WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS : HAPPILY EVER AFTER
FEBRUARY 20,2022, 11:15AM
ED YOUNG
Welcome everyone to Fellowship Church. If you're watching online, how's it going? Make sure if you can make it, make it next week, because I'm teaming up with the Tom Brady of prophecy, Jimmy Evans. We're going to have a great time as we discuss the end times. I like that, great time as we talk about the end times. I want to say Hi to all of our different campuses and locations. Thank you so much for joining us. Is today beautiful or what? I almost didn't show up, but Lisa reminded me you're the pastor. Okay, I'll show up.
I like how we love a happily ever after ending. Have you noticed that we grow up as children reading these books and they lived happily ever after. I love that. Ladies, you pick a movie, romantic comedy. Ladies always pick the movies you know that you know that. We love those movies that have a happily ever after ending. Even we watch sports guys, we want our team to win and to kind of live happily ever after. We're just made for that, aren't we? To live happily ever after why? I'm a “why” guy? Why are we made that way? Because we're made in the image of God who is a forever being, we are hardwired it's his will for all of us to live together forever with him. But we chose to do our own thing. Sin entered the world. So, we find ourselves either on the right side or the wrong side of the levy.
I love that song. “When the levy breaks”, how many people in here have ever heard of the band Led Zeppelin? Okay. Here's my best Robert Plant imitation. “When the levy breaks You going to…” He's a unique character. The Levy's going to break. It really is.
I think about 2005 Katrina when it roared and exploded and caused enormous damage in New Orleans. All the feds and people in local government, “Oh, it'll never happen. Our levies are fine. There's a 99.5% chance it'll never, ever occur.” What happened? Katrina hit and in 50 places, the levies broke. And once they're broken, I mean what do you do?
The Bible says from cover to cover the Levy's going to break. It says that. The Bible says from cover to cover that Jesus is coming back. The Bible tells us in the book of Ecclesiastics 3:11 (BSB), “…He has also set eternity in the hearts of men.” We're just fascinated with forever.
I think about those Ever-Ready batteries. I like that name “Ever-Ready”. Are you ever ready for the ever after? Are you ever ready? Are you forever ready? Because of us when we think about the end times, we get so focused on the minutia, on the data that doesn't matter that we miss the “what” and the “why” and the “who” and what we're supposed to do. I sound like a hip hop artist. We do though, as believers have this eternity chip embedded in our soul.
As you see your see the message map (HANDOUT). You can hopefully use that to fill in the blanks. You can use pen, pencil, lipstick, eyebrow pencil, whatever you need to write. Thoughts disentangle themselves when they pass through someone's lips, and through your fingertips, and the dullest pencil is better than the sharpest mind.
As I go through this, as we focus on forever, I want this to be, and I know Jimmy does too as we've been talking about this series, I want this to be practical. I want this to be something that you can utilize where you are.
I love Asian food. Love it. One time I ate at a Japanese restaurant and the whole menu is in Japanese. So, I'd ask the server to interpret what kind of sushi that we were getting ready to eat. I love sushi. I think it makes me a better fisherman too. I just love it. Well, I would rather go to a Japanese restaurant, and I don't mind if the menu is in Japanese, but please put English underneath the Japanese. I could talk Japanese to all of you here. I could talk over your heads about this stuff easily, but what good would that do? Just like you could talk over my head about your area of expertise or your area of knowledge.
I want to serve the food where you can understand it, see it and eat it. Today is going to be an experience where we feed on the word of God and prayerfully, hopefully this will be an encouragement to you.
This is very encouraging because when you sum up all of prophecy, all of the end of times, I can sum it up in two words, we win. Let me say that again. We win. Because of all this we have a FOCUS on FOREVER.
I'm a “why” guy, why study the end times? Why should we study prophecy and the End Times? We will be Blessed. That's good. Scripture says, if we study this stuff, we're going to be blessed. Now I don't study it just to go, “okay, I'm going to read the book of Revelation and here’s your small reward.” I mean, it's deeper than that. Yet we're going to walk in the blessings of God. What does it mean to be blessed? It's to be on the receiving end of the tangible and tangible favor of God. I want to be in that blessed place. I want to be in the zone. I don't want to be zoned out. I want to be zoned in. When it comes to the end times, when it comes to this grid, this template that we're going to talk about, we need to see the beautiful, panoramic picture of God, moving throughout history.
