves?
It's not a secret.
You're not gonna, I wonder if I'm in
that book.
Are you or aren't you?
If you're not, I would encourage you, get
your name written in that book.
All who call upon my name will be
saved, Jesus said.
And in Revelation, God says, all who call
upon my name will be saved.
If anyone has ear, let him hear.
He who leads into captivity shall go into
captivity.
He who kills with the sword must be
killed with the sword.
Any guess on what happened to Nero?
Killed by the sword.
Why shouldn't he commit suicide?
Right, but it fell, then he asked, I
think his, one of his cupbearers or somebody
there with him to kill him with the
sword.
Oh, God, this is just complicated.
I like this side better.
You know, it's like, but there's different things.
Nero persecuted the Christians, I already read that.
And there was given to him a mouth
speaking arrogant words and blasphemies and authority to
act for 42 months.
This arrogant person.
Qualis artifexos perio, he said before he died.
Qualis artifexos perio.
What a wonderful, what a wonderful artist the
world loses in me.
He was arrogant, pompous, very arrogant man.
And he's speaking pompous, arrogant things.
A mouth speaking great things and blasphemies and
authority to continue for 42 months.
We will, this group says this is coming
in the future.
That this world leader, this beast, whoever it
is, will speak blasphemous things and he will
come in the future.
If you wanna keep reading, you can keep
reading at Revelation 13, 11.
Revelation 13, 11.
Now this is where I was gonna talk
a little bit about the rapture, but I
don't wanna run through it too quickly, so
bear with me.
I might have to pick this up next
weekend, but what's next weekend?
Mother's Day, should we talk about the rapture
on Mother's Day?
I think not.
So interesting thing about the rapture.
This group would say it has already happened.
And I don't have time to break that
down, but maybe I will in a minute.
But the thing we have to remember with
the rapture or whatever happens, flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
So how you are now, how I am
now, we cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
Flesh and blood, it's like filthy, it's like
you just, I don't wanna give that example,
but I was gonna say like you just
washed your house and your dog did something
on the living room floor and it doesn't
work there.
Flesh and blood can't inherit the kingdom of
God, so something has to change.
And really, the truth is dead men see
God.
Dead men see God.
Once you die and something, that old, that
body goes back into the earth, it's dissolved,
and the new man, the new heavens and
new earth create, the new body that we
are created in a different body.
There's something different that's gonna happen.
The flesh and blood can't inherit.
So with the rapture, something would have to
happen as you're catching away and going up
there.
There has to be a, you can't just
go like this, because God would say, no,
no, no.
But what about Jesus?
Yes, what about Jesus?
But you can't, flesh and blood cannot inherit
the kingdom of God, it's gotta be the
spirit side of us.
I'm not getting new agey, that's just true.
You are body, soul, and spirit, whether you
agree with it or not.
You have a body, you live in a
body, but you are eternally going to live
somewhere eternally and you have a soul, your
emotions, your intellect, who you are.
It's interesting, God said, let us make man
in our image and in our likeness.
You see the triune nature of God, you
can see the triune nature of what man
has.
I'm not gonna get that deep into theology
in that area because it's a risky area
to keep going in, but when God said,
let us create man in our image and
in our likeness, it's interesting you see that
three concept, body, soul, and spirit.
John 14, I'm going away to prepare a
place for you and if I go away,
I will come again and receive you unto
myself and where I am, that's where he's
going to be.
In his father's house, there you may be
also.
So Jesus says, I'm going away before he
died to prepare a place for you and
if I go away, I will come again
and receive you unto myself that where I
am, that's where he's going to be.
In his father's house, there you will be
also.
So we get this image of Jesus is
coming back for us.
So it's not a concept that's out there.
This people, this group would say, oh, that's
not, well, the Bible's pretty clear that Jesus
says, I'm gonna prepare a place, I'm coming
back for you.
To be, and again, I could read a
whole bunch on the rapture, I'm probably going
to skip that until we get to that
section and talk a little bit more about
it.
What is a rapture?
Where does it come from in Thessalonians?
What are we waiting on?
What are we looking for?
And there's a lot of views on this.
