{"id":19088,"date":"2017-04-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-26T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/signs-of-the-times-10-unmistakable-signs\/"},"modified":"2022-02-01T20:06:59","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T02:06:59","slug":"signs-of-the-times-10-unmistakable-signs","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/signs-of-the-times-10-unmistakable-signs\/","title":{"rendered":"Signs of the Times: 10 Unmistakable Signs!"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[146],"series_event":[518],"sermon_service_type":[474],"speaker":[478],"class_list":["post-19088","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-none","series_event-guest-speaker","sermon_service_type-wednesday-evenings","speaker-dr-j-b-hixson","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Signs of the Times: 10 Unmistakable Signs!","sermon_date":"20170426","sermon_month":"04","sermon_year":"2017","sermon_notes":4613,"sermon_slides":"","sermon_mp3":4607,"sermon_id":"4261718543110","series_or_event":518,"service_type":[474],"speaker":478,"books_of_the_bible":146,"chapter_and_verse":"","sermon_transcript":"J. B. Hixson\r\n\r\nSigns of the Times\r\n\r\nSLBC, 4-30-17\r\n\r\nI tell you, I am really honored to get to be here; I\u2019ve known Andy for\u2026 I can\u2019t really remember how long I\u2019ve known him.\u00a0 I started teaching at the College of Biblical Studies in 99, and was Dean of Faculty there and then he came right after I left; I left in late 05, and I started teaching at Grace Seminary but we have known each other through a mutual friend, Dr. Loken, I hired Dr. Loken at the college and then he recommended Andy and Andy got hired right after I left.\u00a0 But Andy and I have gotten to be really close friends just through speaking at the same conferences, traveling in the same circles and I just think so highly of him.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got him on speed dial so whenever I have a biblical question or a theological question or I\u2019m really not sure if I\u2019m handling it correctly he\u2019s my go-to guy and we love to just talk about the Word of God.\u00a0 He\u2019s also right now with another mutual friend, in fact, I\u2019m pretty sure I introduced Andy to Bill, but Bill Perkins is a good friend of mine and Andy was still on this trip so we want to continue to keep them in our prayers, as Jim said.\u00a0 And I\u2019m just honored to get to be with you.\r\n\r\nSo I\u2019ve got a lot of material to cover tonight.\u00a0 My understanding is we go right up until about 8:00 and so after we finish at 8:00 I\u2019m happy to stick around with anybody who would like to and we\u2019ll field some questions and I love to just dialogue about any of the things that we\u2019re talking about.\u00a0 My wife, Wendy, is here, she\u2019ll be out at our resource table, and I\u2019ll say more about that at the end.\u00a0 Our kids didn\u2019t make it with us on this trip though they usually do.\u00a0 We have six kids, four still at home and we\u2019re on the road about 250 days a year and so they travel with us, but this trip that we\u2019re on is our longest ever, it\u2019s a two month trip.\u00a0 So we kind of left them with grandma for part of it, then we\u2019ll pick them up for part of it and we\u2019re kind of doing it that way just to kind of break it up a little bit.\u00a0 So I regret that you didn\u2019t get to meet them, they\u2019re really our pride and joy and we really hope that you get to meet them someday.\r\n\r\nSo take your Bibles and turn to Matthew 16, this is in the context of when the Pharisees and Sadducees, you read in the preceding verses, come to Jesus and they ask Him if He would show them a sign from heaven.\u00a0 [2] \u201cHe answered and said to them, \u2018When it is evening you say it will be fair weather: for the sky is red. [3] Hypocrites, you know how to discern the face of the sky; but you cannot discern the signs of the times.\u201d\r\n\r\nI don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve been paying attention, and I know I love Sugar Land Bible Church, by the way, I\u2019ve had a chance to be here before, it\u2019s been years, but you have a great reputation for being Bible scholars and I\u2019m sure you have noticed that these days there are quite a few Bible teachers out there that are talking about the end times and talking about subjects like the rapture and the antichrist and the tribulation and the Second coming and the millennium and all of these kinds of things.\r\n\r\nSo what I want to do tonight is kind of walk us through what Jesus really meant when He talks about the signs of the times.\u00a0 In context, in the first century of course he was talking about the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the first century Jewish leaders who had missed the signs of Christ\u2019s first advent.\u00a0 Now they shouldn\u2019t have because it had been pretty clear in the Old Testament prophets that a virgin would conceive and bear a child and that that child would be born in Bethlehem and he would grow up to take the throne of his father David and rule and reign in perfect peace and justice over the long-awaited Messianic kingdom for Israel.\u00a0 But nevertheless they missed it.\u00a0 You have kind of wonder, I wonder how many virgins gave birth to a child in Bethlehem at that time that caused so much confusion for them.\u00a0 But somehow they missed it and the question that I think is son my mind as I think about this topic is I wonder how many are going to miss it the second time around.\r\n\r\nNow we know that according to Matthew chapters 24 and 25 that in the future tribulation period that generation of Jews that will be allied at the time of Christ\u2019s Second coming, many of them will miss it, which is utterly amazing because Jesus gives incredibly detailed signs related to the Second coming.\u00a0 But I think also many people today are not really prepared for the imminency of the rapture.\u00a0 The imminency of the rapture is a foundational biblical truth as it relates to the end times.\u00a0 The rapture is the next great prophetic event to which the world would look forward.\u00a0 There are not prophecies that must be fulfilled before the rapture; the rapture is imminent, that means it could happen at any moment.\u00a0 It could happen tonight.\u00a0 How many of you would vote for it happening tonight.\u00a0 Good, most of you.\u00a0 It could have happened yesterday; it could have happened ten years ago, five hundred years ago, a thousand years ago.\u00a0 It might not happen for a hundred years.\u00a0 But I\u2019m going to talk tonight about the distinction between prophecy and a sign of the times.\r\n\r\nBut let\u2019s kind of back up just a little bit and give you a broad picture here.\u00a0 There are three, generally speaking, approaches to studying Bible prophecy and Dr. Woods and I share the same perspective of a literal, grammatical, historical approach, a traditional dispensational approach to understanding Bible prophecy.\u00a0 But you may have heard of the preterist view.\u00a0 The Preterist approach suggests that everything happened, as far as Bible prophecy is concerned, by 70 A.D.\u00a0 In other words, after 70 A.D. there are no Bible prophecies that are yet to be fulfilled.\u00a0 Everything in the book of Revelation, for example, is simply recapitulating the present age of the church age; there\u2019s no future prophecy in Revelation.\u00a0 No future prophecy in the Old Testament because it was all fulfilled in the present church.\u00a0 There\u2019s no future prophecy in the New Testament because they don\u2019t believe in a rapture.\u00a0 So this is the preterist view.\r\n\r\nAnd some Preterists even go so far as to suggest that Christ came back in\u00a0 70 A.D.\u00a0 I hope you were aware of that, you missed it apparently, but he came back, the Second coming occurred in 70 A.D. \u00a0\u00a0You say well how could that possibly be because the signs that Jesus says will accompany His Second coming, such as lightening striking from the east to the west and incredible cosmic signs, an earthquake never before seen on planet earth, how could that be?\u00a0 Well, they of course figuratively take all of those passages, they spiritualize them, allegorize them, and they suggest that the localized smoke and fire and stuff, that it was associated with Roman General Titus running into Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and burning the city, that that was the fulfillment of those prophecies.\u00a0 So of course, when you handle Scripture that was you can make it be fulfilled any time you want.\u00a0 But we reject the preterist view.\r\n\r\nA second view is the historicist\u2019s view.\u00a0 An historicist would say that we\u2019re essentially living inside the bubble of fulfillment today.\u00a0 This is what many people might call sensationalist or date-setters.\u00a0 And a lot of the places that I speak, in terms of a prophecy conference, I was just at the Mid America Prophecy Conference this weekend and one of the speakers comes from this perspective.\u00a0 These are those who have a Bible in one hand and maybe a newspaper or a TV tuned to Fox News or CNN in the other, and then every time something happens geopolitically or in terms of world events or weather or earthquakes or things, THEN they look at the Scripture and try to find something that relates to that and so \u201cthis is that!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 In other words, they\u2019re constantly getting out their calculators and trying to calculate the number of days between this and that and they\u2019re looking at blood moons and [can't understand word] and all kinds of things out of context, that really have no place for the serious student of Bible prophecy.