End of Days
Sunday, July 23, 2006 – AM
By Pastor Jim May
The powder keg of the Middle East has a lit fuse this morning. For the past several days we have watched the news reports of Israel’s attacks, or invasion, of the Lebanese border towns where Hezbollah guerillas have established camps and launching sites for their harassment of the Jews across the border. The United States and Britain have thrown their support behind Israel while the European Union has condemned the attacks and demanded a cease-fire.
The age-old struggle of the sons of Abraham, Ishmael, who was the son of Hagar, a bondwoman, and Isaac, the son of promise born to Sarah, continues on. The real reason for the constant bickering, fighting and killing between the Arabs and the Jews can be traced all the way back, through thousands of years of history, to the day that Abraham decided to take matters into his own hands and not trust God to fulfill His promise that Abraham would be the father of a great nation. At the age of 86 Abraham and Sarah gave up. She gave Abraham permission to have a child, to be his heir, with her servant.
For 13 years, Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael all lived together in peace. But then the picture changed.
Genesis 17:15-21, "And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her. Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year."
Sarai – means “lady, or princess”
Sarah – means “lady, or princess of the multitudes”
What Abraham and Sarah thought was impossible, came to pass as God is a God who loves to perform the impossible.
Genesis 21:5, "And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him." Sarah was 90 years old, when she gave birth to her only son, Isaac. God’s promise to Abraham was beginning to come to pass.
If only Abraham, that great man of faith, had just had enough faith to believe God and not try to force God’s Word to come true by trying to work it out his own way. If only Abraham had not listened to Sarah and had a son by Hagar, we would not be facing the end of days as we are right now.
But all of these things worked together according to God’s plan from the beginning. God was not taken by surprise at the actions of Abraham and Sarah. His plans were not changed by Hagar giving birth to Ishmael and putting a stumbling block into His plan of establishing the true of son of Abraham and Sarah to become a great nation; the nation of Israel. God knew all of these events would take place long before any of them happened and His plan for the redemption of Israel and the end of days had been completed from the beginning of the creation.
Once Isaac was born, the troubles began in Abraham’s household. Jealousy and mistrust began to surface and it all came to a boiling point one day and resulted in Hagar and Ishmael being forced out of Abraham’s household. They were sent out into the desert to make it on their own.
Genesis 21:9-14, "And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking. Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. And the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight because of his son. And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba."
Not long into her journey into the desert, Hagar ran out of water and began to despair for her life and that of her son. She cried out to God and he heard her cry and led her to water.
It wasn’t Hagar’s fault that Abraham had failed to trust God. It wasn’t Ishmael’s fault that he was born the son of a servant and of Abraham. Why should he have to leave the only family he knew? Why should God allow these two innocent pawns, who had been rejected and cast out only after they had done what they were supposed to do, to just die in the wilderness. God is a God of mercy and love, and He is a Just God, and His mercy, love and justice would not allow Hagar and Ishmael to die in the wilderness.
Genesis 21:17-21, "And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer. And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt."
And so we see the beginnings of the struggle between the Son of Promise, Isaac, and the Son of the bondwoman, Ishmael, to gain control of the promise of God and to have the Promised Land, and the blessings of God, as their own.
We can understand why Ishmael’s descendants try to establish their right to claim the land and the promise, but that doesn’t negate the fact that God said that Isaac’s seed would be the people to whom His promises would be given. Ishmael was never promised a land. He was only promised a nation of people and that’s what he has been given.
Today, the Arab world is, by-in-large, the seed of Ishmael. The countries of Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and others are filled with people who are the seed of Ishmael, and all of them want the same thing. They want to annihilate the true seed of God’s promise, Israel and the Jews, and they want to take what now belongs to Israel and make it their own. The fight for the land, and it’s capital at Jerusalem, will never end until God finally fulfills His promise for Israel at the end of days.
When will this fight cease? Only God knows the day and the hour, but it has been set in stone. The day is fast approaching. Jesus gave us many signs that would warn us of the coming of the end of days. He gave us parables like the one found in Matthew 24:29-34, "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 heavens 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 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. Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth 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. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled."
