Thank you for that beautiful number that reminds us of the coming of Emmanuel. O come, O come, Emmanuel. I have a riddle for you this morning. This thing, all things devours. Birds, beasts, trees, flowers, gnaws iron, bites steel, grinds hard stones to meal, slays kings, ruins town, and beats high mountains down. What is it? Exactly, time. Some of you know that as Gollum's last riddle from The Hobbit. Time is one thing that you and I share with all the rest of humanity.
We are creatures locked in time. We walk step by step with our generation, with a past that we cannot change, the present that we call now, that we can hold only for an instant at a time, and a future that we cannot predict. Although Yogi Berra, the famous 20th century philosopher about life said, it's tough to make predictions, especially about the future, and he is correct. But you know, God is not that way because God is not time limited.
God unveils for us some things about the future that he wants us to know. And God can confidently tell us these things because he's the one who has planned them and secured them. We do well to ponder all that God says, including those things about the last days, which we have been studying in this brief series. Today I want to talk about what we should expect in the last days.
George Burns, who was another philosopher of the 20th century, when he was 87 years old, and of course he lived to be 100, but at 87 he said, I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life. May I say to you, that's exactly where you're going to spend the rest of your life too, in the future. So let's see what God has to say about it. We're going to open our Bibles first to 1 John chapter 2 and verse 18. 1 John chapter 2 and verse 18.
Here the apostle says, Dear children, this is the last hour. Now that is John's phrase that is equivalent to the last days. He calls it the last hour. By calling it the last hour, he's saying that it is coming at the culmination of things, that there's really not anything that follows this that God has talked to him about. It's the last period of time. It's what the Old Testament has pointed toward. And he says that it's urgent. The word last carries with it the idea of urgency.
This is the last hour. And as you've heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, that is these Antichrists. They went out from us. But they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But their going showed that none of them belonged to us. These are strange phrases, aren't they? But they tie together with what we see in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2.
And I invite you to turn over there as well. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, where the Apostle Paul says, Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you brothers not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come.
Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion, the falling away, or the word literally is the apostasy, the apostasia occurs and then the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped so that he sets himself up in God's temple proclaiming himself to be God.
Knowing what the last days hold for the world equips us with understanding for the times and hope for the future. I want to say to you that we need both of those things. We need an understanding of the times that we are living in and we need a hope for the future. And so my goal in this series about the last days is to give both of those things to you. I believe it is critical to know what God says about these things.
From what the Apostle Paul indicates in his letters in the New Testament, whenever he would go to a city and there started church, among the things he talked to them about was the doctrine of the last days. And that's the reason he was writing to the Thessalonians because he had taught them these things and then someone had come along and confused them. And so he writes to remind them what he had said when he was with them.
And I want you to know that he was only there for a period of two to three weeks. And so important were the doctrines of the last days in Paul's mind that he spent part of his time in those two to three weeks instructing them in these very things. God gives us information for a reason and we should never overlook what God reveals to us. We should never look down upon it. Even though some of the details we might debate among ourselves, nonetheless we should study these things.
And so what are we to expect in the last days? If you'll pull your outline out, we're going to follow through that very quickly. I've given you the first letter of a number of different words that will lead us through the message this morning. We're going to be looking at this truth from about 30,000 feet and we're going to be going about 450 miles an hour. Each one of these topics could be a whole message or maybe even a whole series of messages.
But today's purpose is to give us an overview as we think about what to expect in the last days. The first thing that we should expect is this, the apostasy. The apostasy. We should expect an active rebellion against God and truth. I am talking about within the professing church. Not just the world, but within the sphere that we might call Christendom. There will be people who will seem to be among us, but who will leave us and go out. As John says, because they never really belonged to us.
There are those that are called apostates. They renounce the faith that they once claimed to hold. I have a statement on the screen that I want you to take a look at with me regarding apostasy. Apostasy means to fall away from the truth. Therefore an apostate is someone who has once believed and then rejected the truth of God. Apostasy is a rebellion against God because it is a rebellion against truth.
Now throughout this entire period of time that might be called the last days, the last two thousand years, there have been apostates and apostasy. It was present in the first century. What the Bible seems to indicate that is in the last days of the last days as we draw toward the culmination of this period of time, there will come what is called the apostasy. And there will be this very active rebellion against the God of heaven and against the truth of His word.
