Shane Idleman addresses the complex topic of the signs of Jesus' coming, acknowledging the various interpretations of eschatology within Christianity. He emphasizes the importance of understanding different views while maintaining that the core belief is that Jesus is Lord and Savior, who will return. Idleman encourages believers to be prepared and vigilant, warning against deception and the growing lawlessness in the world. He highlights the significance of enduring faith amidst trials and the necessity of preaching the gospel to all nations as a sign of the end times. Ultimately, he calls for humility and a focus on the simplicity of the gospel amidst theological debates.

This morning it's going to be a controversial topic and I'm going to show you one of the questions I've been struggling with for 23 years. So the title this morning is what will be the sign of your coming? How many of you follow the end times preachers and they talk about this a lot? What is going to be the sign of his coming? Because there are certain signs and I want to be true to the belief that there are different views on the end times. If you get with a certain group of people, let's say reformed people, their view is a lot different than Baptist people. And it depends on what seminary you went to, Dallas Theological Seminary, the Master Seminary versus Westminster Theological Seminary. It's because the end times is not real clear. There's a lot of nuances. There's a lot of theory. And then there are some things that are pretty crystal clear. And so it's trying to marry all those things. And so what I want to do is share different opinions about this. Not weird opinions, not things that are that are out there, but these are so important that my study Bible, my study Bible, actually at the beginning of Revelation, it says here are the six different views held throughout Christian history. And so the only reason I say that is when I share different views, usually the pre-millennial dispensational current belief right now, and they don't like me offering other views. And all I'm saying is, hey, here's what other people believe. Here's why we need to show grace and love. And we can have our view and hold our view strongly, but we also have to understand that this is not an essential of the Christian faith. The essential is Jesus is Lord and Savior, and He's coming back again. Are we ready? Are we prepared? And I don't want to confuse people with terms, but it is interesting. There's something like preterism that believes all the prophecies in the Bible have already been fulfilled. Now, that one, for the life of me, don't understand. But they have, from their viewpoint, or partial preterism, some things have been fulfilled. All millennialism, that we are currently in the millennial reign of Christ, and if you listen to my podcast with Sam Storm, theologian Sam Storm, he breaks it down why he believes that. And then there's others that believe in the post-tribulation, where we're actually, as believers, going to go through the tribulation, but God preserves His people. And we're going to go through it, and then the final coming, Jesus' return, everything happens at the end of that. And then a lot of people, most of you, probably, if you listen to Jack Gibbs, Amir Sofate, Jack Graham, a lot of people even on our radio network, Greg Laurie, of course all the Calvary Chapel guys, are pre-tribulation, meaning we're going to be raptured before the tribulation comes. And the reason they have different views is the main view on that, the main kingpin, that I believe, is when they say that we're not appointed into God's wrath, that scripture. But that scripture, in context, is actually dealing with the final judgment and being sentenced to hell for eternity. So I can't apply that scripture to the tribulation. Now, if God is pouring out His wrath on a disobedient earth, yeah, I don't believe Christians would be receiving that. But could God cover? Like when He judged Egypt, He preserved His people. So that's interesting. So you see why there's different views. And if you go back, you can listen to what I taught in the past. And my view, I've shared this many times before, is pan-tribulation, of course, seeing how it's all going to pan out. Because when great men of God are divided, I'm just a country preacher. I just go and preach repentance. And I'm like, theology, eschatology, pneumatology, soteriology, and inductive and deductive approach to your sermon preparation on hermeneutics and homiletics. I'm like, wow. The simplicity of the gospel turning sinners back to Him. And so that's why I don't get dogmatic, because these guys are smarter than me. They read the Greek. They understand the Hebrew. And that's important because there are sentence structures that we're going to get into. Read or beware when the abomination of desolation is standing in the temple. Right? Well, if you break down that word, it's actually that which desolates. Something is an abomination which is a desolation to Israel. And so it's the sentence structure and the wording and the verb tenses. An ever-present participle. And the verb actually means it's a continual action versus something that's already happened. I'm like, I just want to preach the simplicity of the gospel. But I've committed to revelation and boy, oh boy, oh boy, has it been fun. So what will be the sign of your coming? And I would like to just read the passage that we're going to be unpacking for the next week or two, pulling in from Revelation 6, which was last week. So make sure you listen to last week, because Revelation 6 was called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. And I also watch a lot of health podcasts, people like Peter Atiyah and this guy who's real famous right now on cognitive and brain chemistry. And they get together and they do podcasts and they talk about the four horsemen of bad health, you know, with cancer and diabetes and cognitive related issues. But it's funny how the four horsemen, it's stuck for decades and even centuries. And that was, you know, he who conquered on the white horse. Some people think that's the Antichrist. Some people think that was the Roman general Titus because he did conquer Jerusalem. And then another horse coming that there's a pale horse and on it was death and from the Tombstone movie, right? Some of you think of that. And so, and then the scale, the weight and the scale, this black horse that brings famine and the other horse that comes. And that was Revelation 6. And many people tie that in with Matthew 24. And rightly so. And then if you want to get real interesting, we'll go grab Daniel 9, where he talks about the 70 weeks of Daniel. And I read that six times this week. What? Wow. And you read different commentaries like, well, this, okay, good point. And that nobody's, there's not a universal, you know, belief in this, it's good to have your view, but just just don't hold on it to too tightly to where you where you where you get in fights with people, right loosely where you can shake their hand and agree to disagree. So let's talk about Matthew 24. Here we go, buckle up and hold on. I'm going to read it, I'm going to stop, we're going to talk about it for a minute. Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple. So he's at the temple. And he goes out, he departs from the temple and his disciples came up to show him the buildings of the temple. So you get this picture where they're kind of I see it as they're wanting to brag, Jesus, look, look at all this. This is incredible. And the temple was pretty incredible. If you look at the inner court, the outer court, and then they went into the holies of holies in the porch in the area for sacrifice. And you can find images on on online and it's well not the actual right one, but what it looked like and they were they were somewhat bragging. Look at this. This is incredible. And Jesus said, do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone will be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down. Not one stone that the total desecration of the temple. And as far as I can see, I haven't found anyone that would necessarily disagree. But this actually happened about a generation later. Jesus is talking about this in 30 AD, more or less around 70 AD, 40 years later, a generation was still that when Jesus talks about this generation, we'll we'll experience this. Titus came in to Jerusalem and wiped it out, annihilated it, every stone was thrown upon another and onto the ground. And Josephus writes about this, I think it's even Eusebius, another historian writes about this. And you can this is an actual event that was fulfilled in 8070. Nobody disagrees about that. Where they start to disagree is as Jesus keeps going on. Many will say all all of those things, which is hard for me to grasp. All of those things have already happened. Because Jesus said this generation, where Chuck Smith would say, well, this generation means the generation of people or the generation that's going to be living at the end of age. And I've never been able to to connect that in my own mind, because Jesus is talking to his contemporaries, just this generation, you will experience this, you will this generation. So for me to fast forward that 2000 years has been a been a hard one. Now I understand what they're saying. But there's there's a there's a difficulty there. However, and I'm gonna talk about this in a minute. I think I have it down. So I'm not going to jump to that yet. But what you'll see a lot in Scripture is dual fulfillment. So something that's happening then will also happen later. And so it's written for them. And I think that's, that's the thing that's always been hard for me is Jesus is talking to his disciples. He's warning them, hey, don't be deceived. This is what's going to happen. And sometimes I think we just easily dismiss that and say no, all of this is for us. Actually, a lot of that is for them. He cared for them, too. He spoke to them as well. And so he goes on to say, now as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming? End of the age. Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming? End of the end of the age. Boy, I want to stop there for a minute, but I'm going to force myself not to. And verse four, and Jesus answered and said to them, okay, take heed that no one deceives you for many will come in my name saying, I am the Christ and will deceive many. Do we still deal with that today? Absolutely. And you will hear of wars and rumors of war. See that you are not troubled. All these things must come to pass, but then the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilence, and earthquakes in various places. All these things are the beginning of sorrows. Now, again, partial preterism or different views, all millennialists, if they take from Josephus and other things, a lot of these things, actually every single one of these things happened back in that generation that Jesus was speaking to. Now, is that going to happen now? Yes. Earthquakes increasing, wars, rumors of wars. We will see these birth pains increasing as well. So that's why dual fulfillment really helps me. Because without that, you have to say, no, none of this is, Jesus is talking to these people and telling them, hey, be careful, watch out for these things. But no, that's really not for them. It's for us. I can't do that. Because he's talking to, that would be kind of like lying. And we know Jesus isn't lying. Because there's other spots, he would say, don't worry, it's going to be a while. Like when the angel told Daniel, hey, seal it up. This is for a long time away. He's talking to them. He's helping them. He's telling them what to watch out for. And he said, they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you. And you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake, which was true then. Is it true now? Oh boy, is it ever absolutely true today and going to get worse. And then many will be offended and will betray one another and will hate one another. I didn't do that. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And again, if I had reading early historians, I could take you back to after Jesus died. And it's very interesting to see the false Christ and the false people that rose up absolutely talking to them. Is it applicable to us? Yes, if not more so, because there's more people on the face of the earth, but there's also more of the gospel going out. There's more false prophets even now. