Allen Jackson - Then The End Will Come - Part 1
We've been working through a little study called "Faith Mountains". The idea is pretty simple. If you're gonna make any journey of any significance distance, you're probably gonna have to traverse mountains. And historically, some of the most traveled and defended places in the histories of civilizations have been the passes through the mountains. Or you could travel, you could cross the barrier without having to necessarily scale the heights.
In Tennessee, it's the Cumberland Gap; in the Middle East, in Israel, it's the Jezreel Valley, but there are many such of those passes throughout the earth. Well, I believe that spiritually, we have some mountains we have to climb. The labels change with the seasons of our lives change, but life comes complete with challenges. And what I've suggested to you is that, with the help of the spirit of God, he can help us navigate the passes so that we don't have to climb the great heights and go through all of the extra effort that is demanded of that.
In this session, I wanna talk specifically about a phrase that has captured my attention lately, "the end will come the end will come". I'll get to that. But Psalm 18, verse 30 is really the, kind of, the premise for this study. Psalm 18 is actually a Psalm of David, and it's reiterating what David has given to us the first time in, in 2 Samuel, when he's finally defeated all of his enemies. And it says, "As for God, his way is perfect: The word of the Lord is flawless; he's a shield for all who take refuge in him. For who is God besides the Lord? And who is the Rock except our God? It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect".
That's a wonderful affirmation from a man who's lived through a great deal of opposition. David is anointed to be king when he's a teenager, but he doesn't actually secure the throne and secure the, civil war in his own nation initiated because of God's anointing in his life. Are you emotionally prepared for that? That God will call you and put you in a place that, can bring some real division, some real anxiety? David's anointed by Samuel to be king. The same Samuel that anointed Saul to be king, but then Saul chose to rebel against God. So, God sends Samuel to anoint a second king and it's David, and the outcome of that is a civil war. But when all of that is done, David makes this statement, "He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights".
And that's my prayer for my life and for yours, for our families, that God will give us the feet of a deer that we'll be able to stand on the heights; that we can navigate the high places, that we will be more nimble than we should be, that we'll have a better balance than those observing would believe possible. Have you ever watched a deer run or come to a barrier and leap over it? If you're as earthbound as I am, that is an amazing thing to watch. I mean, they make it, there's an ease and a grace. And I read that passage and I think David is giving the Lord credit because he's enabled him to do things that would have been impossible without God's supernatural intervention.
And that's my prayer for my life and for yours. And it's more than a prayer. I tend to live my life in such a way that if God doesn't help, it won't be a good outcome. And then I put a verse from Matthew 24. It's an idea that's repeated in more than one place. But Matthew 24 is Jesus most lengthy prophetic discourse. He's been asked about the end of the age and the destruction of the temple and, and he answers those questions for the disciples and he gives them a whole list of, of signs and things that will take place. And the ultimate, the penultimate sign he gives them is in this verse, in verse 14. He said, "This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come".
And I think while we're walking through this discussion and thinking a little bit about scaling the heights and overcoming the adversity and the effort that's required in that, and the sacrifice that's involved with that, that it's important, it's really necessary that we remember that the end will come. The Bible is very clear, there will be an end of time; time will come to a conclusion. The Bible is a unique presentation. The first, I bet, you know the first verse of the Bible. How does the Bible start? Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning". It's a linear presentation. There's a single point in time which is, "in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth".
And the Bible takes us on a journey, a linear journey, through time until we get to the point where it says we will come, "the end will come". There'll be a new heaven and a new earth, but it'll be a whole new set of parameters. It says, "There'll be no more crying or tears or pain for the old order of things will have passed away". It's really beyond our ability to imagine or even anticipate. But what we can grasp is the Bible's presentation of this linear idea that has a beginning point and an ending point. So, we can take a timeline and take our favorite characters of the Bible, and distribute them along the timeline.
