The Gospel of the Kingdom and the Coming End

All right, let's just pray and we'll really get into the Word of God tonight. Father, we do pray again, Father God, Your Holy Presence, Father, we know that man by himself cannot speak the Word of the Lord, Father. We want to hear from You tonight and Father, we want to just declare that how much I and we need You, Father God, that this cannot be just a meeting where we go through and have some scriptures and go home.

Father, we want to so hear from You, Father. We want to be affected by the Word. We want Your Word to go deep in our hearts by the power of Your Holy Spirit, God.

Please meet with us tonight, we pray, and pour out Your Spirit upon this gathering together, Father. We thank You in Jesus' name. Amen.

Okay, please turn with me to Matthew chapter 24. Now, I'm from New Zealand, so for those of you that cannot understand my strange accent, I'm sure we'll get through it. All right, Matthew 24, verse 14.

I think this is a fascinating verse that, like many verses, we just pass by in the flash of an eye, and we don't really notice it. So, Matthew 24, verse 14, and this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come. That makes whatever he's speaking about, this gospel of the kingdom, extremely important.

In the last days, we actually had better find out what that is, and if it's something that we're not preaching, or if it's an emphasis of the gospel, or an aspect of the gospel that somehow we've lost, man, we'd better find it again, because the gospel of the kingdom, this gospel of the kingdom, obviously, because he uses the word this, this is Jesus speaking, so because he uses the word this, he's already talking about it in these passages right here. You know, years ago, I became aware, of course, as anybody does, of how many times Jesus was using the word kingdom, kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God, and I would do these studies. I never quite got the absolute grasp on it.

You know, there's lots of teachings on the kingdom this, and the kingdom that. Many of them have wonderful insights, and you know, people talk about the church, and the life of the church, establishing God's kingdom, and wherever God is reigning, that's his kingdom, so God reigns in us, therefore, his kingdom is in us, and so on. Lots of people have all kinds of great little teachings, kingdom oriented, but I never was happy that I'd come to understand what this meant, and I would see Jesus talking about the kingdom all the time, and I'd say, I wonder if kingdom of heaven, and kingdom of God are the same, and I'd do a big study on that.

You know, I just never quite, it didn't quite click. I came to quite a few conclusions. So, I was in Wales, and we were holding a conference at Mariah Chapel, where the revival began in Wales 100 years ago, and at the last minute, one of my preacher friends from Denmark had to pull out of it right at the last minute, just days to go, and he was supposed to be one of the main speakers, and I called another guy in that I'd never heard speak, but I just felt that I needed to call on this guy, and he was from England.

His name was Alex Tinson. So, he came in, and he started preaching. There he is, literally standing in the pulpit where the revival, at Mariah Chapel, where the revival began, and he's standing there.

You know, this is where Evan Roberts used to preach. This is the home fellowship. You know, it's down to 18 people now.

They're all old people. When those people die, I don't know what's going to happen to that chapel. You've got Evan Roberts, the great revivalist.

His grave is right there in the graveyard, and I guess that's a good kind of symbol of where a lot of Western Christianity has gone in the last 100 years, but very sadly, Wales is no longer a revival country and hasn't been for decades and decades. It's gone from, in 100 years, the most revival country to being one of the most secular countries in the whole of Europe, 7% church attendance, and if that's not a declaration of where our culture and where Western society has gone, I don't know what is. So anyway, there was Alex, and he was preaching on the gospel of the kingdom, and just as he was speaking, just those few gears that I needed to just click over, suddenly went click in my brain, and I thought, that's what I didn't see.

That's what I didn't see. Alex was preaching about all the times where Jesus tells a parable about the kingdom. You know when Jesus will open a parable, he'll say, the kingdom of God is like such and such, or the kingdom of God is as a man that traveled to a far country, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

Those, he said, these are the kingdom parables. We want to understand the gospel of the kingdom that Jesus was preaching. We need to focus on those and get the message that's in those parables and comprehend what it was that are the key points out of this gospel of the kingdom, and obviously, in this passage, in round about it, Matthew 24, the big end times passage, interestingly enough, there Jesus is already talking about it, because he says, this gospel of the kingdom.

So it's in these passages, some of these keys. I want to go into it. I think it's powerful, and I found it powerful when I was hearing about it, and I thought, yes, this fits in exactly with where I believe the gospel needs to go in the last days, because we've lost so much, especially the convicting power of the Holy Spirit in our preaching.

