Today on Bold steps with Mark job, we're learning how we can prepare for the end times.
The day will come where you will have to tell between the true and the counterfeit. And unless you're grounded in the Word of God, you will not be able to tell the difference between what is real and what is false, what is deceptive, and what is authentic. And many will fall away the Word of God. Know the word. Be grounded in your foundation.
Welcome to Bold Steps with Mark job. Mark is president of Moody Bible Institute and the senior pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago. I'm Wayne Shepherd. Today, as we proceed in our new series about the end times, Mark will be taking us to the Book of Matthew, chapters 24 and 25 to give us the good news and the bad. Mark started this message yesterday. So if you missed the exciting open or if you'd like to hear the complete message, listen online at boldsystems.org. Today's message
is titled how close are we? And it starts right now.
The temple in those days was a magnificent structure. It was a wonder of the world. People would come and be flabbergasted at the magnificence, the beauty, the architecture, the enormity of these buildings. The temple itself was between 10 to 16 storeys high, gold plated on the outside, so that when the sun shined on the building, it was almost like you had to cover your eyes because of the the reflection of the sun on the gold exterior of the building. So the disciples were amazed at the
beauty of this temple. And yet Jesus said, not a stone of this temple will remain upon stone. This will be utterly destroyed. Destroy when they said, when will this happen? Jesus had already seen it in the future. In fact, 40 years after the death of Jesus, 40 years in 70 A.D., there was a rebellion that came in the in Jerusalem by the Jews against the Romans. Rome had
occupied Jerusalem. And to squelch the rebellion, the Roman armies marched on Jerusalem and destroyed the entire city, um, burning, ransacking, killing thousands upon thousands of people in Jerusalem. And when they came to the temple, they set the temple on fire. As the temple was burning, the gold that was on the roof and the gold that had been plated on the walls began to melt, and it melted in the
crevices of the rock. So the Romans, in order to get every single piece of gold they destroyed rock by rock, the temple so they could get the melted gold within the crevices of the rock. So every one of the rocks was torn down and the prophecy of Jesus was fulfilled 40 years after his death. This is a historic fact. Collaborated by many historians. In fact, I've been to a place called Masada in Jerusalem, where the rebels ran to a thousand of the rebels, ran to after the massacre,
and hid in this fortified place called Masada. The Romans surrounded this place called Masada, which was like a fortress. And for three years tried to get the rebels out of this place. Finally, when they were breaching the wall, 960 of them committed suicide because they'd rather die than fall into the hands of the Romans. The disciples had no idea that their temple would be destroyed. But Jesus, being the Son of Man, seen and prophetically he saw
a vision of Jerusalem being destroyed. And when Jesus came into Jerusalem, he wept not just because of the condition of people's souls, but because he saw that in 40 years from then, the entire city would be destroyed. When Jesus is answering, when will these things happen? He was talking about when Jerusalem would be destroyed, but he's also talking about when the end of humanity will come to be. And so I want you to keep that in mind as you look at the answers given in Matthew chapter
24 and Matthew chapter 25. So Jesus is answering, when will this happen and what will be the sign of its coming? So I want to give you the bad news and the good news. I don't know about you, but sometimes I'd rather hear the bad news first, so I could be encouraged by the good news later. How about it? I'm going to give you the bad news first. Are you ready? Bad news. So, as Jesus describes what the end will look like, he gives us a description.
And there's four primary descriptions of the end times, and it's pretty much bad news. Number one, he says there will be an increase in people being deceived. Look at what Jesus says in verse four. Jesus answered when they said, what? What will be a sign of the end times? And when will this happen? Jesus says, watch out that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name, claiming I am the Messiah, and will be deceived by many.
So the first thing that Jesus says is that one of the characteristics of the end times is that there will be many people that will fall away from the faith, deceived, because they're not grounded. They can't tell the counterfeit from the real. They can't tell the truth from the false. They can't tell that which has contains truth, but is
primarily from the authentic truth. Uh, in Second Timothy, the Apostle Paul also talking about the end times in Second Timothy chapter four, verse three through four says, for the time will come, talking about the end times, when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the
truth and turn aside to myths. Over and over in Scripture, it tells us that in the end times, there will be many people that will be led astray. Many people that will fall away from Christianity. Many people that will be deceived by false teaching. Let me tell you this. We in America, in the United States of America, Christianity is by and large suffering a bleeding of sorts, because many people that were born in traditional Christian homes have
never truly been grounded in their faith. And many of them are falling away and not continuing on in the faith of their parents because they have not been grounded in the truth of Christianity. By and large, there's swaths of our world. If you go to Europe now, a lot of the continent of Europe is considered post-Christian. It was a nation at one time where the churches were filled. It was considered the cradle of Christianity, where the great
majority of the population were believers. Now in Europe, including the town where I grew up in Burgos, there's a beautiful Gothic cathedral that took 400 years to build. It's in the center of the city. It's beautiful, ornate. But now it's a museum, not a church. There are churches in the UK that are turned into rock climbing courses or pubs. The massive buildings that once were there now
are empty buildings. A testimony to a Christianity that once was flourishing, but a population that is veered away from their roots and left their Christian heritage behind. The the the percentage of people that go to church in Europe under the Christian flag is a small, small percentage of the population. Because Europe has become, by and large, a post-Christian nation. The United States of America is not far behind. We're tracking on course. Our society is becoming more secular.
