The End Times - Part 1 of End Times Series

then next weekend David we welcome you thank you very much yes ah now you don't get kissed too often on the platform do not 5 ends I get I have to mention one thing go ahead be seated a new book by David the Book of Isaiah or as he would say Isaiah it is a new in America just came out just a few weeks ago so we have that in the bookstore just line by line through this prophet that is so relevant for today bless you David thank you Jesus set to teach so why shouldn't I my mind says good morning to you my body says good afternoon I haven't been teaching the Bible over 50 years that's not true actually Mike I've been teaching it over 6 years but there we are it's a wonderful book over 60 years ago I went to Cambridge as a student to study theology with a view to going into the ministry and I did not realize that my faith would almost be destroyed by the study I tend nowadays to call theological colleges theological cemeteries and I'm afraid many young Christians have lost their faith through studying theology they taught me to read the Bible with a pair of scissors and we were cutting the Bible up into pieces and not much was left and after two years at Cambridge I couldn't prepare a single sermon and I think that might have been quite a loss to the church but thank God book came into my hands by a Swiss theologian called Oscar Kuhlman I've never met him but I'm looking forward to meeting him in glory and thanking him for that book because it saved my faith and restored my confidence in the Bible it was called Christ and time and I had somehow imbibed the Greek idea that God is timeless that he's outside of time and that heaven is outside of time and I was terribly wrong and I think some of you may still think that God is timeless it's not that God is in time but time is in God he is not outside time he is from everlasting to everlasting and for him as for us time goes in one direction only from the past to the present to the future and our God is the God who was and who is and who is to come or to put it more simply history is his story and that's what the Bible was really all about and so with that book Christ in time I went back to my Bible and it opened up as a new book to me we are concerned with the end at times during this weekend but just think of that word times that's not timeless that's part of history it's part of time and this is the clue that time is real to God he cannot even though he's Almighty he cannot cancel the past he cannot change the past like us he can change the future but not the past did you ever realize that it means of course that nobody can undo the cross it means that nobody can put Jesus back in the tomb it's fixed in time and nothing can change that that revolutionizes you're thinking but it means the future is sill open and the future can be changed but I believe that the future is in God's hands as the past has been and therefore we're looking at the future during these two days now the title that I was given for the conference is Israel and God in the end times have I got it right Israel in the church in the end times right and so this morning in the first talk I want to talk about the end times in the second talk Israel in the end times in the third talk tomorrow morning the church in the end times and in the second talk tomorrow morning the church and Israel in the end times so I think I'm sticking to my brief quite well we're splitting it up into those four subjects and I just want to talk to you this morning about the end times but the first thing I've got to say to you is that that phrase is not in your Bible it's not a biblical phrase it's a phrase that is crept into evangelical jargon in just the last few decades the phrase the Bible uses is the last days and it doesn't quite mean the same thing because we've been in the last days for the last two thousand years it's a phrase that describes the period of time between the first and the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the last days began at Pentecost and Peter announced that in his sermon this is the fulfillment of prophecy in the last days I will pour out my flesh my spirit on all flesh are all classes on both sexes a universal outpouring of the Holy Spirit was the mark of the last days and so they've continued for 2,000 years and they will continue for a little time yet we've been in the last days and Salaam what is the characteristic feel of living in the last days well as Paul put it you're living in the overlap of the ages that's a phrase he uses in his letter to Corinth the overlap of the ages to the Jew time was divided into two great ages the present evil age and the good age coming and they believed wrongly that the present evil age would end and the good new age begin but that hasn't been God's plan God's plan has been to make those two ages overlap so that the good time coming has begun but not being completed yet and the present evil age has continued so side by side we live in the overlap of the ages we started living in the new age to come it's in us but it's not outside us yet it's invisible inside us it's not visible outside us the ages are overlapping and the tension we all feel is because we live in thee between the ages and part of us is already experiencing heaven and part of us is still very much tied to earth and first thing in the morning I always feel more tied to earth than heaven don't you and so we have a tea making practice in our house first thing in the morning and if I feel I'm Christian when I wake up I go down and make the tea for her but if I don't feel like a Christian first thing she goes