Allen Jackson - Preparing for Jesus' Return (02/08/2026)
The preacher stresses prayer's power to transform lives, homes, communities, and nations, urging respectful personal friendship with God in prayer and intercession for children. He contrasts Satan's roaring lion (destruction) with the Lion of Judah (worship), warning of end-times intensity, deception, and apostasy. Believers must prepare for Jesus' return through truth, valuing God's kingdom, Scripture engagement, and Holy Spirit reliance to stand firm and receive eternal rewards.
The True Power and Proper Attitude in Prayer
It's been fashionable the last few days to mock prayer, knuckleheads, but prayer changes not only the course of our lives in our homes or a community of faith, but prayer changes the course of nations. And so I hope you're in the habit of praying on a regular basis.
You know, there's a personal prayer life, there's a prayer life that you maintain, and then there's the prayers that you share with others. And you really need to hold them in a bit of different perspectives, because there are people around you that will benefit greatly from your willingness to offer a prayer.
But the real sustaining prayers of your life are the prayers that you pray, where you talk to the Lord and you invite God into the midst of your circumstances. The attitude I hold is that I'm going to talk to my friend. And I don't mean that in a disrespectful way or an overly casual way, because I don't treat the Lord in an overly casual way.
I very much desire to be His friend. I mean, He said He doesn't call us servants, but friends. But, you know, I have friends that mean a great deal to me. But I don't treat them in a disrespectful way because we're friends.
I have a friend who is a very accomplished surgeon that I trust, but I wouldn't burst into an operating suite where he was working and say, hey, how you doing? I have a friend who's a championship barbecue chef, but I wouldn't call him in the afternoon and say, I need you to cook for 300 people tonight.
Because it's an expression of disrespect. And sometimes I think we have equated the invitation to be close to the Lord, and we've turned it into something. To be candid, I think, is very disrespectful.
The Lord deserves the highest respect from us. And the fact that He calls us friends should not diminish that. And in our rush towards a more casual culture, I think sometimes we lose some things in that.
Inviting God into Every Area of Life
And, but that prayer life that you carry, that your personal prayer life is inviting your friend into the midst of your life. And I hope that there's no aspect of your life where your friend wouldn't be welcome.
You know, real friends walk with you through the breadth of your life. The more compartmentalized, the more casual the acquaintance. And if your life is compartmentalized and you don't invite the Lord into the breadth of it, recognize it's a very casual acquaintance.
So prayer, where I started all of that, was praying for the children and the students. As a part of that dialogue, that prayer life that I trust you are cultivating, you want to pray for them on a regular basis.
Some have wonderful homes and outstanding parents, and some do not. And you can be the voice that makes a difference for those who do not. Amen. Isn't that exciting?
People say to me, you know, if I just want a ministry, or I want to... You can start with that. When you accept to become an intercessor for all the children within 100 miles of your home. I mean, there's not a shortage of opportunities, there's a shortage of intent.
So rather than talk about it, let's begin to do it. And just see what God will do. Amen.
Offertory Prayer: Relinquish Burdens and Receive Blessings
So for our offertory prayer tonight, I want to pray for you. I want to pray with you. So often we pray for places across our community, our nation, the world. And it's appropriate, but I'm very conscious that we come into this place with needs in our lives.
And we did it through the weekend, and I want to continue it into this service. But I shared on Sunday, I learned it as a Quakers prayer. I don't know if the Quakers had anything to do with it. It's how I learned it. So I'll keep giving them the credit.
But there is a prayer... Some people don't want to raise their hands at church. Until they get saved, I'll keep finding accommodations. It's a biblical notion, it really is.
But nonetheless, the Quaker prayer is you start with your palms down to relinquish to the Lord those things you want to give Him. Anxieties, fears, threats, diagnosis, whatever you need to offload. Maybe you need to repent. Maybe you need forgiveness.
Whatever that may be, we're going to give that to the Lord. And then we'll turn our palms up to receive what God has for us, His provision, His peace, His hope, His goodness.
And the best way I know to receive from the Lord is by saying thank you. So when we turn our palms up, I'm going to ask you to use your words and just begin to thank the Lord for His blessings in your life.
Everybody conscious of something the Lord has blessed you with? We've got a church where we can worship. We have people we can worship with. We have Bibles. We have the freedom to come and go. We have food and shelter and transportation. We have a lot of blessings.
And if you'll do that, what happens when you turn your attention from the challenges of your life to the goodness of God, it puts you in a position where you're far more likely, it's much easier to receive from Him.
You know, when you're anxious or angry or resentful or bitter, you know, mad at God because He hadn't done His job yet or whatever it may be, it's increasingly difficult to receive from the Lord.