There's a view of pre-tribulation, which I
spoke of, where you'll go, you will go
out of here before the tribulation or there's
mid-tribulation where we go in the middle
and then there's pre-wrath where you go
out before God's wrath.
And I would say that if that rapture
type theology is true and we are going
to be caught up that I don't see
us going through God's wrath, that would make
no sense.
God doesn't pour out his wrath on people.
Now, the Antichrist will or the one world
leader will if that is coming.
So I'm in a state of expectancy.
I'll teach it, I believe it, I believe
what the Bible says.
I think we're gonna see these things as
everything's starting to line up.
But I don't wanna tell my kids, don't
worry about it, you'll be out of here.
When they might have to die for their
faith.
Do you all realize that that is a
reality that we might see someday?
And if we don't see it, our kids
will see it.
Our grandkids could see it.
You'll have to actually die for your faith.
That makes me want to teach them about
solid theology and abiding in Christ and having
him be their anchor and their foundation.
Let me pick up verse 29 in Matthew
24.
Immediately after the tribulation of those days, don't
worry, I'll come back to the rapture in
a few weeks.
That means you have to come back to
church.
All the first time visitors, you're gonna have
to come back.
Mother's Day and then Saturday after that.
So immediately after the tribulation of those days,
the sun will be darkened and the moon
will not give its light, the stars will
fall from heaven and the powers of the
heaven will be shaken.
That's when you say, see?
This side, that has not happened yet.
That has not happened yet.
However, let me tell you what they'll say
in a little bit.
Then the sign of the Son of Man
will appear in heaven and then all the
tribes of the earth will mourn and they
will see the Son of Man coming on
the clouds of heaven with power and great
glory.
Very interesting thing.
When you study New Testament theology or revelation
or different things, you have to have the
Old Testament as your backdrop, they work together
because in Isaiah 19, one, God is speaking.
He says, the burden of Egypt, behold, the
Lord rideth upon a swift cloud and shall
come into Egypt and the idols of Egypt
shall be moved at his presence and the
heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst
of it.
Did God come riding swiftly on a cloud?
No, it was imagery of his judgment upon
the nation of Israel.
There's no God riding a cloud like a
man riding a horse.
It's imagery, it's allegory saying he's coming swiftly.
You see those clouds approaching, blowing quickly.
God is riding swiftly on a cloud to
bring judgment to Egypt.
So if we follow that line of reasoning,
then you could read here that when the
Son of Man comes again, they will see
the Son of Man coming on the clouds
of heaven with power and great glory.
Would Jesus really be straddling a cloud like
a horse, you know, riding that cloud?
Probably not, but will we see his manifest
presence?
Will he be coming again?
Because I believe so because it says, then
the sign of the Son of Man will
appear in heaven.
Something will appear, they'll see the Son of
Man, the tribes will mourn, what did you
say?
The sun will be darkened and the moon
will not give its light, the stars will
fall from heaven.
This cataclysmic event where the Son of Man,
the Son of God returns will be something
that is very visible, very life altering, that
has never been seen before.
And he will send his angels with a
great sound of a trumpet and they will
gather together his elect from the four winds
and from the end of heaven, one end
to another.
So that's that Matthew 24 all the way
through verse 31.
You see this, if we can remember back
that Jesus is preparing them, be ready, all
these signs are coming, these signs are coming,
here's what's gonna happen, you watch out for
this, don't be mistaken, don't be deceived, and
then he ends with this, that God's going
to gather his elect.
And it's a difficult topic because we don't
know where or how or at what point
or what's it gonna look like.
What about the passage where he says, like
in the days of Noah, one will be
working in the field, the other will be
taken, one will be left.
Well, is he going to judgment or is
he going to heaven?
Left behind series would say he's going to
heaven, right?
But he, so there's a lot of speculation.
And that's why we go back to the
main focal point of are you ready, are
you prepared?
Don't be deceived by false teachers, by false
prophets.
Don't get away from abiding in God, stay
abiding.
And so if you'll know they're watching the
news and my concern is the news is
taking them away from God.
They're so worried about all these things and
the Trump supporters and protests and all these
things and what's happening, be abiding in Christ,
be abiding in God.
That's the warning, that's the encouragement here.
