Yearly Archives: 2020

Caring For Those Left Behind

Posted on by Pastor Kevin Sadler

 (From a message given at the BBF Fall Conference, October 2019).

“Harry R. Truman (October 30, 1896–May 18, 1980) was a resident of the U.S. state of Washington who lived near Mount St. Helens. He was the owner and caretaker of Mount St. Helens Lodge at Spirit Lake near the foot of the mountain, and he came to fame as a folk hero in the months preceding the volcano’s 1980 eruption after he refused to leave his home despite evacuation orders.

“…Truman became a minor celebrity during the two months of volcanic activity preceding the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, giving interviews to reporters and expressing his opinion that the danger was exaggerated. ‘I don’t have any idea whether it will blow,’ he said, ‘but I don’t believe it to the point that I’m going to pack up.’ Truman displayed little concern about the volcano and his situation: ‘If the mountain goes, I’m going with it. This area is heavily timbered, Spirit Lake is in between me and the mountain, and the mountain is a mile away, the mountain ain’t gonna hurt me.’

“…Truman told reporters that he was knocked from his bed by precursor earthquakes, so he responded by moving his mattress to the basement…As a result of his defiant commentary, Truman became something of a folk hero and was the subject of many songs and poems by children.

“…As the likelihood of eruption increased, state officials tried to evacuate the area with the exception of a few scientists and security officials. On May 17, they attempted one final time to persuade Truman to leave, to no avail. The volcano erupted the next morning, and its entire northern flank collapsed. Truman was alone at his lodge with his 16 cats, and is presumed to have died in the eruption on May 18…The largest landslide in recorded history and a pyroclastic flow traveling atop the landslide engulfed the Spirit Lake area almost simultaneously, destroying the lake and burying the site of his lodge under 150 feet (46 m) of volcanic landslide debris. Authorities never found Truman’s remains.”1

As ambassadors for Christ, we warn others of a catastrophe that is coming to this world, and that they need to escape it before it’s too late. If people alive today do not heed the warnings of Scripture, they could be left behind at the Rapture and face a time of unprecedented destruction that will explode on this world with overwhelming power, like Mount St. Helens, but much, much worse.

Harry Truman didn’t have to die on May 18, 1980 had he only heeded the warnings. He was stubborn, however, and he refused to believe the warnings and govern himself accordingly. People today don’t have to face the judgment that will overtake the world after the Rapture if they heed the repeated warnings of Scripture. Like Harry though,
many are stubborn in their unbelief, and make excuses, and even scoff. But it’s the truth of God’s Word, and “God is not a man, that He should lie” (Num. 23:19).

The knowledge that the Lord could return for His Church at any moment, leaving the unbelieving behind to be plunged into the wrath of the Tribulation, makes the evangelization of the lost always urgent. It is to motivate the Church to reach out with the gospel of grace, so that others may escape the fearsome Day of the Lord.

Children of the Day

“But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness” (1 Thes. 5:1-5).

After he taught about the catching away of the Church, the Body of Christ in 4:13-18, Paul turned in 5:1-3 to the horrific event that follows it, the seven-year Tribulation. After the Rapture, the next thing in God’s timeline of future events is Daniel’s 70th week of years (Dan. 9:24-27), the judgment of the Day of the Lord.

The Rapture is not the same as the Second Coming. The first verses of 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 refer to events after the Rapture, not concurrent or prior to it. Our Lord will first come to take His Church out of the world and then judgment follows.

Paul’s explanation of the Rapture in 4:13-18 concerns us, believers in the Body of Christ. That is why the pronoun “we” is used four times in relation to our hope of the Rapture.

“For if WE believe that Jesus died and rose again… WE which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven… and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then WE which are alive… shall be caught up… and so shall WE ever be with the Lord” (1 Thes. 4:14-17).

However, Paul’s explanation of what takes place in 5:1-3 concerns “they” and “them,” or those left behind after the Rapture.