But one of the best ways to nullify Satan and his attacks, which typically begin in your mind, is by giving thanks to the Lord. And the more intense the attack, the louder I'll get with my thank yous, which sometimes means I have to go start a diesel tractor because I need enough noise to drown out the fact that I'm about to start shouting at the Lord how grateful I am for what He's doing for me.
Okay? So we're not going to shout tonight, but we're going to give the Lord thanks. And you can join us at home with this. You can do the same thing. Okay?
So let's all stand together. Do you know what you're thankful for? Do you know what you're going to relinquish to the Lord? It may be concern you're caring for somebody else. It'll be as diverse as we are people, but it doesn't make it any less real.
Engaging with the Lord, giving thanks to Him, receiving from Him, is a more intentional process than it is an accident. Most of us would shrug our shoulders and go, yeah, I'd be happy if God did something.
But those things don't typically happen in a vacuum. They do from time to time. God and His mercy will do that. But the pattern of a discipled life is the discipline of presenting yourself to the Lord.
And that suggests that that you learn to relinquish and to receive. So let's practice together. Can we do that? All right, let's pray.
Father, I thank you for your people. I thank you for the honor of being together. And Lord, we're in a church for a worship service. Lord, our lives are still crowded, crowded with challenges and threats and things that intimidate and needs and fears and obstacles and our own responses to life, Lord, that often are not the most appropriate or angry or resentful or impatient or filled with envy or jealousy or hatred.
Lord, we want to pause in your presence tonight to acknowledge those things and to lay them at your feet. Forgive us. Forgive us when we've been distracted, forgive us. We've been distant, forgive us when we've been unforgiving, forgive us we've been more filled with fear than we have trust in you.
Whatever it may be, I thank you that you are well able tonight, and we lay it at your feet. We lay those burdens down whatever we carried into this place, weariness, despair, Heaviness. We want to lay it at the foot of the cross.
And, Lord, as we do that, we want to turn our hearts and our hands to you to receive what you have for us. Your provision, your abundance, your strength, your hope. Lord, you're the author and the completer of our stories. You're writing good endings for our lives and good things for us.
And we praise you for it tonight. That greater is the spirit that is within us than any spirit that may be arrayed against us. We praise you for it tonight. We give you thanks. We give you glory and honor and praise and thanks for your goodness to us, for the strength in our bodies and the peace in our minds and your provision in our lives.
You have blessed us, and we praise you for it. We give you the glory and the honor tonight that you are victorious, that Christ in us is triumphant over every attack of the enemy. I thank you for that. I thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Can you give the Lord a hand?
I want you to do something with me, if you will. You're a little spread out, so you have to take a few steps on this one. Find three people that didn't come to church with you in your car and tell them, God is moving in the earth. Can you do that? Amen, amen. Amen.
Two Lions Representing Two Kingdoms
But you should have received an outline when you came in. Amen. If you're on campus. If you're not here on campus with us, you can download those same outlines from the websites or the apps. I believe they're of assistance. They'll have the scriptures we're going to use.
We've been doing a study on lions and lambs. There's two principal presentations in the New Testament of lions, very different, very different realms of authority, very different kingdoms, very different characteristics, but very distinct presentations.
Peter reminds us to be sober, to be alert, and to be vigilant because our adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he can devour. And the assignment there is to resist him, standing firm in the faith, remembering that our brothers and sisters throughout the earth are undergoing the same, similar sufferings to the ones that we face, that we're not special, that our pain is not unique to us.
So we're welcome to the imagination that Satan has a kingdom, and that his objective of his kingdom is your destruction, to destroy the purposes of God, and at the heart of that is to destroy the object of God's affection, which is humanity.
The alternative to that is in Revelation 5, John, in his vision of the throne room of heaven, is told that there's a scroll that has the story of the unfolding of the end of the age. And there's no one worthy to open the scroll, and John begins to weep, and one of the elders says, no, there's one who's worthy, and he's the lion of the tribe of Judah.
And at the revelation of Jesus as the lion of the tribe of Judah, all those present begin to worship him. So there's two very different reactions to these two lions.
We're counseled when we recognize that we have been challenged by the roars of this satanic kingdom, that we're to resist it. Not hide from it, not deny it, not ignore it, we're to resist it, standing firm in the faith.
But when we're confronted with the lion of the tribe of Judah, the response we're coached towards is to worship. And what I have been suggesting to you is that you are aligning your life on a regular basis with one of those two lions.
There's no third option. It's a very important principle in the decisions you make and how you use your voice and what you support and what you don't, what you're resisting.
