- The end times.
What are the signs of the end times?
In Matthew 24:3 disciples asked Jesus,
"Tell us, when will these things be?
And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"
When Jesus talked about destruction of Jerusalem and the temple
they wanted to know, when will the destruction of Jerusalem happen?
When will be the sign of His coming and the signs of the end times?
These are the three main questions that are discussed in Matthew 24.
Now, it's important as we are going to dive into this video
it's important to understand that these topics are interwoven
and sometimes they are difficult to determine which event is being described.
The difficulty is especially resolved when we understand that
a lot of times the prophecy is able of being both near and remote fulfillment.
Jesus uses the tragic events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem
in A.D. 70 as a picture of the conditions that will begin to accelerate
preceding His return.
So these are the few things I want us to keep in mind:
The end times started with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
In fact, we see in Acts 2:16-17, "And this was spoken by prophet Joel:
'It shall come to pass in the last days, says God,
I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;"
I want you to notice the emphasis, in the last days.
So Peter is making a reference to the prophesy by Joel
that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit will happen in the last days
and this happened over 2,000 years ago.
So the last days, the end times, they already started.
They started with Jesus' time, with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
But things have gotten very very close to the last of the last days,
the end of the end times.
Let's look at the ten signs that we see mentioned by the Lord Jesus Christ
concerning the end times.
The first sign is the rise of false messiahs and fake religions,
false religions.
In Matthew 24:5 Jesus says, "For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’
and will lead many astray."
You know, we've had over 1,100 leaders in just the last 50 years
to claim to be Christ.
I was recently in Philippines in Davao city and they have their own little Christ
called pastor Apollo who is known all over the world
and claims to have over five million followers
and he claims to be the coming second Christ,
the second coming of Jesus Christ;
along with many messiahs that are around the world right now
walking around and claiming that they are Christ incarnate.
Not only that but Jesus says in Matthew 24:11
He says that many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.
You know, not long after Jesus' ascension, prophet Muhammad rose up.
He claimed that he received a special revelation through an angel
and millions of people follow his teaching.
We know that prophet, not prophet but Joseph smith
also had revelation from an angel
and started a movement called the Mormon church.
And so, there is many movements that started from angels and divine revelations,
new age is leading massive massive revival
of quickening curiosity into spiritual things that has nothing to do with Christianity,
has nothing to do with Scripture and has nothing to do with Christ.
And so in the last days, this is not going to be a resurgence or a revival of atheism.
There's going to be a great spiritual awakening
that is not going to necessarily be an awakening of Christianity
as much as an awakening of just different religions rising up and different movements
and most of them and a lot of them will be deceiving,
and a lot of them will be fake.
And Jesus warned us about that.
The second big sign of the coming of the end of days is the wars in the world.
Matthew 24:6-7 He says, "And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.
"But you are not to be troubled; for all these things must come to pass,
"but the end is not yet.
"For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
And there will be famines,"
History tells us that for every year of peace there are 13 years of war.
Since 1945, in just 48 years, there has been 300 wars.
Not one day has been there without a war.
15 nations, and this is already outdated by many years,
15 nations have nuclear weapons.
And every single day, 10 nuclear bombs are being made somewhere in the world.
The world is approaching world war III.
And the world war III will make all the wars in the world look like nothing
because of so much weapons that are already been developed.
Nuclear weapons, bio-weapons, that are developed today in the world.
You know, I come from Ukraine,
and Ukraine is currently going through war with Russia
where Russia is trying to take a part of their territory.
War destroys nations.
War destroys economy.
It kills people.
War, those who survive war or who win war, are damaged a lot of times.
They are fighting with mental problems and a lot of things
'cause war is really really deadly.
And Jesus says in the last days,
coming closer to the end of the end of times
there is going to be a lot of war that will be taking place.
Sign number three is increase in hunger.
The Scripture says in Matthew 24:7 He says, "There will be famines."
New York Times reported 40,000 deaths occur everyday in the world
due to malnutrition.
So 40,000 deaths happen all around the world due to lack of proper nutrition.
USA Today reports that 90% of all babies born in the next 20 years
will be born in the countries that are least able to feed them.