We know that Abraham is much closer to Genesis than Peter was because we don't meet Peter until way down there on the timeline after the Jesus was born in Bethlehem and then began to recruit disciples, some 30 years later. We're very, you know, on a linear speaking, we're much, much, much closer to the end by the time Peter's there. And now we're another 2,000 years closer, so, we are at that point where Jesus said, "The end will come". Well, if there's gonna be an end to this, uh, there's several things that become apparent to me. It's you don't want to be overly invested in something that has a conclusion.
We're in the world, the Bible says, but we're not of it. We wanna have a different set of values than people that don't believe that the end will come. We have a different set of ambitions, we have a different set of principles. We will treat one another in a different way. If you believe there's an end to this present age and at the end of this present age, we will give an account to the creator of all things, then it would be prudent to prepare for that meeting. "The end will come". It'll also help take down your temperature when you get a little disappointed in how things are playing out and the timing of what's happening. And my days are slipping past, and my years are running through my fingers, and I don't necessarily like the circumstance. Well, the end of our earth suit is not the end, your spirit is eternal. The container it's in has a countdown clock.
And I if the countdown clock gets to its terminal point before the end comes, your body is done for a season, but your spirit goes to be in the presence of God. But when the Lord returns, you're gonna get an upgraded suit. That's the one that's described at the end of Revelation where it says, "There's no more pain or crying or tears or death because the old order of things has passed away". So, the end of our physical existence is not the end of our existence. But beyond that ending, there is an end of this age, there'll be an end of time. So, the admonition, the invitation, the opportunity of scripture is to live in anticipation of and in preparation for what is before us.
Now, that will make you different from a secular culture. If it doesn't, you don't believe it. And one of the challenges we're facing in the contemporary church is we have a theology that deals with the end of time where we, kind of, have a rescue plan for the end of everything. But once we get that in place, we tend to opt out of everything else. It's like renting a "car, I don't want any coverage," when what the Bible actually invites us to do is to grow up in our salvation, so that while we make our journey through time, however lengthy or brief that may be, that we reflect the values and the principles of the eternal kingdom that we've chosen to be a part of.
And in order to do that, we have to grow up in our faith, not be more regular in church attendance. I'm an advocate for regular church attendance, but you can sit in church and never change. It's like visiting the gym and not getting healthier. You can do that. Go visit with everybody, get a smoothie, walk around and pray.
Now, you feel really good about yourself when you leave, but you won't be healthier. We can do that at church too. "The end will come". We have a heritage as Christ followers and as people of faith and while it's widely denigrated, I think it's very important that we know it and that we teach our children and our grandchildren and that we remind them of it over and over and over and over and over again because the messaging that is cascading over them in opposition to that falls upon their ears and through their consciousness hundreds of times a day, so that if we just say it twice a year, it's not adequate.
For more than 4,000 years, human beings have been living out of God's story which began with God's call to Abraham. He's identified throughout scripture, "the creator of all of this as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob". That's an amazing thing to me that an omnipotent, omniscient God would be identified, "Look, I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I'm the God of Ralph and Pete and Dave". I mean, it sounds odd because we attach, kind of, an otherworldly essence to the names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but they were people like us.
A Judeo-Christian worldview has been a consistent force for the betterment of humanity. Consistently, it's unparalleled and unequaled in human history. It is brought to culture after culture, nation after nation, people group, after people group, a spirit of liberty and inclusivity, that all people, not all ideas, not all perspectives, that all people were equal before God. Definitions are being manipulated. "Tolerance" and "inclusivity" and those words are being manipulated in some very destructive words, in destructive ways. Once upon a time "tolerance" meant that you were allowed to have an opinion and I was allowed to have an opinion, and we would tolerate one another's opinions.
Today, the word "tolerance" is, if you don't accept whatever conventional wisdom says is correct, you're intolerant. Definitions are being manipulated in some very clever, but not very hidden ways. Thomas Jefferson in our Declaration of Independence said, "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights endowed by our Creator". The statement was made possible by the impact of a Judeo-Christian thought. It's a Christian worldview, and a majority that gave rise to the spirit of tolerance, with those divergent views. There is no such thing as tolerance apart from a Judeo-Christian worldview.
