Are We There Yet?

Well, brethren, it is good to be here. Good afternoon. It is always wonderful to be able to come over and visit you guys. A little bit hazy today. You guys must be having some fires and whatnot going on this side of the state a little bit. So we definitely had some stuff going over that way where we're at and definitely some stuff going up in Washington. Some of the fires up there have just been amazing. So it's sad to see those beautiful wild lands get burned. All those trees and all those forests and everything else. All those wild lands were once part of that Oregon Territory. That big piece that we annexed way, way, way back. On May 22, 1843, that westward expansion into that area began in earnest. Prior to that time frame, there were really only a select few that had braved the wilds of the west to trap, to hunt, to attempt to convert the locals, and to explore the vastness that the lands west of the Mississippi River really had to offer. 1840 saw a perfect storm brewing in the Midwest of the United States. The population was increasing. Available farmland was decreasing. And there was a major depression that was occurring in that middle section of the 1840s. And it led a lot of people to search for greener pastures, kind of literally as well as figuratively. But with the tales of this paradise that existed out here in Oregon, this just sheer paradise, these trees, this fertile land, everything that the Willamette Valley and Oregon had to offer, the numbers of people of those migrating westward began to grow exponentially. They started with 70 pioneers in 1841 that went west, just 70 initially. The next year, that number grew to 100 in 1842, and by 1843, 1,000 settlers, led by a Presbyterian minister named Elijah White, they began that 2,200-mile journey to what would become, eventually would become, the Oregon Territory. The majority of those settlers survived, and they became some of the first in Willamette Valley. Some of those areas actually in the Willamette Valley, in and around Salem, Oregon City, some of those still carry the names of some of these first pioneers, some of these hills and some of these different places. One that seems to have his roots and his name everywhere is McLaughlin. You've got McLaughlin up in the Oregon City area, there's McLaughlin down in and around Medford and Central Point, there's stuff all over the place with the McLaughlin name.

But with the success of that trip, year after year, more and more began the preparations to head west. And they took to the trail in droves. It's actually estimated about 500,000 settlers left Independence, Missouri, between the years of 1846 and 1866. 500,000 on these wagon trains. They were farmers, they were ranchers, they were miners, businessmen, fur traders, bankers. All of them, regardless of their occupation, were willing to pack up their lives and their families to make this arduous journey from Independence, Missouri out to Oregon City, Oregon.

It was a 125 to 170 day long journey on the wagons, one that was very difficult and deadly. Conservative mortality rates were estimated at around 20,000. Now it's total out of the 500,000 that went across. It's about 4% of the settlers that left. It actually works out, this is kind of a staggering number, it works out to about 10 gravestones per mile of trail. About 10 gravestones per mile. Most of the deaths came from accidents with livestock, with the wagons themselves, firearms, and diseases such as cholera or dysentery. Yet the promise of a better life outweighed the dangers, and for 20 years they flowed westward.

As the settlers traveled along the trail, they passed rock formations, hillsides, forts, and a number of other landmarks that served a very important dual purpose. First, they told them where they were at on the trail. Told them they were actually on the trail. See, they didn't have Google Maps, TomTom, GPS, things like that in those days. You can imagine, if you somehow managed to get your small party, because they started out at the beginning in very large groups, but after a while it just became smaller parties of families.

You managed to get off on the wrong path at one of those landmarks and go the wrong direction. You could find yourself in some pretty unfriendly and inhospitable territory pretty quick. Secondly, though, they told them how long they'd been journeying, and it told them how much further they had to go. As they traveled west, they passed courthouse rock, chimney rock in the Platte River Valley. If any of you guys have ever run that section of trail, chimney rock is one of the most recognizable rock formations in the United States.

They passed Fort Laramie, Independence Rock, Soda Springs, Fort Hall, Fort Boise, the Whitman Mission, the Dows. I'd love to tell you that I'm like a history buff. I played a lot of Oregon Trail as a kid. That's how I know these different places that they go past. Inevitably, I always had somebody in the party die of dysentery. But they followed past all of these landmarks on the way to their ultimate destination, which was the Willamette Valley, where I'm very blessed to call home.

As the journey progressed, these landmarks could be seen for miles. Your flat land in a lot of that section, chimney rock, was 325 feet high. You could see it from a very long distance away. When you were able to be able to see where that thing was at, you knew how to get there. It provided people with an important series of markers to be able to check off as they journeyed across this landscape. Mankind has used landmarks in navigation for centuries, millennia even.

You see numerous accounts in the Bible of large rock formations that are being set up to mark various locations. God's very specific not to move your neighbor's landmarks. Do not mess with your neighbor's landmarks. That's the boundaries of their property. The Romans used to use stones alongside their roads to mark off mile marks. They call those milestones. We still use that term today in our lives, and we think of a landmark moment in our life.

We have milestones in our life. Today, we give and we get our directions often in the form of landmarks. We call them country directions. How many of you have ever been a recipient of country directions? Country directions sound like this. Turn left at the green mailbox, go straight down the dirt road for like 100 feet, turn right at the old gnarly pine tree that has the pie tent hanging in it. That's country directions. Those are landmarks. They're given to us based on landmarks. Landmarks tell us where we are.

They tell us where we're going. They help us to figure out how much longer the trip will be. I was reminded of this as we traveled home from the Medford congregation this past Sabbath. Our kids are awesome in the car. They really are. I have to bring on them just a little bit. They're 7, 5, and 2. With all the driving that we do to and from the areas that we serve, Medford's a hall. It's about a 4-1-5 hour, 5-hour trip down. Then we stop in Roseburg before that. It's a long day in the car.

They spend a lot of hours in the back of that minivan. For the most part, they do awesome. They are absolute road warriors at this point. We had to train them in that through the years. They started as very young, not so road warriors, and it really worked their way up. Every now and again, though, every now and again, they just reach the end of their ability to be happy about the car ride. They just get to that point where they're done. You know, Mallory, that happened this past Sunday on the way home.

