Allen Jackson - Spiritual Warfare and the End Times
It’s good to be with you again. We’re gonna continue our study on spiritual warfare, particularly looking at the end of time. You know, the Bible is a book filled with spiritual conflict. It starts in the opening chapters of Genesis when the serpent comes to the garden, and it carries right through to the book of Revelation, when Jesus returns as a conquering king. Well, in the middle of all of that is our stories when we’re lived out with our days under the sun. But as we approach the end of the age, there’s some specific things that we’re told that we should be aware of, that we should anticipate, that we should be prepared for. And we don’t have to be afraid. We don’t have to ignore them. We don’t just whistle more loudly because we heard a noise in the dark. We wanna take the information we’ve got and prepare ourselves to be salt and light in this generation. The king is coming and this is our opportunity on the stage of human history to be ambassadors for the king of kings and the Lord of Lords. It’s the highest privilege of our lives. Grab your Bible and get a notepad. But most importantly, open your heart to God’s invitations for yourself today.
Well, the reality is our journey through time is a life of conflict. Life is more difficult and more consistently filled with conflict than any one of us would like. That’s not a unique feature of the 21st century. That is a unique feature of human civilization. And Jesus came as the prince of peace to enable us to imagine a different way of life and a different future. So I’d like to ask you a question because it’s a very prominent idea amongst Christians these days. But even in the evangelical church, do you imagine Jesus to have been a man of peace? I don’t mean it as a trick question, but I brought you a couple of passages. Jesus is speaking John 14, to his disciples, to his friends. He said, «Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I don’t give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid».
So Jesus said he was going to give us his peace. That’s a promise. Now, we need to understand what he meant. If you understand peace to be the absence of conflict, Jesus didn’t live that. His life was shaped by conflict. The town where he was born, the male children, two years old and under were murdered just because of the affiliation of Jesus’s birth in that community. Before he could walk, that his parents had to flee to Egypt with him because they were hunting him to murder him. When they did return to Israel and fly back to Nazareth, when he began his public ministry with the descent of the Holy Spirit upon his life at baptism, he immediately was led into the wilderness for a time of seeking the Lord and Satan himself came to tempt him. Satan himself came to challenge his authenticity, his legitimacy and to tempt him. And from that point until his resurrection, he faced consistent rejection, hatred, murderous plots against him.
Until finally, he was betrayed by one of his closest friends and he was tortured to death in a very public way. So you should have a little pause when Jesus said, «My peace I give to you». Wow, so for Jesus peace didn’t mean the absence of conflict. What did he mean? Well, if you follow him and I know many of you have, you read your Bibles a good deal. If you follow him through the Gospel, what you never find is Jesus panicked. You never find him anxious. He has a calm assurance that God’s unlimited power is watching over him. The best snapshot if you just want a picture of that I think is, we looked at a video a week ago of the boat, first century fishing boat, not an intimidating vessel. And Jesus was in a boat very similar to that on the Sea of Galilee and a storm suddenly emerged. We’re familiar with that. And the fishermen in the boat thought they were going to drown.
The carpenter in the boat was asleep. It’s difficult to imagine you could be asleep in a storm that was rough enough you thought that little bug was gonna be swamped. He wasn’t in a cabin somewhere. The spray of the water is falling on him. The howling of the wind is whistling around him and they wake him up because you wouldn’t want him to drown quietly. And said, «Lord, don’t you care that we’re gonna drown»? Now, you know, he’s the carpenter because he stands up in the boat. And he speaks to the wind and the waves. Even when he stands before Pilate, the Roman governor, and he’s not having as much dialogue as Pilate would like him to have. And Pilate says, «Don’t you know that I have the authority to free you or to have you crucified»?
And it’s a statement, I mean, it’s a statement of political fact and Jesus says to him, «Oh, you really don’t have any authority unless my dad gave it to you». I mean that’s the living Bible, but that’s the essence of the conversation. Jesus wasn’t panicked. He said, «I have something I need to do and you seem to be a part of that unfolding drama, but you shouldn’t think you’re causing it».
So now with that context here, what Jesus said again, «Peace, I give to you. My peace, I give to you. Not a life absent conflict. Not a life absent disappointment. Not a life absent challenges. Not a life absent the presence of Satan himself. My peace I give to you». And then that next sentence, I think it’s so important. Don’t let your hearts be troubled, and you don’t have to be afraid. Folks we need to let that begin to grow in us. We’ve trusted the government for justice. We have trusted the stability of an economy to guarantee our futures. We’ve trusted many things other than the Lord. And I’m not opposed to any of those things. I’m grateful when they’re available and function in a healthy way. But I don’t wanna be confused about where my peace, my security, and my future come from.