So that's my little intro there. If you can turn with me please to Matthew chapter 22, and you notice we're only going back a couple of chapters. We're really still in the same passages.

Jesus is actually in Jerusalem talking to his disciples and so on through much of this entire thing, Matthew 22 all the way through to 20, 25. Okay, this is a scary passage, and I want to apply it in a sense, but let's have a look at it first. And Jesus answered, we're in verse one, Jesus answered and spoke unto them again by parables and said, the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king, which made a marriage for his son.

Now what we need to realize is wherever we see an opening like that, we're talking gospel of the kingdom. If we can go through Matthew and Luke and all of those, and start seeing things that way, and start actually opening our eyes, Jesus is talking about not just the kingdom, he's talking about the gospel of the kingdom. These parables are how he would open that subject up to people.

This is so typical of how he would do it. The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king, which made a marriage for his son. He sent forth servants to call those who were bidden to the wedding, and they would not come.

Again, he sent forth other servants saying, tell them which are bidden. Behold, I've prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat ones are killed, and all things are ready, come to the marriage. And they made light of it and went their way, one to his farm, another to his merchandise, and the remnant took his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them.

And when the king heard about it, he was angry and he sent forth his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned up their city. What city is he speaking of? He's speaking right there, probably in the presence of scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees who are literally gritting their teeth listening to him, because he's talking about their city. You know, Jesus is about to go on to say to his disciples, you see these beautiful stones, talking about the temple buildings and everything.

He says, there will not be one of these stones left upon another. In other words, he's saying, this entire place will be razed to the ground. Nothing will survive.

That's what all these passages are about. Nothing is going to survive this. Who's behind it? He's saying the king was angry and he sent forth his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned up their city.

Do you know what in fact happened? 40 years, less than 40 years after he spoke these words, the Roman army surrounded Jerusalem, exactly as he said it would happen. It happened. The Roman army surrounded Jerusalem.

Josephus records it, the historian records it. There was one, they say 1.1 million Jews slaughtered by the Roman armies. The Josephus says the blood was flowing in the streets so high that it was putting out fires.

That's how bad it was. That's how bad the slaughter was. Because why? They had not just persecuted, but killed the king.

They had ignored and mistreated his servants. They had done everything Jesus said that they were going to do. Everything he told them in the parable.

So the king was angry and sent forth his armies. You know, we're not dealing here with a pansy of a king. In fact, at no time in this period would anybody in their right mind have thought of king the way often God has thought of today.

God wasn't a Santa Claus and the king wasn't a Santa Claus to these people. They knew what a king stood for. A king stands for great authority.

He has the power of life and death over you. And if he says life, you're fine. If he says death, it is done and nothing will stop it.

They knew that kings had that power. They knew what kings were like and nobody messed with a king. Amen.

We, on the other hand, have got so used to grace and usually very greasy and easy grace in the modern age. And we've conformed God to our image. And we've turned God into a giant teddy bear who only wants to bless us.

And there's no judgment. There's no conviction of sin. There's no fear of the Lord.

There's no actual treating of God like a king. And we don't treat him as he deserves. There's not real respect.

There's not real reverence for God. You notice that it's all disappeared out of our culture. And we've replaced it with this sort of easygoing, casual, you know, oh, well, you know, God's my buddy kind of attitude.

And we're fine with that. And I say, well, we don't understand what Jesus said and we don't understand what the Bible presents God like. We just have no idea.

God is holy. God is three times holy. God is so different from what we imagine, you know, and one day he will be judging every one of us.

So we better learn a bit more about what he's really like rather than making up our own version. Amen. So here he is sending his armies in.

Then he said to his servants, the wedding is ready, but those that were bidden were not worthy. Go therefore into the highways and as many as you can find, bid to the marriage. So the servants went out into the highways and gathered together all as many as they found both bad and good.

And the wedding was furnished with guests. And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man that had no wedding garments, speaking of the clothing of the righteousness of Christ, that white garment was missing off this person. He said to him, friend, how did you come in here not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.

Then said the king to the servants, bind him hand and foot, take him away and cast him into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.

My goodness. Aren't we dealing with the king? Amen. Are we going to be dealing with the king? Isn't there a no nonsense approach to that? Look at, look at the way God, and this is the king, of course, look at the way God is dealing with these people.

