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Matthew 16. The title of this message is maybe this morning, maybe this morning. There's this old song, some glad morning when this life is over I'll fly away To a home on God's celestial shore I'll fly away Fly away, Old glory Fly away When I die Hallelujah by and by I will fly away we sing. We sing songs like that. We talk about that. And I think even though we say some glad morning, we don't usually think that when we wake up it's going to be this morning. That's glad, right? But eventually, you live enough days, there's going to come a day where it's the day. And so what I'm saying to you today is maybe this morning. What if this were the morning you flew away from your body, flew away from this world to God's celestial shore. Hallelujah. By and by. We talk about it like it's some distant thing, but eventually it's going to become very concrete and very real, not just through death, but also through what Scripture calls the Second Coming. And my assignment today is to bring it more to this morning, right? To bring it more to today and to talk to you about how to live in light of the Lord's return. How should we live if that is in fact a reality that's coming? How should we live? I mean, even if you woke up tomorrow and did it again the next day, and in your journal you just wrote maybe this morning, as though to indicate with humility, this could be the day I die by and by, this could be the day that the heavens roll up, the sky rolls up, God parts the sky and comes back, as Scripture says, on a white horse with a sword coming out of his mouth. You know, it's something that's talked about 318 times in the New Testament, and there's only 260 chapters, so you do the math. Does it matter to God? 318 in 260 chapters, the second Coming. How about in the Old Testament, 1527 times? It's often confusing because of something called prophetic foreshortening. If you were to look at the mountains on a clear day, you might be looking at mountains far away that seem in line with mountains that are close up. And the distance is tough, tough to tell. It almost seems like they're together, but there may be a huge gap between them. When you read the Old Testament, you read all these literally 1500 prophecies concerning the Second Coming, and they're sometimes even in the same breath with something that refers to the First Coming and something in the prophet's day. So prophecy must always be deciphered. What is he saying? That's initial. What is he saying? That's eventual. What is he saying? That's ultimate and thus eternal. Okay, but it's in there. Someone say it's in there and it's all over the place. You'd have to. You'd have to try really hard to pretend it's not. And none of us doubt Christmas, right? None of us doubt Christmas because what is it? It's history. I mean, for crying out loud, it's got its own genre. Name one other person whose birth spawned an entire genre, for crying out loud. Gave Mariah Carey something to do for the rest of her life. We don't doubt the first coming because it happened, right? It happened. Now get this. There are eight times as many prophecies in this book about the second coming as there are the first. So why do we treat the second coming like, oh, someday. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's right. And not as concrete. We should think about it as concrete. Or more then we think about Christmas. And if that's the case and the big idea, how should we live today? How do you go about living in light of the Lord's return? Or to put it this way, when you know where you're going, you change how you're living along the way. We do a staff fun run every summer. We bring our fresh life staff together for some training, vision, culture. Right? And we decided a few years back to add a fun run in. And there's different lengths, you know, different physical activity levels. There's a mile run, we call that the Little Rattler. And there's the. There's the, you know, three mile run and something like the Copperhead Dash or something like that. And I can't remember what we call. What's the. What's the. What's the six mile run, Kyle? You remember that hard. Yeah, that's correct. That's funny. It's hard. It is hard. What is that last one? Diamond Back Dash. That's right, Alicia. That's right. Diamondback dash. And six miles, it's just over six miles, 10K. And every year I've tried to lead by example by signing up for that one. And there's no shame if you do any of the other levels. But once I do, once I commit mentally, that changes my spring. Right? Because you'd be a fool to know something like that's coming and to not prepare to just, you know, go out and try and like, what do you Hate your Achilles tendons, you know what I'm saying? Like, you gotta. You gotta train for that. And I. I like that. I like having that as motivation. When you know where you're going, it changes how you live between now and then, how. How you act on the way. Once something's fixed in your mind, it focuses you, it clarifies you. If someone told you about some amazing restaurant in a city on a trip that you were gonna take, and you got reservations and you got psyched up and you. You read the reviews, you know, you figured it out, right? That that day you wouldn't eat two boxes of Triscuits, you know, and just filled yourself up. No, you would be excited and you would be. You'd be thinking about it. What are you gonna have? How's it gonna. How's it gonna live up to expectations? When you know something's coming, what does it do? It changes how you live or on the way. This is why the return of Jesus Christ should be fixed in our minds and in our hearts as the very real future we are moving towards. And Jesus in Matthew 16 is going to tell us all that and more as he talks about how we should be good. We should be savvy at reading the signs of the times. What are the signs of the times? Well, this series is called It's About Time. And so, of course, it would be crazy for us to not just acknowledge, where are we at in human history, right? Because the Bible says God sees the end from the beginning, but we don't. We live at a fixed point in human history. I like to think about the Macy's Day Parade when they show that, you know, giant shot from the drone, and you get to see where the parade starts and where the parade stops. All the floats, all the bands, all the people along the way. But. But when you're standing at a fixed spot, you only see what's going in front of you in real time. That's where we are today. We only see what's in front of us. But thank God, Scripture can allow us to go up above and look at it and go, oh, here's how God sees it. And the question, of course, is, where the signs of the time? Where are we at when it comes to the. Are we at the beginning, are we at the middle? Or are we living in the end of the parade? Are we living in the last? When there's only a couple before Santa Claus himself comes by and ends that. Where are we at? And Jesus is saying, you should know this. This is important. Matthew chapter 16. It's all about time. Okay, so here's the text, verse 1. Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came and testing him, asked that he would show them a sign from heaven. He answered them and said, when it is evening, you say it'll be fair weather, for the sky is red, and in the morning it will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening. Hypocrites, you know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. And he left them and departed. I grew up in Colorado and at 2 years old my mom took me skiing for the first time. She worked a part time job as a ski instructor in. And I guess the common wisdom among ski instructors is never teach anybody you love how to ski. But I guess no one else would teach me it too. And so she put me between her legs and I don't have any memories hardly that don't involve like skiing in the winter, right? Winter to me is synonymous with skiing. And as a result, I've just always had the instinct to like, check for when is snow coming? When is snow coming? When is snow coming? Now, thank God he gave us a predictable world. And in Genesis he said, as long as my earth remains, it will be seed time, then harvest. Seed time, then harvest. Summer, then winter. Summer, then winter, right? So we never have to get to summer and like wonder what's coming, right? First gonna be fall, then it's gonna be winter. And then it's like, well, I don't know what's next, like more winter? No, no, it's gonna be, then it's gonna be spring, and then it's gonna be summer. So we live in this predictable world. So there are, there are patterns to it and you can get better at it and the tools have gotten better. I mean, you got all these apps that can, that, that can they make you crazy, honestly, give you so much. Oh, man. Low pressure system, atmospheric rivers, high pressure systems, moisture from the Gulf. And it's like, please bring us snow. But I'm telling you right now, the 10 day forecast ain't good, bro. Unfortunately. And that's where Jesus kind of has our attention here, right? He's talking about what has been for much of human history, a much more basic rudimentary way of checking the weather. Just go look up, look up, look up at the sky, which sometimes I think might even Be better. It's like, what's the weather like? I don't know. Go open the door and look, right? It's probably as good as anything you're going to see. But there's this old aphorism, right? Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. And you can find versions of that all the way throughout history, all the way to, literally, William Shakespeare, who works that in. And supposedly, when you see a menacing red sky in the morning, even though it's dazzling, that can indicate a low pressure system that can bring a lot of moisture with it. We won't bog down in the weather too long because I fear I might lose you. But I must point out that the whole statement about red sky morning, red sky night does have a footnote. If you're reading in Scripture that has footnotes and columns, you'll see a little footnote that says that phrase out of the whole paragraph we just read is not in some of the manuscripts of the New Testament that we have. And I always find it interesting. And by the way, when you're reading, you should read those footnotes. If there's a little letter, read it. If there's numbers that point to other verses, you should read it. The best commentary on the Bible is the Bible. And so let the Bible interpret itself. And you'll find in the old things that help you understand the new and vice versa. But that one should, if you, if you see it, it should give you pause, right? Because it's so what? So what? A transparent. B rare. A transparent meaning. This isn't the wizard of Oz. We are all invited, right? Behind the scenes. The Scripture says, hey, just so you know, we got 5,000 manuscript copies of the New Testament, and this isn't in a couple of them. And you're like, I don't know, who can we trust the Bible? Because it's. It's telling you. The translators told you that. Hey, just so you know, we, by the way, 99% of the new Testament, almost every instance of every single verse occurs in every single manuscript we have. 99%. That's wild. That's astounding. And the 1% where there is the example of Jesus starting out by talking to Pharisees and Sadducees who asked him for a sign and ending up by pointing them to Jonah and him departing from there, which is all in every manuscript. There's just the one little riff about the red sky. May have been something he said commonly but didn't get rid of A few of the Manuscripts. But we don't have to worry. And we should still exegete his content. Why? Because of Luke, chapter 12. Luke, chapter 12. He says almost the exact same thing in verse 54, only it's a little different. He says there, when you see clouds rising out of the west, you know a shower's coming. But when you see a south wind blowing, you say to yourselves, it's going to be hot weather today. Which. What does that mean? That means that both may have been things commonly said and at different point, Jesus said them both. But either way, we have ironclad in every copy of the different manuscripts. The Bible being honest and vulnerable and pointing to you. Hey, here's an instance out of so many where there's not that. Where there's a couple little, tiny little discrepancies. So next time someone goes, oh, you can't read the Bible, it's full of discrepancies. You can say, yeah, actually it is. And it's honest about it. And it concerns less than 1% of the manuscript evidence of the 5,000 we have, and not one major doctrinal issue is based on a verse that is not in all the different. So please tell me more about all the discrepancies. Meanwhile, I'll keep building my life on the word of God. So. But let's talk about the setting. The setting is Jesus is confronted by two groups. Did you catch it? As we went by both the Pharisees. That's not weird. He's often having confrontation with them. And the Sadducees. Not that weird. Jesus often had confrontations with them. But what is unique, what is interesting, and what should not escape our attention is these two came to him together. Cat fan, Grizz fan, hanging out