Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of understanding the biblical view of the end times as part of a new ministry initiative, the Center of Biblical End Time Studies. He outlines the church's primary callings to build the church and engage in the Great Commission, while also highlighting specific assignments such as fostering intimacy with God and raising messengers to teach on the end times. Bickle notes the growing apathy towards the end times in Western culture compared to the hunger seen in other parts of the world, urging believers to be alert and prepared for the unique challenges and opportunities that will arise as the end times approach. He encourages the congregation to engage with the biblical narrative to avoid being swayed by secular perspectives and to be equipped for the coming harvest of souls.

Well, this morning I want to give a pastoral perspective as to why we're launching this new aggressive ministry initiative, the Center of Biblical End Time Studies, and it's going to be quite a lot of activities involved in that, and whether you are actually directly involved in it or not, I think it's important that you know it exists, and I'm sure there will be critics against it, and there will be people excited about it, and I just want you to know where we are as a spiritual family, why we're doing it, how it affects our local church, and some of the things we're going to be looking at here on Sunday mornings. Paragraph A in the handout here, the primary calling of every ministry is twofold, two primary callings, to build the church and to engage in the Great Commission or to make disciples. No matter what focus the Lord gives your ministry, that's the overarching primary calling of every ministry, and that's the primary calling of this house. But in context to that primary calling, the Lord often gives specific assignments, and we do those specific assignments in context to building the church and engaging in the Great Commission or building disciples. And we have several specific assignments as a spiritual family, as a ministry. First, we have a 24-hour sanctuary or prayer room that's led by singers and musicians, and as you know, it's been going on 18 years by the grace of God, and that's one of our primary, I mean, one of our specific assignments. It's not bigger than the mandate to build the church or to engage in the Great Commission, but it's in context to it. We have a second specific assignment, and that is calling people to intimacy with God. Or we might use the phrase, Jesus is the Bride of Christ, I mean, as the Bridegroom God and the church is the Bride of Christ. Or it's the subject of the first commandment or the subject of the beauty of God, all of those I would put together. Now, every ministry should be calling people to intimacy with God, of course. But in a very focused way, the Lord has told us to have a heightened focus on that subject. The Bride of Christ, the first commandment, the beauty of God, those subjects. Then thirdly, it was a few years later, after Diane and I came here 35 years ago to the Kansas City area from St. Louis, we were in St. Louis seven years, and the Lord spoke about the 24-hour prayer, then the Bride of Christ message. And in each of those, I didn't really appreciate when God first said it. I went, really? Why would I want to do 24-hour prayer with singers and musicians? That's weird, to be honest, I mean, it was weird to me. I remember saying, why, when, where, how, really? You know, years later, 35 years later, I'm really glad we've done it. The Bride of Christ message, Jesus, the Bridegroom God, I go, really, me? I don't think that's for me. But the Lord really emphasized it in a way which I won't tell the story. Each one of these have several kind of divine installments where the Lord emphasized it in a way that was undeniable. Well, the third assignment was the idea of raising up messengers that would speak on these 150 chapters that the primary focus is the end times, the biblical narrative for the end times. That wasn't really what was on my heart either. But the Lord made that really clear, and the other one is serving God's purpose for the nation of Israel. Now I remember when each one of these, I'm just highlighting four, each one of these assignments were given, it's clear to me that each one of them has a stigma related to it. Each one of them has a pushback in the body of Christ, if you've done it. And I have found a very strong pushback on every one of these over the years. And I'm not surprised by that at all, and I'm not dismayed by it, but I just want you to know every one of these have kind of an asterisk on it, like buyer beware, this will cause you trouble if you embrace this. Now I remember when we first came to Kansas City about 35 years ago, my vision was to build a strong local church in the Kansas City area that had a revival spirit, that was, you know, believing for the power of God to break forth, that had anointed worship, godly relationships, godly families. I wasn't really interested in 24-7 worship with musicians and singers, I wasn't interested in the bride of Christ, my goodness, I never thought of that subject, I wasn't interested in the end times. I had my three standard messages I gave in the 70's and the 80's on the end times, you know, about Jesus is returning, that was exciting, there's going to be trouble, the great tribulation, the real antichrist, the millennial kingdom, you know, and that was about it. You know, check, I did the end times. And the Lord came along each one of these and he said, I want a heightened focus, I want you to lock into this, and this whole deal about Israel, I said, Lord I'm not really into Israel. Well, the Lord's answer is, well I am, I'm