Avoiding Skepticism Toward God and Accommodation Toward Evil
So often we resist God. In fact, it's surprising to me the frequency with which we resist God and we capitulate to evil. We tend to bring our skeptical selves to the discussions of scripture and our skeptical selves to discussions of God's power and our skeptical selves to discussions of things that are related to our faith.
Because somehow we think that reflects maybe a heightened intellectualism or a heightened sense of education. I don't, I don't understand, but we, we are very skeptical.
And yet when it comes to the things of the world, the secular culture, we tend to be very accommodating. We want to be understanding, we want to be bridge builders, we don't want to be perceived as being judgy or critical, and yet we bring almost the opposite attitude to that, to the things of God.
I don't think it's helpful. I think we're aligning ourselves with the wrong spirit. I don't want us to check our brains at the door at church, but I think we need to determine that we're going to be cooperative with the spirit of God.
So we're aligned with either the lion of Judah, or we're aligned with the roar of the satanic kingdom.
The Coming Intensity as the Age Ends
And in this session, I want to talk to you about preparing for Jesus' return, because there's some characteristics of those two kingdoms. Satan is referred to as the prince of the power of the air and the ruler of this present age.
And what the New Testament and the Bible clearly tells us is that this present age will come to a conclusion. It's not permanent. It's not eternal. It has an end date. It's linear.
And Satan understands that, and as we approach the end of the age, he will respond with an intensity and a ferocity unlike anything the world has ever known before.
We should... this isn't difficult to us. If you like athletics at all, the end of a competition, whether it's the end of a ball game or the end of a tennis match, there's an intensity.
You know, the last two minutes of a football game takes an hour and a half. And teams that seem rather inept and unable through much of a game, when they come to that last two minutes, all of a sudden seem to find a way to accomplish things they couldn't accomplish previously.
Well, as we approach the end of this age, Satan is going to bring an intensity to his purposes in that, and his efforts that will change the nature of existence on planet Earth.
The Bible gives us quite a bit of information about that. We're going to look at a bit of it. The alternative to that is the line of the tribe of Judah. Jesus is coming with a whole new presentation, with a new heaven and a new earth, with a new set of ground rules.
There'll be no more crying or pain or mourning or tears for the old order of things will have passed away.
So when I say to you You're aligning yourself with one of those kingdoms or the other. You're aligning yourself with something that's temporary, and is going to pass away. Or, you're aligning yourself with something that's eternal, and has a remarkable reward to it.
And, the great temptation. And we all face it, because the messaging that comes to us is exponentially weighted on the side of the temporary. That's what you would expect a secular culture to do, and they live up to the billing.
And then you add into that the temptations or the fuel that comes from our own carnal, earthly, Adamic nature. And if you compound that with the voices of the demonic and the spiritual forces of darkness and wickedness in the heavenly places, it's a pretty daunting set of things that we're asked to overcome.
That's why we need the help of the Holy Spirit. The same power that brought Jesus out of the grave is alive and at work in you and me. We're not left alone. Jesus said, I won't leave you as orphans. I will send you a helper.
Rapid Cultural and Technological Changes Today
You know, we're living in a time of tremendous change, just unimagined change. It's coming so rapidly and in such a magnitude. There's a whole lot more than climate change taking place. There are things melting that are far more consequential than the polar ice caps. And they're actually adding ice. I know, it's inconvenient.
So now it's not climate. It's not global warming. It's just climate change. It's a very suitable narrative to distract you from the things that they're really seeking to change. And they've been very, very effective with that, largely because the church has been asleep.
You know, there's a lot of positive things happening too. I don't mean to approach it with just a negative. We're not yet 20 years on the other side of the introduction of the iPhone. Think of that. In less than 20 years, we've all become almost completely absorbed in our dependence upon that little portable computer you carry around.
We've all become almost totally dependent upon 24-7 connectivity. You expect to be able to reach anyone, anywhere, at any time. And if they're not available, something must be wrong.
I won't call them the good old days. Remember the old days when you had, like, landlines? And you had to be physically present in the room to even take a call? Oh, it sounds peaceful. Right?
You'd get in your vehicle without feeling like you were the Secretary of State and you had to maintain a constant stream of communication with multiple people around the globe? Lord, we're important.
So much has changed. Well, I want to start with Jesus' return to earth and some things that we can say about that.
Excitement and Preparation for Christ's Return
Because I think the more excited you are about that, the more likely you will be to prepare. If you're not preparing, real candidly, you're not too excited about it.
If you're living presumptively, you think, oh, I did my God business. I said the prayer. I accepted the Lord. I got baptized. I'm good to go. I got my ticket punched.
