I’ve thought about how to best address this situation. How do I preach to a small congregation in peaceful little Watkins Glen about the massive goings-on in the world? Or do I not preach on it and pretend as if it’s not going on? After all, we’re a long way from Ukraine. We are very blessed to live in such a peaceful little place, but we don’t know if or how our government may involve itself internationally at this point. And we don’t know if Russia or China may try to sabotage us somehow while they have the chance, whether through conventional warfare or through crippling our economy, or through cyber attacks.
A lot of people are asking if this is the beginning of The End. We have wars and rumors of war, but on top of that, the world’s moral decay is out of control, we’ve hit the point of no return as far as that goes. Even churches are preaching things that they would have never gotten away with preaching just 25 years ago. What does this mean?
Today, we’re going to look primarily at Matthew 24. I was tempted to read the whole chapter because it all flows together, but I’m just going to skip through it and highlight a few verses to keep it brief. So instead of reading those verses up front, I’m going to read them as we go along.
And if this sermon sounds familiar to you, I am borrowing from a sermon I preached not too long ago because I think with everything that’s gone on this week, it’s timely.
Today, we are going to address the idea of wars and rumors of war, and look at what The Bible has to say about it.
I’ve heard people dismiss this kind of teaching, but it shouldn’t be dismissed. Jesus taught us to not dismiss it but to understand the times when we see it. Are we seeing it now? It’s too early to say for sure, but if things progress a certain way from here, then we should be aware and ready––as I’ve stated in another sermon not too long ago––for another great awakening.
So, just to get it straight, before we get started: we are not going to know specifically the day or the hour of Christ’s return, but we are going to know the season. In just a couple of days, it’ll be March, and in a few weeks, it’ll be Spring––the beginning of a new season. And we have signs that show us that Winter is ending and Spring is arriving.
In the same way, we have a promise of knowing the season in which Christ will return. The reason why Jesus––and others throughout both the Old Testament and the New Testament gives us these signs is both for encouragement, and a warning. But for those of us in Christ, it is more of encouragement so that we can give a warning and so that we could have peace and give hope during a chaotic season; and hopefully, give an invitation to those who are in fear to have the same peace and hope that we have.
Let’s start, again with Matthew Chapter 24, with verses 4-8.
4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.”
Notice that Jesus describes all of this as ‘the beginning of birth pains.’ When someone has birth pains, those pains will tell you, it’s time to get to the hospital, something is about to happen. And if we look at it from the right perspective, birth pains tell you that something you’ve been waiting for is about to happen.
You know you’re going to give birth soon, but the hour of that event is unknown.
Some say these birth pains have been going on since the time of Christ, and have been increasingly intensifying, as birth pains do, right? So the problems of this world have been increasingly intensifying for 2,000 years with false Christs, wars, plagues, famines, earthquakes, and other natural disasters, but will peak in intensity just before Christ returns.
We know that the idea of false Christs will ultimately culminate into an Antichrist who will be in control for seven years but will wreak havoc with full control of the whole world for three and a half of those years. It doesn’t sound long when you put it that way, but The Bible tells us that it is long enough for major destruction and persecution like the world has never seen. And we know that it’s easy even today to wreak havoc and major destruction almost instantly with the kinds of warfare we have. One of the things many people are in fear of right now is this war in Ukraine escalating. People are reluctantly referring to what’s going on as World War 3. We hope it doesn’t come to that, but imagine what might happen if the nations of the world are not careful.
We are in a very precarious position right now. We have been for the past 20 years. This past September marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Do you remember thinking, “what is going to happen next?” Do you remember that feeling? We knew war was imminent, we were going to strike back, but how was war in the Middle East going to affect everything else? It kind of felt as if there were wars and rumors of wars at that time.
Now, we have the attack on Ukraine––which began as a rumor. We have rumors of China’s attack on Taiwan, Israel is still being hit. What will the European Union do? What will the United States do? How will this end? Will it get worse?
Moving on, if you still have your Bibles open, let’s look at Matthew 24, verses 10 and 11: “10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.”
Without saying too much, we’ve seen that this past couple of years, haven’t we? If it wasn’t COVID, it was the race riots––if you want to call them that––the Black Lives Matter riots.
Going down to verses 23 through 25, Jesus said, “23 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. 24 For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you ahead of time.”
I want to take a few moments now and talk about this. We haven’t had a false messiah performing great signs and wonders yet. But I can see how it might lead to that. There are churches now, and a movement called the New Apostolic Reformation where they want to see signs and wonders, almost making an idol out of signs and wonders.