into Israel, that's very important to me. And so, when I look at the overall diet now of our spiritual family here, when I look at the overall diet, I say, Lord I want to see to it that we're faithful to our primary calling to build a strong church and to engage in the great commission, but I want to be faithful to our specific assignments. And you can't do all of them in every setting, that's for sure, and so we have to break it up, you know, and spread it out, and different people are attracted to various areas, and the Lord, you know, touches their heart in a special way. And so, what the breakdown, the way I see it, at this point in time, is on Sunday mornings, our primary, our focus is on our primary calling. The building of the church, making disciples, the great commission, you know, the subject of godly families, kingdom relationships, walking in freedom, Sermon on the Mount, lifestyle, power of the Holy Spirit, how to impact our community, our spiritual identity, our spiritual authority, all of these kinds of subjects, kingdom economics, just basic kingdom of God subjects will be our primary direction on Sunday morning. But, sometimes we'll do, really lock into the intimacy of God, the Bride of Christ themes, and sometimes we'll take a Sunday and do a talk on the end times, but mostly we're going to have the end times and the intimacy, that whole tone and that spirit affect the way we approach these other topics. And so though we're really wanting to get this end time thing going on Friday night, that's not going to be the primary diet on Sunday, though we want the tone of it to, and the tenor of that message to affect what we're doing on Sunday morning. Now I'm doing something new, is that, I've never done this before, on Wednesday nights, I'm beginning a new class at IHOPU, I've never done a weekday class at IHOPU, and it's on Wednesday night, I'm beginning it this Wednesday, and it's going to, each time that I teach it, I plan to do this for years, I'm going to teach on intimacy with God themes. This semester I'm beginning the beauty of God, then next semester, like the Bride of Christ, the next semester, Song of Solomon, the next semester, the First Commandment, I don't know that that's the order I'll do them in, but those are the themes that I'm going to do on Wednesday nights over at IHOPU. And it's open for the body to be involved, although you do have to register because it's a real class, because we have really students that are really in a class and they're paying for their classes, but you can be involved in that, and the reason I'm saying that is I've talked to a lot of folks over the last year, and I've heard a number of comments like, I moved here for the end time message, but I don't hear it anymore, I barely hear it. Well, Friday nights, you're going to get more than your Monday's worth on Friday nights, though Friday nights free, but you know what I mean. I've had a number say, I moved here because I wanted to really engage in the intimacy with God, Bride of Christ, Song of Solomon, Beauty of God, and again, we'll do that some on Sundays, and certainly the tone and tenor of the other topics will have that element in it, but Wednesday night, as far as me, as far as my teaching is concerned, I'm going to really focus and lock into those subjects at that time, and we have a lot of good teachers, we have seminars and classes and internships, and you know, different ways that we teach on intimacy in the end times, but Sunday morning is not going to be our primary venue for that, as it hasn't been in the last year or so, but we're still going to make them strong points of emphasis, but just in different places in terms of our overall structure. So in terms of me, Wednesday night is going to be my intimacy with God night over at I Help You, and again, anybody can be a part of those classes, and Friday night, it will be right here, it will be end times, so I'm going to really go strong on those two subjects, and the idea that whether you're involved in those or not, I believe that the people in each one of those focuses, and some like both focuses, I mean, I like both focuses, but the idea is that we want to create resource, and we want to train leaders that are really strong in those two subjects, that they would impact and impart those values throughout the community, just through relationships, I mean, if we get a couple hundred people really trained in the end times, in the midst of our body, which is several thousand, those couple hundred will impact the whole culture of what we're doing as a spiritual family, and on Friday night, we'll create all this resource to whether you're involved in the Friday night thing or not, you can always go to the website and check it out anytime, and the same as on Wednesday, our goal is to raise up, which we got quite a few good teachers on intimacy with God and Bride of Christ, we need to re-strengthen that area again, so that's just a little bit of what we're doing here, just a little overview of that, our goal isn't to get everybody real into every subject, our goal is for people to have those subjects accessible to them, and for some people to really focus and go deep on those subjects, and then to interface with others, and just the whole mix of it, we hope that our prayers that the whole thing, the whole body can go forth together in just by the orchestration of the Lord, but one other thing I want to say, I've had a few folks ask me, go, hey, you know, what are you doing on Sundays, and where's this going, well, it takes me between 15 and 20 hours a week, in terms of preparation, and the sharing, and the feedback after these, on the Wednesday and the Friday, that's probably 15 or 20 hours for each one of those, so I'm invested