Description
THE END OF THE WORLD
Signs
October 7-8, 2009
Ed Young
I want to welcome all of our campuses at various parts around Dallas / Fort Worth and also in South Florida. How are you guys doing? Good to see you, good to see you. Hey, thank you guys for being here today. Thank you so much for being here.
You know, very soon, millions of conversations will end in a moment’s notice. A couple of pilots will be taxiing down the runway, the pilot will turn to his co-pilot expecting to see him there, and all he’ll see is a leather seat. A mother will get ready to embrace her infant and all she will see or feel are a bunch of warm sheets. A wife will go to say something to her husband who will be gone. I’m describing to you an instantaneous act of God where he moves us from here to there, from this planet to paradise. I’m talking about the end of the world.
We have a fascination with the future, don’t we? All of us are thinking about the future. Save for the future, plan for the future. All these movies and novels that we see and that we experience and read about, they’re all about the future. People like the paranormal and we’re thinking about UFO’s and science fiction and all of that. Why? Why such a fascination with the future? Why are we so freaked out, sometimes fretful and fearful about forever? Well, I can answer that question. In the book of Ecclesiastes 3:11, over in the Old Testament, the Bible says, “He has also set eternity in the hearts of men.”
Isn’t that cool? The God of the universe has set this eternal longing in your heart and mine. That’s why we have this desire, this focus on the forever.
And during these talks I’ve been trying to hammer home one simple yet profound principal. Are you ever ready for the ever after? That’s the deal. Are you ever ready for the ever after? Because we know things are moving toward the end.
Illus: It’s like reading a cool novel. How many readers do we have? Anybody like to read? Ok, yeah. Sometimes, I’ll confess this. When I’m reading, and I get a little bit fearful and fretful, I get stressed out, worried about what’s going to happen, I sometimes will turn to the last chapter of the book—I hate to confess this—and read the last two or three pages. And when I skim those pages and I see that everything turns out ok, I’m like, “Oh, wow, I’m so happy they lived happily ever after.” That gives me great confidence, great assurance, great strength when I’m reading the novel.
Well, our great God has done that. All you have to do is just study the final things; all you have to do is read the last several pages and guess what? We live happily ever after! Guess what? We win! Isn’t that awesome? We win!
So, whenever we talk about the final things, whenever we talk about the end times, it should be a time of enlightenment, we should be enlightened, thinking, “Wow, this is cool, man.” It should be a time of encouragement, “Yeah! I’m encouraged. Whoa!” And also it should cause us to be evangelistic. In other words it should cause us to say, “Ok, God has given me this one and only life.” I’m only here for what, 60, 70, 80 years, if I eat right. So I need to squeeze the juice out of every moment possible. And also, God wants to use me as a great influence in my neck of the woods.
So it should challenge me to share this great news with others. So most of us here are thinking, “Yeah! This encourages me. This enlightens me. This makes me more evangelistic.”
Maybe others are thinking, “Whoa, dude, this is kind of scary!” Because maybe, just maybe in your heart of hearts, you’re not ever ready for the ever after.
My dogs don’t have a sense of the future. This morning I got up, sat in my office with a cup of coffee thinking about today. Today I’m going to have an exciting day. I’m going to Pensacola to speak, and then Wednesday I’m going to northern California to speak and I’m just kicking back, you know, just thinking, praying a little bit and just relaxing. All of our six dogs were around me in the office. And I looked at my Doberman, who is probably the most intelligent of the bunch, and I could tell Dutch was not thinking about the future. I mean, I hate to tell you that; I hate to rain on your animalistic parade, but the dog is not thinking, “Ok, what am I going to do tomorrow?” I wonder about next week, next month. My master’s bags are packed. What does that mean?” He’s a dog!
We’re not animals. We’re humans. We’re made in the image of God and we have this ability to do what? To think about the past, the present and the future. Now, we don’t always know what the future holds, but we know the One who holds the future. And that’s Jesus. So I want to take you on a quick journey. I want to give you the Wikipedia version of the final things.
Now, I’m going to continue along this train next week. Now what I’m going to talk about is – some of the stuff is debated, it’s in the Scripture. A lot of it is mysterious, some of us here are going to have a hard time, because we’re so ‘in the natural’ we have a hard time wrapping our brains around it. But God always puts his super on our natural. And what I’m going to share with you, I don’t know every answer.
