Signs Of The Times

HoHum:

So aliens come to earth and there's a huge televised event with all the world leaders in attendance. The Pope asks, "Do you know of Jesus Christ?” The aliens say, "Do we Ever? Awesome guy!! Swings by the planet every couple of years to say Hi!” The Pope exclaims, "Every couple of years?? What!!?? We're still waiting for his second coming!” The alien replies, "Maybe he didn't like your chocolate?” The Pope is flabbergasted, "What does chocolate have to do with anything?” The alien says, "Well when he came the first time, we gave him a huge box of chocolates! Why? What did you guys give him?

WBTU:

We cannot look at these signs and say that some of them are faint so the return of Christ is distant, far off. Must always be ready.

Thesis: Some signs of the end of the age

For instances:

1. There will be an increase of knowledge like never before

Daniel is speaking about the resurrection of dead in Daniel 12 and then the HS says this in vs. 4, “But you, Daniel, roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.” For many years people have thought that the problem of humankind is ignorance. Need more education, need more knowledge and then we will evolve to a higher place where there will no longer be distress and perplexity. Today human knowledge is doubling every 12 hours. Knowledge and education is failing to produce stability and a new world order. Science is increasing our knowledge of our world but failing to produce peace of mind. Wait a minute, doesn’t Hosea 4:6 say, “my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” Yes, but earlier in that same chapter vs. 1 the HS says, “Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites, because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: “There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land.’” This is the problem, we are increasing our knowledge of the world but there is no acknowledgment of God. “I am merely striving to think God's thoughts after Him” (Johann Kepler, early scientist).The Scriptures tell us, in Proverbs 1:7 and 9:10, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and of wisdom. Speaking of people in our day, 2 Timothy 3:7 says, “ always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of truth”

2. There will be a collapse of morals just before Jesus comes

Luke 17:26-30: “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.” In the days of Noah we find in Genesis 6:5 “The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” In regard to the days of Lot living in Sodom we find God talking with Abraham about the situation and the Word says in Genesis 13:14 “Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the LORD.” When some men came to visit Lot in Sodom, the men of the town came together and wanted to rape the men (angels). Sexual perversion was rampant. Later on when Isaiah was talking about the sin of the people of Judah he said this in Isaiah 3:9: “The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it.” I like what Carmen said in one of his songs, “the spirit of Sodom and Gomorrah vex us all; When it gets to the point where people would rather come out of the closet than clean it; It’s the sign that the judgement of God is gonna fall.” 2 Timothy 3:1-5: But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power.

3. There will be a falling away from faith before Jesus returns