You know, for those of you who maybe are in a part of the world
where there is abundance of food,
and I live in the United States where our problem is obesity.
Our problem is overeating.
But majority of the world that is not the problem.
The problem is lack of food, lack of proper food
lack of healthy food and clean running water.
Sign number four is earthquakes.
In Matthew 24:7 it says, "There will be famines, pestilences,
and earthquakes in various places."
Historians have calculated that major earthquakes
have increased more than 2,000% since Columbus discovered the new world.
Time Magazine states that there has been more major earthquakes
in the last 20 years than we have seen in the previous 100.
And other statistics says that 800,000 earthquakes take place
or get recorded every year and about 2,200 a day.
Now, just because it's not all over the news, we only hear about the major ones
but there are so many smaller ones that are happening.
The earth is groaning for the revelation of the sons of God.
The earth is groaning for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Sign number five, Jesus says that there will incurable sicknesses and pandemics.
We see that there will be pestilences.
You know, there is so much new strains of cancer, malaria, tuberculosis,
AIDS is 100% fatal, there is no cure for that.
But we just came out and still coming out of a pandemic called COVID 19.
And though a lot of it has been politicized,
and so much stuff that has been even blown out of proportion
but let's face it from the latest statistics that says that
3.82 million people died from COVID 19
and over 176 people were infected with the disease.
I mean, the whole world came to a stop.
The travel, the business, the commerce, everything came to a stop.
The churches were shut down.
And so, that's one of the things that is happening in the last days.
In the midst of our medicines, in the midst of our technological advancements,
we've experienced that already.
And I really believe that we are standing on the edge.
We are at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ
because we are living in the last days and Jesus says there will be pestilence.
We see also the Bible says, number six, is persecution of Christians.
It says Matthew 24:9 that they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you,
and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.
There will be an intense persecution against Christians.
Now, we see that. We've always seen that in other parts of the world.
My parents came from a persecution
where atheists and communists mainly who were atheists, were killing Christians.
In Hitler's Germany, they were wiping out Christians.
They were wiping out Jews, they were wiping out other people,
shutting things out.
At first Hitler was supposedly friendly with Christians
and then afterwards everything changed.
In different parts of the world today; in China, in North Korea,
in different parts of the world where Boko Haram kills Christians like cattle;
in Middle East where Christians are being beheaded,
it's no longer even showing up on the news because it's so common.
In the western world where if you say what the Bible says, you're called hate speech.
You get censored.
Now, it's not the same as persecution but still
there is a hostility towards Christian.
There is a hostility toward people who believe in Jesus.
And that's only going to increase as we are coming closer and closer
to the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Sign number seven is the huge surge of wickedness.
The Bible says in Matthew 24:10 it says,
"And many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another."
There will be a huge hate toward people.
There will be a huge offense.
And if I could describe this generation I would use two words: hate and offense.
They are so easily offended it's unbelievable.
Our generation is educated yet it's so sensitive.
Our generation also is very hate-filled
especially the ones they accuse you of hate speech.
Especially the ones that walk around and fight against racism
as though that's the cure.
You know, anti-racism, that that's going to solve everything.
And they hate the other race that they are telling the race not to be racist
because the solution is not protest, and anti-racism is not the solution.
I know I'm going to offend somebody right now
which is a sign that you are living in the last days if you are offended right now.
The solution is not anti-racism, the solution is love.
The solution is not what we are against, the solution is what we are for.
Sign number eight is the love of many believers will grow cold.
Matthew 24:12 it says, " And because lawlessness will abound,
the love of many will grow cold."
Meaning, as the world is getting darker, the light will shine brighter
but there will be believers, and many of them, who will become complacent,
who will become lukewarm.
And honestly I'm seeing that. I see two things happening at the same time.
I see a huge revival happening at the church
and at the same time I see a huge disappointment
where deliverance is mocked, supernatural is mocked;
where churches are becoming more progressive;
where today there are liberal pastors on Tiktok who will go and say that
all of these things that Christians believe are just simply not true,
that Jesus supported homosexuality,
that Jesus supported progressive Christianity which embraces sin.
And we see that, where denominations that started in holiness and righteousness
are ordaining gay bishops;
where they are allowing these things and they are redefining the Bible,
and they are letting love become God
instead of the Bible teaches us that God is love, completely different.