down and makes it for me it's a little arrangement we have and I dare not tell you what the ratio is between one in the other but uh there are times when I feel very bound to the earth frustrated by it part of this present evil age with all its temptations and pressures and there are times especially when you're in worship or prayer when you feel you're out of this world altogether and you're in turn into heaven and so we live in this tension between the two ages but that is not the subject for this weekend but I explain it because if you're real Christian you must feel that tension again and again or to put it differently has the kingdom of God come or hasn't it come that's a big debate among some Christians but the answer is very simple it has and it hasn't and that's part of the tension when Jesus wanted to teach us about the kingdom he used parables of the kingdom and those parables divided very neatly into two categories on the one hand are the parables of the kingdom would see the kingdom as a gradual growth like the seed of a mustard tree a gradual process in which the kingdom gets bigger and stronger but quite slowly and then in the other half of his parables it comes not slowly but suddenly in a crisis not a process and and people therefore have argued about what does Jesus mean by the kingdom coming which he told us to pray for every day your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven that's our daily prayer it has come and it hasn't or to put it in another way the kingdom of God has been inaugurated and you can enter it but it hasn't been consummated or established so it's both a gradual process of growth and the sudden crisis or invasion of the supernatural into the natural world and again we live in the tension between these two truths the kingdom has come and it hasn't come there was a Russian young man who refused to serve in the Russian army and he was hauled before a court to examine him and find the me guilty of treachery and the judge said to the young man in the dock why do you not serve in the army and the young man quoted Jesus teaching from the Sermon on the Mount and said that's why I can't join the Russian army and the judge knew enough to know what he was quoting and he said to the boy that's the kingdom of God and it hasn't come yet and the boy replied to the judge sir it may not have come for you but is come for me now that's the tension we know the kingdom hasn't come on earth yet and yet were in it already it's at hand and the announcement of the gospel from the very bigoted beginning was the kingdom of God is at hand now something that's at hand is like that book it's within my reach it's in hand and I can reach out and take it in it's mine and that's the kingdom that has come the kingdom that is within me the kingdom of God that I have now entered and enjoy its fruits and can demonstrate to others but they can't see it in they're not in it yet one day it will come worldwide and as the Prophet Habakkuk says the knowledge of the glory of God will cover the earth as waters cover the sea well now this is our approach to time and the end times but we've got to us what do people mean by that it's become a very common phrase among evangelicals only I think in the last 20 or 30 years what does it mean what do people mean by the end times the Bible doesn't use the phrase so we can't look to the Bible for the meaning but I gather that talking with people that they mean the very last days we've been in the last days for 2,000 years but God's purpose is moving forward and this talk of the end times is the talk of the very last days the last generation on earth before the end of this present evil age that's what the phrase means let me now talk to you about philosophy there's a change but the philosophy of history means how you think of that line we call history and there are five different philosophies of history all people writing history books try and find a pattern in the events that crowd in on us when you read your daily newspaper when you listen to the television news do you see a pattern emerging do you see any purpose in it or is it just repeated here is the news for the and it's much the same as it will be tomorrow and it's much the same as it was yesterday but there's nothing new well the Bible has its own philosophy of history its own pattern of events day to day and we need to get that philosophy of history into our minds to understand the whole Bible because I'm not just reading the Bible to help me through today or like I read the horoscope and hope that something's going to fit I want to know about the whole purpose of God the purpose for the whole universe and where I fit into that rather than just trying to get some bit of personal comfort or help from daily Bible reading and this is the philosophy of history now let me mention the five different patterns that people in our world see in world events and because these four of these five are being thrown at us on television in the media in the news we tend if we're not careful to take it in and then we read the Bible with a wrong frame of history and we don't get the overall story we only see bits of it one other finist philosophy of history I want to mention is called the cyclic view of history and quite simply it means history goes round and round or in a popular proverb history repeats itself and somebody said history repeats itself because no one learns the lessons from it and it comes back but that's a Greek view of history and if you're not careful you will inherit that Greek view from the world around you the things are just going round in circles good times bad times