Good afternoon everybody and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
It's great to see everybody here tonight. We can go ahead and find our seats. We will get started.
And once we're all able to find a seat, let's go ahead and grab a hymnal.
And for tonight's first song, we're going to go to song number 397.
Song number 397.
Little as much when God is in it.
Song number 397, let's all sing it out together
on that first.
In the harvest field now right now.
Your call to labor seems so small.
the sky from service, body born and toward the care.
You can still be in the battle in the sacred place of prayer.
Little is much when God is in it.
Lord we love you, and we just thank you so much once again for this church
Thank you so much for people here, and we just ask now that you bless this service and fill it with your spirit
And it's in Jesus name. We pray amen
All right for our next song. Let's go to song number
329
Song number
329 take time to be holy
Let's all sing it out together.
to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, you can lift up your hand nice and high.
One of our ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin. And on the front, we have our Bible
Mary passage, Jude 1, verse 7. If you can quote that this week, you can get a special prize if
you're 18 or under. And then if you can quote the entire chapter, you can get a special prize as well.
Inside is our service times, our soul winning times, our church stats.
We've been doing really good on our soul winning and our baptisms and everything, so keep up the great work on that.
We also have Vanjus or Bannock in the Philippines and we had a missionary newsletter that he
sends us once a month and I want to read through a little bit of this here in just a second.
I want to go through some of the rest of our announcements and then I'm going to come back
to that.
But it's a really great newsletter.
I consider reading that when you get a chance.
We have a list of expecting ladies, several ladies to be in prayer for, please be pray
for them.
soul winning marathon in Shreveport, June 28th and
With the Durant soul winning marathon we had over a hundred and thirty people come out for that and
Honestly, it was a lot of fun
It makes me
Think I don't see how as possible to feed 5,000 people, you know in the but it was a real miracle folks, okay?
Feeding just a hundred something people is sometimes a challenge, but we had a lot of fun
Thank you so much to all the people that drove out there and we had 59 salvation
So that's that's really good for that area. And so thanks for people who participated. I want to let you know about a couple other events
They're not in the
In the list here, but there is a another marathon that brother Sam was hoping to
put on in Springdale, Arkansas
And it's gonna be July 4th weekend so July 4th and 5th, and it's in Springdale, Arkansas
I don't know exactly how far that is. It's like six hours, five hours or something like that, five, six hours.
So, we're just making an announcement if somebody wants to participate. Brother Sam's going to be leading that.
So, if you have questions, you can talk to him. We'll end up making a video and announce that and put it in our bulletin just...
but I just wanted to put that out there, throw it on the radar.
There's also another event Brother Diego's going to help lead in Mexico City that's going to be September 8th.
through the 12th. And so if you want to participate in that, you can talk with Brother Diego or
you can email our church and we can try to help you figure out that.
Mexico City is about 22 million people in population.
So it's a very, very large area.
And I think that's like the city.
I think the metro area might even be bigger than that.
It's one of the most populated areas in the entire world.
And so definitely exciting opportunity to go out there.
They're gonna primarily target parks and public areas
when they go down there.
And so excited to hear about how that goes.
If you want to participate, just let us know.
There's another sign-up sheet that we just put out on Sunday,
and it's for an idea we had.
Brother Milstead was helping with this idea of what I'm calling teen summer,
and we're just going to try and do a fun teen activity once every month for the summer.
We have a sign-up sheet where it just has some proposed
Times and so if you guys can just help us just kind of fill it out to make the best educated guess because we want to have a high
participation rate, but kind of down below we have a list of just some
Different evenings and some different activities and based on the feedback if you haven't signed up
Please do it tonight because I'm going to try and make the decisions based on what information we got tonight
And we'll end up picking some dates and we'll have some activities
For the teens to participate in it's going to be 13 through 19 and then
but we're really excited about it,
so I think it'll be a lot of fun.
Give them something to look forward to.
And then down below, it just makes mention
of the sign-up sheet if you can do that.
If you want to invite, though, friends
or other family members or something,
even if they don't come to our church,
you know, you teenagers, if you want to invite your neighbors,
it's something you can invite to.
So we want to include anybody that wants to come
or anybody that wants to attend.
I'm on the backs of our purists. I'm gonna get to that in just a second. This newsletter, I want to just go over with
The Angels Urbanic, they had four hundred and thirty-nine salivations for the month of May, nine
baptisms, and so doing really really good as far as just soul-winning.
He gave us a total since he's been there, which I think at this point it's maybe just a little over a year.
somewhere around the year mark. He said 5,722 salvations and 25 baptisms. So that is some
serious, serious work that's going on over there. And that's not just only him. He's definitely
taught some other people how to go soul winning and trained other soul winners. And so
they're kind of multiplying their works. One of the things that I thought was interesting is on
church plan. It doesn't happen every week, but it's just kind of been a slow start.
But they had 45 people in their service in May 25th and 40 in their evening
service. They had a bunch of soul winners go out. One of the things that was
interesting is brother Canairi had shared this with me that I guess it was
like a year or two ago, him and his wife had been praying that someone would go
and get some of their family saved and they had been praying for them.
And then eventually,
evangelists are banicked and then went to their family
and it says here, he gave a little brief description,
but Kim Faye's mother and aunt,
they had actually reached them with the gospel
about a year ago and had gotten them saved.
And so it's just kind of a cool story
that they're just like praying for this family
to get saved.
And then we happen to send out an evangelist out there
and then he gets to go have the opportunity
to go talk to them and they get saved.
And so prayer definitely works
You know, we should continue to pray for people that are close to us, you know,
even if they don't get saved right away, that they'd get that opportunity.
And so that's a really cool story.
Um, so I just kind of wanted to highlight that some prayer requests that he has is
just more soul winners, laborers, good weather, um, that their church plant
continues going well.
And if you pray for Miss RG's mother, uh, who is struggling with kidney disease.
And so it's pretty severe illness, but continue to keep evangelist or
in your minds and hearts, and on the back of our prayer list, if you continue to pray for
the Carlson's parents, if you pray for the Miller's friend's mom who has cancer, if you pray for the
Scott's family.
And we do have the praise report on Elijah and Olivia's son, Elijah, but you continue to pray for her recovery.
Pray for brother Garcia's health.
Miss Larky's arm, we continue to pray for.
Brother Brad's asked for prayer for his father and sister's health.
And they're his work.
If you'd pray for brother Diego's friend, Miss Morris.
Miss Cindy's also asking for prayer for.
friend Angela's health and then she had just updated us that her mom is gonna have unexpected surgery
In the near future and she just asked if we'd be in prayer for her mom as well
Continue to pray for brother greens his co-worker Josh's health
Brother Samson continue pray for his recovery brother first dad's recovery
Ms. Foley's dad also has kidney disease.
If you'd pray for brother Roy Perez,
and he's someone that's visited our church some,
but he also is from Houston,
if you'd pray for their son Elijah, who is enlisted,
and then you'd pray for brother Philip's wife, Ms. Karina.
And that's pretty much all I have as far as prayer requests, but if you'd pray for our church family throughout the week
And we'll say a quick word of prayer now. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for all these expecting ladies
I pray that you please bless them during their pregnancies. Please help them to have a timely delivery and they would help their their children's
Development I pray that you'd also just bless those that are hoping to
Conceive or that wish to become pregnant. You'd bless them pray that you'd also just bless our church family that is struggling with
Serious illness either kidney disease or cancer or various nerve issues
I pray that you just please bless them if possible just give them health give them recovery those who are covering from surgery
I pray that you would just allow them to regain strength
I pray that you would just give them patience and comfort during this time of tribulation. I pray that you'd also just
Bless our church family needs help with their work or with their job
I pray that you would help us to also just continue to reach new people with the gospel.
I pray that you bless our evangelists and the Philippines, that you would help them with the
work they're doing over there. And I pray that you would help our church to be a bright and
shining light in such a dark world. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
had been visiting Faith Award Baptist Church this past Sunday and it was
great getting it as you go out there and see them and I really appreciate the
guys who were preaching for me here and but I'm glad to be back the Promised
Land is the best place so you know I just love it here and so I love I love
getting to come back and see you guys but I did preach a couple
Sermons that were a little bit spicy. So if you like it spicy, you can listen to those. I'll point you to them
But don't worry. I can still preach the same thing here. So let's go ahead and sing our Psalm of the week Psalm 150
It's in our Psalm binders Psalm 150
All right, that was Psalm 150
Psalm 150 in your binders or in your King James Bible. Let's all sing it out together
of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts. Praise him according to his excellent greatness.