She couldn't do it anymore right around Eugene. Made it as far as Eugene. It's an hour from Eugene, and she's just wailing in the back seat. She's done. As you probably know, if you've ever traveled extensively with kids, there's not a lot you can do.

There's really not. There's not a lot you can do. You could stop. You could pull over, but you're really only postponing the inevitable. You go back on the road, she's going to start screaming again. You're really postponing the inevitable at that point. But if you keep going, you get a 130 decibel serenade for the next hour. And so, you know, you really only have two options. Neither one are good. Neither of the options are good. We opted for the only one that we could think of, and that was just power through it.

Just, you know, just go. Just get home. Get there. Try to see if we can keep her quiet. We tried several things. We handed her a blanket, which got promptly thrown on the floor. We handed her stuffed animals, which got thrown on the floor. Her brothers tried to tell knock-knock jokes. They know two. So she just wasn't really having any of it. But I heard Aiden pipe up at one point and say, It's okay, Valerie. We're almost home. To which Hinn and I kind of looked at each other and thought, No, we're not.

And she said, But we've got like another hour with this just resentment in our voice. Thinking, you know, it'd be nice if we were home. But his response was interesting. I said, No, we don't. We don't have another hour.

I saw the big flag. We're almost home. And, you know, we both kind of looked at each other and kind of wondering, What big flag? What was he talking about? Finally dawned on us, though, what he was saying. Near our house is a car dealership. And on the top of that car dealership, they have a brand-new car dealership.

And it's a huge flagpole with a massive American flag. And that's the last turnoff of the freeway to head home. And every time we pull in, there's the flag. And we didn't really make that connection. Well, we just happened to pass an RV dealership just outside of Eugene that also flies a very large American flag.

He'd seen the flag, made the connection that the flag means we're almost home. This landmark means we're almost there. He had no idea where we were on the route. No idea where we were on it. He didn't realize we were an hour away. But he saw the flag. He saw the landmark. And he made that connection to a landmark that meant something to him. We were almost home.

You know, that's the power of landmarks. That's the power of landmarks. That's what they're designed to do. They're designed to allow you to make connections in space and time. Where you are, how far you are from your ultimate destination. You know, when the folks on the wagon trains, when they got to the Dalles, Oregon, they were home free. One of the Dalles was the last big check-in before they were finally there.

Can you imagine the elation? After 125 to 170 days on the road, you're finally almost there. I mean, don't tell them one of the most treacherous parts of the journey is just about to begin. Either the Barlow Road or the floating down to Columbia. But these landmarks really help us out. And it seems like when you look at television and movies, kids don't seem to use landmarks. It seems in television and movies kids are obnoxiously asking the entire trip, Are we there yet?

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Do any of you guys have are you there yet kind of kids? I was an are you there yet kind of kid. I know that's kind of a surprise. But can you imagine for a second, think about this, 125 to 170 days on the Oregon Trail, can you imagine what kids would have been like on that trail?

Are we there yet for 170 days? Or, even worse, even worse, when are we going to get there? How much longer? I'm hungry. I'm bored. You know, what a nightmare. What a nightmare. You know, thinking about it, I don't know that Aiden's really ever asked that question. We've never gotten the are we there yet. Aiden likes to ask how much longer. Aiden likes to ask how much longer. But, you know, he must just intuitively know. And he set it up in his head as we go. Because we've never pointed out landmarks and said, hey, that means we're almost there. He's connecting this on his own.

But apparently, based on the various landmarks that he's established along that route, he recognizes that we're almost home, even if he misidentifies it every now and again. You know, that got me thinking. There's really no need for the question, are we there yet, if a person can recognize the landmarks? You don't have to ask, are we there yet, if you can recognize the landmark.

You intuitively know where you are. Once again, on the Oregon Trail, when that wagon hit the Dalles, those kids knew the Dalles. I'm sure of it. They knew to look for certain formations in that Columbia River. Salilo Falls, for example, is a big thing that was just very prominent at that point in time. They knew they were in the home stretch at that point. They knew it wouldn't be much longer. Let's begin today by turning over to Matthew 24. We're going to pick up the account in verse 1. We're going to pick up the account in verse 1, breaking into the context of the passage. We see Christ and His disciples are walking through this temple complex.

As Christ leaves the temple, He's heading up to the Mount of Olives at this point, the disciples were marking on the beauty of the stones and the buildings of the temple when Christ informs Him that it would not remain standing. He lets the disciples know of the ultimate end of this particular temple. Matthew 24, we'll pick it up in verse 1, says, Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple.

Verse 2, Jesus said to them, Do you not see all these things? Talk about kind of a downer here. Do you not see all these things? Assuredly I say to you, Not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down. Not one stone. Not one stone. Christ, as much as tells them, this temple, this second temple, the beautiful temple of Herod at this time, wasn't going to last.

That it would be brought to the ground, completely raised, just as the first temple was. And that this was going to happen in the not so distant future. Christ basically tells His disciples at this point that this temple would be completely unmade. Just like the first temple was unmade under Nebuchadnezzar's armies. Verse 3, we see the beginning of the Olivet prophecy. Verse 3, it says, 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? You know, the disciples here, at least kind of the core group of them, we see in Mark 13, tells us that it was specifically here four of the disciples.

Tells us it was Peter, James, John, and Andrew. They pulled Him aside. They pulled Him aside. Asked Him privately. Pulled Him aside. This is kind of, they refer to these guys as Christ's inner circle. These were the disciples that He was the closest to. And they say that He labels it in order, I don't know if that's the case or not, in order of who He was the closest to, starting with Peter and working.

So of those four, Andrew was the least close of the inner circle. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's the claim the commentaries make. But they pulled Christ aside and they asked Him privately, Hey, you know what you told us about the temple? That got us kind of thinking about all of this. Tell us, when shall these things be? When shall these things be?

Note His response. It's not a proclamation from the rooftops. This isn't a sermon to the entire group of the disciples or the multitudes. This is a private conversation between Christ and four of His closest followers, His friends. And of course, all of us who have read it, you know, as time has gone on. But Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked Christ very specifically, What are the landmarks? What are the landmarks? Tell us what to look for so that we know where we are and how much time we have left.

