Ministry Conference 2021 // Don Stewart

yeah but and don't forget to thank the ladies too that have done such a fabulous job for us too here so we're thankful for them [Applause] but one thing i learned here this is the uh uh camera how many times i've been here every assistant pastor every guy working here on the grounds has the first name of matt i found that out here and so just thank when you see a guy say thanks matt you'll be pretty fortunate to get the right person here um that just happens in fact i was surprised yesterday when they're asking the question how do you pick an assistant pastor you got to find a guy named matt then you go on from there but anyway it's just one of those things all right um a couple things uh we're going to talk today about living in the light of the last days lessons to be learned to this tuesday night at uh well let's start i'll be on about 7 15 starts at 7. i'm at calvary chapel of the harbor in seal beach california i'm going to be doing about a one-hour talk maybe longer on you know the situation in the middle east right now give you the very latest so if you're interested calvary chapel at the harbor h-a-r-b-o-u-r dot they've got a facebook page they've got other ways to watch it so if you're interested calvary the harbor this tuesday night i'll be and also too by the way on our website educating our world there's always a the video with kind of the latest announcements i'll probably announce that tomorrow if uh trinity's available my pomeranian her and i will do it together announce the fact that we're doing that and other things you can always find the latest on that you know i told the story yesterday uh when i introduced myself about how thankful i am to be here how god's grace has got me here miraculous i didn't even begin to scratch the surface the miraculous survival miracle after miracle took place to get me here i'm reminded of a story i heard a number of years ago i did this men's retreat out in san diego county very you know near the mexican border and after you know talking for a number of sessions we had people all share their testimony and this guy shared this testimony that was literally mind boggling now he was in one of these late night cruises or boats you know they do around a santa monica harbor and he fell out of the boat when he's about a mile and a mile and a half out to sea okay and to put it charitably he's not built like michael phelps okay and he's out there and they didn't know he'd he'd gone overboard because he was there at the end and you know no one that i guess they didn't take a head count and so he's telling the story about how you know he's just praying to jesus jesus please you know save my life and obviously he did because he was there but he said i'm not even that good of a swimmer but he made it it was a miraculous you know testimony of god saving people's lives i've heard stories over the years and you know perhaps you have one but let me tell you nobody nobody has a story about god miraculously saving their life as a lady named sachi rummel i met satchee in 2019 at a prophecy conference in canada and she gave her testimony sachi was an eight-year-old girl on august living in japan in the city of hiroshima on august 6 1945 when the atomic bomb was dropped on hiroshima miraculously her whole family's destroyed died she survived and she became a bible-believing christian later in life she gives her testimony it's fantastic in fact the reason i say that she just said contact me you know we got uh to know each other every once in a while she emails me she saw me on his channel recently and uh man that now that's that's a story that's that's amazing how she was behind this treat that's probably the only reason i survived uh this so um anyway now i got to i got to tell you this one story i wasn't planning on doing it but at the same conference this one is great remember i somebody asked me yesterday during the q a what's number 10 of the 10 principles it's expect the unexpected at that same conference there when we're doing the men's um you know everybody's kind of sharing a little bit about themselves this is this story is amazing this guy comes up and he says yeah i got to tell this story but i'm a little embarrassed to tell it but i'm going to i'm going to tell it to you he said my wife and i became christians from a total non-christian background we knew nothing about god nothing about the bible neither of us grew up in a church and we became believers in jesus he said about six months after we became a christian we had this issue my wife was working full-time and we had a young child we wanted my wife to be able to spend more time with the child but she couldn't because of her job and so we're asked we didn't know what to do and so that again this is hella and he's embarrassed to tell us and i think the wife said hey honey what about this thing called prayer we hear about this they had never prayed before all this time in church they talk about praying maybe we should pray and ask god to you know to be to have me give more time to my you know be able to spend more time with my daughter and so the guy says okay how do we pray and i don't know i've never you know it's neither never prayed in their life this is interesting so anyway they said well let's just pray so the husband prayed dear god please let my wife be able to spend more time with my daughter because both of them were working they were busy people and and so she prayed the next night she comes home and said honey our prayers are answered i'm now going to be able to spend more time with our daughter i just got fired [Applause] and he had the biggest smile on his face he says wait i tell you what happened today the boss called me in and told me i was doing such a tremendous job he increased my salary to the place where we don't even need your money anymore from work and so god answered both of our prayers one day and that amazing i never heard a story like that before but uh i thought it was so cute the fact that uh again expect the unexpected you never know what god's gonna do okay this talk is uh living in light of the last days uh lessons to be learned it comes from the book uh what's it called out yeah god wants us to know the future introduction to bible prophecy and it's the last question there and what i want to do is basically share some things because we live in some very exciting times we do live in the last days uh what lessons can we learn i'm going to give you a number of them number one our first lesson and this is the most important we can understand the times in which we are living we can understand this this is very important to know in the book of daniel so we have your bibles turn to the 12th chapter of the book of daniel please and we're going to talk about what daniel is told and what's there that we really can understand these things this first lesson of course is primary daniel is told in the 12th chapter and verse 4 but you daniel close up these words and seal the book until the time of the end many will dash about