Praise him with love. Sound of the trumpet. Praise him with love.
the timbrelet dance, praise him with string instruments and organs, praise him upon the loud cymbals, praise him upon the high-sounding cymbals.
Praise God the Father, praise God the Son.
Praise God the Holy Ghost, praise God in free persons.
Praise singing everybody now as the offering plates are being passed around.
Go ahead and open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 24.
That's the book of Matthew chapter number 24.
Matthew chapter number 24 the Bible reads and Jesus went out and departed from the temple and his
disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple and Jesus said unto them see not all
these things verily I say unto you there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall
not be thrown down and as he sat upon the Mount of Olives the disciples came unto him privately
saying tell us when shall these things be and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end
And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in
my name, saying I am Christ, and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars.
See that ye be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet."
For nations shall rise against nations, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places.
All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.
And then shall men be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
But he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved.
And as this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness into
all nations, and then shall the end come.
When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet
in the holy place, who so readeth, let him understand, then let them which be in Judea
flee into the mountains, let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything
out of his house.
2 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes, and woe unto them
that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days.
But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day.
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world,
to this time, known, nor ever shall be.
And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved, but for the
Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, hear is Christ, or there, believe it not, for they shall arise false Christ and false prophets and shall show great signs and wonders, and so much that if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
Behold, I have told you before, wherefore, if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth, behold, he is in the secret chambers, believe it not, for as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be."
For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon
shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heaven
shall be shaken, and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then
shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the
clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
And he shall send his angels with the great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather
together his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other.
When his branches yet tender and puteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh.
So likewise ye when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the
doors.
Barely I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
But of that day and hour, knoweth no man, know not the angels of heaven, but my Father
only."
But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be, for as in
the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving
in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark and knew not until the flood
came and took them all away.
So shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.
Then shall two be in the field, the one shall be taken and the other left.
Two women shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken and the other left.
doth come. But know this that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief
would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.
Therefore, be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.
Who, then, is a faithful and wise servant whom his Lord hath made ruler of his household,
to give them meat and do season?
Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing.
Barely I say unto you that he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, my Lord, delayeth in his coming,
and shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat, and to drink with the drunken,
the Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he loatheth not for him, and in an hour
and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Let us pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this chapter of the Bible.
Thank you for this church. Thank you for the soul winning. I just pray you bless Pastor Shelley.
Fill him with your Holy Spirit as he preaches unto us and help us to receive it. And I pray
Matthew 24, the Bible says in verse one,
and Jesus went out and departed from the temple,
and his disciples came to him
for to show him the buildings of the temple.
Jesus said to them, see not all these things,
verily I see in you there shall not be left here,
one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.
Now,
Jesus Christ has been spending the last few chapters in the temple preaching a lot of different sermons
Obviously Matthew 23 was kind of a very extreme sermon that he was preaching against the Jews in a very open way
And as they leave he tells them notice in verse 1 the buildings of the temple that not one of those stones will be left
One upon another but notice specifically it also says they're going to be quote thrown down
Now, just from the text alone,
I don't think that we can necessarily understand
exactly what all that geography looks like,
but if you just look at the Israel today,
you look at Jerusalem today,
there is what's known as the, quote,
Temple Mount area.
And this is where, theoretically,
the temple used to be,
and...
I really frankly don't even care at all, like I could care very little about that kind of stuff,
but I have recently researched it a little bit just because a lot of people are claiming
that's not where the temple used to be. And all I really want to do is just see if I thought that
was true or not, so I kind of researched it a little bit. And from my research, from my understanding,
it seems very clear that the temple mount is where the temples were, that there's a lot of
Plus, if you think about it, it actually fits what the Bible is saying here,
because specifically the buildings of the temple were quote, thrown down.
And you kind of have to ask this question, what were they thrown down from?
They had to be thrown down from something.
Well, it seems very evident and obvious that they were thrown down from the temple mount.
And in fact, there was a lot of large stones that have been thrown off of the temple mount.
that were excavated and kind of moved,
but even unsaid Christ rejecting Jews will tell you,
these were the stones from the buildings of the temple,
and this does confirm what Jesus Christ had said
would come true, that the buildings were thrown off
of this retaining wall essentially.
Because the temple mount is not a temple,
it's just simply a built up platform.
You just have to understand the temple of God
was built on Mount Mariah, that's a mountain.
If you've ever climbed a mountain and you realize something very quickly, it's not flat whatsoever.
Who's ever climbed a mountain before?
Yeah, a lot of people have climbed a mountain before and especially when you get to the peak of the mountain
Usually that's a lot of things where the path even ends sometimes paths will a lot of times end and then it's just rocks
It's just giant boulders that you have to kind of scale in order to get that last little bit
one of the mountains I climbed was Mount Humphreys in
Arizona is in Flagstaff and you know, it's a normal trail. You're just kind of walking up
but once you get to the little like the kind of the last leg of that particular hike,
then it's just these giant rocks and you just kind of have to like climb the rock and scale
and you kind of have to just figure a way up to the top. Well, how in the world are you going
to build a building on something like that? You can't. It's literally impossible. So of course,
what would have to happen first is you build a retaining wall around that peak, fill it in with
build the temple on.
So that's exactly what we see.
That fits history.
It fits what the Bible teaches.
And so at this point, I'm very convinced
that the temple buildings were on
that traditional temple mount somewhere
and that they were thrown down
just like Jesus said in 70 AD.
Now, that is gonna be kind of asked here in verse three.
It says, and as he sat upon the Mount of Olives,
the disciples came in and privately saying,
tell us when shall these things be?
When did that happen? It happened in 70 AD.
That's when it happened, okay?
Now, he doesn't give that exact answer.
He gives kind of an answer of a description of what that event was like.
If you kind of compare this with other gospels in Mark and in Luke,
especially Luke 21,
I feel like Luke 21 gives a little bit more detail
as far as what happened in 70 AD specifically.
But there's a couple other questions mentioned here in verse 3.
Notice not only says when shall these things be, but he says at what shall be the sign of thy coming
and of the end of the world. So there's actually three questions that are kind of proposed to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And as you read Matthew 24, if you read Luke 21 or you read in Mark 13 where
Jesus Christ is answering these questions, you realize he's kind of doing it in an interesting
way where he kind of answers all of them in like this one cohesive narrative. So
One thing I don't think you can truly do
is you can't necessarily say that anything
in Matthew 24 or Mark 13 or Luke 21
is isolated to one question.
It seems like he's kind of answering all of them
in this kind of unique way.
And so you kind of have to pay attention
to what's happening in all of them
and the rest of the Bible to really see,
is this fit 70 AD?
Does this fit the coming of Christ, the sign of His coming?
Does this fit the end of the world?
Or potentially does it fit multiple?
In some ways these verses can fit multiple of these boxes.
But one thing that I think is really clear in Matthew 24
is that every single part of this fits Christ's return.
it's a future thing. I think that all of the verses, past verse 3, are going to
actually have a future meaning, a future relevance unto us, okay? And I want us to
keep that mindset that when we're thinking about Matthew 24, we're actually
thinking about the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. I think 70-80 is a pretty
interesting thing, but...
At the end of the day that's not the big show. That's not the most important event
The most important event is coming in the future when Christ is going to return
And that's what this is leading up to and explaining is going to happen
Now I also want to point out one other thing. It says the end of the world
What is the end of the world? Well, we have when show these things B is 70 ad
When it says the sign of his coming, I believe that's shortly after the midpoint of that
seven last years of human history.
We have Daniel's final week, that 70th week as it sometimes referred to.
You have a seven-year period, right after the midpoint, you're going to have Christ
coming in the clouds.
That's his coming.
So what is the, quote, end of the world?
I think the end of the world is at the point that Christ comes, the day of the Lord, to
just basically the end of that 70th week.
It's kind of more of like a big picture of time.
The end of the world is basically the wrath
that God's gonna pour out in that last
approximate three and a half years.
It's a little bit less than that.
But from Christ returning unto the battle of Armageddon
is basically the quote end of the world.
And I wanna show you why I kind of believe that.
Look if you would at verse 13, notice this.
But he that shall endure unto the end
the same shall be saved.
So when Jesus Christ is giving his description,
he describes this process of all this great tribulation,
and then he says, if you endure unto the end,
well, what happens at the end, that's when the rapture is.