We think he's just full of fluffiness like a big old marshmallow in the modern church. I tell you, the truth is radically different. None of the parables present him as a amen.

What have we seen about the gospel of the kingdom that we are going to be seeing again and again? Many of these kingdom parables are about a similar kind of thing where the king goes away for a journey or the king sends his servants to people and tells them, you know, they've got a mission to do and the servants ignore it or the servants won't, sorry, the people that they are sent to, they won't obey. They're not interested in the message. And so there are consequences and there are, there is a judgment and there is a reckoning.

This is the pattern of the gospel of the kingdom. And also at the heart of it is the concept of who we are dealing with. The king is who we're dealing with.

Remember Christ in his first coming came as a lamb unto the slaughter. He deliberately did not take up the authority he could have had to just wipe everybody out and say, I'm sorry, you cannot treat me that way. He said, I'll come as a lamb.

I lay my own life down willingly. Remember they were speaking to him. I believe it was a pilot might've been speaking to him.

Jesus says to him, do you not realize, sir, I have 12 legions of angels that could be at my beck and call any second. You know what 12 legions of angels can do. It only took two to wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah.

Amen. Imagine what 12 legions can do. It takes two to wipe out small cities of 30,000 or so.

That's what we're dealing with. That's the God of all glory. That's the Lord of hosts.

What does the Lord of hosts mean? The Lord of armies is what the Lord of hosts means. It's one of the titles of God, the Lord of hosts. We're not dealing with pansy Christianity here.

And until we get our heart around the fact that in the last days, a gospel has to be presented of the return of the King, not as a lamb, but as a conquering returning King who owns the place and is coming back to rightfully take it back into his ownership fully. And his good servants will be rewarded. Those that were poor servants and did not do what they were supposed to do will be, will receive a different kind of reward.

That's what Kings do. They go away. They leave their stuff with others to, to steward it for them.

Okay. We're going to see all of that. So we're already getting a sense of it there.

Remember that Jesus did not want to destroy Jerusalem. He would have loved for Jerusalem to come and repent and come into what he desired for them. Just turn with me to Matthew 23.

There's 34. So this is the heart of God. So in 70 AD, Jesus prophesied all this 70 AD, what happens? The Roman armies surround Jerusalem.

Jesus had said, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, do not stop. Don't even, uh, you know, pray. It will not be on the Sabbath day.

Pray that you are not with child because I want you to flee the city. You get out of there as fast as you can. Don't even stop to eat breakfast.

Basically. Amen. You remember that prophecy? Jesus spoke it to his people.

70 AD comes the Roman armies surround Jerusalem. And meanwhile, on the inside of Jerusalem, there's a civil war taking place and they're destroying one another's food supplies within the city, which is the most ridiculous thing you can imagine. But people under judgment do stupid things.

Amen. So the cities under the judgment of God, the Christians remembering the prophecies of Jesus escape the city into safe places up into the mountains and hills where they are safe from the attacking Roman armies. The Romans entered Jerusalem, raised the city to the ground.

The temple is utterly destroyed. Not one stone is left upon another. 1.1 million people are slaughtered.

The rest are taken away as slaves. That's what happened exactly as the prophecies foretold exactly. Right.

Matthew 23, Jesus crying out. And here we are in verse 34. He says, Behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias, son of Barakias, whom you slew between the temple and the altar.

Verily I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the prophets and stone them which are sent to you, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

And for I say unto you, you shall not see me again till you say, blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. Wow. Sobering words.

Sobering words. So now we're into Matthew 24 and Jesus in the middle of all this end time stuff talking about and you know a whole lot of terrible disasters and the sun will turn black and the you know all this kind of stuff earthquakes and so on. There in the middle of it he's saying this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations and then the end shall come.

There's a lot of double and triple fulfillments in most of these prophecies. There's fulfillments that took place in 70 AD. There's fulfillments that take place in the last days.

There's the abomination of desolation, which already has happened twice in history. You know, happened under the Romans, happened with when the Maccabees cleared it out, etc. etc.

We've got, you know, I don't want to get into end times theories here, but what I'm trying to say is a lot of stuff that happened in 70 AD to Israel, I believe happens in the last days to the whole world. A lot of what was going on because Jesus was mainly reaching Israel, I believe in the last days also happens to the Gentiles because God has been reaching the whole world. Amen.