and the knowledge will increase daniel 12 4. now i want you to hear what the lord is telling daniel daniel close up the book until the time of the end you're not going to get it many will dash about now that's a hebraic idiom an idiom in the hebrew language many many are going to try and find the answer um to this question they're not going to be able to find it because only at the time of the end knowledge will increase now this is not knowledge per se this is knowledge about the book of daniel and knowledge about bible prophecy it's only at the time of the end all this will make sense because it will not make any sense until the time of the end many of the things that are talked about in scripture and so it's highly instructive for daniel and for us seal up the book and again if you like writing in your bible or underlining underline the little word until until the time of the end because at the time of the end people will be able to understand these things but only at the time of the end bible prophecy last days bible prophecy specifically what we read in the book of daniel now as we read on this this next question is interesting there's there's two heavenly beings talking to one another in verse six and one said to the man clothed in lev len who was above the waters of the river when will the end of these wondrous events occur in other words what's interesting these heavenly beings angels there's a number of different spiritual beings that were created they're interested in bible prophecy too they don't know they don't know when all this is going to occur and so they're asking themselves when is all of this going to take place so it's not only us humans that are interested in that god it seems had included in the angels of these other heavenly beings about the timing of all these events in fact a very important point to mention satan doesn't know either when i was writing my book the final antichrist i came across a book written in the 1960s from published by moody press and the only other person ever heard say this was joel rosenberg and bless our joel's really right on in what he teaches it talked about when the final antichrist comes only god knows who he is satan doesn't know who he is god's not telling satan when the time of the end is he doesn't know first john 2 18. antichrist many antichrists are coming antichrist final antichrist is coming and many are already here so every generation has one satan doesn't know who it is he has to have someone always waiting in the wings preparing there've been many in the past but the final one god and god alone knows who it's going to be so this is something god's kept to himself anyway daniel did not understand here now in verse 8 we're going to hear that again he himself admitted in daniel 12 8 when he heard all these things i heard but i did not understand so i said sir what will happen after these things all right can you imagine how profound this is and again i want to really help your self-image here here is daniel the man that was probably arguably given more information about the time of the end except possibly john the writer of the book of revelation and you know in daniel chapter 2 he interpreted the dream of nebuchadnezzar actually told nebuchadnezzar what he had dreamt not only interpreted but told him what he had dreamed what it meant of the four gentile kingdoms that are coming on the earth until the time the kingdom of god comes and then daniel again in chapter five the famous handwriting on the wall tells belshazzar you're waiting the balances and found wanting this night you know the kingdom is going to be taken to you from you and given to the medes and the persians it happened that very night then of course daniel chapter 7 the same it's really interesting daniel chapter 7 the same vision a dream that nebuchadnezzar had of the same four kingdoms this giant statue of the four medals daniel sees it but doesn't see it as for you know its great statue sees it as four beasts because this is god's perspective god's point of view god's point of view is always different than our point of view from the human point of view it was these great st this great statue of this one kingdom after another babylon medo-persia greece and rome they're going to rule the world the kingdoms of the world but in god's point of view they're ugly terrible beasts god's point of view god's viewpoint is always different than ours for example we read in the books of samuel and kings the uh the life of king saul all right king saul was not god's man so in he's but in the secular perspective he was you know if you're writing a newspaper in that day he was the man where it's all about 23 chapters are dedicated to the life of saul in in the book samuel and kings okay because he was the guy from the secular from the human point of view who is you know the one that was important chronicles on the other hand gives the divine point of view how much air time does saul get in chronicles a whole 14 verses and the only reason he's mentioned at all is he's the segway to bring us to david god's man so when god now when the angel there whoever is writing about this history from god's perspective what's important is what you folks are doing in your church your ministry from god's point of view you won't make the headlines in the world but believe me you're making the headlines in the kingdom of god but daniel did not understand so this is profound he didn't get it many daniel chapter 9 the predictions of the coming messiah the 77's now as we look at verses 9 and 10 listen to what's told him this is again this is one of the verse i tell people you like underlining please underline these he said go daniel for these matters are closed and sealed here's the word again until the time of the end many will be purified and refined now none of the wicked will understand but the wise will understand now look carefully at what's said daniel you're not going to get it only those living at the time of the end will understand the wise the wicked will never get it they'll have no clue what's going on who are the wise that's those of us who take the bible seriously that believe god you know has laid it out for us meant what he said and says what he means and so basically what daniel's being told is dan don't even try and figure out many are going to try and figure this out but only at the time of the end all these things are going to make sense like we mentioned to you yesterday the lineup there of the nations in ezekiel 38 39 that are going to attack israel in the 70s when we were talking about this everybody's on the wrong side of the ledger the nations that are going to be on israel's side were the ones that already attacked them in the various wars the nations that are going to be attacking them in the last days are the ones that sided with them or actually helped them out so it didn't seem to be working but more or less sooner or later it will always come about i'm always reminded of the uh story pastor chuck smith used to tell uh you might have heard this because you