together. Right? This ain't. This ain't normal. Right? This. This ain't unusual. What do we talk? We should. We should. Wait a minute. Wait. What? What? The Pharisees and the Sadducees have the same agenda. They. They despised each other. Turns out the enemy of my enemy can become my friend because they hated each other. And the moment Jesus is gone, they will go back to hating each other. But for the moment, their purposes agree on dealing with a bigger problem. And so they have found a basis for friendship in an unholy alliance. And I wouldn't be pastoring you well, if I let you rush past that without asking the question, do you have friendships in your life that are formed on wickedness for the only reason they're friends, the only thing they actually have in common at the End of the day is a sinful desire based on envy, based on jealousy, based on hatred that left unchecked always turns into murder. Murder. No way. Yeah. Jesus said there's a huge connection between hatred and murder. And if you don't catch that little root of bitterness, that little envy, that little hatred, that little comparison, that little, oh, I just wish I could take them down. I wish I could just. That is baby murder and has to be dealt with ruthlessly in your heart or it's always going to try and become what it does become in the heart of the chief priests, the scribes and the Sadducees and Pharisees. Psalm 1:1 says that to walk in God's blessing, you have to make the decision to walk. Look at it not in the counsel of the ungodly. What does that mean? Does that mean I can't hang out with non Christians? No, I just not going to let you counsel me. I'm not going to let you give me your advice. I'm not going to let you speak into how I'm choosing to live. I'm not going to walk in the council of ungodly people. So I'm not gonna listen to you if I don't wanna end up like you get it? I am not gonna stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful. So I'm gonna be very careful if I wanna walk in God's blessing. I'm gonna be really careful about what the basis of my alliances are, of what my friendships are. When Jenny and I first started dating, I got one of my best friends at the time to, to come into my office. I said, danny, I like Jenny. I'm gonna start dating Jenny. I just want you to promise me something. He said, what's that? I said, when I get all Twitter pated and love drunk and my feet don't touch the ground anymore, if you see me changing, will you tell me? Cause I want to follow Jesus. I want to follow his calling for my life. And if that's pulling me off the path, will you love me enough to tell me this friendship is, is having a bad influence on me? And Jenny had the same resolve. And we both, together, we agreed as we began dating, the goal is for us to both push each other onto Christ. And if at any point we see that's not happening, I don't want to be the seat of the scornful for you. I don't want to stand in the way of godliness for you. And I don't Want you to do that for me either. Nothing matters more to me than Jesus. That's where we got to come to. We have to come to a place where. Where we assess. What is it that's bringing me together with this person? Is it gossip? What are we talking about every time we come here? Is it Christ? Is it edifying my soul? Am I allowing you to counsel me? To sort of lead me in the way I'm thinking in my imagination? What's the effect of you on my life? We have to ask those hard questions. New Year's resolution. Keep away from unholy alliances. So the Pharisees and Sadducees working together to murder Jesus. Hi. Not good. They come to him, and what do they say? Teacher, give us a sign from heaven. Can I. Can we read between the lines here? If you do this, we'll believe you're that. A lot of people believed that Jesus was the Messiah, that Jesus was the anointed one, the sent one, that he had come down from heaven. And they essentially were saying, we're willing to get with that, but you got to prove it first. Do you have some sort of pastoral credentials you could show us, you know, do you have some sort of, you know, divinity license you could show us? Because he didn't come from their ranks, he didn't seek the approval of people. He didn't play the political game that they had all played, and the wheeling and the dealing and the favors and the quid pro quo. He didn't play that game. He didn't scratch their backs. And he had come rogue, come outside. Just born in Nazareth or came from Nazareth, as they thought. Thought. They thought he was born there. They didn't think he could read the circumstances of his. He was not well bred, right? They assumed he was born out of infidelity, born out of marriage. And so as he begins preaching and people begin following, they're like, what the heck? He's. Can we. Can we just cut to it? He's getting the attention we think we should have. They were jealous of him, but they said, we're willing to believe, but you got to do something magical, man. Right? So maybe they imagined the fire that fell from heaven with Elijah on Mount Carmel. Like, if you could do that, wow, we really believe, right? Or maybe if you could, you know, I don't know, make the sun stand still in the sky, make it stay two o' clock for three hours or something like that. Will believe like Joshua did one time. Or perhaps if you could start throwing down some plagues, you know, Moses made frogs show up everywhere on command, turned a river to blood once. If you do that, Jesus, we will believe you. And Jesus said, no sign shall be given to you. I'm not doing it. He said, all you're going to get is the cross. That's the sign. You want a sign? I'll give you the sign of the prophet Jonah. Now you're like, wait, Jonah, the guy from the Sunday school story with the fish? Yeah. Who willingly went into the depths of the sea. A picture of death, a picture of the grave, the great unknown of the open ocean. And then after three days, emerged, was thought dead, but came back. He said, that's a picture of me. That's a picture of what? You want a sign? I'll give you the sign. It's the sign. All of the Old Testament actually was Moving towards Genesis 3, Psalm 22, Genesis 22, Isaiah 53, all of the sacrificial system. It was all pointing to Jesus. Jesus said, you search the Scriptures thinking you're going to find eternal life in the Bible. I got news for you. These are they which testify of me. It's all about me. I'm me coming to die for the sins of the world. Sin is mankind's biggest problem. So Jesus is mankind's only solution. He came to pay our bill. He came to die our death. He says, you. You want a sign? You can't handle the sign, all