in 30, 35 hours a week in those two classes and all that's involved in that, and so I'm going to be doing less on Sunday, we have, I mean, Alan is doing a phenomenal job, we've got others going to be doing more of the Sunday, because I have limited time and strength, I'm going to be here, both services, every Sunday, as a rule, and be involved and be teaching some, but not at the same regularity that I've been doing the last five or ten years, and again, I'm very excited about Alan, but also others on our pastoral team, and I'll be here in the prayer lines, and excited and fully engaged, I mean, I'm really committed to the local body, but just for the sake of my own strength, I can't give the same 15 hours, 20 hours to Wednesday and Friday and Sunday, and then do the prayer room, do leadership meetings, do problem solving, all these kinds of things, and so I've had different ones of you ask me, where are you going, what's going on, how do we get the end time teaching, how are the intimacy, what about the local church, so I'm just giving kind of a real quick snapshot of how I see where things are going now. Okay, let's look at paragraph B here on our handout. I want to talk now again why we're pressing this point of the end times, and my goal again isn't that everyone would be involved in that, but that everyone would know the broad strokes, for sure, but not necessarily everybody being in depth, trained in all 150 chapters, that's not the goal. Well, there's, but I want you alerted, because a lot of the body of Christ in the western world, I mean in Europe and America, they're not alerted to the significance of the end time message in the Bible. There's a remarkable amount of material in the Bible on this subject, and in America and western Europe, there's not so much interest. Now you go, when we, because you know we have lots of visitors come from around the world, most of you are aware of that, we got, you talk to leaders or visitors from Russia, from Asia, or the Middle East, they come to IHOP, they love the prayer thing, they really do, but they say, oh the program's great, we love the end times, give us more on the end times. There's a tremendous hunger in Russia, Middle East, and Asia in the church for the end times, and I've noticed this over the years, I mean it's real pronounced, it's like 99% predictable when somebody visits. I go, well what do you appreciate about visiting here, oh I love the prayer room, about the end times. Now if I talk to Americans, or people from western Europe, they go, oh we love the prayer room, we love the intimacy with God, and every now and then, more times than you'd think, they go, do we have to do the end time thing too? The end time thing's kind of weird, we're really into intimacy, we love the prayer thing. Man, that's really exciting. And I thought, Lord, why is this, because it's kind of pretty predictable, I mean it's about 80% like this, or even more. And what I'm taking away is that if believers have come from areas of the earth where there's been persecution, they care about the end times. If people come from parts of the earth where prosperity is pretty easy to touch, they don't care about the end times. That's not something on their mind. But what they're not really understanding is things are about to escalate, and before this thing is over, before the Lord returns, and I don't know when He's coming, but when He returns, the whole earth will be focused on the pressure and what's happening. And the kind of apathy in America and western Europe to the end times, I think is going to be minimized in the days to come, because trouble is escalating, and it's going to continue to escalate. Let's look at paragraph B. The phrase that we use a lot is the phrase, the unique dynamics. And what do I mean by unique dynamics? There's only one generation in human history that will have the greatest pressure of any other generation in human history, and the greatest revival. So the greatest pressure and the greatest outpouring of the Spirit are going to happen in one generation, and it's the generation the Lord returns. Now this pressure, this crisis, sin is going to escalate. Demonic activity, murder, rage, social disorder, upheavals in the weather, economic pressures, I mean they're mounting up in the earth. It's really pretty obvious that there's a significant increase going on. But there's also going to be a tremendous release of the glory of God in the church. And believe it or not, the glory of God in the church is going to disrupt the church. Not just the pressures of crisis, but even the glory of God. When the glory of God hit the church in Jerusalem, the net result is the apostles ended up in prison getting beaten and got killed. It was because the glory of God hit. So the glory of God is going to be a lot more disruptive than I think a lot of folks think, oh revive, I can't wait, I don't really know if you've read the book of Acts at face value. Because it's going to shift the demographics of the church. There's a whole lot of big ministries and big things going on, and when the glory of God and the crisis comes, there's going to be disruption and a shift of demographics and all kinds of ministries across the earth. And a lot of big ministries are going to disappear and a lot of unheard of ministries are going to have prominence and some the other way around. It's going to be every combination imaginable. But one thing's for sure, it's going to be unique in its intensity of glory and intensity of darkness. So there's unique pressure because they're both happening in the same timeframe and only once in the earth's history, I mean in the history of the human family, will this come together in one timeframe. Look at Isaiah chapter 60, verse 