Mike Bickle discusses the prophetic time frames of the end times as described in Matthew 24, emphasizing the current season of 'birth pangs' that will lead to significant global events, including the rise of the Antichrist and a counterfeit peace. He highlights the importance of recognizing the ultimate purpose behind these trials, which is the greatest harvest of souls in history and the return of Jesus. Bickle warns that as societal pressures increase, believers must remain steadfast in love and not be surprised by the growing darkness around them. He encourages the church to brace for intensified persecution and to focus on the hope of Christ's return amidst the turmoil.

From last week, our last session, some of you will, this will be your first time here tonight. Paragraph A, the scripture describes three prophetic time frames in the end times. And you can see these three by comparing Matthew 24 with 1 Thessalonians 5 and Daniel chapter 9. And we covered this last week and so if that intrigues you, interests you, we have the notes on the website. But just by review, there's the first prophetic time frame is the beginning of birth pangs. Or you can say birth pangs, either way, different Bible translations use different terms. Now the beginning of birth pangs, that occurs over an entire generation. And this, that's the season I think we're in that season right now. And we found out from the scripture that a generation can last up to 100 years. Doesn't have to go that long, but you don't know if a generation that the Lord returns, if it's 50 years or 100 years, it's just wide open. You don't know, but Jesus makes it clear these things unfold over, they begin and come to fullness within the context of one generation. Then after that beginning of the birth pangs, there is what I call the counterfeit world peace and safety. Paul the Apostle called it peace and safety. But it's around the earth, they're rejoicing in a, because it's the Antichrist masquerading as a man of peace. He has used the, or stepped into the problems caused by the beginning of the birth pangs and he's brought solution to some of them. And so he's being celebrated as a man of solutions that brought peace and brought safety. Well that only goes for three and a half years and then the great tribulation, which I would refer to as the hard labor pains. That's where the intents of the intents. But paragraph B, though Jesus uses the analogy of the birthing process, and so do the prophets in the Old Testament, there's a baby being born. That's the point. Some people get so focused on the birth pangs, they forget there's a reason. Now I don't know that there's any mom who loses sight of the baby. That's what makes the birth pangs worthwhile. And the birth pangs, the baby includes a number of things. Number one, the greatest harvest of human history, the end time harvest. I believe it's going to be over a billion people. The purifying of the church and the return of Jesus to set up his kingdom to fill the whole earth with the glory of God. That's the baby for which human history is transitioning through the birth canal, so to speak. And the planet is being transitioned to the age to come. And then we'll go on forever and forever and forever. But it will be a challenging time, but we can't lose sight of the baby. The glorious reality, the big picture of why the Lord is allowing such pressures to come to bear upon the human race. But again, the pressures create the context for the Antichrist to masquerade as a man of peace and a man of solutions. So though the pressures are purifying the church and doing many good things, the enemy takes advantage of them and masquerades as the one with the answer. Paragraph C. Just a review from last week again. Here's the verses that we covered. Just so 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 3, Paul said, there's coming a time when they and that they are unbelievers. People that are not in the house of faith, household of faith all over the world there. They're rejoicing peace, meaning international conflict. War appears to be gone. He's brought a solution and peace and safety, and I think safety has to do with terrorism and things like that. Finally, there's an answer. Paul said when they are rejoicing across the nations, don't believe it. It's counterfeit and it's temporary. Sudden destruction will come because the Antichrist will pull off his mask and though he's masqueraded as a man of peace, he is a man of war. It's the most demonized man that will ever walk the planet. And sudden destruction will bear down upon the nations and they will not escape. These people rejoicing, because again, the they, they're unbelievers outside of the covenant of God. Now they get saved. That's a different story. Paragraph D, Haggai, he prophesied of this great shaking. And I think that the shaking of Haggai, the prophet, involves the entire period, the beginning of the birth pangs, the increasing of the birth pangs and the heavy labor. The entire end time drama, I believe, is included in Haggai's prophecy. Here's what Haggai says. Thus says the Lord, Haggai chapter two, verse six, I will shake the heaven. That's the atmosphere of the sky. I will shake the earth. I will shake the sea. I will shake the dry land. I will shake the nations. And it leads to the great harvest because the nations will come to the one referred to as the desire of all nations. One of my favorite titles of the Messiah in the old Testament. But this shaking is progressive and the shaking gets more and more intense compared to the beginning of birth pains, to the active labor, to the heavy labor, to the baby's born. And I don't think that the shaking is only the final moments, but that shaking is happening right now. Now, you can't say it too many times, but in the midst of the shaking, the glory of God will be poured out. Look at Haggai chapter two. It says, I will fill the temple with the glory. The nations will come to my son, the Messiah. Again, one of my favorite titles of the Messiah in the Old Testament, the desire of all nations. Paragraph E. Now we're going to look at Matthew chapter 24 and you're going to notice there's 15 different birth pains that are identified. When you put Matthew 24 with the parallel passages of Mark 13 and Luke 21, because it's the same message, it was the same prophecy, but Luke 21 adds a little point or two that Matthew 24 doesn't put, I mean, doesn't set forth. So you put all those three chapters together, there are three different explanations or renditions of that one message and they're very similar, but there's a few