you're going to get is the cross. And he said, basically, I can't believe you're seeing the south wind blowing. And you know to go, oh, it's gonna rain today. But you don't realize the way that I am. God's fulfillment, the centerpiece of God's prophetic calendar. How are you so dense? You bring a rain jacket when there's a red sunrise. But you're missing me. You're missing life itself standing in front of you. In fact, in Matthew 12:41, he said that the men of Nineveh are going to rise up to judge this generation and condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. But what did he say? He said, indeed, a greater than Jonah is here. Some say that the revival at Nineveh is perhaps the greatest revival recorded in human history so far. I say so far because I believe God's got a new thing coming. I believe, and may he do it even today. But the whole city repented and converted after one sermon that wasn't even very good. Wasn't even very good. I write sermons every week. I read Jonah sermon. I'm like, no, it's not very good. Here's what he said. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overturned. And people heard a bad sermon from a prophet with a bad attitude, with seaweed wrapped around his head still. And they all converted, they all repented. Unbelievable. And Jesus is saying, you Pharisees, you Sadducees, you live your life straining, getting hemorrhoids while trying to follow this book, but you've missed the main character at your trial. The Ninevites are going to stand up and go, fools. We would have responded with a tenth of what you got. We did respond. We didn't get anything. You got to meet the Lord of Glory and you put him to death on the cross. They will rise up to condemn you. They got less, but they did more. So the religious leaders want to sign elephant in the room. They got a bunch of them. Like the way that Jesus birth fulfilled prophecy, the way that his powerful ministry lived it out every day. There were specific claims to divinity. He had a royal genealogy on the mother's and the father's side. We have both Matthew's and Luke's genealogy. And then the fact that fulfilling all the promises and bucking the trend of the Jewish, you know, sort of tacit racism, they had eventually even adopted, he, unlike them, had a radical gentile receptivity, much like Jonah, who by the way, is the first missionary prophet preaching to a pagan people the gospel of the God of the Hebrews, all pointing towards Jesus, who would have the ends of the earth on his heart. So all of those signs and more, they had already been given. I mean, you just think about fulfilled prophecies that we can point to just using the different prepositions the Old Testament said that would be connected to the Messiah. And he found a way to fulfill all of these, which is outrageous. First of all, he was the Messiah going to be out of Bethlehem, but also somehow and again, this is way before he got here. He's going to not only be out of Bethlehem, but also be out of Egypt. So we're going to meet this guy. Like, where are you from? Well, it's complicated. I'm out of Bethlehem and I'm out of Egypt. Oh, and he's also going to be in Galilee at some point, therefore, also he's going to be at Jerusalem at some point in the temple. But to the Gentiles, and get this one, hard to fake out of a virgin. So there's that. And yet, when you look at Jesus's life, what of these signs did he not fulfill and what did not God have to do to make all these things happen? That God knew of the tax decree that would get him in Bethlehem, that God knew of the threat of Herod, and that Jesus would have to, for a time, be in Egypt. How do you be from Bethlehem? But also from Egypt, but also, at a certain point, actually end up in Galilee. And yet he's going to be raised in Nazareth so that people could despise Nazareth because it was this hated city, this disrespected city. Can anything good come from Nazareth? They thought he was from Nazareth. He wasn't from Nazareth. He was just briefly a Nazareth actually from. Well, the ancient of days has no beginning. So where he's from, it'll blow your mind if I actually tell you, right? So all of this. What is his name? I don't know. Wonderful counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Ever heard of him? I mean, this is Jesus. Shall we talk more about the star over Bethlehem, the fulfilled prophecy of the massacre of the innocents, the presence of a charismatic forerunner, John the Baptist, that Malachi said would show up before him, getting things ready, preparing the roads, making way for his arrival. That according to Isaiah, whenever this figure comes out of Egypt, out of Bethlehem, in Galilee, to Jerusalem, to the temple out of a virgin womb, that when he gets there, deaf are going to hear, blind are going to see, lame are going to walk, dead are going to rise. And yet Jesus did it all. And these guys are going, yeah, but show me something awesome and we'll believe in you. And Jesus says, it'll never be enough. You've already God speaking out of you, received more than enough. Does not scripture. Now we're back to talking about how to live in light of his return. Does not scripture say, godliness with contentment is great gain? For we brought nothing. How many things, nothing, nothing into this world? I was there when my wife gave birth to all five of our kids and none of them had a wallet. Nothing into this world. And it is certain we can carry nothing out. Hearses, don't pull U Hauls. You will not bring anything out of this world except what you've wisely laid up in heaven and sent on ahead. So how do we confront the insatiable, fleshly appetite for more? Because it is the height of human nature to always feel like, I'm not happy here. But if I had. If I had. If I had, God does something great, you think? But if I had more, but if I saw more, but if I did more, but if I accomplished more, we need to tap into what has been called the hidden wholeness, the hidden Thomas Merton, a Puritan preacher, he used to say, everything you need is already in your life. Everything you need. You came naked, you're leaving naked. So thus, anything you collect temporarily along the way, you don't need having food and clothing. Be happy. Sufficient for today is its troubles. Don't worry about tomorrow. Hebrews says, be content with such things as you already have. What do you already have? And then it says this. This is a crazy statement. He says, don't you know God already said, I'll never leave you, I'll never forsake you. I'll never leave you, I'll never forsake you. These Pharisees and Sadducees are saying, I want more, I want more. Give me