“For when THEY shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon THEM, as travail upon a woman with child; and THEY shall not escape” (1 Thes. 5:3).

We are reassured by our apostle that we will NOT be here for the Tribulation period, not any part of it. We will be caught up to be with the Lord before it ever begins.

Comparing verse 2 with verse 4 regarding the “thief in the night,” we see that Paul reinforces this fact:

“For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night” (v. 2).

“But ye, brethren [the Body of Christ], are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief” (v. 4).

The Day of the Lord will surprise the world after the Rapture and will come upon them like “a thief in the night.” But it will not overtake the Body of Christ as a thief, because we won’t be here! The Church will have been caught up to heaven to be with the Lord before the Tribulation.

Further, Paul contrasts “night” and “darkness” with “day” and “light” to teach how we are delivered from the wrath to come. In verses 4-5, the “night” and “darkness” Paul is referring to is the prophetic night and prophetic darkness of the Day of the Lord. Amos 5:20 teaches, “Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark…?” In contrast to that day of darkness, Paul wrote,

“But ye, brethren, are not in darkness…Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness” (1 Thes. 5:4-5).

We are not in darkness, and we are not in danger of the dark days of judgment in the Tribulation. All of us in the Church belong to the light, to the day, to heaven, to Christ, and we will all be caught up at the Rapture before the darkness of God’s wrath in the
Tribulation begins.

Paul then turned to the practical ramifications of this truth, and how the Body of Christ is to live in light of the Lord’s return at the Rapture and of the Tribulation which follows it.

Stop and think about this: We may right now be living among people who will enter the Tribulation if the Rapture comes in our lifetime. The Body is “children of light, and children of the day,” and God wants us to be a light to the world for Christ and His gospel of grace. God wants us, by faith, to live aware and awake to the fact that our Savior could come at any time and that, as a result, people around us may go right into the Tribulation.

Thus, the Lord wants us to carry out our service, remaining spiritually awake and vigilant, always ready to forewarn others for their safety. God’s lifesaving truth is the unbeliever’s only chance of rescue from the ultimate, final hell in the Lake of Fire, and from hell on earth in the Tribulation.

No Doze

“Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night” (1 Thes. 5:6-7).

“Therefore,” Paul wrote, or in light of the fact that we’re not going to go through any part of the night and darkness of the Tribulation, and that we are “the children of light, and the children of the day,” therefore, we should not sleep as do others. The “others” in verse 6 refers to unbelievers.

The Bible teaches that unbelievers are in darkness (Eph. 5:8; 2 Cor. 6:14). In their spiritual darkness, unbelievers do what we all do at night, they sleep—all the time, spiritually speaking. This is the sleep of spiritual indifference, negligence, and carelessness. The unbelieving have their spiritual eyes closed. They can’t see truth. They don’t even know they’re in darkness. And in the darkness, they are lost. They can’t see where to go. They aren’t even aware of the disaster that is coming right at them, and they live their lives as if there is no one, true, living God, no accountability to Him, and no judgment before Him.

In verse 7 of 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul made a simple, common, everyday observation: people sleep at night, and they get drunk at night. Sleep and drunkenness go with the night, and sleep and drunkenness are illustrations of the spiritual condition of the lost. Paul’s obvious implication is that those who are in spiritual darkness exhibit, in effect, the characteristics of the literal drunkenness that takes place at night.

Drunkenness causes people to lack focus and lose control. They can’t think straight or walk straight. They make poor, nonsensical choices. They lose sense of right and wrong. Their senses are dulled, and they’re not as aware of the circumstances and true reality around them. And drunkenness can lead to personal ruin. Many stumble and stagger through life this way.

In verses 6 and 7, Paul is making two points for the believer. First, we need to be aware and sensitive to unbelievers’ spiritual condition of being in darkness, and of their spiritual sleep and drunkenness. We know that the only way that one can be delivered from spiritual darkness is by “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4), and trusting Christ alone. It is at that point and from that point that one can truly see spiritually.