distinctions. I've identified 15 birth pains or birth pangs, and again, you might identify them just slightly different. You might have a, you know, that number, you could shift it and put the categories to get a little bit together in a different way if you wanted to. But there's 10 trends that are in the time frame of the beginning of the birth pangs. And there's five that are in those final two time frames, the final seven years. There's five trends that come to a whole nother level of intensity in the final seven years. And when you're reading Matthew 24, if you're reading it just kind of quick reading, you might not catch that, that there's a shift from the beginning of the birth pains to the next season where they intensify, and I'll point that out when we read it. These birth pains, they're describing the increased turmoil, and here's the key idea, of a sin-filled social order. These birth pains are related to how society as a whole is responding in a negative way. It's describing the social order, the way that humans interact with humans. Because what's happening is the Lord is giving the human race the chance to have a king after their own heart, or they could have a king after God's own heart, which is the Lord Jesus. And many in the nations choose the king after their own heart, but under his leadership, he creates an environment where the deepest, most perverse desires and the most deep-seated bitterness and hatred comes to the surface on a global level. And the Lord is saying in that, when man casts off my leadership, I will let man have what he wants. But he won't want it, because the human response of the social conditions will catapult beyond what they imagine, because their capacity for sin is greater than they understand. If they have the right environment for sin to come to fullness, they'll be shocked how far they will go in sin. But then on the opposite end, the contrast, the king after God's own heart, the Lord Jesus, of course he is God, but after the Father's heart, using that point there that God spoke about David, love will reach its highest level. The church will walk in unity and purity under the most intense pressures. They will be faithful in love and humility to the end. Whereas the other part of the social order will reach levels, depths of darkness they can't comprehend, but when the environment is perfect for sin to grow, it will fully grow. Now, you don't want to think of the environment being perfect for sin to grow, but using that word picture. Now, in these birth pangs, there's three things, earthquakes, famines, and pestilence. And it seems like it's different than the social order, but in my opinion, this is my opinion, I think they're mentioned as trends that cause chaos in society to increase. It exasperates the problem. The anger of humans and the fear of humans comes to another level with these three dimensions of the earthquakes, the natural creation shaking, but I think they're in this list because they contribute to exasperating the problem of people responding wrong to the Lord. So people will respond wrong, demons will be involved, and then there'll be frustrations in the natural order, earthquakes, famines, pestilence, droughts, et cetera. Now, paragraph G, the way that we respond as these negative trends increase, we pray against them. We don't just accept the increase of the negative, we're always praying for the Lord's glory and His mercy on the people and upon the cities, upon the situation. But not only are we praying, we are acting in the opposite spirit of which the negative trajectory of society is going. That as believers, instead of bitterness, we're walking in love. Instead of hate growing, love is growing. We're acting in the opposite spirit. But I think another very important point is that we are to brace ourselves for the intensity of the social order, the darkness, the perversion, the murder, the hatreds in the social order. We're to brace ourselves, the body of Christ, so we're not surprised and offended by it. Because the unbelievers will be offended by it. The unbelievers, I mean those that continue on to the end, they have no idea their capacity individually and collectively to go into darkness. The very core of man's delusion, man thinks he is good at the core. And if only he has the right environment, his goodness will come out. It's going to be opposite. In the certain environment, the darkness is going to come out. And they're going to be offended at the way they're acting, the way the others are acting. Like, can you believe this? But as believers, we're braced. We know where it's going. We're not going to buy into the offense. We're not going to buy into the shock and the narrative of, can you believe it? Yes, it's where it's going. I'm braced for it. I'm braced to walk in humility and love and be hated and lied about and mistreated for it. So, okay, good. I signed up. Let's do it. I get where it's going. And the Lord's saying, listen to what I say. A lot of believers, they don't spend time in these kinds of passages. So they're just so scandalized when they're treated wrong and go, guys, read the book. It's not a big deal. It's only a few minutes. You're only on the earth 70, 80 years and you'll live forever in the resurrection. Just hang in there and walk in love. Can you believe they did it? Sure, I can believe it. Just dial down, man. Get your eyes on the Lord. Get connected. Get in the opposite spirit. And don't be so scandalized and surprised and shocked. Because a number of the household of faith will actually move to the dark side and they'll operate this way. Some even while they're in the community of God. Don't be scandalized by it. Don't lose your walk with God. There's more Christians that are offended at the way Christians are going, the way that some Christians are treating them. But the tragedy is these Christians that are offended, well, these Christians, they're losing their walk with God over it. I am not going to lose my walk of God because a believer treats me wrong. I'm not going to do it. I've only got a few minutes on the earth as it is. I've only got one relationship with the Lord and one time on the earth. I am not giving over my inheritance because somebody who names the name of Jesus treats me wrong. I know a lot of believers say, I'm finished with that because of them. I go, do you realize what your inheritance in Jesus is? Are you really going to give it up because they're acting like the others? Get the big picture. Top of page two. I want to give you here, this is just kind of a snapshot. We're not going to really spend much