The lesson this morning will
be taken from Luke chapter 21, the second half of the chapter,
verses 25 through 38. In these verses there are two
events foretold, the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD and the
second coming of Christ. It's very confusing to commentators
who can't see the relationship between what took place in 70
A.D. and the end of time. And as it
often is, our Lord has arranged these things in a way to snare
the wise and prudent. He writes things in the Scriptures
that way and reveals them unto babes. So let's read these verses
together. Luke chapter 21, beginning with
verse 25. And there shall be signs in the
sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth
distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring,
men's hearts failing them for fear, for looking after those
things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven
shall be broken. And then shall they see the Son
of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to
come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your
redemption draweth nigh. And he spake to them a parable.
Behold the fig tree, and all the tree, When they now shoot
forth, you see and know of your own selves that summer is now
nigh at hand. I was told when I first moved
here, I wasn't aware I was in Kentucky, but not here. I liked
the garden, and I wanted to know when the danger of frost was
over. Was there some natural sign to
look for? And they always told me when
the pecan tree leaves out, you can plant your garden. So that's
what, and this is what he's talking about here. You know when these
things begin to shoot forth, you know summer's here. It's
here. So likewise, when you see these
things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is at
hand. Verily I say unto you, this generation
shall not pass away till all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth
shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away. And take
heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged
with surfeiting. What's that mean? Abundance, isn't it? Overabundance
and drunkenness and cares of this life so that the day come
upon you unaware. For as a snare shall it come
on all them that dwell on all the face of the earth. Watch
ye therefore, and pray always that ye may be accounted worthy
to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand
before the Son of man. And in the daytime he was teaching
in the temple, And at night he went out and abode in a mount
that is called the Mount of Olives. And all the people came early
in the morning to him in the temple for to hear him." Now,
there are several lessons here. I'm only going to tackle a couple
this morning, but I want to take my time and go through these
things. And I titled the lesson this
morning, The End of All Things is Near. Isn't it? Several lessons to be taught
in these verses, but let's take our time and look at them individually
and look at them in some detail. Now, I want to say something
before we get into the lesson this morning. These things are...
If you take these things to heart, they're terrifying. Especially
if you don't know God. They're terrifying. But it's
not my goal this morning to use some kind of fear tactic to pressure
somebody into a profession of faith. That's something false
religion does, to fill up pews and keep people in line. They
always have to have fear. My friend many years ago told
me one time, we need a little law. No, no we don't, because
we don't use fear. Love is the motive God uses to
call, convert, and constrain His saints. The love of God. We've not received, He said,
the spirit of bondage again to fear. If God has granted to us
the Holy Spirit of God, it's not the spirit of bondage. It's
just not. When people press those things
on you and preach to you, With that in mind, you're not hearing
from the Spirit of God at all. We've not received the spirit
of bondage again, but the spirit of adoption, whereby
we cry, Have a Father. And this love, he tells us in
1 John 4, 18, has no fear in it. You ever read that verse?
Love doesn't have any fear. Ain't no fear in it. Ain't no fear in it. But rather, it says, this love
casteth out fear. It gets rid of the fear. And
this love in Christ is revealed to us, and it's perfection, perfect
love. That we may have boldness in
the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world. But neither do I want you to
leave here today indifferent or undisturbed concerning the
day of the Lord. The facts revealed in this book
concerning sinners whose hearts love darkness rather than light
ought to be terrifying. It ought to be. Do you know that
God has caused kings on this earth, potentates, to tremble
before him under the preaching of the gospel? Every soul not drawn to faith
in Christ, the scripture said, shall be damned. No ifs, ands,
or buts about it. Shall be damned. Every soul that
listens to this gospel and who's not led to repentance is hardening
their heart. Every time. Hardening their heart. And will in time have a conscience
as if it had been seared with a hot iron. Nothing will disturb
you. I've heard it all before. That same Jesus that you so often
heard and ignored and heard and set aside and heard and refused
to bow to, will in a time you think not, that's what the scripture
said, in a time you think not, He'll call you before His holy
bar of justice and give you your just due for all your sins. No watered down sentence, no
mercy. How shall we escape, he said,
if we neglect so great salvation? How are you going to escape?
Where are you going to go? Where are you going to look? And this salvation, he said,
was preached by Christ in the beginning, and then his apostles
after him, and his pastors that followed them. There's an end coming and the
scripture says it's near. Will it be today? I don't know. Could be. I may not finish this
message before the Lord appears. I don't know when He's coming.
