We're going to see from God's word today just how relevant this ancient text, the Bible, is with the modern things you get to read every morning. Let's read Luke 21:25 and following. "And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars: and on the earth, distress of nations. With perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring. Men's hearts failing them for fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on earth. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to happen, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near". Let's pray:
Heavenly Father, today we come together today thankful to God that you have put us on the earth for such a time as this. As we have seen the signs of the times, we do not hang our heads in despair, but we rejoice with exceedingly great joy, knowing that our God reigns, he sits upon the throne, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Today fill us with conviction and boldness to share the message of your gospel with the ends of the earth: that those who do not know and have not received your son might hear of him and accept him today as their Lord and Savior. In Jesus' name, we pray. And all of God's children said, amen.
All of my life, I have been fortunate to grow up in a church where the Word of God was not only preached and taught, but it was believed. And so all of my life, I have heard my pastor speak about the end times and the coming of Jesus Christ. But I have also heard throughout my life individuals filled with cynicism start to question whether or not the preacher was right. The Bible says in 2 Peter 3:1-4, these are Peter's words in a letter that he wrote to the New Testament church. He's speaking to believers. He says, "I write to you to stir up your minds", I'm trying to keep you sharp, is what he's saying, "Knowing that there will come in the last days", when will they come? The last days, "Individuals (scoffers), saying, 'where is the promise of his coming?'"
Each and every one of us are familiar with the thing that happens when somebody decides they're going to take out several dominoes and they're going to line them up in a certain configuration. And then they start a chain reaction by touching one on one end, and they all begin to fall after they collide one end to the other. Well, when you take the signs of the times concerning what should happen in the world that we live in order for the antichrist to come to power and in order for Jesus Christ to come and establish his kingdom, you'll recognize that we are not very far from somebody just touching one of the dominoes and everything coming together. Today we're going to see from our culture, our economy, our politics, and the spiritual condition of our church, all things working together to see God's plan come to pass.
We first look at Daniel 12:4. Here is what God told Daniel after they had a prophetic conversation. God said, "But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end". When was he supposed to seal it? Until the time of the end. And he said these are the signs that we're at the end. One, "Men will run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase". Now, when I was married and my wife at the time told me we were expecting a baby, I did not look for the child until the nine-month term of gestation began. I did not know when the baby would be born until the hour he took his first breath. Now along the way, I knew we were headed towards something. You need to know that the world we live in went into the labor and delivery room in 1948.
People say, "What happened in 1948"? The first domino that we see introduced into the equation is the most significant prophetic sign other than the birth of Jesus Christ on earth. It is the birth of a nation, the birth of Israel. In 1948, the answer to the question that Isaiah asked became reality. Isaiah asked a question, "Has anyone seen such a thing? Shall the earth be caused to give birth"? In Isaiah 66, he says, "Shall a nation be born in a day"? The second sign of the time, the next domino to come into effect, the next birth pain, is nuclear weapons. There's a question that is asked in the Bible by prophet Zechariah when he describes a plague. In Zechariah 14, he describes the plague. He says, "This plague is going to strike people". He says, "Their flesh is going to fall off their bones. Their eyes are going to be consumed in their sockets. And their tongues will melt in their mouths before their bodies can hit the ground".
Now, if you've ever seen footage of what happens during a nuclear blast, you recognize that Zechariah wasn't nuts: Zechariah was exactly right and had perfect clarity of what God was showing him. Nuclear weapons were indeed one of the things that became a reality in our world in 1945. Another domino that comes into play, arrives in 1967. In 1967, a very important question gets answered. When will the day of the gentiles be over? You see whenever you read Luke 21 where we started this morning, you also should write down Matthew 24, because those two chapters, Luke 21 and Matthew 24, are two different accounts of the same conversation. And in Matthew 24, the disciples asked Jesus, "What will be the signs of your coming"?
Now in Luke, Jesus tells the same disciples that Jerusalem will be trampled by the gentiles until the day of the gentiles is fulfilled. And when the gentile day is fulfilled, Jewish hands will once again be in control of the holy city. When did that happen? First, we had to have a 1948 when Israel became a state. But Jerusalem did not come into the hands of Jews until 1967 when Israeli defense force's paratroopers went into the old city and took back what had been taken from them 2,000 years ago. It was a sign of the times. I'll give you another sign, connection and communication. Now more than ever, this world is globally connected. In revelation 11:3, it speaks about something that's going to happen after the rapture.