\r\n\r\nNow I want to be careful because I\u2019m not in any way suggesting these people have bad motives or are charlatans or are just trying to get rich.\u00a0 I think they love the Lord Jesus and they also love His Word, they just have a completely different hermeneutic in the way they connect the dots; I think it\u2019s inconsistent and not the best way to handle the Word of God.\u00a0 So we reject the historicist view as well.\r\n\r\nThe view that we espouse would be the futurist view\u2026 the futurist view suggests that God\u2019s Word reveals for us certain prophecies that will be fulfilled in the future.\u00a0 Indeed, one-third of the Bible is prophecy and half of that has yet to be fulfilled.\u00a0 So there are a great deal of prophecies that are yet to come.\u00a0 And so we come from a futurist perspective.\u00a0 And I think that when you interpret the Bible with a consistent, literal, grammatical, historical hermeneutics you\u2019ll always end up with a futurist view of Bible prophecy.\r\n\r\nSo let\u2019s start out by kind of looking at an end times chart.\u00a0 If you have a chance to stop by our table we have a new book of color 81\/2 by 11 charts, over 70 color charts and this would be in the collection of charts.\u00a0 But according to the Word of God we are living in the last days.\u00a0 Now sometimes people, Bible end times prophecy enthusiasts use the phrase \u201cend times\u201d and \u201clast days\u201d interchangeably.\u00a0 That\u2019s not technically correct; as I\u2019m going to show you the \u201clast days\u201d is the present age in which we live; the end times refers to the eschaton, everything starts with the rapture and goes forward.\u00a0 So that\u2019s the last days, the end times again begins with the rapture and goes all the way through the new heavens and the new earth.\u00a0 It\u2019s all of those unfulfilled prophecies that we read about in God\u2019s Word.\r\n\r\nSo we are living in the last days and I can prove that to you with a few verses here.\u00a0 First of all let\u2019s look at Hebrews 1.\u00a0 In Hebrews chapter the writer says, \u201cGod, who at various time and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers through the prophets, [2] has in these last days spoken to us by His Son whom He has appointed heir all things, through whom also who He made the world.\u201d\r\n\r\nSo obviously this is talking about the present church age, that the greatest manifestation of God\u2019s glory, of God in the flesh, was indeed the incarnation.\u00a0 Christ Himself, the eternal Son of God, has put on human flesh and came to the earth.\r\n\r\nLet\u2019s look at another verse.\u00a0 2 Peter 3, a very key verse for understanding why there\u2019s such a disdain for Bible prophecy in the world today,\u00a0 but Peter says, \u201cKnowing this first, that scoffers will come in the last days,\u201d and in the context here Peter is saying, he\u2019s writing this second epistle, so that they, that\u2019s the recipients, might be mindful of this very point.\u00a0 It\u2019s clearly not talking about some future last days, many years from then.\u00a0 He\u2019s talking about that generation, the ones who received he must be talking about the present age.\r\n\r\nAnd then another one would be 2 Timothy 3, Paul\u2019s last epistle that he wrote in 67 A.D.\u00a0 He says, \u201cKnow this, that in the last days perilous times will come.\u201d\u00a0 Again Paul mentions \u201cthese people,\u201d the ones who in context here, he goes on to talk about they were similar to those who resisted Moses, the way Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses.\u00a0 They resist their teaching the way Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses.\r\n\r\nPaul also contrasts \u201cthese people\u201d (the pronoun there) with Timothy, because he goes on to say in verse 10, \u201cbut you\u201d Timothy, in contrast to these.\u00a0 So when he\u2019s talking about the perilous times he\u2019s talking about the present age.\u00a0 He\u2019s not talking about some time in the distant future, either in the end times or some people would say at the very end of the church age.\u00a0 The problem with saying that Paul is predicting something here at the end of the church age, first of all is very ambiguous, how perilous is perilous and how is it more perilous than it was before and so forth.\u00a0\u00a0 But I think he\u2019s talking about the entire church age and I think that\u2019s pretty clear from the context.\u00a0 So we are living in the last days.\u00a0 One of our books, The Great Last Days Deception<\/em> goes into more detail and kind of makes that point.\r\n\r\nBut one of the things that we have to understand before we can look at the top ten unmistakable signs that we may be in the last days of the last days is the difference between a sign and a fulfillment.\u00a0 This is a key distinction for understanding why there are so many differences in interpretation among Bible prophecy experts; understanding the difference between a sign and a fulfilled prophecy determines whether you fall in to that sensationalist speculative date-setting camp or the more balanced rooted in the text camp of eschatology.\r\n\r\nLet me give you a definition of sign; a sign is a world event that could be\u2026 COULD be setting the stage for the fulfillment of prophecy.\u00a0 That\u2019s a sign.\u00a0 By contrast, a fulfilled prophecy is a direct prediction of a future event in Scripture that comes true.\r\n\r\nNow let me chart it out for you this way: one of my professors at Dallas Seminary years ago was Dr. John Walvoord, I had him for a couple of classes and he would illustrate it verbally the way I\u2019m going to chart it out for you here.\u00a0 He would use this same illustration about Christmas and Thanksgiving.\u00a0 So let me see if I can illustrate this for you.\u00a0 If you look at a calendar or a timeline, you start out with January, and you go through the months of the year and you get all the way to October and along about the time you get to October you move into the holiday season, don\u2019t you.\u00a0 And that\u2019s of course November and December.\u00a0 Of course, in November you\u2019ve got Thanksgiving; in December you\u2019ve got Christmas.\u00a0 But let\u2019s say on the calendar we\u2019re kind of right in sometime in this area here, where I\u2019ve highlighted in yellow, and let\u2019s say along about that time\u00a0 you start seeing things like Christmas decorations and Christmas lights or maybe some Christmas sales and Christmas merchandise and Christmas music.\r\n\r\nNow if you begin to see these things what does that point to?\u00a0 Now this is the audience participation moment.\u00a0 Now really put your thinking caps on here; what do Christmas decorations, Christmas lights, Christmas sales, Christmas merchandise and Christmas music point to?\u00a0 [someone says Christmas]\u00a0 Very good.\u00a0 Christmas, right?\u00a0 When you see those signs you begin to think Christmas is near.\u00a0 But then it might occur to you as\u00a0 you\u2019re thinking about that in late October that wait a minute, if Christmas is near Thanksgiving must be even closer.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 And when we think about a timeline of Biblical prophecy the rapture is the next event, if you will, and it\u2019s a signless event.\r\n\r\nSo you might say it this way.\u00a0 If the stage is being set for Christmas, Thanksgiving must be even closer.\u00a0 Or to put it in terms of Bible prophecy, if the stage is being set for events like the tribulation, we see things that could be setting the stage for tribulation events or things that could be setting the stage for the unveiling of the antichrist.\u00a0 Or if we see things that are happening on earth that could pave the way for the Second coming then we know the rapture must be even closer.\r\n\r\nSo the rapture, again, is a signless event, there is no sign that has to occur before the rapture.\u00a0 Nobody can wake up today and say well, such and such didn\u2019t happen so I know the rapture is not going to happen today.\u00a0 No one can say until X, Y or Z happens the rapture won\u2019t happen so I\u2019ll just sit back and wait.\u00a0 I got an e-mail after this last conference I was just at from someone who\u2019s written a lengthy article suggesting that the rapture is going to happen in September of this year.\u00a0 Now besides the fact that it\u2019s unbiblical and a case can be made it\u2019s unconvincing to someone who takes the Bible literally, it destroys imminency because let\u2019s say for example that he was correct, just for the sake of argument.\u00a0 Well then we can just sit back between now and say\u2026 just to be safe let\u2019s say mid-August, in case he was off on his calculations, and we could just sit back and eat, drink, be merry, just kind of wait and then right before the appointed time that he\u2019s figured out that nobody else has been able to figure out when the rapture is going to happen, we can say okay, I\u2019m going to get my life cleaned up and be ready and meet the Lord in the air.\u00a0 Right?\r\n\r\nSo the rapture is a signless event.\u00a0 There are no signs that tell us when the rapture happens.\u00a0 It\u2019s going to happen in the twinkling of an eye.\u00a0 Sunday morning in our worship service here at Sugar Land Bible Church I\u2019m going to speak on one minute after the rapture.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to be giving you biblically seven things that will be true for those who are caught up to meet the Lord in the air one minute after the rapture.\u00a0 And then I\u2019m going to give you ten things that will be true for those that are left behind one minute after the rapture.\u00a0 It\u2019s going to be a pretty heavy message, the last part of it.