more and we'll believe. And Jesus says, you already have me. I'm right here. If this isn't enough, listen to me. If Jesus isn't enough, nothing on earth ever will be. So we need to be content where we are, with what we have in Christ. And then if we tap into that revelation, he can entrust us with a lot or not, and we'll be okay. It won't change our value. This church could grow like crazy or not. And it's not gonna change who I am. I'm not what I do. You're not your performance. You're not what you wear. You're not the attention that you get, the hidden hole. Everything I already need is in my life right now. And then I can have things as though I don't have them. I can have a light touch because I'm not defining myself based on what's eternal. And so they're saying, more, more, more. And Jesus says, I hear you oinking. I'm not giving you pearls. I'd throw you some bread if you quit barking. I'm not throwing more of what's. You already haven't responded to the revelation you've received. How do you get entrusted with more in God's kingdom? You be faithful with what you're presented with today. You be faithful here. A lot of people say, I would do if he did this, I would do that if I got this. No, you will be exactly as faithful with a million dollars as you are with $100. You will be exactly as faithful with a lot of opportunity. Let me tell you something. I have for 19 years worked as hard studying to show myself approved, trusting in the Holy Spirit of God for a message I preached that day to 14 people as I will to A message I preached to 14,000 people to a message I preached. That'll get her by 140,000 people. It's not the size of the assignment. It's the one who gave it. You see what I'm saying? We gotta. We gotta be faithful and small. He can give us more. So he says, you've not been faithful with what's in front of you. I'm not giving you more. You're asking for more. You. You really. You wouldn't respect it. You wouldn't. You wouldn't value it. And so Jesus, what, he left and departed from there. He left and departed from there. And of course, it. It's not the full, like brunt of the sermon, but it does have to be a question. We ask that. What will it take for you to believe? For someone here today, what would it take for you to believe? These guys don't believe. Look what they got. They got to personally eyeball Jesus Christ. But they wanted him to do a magic trick. So, you know, you go, well, I haven't seen Jesus yet. But you've seen his creation. Every sunrise, every sunset, that's God made you. God made this world. There's a God. This didn't just happen. Every time you look in the mirror, you're seeing a miracle. The miracle of human life, the miracle of sight, the miracle of the human eye. Any of this. Do you realize we are fearfully and wonderfully made? And we are all asking the same questions that only beings created in his image ask. What's the meaning of life? How can I be forgiven? Where do I go after I die? Your dog's not asking that today. You come home, he's puzzling, you know, he's heading his paws. What's the matter? I just don't know what the point is. Chased the cat, drank out of the toilet. I just feel like there's something missing. Right? No, listen. You asked those questions. I asked those questions. Why we were created with more. God entrusted us with immortality. You have an immortal soul and your conscience. If Darwinian evolution can explain how we got here, then every time we do something wrong, we should high five ourselves. I got ahead. I'm getting higher on the food chain, right? It's hunter be hunted. It's destroyer be destroyed. The survival of the fittest. We should feel good. We feel uneasy about that. Yeah, you can turn that off. You can harden your conscience and become a sociopath. But even the presence of your nagging conscience telling you to do kindness, to show love, this shows who created you. You have The. You know when you ever get out of a store and it beeps cause they didn't take the little thing off your jacket, right? It's telling you, eh, eh. Bring it back in here. Right? What is that little sense of your conscience, of desire for immortality, hoping to be forgiven? That's God's little. Eh, eh. He's trying to call you back into the store. Come on. He's trying to call you back to himself. If he just let you be happy, if he just let you be content. If you could just get enough money and do enough drugs and ski enough vert. And you would finally be like, yes, I've attained it. You would never desire more. No, no. You wouldn't keep grasping after him. God subjected creation to futility so that in grasping we would grasp for him and we would find he is not far from any one of us. So what's it gonna take for you to believe? Hasn't God been whispering to you your whole life? Oh, remember when you were a little boy, little girl? Didn't you sense his love? Didn't you know he made you for a purpose? Now again, these things can get turned down because we just turn up the volume of the world and numb ourselves. But if you're honest in the quiet moments, don't you know God made you for a purpose? Don't you know he's got a plan for your life? What will it take for you to believe? There was a guy in Luke 16 who said my brothers would believe, but all they have is the Bible. They need something dramatic. They need a miracle, maybe if someone rose from the dead. And you know what Jesus said to them? He said if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rise from the dead. And you know what? He was right. Because In John chapter 11, Jesus very publicly raised Lazarus from the dead. And everybody knew about it. You couldn't deny everyone was talking about it. Okay, and what did the Pharisees, Sadducees and religious leaders do in response? Did they say, all right, uncle, you got us, you gave us our son we've been asking for ever since Matthew, chapter 16. No, in John 12:10, they plotted to put Lazarus to death also. Brilliant plan, boys. That'll fix him. You know. Tell me you're not paying attention without telling me you're not paying attention. This then becomes a moral problem, unbelief, not a intellectual one. It's not that they couldn't, it's that they wouldn't. And so now they're willing to Destroy evidence in order to justify their atheism. They're not believing in what God's doing. So Jesus did, of course, use all of that for his purposes. Because not only did Lazarus die and race, but Jesus did the same, only it was different because Jesus raised Lazarus, but God raised Jesus right. Jesus could not be held by death. He. His was not a. His was not a resurrection by. By an outside force, but an inside