I remember years ago, one of our anniversaries, Lisa wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. I mean, she like, honey, please let's go to the Grand Canyon for years and years and years let's go to the Grand Canyon. Let's go to the Grand Canyon. And I'm just not one of those guys that likes to go to these sites. I don't know why that just doesn't do it for me, but I was like, I need to plan something. So I surprised her. We went to Las Vegas, and I heard about this helicopter tour company called Maverick tours. And maybe some of you have been on Maverick tours. We flew this helicopter with a bunch of tourists into the valley of the Grand Canyon. I don't think I've ever seen Lisa this happy in my life. She was so, so thrilled. She was like, oh, this is the most romantic. This is the greatest thing ever. We had a little picnic out there with all the tourists, of course, we were tourists as well.
I took a picture of her (PHOTO) and I used that feature on my phone. I rarely use the panoramic. I mean, I know some of you might use the panoramic a lot. Do you use that panoramic feature on your phone? No very few, very few of us. I'm glad I have it, but I'm not like, oh, I want to do a panoramic picture. I just don't think in those terms, because how do you know, see it and it's weird. It is like the whole view of most of the Grand Canyon you see the helicopter there and Lisa just smiling, and it was fantastic.
You can see the tourists. Yeah, some of those people were kind of weird. I just tried to stay away from them. I did not have the picnic with them. I remember one guy in particular; he was a little bit; you know one of these guys where you see the whites of his eyes when he talks. You know what you do? This is just free of charge. If someone is invading your space, sometimes you have those space invaders, those close talkers, here's what I've learned. As they get closer, I'll just take a step toward them, and then I change the trajectory of the conversation and they'll usually step back, and then you can talk.
Today that's what Jimmy Evans and I are doing. We're going to give you a panoramic view and you're going to go, “okay, I get it now.” Now and then people say, “Ed, what's wrong with the world, man, we're going cuckoo for cocoa puffs, Ed, what's wrong with the world? This thing's going on off the rails. I mean, do you see it changing? Do you see anything happening that's good? What do you see? What do you see?” I respond by saying, “Number one, the Bible says, we win. Number two, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better."
When we study the end times, we get a better sense of this nonsense that we see in our world today. THIRD of the Bible suggests this. One third of the Bible rightly interpreted, is talking about the second coming of Jesus. One third. One third. That's a lot, so we’ve got to talk about it. And when we talk about it, it's going to be application driven. I don't want to get so lost in the details.
Let's read 1 Thessalonians 4:16.-18 Again, the levee's going to break, the Bible says. 16 “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command,” in some translations, "a loud shout."
I don't know about you, but I grew up watching Tarzan. (Tarzan Yell) Tarzan would make that sound. All of the animals, all of the wild kingdom would follow him. Jesus is going to make a loud shout only heard to those of us in Christ, and the kingdom of God will follow him. That's called the rapture of the church, a sudden invisible snatching that will happen out of nowhere.
And I was thinking, when the church is raptured, people won't know what to do, those who are left behind. Conversations will end in mid-sentence. A pilot will look over to his co-pilot as he's taxing a triple seven here in DFW, and the seat will be empty. A mother will go to embrace her child. The child will be gone. And can't you see all of the pundits? Everybody trying to explain away the rapture. You'll have guys like Dr. Fauci saying, "Well, those who didn't get the vaccine and the 17 boosters, they spontaneously combusted and..." Woo! The Bible says though, check this out, keep going, 16 "…the dead in Christ will rise first.” I often wonder, why is that? Because the dead in Christ need a six-foot head start. 17 “After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.”
I understand. It's like, "Oh, yeah. This is surreal! I can't wrap my little brain around this information! I mean, I'm here! This is a material world! It doesn't matter if we believe it or not. It's going to happen and there are things out there, obviously, the things of God. God's ways are higher than our ways. There are mysteries out there. There are things out there that we can't fully comprehend. If I think about forever for too long, forever, what? If you really start dialing into forever, we blow a fuse.