Second, Paul is teaching us here that day people shouldn’t act like night people. He wrote, “let us not sleep, as do others.” The implied reason for this instruction is that day people, or believers, can still act like night people. It’s possible for believers to have some night life in them. The difference, however, between the believer and the unbeliever is to be like night and day. This is true in our spiritual position of being in Christ and unbelievers being without Christ, but it is also to be true in our practice.

We are taught by God that our conduct should coincide with our position in Christ. God wants our state to move toward our standing. In Christ we are light, we belong to the day, and “therefore,” let us not sleep as others do, or as non-believers who have their spiritual eyes closed, are indifferent to spiritual things, are negligent about eternity, and are unaware of what is coming. We need to conduct ourselves as day people because we do know what is coming. We understand the wrath to come and what awaits those who do not believe.

The relief and joy of our deliverance from God’s wrath in the Day of the Lord comes with responsibility. Believers are to live in the light of truth. We see spiritually now. Therefore, we should live as the children of light that we are in Christ, warning people around us about judgment to come, and sharing the light and truth of God’s Word. God uses rescued people to rescue people. That is our calling as believers.

“A West Virginia state trooper, stopped a woman for going 15 miles over the speed limit. After he handed her a ticket, she asked him, ‘Don’t you give out warnings?’ ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he replied. ‘They’re all up and down the road. They say, ‘Speed Limit 55.’”2 The Church is to be God’s warning signs up and down the road of life for unbelievers, warning them about the judgment that is coming to those who do not obey the gospel (2 Thes. 1:8).

In God’s plans and purposes, it is daytime, the day of salvation, but night is coming, the night of the Tribulation. Paul’s analogy here is that, because it is daytime and not the night of the Tribulation yet, we shouldn’t be spiritually asleep during the day! Instead we should be spiritually awake and aware of what’s going on around us. This world is speeding toward the night of God’s wrath, and we are surrounded by those who are in danger of being left behind and need to be delivered from the darkness of the Tribulation.

Sleep is natural to night people, but not to day people. Going through life sleeping should not characterize believers who are day people, but it can. Thus, Paul teaches the Church that we need to make a determined effort to stay awake. We are not to be spiritual Rip Van Winkles. We should not be spiritually insensitive or negligent; instead we should be full of care toward the plight of unbelievers and their need of the Lord.

It’s easy to sleep through life. It’s like the guy who said, “I’m so good at sleeping, I could do it with my eyes closed.” God doesn’t want His Church to be good at slumbering spiritually. As believers in Christ, we’re taught to be awake and to live with our spiritual eyes open.

This is what Paul meant when he wrote, “Let us watch.” “Watch” refers to being alert, awake. We’re to watch against laziness, distraction, and complacency in our spiritual lives. We’re to watch for the Savior’s return and those around us who need Christ.

“Watch and be sober” (1 Thes. 5:6) is in direct contrast to the “sleep” and being “drunken” of verse 7. Sleep and drunkenness are two ways to characterize insensitivity, while being watchful and sober are two ways to characterize sensitivity to spiritual realities.

In this context, “be sober” refers to restraint, discipline, focus, being filled with spiritual and moral seriousness, and zealous for what is true and right according to God’s Word. To be sober is not to be indifferent but is to have a clear mind, being balanced, consistent, and steady spiritually.

Bible Commentator William Hendriksen (1900-1982) wrote, “The sober person lives deeply. His pleasures are not primarily those of the senses…but those of the soul. He is by no means a Stoic. On the contrary, with a full measure of joyful anticipation he looks forward to the return of the Lord. But he does not run away from his task!…The apostle’s exhortation, then, amounts to this: ‘Let us not be lax and unprepared, but let us be prepared, being spiritually alert, firm in the faith, courageous, strong, calmly but with glad anticipation looking forward to the future day. Let us, moreover, do all this because we belong to the day and not to the night.’ ”3

Put on Faith, Love, and Hope

“But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation” (1 Thes. 5:8).

