What This World is Coming To!
Matthew 24:21
18 Aug 2019 AM
Pastor Craig Ledbetter
Bible Baptist Church, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland
I. Introduction (Daniel 9:26)
Dan 9:26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
A. Daniel got to see the future, and wrote about it 2,500 years ago
1. He saw the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, the Saviour of the world
2. And then he saw Messiah cut off, killed, murdered, for others
3. He saw another prince, a false messiah come and take his place
4. But not to save anybody, but to destroy Jerusalem, and God’s people
5. And Daniel saw the end of the final war
6. Daniel saw the coming Tribulation – this is just one Scripture verse – most of Daniel is about the future! And it is awesome to read and study and learn about!
B. There is coming a time that the Bible calls, the Tribulation (Mat 24:21) For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
C. When the whole world will be spellbound by one man – the antichrist
1. Deceived into believing that this new guy is the world’s true “saviour”, and that Jesus was a liar and a deceiver
2. But that is just the beginning! This anti-christ will make this world into hell – and all the while blame God, until the Battle of Armageddon where he, along with the entire population will be gathered to try and destroy God Almighty!
3. Unbelievable that the world will become that way
4. Yet, isn’t our world already this way?
a. Already moved on from the old Jesus
b. Ready to welcome one strong “modern” person who will promise us peace and prosperity
c. Ready to throw away everything good and right
d. Like marriage of one man and one woman for life
e. Like pregnancy and child-birth being natural and protected
f. Like life separate from computers – do you realise that Elon Musk has actually developed an interface to the brain?
g. Everything is being messed with and changed
h. And most of it is not for good!
D. Just how powerful will be this “man”?
E. And what will he do with that power?
II. Background - What IS The Tribulation?
A. What it means:
1. Tribulation is one of those older words that means Trouble. But it means MORE than just a bad hair day
2. A Thrashing, Affliction, Misery, Distress, Pain, Torment
B. It is SEVEN years of the worst disasters ever imaginable on a world wide scale
1. Seven years of ever increasing Hell on Earth
2. Until the day of Christ’s Second Coming! Called Armageddon!
3. Unlike any other time before or after (Matt 24:21) For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
4. worse than the destruction of Noah’s flood, and worse than the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah! Worse than Auschwitz and the Holocaust!
C. The Bible refers to it as “the time of JACOB’S Trouble” (Jer 30:7) Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.
1. A time when the physical descendants of JACOB experience troubles and pain and affliction like never before in history!
2. It is “Jacob's” trouble – not the Church’s trouble, or the world’s trouble, but ISRAEL’s
3. “but he shall be saved out of it.” God will save the nation of Israel during it
D. You do NOT want to be around when it comes!
III. Last Week
A. There are Actually Two Tribulations
B. The seven years are divided into two halves of 42 months each (3 ½ years)
1. The first half is the build-up to the crowning of the antichrist in a rebuilt Jewish temple, in Jerusalem
a. Called just simply, The Tribulation
b. A constant build up of world troubles that get everyone to look to a false ‘saviour’ to save them from
c. That’s when an antichrist / prince shall come
d. The rise of the antichrist
1) He will bring a sort of peace to the world
2) There will be more and more wars, but people will really believe it is actually getting better and better
3) He will negotiate a peace in the Middle East, allowing the Jews to rebuild their Temple
4) People will willingly worship him, and surrender all their rights to his control in exchange for PEACE!
e. Establishes a covenant of World Peace
1) Dan 9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant OF PEACE with many for one week:
2) A False Peace
3) READ DANIEL!
f. An enables the
rebuilding of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem –
not for God, but for the antichrist to rule from!
2. Then Right until the Middle of the week comes the Abomination of Desolation
a. Listen to Daniel 9… “and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate,
b. even until the consummation OF GOD’S WRATH, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
c. The “abomination of desolation” is when the antichrist will claim to be ‘God’
d. I’ll show you thast in a few minutes!
e. That’s when the GREAT Tribulation begins – and it will NOT be good!