Here’s what I want you to remember when you think about studying the final days, the end of the world. Because the Bible tells us to study it. The Bible promises us we’ll be blessed when we study it. But here’s the thing you need to understand. Don’t get so caught up in the how and the why and the when; don’t get caught up in data that doesn’t matta that you miss the who, the you and what you’re supposed to do. You see, you don’t just study it just to study it and say, “Wow, I know this fact, and I know this figure, I see this, I see that trend.” That’s good, rah, rah, rah. Go team go.
It should translate though into what? Into life change, into your life, into my life, and also into things that we’re to do. It should translate into your marriages; it should translate into your dating relationships. It should translate into your friendships. It should translate into the classroom. It should translate into the basketball team; it should translate in football practice. It should translate in the shows you watch; it should translate in everything we do. It’s enlightenment, it’s encouragement, and it’s all about sharing.
Ecclesiastes 3:11, God has set eternity in our hearts. 1 Thessalonians 4. You might want to turn there. As you turn there, it describes something. The rapture. It describes this force this sudden force that takes us, the church, followers of Christ from here to there. From this planet to where? Paradise.
Illus: You ever see LeBron James play basketball? When LeBron is in the open court, when LeBron is all alone, slam dunk. No problem. Just another day at the office for LeBron.
Is it difficult for God to rapture the church? Here’s the church, there’s the steeple, open the doors and see all the people. Aaaah. See. Is it difficult for him to do that? No.
Think about Enoch in the Old Testament. He, boom, moved from here to there. Think about Elijah in the Old Testament. Boom, jumped on a chariot of fire, a Maserati on steroids, boom! From here to there. So, it’s no problem for God to move you and me from here to there.
If you have your Bibles, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18. “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command.”
Let me give you a basic illustration. Tarzan, yelling. When Tarzan yelled, what happened? The wild kingdom followed him. Jesus is going to shout, and his people, his followers will hear his voice. Those of us who are followers of him will be raptured. We’ll meet him in the clouds. The rapture is invisible. The dead in Christ will rise first.
“Well, Ed, what about my grandfather, my uncle, my aunt, my son, my daughter, my spouse.”
The moment they died, their soul goes to heaven. Their soul goes to paradise, if they followed Christ. Their bodies are in the grave. When the rapture occurs, the first to rise will be those who are dead in Christ. Because after all, they need a 6 foot head start! Thank you very much. You’re just getting that. Ok, it’s early, I know. You’ve not had enough espresso today!
Then, those of us in Christ will be taken up with Jesus. Ok. The Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with a voice of the archangel, and with a trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
After that, we who are still alive, if we’re still here, if we’ve not died and are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we’ll be with the Lord forever. Therefore, encourage each other with these words.
This is kind of some cool Bible trivia. Every time Jesus shouted, a resurrection took place. You remember his friend Lazarus? Lazarus had died. Jesus said, “Lazarus, get up!” Boom, Lazarus rose from the grave. Now, many scholars think if Jesus would have just said, “Get up!” all the dead would have risen. But he said, “Lazarus, get up.”
All right, also, Jesus yelled from the cross. He said, “Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit.” What happened when he said that from the cross? Many saints were resurrected. And they cruised around.
Right here, he’s going to yell with a shout and boom; we’re out of here, Jack! The rapture of the Church.
Well, what’s the rapture going to do? You know what the rapture’s going to do? Think about it. Conversations will end in mid-sentence. An airplane is taxiing. A pilot will look to the co-pilot, he’s not there. A mom will go to embrace her child, and the child’s gone. Do you know what; do you know what will happen? People will freak. All of a sudden, squillions of people are gone? They’re out of here. Did aliens take them? What happened? Wow! Ooh-Aah-Aaah! The tribulation will take place. You ever heard of the tribulation? You ever heard of that? Clap your hands if you have. [clapping] All right.
Here’s the tribulation; it’s going to be some crazy stuff. Seven years. The seven year tribulation. It’s kick-started because of what? Because of the rapture of the church.
During the tribulation, you’ll have 3 ½ years of peace. Then you’ll have 3 ½ years of crazy-pill stuff. I’m talking about lawlessness. I’m talking about people trying to commit suicide and they can’t. And the Bible says several sins will be very, very prominent during this time. And several signs that we can look at as we look for the end of the world. You might want to jot these down.
Drug usage. The Bible talks about drug usage. The Bible talks about drug usage and the occult. Drug arrests since 1970 have increased 411%.