war peace it just goes on going round and round like a round about on till you die and you probably get off the roundabout just where you got on that's a very pessimistic view of history really it means history is going nowhere there's no pattern there's no purpose it just goes on and on the next view is like that but slightly different it's called the epic view of history and this viewed history doesn't go round and round repeating itself it does go forward but it goes forward in ups and downs ups and downs ups and downs good times and bad times inflation and deflation boom and bust whatever but it'll just go on going up and down and you hope that you will spend most of your life in an on an upper and not in a downer and it leaves open the question how will history end will it end on an upper or a downer nobody knows we just have to wait and see that's another philosophy of history which ordinary people take into their minds and just accept and hope they're on and up and on and down the next one is called the optimistic view of history and that says history is getting better and better and better all the time and life is getting better all the time this was the most common view of history about 1900 when the 20th century began and it was summed up in the word progress and one English Prime Minister won an election on the slogan up and up and up and on and on and on and I think that was the philosophy in America at the beginning of the 20th century they thought that the 20th century was going to be the best ever with all the scientific discoveries to help us overcome our problems life was going to be good in the 20th century man was on the up and up and up and that was helped by Charles Darwin's idea of evolution society was evolving man was evolving everything was getting better and better and they entered the 20th century with such high hopes and then the Titanic went to the bottom the largest man-made moving object ever filled with technology the ship they said God Himself couldn't sink and God did and the Titanic has gone down into history and is still the most famous shipwreck that's ever been remembered because it pricked the bubble of that idea of progress it was the first major disaster of the 20th century and it challenged man's technical ability and all his dreams the ship went down and with it the hopes of many and that was followed almost immediately by the terrors of World War one the last Englishman to fight in World War one died last week he was a hundred and ten and he was the last surviving soldier of World War one I wasn't in World War one but I was in World War two and I remember the horror of that but World War one I've seen pictures of it an uncle of mine was killed on the front at Passchendaele in World War one in the mud and blood of the trenches there was a horrific war a stalemate for years in which people just killed each other one after the other then Second World War they weren't quite so many casualties but altogether some thirty million died of whom six million were Jews and the idea of progress the optimistic view of history that is going up and up and up and on and on and on has been killed ed in the 20th century it's been a terrible century worst of all now what's the mood now what philosophy of history have ordinary people in their minds now what pattern of events do they pick up the answer is a pessimistic view of history I'm drawing diagrams in the air for you the cyclic view was this the epic view was this the optimistic view was this and the pessimistic view is this the time is getting worse history's going downhill I have been checking out even church congregations recently and I've asked them to vote and put the hands up for this question do you believe the 21st century will be better than the 20th the same as the 20th or worse than the 20th and the voting is almost uniform about 80 percent believe that this century will be worse than the last that is the pessimistic view of history going down and down I've mentioned four views none of them is the Bible view of history if I draw for you the Bible view which we call the apocalyptic view of history it goes like this events will go down and down and down and get worse and worse and worse until suddenly there is a complete change and the line goes straight up to a high and then continues on the high and this is the apocalypse view of history things will get worse before they get better and will get better after they get worse so it's got bad news and good news in it that the good news has the last word now this apocalyptic view of history this sudden uprise is held by three groups of people in the world Jews Christians and communists and they all got this pattern of history from the same place from the Jewish prophets of the Old Testament their view of history was apocalyptic things will get worse and then suddenly better and the good time coming will be established in other words they looked for the Golden Age in the future whereas Greeks looked for the Golden Age sometime back in the past Christians look for the Golden Age in the future Jews do the only difference between Jews communists and Christians is what they believe will cause that sudden change and produce a will such as we've dreamed of in our best moments the answer is the Communist thinks man will do that that it will be the revolution that will do that that the tension between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat will eventually explode in a revolution and the revolution will introduce a crimeless and classless society in which everybody gives according to their ability and receives according to their need