But you're not living with any sense of anticipation or preparation or investment in the return of the Lord, then I question the authenticity of the experience to begin with.
Revelation chapter 22, there's a promise and a reward in this passage. It's very near the end of the book. Jesus said, Behold, I'm coming soon. My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he's done.
I meet Christians all the time, and they go, well, you know, Pastor, I don't serve the Lord for any reward. In fact, we've been really offended lately at a president who would make some casual comment about thinking there was value attached to his efforts.
Right? He's not a theologian. His theological vocabulary is somewhat lacking. But I would be a very ineffective developer in New York City. So I don't look to President Trump to inform my theological position, but I am somewhat intrigued that he carries a notion that his efforts might have a reward in heaven.
And rather than try to beat him up for his theology, I'm very grateful that he's concerned that his behaviors in heaven have some connection. And I think much of the contemporary church would be strengthened if they imagined that their daily behaviors would have some impact on their eternity.
Not to earn their way to heaven, but have an impact on what their eternity might look like. Because we've adopted all of these really passive attitudes that are not biblical.
Well, you know, I just want to be sure I get there. It doesn't matter to me, Pastor. I'll just be content with whatever crumbs. Well, you don't live like that now. I don't want to be a crummy Christian. Do you?
I want to give the Lord my best, as if the outcome matters, as if he were paying attention. We've got enough crummy Christians. You don't want to live your life crummy.
It doesn't matter what I eat. I'll just eat any crumb, anything I can find. In fact, I usually just go to restaurants and eat what people leave on the table. It's just okay with me. It's nourishment. I trust the Lord to keep me healthy.
No, we don't live like that. We're insincere. Behold, I'm coming soon. My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he's done.
To what he's done. I know we can morph that and say, well, he's talking about whether you're born again or not. And it could include that. But I believe the Spirit of God has the ability to speak with clarity, and he didn't limit it to that.
He said, I'm the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.
He's describing a whole new existence. A whole new way of being. Something that's so much better than what we currently know, it's almost impossible to imagine.
Outside, those that don't go into the city, there's an existence outside the purposes of God. These two kingdoms that you align yourself with have consequences for all eternity.
It's very important, because the decisions aren't always easy. You know, Jesus wouldn't have taught us to pray, leave me not into temptation, if temptation wasn't a real thing. Jesus faced temptation himself.
He understood how the magnitude it was, how effective it's been throughout the centuries. And when he taught us to pray, one of the things he taught us to pray was, leave me tied into temptation, but deliver me from evil.
So the reason for that is temptation has a consequence. Evil has a consequence. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
Well, that feels like a very relevant set of things. We live in an age of exploding deception.
Facing Judgment and Eternal Rewards
I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I'm the root and the offspring of David and the bright morning star.
Jesus said, I sent an angel to give you this message for my people. In order to get the message, you've got to be a part of the people. That's serious stuff.
Jesus' friend, this whole notion, it changes the dialogue. In 2 Peter, he addresses this. This was a consistent point of discussion for the church of the New Testament. This end of the age, the return of the Lord.
They had spent time with the Lord, and they were very interested in spending time with him again. And Peter picks it up in 2 Peter, chapter 3.
He said, first of all, of primary importance, you must understand that in the last days, scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.
People who don't want to participate with the kingdom of God. Who won't align themselves with the lion of the tribe of Judah. And what will their response be to those who choose to? They're going to scoff, they're going to make fun, they're going to ridicule, they're going to bully.
Gee, we couldn't imagine that happening. Nobody would say that prayer was useless and I don't want to hear about it anymore. They will say, where is this coming, he promised. Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.
But they deliberately forget that long ago, by God's word, the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. And by these waters, the world of that time was destroyed.
By the same word, the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
If you align yourself with the wrong kingdom, you'll face the judgment of God. Not because God is mean-spirited because you chose not to be a part of his kingdom. You can choose to live in his kingdom or you can choose not to. But the consequences are not the same.
We don't all get participation trophies. That's not harsh, that's truth. You can choose to eat whatever you want, but every diet you choose doesn't have the same physical outcome on your health. That's not mean, that's fact.
It's better to know the facts when you have decisions to make. It's why the sharing of the gospel and the proclamation of the gospel and inviting people into places where the gospel is told is not about manipulation or control.
It's to help people be informed so that they can make decisions to bring the best of God into their lives. You're not a good friend if you don't tell people the truth. You're not a good friend if you work with people and they don't know that you love Jesus.