Now apostasy has happened in the past such as with Cain when he turned against God and rebelled against him and went out and established his own civilization. Apostasy has happened in ancient Israel as the people of God who claimed to worship the God who delivered them from Egypt would then go out and create a golden calf and worship the calf as God. But here we're talking about something that is beyond all of that. It is the world turning against God in active rebellion.
Ryrie says that it is an aggressive and climactic revolt by religious Christendom against biblical Christianity and this apostasy will turn to the lie and begin to promote it. The lie that there is no God and that man controls his own destiny or that man is his own God. And this deception will lead many astray in the name of Christianity.
Some of you remarked a few weeks ago when there was an ad that appeared in one of our papers from some professing churches in our area that were clearly an active rebellion against what God says in His word. That should not shock us. That is simply one of the signs of what the Bible calls apostasy, of falling away from the truth. And the Bible says that this signals that we are in fact in the last days.
And it opens the door to a demon energized departure of human culture from any moorings to the truth of God. That is the apostasy and we are told that we should expect this to happen. Now it will apparently open the door to the second thing I want to talk about. We should also expect the anti-Christ. That is, we should expect a person to incarnate the apostasy. Just as Jesus Christ incarnates the truth of God, anti-Christ will incarnate the lie.
He will incarnate this rebellion against the God of heaven and His truth. The apostasy seems to be necessary to prepare the way for this person called the anti-Christ. He is predicted in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. For example, in the Old Testament, in Daniel chapter 7, he is called the little horn. The little horn who will arise from the final world empire. And he will speak against the most high and oppress the saints, the people of God in that day.
And he will try to change the set times and the laws. He will seek to throw off every restraint that there is that God has given to human culture. He is further called in Daniel chapter 9, the ruler that will come. Who will make a treaty with the Jewish nation for a period of seven years. And then in the middle of that seven year period will turn against the Jews and become their most ferocious persecutor. The ruler that will come.
In the New Testament, he is described as we saw in 2 Thessalonians, the man of lawlessness. The lawless one. He will call himself God and he will even do counterfeit miracles by the power of Satan in order to attract people to come and worship him as the Messiah. In Revelation 13, he is called by yet another name, the beast. He is the beast who rises out of the sea of Gentile world powers as what I think is a European based dictator.
Who will use a false religious system, probably apostate Christendom, to create his own power base. This is the antichrist that we are to expect. Now the epistles of John give us an interesting overview of this whole idea. In the first place, John says that antichrists have been around for this whole period of time, the last 2,000 years. He says they are characterized this way. They deny that Jesus is the Messiah.
They deny that Jesus is the son of the Father, his unique relationship with the Father. And they deny that he is God who has come in human flesh. He says those who profess those kinds of things are antichrists. He also talks about antichristism, which is the teaching of antichrist. And he says that it is the work of demonic spirits that have been sent out into the world. That is John 4.3.
Furthermore he says that even though there have been many antichrists throughout this age, the antichrist is still coming. And it is the sign of the last hour. Now even though we expect antichrists to come, I am not convinced that we will see him ourselves because of what I am going to talk about next. But we may. Or at least we may know pretty sure who it is going to be. The encouragement that you and I have regarding antichrists is this.
I think every place that he has mentioned in the Bible, it also speaks of his certain judgment. He will appear to be very, very successful for a period of time. And when his time is up, he is going to be slapped down with a final judgment from God. He will not succeed in the end. But thinking about the antichrist and the timing of his coming brings me to the third thing that we are to expect. And that is we are to expect the catching away. The catching away.
Paul uses this term in 1 Thessalonians 4 verses 13 through 18, which is the most clear reference in the New Testament to the event that I want to talk about now. The catching away of the church. You and I are to expect the Savior to come from heaven. We are to expect that. It is what is called by Paul elsewhere the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
And as he describes the blessed hope, this catching away event in 1 Thessalonians 4, he seems to describe four movements that take place. The first movement is Jesus himself descends from heaven. In that sphere, that realm, that dimension that is called heaven, Jesus steps through whatever blinds us from seeing into that dimension into our visible universe, our visible atmosphere of the world, where the clouds are.
He will become visible there as he descends from heaven, not to the earth, but into the atmosphere of the world, movement number one. Movement number two that is described in that text is that the dead in Christ will rise first. That is those who have died as believers in Jesus Christ from 2000 years ago all the way up until that moment, those who have died in Christ will rise first. Now he says that Jesus is going to bring back with him from heaven their souls.
And as they come back into this dimension, their bodies, wherever they rest or have decayed through the centuries, will be miraculously resurrected, brought back together as immortal bodies that cannot die. And somewhere between there and the grave from where they are raised, their soul and body are reunited forever.
