Of all the people, Christians should be the most positive. Man, we're supposed to be filled with hope! Hope has to do with a great, amazing future ahead of us.
If you look at the media, and look at the world, look at all the things going on, you have every reason to feel a bit depressed, discouraged, cynical, or disheartened.
But if you look at the word of God, and what God has to say to us about what lays ahead for us… wow! We should be the most positive people of all, because we have an insight into what's coming. We just need to search the word of God and find it.
Matthew 24:1 – “Jesus went out and departed into the temple, His disciples came to show Him the magnificent buildings of the temple (they were just amazing). And Jesus said to them, do you see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone will be left upon another. Everything will be thrown down”.
He goes on, and He begins to talk… The disciples come to Him, as He sat on the Mouth of Olives.
Matthew 24:3 – “As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. Tell us, they said, when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Two questions: when will the temple be overthrown; and what will be the signs of the End Times?
Matthew 24:4 – “Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you.”
The first thing He warns about, is the possibility of deception.
Matthew 24:5-13 – You will hear of wars, and rumours of wars. See you're not troubled. These things must come to pass, the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. There'll be famines, pestilences, earthquakes in various places. These are just the beginning of the sorrows. (This is the beginning of like a childbirth). They will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you. You'll be hated of all nations for My name's sake. Many will be offended, and betray one another, and will hate one another. False prophets will rise and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved”.
He's warning about deception; and His encouragement of the need to persevere in our faith, and our journey.
Matthew 24:14 – “For the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, then the end will come”.
As we start, I just want to just go back to a couple of the things that we touched on last week. We talked a little bit about the massive global shifts that are taking place. We're living in a time when there's massive global change is occurring. America has been a massive power in the earth, for as long as I've been alive, and now you find now its power is weakening. All kinds of turmoils are going on, and people get a bit anxious when they see what's happening in the world. We see the impact of the 9/11 attack, that caused a change in the world.
There were other things have happened since then. Now there's Covid, and the SARs that went before it, which have caused an upheaval, that we can't be so sure everything's going to carry on like we expect. Mostly we carry on, and expect everything to be unchanged, and then when something like this comes, your whole world is shaken, and many people become fearful and anxious. There's also an economic issue that’s going to come…
After I preached this message last week, I opened up one of my news feeds to look at, and ‘Rumours of Wars’ was the title, and it talked about what's the looming war between Pakistan and China, and then other wars, in other places, that are happening around the world. So, if you look at the headlines, you'll start to see many of things that we've talked about.
How many read about the, for example, the plague of locusts that's going around, and it's of a size that’s unprecedented. These plagues of locusts are so big, they cover 100 square miles. That's just full of billions of locusts, and they're in Africa, and then also up into some parts of Asia as well. When you have that kind of plague come, then you have after it, famine.