\u00a0 If you know anybody that doesn\u2019t know the Lord that\u2019s unsaved I would encourage you to bring them Sunday, we\u2019re going to give the gospel and we\u2019re going to remind them of what they\u2019re going to be facing if the Lord comes back any day now, and He may very well be.\r\n\r\nSo if you look at the sensationalist approach to Bible prophecy usually they\u2019ll say things like this on their order of events:\u00a0 they\u2019ll say, for example, oh, the Psalm 83 war, never mind that Psalm 83 is not a prophecy, there\u2019s nothing in Psalm 83 that\u2019s even remotely prophetic and\u00a0 yet people have again looked at their newspaper, looked at world events and say this sounds kind of like that, this must be a prophecy and it must be happening now, and it\u2019s going to happen before the rapture.\u00a0 But this is their checklist; they\u2019ll go to Ezekiel 37, the regathering of Israel.\u00a0 They\u2019ll go to the battle of God and Magog in Ezekiel 38.\u00a0 And then at some point in their check list you find the rapture.\u00a0 But this is a problem because once again that would be like putting Thanksgiving after Christmas.\u00a0 The next great prophetic event is the rapture and it\u2019s a signless event.\r\n\r\nWe\u2019ve got in our eschatology textbook What Lies Ahead, A Biblical Overview of the End Times.<\/em>\u00a0 I\u2019ve got an appendix, I\u2019ve got several appendices at the back but one appendix it lists a sequential order of end times events.\u00a0 Now let\u2019s see if\u00a0 you\u2019ve been paying attention.\u00a0 What do you think is number one on that list?\u00a0 The rapture\u2026 Amen.\u00a0 Now you might it interesting to see what else comes in line because there\u2019s some room for disagreement, some things we can make our best guess at the precise order, we know the general order, we know it\u2019s rapture and unveiling of the antichrist, the signing of the peace treaty, seven years of the great day of the Lord\u2019s wrath and the time of Jacob\u2019s trouble, the seal trumpet and bowl judgments, the two witnesses, the 144,000 Jewish missionaries, the abomination of desolation at the midpoint, the battle of Armageddon, the Second coming of Christ, the millennial reign of Christ, the rebuilt temple and ultimately the new heavens and the new earth.\u00a0 And I skipped a few things in there for just the sake of brevity.\r\n\r\nWe know the general idea but there\u2019s a lot of detail that\u2019s got scholars kind of\u00a0 love studying and we love to piece it together and I\u2019d love for you to read it and see if, for example, see if Dr. Woods agrees with me and Jesus on it all, I\u2019m not sure.\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty sure we see eye to eye but we\u2019ll have to see.\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty sure that we do.\u00a0 But a better approach to the checklist again would be to start with the rapture and then just to give you the first few that I think are going to happen, I think there\u2019s going to be a western alliance based on Daniel 11 that I believe will be headed by the future anti\u00adchrist.\u00a0 There\u2019s going to be a northern alliance that\u2019s going to come against Israel and try in the chaos that ensues after the rapture, we\u2019ll talk about this Sunday morning, they\u2019re going to try to take over the holy land which has always been a hot spot obviously.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because it\u2019s God\u2019s land, it\u2019s His land, He\u2019s jealous for His land.\u00a0 And I think that the western alliance is going to come in and come against the northern alliance.\r\n\r\nNow we know from Ezekiel 38 and 39 that God supernaturally defeats the northern alliance but it\u2019s my speculation, and it isn\u2019t just that, I\u2019m not going to die on this hill because the Scripture is silent on it, but it seems to make sense to me that the western alliance leader takes credit for the defeat of the northern alliance and he says hey, everybody, look at me, I solved the dilemma and I created peace and I protected Israel and I believe that catapults him to world fame; he signs the peace treaty, he becomes the antichrist and that\u2019s what unveils him.\u00a0 But this type of checklist, they\u2019re reminded to the detail exactly right, certainly is in keeping with the biblical doctrine of imminency, which is indeed a biblical doctrine.\u00a0 You can prove it biblically, we have a DVD on the imminency of the rapture that makes the case exegetically.\r\n\r\nSo if we go back to our chart all of these are prophetic events.\u00a0 It starts with the rapture and then everything up until the new heavens and the new earth.\u00a0 The question that we\u2019re asking tonight is are we seeing any signs that could relate to these types of things because if we are then that could be, that must be indeed that the rapture is going to occur even sooner. So not to beat a dead horse but just to make it clear, is any times prophecy being fulfilled today.\u00a0 I would say an emphatic no unless of course the rapture happened and we all missed it, sometime this afternoon which I\u2019m pretty sure did not happen.\r\n\r\nBut if I were to say is the end times stage being set with various signs of the times?\u00a0 Absolutely!\u00a0\u00a0 The question was, or the comment was the Bible says Jesus says when you see all these things look up, be watching for\u00a0 your redemption draweth nigh.\u00a0 But that\u2019s talking to the tribulation generation about the Second coming.\u00a0 So that has nothing to do with the rapture.\u00a0 But still the point is still well made that the rapture is a signless event; there are no signs that point to the rapture but there are plenty of signs that point to end times types events.\u00a0 Wendy and I, as you know, we travel a lot and this past year we were in the northeast and we took some time between speaking engagements to go to New\u00a0 York City which we loved New York City, I actually grew up, second grade through eighth grade in that area, my dad worked in Manhattan and so it\u2019s always fun to kind of go there.\u00a0 And we went to a Broadway play and somehow my wife, who is a master at this, I don\u2019t know how she does it but she finds, always finds unbelievable deals on tickets and everything else.\u00a0 I guess you have to do that with six kids and a husband who likes to eat.\r\n\r\nBut anyway, she got us front row seats to a Broadway play.\u00a0 We were literally on the front row, if I put my legs out in front of me they would touch the stage and when I sat down, you can probably tell this about me, that I\u2019m not much of a theater going guy so I don\u2019t know all the protocols and stuff, I sat down and I put my program, my playbill right there on the stage.\u00a0 And the usher quickly came over and said get that off of there, get that off of there, because you know the actors and actresses are going to come right to the edge, they could slip off on it and trip on it.\r\n\r\nSo we\u2019re sitting there before the play, the curtain is drawn and we were so close we could see the gap underneath the curtain; we could see shadows moving, if we listened we could hear props being slid across the stage, we could hear mumbling under people\u2019s breath, we knew the stage was being set for the opening act but we had no idea when that curtain, precisely when that curtain was going to rise.\u00a0 Well that\u2019s the way it is today.\u00a0 The rapture is the next great prophetic event; some day that curtain is going to rise, in \u201cthe twinkling of an eye\u201d and we can look around us and we can say the stage is being set but we really don\u2019t know when it\u2019s going to happen.\u00a0 It might be in our lifetime, I really tend to believe as I look at the world events around us that it cannot help but be very soon, but could it be a hundred\u00a0 years from now?\u00a0 It could be, we really don\u2019t know the Lord\u2019s timetable.\r\n\r\nSo we want to look at ten of those signs tonight and I\u2019ll try to go through these as fast as I can because I want to talk about some of them in more detail than others.\u00a0 So what are some signs that we\u2019re seeing today that indicate we could very well be in the last of the last days.\u00a0 Hang on, let me go through them and then if you \u2026 this is, by the way, this is not comprehensive, we could list fifty things probably.\r\n\r\nSo number 1, I think any survey of the prophetic landscape MUST start with the granting of statehood to Israel\u2026 the granting of statehood to Israel.\u00a0 After all, Jesus said in Matthew 24 when He comes back that He will gather together His elect (that\u2019s Israel) from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other, it\u2019s a fulfillment of Deuteronomy 30 when the Bible says the Lord God will bring you back from captivity.\u00a0 Isaiah the prophet says the same thing, \u201cSo shall it be in that day, the great trumpet will be blown and they will come who are about to perish in the land of Assyria, who are outcasts in the land of Egypt and you will all worship the Lord in the Holy Mount of Jerusalem.\u00a0 So we see this regathering.\r\n\r\nEzekiel 37, which I believe is a Second coming promise, Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations wherever they have gone I will gather them from every side and bring them back into their own land.\u201d\u00a0 [Ezekiel 37:21]\u00a0 So if they\u2019re going to be regathered in the land it makes sense that there\u2019s going to be a nation for them to be regathered into.