time on this page, but it's kind of a reference page for you to kind of get familiar mentally because as you get familiar with these subjects, then you can begin to see them and then they make more sense to you when you study them out. And there's so much detail on every one of these birth pains. I mean, you just go on the internet, just check out Google and you could get 10 pages of information on every one of them. My goal tonight isn't to give you the 10 pages. I think there's a time for us as a community to get the 10 pages for every one of them. I mean, really break down the detail. But in this course right now, I'm wanting us to just get familiar with the narrative or the storyline, where it's going. So we're not tripped up by it. We're familiar with it. We're growing in our understanding. It fits. It makes sense to us. Because again, a lot of believers, they're completely in a different narrative. And when these things happen, it really throws them off and trips them up in their spiritual life and it doesn't need to. They were just braced for it. Top of page two, paragraph B. Now, I want you to notice this one phrase, this is a key phrase. Verse six, Jesus said, and you will hear of wars, rumors of wars, nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom, famine, pestilence, earthquakes. This is a key phrase. It's talking about the body of Christ. There's coming a timeframe. Jesus was saying, this was the implication 2000 years ago. There's coming a timeframe. You'll hear about the wars and rumors of wars and famines and earthquakes. Because in the ancient world, I mean, even up to a hundred years ago, you might've heard about something that happened near to you, or maybe some real radically extreme thing that happened on the other side of the world. But now in the internet world, the technology, there's a famine, there's an earthquake, there's a war. You hear about it within an hour. The whole body of Christ nearly. And so he's talking about a timeframe where these things would be global news. It's not just because some people I think have misapplied this. They think every one of these trends increases compared to a hundred years ago. What increases is that they're global news and they're impacting the global dialogue and the global response of the people of God. I mean, a couple of hundred years ago when there was an earthquake in Africa, the people in Asia never heard about it. The body of Christ, Stephen. And he's saying you, he goes, there's coming a time you'll hear about. You'll hear all this stuff because when they hear about it, it's not just the believers. That's who he's talking to, but the nations, because the, the global access access to the information creates an impact and the people respond differently with this news. So one of the main features of the science of the times is the fact that it's global instant information. And so the collective total of all of these crisis in the earth bears down. Everybody gets not everybody technically, but the vast majority of the human race gets this information within an hour when it's really newsworthy. And the accumulation of it, it shifts the mood and the dialogue, the attitudes and the actions of governments of peoples. It causes riots. I mean, it, I mean, uh, something breaks out in one city, they see it on the internet and the riot breaks out in the other city. Something happens in one campus, you know, this thing going on, this anti-Israel thing. Then the other campus is doing it. Then the other campuses spreads, it spreads so fast. So some folks I think have missed the significance of this phrase and you will hear of it or you will see it. It's what he says a couple other times in Matthew 24. They're missing the, the accumulated impact upon individuals and upon the social order. When all of the negative is accessible within an hour or two of it happening. It has a accumulated impact that shifts even the way governments make decisions, the way society they riot or don't riot, the way fear and panic, way offense is exasperated. It just shifts everything. So we're in that timeframe where it's truly said, and he can say to the body again, nearly everyone in the body of Christ, you will hear of this all the time. But more than you have any desire, you will hear this information, every one of these, and they'll have an accumulated impact upon the human heart of the human process and the governmental policies of nations. Paragraph C, Jesus identifies the 10 trends of the beginning. That's the key phrase, the beginning of the birth pangs, because the, that goes over a generation again, somewhere between 50 to a hundred years is a generation could go up to a hundred. It's building. It's building. The news is impacting people in accumulated way more and more and more and more. You can read those there. Well, let's just look at it real quick since this is a Bible study. Verse five, many will come in my name. They'll say I'm the Christ. They'll deceive many. Then you will hear of wars and rumors of wars again, within, within a few hours, often you'll hear about it. But it says, see that you're not troubled for nation will rise against nation. I think that means ethnic conflict because as we've looked at several times, the word nation is, is, uh, uh, that's, that's, uh, that's used here is the word we get ethnic from. It's ethnos is the Greek word. Ethnic group against ethnic group is what Jesus is saying. Kingdom against kingdom. You'll hear of famines. You'll hear of pestilence. It's just not, you'll see it touching your own life, but the, just the, the, the accumulative story of, Oh, create fear, concern, action, reaction, all of the world. When a pestilence breaks out in one part of the world, a serious one, I mean a big one and the same with earthquakes. He says in verse eight, this is only the beginning of sorrows. King James is one of the only Bible translations that uses the phrase beginning of sorrows. Most of the translations use the beginning of birth pangs or birth pains. I don't know why the King James, uh, doesn't use the term instead of sorrows. They, I mean, they use the term sorrows that are birth pains, Luke 21 again, it's the same message as Matthew 24, same occasion, same guys listening to it, the disciples. Jesus adds, I mean, uh, Luke adds three more dimensions that Matthew doesn't add. Matthew adds seven trends. Luke adds three more. He says, you'll hear of wars. Then he adds this word commotions. Then in verse 11, instead of you'll hear of earthquakes, he adds the word great earthquakes. So I think we'll hear of earthquakes and great earthquakes. I