What does that mean? First of all let us notice that the “fig tree” in this parable represents Israel as a nation. For over 1900 years Israel was dispersed among the nations of the gentile world. They were despised, hated and hunted down like animals. They were slaughtered wholesale as they bore the brunt of judgment for their rejection of the Messiah. Those Jews who crucified Jesus could not have known the pain and suffering that their descendants would face because of those little words, spoken in a moment of anger, when they condemned Jesus before Pilate that day.
Matthew 27:24-25, "When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children."
The innocent blood of Jesus has been required upon the Jews throughout history. The Jews have suffered more than any nation on earth because of the unbelief and rebellion against God of their forefathers. During World War II alone, over 6 million of them were put to death in the German death camps. But it’s not over yet. The Word of God bears out the fact that many more Jews will die before Israel finally recognizes the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
Jesus spoke these words in Matthew 23:37-39, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."
In Mark, chapter 13, verse 20, Jesus tells us that it will become so bad for the Jews that unless He returns to put and end to the fighting, shortening the days when mankind tries to destroy Israel, that no one would survive the killing. Jesus will come again, at the end of days, and shorten those days so that His promise to Israel will be fulfilled.
When will that time come? How close is our clock to the midnight hour when the Lord shall return?
We can only go by the signs of the times and what Jesus said about these last days.
We have seen the fig tree put forth its leaves and blossom in the desert. In 1948, the year that I was born, there was another birth that was far more important than mine. That was the year that Israel was reborn as an independent and free nation once again. God brought them back to their Promised Land and began the final hours leading up to the end of days.
Notice what Jesus said, “…when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled."
Based upon the words of Jesus, I believe that we truly living in the very last of the last days and that it won’t be long until we see the end of days, and the end of time as we know it.
What does “this generation” mean? I believe it means that some of those people, who were living in the earth, at the moment that the fig tree blossomed, and Israel became a free state once again, will still be alive to see the coming of the Lord. That doesn’t give us much time until the end of days.
Most of us know that there are signs everywhere of Jesus’ soon return. Just how close we are, we don’t know. But I do know that at least 7 years before the end of days, that Jesus will come to take His church away. That’s the day I’m looking for. Every day now, I wonder if this will be the day. There seems to more of God’s people looking up than ever before. We can all sense that the time is drawing very near. Though some of us may go by way of the grave, I believe that some of us will still be alive when Jesus comes because I believe that we are living in that terminal generation.
Every time I hear of Israel striking across it’s borders, whether its after Hezbollah, the Palestinians or some other enemy, I begin to wonder, “Lord, is this the trigger that will begin the Tribulation? We have to be right at the time of the Rapture because we won’t be here when that time begins.”
I can see the signs that all of God’s prophecies found in the Bible are coming to pass. They are being fulfilled before our very eyes. How can we doubt that we are at the end of days?
Prices are on the rise – and it is based largely on what is happening in Israel. When Israel fights, the price of oil goes up. Prices at the pumps, and prices on the shelves will all rise because everything is so tied together. Every increase, no matter how large or small, will eventually be reflected in your ability to purchase daily necessities.
It doesn’t take much thought to realize that the prophecies of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” can take place at any time.
First, there is the rapture. Thank God we won’t be here to see the worst of it all. I only pray that more of our loved ones will join us before that day comes.
Almost immediately after the rapture, exactly how long I don’t know, but I think it will only be a matter of days, when the horsemen will ride because the only limiting force right now are the prayers of the saints. When those prayers stop because we are in Heaven, then Hell will have its way in the earth.
Revelation 6:2-4, "And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword."
The first horse shows the rise of the Antichrist. He will be given power over all the world because he will have the answer for a temporary peace and the settling of the worlds economic and political problems for about 3 ½ years.