2, it says it so direct. Darkness will cover the earth, deep darkness, that's moral darkness, that's demonic activity, that's hatred, rage, social disorder, darkness, depravity, sexual perversion. But the Lord will arise, His glory will be seen on the people of God. But again, as awesome as that is, that will be far more disruptive than meets the eye. Jesus was doing okay until the miracles happened and the crowds gathered and He spoke the truth and they went to kill Him. The miracles create a great shift of power base and animosity and all kinds of things come to the surface when the powers manifest at a greater way. So I look at both, both the glory and the gory. I look at both and I go, Lord, we need to put our seatbelt on because we're going to need to really be close to You to walk this thing through. Look at Haggai chapter 2. It says, the Lord says, I will shake the heaven and the earth. Now the heaven is a sky. I'm going to shake the weather patterns. But I'm not just going to shake the weather patterns, I'm going to shake the earth. I'm going to shake the sea. Beloved, it's written in the Word, God has determined He's going to shake the sea. Do you know what it looks like when God shakes the sea like a blanket? That is trouble for coastal cities around the earth when the sea is shaken. But He's going to shake the dry ground too, that's earthquakes, tornadoes, droughts, pestilence. He says, I'm going to shake and I'm going to wake up the whole earth to my agenda. I'm going to wake them up, the church and the non-church, I'm going to wake them up to my agenda. And then look what happens. Then they will come. Then they will come. Then believers and unbelievers, they will come to the Messiah, His title, the desire of all nations. The church will come to Jesus. Yes, you heard me right. The church is going to hang on to Jesus in a way it's never done over the years. And the unbelievers are going to come to Him. So He's going to shake everything and the net result is a huge harvest of people coming to the Lord like never before. Paragraph C, there is another uniqueness about this generation the Lord returns. There will be more people on the earth in that time frame than any other time in history. But arguably, can't prove it for sure, but with a great harvest of a billion plus people, which I believe in God for that, and many are, there will be more of God's people on earth than God's people in heaven. It's a very unique time frame of history. Look at paragraph C. It's the most described time frame in the Bible. Jesus spent more time talking about the generation He would return than the generation He lived in. The prophets talked far more about the generation like Isaiah that the Lord would return than His own generation. That's a remarkable reality. It's unique in another way. Paragraph C at the bottom. It's the one generation that God is using to transition the earth to the age to come. I mean this is remarkable. Six thousand years or whatever since Adam and God is about to bring the earth into the age to come, but it's going to go through a birth canal. And Jesus described it as the birth pangs and travail and He likened it the earth and human history is going to go through a birth canal, a birth process of which the intensity of it is the great tribulation but the net result of it is the baby is born. An earth with the glory of God with a Jewish king with a resurrected body on the earth and the new Jerusalem coming down to the earth. Beloved, it's going to be a glorious birthing in human history. But that generation is very unique. Very, very unique. The reason I'm pointing this out is because this topic of that generation isn't like, well, you know, I'm really into that or I'm not really into that or, well, I think really Mike's into that, but I'm not really into that. I want you to know Mike's not, that's not Mike's deal. This is God's deal. As a matter of fact, when I first became alerted to it, I resisted it. I said, Lord, I just, I kind of want a strong revival church, moves in the power of God, wins our community. I don't really care about the end times that much. And the Lord's answer to me in essence is I do care about the end times a whole lot. It's all over the Bible for a reason. There's one unique timeframe. Now it's my opinion. It's not a prophecy, but it's my opinion. We're in the early days of that generation. Now you can look on the back page for the reference in Genesis 15. I don't want to look at it right now, but in Genesis 15, when God spoke to Abraham about a generation, he identified it as a hundred years. And so a generation doesn't have to be a hundred years. He told Abraham, you're going to be four generations in the land in slavery. Yes, 400 years. And so don't lock into a generation at any timeframe of 40 years or 50 years. It could be a hundred years. It doesn't have to be a hundred years, but it can be. So I think, I don't know where we are. If there's two, three, four, five, six decades, one or two, three, more or less, I don't know. But things are surely escalating in a way that many of God's servants around the world saying, we're entering into a unique timeframe where the intensity is undeniable. You cannot deny the intensity of the escalation of things. And we're at the beginning of the beginning of this. Paragraph D. Now I've mentioned this again, this 150 chapters. Now this was 10 or 12 years ago. I can't remember when, but our team, we had been studying the end times. I taught it on Friday, on Saturday nights for some years, maybe seven years of the, you know, 2002 to 2008, something like that. I don't know. So many years on Friday nights, our leadership team, we would meet and discuss it. And we decided to go page by page through the whole