think there's, uh, two different impacts. You'll hear of famines. You'll hear of pestilence. Like he said in Matthew 24. Then he adds another, uh, trend, fearful sights. What fearful sights will increase? And I believe the fearful sights are not limited to great signs in the heavens, but I think they include, I think there'll be things happening in the heavens, but not just fearful sights will be on that, but there'll be things happening in the sky that will create fear of people on the earth. And again, because of technology, the whole world will see it. It will have a powerful collective impact on societies. And verse 25, he goes to the next dimension. He says there'll be distress in the nations. Of course, that's obvious. The whole chapter is about distress in the nations. That's kind of a, kind of just a summary phrase for the whole chapter. Then there will be perplexity with the sea. And again, I have it on the notes here, uh, later, most of the translations say perplexity related to the sea, things will be happening in the sea and the waves that will cause the nations to be very perplexed, troubled. So there's going to be troubles on the seas and the coastal cities, and they will see them and they will affect the whole world. I mean, what happened with Katrina? I mean, that affected our entire nation. The tsunami in 2004 in Southeast Asia and Indonesia, almost 300,000 people died really quick and affected the whole world stopped and paid attention to that. The seas brought perplexity to the nations. It's not just creating fear and trauma, but how do we fix this? How do we stop this? How do, what's the way through it? Where's the answer to this? There'll be perplexity with the sea and the waves roaring. Okay, the rest of page two here, I just break it down a little bit. The 10 areas, just so you can look at them and get familiar with them a little bit more. And again, somebody else may use a little different terminology or put two categories together and create another one. It doesn't really matter. But the idea is you got a general feel for it. But then in paragraph D, here's the part you might miss if you're reading it, just kind of real quick, Matthew 24, here in verse nine, now in verse eight, he said, the other things were the beginning of birth pains, the beginning of sorrows, sorrows and birth pains is the same word. Now he's going to talk about something, then something else happens after the beginning of birth pains. And verse nine to 11 is something that's happening right now. Of course it's happening a little bit, but it's going to go to a, a heightened level in the earth beyond what I think we're really imagining. Verse nine, 10 and 11 is a whole nother level of intensity in the social order. It's not just a little bit more than what we have going on now. It's going to be of a whole nother order. It's after the beginning of the birth pains. The birth pains is going to create this world peace and safety with an antichrist leadership. That's going to be an absolute hatred in a war with the church, the people of God. And there's going to be new legislation in that timeframe, as we looked at last week, and there's going to be a new animosity against the believers and that's going to go to a whole nother level than it is right now. Right now, if you're a believer, I mean, there's places in the world where you die if you're a believer and that's increasing. But mostly, if you're a believer today, you get some, a little bit of stigma. You get criticism. You get a little bit of criticism for taking a stand. You get some stigma. People say, you're a hater, you're mean, you're bad. You don't know the Bible. You don't understand the scripture and like, oh, that hurts and it does hurt sometimes, but it's going to go way beyond stigma and some embarrassment and some rejection to a whole nother level. And this is after the beginning of the birth pangs. Again, these trends are happening now a little bit, but Jesus is saying, no, prepare yourself. It's going to a whole nother level one day. They'll kill you. You'll be hated by all the nations. There's never been a time ever where the church was hated by all the nations. Never. That's yet future. We can see, we can see that thing moving. We can see it. Uh, society moving in that direction right now. Still a little bit. Uh, we're still a little ways out. Verse 10, many will be offended. They'll betray. They'll hate each other. There'll be false prophets. Lawlessness will abound and love the very purpose for which the human race was created will be impossible for them to connect with their created design. They'll be filled with hatred. That's, that's the worst statement of being given over to darkness. Love grows cold in their own heart. The incapacity for them to feel love or respond in love. That's where the social order is going for those that are saying no to the grace of God as these birth pangs increase and increase. But at the very same time, there'll be the greatest harvest of believers and the church will walk in the deepest levels of love under the Lordship of Jesus. But actually that growth in love in the church will be in context to the animosity and the hatred against the people of God. God's people will get so lined up with a heavenly purpose and God's agenda for their life. They will so, their identity will be so rooted in who they are as sons and daughters of the resurrection. They won't interpret their life by who likes them and what door opens, how much money they got and how things, you know, how they're being treated. They're going to live in a whole nother core reality and that's where it's going. But they'll, but the net result is they'll be mature and deep in love, the opposite of cold in love. Top of page three. Now, again, we can't go very deep on these subjects and they, because of the internet, every one of these birth pangs, just hypothetically, I don't mean technically, you can get 10 pages of information on them. If you wanted to really drill down deep, I don't literally mean 10. Some poor guy's got nine pages and he's thinking, oh, I want God's fullness. Where's the 10th page? I just made that up. The 10 pages. Top of page three. Let's look at the beginning. Now, again, the beginning birth pangs, 10, that's different than the five that come after the beginning of the birth pangs. First, there will be deception and false Christs. Now it's interesting that Jesus warned more about deception than any other thing related to the end times. He warned more about deception than he did tribulation, than persecution. We're concerned with persecution. I mean, I