like to tell it a lot about when he was in israel in the mid 70s he's up to the gohan heights israeli border uh lebanese border i believe and he's talking to these israeli generals the idea of the israeli defense force and the yom kippur war just happened a couple years previously and he said fellas i know you're worried about syria here i know you're worried about lebanon they're not going to be your biggest enemy your biggest enemy is going to be iran when he said that they laughed at him chuck what do you talk about iran if it weren't for iran we would have survived that's true wouldn't it survive the um the war the 73 yom kippur war iran was resupplied uh helped resupply the united with the united states help resupply israel for israel's existence and chuck says i'm just telling you guys not lebanon not syria your biggest problem is going to be iran iran at that time was their best friend a few years later the shah is deposed the ayatollah khomeini takes over the islamic republic of iran has created the and they're going to sponsor terrorism jihad throughout the entire world so at that time chuck started getting all these phone calls from israel from these generals and he said chuck what's going to happen next and chuck says it's in the book that's what i'm trying to tell you sooner or later the lineup will be exactly what the bible says it's going to be so we know what the end game is going to be and it's amazing to watch all these things fall into place daniel did not know people of the past did not know you and i are going to be able to understand if we take the bible seriously we'll talk about this again in some detail on tuesday night when we get a whole hour it's good to have that much time about the latest going on in the middle east so number one we can know we can't understand it's laid out for us we can't understand number two we should be thankful and humbled by the privilege of living in these times thankful and humbled of the privilege of living in these times all right you we need to appreciate the fact we mentioned this yesterday that we're living in some very special times jesus in matthew 13 16 to 17 said blessed are your eyes because they see in your ears because they hear for i tell you the truth many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it and to hear what you hear but did not hear it so the generation that heard the words of jesus were a very special group of people in the fullness of time galatians 4 4 god sent forth his son born of a woman born under the law to reveal himself to the world every generation the time of adam wanted to be that generation they weren't that generation was in the same vein here we are in the 21st century and we are seeing the sort of things that daniel wanted to see that ancient commentators wanted to see who took the bible seriously but did not see they saw it by faith we're seeing it by opening our very eyes so if we understand the times in which we're living if we understand the things that the prophets have said are all falling into place it's literally mind-boggling what we're seeing but it's confirming to us we're not believing it's fairy tale we're not assassinating our brains to be christians we're seeing precisely what the bible said is going to take place at the time of the end and here it is so we should be humbled because of that uh that we are here why us why me you know why i always ask myself that question i remember when i was doing the breaking news on his channel five days a week and sharing all these stories and then explaining what it meant to do with last days bible prophecy and when i have a chance to speak to a group like you i said god why me why am i get the privilege of knowing these things and writing about them and telling people i mean i'm thankful for it but there's generations before me who had much smarter people than me much more godly people than me but for some reason i'm here doing it you're here with your congregation you're able to tell them the things that are happening right now and so it's it's incredible that god's allowed us to do it so that doesn't help your self-image i don't know what does because god has chosen us for such a time as this to do this so to be thankful but also again don't forget the humility you're humbled by the privilege of living in these days it's humbling to see all the things happening and particularly now just the last few months at a pace that we could not even imagine so that's lesson number two not only can we know and understand lesson number two that should really humble us and make us thankful that we are living at a time for the where the last 2 000 years people have wanted to live at this time and see the things we are seeing just like jesus said to his disciples many people longed to see him didn't see him many people long to see what you and i are seeing long to see it didn't see them it is a privilege to be living in these days all right lesson number three and oh is this important well they're all important we need to interpret the prophetic passages at face value the passages in the bible dealing with last days bible prophecy take them at uh again face value in matthew 16 verses one to four jesus uh we have a little account of jesus he said now when the pharisees and sadducees came to test jesus they asked him to show them a sign from heaven he said when evening comes you say it will be fair weather because the sky is red and in the morning it will be stormy today because the sky is red and darkening you know how to judge correctly the appearance of the sky but you cannot evaluate the signs of the times all right the signs were there for everyone to see they could predict what the weather is going to be like but they ignored the signs of the times they did not pay attention to what was so obviously there remember on palm sunday luke tells us jesus wept over the city of jerusalem if you'd only known in this your day the things that are made towards your peace but now they're hidden from your eyes you should have known the facts were all there if you would have taken the bible seriously if you would have taken it at face value but people don't don't do it they spiritualize it they don't say the bible means what it says or says what it means and what they do they don't interpret the scripture that way so they get all kinds of different wacky interpretations of what's going on we are to take it at face value it says what it means what it says and says what it means now there's a very simple rule of bible interpretation if you've heard me speak any length of time you probably heard me say this but whenever you read scripture there's a very simple rule you always need to apply and that is this if the literal sense makes good sense then seek no other sense lest you come up with nonsense okay if the literal sense makes good sense then seek no other sense lest you come up with nonsense in other words god means what he says and says what he means so that's why when we take the bible literally like the wise will understand we give like you