John 16, Jesus still talking to his friends. He said, «I’ve told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you’ll have trouble». You know, if you could write a word out of the Bible and change it, I’d just wipe that one out. In this world, you’ll have a party. In this world, you can have lots of picnics. Jesus said, «In this world you’ll have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world». And then we’re given the assignment as his disciples to become what? Overcomers. We have his peace in this world. You’ll have trouble. It suggests, the language he’s using suggests that there’s another world ahead of us. In this world he said, «You’re gonna have some trouble».
I hope you’re living for that next world. We get so buckled in. We get so focused. We get all of our dreams and our aspirations. We get so heavily invested that we just almost come become a part of the seams. When this present world seems to be threatened or to be coming unwound. There’s something better ahead of us. That’s the only way Jesus could have stood before pilot and said, «Listen, do what you need to do. Just go on with your bad self. It’s gonna be all right».
It didn’t mean it was easy. It didn’t mean it wasn’t painful. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t humiliating. It didn’t mean there was anything about it that anyone would volunteer for. But Jesus said there’s something better ahead of us. We haven’t been living with that imagination. The will to do difficult things emerges from the belief that there’s a reason for doing difficult things. We have become so soft, so spoiled, so coddled. We don’t wanna do anything difficult. We want somebody to tell us how wonderful we are. We can do anything. No, you can’t do anything you want to. I can’t jump from the top of the key and dunk the basketball. And even if you give me mechanical support, I will hurt myself. I didn’t get that gift. And we’ve been filling our kids with this nonsense. We should tell them the truth. Girls can’t do everything boys do and boys can’t do everything girls do. Well I want to. Okay.
So we shouldn’t be surprised. We are surprised. You know one of the challenges we have is when we are given an advanced notice of something that’s unpleasant, we tend to ignore it. Jesus told the disciples many times what was going to happen to him on that final trip to Jerusalem. And yet when the events began to unfold, they completely deconstructed, right? And we’ve been told it’s a pretty clear language what is ahead of us. And as it begins to happen, it’s disconcerting and we almost lose our balance. One of the things we’re told is the deceivers and deception will increase. That the number of people attempting to deceive us will grow and the number of people, the percentage of the population that will be deceived will grow. So deceivers and deception are going to escalate. And we still get torqued up.
Well they’re not being honest. Well who would have thought of that? Micah chapter 2, verse 11, I like this prophecy. I thought it was appropriate. «If a liar and a deceiver comes and says, 'I’ll prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer, ' he’d be just the prophet for this people». Come on. I’m shocked. I can’t believe he read it. It’s in the book. And our heart condition isn’t that dramatically different than the people that preceded us a couple of millennia ago. If somebody shows up and tells you the good news, you’d like to hear about your present circumstance, you will stand and applaud. $32 trillion is not that much money. Let’s run the deficit a little further. We don’t wanna be constrained by a biblical definition of marriage. It’s too limiting.
Matthew 24. Jesus, he’s talking about the end of the age. He said, «Watch out that no one deceives you». May I just offer you a suggestion? If Jesus, your Lord and King begins a sentence with, «Watch out». Here’s just a thought. Perhaps we should pay attention to what comes next. I’m not, I grew up in a barn, I’m not overly complicated. My father was an equine veterinary and he treated horses. They were bigger than I was. But occasionally he would need a helper. And if I couldn’t shirk my responsibility off on one of my brothers, I would get to go. And occasionally he would say something like, «Watch out that horse kicks». I discovered something. Oftentimes if he said that that horse would kick. And that’s a very unpleasant circumstance.
So whether I was happy about the assignment I had or not, when he said, «Watch out,» I grew bigger ears. Now I brought that barnyard learning to my theology. And when Jesus says, «Watch out that no one deceives you,» I understand the nature of that means there is a high degree of susceptibility to deception. That the truth will not always be easily discerned. There’ll be competing voices, there’ll be confusing messages. If that weren’t the case, there’s no need to say, «Watch out». «Watch out that no one deceives you for many will come in my name claiming, 'I’m the Messiah.'»
There will be many false Christs. There’ll be many false gospels. There’ll be many other labels of Jesus. And he said something even more startling in the next phrase, «And many will be deceived,» not a few, not the slow group. He said many will be deceived. That warning is repeated in almost the same precise language in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It is a significant warning. So what is a part of the season ahead of us? Deception and deceivers. But if Jesus said, «Watch out,» he will help us. He sent his spirit to be our counselor, our helper, our teacher. We want to learn to recognize his voice. He’s given us his words so we can know his character. How am I doing? I’m out of time. That is so unfortunate.