I don't know. Will it be next week? I don't
know. But even if He tarries, you think
about this, even if He tarries another thousand years, your
end is near. Isn't it? You think 80 years,
90 years is a long time? Oh, you got a surprise coming
to you. It seems like, just like the scripture said, like standing
on a teak hill. You see it for a minute and it's
gone. That's just how fast life moves. The end is near for you and I.
John said, I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God and
the books were opened. All the books. The book of life,
the book of law, and symbolically that book that
he writes down all our transgressions in. The books. And the dead shall
be judged out of the things written in those books. The end, isn't
it? The Bible is clear on this subject.
Leave no gray area. He that believeth not shall be
damned. Hell will be your portion. You
live your life out in unbelief and take no heed to the gospel
preached to you. Hell is your portion. What is
hell? I don't really know. All I know
is what the Holy Ghost has revealed in this book. And what he's revealed in this
book is everlasting fire. That's how he describes it. Everlasting
fire, endless misery, indescribable woe, never-ending wrath, everlasting
darkness, eternal isolation. Somebody says, I have a lot of
friends there. No, you won't. No, you won't. Never-ending death. Have you ever been around somebody
that died? They were suffering from cancer or whatever, all
kind of deaths, but people suffering in this life and it just seems
like it'll never end. It just goes on and on and on
and pretty soon you're praying for death. Well, hell is never-ending death. It's a bottomless pit. And I
listen to people talk at funerals and they always talk about death
as an end of suffering. Not, if you believe not, it's
not an end of suffering. It's the beginning. It's just
the beginning. They talk about it like it's
an end of a hard life. and the beginning of something
better. And others think on death as the end, as their death was
that of a beast, that there's nothing after death. But all these things are contrary
to the Word of God. Truth is, there's nothing in
or about death to give any hope to anyone outside of Christ. Now I've got some very candid
and plain things to say, and I hope you'll give me your full
attention. There's at least seven lessons
in these verses, and this morning I want to confine myself to just
two. And the first of these lessons
is the subject matter. Now we can read and speculate
and talk all we want to, but if we don't know what he's talking
about, what have we accomplished? You see what I'm saying? There's
a subject matter here. And then, what this subject matter
teaches, and what follows. Now by the end of all things,
I mean the end of all things as they appear now. This is not
the end of all things. There's a hell for those who
believe not. There's a heaven for those who
do believe. The soul is eternal and you're
going to spend eternity, forever. Our minds can't even comprehend
that in one of those two places. There's two ends which our Lord
describes to his disciples. The first is the end of typical
worship, Judaism, legalism, ceremonialism, and a typical nation used to
picture the elect of God. He's talking about that destruction
of Jerusalem which came to pass in 70 A.D. Now you want to let
the hair on your neck stand up, you go read the history of it.
Josephus, a famous Jewish historian. You'll probably hear his name
quoted more than any other when you talk about the history of
Jerusalem. He was in the siege in Jerusalem when it happened.
It's just unbelievable, Russell. The very nation in which he lived. And he, on the behalf of Rome,
Josephus went in and begged them, begged them to give up, begged
them to turn themselves over to Rome.