How about sexual promiscuity? That’s another sign. Out-of-wedlock births have increased 40% over the last ten years. Death from sexually transmitted diseases have increased since 1997, 61%.
There’s also an increase in theft, lawlessness. There’s a theft that occurs every 14.6 seconds in our land today.
So, obviously, the stage is set. I mean, we’re right there. During this time, guess who’s going to show up? The Anti-Christ. You ever heard of him? There have been movies made about him. The Anti-Christ. All right. This guy will take on the mark, you know, 6-6-6.
One world. You ever heard of that? Does that sound familiar? One government, one world currency. You can see everything moving toward that. He’s a guy who’s going to come in and bring peace. Then everything will hit the fan.
It culminates with this ginormous war. The mother of all wars. That’s the battle of Armageddon. That’s the mother of all battles and I’ve been right there with people in this church. In the area where it’s going to go down. It’s like, whoa! This is freaky. I got a little fearful – a little bit of fretful. Then I thought, “Why am I getting fearful and fretful? I should be encouraged, because I’ve been enlightened. And that should be evangelistic.”
So now, what happens? Well, those of us who are in Christ, all right, were with Jesus in the heavenlies. The tribulation has taking place. You’ll love this. The mother of all battles has taken place.
But let me just throw in one cool thing for you. Think about how chaotic our world is right now. Just think about it. The wars and the rumors of wars and the diseases and what happened in Fort Hood just hours ago? Wheels off, out of control. You remove the Holy Spirit of God from this planet; you remove the Church from this planet – are you kidding me? It’s going to go whacko!
Well, during this time, to show you how great our God is, he picks a race of people to be evangelists on steroids. Now, as you think about the people groups, who are the most tenacious, the most resilient, the most intelligent, and the most blessed? Obviously, God’s chosen people, the Jews. The Jews.
Some of my best friends are Jews. Jews make the best Christians around. They have a great capacity for God. We have many here at Fellowship Church.
Well, 144,000 Jewish evangelists will be doing the stuff during the tribulation. They will lead, and it will be very difficult, they will lead some to Christ during the tribulation.
So now, all right, are you tracking? We’re back. Boom! The second coming. This is invisible, the rapture. This is visible; Jesus brings you and me back – and all those in the Church who had been raptured, boom, now we’re back. Those here are joined together. And it’s stunning to see how things that were out of place are now back in place.
Have you ever wondered why you have that desire for things to be in place? People say, “Everything has its place. Everything has its place.” And I’m not obsessive/compulsive, but, I’m a little bit obsessive/compulsive, you know. And sometimes when people come over to your house and they kind of move stuff around and you’re thinking, “Man, that’s out of place.” Or you get in someone’s car, “Oh, these things feel out of place.” You know. Things that are out of place need to have their place.
Well, when Jesus comes back, three things that are out of place will be put back in place. Number one, what’s that? The Church. The Church. The bride and the bridegroom. The bridegroom being Jesus and the Church, vwoom, joined together.
Number two; something that’s out of place that will be put in place, the devil will be incarcerated. The criminal in prison.
And Number three, Jesus will be, Christ will be on his throne. And I’ve got to stop right there.
Now, this is very, very important. Stay with me. Do not zone out. A thousand years, a thousand years. Remember that. That’s a millennium. A thousand years – let me highlight that. Say ‘a thousand’ with me. That’s very, very, very important.
Some respected theologians and biblical scholars would put the ‘a thousand’ years not there (on the board), they would put it there or there. Some would be pre-millenniulists, others would be mid-millenniulist, post-millenniulist, ah-millenniulists. You know what I am? I’m a pan-millenniulist. I believe it’ll all pan out in the end! Ha!
But there is great debate over the exact chronological order of all of this to about right here. There’s a great debate. And this is a non-essential, friends. What’s the essential? The essential is the second coming. Jesus is coming back. That’s an essential. And at Fellowship Church, I say this every time. I talk about membership at Fellowship Church. Listen to me very carefully, read my lips.
In the essentials, we practice unity. What’s the essential? The Bible is the Word of God. Salvation by grace through faith. Baptism by emersion preached to the believer. Those are the essentials of faith.
A non-essential of faith would be your eschatology, your view of the final things. Some people just believe in the second coming of Jesus, the imminent second return of Christ, Boom! He’s back. There we are. Others believe in all of this. And I think, I believe in this – the rapture, you know, the 7 year tribulation, I think we’ll be taken out before it, and then the battle.