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. Now that's been confusing to some people. And to me, it's kind of straightforward because lawlessness will abound, which we're seeing now, right? The love of many will grow cold. And that's kind of what I meant by all these assembly bills, the satanic. I, if I'm not careful, can get quenched and like just the love of many will grow cold. My love is growing cold. My want, a desire of holiness and to see, Lord, I'm just getting worn out. All this lawlessness is wearing me out. Now, please tell me you can't relate, right? Or you can't relate, I guess I didn't word that right. But we're getting burned out. And that's what happens. The more lawlessness increases, the more we just get burned out. And maybe I think more so obviously when you're on the front lines, like, I don't know how Jack Hibbs does it. I mean, an event, a church event at a stadium, doing podcasts, Charlie Kirk event, talking about the nation, the great resets, like, man, you must not have kids at home. I tease him about that. And he doesn't. But how do you keep that? But then those people inspire me. I don't know about you, right? Like, well, they're doing all that. Surely I can keep moving forward. Surely we can offset this satanic group doing this. And certainly we can come and worship and we can go make a difference on the assembly bills. And then I get worn out by hearing people podcasting different things. You parents in California, how can you stay there and submit to this kind of stuff? You need to flee California. I'm like, man, what about fighting? I mean, when do I... It's like, you can get worn down. And now again, if you're kids in a public school and you're doing all you can do and you feel God calling you, I think that's fine. But if everyone leaves, you know, is that what our position is supposed to be? So he said, and because of lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold, but he who endures till the end will be saved. Now, I could make a whole sermon out of this. Can you lose your salvation? Can't you? Calvinism, Arminianism, all I know is what the Bible says. And the Bible is clear that endurance is always a sign of genuine faith. Often you'll see the people that fall away, like how did this major worship leader fall away? How did this pastor fall away? How did this author of this book, Christian book, fall away? You know, I kissed dating goodbye. Me and my wife read that together. And then this guy walks away from the faith. I don't know if he ever had it to begin with. Because the persecution will sift you. You're not going to keep playing games if it costs you your life, your reputation, your comfort. Persecution will bring it out of you. Praise God for that. And I just thank God for, I don't know if you'll hear this or not, I was actually down in that area, kind of close, but that the school board president in Temecula, who actually was fighting the governor, I don't know the vote didn't go well, but saying no, we're going to notify parents. We're going to notify parents if their kids want to change their gender. Absolutely. She got death threats. How sick and perverted are these people to actually threaten her? See, it's demonic. Once you understand it's demonic, they give themselves over to a debased and corrupted mind and they are led by the Father of darkness, not the Father of light. And then they get deceived thinking we're for the people, we're for love. No, you're for perversion and sin and all kinds of wickedness. And you've been deceived. So you think you're this freedom fighter and you're going to let people live how they want. And we're going to stand up for that nine-year-old that wants to change their gender. No, that's not standing up for them. That is child abuse. Let them work through these issues. Point them to the cross. Point them to the Savior. And so that is how we ended it here. The gospel of this kingdom will be preached in all the world as it is written to all the nations. Then the end will come. This part is hard for me to see how that already happened. That's why I'm not a certain group of eschatology. I'm kind of like all over the place, like, that's a good point. That's a good point. That's a good point. I'm a pan-trib. It's going to pan out. And I'm trusting in God. And I'm just being honest with you. And that actually frustrates people. Pastor, you need to have a solid view on your eschatology. Why do you differ from that person? Yeah, but I'm right. They're wrong. They say they're right, you're wrong. Where do you want to go with this? Because we just know what Scripture says. Unless all doesn't mean all, all could mean that general area. You know, I got it. But we see these things playing out. Also, I think we have a much better view of things now 100 years later when they didn't think it was possible for one person to govern the whole world. How are they going to witness this in Revelation? They're going to see, the whole world's going to see the witness, and that's impossible. But now we see how all these things could easily come to pass. So something that I've always really appreciated is it's called dual fulfillment. I think we have the, well, there's a whole bunch in the Bible, but just some that stick out. Dual fulfillment means it was fulfilled then, and it's going to be fulfilled in the future, or it was fulfilled, especially in the case of number three, Isaiah's virgin birth prophecy was fulfilled pretty close to, and I won't get into detail, it had nothing to do with Jesus. It actually had a virgin conceived, and that was a sign to one of the kings. But then, five, six hundred years later, is that about when Jesus came after Isaiah? I don't know. You can tell me later. But then, now that prophecy comes true as well. And so you can see Joel's Holy Spirit prophecy. In the last days, God will pour out His Spirit. That's what Peter said. He preaches powerful sermon. Powerful sermon because he says, oh, you're just drunk. You're speaking in tongues. That hasn't changed. Still mocking the gifts of the Spirit? And Peter says, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let me clarify here. They're not drunk as you suppose. This is what the prophet Joel spoke of, that in the last days, I will pour out My Spirit on the sons and daughters and the old men, dream dreams, the young men prophesy, and on My men's servants and My maid's servants. I will pour out My Spirit in those days. And this is that. This is that. But then, if you keep reading, it's going to talk about things that are still to come. Or especially when Jesus, some part