Bible and identify every chapter of which the primary theme was the end of the age or eternity. And so we didn't, you know, I would have guessed 50 chapters, 60 chapters. I didn't know. I thought, you know, book of revelation, that's 20 plus. Okay. Then you got Matthew 24. So, you know, there's Daniel, there's a few chapters there. I would have guessed 50 or 60. I'd never thought about it when we, we were shocked. The number we actually came up with the chapters we have listed is 180. I always say 150 because the, you know, some of the folks will argue that's not about the end of the age. Okay, good. We'll give you that one. Okay. We're down to, we're down to, you know, 179. No, not one either. Okay. We're down to 178. You know what? We'll give you 30 of them. We're down to 150, but it actually is over, it's well over 150. It's a, it's, it's much closer to 180, but we'll leave those up for the people to debate. And so look at paragraph E. People must understand the biblical narrative of what's coming. Now I've said, I've said this like a broken record, but I'd like you to all be able to say the content of this paragraph E because this is an important point of logic. If we don't understand the biblical narrative that's contained in those 150 chapters, and a lot of that 150 is repetitive, but a lot of it has different nuances as well. I don't think there's a wasted chapter in the Bible. I think they're all necessary. But if we don't understand the main biblical narrative of the most unique timeframe in human history with the greatest pressure of crisis and the greatest pressure of the glory of God, because that will be pressure. It's more than pressure, but it will have pressure. If we don't understand God's view of that, God's, then we will have the wrong perspective. We won't know how to respond. We don't know what actions we're supposed to take because it's all written in the book there. If we don't have the biblical narrative, which most of the church does not, they're not even aware of those 150 chapters. They're not, it's not on their mind, but we're entering a timeframe where it needs to be intentionally something we're paying attention to. We don't accept the, if we don't know the biblical narrative, we will by default embrace the secular narrative. And the secular narrative is already being really expressed in the media, social media, as well as the other type of media. And this, this secular narrative, this secular interpretation of the crisis is that wrong narrative is already getting in the lips of pastors and leaders in the body of Christ because they aren't, they're not founded and grounded in the biblical narrative. They're just taking human logic, the narrative off the media or straight from the media, echoing it right through their mouth. And lots of believers are being, are being led into mindsets and perspectives and actions that are, that are contrary to what the word of God is. We need the biblical narrative on it. Let's look at paragraph F. There's some pastoral reasons why we're really locking in to this topic. Again, we're not doing it all the time on Sunday, but on, you know, in our body, we're going to have a large resource on the internet and you know, there's going to be several hundred people really going deep. And that ought to be an encouragement to you to know we have that growing in our midst, continually getting stronger and stronger, the end times as well as the intimacy with God. And that's a really, that blesses me as a leader to know we'll have those gardens growing continually year by year, getting stronger and stronger and stronger. Now here, paragraph F, this is the pastoral reasons why we have to pay attention to these 150 chapters, is that if we don't know the biblical narrative, we will by default accept the secular one. And Jesus made it clear here in paragraph E. He, I'm, I'm identifying four different negative responses that are from the words of Jesus. And they're all in time passages. If you read them in context, he says here in Luke 21 verse 26, and this is not just unbelievers, this is believers. They will see the increased crisis and their hearts will faint with fear. Beloved, if, if your heart is overcome with fear or just believers in general, they will make very bad decisions. If it looks like the train of history is off the track, nobody's in control. They don't know what's going on. It's not what the church taught them that they grew up in and they go, I'm totally confused. I don't know what's going on. That very emotion and attitude is a dangerous way to live because people overcome by fear make terrible spiritual decisions. And Jesus said, I'm warning you now, fear will be a major issue in that generation. In Luke 21, he's talking to his own people. He's talking to the body of Christ here. Then in verse 34 of Luke 21, he says, be watch out. There's another thing. It's different than fear, but you'll be vulnerable to it if you don't know what's going on. Being weighed down with carousing and drunkenness. And he develops it a little bit more if you read the whole passage. Now, carousing is the word self-indulgence. But the main idea, not the only idea, is immorality. It's bigger than immorality, but that's the biggest expression of carousing, of this word carousing. What is going to happen is that believers, they will be weighed down in fear, confused, overwhelmed, and they will self-medicate. They will try to find relief in drunkenness, immorality, and several other things that Jesus describes. He said, because the day will come on them unexpected. Again, to them, it looks like the train of history is off the track. Nobody is in control. They'll say, the church I grew up in didn't tell me any of this was going to happen. I don't