force, because he was God. So he was raised to life. Impossible that the grave could hold him. He went into the grave willingly, like Jonah. No one took his life from him involuntarily. And it was. It was vicarious. He did it not just for hit, not for him, but he did it for us. He did it for you. He did it for me. And then, of course, he did it victoriously. Because on the third day. Hello. Jonah came out of that ocean. Jesus came out of that grave, and he's alive today. He ascended to heaven today. He sent his spirit into the world that's working today. And one day, someday, maybe this morning, he will return to this world that he created, that he died for, that he ascended from. And he will rule and he will reign. And the increase of his government will have no end. His will be the kingdom and the glory and the power forever. The promise was given in John 14, verse 3. I'm leaving. But I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, you may be also. And just as the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Jewish nation, was given all these signs, I just showed them to you. Royal genealogy, gentile receptivity, right? Prophetic fulfillment, all of that. So listen to me. We have been given the signs of the times. We should know to wax up our board, so to speak, when it comes to certain things that should be happening. If there's going to be snow that's on the way, and a powder day on the horizon, so what would the signs of the times be? Now we can look at Matthew, chapter 24. We can look at. You want to jot these down and read them further. Daniel, chapter 12, Ezekiel, chapter 37 and 38, Joel, chapter 2. And from them compile some of the things that we should expect to be going on at the earth increasingly. So, as Christ return draws nigh, draws near, just like when a woman is about to have a baby. You can expect there to be Braxton Hicks. You can expect there to be early labor. You can expect to be the breaking of the water. You can expect to be what they call the hard labor I think that's insulting. That was come up with by a man. Cause all labor probably is hard, right? But now you're in hard labor. It's been hard for nine months, bro. Right? And then. And then you get to what's. What's called. They call it the ring of fire. She went down, down, down to a burning ring of fire. It's a boy, right? So, so, so, so the world will have these sorts of things peppered in. They've always happened. They'll happen more and more and more the time of Jacob's troubles. And they will. They will culminate in a period that really is like a ring of fire. And then, listen, it will be not just a boy, it'll be a man. He came as a baby the first time. He's coming as a man again. Riding on a white horse, faithful and true. A sword coming out of his mouth. A name written on his thigh that no one knows but himself. He will tread the wine press of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God. He is going to be regarded as the king of kings, as the Lord of lords forever. Okay, and the signs of the times we would expect to be seeing if it's coming closer. And we are living in what Jesus called the last days or the end of times. Nearing the end of the parade. Wars and rumors of wars. Check. Turmoil in the Middle east, but specifically conflict over Jerusalem. Famine, pestilence, earthquakes. Also undersea seismic activities that would lead to tsunamis. Check, check, check. Persecution of followers of Christ. Check. Religious confusion, interesting. Deception, Charismatic. People rising up, saying, follow me, but pointing away. And perverting from the teachings of scripture and interesting to many students of Bible prophecy, that there will be somehow, some way, some sort of great sweeping along in a religious way of thinking that if you don't follow that worldview, you'll be beheaded. And you read that in the Bible. It says that. It says beheaded. And you go, oh, that's crazy. We live in a day where there is a surging, growing religion that literally has, as a tenet of its radical teaching, that the infidel must be what? Beheaded? And we go, weird. Check. There will be a great falling away. Some people who at one point made a choice to follow Jesus and were like the hell or high water, I'm with him. But then it'll become lukewarm. It'll be like not bold for Christ, compromising with. Well, you know, it is what it is. More like the world. There will be also, and this is crazy, the rampant acceleration, but also perversion okay, I'm gonna have to explain this. Rampant acceleration According to Daniel 12, as we get closer to Christ's return. And again, he was riding in a day of chariots and horses and he's just having to describe what God's showing him. So he's like, I don't know how it's gonna work. People are gonna travel to and fro on the whole world. Wait, we can do that? I can hop on a plane today and I'm 12 hours, I'm in London. You realize that to and fro in the world, rampant acceleration. And then it says, and the knowledge that people will have access to will accelerate and skyrocket. And we're like, oh, yeah, AI, I gotcha. Daniel, chapter 12. He was describing what he didn't even know how to describe. Okay. And then rampant perversion. So there's going to be people who are lovers of pleasure, lovers of what's money. People are going to say, what is good is evil. What's evil is good. Where are the first instances of good use? The book of Genesis, where God established an order. This is how it is. This is how it should work in the family, this is how it should work with marriage. This is how it works with gender. This is how it works with sex. So we're going to say, ah, who are you to decide? We get to decide. Here's what's good, here's what's evil. I have the power to declare what's good, not you. We would see that. We should expect to see that sort of thing happen. But this book doesn't have any bearing on the regular stuff we're dealing with today. I don't see any check marks anywhere there. How about what has been by theologians referred to as the super sign because you got signs of the times. But many have singled out the super sign as the destruction and a rebirth of the modern state of Israel. Okay, so Jesus in Matthew 24 says as the disciples are walking around the temple going, aren't these temples amazing? Isn't building great? He said, ah, I'm heartbroken because not one stone's going to be left upon another. And they were like, what are you talking about? This is the height of permanent and rigid and stable. In 70 AD the temple was torn down, Jerusalem was torn down. The Romans laid waste to the city. You can go there today. There's still