So we're heading into our version of Jacob's trouble and it's going to probably be a horror story and certainly all the signs are there and all the prophecies are there. Amen. But the gospel of the kingdom, why would we need to preach about the king returning, about the judgments coming and about the king wanting to judge the earth and wanting to judge people and their life? Why would that be for the end days? And I tell you, it's because he's about to return.

And when he's about to return, he always sends a warning first. When Jesus came as a lamb, when Jesus came as the Israel, you know, Israel's Messiah, he sent John the Baptist beforehand to cry out and make the path smooth and warn everybody, this is what's about to happen. Everybody keep a look out.

I tell you, I'm not even worthy to unloose the sandals on this one that is coming. I want you to watch out for him. So God sends John the Baptist.

What's God going to do at the end of time? He's going to send a bunch of people preaching the gospel of the kingdom. What is the gospel of the kingdom? The king is returning. He's returning in judgment.

He's not to be trifled with. If you think God is the big pansy in the sky that you've made him out to be, you need to think again. These are part of the gospel of the kingdom.

We're already seeing it. If you're not seeing it in these passages we've been reading, you haven't been paying attention. God is very serious.

The end times are a time of, you know, darkness in many ways and judgment. Okay, another parable. And the parables get pretty serious here.

The ten virgins. So look with me in Matthew chapter 25. Notice we're still in the same passages.

We're still in the same area of the bible. Matthew 25 verse 1. Listen to these opening words. Now you could say the kingdom of heaven.

Here's what that really is saying. The king that rules heaven, we're now talking about his kingdom coming to the earth. That's what we're really saying.

When God's kingdom finally comes to the earth, when he is in total rulership over everything that happens here. Some people say, yeah, but isn't God in rulership over everything that happens here right now? I say no, otherwise nobody would be sick and dying of cancer, would they? When God was fully in charge of the earth, what was the earth like? The earth was in Eden, a literal paradise, because God was totally in charge. Sin and sickness, death and disease, even crying, you know, there should be no more crying nor tears, it says.

Amen? That's what happens when God's kingdom comes back. But that's not the situation now. So then shall the kingdom of heaven be like unto ten virgins which took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

Five of them were wise, five of them were foolish. Those that were foolish took their lamps and took no oil. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

While the bridegroom waited, they all slumbered and slept. So we know the story. So here's ten virgins waiting for the marriage.

It's delayed and the bridegroom is delayed. How many of these virgins are lost? Half of them are lost. Are they all believers? I put it to you, yes, they're all believers.

Do all of them expect the king? Yes, every one of them does. What's the difference between the wise and the foolish? There's five of each. What's the difference? Only that they don't have enough oil in their lamps.

They're not really prepared. They're not really ready. So these are not, you know, a lot of people might just say, oh, yeah, well, those are just, you know, nominal Christians, not real believers or not real, you know, true followers of Jesus.

I say, I think they are. I just don't think they're ready for that wedding. Something has made them unready.

They don't have enough oil in their lamps. So we lose half of the expectant believers. Half of them, bang, they're gone.

Because they go away to find the oil, they come back, they knock on the door. Jesus says, not only does he say, you can't come in, he says, I don't know you. I don't know you.

You can't come in here. Depart from me. And there is wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Why wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth? Because they were ones who were supposed to be in there and they know it. They were ones who were called. They were ones who had the chance out of all the humanity, all of the people on this planet.

These were people who should be in that wedding feast and they know they should be there. And they know, but for the lack of whatever it was, that preparation, that oil, that Holy Spirit, empowering and filling, you know, whatever reason, they're not prepared. They haven't been filled and filled again.

They didn't let that happen properly. They, they're just not ready. We lose half of these, half of these expectant believers, half of these Christians, we lose them, bang, and they're gone.

And they're never seen again. There's no reference to them ever again. Again, I say to you that we're dealing with a period of judgment and we're not dealing with a king that is a marshmallow or a Santa Claus.

We're dealing with the king. He demonstrated in his dealings with Israel that he has massive patience, such mercy, such kindness, but at a point it stops and then judgment begins. Amen.

That's what he demonstrated over and over again. At the end of time, he demonstrates it more completely than he ever has before. That's why the warning has to go out before he comes back that, hey, get serious with God.

The king is returning and returning in judgment. He's returning and judgment. Okay.