even know how to interpret it. I don't know how to respond to it. And beloved, it need not be that way. And I don't know how many years we have before the escalation. I mean, it's escalating now, the trouble. Where it gets to a really intense place, you know, might be some decades. It might not be some decades. I mean, things have increased in the last two or three years at a rate that is very, very alarming. Verse 10 of Matthew 24, there's another problem besides fear and being vulnerable to just giving in to loss to self-medicate to find relief. Verse 10 of Matthew 24, he said, many will be offended. They're not just going to be offended at one another, although that's clearly part of what he means. They're going to be offended at God. Because they're going to say, wait, this is not how I understood it. And therefore the Bible must not be reliable, or your leadership isn't good. Because why would a God who's good do this? Because when you're in the midst of the crisis, interpreting the crisis for the first time when you're in it, you lose objectivity. And you get offended. I don't mean you, but I'm saying people will be so vulnerable to be offended at the Lord. You get offended at the Lord, it is so hard to respond to him with confidence and faith and wholeheartedness. Then, verse 11, Jesus adds one more dimension. He said, and many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. Deception. Matter of fact, Jesus talked more about deception than he did persecution or tribulation. I mean, we know persecution's coming, but he was more focused on deception of the church than the persecution of the church. We're more concerned about persecution. He was more focused on deception. He said false prophets. Now, false prophets that are raising up, even now they're being raised up, they don't have horns. Okay? They're not the crazy, eccentric, crazy guy on the top of a hill that looks like a mad scientist. That's not who we're talking about. These false prophets are social reformers. They're dignified. They're intelligent, caring, well-spoken. They will have big personalities, very persuasive. They're not eccentric weirdos. And these false prophets, very dignified in their logic, if you're not grounded in the Word, seems good because they're fighting for the rescue of society. Beloved, that's who the false prophets are. Some people think, well, if the false prophets is, you know, a new little crazy religion, I'm sure a few of those will shoot up too. But the false prophets are in the media. They're speaking and much of what they're saying is already being, the rhetoric is being echoed in the church. It's already taking place right now. We are really, I feel an urgency to let's get this thing more clear in our own midst. Paragraph G. Now the combination of the fear, the offense, the deception, the self-medication by yielding to lust, immorality, drunkenness, etc., etc., it's going to result in a great falling away. There is, the Bible makes it clear, there is a great falling away in the generation the Lord returns. Now paradoxically, there's the great ingathering. The greatest harvest of new souls happens in the same generation of the greatest falling away in history. This is, it's really intense paradoxes and tensions. Look at 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. Paul said, let no one deceive you by any means. For the day, means the day of the Lord's return, it will not come until two things happen. Until the falling away comes first, and the man of sin, which is the Antichrist, is revealed on the world stage. This is remarkable. Paul is saying, the second coming, I mean the most glorious event yet to come, will not come. There's two prominent signs that Paul highlighted. There's not only two, but here's the two. They will be so globally recognized, they will be impossible to miss. These are the two signs. The Antichrist appearing on the world stage. Now stop and imagine how big of a topic that is. I mean how, this is global, this is, this is, I don't know what the word, not remarkable, but stunning and alerting. Paul is saying, the end time falling away will be that big too. That will be as big a news and as obvious on a global level as the Antichrist appearing. In other words, the falling away is not a small little whispered little thing in a corner. It will be massive in its numbers. Though the end gathering of new souls will be greater, and the ones that don't fall away will press into radical obedience and the church will be purified. But beloved, if people don't know what's going on, they get overwhelmed with fear, they get offended at God's leadership, they get deceived by the social narrative, the secular narrative, and they begin to drift away. This falling away has eternal consequences. This is not a small thing that they want to debate on social media. They end up in the lake of fire. It's for real. And there's no social media debate that's going to get them out of it. It's really serious. And I believe that this end time falling away, which again it might go on for some decades before it escalates at the very end, in my opinion, it's already begun. I have seen more people in the last five years that were on fire for the Lord twenty years ago that are drawing back from the faith, on fire for the Lord even ten years ago, twenty years ago. Young and old people alike, raised in the church, homeschooled children in their thirties or in their forties now, radical for the Lord at one time, or people in their fifties and sixties, radical for the Lord ten or twenty years ago, already on the edge of stepping out of the faith, and many have already. It's remarkable to me. In my forty plus years of pastoring, I've never seen numbers like this. And this is the beginning of