I've been an academic institution, celebrated institutions, that would say I remember arriving on registration day, they hand me a document and it's an inclusivity document and the document around tolerance, and how that was the highest value in this institution. And then they followed it up with a paper that said to me, if I referred to God with a male pronoun, I'd be failed. "And I said, Well, that seems inconsistent with your view on tolerance and inclusivity". And they said, "Well, we don't tolerate things we don't agree with". I grew up in a barn and I knew that didn't make sense. That's not to say that each was equal in outcome or equal in truth, but to assert the dignity of every human being, to hold the opinion of their choice.
Without a dominant Christian worldview, I assure you our liberty will evaporate. We have apologized too long for believing in God. We have retreated from the debate on ideas as if we were ashamed of the fact that we believe Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. And I would very humbly submit to you each time we do two things: repent, because it is an embarrassment to imagine you benefit from the shed blood of Jesus and then be apologetic for the fact that you've accepted that. So, if we will repent for those times we've been silent, then the second step is to step back into the arena and say, "I'm an unrelenting advocate for Jesus of Nazareth, as the Lord, Christ and King".
Well, I think it's important to know God's intent in this narrative, in this unfolding drama. In Genesis 12, we get a real glimpse. The Lord said to Abraham, "Leave your country and your people and your father's household, go to the land I'll show you. I'll make you into a great nation. I'll bless you. I'll make your name great. You'll be a blessing. I'll bless those who bless you; whoever curses you, I'll curse. And all people on earth will be blessed through you". That is a pretty remarkable statement. There's seven components. I listed them for you. You can think about them later. He said, "I'll make you into a great nation".
Heck, I pray for a parking place if it's a rainy day. "I'll bless you," it's a very personal statement. He said, "I'll make your name great. You'll be a blessing. I'll be an advocate for those who support you. And I'll be an adversary for those who oppose you". If the creator of all things is your advocate and he opposes your enemies, that's a good position to hold. And then finally, he said, "All peoples will be blessed through you". Now, that's the promise that was made to Abraham fulfilled to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We know them as the Jewish people today. We are in their debt.
As Christians, we are deeply indebted to the Jewish people. They embraced the covenant with God for generations that makes possible the covenant we have received. Without the Jewish people, we have no story. Look at Romans nine, in verse four, the, people of Israel, theirs is the adoption of sons, theirs is the divine glory; the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship, the promises, theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised, amen. Without the Jewish people, we have no Messiah, we have no temple, we have no window or understanding into worship. we have no promises, we have no covenants. We have nothing.
The question that's asked throughout contemporary Christendom is not a new question; it's asked in the New Testament, "Has God set aside the Jewish people"? Paul's answer in the strongest language that's available in the Greek language, the language of the New Testament, he said, "God forbid. God forbid". The imagination that God would reject the Jewish people because they failed at one moment in time to respond as they might have, would put all of us in great peril. Some suggest that the Christian Church is the New Israel. It's bad theology.
I don't, I won't take the time in this session to unpack that, but I will look at Revelation 21. Very near the conclusion of the story, it says, I'll show you the bride, the wife of the lamb, and he carried me away in the spirit to a mountain, great and high, and he showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down, out of heaven, from God, and it shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel. It had a great high wall with 12 gates and with 12 angels at the gates, and on the gates were written the names of the 12 tribes of Israel. The New Jerusalem, will have 12 gates, and on those gates will be 12 Hebrew names, the names of 12 Jewish men.
And at the center of the city will be a throne and seated upon the throne will be an observant Jewish Rabbi by the name of Jesus, who came from Nazareth. It would be a very awkward place for people who hate the Jewish people. So, it shouldn't be surprising that we see the spirit of Antichrist expressed in our world these days, in some rather violent forms of antisemitism. I have reminded you before, and I will continue to do so, because I believe it's a greater part of our future than it has been our past. But the spirit of Antichrist is what drives, is the spiritual support for antisemitism, a hatred for the people in the language of of Romans nine, through whom we received the Messiah and so many other things.