At the end of that 3 ½ years, after persecuting anyone who claims to be a Christian and attempting to establish his kingdom, the Antichrist will turn against the Jews with a vengeance and try to annihilate them once and for all.
That’s when the Red Horse rises, representing war and worldwide destruction. Could it be that nuclear war will come at that point? This is the battle that the Antichrist will wage against everyone who opposes his leadership. No nation on earth will be safe from His wrath. It’s possible that he will use the threat of nuclear attacks. It’s also very probable that the whole world will be threatened that biological weapons will be used to bring all nations under his rule.
Revelation 6:5-8, "And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth."
Then comes the black horse – representing death and destruction on every hand. Is it possible that the Antichrist will unleash the power of the weapons that he has been threatening to use? I think so. I don’t believe that he will care how many people die just so he can rule over who is left when the smoke clears. The worldwide death of nearly 2 billion people will leave the earth decimated. Food will be scarce because the farmers can’t grow crops in polluted ground. Clean water will be scarce because it has all been poisoned by the weapons. Millions upon millions will die from hunger, disease and weaponry, while many more are devoured by hungry animals who will lose their fear of man because of the hunger pains in their stomachs. Those dogs that live in your neighborhood will become packs of raving wolves, hunting down anyone who they can pull down. Animals will seek to survive by instinct and man will become the hunted instead of the hunter.
The pair of balances represents the lack of supplies, balanced against the need of the people. Of course the shortage of food and water will drive prices out the roof. Inflation will rise daily at astronomical rates. Those who still have jobs, and there won’t be many, will find their paychecks woefully inadequate. Only those who are super-wealthy will not go hungry. Money will still be around and the more of it you have, the more you can get, when nobody else can. The fact that the oil and the wine that are not hurt represents this scenario to some degree but there will likely be a lot more to it than that.
As a result of the black horse, the pale horse rises – he is representative of all the death and hell on earth that comes from the effects of war, death, shortages, inflation rates and worldwide chaos because of all the other signs that revelation mentions like, asteroids falling upon the earth, massive tidal waves, tremendous earthquakes and shifts in the earth’s weather patterns.
The conservationists are right. The earth is being destroyed. With each passing day, the earth is wearing out. We are using up the resources. We are abusing our environment. But its all just a sign of the times that we are living near the end of days, and there is no stopping it because God’s Word will be fulfilled.
Are we nearing the end of days? Certainly we are because the signs are everywhere. The fig tree has blossomed. Ishmael and Isaac are at war like never before. Israel is surrounded by enemies, and even those few nations that are friendly now can turn against her in a moment’s time. All it will take is one nuclear or biological attack upon America and I wonder if we will have the resolve not to give up and join Ishmael’s forces just to buy a little peace and a cheaper gallon of gas for the car. If we fold, Britain won’t be able to stand alone, with Israel, for long. At that point, all nations will be against Israel, just as has been foretold.
When you go home and turn on your TV, or pick up the newspaper, and you read of the wars that never seem to stop in the Middle East, just remember one thing:
Jesus said in Luke 21:25-28, "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh."
Are not all of these things beginning to come to pass? There are signs in the heavens with UFO’s, asteroids and all kinds of unexplained events. Every nation on earth is in distress, economically, socially and politically, and the problems plaguing the nations are far too complex for any one man to know how to handle them, unless he is given a supernatural wisdom and ability. The seas and waves are roaring – not just the tsunamis and the hurricanes, but the seas of humanity and the waves of discontent are roaring with demonstrations around the world for one thing or another. Everything that mankind has relied on for all of history is now being questioned. Science and technology have promised us answers for all of our troubles but have only produced more questions.
We are at the edge of the end of days. We are standing on the brink of eternity, when time shall be no more. And we are surely ripe for the coming of the Lord and the harvest of souls. This is the beginning of the end of days and Jesus said that when all these things just begin to come to pass, that when we should look up, keep our eyes on the eastern sky, lift up our heads and keep our minds and hearts upon the Lord, because when all these things are just beginning – that’s when our redemption will come.
Are you ready for the end of days?
