Is This The End? Series

- About fifteen years ago, a giant, killer hurricane was heading out of the Atlantic heading for New Orleans. This caused enormous fear, because New Orleans was judged to not be ready for a direct hit from a hurricane. There were mandatory evacuations of seven parishes as well as voluntary evacuations of six more. There were delays of up to twelve hours on the highways out of the city because of the massive numbers who were leaving. The Superdome was prepped to house people who were going to get flooded out.

- Do you know how this story turned out?

- The storm turned east and missed New Orleans, sparing the city. That’s because I’m talking about Hurricane Ivan, which happened in September 2004.

- I am not talking about Hurricane Katrina, which destroyed New Orleans with a direct hit less than a year later, in August 2005. No, this was Ivan, only eleven months earlier.

- So they saw a massive, destructive hurricane that caused over $25 billion in damages coming right at them. They knew they weren’t prepared. They knew it would destroy them. And then, almost like a miracle, they got a last-minute reprieve as the storm veered east.

- Whew. What a break.

- And what a wake-up call. There was complete agreement that New Orleans wasn’t prepared to handle that storm. There was complete agreement it would have destroyed the city and that inundated the parishes.

- So after Ivan’s near-miss, what did New Orleans do? Did they get right to work making the needed changes? Did they diligently pursue better safeguards that would prevent catastrophe when the time came when the storm didn’t turn aside? Did they use this moment as a wake-up call and do what needed done? No. They didn’t.

- And so when Katrina came roaring ashore less than a year later, New Orleans was basically in the same situation they had been eleven months earlier – woefully, tragically unprepared.

- Ivan had been the warning and they had ignored it. Katrina, though, turned out to be far more than a warning. It was a knock-out punch.

- Today and in the weeks to come we want to talk about an interesting and disturbing subject: the end.

- As we do so, we hear from time to time, especially when things in our world get a little crazy, people saying, “This is the end!” After hearing that over and over and having nothing come of it, it’s easy to dismiss the subject. The threats keep “turning east” and turning out not to be as bad as predicted.

- But we need to know that the Bible is clear on this subject: the end is coming. We don’t know when, but it is coming. And, unlike New Orleans, we need to make preparations to be ready.

- This sermon series is going to be a lengthy one because there are a lot of important subjects that we need to cover. As we go over these subjects, I hope that you will recognize the need to be ready.

- Maybe have some binoculars up there as the image for the sermon. Talk about seeing way off into the future and how much people would like to do that.

A BIG QUESTION RIGHT NOW: Is this the end?

- Matthew 24:1-4a (stopping with “answered”).

- This chapter and the next all concern end times. We are beginning a long sermon series this morning where we will cover many subjects regarding the end. So this morning we are going to talk about the end.

- Right now with the Coronavirus and the massive disruption it has made in our daily lives, there are many who have wondered out loud and even more who have wondered in their hearts: “Is this the end?” Is everything going to fall apart? Are governments going to collapse?

- Now, even though we don’t want to predict the end when we don’t have good reason to, there is some good in the fact that we have been awakened from our slumber.

- The pandemic has stirred us from the slumber of our comfortable, prosperous lives. We often do not concern ourselves with such prophetic things as long as everything is great in our lives.

- This situation is difficult and it reminds us that many of the prophetic details point to harsh and painful circumstances. Our current uncertainty put us in mind of such times.

- As we look at our passage for this morning, we see in vv. 1-3 curiosity about this very question: “Is this the end? What will the end look like? What are the signs?”

- I just want you to notice the first two words in v. 4. After having been asked on this question, “Jesus answered.” This is enormously good news. It means that we haven’t been left in the dark. It means that Jesus has given us insight into what’s going to happen. We don’t have to suffice with our speculative guesses. We have good information from Someone in the know.