Verse 4, he gets into the main kind of meat of the Olivet prophecy here. And we're going to go through and read through this up to... We'll go up to verse 30. We'll just go through the whole thing. Or most of the whole thing. So, And Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no one 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, and see that you are not troubled. For all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines, pestilences, earthquakes in various places.

All of these are the beginning of sorrows. Then it 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 one another, and will hate one 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. There's an amazing promise in the midst of a lot of negative information there. You know, things get pretty ugly. 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 the nations. And then the end will come. Verse 15, Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, says whoever reads, let him understand.

Then let those who were in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who was on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. Let him who was in the field not go back to get his clothes. But woe to those who were pregnant and those who were nursing babies in those days. Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world, until this time known nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved.

But for the elect's sake, those days will be shortened. Then if anyone says to you, look, here is the Christ, or there, do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will rise, and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand, therefore if they say to you, look, he is in the desert, do not go out.

Or look, he is in the inner rooms, do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will be the coming, and Son of Man be. Christ makes it pretty clear, you're going to know. You're going to know. When it's really me, you're going to know. For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together.

Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, and stars will fall from heaven. The powers of the heavens will be shaken, then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and with great glory.

Christ answers their question. He gives them very specific landmarks. He gives them certain prophetic events that must occur prior to His return. When you analyze the Olivet prophecy, the landmarks that Christ gave can be teased out. There are really a total of seven primary things that are mentioned specifically in this passage. 1. Deception and False Christs 2. Wars and rumors of wars 3.

Famines, disease, and natural disasters 4. Persecution and martyrdom 5. Preaching of the Gospel to the entire world and a great falling away 6. Abomination of desolation 7. Great tribulation and heavenly signs We had deception and false christs, wars, rumors of wars, famines, disease, natural disasters, persecution and martyrdom, preaching of the Gospel to the world and a great falling away, the abomination of desolation and the great tribulation and heavenly signs. We've been going through our chronological reading and the last month has been really heavy.

It's been Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Zephaniah, Haggai, Daniel, all major prophetic books. You can't casually read these things. There's no sitting back like you're going to want to read. We finally got to Esther and I breathed a sigh of relief. It's this much of a sigh of relief before we jump to the next one. Those prophetic books, they read heavy. Prophecy has been on my mind a lot lately. We had an interesting conversation with some folks down in the Medford area last Sabbath. They were talking about how United really doesn't preach a lot of prophecy anymore.

We got to thinking about this. I think I know why. He's right. We don't hear a lot of prophetic sermons that much anymore. I think the reason for that is, once you're in the church, once you've made that commitment, prophecy is interesting. Don't get me wrong. It's fascinating. It's interesting to look at where we are and it's interesting to watch the world.

It's interesting to go through those processes. Where do you go from there? If we're going to look at it and I'm going to look at the situation going on in Israel and Gaza right now, and I'm going to say, Oh, we're getting close. I better start getting after it and start making sure I'm doing my study and getting all that done. I'm completely missing the point. The point of prophecy is to give us an idea of where we are.

It's interesting to take a look at that now and again. But what's really important is understanding what we do with our life in the meantime. How we live it, what we do, the way that we walk this life each and every day. We are going to visit this, though. We are going to take some time today. We're going to analyze these events. And what we're going to do is ask ourselves the question. At each of these events, we're going to ask ourselves the question, are we there yet?

Just like that little kid piping up in the backseat, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? We're going to take a look at each of these landmarks and ask ourselves, are we there yet? So the title of the message today is that fundamental question, are we there yet? Are we there yet? You know, it's important to note as we begin this particular discussion, while some of these things are set up in an order, like a specific kind of order, some of these are sequential.

To be honest, a lot of these things that are mentioned here in these seven big things are happening concurrently with other events. They're happening at the same time as other things are happening. It's not like, you know, first we have wars and rumors of wars, and then those are done, and we move on to famine's disease and all that, and then that's done, and we move on to persecution. A lot of this stuff is happening while the other things are happening.

It's also really important to note that much of this had a past fulfillment at the time of the disciples, you know, at the time just shortly after the disciples. And it also has a future fulfillment, as much of God's Word does. We call this principle in Scripture duality. In fact, it's kind of mentioned by Christ Himself in Matthew 17. He talks about—we won't turn there—he talks of an Elijah that was to come, but then went on to mention that Elijah had already come.

So there's an Elijah to come, but an Elijah that's already come. That's a duality. Okay, it's a duality. And they're all over Scripture. They can be found in a lot of different places. When we ask the question, today, are we there yet? What we're going to focus on, we're going to be asking it from what might be fulfilled in the modern era.

We'll visit a little bit of what's been fulfilled in the past, but we're going to look at it from what's being fulfilled in the modern era. And what we'll do is start with the very first item on our list. The first thing we talked about was deception and false Christs.

The very first thing that we see Christ reference to His disciples is His concern over their deception. He lets them know right away, there are going to be people who come in My Name. They're going to claim to be the Messiah, or they're going to preach in My Name, but they're going to be preaching a deceptive message. They're going to attempt to deceive you.

We see that in verse 4 of Matthew 24. We'll be in Matthew 24 quite a bit today, so you might pop a bookmark in there, or keep a finger in there. We're going to bounce around quite a bit, too.

But Matthew 24, in verse 4, Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no one deceives you, for many will come in My Name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many. You know, that's a pretty specific statement. He's equating Himself with the Messiah, or the person who's saying that is equating themselves with the Messiah. The disciples are given a warning here. Don't let yourself be led astray. Discern. You know, weigh the message. See what you're saying. He says that there'd be many who come in His Name, claiming to be the Messiah.

And notice they would not just deceive a few, rather they would deceive many. They would deceive many. Not just a few, not just some, but many. The Book of Mark clues us in just a little bit further. Go ahead and leave a bookmark there, or keep a finger in that spot at Matthew 24.