Many of the people that at one time people were expected that you move into a neighborhood, you find a Christian church and you go to that church. By and large, a huge percentage of our population in North America does not go to church anymore. Um, the 20 somethings of our generation are being lost. Many of them do not believe in organized religion. Many of them no longer go
to church anymore. There are there are entire segments of our population that are falling away from Christianity and oftentimes embracing other isms, relativism. My truth is, whatever I make it. Hedonism, whatever makes me happy is what I pursue. And so I pursue the pursuit of happiness. Pluralism. Every road leads to the same place. Doesn't matter if you believe in a tree. If you believe in Buddha, if you believe in Hindu, if you believe in Muhammad. We all end
up in the same place. as pluralism. All religions are the same paganism, a sense of a sense of pursuing other gods, secularism. Science is chief humanism. All humanity is good and there's really no need for God. There's a lot of isms that have led us astray, deceived us away from the course of Christianity, and we are fighting for the soul of our nation when it comes to Christianity.
Should that surprise us? No. Jesus predicted that the closer we get to the end times, the more we will see a massive falling away of people that claim to be Christians, but will be deceived by a lack of teaching, a lack of grounding, a lack of faith, a lack of passion, a lack of knowledge of the word. Let me tell you something. If I could reiterate something, listen to me. You need to know your Bible. You need to study, read, be grounded. Understand the truth. As a pastor, no,
I just like to come and listen to you. Now, that's not good enough. One of these days, I'll be dead and gone. I can still listen to your podcast. No, no, no, not good enough. You need to know the truth. You need to know the word. You need to study. Because the day will come. Where you will have to tell. Between the true and the counterfeit. And unless you're grounded in the Word of God, you will not be able to tell the difference between what is real and what
is false, what is deceptive, and what is authentic. And many will fall away. The Word of God. No, the word be grounded in your foundation.
You're listening to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. We'll continue today's message in a moment. Mark, there's something I've been noticing lately that I think many of our listeners are thinking about with so many voices competing for our attention. There's social media news cycles, workplace demands. It's easy to lose sight of what matters eternally. And I find myself wondering how many Christians today are investing their best resources in things that won't ultimately last.
You know, Wayne, I remember when my youngest son was playing football in high school. It was a big game and I went there. I was cheering him on, and I got a phone call and I thought, well, let me pick up this phone call just for a moment. So I went down and I got on the phone call, and it was right at that time that my son, he intercepted a pass. And afterwards he said, dad, did you see that? And I had to say I missed the moment I was distracted by something. And in the end,
it wasn't an urgent phone call. Listen, right now, there's a lot of distraction. The political environment in our country, there's a drama every day. There's a lot that's happening internationally. There's wars, there's natural disasters. It feels like we are just sucked into it. But I want to say, don't miss the moment. I believe that we are seeing more people come to Christ at this season at a time, especially under the age of 35, than I have ever
seen in our lifetime. It's happening in Africa and Europe. It's happening in the United States of America. We at Bold Steps are committed to not get distracted, but to make sure that we are proclaiming the gospel of Jesus at a time of uncertainty so that people can come to know him in this window of opportunity that we have. So we want to encourage you. Pray. Don't miss the moment.
Such an important word, Mark. Thank you. And if you would like to become part of this eternal work today by visiting us, you can do that at Bold steps.org and make a gift or call us at 800 But D.L. Moody. That's (800) 356-6639. And when you do, we'll send you a special gift as a way of saying thanks for partnering with us and sharing God's truth that will last eternally. More on that later. But let's not delay the message
any longer. Mark has two more points to address in today's message on the End Times titled How Close are we?
Secondly, Jesus says, not only will many people fall away, but Jesus also says this is a bad news. There will be an increase in catastrophic events, both natural and man made. In verse six, Jesus says, you will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of
birth pains. In others, what Jesus was saying is just because there are wars and rumors of wars, because there's earthquake and famine and natural disasters, don't be alarmed because it's like, well, how many of you ladies have had babies in this place? All right. Do you remember Braxton Hicks what that means? Those are false birth pains that you start feeling them and they say, no, no, no, no. I've had three. I mean, my wife has had three. I felt her pain. Really? Not as much as she
felt it, but I felt it vicariously. And it was always difficult to figure out when should we go to the hospital? And they say, well, time it. You know, if you're new, as soon as you feel the pain, you say, I gotta go, I gotta go, and then you go and you're three days in the hospital because they say you're not ready. Because the beginning of birth pain doesn't mean that you're going to have a baby right away. How many of you mothers discovered that? Yeah.