Notice that Paul does not exhort us to “Please be day people.” Rather he tells the Church, “You are day people.” We are day people in Christ. And as people of the day, we are to be sober and wear the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet of the hope of salvation. In other words, the armor is faith, love, and hope. These three are presented as armor to protect us in this world, as well as for how we are to reach out to
the world.

As Paul thought about a person who was watchful and sober, his mind went to one who was the most alert and disciplined: a soldier on duty. In Paul’s day, a Roman soldier wore protective armor.

The breastplate and helmet were two essential pieces of equipment to protect a Roman soldier. Those are two vital areas of the body. Of course, the breastplate covered all the vital organs, and the helmet covered the head.

A Roman breastplate covered a soldier from his neck to his waist and could be made out of chain mail, heavy cloth, brass, iron, or leather. It could be likened to a bulletproof vest. We could compare the Roman helmet to something like a football or motorcycle helmet that can protect against crushing blows to the skull.

Paul wrote that the believer’s spiritual breastplate consists of faith and love, and the helmet consists of the hope of salvation. It’s the breastplate of faith toward God, and the breastplate of God’s love through us toward others.

Considering these pieces of armor in their context, the breastplate of faith is faith in the always-imminent pre-Tribulation Rapture and the judgment of the Day of the Lord that follows it. We believe and know these are true because God says they’re true. It is faith resulting in action on our part.

In the context, it’s the breastplate of love for others, not wanting them to face the judgment to come in the Tribulation, wanting them to have the glorious hope of the Rapture as we do. It is love resulting in action on our part.

Wearing a breastplate of faith and love will cause us to live alert and steadfast for the Lord, and to stand ready at all times as children of light in Him. By faith in God and love toward others, God equips us to live as children of light and “not sleep, as do others.” This armor equips us to stand at the ready at all times as children of the day.

“The hope of salvation,” in this context, is the Rapture of the Church. The hope of salvation is the certainty that if we die before Christ returns, then to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8) in soul and spirit. Then, at the Rapture, the Lord will bring us with Him (1 Thes. 4:14) in soul and spirit. At that time, we will receive glorified bodies, and our bodies will be raised first (vv. 15-16), to be united to our soul and spirit forever. The hope of salvation is also the certainty that if we are alive when He returns, we will receive glorified bodies and be caught away off this earth to meet the Lord in the air forever to be with Him (v. 17).

The helmet of the hope of salvation is what guards our heads from attacks on our thinking. And there are, in the spiritual battle, attacks against the Blessed Hope (Titus 2:13), our “hope of salvation” and deliverance from the Tribulation period. The helmet of salvation is about being grounded in the truth of God’s Word, so we might be delivered from error and defend the truth of the pre-Tribulation Rapture.

The helmet is also about having the hope of salvation always on our minds, so we realize the need of others who have “no hope” (1 Thes. 4:13). This helmet is about thinking of others, resulting in action on our part: sharing our hope with the unbelieving, so they might trust the reality of hope in Christ.

The exhortation to put on the breastplate and the helmet is in the form of a participle: “putting on” must be repeated every time as if it were the first time. We live in a world of spiritual darkness that is hostile to spiritual truth. It is an ongoing fight. There is a battle raging all around us for the hearts and minds of people, and every believer is a soldier in that battle. Therefore, we must keep “putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.” May we care for those who could be left behind, and do so with faith, hope, and love.

1. “Harry R. Truman,” Wikipedia, accessed August 4, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_R._Truman.

2. “Speed Warnings,” AJokeADay, accessed August 4, 2020, https://www.ajokeaday.com/jokes/police-jokes/speeding-1mb2m5bira.

3. William Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary: Exposition of Thessalonians, Timothy, and Titus (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1981), pp. 125-126.