We're going to jump over to Mark 13, and we're going to pick up one of the parallels. There's two or three parallels, I'm sorry, two parallels, three total, of the Olivet prophecy. One is Mark 13, the other is Luke 21. And so, Luke 21, Mark 13, and then Matthew 24 all contain bits and elements of the Olivet prophecy. So, Mark 13, we'll pick it up in verse 22. Mark 13, verse 22 says specifically, for false Christs and false prophets will rise and show signs and wonders to deceive.

Signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. You know, just a quick search on the Internet came up with a bunch of hits on the number of people who have come along over the past couple hundred years claiming to be Christ Himself. There have been a bunch, just a really quick bit of research, turned up over 55, of people in the last couple hundred years who have come and claimed to be Christ. Now, some of those notable names you'll recognize. One is Bagramshri Rajneesh. Anybody remember the Rajneeshis? They were right here in Oregon, actually, and he made claims to be a messianic figure. David Koresh, the guy down in Waco, Texas.

Jim Jones, which, by the way, there's an extremely depressing documentary out there on Jim Jones. It's interesting, but it's really depressing. But there's a number of other cult leaders that have come along and said, I'm Christ. I am the resurrected Christ. I am here. I am the Messiah. There have also been a few select, mentally unstable folks who have attempted assassinations on key political figures that also claimed that they were Christ.

Most recently, there was one that attempted an assassination of our current president who claimed that he was the antichrist, so therefore this guy was Christ and had to take him out. But when we look at this landmark that Christ gave his disciples, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Not entirely. Not entirely. This is kind of one of those yes and no's. This particular thing, people who work signs and wonders, this can't be referring to the people that have come like Bagram and some of these other guys that said, I'm Christ.

They didn't accompany that with signs and wonders. They didn't bring anything to the table with that. They just stood up and said, hey, I'm Christ. And everybody went, oh, okay. Well, you know, we'll just follow you. But it says specifically, there will be false Christ and false prophets to come that will show signs and wonders so believable that it has the potential to leave even the elect astray. Those are people that know the truth. Because it's us.

It's people who know that these false prophets and these false Christs are coming. Yet it's going to be enough. Those signs and wonders are going to be so believable that they will deceive even the elect. Revelation 13 records more on this particular character in prophecy. Let's go to Revelation 13. Revelation 13 refers here specifically to the false prophet, that final Antichrist who was given his power by the beast. Revelation 13, verse 13 says, Specifically he performs great signs so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men.

And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived.

This particular person is the Antichrist referenced in 2 Thessalonians 2, that final ultimate deceiver, that man of sin, the one who kind of exalts himself above God and sits in the temple deceiving many. So are we there in this modern era yet? No, not really. No, not really. Not yet. Not yet. This simply hasn't been fulfilled in its entirety at this time.

Are there people coming along that are claiming to be Christ? Yes. All the time. Will there be more? Absolutely. Are they the Antichrist who's foretold in Revelation 13 that will deceive with many signs and many wonders?

Maybe, but not likely. Not likely. The book of Revelation makes it pretty clear there will be no mistaking the false prophet when he arrives on the scene. This is going to be a very, very apparent thing. So you can make an argument for a partial fulfillment in this case, but not the ultimate fulfillment. But think about it. Why was this one listed first?

Because the ones below this have been fulfilled, a lot of them. So why was this one listed first? Christ is showing concern for his friends here. He's talking to four of his closest followers and his first primary thing out of his mouth on this. Don't be deceived. Don't be deceived. You've got to watch. You've got to be paying attention to these things. If these other landmarks haven't happened and someone comes along and says, hey, I'm the Messiah, you know they're lying to you.

These other landmarks have to happen. And he gives that to them as well as gives that information and that message to us.

The second of the things that he mentions in here are wars and rumors of wars. Christ works to kind of calm them down by telling them, look, don't be troubled at the state of the world. These world events, they have to happen in order for us to get to the point where we can reach the time of the end. We see that in verse 6 of Matthew 24. Let's go ahead and pop back over there. Hopefully you left a bookmark there. I didn't. That'll teach me not to follow my own advice. There we go. Matthew 24 and verse 6.

Matthew 24 verse 6 says, Nation will rise against nation. Kingdom against kingdom. And these things are going to be going on right up to the end, but then again he says the end is not yet. In other words, these aren't the final symbol to the end of the age. These are occurring. They're punctuating, maybe, if you will, the remainder of the events. There are a number of active war zones in the world today. I printed off just a thing I found online from this organization that is really wanting to push peace in some of these areas. And these are places that are causing at least 1,000 violent deaths per year. So there's at least 1,000. There's a whole giant list of them that are causing less than 1,000. But here are like 10 that are causing over 1,000 violent deaths per year. These are active war zones. Since 1978, the war in Afghanistan, fatalities in 2013, 5,648, cumulative fatalities anywhere from 1.4 million to 2 million since 1978, the Somali Civil War since 1991, the Islamist insurgency in Nigeria since 1999, war in northwest Pakistan since 2004, the Mexican drug war since 2006, 2011, the Egyptian crisis, 2011, the Syrian Civil War, 2011... notice the recency in the dates. So far we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 of them since 2004. Active war zones causing over 1,000 deaths a year. The Iraqi insurgency in 2011, and that number has just jumped a bunch. P.S. 2013, the South Sudanese Civil War. 2014, pro-Russian unrest in the Ukraine. These are active war zones. Nations that have risen against nation, kingdoms that have risen against kingdoms. There are 44 more that are active war zones that kill less than 1,000 a year. I'm not going to read all those off, but the locations are familiar. You hear them in the news all the time. Are we there yet? Yeah, we are. On this one we are. But it's going to continue up to the end. The scripture said, for this is not the end. In fact, we see this concept scripturally. The end, quote-unquote, the latter days, can be a very long period of time. It can be a very long period of time. In fact, let's turn over to Joel 2, verse 28. Joel 2, verse 28.

Joel 2, verse 28. This is one of those passages we read every year right around Pentecost. Primarily because Peter, in Acts, refers to it in his sermon in Acts 2. But, Joel 2, 28, I will show wonder in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke. He's talking about the latter days. He's talking about the latter days here. In fact, in Acts 2, when we see the Spirit poured out there and those guys say, Oh, come on, these guys are just drunk. Well, what Peter's response is, no, they're not. You know what this is. You know what this is.