Now the reason he says that they rise first is because somebody had come to the church and said, well, these who have died already in these years since you were here Paul, those who have died are lost. I mean they are just going to miss out on the Lord's coming. That's what he meant. And Paul says, oh no, not at all. In fact, they have priority. They get to go first. That's movement number two. Movement number three.
Those who are alive and remain on that day, they have not died as believers in Christ, but they believe in Jesus. We who are alive, says Paul, will be caught up together with them. And so as those who are dead in Christ are raised up and they're moving up toward Jesus, we who are alive will have our bodies changed immediately without going through death. We will be made like Jesus. Our bodies made immortal. And we will be caught up also into the air. With them.
Then movement number four is that we come together with the Lord and we move with the Lord back into the heavenly realm away from the earth. You say that sounds fantastic. That sounds like science fiction. Well, it is not fiction at all. It is exactly what the Bible describes will happen and we're to expect it. It's called the catching away of the church. That will usher in a wonderful day. H.L. Turner was a man who lived in another century.
As far as I know, he only wrote one hymn, at least one that I can find, but it's one that we used to sing on occasion that captures this moment. It says, it may be at morn, when the day is awaking, when sunlight through darkness and shadow is breaking, that Jesus will come in the fullness of glory to receive from the world his own. It may be at midday. It may be at twilight.
It may be perchance at the blackness of midnight will burst into light in the blaze of his glory when Jesus receives his own. O joy, O delight, should we go without dying. No sickness, no sadness, no dread, no crying, caught up through the clouds with our Lord into glory when Jesus receives his own. Many poets have tried to capture this thought, but none can do it better than what the word of God simply tells us that we are to expect.
We're also to expect something that follows that, and that is what is called in the Bible the tribulation. We are to expect to receive, or expect rather, rebellion to receive divine justice. The tribulation is termed the great day of the wrath of God and the Lamb. But Jesus says that throughout this age there will be tribulation that you and I will experience. That is the suffering and the affliction that comes to us because we belong to Christ. We're to expect that too.
That's not what I'm talking about. The Bible says that at the end of the days, in the last hour, the last days, there will come the tribulation. It is also called the great tribulation. In the Old Testament the same period of time is called the time of Jacob's trouble. Jacob referring there to the people of Israel. It will be a time when the people of Israel will undergo, I am sorry to say, the greatest persecution that they have ever known.
The tribulation that you and I know during this time is tribulation that comes from the hands of a hate-filled world. They hate us because they hate Christ. But the tribulation I'm talking about now is the tribulation that comes upon the world because God sends it. It is the day of the wrath of God and of the Lamb.
Many people, including myself, see the tribulation as the fulfillment of the final period of seven years that Daniel prophesied in Daniel chapter 9. I have a brief summation of that on the screen. It is a period that Daniel is told about of 490 years that is foretold for his people. Who are his people? The Jews. The clock on the 490 years begins to tick when the degree goes forward to rebuild Jerusalem. This was in the days before Jesus' birth when Jerusalem lay in ruins.
That would start the clock. God said, and the 490 years would be fulfilled with the anointing of the Holy One as the righteous King and He would bring in a righteous and peaceful kingdom. But the time is divided up, the 490 years. And it says after 483 years, the Messiah, the anointed one, would be cut off, not for his own sins. And it's referring to the crucifixion.
And so you can actually count this out, and there are those who have done it, count out the days when they think the crucifixion was backwards 483 years to when the decree to rebuild Jerusalem was given. And it can fit. But the point that I want to make is that when Jesus died, when the Messiah was cut off, as Daniel says, something happened Daniel did not see, he was not told about. And that is that the clock stopped on the 490 years. It stopped. Leaving seven years yet to be fulfilled.
And if you read what Daniel says about those last seven years and compare them to the New Testament, you find they overlay perfectly with the tribulation period. That's why I believe the tribulation period will in fact last seven years. And it is during that period that Antichrist is very, very active. From God's viewpoint, the time of the tribulation is a time of his judgment on the earth.
From Satan's viewpoint, it is a time when he believes he will finally overthrow Christ and claim the throne. And that's why he raises up his Antichrist. There are a series of judgments that are poured out upon the world, each of them becoming increasingly severe. So severe in fact that the book of Revelation indicates that more than half of the population of the earth will die during those seven years. From wars, from famine, from the direct plagues of God, lots of different causes.