Just because you have pains, it means that, well, the baby's coming. It's the beginning of the end. But the end could be 32 hours later. And so just because you're starting to have pain doesn't mean the end is there. And Jesus is saying, just because there's rumors of wars and earthquakes doesn't mean it's the end of the world. It just means that there are, well, they're contractions that are pushing towards the end. I'm not a geologist. I'm not a scientist. I'm not a historian. But I read
recently something interesting concerning earthquakes. I read that someone that, uh, tracks earthquakes and seismic movements in the earth, they discovered that earthquakes have increased in frequency and destructiveness during the 20th century. For example, between 1890 to 1950, there were an average of 2 to 4 devastating earthquakes every year in the world. In the decade of the 50s, there were nine. In the 60s there were 13. During the 70s there were 51. During the 80s there were 86.
Between 1990 to 1996, there were more than 115 damaging earthquakes recorded. And I read another geologist that said, between 2000 and 2009, the planet averaged 160 earthquakes per year. That is a 38% increase over the recent years. Interesting. It feels like it. But I'm not a geologist. I tell you what, I don't know about you, but it seems like there's so many wars going on, I can't even keep track of who's fighting with who these days.
This country's fighting against that country and threatening that country. And people in Syria are being knocked out and going to Europe and and some Middle Eastern countries are warring, and someone's against this, and this country's invading that country. It's like, whoa. I can't even keep it straight. Who's fighting against who? In fact, it seems like there's a escalation that's happening in the violence, the natural disasters that are happening and the wars that are beginning to happen.
Jesus said that in the end time, there'll be an escalation, an acceleration of some of the natural catastrophes and some of the man made catastrophes that will be experiencing on the face of this earth. This is not something to be alarmed about. Afraid about is something that Jesus says will naturally begin to happen as we get closer and closer to the end of times. Number three, I'm talking about the bad news. Some of you are saying, pastor,
you're scaring me already. Okay? Come on, I'm still there. There will be an increase in persecution of Christians. Verse nine says, then you will be handed over to be persecuted and to be put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time, many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many. Whoa! We live in North America, in which we've experienced some of the longest periods of safety
and peace than any country in the world. But. But look at me. Look up at me. Because this is really important for you to understand. We are the abnormality, not the normality. We live in safety that's abnormal to the rest of the world. But as I speak right now, today, we are living in the most violent times against Christianity than any history before us. We are experiencing more martyrs, more persecution, more torture, violence, rape against Christian than practically
any generation that has come before us. In fact, I read some of the stats on the violence against Christians. And on average, every month, on average, there are 322 Christians that are killed for their faith on average every month. 322 every month. On average, there are 214 churches and Christian properties that are destroyed every month. In other words, violent groups come and they torch a church, burn it down, ransack it, tear it apart because of their anger and
hatred towards Christianity. On average, I'm talking about today, not 100 years ago, on average today there are 772 forms of violence are committed against Christian people in a month, every day. We live in a accelerating time of violence against Christians. In fact, in an article of Christianity Today, during the last two years, there have been reports of terrorist attacks against Christians that have steadily emerged in the world.
For example, seven Egyptians were executed in Benghazi Beach last year. 165 Christian girls were kidnapped from a Christian school by a group called Boko Haram, and 21 Coptic Christians were beheaded near the Mediterranean Sea, among other incidents. Just in 2014, we have seen that same escalation begin to happen in 2015.
Groups like ISIS, for example, have forcibly displaced hundreds of thousands of people, conducted mass executions and kidnapped, sold, enslaved, raped and forcibly converted thousands of women and children, all on the ground that these people stand in opposition to their religious dogma. We are living in a season of unprecedented persecution against Christian at a massive scale.
You're listening to the Bible teaching of Mark Jobe here on Bold Steps. Now stay with us. Mark, this is part two of the message today, tomorrow part three. There's some good news coming.
Yeah. You know, people get concerned when we talk about the end times. And it is, uh, it can shake us when we think about the end times, of course. But the great news is this is that God has given us all that we need to prepare. And God does have a plan. And that plan involves salvation of many people and the power to sustain his people during this time.
He is not willing that any should perish. Thank you Mark, and if you want to revisit any part of today's lesson, or if you can't join us for part two tomorrow, then be sure to listen online at Bold Steps. Org. While you're on our home page, be sure to also check out our brand new Bold Step gift. Let me talk about that for a moment. In today's world, our daughters are bombarded with messages that don't align with God's truth.
That's why Dana Gres's book Lies Girls Believe is such a timely resource addressing 20 common lies that girls ages 7 to 12 believe. This colorful, engaging book equips young girls to identify the lies that come against them and replace them with biblical truth. If you're a mom with a young daughter, a grandma, or someone with influence over girls in your life, this bold step gift is essential in helping them build an unshakable foundation of faith. We'll send you a copy when you give a gift of
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today when you go online to Boldsystems.org. That's all. I'm Wayne Shepherd, inviting you to join us again Monday when Mark concludes this message titled How Close are We? We'll be looking at the fourth sign of the time, along with the good news that's coming. It's a message from our series Beyond Now, and you can hear it right here Monday on Bold Steps with Mark John. Bold steps is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.