Verse 14. We're still in Matthew chapter 25. Now a lot of people will say, this doesn't sound like the gospel.

You know, this doesn't sound like the gospel. I mean, the gospel of the kingdom. Why does it have this different emphasis to it? Of course it will still contain all the things that Jesus was teaching.

Of course, it will still contain his words about, you know, if you would follow me, take up your cross and follow me and all of those kinds of things. Of course, it will contain the facts of Jesus' death and resurrection and all of that. But why is this a new emphasis for the last days? And I say again, it's because we're so close to the actual king coming back.

And if nobody gets warned, I put it to you that the event itself cannot occur because there is never a time of judgment where God doesn't first sing the warnings. And the gospel of the kingdom is a warning and almost a last trumpet call. Come in, come in.

The wedding feast doors are still open, but they're about to close because the end of time is near. The king will return and he's not going to be the sugar daddy that you think. He's returning in judgment.

Judgment is not a topic that's popular in the modern church, and so we almost never hear sermons about it anymore. Do you realize that? Do you know what that's like? It's like the teacher at the start of the year. You know, I used to be a school teacher.

I taught school for a couple of years, but it would be like the school teacher who doesn't actually let on that at the end of the year there's an exam. And if you don't pass that exam, you've had it and the whole course is a failure. Every teacher in their right mind would say to his students, listen, the exam's at the end.

We're going to prepare you well for it. We're going to do this, this, this, and this, and you'll be fine. You'll pass it if you really apply yourself.

That's what a good teacher, average teacher would do. Amen. But what the modern church is doing is basically saying, we're going to pretend, you know, we're going to pretend that there is no exam.

We're not going to talk about it at all because it's too frightening to behold. And especially if God is a holy God, we know that everybody's in trouble. In fact, much of the church is in trouble because nobody bothers to be holy anymore because we don't preach it.

So that's what's going on. And sadly, nobody's ready for the king's return. And so the trumpet blast had better go out loudly and somebody had better take up this clarion cry and say, I'm going to preach this gospel of the kingdom because the king is returning and he needs this word to go forth before he can come back.

Remember it says, and this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the earth for a witness unto all nations and then the end will come. Amen. So it has to go forth.

Matthew 25 verse 14. For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling to a far country called his servants and delivered to them his goods. To one, he gave five talents to another two and to another one to everyone according to his ability.

And then he took his journey. Then he that received the five talents went and traded with the same and made another five talents. These are talents of gold.

A lot of people say talents. Is he talking about my talents? No, he's talking about talents of gold. And likewise, he that received two, he also gained another two, but he that received one went and dug in the ground and hid his Lord's money.

After a long time, the Lord of those servants came back and reckoned with them. So the day of reckoning comes. He that received five talents came and bought another five talents saying, Lord, you delivered five unto me.

Behold, I've gained another five. The Lord said to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a few things.

I'll make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of the Lord. He that received two talents came with two more and he was rewarded as a faithful servant.

Then look what happens with the guy that got one and he dug it in the ground. Verse 24, he that had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew that you were a hard man reaping where you have not sown, gathering where you have not strawed. And I was afraid.

And I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here is your talent back. As Lord answered and said to him, you wicked and slothful servant, you knew that I reap where I do not sow and gather where I have not strawed.

You ought to therefore have put the money in the exchanges. And then at my coming, I would have received it with interest. Take therefore the talent from him and give it to him that has 10 talents for everyone that has shall be given.

And he that he will have abundance, but from him that has not shall be taken away, even that which he has. And listen to this verse 30, cast the unprofitable servants into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I put it to you that that guy no longer believes as that's happening to him. And once saved, always saved. Amen.

You know, I think once I had always said just sank here. Now, who are we dealing with in these last days? Why do we never ever preach this kind of God anymore? It doesn't fit with our marketing culture. That's why.

Do you realize that in the last 50 years, we've done a huge experiment on ourselves in the Western world. We've said, if we put ourselves in front of televisions and every other device we can imagine and pump ourselves with advertisements and every television thing and every form of media that you can imagine, pumping us with the concept that our self-esteem needs boosting and we need to be made happier. And I deserve that new thing and that car.