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Berean Searchlight – September 2020

Posted on by kevin
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The Shortest Days in the History of the World – Matthew 24:22-35

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

How will the Lord shorten the days of the “great tribulation” (Mt. 24:21, 22) for the sake of the elect (those who will believe on Him during the Tribulation)?  It has to last exactly 1260 days (Rev. 12:6-12), three and a half years (Dan. 12:6, 7), 42 months (Rev. 13:2-5).  Some say He was going to make it last longer but shortened it to 1260 days.  But after Daniel said it would last three and a half years the Lord said the days “shall be” shortened, future tense.  No, He won’t shorten the number of days, He’ll shorten the days by doing the opposite of what He did in Joshua 10:12,13.

When those days come, false christs will claim to be Christ in hiding (Mt. 24:23-26).  The Lord told His disciples not to believe it because His coming will be like lightning (v. 27).  Lightning always gets our attention!  So He was saying when He comes everyone will know about it—specially if it starts in the east and goes all the way to the west!  But lightning that starts in the north and goes to the south would only reach the south pole, for after that it would be going north again.  If the Lord came like that, only half the world would see Him.  But lightning that comes out of the east and goes to the west has to circle the globe, meaning “every eye shall see Him” (Rev. 1:7).

Since lightning travels 3700 miles per second, some think the Lord was talking about the Rapture (cf. I Cor. 15:52).  But He compares this coming to what happens when eagles gather around a dead body (Mt. 24:28). That’s Armageddon (Rev. 19:11-21).  The Lord will use the birds of the earth as a sort of heavenly cleanup crew to cleanse the planet of the rot and stench of the dead before establishing His beautiful kingdom

But if this coming of the Lord is associated with Armageddon, that means it is a coming that will take place after the Tribulation—and that’s what the Lord went on to say (Mt. 24:29,30).  But Paul promises we’ll be raptured before the Tribulation (I Thes. 4:15—5:5) and escape that wrath (I Thes. 1:10; 5:9) by the “salvation” of the Rapture (Rom. 13:11).

Part of the “wrath” that the ones left behind will have to endure will fall when the stars fall (Mt. 24:30) to the earth (Rev. 6:12,13).  These can’t be literal stars. Stars are suns, and even one falling would incinerate us.  Stars in the Bible can be an-gels (Job 38:4-7). The ones that will fall are the fallen angels, the “powers” that rule “high places” (Eph. 6:12). That’s why “the powers of the heavens shall be shaken” (Mt. 24:30). There’s going to be a shakeup in the government of heaven.

Then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven (v. 31). Normally we can’t see into heaven because the “curtain” of the stars keeps us from seeing into the “tabernacle” of God in heaven (Isa. 40:22 cf. Heb.8:1, 2).  But God is going to peel back the curtain of the heavens “as a scroll” (Rev. 6:13-16) and they’ll see the Son looking slain (5:6), i.e., still bearing the wounds of Calvary.  Knowing that men like themselves gave Him those wounds, they’ll fear His wrath. That explains how they’ll see Him “sitting” and then “coming” (Mt. 26:64) instead of coming and then sitting in the kingdom.

People also think Matthew 24 is about the Rapture because people will be gathered with a trump (24:31 cf. I Thes. 4:16, 17). But God only uses angels with Israel (cf. Gal. 3:19). And right before angels gather saved Jews into the kingdom He’ll use them to weed out the tares of the unsaved (Mt. 13:38).

Knowing that the fig tree (Mt. 24:32, 33) is a symbol of Israel (Hos. 9:10), prophecy preachers got excited when the nations of the world created what is now known as the nation of Israel in 1948.  Some added the “generation” (Mt. 24:34) of 33 years to 1948 and predicted the Rapture would come in 1981.  But national Israel is represented by the olive tree (Ps. 80:8).  The fig tree represents religious Israel.  Adam used fig leaves to cover his sin, and covering your sin is the very definition of religion.  Antichrist will rebuild Israel’s temple and give them back their sacrifice system, something the Lord cursed (Mt. 21:18).  That’s the sign of the fig tree that will signal the Lord’s coming and the end of the world.