They wouldn't do it. They wouldn't do it. And 1.1 million Jews died in
Jerusalem in 78 A.D. And 97,000 were carried away into slavery. Boy, there ain't no good news
in that, is there? The very nation in which Jesus
was born, the very people to whom he was foretold, pictured,
prophesied, the people he grew up with, ministered to, walked
among, had seen and heard the Son of Man and believed not on
him. Listen to this, John 6, 36. This is the Lord talking. But
I said unto you that you also have seen me, and believe not. You looked into the eyes of the
incarnate God of glory, and believe not. Their temple, their city,
their religion was accursed of God and a day of reckoning was
set in the providence of God. Now there's a day and a time
for all that. They were figures for the time
then present. They were patterns of things
in the heavens, shadows of good things to come. But the body,
Paul said, is of Christ. And the second end is the end
of all things as they appear in this present evil world. The
religion of that day was the religion of the Jews. The religion
of our day is the religion of the gospel of Christ. The religion
of that day was purely typical. Read Hebrews chapter 9. It was
all typical. It was a figure for the time
then present. in which were offered gifts and
sacrifices that could not take away sin. They merely pictured
the work of Christ. The religion of our day is the
religion of the gospel of Christ. It's a gospel age. It's the fulfillment
of all the types. It's a gospel age, if you will,
in which the coming of Christ, his life on this earth, his death
on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, and His ascension
into glory is declared to men and women. It's declared to sinners, any
sinners, all sinners, every age of sinners, male and female,
rich and poor. Christ is preached as the way,
the truth, and the life. There's no other way, there's
no other truth. You don't understand truth apart
from Christ. You just don't. He's preached in His accomplished
redemption, His representative union, His imputed righteousness,
and finished work. And He's the fulfillment of every
Old Testament type, day, ceremony. He's the fulfillment of it. We
don't have years of Jubilee. We don't have Sabbath days. The
Lord's our Sabbath. And He's the end of the law,
the whole of it. He's the end of the law for righteousness. to everyone that believes. Christ
is all. In Him, the scripture said, dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and we're complete in
Him. And this world, this universe
has a purpose. Paul said, the earnest expectation
of creation waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. That's why
he preserves it. That's why he keeps it on. In
the Old Testament, Under that Jewish economy, the Lord preserved
that. He kept it going. They tore down
one temple, he built another one. He preserved that economy
until Christ came. Because it pictured Christ. It
preached, if you will, the Christ who was to come. I think in Romans
3, beginning with verse 24, he said, being freely justified
by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus, whom
God has set forth, when? In the Old Testament. Set Him
forth. Every animal sacrifice, the priesthood,
that whole, everything, the temple, the tabernacle, the labor, the
altar, the veil, the holiest of all, the holy of holy, all
of these things pointed to Christ. But when Christ comes, I don't
need the shadow anymore, now the person's standing here. You
see what I'm saying? And so all of this economy was
preserved for that. And in our day, he's preserving
everything. He's preserving creation, he's
preserving his preachers, they're going out, they're preaching
the gospel. But that day is coming to an end. That day of mercy
is coming to an end. There's an end to this age. And
there's been an active work going on and has been going on for
over 2,000 years. But the end is now. And it's
an end to all things as we now see them. And this end is at
the door. It's right here. Now that's a
subject matter of these verses. And then the second lesson in
these verses have to do with the signs of the times. Verses
25 and 26 talk about signs in the sun and in the moon and in
the stars and upon earth, distress of nations with perplexity and
the sea and the waves roaring and men's hearts failing them
for fear and for looking after those things that are coming
on the earth. For, he said, the powers of heaven and earth shall
be broken. Now the key to understanding
what these verses are saying is what he says in verse 26.
For the powers of heaven shall be broken. The living God is
almighty. That's his name. He's almighty
God. There is nothing who can resist
his power. Whatever this is saying, it's
not talking about that. His omnipotence has no equal
and he's not talking about an enemy with the power to overcome
him or thwart him in any way. He said through his prophet Isaiah,
I'm God and beside me there is none else. I declare the end
from the beginning. And from ancient times, the things
that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand, and I'll
do all my pleasure. Huh? Over in Romans 9, Paul said,
here's what you're going to say. Here's what you're going to say.
If God is almighty and he does according to his will in all
things, how then can he still find fault? Now, what did he
tell them? Nay, but, O man, who art thou that replies against
God? You think you've got some power
to thwart him, or challenge him, or question him? No man saith unto him, What doest
thou? So what is he talking about?
He's talking about designated power. designated power. There's a power that holds the
universe in certain order, which we call gravity. Gravity. You never thought about
that, did you? Gravity is the glue that holds together galaxies. Gravity. Simple gravity. Gravity is what causes all of
this rotation and all of this order You know, they first sent
up the Hubble telescope years ago. And I had a little site
on my computer I could go look at, a NASA site, and they were
showing these incoming pictures. And my wife and I was looking
at them, and she said, everything that they show on that picture
looks like it's been through World War III. She said, there's
nothing on there except these big, Holes where things have
slammed into it, you know, and craters. Man, you look at the
moon, you look at Mars, you look at anything the telescope has
pictured and it's, how come the earth don't look that way? Huh? God's hand. God's hand. That's the only reason the surface
of the earth don't look like the surface of the moon. And
in this universe, there is designated power. Gravity is just one of
them. Just one of them. But not the
least by any means. And my point is, what I'm trying
to show you here is this designated power is what, that's why your
sun comes up at a certain time in the morning. And why it's
hot in the summer and cold in the winter and all of these things.