And what we're gonna do tonight is do
communion here tonight and also tomorrow morning.
And although the Bible is rich in symbolism,
so is communion.
And communion is not about ritual, but remembrance.
That's the communion.
If we ever get in the habit of
it being a ritual, we're in trouble.
Because a ritual is just you go through
the motions and you just go and go
through the motions.
That's not what communion is.
Communion is a powerful time of remembrance where
we look back, we look ahead, and we
look within.
I think I heard Greg Laurie say that
a while back.
And I said, I have to write that
down.
That's exactly what it is.
We look back, we look ahead, and we
look within.
So let me just briefly, let's look back,
the life of Christ, the bread.
Jesus called himself the bread of life.
So when you take the communion, it's not
just some little wafer piece of bread.
It is actually representing the body of Christ.
Bread nourishes.
It's necessary for growth, health, and good condition.
So Jesus says, I am the only way,
the only truth, the only life.
I am the true bread that comes from
heaven.
I will nourish you, I will sustain you.
So we take that and we remember that.
We also remember the blood that was given.
Jesus' blood cleanses us from sin.
For this is my blood of the covenant,
which is poured out for many for forgiveness
of sins.
And then we look ahead.
This is a wonderful time in communion to
look ahead.
Are you ready for his return?
Something's gonna happen.
Regardless of what view you have, you're not
gonna be here for a thousand years.
Probably everybody in this room, probably not a
hundred years.
Or 50, or 40, some of us 30,
or 20.
You look ahead what's happening.
You remember, and it brings you back.
That's why I loved that last chorus that
Brant sang on that song.
Nothing but the blood, nothing but the blood.
And remembering Jesus.
And then we look within.
Communion is a time to look within.
Isaiah 55, six and seven.
I've read this many times before, and I
wanna read it again.
And it's interesting.
It's an invitation to those who are thirsty.
And I wanna ask you, are you thirsty
tonight for God?
Because the reason church is boring for many
people is they're not thirsty.
They're not hungry for more of God.
They're just, oh, I went through with emotions,
let me check church off this week.
That's not searching and being desperate for God
and having a thirst.
Are you ever thirsty?
Have you ever went on a long run
or jogged and had no water?
You're tempted to jump in the aqueduct and
drink that.
Or whatever you can get, you're so thirsty.
That's what, many people can't relate.
They're just, oh, everything's just boring about church.
Bible's boring, I'm drifting away from God.
I'm not hungry for God.
Well, here's the solution.
Seek the Lord while he may be found.
That tells me I have a responsibility.
I have to seek God while he may
be found.
He's not gonna come find me many times.
I have to go and seek him because
he's not hiding.
It isn't hide and seek.
God is an ever-present help.
He's right there.
He's waiting for us to take that step
to seek him.
That's why I always talk about prayer and
fasting and reading the Bible and worshiping.
That's how you seek him.
You don't seek him by all these other
things that people are doing.
Call upon him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his ways and the
unrighteous man his thoughts.
The context there is your wicked thoughts, my
wicked thoughts.
Let him return to the Lord, and he
will have mercy on him and to our
God, for he will abundantly pardon.
So those who are thirsty, they seek God.
They set their hearts on God.
They don't care what it looks like.
They don't care what it's gonna cost them.
They turn from their wicked ways.
They remove those wicked thoughts that are coming
in and penetrating their heart and deceiving them.
And God says, when you call on me,
I will hear and I will forgive you
and I will pardon you.
So that's what communion is, a time to
look within, to look within and say, God,
before I take this, before I take these
elements, I wanna make sure that my relationship
with you is anchored and I'm on good
ground, I'm on good soil.
Actually, communion can be a very powerful time.
I believe healing can take place.
I believe bondages can be broken.
I believe addictions can be broken.
I believe that marriages can be healed.
If you take a husband and wife who
are on the brink of divorce court, and
they go and they take communion together, and
they open up and they say, I'm sorry,
will you forgive me if I repent, if
I seek God again, let's take communion, let's
ask God, because of the body that was
bruised and the blood that was shed, let's
ask God to rebuild our marriage.
You don't think he'll not answer that prayer?
