So I Missed It, Now What. PT 2
Matthew 24:3-14 Revelation 13:11-18 November 25, 2018
Last week we looked at the topic, “The Disappointment Of Having Just Missed It.” We began our sermon with Tyrone, a young man who just missed the bus, that led to him losing a job he could not afford to lose. We then looked at Jesus telling us the need to be ready when he comes back for us.
We looked at the five wise and five foolish virgins or bridesmaids. Both groups knew what to expect, what was required, and what was going to happen, but one group was ready and one group was not.
Jesus told us in our Scripture reading some of the signs that are indicative that the end is near. Matthew 24:6-8 (NIV2011) 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
8 All these are the beginning of birth pains. “ He speaks of the wars that will go be going on. Right now there are 42 wars going on between nations. He mentioned famines and earthquakes. North Korea, Yemen, Somalia. We average 110 to 170 Strong and Major Earthquakes a year.
Jesus tells his followers they will be hated by all nations because of me. Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world. This country is more anti-Christian than it has ever been. Jesus says many will turn away from the faith. Many people have left the church for a host of reasons, most because they want to do their own thing.
There has been a major cultural shift in the culture’s attitude toward the church. Once there was an overlap between the church and the world. That has been caused by three things. 1) Jesus’ claim to be the only way to God. 2) The LGBTQ movement which demands the church call good what God calls evil. 3) The equating of the Republican Party with evangelical Christianity. The world does not distinguish between black Christians and white Christians, we are simply Christians to be despised.
Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. People are scared to help others. Mass shootings in churches make us suspicious when people come to bible study. But the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.
You’re having a hard time understanding mass shootings, people forcing people into human trafficking, car jackings, political corruption, abortion of healthy babies, the rejection of any restraints on sexual behaviors, and students that are out of control.
We are told in 2 Timothy what to expect. , But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
Matthew 24:20-22 (NIV2011) Jesus tells us:
20 Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. 22 “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.
There is coming a figure on the world scene who will be known as the Anti-Christ. He will be a man with a plan for the problems of the world and everyone is going to go crazy over him. He will bring about world peace. He asks at first for a voluntary mark of allegiance. The mark is to be placed on the hand or on the forehead. Everyone will be required to accept the mark.
Preaching will be taking place during this period known as the Great Tribulation. There will be two witnesses who constantly preached who can’t be destroyed. They can hit the earth with plagues as often as they want. Fire comes from the mouths of those to destroy those who want to destroy them. They will be a pain to the Anti-Christ. God will allow them to be killed and the world will celebrate. But then they will be raised back to life again after 3 ½ days and the world goes into fear. They are called into heaven as a massive earthquake hits the earth.
Going back for a moment, the mark which was first voluntary becomes mandatory. Revelations 13:16-17 6 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.
We use to think of course, you’ll always be able to buy something from somebody. But the bible accurately predicts a day is coming when others can control what is bought or sold. We are quickly moving from a cash society to a cash less society.
Debit cards are no longer the wave of the future. They are here. Now your phone can make purchases without you going to the cash register. How could someone from the first century prophesied a day was coming when it would be possible to control whether or not anyone anywhere could buy or sell something?
For years we have thought of the mark as a tattoo of some kind. Some thought it was a stamp 666. Some thought you would have your own UPC code. I think the mark will be the insertion of a computer chip. It is possible to write a lot of information on you including name, credit history, medical history, and banking all on the size of a chip no bigger than a grain of rice.
In Sweeden people have taken the chip to open doors, unlock computers, buy tickets and more. Chips are already inserted in animals to know how to locate them.
Your phone allows others to know exactly where you are. Was Siri created to let you know how to get from point a to point b, or to know exactly where you are. The moment you miss your exit, your phone starts recalculating. Why does google think it important to keep a record of where you have been and how often you have been there. We think the anti-christ may come from the government. He could come from facebook or google.
Well when the Anti-Christ comes along, he will make sure everyone gets one of these super powered chips. People are constantly spying on you. Your computer, your phone, your internet service, your grocer, and your pharmacy. Already today, people know what you buy, how often you buy it, and the size you buy it in. Each time you use your power card or finast card, or whatever they call it, your grocery list is analyzed and sold to the highest bidder. They’re not giving you a discount for free. They are making money off of you.
Do you realize insurance companies know what medicine you buy and how often you buy it, and then they will share it with other companies so they can justify not accepting you for a life insurance policy because of some pre-existing condition. Did you know that a record is kept of each phone call you make? Every time you use your cellular phone, a computer writes down who you called, who called you, and how long you talked. Each time you go on the Internet a record is made of all the sights you visit. Even though you may think no one knows what you’re watching on the Internet, you are leaving a trail behind. Europe forced Facebook and Google to stop sharing your information without your knowledge.
Now the writers of the Bible had no way of knowing this kind of technology would one day be available. But the apostle John accurately predicted in the book of Revelations that it would be possible for one person to control whether or not everybody in the whole world could buy or sell something. All that would be required would be a mark.
There Is a second cost to receiving the mark: Revelation 14:9-12 (NIV2011) 9 A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, 10 they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.”
12 This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus.
If you’re not ready when the raptures comes, will you be ready to receive the mark of the Anti-Christ, or will you try to hold out and wait for Jesus to come. What’s it going to be like to watch your family starve, because the scanner won’t allow you to buy food? What will it be like to be thrown out of your apartment, because you could not pay the rent even though you had the money? How will you get to work, when you can’t buy gas because you said no to the mark? What’s going to happen when you’re child needs to go the hospital, but you can’t use hospitals because you have to buy their services?