a pile of stacked up stones that the disciples were commenting on that Jesus said should be torn down and they would be torn down. 70 A.D. and for the next 2,000 years, just about Guess what? There was no such thing as Israel. There were Jews scattered to the four winds and the devil continued to try and kill them. Anti Semitism comes from where? The pit of hell and from the fires of the holocaust where Hitler as an agent of Satan tried to destroy all presence of Jews from the face. Where does such a thing come from? Who could come up with such an evil thing? There's this one person. We must kill them all. We must find them all. What are you? Haman? You're the devil, right? Literally Jews must die is a satanic script. Okay, so you have. What do you have? You have 1948, against all odds. May 14 Modern day state of Israel reborn. Now here's where it's interesting. Jesus is promised to return. But not just to return anywhere, but to return to Israel. Real tricky if there's no Israel. And for 2000 years he couldn't come. Thus we couldn't have been living in the final moment, the final countdown. And guess what? Today there is a state of Israel. What am I trying to say? Jesus Christ is coming soon. I'm trying to say we got a super sign of both the destruction and the rebirth of the modern state of Israel. Furthermore, we have promised in scripture. Here's a couple of good things, okay? Massive revival, Massive revival. And if we're tracking along what scripture says, Joel and Acts, it should specifically be centered among young people. Come quickly, Lord Jesus, do it, God, do it. In our day, we speak blessing over Gen Z. We speak blessing over Gen Alpha. Rise up young and women of God. And then we should see if this is true. Matthew 24. We should see the closer we get to the end. When's the parade ending? When's Santa coming around the corner? When's it going to happen on fifth Avenue here? Listen, listen, listen. This gospel will be preached to the ends of the earth. And we are living on holy days. In holy days. Want to know why? Okay, so the Bible gets written, right? It's a New Testament literally just written in koine Greek. All right, you got one language and eventually it gets translated into another language so someone else can read it. It's in a few other. Flash forward to the year 1500, okay? 1500 AD. Do you know how many languages this book's in? 14. 14 languages. Took them 1500 years to get the Bible into 14 languages. Today, 20, 25, 3658 and counting. @ this moment, people are working to get this into the final. I mean it could happen in our lifetime that this gospel gets to the entire world. But before then, it has to continue. And then the end comes. We get to play a part in the Great Commission being fulfilled, triggering the events that God has foreordained to precipitate the return of His Son, Christ Jesus. But this gospel has, portions of it have gotten to the. To the entire world we are living in. The signs of the times being fulfilled in real time in front of us. Christ is coming. Now, the technical period of the end days or end times began the moment Jesus ascended. Okay, you need to know that. Now. That might make you go, oh, well, then, you know, I don't take my jacket off, you know, put my purse on the chair, right? He's been in the last days for 2,000 years. But hold on. That means that we have never been closer than anyone in human history to the return of Christ today. And there is not one thing that I can see in this book keeping him from coming right now. Not one thing. Not one thing that needs to be lined up. Not one thing. We can get more of these signs, but the signs of the times are everywhere. So how many, how many days are there? I don't know. Less than yesterday. Less than yesterday. The clock is ticking. And I hope you know what is promised, what he's going to bring with him when he comes. I mean, just think about this. We have the promise of heaven. We have the promise of new bodies. We have the promise of reunion with loved ones who have died in Christ. Everyone's excited about New Year, new you. How about New Heaven, new Earth, right? I mean, just think about the death of death, judgment and reward. Look some of these verses up and write them down next to maybe this morning. Because this is what's coming for you. This is what's in your future forever with Christ. This is our living hope. And when you know where you're going, it changes how you live on the way. I want you to understand in Christ. This is your future. So what should we do between now and then? We should do the same thing God's people have always been called to do in exile. What is the definition of exile? To live in a place not your home. Now, if this world's your home, make it as good as you can. Cause it's all you got. Do you realize that? You better eat, drink and be merry. What are you doing? Go fill your bucket list up. It won't fill you, but go try. But if heaven's your home, you're currently today far from home. Thus, in exile, Jeremiah 29 tells us four things. God's people have always been called to do in exile. They are jot them down. Number one, work hard. Number two, do good. Number three, enjoy life. And number four, be patient. Work hard, do good. Enjoy life, be patient. Jesus is coming tomorrow morning, maybe today. I don't know. What am I going to do? Should I quit my job? Should I get a cardboard sign? Should I write, welcome, Lord Jesus? Should I stand on a hill? I want to be coming? He'll be bummed. He'll be sad. He would not be pleased with this. He wants you to show up for work tomorrow. You go, Levi, that's very specific. How do you know that? Because there was a group of people that did exactly that. They all quit their jobs because Christ is coming. And Paul wrote them a letter saying, no aspire to lead a quiet life. Hey, how's this as a thought? Mind your business, social media, telling everybody else how to live their life. Work with your own hands as we have commanded you. Show up for work tomorrow and do the best work hard. People are gonna go, how you work so hard? How are you so good? And you go, I don't know, Jesus and stuff, right? And you have the opportunity, not because you're nosy and noisy, but because you do a great job and live with integrity. And people want to hear what you have to say. Work hard, do good. Share the gospel. Go into all the world. Share the gospel with every creature. Every chance you get to bump into someone, remember, this is an eternal, immortal soul. God may have destined this moment to be a moment. You move them forward in their journey. And as you do your good, prioritize the house of faith. What