we now know that that is a bad dream that it doesn't happen we've seen it not happen in Russia we've seen it not happen in China it doesn't work man is incapable of changing history he thinks he can every politician wants to say change change I can change Rome Ian will change the things are much the same by the next election no man can bring about that reversal both the Jews and the Christians believe that God can and will but the difference comes when Jews believe that that sudden lift will come when God steps in and the kingdom of God break through where as Christians take it one step further and say that yes that's what God will do but he will do it through a Jew called Jesus and therefore that apocalyptic view of history which says it will get worse and worse and then suddenly better is dependent on the second coming of Christ and from then things will change that is why the center of the Christian Hope is the return of our Lord Jesus to earth there is no other hope at all things will get worse and worse I'm almost tempted to say something American then and said I nearly said you ain't seen nothing yet well now let's go back to the phrase end time or in plural end times that is now jargon for the very last days of this present evil age what do we expect to happen in those very last days now it's been coined by Christians who believe that we are in the very last days that we are now the last generation on earth before Jesus gets back I'll be frank and say I don't believe that and I will tell you why in a moment I don't believe we're in the end times if that means the very last days I think they could come quickly but now that I'm in my ages my hopes that they'll come in my lifetime beginning to get a little dim that doesn't worry me at all if I die before Jesus gets back hallelujah I get a front seat at the big meeting because the dead in Christ rise first so I'll grab the front seat so whether I die before he comes or not doesn't worry me I'm with a lot either way nevertheless many Christians today have been trying to persuade me that we are in the very last days and that Jesus will return in our generation somebody sent me a huge book a missionary in Mexico who'd written this book to prove that Jesus would be back in 1996 and he sent me a long letter hoping that I would read his book and believe it and preach it haven't heard from him lately for some reason not since he sent the book but he was wrong and he wasn't the first Christian to make that mistake there have been five distinct periods during our age when Christians have expected Jesus back and interpreted the current situations as the end times and the very last days just because there are a lot of troubles even a lot of natural disasters happening that doesn't mean were in the end times we need to be very careful about identifying current events as the fulfillment of prophecy because there are what I would call forecasting events shadows cast before them that are like the final prediction but are simply shadows of it beforehand very important to ask is this event a fulfillment of prophecy or a four taste of the fulfillment of prophecy do you understand what I'm saying do make a note of that for example when 9/11 happened and the Twin Towers went down I got so many people asking me is this a fulfillment of Revelation 18 where the ships at sea see the destroyed buildings and the smoke rising I said no it's a foretaste not the fulfillment yet it's a foretaste and these four tastes do point to the end times but they're not proof of the end times and I want just to think soberly Jesus told us very clearly what to watch for he gave us signs his disciples asked him what would be the signs of your coming the signals of your coming and he told them exactly what to look for and he gave them four particular signs when they asked him that question of those four signals one and a half are already showing clearly but two and a half have still to appear whether they appear quickly or slowly they've still got to appear were not there yet maybe not even not quite there yet but were certainly not there and I want to underline the very those very strongly it's interesting that all the signs are bad all the signs of our Lord's coming are bad things happening threatening events dangerous events in a word troubles you know I when I was a young Christian I listened to other people's testimonies and I was so disturbed because they didn't fit mine at all people say I came to Jesus and all my troubles were over I thought that doesn't fit in my life I came to Jesus my troubles began i got filled with the spirit my troubles got worse and those who know me best will know the truth of this I've had more trouble in the last 10 years than the previous 40 so why doesn't my testimony fit and other people seem to find their troubles go but I've found comfort in Jesus who said in the world you'll have trouble thank God for Jesus honesty he never wanted cheap disciples he he told them straight away follow me and you'll take up a cross not a cushion follow me and you're in trouble and that's proof that I'm a Christian hallelujah that that's my assurance but he did say quite clearly in the new test makes it clear that the troubles we will have now are heading up to the big trouble or in Bible language the Great Tribulation the big trouble and frankly we're not in the big trouble yet and it will come before the end we're in trouble already and that's a foretaste and some Christians around the world are in real trouble already but in the big trouble their real trouble will be worldwide and we shall all know it out of two hundred and fifty nations at