You become an enemy of the state. Now don’t expect family members and friends to come and help you out, because Jesus said, "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. Mark 13:12-13 It will be a state honor to turn in traitors, especially traitors in your family.
Now You know the moment you accept the mark of the beast, you become his for all of eternity. There’s no repentance available afterwards. There’s no second chance. There’s no saying I made a mistake. The Anti-Christ will seek to hunt down and cut off the heads of all who refuse to worship him or to receive his mark. There will be a tremendous slaughter of people.
But when God pours out his wrath on the Anti-Christ, it comes to all who have the mark. An angel will pour out a bowl on the land, and ugly and painful sores will break out on the people who have the mark of the beast. The second angel will pour out a bowl on the sea and the sea will turn to blood, so everything in the sea will die. Do you know how much food we get from the oceans? Famine will become a major problem in the world.
The third angel will pour out a bowl on the rivers and fresh water and they too will turn to blood. The famine will get even worse. God will do this because so many people’s blood will have been spilled by the people under the Anti-christ that God gives them blood to drink.
The fourth angel will pour a bowl on the sun, so that it will become extremely hot. Can you imagine it being so hot in Cleveland, that when you go outside your skin feels as though someone is sticking a hot iron on you, and though there is no iron actually on you, your skin is burned as though it were.
Even though people will be in intense pain, the Bible says instead of asking for mercy, they will curse God and refuse to repent. Today the Holy Spirit is in the world, and he’s keeping a check on what Satan can and cannot do. During the Tribulation, the Holy Spirit will be gone and there will be nothing pushing us toward God.
The fifth angel will pour out his bowl on the throne of the Anti-Christ and his kingdom will be thrown into darkness. Could this be the result of a nuclear winter in which nuclear bombs are launched. The Bible says people will be in great agony and pain in the midst of this darkness, yet they still will refuse to repent. The sixth angel will pour out his bowl and evil spirits will go forward to unite people in a frenzy to declare a War on God in the battle of Armegeddon.
The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and the greatest earthquake the world has ever known will hit the earth, causing islands to disappear and mountains to simply collapse. Huge balls of hail , weighing up to 100 lb., will come falling from the sky, destroying whatever they hit. Yet again people will not repent, but instead will curse God because of how terrible the plague of hail will be.
This is happening on a world wide scale. No food to eat, no water to drink, and no homes not damaged by the storm. Yet the armies of the world will be provided with what it needs to declare war on God. It is at the end of the Tribulation period that God says enough is enough and Jesus comes back with a host of angels and they launch an all out assault on the Anti-Christ, the beast, the devil, and all the humans who have joined this satanically inspired army.
It’s not going to ever be any doubt who is going to win this battle. Before it starts, and angel tells the vultures, come and prepare to eat the flesh of generals all the way down to privates. When Jesus hits the scene, the beast, the anti-Christ, and the false prophet are thrown alive into the lake of fire. That huge gigantic army with them are all killed by the single sword that comes out of the mouth of Jesus. An angel comes down with a huge chain and he grabs the devil and locks him up for a 1,000 years.
Christ will rule the saints for a 1,000 year period here on the earth. Those who have been killed for Christ throughout the ages and those who lived during the Anti-Christ but refused to accept the mark will all know all of the blessings God originally intended for Adam and Eve to have. A world with no sickness, no pain, and no death.
Noone who received the mark will have a part in the kingdom here on earth. There will still be people on earth who are outside of the kingdom for whom life will go on in a dismal state because they were not at the battle of Armegeddon.
After a 1,000 years Satan will be set free, and he will go and organize these people from the ends of the earth to make one final attack against the saints. This huge army will completely surround the kingdom or camp of God’s people. Before they can do anything however, fire from heaven falls down and devours them all. Satan is then thrown into the lake of fire where he will be tormented forever and ever.
Then everyone who died not knowing Christ will be judged and everyone whose name is not found in the book of life will be thrown into the lake of fire. God will then create a new heaven and a new earth. A new city of Jerusalem will come out of heaven and settle on the new earth. God will be with his people from now on, and there will be no more death, or mourning, or crying or pain. We won’t be spending eternity in heaven, but rather on a new earth which has yet to be created.
But my friends, we’ve got to be prepared to make it to that new heaven. It all begins with knowing Jesus Christ. Jesus said, he was the only way to God. He either is, or He’s a liar. If he’s a liar, then none of what he said can be trusted. If He is who He claims, then we better get ready to meet him.
For we are going to meet Christ in one of four ways. The first is to be caught up in the rapture by having died in Christ or by living as we should when the rapture comes. The second we will meet Christ through having been killed through the tribulation period. The third is we shall meet Christ with the mark of the beast on our heads or hand and are ready to attack him when he comes. The fourth is we shall meet Christ just before we are cast into the lake of fire.
God loves us enough to give us all the freedom of choice as to how we will meet Him. Which method are you currently prepared to meet the Lord. The rapture is coming, the tribulation is coming, Jesus is coming, and the judgment is coming. We can either live for today, or we can get ourselves situated in God to give us a lot more control over a long term future. We might be gone next week, but the real issue will be, were we ready when we went.
For ultimately, we are going to win. Revelation 21:1-5 (NIV2011) 1 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