of Scripture, when He came into the temple, this is in my notes, I just now thought of it. He comes and He says, I, God has anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the good news and to the sight to those who are blind, to set the captives free. And this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. But there's not a period. It actually goes on to say, and the day of the vengeance of our Lord. He's stopped because that hasn't come yet. So see, it's Scripture. There's dual fulfillment in all the Scripture. And you can look at Ezekiel's Gog and Magog prophecy, if that's coming again in the future, and what happened back then. Samuel's prophecy to David. Possibly Matthew 24 could be dual fulfillment. And that's what I think is difficult, because God in the sovereignty, the Word is perfect, and it will make sense at some point. It's hard to write to a group of people and still have relevance today. And if we're not careful, we can put all the relevance on us and forget that actually one of the laws of homiletics is putting together a sermon. Hermeneutics is a study of the Bible. One of the laws you cannot break is you have to look at the contextual consistency. You have to look at the historical consistency and then canonical consistency. What does the whole Bible mean? What was the author trying to say to those people? If you bypass all that and say, oh, what does it have to say to me? What's it just for me today? You can actually take Scripture out of context. And I want to do a podcast on that because it's so important. The Scripture's out of context. I mean, it's kind of funny because I used to quote them, and I still do. But we just have to be careful. Especially for some of you, this might just be a little extra. When the Bible talks about God, I know the plans for you to give you hope and a future of peace and a war. And you're like, oh, yeah, yeah. And we claim it. And it's good if God puts that on your heart. I believe He can use Scripture to confirm something. And man, we sit on that. But actually, the context is they're going into captivity for 70 years. They're going into captivity by their enemies. And God's saying, don't worry. I know the plans I have for you. Many of you are going to die as slaves. But I know the plans I have for you to give you a hope and a future. And it's going to be on to their children. And so the context is so important. So important. And we use, if my people are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face. The context is when God said, when I bring pestilence, when I bring famine, when I bring drought, if my people, if they turn back to me, then I will begin to heal their land. Or one of my favorites, and I still get this a lot, people post on social media, Pastor, don't you know you're not supposed to judge? Actually, I'm actually supposed to judge. No, no, no, read it. Matthew 7. You're not supposed to judge. No, read the whole thing. Read the whole thing. First, get your heart right. Then you can and should judge. And Johnny says you are to discern and judge all things. So see, Scripture, especially in times, we have to look at it. What is Jesus saying to them and to us? A very famous theologian by the name of D.A. Carson, really, when I read this, when I read his commentary 16 years ago, it really stood out. And he would probably have a view different than many of us. And I'm not going to say what it is because I'm not real sure, but it's probably more like all millennial type of view. But he said, you know, when Jesus is going to go on to say this generation will no way pass away, they'll see these things, this generation, this generation, he said for us to apply that to us 2000 years later is the only time in all of the gospel then where we have an audience shift away from them now to us. Well, that's that's a good point. And so all these things over the years, I've just kind of set on. So many tie in Revelation 6 with Matthew 24. And so here's, I'm going to unpack this for a minute. Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple and his disciples came to show him the buildings of the temple. Remember, I just read this 15 minutes ago. And Jesus said to them, do you not see all these things? I surely I say to you, not one stone will be left here upon another, and it shall be thrown down. And for those who are interested, you can read the wars of the Jews from Josephus. I think that's the next screen. And I'm not and I'm not going to go through this to a long degree here, but he talks about the Romans coming in and decimating the temple and really just a lot. How many people the last sentence there died of famine? Thousands of people died of famine. They were going to a house to kill the families. Oh, they're already dead of famine. And he would see that families turned on themselves and died in the famine and, and, and Rome just conquered all. It was, it was a cataclysmic event for that time. And that season for the Jews never experienced anything remotely like this. And so the next screen says revelation six, what we talked about last week. So this is how they would put, um, revelation six with Matthew 24. The white horse was Titus revelation six, three through four that they take peace. Revelation six, three through four talks about taking peace from the earth. So a lot of us think that could be from the whole earth, which would, I would probably lean on that. This is a hard one for me to say. This is applies to Matthew 24 because whole earth seems to denote whole earth and revelation six, five through six, a black horse. And he who sat on a, had the pair of scales and this is famine. And Josephus said so many people died of famine and the pale horse, him who sat on it was called death and hell followed. So the reason I say this is a lot of people believe revelation six that I taught on last week, go and listen to that one believes that that was fulfilled, that Jesus was talking about that in Matthew 24. And that was already fulfilled when Titus conquered Jerusalem in 70 AD. So they would believe that revelation, a lot of them revelation has already happened. Okay. So that's where that view comes from. So I want to do something. I want to rewind, rewind to Matthew 23. So we're going to go back a chapter. I don't usually read from the TLB, but I want to this morning. Jesus said, I will send you prophets and