This is a fulfillment of Joel. You know that this is a fulfillment of what God said would happen in the latter days. So if those latter days began at the point of Christ's disciples and the pouring out of the Spirit on, not all flesh at that time, there's a much later fulfillment, too. But if that was the beginning of the latter days, quote-unquote, and we're pushing 3,000, a couple thousand years ago, we see in Daniel 2, or I'm sorry, Daniel 12.

Let's turn over to Daniel 12 real quick. We see in Daniel 12 another reference to the end time. This tells us that we've got a long period of the latter days in the end time. Daniel 12 will go to verse 4. Daniel 12 verse 4 says, But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end. Now, he gives kind of a qualifier here for what the time of the end would entail. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase. Can we say that about the timeframe of Acts 2?

No, not really. No, not really. Can we say that about today? You ever feel like you run to and fro sometimes? Has knowledge increased? Do you realize I hold the entirety of human intelligence in the palm of my hand? I wish this had Siri, because I'd give you a perfect example of it. You just click the button and go, Siri, what's the blah blah blah blah blah? And Siri comes back and goes, the answer to your question is, but the the the the. The entirety of human knowledge in my back pocket, I would say knowledge has increased.

I would say by that qualification, we have the timeframe of the latter days beginning right around the time of Acts 2 and the pouring out of the Spirit on the multitudes up to today. We have a very long period of the latter days. It's been a long time. So the latter day is 31 A.D. clear until now. So, you know, we see that this kind of stuff, these wars, these rumors of wars, they're going to continue up to the end, but it's not the end yet, is what it's saying.

That these wars and these rumors of wars are going to continue. But that's not going to be the final kind of signal for the end. We see in number three, we saw famine, pestilence, and earthquakes. Christ warns the disciples of natural disasters, of food shortages, of disease that would become rampant in the world as this age draws to a close.

And that was pretty punctuated with a massive earthquake at the moment of Christ's death. You know, that ripped the veil. I mean, just this... I mean, that would have been one of those things where it's like, hey, remember when Christ told us that? Maybe that's what he was talking about. Maybe that was one of them. Maybe that was one of the things. We see verses seven and eight of Matthew 24 and once again. Oh, I did leave a book part.

Yes. You can't see it, though. It's right here. No, now you can. Matthew 24 verses seven and eight, we see that... Christ is warning them specifically about these famines, these pestilences, these food shortages. Matthew 24, verse seven and eight says, again, beginning part, For nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All of these are the beginning of sorrows. All of these are the beginning of sorrows.

Luke 21 adds that in addition, there will be fearful sites and great signs in heaven along with this section. Now, that's Luke 21's addition to this. Again, this is the beginning of sorrows, birth pains, if you will. You look around the world today, you've got food shortages in Africa, you've got food shortages in Asia, you've got food shortages in Central and South America. You've got people that are fleeing those areas, trying to get out of those areas to a place where they can get food and other things.

There are disease outbreaks all over the world. The big news lately is Africa currently with a big Ebola outbreak going on. That hits an airplane. We've got problems. That's the one thing, keeping people isolated in that. That's one of those viruses that moves very, very quickly and very violently.

It's not a pleasant virus. There's a book out by Richard Preston called The Hot Zone. I read it as a kid, a suggestion of my science teacher. Ebola's nasty. It's awful, awful virus. But you know, it's going on right now. We've got issues like malaria worldwide. We have public health issues here in the U.S. We've got HIV and AIDS.

Even things like public health nuisances, things like diabetes, heart disease. The list could go on. These are things that they can't control. It also goes on to discuss earthquakes in various places. If we look at even just the last few years, Indonesia in 2004, Japan in 2011, and Chile in 2010, three major earthquakes in various locations. Those are all kind of around the world, Pacific Rim, but all around the world. I think we can all agree we're experiencing earthquakes that are doing incredible amounts of damage. I don't know if you knew this or not. This is actually kind of a cool little fact I share with my students at school on these earthquakes.

Just the sheer power that are behind these things. All three of those earthquakes caused a very small acceleration in the rotation of our planet. It actually caused our planet's rotation to speed up and shorten the day by a few milliseconds.

And the reason that is is it shifted the mass. And so it's like if you're a figure skater, you ever see a thing when they're out on the ice and their arms are clear out here, and then they suck their arms in, and all of a sudden they just start spinning like they're going to drill through the ice? That's the same principle. You shift the mass and you create an increase in that rotational speed.

They were that massive to increase the rotation of the planet and somewhat shorten the day by a small amount of time. A few milliseconds. The Japanese earthquake ruined a nuclear reactor, creating at this point a larger natural disaster, larger nuclear disaster than Chernobyl.