Here’s something I found on crosswalk.com
What Christians need to know about New Apostolic Reformation teaching is that extra-biblical revelation is not godly revelation. The canon of Scripture is complete. Everything we need to know about our faith God has already given to us. What we need is not new revelations about what God is saying. We need simply to rely on and find truth and understanding in what God has already said. Some in this movement mistakenly put the words of these “apostles” on the same level of Scripture and that is not only reckless but dangerous as well.
It also said:
If there is one thing Christians need to know about the New Apostolic Reformation is that there is a great emphasis on signs and wonders. While I believe God can and does still do miraculous things, I believe there is too much emphasis placed on these things within this movement. While part of our faith is experiential, those experiences must be rooted in the principles and teachings of scripture. Too often in these types of movements, people fall victim to experiences that do not line up in any way with what God has revealed in his Word.
I want to share with you a simple principle that will help you. This will help you whether you believe the gifts of the Holy Spirit as listed in 1 Corinthians 12 are in operation today or if you think they are not. The Holy Spirit always moves in cooperation with the Word of God, never outside of it. When the Holy Spirit is moving, he will always be in alignment with the Bible. The reason this is true is because if he didn’t, how could we ever effectively test the spirits as we are called to do. The standard for testing is the Bible. Unfortunately, many in this movement elevate the reliance on signs and wonders sometimes even above Scripture. What you may soon discover when you pull back the curtain is these are not really true signs and wonders at all because they don’t align with Scripture. As I said before part of your faith can be experiential, just make sure those experiences are rooted and grounded in the Word of God.
In other words, it’s not that there aren’t signs and wonders, but if signs and wonders and miracles are not in line with what is exemplified in scripture, then it doesn’t come from God, it comes from Satan.
And this type of false Christianity is deceiving even the elect. ‘The elect’ is another term for Christians. In fact, Jesus starts his dialogue in verse 4 with the phrase, “Watch out that no one deceives you.”
Besides signs and wonders, the apostle Paul warned young Timothy that there will be terrible times in the Last Days. Then he lists a number of ways in which people at that time will live––boastful, proud, lovers of money, lovers of themselves, wicked, abusive, disobedient to their parents––a whole list of birth pains that are intensifying in this day and age; and then he finishes up with “5 having a form of godliness but denying its power.”
In other words, there will be many who call themselves Christians but live like sinners. Sound familiar? A lot of Christians used to go to church on Sunday and live like the world the rest of the week. Only they’d hide it from fellow church members. There’s a song that came out when I was my kids’ age called, “Hide the Beer, the Pastor’s Here.”
That’s kind of how people lived. But now, churches are teaching their congregants it’s okay to live like the world, just be good and kind and seek unity because it’s all about being nice and helping people. There’s no such thing as sin or hell. You’re fine just the way you are.
John Bevere said of those verses in Timothy, “The reason for the terrible times would not be persecution from the government or atheists but instead would stem from widespread deception within the church.”
Like I said, there are things being preached in churches now that would have never been taught 20 or 30 years ago. I’ve come across a couple of blog posts recently on Evangelical Christianity and those who are ‘deconstructing’ their faith. This is how Alisa Childers defines deconstruction in her book, Another Gospel?
“In the context of faith, deconstruction is the process of systematically dissecting and often rejecting the beliefs you grew up with. Sometimes the Christian will deconstruct all the way into atheism. Some remain there, but others experience a reconstruction. But the type of faith they end up embracing almost never resembles the Christianity they formerly knew.”
She goes on to say that some have defined Jesus and Martin Luther as ‘deconstructionists,’ which is of course absurd.
Instead, she said, “As Christians, the process of evaluating our beliefs, traditions, and church culture in light of Scripture, and rejecting any unbiblical beliefs with the goal of living more authentically as Christians should be a daily reality. But this isn’t deconstruction. It might be rightly called “reformation” or “restoration” or even “healing.””
I could go on and on about this topic, but there’s a blog post that a deconstructionist wrote in response to Alisa Childer’s post, and it’s worth reading both of them to fully understand what kind of divisive theology is going on in the church.
Theological deception among believers is a sign of the end times. But on the bright side, God’s promise to Daniel in the last days is found in Daniel 12:4 where people will run here and there seeking and even increasing their knowledge of prophetic Scripture as they intently search the Word of God. Remember Jesus says that the gospel will be preached to all the world before he comes.
In other words, in the last days, we will see an increase in people seeking scripture and finding its knowledge because they will recognize and understand the season they are in.
I think that during the End Times there will be both an apostasy and a revival at the same time. Remember, I preached a sermon on revival not too long ago. In the days to come, I think you’re going to see an apostasy increase in culture, but a revival in the church. I also think there will be awakening because those who have set God aside will be awakened through all of this chaos going on around them, and they’ll want to seek and know God, and it’s going to come through one-on-one personal relationships and within true churches.