That's when Jesus Christ comes.
So that's a sign that it's the end.
Look at the next verse.
And this gospel, the kingdom shall be preached
in all the world for a witness unto all nations,
and then shall the end come.
So there's another reference of the end
that he's giving in his own answer.
I want you to go back to Matthew 13 for a moment.
Go to Matthew chapter number 13.
And, you know, this evening, I'm going to be referencing a lot of end time subjects.
Hopefully you have a little bit of knowledge.
If you don't, you know, you can get one of our charts.
We've been working on a really nice chart
of end-time sequence of events.
Pastor Stephen Anderson has a really nice looking
end-time chart.
Sometimes that can help you just plot things in your mind.
But, you know, essentially there's going to be
a seven-year end-time period.
That first half is a period of the devil
just afflicting God's people known as a tribulation.
As soon as we get to the midpoint,
the Antichrist is gonna declare himself God in the temple.
and you're going to have what's then called the Great Tribulation Period.
It's going to be about a 75-day period of just extreme persecution against Christians,
targeted against Christians.
Then there's going to be the rapture of the Lord Jesus Christ
and then the remaining portion of that last three and a half years.
We're going to have God pouring out His wrath with the seven vile trumpets and judgments.
If you understand the book of Revelation, there's seven seals
and it kind of unleashes all these different seals and you have essentially the first four
The first four Horses of the Apocalypse are those tribulation events of war and famine and death and different things that are happening.
Then the fifth is that great tribulation period where you have the Christians being martyred in an extreme way.
The sixth is Christ coming in the clouds and delivering and rapturing up the saints.
And then the seventh ends up getting split into seven more judgments where it's like seven vile judgments.
And they are pouring out these viles of wrath and they blow these trumpets.
And we have that as kind of the seventh.
So there's all these sevens in the Bible.
You basically have Daniel's 70th week.
You have the last seven years.
You have seven seals.
And so you just have all of this numbering
in the Bible about the end times.
That's just to give you a quick overview.
Hopefully you can pay attention.
It says in Matthew 13, look at verse 39.
Am I reading the right verse here?
Yeah, I'm just going to keep reading, sorry.
For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the well's belly,
so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation,
and shall condemn it, because they are penned at their preaching of Jonas,
and behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
The Queen of the South shall rise up in the judgment with this generation,
and shall condemn it, for she came for the uttermost part of the earth,
to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here.
When the unclean spirit, I don't know where I
Am reading 12. Thank you. Thank you. Someone helped me finally. All right verse 39 of chapter 13
That was a test y'all passed. All right, somebody was paying attention
I'm like, what does this have to do with what I'm talking about
Matthew 13 verse 39, the enemy that sowed them as the devil and the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels.
As therefore the tears are gathered and burdened the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world.
The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend,
and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire, there shall be welling and gnashing of teeth.
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun,
and the kingdom of their father who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
So again, I'm using this to kind of help us understand the end of the world specifically.
Notice it says the end of this world in verse 40.
So I think that's what's being alluded to because we understand that
there's still going to be things that happen after, quote, the end of the world.
But if you understand the seven years, at the end of the seven years,
all the cities are just decimated. Everything has just completely been collapsed.
Most of the world has been burned up, burned with fire, Babylon has been nuked off the planet,
like even though it's still the earth, it's kind of a different world because everything's just like
way different. Like it's all kind of just been reconfigured in a sense and burned and baptized
with fire and there's like a rebuilding phase. If you read in Ezekiel, in fact I believe it talks
about a seven month period where you're just burying bodies from the battle of Armageddon alone.
So, there's just a huge rebuilding effort, but the good thing is we're going to enter
into a thousand years of peace, so we have plenty of time to build and just have fun.
And in fact, all the weapons are just going to be turned into gardening instruments,
essentially, because there's no more war, there's no more, you know, extreme violence.
The only real instrument is going to be the rod of iron that the Lord Jesus Christ rules with.
But for the most part, I mean, it's just a time of peace and prosperity.
And we're gonna have a lot of fun,
but it's gonna be a new world in a sense.
This is the end of this world in a sense
that is being described.
Go to 2nd Peter chapter three.
I wanna go to one more place.
I'll get this one right, all right?
2nd Peter chapter three.
Look at verse number 10.
The Bible says but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night
and the which the heaven shall pass away with a great noise and the element shall melt with fervent heat the earth also and the
Works that are there and shall be burned up
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness
Looking for and hastening in the coming of the day of God where in the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved in the element shall melt with fervent
So, the Bible describes essentially at the day of the Lord,
just everything just being burned and the whole world being baptized with fire.
And so, this is what I believe is being described in Matthew 24 as the end of the world.
So it's that basic Christ coming, you have the day of the Lord and at His coming you have the wrath coming and the earth is going to be burned up and there's just going to be a great period of just wrath poured out and
Battle of Armageddon is kind of the culmination of the end event where all the armies of the entire world are gathered together and destroyed and there's really no one to fight anymore because they all died at the Battle of Armageddon.
So we enter in time of peace.
Matthew 24, Christ is giving us some clues though about what it's going to be like when
he comes back and so in verse number four he says, Jesus answered and said unto them,
take heed that no man deceive you.
That's interesting that the first thing that he wants to say, hey when we want to know
when you come back, what is his first response?
Make sure nobody tricks you on this.
It seems like there's going to be a lot of deception around the timing of Christ coming
And really, if you even study in Christianity today,
especially in America, the pre-tribulation rapture
is a big, big viewpoint.
It's a major thing that a lot of people believe,
but it's false.
And not only did Jesus Christ say this, if you think about 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 3, it also says,
let no man deceive you by any means.
And it's also talking about the return of Jesus Christ.
So you have at least two times explicitly mentioned,
hey, make sure you're not getting tricked on this issue.
So that means we need to pay attention to this.
I know it's a little drier of a sermon.
I'm not screaming and yelling about how pickleball's soft or something, okay?
And look, I'm not against, if you play pickleball,
I don't care, just don't tell me
that it's a hard sport or something, okay?
It's the great equalizer.
You know, he's like, why is pickleball so much fun?
It's because literally everyone can play.
I mean, you can just get like an old woman
and she can get out there and she's just like,
bam, bam, you know, just knocking it.
And look, if you wanna play with your grandma
some pickleball, have fun.
Just don't tell me you're super hard, okay?
There was the one commercial break
for the sermon, right?
Brought to you by Pickleball.
Look at verse 5,
not yet. Here's another thing, just because there's war or rumors of war
doesn't mean we've actually entered in the end times, but it's often when
there's major wars people think this. World War I, people thought we were in
the end times. World War II, people thought we were in the end times. It's even
possible we could have another major war or conflict and we're not actually in
the end times.
I think if we do, it could be the end times.
I'm not going to say that it couldn't,
but I would say this,
that we can't just base our end times view on the fact that there's war.
Because notice what he said,
you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars.
See, they be not trouble for all these things was come to pass,
but the end is not yet.
To me, once there's an actual temple,
And people are doing daily sacrifices.
That's when I'm going to start thinking, uh-uh,
you know, we might be in the end times for sure, you know.
And then when the Antichrist declares himself God,
then we just know for a fact.
I mean, I think at that point,
everyone should be on the same page.
But, I mean, if we have a temple built in Israel,
they start doing sacrifices.
Some random guy starts conquering the whole world.
I mean, you're pretty much going to be like, hey, this looks like it.
This looks like we're kind of ushering in the Antichrist and everything like that.
But I think a lot of people, I mean, a lot of Christians are going to be confused about this and not think that this is happening.
Why would he constantly be warning about being deceived?
It's because a lot of people aren't going to be seeing what we're seeing here, okay?
So we have to be really knowledgeable on this subject matter.
It says in verse seven for nation to rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and there shall be famines and pestilences and
Earthquakes in diverse places divers just means in lots of places
Says all these are the beginning of sorrows the Bible likens these end times until like birth in a sense
or a woman that's pregnant, how she goes through different phases and you'll you know especially
for you newer moms or if you've quite haven't gone through this process yet you know there's
sometimes women will start having these beginning signs and she thinks the baby's coming but it's
not real and so you know it's just kind of but but it's just the beginning of sorrows
and just that little bit of pain because you know you're not about to give birth and you're confused
I'll just say this so if you feel like I'm not sure it's probably not it because when it's it you'll really know
Now I say that with a grain of salt because I know with me and my wife our first child
She had like an elevated heart rate or something
And so we had to go to the hospital and they had to give her like drugs and so like our whole experience wasn't very natural
So we kind of didn't know like we didn't really go through the real things. We didn't really know so the second one
We're trying our best to you know not do that same thing and my wife kind of I guess I don't know why but
Maybe it's my fault, but she kind of just didn't want to go to the hospital too early
So she's trying to like you know not get cold not not like think like oh
This is just the beginning of sorrows and show up or something
But I'm just asleep
And she wakes me up and she's like I think the baby's coming and I'm like what do you mean?