Don’t you love it when prophecy preachers try to determine the day of the Rapture from a passage that says you can’t know it (Mt. 24:35, 36)! Those that claim they know when He will return claim to know more than the Lord (Mark. 13:32)!

Video of this sermon is also available on YouTube: The Shortest Days in the History of the World – Matthew 24:22-35

Did the She Bear Kill Little Children?

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

“You have said that the she bear killed the children in 2 Kings 2:22-24 because of Israel’s sin (Lev. 26:14,22). Others explain those difficult verses by saying the Hebrew words for ‘little children’ referred to older kids, who may not have all died. Could this be so instead?”

If these were not little children, they were over the age of accountability. And since most older children are not saved, that would mean most of these children went to hell because of the sins of their nation. It is far more just to believe that they were little children who went to be with the Lord when they died.

And I don’t think there is any way to read that word “rob” (Lev. 26:22) and conclude those children didn’t die. Wild beasts don’t rob parents of their children by injuring them. They rob them by killing them.

The law was a covenant, which is an old word for a contract. If the people of Israel broke the terms of the contract, God was bound by the laws of justice and righteousness to keep His part of the contract and punish them in the manner specified in the covenant. If He didn’t, He could rightly be charged with breaking His Word and being unfaithful to His own covenant

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One of the Greatest Prophecies in the Bible – Matthew 24:1-21

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

The 12 were overly impressed with the temple (24:1) even though Christ called it a den of thieves earlier and had just stormed out of it (23:37-39).  So the Lord told them it’d have to come down stone by stone (24:2).  The only buildings torn down like that had leprosy (Lev. 14:44), a type of sin.  When the Lord left the temple and went to the Mount of Olives (24:3), that should have reminded Jews of how the glory of the Lord did the same thing in Ezekiel 10:18.

The end of the world the 12 asked about (Mt. 24:3) began 2,000 years ago (Heb. 9:26), but was interrupted by the dispensation of the mystery (Eph. 3:1-3).

Daniel said the “everlasting righteousness” of the kingdom would come after 70 weeks (Dn. 9:24) of years (cf. Gen. 29:29) when the Lord returns to establish it.  You see, He meant the end of the world as we know it, the end of man being in charge of the world and Christ being in charge of it in the kingdom.  It was supposed to start after Christ came 69 weeks later (Dn. 9:25), but didn’t.  Daniel said that 70th week would be horrendous (9:25-27).  We know Matthew 24 is all about that week for the 12 asked about the end of the world.

It will start with “many” a false christ persuading unsaved Jews who rejected Jesus that they are the messiah Israel’s been looking for (24:5).  There’s always been wars and rumors of wars (24:6) so the Lord added there’d be “pestilences” (24:7).  That word means sicknesses (I Ki. 8:37), specifically epidemic sicknesses.  This has many thinking Covid-19 is a sign of the end.  Many are also quoting Leviticus 26:14,25 to say God is judging us for our sins, but we’re not under the law of Leviticus 26 (Rom. 6:15)!  When God starts sending pestilences a third of Israel will die (Eze. 5:12).

Others are quoting Psalm 91:3-8 to say God will spare Christians of pestilence even though He’s not!  Nothing but disillusionment and shattered faith can come from claiming promises that God made to Israel if they obeyed Him.

When a third of a nation dies the world will think the end is near, but the Lord said that’s just “the beginning of sorrows” (24:8).  The believers whom He said would be killed (24:9) are the 12 apostles, not us.  He expected them to live to see all this (24:34; Mt. 16:28), but the mystery interrupted things.

That didn’t make Him a false prophet, for Hezekiah said something that didn’t come true (Isa. 38:1-5).  But God told David if his sons were good that one would always sit on the throne (I Ki. 2:4). Hezekiah reminded God if he died childless that wouldn’t come true!  So God knew all along Hezekiah would live despite what His prophet said, and He knew all along that generation would die and not see these things in Matthew 24, even though the Lord said they wouldn’t.