You're not a good friend if you Bury your faith. You're not a good friend if you stand in places where the Lord is denigrated, or His people are denigrated, or His churches are mocked, and you don't use your voice, because we're robbing them of the opportunity to hear the truth, and therefore they don't have the same opportunity to make a decision.
Now God will send them another voice. God is just, but you and I will forfeit something, and there's a consequence when we deny our faith in those passive ways.
You see, to know the truth and not tell it is to participate in a lie. To know the truth and to hide it, to keep it from coming forward, to withhold a part of the story in order to shape a narrative to your favor, is to participate in deception.
And we forfeit the blessings of God in an age of rampant deception. We've got to adjust our attitude, and there's this... Peter is cautioning us that there's judgment ahead of us, and that scoffers will come, and the primary excuse they're going to use is, nothing ever changes.
Nothing ever changes. Oh, it does. Peter reminds them of Noah's day. When it started to change, it was too late for them to reach a different outcome.
Then Peter reminds us that there's something new coming. There's a whole new earth. A whole new creation is going to be revisited. Imagine that. The creative power of God being unleashed again on planet earth.
We weren't here for the first garden, but we're going to be here for a new Jerusalem, for a new heaven and a new earth. I don't know about you. That's pretty exciting to me.
You know, we've got a building project underway. That's always fun and exciting. New spaces and the topography of the campus gets adjusted and all the things that come with that. That's always fun.
But imagine a new heaven and a new earth. Well, I'm just a Christian. No! I'm a citizen of something.
2 Peter 3, verse 13, in keeping with this promise, we're looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.
Clearly, the present version is not filled with righteousness. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless, and at peace with Him.
What are we coached to do? To make every effort. Leave no stone unturned. Nothing half-hearted. Not in a lackadaisical way. With focused effort. The greatest effort of your life.
Make every effort to be found spotless, blameless, and at peace with Him. I don't find that to be the trajectory of contemporary Christendom, at least in American evangelicalism.
We're so focused on our decision that we don't imagine anything that would require every effort to be blameless before the Lord. We think we can, in a rather sloppy, casual way, come say, oh, I'm kind of sorry. Maybe you ought to kind of forgive me. Whoops.
That's not what Peter's describing. Romans chapter 8 and verse 20. The creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it.
In hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay. And brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
There's something ahead of us. We're going to be set free from the decay of this present world order. Our world, as a matter of physics, our world is unwinding. Energy moves from a state of order to disorder.
But there's a new age coming that's not subject to decay. You'll get a new earth suit that's not subject to decay. Y'all sit there and be calm if you want to. I may have me a little praise party.
Because my current version is a blessing from the Lord. But Paul describes it as a glorious freedom that's going to be given to the children of God. Freed from what? Freed from decay.
There's something new coming. You need to think about it. You need to meditate on it. You need to be excited about it.
Isaiah 11 gives us a prophetic picture of it. But with righteousness he will judge the needy. And with justice he'll give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He'll strike the earth with the rod of his mouth. And the breath of his lips he'll slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt. And faithfulness the sash around his waist.
The wolf will live with the lamb. And the leopard will lie down with the goat. And the calf and the lion and the yearling together. And a little child will lead them.
There's going to be a whole new order to the new creation. It'll be different than what we know. The cow will feed with the bear. And their young will lie down together.
And the lion will eat straw like an ox, and the infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child will put his hand into the viper's nest.
I don't believe that's just metaphorical language or poetical words or hyperbole. I believe it's a description of a totally new order of existence. It's exciting to me.
We're going to have animals. I like that. I like critters. I mean, some of them I don't like so much now because they have some negative consequences. But it doesn't say it, but apparently the skunk won't stink. That's my interpretation. I don't know.
I'm thinking if you can play at the viper's nest, maybe the skunks will make peace too. If you've never been sprayed, you can't appreciate that fully.
Jesus taught us to pray for this outcome when he taught us to pray, Lord, let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
He taught us to pray that way. Look at 2 Corinthians 5, 7. It says, we live by faith, not by sight.
Do we really? I mean, it's a reminder of the objective. We are confident, I say, and we would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
There's a country song, and everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go right now. And I think that lyric would pretty much carry the day in most of our places, but Paul says the opposite.
He said, we would prefer to be away from the body and to be at home with the Lord. You know, this doesn't define you right now. How well you ornament it or paint it or preserve it.
The Bible talks about having the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. A beauty that couldn't fade, that can't be diminished.
We should pursue that. We should value that and care about that and invest in that and understand what to do to strengthen that.
Think of the billions of dollars we spend on trying to preserve this current thing that is unwinding. I'm not opposed to that, but how about even a greater investment in something that won't fade?
