Jesus warns in Matthew 24 that one of the signs of the times is that “many will be offended”, and that it is within this climate of heightened sensitivity and outrage that God’s people are to fulfill the gospel commission. This message investigates the current societal issues that fulfill this prediction, and looks to the promise of Psalm 119:165 to see how God’s Word offers a solution to these challenges.

<p>Jesus warns in Matthew 24 that one of the signs of the times is that “many will be offended”, and that it is within this climate of heightened sensitivity and outrage that God’s people are to fulfill the gospel commission. This message investigates the current societal issues that fulfill this prediction, and looks to the promise of Psalm 119:165 to see how God’s Word offers a solution to these challenges.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Collegedale Korean SDA Church

Alistair Huong

Nothing Shall Offend Them

Father in heaven, we thank you for bringing us safely together this Sabbath morning.

I pray for all of the rest of our church family wherever they may be.

We pray for physical safety, we pray for health, and we pray that our spirits might be strong and holding firmly to Jesus because we believe truly you are coming soon.

And I pray Lord today as we open your word, help us to know how best to be ready to do our part to hasten that day.

We ask these things now in Jesus name, amen.

Nothing shall offend them and we are going to begin by taking a look at Matthew chapter 24.

This is actually the foundation, the premise of our study today.

We're going to be looking at the signs of the times.

And so first of all, we're going to begin reading in verse 3.

We're going to look at a number of verses together, and then talk about them.

So verse 3 of Matthew chapter 24, I think we've all heard these words before, but let's review together.

Now, as he sat on the Mount of Olives, 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?' Clearly, Jesus is being prompted with a question about the end of time and a second coming.

Verse 4, And 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 of wars and rumors of wars.

See that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.

And let's just skip down to verse 11 real briefly.

It says there that many false prophets will arise and deceive many.

So I want to just quickly take a look at the overview of what we just read and I think a lot of these statements we've we've seen before we've heard about them in evangelistic series or Bible studies before.

Are we not always bombarded with the possibility of war in this day and age?

Of course we don't really know whether Kim Jong-un is alive or dead.

It seems like there's always some question and there's always some saber rattling and some threat of some nuclear warhead that they might have gotten access to.

There's always on the precipice, it seems, with North Korea.

There's a trade war between China and the US.

And 1 thing that's quite specific is that if you can remember way Back in January of 2020, you remember when there was a military strike upon General Soleimani of the Iranian army.

It was sort of headline news, you remember that?

And there was all this talk, he was the leading general of the Iranian army and he was in Iraq and the US drone strike took him out and everyone was saying this is going to be World War 3, we're going to get into war with Iran.

Well fortunately it ended up merely being a rumor of war, it never blew up into a full-scale war, but that seems like ancient history, that was like 6 months ago.

What's interesting is that the word nation is actually derived, the Greek word is ethnos, the word from which we derive the word ethnicity.

So Jesus says in the end times, ethnicity will rise against ethnicity.

And of course a lot of this was sparked, you know, the unrest underneath, the dissatisfaction has been there for decades, but the spark that light this latest fire was the death of George Floyd which happened on May 23.

Not that long ago and how the world has changed, our country has changed.

I don't think I need to talk about this do I?

COVID-19, we're all wearing masks now because of COVID-19.

The worst pestilence in our lifetime, and probably in over a hundred years.

And a lot of news articles, you can Google this if you don't believe me, World Health organization and other international organizations are saying because of the economic lockdown and the transportation restrictions, we are entering a period of severe famine in great swaths of the world.

And if you look up the term biblical proportion or famines of biblical proportion.

The BBC, The Guardian, the CNN, I mean all these news articles, they have been reporting on this.

Famines, Jesus predicted, will happen before the end.

What about earthquakes in diverse places or various places?

Some of you may know whom I speak of whom I speak, but we have I had some friends who got stuck in Salt Lake City.

They were unable to leave the airport because the airport got shut down from an earthquake.

And this was just in March 18, not too long ago.

And then of course it's lost in all the hubbub with the news now, but there was a major earthquake in southern Mexico.

So earthquakes continue to occur in various places.

That's another sign that we just read in Matthew 24.

And just a couple weeks ago, this strikes close to home as far as Adventism goes and also because we live in Tennessee.

There was a guy named Jeff Pivenger over Father's Day weekend, June 21, 22, actually I have a picture of the article.

You can see he took out a $14, 000 ad in the Tennessean, largest newspaper here in Tennessee, basically giving a prophecy that on July 18, That's exactly 1 week from today, proponents of Islam is going to detonate a nuclear bomb in Nashville.

And because of this, we're going to be entering World War III, instigated by Islam, and Donald Trump is going to become the last president of the United States and we're going to enter into a period where the United Nations takes over the world, or something to that effect.

And he of course, being a former Seventh-day Adventist, he implicates the Adventist church for not preaching this message and they're backslidden, and all of these things can be proven from Ellen White.

Well, let's just say Jeff Pippenger has a complex and he is not a true prophet, as we shall see once we pass July 18 next week and we'll know that his prophecy did not come to pass.

But all of this to say, all of these signs that we have seen spoken of by Jesus in Matthew chapter 24 of which he says these are just the beginning of sorrows.

We've seen a lot of these things happening more recently, and when we think about the signs of the times, we need to remember that Jesus makes it clear that these signs by themselves do not say that Jesus is imminently at the door.

He says these are the beginning of sorrows.

But the analogy is birth pains, contractions before a child is born.

Jesus gives these signs and he says look these signs are going to happen more frequently with greater intensity Just like the contractions before a child is born, it becomes closer together and more intense, right up until the time of delivery.

And what am I saying by listing up all of these signs?

Every single sign I just mentioned occurred in just the first half of 2020.

Every single 1 of the things I just mentioned happened in the last 6 months.

So are we seeing the signs of contraction becoming more frequent and in more greater intensity?

But that's actually not the focus of our study today.

I want to focus on the next series of verses in Matthew 24.

So let's go back there, let's read verses 9 through 14, and this is really where I'm going to focus because I think we don't look at this as often as the first part that we just read.

So Jesus continues in verse 9, Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.

And then many will be offended, will betray 1 another, and will hate 1 another.

Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many, and because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.

But he who endures to the end shall be saved.

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come." So I'm going to outline these points that we just read in Matthew chapter 24 verses 9 through 14.

I think we all know that, we've all heard it, but Jesus now then expounds and gives somewhat of a context as to what leads to the persecution, all right?

It says, many will be offended, that's the key word there.

Many will be offended and as a result they will betray and hate 1 another.

And in the midst of this, false prophets will arise and will deceive many and further stoke this division.

And lawlessness will abound." Lawlessness!

In the Old King James it talks about iniquity.

And as iniquity abounds, the love of many will grow cold.

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Nothing Shall Offend Them

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