don't like persecution. I don't like tribulation, difficult challenges in the culture. I don't like tribulation or persecution. Of course, persecution is part of tribulation. But the Lord Jesus, he says, deception will be your greatest vulnerability and your greatest enemy will be deception gets inside of you. You buy into the wrong narrative because you get in the wrong narrative, you get into the wrong mindset, then you're not connected to the Lord, drawing on his leadership and that intimacy and the grace of God. You get offended. Your heart grows cold. You actually get disconnected and you get offended. You go in the other direction. He goes, deception is life and death is the result of deception or understanding. But anyway, he emphasizes this first and he emphasizes this most. So it really matters that we're people of the word. You know, some folks, I'm just so busy in ministry, I don't have time to be in the word like I want to. I go that you don't want that to be characteristic of your life, maybe for a short season, but you get over it into some situation and you're not spending the time in the word that you want to. We have to be people of the word. I don't mean just that we know the information, but we're interacting with Jesus with this information. We're talking to him on a regular basis. We're being renewed and washed by the word, not just we bought into a couple of biblical facts and we go, yeah, our theology is right. I'm not going to be deceived. The deception isn't just about whether you believe Jesus is from God and his salvation is real. The deception is the whole storyline of where society is headed. The narrative of the dark trajectory of where people are going and many of the church are going to jump into the dark side. They're going to have a wrong narrative, a wrong storyline. I'm using that as the same word, the same meaning as narrative. The way they're thinking of life in the future is going to be very different than the way the Bible is thinking. So deception is more than, do you believe Jesus died for your sins? It's a far bigger subject than that. It's his leadership in that hour of history. Verse five, many will come, they'll say, I am the Christ. Now the word Christ, most of you know, means anointed. You know, when I was a first believer, a believer, I thought Jesus Christ, I thought that was his last name, but it's his title. It's the anointed. Messiah, Christ, and anointed are all the same word. Jesus Messiah, Jesus anointed, Jesus Christ, you can use them interchangeably. So what Jesus is saying, there's going to be a lot of people raising up saying, I'm commissioned and anointed by God. They're not all saying, I died for your sins and I've come back from heaven for you. That's not exactly what they're going to be saying. They're saying, I have a commission from God. I'm anointed by God. I am a deliverer. Follow me. But they're going to bring it to a level beyond the, we're a member of the body of Christ. We understand our calling and we're committed to our calling, but they take it to a whole nother level. It becomes about them. They get in the way of a person's walk with God and they become the central focus. They're the deliverer. Now these deliverers, I have written here in paragraph A, they could be political or military leaders, social reformers, some of the warlords in some of these nations where there's genocide. They're the ones, I'm liberating our oppressed people and we're going to kill everyone that gets in our way. And they become, I'm sent by God. I have a mandate by God. I'm a deliverer from God. Whether religious, political, military, there's going to be a lot of makeshift deliverers that arise because the crisis is going to be calling for a strong leaders, various levels. You know, in Nazi Germany, the crisis was so severe they, the outcry in the society is we want a strong man that can bring order to our nation because there was economic chaos. There's political chaos, racial chaos. There's all kinds of tension everywhere. And the nation said, we want a strong man. We want to deliver. We want somebody that could cause all the problems to be moved out of the way and get quick answers. That's what that's included in this. They will come and say, I am the Christ. I'm an anointed commission deliverer from God. Now you'll notice paragraph verse five in the same in verse 11, five and 11, the word many is used twice in verse five and the word many is used twice in verse 11. It's used in two different ways. Number one, there's many of these deceivers and they will have a big following. They will deceive many. So there'll be a lot of these makeshift deliverers that are claiming to be anointed by God or called of God. I don't know if they all will use the word anointed, but I'm commissioned. I'm sent by God. I've for such a time as this, and of course Hitler was really into the fact he was under providential commissioning to save Germany. Paragraph B, you're going to hear about wars. It's not just that wars are increasing, though in this case they are, and the deliverers, the Christ's are increasing the amount of people that are saying, I'm the answer for an entire nation or for my part of the world or whatever. I believe they are increasing, but they're newsworthy. Their global headline news is the idea that the story of them is creating fear and reaction and response. I mean, we're watching carefully what's happening in Syria, what's happening in Iraq, what's happening in Russia, what North Korea is doing, and we're over here in America and it's impacting our politics, our conversations, the way we carry our heart. Well, all of this is impacting the whole earth, the accumulation of all of these things, and it's shifting the human response individually and collectively and the human dialogue and policies and everything. I have just a few pieces of information there you can read on your own just about how wars are increasing, but again, it's the news of the wars that is creating the global shift, the fear, the guardedness. We got presidential candidates that are saying, we're going to do this and that because of those people over there. It's that kind of, I mean, it really impacts us. I'm not saying all that's bad, but I'm saying governments are making policies because of what the news is telling their peoples happening over there. Paragraph C, there's ethnic conflict, nation against nation, ethnos against ethnos. This is civil disorder, racism, genocide. I believe it's one of the primary issues in our nation and in the globe is how ethnic group against ethnic group. And when