We're seeing increased earthquakes worldwide, some in fairly unlikely locations. For example, this article was in Bloomberg Businessweek just a couple days ago, July 23rd, 2014. Earthquakes are rising in Oklahoma, and insurance is booming. Now, you remember back in middle school science where you talked about how earthquakes happen along plate boundaries? There aren't really plate boundaries in Oklahoma. It's in the middle of the continent. There may be a hot spot in there somewhere. It says earthquakes used to be rare in Oklahoma. A handful per year or so. Not anymore. So far this year, this is July 23rd, 2014. This was what? Three days ago? Two days ago. Three days ago. So far this year, 2014, the state has experienced some 2,300 earthquakes. According to the Oklahoma Geological Survey, an average of more than 11 per day, in an area that only had a handful or so per year. I'm going to skip most of this because it's talking about selling insurance. That's what Bloomberg is concerned with. How do we make money on this natural disaster? But while most of the seismic uptick has been too small to cause much damage, a 2011 temblor hit 5.6 on the Richter scale, sending a new state record and damaging more than a dozen homes. The U.S. Geological Survey cautions more research as needed, but this is interesting. Its own research so far indicates that fracking may not be responsible for the increase in small quakes. They thought for a second, as we were drilling down and doing some of these different ways of getting natural gas and oil and things like that, they thought that that may be increasing things. They do think, though, that it may be to blame for boosting the magnitude of some of these larger quakes. So by fracturing certain areas of the Earth, we're making them larger in those locations. In Oklahoma, the largest quakes have occurred near injection wells. That's kind of an interesting idea that mankind may somehow be affecting that. But are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we having more and more earthquakes? Yeah, it appears so. It does appear that we are having more and more earthquakes. But it specifically states this is the beginning of sorrows. It's the beginning of sorrows. It's kind of like if you've been around somebody who started in labor. The first few contractions, they're not so bad. They kind of come and go, well, I've never had one, so I don't really know. Maybe they're terrible. But, you know, the first few. But as they go on, they become more and more severe, right? We know how this works. Eventually, the baby is born, and, you know, relief occurs. But this is the beginning of the labor. This is the beginning of the birth pangs. The beginning of the sorrows in this case. Number four, Christ goes on and tells the disciples of persecution and martyrdom. Of persecution and martyrdom. Christ warns his disciples that people, sometimes even their own family, will betray them. They'll turn them in. Others may be offended by what they preach, and will have them arrested, have them persecuted, have them killed. You know, it's a pretty sober warning for the four disciples that are listening to Christ. But because of that duality, it's a pretty sober warning for those that are alive at the time, immediately leading up to the end. You know, is that going to be in our generation? We really don't know.

But for those guys that were about to go into the world, go out and preach that gospel, that's a warning that I'm sure they paid pretty close attention to. You know, that's not something that you just kind of go, oh, okay. But verse 9 and 10 of Matthew 24, I'm going to read it in the New Living, it flushes it out just a little bit more. It says, Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers, and many will turn away from me and betray and hate each other. And I often wonder, you know, how much the disciples kind of took this in at this point in time. You know, I'd like to think that they all went, okay, file that one away because it's going to be important as we go. But it does kind of make you wonder how many took them seriously at that point because it's kind of like, okay, being over dramatic, you know, or whether or not they really filed that away and were really paying attention to that. But it's hard to tell for certain, but Christ is very clear with Peter as to the death that Peter would experience. Let's go over to John 21. John 21. I'd like to think that in this case, with this particular section, that Peter really took this one seriously. John 21, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verses 18 and 19. John 21, verses 18 and 19. You know, this is a post-resurrected Christ that revealed this to Peter. And it's right after he kind of pinned him down here. This is the section where he says, do you love me, feed my sheep? Do you love me, feed my sheep? Do you love me, feed my sheep? Three times! Well, it's not coincidence. What was something else that happened three times in Peter's life? His denial of Christ. The night of Christ's capture and the night of Christ's trial. And so now we have Christ kind of going, are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? So, I mean, this is coming right at the end of kind of a grilling by Christ here. And then Christ telling him pretty flat out, this is how you're going to go.

You know, this probably brought up some pretty raw emotion of the betrayal that Peter was... You know, I imagine Peter felt pretty awful after what Christ said had happened. He said, no, no, no, no, I would never do that, Lord, and then it happens. You know, here's that rooster crow, it's like, awwww! You know, we read John 21, though, 18 and 19. And I'm in 18, that's not going to do us any good. 21, 18 and 19.

He says specifically, most assuredly I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and you walked where you wished.

But when you were old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish. This he spoke, signifying by what death he would glorify God. And when he'd spoken this, he said to him, follow me. You know, Christ basically told Peter, they're going to crucify you too. They're going to crucify you too. That's where your road ends. Follow me anyway. Follow me anyway. Regarding the persecution and the martyrdom of the apostles, we are only 100% certain on the death of one. How he died exactly. We're only 100% on the death of one. Which one?

James. James is the one we know. And that's because in Acts 12, too, it says that Herod Agrippa killed him with a sword. We know that one specifically. Now, Peter escaped in that attempt. He managed to get away. There was some miraculous intervention there. You have to go outside the Bible to get the rest of the apostles' ends. Which is far less reliable, but not 100% out of the realm of possibility. A lot of them line up in various writings, which tells you that there's a pretty good certainty that that's probably how it happened.

These guys were important enough in those days that they would want to record those events accurately. So I like to think that some... but there are a few where you look at it, and there's six or seven different writings that have six or seven different ways that they met their end.

I used Fox's Book of Martyrs and a few select other patristic literatures, but specifically one of them, Peter, they believe he was crucified in A.D. 64. And the reason that they think that is because he specifically requested to be crucified upside down, at least according to legend, because he felt he wasn't worthy to be crucified in the same manner that Christ was crucified in.

The writings of Hippolytus tell us that Andrew was hung on an olive tree in the town of Patray in A.D. 70. Thomas was killed by being thrust through with four spears east of Persia in 72 A.D. The Apostle Philip was tortured, crucified in Persia in 54 A.D. Matthew was tortured and beheaded in Nadaaba in A.D. 60. Bartholomew was flayed and crucified in A.D. 70. James the Lesser was cast from the ramparts of the temple and then beaten to death after the fall in 63 A.D. Simon was crucified in A.D. 74 in Syria, other accounts say Britain. Judas Thaddeus was beaten and crucified in 72 A.D.

Matthias was stoned and beheaded. Other accounts have him stoned while crucified in A.D. 70. John is believed to be the only of the Apostles that was not martyred. However, tradition states he was thrown into a giant vat of boiling oil at the Latin gate but managed to survive with some horrific burns. I don't know if that's true again.

These are extra-biblical sources that we're looking at. We can't guarantee the veracity. But the other one is that Paul died at the hands of Nero in 67 A.D. and was beheaded by Nero in Rome. But these weren't the only ones. Fox's book of martyrdom records the martyrdom and persecution of many of the big figures in the early church. So this was definitely partially fulfilled in those days. What about today? Are people in the modern era of the church, those with God's truth, are they being martyred and persecuted as they were during Hadrian and Nero's day?