God says though, "This is what is going to happen," and there's signs, signs that we can see, like those officials in Louisiana. There were signs that the levies were going to break one day. They just ignored them. "Oh, it's not going to happen. No way." That's why I painted this little watercolor. See these waves? That's the levy breaking there.
Sometimes when I study, I have these little watercolors right by my notes and stuff, and I'll study sometimes because I'm ADD and ADHD and I'm sure dyslexic and everything else. But I'll study some and then I'll drink espresso. I really believe caffeine, I don't know, I'm not a doctor, but caffeine almost has a reverse effect on those of us who are ADD. It helps me concentrate. Now, for others, it might send you over the edge.
So, I have the espresso. I'm sipping that, not too much, studying the word of God for a couple of hours. Then I'll do a quick watercolor, not every day, but some days. But I did this, and I thought, "When the levee breaks..." You don't have to clap. I mean, I appreciate the clap. I'm very insecure. I love affirmation.
Friday night, Lisa and I did another XO Marriage Conference in Houston. If you missed the XO Marriage Conference, that thing was phenomenal. Well, we were in Houston on this stage. This stage that we were on in Houston, I think it's the biggest stage I've ever been on, 4,000 square feet. Now, that's a monster.
Jesus obviously walked across the stage of humanity, and there are three acts in his life. The first act is the INCARNATION. Jesus became flesh, fully God, fully man. That's something else we can't really totally comprehend.
Number two, you have the REDEMPTION. Our greatest need was a savior. Jesus lived righteously, died sacrificially, rose bodily.
Then act three is the CORONATION, the King of kings and Lord of lords. That's when the bridegroom and the bride, the church, will come together and consummate that relationship. Once again, when we hear these things, when we see these things, we can comprehend this.
I thought I would draw a little bit, because I'm a visual person and most of us are visual learners. This is like a timeline. Here, you have Jesus' life. You put life, then you have his death on the cross, the resurrection. Next, you have the church age, you could say, which we're in now. Then you have the rapture of the church. That's the sudden, invisible snatching of those of us who are in Christ, one day, just out of nowhere. We don't know the exact time. We don't know the exact date, but the Bible says we'll be able to see some signs.
The church is raptured. After the church is taken out, can you imagine the pandemonium? The Holy Spirit's gone. The church is gone. God's supernatural hand is what's keeping all this mess even together. It's going to go really, really, really off the rails.
From there the dead in Christ, those who are believers who are living will be caught up in the clouds. It's invisible. From there, we have the tribulation. Kids, this is called cursive. It's really fun to write that way. And this is a marker. The Tribulation is going to last seven years. Three and a half years of pseudo peace. Let me draw a peace sign. Three and a half years Of lawlessness. I'll just put question mark. I'll put CP. It stands for Crazy Pill. You get it. Several sins will be prominent during this time. The first, violence. You just do any casual reading. The murder rate in the US has skyrocketed. We're hitting record numbers right now. Just a few days ago, someone was shot at a coffee shop in the area. Their life was taken. And then, suicide. Drugs also will be massive. Fentanyl is the number one cause of death for those who are 18 to 45 years of age. More than COVID and more than car accidents.
The occult. False worship. People chasing after other gods, even demonic worship. And speaking of demonic worship, Led Zeppelin was the ones that did this song, “When the Levee Breaks”. And if you researched them, especially Jimmy Page, they were very much into the occult. Jimmy Page bought Aleister Crowley's Castle back in the day. Aleister Crowley, of course, head of the Satanic church. And a lot of their songs, and they're just one old school example of that. But even today, I'm sure you've read some of the articles about some of the A-listers and some of the politicians who actually have dabbled in some of the stuff that we're talking about.
Sexual promiscuity is another sin that'll be off the charts. 23,000 people a second log on to porn websites. Let me say that again. 23,000 people a second log on to porn websites. Unbelievable.