And she was like my contractions are like two minutes apart or something like this
I don't know. I was just thinking like what in the world and I don't know what to do
I'm like, what do I do? You know like so I'm just she's like boil a pot of water
And I'm like, what?
I don't even know what in the world.
So, and she's like, and call 911.
And I'm like, okay.
I'm like, she's like, I'm gonna go back in the bath
and see if, you know, I can calm down or whatever.
And I'm like, I think we can still make it, you know?
So she's going in the bath.
I'm going, getting this pot of water
and I'm trying to figure out what to do.
Then she starts screaming like, he's coming.
And it was really loud, more dramatic than that.
And then I'm like, oh no.
So then we like, I run back.
And I'm like, can we make it to the hospital?
She's like, no, it's happening.
And then I kid you not, like eight minutes later,
we had Jackson and it was just like, bam.
So like when it happens, it happens, okay?
But obviously there is some signs that hey,
we're getting close, we're building up,
and sometimes it can happen a lot quicker than you think,
sometimes it's longer.
Then you think obviously that's kind of a good story for some because some people are thinking like I started and then it was like
24 hours later or
48 hours later
And you know those are kind of the nightmare stories or whatever, but at the end of the day, you know, it's going to happen
And in the same way you have to realize when you're pregnant
It's going to come out in the same way
We have to realize hey the end times are going to happen and just
Baring your head in the sand and pretending like it's not going to happen isn't going to help anything
And it doesn't really help your wife if you just pretend like she's not pregnant, okay?
And I could have just gone back to sleep and say wake me up later with a sandwich or something
But no, I could run around panicked and just watch the whole event. So that's what I did, all right?
People are like, oh man, you delivered your child?
I was just present, man.
I didn't really deliver anything, okay?
But yeah, I did, so.
But it's kind of a cool story.
Jackson was delivered at home.
So there we go, that's why he's special.
But at the end of the day, hey, the end times
is a dramatic event.
Pregnancy is a dramatic event.
And we have to realize that this stuff is going to happen.
There's gonna be a beginning of sorrow's period.
And what is the beginning,
It has to get worse before it gets better now think about it like a woman
She's going through extreme pain and she's screaming when she's trying to give birth
But as soon as the baby comes out then it's kind of like relief
And that's kind of like it's gonna be for us that we're gonna have to go that really intense difficult period
But then once we get raptured it's all over and it's great and we don't have to worry about it ever again
And so, you know, it's kind of like as a group we get to go through this crazy delivery period.
It isn't interesting that, you know, it's a baby is delivered in the same way that we're going to be, quote, delivered.
And so all the language, all the things that God built are on purpose.
Even labor pains, even, you know, the woman's conception and pregnancy and all this different stuff picks to spiritual pictures.
Now it says in verse 9,
then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you, and you shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.
You know, sometimes I kind of think like, hey, where am I going to escape if America gets really bad?
But according to this, there's not going to be a good place to escape in the end times.
You shall be hated of all nations for my namesake.
You know, I don't think there's going to be this token nation where they don't care.
According to the Bible, every nation is going to hate Christians.
Verse 10,
Then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another,
and many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
So, I think there's going to be so much intense persecution in this event
that you're going to have a lot of family members literally turn us in.
And you could think about it like maybe just COVID
kind of gave you a glimpse of what it was like
to have people just freak out
and turn into a different person.
I mean, and you could almost see like some
of the relationships you might have had
where some of the people like they would have turned you in
to the government for not getting masked
or not getting the vaccine.
I mean, I had family members,
they're like, they wouldn't let me see them.
Because we weren't vaccinated. We couldn't go around them. We had to like meet outside from a far distance away, you know, or whatever
It's just like
What? I mean look people are acting weird about that stuff and if you know
I'm not trying to diss people for having different medical views, but I am just saying like some people freaked out
And the whole government put a lot of pressure on people.
People are losing their jobs.
People are losing relationships.
And that was just minor in comparison
to getting your head chopped off
and not being able to buy or sell literally.
You know, that is gonna put people in a situation
where the ugly really comes out.
So you have to just be prepared for that,
that sometimes your blood relative may not be the nicest person
when they're put in the situation.
It might be your spiritual brother that you can count on,
but your physical brother might turn you in.
Lot of false prophets verse 12 and because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall wax cold
This makes me think of second Timothy chapter number three
The Bible talks about men being lovers of their own cells
So you have to understand the the end times climate is going to be a very wicked
ungodly culture
Worldwide people are not very loving people don't have love for others. It's a very unfriendly
environment
It says in verse 13,
but he that shall endure unto the end,
the same shall be saved.
I think, you know, when you read the text
and you really study this,
that being spiritual is going to be a benefit.
Like I think some people have this attitude,
like if I'm on the front lines,
if I'm going to a hard preaching church,
or if I'm trying to be really godly,
like I'm gonna be the first to get my head chopped off.
And I can't promise you that won't happen.
But I'm just saying, when I read the text, it almost seems like those that are the most
spiritual are the most likely to get through this.
And the ones that are enduring, because they're the ones willing to kind of get through this.
And think about it, if you're God up in heaven, you can do whatever you want, you can perform
all kinds of miracles, you can do anything, literally.
Who do you want to keep on the earth for these last 75 days?
The guys that actually care about soul winning and actually want to do something in the last 75 days?
Or the pre-tripper hiding in his basement,
confused and crying that he was wrong about pre-trip?
I think there's no point in even keeping that guy around.
You know, it's probably more likely that his brother is going to call and like turn him in
and he's going to get in trouble or something like that.
And I would assume that the people that are doing the work are going to be secure.
Let me give you a picture, a story where this is true.
How about if we go back to Pharaoh,
it's kind of a similar story.
It's a similar timeline.
Crazy horrible events are happening.
You know who was totally fine in this whole event?
Moses and Aaron.
And you would think like these guys are like on the chopping block.
I mean, they're the ones bringing in all the horrible stuff.
They're on the front lines.
They're the big name.
You would think they would have gotten killed.
If anybody's going to get killed, it'd be them, but they make it fine.
Through the whole event and you know to me I would think that gives us confidence and boldness and the faith that is saying
You know what? Let's just serve God
Open all the way into the end and you know if I get martyred I get martyred
But it's more likely that if I'm just enduring and keep going that God can perform miracles and allow me to just
Do my thing and get people saved
So and and like I don't know what you want, but I think it'd be cool to be raptured
I mean, getting your head chopped off is not that bad either.
I mean, you get a cool crown in heaven.
So to me, it's a win-win.
Some people might not look at that way,
but I'm just saying, like, to me, it's kind of a win-win.
So, you know, just endure.
Verse 14,
Now, there's different ways to interpret verse 14.
Some people kind of have this idea that like
somehow there's just gonna be this explosion of soul winners going to literally every nation right before the end and
I'm not gonna say that that's not possible
That's not exact. That's not really how I interpret the verse
I kind of just personally think that this is just saying like think about it from Christ talking now
To to when this happens the gospel has gone to literally every nation
I also don't think this is only limited to that timeline because there's a lot of nations
that haven't even existed yet when Christ says these words.
I mean America doesn't even exist.
at this point, yet the gospel was preached in America.
And it wasn't even really until the most recent era
that the gospel has kind of done its thing and reached a lot of unique areas.
And possibly even now, you know, with us doing a lot of Caribbean
and other kinds of islands and stuff, maybe we're reaching some areas that haven't been reached that much
or haven't really gotten a lot of exposure and we're kind of bringing in.
But I don't think that we have to have this major soul-running or violent North Korea
for the end times to happen.
And I don't advise going to North Korea.
I don't think that we should focus on unreceptive areas.
I think we should focus on receptive areas.
And, you know, if you kind of study the Bible, God takes generation sometimes to punish a nation.
It's like a nation maybe gets the gospel, rejects it,
and then he's going to bring the punishment into the third or fourth generation of them that hate him.
So it could be that some of these really dark areas are going to stay dark.