More than half of the population. You say, wow, that's a lot to look forward to. Well, there are those who believe the church will be present during the tribulation time. And I have no problem believing that Christ is able to keep his people secure during that time if that's what he chooses to do. But I believe there is strong indication in the New Testament that the catching away of the church occurs before the tribulation actually kicks off.
And that we will not even be here for this period of time. Now the tribulation culminates with a particular battle, and most of you have heard of that battle. It's the battle of what? Armageddon. When the armies of the Antichrist will be gathered and the focus will be Israel and Jerusalem, and just when those forces think they have about won the battle, the heavens open up and Jesus Christ returns and destroys the armies of the Antichrist.
And that brings us to the next thing we're to expect, and that is the return. The return, we're to expect the culmination of the last days. Jesus himself said in Matthew chapter 24, for as lightning comes from the east and is visible even in the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
He says immediately after the distress or the tribulation of those days, and he summarizes those days by saying the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. These are cosmic terms describing the upheaval of things in the tribulation period as God's judgment is poured out upon the earth.
Jesus goes on to say at that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. This is the return of Jesus Christ. This time not merely back into the atmosphere of the world, but back to the earth itself as he leads his angelic and his army of the redeemed to conquer the forces of the Antichrist.
It goes on to say in Matthew, and he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other. Now some look at that and say, oh well there's the rapture and it occurs now. No, it's not talking here about the rapture. Jesus never talked about the rapture. That was something that Paul revealed.
Jesus is here using similar language though to describe the gathering of believers who've lived during the tribulation time and who've lived through it. They've not been martyred. They're going to be gathered together and brought to him as the king. And so that's the return. Immediately after that is going to come the next thing that we expect in the last days and that is the judgment of the nations. We are to expect the division of the righteous and the unrighteous at this point in time.
Those who are remaining alive after the tribulation period, though many, many, many, millions will die. Those who are remaining alive will be gathered together for what's called the judgment of the nations that Jesus describes in Matthew 25. All will be gathered together. Those who believe and those who do not believe. And Jesus will be established as the judge between the two. And here's what he says. It's what Jesus says about this judgment.
The king himself will say to those on his right, come you who are blessed by my father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. And so here are those who believed, who are saved. He says, you now will inherit the kingdom with me. And then he says to those on his left, depart from me you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
And so those who have lived through the tribulation but have rejected Christ and have not been killed in the battle of the Armageddon will now be killed. And their souls will be cast into the fire awaiting yet their final judgment that will come at a future point. So what happens here is that at this time there is the division of the righteous and the unrighteous so that those who come into the kingdom are only the righteous.
And it will include those who have been resurrected in immortal bodies, it will include the church, and it will include those who have lived through the tribulation and who are in their natural bodies. And they will continue to have children and will repopulate the earth during what's called the kingdom. And that brings me to the final point and that is the kingdom. We are to expect the kingdom, the literal fulfillment of God's promises. Jesus talks often about His kingdom.
Just before He goes back to heaven His disciples say, Jesus are you now at this time going to restore the kingdom? They were thinking primarily of a physical kingdom, Israel's kingdom. Jesus doesn't say, oh no, you've got it all wrong, there's not going to be a kingdom. He doesn't say that. He says it's not for you to know the times or the seasons. He says but you will receive the Holy Spirit because I've got work for you to do. Don't be worried about the timing of the kingdom.
Be concerned about the work that I'm calling you to do in Judea, Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth. That's your job. Jesus talked about His kingdom. God is going to keep His promise to Abraham in His covenant to give Abraham's descendants the land that God promised them. God is going to keep His promise to David that David's son would reign forever, that David's descendant would have a kingdom that would be worldwide and would be a period of peace and prosperity and righteousness.
And that all the nations of the earth would bring worship to Jerusalem. That is going to be fulfilled. The Old Testament is rich with promises to restore Israel to its land and to regather the Jewish people under a righteous king. There's only one place that I know of in the Scriptures that give us an indication of the length of this kingdom. And that's in the New Testament in Revelation chapter 20 where John says, I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge.
And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. He's thinking here of the saints who have been martyred in the tribulation period. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection.
Blessed and holy are those who have part of the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years. So three times in these verses that period of a thousand years is mentioned. Now it may mean something other than a thousand years, but I prefer to understand the Bible literally wherever we can.
And it seems here that a period of a thousand years is intended for the kingdom over which Jesus will reign. Now I want to admit that there are people who take varying positions on the things we've talked about, but I want to say again we should never overlook these things because of those differences. God has given us this truth so that we might know. And I want to talk about in closing the so what question. It seems like a cynical question, doesn't it, to say well so what when God has spoken?