Are we there yet? No. We're not. Not yet. But it's beginning. It's definitely beginning. It has really been ramping up over the past few years in particular. The anti-Christian rhetoric, the different ways that people are speaking. You can see it right now with the lack of support for Israel and the lack of support for some of these things going on. Pardon me. The arguments for gay marriage, how if you oppose gay marriage, you're obviously a hateful bigot. I mean, there's no possibility that there's any other option here. You must be a hateful bigot. There's a tax on Christian values, there's a tax on beliefs, but at the moment, we still continue to be free to believe what we believe.

For now. I don't know how long that will last. I don't know how long before it will be when you speak out against something like gay marriage. You're arrested for hate crime. I don't know how long it's going to be before we get to that point. I'd like to think it's going to be a while before they start beheading people for those beliefs.

But you never know. You know, Hitler's Germany rose in a very short amount of time. It moved quick. It's hard to know exactly how long that kind of thing will take. Number five. Talk to the great falling away. Christ told his disciples of a time when the love of many would wax cold due to transgression, and that there would be many who fell away from the truth. He also mentions there that the gospel would go out to all the world at that point in time.

That's in verses 12 through 14 of Matthew 24. It says, And because lawlessness, sin, will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But again, that promise we see in 13, 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 the nations, And then the end will come.

We're specifically told here the love of many will wax cold, And a great number will fall away from what they believe. We see this referenced in 2 Thessalonians. We alluded to it earlier. Let's go ahead and turn there now. 2 Thessalonians 2. And we'll pick it up in verses 3 through 4. 2 Thessalonians 2. Verses 3 through 4.

Oops. There we go. 2 Thessalonians 2 verses 3 through 4 says, Let no one deceive you by any means. For that day will not come unless the falling away comes first. So here's something that has to absolutely happen before that day will come. The falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, Who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, So that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

Again, we're talking about that character in Revelation 13, the false prophet, that final antichrist there. So prior to that antichrist coming, once again, that false prophet in Revelation 13, There will be a falling away that comes first. In fact, the passage states it won't be until the falling away comes that that day will come. Additionally, logically, if we think about it using logic, You can't have a falling away from the truth if you didn't have the truth.

How can you fall away from something you didn't have? So, can this reference people of this world slipping further and further from God's ways? Not if they don't have the truth. It has to be referencing the Church itself, in some way. Those who have had God's truth revealed to them. So are we there yet? Honestly, on this one, there's some room for debate. There's a little bit of room for debate on this one, and there is debate on this one.

Some believe that the Gospel going out in the Great Falling Away was kind of fulfilled in the glory days of the Church, back in the days, though, waxing and waning of the worldwide Church of God.

Others believe there's still a great preaching of the Gospel to be done to the entire world today, and that there would be another falling away of many as we approach that time, or as the New Living puts it, a rebellion towards God.

Some believe that will occur within the Church today. I personally, and it doesn't really matter what I think, but I personally lean more in the direction of the former, being the fulfillment. When you look at it, when you think about what we had back in the 60s and 70s with the worldwide Church of God, the Gospel went out to the entire world.

I think we can all agree on that. We had the ear of world leaders. We had people that Mr. Armstrong was intimately new, personally. The word profited, we had congregations all over the world, the Church grew significantly in those years. We peaked at 130,000 members in 1990. The word went out. The Gospel was preached worldwide. We had members added daily for a number of years. Of course, we hit the mid-90s. Changes to the doctrines that we held so true were changed.

Many went along with it. A lot of people didn't have a problem with it. Quite a large percentage fell away from the doctrines they previously believed, rebelling against God. Now, that does not mean that it won't happen again in the future. But I think it was largely fulfilled in the mid-90s with the disintegration of the worldwide Church of God. 6. Christ tells his followers that there will be an abomination of desolation as spoken of in the book of Daniel. And that when that happens, it's time to go.

Like now. Not, go back for your coat, not go back. Go. It says, get out. And that this event signifies the beginning of the end. Really, the beginning of the end. That's verses 15-20 of Matthew 24. Verse 15-20 says, Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, standing in the holy place, whoever reads, let him understand. Then, let those who were in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who was on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house.

And let him who was in the field not go back to get his clothes. But woe to those who were pregnant and to those who were nursing babies in those days. It's going to be tough. It's going to be rough. It's going to be hard to be carrying children along the process and be nursing babies along the way. And pray that your flight may not be in the winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great tribulations such as not... Oh, sorry.

Let me stop there. Let me stop there. Christ tells them, and obviously through them, us, that when we see the abomination of desolation in the holy place, let them flee, essentially, or those in Judea flee into the mountains. Not go home, not get your stuff, get out. You know, the parallel scripture in Luke 21 gives us an added dimension and gives us one more landmark. So the parallel in Luke 21 gives us one more landmark. Luke 21, 20 tells us, when you see Jerusalem, compassed with armies, when you see Jerusalem, compassed with armies, then know her desolation is at hand. Now, there's some stuff been going on the last little bit in the news that makes that a very potential reality, you know, as we start to see that coming.

Would you say Jerusalem is surrounded by armies now? Probably not to the degree that this passage is getting at. Probably not to the degree. I mean, I'm thinking tanks parked, you know, completely surrounding, you know, stacked up, kind of, you know, everybody pointed in the middle. I mean, obviously right now they're surrounded by unfriendlies. But this particular sign of this abomination of desolation is assumed to come as the surrounding of Jerusalem by the armies of its adversaries.

Now, Christ is referencing a historical event here that occurred around 167 BC. And that particular event was prophesied by the prophet Daniel in Daniel 8 to set up a future event. Let's go ahead and turn over there and we'll pick up the context, kind of establish what we're looking at here. We'll go to Daniel 8. Daniel 8. Daniel 8, we'll go ahead and read verses 1 through 13. 1 through 13.