the beginning. I mean smart, good people. I mean level-headed people that are offended, they're being deceived, they don't understand the narrative, they're being swayed to the right and the left, and this is really real. Now look at the verse underneath, 2 Peter chapter 3. This is really a bit of an odd verse. I mean when I first read it I went, what? Surely it's not true. I'll read it first. Peter says, now read the whole chapter and you'll know it's all about the end times, the context. He says, know this first, scoffers, or some translations say mockers, they will come in the last days, and their mocking will be the Lord's not really returning in the near future. That's the element of their mocking. Now the word that throws me off, verse 3, knowing this first. I go, really? Peter? That's the first thing we should know? I mean what about Jesus' Lord? Peter? What about the Bible as the authoritative word of God? Peter? Okay little guy, Mike, you don't understand. If you don't understand this message is going to bring mocking, you're going to get swept into the fear of man, and you're going to be swept into wanting to look respectable. You're going to lose your way if you don't know that invisible enemy will be right in front of you. Yes, little guy, Mike, it is first of all. I meant what I said and I said what I meant. I had that made up conversation with Peter. I'm sure it isn't that way. But I was so thrown away by this. He goes, you better know this. You better know this. That if your desire is to look good, this message has so much stigma on it. I believe the most politically unpopular message in human history is the book of Revelation. It is politically incorrect on so many levels. I look at that and go ugh, ugh, and Jesus says yeah, but it ends glorious. I mean it ends with a resurrected earth, with my people with me, and the glory of God. I know what I'm doing. Now say my story line so that my people have a way to make sense of what's going on. Because here's the logic. If there's a man, Jesus, thousands of years ago, well even before the incarnation, he's God, that he determines if a person can determine and can predict the details thousands of years ahead of time, that person has control over them. And if he has control over them and he loves you, you're in good hands. So if there's somebody that has control and determines and can predict it, and he tells us the story line and we're connected to him, beloved, we can walk in peace because there's somebody we know that's governing the entire story line because we're familiar with it and we're familiar with him. Turn to page 2 and I'm just going to give you one more paragraph here and we'll end with this. Understanding God's end time plans. This is a remarkable promise. Jeremiah 23 verse 20. God has promised that his people who seek him will understand what's going on. They won't, they don't have to be confused. They can understand the story line clearly. Look what he says. Jeremiah 23 verse 20. The anger of the Lord, this is like the book of Revelation stuff, will not be turned back until God has executed, here it is, performed all the plans of his heart. When it says the thoughts of his heart, put the word plans. When he performs all of his end time story line, when he performs it, he says this, in the latter days, the people of God will understand it clearly. They will understand it perfectly. They won't be confused. Now this is the people that are seeking him. I believe millions around the world are stirred up right now. We're connecting with other ministries around the world because we need to learn from them. They learned from us. They give to us. I believe that only in the collective wisdom of the body of Christ across the nations can we have the full understanding. No one group is going to get it. We need them. They need those people. Those people need those people. Together we're going to inch forward in understanding and God's going to have a global body connected in love with full understanding but in fellowship with one another. So it's not some little group of eccentric people on the top of a hill that got mad scientist hair that are elite in their understanding. They know the secret mysteries and they're secretly superior in their dedication. None of that. The message is very clear in the 150 chapters and the wisdom is going to be given fully as the body of Christ interacts with each other. But we want to be intentional about taking it up a bit in terms of our own resolve to interact in this. Now last verse here, Daniel chapter 11. Daniel says the same thing Jeremiah says. You know they lived in the same generation as well. Daniel said and an angel appears to Daniel in Daniel 11 and it's talking about the end times. You can read it in context. The angel says the people of understanding, the people that understand the narrative. It's what it's talking about. The end time narrative. They will instruct multitudes. Beloved there are many unbelievers that are hungry for what the Bible says about this. I believe that this subject is going to be used evangelistically in a way that's going to surprise us. Unbelievers are really interested in knowing what the Bible says about this. Other religions are interested. But the angel said there will be the people of understanding. And again I believe that this people of understanding, this promise is available to a billion believers on the earth right now. Anybody. It's hundreds of millions. The Holy Spirit is saying it's to you. And I believe that millions are going to walk in this. Millions are. But they're going to make it known in many many different ways to multitudes. I believe that the uninstructed millions in the body of Christ and the uninstructed millions of unbelievers