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 So absolutely when Israel became a nation in 1948 it certainly should get our attention and make us think hmmm, could we be getting closer, after all, these prophecies were just as true in the, say the 1400\u2019s when there had not been an Israel on the Rand McNally Map for a thousand years or more, these prophesies were just as true but when we begin to see this type of a stage setting it really makes us think I wonder if we\u2019re getting close.\u00a0 And if we\u2019re getting close to the Second coming, when they\u2019re going to be regathered in their land, then we must be even closer to the rapture.\r\n\r\nAnd where did it all begin?\u00a0 Well, it goes back to the Abrahamic Covenant, when the Lord said to Abraham get out of\u00a0 your country, from your family, from your father\u2019s house to a land that I will show you.\u00a0 This is the foundational covenant.\u00a0 We have a whole chapter on this and the three subsequent unconditional covenants that come out of it.\u00a0 I like to chart it this way:\u00a0 you think of the Abrahamic Covenant as a foundational covenant, it dealt with a promise of land, a promise of seed, and a promise of blessing.\u00a0 And of course you have the atoning work of Christ in the church age and then you have a period of blindness to Israel, Paul tells us is Romans 11:26-27 followed by the kingdom when the Deliverer comes out of Zion and ushers in the kingdom.\u00a0 [Romans 11:26-27, \u201cand so all Israel shall be saved: even as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer; He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:\u00a0 [27] And this is my covenant unto them, When I shall take away their sins.\u201d]\r\n\r\nThe land, seed and blessing aspect of that unconditional promise to Abraham were each amplified in three subsequent unconditional covenants: the land covenant or sometimes called the Palestinian Covenant, Genesis 15 and Deuteronomy 30, the Davidic Covenant amplifies the seed aspect, that there would be a descendant of David on his throne forever.\u00a0 Now that\u2019s not happened; Solomon did not stay on the throne.\u00a0 And then the New Covenant amplifies the spiritual blessings.\u00a0 And this whole covenant program essentially is the title deed to the land, that promises that Israel will be regathered into her land someday and Jesus Christ, the King of Kings will rule and reign in perfect peace and justice; all the governments will be upon His shoulder, it will be a one-world government, He\u2019ll give the state of the world address on CNN every January I guess, and everybody will look to His for direction and it will be a time of incredible peace and prosperity, though eventually there will still be sin because those who enter the kingdom in their mortal bodies will have babies and those babies will be born dead in their trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2:1, and eventually by the end of the thousand years there\u2019ll be an entire contingent of unbelievers.\u00a0 [Ephesians 2:1, \u201cAnd you were dead in your trespasses and sins,\u201d]\u00a0 They will work together with Satan when he\u2019s released from prison for one final battle.\r\n\r\nBut Israel has to be brought back into the land.\u00a0 Now what are the boundaries of this promise?\u00a0 And if you compare all of the relevant Scriptures that kind of chart out based on land marks, Israel\u2019s Promised Land, and\u00a0 you follow Charles Fienberg\u2019s conclusion it\u2019s roughly 300,000 square miles.\u00a0 Now if you look at the boundaries of the Promised Land you can kind of see what\u2019s in pink up there, that\u2019s what\u2019s promised to them and I\u2019m going to put kind of a crude recommendation or representation to present day Israel, I know it\u2019s not exactly the scale so please don\u2019t e-mail me and tell me I was half a centimeter off;\u00a0 I\u2019m not exact but roughly speaking that\u2019s Israel today so you can see how we have not ever had a time when Israel has even remotely inhabited the Promised Land.\u00a0 So one of two things is true; either God was wrong or this prophecy has a future fulfillment and I believe it has a future fulfillment.\r\n\r\nIf we think about, just in the last one hundred years or so, the rise of the modern Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl wrote the Jewish state in 1896 and convened the first Zionist world congress in 1897 in Basel Switzerland and he put forth the Uganda plan and he had a famous quote in an entry is his diary on September 3, 1897, and here\u2019s what he wrote:\u00a0 \u201cAt Basel, I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in five years, certainly in fifty, everyone will know it.\u201d\u00a0 When did he say that?\u00a0 1897.\u00a0 Now about fifty years later what happened?\u00a0 May 14, 1948 Israel declared her independence and was granted statehood.\r\n\r\nSo clearly this is a setting of the stage, a sign of the times.\u00a0 What other signs of the times do we see?\u00a0 Well, let\u2019s just look at current events, the Geopolitical scene.\u00a0 As we survey the geopolitical landscape do we see the stage being set?\u00a0 Well, the first thing we notice is a worldwide crisis of Islamic terrorism.\u00a0 You know, the religion of the end times will be one where a false prophet deceives the whole world and causes the world to worship the antichrist by doing miracles, such as pulling fire down from the sky.\u00a0 In order to set the stage for this there\u2019s got to be some kind of global crisis; there\u2019s got to be a global religious conflict so that the antichrist can arise and proclaim false peace and solve this crisis.\r\n\r\nNow I believe that as bad as Islam is I do not believe it\u2019s the end all enemy, the antichrist clearly is not going to be Islamic because Daniel tells us he will deny the gods of his fathers and have no religion.\u00a0 I think the end times religion is going to be pluralism; how else is this future world leader going to be able to get every religion to cooperate and come together under one banner.\u00a0 Only under a pluralistic banner is that possible.\u00a0 So I believe he\u2019s going to be a pluralist.\u00a0 But if we go to Daniel 9 this future antichrist is going to confirm a covenant with many for one week of years, one seven year period.\r\n\r\nPaul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5 that when they\u2019re saying \u201cpeace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them.\u201d\u00a0 [1 Thessalonians 5:3, \u201cWhen they are saying, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall in no wise escape.\u201d]\u00a0 Because remember, the antichrist is going to solve this world conflict and then sign the peace treaty and then even though the wrath of God and the wrath of Satan are simultaneously going to be poured out during the entire seven year tribulation, the first three and a half years of it are going to be a time of relative peace for Israel because they\u2019re sort of under the banner and so forth.\u00a0 But then when the antichrist sets himself up as God at the midpoint, both Daniel and Jesus talk about this, Jesus quotes Daniel by name in Matthew 24, then it\u2019s literally going to be all hell breaking loose on earth and the Jews are going to be suffering the most intense persecution they have ever suffered.\r\n\r\nSo this geopolitical unrest, the geopolitical scene that we look at around us and this Islamic terrorism in particular, certainly you can see how it\u2019s getting worse and worse and worse and it\u2019s going to be paving the way for some world leader to come in and sort of solve the problem.\u00a0 Here\u2019s just a few snaps from the headlines types of pictures.\u00a0 This members of the [can't understand word] for example.\u00a0 Islamic terrorism.\u00a0 Another GEO political factor is the rise and fall of nation states.\u00a0 Boy, I mean, you know, the textbook, the high school history textbook companies are having to keep the presses running, aren\u2019t they, because every year it seems like there\u2019s a new moving around of the pieces on the chess board and the Book of Revelation during the tribulation period, we know that all who dwell on the earth will worship him.\u00a0 They\u2019re going to come together.\u00a0 The question is, you know, what nations will those be and things are getting so complex it\u2019s hard to even get your hands around.\r\n\r\nWe\u2019ve got world leaders even pronouncing nations differently; we\u2019ve got nations that, you know, didn\u2019t exist even ten years ago that exist now.\u00a0 Take Syria, for example, it\u2019s unbelievable what\u2019s going on right there.\u00a0 There\u2019s no doubt that there\u2019s so much tragedy and heartache but it\u2019s also very complex geopolitically.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a simple good guys versus bad guys situation.\u00a0 In terms of American involvement, first we fund the good guys that are now the bad guys but then they\u2019re going to be the good guys again, then we give our arms to the enemy, then we stash the arms over there and leave them over there so the enemy can get it and we\u2019re trying to figure out how to make sense out of it.\u00a0 And I finally found a good website that explains all of the powers and pressures that are coming upon Syria and it really helped me out when I looked at it because it\u2019s really made a lot of sense once I tried to figure it out.\r\n\r\nBut all kidding aside it is a tragedy and this is just a sign of the times\u2026 a sign of the times.\u00a0 And it\u2019s not just Syria, we have the same thing in Libya, the same thing in Russia and the Ukraine.\u00a0 You know, in the global run up to World War III and the eventual unveiling of the antichrist this all fits perfectly within this current geopolitical scene.\u00a0 Jesus talks about in the tribulation period there would be wars and rumors of wars so if there\u2019s wars and rumors of wars today that could be a setting of the stage, couldn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Jesus said in the tribulation period nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom.\u00a0 We see that happening today, certainly we dare to ask the question, could that be a sign of the times.\r\n\r\nIn Luke 21, Luke\u2019s account of the Olivet Discourse, he\u2019s talking here about a time at the end of the tribulation but we see this similar fear and sense of foreboding today.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s a sign of the times.\u00a0 Zechariah, the prophet, talks about also during the tribulation period there would be great panic and people would raise their hand against their neighbor.\u00a0 In Revelation chapter 6 at the beginning of the tribulation we see the unveiling of the antichrist.\u00a0 This is the first horseman of the apocalypse, a rider on the white horse, he goes out conquering and to conquer.\u00a0 And certainly, according to 1 John 2:18 the spirit of antichrist is already alive and well on the earth today.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [1 John 2:18, \u201cLittle children, it is the last hour: and as ye heard that antichrist cometh, even now have there arisen many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour.\u201d]\r\n\r\nBut the book of Revelation comes full circle, it starts with an imposter on the white horse, the antichrist and it ends with the real deal, the one on the white horse is called \u201cfaithful and true,\u201d Jesus Christ returning just as He said He would.\u00a0 And we\u2019ll be riding with Him, by the way, on white horses coming back to inaugurate the long-awaited kingdom.\r\n\r\nI find it interesting that according to the biblical record there are only two times in human history when Satan himself, prince of demons, Satan is a fallen angel, a demon, he\u2019s the prince of demons, we forget this sometimes and\u00a0 you know, I\u2019m sure Dr. Woods would say the same thing if you took his or my angelology, demonology, and Satanology class but Satan cannot be in more than one place at a time, he\u2019s not omnipresent, he doesn\u2019t know everything, he\u2019s not omniscient, he\u2019s not all powerful, he\u2019s not omnipotent, so he relies son his legion of demons to help accomplish his task of trying to take over the world.\r\n\r\nBut according to biblical history there\u2019s only two times when the moment was so perfect (from his perspective) to try to win this cosmic battle that he didn\u2019t want to delegate, he didn\u2019t want to leave anything to chance, so according to Luke 22 in conjunction with the first advent Satan Himself indwelt Judas to help see that Jesus was betrayed.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s Luke 22:6.\u00a0 [Luke 22:6, \u201cAnd he consented, and sought opportunity to deliver him unto them in the absence of the multitude.\u201d]\u00a0 And I believe according to Daniel chapter 8 and 2 Thessalonians 2 that in conjunction with the second advent of Christ he\u2019s going to indwell the antichrist once again.\u00a0 See, Satan has been trying to take over the world from the beginning, since he got kicked out of heaven.\r\n\r\nThis is the devil\u2019s playground.\u00a0 We talk about this in our DVD\u00a0 The Great Last Days Deception<\/em>.\u00a0 And, you know, Satan, here he is trying to rule this world, he\u2019s called the prince of the power of the air, the god of this age he\u2019s called.\u00a0 1 John 5 says the whole world is under the sway of the wicked one.\u00a0 And when Christ burst onto the scene and became flesh Satan said now is my chance; He came to my backyard, He\u2019s on my turf, I\u2019m going to seize this moment.\u00a0 And so he indwelt Judas to try to accomplish the victory and he thought he had when he crucified our Savior.\u00a0 But of course three days later Christ rose from the dead, an event we just celebrated and no doubt Satan shrieked in horror.\u00a0 But I believe he\u2019s going to do the same thing the second time around and that\u2019s what we read about in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2.\u00a0 So the rise and fall of nation states.\r\n\r\nWhat about the global economic crisis?\u00a0 How could this possibly be a geopolitical sign that we are getting close to the rapture?\u00a0 I mean, there\u2019s so many things we could talk about, for example, Brexit, that was certainly an economic issue at its core.\u00a0 Now we\u2019ve got [sounds like: Shrexit], you know, Sweden trying to leave, right, and of course here in the great republic of Texas we have Texit, maybe that\u2019s a good idea, I don\u2019t really know.\u00a0 But certainly there are all kinds of financial instabilities throughout the world.\u00a0 And I realize the stock market currently is at an all-time high but give it a week, you know, every few weeks we see this volatility in the stock market.\u00a0 And I like to remind people if you can\u2019t touch it you don\u2019t own it.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t touch it you\u00a0 don\u2019t own it!\u00a0 So if your wealth and your portfolio is in little tiny unseen X\u2019s and O\u2019s on some server in somebody\u2019s warehouse somewhere and you are so excited to wake up every day and log into your bank or investment accounts and see your worth, be prepared to lose it just like that, because if\u00a0 you don\u2019t touch it you don\u2019t own it.\r\n\r\nAnd this plays right into the hands, we are a ticking time bomb, it\u2019s code blue for the U.S. economy.\u00a0 And in order to embrace a future one-world economic system the current fractional banking system,\u00a0 you know, with central banks and so forth, privately owned central banks, has to crash and burn.\u00a0 And in the tribulation the antichrist is going to institute a satanically led global economic system where no one is able to buy or sell.\u00a0 That\u2019s the day of the mark of the beast, it\u2019s going to be a cashless society.\r\n\r\nIn Revelation 18, talking about end times Babylon, it says the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.\u00a0 [Revelation 18:3, \u201cFor by the wine of the wrath of her fornication all the nations are fallen; and the kings of the earth committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth waxed rich by the power of her wantonness.\u201d]\u00a0\u00a0 Her plagues will come in one day, death and mourning and famine and all the things which are rich and splendid are gone from you, talking about end times Babylon.\u00a0 [Revelation 18:8, \u201cTherefore in one day shall her plagues come, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judged her.\u201d]\u00a0 We see the same type of volatility and vulnerability today; it certainly seems like it\u2019s setting the stage.\r\n\r\nWhat about the populist movement.\u00a0 If you survey the geopolitical landscape we notice the [can't understand word] movement that\u2019s sweeping across the globe.\u00a0 We certainly saw it in our own country with the latest election, change is coming.\u00a0 One of the things I admire most about Dr. Woods and he and I were talking regularly during the whole last year before the election, was his stand, taking a stand against Trump.\u00a0 And I know there\u2019s good people on all sides of the issue so nothing personal if you are a Trump fan but I admired Andy because he and I took a lot of heat, and Dave Reagan too, for our stand against Trump.\u00a0 But regardless of whether it was genuine organic or staged there was at face value a populous movement and it\u2019s not just in America.\u00a0 Civil wars are breaking out all over the Middle East.\r\n\r\nAnd then the last one here that I just want to talk about and\u00a0 you say boy, why would this rise to the level of a geopolitical sign?\u00a0 Well, fraudulent elections, not just in America but throughout the world.\u00a0 Now this isn\u2019t some conspiracy theory, our own President has launched an investigation, of course you heard a lot about this in the weeks up to the election; since the inauguration you really haven\u2019t seen much about it, but he tapped Mike Pence to lead the panel investigating it, he had all kinds of discussions of hacking and cyber security, and Putin, according to WikiLeaks was tied directly to it.\u00a0 It was because of election fraud we have billboards like this.\u00a0 Because of election fraud we have things like this, right.\u00a0 My dad, by the way, is a mayor of a small town in Colorado and he got really involved in mayoral politics and gone to different Colorado councils of mayors and stuff and he joked one time, he said, now son, when I die be sure and bury me in Chicago so I can continue to do my civic duty and vote.\u00a0 So I said okay, that\u2019s what I\u2019ll do.\r\n\r\nBut you know, anybody that knows even the slightest bit about technology knows you have to know how easy it is to hack\u2026 if you could hack into the NSA you can hack into these little electronic machines that dot the landscape on election day.\u00a0 I promise you, especially since they\u2019re all manufactured by foreign companies to begin with.\u00a0 So it\u2019s a real problem.\u00a0 And this isn\u2019t just, again, stuff of speculation and conspiracy, this is mainstream news.\u00a0 I mean, this is a screen shot I took from Fox News where they were talking about cyber security.\u00a0 This is James Comey testifying before Congress before the election about cyber security.\u00a0 So it is a real problem.\u00a0 And you think about it in terms of the end times, again Satan, I mean the antichrist, Satan\u2019s not omnipotent and all-knowing and so forth, so the antichrist is going to be trying to rule the world, he\u2019s going to need help and what better way to accomplish your globalist one-world government agenda than through technology means.