The reason I bring this up is because people want to get all of these chronological things mixed up. But in order for this thing to happen after the rapture, global connection has to take place before the rapture. Here's what's described in revelation 11. Two witnesses are sent from heaven to earth to preach. And they're killed in the streets of Jerusalem. And the whole world sees it instantly. Now in 1948, you couldn't have seen it instantly because you were listening to the radio when they announced that Israel became a nation. But today, with an iPhone, every kid who's got one of these in their pocket is their own independent news network whether you know it or not. And with technology that's connecting the world today, I promise you: that issue will be seen. You will have the opportunity to see those two witnesses slain in the streets of Jerusalem before CNN can twist it.
So prophetically, this connection, this worldwide web, this technology, plays a role in the end times because of the ability of people to get information just that fast. But let's consider something else it's done in our culture. It has also made identity theft an issue. How many of you've ever got a warning that someone might be using your identity? But this global connectivity has made this issue a problem. There's also a number of other real relevant things that matter when it comes to that conversation. But the reality of it is there's coming a world leader, who will solve the identity theft issue. All he's going to ask people to do is just accept a little bit of technology either right here in their hand or right here in their head, and no one will ever wonder again who you are.
You go, "I just don't think that's happening". It's already happening. There are people who are taking their medical records, their financial records, they're downloading them onto microchips about the size of a grain of rice, and they're inserting them into their physical bodies so no one can steal their identity. Another domino, deception on a global scale. Jesus said, "Take heed that no man deceive you". What's happening in the world today is exactly what Jesus said would happen. People would be so deceived that they couldn't tell the truth from a lie. The media does all that it can to ignore the truth and create the story line that fits the narrative of what they want to tell. Are they outright lying? Who knows? But they aren't telling the truth.
There's not just deception in media. The father of lies, the deceiver of all, has infected our government. Because the Bible says, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord". But it also says, "All nations that forget God are turned into hell". And for a long time, our government has done everything it can to kick God out of our society. That's deception. Another domino that gets lined up in the end times, Jesus said in Matthew 24:7 that there would be famines and pestilence. Now pestilence is a sickness that cannot be cured by medicine. And we have plenty of those in our world today.
But famines are something where there's a shortage of food. And in the world we live in, we hear a lot about food shortage. There is no shortage of food in the world today. What's the problem? We're not putting the grain that we're growing in the field onto the table. We're putting the grain that we're growing in the field into your fuel tank. Why? Deception. We have decided that in order to save the environment, we don't use oil anymore. Let's take corn and use the seed in the kernel of corn to create the oil that we can now convert and refine into greener gas. When ethanol production went into effect, about 80% of the United States' corn was being given to human beings for food and given to animals for feed, and shipped all over the world. As soon as the government started to subsidize ethanol production, it went to about 45% for humans and the rest for gas tanks.
Now it's not a problem in the United States. But how many of you saw what happened in Venezuela a few months ago when people couldn't find food? They went into the streets and they started killing folks because whenever you ain't got nothing to eat and you're going to starve to death, you'll do what you have to do to get a piece of bread. Think about that. So what do we have? We have deception. Where is it? In the environment. What's it caused? A famine. Who was right? Jesus. Another domino, he said, "Kingdom would rise against kingdom, and nation would rise against a nation".
Now in this particular description, we have two different individuals and people groups being talked about, kingdoms and nations. They're not the same thing. Kingdoms are borders. They're countries. They have a government. They have structure. A kingdom in a biblical perspective would be like the United States. We have a president. We have a government. We have borders. Nations are people groups. The word there is "Ethnos," which means individual people groups. In this room are a multitude of ethnos, nations. Well Jesus said, in the end times, not only would nations, governments, be one against the other, but people groups would be one against the other. That has never been any more prevalent than it is right now. Cities burn because ethnos cannot get along.
This nation is in turmoil because we are working one against the other. Culturally, we're divided. Politically, we're divided. And this division has caused an absolute stagnation in our government, in our economy, and distrust on every level. But the more that these kingdoms and nations are divided, the more accurate God's word is. The final birth pain that we hear is an economic collapse. And we take this from the book of Daniel 8, because in Daniel 8, it describes how the antichrist comes to power. Next week, we're going to discuss the culture that would accept the antichrist. But today, I want to give you this concept. In Daniel 8:25, it tells us that he, the antichrist, will cause craft to prosper.