money, when there's financial pressures, like in our nation, when entitlements are withheld, there's more disturbance in peoples one with another. That's a global reality, not an American reality. When money and famine or trouble comes, then ethnos gets even more energized. Because when trouble comes, people cluster together and then they stand against the people that aren't, that they perceive as different than them. Well, there's all kinds of ethnic wars going on right now, but I believe that it's civil disorder more than just ethnic wars that I have listed a few of them here. Paragraph D, economic warfare. I think economic warfare is the essence of kingdom against kingdom. I don't think Jesus is saying the same thing, nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom. I don't think he's being poetic, just kind of repeating himself. I, I interpret this as economic related hostility, aggression, conflict, economic related sabotage of one nation to another, holding them in hostage. I mean, one nation can use their economic power and put sanctions or boycotts on other nations and really create trouble for that other nation. And that's happening quite a bit. And some of the economic warfare is legal, above board. I don't really have a lot of information, like I'm some expert on this, I don't want to pretend to be, but I had enough conversations and read just a little bit enough to just be dangerous actually on this, but my point being there's economic warfare going on, not just the legal and open and overt nation against nation, making deals and trapping and entrapping each other economically. I have a feeling and a little bit of knowledge that there's hostility and deception with significant impact. I mean, wars related to oil in the Middle East. I mean, all kinds of issues going on with, with cargo and merchandise and tariffs and nations come trading and there's all kinds of warfare going on with the idea of breaking the power of other nations so they're subservient to you. And I think Jesus is saying, you're going to see that increasing and you're going to hear the news of some of it. Top of page four, paragraph E, famine. Now the report in 2005, nearly a billion people worldwide suffering from malnutrition, a billion. And though today actually the numbers are a little bit lower, there's been a little bit of gain worldwide, but some sources that study this, they're projecting it to get far more severe. And of course there's always money and political agendas in the people who come up with the numbers. I mean, this is, this stuff is, is a hard to get really unbiased numbers because most of the people presenting the numbers are shifting the numbers based on their political agenda to get money and resource one way or the other. So it's hard to know exactly what's going on. But Jesus was saying that famine would be, you will hear about it, it will be global headline news and it creates again an action and a response and a fear and an animosity nation against nation. I mean the news itself creates tremendous social movement plus the tragedy of the very fact of the people in famine. But I think a billion people, they're saying the number's a little bit lower right now than it was even 10 years ago, but they're projecting it to get far higher. But with an economic crisis in the earth, the famine will go up to a whole nother level. Terrorism will create hunger problems. I mean, we're looking at the refugee problem in Syria. We're looking at, we're seeing governments fighting each other and 10 million people are either dying or in flight and starving or on the verge, I mean really suffering. So terrorism and war will create this in a far greater way. Look at paragraph F, pestilence or disease. Now this includes epidemic diseases as well as biological warfare. Paragraph one, experts are so much on the internet on this subject. You could get 10 pages on this one for sure. Experts are warning that one of the greatest threats in the world today is biological warfare. Nations are developing genetically engineered viruses and bacteria that can't be stopped by any antibiotics. They can't be stopped in any way. Now the nations are preparing it in order to protect themselves is how the storyline goes. We're preparing it in our laboratories to protect us in case somebody else does it. But many nations are in this track and the, again, I don't have all the inside information, but the kind of the obvious information out there is quite alarming as to how far this has gone. The genetically engineered viruses and bacteria that can't be stopped if they're released. Intelligence reports are talking about terrorists who want to use smallpox. Now smallpox was devastating in the past, devastating because if you don't, if you're not inoculated against it, vaccinated against it, it's, it will wipe out whole populations. But right now, because so many have, I mean, this whole smallpox has been under control in the West. Many don't have the vaccinations for it and intelligence reports are saying terrorists are saying they can, they could get that into the community and have devastating impact. Those kinds of things. New paragraph two, new strains of malaria, tuberculosis, et cetera, resistance, resistant to any kind of antibiotics that could solve the problem and, and, and help them. Paragraph three, the AIDS epidemic, pandemic, 80 million people have contracted HIV, 40 million have died since this first came out about 35 years ago, 40 million. Now they're making some headways with AIDS in some parts of the world, but in those very parts in Africa, I'm thinking of, but the very parts of the world, the young people, the numbers are increasing of the youth that are contracting this virus. But the thing that I'm concerned about is new strands of HIV. When we come up with an answer to solution for one, I think we're going to, we're going to find out there's going to be new strands of it that there, there isn't an answer for earthquakes. Now some people will tell you earthquakes are increasing in number, but the facts tell us that earthquakes, the actual amount of earthquakes, cause they've only been, they've only had scientific measuring of them and analyzing them for a hundred years and it's getting so much more sophisticated in the last couple of decades and continually to get more sophisticated. So earthquakes, I mean, just the fact of one is not increasing, but the news of them spreading across the world is increasing rapidly. And Luke added the word great earthquakes. It says you're going to see great ones that are above and beyond what your, what you normally