Now, hey, there's a way to reach somebody over there.
I'm for it.
I'm not trying to fight anybody that wants to do that.
But by and large, it's probably better to try and reach
the more receptive areas than the unreceptive.
I know some people that do some underground church things
and some hostile areas, and you know what?
Praise God for the work that they're doing.
But it's kind of funny.
Somebody was telling me about a missions trip.
I'm not going to say the name, but there's an area somewhere
in the Middle East.
where they were doing some evangelism but you know they're not actually evangelizing the locals
they're evangelizing Filipinos in this Islamic country so it's kind of like a unique thing
they're not like actually going and evangelizing those kind of locals as much they're really kind
of evangelizing Filipinos because they're imported into this area and so
Hey, you preach the gospel to anybody I don't care. I'm never gonna fight you. I'm just saying for our church
We're probably gonna always focus on
Receptive areas and once you get all of them done then we'll talk
Okay, so if you want to believe differently about me and then on this verse you can
But I just think if you kind of look at history the gospel has gone and taken this journey
And it's gone through pretty much the whole world at different times and at this point pretty much
There's not an area that didn't have the gospel
Some have rejected it severely, but, you know, at different stages from 35 A.D. to now,
pretty much the Gospels touched every continent and every area at some point.
Now, the Bible does say, if we keep reading,
when ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet,
stand in the holy place, whoso readeth, let him understand,
then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains,
let him which is on the housetop,
not come down to take anything out of his house,
neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes,
and woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days,
but pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day,
for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world,
to this time no, nor ever shall be, and accept those days should be shortened,
there should be no flesh, there should no flesh be saved,
But for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened."
So we have this section where he's talking about the abomination of desolation.
I don't know for a second time, I don't know if I'm going to be able to go all the verses I wanted to.
Let's go to at least one. Let's go to Daniel chapter 12, if you would go to Daniel chapter number 12.
Daniel brings this up a lot about this abomination of desolation that's being mentioned here.
And the book of Daniel, Daniel chapter seven, Daniel chapter nine, and Daniel chapter number
twelve, reference this event that's coming in the future.
Daniel chapter twelve, look at verse number nine, and he said, Go thy way, Daniel, for
the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.
many shall be purified and made white and tried,
but the wicked shall do wickedly,
and none of the wicked shall understand,
but the why shall understand."
So this is really important verses right here,
because notice that the understanding of the book of Daniel is kind of,
is kind of closed up in sealed until notice the time of the end.
which we already referenced when is the end.
That's kind of like that last seven years of history.
And I think that in some ways,
like we're not gonna really kind of fully understand
the book of Daniel and all these prophecies
until it really happens before our eyes.
And that a lot of people don't,
a lot of people are gonna be confused by and large
on this issue until we kind of get
towards those end times events.
And notice again, the ungodly unsaved won't realize this.
They won't realize that we're, they're literally performing the things in Daniel and Matthew 24 and Mark 13 and Luke 21 and Revelation.
I mean, they'll do exactly what it says and they won't even realize what they're doing.
Kind of like how the Jews didn't realize they were fulfilling all these prophecies about slaying Jesus on the Passover in the same way.
The ungodly are not going to see this. The unsaved aren't going to have all these headlines.
and the wicked aren't going to have all these headlines like oh this is the actual antichrist
and this is what's going on like it's going to be confusing to them they're not going to see it
only we are going to see it and it says in verse 11 and from that time that the daily sacrifice
shall be taken away and the abomination that make it desolate set up there should be a thousand
two hundred and ninety days blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the thousand three hundred
for thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.
So, he's saying, hey, there's these different timelines, and if you kind of add them up,
you get the seven years.
He's talking about that, I believe, when it talks about blesses, he that waited and
coming to the 1,305 and 30 days is talking about that rapture event.
And so, we kind of can see a little bit past the halfway mark is when Christ is going to
come, they're raptured, and then he's saying at the end of all these days, something special
is going to happen.
What's going to happen?
is going to stand in Israel because all of us are going to be coming with Christ down
and we're going to rule and reign with Christ on the earth and Daniel's going to be there
in his lot. Daniel's going to get his portion and he's going to rule and reign. But this
is talking about the future in times. And this is what Jesus is alluding to and saying,
hey, when I'm talking about the end, Daniel's also talking about the end and that's what's
going to happen. Govv would back to Matthew 24.
The Bible says about the Antichrist that it's going to stand in the holy place.
That makes me believe that they're probably going to rebuild the temple.
on that Temple Mount, which is that holy place,
which is on Mount Moriah, and the Antichrist is gonna stand
in the most inner portion of that sanctuary,
the holy place, and he's gonna literally say
that he's God in some way or form or fashion.
The Bible also says very clearly he's gonna blaspheme
the name of God, he's gonna blaspheme the things of God,
and then he's gonna call himself God,
he's gonna be speaking great things,
Let us know. Hey, this is serious. This is a real serious event. And we've been warned about this
Now if you go back to Matthew 24
I think there's a few other things I wanted to say when we talked about Judea fleeing
Some people would allude to this. Well, this has to be 70 AD, but for one
I think obviously you could take some of this general wisdom and apply it to 70 AD and it still works
But I saw this thing is talking about future and look if you are in
Jerusalem or Israel at this time you better get the heck out of there
I mean, it still applies to the future, that you don't want to be in Israel at all during
this period in human history.
Not only do you want to not be there, it kind of, did you notice how it said that you should
pray about specific timings?
It said that you weren't giving suck and or that you weren't going on a Sabbath day or
that your flight was in winter?
You can't really affect the season, but what I thought about perhaps is that, you know,
no matter where you're at in the world, it's winter somewhere.
And so I think for some Christians, he's just basically saying, you should pray that
when these events happen, it's not y'all's winter season.
And it's not, you know, the Sabbath,
while the Sabbath doesn't really apply to us,
it still applies to people that live in Jerusalem
because they observed the Sabbath over there
and it could cause, you know, some issues with travel
or getting out of the town.
And for us, it could just be applicable in the sense
of like praying that it doesn't happen
in an inconvenient time for you.
And so, you know, the Bible is just saying,
hey, pray that these things don't happen
at an inconvenient time for you.
Now it says in verse number 21,
for then shall be great tribulation,
such as was not since the beginning of the world,
to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
This verse alone debunks the view of preterism.
There's this idea called preterism.
Preterism is the idea that everything in the Bible,
including Revelation, has been fulfilled in 70 AD.
and that we're post everything in the Bible.
Or sometimes they'll even call it like,
you know, there's different views.
There's like an amillennial view.
An amillennial view is kind of like all of this in Revelation was spiritual
and anything that happened carnally already happened.
It's similar in some ways to a Preterous view.
But let me explain why it cannot be that in 70 AD, all these things were fulfilled.
Well, that verse, because it says this is going to be the greatest tribulation,
and specifically called the Great Tribulation, is going to be the worst since the beginning of the world,
and anything in the future that will ever happen.
Let me tell you something, 70 AD was not the greatest tribulation that's ever happened.
Whereas basically Christ rejecting Jews being being punished for having rejected Christ. It wasn't against Christians
It was against all of the unsaved Christ rejecting Jews now and 67 ad
Which is kind of marking that seven-year period of time, which there's overlap here. I get
Nero did kill a lot of Christians, but you know where he killed them in Rome
He killed a lot of Christians in Rome, so Nero persecuted them, the count is estimated to be in the hundreds, possibly thousands.
So anywhere from hundreds to thousands of Christians in Rome were killed in Rome around 67 AD, this is known as the quote, first persecution.
Okay, there's actually, if you look at Fox's book of martyrs, he classifies...
10 persecutions that I'm going to talk about,
and this is what's known as the first persecution is with Caesar Nero,
the Roman emperor, Nero,
and he did some gruesome things.
He lit Christians on fire to act like candles
and did all kinds of crazy, horrible, dramatic things.
He burned a lot of his city,
blames it on Christians,
and then just brutally kills a lot of them.
Pretty much from that period of time, all the way to about 380 is a lot of Roman persecution against Christians.
And you just have constant emperors just slaying just tons and tons of Christians.
The second persecution was known by the emperor Domitian, or Domitian.
And that was in 81 A.D. and he had numerous martyrs.
This is when supposedly men like Bishop Timothy, I believe,
and some of the other people we read in the Bible, that's when they were slain.
You know, prior to this, a lot of the apostles had been slain.