That's a designated power of God. What we call the law of
gravity. And there's other natural laws,
natural forces, we call them, that God has designated. And what about on earth? Well,
he tells us in Romans 13 to be subject to the higher powers
for there is no power but of God. What's he talking about?
Designated power. Well, what's that? That's government,
parental authority, You've got a police department,
you've got a navy, an army, you've got governors, you've got presidents,
you've got emperors, you've got designated power. And what's it say about Christ?
Well, the government shall be upon his shoulders. Who's running
things? Whose power is this that's being
designated? It's the power of Christ. By Him all things consist. All authority and government
shall be upon His shoulders, and whatever will take place
in the heavens and in the nations of the world will be the act
of God releasing His hand on those powers, preparing to obliterate
it. And that's what He's talking
about here. You want a sign? Here it is. begin to let go. He's going to begin to let go
because he intends to destroy it altogether. Preparation for the end of time. The sun and the moon refusing
to shine. How often does he use that example? The sun and the moon will refuse
to shine. And if the light of the sun's
blotted out, what's the moon going to do? Its light is reflective
of the sun. It can't shine. And what about
the stars? What kind of event could possibly
happen to hide the stars? And I see the moon as a type
of this fallen world forced to exist at a distance and given
light according to its rotation around the sun. From time to
time it gets light. It gets light. And it's affected
by it. Whatever part of the moon that
gets that light is affected by it, same as the earth. The end of which will be a time
in which that light would be denied altogether. And the nations,
the same thing, restrained by law, held in some order by the
powers that be. When these powers are let go,
what shall be the end except chaos? The days before the coming
of the Son of Man are not a pretty picture. Paul told Timothy, in
the last days, the days before the coming of the Son of Man,
in the last days, men shall be lovers of them own selves. Huh? Lovers of them own selves. We live in, Russell, what we
like to call an entitlement generation. They think they're entitled to
everything. You're not entitled to anything.
Anything you have is by the mercy and grace of God. What have you
gotten, Paul said, that you haven't received? And if you received
them, why do you act like you didn't? Everything it sees. Can't get
enough. I remember as a child, I thought,
boy, if I could just get me a new car. I got that new car, and
it was old in two months. Started looking at the next one. Covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers,
disobedient to parents. unthankful, unholy, without natural
affection. What's that talking about? Natural
affection. That's talking about an affection
that you ought to have for your parents. Honor that father and that mother.
That's natural affection. Natural affection. Truth breakers, false accusers,
incontinent lack of self-restraint. Fierce, despisers of those that
are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than
lovers of God. Now, it's this in the individuals
that causes the distress of the nations. It's sinners, and God
begins to take away the powers of his constraint. He constrains
men from being as evil as they could be. And every now and then
he'll give you an example of one he turns loose. Read Romans
chapter 1. He gave them over to themselves
to do what God was constraining them not to do in conscience. And this type of personality,
this type of letting go is what causes the distress of nations. Are we not going through that
in this nation? Is this nation not distressed? And listen, what
he says right after, it's distressed with perplexity. What does that
mean? That means they don't know what
to do about it. That's what that means. They're perplexed. People are not satisfied with
the way things are, but they don't know what to do about it.
They don't know which way to turn. And all these things generating
a wave of fear and unrest. What's all this mean? It means
the end is right here. That's what it means. The end
of all things is near. Behold, he says, verse 29, the
fig tree and all trees, when they now shed forth, shoot forth,
you see and know your own selves that summer is nigh at hand. So likewise, when you shall see
these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is
nigh at hand. Matthew said of the same fig
tree parable, when you see these things, know that it is near
even at the doors. It's that close. Can any of you
see what's going on in the world around you and not be warned
by these things? Don't you see the fig tree in
these signs, putting forth its leaves? Be warned. Be warned. That's what the Lord's doing.
Be warned. And here's what He says to believers.
When you see these things, you don't fear. You look up because
you're redemption drawing nigh. This ain't a bad sign to you.
This ain't a warning to you. This is the promise being fulfilled. You look up. Your redemption
draweth nigh. But boy, if you're not a believer,
I'm telling you, you ought to be terrified. Your knees ought
to be knocking together when you think on these things and
think about eternity. May the Lord teach us these lessons
and what to do with them.