\u00a0 Right.\r\n\r\nBut I guess electronic voting does have its advantages, as this next lady found out so, I mean there are some advantages to electronic voting.\u00a0 But voter fraud and electronic voting machines are no guarantee that things are going to go the way you want.\u00a0 This next lady found out, poor thing, she can\u2019t even win a rigged election.\u00a0 So it is an issue.\u00a0 And is that a sign of the times?\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 I called it ten years ago when most states started adopting the electronic voting machines.\u00a0 And even if you still use a ballot, a physical electronic ballot they\u2019re counted electronically and those results go into some big server somewhere and we just all assume because of the incredible benevolence of our political leaders that it\u2019s going to come out right.\u00a0 Right!\u00a0 If Fox news said it, it can\u2019t possibly be wrong.\u00a0 So whatever they declare is present is present.\u00a0 If you\u2019re interested in this there\u2019s a great documentary called Hacking Democracy<\/em>, or if you prefer to read a book there\u2019s a great book called Black Box Voting<\/em>.\r\n\r\nSo certainly all of this and much, much more paint a geopolitical scene that could easily be setting the stage for the end time.\r\n\r\nWhat about the globalism surge\u2026 the globalism surge?\u00a0 The Bible predicts that there will be a one-world government in the end times.\u00a0 Dr. Woods has talked about this at conferences we\u2019ve shared the same topic before and talked about it and compared notes. \u00a0You know, as you look at Nebuchadnezzar\u2019s dream in Daniel 2 he talks about how there\u2019s going to be this kingdom and you know, the statue in Daniel 2 that Nebuchadnezzar has, gold, silver, bronze, and iron and so forth, and this is talking about the future end times one world government.\u00a0 It starts with the Babylonian Empire, the gold.\u00a0 Then he says another kingdom will arise that\u2019s in fear, well, that\u2019s the Medo-Persian Empire, and then he says in Daniel 2 another, a third kingdom will come, a bronze, that\u2019s Greece.\u00a0 And then he says there\u2019s a fourth kingdom, and by the way, there are only four kingdoms, not a fifth, the fourth kingdom, I mean the fifth one mentioned comes out of the fourth kingdom, the Revived Roman Empire, but the fourth kingdom is as strong as iron and that\u2019s of course the Roman Empire.\u00a0 And then Daniel goes on to say you saw the feet, partly of potter\u2019s clay, partly of iron, and similarly that kingdom will be divided.\u00a0 This is the fourth beast, this is from Daniel 7, same idea in the pictures of the beast there, the fourth kingdom of the earth.\r\n\r\nSo the Roman Empire will give rise to the Revived Roman Empire in the end times.\u00a0 And notice that he says it will be a divided kingdom. Well, this makes sense because the first Roman Empire was divided, was it not, you had Constantinople in the East and you had Rome in the West and I believe the Revived Roman Empire will similarly be divided with five eastern nations and five western nations.\u00a0 So a lot of times people will say is the antichrist going to be European, is he going to be an Arab, you know, it could be either one because they\u2019re all going to be part of that ten nation confederacy.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know they\u2019ll be.\u00a0 If it happens, if the rapture happened today and this all comes about in the next seven years it could easily be France or Spain or whoever from the west, and it could be Assyria, whoever, I don\u2019t know, from the east but it\u2019s clearly going to be a divided\u2026 and it\u2019ll be fragile, it\u2019ll be fragile!\r\n\r\nBut someday\u2026 someday because it\u2019s so fragile because it\u2019s manmade the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, it\u2019ll be a kingdom that shall stand forever.\u00a0 He says you watched and in this vision Nebuchadnezzar saw a stone that was cut without hands, that\u2019s Christ, without human origin, broken them into pieces, eternal in other words\u2026 eternal.\r\n\r\nSo this stone represents the final everlasting kingdom that\u2019s going to come and shatter all of the other kingdoms to smithereens.\u00a0 And Isaiah the prophet talked about this.\u00a0 We read this verse at Christmas but we forget that it has Second coming, most of it, Isaiah 9:6-7, all but the first phrase is Second coming.\u00a0 Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, that\u2019s Bethlehem 2,000 years ago but the rest of it relates to the second coming, when the government will be upon His shoulder.\u00a0 He goes on to say, \u201c\u2026of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 [Isaiah 9:6-7, \u201cFor a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.\u00a0 [7] There will be no end to the increase of His<\/em> government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.\u00a0 The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.\u201d]\r\n\r\nZechariah put it this way, \u201cThe LORD shall be in that day king over all the earth.\u201d\u00a0 [Zechariah 14:9, \u201cAnd Jehovah shall be King over all the earth: in that day shall Jehovah be one, and his name one.\u201d]\u00a0 King over all the earth!\r\n\r\nIn Revelation 19 we read about when Christ comes back and out of His mouth goes a sharp sword that with it He should what?\u00a0 Strike the nations.\u00a0 [Revelation 19:15, \u201cAnd out of his mouth proceedeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God, the Almighty.\u201d]\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 So He can rule them with a rod of iron.\r\n\r\nNow let me ask you a question; is Christ ruling the nations today?\u00a0 Is every nation subject to the authority and placing themselves under the authority of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?\u00a0 By no means\u2026 by no means.\u00a0 So we\u2019re headed toward a one-world government\u00a0 one way or the other.\u00a0 And this globalism surge certainly makes us stop and think could we be getting close.\u00a0 Satan will rule it first through the antichrist, for seven years, he\u2019ll rule it for the antichrist for seven years.\u00a0 We may be in a one-world government longer than that.\u00a0 Have you ever stopped to think about that?\u00a0 You know for years I grew up loving Bible prophecy, my grandfather was a Bible prophecy expert and so even long before I went to college and seminary I was into this stuff, and you know, I\u2019ve always thought that the one-world government comes about with the antichrist, and it\u2019s seven years and Christ comes back, takes the helm and it continues on in perpetuity, because the kingdom of course is not just a thousand years it\u2019s an eternal kingdom, the first thousand years is on [can't understand word].\r\n\r\nBut then it suddenly occurred to me the more I studied the Scripture there\u2019s no Scripture that would preclude the one-world government from already being in place.\u00a0 All it says is that the antichrist is going to take the helm of it.\u00a0 In fact, many people would argue we\u2019re in a De facto one world global system already.\u00a0 So that\u2019s just for what that\u2019s worth.\u00a0 But ultimately Christ is going to take the throne.\u00a0 So clearly\u2026 clearly we see signs that we may be setting the stage for a one-world government and this is something that we talk about in our Illuminating the New World Order<\/em> DVD and we give lots of examples of it but let me just mention a couple of quick quotes here.\r\n\r\nThis is from David Rockefeller who just died March 20th<\/sup> at the age of 101.\u00a0 And in his memoirs he said: \u201cSome people believe we\u2019re part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as internationalist and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global, political and economic structure, one-world if you will.\u00a0 Well, if that\u2019s the charge I stand guilty and I\u2019m proud of it.\u201d\u00a0 He goes on to say, \u201cWe are on the verge of a global transformation, all we need is the right major crisis and the nations of the world will accept the new world order.\u201d\u00a0 And then appearing before the trilateral commission, he said, \u201cThe world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government.\u201d Watch this!\u00a0 \u201cThe supranational sovereignty of an intellectually elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national [can't understand word] practiced in past centuries.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, you dumb nations don\u2019t know what you need or what you want, we need an elite group of intellectuals to rule the world.\u00a0 Right.\r\n\r\nWell, that\u2019s right out of Scripture and right out of the great deception.\u00a0 And we see this with things like Agenda 21 which has no morphed into Agenda 30 and we get into this and that in the DVD series Globalism [can't understand words]\u00a0\u00a0 World Order.\u00a0 Let me mention these next ones fairly fast.\u00a0 Some of them more than\u2026 Gog and Magog Stage Setting, obviously I believe God and Magog is going to happen after the rapture and before the tribulation starts, in that gap of unspecified length of time, as I spelled out for you in my best guess.\u00a0 Different scholars put it in different places; some\u00a0 put in the first half of the tribulation, it\u2019s not a hill to die on because Scripture doesn\u2019t tell us when it\u2019s going to happen except that it must happen after the rapture.\u00a0 And by the way, it might interest you to know that if you read the Left Behind<\/em> series which in that series it puts Gog and Magog before the rapture, but I know firsthand, I knew Tim LaHaye, I met him every year for several years at the Pre-trib conference, he did not personally believe that.