And the love of believers is growing cold.
The passion for prayer is growing cold in so many places
because of the wickedness, because of the materialism,
the hearts of believers are being weighted down with the cares of life,
deceitfulness of riches, and with all of the worldliness around them.
Number nine, and I'm excited about this one, is the world evangelism.
The Bible says that and this gospel of the Kingdom, Matthew 24:14,
will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations,
and then the end shall come.
It's interesting that the end is not attached to lawlessness,
complacency, wars and famine and pestilence and pandemics;
the end is not attached to famine and so many disasters;
the end is attached to, and this gospel will be preached
and then the end shall come.
Come on somebody!
Drop that emoji in the video 'cause this is good.
So that means the end, guess who determines the end?
We, through the spreading of the gospel.
We, through the spreading of the gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
That's why we are not waiting for Satan to make a move.
Everything is on hold.
All of the other crazy stuff that's happening is waiting for us
to advance the Kingdom of God,
preach the gospel to every nation, every tongue and every creature.
That's why I'm using the social media.
That's why we are using the media today 'cause the world is on internet
the world is connected.
And that's why we are sending missionaries.
That's why we are believing in evangelism and in the missions, why?
Because then the end shall come.
And then sign number ten is Israel in the land.
Now, this is also very debatable.
Some people say that's not what this means,
and I'm just going to take a traditional stand on this verse.
In Matthew 24:32-33 Jesus says, "Now learn this parable from the fig tree:
"When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves,
"you know that summer is near.
"You also, when you see all these things,
know that it is near—at the doors!"
And then verse 34 of chapter 24 it says,
"Now assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away
until all these things take place."
Now, we know that in May 14th 1948, Israel was reborn.
Israel became a nation again.
And we know that many of the prophesies concerning Israel
the whole end of times surrounds around Israel.
The coming of Jesus Christ, the great tribulation, it goes all around Israel.
So, a lot of these things couldn't be fulfilled
until people came back to the land, and that's what happened.
Now the Scripture tells us that this generation by no means will pass
before all these things will take place,
there is so many variations on what that means.
Is it 42 years as a generation as mentioned in Matthew 1:17?
Is generation 70 years or 80 years as mentioned in Psalms 90:10?
Is generation 100 years as mentioned in Genesis 15:12-16?
And I'm going to tell you one thing: I don't know.
We don't know the hour.
We don't know the exact time but we know that Jesus is coming soon.
And we know that we live in the last days.
When the disciples asked Jesus that
is this the time that You are going to restore the kingdom?
Jesus says, really none of your business, boys.
Your business is to advance the kingdom, cast out demons, heal the sick,
make disciples, baptize people, teach people to observe what I taught you.
Your business, is not too many days from now you will receive
the power of the Holy Spirit and go be My witnesses.
So I want to challenge you today, let's not look to the Antichrist.
I want to challenge you today, the end times is not a time
to just spur our curiosity. It's to change our conduct,
to watch and pray as the Lord told us.
The end time, we must understand that everything will be one day destroyed.
This should motivate us to build our life and to build our treasures in heaven.
And remember, the day of the Lord is coming,
and the Lord of that day is coming as well.
And those are going to be glorious days.
He is going to judge the nations.
He's going to finally set things right.
He is going to establish His Kingdom.
This Kingdom is advancing but it's going to be consummated.
It's going to take over the world and we are looking forward to that day.
As Christians, this is a bright future that we have.
And if you are not a Christian, you gotta switch sides.
You gotta jump on this train before it's too late.
You gotta join team Jesus because He has died for you.
He has risen.
And the Scripture says He is coming again.
And so, these are some of the signs of the end times.
We are already living in the end times.
It started 2,000 years ago
and we are standing at the end of the end times.
And the way to speed up the process is to preach the gospel,
be a witness,
be used by the Holy Spirit,
and to look forward to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Drop that in the comment below, what do you think?
Are we living in the last days?
What do you think?
Do you think Jesus will come in your time?
Do you think that you will see Jesus coming in your time?
I know a lot of people are saying that but what do you think?
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and until next time.