3. The second half is the beginning of the GREAT Tribulation
a. The most unimaginable disasters will be poured out on the entire world
b. The earth will go out of control
1) Famines – world-wide
famines and food controls; Pestilences, diseases –
Doctors are saying that HIV is just getting under control
But that is not the end of killer diseases to come!
2) Earthquakes (Rev 6:12)
3) Hurricanes and Tsunamis (Luke 21:25,26)
c. The heavens will go out of control (Mt 24:29)
1) Sun will go dark before it will explode and become 7 times brighter than before
2) The moon will be turned to blood
3) Stars will fall from the sky
4) An asteroid will slam into the Mediterranean Sea
5) A massive comet will explode over Asia poisoning all the rivers and drinking waters of over a billion people
6) Sounds impossible? People thought so up until about 40 years ago, but now there are dozens of large, expensive telescopes scanning the skies every night, all over the world, looking for “Near Earth Asteroids”, because astronomers know they are out there and are earth destroying rocks!
d. People will go out of control
1) No love at all, except of self (Mt 24:12)
2) Demons will be loosed upon the earth (Rev 9:1-6)
3) An army of 200,000,000 angry soldiers surround the middle east to attack Israel
4) Intense persecution (Mt 24:9,10) – blaming the “nuts” for all the world problems
a) Against all non-conforming religions
b) Ultimately against the Jews
5) Deaths – over ½ of the world’s population will die of all these disasters in just 3 ½ years (that’s about 4 billion people)!
6) Total unity all over the world under the protection of the Beast (Rev 13)
a) His Mark in their foreheads or in the right hands
b) His number controlling people’s movements and ability to buy or sell
c) His worship the only focus of the whole world
d) All in the name of survival during all the disasters – “acts of God!”
C. It will only end at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ – Armageddon (Mt 24:29,30)
1. Mat 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
2. Mat 24:30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
IV. So, this morning, Let’s Learn About The Anti-Christ
A. Like we really want to learn all about him.
B. But we must.
1. Because Jesus spent a load of time exposing him as the fraud that he is
2. You see, the world has turned their back on the clear evidence for God and on the only Person who ever took such abuse and rejection and still
3. Joh 5:43 I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.
4. So, the Bible warns about the whole world being deceived
5. Christians should not be asleep about all this going on!
a. 1Th 5:2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
b. 1Th 5:3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them [NOT YOU], as travail upon a woman with child; and they [NOT YOU] shall not escape.
c. 1Th 5:4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
d. 1Th 5:5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
e. 1Th 5:6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
f. 1Th 5:7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
g. 1Th 5:8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
h. 1Th 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ
V. Message
A. The Coming Anti-Christ (Revelation 6:1,2; 2Thes 2:1-12)
1. Don’t Panic – the Day of Christ’s return is not yet
a. Don’t let anyone confuse you
b. World events will always confuse us
c. In John’s day, so much had happened
1) The Roman army had entered Jerusalem and destroyed the city
2) They had desecrated the Temple, and then tore it apart, block by block until no stone was left standing upon another
3) The Jewish people had been slaughtered and scattered once again
4) And everyone was believing they were in the Tribulation, and Jesus was about to come back
d. But there are some things between the believer and Armageddon
e. And they had forgotten them
2. There will first be a Falling away of Christians (1Thes 2:3)
a. Not that people will lose their salvation – you need to settle this fact
1) Joh 17:12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
2) John 6:39 And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
3) Joh 18:9 That the saying might be fulfilled, which he spake, Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none.
b. But that almost every believer will cool off and pull away
c. And that so many people who only come to church for entertainment, or for the praise, or power, or blessings, will fall away like dead leaves on a tree!
d. It is happening in THIS church
3. Then Our gathering to Him – Rapture UP (1Thes 2:1)
a. I will teach on this another day
b. There are actually FOUR raptures ahead
c. And whether you know it or not, if you are born again, you will be in the first one
d. And if you are not saved, you will end up in the last one! And it will not be good!