do you mean, prioritize? I mean, that's what Paul said. He said, hey, just so you know, Galatians 6, as we have opportunity. Yeah. Do good to all. Do good everywhere you go, but especially to those who are of the household of faith. Don't let all the gifts you have, all the good you can do, just be done out there in the world. Let it be done in here. Care for what Jesus died for. The bride of Christ. If you're not serving, you're not serving. If you're not helping, you're not helping. If you're not giving, guess what you're not doing. Giving, especially to the household. Do good and enjoy life. God's not blessed by you thinking holiness is the same as piety. You know, I see some Christians, they look like they got baptized in lemon juice. I want to say, if you're saved, tell your face. You know what I'm saying? Knowing the Bible and being a bummer. These ought not to. You know, I like what Ecclesiastes 9 says. Seize life. Eat your bread with gusto. Drink wine with a robust heart. Not to fill a hole in your soul, but because God takes pleasure and pleasure. The only time God doesn't take pleasure and pleasure is when pleasure takes the place of God. But when you're drinking to the king and living to the king and loving to the king and rejoicing with this, life isn't. Isn't everything. Because it's not my home. But I'm gonna make it the best I can. In Jeremiah 29, he says, Plant a garden. There's nothing more futile if Christ is going to come burn the earth up with a fervent heat than planting a garden. He says, there's dignity in it. There's dignity in it. There's beauty in it. You'll enjoy it. You'll be better because of it. Do something beautiful. Do something great. Do something and enjoy it. Be patient. Be patient. Be patient. Why is he taking so long? He's going to tell us in words. Peter's gonna write. Some people are gonna get tired of waiting and say he's never coming. And they'll even make weird eschatologies to, like, explain away Jesus coming. And they'll say, if you push him down, like, why isn't he coming? And they'll go, because he never came before. That's such bad logic. I don't believe I'm gonna die. Why not? Well, I've never died before. Just hold on. So be patient. He's coming. I had to get to New York. I had a 7am appointment. I had to get to New York City, 7am Flights get delayed, flights get canceled, another flight gets rebooked, flight gets canceled. Eventually, they reroute me to Philadelphia, 105 miles away. And I was worried because I know they oversell planes and hotels. So I called the hotel and I said, hey, just so you know, I'm not going to get there. When I said I was going to get there, I'm not going to get there. And at 4pm I'm gonna get there at 2am 3am Maybe, depending on the roads. And I said, just don't give my room away. Don't give my room away. And the woman was so sweet, she could tell us, you know, just having a moment, she goes, don't worry, Mr. Lusko. We'll wait for you. Don't worry, Mr. LusKO. You take all the time. You drive safe. Don't worry, Mr. Lusko. We're not gonna give you room away. Could we say that to Jesus? Jesus, take as long as you want to. Take days, a thousand years. Thousand years. A day come my lifetime, come 100 years from now. I'm not giving your room away. I'm not giving your room away. This heart your home. This heart your throne. Don't worry, Jesus, I'll wait for you. I'll wait for you. You're still my first love. I'll wait for you. I don't need another sign. I don't need you to do anything. Don't worry, Jesus, I'm waiting up for you. What if he came today? What if he came tomorrow and you weren't ready? What if someday I'm going to die? By and by now my family's going through my search history and they're ashamed. What if you're not ready? What if Jesus came and you said, oh, my gosh, I need five minutes. Five minutes. Let me go say some sorrys. Let me go tell the gospel to my neighbor. I need five minutes, God, how much better to do all that now. And then he comes and you go. Maranatha. You know what that means? It means it's about time. Come quickly. You see what I'm saying? That you're living in light, you see, of the Lord's return. That you're living aware. It could be today. It could be today any moment. I'm ready to put down what's in my hands and praise you. Maybe this morning we woke up on the last day of our lives, Lord, we don't know. No one knows. But you're coming, and we're going to stand before you and we're yours. If you needed this today, if you needed to sweep something off the throne of your heart and just keep room for Jesus to tell him. If you just needed to tell him. I'm waiting for you, Jesus. I'm waiting for you, Jesus. Could I just ask you to raise a hand up? Just raise a hand up to God. I want to live in light of the Lord's return. I want the holy fear and holy awe to come upon me as I realize what a gift, what a vapor this moment is, this day is. I won't take it for granted, God. I will rejoice and be glad in it. For this is the day that you have made. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, God. You can put your hands down. I want to now invite anybody who's not trusted Christ for salvation to make the most important decision of your life. To give your heart to him to give your soul to him to enter the ark of safety. No one outside the ark was saved, only those on the inside, like Noah, Jonah, Noah, Abraham. It's all about Jesus today. You can enter the ark. You can have the promise of eternal life. Don't stand outside with your arms crossed. I'm going to pray a prayer. I want you to pray it with me, Church. Pray it with us. Dear God, I know I'm a sinner. I've done wrong things I can't fix myself. But thank you for Jesus who died and rose from the dead. I repent and turn to you. Thank you for new life. I give you mine in Jesus name. Hey, thank you so much for listening to this teaching. Just really quickly wanted to throw out there we are taking applications for our summer internship at Fresh Life May 26 through August 6. All the information and more@freshlife.com church internship. But if you're between the ages of 18 and 25 and you're wondering what the summer is going to be like, we can offer college credits. There's Let me just tell you something. Nowhere better on earth in the summer than in Montana. And we'd love to have you come out and be a part of all that God is doing at Fresh Life. I would look forward to getting to meet you, spend time with you. So come on up, join the internship, get signed up. Or if you know of someone who's like is unsure about summer plans, let them know about the internship we and send them our way. But God bless you.