Yeah, I deserve that. And, you know, my lifestyle is not quite adequate. So I'd better trade up to this, that, and the other, you know, the typical consumerist thing has been so pumped at us for 50 years now, right into our living rooms, right into our own virtually, if they could that pump it straight into our brains, wouldn't they? Yeah.

We live in an advertising culture. I believe we live in the first marketing culture that has ever existed. And, and what has happened to the church during that time is more and more given away, given away to using marketing to sell Jesus.

And everybody knows that you never, ever sell things on negatives. Do you, you sell things on positive. So we stopped talking about sin and we start talking like this.

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Come to Jesus. He will solve your problems.

He will make you happy. He will give you self-esteem, you know? And I always think it sounds like a toothpaste commercial in essence, isn't it? So we're selling Jesus just as though he was a product. Why are we doing that? Because marketing dominates our culture and our entire way of thinking.

Does Jesus, the returning judge fit into marketing culture? I tell you, not at all. Not at all. There's no place.

Remember that 300 years ago, the most powerful revival sermon ever preached was called sinners in the hands of an angry God. Now think about that title for a minute. Jonathan Edwards is the most powerful and most renowned sermon in revival history.

Sinners in the hands of an angry God. Firstly, we don't call anybody sinners anymore. We certainly don't talk about it very much.

And an angry God, are you joking? We can't sell that. We can sell flashing lights, smoke machines, loud music, you know, casual as anything. We can sell that.

That goes down well, but we cannot sell sinners in the hands of an angry God. Are you out of your mind, Andrew? We can't sell that. Do you know what happens? Because we can't any longer talk about these things.

The gospel's not being preached at all. Do you know what the gospel requires in order for me to really understand it? I have to understand the terrible predicament that sin puts me in, and I have to start fleeing away from it in order to flee into Christ and truly be utterly converted. Do you realize that? Do you know what happens if I never get convicted enough of sin and so on that I never feel very convicted about that? You know what happens? I don't flee.

I never really flee from sin into the kingdom of God. And what did John the Baptist say? He said to the people, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? That's what the real gospel does. It actually gets people so convicted of their sins and so knowing, oh my goodness, I'm so, I'm wrong with God on every level.

I've offended this holy God and his judgments are upon me. That's what they're supposed to realize and they're supposed to start running away from it towards Jesus Christ, the only place they can find cleansing and white robes to wear. Amen? That's what's supposed to happen.

That's the real gospel. All the old revivalists that I've studied, you know, I've studied revivals and so on for years. It boils down to that.

We don't any longer care that nobody flees sin. We don't preach a gospel that would even make them think of doing such a thing. They can sit placidly and when it comes to trying out what we're selling, they go, well, I might as well give it a try.

And that's the motivation for a lot of people. Oh, well, it sounds good. You know, it sounds like a nice life and everything.

It sounds like I can have God and, and, uh, it's great. You know, I'm enjoying it here at church and it's fun and everything. And I'll, I'll give it a try.

Much of our youth ministry now boils down to that. So what I'm getting at here is this, in these last days, God is going to raise up some new preachers because he has to, you know, I don't care where they come from, but he's got to find some who will be declaring and trumpeting forth a new kind of word that may not be very popular to marketing people and people that have been sitting under that. I already find it terribly hard to preach to Westerners very often because Western ears had been tickled for so long.

We're not just, I'm not just talking about in church. I'm talking about every day. Our ears are tickled over and over again.

We are the most entertained, most pleasure ridden generation that's ever existed. Remembering that in the Roman Coliseum days, they thought we think they're over entertained and that they were disgustingly decadent. Well, they just went to the Coliseum probably once a week.

If that we have pumped into our living rooms, just wall to wall, selfishness, just monumental selfishness, and we can't understand what's wrong with us. And the time I realized that is when I go overseas and I start ministering to people who don't have that. And I look into the eyes of their teenagers and I don't see them full of rebellion.

You know, automatically I actually say, Oh, this, this kid wants to listen to me. This kid showing some respect. Wonder how did that happen? You know, that's because that kid doesn't sit in front of four hours of television being bombarded with garbage, junk, junk food for the mind day in and day out, and doesn't think so highly of himself.

You know, we don't know what we've done to ourselves. We can't see that 50 years ago, our culture was utterly different to what it is now. We can't get in a time machine and go back 50 years and say, Oh my goodness, good grief, what has happened to us? You know, we just can't do it.

If we could, we'd be so shocked. So here we are in a day that doesn't welcome this message. I tell you doesn't welcome it.