Well, I’ll close with a bit of good news. Colossians 2:15. It’s the last verse in your outline. We’ll continue this with our next session. But Jesus said, «Having disarmed the powers and authorities,» it said of Jesus that, «Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross». When Jesus was nailed to the cross, hell itself celebrated. They thought they’d won a tremendous victory. They didn’t understand that through the brutal death on the cross, was the great victory that would change the destiny of all humanity. And there’s no challenge we face, there’s no threat before us, there’s no lack with which we’re confronted, there’s no expression of evil that is greater than the triumph of the cross. You know, that’s the truth. And we’re at a point in living out our faith where that notion has to move from the theoretical to the practical part of our existence.
So we’re gonna close with communion. When you came in I believe you received the communion elements. If you dialed us up someplace, probably not so much, I’m gonna give them a minute. If you were in the room and you didn’t get communion, If you raise a hand, the ushers will bring it to you. If you’re at home, go grab a cracker and a cup of water or a cookie and a glass of milk. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but you don’t have to have a piece of bread that’s stamped with a religious symbol. What we wanna do is express our faith in the redemptive work of Jesus. We wanna come to the cross and acknowledge that every challenge that we face today, whether it’s fear or sickness or a broken heart, whatever it may be through the cross, Jesus gave us a victory.
God can bring healing to our bodies and peace to our minds and hope to our future. He’s the author and the completer of our story. And I believe he’s preparing a church, prepared to engage in the spiritual conflict that is before us. That’s not a frightening thing. That’s a commission that is a tremendous expression of confidence in this generation. I hope you don’t think of it in terms of being frayed. Remember what Jesus said? My peace. I’d rather have his piece than any peace that comes from the UN. I far prefer his peace over any peace that a politician would extend to us. But I’m grateful for Godly people who lead. We need more of them. But we need to know the prince of peace.
Now whatever challenges you brought with you to church tonight, let’s bring him to the foot of the cross. I hope by now you, you’ve got your cookies and your milk. I mean it in all seriousness. If there’s sin that you have been excusing or accommodating or participating in. It’s time to repent. If there’s a past, a part of your past, and the devil has just inundated you with guilt and shame. Jesus bore the price so that we can be forgiven and he carried that shame. You don’t have to. If you have a more imminent challenge, physically or emotionally or relationally, the power of God is present to help us. It makes no sense to read about the miracles in the Bible and not believe they’re happening in the 21st century.
So we’re gonna come to the cross as disciples of Jesus. The Lord put this in place. It didn’t start with a religious service. He had the Passover meal with his disciples. And at the end of the meal, he took bread and broke it and said, this bread is my body broken for you as often as you eat this do in remembrance of me. And so now we come as disciples to that table. Let’s receive. Then he took the cup and said, this cup is a new covenant sealed with my blood. As often as you drink it, you proclaim my death until you see me again. Let’s receive together. Why don’t we stand for this prayer? You wanna join hands with somebody. You know, the community matters. One of the lies is that salvation is just an individual thing. It certainly is an individual decision, but it finds expression in community. You don’t have to make a circle around the room. I just don’t want you to be alone. Unless you want to be.
Hallelujah, Father, thank you. Thank you for your great love for us. I thank you that you’ve called us to this most amazing season in history. I thank you for your church. And we most especially thank you Lord Jesus for what you’ve done for us. That you accepted the punishment for our godlessness and rebellion, selfishness that we might receive the blessings due to your perfect obedience. Forgive us of our sins. Forgive us when we have hardened our hearts and stubbornly demanded our own way and ignored what we knew of you. Forgive us tonight. And Lord, we forgive those who have sinned against us. We canceled the debt. We released the anger and the resentment and the bitterness. What some of us even need to forgive you. We’ve been angry at the circumstances in our lives. We have accused you of injustice. I thank you for your great mercy for us. That you have cleansed us and justified us and sanctified us.
I pray for those tonight in our midst with great needs, bring health and healing to their bodies, bring peace to their minds, open doors of opportunity where there seemed to have been none. I thank you, Father, where there has been anxiety and frustration that your peace will come. We praise you for it tonight. We give you glory, that greater is He who is in us than anything that is arrayed against us. I thank you for a triumphant church, a church without spot or wrinkle that the name of Jesus will be exalted in this generation that the Kingdom of God will be extended, that the darkness will be pushed back. We praise you for it and we thank you for it. In Jesus name, amen.
I pray for those tonight in our midst with great needs, bring health and healing to their bodies, bring peace to their minds, open doors of opportunity where there seemed to have been none. I thank you, Father, where there has been anxiety and frustration that your peace will come. We praise you for it tonight. We give you glory, that greater is He who is in us than anything that is arrayed against us. I thank you for a triumphant church, a church without spot or wrinkle that the name of Jesus will be exalted in this generation that the Kingdom of God will be extended, that the darkness will be pushed back. We praise you for it and we thank you for it. In Jesus name, amen.