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Ceres SDA Church

Anil Kanda

CrossFit

Well, why don't we bow our heads for a word of prayer right now and let's ask Jesus to bless us Creating us a clean heart and to really speak to us Lord, thank you so much for the Sabbath.

It's time to appreciate nature God even here Modesto Lord week and we just thank you God for just the beauty of nature creation that still speaks to us of your love.

Father in heaven, our prayer is that today we would see Jesus.

Alright, now this is going to be a very interesting sermon.

We're going to be taking a good look at Bible prophecy.

Now many times when you hear about prophecy, people sometimes groan and think, oh no, you're going to be talking about end time events.

And who wants End-time events right well a few of you guys But for the normal people I'm just kidding.

But for most of us right many times that when we hear a perspective of end-time events it can be very Intimidating can be very scary, but we need to learn to start seeing Jesus through all of this.

Remember what I said to you a couple weeks ago, the study of prophecy is not the study of politics.

It may include what may be happening in the political world, but it is not primarily the study of politics the study of prophecy is actually the study of Jesus and Prophecy does 3 things number 1 it reveals who Jesus is Amen Number 2 it reveals what Jesus is going to do and number 3 it reveals how Jesus will accomplish The things he wants to do outside of this frame of reference Prophecy can be meaningless Jesus actually spoke about Bible prophecy and he said search the scripture.

He said look throughout all the scripture He says for they are which testify of me.

And so when we're looking at Bible prophecy, we need to see more and more of Jesus, right?

Jesus needs to become more and more of what we read what we see and what we study throughout all of Scripture We're gonna be taking a good look at something found in the book of Matthew, Matthew chapter 24.

But before we turn there, I want to share with you an interesting story that takes place in the book of Ezekiel.

Very interesting story, and it's going to set the stage for Matthew 24.

In the book of Ezekiel, we hear a lot about God's warnings to his people.

In fact, when you look up the word abomination, it appears over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over in the book of Ezekiel.

In fact, the word desolation or desolate appears also in the book of Ezekiel over and over and over again.

What happens is the children of Israel had been falling into idolatry over and over and over again.

And so God begins to give a series of message through the prophet Ezekiel.

1 of the things that Ezekiel sees in vision, he sees the Mount of Olives.

And he sees the glory of God called the Shekinah glory, which was the presence of the Lord found over the Ark of the Covenant.

And he sees the glory of the Lord, now pay attention to these words, departing from the temple.

And the Bible says that the glory of the Lord was upon Mount the Mount of Olives and was almost in a sense hesitant about leaving and What happens is the Bible points out because of the idolatry and even the Sun worship that was happening in throughout Israel that the Shekinah glory hesitantly reluctantly there upon the Mount of Olives finally departs.

The reason why this is extremely important is because when you read Matthew chapter 23, it starts off with Jesus leaving the temple.

And he even says to them, your house is left desolate.

And do you know what you find in Matthew chapter 24?

And what Jesus begins to give in Matthew chapter 24 is a very interesting sermon or discussion about end time events.

Everybody take your Bible, let's go to Matthew chapter 24.

This is a very interesting chapter, Often used in Bible prophecy, but we're gonna take a good look at it today Matthew chapter 24.

We're actually gonna start with verse 1 Remember as we're seeing this parallel we see the Shekinah glory on the Mount of Olives because of all the abominations that were taking place and then finally Leaving and here we see Jesus leaving the temple in Matthew 23 the end of Matthew 23 Matthew 24 He's on the Mount of Olives and the Bible says something quite interesting in chapter 24 verse 1 says these words then Jesus went and what departed from the temple and his disciples came up to show him all the buildings of the temple and he said to and Jesus said to them do you see all these things surely I say to you not 1 stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down." Verse 3, now as he sat on the mount of what?

All this the disciples came to him privately saying, tell us When will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

What's very interesting is that the disciples could not imagine a world without the temple To them the temple represented The anchor of the Jewish identity it represented God's approval upon their nation And so when Jesus makes this very remarkable statement He says see this temple not 1 stone is going to be left on top of this all of a sudden you know, the only thing they could equate with the destruction of the temple The end of the world are you guys tracking with me yes or no?

And so what Jesus does he begins to talk about the destruction of the temple and of the end of the world combining these events and specifically addresses the questions that the disciples were asking What's very interesting is before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 the book of Hebrews was written when you actually study out the book of Hebrews Do you know what the book of Hebrews is doing?

It's constantly talking about the earthly sanctuary and then the Heavenly sanctuary always over and over again.

It's pointing the believers to the heavenly sanctuary.

Why because God was trying to lead even his own people away from this understanding of an earthly sanctuary?

To a Heavenly sanctuary are you tracking so far?

We're laying a good context Okay, so here's what happens The disciples say wait a minute.

What's it gonna be like when this happens when the end of the world happens?

And so what Jesus begins to do he begins to list some things look what he says in the very next part of this Matthew 24 starting with verse 4 Jesus answered and said to them take heed that no 1 deceives you For many will come in my name saying I am the Christ and will deceive many and you will hear wars and rumors of war see that you are not what trouble for all these things must come to pass for nation will rise up against nation and kingdom against kingdom there will be famines pestilences and earthquakes in various places and then verse 8 he drops a bomb on them and he says, oh and by the way, it's just the beginning.

Now what's very interesting, if you go to various religions that actually have an end time schema, many of them actually have natural disasters, cataclysmic events happening before the destruction of the world.

And so what Jesus does, he simply says, oh yeah, and by the way, I know you're well aware of this.

And so when Jesus was actually saying hey, guess what?

This was nothing new to the disciples In fact, they were expecting this to be part of the prophecy lineup.

They were expecting end time events to be part of the prophecy lineup and you know what Jesus does and he says, yeah, you know all this stuff that's going to happen.

He says, by the way, I just got to tell you something.

What you believed about the end of the world, he was saying, That's only the beginning.

That's just the beginning of what's gonna happen.

And you can imagine the disciples sitting there right now just go only the beginning wait a minute I thought when we talked about the end of the world I thought that was it do you know if you go out into the world Did you know much of the world has end time themed movies?

And do you know what you'll find in many of these end time themed movies?

Cataclysmic events, destruction by natural disasters, and a bunch of chaos.

In other words, Jesus was not saying something completely new to the disciples Sure, they did believe in a kind of Messiah reign that would come eventually and change things But they also understood there would be this great day of the Lord, well there would be destruction.

And so even the world understands that right before the end it's not going to look like a pretty picture, but Jesus says, yo, here's the thing, I want you guys to understand something.

I don't feel very happy right now You just hang on You're gonna feel worse by the end.

Okay, let's keep going verse 9 Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and Kill you and you'll be hated by all nations for my name's sake And then many will be what?

Offended sounds like our world today, huh?

Then many will be offended and will betray 1 another and will hate 1 another Then notice what he says then many false prophets will rise up and deceive what?

Many here Jesus begins to describe more and more of things that are going to be destructive.

And he says, you want to know what the real issue is?

He says, the worst part of these end time events, he says, it's not even the natural disasters that are happening around you.

He says, the worst thing is going to be when people who you love, people who you cared about, will turn their back on you.

They will betray you and they will do things that will lead to your death Lord have mercy You can imagine some of these disciples hearing this and probably cringing even more saying this we should never have asked this question You know 1 thing I began to notice as I was studying this out Is there seemed to be a common theme through all the things that Jesus was talking about.

There is an intense agitation upon the world.

Have you ever had 1 of those old washing machines?

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