Are We In The End Times

How many of you believe that we may be living in the end times? I mean it sure feels like it could be doesn’t it? So how do we know that? We know it because of what we will read in today’s text. It will come from the Gospel of Matthew. So if you have your Bibles with you please open them there to chapter twenty four and look at verses three through fourteen. Again that is Matthew twenty-four verses three through fourteen. Here is what it says: Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”

4 And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. 10 And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. 11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But he who endures to the end shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

Let’s make one thing clear, I am not here this morning to try and scare you into getting closer to the Lord. In fact as I travel the country with my preparedness programs I often say “don’t be scared, be prepared”. With that said I do believe that many of the things happening today are just what Jesus predicted in our text.

In my own lifetime and many of you as well, we have witnessed people like Jim Jones and the People’s Temple, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Marshall Appelwhite with the Heaven’s Gate cult. And Charles Manson and the family. Did you also know that witchcraft is actually a cult that many still practice today?

Jesus said, “Many will come in my name saying I am the Christ and will mislead many. So that has happened and in fact continues to happen today.

And there in verse 6 it states: And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.

If you don’t believe that is happening and has happened than you haven’t watched much news lately. Consider all of the saber rattling in North Korea, the unrest in the Middle East. Yep war and rumor of wars abound daily.

And then we get to verse 7 where it states: For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.

Did you know that we have had earthquakes right here in Mississippi? Since 2015 there have been three in Madison County, from 1976 to 1996 there have been three in Clark County and one in Saucier in 1975. These are only 7 of the 17 that I found on record since 1931. And oh by the way there were over 1300 hundred around the world in the last seven days.

Now like I said I am not trying to scare you this morning. But take a look at verse 9: Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.

Have you paid any attention to what’s happening in Afghanistan? I am going to quote part of an article from Persecution International Concern. This a monthly magazine that reports on Christians being persecuted around the world. This is from August 23rd. Here is part of what they report:

We are telling people to stay in their houses because going out now is too dangerous,” a Christian leader in Afghanistan, whose name is being withheld for security reasons, told International Christian Concern (ICC) last week. While a general amnesty has been announced by the Taliban, this leader feared Christians will still be targeted by Taliban fighters patrolling Kabul and other cities.

“Some known Christians are already receiving threatening phone calls,” the Christian leader told ICC. “In these phone calls, unknown people say, ‘We are coming for you’.”