\u00a0 He believed that it would happen after the rapture before the tribulation, just like I do.\u00a0 It was for rhetorical literary license that they put it before the rapture but he didn\u2019t personally hold that view. That doesn\u2019t make it right, Tim LaHaye could be wrong to, we might both be wrong.\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019m not wrong, if I thought I was wrong I wouldn\u2019t hold that view.\u00a0 But I could be wrong, it\u2019s bound to happen eventually, right.\u00a0 That was supposed to be tongue in cheek.\r\n\r\nBut whenever it\u2019s going to happen, if it\u2019s after the rapture or the first part of the tribulation, some even say the second part, if we see the stage setting well that\u2019s kind of interesting, right.\u00a0 It\u2019s from Ezekiel 38, it says, \u201cset your face against Gog,\u201d \u00a0the name of the future ruler that would emerge in history, a reference to the future antichrist, Magog is that southern part of Russia.\u00a0 [Ezekiel 38:2, \u201cSon of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him,\u201d]\r\n\r\nBut look at these nations here.\u00a0 Persia, Ethiopia, Put, Gomer, Togarmah, Persia is Iran, Ethiopia is Sudan, Put refers to Libya, Gomer refers to Turkey, Togarmah\u2014Syria.\u00a0 Do you notice anything about those nations listed there along the bottom of the screen?\u00a0\u00a0 Sound familiar?\u00a0 They should.\u00a0 So they\u2019re all in the news almost every day and this is the battle of Gog and Magog and after the rapture these nations are going to come against Israel.\u00a0 So we see Russia and Iran getting pretty chummy these days.\u00a0 Could this be a sign of the stage, this Gog and Magog [can't understand word].\u00a0 It sure could be.\r\n\r\nWhat about the great Satanic deception?\u00a0 Well, Paul tells us there\u2019s going to be one; in fact, he tells us for the last 2,000 years things have been getting worse and worse with people deceiving and being deceived.\u00a0\u00a0 2 Timothy 3:13.\u00a0 [2 Timothy 3:13, \u201cBut evil men and impostors shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.\u201d]\r\n\r\nIn 1 John 2:18 we know that the antichrist is coming but he says but now, even now many antichrist\u2019s have come. [1 John 2:18, \u201cLittle children, it is the last hour: and as ye heard that antichrist cometh, even now have there arisen many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour.\u201d] This is the age of deception and someday it\u2019s going to reach new heights, when the antichrist takes over and he\u2019s going to, with all power, signs and lying wonders, with all unrighteous deception deceive the world.\u00a0 It\u2019ll reach an unprecedented height in the tribulation.\u00a0 That\u2019s why Jesus\u2019 Olivet Discourse, which is His extended answer to the question what will be the sign of Your Second Coming, tell us what\u2019s going to happen in the years leading up to that, all about the Second Coming and Israel has nothing to with the church.\u00a0 He begins the Olivet Discourse with these words; \u201cTake heed that no one deceives you,\u201d [Matthew 24:4] and He uses the word \u201cdeceive\u201d and a caution against deception repeatedly throughout the Olivet Discourse.\r\n\r\nHe says \u201cMany will come in My name saying I am the Christ and will deceive many,\u201d [Mark 13:6]\u00a0 Many false prophets will deceive many, He said it is going to be so great that it would deceive, if possible, even the elect.\u00a0 [Mark 13:22, \u201cFor false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were<\/em> possible, even the elect.\u201d]\u00a0 And this is the whole premise of our book, The Great Last Days Deception<\/em>.\u00a0 Adolf Hitler put it this way in Mein Kampf<\/em>, <\/em>this often misquoted as the bigger the lie the more it will be believed.\u00a0 That\u2019s a good summary statement of what he said, but what he actually said is \u201cthe principle which is quite true in itself is that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0There\u2019s no way they could get people to believe such a lie.\r\n\r\nReally!\u00a0 Have you been paying attention?\u00a0 I mean, imagine in the 1400\u2019s if somebody had kind of tapped you on the shoulder and said you\u2019re not going to believe this but someday just about everybody on planet earth, someday everybody on planet earth is going to think that you and I evolved over 65,000,000 years from a wet rock and monkeys and gorillas are our ancestors.\u00a0 You would have been laughed out of the room.\u00a0 And yet today that\u2019s common place.\u00a0 The bigger the lie the easier it is to believe. Vladimir Lenin said \u201cA lie told often enough becomes the truth.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnd one of the ones that I have found to be true again and again and again and again and I want you to think about this, this is from that great theologian, Mark Twain, he said \u201cit\u2019s easier to fool people than to convince them they\u2019ve been fooled.\u201d\u00a0 The great satanic deception.\r\n\r\nThen we see the glaring spiritual apostasy\u2026 the glaring spiritual apostasy.\u00a0 1 Timothy 4:1, in the latter times, just a synonym for the last days, some will depart from the faith, it\u2019s going to be getting worse and worse and worse.\u00a0 [1 Timothy 4:1, \u201cBut the Spirit saith expressly, that in later times some shall fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons,\u201d]\u00a0 And then he says the time will come during these last days when they will not endure sound doctrine but be turned aside to fables. [2 Timothy 4:3, \u201cFor the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, [4] and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.\u201d]\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s talking about in the church and you see this sort of departure\u2026 we live in what\u2019s called the post-Christian era, you know, Newsweek <\/em>called it The Decline and Fall of Christian America<\/em>, Time<\/em> got an article, What if There is No Hell<\/em>, that\u2019s the thing about apostasy, at first it appears minor, no big deal.\u00a0 But before long you\u2019ve completely departed from the standard of Orthodoxy and we see this in the church today getting worse and worse and worse.\u00a0 You know, people, Christian people, at least church going people, are picking up books like Rob Bell, you know, that deny the existence of hell, or Leonard Sweet\u2019s The Gospel According to Starbucks<\/em>.\u00a0 I had the chance to meet Leonard, I spoke at a conference where he was speaking (don\u2019t hold that against me, I\u2019ll speak anywhere that lets me preach the gospel).\u00a0 But if you\u2019ve read that book you know how heretical it is and I don\u2019t use that word lightly.\u00a0 But we live in a day when the Bible is rejected, sound doctrine is rejected; it\u2019s a glaring spiritual apostasy.\r\n\r\nAnd then the glorifying of sin.. the glorifying of sin, again, \u201cBut know this, that in the last days\u201d as we said earlier, \u201cperilous times shall come.\u201d \u00a0It says people are going to be \u201clovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.\u201d\u00a0 [2 Timothy 3:1-2, But know this, that in the last days grievous times shall come. [2] For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, [3] unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,\u00a0\u00a0 [4] treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God:]\r\n\r\nWhen you\u2019ve got people like Lady Gaga or Beyonc\u00e9\u00a0 taking the stage as the most watched event every year, where everybody is just.. and these are two of the most demonically influenced beings on planet earth today I believe, you talk about glorifying sin\u2026 there\u2019s no shame any more\u2026 there\u2019s no shame!\u00a0 And then you\u2019ve what I call the gender surrender movement\u2026the gender surrender movement, I think again this is a very key attack, one of Satan\u2019s final frontiers to attack.\u00a0 In Genesis 1:27 we read, \u201cGod created man in His own image\u201d and He created them \u201cmale and female.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 So the gender attack is an attack on the very image of God.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the reason you have, for example, in North Carolina public school teachings being taught in their in service before school started, that they\u2019re no longer allowed to use the term boys and girls, that\u2019s too offensive and it\u2019s not gender inclusive.\u00a0 That\u2019s why Nebraska teachers were told the same thing, you have to use phrases like purple penguin, boys and girls is not inclusive of transgender.\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s why the Department of Ed issued the gender bread diagram to all 50 states encouraging public schools from second grade on up to use this as a guide for how to deal with their students with gender, you\u2019re supposed to talk to them about gender identity, do they feel womanness or manness, or gender expression, do they like to express themselves more feminally or masculinly?\u00a0 What\u2019s the biological sex, do you have femaleness of maleness?\u00a0 Who are you sexually attracted to?\u00a0 Who are you romantically attracted to?\u00a0 You\u2019re interested in more about the perils of the compulsory government mind control program we call public schools, I encourage you to pick up either Indoctrination<\/em> or Escaping Common Core<\/em>, I know the [can't understand word] producer, one of them was the award winning Christian documentary of the year that came out and they\u2019re outstanding\u2026 they\u2019re outstanding.