He loves to answer those prayers, but we
have to seek with all of our heart
and call upon him while he might be
found.
There's a day coming where he won't be
found.
It's called death, flatline, dead man walking.
When that all happens, that time to seek
God is over, is over.
It was just last, it's been a week
now, week tomorrow I gave a message at
a memorial service for a one-year-old
baby girl.
Very difficult, very challenging.
And then a week prior, there was a
70-year-old woman that we had a
memorial service there for in Leona Valley, and
I just saw one to 70.
You never know.
You just don't know.
And a parent, you're not supposed to bury
your children.
What do I tell these parents?
Well, Romans 8, 28, all things work together.
No, you cry with them and you listen.
But there's coming a time where we don't
know the day or the hour.
We don't even know.
We have no clue.
Somehow we think, I'll live for another 50
years.
I've got this covered.
And that time of seeking God, that's why
the Bible always says now.
Now is the day of salvation.
Now is the day of redemption.
Now is the day to come back to
me.
Prodigal son, now is the time to come
back.
Don't wait, don't wait, because I know many
prodigal sons who never come back to the
father.
They die in their sin.
How many of you guys visit the hospital
homes?
How many of those people are there because
of alcoholism?
Half, probably.
Look at what happened.
Warning and warning and warning and warning.
Come back, come back, come back.
Seek me with all of your heart.
Come back.
So don't ever, on this point, call upon
him while he is near, while he may
be found.
Today is the day of salvation.
Today is the day of coming back.
Many times I talk to addicts, they don't
wanna come back just yet.
They enjoy that lifestyle until that lifestyle kills
them or puts them in the hospital or
in jail.
And if you don't turn from that, you're
either buried, you're in prison, or you're gonna
be committed to asylum because it will destroy
you at some point.
So I didn't want this to turn all
negative and things because it's very positive, but
there has to come a point when you
call upon the name of the Lord, whether
it's salvation, if you truly don't know him,
don't wait.
Don't say, well, maybe I'll listen to Shane
throughout the summer and make a decision.
No, there might not be a throughout the
summer.
There might not be anything.
God says right now, the day of salvation,
if you don't know me, turn to me.
If you don't know me, turn to me.
Not next week, not tomorrow, not tonight on
the way home.
Now, during worship, during communion, turn to me
with all of your heart, not some of
it.
Turn to me now, now, now.
It's that convicting, it's that conviction.
If you could bring back all the people
of all the memorials I've ever spoke at,
they would sit here, they would be weeping,
telling people, turn to God.
Turn to him now with all of your
heart.
Don't miss this opportunity.
And that's what this context is, now while
he is near.
So what you do is you take communion
and you pray with your spouse.
That's what I would encourage you to do.
Or you can pray by yourself.
You can be at the altar.
You can be in the back with the
prayer team.
We're gonna have the prayer team back there
with you as well.
Or you can go back to your seat
and you just reflect, God, before I partake
of this, before I partake of the body
that was bruised and broken for me, Jesus
Christ who was spit on and beat up
for me, he was whipped, he was killed
for me.
Before I partake of this, God, examine me.
Is there anything in me that is not
right because I do not want to take
this in an unworthy manner?
And once the heart is right, you just
take of the elements and you pray.
I would encourage you to pray and pray
and pray.
Not be in a hurry.
Pray for family members.
Pray for those who need us.
I just got a text today.
A good friend I haven't seen in years,
I grew up with, is on the verge
of suicide and they can't get a hold
of him.
I'm trying to text him and call him.
And there's so much to pray for.
Pray for him.
His name's Kevin.
Pray for him during this time.
He's drifted so far.
He's into darkness and gothic music and just
Facebook posts are dark and destructive.
And I'm gonna pray for him tonight.
There's prodigal sons.
You guys, you have your own sons, your
own kids, probably.
Maybe you're a wayward.
When was the last time we took some
time to pray for them and said, God,
save my daughter from alcoholism.
Save my son from drugs.
God, you've got to save them.
Church, this is not the time to rush
through and go home and eat.
This is the time where we should be
breaking before Almighty God and praying and not
be in a hurry.
Is anybody upset if Brant does three or
four songs?
Let's take time and let's just reflect.
Let's just worship.