And that same spirit of antichrist will oppose all the people of God. What you're watching these days is irrational. It's illogical. Multiple countries in Europe formally recognizing a Palestinian state, in response to a horrific terror attack on October 7th of last year. It is unimaginable. It defies the logic, it defies the rules by which we live together as civilized people. I don't believe it can be understood in a context other than something spiritual and the spirit that would drive those kind of choices, when it's illogical, inexplicable, can't be understood, then you should understand there's a spiritual force that is driving those decisions.
And I believe it's the spirit of Antichrist. On a more hopeful note, there's a promise for you and me in Galatians three. It says, Christ redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the gentiles, the non-Jews, that the promises God made to Abraham could come to those who were not genetic descendants, through Christ Jesus, so that by faith, we might receive the promise of the spirit. The Bible says, "We've been grafted in". It's not a covenant apart from that one. We've been grafted into the covenant God made with Abraham.
In Hebrews 11, the Hall of Fame makes an interesting statement at the end of that long run of our heroes of, of men and women of our faith. It says, They were commended for their faith. Yet none of them received what had been promised because God had planned something better for us, so that only together, with us, would they be made perfect. I think it's very important that we remember, we stand on the shoulders of those who preceded us. We get a little pumped up with our arrogance about our technological sophistication and our civilizations, whatever, whatever. Every generation is a bit subject to this. And we do it spiritually, as well. We think we've arrived at some enlightened place, some place of clarity and breakthrough and the reality is we stand on the shoulders of those who have preceded us.
The expression I learned from a, uh, a dear man God put in my life many years ago when I desperately needed a voice, his name was sir Lionel Lacue. You should Google, sir, Lionel. I suppose he still is. For many years, he was the world's most successful murder advocate. I forget the number. He had, like, 242 consecutive acquittals in murder trials. He was an attorney from Guyana. He was knighted twice by the queen of 'England.' Quite the character. He became a Christ follower rather late in life. He loved race horses and the lifestyle that went with that. And he had lived a great deal of his life far away from God. He was Jim Jones' attorney.
Some of you are old enough to remember the massacre in Guyana. And he would have died that day had it not been for an unexplained interruption in his schedule. And through a series of events, he became a Christ follower. But the part that always stuck with me is he was a man of rather slight stature, but big character. And I watched him one time in an arena with thousands and thousands of people, and he said, "When you see, Sir Lionel Lacue, there's one thing you should know for certain, I'm like a turtle on a fence post". He said, "For if you should ever see a turtle at top off fence post, you would know that it did not arrive there on its own. It must have had assistance". And he said, "You should know only the assistance of Almighty God could have put me in the place where I stand today".
And I think all of us need to understand that, that we're standing on the shoulders of others who have been faithful, who have made sacrifices, who have persevered in the face of opposition, who have chosen God with their whole hearts, and then they extended to us an opportunity, and it's up to us to take the opportunity that was presented to us and do our very best to see that we extend to those who follow us, presents to them an an opportunity as well.
We don't want to be consumers of the sacrifices of others while we spend them for successes that we did not invest in. I think honestly, I think there's many, many things about paying off student loans in the way that we're currently doing it, that is destructive because people are receiving benefits from the sacrifices that others have made. And I think the lessons from that will create a great deal of frustration in the seasons ahead. But God knows how to help us overcome even our bad decisions. We can all testify to that.
I wanna pray with you before we go. Guilt and shame are such powerful tools to our adversary that we need the help of the Holy Spirit, and understand who we are in Christ, to live our lives free from those potent weapons. So, I'm gonna ask you to repeat a prayer with me and then I wanna pray with you before we go. Repeat these lines after me:
Through the blood of Jesus I am redeemed out of the hand of the Devil. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, continually cleanses me from all sin. Through the blood of Jesus, I'm sanctified, made holy, set apart to God. Through the blood of Jesus, I'm justified, made righteous, just as if I'd never sinned. My body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, redeemed, cleansed by the blood of Jesus. Therefore, Satan has no place in me, no power over me through the blood of Jesus. Amen.