know here's here's a layout of what the world's going to be like at the time and god's given us that you know the the like at the end of the movie as it were what's going to take place and we get to see it right we get to see what's going to happen and we see the pieces of the puzzle all fitting into place pastor chuck and i when we did world news world news briefing a number of years ago about 10 years ago on his channel we had a bunch of dominoes and every time we do a story we put a domino you know on the table there and then another domino then another domino stories that fulfill what the bible says the time of the end of course chuck is the senior pastor got to push him all over i wanted to do it but you know i want to keep my job so i let him do it okay chuck you could knock them over but we had we had probably a hundred of them sitting there all lined up on the table because one after another after another week after week we'd come and add more dominoes because the dominoes are all falling into place and so why because we take the bible literally we know what to expect that's why chuck could tell those israeli generals what's going to happen in the future and his answer was it's in the book i'm not we used to say we're not prophets or sons of prophets it's in the book we're just telling you what it says but you got to know what the book says first and foremost all right number four this one i got to be very careful with i could go for a very long period of time on this but this is something gang when it comes to the christian faith when it comes to last days bible prophecy please please please take this into consideration number four do not go beyond that which is written do not go beyond that which is written first corinthians 4 6 paul says i've applied these things in myself and apollos to myself and apollos because of you brothers and sisters so that through us you may learn not to go beyond what is written all right you and i have a guidebook the bible 66 books of scripture the old and new testament that's the only book which we have the divine truth of god this is this is our instruction manual this is it we don't go beyond that this is the book that we always turn to remember many years ago i was doing a talk at calvary chapel costa mesa i had as the early years i had a my book table out i think i had about eight books at the time you know i just kind of gotten started and um the guy comes up to me and he says i have a friend who really wants to know jesus he's gonna look at the books what book should i tell them to read and i said that's simple matthew mark luke and john the guy says i'm serious i said so am i that's what you want him to read you want him to read the bible that's what we're trying to get him to do because that's where the divine truth is you know as best as i try i'm a human being i'm going to make mistakes i got i like what john macarthur says we all have blind spots i got blind spots but i don't where they are if i knew where they were there wouldn't be blind spots right and so we all we're all fallible human beings but what we want to do is stick with the book not to go beyond that which is written in this book i have a uh a question ideal length that's actually we got the audiobook of uh uh this this one um you know god wants us to know the future if you want to listen to the question it's about 18 minutes long but it deals with some of the kooky things that have been taught over the years about you know you know what's going to happen signs in the heavens please the signs in the heavens are not for this age the signs in the heavens are going to take place but only once the final seven year period occurs but you have people talking about these blood moons you know that are that are signs um signs that follow after uh again it just doesn't work we deal with that in great detail there's only one blood moon that's during the great tribulation and that's uh and also many other things will happen at the same time that didn't happen when supposedly this happened a few years ago but the one that really got me is the one that happened 2017. you might remember was it september i think september 23rd 2017 the great sign in heaven is going to take place uh revelation 12 1 the great sign in heaven which is going to lead to either the second coming of christ the rapture of the church and that's actually what i did some of you have seen myself with jack hibbs the first happening now because he asked me to come and speak about you know this because people were going crazy christians said this is it this is the time of the end there's going to be this this thing that happens in space this great alignment of the planets the stars it's never happened before but it'll happen september 23rd uh 2017 and that's it that's the great sign in heaven and so people were you know they were going crazy with this sort of thing and so what happened was um basically you know i gave it help talk on the subject and i i can't remember if i did it then but i always wanted to remind the people i've done this often that this is not the first time someone predicted the time of the end if you recall uh and also in what's it 2000 this earlier 2011 harold camping of family radio predicting 2011 the rapture of the church uh was going to take place because he had it all figured out all calculated in again of september date in 2011. now what he didn't tell you he wrote a book in 1994 saying christ is coming back then now i watched him it was interesting he was on larry king live in 1994 and larry asked him okay so if jesus doesn't come back in 1994 does that make the bible wrong or you should have seen the guy's face well you know if if doesn't why are you writing the book well he tried it again it didn't work in 2011. anyway as the time was coming up there i did a thing with jack we talked about it and i was speaking about a week or so before another church in the area and we had a q and a period and someone asked me about the great sign in heaven that's coming up i said it's nonsense it's now first of all number one it's um there are three woes in the book of revelation uh this is the third woe is coming quickly the first two woes have already come to pass when this third woe takes place in the first two woes it consists of revelation chapter 11 of the two witnesses witnessing for three and a half years calling down fire from heaven they're killed by the final antichrist their bodies are in the streets of jerusalem for three and a half days the whole world rejoices you know makes it a christmas time a party after that after three and a half days their life comes back to them they're ascended into heaven a great earthquake takes place in the city of jerusalem then and then according to revelation 11 19 the ark of the covenant is seen in heaven i said gang that ain't happened yet uh we wouldn't have missed something like that okay well revelation 12 takes place after that and so you got to have these other events taking place beforehand now also too there's something else and i um you know