are going to be hungry for this. And it's going to be an opportunity for their rescue and salvation and their being fully grafted into the family of God. But I'm saying Lord I want to be among those many many many groups in the earth that are pursuing this people of understanding. Again it's not a group here and a group there. It's the whole body of Christ that's pressing in. And so that's what we're doing. That's what we're going forward with. And so I just want you to understand that as a spiritual body, as a spiritual family, we're going to keep doing the main and the plain, the building the church, the Great Commission, but we're going to press more on the intimacy and the end times so the whole thing we're trusting will come together. Amen and amen. Let's go ahead and stand before the Lord. Now again this is the last time we're doing this on the weekend. Just go ahead and stand before the Lord. If you want to sign up for that Saturday morning, that mentorship thing, we've got a few more spots available and this is our last time. We're opening it up and so you can come and in terms of last Sunday we're going to open it up. So you can go back to the Welcome Center and Daniel Lim's there and some others and they will help you sign up for that if you want to be a part of that. Now I want to invite folks forward that you're saying, you know what, I need to be more zealous about these 150 chapters. I'm not saying I'm going to study them all. I'm going to let a couple hundred do that. But I need to get more zealous and I need to get off the fence of this, oh who cares, it will take care of itself. And I want to say yes to this in a new way, at least to be attentive to it. And if that's you and you're wanting to make a new stand in your heart that I'm going to understand this biblical narrative because it's important, I want to invite you to come forward and just take a stand before the Lord and let us pray for you and you just saying, Lord here I am. I'm not going to be a lethargic American or a European just because that's where they are. I want to be like the Russians and the Asians and the Middle Easterners. I mean they're on fire for this topic. Many of them are. It's just remarkable. I want to shake off this lethargy that's even on our own body here a bit of it and I want us to really be clear about where this thing is going. I want to invite you to come and stand before the Lord here with us. Now if you're sick in your body and you need healing, I'm going to invite you to come forward. You're saying hey I came to this meeting and I need my body touched. Or if somebody brought you to this meeting and you've never given your life to the Lord, you can receive the gift of salvation literally today right now as a free gift. You can walk out of this building with the gift of salvation and eternal life. Come on up here, talk to one of the people that pray for you and say hey how does this work? I want to be in the kingdom. And they'll pray with you and they'll show you how to do this. Amen and amen. Go to yesterday. For a spirit, a feel, of understanding. That these would be people of understanding that would teach many. I love it. Through the internet, social media, you could write a blog that a million people could read. You could teach many within one blog. You don't know that you're not one of these people that would teach many. You may be an 80 year old grandma writing that blog that a million people read and it shifts their life. Lord I ask for the spirit of glory. I ask for the spirit of understanding to come upon us. I'm going to ask for the ministry team. I'm going to ask everyone in our leadership team that's in the room to come on up if you would for a few moments and everybody else on the ministry team. Lay down our lives. We are the church. We are the bride. Love makes us strong. Lay down our lives. If you want to sign up, go to the welcome center right now and sign up for that Saturday morning thing. That's what you're wanting to do. Father of glory, I ask you to release your power right now in this room. How many of you are saying, Lord, I want to be a messenger? Or you're saying, I want to be attentive to what the scripture says in a new way. I ask for the seal of the Lord to rest on them. Lord I ask for your seal to rest on them. Raise up messengers, Lord, Lay down our lives. We are the church. We are the bride. Love makes us strong. Lay down our lives. Lord, here we are. Come and mark us right now. Lord, come and bind us to your heart together in love. Come and bind us together in love. Come and bind us together in love. Lord, come and awaken our hearts. Father, I ask that this Friday night when we begin, you release the spirit of glory upon these learners of your message. Father, we need you. Don't let us sleep. Don't let us slumber. We confess our full dependency on you, O God. Lord, release living understanding upon this family, this spiritual family. Father, will you release divine understanding? Open our eyes. Open our eyes. Give us grace. Give us boldness to declare your goodness in the midst of the fire, in the midst of the storm. Would you give us grace. Give us boldness to declare your never-endingness of the storm in the midst of the fire, in the midst of the fire, in the midst of the storm. In the midst of the fire, of the storm. Give your beauty, your power. Open our eyes. Open our eyes. Open our eyes. Open our eyes. Open our eyes. Open our eyes. We love your leadership, Jesus. We love your word. We love the biblical narrative of this coming hour. We trust your leadership. We trust your plan. Give us understanding in the midst of the fire, in the midst of the storm. What you're thinking and what you're doing. Let your word be like a fire. Shut up and open.