wise men and inspire writers, and you will kill some of them by crucifixion. You will rip open the backs of others with whips in their synagogues, and you will hound them from city to city so that you will become guilty of all the blood of the murdered godly men from the righteous able all the way throughout biblical history to Zachariah slain by you in the temple between the altar and the sanctuary. Here's where it's interesting. Yes, all of this judgment of the centuries shall break upon the heads of this very generation. So Jesus is saying in 70 AD, when Titus comes, this is a judgment on Jerusalem because of all the prophets you killed. That's the only way I can see this fits. And so that's why this event in 70 AD was cataclysmic. It was so important. And that's why Jesus even cried out, Oh, Jerusalem. Remember when he cried out, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, and he's weeping. There's a from the depth of his stomach, he's, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you are killing the prophets and you stone those who God has sent to you. I wanted to gather you together, but you would not listen. And now your house is left to you desolate. And that's what's coming in 80 70. That's why I said reader beware of the abomination of desolation that can tie in from Daniel. But I want to talk about this, the signs of the times in the end of the age here, Matthew 24 three, back to where I opened up. And here's why this is so important. Now he sat at the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying this is their time of reading this. Tell us number one, number one, tell us when will these things be number two, and what will be the sign of your coming number three, and what is the end of the age. Now this is more profound than you think, because current pre pre pre tribulation, dispensation, or which many of you are, again, I'm caught in the middle. So I don't label myself. And many of the teachers on our radio network are many men I respect are. The thing I've always had a question about is they break this up these three things into three different periods of history. Where to me, the person asking the question, the disciples is waiting for one event. They're not asking, hey, when will this be in? Oh, when will this be a couple 1000 years later? And when will they're asking when will when will these things take place? And to really get a better understanding of that, you actually have to cross reference Scripture. So let's put up Mark and Luke on the same exact event, same exact event, look how they word it. So Jesus is at the Mount of Olives. And they come up and ask him tell us when will these things be and what is the sign that all these things will be fulfilled? See that that tells me they're they're asking, they're wanting when is this cataclysmic event this this one thing happening? They're not asking for three different, different scenarios there. And then Luke, they asked him teacher, when will these things be? When is that? When is this going to happen? And what will be the sign of when these things are going to take place? Now, ironically, a lot of the current teachers don't they avoid these two. They use Matthew, and then they pull out Okay, this is number one obviously happened when Titus came. Number two is going to happen 2000 years later. But that's hard for me to fathom because they they were just asking, hey, when's all this going to happen? And Jesus told them, hey, here's when it's all going to happen. And Jesus said to them, take heed. So here's his response. Take heed. He doesn't really answer them. He just says this first. Take heed that no one deceives you. No one deceives you. Folks, this is the this is the biggest problem in the so called church right now is deception. Wokeism. Have you heard of that? willfully overlooking known sin? Or known? Well, I don't know what the is willfully overlooking known evil. There we go. I knew one of you would know that. And so and deceived and putting the rainbow flag up and and saying these things that Paul didn't really mean that Jesus didn't really mean that. And you know, we just got to we got to love people. Yes, we have to love people, but we tell them the truth. And so that deception is coming over. Don't be deceived. Oh, I don't want to be deceived. Shane, how? Bury your face in the Word. Bury your face in the Word of God. Just listen to solid teachers look it up in Scripture. I believe a person planted in the Word of God, humble, broken, praying, fasting, asking God to direct them, it's real hard to be misled. Now, if a critical spirit comes in there, and they become a Bible thumper and hitting their family over the head with the Word of God, and I'm going to rule my house with a rod of iron, I know all the Scripture, you will be misled and deceived because pride, the pride of your heart has deceived you Obadiah. The pride of your heart has deceived you. Staying humble, humble, humble. He said, many will come in My name saying, I am the Christ and will deceive many. And I thought about it, but I'm not going to do it today. But you can go online, you can find all these people, usually in different countries. This one guy, he's like, I think he's from, I don't even know, he looks like he's maybe Chinese or Philippine, and he's got a huge following. And he says he's the Messiah. And he's got so many people following him. And other people, you can look and people come up, I am the Messiah. And it's just amazing how spot on this is. But the deception, like, what would make you follow a person like that? What would make you follow David Koresh to Waco, Texas? Well, he sounds, he's saying the right thing. Yeah, but when he wants 18 wives, I mean, that's a hello. And all the deception in there. And what about, I don't remember his name, but had all those people drink Kool-Aid? Jones. And for the younger crowd, that's where that term comes from. Don't drink the Kool-Aid. Because a lot of people, was it a thousand, were led astray with him, this false teacher, and talked into drinking the Kool-Aid that had poison in it? Where does this deception come from? Where does it come from? And we see this in cults too. Cults that call themselves Christians. How are you so deceived and brainwashed in believing this? Again, it goes back to what I just said. The Word of God is not primary. This is my gauge. This is my gauge. We have a person coming now. I don't know if he's here. I'd like to do a podcast with him. So talk to me afterward. But he was like a historian for the Jehovah's Witness. And what comes before the Bible? The watchtower. The watchtower interprets the Bible. Watch out when somebody else interprets the Bible. In Mormonism, does the Bible come first? Nope. The supposed dream of Joseph Smith, who had these special glasses, who read these gold tablets, and an angel told him to start this denomination, because all denominations are wrong except for his. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Red light. Red light. But Shane, I asked God to show me. I did get this burning in the bosom. How do you know that wasn't demonic? Hello? Come on. Wake up. Folks, get into the Word of God. What does the Word of God say? It will not mislead you. It is the truth. It points you to the way, the truth, and the life. It does not change. It is not flexible. The truth is absolute. Times change, but truth does not. That's how you stay grounded. But be careful. Again, I really want to get this point across because I run into a lot of Bible thumpers who are not humble. They can quote Scripture, but their marriage is falling apart. Or their life is falling apart. Or they're arrogant and nobody wants to be around them. But they know the Bible. Be careful. Humility is your greatest asset. Many will come to me in that day, and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled. So we shouldn't be troubled when all these things happen either. 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, pestilence, and earthquakes in various places. All these things are the beginning of sorrows. So, could it be dual fulfillment? That everything He said happened before Titus conquered in AD 70. All these things. I can show you where every single one of these things happened. However, I don't think the end has come yet. I don't know, in case I'm missing something here. And so, could it be fulfillment for us now? Don't let wars and rumors of wars distract us. Don't be deceived by, of course, all this applies to us today. Absolutely, as clear as day, nation will rise up against nation. All these things are the beginning of sorrows. So, it could have been the final day for Israel. Everything was broken at the temple. God, the abomination of desolation, we're going to talk about that. All of these things happened. However, it applies to us as well today, that we're going to start seeing these things. We're going to start seeing the sorrow increase. And the beginning of sorrows, because something's got to culminate. It's got to come to something. We're not heading towards utopia. There seems to be this, the earth is even mourning, it feels like. And again, how are we deceived? I went over all this already. Believing and falling for a lie rather than the truth. His return will be very obvious. His return will be very obvious. Be careful, because even a broken clock is right twice a day. Maybe not these kind, but you know the kind you used to set up on the, you'd go and it'd say, 12 o'clock. Come back later, hey, 12 o'clock, the batteries are still working. 12 o'clock, 12 hours later, it's still 12 o'clock. It's right twice a day. So, sometimes people that are deceptive can be on a little bit. That's why, if we had time, we could talk about discerning of spirits. And discerning, is that really of God? Is that of You, Lord? And having that spiritual discernment. And I had something happen to me yesterday that kind of showed this a little bit. It was, I'm preaching. I'm actually preaching. Like, preaching, not just teaching. And the guy in the front row goes, hey Shane, hey Shane, I need to ask you a question. You know, okay, let me, let me stop here. Let's, let's, let's see if this is, you know, I mean, what am I supposed to say? I don't know this guy. I'm just, I'm invited here. This could be one of their leaders, and I don't want to rebuke their leader, one of their leaders. And so, you know, he just kind of went on a little bit. I said, okay, what's your question? He goes, oh, we need to run for office and school board. I'm like, yeah, that's true. We could have waited, you know. But just, just, you know, listening and seeing, and just talking to the people afterwards and the leaders. You know, they said, yeah, thanks for handling it that way, but that definitely was not of God. And I said, absolutely not. He could have came to you and said, hey, I want to share this at the end. And so you can see that, and it could have been just zealous, you know, just, just overly excited and wanted to, I don't really know, it could have been a demonic distraction. It sure let the wind out of my sails. I had to, it took me a minute to recoup. I'm like, where was I? What was this about? It was just such not, not an author of confusion, right? God's not the author of confusion. I think that was definitely the enemy trying to sidetrack for sure. But that discerning of spirits. I don't know if as many of you are new, because I told the story a few years ago. My wife, remember, I was in Wisconsin and I'm preaching. It's a long haul. I mean, it's probably, it was out to like the meadow out there. This long haul in Wisconsin, the American Baptist Association had me speak. And I'm talking about, you know, what I talk about. And it was back when the Supreme Court was, was okaying, I think, gay marriage or something like that. And I said, all I said was, if the Supreme Court, I said 50 years ago, the Supreme Court would have never allowed this. They would have laughed this legislation out of the courtroom. And I see people just getting up and leaving, like I'm talking dozens. Okay. Hmm. Well, what's going on here? Well, on my way to the airport, they decided to tell me, oh, man, this is perfect timing. We were just voting on, should we break off from each other over the LGBTQ issue? Gay marriage, I'm like, that would have been good to not tell me up front because, you know, I just, man, but maybe not, right? You just, I'm just telling the truth. And so anyway, it's, it's still higher up than this. And I'm preaching about this. And, and, and this lady, she just gets up over there. She comes and she stands right, like right there. I go, is my, is my time up? I don't, you know, she goes, no, I need to stop you right now from speaking out