i try to be charitable but these people are claiming to have the answers anyway back to what i was saying was i spoke to this this group and some guy afterwards started rebuking me he said how dare you say that the great sign is going to appear september 23rd this guy's a great brother in christ he knows what he's doing he's calculated all he's got it figured out it's beyond any type of question i said really he said yeah i said okay i want you to do me a favor how about you and i get together on september 24th and talk about this oh did he get mad at me he just stormed out well i never saw the guy again i can't imagine why because as jesus said nobody knows the day or the hour now i didn't i might have said it this way my wife said i shouldn't but sometimes i just get so upset at these experts that claim to know of the time of the end because they go beyond that which is written i said jesus says nobody knows the day or the hour i'm going to speak real slow and use real small words to say this to you i didn't say i might have said that once i try not to but the point is in what sense does nobody knows mean to you nobody means you me nobody knows you know what there are people that say well jesus didn't know nobody knew at his time but we know today well the arrogance that's there anyway don't go beyond that which is written stick with the scriptures otherwise you'll come up with the wackiest ideas of what's going to happen at the time of the end uh these signs or someone's going to get some type of prophetic message to tell you you know at the time of the end xyz is going to happen no nobody knows you don't know i don't know and so we know the times the seasons we see that happening people ask me all the time uh is the final antichrist alive i said i don't know there is an antichrist alive there's many of them but the final one i don't know will he come will the lord jesus come in our lifetime possibly well it depends what our lifetime is you know but i don't know uh we don't want to limit him and that's the problem many people have made um there's a give you an idea um there was a uh church i spoke at many i didn't tell this story did i hope i didn't about the one i was no i didn't i came i was i speak so many places tell stories i think i did it three days ago or four days ago anyway uh if i did humor me if i told you the story i don't think i did okay it was in 1979 1979. all right i've never had this happen before i'm speaking at a church a few hours away from you know where i lived in southern cal and they said okay here we've got a place for you to stay tonight but it's a one of the elders of the church they've got a really nice place they've got a room for you they're going to leave the light on they're going to have a little note where you're at you know where to get you know blah blah blah and you can meet him in the morning now that was i don't want to say weird but it's never happened to me like that before you know i've got to find the house you know this is before you had the all the little digital things you could find where you're going to i've got the map out looking at it you know okay this looks like the house and the note was on the door the door was unlocked so i went in okay i did it what turned out to be the right house the next day i got to meet the people of the house this is again 1979 i believe 1979 1980 and i was commenting what a beautiful house they have and i said do you own this oh no what do you mean oh no oh no we wouldn't own a house why is that well christ is coming back so soon we're not going to waste our money and buy a house that was in 1979. i wonder what they think now um there was another guy once at a bible study we came this is in 1971. he said the lord showed me that i'm he's building a boat he's we're in you know south uh orange county there and he's gonna gonna get the boat he's building it and he's gonna you know take it down to some place in mexico he was telling me the place and he said the lord showed me by the time i reached this place in mexico the rapture of the church will have come and christ will have come back it's like in 1971-72 now either that guy's got the slowest boat in history or he was wrong about that but see people tend to believe it particularly when someone speaks with authority someone gets behind the pulpit they make a proclamation christ has to come back i remember one guy read he he said in his book and he's gone now so i won't mention his name but i i just was so offended reading this he said this is written in probably 19 late 80s early 90s he's he got it all figured out the abomination of desolation is going to take place in 1997 christ is going to come back in the year 2000. now here's what he said if it doesn't happen it's because god changed his mind now how do you like something like that not that this guy could be wrong and so don't go beyond that which is written please please please all right the sufficiency of scripture is a doctrine we all should know scripture you know alone has the answer to life's most important questions everything you and i need to know has been revealed to us and we certainly don't need some type of prophecy specialist or some type of authority you know we're not roman catholics to tell us what we believe we don't have a pope that gives us the final word we study the bible for ourselves to come up with the answers so please even if the person is sincere they don't know i don't know you know nobody knows okay and so here's the whole thing god's not going to give us a confused revelation if he tells us nobody knows we don't know now we can know the times and the seasons that the era is going to happen is the signs come about but the exact day new buddy knows which brings us to lesson five we should be teachable about prophetic issues teachable about prophetic issues first timothy 3 2. this is something that was very much enlightening to me first timothy 3 2 talks about the qualifications of leaders in the church they must be apt to teach all right dave black is a good friend of mine dave and i took uh second year greek at biola university in the mid 70s summer school and dave went on to be a world-class greek scholar his great friend he's written a number of books in fact his book on introduction to greek is like uh the second most used one in the schools across america he's got a sequel to that called it's still greek to me it's very funny and very good and david's a world-class scholar and i respect him immensely well david brought up something here that's very interesting he says this little word deducticon here in uh first timothy 3 2 which translated app to teacher able to teach also has the idea of meaning teachable so not only apt to teach anybody in the church who isn't teaching others needs to be himself or herself teachable too god help us if we ever get to the place where we think we have all the answers we're to be teachable and that's what paul tells timothy and i like that because let's remember gang we're all learning someone once said i've never forgotten