In the Tribulation, believing Jews will be “betrayed” by unsaved Jews (24:10) of their own families (Mark 1:13-15).  It’s a cold day when even your wife might sell you out to the Antichrist (Micah 7:5,6), so the Lord said “the love of many shall wax cold” (Mt. 24:11,12).  But they’ll have to endure till the end of the Tribulation without selling out to the beast if they want to be saved (24:13).

After the gospel of the kingdom is preached in all the world the end of the world will come (24:14).  That gospel isn’t “Christ died for our sins” (I Cor. 15:3,4).  The 12 preached the kingdom gospel and didn’t know He’d die (Lu. 9:1,2; 18:31-34).  The kingdom gospel was the good news He was their king and ready to give them their kingdom (Mark 1:14,15).

We know Matthew 24:15,16 is halfway through Daniel’s 70th week because it sounds like Daniel 9:27.  The over-spreading of desolations has to do with the cherubim that overspread the mercy seat (Ex. 37:9).  Antichrist will cause the sacrifices he reinstated to “cease” by dying and rising (Rev. 13:1-3) and claiming to be their fulfillment.  The mercy seat will become “desolate” when Antichrist sits on it (II Ths. 2:7,8) because “desolate” means empty of inhabitants (Jer. 33:10) and God is supposed to inhabit the mercy seat (Ps. 99:1).

Tribulation Jews will have to move fast to escape the beast (24:17-29) and break the sabbath (v. 20). Worrying about that is more proof this isn’t about us who are not under the law!

Video of this sermon is also available on YouTube: One of the Greatest Prophecies in the Bible – Matthew 24:1-21

Show the Lord’s Death

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

After our Bible conference last fall in Alcester, England, my son Jesse and I did some sightseeing in London. As we waited for one of London’s legendary double decker tour buses to pick us up, I noticed that the Ritz Hotel across the street had some pockmarks on the exterior of their otherwise beautiful building. These marks didn’t look like the kind of deterioration that all buildings suffer from age. They looked more like the kind of damage that is inflicted when something impacts the building. That got me to wondering if those marks might be injuries sustained during the Blitz of London in World War II.

Sure enough, our tour bus driver later pointed out similar pockmarks on St. Paul’s Cathedral, and confirmed that they were indeed the result of shrapnel from the countless bombs that rocked the city during Hitler’s horrendous eight-month onslaught of England’s capital.

Our tour guide said nothing further about the marks, but I began to wonder why those damaged areas were never repaired. Surely a hotel as fine as the Ritz could easily have afforded to erase the scars of the Nazi barrage. And I have to assume that at some point the Church of England could have scraped together the money to restore the flagship church of their religion, and put the memory of that horrific bombing behind them.

The only conclusion to which I could come is that they don’t want to put it behind them. They don’t want to forget the suffering they had to endure as a city. They don’t want to forget the price they had to pay for the freedom from fascism that they continue to enjoy to this day. And it’s not likely that they will forget. Those pockmarks won’t let them.

That got me to thinking of how we’ll never be able to forget the price the Lord paid to save us from our sins. The pockmarks in His blessed face won’t let us. Isaiah describes how His face was brutalized (Isa. 52:14), and He retained those scars after He rose from the dead (cf. John 20:27). We know He continued to bear them even after He ascended into heaven, for in a vision of heaven John describes Him as “a Lamb as it had been slain” (Rev. 5:6). So once the Lord raptures us to heaven, His pockmarked face will “shew the Lord’s death” for all eternity.

But “till He come,” our apostle Paul says it is important to “shew the Lord’s death” in the communion service (1 Cor. 11:23-26). If God’s people didn’t tend to forget Him, He wouldn’t have had to keep telling His people in Israel not to (Deut. 6:12; 8:11,14,19). No wonder the Lord tells us to partake of the bread and the cup “in remembrance of Me” (1 Cor. 11:24,25).