against this issue. And I said, oh, man, I'm so, I'd love to talk to you afterwards. But right now I got to preach what the Bible tells me. And I just went on this side and I just started to keep going on again. And so eventually she sat down, she sat down, but she didn't want to talk afterwards, obviously. And, um, and those kinds of things where the enemy will use, if you're not, you know, it's like the devil tried to just stop the work of God's spirit or during worship distractions will happen and things. And that's why people think sometimes if, and we haven't had to do it much here, but if leadership, well, that's pretty, that's pretty mean. You should just let the spirit do what he wants to know that the spirit, the Holy Spirit is not the author of confusion. And if it's confusing and messing up the service for all the congregation, we actually have a responsibility to say, Hey, can I bring you into the prayer room and pray with you? Because this is a distraction that's not healthy for the body. And so we have to be able to discern and make those types of decisions. But Jesus said here too, I see that you are not troubled, alarmed, or in a panic. Boy, do we need to hear that? Troubled, troubled. I'm alarmed. I'm panicked. No, no, no, no, no. Jesus has got this. This is, this is, this is what he spoke. Actually, we should be kind of encouraged because we have already been forewarned and to be forewarned is to be forearmed. So, Hey, we, as much as we want comfort and convenience, we know that these things will get worse. And he says to live with patient expectation, live with patient expectation, waiting for Jesus. And so that's kind of my theology on end times summed up is it looks, it appears that there's things are going to get challenging and difficult as we get into revelation, you know, this, this mark of the beast, the number of a man, which is six, six, six, and, and you can't buy or sell or trade. And, and also, um, you, this, you know, with this one world system and these witnesses and it's, wow, it's very interesting. And, but I'm waiting still in the midst of that for Christ's return, maybe be before that, but I want to be prepared to go through hell and to help help others go through a difficult season in case you're not out of here before it gets tough. Because I don't know that for certain. So I can't tell you, Hey, don't worry about this. Don't worry about this. You're going to be out of here before some of these things in Matthew 24, nine through 14, then they will deliver you up in tribulation and kill you. Oh my goodness. Jesus relax here. So did this happen to the generation he was talking to? Absolutely. Actually, family betrayed family and everyone hated the Jews. That's been a consistent theme throughout history. And they are hated for my namesake. And then many will be offended. Nothing's changed. Nothing's changed. And many will be offended. Do you know it's okay to be offended? You're going to get offended. And that's the number one reason why many people don't come to church often or come to church or leave a church because offended you offended me. And I want people every time I go to speak, I will offend some of you because the word of God is offensive to those who don't want to hear it. But I'm not talking about this, that kind of offense. This is a type of offense where the other, the others will be offended because of you, because of what you're saying. That's happening right now. And we'll betray one another and we'll hate one another. We even got a glimpse into this in COVID, didn't we? Man, neighbor telling on neighbor. We go to JetHawk Stadium and I know as a pastor or his wife, me and my wife think that turned us in. They're not six feet apart and wearing masks. We're outside. Guys, come on. They turned us in. We will get turned in by Christians who kept their church closed for over a year. He's actually not even a pastor anymore if it is the person I'm thinking of, but they start to betray one another even over the vaccine. Can I say that without getting canceled on YouTube? And there are people here on both sides of it. So I'm not going to go into that part of it. I'm just saying people, the videos that came out and betraying one another and telling on people and it's like, gosh, can you believe how bad that can get? Especially when it comes to possibly that's why they're trying to pass the currency that's going to be digital currency. They don't want crypto dollars. They don't want anything. They don't want gold, silver, cryptocurrency. They want to control all the money. And you have to believe this type of system, woke ideology and perversion, all kinds of things. And then people maybe will turn you in. Hey, this person, they're not following the system. And so you can see this is very, very close. They'll hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. Did that happen to the people who Jesus was talking to? Yes, it did. And it continues to happen. And lawlessness will abound. The love of many will grow cold. He who endures till the end shall be saved. Like I said earlier, persecution always follows genuine faith. And I want to remind you as often as I can on the second one, the truth will offend, but your attitude shouldn't. That's the hard part, right? I'm just speaking the truth. No, you're a jerk. You're arrogant. You're in their face. It's like, guys, come on. Especially in the conservative movement. We got to get a lot more gracious. I mean, I tag people like Benny Johnson. You follow him or Graham Allen or all these guys. I'm like, guys, we've got to tone it down a little bit. Like, where's the love, man? You got to, yeah, speak the truth, but don't beat them up as they're falling. Right? You offend them and then kick them. We're no better. We're no better. See, we stand for the truth, and boy, do we stand. You know who's good at this is Tony Perkins. You ever follow him on the Family Research Council? You know, people like that. Jack Hibbs is good. Jack Graham. All these, Jim Garlow. I mean, they're really good at holding the line but still loving the people. And that's where people sometimes get confused because of my strong stance against these issues. Let's say LGBTQ, for example. I love the person and we help the person. There's people we work with that you don't know about that struggle with these things. Love them, but I will fight