this i think it's so clear when we learn every time we cut down a tree of ignorance a whole new forest arises behind that because we realize how much we don't know remember the story of socrates the wisest man in athens why because he knew what he did he knew how much he didn't know everybody thought he was the smartest guy he's well if i'm the smartest guy i am because i know what i don't know you guys don't know you think you know but i we don't know it there's so many things to learn you got and please be very very careful too uh when you teach your congregation when you teach a sunday school class when you teach a ladies class be very very careful the statements that you make because you're looked at as an authoritative figure don't ever ever ever ever ever please use the phrase well this is what the bible says but here's what the greek really means again if you knew what the greek really means you would never make a statement like that because nobody that knows says something like that because it's not just not that simple we cannot say something like that no one would say that you look at the english translations you know and they all basically say the same thing but you've done any amount of translational work you can say the same thing in a number of different ways and come out with the same you know same truth and so one of the things i tell people which should help them immensely is read like four different translations at once of any particular area unless you learn greek or hebrew read them and you'll see they're all trying to say the same thing in in different ways so the problem is and again just to be very candid you got to be very careful with word studies word studies um are very problematic because words only mean what they mean in the context for example i say the word trunk what am i talking about trunk well i talk about part of my body i talk about tree an elephant part of a car you need more than that right the trunk needs a sentence all right how about the word duck well duck means two different things if you're out duck hunting or you're in a war and a battle and you're fighting the enemy right if someone yells duck you don't look up if the enemy's shooting at you right but if you're duck hunting you look up okay and also too one thing i learned living in australia for five years um if you play cricket and it's your time to be a bat and you get out before making a single run you've you're out for a duck so if someone yells duck that means the guy has to walk off the field the long walk there and they'd always show on this as funny on the on the tv screen this duck quack quack quack embarrass the guy anyway so words need a context okay number one number two even an entire sentence needs a context all right i use the phrase he sold a lot of stock that's an entire sentence what am i talking about i'm gonna talk about wall street talk about the farm am i talking about you know somebody's got a hard hardware store or something don't know you need a you know context a context in fact what's really interesting in the gospel of john remember when jesus brings lazarus back from the dead in the 11th chapter mary and martha both come to jesus and they said word for word the exact same thing to him but they meant two different things mary of bethany says if you'd been here my brother wouldn't have died martha says if you'd been here my brother wouldn't have died but now i know god will do whatever you ask word for word the same thing with two totally different meanings based on who said it in the context so again like i always you know it's people always repeat what i say i would say this over and over again the three most important things in studying the bible are context context context you got to read in context and so don't go beyond that which is written and when you do don't act like an expert if something you're not an expert in i remember one person i won't mention his name he's on the radio he's a bible teacher he's a good teacher for the most part but he's going on waxing the occult one day about this and it was in the pastoral letters it's one verb that paul uses when he's talking about timothy what the verb means well he's the word's an adjective it's not a verb pal and you're already wrong with the part of speech and you're wrong on what it meant okay so but coming across as an expert as an authority if you don't know what you're talking about you don't know i wrote five books on the subject of the bible and science what the bible says about science i am not a scientist i'm not a son of a scientist i don't you know that it's not my field i got hum by the way i learned that in the very early years got humbled one time trying to act like i knew something about anthropology uh when i mentioned something at the talk and some guy comes up says i'm an anthropologist i like to talk to you about that i go oh dear god and i said uh uh so i believe i've never that was a i was a young believer at that time and i made the mistake and i learned the hard way okay so we know you know don't go beyond that what's written don't talk about things you have no idea what you're talking about okay okay now let's make this personalize this let's start talking about some of things you and i should do now that we understand that we can know that we're thankful for what we could do about the time of the end that uh you know we um also not are not going to go beyond that what is written we're going to interpret at face value now when we look at these things what do we do okay the next point is not only being teachable we are to be watchful and ready for his coming watchful and ready for his coming now this is the whole key the bible talks about that you and i are to be watchful and to be ready because he's going to come at a time we think not all right uh matthew 24 22 to 44 uh jesus said that exact thing therefore you must be ready verse 44 because the son of man will come in an hour you do not expect him all right in other words we always have to be ready tomorrow literally again we don't know how long we have to live on this planet christ may come back tomorrow but we may not live to see tomorrow and again like i told you i found that out very very vividly when i went through the chinese communist party coronavirus experience there of 50 days laying on my back looking out the window watching you know what's weird too uh we have these trees we have the breezer blow out the window and these trees make you know they look like a monster this one looks like a monster one like a bird i'm looking at him thinking am i hallucinating and uh anyway there was no message in that but you know you're looking at the same thing for 50 days and can't get out of bed you have to do something with your ti actually i did write two books during that time but uh but also i'd look out the window and we'd see that sort of things okay anyway we we have to be ready at any time any particular time he might come at an hour when we think not when we're not aware of it where we're not thinking about it okay