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Ananias Passes the Test! – Acts 9:10-19

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

The Lord asked Ananias to go see Saul, who was persecuting Christ’s followers unto the death (Acts 9:10-17).  That was perhaps the hardest test of faith in the Bible, but Ananias was able to pass it because he was “a devout man” (22:12).

“Devout” is the adjective form of the word devoted, which means to take something that is yours and say it is the Lord’s (Lev. 27:16, 21).  That’s what Ananias did with himself before his hardest test of faith came.  That’s how he passed it.  Your hardest test may be yet to come, but you too can pass it if you devote yourself to the Lord in advance like he did!

Saul was “praying” (11) like you probably were right after you got saved.  I hope you never stopped!  Paul had to write “pray without ceasing” (I Thes. 5:17) because when grace believers learn God isn’t answering prayer in the miraculous manner in which He used to answer prayer, some of them cease praying.  Paul didn’t, and neither should we!  God still answers prayer through His Word working in His people.

A “vessel” (v. 15) is something you put things in to carry them from one place to another.  Your blood vessels carry life-giving blood and oxygen to the furthest extremities of your body so you can have life.  The Lord chose Saul to carry His name to the Gentiles so that they might have eternal life.

That means the Lord was calling Saul to a different kind of ministry than that to which He called the twelve, who were not sent to the Gentiles (Mt. 10:1-6). The Lord didn’t say that because He didn’t like Gentiles.  He planned to use the Jews to reach the Gentiles!  That means in time past Israel was God’s chosen vessel to bear His name before the Gentiles.

But when the Jews refused to be the ambassadors that God sent them to be among the Gentiles, He allowed them to be “swallowed up” of the Gentiles (Hos. 8:8), and instead they go “among the Gentiles” as His prisoners in Babylon instead of as His ambassadors.  God would have been pleased with them if they’d have obeyed Him, but when they didn’t, they became “a vessel wherein is no pleasure.”

God eventually let them out of Babylonian captivity.  But when He tried to use Israel to reach the Gentiles in the New Testament and they responded by rocking Stephen to sleep, that was the last straw.  God chose Saul to be His new chosen vessel to bear His name to the Gentiles.

But when Acts 9:15 mentions the Jews last, that means God is now reaching us Gentiles first and using us to carry His name to the Jews.  But His plan to use Paul and us to carry His name to the Gentiles was different from His plan to use the Jews to do it in many ways.  We see one very important way in Verse 16 when the Lord told Ananias that He’d show Saul how great things he’d have to suffer for Him.

When God used the Jews to reach the Gentiles, any suffering they had to suffer was of their own making!  God told them that if they obeyed Him that He’d protect them from sickness and their enemies.  But the Lord promised Saul—and us!—that we will suffer for Him (Acts 14:22).  But after all that the Lord suffered for us on the cross, it’s a privilege to suffer for Him to get the truth of the mystery out to the rest of the Body of Christ as Paul did (Col. 1:23,24).

The filling of the Spirit back then (Acts 9:17) empowered men to be able to speak in tongues (2:4) and heal the sick (5:15, 16).  But today it empowers us to thank God in “all things,” and empowers wives to submit to husbands and children to submit to parents and servants to obey their masters (Eph. 5:18-6:5).  That’s way more powerful!

Saul was baptized (Acts 9:18)—but not for the remission of sins (cf. 2:38).  We know he was saved before he was baptized, after he called Jesus “Lord” (Acts 9:6 cf. I Cor. 12:3).  Ananias asked him to be baptized because that was the only message he knew.  The new program of salvation without baptism wasn’t revealed to him, it was revealed later to Paul!

To make it so Saul could kick back with the disciples he’d come to kill (Acts 9:19) God had to change the nature of that “wolf” to get him to lay back with those lambs (cf. Isa. 11:6).  God can still do that today in the most violent of men.  He’s the answer to all the violence we’re seeing lately!

This sermon is also available on YouTube: Ananias Passes the Test! – Acts 9:10-19