So we make it our goal to please Him, whether we're at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
Did you know there's a reward for honoring God? See, we will all face judgment. The Bible says it's appointed to every person, two things, to die and to face judgment.
For the believer, we don't face the judgment of heaven or hell, but we face a judgment for what we have done in the body. And it's not the point of this lesson, so I'm going to try to stay out of that somewhat.
But the Bible describes it. It says that when we face that judgment, if we've invested our life in wood, hay and stubble, things that can be accumulated in great volume, but they have very little worth, it'll be consumed by the fire of God's judgment in a moment.
And we will make it through His judgment, but we will make it with nothing. Or we can have invested in gold and silver and precious stones, much smaller in quantity, but of great value.
And they will stand the test of God's judgment. So that's being referenced here in Corinthians, that we're going to receive a reward for the things that we've done while in the body.
And there's another judgment for people who aren't Christ followers. That's a judgment of destiny. But for the Christ follower.
And I don't think we talk about this enough. I've been invited to small groups where they were having great debates, and there was... it was like great taste, less filling. I mean, they were really divided and very vocal.
About there's no rewards. We all get the same thing. Folks, God's not a socialist. I mean, you really... you just can't support that from your Bible.
We don't... we're all different. We're created differently. Some of us can sing. Some of us not so much. You know, some of us are thin with a metabolism like a furnace, and some of us are fluffy.
We have some of us like math and some of us like colors. We're different. But with whatever set of gifts God's given you, we have the opportunity to serve the Lord.
And He said He's going to reward us. I'm just simple enough to believe He told us the truth. I mean, I have tried in a halting way, but it's still very much my intent to live in such a way that it's pleasing to the Lord.
I want His best.
Signs of the End of the Age from Matthew 24
So there's some things we can look for. as we transition between this kingdom and the next.
We were given a lot of information of what will happen as we approach the end of the age. And I'm just giving you a sample. It's like an hors d'oeuvre, honestly.
But I want to think about the end of the age as a transitional season. We're beginning a transitional season here between summer and fall.
And if you're paying much attention at all, you recognize things are beginning to change. The temperature changes a little bit. The summer vegetables that have been growing with great enthusiasm. aren't bearing nearly as much as they were a few weeks ago.
The leaves on the trees. If we don't get some rain, they're all going to fall. But if we get a little rain, some will turn colors. But there's clearly a change of season.
And there will be a change of season as we approach the end of the age. It's not going to be just like it's always been.
Now, it takes some real discernment to know whether the change of season is the end of the age or the end of an empire. Or it's just poor leadership decisions by those in authority over us.
I think if you had lived in London during World War II, when London was being bombed into oblivion, it would have been very easy to think it was the end of the age.
I think if you were Jewish in Europe in World War II, it would have been very easy to think it was the end of the age. I think if you lived in Rwanda in the 90s, when a million people were murdered in about a 90-day window, it would have been very easy to think it was the end of the age.
I think if you're in Ukraine these days, And you've seen your homes and your apartments and your schools and your churches bombed into oblivion. It would be easy to think it's the end of the age.
So it takes some true wisdom and some biblical knowledge and some awareness of the Spirit of God to know if we're approaching the end of the age or we're just walking through a tremendous transition in our own unique circumstances.
And the phrase that I use frequently is, whether it's really the last days or not, I can't say with absolute certainty, but I can tell you these are our last days.
And you may be young enough you can't imagine that yet. Just trust me. And you want to live as if it were the end of the age.
So we're given a number of passages. I brought you one that has a rather succinct and yet extensive set of criteria for the end of the age. It's Matthew 24, Jesus said, watch out that no one deceives you.
For many will come in my name, claiming I'm the Christ, and will deceive many. That would be a characteristic that you should be aware of. There will be many deceived. Widespread deception as we approach the end of the age.
Deception is when you believe something to be true that is not true. And I would have to say that's more rampant than I've ever seen in my lifetime.
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. But see to it that you're not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.
So wars, the escalation of conflict, and even rumors of additional conflict. We have presidential elections these days, and one of the primary talking points is this person will be the end of democracy. This person is elected. The world will deteriorate into nothing but war.
Right? If you think about what we hear and see, compared to what Jesus said, the parallels are really remarkable.
Verse 7, nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. That there's going to be conflict both nationally and ethnically. One of those words is ethnos, from which we get the word ethnic.
So it's not just conflict between nation states, there's going to be heightened ethnic conflict. We see that. In spite of all the conversations about tolerance and diversity.
Then Jesus went on to say there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.
When you see all these things beginning to happen, just understand you've just gone into labor. Someone today, his wife was going to deliver. They were here on campus. They left at 1 o'clock, and 40 minutes later we got a text. The baby had arrived.