got to be very very careful very very careful uh of uh giving up i've met so many people now who have given up because they basically are not watchful not alert and they're not ready so they get into all kinds of sin this and that which and the next one we're going to put these together we need to be wait patiently for his coming too james 5 7 7-8 says dear brothers and sisters be patient as you wait for the lord's return consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains in the fall and in the spring they eagerly look for the valuable harvest to ripen you too must be patient take courage for the coming of the lord is near james 5 7 and 8. so two things here we kind of should put these together watchful but also be patient as we watch here is the problem and here's why you don't want to ginger people up so much that you know and unfortunately this has happened in the past all these things are going to take place by the year 2000 all these things are going to take place by the year 1981 all these things are going to take place by the year 1975. i've heard all those things i became a christian in 1970 i've heard people different pastors different people different prophecy specialists say these things all can happen by this year and it didn't guess what happens people hear that and what do they do well you know what i mean so if this guy doesn't know what he's talking about why in the world should i follow why should i listen to him about anything he talks about maybe he's wrong about who jesus is too maybe he's wrong about the bible if he's wrong about bible prophecy we've got to be very very very careful now this next one is one i mentioned yesterday because it's one of my 10 principles we didn't get to and that is we should resist doubting and disillusionment as we wait for his return luke 12 45 but suppose the servant says to himself my master is taking a long time in coming and then he begins to beat the other servants both men and women and to eat and drink and get drunk disillusionment one of the things that we have to deal with sometimes in our own lives but in the lives of the people we minister to is disillusionment uh look we all wherever we're at in life we look back and we think you know when i was such and such an age i never thought i would experience what i've experienced never go through the things that i've gone through never you know been through all the um terrible things i couldn't imagine going through and we get disillusioned because we think we have the mistaken idea that the christian life you know is a cakewalk it's going to be simple i've come to christ everything is going to be fine the angels are going to be singing all the time blue skies ahead and then of course everything comes crashing down right see the bible promises to that the lord will be with us but he doesn't promise us an easy time though you know it's kind of like i use this illustration you know those little things you pull out every day the promises of god uh you start the day they have these little things he promised and you read it you know maybe your breakfast table some type of devotional today it says casting all your care upon him for he cares for you god cares for us all right let's go out and win the day okay then we read another one i will never leave you or forsake you hey jesus isn't going to leave us or forsake us now i've yet to pull out the one that says those that live godly in christ jesus will suffer persecution how come that's not on the list it's in the bible well how about all the other passages that warn us about false prophets about life being hard about the narrow road and that and you know enter this through the straight gate it's just not there but see it's in the bible we have to not be disillusioned by realizing life is hard life is hard but god is good i think don said that one time i heard him on the radio he said there's two things life is hard but god is good and that's what we have to realize god will take he'll get us through there it won't always be easy in fact sometimes it'll be so difficult we can't even imagine uh what we're going through how difficult life is but god promises to be with us and even though we may get disillusioned by the things around us we're not to be disillusioned the bible says simply because the lord jesus christ is in control of all things disillusionment is something that naturally happens to us but we should not get to the place where we're disillusioned from god because again back to what we've talked about yesterday a biblical view of god if you know the scriptures if you know what it says you won't be disillusioned because there are problems that where we will face and there are problems that we will deal with that we never expected in a million years to deal with but god doesn't you know take us always from the problems he ministers to us within the problems i remember i talked about there was a time i just did this flight many many years ago coming from minneapolis to l.a and i was all excited i felt i was full full of spirit and that and all of a sudden i got disillusioned at the human race all right so why would you do that well you know you kind of think all people are going to be good in that there's some guy on the plane he's about two rows behind me and i don't know if you ever been on a plane with a guy like this they're loud and he's you know he was already 30 000 feet high before he got on the plane he's been drinking you know he's drinking one drink after another hey you know this and that and he's loud and he's rude and he's crude and i was i got so mad i got so you know lord why are there people like this in the world you know these guys you know this is just bothering me so i felt like i needed to get up and say something because there were women around hearing this is rather crude and it was almost like my feet were nailed to the floor and so then i got disappointed in myself disillusionment disappointed you know what kind of loser are you doing you know i got to come up and speak for the lord this and that anyway so i'm sitting there reading my bible trying to you know think on heavenly things and all of a sudden a guy gets out of his seat and comes and sits in the empty seat next to me i kid you not and i look at him except he says excuse me but is this a bible you're reading i said yes he says my sister has really been trying to get me to read the bible you may have noticed i have a slight problem with alcohol yeah i have noticed sir yeah well the last hour of the flight i got to minister to this guy to tell him you know tell him some things share the gospel with him and that the same thing his sister been saying he went back didn't order another drink he thanked me shook my hands about 20 times you know one of these guys that's drunk you know he keeps shaking your hand everything anyway i learned a real valuable lesson there um i got disillusioned and disappointment in a certain circumstance where god had me there to keep me seated rather than going and rebuking the guy because he had the