\r\n\r\nBut I\u2019ve seen it, I\u2019ve traveled, you know, all over, I\u2019ve seen this whole gender neutral issue and if you think that, you know, Trump is going to be able to change that wait and see\u2026 wait and see.\u00a0 It\u2019ll be changed right after the wall goes up.\u00a0 Government spying, you say well why would this make my top ten list?\u00a0 Well, very important, again in order for Satan to accomplish his new world order agenda and take over the earth he\u2019s going to need technological help, just like we said with the elections, he\u2019s not omniscient so he\u2019s going to need a mechanism to attract people.\u00a0 Now he\u2019s not confined by space so he can go, because he\u2019s not always in bodily form, he can kind of shape ship and take on forms like we\u2019ve talked about and we see that in Scripture.\r\n\r\nYou know, demons can indwell pigs or humans or whatever.\u00a0 But he still can\u2019t see it all at one time.\u00a0 The world is a big place so he can send demons to different places to give a report, they can come right back and say here\u2019s what\u2019s going on in the western United States or whatever.\u00a0 But if he was able to sort of have a prison planet where he could sort of see it all then he\u2019s going to be able to do that.\u00a0 Then it\u2019ll be easier for him to do that.\r\n\r\nYou know, Daniel, chapter 7 says this future beast is going to be exceedingly dreadful and trample everyone down; he\u2019s going to have a horn which had eyes that were greater than his fellows.\u00a0 He\u2019s going to be able to see all of these things so that he can devour the whole earth and trample it into pieces.\r\n\r\nSo we really are living in an age where everything is tracked, everything is watched.\u00a0 Here\u2019s some server farms that are owned by Facebook, and you know, here\u2019s the Sandy, Utah Fusion Center, we had the chance to drive by and see it from the freeway off in the distance back in February and March when we were up in that part of the country speaking.\u00a0 It can hold twelve\u00a0 xabytes of data\u2026 12 xabytes of data.\u00a0 An xabyte is\u2026 I\u2019m trying to remember now, how many thousands of gigabytes, I can\u2019t remember the numbers, I don\u2019t have them in front of me but it\u2019s unbelievable.\u00a0 Basically it\u2019s enough data that it could store every word ever spoken from the beginning of time.\u00a0 So you know,\u00a0 just keep that in mind the next time you e-mail somebody.\r\n\r\nBut this is, you know, nothing new, it\u2019s been in plain sight forever, this government spying concept.\u00a0 You know, mainstream news, Fox News covering that drones are not just for tracking terror and more.\r\n\r\nAnd then finally, growing scoffers\u2026 growing scoffers, 2 Peter 3, we come back to that, we started there.\u00a0 Scoffers will come in these last days and what are they going to say?\u00a0 \u201cWhere is the promise of His coming?\u201d\u00a0 The more people scoff at the end times, and I see it all over the place, when I tell people I speak on the end times it\u2019s like why don\u2019t you speak on something more relevant, I mean, nobody cares about that stuff anymore.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 And that\u2019s just being, you know, we\u2019re being propagandized to think that.\u00a0 So the millennials aren\u2019t interested.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because they\u2019ve been taught by Hollywood that it\u2019s all the stuff of lunacy, right?\u00a0 You see little [can't understand word] like this one here.\u00a0 You know, this lady, I don\u2019t want to brag or anything but this like the fifth end of the world I\u2019ve survived, as if\u2026 you know, there\u2019s never going to be an end of the world and everybody always says there\u2019s going to be an end of the world and I don\u2019t have to worry about it.\u00a0 Right?\r\n\r\nBut even within the church you\u2019ve got false teachers that are suggesting that the rapture is a hoax that needs to be debunked and it\u2019s not true.\u00a0 But remember the louder the scoffers the closer we must be getting to the end.\u00a0 So in a way, as discouraging as it is, it\u2019s also encouraging because it\u2019s a fulfilment of that prediction.\r\n\r\nSo we\u2019ve seen, you know, all of the signs and we return to what Jesus said, if we see these signs of the times happening could that mean that these end times events are right around the corner?\u00a0 If so, then the rapture is even closer.\u00a0 So we want to keep watching the stage, we don\u2019t know when that curtain is going to rise.\u00a0 It could be at any moment, but when it does rise it\u2019s going to rise with the rapture and we\u2019re going to meet the Lord in the air.\u00a0 And I hope you\u2019re ready\u2026 I hope you\u2019re ready for that.\u00a0 I would assume a Wednesday night crowd of a place like Sugar Land Bible Church, you probably all know the Lord but if you\u2019re here tonight and you don\u2019t know the Lord, or you don\u2019t know that you know the Lord, come talk to me, or Jim, or one of the elders because the Bible says there\u2019s only one way to be saved, it\u2019s by grace through faith alone in Christ.\u00a0 You can\u2019t earn it, you can\u2019t work for it, you can\u2019t be good enough.\u00a0 There\u2019s \u201cnothing in my hand, simply to the cross I cling,\u201d you simply by faith receive the free gift paid for by the blood of Christ, God\u2019s Son and our Savior who died in\u00a0 your place and my place on the cross to pay a debt He didn\u2019t owe because we owed a debt we could never pay. He rose again the third day defeating death, hell and the grave and He offers freely to all this gift of forgiveness and eternal life if you\u2019ll simply receive it from Him.\r\n\r\nSo let me close, we\u2019re out of time for tonight, I\u2019ll close and dismiss and then if you want to stick around and ask some questions I\u2019d love to engage in that.\u00a0 But let me just mention a little bit about our ministry.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been around since 99, I started it when I was teaching fulltime at the College of Biblical Studies, and over the\u00a0 years as it\u2019s grown it finally became something that we wanted to just go all in with and so now this is our ministry.\u00a0 It\u2019s the only way we make a living, is by going throughout the country speaking at churches and conferences and we make the gospel central to all that we do, it\u2019s declaring the\u00a0 urgency and accuracy of the gospel message.\u00a0 More and more these days we\u2019re speaking on end time prophecy.\u00a0 Sunday morning in worship hour I\u2019m going to be speaking on one minute after the rapture.\u00a0 We have a DVD of that presentation if you\u2019re interested or if\u00a0 you\u2019re not going to be here, or if you want to pass it on after\u00a0 you come Sunday if you want to pass it on to someone else you can pick that up.\r\n\r\nOur brand new Not By Works<\/em> book of theological charts, diagrams, and illustrations is out there, our eschatology textbook is out there. I already mentioned the globalism DVD set.\u00a0 We also have the What Lies Ahead DVD set which is more just an end times overview, Daniel 2, Daniel 7, and the rapture.\u00a0 I mentioned The Great Last Days deception book.\u00a0 And I want to close with mentioning our Not By Works Grand Canyon Rim and Raft Trip.\u00a0 How many of you have ever been to the Grand Canyon?\u00a0 Great.\u00a0 What did you think when that tour guide showed\u00a0 you that spot exactly where creation rock was, where God created it, do you remember that?\u00a0 Oh, he didn\u2019t show you that?\u00a0 Yeah, you\u2019re not going to get that from a secular atheistic tour guide, National Parks Service guy, not that there\u2019s not Christians there, but we\u2019ve been a few times or a couple of times and we can\u2019t wait to do this with a world renowned creation expert, Russ Miller, Creation Ministries.org, he leads these several times a summer, 15 times or so and he asked us to sponsor one of them and it\u2019s going to be awesome to see where creation rock meets judgment.\u00a0 The Grand Canyon, formed in three days as a result of the flood, and it is the death nail for Darwinian evolution.\u00a0 We still have a few spots open.\u00a0 This is not an outdoorsman rough and tumble hiking type trip.\u00a0 This is for guys like me,\u00a0 you know, it\u2019s an air conditioned chartered busses, restaurants, hotels, a nice drift down still waters in the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River and then up walking around the rim. So it\u2019s a great trip.\u00a0 I\u2019d love to have you go, June 15-18 if you\u2019re interested.\r\n\r\nLet me pray and then we will dismiss those of you that need to go and if you want to stick around I\u2019ll be glad to answer questions.\r\n\r\nFather, we do thank You for Your Word and for the\u2026 just the clarity that is there in Your Word about how You\u2019re unfolding Your plan.\u00a0\u00a0 You are a faithful God, a trustworthy God; nothing ever surprises you.\u00a0 We know You\u2019re in full control, even though we look around and we begin to wonder, how long Lord, why Lord, when Lord, and Father we know that You\u2019re in control.\u00a0 And Father, we pray that you would be faithful and we would wake up every day and look up and think it could be today, and live our lives in a way that when you do return we\u2019ll be confident before You at Your coming.\u00a0 And so Father, we thank You for this time together, we love You and praise You, in Jesus name.\u00a0 Amen.\r\n\r\nThank you guys, and I\u2019ll take some questions now if anybody has any and I\u2019m not in any hurry.\r\n\r\n ","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t