Churches like ours might see a growth spurt through these hard times.
Going back to Matthew 24, verses 32-34
32“Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 33 Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. 34 Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
Before I go on, what did Jesus mean when he said, “this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened?” I mean if Jesus didn’t know the day or hour of his return, then how could he know if the generation he was speaking to would pass away before his return?
But, if you look at it in context, who Jesus was referring to was not the generation he was talking to, but the generation he was talking about. They would not pass away until all these things have happened. That means everything he is describing will happen within one generation.
When we look at this passage, Jesus wants us to know the signs of the times. He wants us to know in order to encourage us so that when chaos happens, we’ll understand it. We’ll see it with the correct lens. We will know and recognize what is happening and we’ll see it with hope and gladness. Yes, even fear, but fear with faith. We’ll see it and be able to discern what is going on so that we can bring hope to the world.
It’s like I just read from Daniel. People are going to want to know. And we can give them the answers and be a shining light to the world who is seeking the truth in the midst of chaos.
If we back up to verse 15, we read Jesus say, “15 So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand.”
That’s an odd phrase. We don’t specifically understand what “The abomination that causes desolation” is. There’s nothing specific to tell us that that is. But when the Antichrist comes, when this abomination happens, when wars and rumors of wars and natural disasters intensify, we need to know the scriptures of the End Times well enough that not only do we understand what is going on around us, but we can point people to the scriptures as well and give people the same hope of Christ as we have, and an invitation to receive Christ and be among those who are taken when he returns.
There’s a quote from an unknown source who said: Many evangelical believers have only heard preaching about the second coming of Christ that used fear as the motivation for readiness. As a result, many people live with a certain resentment toward God and the idea of the second coming. But the dominant pattern of New Testament teaching is that Christ’s return will be a time of great joy for those who are prepared to meet Him. For those who are ready, that day will be a day of celebration and joy as Jesus’ followers enter His presence for unbroken fellowship with Him. Such a joyful possibility should also be a major motivation to be ready for that day.
I want to end with a couple of more passages. If you want to turn to 2 Peter 3, we’ll read quite a bit from there. As you’re turning there, I’d like to read a short passage from James 5:7-8.
7 Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.
See, here again, we see the sense of The Lord’s coming with hopeful anticipation in its proper season. Here, James uses the autumn season in which we are about to enter.
In 2 Peter 3, starting with verse 8, Peter urges his readers to be patient as well as they wait for the coming of the Lord.
8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.
11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.
14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. 15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
17 Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.
The Gospel of Luke records Jesus’ parable of the fig tree as well, but he prefaces it with this. “28 When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
I want to urge you to watch and wait expectantly for the Lord. Keep an eye on the times. Don’t get panicky or over-cautious. Don’t be afraid. We have nothing to fear. But keep a ready and steady gaze on what is happening and discern how things might be progressing to that promised day. Every day, inch by inch for the past 2000 years has been steadily growing closer to that day. Don’t be surprised when we see birth pains intensify.
One more thing before we close. This is from an article on CBN News that I shared on our church’s Facebook page:
While many Bible experts believe Israel’s re-emergence has been fulfilled, [author Joel] Rosenberg and others contend the Gog and Magog prophecy [which may involve Russia, depending on its interpretation] remains unfulfilled.
“The one-day, future evil leader of Russia is going to form an alliance with Iran, Turkey, and some other hostile countries to come and surround and attack Israel in the last days,” he said.
Some might wonder if Putin and contemporary Russia fit this bill, but Rosenberg was again cautious and said it’s possible these events are hundreds of years away — or closer. The Bible doesn’t specify, and Christians are implored not to date-set.
That said, Rosenberg delivered a warning about Putin back in 2018 that is incredibly fascinating considering the events we’re watching unfold this week.
“Vladimir Putin is more dangerous to the United States and our way of life than radical Islam,” he said. “And I don’t think most Americans process it that way.”
So, is the chaos in Ukraine part of the end times? No one knows, but considering ongoing international issues surrounding Israel, Iran, and Russia, you can bet many Christians and theologians will be closely watching.
So what am I saying? I’m saying it’s too soon to know whether or not this is the beginning of the End. It could be. But this just might be another world conflict that we have to somehow endure. In either case, God is still on His throne, and nothing will happen without his knowledge, His power, and grace.
Last week I briefly mentioned the trials of Job. I’d like to end with something that Job said to God after his ordeal was through. He said, “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”
Birth pains are going to intensify the closer we get to the end. But as God’s children, there’s nothing for us to fear.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on First Baptist Church of Watkins Glen
Featured Image by Meir L from Pixabay