108 A.D. is Emperor Trajan.
162 A.D. is the fourth persecution wave by Marcus Aurelius and Tonius.
This is the guy that you watched in Gladiator, okay?
Who's seen Gladiator?
I'm not gonna, I'm gonna, you're a lot of unsaved heathen.
Don't just get it.
It's an epic movie, all right?
I'll just admit it.
It was one of the coolest movies in 2000,
second highest grossing film
behind Mission Impossible 2,
and it was better than Mission Impossible 2, all right?
But Marcus Aurelius is a real person who was a real emperor and he had the fourth greatest
or the fourth persecution against Christians.
Now in the movie, they have a general named Maximus Decimus Meridius.
That's your star of the film.
And I love that movie, but you know, he's a kind of a fictional character.
So he's not a real character.
The emperor, Marcus Aurelius is a real character.
But that's when that timeline is the fifth persecution night 192 AD Severus
6 is 235 with an emperor named Maximus
7th is 249 AD with desi a desius 8th is 257 AD Valerian 9th is 274 AD
Aurelian 10th is 303 AD is
Diocletian now why mention all these because pretty much if you study most of these they all have more martyrs and more Christians being killed
than the 67 AD event with Nero.
So it'd be kind of silly to think like,
oh, Jesus is talking about 70 AD,
this is the greatest tribulation that's ever going to happen,
and then, oh wait, there's tons of bigger events
constantly happening over and over for Christians.
Yeah, obviously a lot of Jews died
in the Jewish-Roman war in this period of time,
but that wasn't Christians, that wasn't completely other religion.
What if I pointed to some religion where a bunch of Islamists
or a bunch of atheists were killed and said,
that's the same by saying a bunch of Christ-rejecting Jews
were killed in this timeline and claiming
this is the greatest tribulation.
That's not the greatest tribulation.
In 303 AD,
Diocletian is known for
killing tens of thousands of Christians
and millions of Christians exiled.
So this is a major persecution in his Christians and then we roll in right after this into
Constantine and that Emperor Constantine saw that vision and then he forms kind of
that early part of that Roman Catholic Church.
So for the first, you know, ten waves there is no such thing as a Roman Catholic Church.
It does not exist whatsoever.
bishops, like we know it, with all kinds of churches, and it wasn't until about 300 AD
when you have the Roman Catholic Church.
Even beyond the Roman Catholic Church in Constantine legalizing Christianity,
you have a Persian persecution in 339 A.D.
and 632 to 750 A.D. of an Islamic persecution against Christians.
And 1258 to 1300, you have a Mongolian persecution against Christians.
From the 15th century to the 20th century, you have an Ottoman persecution.
You have that Ottoman Empire falling.
In the 20th century, you have communism.
which greatly destroyed many Christians.
When we talk about the Bolshevik Revolution,
we talk about the Hungarian Revolution,
we talk about all kinds of different events,
just thousands and thousands,
if not millions of Christians being persecuted
and killed by communism.
Today, in the 21st century, North Korea...
has extreme persecution against Christians
and is noted for having 50 to 70,000 Christians
under extreme persecution of Christianity right now
in America.
Not only that, Islam and India also have
major persecution areas against Christianity today.
When I say Islam, we're talking about portions of North Africa,
we're talking about the Middle East,
we're talking about all over where there's
tons and tons of Christians being persecuted today, it doesn't make sense to then look
at this verse and say 70 AD, because you're pretty much just ignoring all of history and
you're even ignoring today Christians that are being severely persecuted.
But even though you might have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and yet even millions
in the past, it's saying there is an event coming that is greater than all of these.
There is a great tribulation where you're going to have the greatest single persecution against Christians
That's ever been known to man ever will be known to man
You could even look in the times past the Babylonian captivity
I would argue the Babylonian captivity was a greater persecution against Christians than 7080 was most likely
So, you know, it's saying worse than anything in the past anything in the future
It's going to be the biggest event ever so
Preterism is really almost like a view for flat earthers
or people that are mentally handicapped or something
because you have to ignore so much history
and so much Bible to have this kind of a view.
You should just stay far away
from these type of individuals.
I always ask them this question,
it's like, when were the locusts from hell coming out?
You know, like, when did that happen?
Because if you're saying all of Revelation happened,
that happened at some point.
Not only that, I asked Grock this and it said, what was probably the worst persecution?
This is what Grock's answer was.
The Arminian controversy, which was from 1915 to 1923, it says it estimates 1.5 to 2.5
million Christians were slaughtered and some kind of an Arminian destruction.
Ask the young Turks about that one.
Those liberals, you know what?
They hate you bringing up this particular event by severity. It said that was by scale by severity
They bring in that occlusions 300 to 313 some of the things they did to Christians putting them in the Coliseum
Having them, you know, eaten by lions and all kinds of crazy things like that.
That was probably some of the most gruesome martyrs that we've ever experienced.
The Arminian genocide.
You know, we never seem to bring up these kind of genocides.
It's only one genocide that's allowed to be brought up.
And somehow, they, you know, when you look at the world population statistics,
they didn't even go down, but it was a genocide.
And yes, the Holocaust, that's what I'm talking about, sorry, for being vague.
We'll go back to Matthew 24. It's interesting. That's the only quote genocide that you're allowed to bring up when there's been legitimate genocides and
Even nobody wants to bring up the fact that probably six to seven million Germans were genocided
After World War two talking about just teenagers and young men and women
Just horrible atrocities that happen to them. How come we don't bring that up, you know
I guess there's probably an agenda by the people that are in control of everything
Matthew 24 is going to have this great tribulation mentioned,
and basically what it's saying is if the antichrist and the devil got to do their thing for long enough,
everyone would just die.
But it's going to be shortened.
Why? For the elect's sake.
That means not every Christian is going to die.
Most Christians are going to go through extreme persecution.
A lot of them are going to die, but not everyone's going to die.
It says,
For there shall rise false Christ and false prophets and shall show great signs and wonders in so much that if it were
Possible they shall deceive the very elect. I think it's kind of interesting that these false Christs are able to perform great
Signs and wonders, you know today our false Christ praise God haven't been able to do that, you know Tyler doka
I didn't see him do any miracles
You know, I think he rides a motorcycle now
But you know, I don't think I haven't seen any any cool things that he did
But you know even if even if Tyler doka could fly
breathe fire out of his mouth and stand on his head under water, I still wouldn't
believe he's Jesus Christ. You know, we shouldn't believe things based on
miracles, we should believe it based on the Word of God.
Behold, I have told you before,
wherefore, if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth.
Behold, he is in the secret chambers, believe it not.
For as lightning cometh out of the east and shined even on the west,
so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.
For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
So he's saying, look, if Christ were showing back up, you would know.
That's the whole point that he's trying to make just like when you see lightning just come out of the sky
And it lights up the entire sky
You're not confused like oh, I missed it
Now you'll know like that the lightning was there and so he's just basically saying anything you know where he's coming
He's not coming in a cave
Where you know the Dead Sea Scrolls were now he's coming in the clouds
So he's saying where the eagles are gathered, you know, up in the sky we're going to see Christ up in the clouds.
So unless you see a guy coming in the clouds, as bright as all can see, as you could ever see,
this is not Christ, is basically what he's trying to describe.
So he's just saying this is the type of Christ that you would see is one coming in the clouds
and it's going to be obvious to everybody when is it verse 29 immediately after the tribulation of those days
shall the sun be darkened and the moon shall not give her light and the stars shall fall from heaven
and the powers of the heaven shall be shaken and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven
and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
You know, I love about the Bible is just like everything the Bible talks about is like what man does
Because if you think about it, if you if you go to any show, I don't care a concert
Sporting event, whatever it is. What do they always do? They turn all the lights off
Right before the group this big entrance and then they have that one bright shining light
Or maybe sometimes they literally even have the star coming down from the sky and it's just like I wonder where they got that idea
It's like Christ came up with it. He's going to turn out all lights. He's going to turn out the sun
He's going to turn out the moon. There's no lights and then just he's coming in this bright huge show
Everybody's going to see it the Bible says and every eye shall see him and
They're going to be war they're going to be mourning and weeping and we're going to be rejoicing and excited and it's kind of like a
There's definitely a mixed feeling
We're we couldn't be more happy and they couldn't be more upset
about what's about to happen because they know that it's over for them you know the star has arrived the true star
You know the true son of God is coming and we're gonna see him and it's interesting
It's immediately after tribulation this you go to an old IMB church. They probably will never even read this verse. I
Went to an old IMB church where we preached on the pre-trib rapture for like four months straight and we went to Matthew 24
Almost every single sermon and we never read verse 29 a single time
Then I went to another old IV service one time recently like a few last years or so
I was just visiting out of town went to a church and of course the morning sermon was on the rapture
Pre-trip and
Like we're in method 24 and I said to my wife said just watch as he skips this verse and
They just start reading man. They 24 then he reads verse 29 and I'm just gonna tell you I was shocked
I was like, what is he gonna do now?