And God is going to raise up people that are going to preach that the King is returning, that he's not your buddy, that you better be ready. That even his own servants, if they're not in the right place, are in terrible trouble. That if they've dug in the ground and just stuck, you know, the, the giftings or the callings and they've just dug in the ground with them, it's not going to be okay.

That many of his own servants will be wailing and gnashing their teeth. These kinds of things. Can you see how popular that's going to be? That's kind of like, that's kind of like lead balloon preaching right there, isn't it? Lead balloon preaching to most of the church.

I wonder how many of us God is going to find in the last days, willing to preach a gospel like that. Does it need preaching? It has to be preached. Is it going to bring persecution? You guarantee it.

Can the West even enter into what God's got for the last days? I don't even know. I don't even know if we can. The revivals that are happening around the world are happening amongst the poor right now.

I don't know of any real revivals going on amongst the developed countries. And I've gone between the two and I can see why, you know, every time I can see why. We just can't see ourselves.

We can't see as a culture, how lost we are. We can't even see that this time right now is the end of our civilization. Do you realize that, that what we're going into? We're heading into the end of our civilization.

When we look at Greece, when we look at Greece and we look at Spain and we look at what's about to hit France and we look at what's about to hit, you know, Poland and Belgium. These, you know, our civilization, you could say Western civilization built for thousands of years is coming to an end right now in front of our eyes. Those are not recessions.

It's the end. It's going to be a long drawn out death. It's going to last for at least 30, 40 years of just crisis after crisis spreading from one country to the next.

All of the Eastern Bloc will be caught up in it. All of Northern Europe, everywhere we think of, when we think of what built, you know, sort of Western civilization, so to speak. The Americans are going to struggle mightily.

That's what we're looking at. And you know what? We richly deserve it. We have sown the seeds of this disaster for years.

We're one of the most selfish cultures that's ever existed and we cannot see ourselves. So this gospel, when it comes about, do we dare to preach it? Is God going to find prophets in the last days who will stand up and speak despite the fact that they're not popular? Is God going to find people who will speak out in this day? Can God find those people amongst us? That's a huge question. And I pray and hope that there are many in this room who will say yes to Jesus despite the cost.

Amen. Amen. And that's what surrender and real gospel preaching is going to be like in the last days.

Not necessarily popular, but hugely important. Because it's Jesus we serve, it's not people. Amen.

At the end of the day, he's the one. Please stand with me. Let's pray together.

If you really want to just say to God and make yourself available, whatever he says, wherever he sends you with whatever message, just raise your hands to heaven right now because that this is a solemn commitment before God in the sense that he's watching us and he regards these surrenderings that we do really with a great deal of importance. He really does. I'm really sure of that.

So only raise your hands to heaven if you mean it. I'm going to pray for all of us. Father God, I pray for those of us who are raising our hands before you right now.

God, we say that we are willing to go and to speak to this generation God. And father, we know that if it's a popularity contest, well, we're not going to win that. But father, we only want to be popular in the courts of heaven.

God, at the end of the day, we serve you. And God, I pray that you'll open the mouths of your people in these last days to speak real truth. God, I pray that the gospel will return again, a gospel of repentance, a gospel of real holiness.

God, a gospel where the king and the judge will sit on his mighty throne. Father, let us preach such words and let us see, I pray, a move amongst the youth. God, let them return.

Let there be a real move of holiness and repentance amongst the youth. God, please bring your mercy amongst us, though we do not deserve it. Father, here we are at the ends of the earth, at the very bottom of the planet, God, and we're asking you for mercy.

God, we're asking that our nations down here would not fall prey to the massive judgments that are coming. But father, by some miracle, let us see revival. God, let there be an outpouring of your spirit.

Let those prophets be raised up, those evangelists that really preach the gospel of the kingdom, God. Father, make us some of those. God, we commit ourselves, whatever it takes, turn us into a people that will speak truth, Father, into such a generation that has lost it in darkness.

God, help us, Father. Fill us with your spirit tonight in a fresh way. We surrender all to you, no matter what it takes, no matter where it leads.

God, our mouth is yours to speak your truth. Make us a new people. Change us, Father, and bless your word in this day.

Despite all appearances, bless your word, God, and accompany it with signs and wonders. The real thing, oh God, we pray these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Everyone say amen.