think about as an earthquake. And when you say, think of great, thinking of great power, great destruction, great loss of life. So great means the magnitude of how powerful the earthquake is, obviously the amount of destruction of buildings, properties, land that it has, and the amount of human life that is, uh, uh, that's killed or damaged through it. It's great in that regard. But I mean, there's there, I don't know that there's an earthquake today that's a major one that isn't world news within an hour. And again, it, it, it, the very, the, the, the, the very fact of that information together with all the other information, it really shifts the way that society holds their heart, reacts, responds, how governments act, et cetera. It shifts the global mood, earthquakes, major earthquakes do. And I think that, uh, just by the very fact that there's larger city populations, there's so many mega cities today that earthquakes in mega cities, just the population increases so great that, that the threat of greater damage, though there's greater technology, but the populations of major cities there, you know, they talk about and, and, and around Tokyo and places like that, what an earthquake would do. And many, many, many cities of the earth. I don't want to go down the list here, but the, uh, tsunami in Southeast Asia in 2004, it was started by an earthquake. The tsunami, they national geographic says killed 300,000 people. The tsunami kills 300,000 people in 2004. They said it was caused by an earthquake. The waves, the water is what caused the damage, but the earthquake created the waves. So it's all connected together. Top of page five. Let's go. Uh, I'm just looking at the time commotions. The Greek word for commotions means instability or state of disorder. I have a number of popular translations. The most popular, uh, translation, uh, are commotions, uprising rebellions. I have down in paragraph three, this is not the same thing as wars or ethnic conflict. It's it's troubles beyond that. I have written here, communal violence with militias and paramilitary organization, terrorism. It's beyond just traditional war or ethnic conflict troubles that are just disrupting society. The, you know what happened in the Arab spring and the good, bad, and the ugly commotions in nations that are not just wars or ethnic conflict. It's more complicated than that. It's more, uh, there's more dynamics to it than that. You know, I was talking to, uh, an, uh, an informed man in the military. That's a very top, uh, in the military. And he was saying that there were over 2000 militias in America. It's a man that's works, uh, and been in the, uh, works directly with the white house for many, many years at the very top of the, of the military and government. I mean, his resume is quite remarkable. And he said, I was asking him, I said, now, how many militia groups are in America? He says at least 2000 I said, what is a militia group? I mean, I don't even know what the definition, he says. It's about 20 to 200 people that are together there, you know, they're, they have a common goal and they work together and they're very trained in guns and high, uh, I mean, in weapons and they're trained, they're organized and they're little bands of them. And they take the law into their own hands to protect their own people. That's the, they don't trust the government. They don't trust other governments. They want to protect their people and they're connected together. He said that we've got at least 2000 of those groups in America identified, and there's probably a bunch more. And he goes in with terrorism against, uh, uh, uh, I'm talking about Islamic terrorism comes into our borders. They go, these guys are going to go into action because in the U S government is going to have to like stop them because you can't be vigilantes, but they're not going to be stopped. And he was talking about the, where those kinds of commotions are going. He had quite a bit to say about it. I thought, well, I never really never thought about that because you have terrorists coming to our borders and they're running, they're creating fear in schools and shopping malls. These guys aren't going to just be quiet and it's going to create all kinds of disturbances because the government can't let vigilante groups just go wild and take the law into their own hands. So there'll be some governments against their own people stopping them. And anyway, he was describing, and I don't know how far all that's, I don't have all the kind of the final information on those things, but commotions in these kinds of ways I can, you can see them on the horizon. So clearly let's go, uh, to top of page six, we'll skip a few of the trends here. The final seven years. I just want to mention this to just so that we get our mind around it again. I don't know that I'll see this in my day, but I might, but I know it's where society is going. Part of society. I mean, but a good part of society, not totally because there's going to be the greatest manifestation of the glory of God ever in history as well. Light and dark will be in such intense contrast. It says in verse nine, they will deliver you to tribulation, kill you, and you'll be hated by all nations. This is another level of intensity from anything in history. Now there's pockets in the earth that have this intensity towards Christians, but they're talking about all the nations, a different hour of history. It's after the birth pangs, the beginning of the birth pangs. Again, the antichrist has created a world peace and safety, but there's only one group of people that are openly calling the antichrist of the devil. I mean, the one guy that brings peace and safety and the Christians are saying he's of the devil. It's like, come on you guys, what do you want? Finally we have peace and safety. You've been praying for unity and safety and peace and we got it. And you call it of the devil. Christians will be seen as enemies of the state. The enemies of the tranquility of society and it's going to a whole nother level. Now you can see this already moving in that direction. By in the last year, the last 12 months, the amount of dialogue and even legislation of hate laws where Christians can't say stuff about what is godly and what is not godly because it creates hate. And those laws are already picking up at a pace that is, well, I mean, we're not at the heavy stuff at all, but it's already picking up so rapidly. It's a sign of the times itself and it's all over the Western world and it's moving very fast and we're not at the hated by all nations stage at