You can tell it's going to be wild. I could just do this. Of course, you have the anti-Christ showing up around here. He takes residence. He posts up in the temple. I'm a terrible speller. So, if I misspell, just call me out. So far, I think I'm right. Okay. Some people think maybe the anti-Christ has been one of our presidents. Maybe it was Bill Clinton. Maybe it was George Bush. Maybe it was Barack Obama. Maybe Donald Trump. Maybe Joe Biden. I hate to rain on your parade, but none of these guys are smart enough to be the anti-Christ, seriously the anti-Christ is going to be a charismatic figure that even the communist at CNN will bow to. And the people at Fox News will bow to them at all. That was a little joke. We have to be able to laugh at ourselves. It's the Communist News Network. It really is. “Yeah, but my brother works at CNN. He's a great guy.” I'm sure they have some good guys there. I'm just saying the overall overarching vibe. I can't wait for the emails. Some of the emails and messages that we get. One day I'm going to read them. I promise you, the negative stuff that people say. You'd die laughing. It's really funny. You have to laugh at it. That's why I made up this phrase years ago. “Hater’s going to hate”.
Seriously, don't concentrate too much. That's the downside of social media about negativity. And maybe someone says this bad about you or someone else. You try to get on there and fight. It's not worth it.
So now, look what we have. We had this beautiful collision. Because right here we have the mother of all wars. I'll draw a tank. Army man. I've been right there, the Valley of Megiddo. Valley of Armageddon, where we take tours, Israel tours. And it's eerie to go. This is where it's going to go down. Napoleon said it's the most natural battlefield he'd ever seen. That's where it's going to happen. After the mother of all wars, you have the SECOND COMING of Jesus Christ. Second Coming of Jesus. The rapture is invisible. This is visible. So right before Armageddon, 144,000 you see that in your notes. 144,000? God is going to pick a race of people who are tenacious, smart, tough as nails, Jews. They're going to be evangelists on steroids to share the Good News with people.
I believe we're going to be taken out before the Tribulation. If you look at the flow of how God moves and leads, and as you look at scripture, I believe we're going to be taken out. After the Second Coming, you could have a thousand years. And then, the final judgment. Right here. And then eternity, new heaven and a new Earth. That's what we're facing.
When this happens right here, things that are out of place will be put in place. Are you one of those people? Well, I've got to have everything in place. I've got to have all of my supplies in place. I've got to have my toolbox arranged perfectly, and all that. The bride, I'll say it again, will be put in place with the groom. The bride of Christ, the church, the bridegroom, Jesus. The devil will be put in prison. He'll be incarcerated, and Jesus will be on the throne. Well, that's cool, Ed, but how about me? I'm in this ever-changing culture. I'm just doing my job grinding it out. I'm a student. I'm playing AAU basketball team. I'm a cheerleader. I am an entrepreneur. I'm a pastor. I'm a doctor. I'm a lawyer.
Check out the signs, S-I-G-N-S. Here's the take home. This study will Shift our focus in a in a greater way to Jesus and the church. That's what it's going to do. If we're serious about this, we're going to go, "Whoa, God, you're so awesome. I bow before you every day, and I lean into your church, your bride." Because we are the church, The gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
It should Inspire us to pray for others. it should inspire me and you to pray for others. Pray for those other brothers and sisters that we know. Also, pray for people in your life who don't know the Lord personally. Pray that high risk prayer. "God, I have these people in my life. Help me, Lord, help me to be salt and light and loving, help me at the right time to say a word about you. Maybe to invite them, maybe to share the good news of Jesus."
As I've written about and told you about, the first time I ever prayed that prayer, I was 19 years old at Florida State University. I'm thinking, "Okay," because someone challenged me to pray their prayer. I did it. I kneeled down in my dorm room, rested my hands and arms and elbows on the air conditioning unit, looked out over a dark parking lot. "God, I'm here, Florida State. I'm with all these guys on my basketball team. Give me the words to say."
The next morning, I'm walking to class with a guy who had all of these issues in his life, one of my teammates, and he looked at me. I didn't even know him that well. He goes, "Hey, I want to ask you a question." "Okay." "What is it that's different about you?" "What do you mean?"
He said, "There's something different in your life." And then he said this. "I want what you've got." I was like, "Lord, I can't believe this." Really, it was an out-of-body experience. I could just feel the power of God, the Holy Spirit working, so I said, "Well, I'll be happy to tell you how."