4. Then, in an instant, the son of hell / the anti-christ appears (1Thes 2:3-5)
a. He just blasts onto the scene
b. He is the First of the Four Horseman (Revelation 6:1,2)
1) The False Messiah who comes on a white horse, like he is a saviour
2) With a bow, but no arrows
3) Get crowned, and conquers the whole world!
c. ‘Anti’ means against, and opposite to Christ Jesus
1) He is someone who opposes everything that is connected with God
2) And everything that is worshipped
d. Yet he will start to act like he is God
e. And then, one day, in the future rebuilt temple of God in Jerusalem, he will claim to BE God
1) The abomination of desolation – marvellous words
2) They simply mean, the abominable act that makes what was holy, ruined!
3) Dan 9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
4) Mat 24:15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
5) Mat 24:16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:
6) Mat 24:17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:
7) Mat 24:18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.
8) Mat 24:19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
9) Mat 24:20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:
10) Mat 24:21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
5. Right now the anti-christ is being held back from doing that (1Thes 2:6,7)
a. Yes, the anti-christ is at work right now
1) Making havoc
2) Damning souls
3) Deceiving so many
4) 1Jn 2:18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.
5) 1Jn 4:3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
6) 2Jn 1:7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
b. But when the Holy Spirit leaves this world, the literal devil’s son will take over the world
1) The ‘he’ who is withholding (holding the antichrist back) is the Spirit of God
2) John 14:15-17 If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
3) John 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me
c. You may not think we are doing much, but our very existance, and our faithful preaching and witnessing, and godly influencing of the culture around us HOLDS BACK the devil – AMEN
d. Peter Hitchens, a journalist for the Mail on Sunday warns, those who drive Christianity out of society are preparing the way for Islam. Hitchens said, “When they drive Christianity out of Europe, as they’re rapidly succeeding in doing, they will not create an atheist paradise. They will leave a space for Islam.”
6. Then appears the anti-christ (1Thes 2:8-10)
a. He is the mirror image of Jesus Christ – the opposite image!
1) He will look and act just like Jesus at first
2) But he is the exact opposite – the ANTI-christ
b. Has all powers
1) He will be like every one of these modern comic book movie characters put together
2) No limits – but they are lying wonders – deceptive. To get the world to believe in the Anti-Christ
7. That’s when God sends Strong Delusion into the World (1Thes 2:11-12)
a. Delusion is when a mind gets twisted and warped, and no longer able to think or consider or learn
b. When you reject truth, you will believe a lie
c. God will mess with people’s minds – those who have rejected the Gospel will no longer ever want to hear it again
d. They are damned
8. Then Comes the End - Armageddon
B. The Two ‘Christs’
|
Just as Jesus Christ is |
So is the anti-christ |
|
Son of God |
Son of Satan |
|
Does miracles |
Does miracles |
|
Killed by religious extremists |
Killed by religious extremists |
|
Resurrected 3 days later |
Healed of deadly wound |
|
Is worshipped |
Will be worshipped |
|
Directs worship to His Father |
Directs worship to the Dragon/Satan |
|
Has all power |
Has all power too |
|
Will rule the world like heaven on earth |
Will seek to rule this world like hell on earth |
|
Mocked and rejected by the world |
Loved and accepted by the whole world |
VI. Conclusion
A. Don’t think you can wait until things get really bad, and then get saved
B. 2Cor 6:2 For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
C. Everything could change… in the twinkling of an eye
D. Are you READY?
1. The Bible says NOW is the accepted time, TODAY is the day of salvation
2. The future is serious business folks!
a. Repent of your own sins – seriously repent! Hate what you are, and what you have done, enough to humble yourself before an almighty, all holy God who SHOULD send you straight to hell, but is ready to forgive you and save your lost soul!
b. Race to Jesus Christ –Cry out to Him in desperation for forgiveness
c. Rest / Trust in Him alone – trust that HE died in your place, and that it was enough to pay off all your sin debt