guy come to me and i got to share christ with i never forgotten that so when i see someone who is a skeptic someone who isn't you know an infidel this and that i think it's an opportunity because these guys are hurt they really are you know they're they're they're all angry but you ever notice that they're all angry people them are happy they can't be happy they don't think they're here in life for any particular reason so they get disillusioned with everything that's going on all right the one who will never disillusion us is the lord jesus christ he is the one we look at he is the one we keep our eyes on he's the author and the finisher of our faith the bible says so what we do as bible-believing christians is instead of being disillusioned disappointment about well the lord hadn't come back so-and-so said he was i'm you know i need the rapture to come and a lot of people want that to happen because they got a problem they're going to face or some bill they have to pay or some relationship that's messed up and so christ come back i can't tell you how many times in bible school people say oh christ comes back tonight because i'm not ready for this test tomorrow well that's not the best way of looking at the situation so the point is we as paul says and here's the key to all this gang in second timothy second timothy is his swan songs he knew he was about to die all right when you're about to die you won't mince words you'll talk about the most important things going and here's what he said you know he said i fought the fight i finished the course i've kept the faith henceforth there's a crown laid up for me but not for me only but to all who love his appearing and i've often thought of that let me ask you this are you looking forward to the coming of jesus christ are you waiting to see him face to face do you love his appearing well you should because he's coming face to face we're going to be face to face with him possibly sooner rather than later because eternity is a long period of time a long period of time and it's only here on this earth that we can be salt and light we can bring people to heaven people cannot become christians cannot become saved after this life's over only in this life and so with every disillusionment we have we look to jesus christ with as the answer to the one who will answer all these needs as we want to live godly in the light of these last days and living a successful christian life a number of years ago the end of actually was 1999 it was the december 31st and uh my family and i were going to move to australia end up living there for five years but what was fascinating 1999 know it's the end of a year end of a decade end of a century and then of a millennium all at once right because come 2000 you've got you know you've got another number of the two on all the calendars so the decade's over the year is over the centuries over the millennium's over okay and so what was really interesting there was a guy from abc australia that was being interviewed by one of the networks because australia the aussies always have the you know they're uh 17 hours ahead uh depending on where you're at in australia when you're at america uh of us so you know the new year's eve celebration what happened and this was just you know a little while before the celebration there would take place and they're the first ones so there was a story there and they had one of the presenters from abc australia there and he was talking about how to rig in you know the 21st century because the aussies are going to be the first ones and it was really interesting he said there is a person a very well-known person now they call them and i learned australia they got a whole different talk the trunk is a boot the elevator's a lift a cookie is a biscuit you know well anyway uh a character is a lyrican a larkin this guy is a real lyric and he's around sydney and he'd always you know he would be there greet people and he would you know he would talk to people everybody knew him you know he was one of these people that wandered this tree it's kind of like the official greeter of sydney okay anyway what happened was this guy's telling the story from a secular point of view well this man who everybody knew embraced the christian faith in other words he became a believer okay and so what he did yeah you know he would go around every day with a piece of chalk writing on the walls in the city of sydney australia the word eternity to remind people that eternity was just around the corner and he would do that because you know of his his faith in christ well as this presenter is telling the story the man had died you know in the last few months and everybody loved him they even before they're christian or not they love the guy and they they missed him dearly and so on january 1st 2000 when the sydney harbor bridge lit up to introduce the world to the 21st century there was one word on the harbor bridge the word eternity that is something we all need to remember and think about we are living one step away from eternity are you ready are the people under you ready we need to be ready gang we need to be living in light of the last days with these lessons to be prepared because sooner or later we're going to see him face to face let's pray heavenly father thank you that we live at this time and we know we're all one step away from eternity we've seen tremendous things happen in the world recently that have set the stage for your coming where we know it's just around the corner we don't know the day or the hour even the year but we know where the times and the seasons are here but we know sooner or later it's all going to take place it's all going to happen lord i thank you that we can know these things help us lord with these lessons we talked about today live in light of them knowing that we can understand the times to be thankful that we of the times that we're living in because we see things so many people longed to see didn't see them and lord help us too to understand at face value the prophecies that you've given to us and not go beyond anything that was written but stick with what's there and in doing so apply it to our lives to live godly in christ jesus to be that salt and light and like paul said to timothy to love his appearing dear god as we close this conference here today at least this part of it i pray that as we go our various ways we'll think about the things we've learned the people that we've met the things we've heard the things we've talked about things we've sung about things we prayed about and be different people as we go back but again having eternity in mind because that's our finish line and none of us know how close we are to the finish line dear god by your grace let us make each day count so we can honor you thank you lord for the privilege of being here we all give thanks to that in jesus precious name amen all right god bless you

Channel: Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities

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Published: Fri May 07 2021