Like he just read that out loud immediately at the tribulation and then he just goes
Now some people don't realize this is written. This is only written to the Jews
It's not written to us and if you think this is written to us
you're gonna get screwed up on the end times and then he just totally just went on something else and I was just like
What in the world?
Like how is this just like only written to Jews?
When did he even say that and like this is what's silly to me think about this, okay?
Jesus Christ is going to preach this great sermon to all of these Jews and only to Jews
that are all going to die and none of this is ever going to happen to them so that we
can read it and realize it didn't have anything to do with us or them because they're dead.
So then who does it apply to?
Oh, well, no, no, no.
Okay, so the ones that are not gonna read this
and don't believe this and they're not gonna use this text,
so it was just written to no one.
How in the world, why in the world with Jesus Christ
have this huge giant sermon about his return for no one?
I mean, that is literally the preacher bargain.
I mean, there are men that are a pastor in our world
that just refuse to read this verse,
or when they read it, they just totally throw it out the window.
I mean, it's insane today.
And then the Bible says, let no man deceive you.
And this pastor admitted, he said, you know what?
Our church would be different, and we would act different
if we believed this verse the way some people believe it.
And I was thinking like yeah, you mean like actually preaching gets faggots
You mean actually going out and being serious about soul winning. You mean actually being counter cultural
instead of just hiding
Like most old I'd be churches they are hiding most old I'd be churches. You don't even know they exist
I grew up and didn't even know independent fundamental Baptist existed. I
Didn't know was a thing
Why are we hiding?
Aren't we supposed to be shouting on the house tops?
You know, aren't we supposed to be preaching the Word of God
and not be ashamed of what Christ had said?
But you know, these people, they just can't hide hard enough.
And they just want to keep hiding and hiding and hiding,
and they just, they're just waiting to just be rescued
from the wickedness of this world.
Sorry, not gonna happen.
You're gonna have to go through the Great Tribulation.
And you know what? It's a disservice to God's people to constantly go to a church. We're not being warned about this
Imagine if you imagine this what if your daughter
Eventually gets married to a young man. It's nice young man, and they're gonna have a child
They get pregnant and they're gonna have a baby and you never tell her
She's not allowed to hear anything about what pregnancies like or deliveries like you're not allowed to know anything
In fact, we're just gonna tell you nothing's gonna even happen
Do you think that would help that young lady?
Wouldn't you be kind of mad if she went to a doctor and they said oh pregnancy? That's don't worry
Well before your delivery just magically it's gonna be over and nothing happens
Wouldn't you be kind of upset if they're giving them that kind of advice yet?
How many Christians today are going to churches today where they're constantly told don't worry about it ignore that
Don't look the other way. This is for Jews. Just let's preach about something. Let's talk about something else
Let's talk about being nice again or sweet or something
Hey, we should be nice and sweet sometimes,
but you know what, we need to preach what the Bible says.
And we shouldn't just throw verses in the trash
and say, oh, this is just for Jews.
No, no, every verse is for us.
Every Old Testament story is for us.
Every New Testament story is for us.
And you know what, there's a lot of future things
that Jesus told us about.
And you know what, I'm not gonna give it
to the unsaved, it's for me.
And you know what, okay, it's for the Jews.
I'll accept it, because I'm a Jew.
Hey, this is for the Jews. You're right. And I'm that Jew that it's written for and you know
You're that Jew that is written for and you need to stop being faithless and believe
And you know, hey, would I prefer pre-trib? Maybe I
Mean in some in some ways, but you know what I honestly I'll just be honest with you
You know what I put what part of me prefers pre-trib my flesh
My spirit does not prefer
Just like think about this, you know in every sporting event
You kind of want to make it to the big show you kind of want to make it to that that game seven final series
That World Cup you want to be on the Sunday masters playing and contending and you know what it's gonna be tough
It's gonna be gruesome. It's gonna be ugly, but you don't want to say hey bench me
Take me out of the game
Even if you're down even if your team's losing you like I want to be in there
I want to fight to the bitter end. I want it. I want to earn it. I want to be a part of the game
I want any part of the show put me in coach
Hey, and that's what Christian should want you really want to say like hey
I wanted to be the guy that died right before the Passover in Egypt
You want to be a guy hey, I want to be the guy that died right before we got in the Ark
I want to be the guy that died right before, you know, Daniel was going to go into the
lion's den, so I don't even know what happened.
I want to be the guy that died right before Jesus Christ showed up to have his ministry.
Now wouldn't you want to be the guy, hey, I want to go through the flow, I want to see
that thing.
Hey, I want to be there walking with Jesus. I want to be there when Christ is crucified
I want to be there when we're going out and starting churches. Hey, I want to be there on the front lines
I want to actually do something for the Lord Jesus Christ. You know what?
I'm not sitting here thinking like oh, I'm really I really don't want that to happen my life's lifetime
Look, I only get one lifetime
Why would I not want to be in the most important time something in the Bible that's written just tons and tons of verses?
You know what if the end times happen in my lifetime praise God and if they don't happen in my lifetime praise God
You know what? I'm gonna live like I'm gonna be a thousand, but I'm prepared to die today
I'm prepared to die for Jesus Christ now
But I'm ready to live a thousand years.
And you know what? I don't want to have this attitude,
and I don't want to teach our children how to have this attitude
of being terrified at the end times.
You know, we should embrace it.
And look, there's no way it's like right around the corner.
The man of sin hasn't even been revealed.
We don't even have a temple.
You know, we got at least three and a half years.
You can always just say like, we have at least another three and a half years.
You know once they start and look even when they start construction
They're gonna not start the daily sacrifice. I mean realistically it couldn't even happen probably in the next four or five years
Now could it happen six years?
Could it happens up yet? Maybe but it's you know, we got at least another three and a half or let's go to the Bahamas this year
You know what I mean?
Let's not get afraid of our own shadow and let me tell you something
I grew up in a non-denom church where they preach the pre-trib rapture almost every service
And I thought that we were going to die every year.
Who thought they were going to die often when they went to church growing up?
I'm not even joking.
This is a common prayer that I have.
I would go home and I would pray and I would say, God, will you please allow me to get
married at least before you rapture all of us?
Because I was pre-trip. I believe in the pre-trip rapture. I thought that that was really gonna happen
I watched Kirk Cameron's movie
I saw all the clothes fall on the floor and the people disappear and I thought that was gonna be me and
You know at the end of the day. I just I just I remember being 12 years old praying. Can I please get married?
13 can I please get married 14? Can I please get married? I mean I just kept praying then I finally got married and
Praise God. I love being married
but you know
There could still be another 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 years.
We don't know.
And I don't want to have this doomsday attitude
where all the young people are terrified about their life
or afraid about their life.
You know, hey, whatever God has allotted for us,
let's live it.
And many people have thought that the end times
were in their lifetime,
and they were off by hundreds of years.
So let us not be in the same boat.
Let us just, if it happens, it happens.
But otherwise, let's just plan to live to be 100 years.
and that's the best way to live your life.
Now, of course, there is going to be
a massive slaughter of Christians,
but Christ is going to come.
Verse 29, immediately after the tribulation of those days,
shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,
and the stars shall fall from heaven,
and the powers of heaven shall be shaken,
and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven,
and then shall the tribes of the earth mourn,
and they shall see the Son of Man coming
in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet,
and they shall gather together his elect
from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
And so that's kind of the end.
I'm not gonna go through the rest of this
because it would take too long.
We'll pick it back up later.
But we basically have that great deliverance.
We have the rapture, where Christ is gonna come.
You compare this with First Thessalonians,
chapter number four.
And you'll see very clearly, it mentions the same elements of the clouds, Christ coming,
gathering all his luck together.
You see in the book of Revelation in chapter number six with that seal that the lamb has
come.
You see in the preceding chapters, you see this great multitude in heaven and the Bible
says,
came they, or whence came these, and it's basically saying they came out of great tribulation.