So, we went back to our athletic dorm, and I just sat down with him, and as best I could, I stumbled and fumbled. I didn't explain what it meant to be a Christian that great, and all of a sudden tears were streaming down his face and we both knelt down and I watched this guy move from the wrong side of the levee to the right side of the levee. So there should be such an urgency in your life and mind that we should regularly have people that we're inviting to church.
G, it gives us hope for the future. We're made in God's image. We have a concept of the future. This morning, I got up with Lisa as we go through our drill every morning and feed all of our dogs. We have a Great Dane, two Golden Doodles, and one Maltese, and a cat named Meow-Meow. As I was looking at these beautiful animals, I knew they were not really thinking about the future. They weren't really thinking about, "Oh, man. I know you guys are going out of town for a couple of days next week, and then you're coming back. And I know that, Ed, your dad is coming in town tonight." No, no, no. They're animals. We, though, are made the image of God and we have a concept, right? Hope for the future.
N stands for navigate. We've got to Navigate the world around us. This is a crazy world. It really, really is. To be Captain Obvious. Cray, cray, cray. Yet, the holy spirit of God will illuminate us, and guide us, and direct us, to navigate the maze of life, to make the right decisions, to have discernment and wisdom, to think through things that only the Lord can see.
And S stands for this study will give us the ability to See the temporal versus the eternal. Signs.
Yesterday, Lisa had two of our grandkids at the mall. She goes, "Honey, do you want to meet us for lunch?" I go, "Great." We met at the food court and of course we had the best food out there, Chick-fil-A. I love the original Chick-fil-A, but I don't like the spicy Chick-fil-A. Extra pickles, I do. I know it's not the healthiest thing, but it's the goodest thing. Yeah. Sometimes you have to sacrifice that for that good. I waited and got all the bags of Chick-fil-A, walked through the food court. It was packed. You would never know there's a pandemic going on. And I spread out the different sandwiches and things, and so right before we began to eat, I said, "Let's just have a prayer," and Sterling, our four-year-old, our oldest grandchild goes, "I want to pray." I said, "Okay." I'm thinking, wow, this is great. She closes her eyes and we all close our eyes, and then she looks at me. She goes, "Help me pray." I said, "What?" She said, "Help me." I said, "Okay. Dear Lord." And she said, "Dear Lord." "Thank you for this great day with our family." "Thank you for this great day with our family." "Thank you for this food." "Thank you for this food." "In Jesus' name." "In Jesus' name." "Amen." "Amen." Lisa goes, "Ed was that powerful? She's asking you to help her pray."
Our loving heavenly Father, our great God, helps you and me and teaches us, as Jesus talked about, to pray. He teaches us and encourages us to eat the meal, the word of God. Even when I don't know what to pray, God understands, and he helps me with that.
During this series, I understand this is tough to comprehend. It's tough to assimilate, to download. It's my prayer that we would all pray. God, help me. Help me to apply this. There may be some here, help me to pray. Because when we do that, we'll understand what this life and forever is all about.
Would you pray with me for a second? Every head is bowed, and all of our eyes are closed. Maybe you're here and you're like, "Ed, I've never, ever asked Jesus Christ to come into my life." And I just want to tell you straight up, that's what makes someone a Christian. We're all sinners and the Lord knows that, and I can help you pray this prayer. You might be going, "Well, I don't have enough faith." God will even help you with faith. Faith is a gift. So, if you want to, just pray this prayer with me to become a follower of Christ, just say, "Dear God, I admit to you that I'm a sinner, that I've messed up, that I'm on the wrong side of the levee. And right now, I turn from my sins and turn to you. I ask you, Jesus, to come into my life. I give you all that I am right now and all that I'll ever be."
If you said that, that's the best thing that you will ever do. It's simply glorious but gloriously simple, because the geological plates in your life just changed. It doesn't mean that you're not going to have any issues anymore or any problems, but you have Jesus in your life, and you'll live forever and ever. And he has a purpose for your life that begins today.
Others of us here, Lord, maybe we're believers, but we've not been really thinking about the final things. There's not that urgency, there's not that focus, that energy, in being the kind of people that you desire. So, in the ensuing weeks as Jimmy and I unpack your word, Father, I prayed that you would continue to work in our lives. We surrender to you, and we ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