Papa barely got there. The beginning of birth pains. Not every delivery comes that quickly or easily.
Then you'll be handed over to be persecuted, verse 9, and put to death. And you'll be hated by all nations because of me.
At that time, many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other. And many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.
Turning away from the faith, the technical word for that is apostasy. It's not that you don't know the truth. You choose not to cooperate with it.
And most of us don't say, I reject Christianity. Most apostasy is a perversion of the truth. We no longer believe the Bible to be authoritative.
It's very fashionable today, even amongst buildings where the label of the sign says church. To no longer hold the Bible as a rule of faith and practice.
We no longer define marriage in a biblical way. We no longer define human sexuality according to the biblical categories of moral and immoral. We refuse to recognize lawlessness.
We have repudiated, rejected the standards of scripture. And no matter what the sign says, or what the music sounds like, or how clerical or ecclesiastical the architecture or the clothing, it's apostasy.
We have Christian universities. that have institutionalized sexual immorality and perversion. And they still wear the label Christian, and they still collect dollars and donations because they're a Christian school.
But they're not teaching Christian principles. Spoiler alert, that will increase. It will take more discernment, more determination, more effort.
Jesus told us about it. You can plant tomatoes now in Tennessee, but it'll be much more difficult to get a tomato crop than it would be if you'd planted the tomatoes in the beginning of May.
The season has changed. And we can lament it. We can be agitated by it. We can rage against it. Or we can recognize what Jesus told us, and we can invest the effort in finding the authentic.
That would be my suggestion. Many will turn away from the faith and betray and hate each other. Think about the characteristics of this season.
The word many has been used multiple times. Many will be deceived. Many will turn away from the faith. Many will betray and hate each other.
Look at the next phrase. Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. The trend going with the roar of the satanic kingdom is significant.
Prophets aren't just biblical characters that you think of with a leather belt and a rough clothing like Elijah. Prophets, biblically, are the people that are trusted to tell the truth to the people.
It's a bit of an expanded definition, but I don't believe it lacks integrity. When I think of current culture, I don't think just in terms of religious voices, but the voices that we expect to tell us the truth.
Remember, Jesus said deception would be widespread and many would be deceived. One of the questions that I'm asked most often is, what source do you trust for the truth?
Because we all have come to understand that it's in short supply. There is a multiplication of false prophets. It's true within the church, but it's true in the broader culture as well.
Because of the increase of the wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. But then we're given an action step. Verse 13, he who stands firm to the end will be saved.
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come.
So you get all these characteristics of the deterioration of human character and civilization and culture, but then we're given the assignment of the people of God.
Those who don't reject their faith, those who aren't deceived, those who don't capitulate, what are they going to be doing? They'll be standing firm.
What did Peter say we were supposed to do with regard to the roaring lion? Resist him. Standing firm in your faith.
Peter knew something about this. He stood against an evil empire. Before George Lucas made a movie about one.
And now Jesus, he took that coaching from Jesus. He's just giving it back to us at the end of his own life, at the end of his own life experience.
But what's recorded to us in the gospels is Jesus saying to his close friends, he's saying that we'll have to stand firm to the end. to realize that salvation.
But the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world. So what are we busy with taking the good news of the kingdom into every place God gives us entree?
Every classroom, every business, every neighborhood, wherever we go. Everybody won't like it. In fact, you're going to be hated broadly, Jesus told us.
And they'll begin to attach labels to you that cause the hatred to escalate so that you'll be mistreated.
The easiest way to understand that hatred that comes at the end of the age is to look at the hatred right now attached to the Jewish people. Same spirit.
The hatred for Israel and the Jewish people is not abstract and arbitrary. The Jewish people are hated for reasons. They're murdering children in Gaza. Never mind the evidence is not there.
Never mind the picture that the New York Times published was of a child with a disease, not a child that was famished from poor nutrition. The Israelis were responsible for Jeffrey Epstein and his horrific, immoral enterprises.
Never mind the evidence hasn't been produced. It was the Israelis' Mossad, their secret services, that had launched an initiative to blackmail global leaders.
They hate the Jewish people for reasons. And when it's time for them that hatred to be directed at you, they'll attach reasons to that. There'll be perverted reasons. There'll be distorted reasons. They'll be based with a bit of truth, heavily sprinkled with deception.
So where do we look for help? Remember the point. We want to align ourselves with the Lion of Judah.
Reliance on the Holy Spirit and Peace in Troubled Times
John 14, Jesus gave us some coaching. He said, These things I've spoken to you while I'm abiding with you, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to you remembrance all that I said.
Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. So who's our helper? The Holy Spirit.
We need more than language about the Holy Spirit. We need more than some perfunctory nod. Yeah, I know who the Holy Spirit is.
We better understand every aspect of presentation we can from the Scripture about how we can engage with the Spirit of God. God, He's our helper. He's our helper.
You want to be more familiar with Him than any other resource available to you. And then Jesus said, My peace I give you. It's not the peace that the world has.
Don't let your hearts be troubled. That fascinates me. Jesus said, We don't have to have troubled hearts.
I have to take that by faith because I look at the world sometimes and it's troubling to me. I grieve for what I see happening. For the destruction that's unleashed on our young people.
For the darkness that's expressed from the human hearts. The callousness with which we we bring destruction to one another.
But Jesus said, We don't have to be troubled. That we can have His peace. We can have His peace. Not in absence of conflict. But that calm assurance that no matter what we face, God is with us. Amen.
That's a wonderful promise. That's a wonderful promise.
You know, the book of Revelation begins. It's not in your notes. But it's important, I think. John is a prisoner. He's near the end of his life.
John's the one who wrote Revelation. He's given this revelation. The book of Revelation opens and says, You know, I've got a message I need to deliver.
How will we do this? And the answer comes, Send your angel to my friend John. Wouldn't you love to be trusted by the Lord enough?
That if he had a message, he would say, You could send it to my friend. That fascinates me. Wouldn't you like the Lord to trust you that way?
But the message it's given, John says of himself, On the Lord's day, I was in the Spirit.
On the Lord's day, I was in the Spirit. I'm not opposed to any of the things I'm about to rattle off, but they tend to reflect more what we're given to on a Sabbath.
I was at the lake. I was at a ball game. I was getting my to-do list done. Again, I don't think those things are inherently evil, but you need to have regularly built into your life a time when you can be in the presence of the Lord.
On the Lord's day, I was in the Spirit, and I heard a voice. And I turned around, and I saw my friend. And I fell at his feet like I was dead.
And he put his hand on me, and he said, I'm the living one. I was alive, and I was dead, and I'm alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and hell.
We want to learn to spend time in the presence of the Lord.
Three Survival Essentials for the Last Days
Now, I'll give you three. really quick. survival essentials. Three minutes. Listen fast.
What are we going to need to flourish through this season to maintain our alignment with the Lion of Judah? I think Proverbs 28, 23, I'm sorry, is a key. Buy the truth and don't sell it.
Get wisdom, discipline, and understanding. How do you maintain the truth? You need wisdom, discipline, and understanding.
Make a commitment to the truth in your life. Make it a personal objective.
Secondly, Matthew 13, Jesus was talking. He said, The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again and he sold everything he had to buy that field.
Attach great value to the things of God. Attach great value to the things of God. You spend your time and your money on the things you value.
It's not complicated. It's just reality. And I don't say that to shame you or to bring any. negative emotion.
I say it so that you can in an increasing way give expression to the value you hold to the kingdom of God.
And the third component, remember these are survival essentials. I don't think you survive without them. Hebrews 4. 12, The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.
I think unless you're taking the word of God on a regular basis and putting it in your heart, you've got zero chance of surviving deception. I truly do.
And it isn't that we're so brilliant that we know the pronunciations of every name or how to spell Nebuchadnezzar. or that we understand every prophetic passage and how it fits in perfect synchroneity with all the other.
I don't believe that. I think there is something that God respects when we bring the discipline to present ourselves before the word of God with the intent of understanding.
I think God meets us in those places and gives us the insight we need to navigate what is before us.
I have lived it out over and over and over again and in spite of what I'm not and in spite of my weaknesses and my shortcomings and the abilities that I may lack, God has consistently been faithful to provide the direction I need if I will take that time to submit to the authority of his word.
So if you ask me for some survival essentials, I would tell you to value the truth, attach great value to the things of God and spend time with his word.
And then I trust the spirit of God. God is moving in the earth, folks. The Lion of Judah is headed back. New heaven, new earth, new kingdom, new set of rules.
This present age is fading away and the ruler of this present age is agitated. because he knows he's defeated. He knows he's defeated.
I brought you a prayer. If you'll stand with me, we'll read it together. You ready?
Heavenly Father, I rejoice that my future rests in your watchful care. Just as you care for the flowers of the field, you have a plan and a purpose for my life.
Holy Spirit, Grant me the awareness to invest myself in the kingdom of my Lord. I cast all of my anxiety upon you.
Your grace and mercy surround me. Help me to order my steps that I may be pleasing in your sight. In Jesus' name, amen.