the moment the church is in real trouble in all but two dozen of those nations so it's getting nearer to the day when Jesus said you will be hated by all nations and that will be the son of the big trouble when we get to that so Christians are prone to mistake present troubles for the big trouble and when you in trouble yourself it feels like the big trouble but as soon as you lift your eyes above the local situation you realize it's not yet but your experience of it may be and this has led Christians to do all kinds of funny things one of which is to date the return of Jesus which is an incredible thing to do when Jesus himself said I don't know that it and yet I'm meeting so many people who say they do Martin Luther said this gave a date in the 17th century John Wesley did the same and gave a date in the 19th century notice they were wise they both predicted a date after they would no longer be here and that to me is a very wise thing for Christians to do otherwise you have to live with your mistakes like Russell of the Jehovah's Witnesses who said it would be 1914 or was it 1918 but both dates came and went and nothing happened and the Seventh day Adventists the lady called Ellen she predicted 1848 and that came and went very foolish to predict the date of our Lord's return you're claiming to know better than he did I just said gently but firmly don't listen to teachers who tell you they know the date but watch for the signs and when you see the signs Jesus gave us you know he said that I am at the door ready to step back onto the stage of history and I'm looking for those mistakes so don't mistake local troubles for the universal big trouble and don't mistake a foretaste for the fulfillment praise God for the Forte's because they keep reminding us of what's going to come praise God for an earthquake of a tornado because as Jesus said they are reminders of what's to come and they should be pulling people up to think again about God but at last in the book of Revelation it says even when the worst things happen people will still because in God rather than repenting and that is the sad case of human nature we are rebels against God and a rebel doesn't like to admit it and people will go on cursing God as the troubles get worse now how near the end are within well the one thing I can say to you very confidently is we're at least 2,000 years nearer now I'm going to go a bit further than that but I will say that with absolute confidence we are 2,000 years nearer the end times hallelujah for that but there's more to say what time is it on God's clock I've had people for years saying it's one minute to midnight or three minutes to midnight they seem to have a better clock than I have let me underline why I believe were not in the end times yet though we may be very near and it would be wise to get ready for them first we are not in the big trouble it's not here yet we certainly have troubles big troubles we certainly have reminders of the big trouble but I do not believe we're in it yet when I read Revelation chapter 6 to 19 I see there a detailed description of the big trouble and I don't see that around me yet again thank Jesus for his honesty and telling us in those chapters what will happen he's not telling us so that we can gloat over it and say well that doesn't affect me he's telling us to get ready Jesus only unveiled the future so that we might prepare and be ready for it when it happens and be the only people on the earth who are ready for it because we've had his inside information on what to expect but in Revelation 6 to 19 there were 21 disasters affecting the whole earth seven seals seven trumpets seven bowls of Wrath but they're they're pretty grim at one of them a quarter of the world's population died that hasn't happened yet in another third of those who are left die that hasn't happened yet these are disasters on a gigantic scale and they haven't happened yet they are very reminiscent strangely of the plagues in Egypt when you read revelation you think you're reading the book of Exodus again and the plagues that have flicked that afflicted the Egyptians are all happening again even down to locusts but they haven't happened yet you know when I read those middle chapters of Revelation which are not good bedtime reading and they're not very comforting and that's why they're often neglected people want to rush on to the new heaven and the new earth and the new Jerusalem and get past all these big troubles but when I read them and say oh thank you lord I now know the worst that can happen and that's good don't you think far better to know the worst that can happen and be ready for it then be always wondering 1975 they discovered that my wife was suffering from a very serious cancer and they looked as if she would go to be with the Lord and we didn't rush around trying to find a Christian healer we didn't ask a lot of people to pray we simply got on her knees and said to the Lord Lord she's ready to come to you if you want her but if you have more on earth for her to do then you know what to do Lord and that's what we said and I shall go home to a next Friday I think we can say she's cured after 1975 but I thank God for a doctor who told us the worst and I told my wife the worst and she was at peace from that moment I couldn't understand her but from the moment I told her the worst she was at peace and was prepared well when you read the middle section of Revelation it's pretty horrible but you now know the worst that can happen nothing worse than that is going to happen I didn't even hear a single hallelujah nevermind you don't need to whisper it if you like but