Some people think we’ll go through it. Others think we’ll be taken out right here in the middle. Who knows? But it’s a non-essential.
So in the essentials, we practice what? Unity. In the non-essentials, we practice charity. We have people who believe different things about this. Good for you. But don’t get so into the data at the end of the day that doesn’t really matta, that you forget it’s about the second coming, that you forget it’s about the who and the you and what you’re supposed to do.
A non-essential of the faith would be dancing. Some people here at Fellowship Church, they dance. And, if you want to dance, that’s a non-essential. Now, dirty-dancing is a sin; dancing is not. Some people choose not to dance. Those with no rhythm, that’s fine.
I’ll tell you another non-essential. Alcohol consumption. Oh, let me make people nervous. Alcohol consumption. I can build a case for drinking in moderation from the Scriptures. You can’t debate me on it. I can give you a great case for it. Also, I can give you a great case for abstinence. That’s between you and God, it’s a non-essential. Now, if you want to have a glass of wine or a beer, rah, rah, rah, go team go. However, I have seen, you’ve seen, what alcoholism can do to marriages, to families, to lives, so… it’s a non-essential.
So, this stuff here, non-essential. Here (second coming), essential.
Have you ever heard this before? People say, “Don’t judge me. You’re judging! Man, don’t be judging me.” I would love to diesel on, but next time, I’m talking about something that very, very, very few churches ever talk about. It’s one of the hottest topics in Scripture. It’s an essential of the faith. It’s the judgment of God. Because in this, and this is an essential here, there’s a judgment, a big honkin’ gargantuan judgment that goes on. And we need to understand this whole judgment thing.
My prayer for you is not to get caught up in all of the when’s and the how’s and the why’s. But remember, here’s the flow of it. Remember the who and the you and what you’re supposed to do.
What are you supposed to do? You’re supposed to have confidence as you live your life. We have hope beyond hope. We’ve got faith. We should have one eye on eternity and the other on the temporal. We’ve got to live that way. And when we do that, it’s like the old hymn. “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth,” materialism, greed, pride, “will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.”
When I struggle in those areas, I’m having my eyes too focused on matter, on the temporal, and not enough on the eternal. Now, matter matters. Yet there’s got to be the balance. When Jesus comes back, he’s going to draw those of us to himself. It’ll happen here in the rapture, it’ll happen during the second coming.
Illus: Whenever I wear a sport coat like this, I get so angry—this is where I’m a little bit obsessive/compulsive—when my collar gets kind of jacked up, you know.
But look at this collar – is this collar perfect? Just tell me, it’s perfect, isn’t it? It’s perfect. Sometimes I’ve worn collars that aren’t perfect, and I’ve like been speaking at a conference or whatever, and I’d be doing the whole thing like this.
A friend of mine in Miami said, “Ed, your collar is jacked up, man. You need something.”
And let me tell you what he did. I want to give you a fashion tip. You’ll love this, ok. Why is my collar perfect? Is it a great shirt? Shirt’s good. But here’s what’s great. See that right there (Ed shows his collar stay and a magnet holding it to the shirt). You got it? See that? You know what that is? A magnet. Check it out. You take the magnet off, could you hold that for me? Thank you. And right here, guess what you got – a collar stay. Not one of those plastic ones. No, nothing like that. Ladies, you ever seen your man like this (with his collar jacked up)? “Ok honey, let’s go.”
You know what this is? It’s a magnet. Check it out. A magnet. What does a magnet do? A magnet attracts itself to something like itself. Iron. Boom! You move this magnet over other stuff, it ain’t gonna stick. You rub it over something like itself, boom.
What’s going to happen right here (during the second coming)? Jesus is the magnet. He’s going to move himself over humanity. And those of us who have a like-nature, we are going to be attracted to him, joined to him, and we can magnify him. Isn’t that great news? That’s awesome, man. That’s awesome.
So it should cause those of us who are in Christ to share this good news with others, to tug people along to Fellowship Church all the time, to share our story.
Those of you who are still wondering about Christianity, think about those final things. Think about the past, the present, the future. Think about the fact that there are 8 times more predictions for Christ’s return than was his birth. Think about the fact that one out of every 30 verses in the New Testament is about the second coming of Jesus. Because when you do that, things will happen and you’ll be ever ready for the ever after.