Prior to this particular passage, Daniel is stating this vision of what God had allowed him to see concerning kind of the empires of his time and the future of those particular empires. We'll pick it up in verse 1 of Daniel 8 and verse 1. It says, And as I was considering, suddenly a male goat came from the west, across the surface of the whole earth, without touching the ground. And the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. Then he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing beside the river, and ran at him with furious power. And I saw him confronting the ram. He was moved with rage against him, attacked the ram, broke his two horns. There was no power in the ram to withstand him. But he cast him down to the ground and trampled him, and there was no one that could deliver the ram from his hand. Therefore the male goat grew very great. But when he became strong, the large horn was broken. In place of it, four notable ones came up toward the four winds of heaven. And out of one of them came a little horn, which grew exceedingly great, towards the south, toward the east, and toward the glorious land. And it grew up to the host of heaven, and it cast down some of the host and some of the stars to the ground and trampled him. He even exalted himself as high as the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifices were taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. Because of transgression, an army was given over to the horn to oppose the daily sacrifices. And he cast truth down to the ground. He did all this and prospered. Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said that certain one who was speaking, how long will the vision be concerning the daily sacrifices and the transgression of desolation, the giving of both the sanctuary and the host, be trampled? Underfoot. You know, in this particular prophecy, and one nice thing about the prophecies of Daniel, most of them are explained, which is really nice. You don't have to do a lot of speculation. In this particular one, the angel Gabriel explains the meaning to Daniel. The goat with two horns represented the kingdom of Medo-Persia. The single horned kingdom, the Greeks. That single horn, Alexander the Great. Alexander would conquer the Medo-Persian empire, and when he died, when his horn was broken, four horns would rise up in its place.

Now, those four horns were his four generals, his former generals. Now, he's dead. They took over. They became the kings. They were Lysimachus, Cassander, Seleucus, and Ptolemy.

The two that really pertain to us in prophecy are Seleucus, recognized as the king of the north, and Ptolemy, recognized as the king of the south. Now, one of those horns, from one of those horns, a little horn would arise.

And that little horn waxed greatly. It grew. It expanded. It waxed greatly towards the south, towards the east, and towards the Holy Land to the west. Where's the only direction it didn't go? North, because it was already in the north. It expanded outward from its location. Okay, so we know we're dealing with Seleucus, or at least an ancestor of Seleucus. This little horn was the Seleucid king, Antiochus Epiphanes IV. Antiochus Epiphanes IV.

167 BC. Antiochus Epiphanes, in response to a rebellion staged by the high priest Jason, and out of anger at his recent loss to Ptolemy's forces, he kind of took it out on the Jews, sacked Jerusalem and absolutely crushed the people. Maccabees, II Maccabees 5, 11-14, which is an apocryphal book. It's outside of the Canaanite scripture. But it records this as history. When these happenings were reported to the king, he thought that Judea was in revolt. Listen to the characterization of Antiochus Epiphanes. Raging like a wild animal, he set out from Egypt and took Jerusalem by storm. He ordered his soldiers to cut down without mercy those whom they met and to slay those who took refuge in their houses. There was a massacre of young and old, a killing of women and children, a slaughter of virgins and infants. In the space of three days, 80,000 were lost, 40,000 meeting a violent death and the same number being sold into slavery. Antiochus unloaded on the Jews at this point in time. And then, to strengthen his power, outlawed Jewish practice and Jewish beliefs. He set up a statue of the Greek god Zeus at the temple. That statue stood in the holy place. He sacrificed a pig on the altar and instituted worship of Zeus. As you might imagine, the Jews at this time did not take kindly to this sacrilege and this defilement of their temple, and they resisted. The Maccabean revolt was the result. Antiochus responded in kind, and a number of Jews had to flee the caves in the wilderness in order to survive this time frame. But this event had already occurred prior to Christ's time. So when Christ is warning his disciples of a future abomination of desolation, he's using the historical example to show them that something like this is going to happen again. Watch for it. Beware of it. And so, additionally, we see a fulfillment in AD 70, a fulfillment of this particular prophecy. Emperor Hadrian sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple to the point that the stones were all down. In the beginning part of the Matthew 24, where there was no stone even stacked upon the others, he raised the thing to the ground. But then it said, after that, destroy that temple. But we look at that. Even that time, with that particular sacking of the temple, did the Great Tribulation follow, and did Christ return at the end of that? No. So then there's an additional time of an abomination of desolation that's going to happen yet again at some point in time in the future. And we're not going to jump into a full bore on that particular piece, but there needs to be a future fulfillment of that that's mentioned then in Matthew 24. And we find it corroborated in Daniel 9. Let's go over to Daniel 9. Kind of wrap things up here. Daniel 9. In the midst of the 70 weeks prophecy, and we are not getting into the specifics of that prophecy, we'll be here for the next three hours. But I want to reference the role that the abomination of desolation is going to play in it. Daniel 9, verse 26. And we'll read 26 and 27. Daniel 9, 26 and 27.

And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate. We've got a reference there to that future abomination of desolation, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate. This particular passage in Daniel is referring to the final abomination of desolation, the one that would come at the beginning of the three and a half years of the Great Tribulation. It's a future fulfillment. It's a sign that ushers in the beginning of the end.

Christ is warning us through His words in Matthew 24 that the sign of the beginning of that final three and a half years, that Great Tribulation, would be the abomination of desolation. That was the beginning of the end. That told you that's the beginning. That's the one to really watch for. Not that you shouldn't watch for the others, but that that's the one that they should really look for. That landmark. That landmark was the one that told them that there would soon be a time of trouble like has never been before and never will be again. A time that if it weren't shortened, no flesh would be saved. Are we there yet? No, not yet. Not yet. No, not yet. Rather, the landmarks of the Oregon Trail serve two purposes. They serve to illustrate the person's place in space, kind of where they were on the trail. They serve to illustrate their place in time, really how much longer they had to go to reach their destination. Likewise, these landmarks that we see in the Olivet Prophecy, can serve to help us as Christians see where we are in end-time prophecy, where we're at along that continuum, and how much further we have to go. And you know, just as the wagon train reaching the Dalles marked the place on the journey on that Oregon Trail where the settlers found themselves in the homestretch, the abomination of desolation marks the homestretch in Christ's outline of end-time events. Next time, we'll take a look at the final landmark, which is in that chain of events leading up to the return of Christ, the Great Tribulation.