like hell against the agenda. See, that's the hard part. If I'm fighting the agenda, speaking against the agenda, I can still love the person, but I won't silence my voice as not to offend because it might offend because you're speaking the truth. But it's coming from a genuine heart to want to help. How can you allow in the school district to say, hey, if a nine-year-old wants to change, let's get him into surgery. Let's not tell the parents. That is child abuse at a very deep level and you will be held accountable. You don't love nine-year-olds that struggle. Yes, I do, but that's not the way to do it. You see? What's the best way then to help people struggle? Point them to the cross. Point them to the Savior. Point them and say, listen, you might not take away your struggle, but now you can hold on to the hem of his garment. Now you can fall forward in the arms of God's will redeemed and set free. And although I struggle, I have a Savior that has set me free and He can pull me to the other side. See, that's you point them to the hope right now. There is no hope. Research all those who have transgender surgery. How many of those regret it years later? There's actually lawsuits against medical facilities because of that. And it's only going to increase. And he says, be careful of false prophets. I won't go into a lot of detail, but what you need to know about false prophets is they twist the Scripture. They twist it and they actually encourage sin. They encourage it, sometimes by their silence. A false prophet won't call people to repentance. Actually, in Jeremiah, read chapter 23 today. I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they spoke. They're telling my people, peace, peace, everything's good. It's safety. God loves you. Everything's fine. Keep sacrificing your children to the God of Molech. Keep living in sin and debauchery and idolatry. God's okay with it. You're telling them peace, peace, when there's not peace. My judgment's coming unless you call them to repentance. Sign of a false prophet. Always, a false prophet or a pastor who's not filled with the Spirit will never preach repentance. They'll never preach about the blood of Christ, the atoning work of the cross. They never preach the hard truths. It's the smooth, saying, tell me what I want to hear. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but they'll look for teachers who will tell them what they want. Oh, that felt good in my ear. Oh, that felt good. Tell me, tell me, tell me. I'm just, oh, I'm going to go to heaven. I can live like hell. I love this guy. I love this guy. Don't you? So I want to ask a few questions. I'm going to have to close a little early. Does the world love the way we do church? Well, it shouldn't. Does the world appreciate that our church never challenges anyone or anything? Am I proud that I never make members feel uncomfortable? If so, we may want to consider Jesus' words that true disciples will be hated by the world because they speak the truth, not because they avoid it. The love of many will grow cold. We talked about that earlier. People get worn down and worn out. John 3.20, for everyone practicing evil. Watch, look at this. For everyone practicing evil, hate, hate. You wonder where does all this hate come from? Hello? You remember that, don't you, when you were living like a sinner? You didn't. Did you like people telling you what to do? No way. No way. That's pride. Don't tell me what to do. Matthew 24.14, and he closed out with this, and we'll pick up next week. And this gospel of the kingdom, and this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations. Then the end will come. What is the gospel of the kingdom? Very simple. You just have to break it down. The gospel is the good news. The kingdom is the kingdom of God. The way to enter the kingdom of God is to believe the good news that Jesus died on the cross, and you believe and have faith and repent of your sin. Repentance has to take place because repentance is acknowledging I'm wrong. He's right. I repent, and I have faith and belief in Jesus. And that's how a person enters the kingdom of God. But for most of us today, the final exhortation that we'll get to, Jesus actually says this, watch. Watch, therefore, for you do not know the hour your Lord is coming. See, that's my verse. I have to watch because I don't know the hour He is coming. Watch. Therefore, you also be ready. So, you have to watch, and you have to be ready because He's coming when we do not expect it. So, watching is always backed by action. Make no mistake here. People sit at home eating donuts, watching Netflix. I'm watching. I'm waiting. No, watching is action. Watching means it's almost like a watchman on the wall. Dads, men especially, you're watching. I'm watching for His return, but I'm also doing business until He returns. And I feel sometimes like Nehemiah. On one hand, I have a trial fixing the wall. On the other hand, I have a sword watching for the enemies. So, I'm working God's kingdom, and I'm building God's kingdom, but I'm also watching and guarding the church and our family in different areas. Watch until I return. Watching keeps you fearing God. Watching keeps you on your toes. It's almost like when I go in the Mojave Desert and walking, I'm watching for rattlesnakes. Walking circumspectly, Paul would say, and that's what watching is. Watching is always backed by action, and waiting is always backed by worship. You've got to have those two. Are you watching, and are you waiting for His return? Watching is your conduct. Waiting is your heart response. Worship, worship. Psalm 37.7 says, Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Romans 12.12 reminds us to rejoice in hope and be patient in tribulation. Be patient in tribulation and be consistent in prayer. Some of you are having a wonderful week this week. Some of you are going through hell. Regardless, this applies. Be patient, patient in that tribulation. Be consistent in prayer. Humble yourself before God and take that prayer request to Him and say, Lord, You change this situation. Lord, You break me. You humble me. I'm going to wait upon You. Waiting means I keep my mouth shut sometimes. Waiting means I don't rush ahead before God and make decisions. All right, God, I've had enough of this. I'm taking matters into my own hands. That's very dangerous and destructive.