Now that's the Bible's way of saying he is going to lead an economic comeback. Now how can you come back if you're not down? So what Daniel 8:25 is saying is that the antichrist comes to power when the sign of the time is an economic crash. Now with all of these dominoes here on the stage, let's consider how they all work together. People in the world we live in today, say, "What could bring an economic collapse"? Well, let's first consider how connected we are. Right now all of the economies of the world are connected together whether they want to be or not, the strong ones and the weak ones. So much money has been given out in foreign aid all over the world that all of the economies of the globe are interconnected. One goes down and somebody else has to subsidize it.
This is why you saw Britain do what it could to get out of the European Union. They said, we're tired of paying other people's bills. Well, it's still a problem, because they're part of the global economy. The United States is part of the global economy. Our biggest debtor, the one that we owe the most to, is China. China has a problem. It's not just an economic problem, but it's also a food problem. It's a connectivity problem. And it's a nuclear problem. That nuclear problem comes in the form of the craziest Kim you've ever met, Kim Jong-un over in North Korea. And the reason that it's a problem for China is because if the North Koreans start to migrate to Thailand, and those in Thailand start to go to China, then China's going to run out of food, and their economy will not be able to hold them together.
If the Chinese economy goes down, guess who else's economy goes down? Ours. Why? Because they're our credit card. We borrowed it from them. Now let's switch sides of the ocean. In 1948, we get a domino. That domino is Israel coming to power. 1967, Jerusalem comes under control of Jewish hands. You know who that really irritates? Islamics. Because if the Jewish nation has control of it, then that Bible is right. And if the Bible is right, then they're wrong. Now, who is at the forefront of that fight right now? Iran. Iran is different than North Korea, because Iran's not crazy like Kim. Iran's driven by theology. Iran believes that the second it causes nuclear and global chaos, the second it gets rid of the little Satan, which is Israel: and the big Satan, which is the United States: then their messiah, their Islamic messiah's going to come to earth.
Now who's involved in the equation? Russia. Why is Russia involved in the equation? Because they want control of oil. Why do they want control of oil? Because they've got so much of it and it's so cheap that they can't sell it for what they need. So if they can control the world's oil, they can set the market, and then they can become rich. The Russians don't care about hacking into your data base. They want to control what you put in your gas tank. So we've got all of this connectivity and all of these dominoes. And in any moment, if something flies off the handle in one part of the world or another, it could indeed create an economic crash.
But I want to end this message this way: by telling you about one thing, one domino, one event, that could absolutely change everything instantaneously. This one event would affect every nation, every tribe, every tongue, every kindred, every people. It wouldn't matter if you grew up in a socialist economy or in a free market economy or in a communist nation. What would matter is who you had for your salvation, because in this moment, it would just be the twinkling of an eye when the trump of God would sound, and the dead in Christ would rise, and we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet him in the air.
Church, I'm here to tell you that the angels of God are standing around his throne. And king Jesus is about to exit the gates and into the clouds of glory. And those who call him King of kings and Lord of lords and our Savior, we're going to kiss this world good-bye. And forever we shall be with the Lord in the air! There's coming a day, church, when something so dramatic is going to happen that every knee should bow and every tongue should confess, and everyone will declare that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father! Give him a shout of praise today!
I want to close this message this way. The dominoes are lined up, nothing left to be done. How fast could they fall? Before we get out of this room. The question is simple. Do you know Him and are you ready? And if you don't know him, if you haven't received him, I want to give you the chance to do that before we leave this place today. With every head bowed and every eye closed, you're in this room, and you say, pastor, I know, I know that I have not received Jesus Christ as my Savior. I know that the world we're living in is the one you've described. And this morning before I leave this sanctuary, I want him in my heart. I want him as the Lord and Savior of my life. If that's you today, I want to give you the chance to make a simple profession of faith. God wants you to hear how he has brought you to this moment in time that you might receive his son. As we pray in this room, pray this prayer with us. I want everyone in this room to repeat this prayer with me:
Lord Jesus Christ, today we receive you as our Savior, as our Lord, as our soon coming king. We surrender our lives to your will: that your blood may cleanse us of all sin and all unrighteousness. Your word has promised that those who call upon the Lord shall be saved in these last days. So Lord Jesus, save me by your grace, by your mercy, by your power. I receive salvation today. And I thank you, in faith, for this gift that you have so freely given. Thank you, Lord, for sending your son. Thank you, Jesus, for being my Savior, in Jesus' name. Amen.