you see Jesus has told us the worst and as I said you ain't seen nothing yet but when the worst comes were ready we know we're not gonna be surprised we're not going to be caught out we're not going to be upset when everybody else is saying what is the what is the world coming to you just say I know what it's coming to and I know who it's coming to gives you a great opening when people say I don't know what the world's coming to because we've got the answer and they happened we know the worst and were ready for it and the one bit of good news about the big trouble is that it's very short and Jesus has told us that he said unless those days were short nobody would survive the elect would not come through it God will keep it short and we know exactly how short how often does God have to tell us something before we get the message he said it'll be a time times and half a time that's three and a half times then to make it clear he said it'd be three and a half years to make it clear as silly said it'll be 42 months and to make it clearer still if it hasn't got homie said 1260 days so we know how short the big trouble is so that even when it comes we can say to each other oh it's three and a half years more that's good thank you Jesus for telling us and so we know it'll be bad but we know it won't be long that's the first thing I wanted to save that we're not in the big trouble yet we may be some of you listening to me now may well be I don't think I will be now but there we are at least I can help other people to get ready if they're in it but when not in it yet and the second thing I want to say is that characteristically the end times will be governed by an unholy trinity and that will be in God's plan as well what do I mean by the unholy trinity well Father Son and Holy Spirit are the Holy Trinity the unholy trinity is Satan and D Christ and the false prophet in place of God the Father Satan which is a has been as ambition all along in place of Christ the Anti Christ do you realize that ante there does not mean against it means instead of so don't think of the ending against Christ think of him as being instead of Christ a false Christ promising peace and security to a lost world and the world will believe him when he promises it but it won't last for long but that's what he will come he will even be a christ-like figure Satan is a master of deception and he will offer peace and security to a sick sad old world and the world will say crate this man will lead us it's almost as if every election today is messianic have you noticed that everybody's looking for a man to get us out of our trouble and that's the big thought shall we elect this man or that man for president or prime minister well we'll go for the man who will get us out of all our troubles and very quickly they get disappointed that Newsweek this this week says it'll be within 12 months and that's what happens because we need one Messiah there's only one capable that's our Lord Jesus the only one capable bring justice and therefore peace to the world because as long as there's injustice they will not be peace you've got to establish justice first and then when people have no injustice as to grumble about you can have some peace and only Jesus can do that so we're not yet in that unholy trinity when there will be no more cash no more money that unless you have the number of the Antichrist either on your forehead or your hand and you come to the checkout of the supermarket if you don't get out of checkbook you don't get our plastic card you simply hold your hand or your forehead and then you'll get your food and if you don't bear that number you go don't get any food we're not in that yet when nearly at the cashless society well on the wind there's one town in England 40 miles from my home where as an experiment they did away with money altogether and only use the plastic card number for all the shopping in the town it's it's coming and it's coming to your town sooner or later and then the day when all money has gone if you don't have that crucial number of the Antichrist on your body you won't be able to buy anything but we're not there yet what I've found is that when I read Revelation the whole thing is becoming more credible more believable I mean to talk of cashless society fifty years ago nobody would have believed you but now it's commonplace you can imagine it happening and so Revelation becomes more and more relevant as we get nearer the end times but we're not there yet 1john First Epistle of John has a little verse in it you know or we know that Antichrist the Antichrist is coming but already there are many antichrists in the world and these many are again for taste and not fulfillment and again through the ages of church history so often Christians of thought they knew who the Antichrist was and thought therefore they were in the end times Martin Luther thought the Pope was Antichrist and the Pope returned the compliment by saying Martin Luther was Napoleon was a candidate but actually Napoleon wasn't all that bad I've discovered recently that Napoleon urged the Jews to go back to the Holy Land and he conquered the Holy Land to give them a home but they wouldn't go but at least they had that one good thing about him then Hitler Oh wasn't Hitler the Antichrist well when you lived in Germany under Hitler you could be forgiven to think he was he was an antichrist but not the Antichrist same goes for Adam Hussein for Gaddafi firm I had a video sent to me from America a preacher I've forgotten the name and therefore I can't name him for you but that's probably better and he was telling me that he was traveling