You have here great tribulation mentioned in Matthew 24.
So it's real obvious, the Bible clearly outlays that hey, there's going to be a tribulation,
a great tribulation, and a rapture, and the rapture is after the great tribulation.
It's immediately after that tribulation.
Same thing, same events, same course of action.
The Bible could not be clear.
Pre-trib is not in the Bible.
There's not a single verse.
There's nothing that teaches it.
And that's why they always had to bring out charts.
That's why a lot of these pastors are afraid
to even explain it.
I mean, I've had many pastors get up and say,
I don't even know how to explain it.
We're going to have to bring an expert.
And I'm thinking like, this is your expert.
You know why they can't teach it?
It's because it's not in here.
And you know, hey, I think that the rapture is not an issue where you can say I can't go to church because of them being wrong on this issue.
But hey, I would not want to choose to go to a church as pre-trib if I don't have to.
Because they're going to, look, it's not usually a doctrine by itself. There's a lot of other things attached to this.
And a lot of other issues, the Bible says let no man deceive you.
I wouldn't want to be in a church where we have the wrong attitude being delivered
unto our children,
making them think that they're not going to have to fight. And look, life is all
about fighting anyways.
We're supposed to earnestly contend for the faith. The Bible says, yea, all that will
of Godly in Christ Jesus' self-suffer persecution.
To try and teach people you're not going to go through the tribulation is counterintuitive
the whole Bible.
Because the whole Bible is saying you're going to suffer tribulations, you're going to suffer persecution,
you're going to go through hardships, and you know, as a man, you need to have a little bit of grit.
You need to have a little bit of stamina.
You need to be able to go through some difficult things.
Because, you know, your wife isn't going to always have the same mental stability that you do.
And here's the thing, as a man, even if you don't have that stability, fake it.
Alright?
Sometimes inside you might be panicking, upset, depressed, angry, confused, you might be kind of irritated about getting older, I know what that's like.
You might feel like you didn't accomplish
the things you wanted to in life.
You might be upset about some issue that you're dealing with.
You may not like your job right now.
You may not like the daily grind.
You may not like inflation.
You might hate the government.
You might be blackpilled because of the Jews.
But you know what?
Just inside, just bottle it all up and pray to God
and say, God, I'm casting all this care upon you.
And you know what?
I'm gonna bear someone else's burden today.
because my wife doesn't have the same mental strength as I do.
My children don't have the same mental strength as me.
And you know what, even some men don't have the same mental strength as you.
And you have to come alongside of them and you have to bear their burdens.
We have to condescend to men of low estate.
You know, if you're strong, you ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, is what the Bible says.
You know, it's important for you to be strong so you can help those that are weak.
And if we don't have anybody that strong, boy, we're in trouble.
We need some strong men that are able to get in control of their emotions
They're able to get in control of their finances
They're in control of their soul winning and their wife and their family and their stuff and you know what get their stuff together
It's another word you could use for that but get their stuff together
So they can help other people because you know what when you're just so consumed with yourself you can't help other people
This is why you know, I'm not trying to be offensive, but it's just reality. That's why when I travel
I like traveling with married men more than single guys
Because typically single guys, they've only been trained to ever worry about themselves
Whereas a married man, they spend so much time dealing with their wife and kids and all this other stuff
They're kind of more trained and have an attitude of taking care of other people
Like I'll go on trips with other married guys and they're like hey, did you remember this or I brought this or I got this
And I'm thinking like great
They like they like have all this extras and they brought this stuff. They thought things. They're like considerate
I go with the single guys. They're like, I forgot this. I don't have that. They're late
And I'm like you're just a grown child, you know
Because you've never had to manage anybody else you never had to take care of anybody else
But you know what there could be exceptions to this you could be
If you're young, if you're single, you know, even if you're older and you're single,
you know, start thinking about other people too.
Take care of other people.
Begin thinking about other people.
You know, you need to take care of yourself a whole, all of the, in every way,
so that you can then take care of other people too.
And be thinking about other people.
You know, the Bible says that we're supposed to look on each other's things.
And we're supposed to consider other people's stuff
and other people's feelings.
And you know, that's why it's important to be strong.
It's important to be strong because you're
going to have to go through difficulty and life is difficult.
Hey, you need to be strong for your kids.
You need to be strong for your wife.
I think that there is this temptation
of having this midlife crisis.
And I've even seen this in my family.
And, you know what, I could see being tempted with that too because, you know, there's this
point in every man's life where you kind of get to a point where you're not as young
as you were anymore, you get injured, it takes forever for it to heal, and you kind of feel
like you're not going up anymore, you're kind of going on the downhill, and you could be
tempted to just be upset with where you're at.
You're like, man, I don't have the money
that I thought I was gonna have.
I don't have the career that I thought I was gonna have.
I don't have, I didn't accomplish the things
that I wanted to, and so they freak out
and they buy like a red corvette or something.
Or they freak out and try to get a new family or something or they just do they do weird stuff
I mean this happens
This is a common thing that's happening because they do that you know what as a man you just say hey no
I have children. I have wife. I have responsibilities
I need to just stay strong and even though I may not like the job that I have and I may not like the daily grind and
I may not like having to deal with all these little kids and all the the issues of life and the inflation the whatever
I'm just gonna stay strong
And I'm just gonna keep bringing my family to church
and we're gonna keep going soul winning
and I'm gonna keep working for the man
and I'm gonna keep earning those wages
and I'm gonna keep paying stupid high taxes
because you know what, they need me to be strong for them.
And sometimes we just lay down our lives for our children
and for our wives and whoever else that we need
and we just do what's right because we need to be strong.
And you know what, as a Christian in some ways
we're building this church even for the next generation.
You know, we've had to go through an ugly grind to get to this point.
I mean, the Milsteads have been here from day one.
Ask them what Steadfast Baptist Church was like from day one to now, and how many ugly,
ugly grinds we've had to go through to get here.
But you know what?
The church right now is great.
You know, joining this awkward church in Romero's living room is not the same as showing
up to this.
We've got to keep building and go through that ugly grind so that other people can get there.
You know, some of you have to start over with your family.
You weren't passed down a Christian heritage.
You might not have been, you've been passed down a broken home.
You have to give it a repaired home.
Some of you have to make money and dig yourself out of basically abject poverty.
You know, it's hard. It's hard to climb up and to get out of these things.
But you know what? Someone needs to do it.
You know what why preach a sermon on something about being hard. You know what? That's life life is hard. Why did God make you strong?
Why did God make you man? You love to talk about how women are the weaker vessel. Well, you know what show us how strong you are
How strong can you be?
Well, you said this word and it hurt my feelings
You're offended by words, how are you gonna get through the great tribulation?
You're offended by words. You're offended by jokes. You're offended by a sermon. Where on the doll did it hurt you?
Show me after the sermon where I hurt you on the doll
It hurt my feelings right here
It's weak
It's weak. We need some hard sermons. We need some hard preaching. We need some hard men
We need some men that say man, you can't get this guy off track
You could you could rip them to shreds you could criticize him
You could say all this stuff and you know what he still likes you and he still serves God
And he still goes to work and he still helps other people
You know I like people that say hey, even if you piss me off. I'm still gonna be your friend
Not the thing that's like I can't wait to drop you as a friend
We need some men that just say like hey, I'm not going anywhere. I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna do good unto you
Say that to your wife
Say that to your children.
Say that to your employer.
He'll like you.
Say that to your pastor.
Say that to your church.
Say that to God.
What do you think it means to be steadfast?
Not through the easy times, through the great tribulations.
And hey, there is a great tribulation coming.
Who is going to be steadfast?
I hope it's our church.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you Heavenly Father for giving us this great warning
about what's going to happen when your son comes.
We would take these things seriously I
Pray that whatever difficulties come that you can alter or change in our favor that you would bless us with those
That you would make it not difficult on us as you'd make it as easy as it can be
But that you would get the maximum glory and honor that we would be faithful
Even if these things don't happen in our lifetime, I pray that you could help us to inspire the next generations
That may have to go through difficulty or tribulation
I pray that you would give us deliverance,
that you would deliver us from evil and wicked men,
that you wouldn't put us through things
that we don't have to,
but nevertheless, thy will be done.
And I pray that you would help our church
to be a bright and shining light in such a dark world,
in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, in closing, let's go to song number 413.
Song number 413, stand up, stand up for Jesus.
Song number 413, it's all singing out together.
Stand up, stand up for Jesus, the soldiers of the...