And yet it is an important question. What is the benefit of studying these kinds of things? Well in the first place let me say that to be warned brings readiness. To be warned about the things that are going to come to pass in the last time makes us ready for them so that we are not surprised by suffering, persecution, or even the collapse of culture as we know it.
We should not even be surprised at apostasy taking place in the professing church or perhaps even in seeing the rise of a very powerful political figure who will begin to unite the world under him. These things should make us ready. Jesus said therefore keep watch because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. So you also must be ready because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. And so we study these things with the benefit to our lives.
They make us ready and watchful. We do not want to fall asleep. Especially in the generation that we are living in. In times like these we need to be wide awake observing things that are taking place in our culture, in our world, and be ready for the coming of Christ and all of those things that we may see. And I want to say this that if you are not a follower of Jesus Christ I have good news and I have bad news for you. The good news is that today is still the day of salvation.
That you can still get on the right side of this whole equation we are talking about. That you can still come to faith in Jesus Christ and be among his redeemed for whom he will come one day. But the bad news is this. The 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 indicates that if you know that you should receive Christ and you do not do it, you delay in doing it. That when Christ comes after that you will not be able to believe.
Your day of opportunity will be done and you will be turned to follow the lie as the judgment of God. That is why it is so very serious to know the gospel of Jesus Christ but not to act upon it. It places your soul in jeopardy. The good news is what I urge you to follow today. That is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you too will be saved. Not only from your sins but from those dreadful things that are coming upon the earth in the future. Be ready.
To be informed about these things brings comfort. The apostle writes about the catching away of the church and he says now comfort one another with these words. When you talk about the last days, there is a comfort that is present here for the people of God because we face a lot of loss in this life. Paul says if Christ is not risen from the dead, we who believe on Christ in this world are the most miserable of all people. But he is raised from the dead and so we are not. We face a lot of loss.
Some of you are facing loss today. Some of you are facing the loss of a loved one or the loss of a marriage. Perhaps the loss of health or the loss of your financial well-being that you have been planning on. The loss of a home. There is comfort in knowing that God has things under control. And my friend, if God has the last days under control, don't you think he has your life under control? I mean you fit into this whole picture. You understand that? You do fit into it.
God has a place for you in it and he is going to take care of you. Just as he has taken care of all of these events that will surely come to pass. That brings comfort to us. We know that we are in the hands of God in times like these. Finally, to be assured about these things brings hope. And I don't mean just hope in a sentimental kind of way, which we all need. But I am talking about the assurance that this kind of understanding brings to us.
To know that the present troubles that we are passing through are not all that there is. To know beyond the shadow of a doubt that these things are coming to pass brings everything else into perspective in our lives. We should never just view the last days as only trouble and fearful and as a depressing prospect. We miss it. We miss it if that is how we see it. God wants us to have hope in the midst of it. Have you ever been seasick?
I never have thankfully because of a little patch I put behind my ear whenever I get out on a boat in the ocean. But I pity people who have. I have seen them. I have seen them green with heads down on the table praying to die. And I am told that if you really want to conquer what you have to do is to get out and find the horizon that is stable. Is that right? You have to look beyond the rolling waves and find the horizon.
My friend in these times we need to look beyond the things that are rolling around us and see what is coming. And when we do that it will give us perspective on this world. It will give us hope. Will we suffer? Well maybe. Paul says if we are children then we are heirs. Heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. If indeed we share in His sufferings an order that we may also share in His glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the what?
The glory that will be revealed in us. He says look beyond now and see what is coming. See the glory that is coming for the people of God. Folks as we think about the last days what I want us to go away saying is this. I have a blessed hope. Would you say that with me? I have a blessed hope. Would you say amen to that? It is a blessed hope. Would you pray with me?
Father, I want to pray this morning first of all for any friend who is here that has not made that step of faith and trusted Jesus Christ. Who understands that Christ died for them. Who knows that Christ rose from the dead. Who knows that Christ is the way but has not yet taken that personal step. Father, my prayer is that today that friend would make that step of faith and call upon the name of the Lord. Father, I also pray for all of us who have made that step of faith.
Today the hope of Jesus' return will fill our hearts. And we will find comfort in that perspective for life. And we will find our lives having meaning and purpose and understanding because we know what you are about in the world. Will God keep us ready and watchful for the coming of Christ in times like these. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.