We see those things in Jesus' statements. So anyway, the things we looked at was that:
1) Global shifts taking place - and were more to come.
2) God is in control. God has the beginning, and the end, worked out.
He has all things under control. That doesn't mean events in the earth are under control. It means in the bigger plan, God knows, and nothing is taking Him by surprise.
We saw then that Jesus revealed signs to watch out for. We read in one place for example, how He rebuked the religious leaders. In Matthew 16:1-3, He said: you guys are religious leaders – you’re supposed to know the Bible. You can tell the signs of the weather. You know that ‘red sky in the morning is the shepherd's warning’. It's the same here - we all go by seasons here. You can tell that it's winter; you can read the signs - trees are bare. He said: you can read all these natural seasons, but you can't read the signs of the times. You had the Bible, with all the prophesies of My coming; but when I come… you don't even know where I am! He's giving us a heads-up, that it will also be like that in the last days.
In Luke 9, it tells us that He wept over the city of Jerusalem. He grieved over it. He grieved, because He said: you didn't know the time of your visitation. You didn't recognise in the season of history - what God was just doing in your midst; and because you didn't recognise it, now your enemies will come against you, and will destroy you - which happened about 70 years later.
Notice in those contexts, He's saying: it is important that we be aware of what's happening in the world - and relate it to what the word of God says, not to opinions of people. The first sign was: wars, and natural disasters. There would be wars, and rumours of wars; nation against nation, ethnic wars; kingdom against kingdom, global wars, or conflicts. There would also be famines, pestilences, earthquakes… He said all those things.
Have a look! You will see Covid-19, and you see the riots that are taking place, that are in every nation of the earth - all kinds of issues that are happening, that are kind of almost unprecedented. There's a looming global depression. They're just printing money, like it's just going out of style. You can't print money without a consequence. The consequence is that there's going to be an economic upheaval in the world.
The low interest rates, for example, have affected the ability of pension plans in the United States to be able to provide for the future. A few years ago, they said they'll all expire in 2045; now they're saying 2030. Suddenly it's decreased, because the amount of money they can gain by investing is so low, it's not keeping up with the demand that's coming. So before, it was known that by 2030, the American pension plans will all collapse. What happens then when there's no money to provide for elderly?
We're living in a season of unprecedented change, and we're not to be ignorant of the signs, nor to be afraid of them. The Bible says to ‘look up’ when you see these things coming - fix your eyes on Jesus, not on the circumstances, or carry on like nothing's happening.
He said the second sign would be: widespread hated towards Christians. If you have a look through the world, and start to read some of the material, and watch what's really happening, you'll find there's unprecedented persecution of Christians across the world. Just look up ‘persecution of Christians’ on Google. You can find it - it's very easy to find. Look for statistics - you'll find there's more Christians being killed now, than at any time in history, around the world. Become informed about what's happening - look for the signs.
The third sign that He mentioned was the sign of offences - ‘many would become offended’, many!
Right now, one of the big issues is people get offended. You just have a differing opinion, and now they suddenly get wound up, and angry, and offended, and they walk away. You try to talk to people about issues, and they get offended, and rise up. That's what Jesus said - many will be offended! Many, many!