America saying that the king of Jordans nephew was the Antichrist and he had it all off and it was very impressive listen we can't do that the Antichrist isn't here yet and the false prophet isn't here yet but they will be there called in the book of Revelation two beasts but the human beasts who will be totalitarian dictators between them the false prophet backing up the Antichrist with miracles and convincing many I'm going to speculate for the moment so don't take the next few minutes as dogmatic but it says in Revelation that one beast the Antichrist will come out of the sea and the other that false prophet from the land and I thought for a long time what does that mean because it's obvious that sea and land are metaphorical there because he the Antichrist won't be some amphibious and his creature crawling out of the oceans but when see is used metaphorically in Scripture it refers to the sea of the nation's the sea of the Gentiles but the word land in scripture refers to the land of Israel now if that is the right interpretation the Antichrist will be a Gentile but the false prophet will be a Jew and they will work together and I'm going one step further and say that I personally will not be surprised if the Antichrist is an Arab and the false prophet a Jew and that they will bring peace to the Middle East by an agreement that's exactly what the Bible says there will be a peace treaty for seven years but it will completely break down after only half that time and then the Antichrist and the false prophet will be revealed in their true colors as agents of Satan that's the kind of prediction that the Bible doesn't seem to make but we're nowhere near that yet however if at some point an antichrist Arab arises who makes a proposal for peace with Israel I know now that many people in Israel are desperate for peace and since many of them are godless they're ready to agree almost anything to get a peace treaty and I can see all that happening so easy but it's not happened yet in 2 Thessalonians Paul makes it quite clear that before Christ can appear Antichrist must be seen first and I haven't seen the Antichrist yet I'm still looking because I know that when he does come we shall be left in very little doubt the Bible as you probably know is a book packed with predictions 24% of the verses in your Bible have a prediction about the future I'm amazed why people who want to know the future don't read the Bible instead of their horoscope because this has been so accurate let me give you some figures I know that statistics can be used to blind people but here are some statistics actually was an ancestor of mine that invented the word statistics must have had his own teeth when he did so because it's a very difficult words to say but here are some biblical statistics for you in the Bible there are seven hundred and thirty five different predictions about the future some of them happen more than once and some of them even three hundred times but 735 different predictions about the future how many of those do you think have come true already the answer is five hundred and ninety six that have happened literally and come true exactly as predicted that's 81 percent and it means that the other 19 percent I have no problem believing will happen it doesn't take much faith to believe that 81 percent have happened the rest are going to happen as well and of the rest there are still 20 that have to be fulfilled before Jesus gets back that's quite a few and they're very specific so there are still 20 things to happen before we can be quite sure that Jesus is about to step in well now with the accelerating speed of world events those 20 things could happen fairly quickly but I underline what I've already been saying they haven't happened yet but they will I have made two assumptions in this first talk which I'll have to deal with in the second and third talks the first assumption I've made is that Israel is not a sign that we're in the end times I believe that the Jews had to be back in Israel before the second coming but nowhere in my New Testament is that listed as a sign of his imminent return well I'll explain that in the next talk which is about Israel in the end times second assumption I've made which probably the majority of evangelicals in America would not agree with me the second assumption I made is that the church will be in the big trouble and I've been driven to that view which I'm thankful to say I'll share with Mike Bickle which is why I'm here and namely that the church must prepare to go through the big trouble I'd rather be wrong my way than the other way I'd rather tell you to get ready for the big trouble and then find that you didn't need to than to tell you you don't need to and then find you're in it so I'd rather be wrong my way than that but in the third talk I'll expand on that and say talk about the church in the end times let me summarize this first talk were not in the end times yet we're not in the big trouble yeah we haven't seen the Antichrist yet but we should be getting ready ourselves and getting other people ready for the whole thing because the end times is coming we're in the last days and one day we'll be in the very last days if we're still alive and disciples are people who get ready for the future not just reveling in a curiosity satisfied about the future but getting ready for it by the Lord thank you for listening Brill

Channel: David Pawson - Official

Views: 73,524

Rating: 4.789876 out of 5

Keywords: David Pawson, Israel, End Times, Church

Id: ezvGXXfcCyg

Length: 60min 46sec (3646 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 08 2016