all. We're at the ridiculed openly stage and a few laws that penalize standing for what you believe. Just a few. But when it says they will kill you and be hated by all nations, it's more than just a few people in society are mad at you and they want to beat you up. That's talking about legislation. Government backed legislation to kill Christians. And again, you see where this is going, you're saying, Lord, I'm going to go deep in you. I'm going to put my hope in you, my identity in you. I'm all about you and your leadership and I'm trusting you. There'll be tremendous amount of miracles and there'll be protection, but there's also the realm that we're living for the resurrection. We're sons of the resurrection. We're not children of this age. So we interpret pressures very different than sons of darkness do. We're sons of the resurrection, Jesus said. You're children of the resurrection. Paragraph B, the next one, social anarchy. When it says in verse 10, you got to read this carefully, then many will be hated, betrayed and hate one another. Now in verse 10, it's not only Christians being hated, it's escalated. Now the hatred that many have against the Christians, that hatred has got into their emotional makeup and into their mindset and now hatred begins to dominate all the relationships and betrayal starts to increase. This is now society as a whole, not just against Christians, because the hatred they have towards the believers now begins to dominate their own home life and their own heart and all their relationships because hatred begets hatred. Hatred doesn't stay measured. Hatred grows. If hatred and betrayal and bitterness is not dealt with, confronted, repented of and cleansed by the blood of Jesus, it grows and it grows. In verse 10, it's talking about more than hatred against believers. It's society becomes that way. Betrayal, hating, paragraph C, deception and false prophets. Now at this point in time, it's not false deliverers because the Antichrist is in place now and his emissaries will be all over the world, anointed men and women as ambassadors of his agenda. So it's not false prophets in the sense of somebody prophesying in the name of Jesus. It will be illegal to call on the name of Jesus at that time. These aren't Christian prophecy conferences. The Christians are being hated by everyone. No, this isn't Christian. These are men and women that will operate in a demonic anointing with power as emissaries of the Antichrist and Satan's agenda of the earth. And they will deceive many because they'll have signs and wonders, tremendous signs and wonders. And then paragraph D, where it goes is lawlessness abounds beyond measure. This is the days of Noah with violence, the days of law with immorality coming to a fullness. Paul talked about this in first Timothy four, he said, their conscience will be seared. They'll be unmoved in their conscience, seared conscience. Paul talked about people being given over by God, but there's a time where people progress in sin and God beckons them. They progress in sin and he, he woos them by his love. They progress in sin. They cast him off. He puts roadblocks. He disciplines them. He stops them. He causes hindrances. They press on. They press on. And then there's a time Romans one says, God gives them over to do what they want, but then their own sin dominates them and makes them slaves and captives far beyond what they imagined. The power of demons and sin in them now dominates their life. And that's, there's coming a place where lawlessness far more than just a little social disorder will be the characterization of the planet outside of the people of God. Although I think there'll be a billion or a couple, you know, a billion believers now plus another billion or curse those, those numbers aren't exactly how it will be, but there's a lot of, lot of believers going on at the same time, but lawlessness abounding. And then the final thing is that love grows cold contrary to what we were created for. We're created by love and we're created for love, but when love grows cold, they will be incapable of feeling, receiving or expressing love. I mean, it will be the epitome of the opposite of what God created the human race for because man wanted a King after their own heart. But the sin, it accelerated far beyond what they thought. And God allowed this as He organized history to come to a head at one time frame of history. Then the true King and the loyalty to that King is manifest on the earth. This is before the Lord returns. The church will be purified. Jesus, His worth, His beauty will be adored and walked in no matter what the cost. There will be, you know, a billion believers or whatever the number is, loyal to Him in love. So before He returns, He will have a people in every nation seeing His worth, His beauty, His loyalty fully given to Him. And there will be the fullness of man, a King after man's own heart brought to the full extremity of man's sin. And the contrast will be there and then the end will come. Then the Lord will come. Two encouragements, paragraph eight, Jesus ends it with two encouragements. Verse 13, you might read it this way, he that endures shall be saved. I read it this way, he that endures shall be saved. I put the emphasis, the breakthrough, the deliverance, the vindication, the experience of the power of God, the ability to be faithful in love in the midst of hostility, beloved were delivered, were saved, the breakthrough, anybody that will stay with it, they'll have the full breakthrough and the vindication and it will all be worth it to them. So I don't read that. He that endures shall be saved, but he that endures shall be saved. Oh yes. In verse 14, the next encouragement, the gospel of the kingdom, it's not just the gospel that only offers forgiveness. I mean the gospel of the kingdom offers forgiveness of course, but a lot of folks, they have a gospel that offers forgiveness and it ends there, it's the gospel of a King who's coming to rule the nations, his leadership is good, he's worthy of abandonment to his leadership as King. It's that gospel that we're freely forgiven in the grace of God because we're loyal to a King and the King is coming to the earth very, very soon at this time and so he ends in those two high points, the people of God will be delivered and the King will be proclaimed in all the nations. And I tell you, when all the nations are saying, come Lord Jesus, then he's coming as the rightful King to take over the leadership of all the nations of the earth, literally physically from his throne in Jerusalem. Amen and amen. Let's stand.