The Coming Day of the Lord

Are you a bit perplexed or disturbed by events in the world? Are you a little bit rattled by some of the things that roll through the church from time to time, through the decades? Are you a little concerned by some of the uncertainties in your own family, and some of the difficulties, some of the crises that are brought upon you in the workplace or in school or by neighbors or other individuals? If you've been watching the news lately, you have been seeing some things happening in the world that are just totally out of kilter.

How do you reconcile those things? Things in the world, things in the church, things in your personal life, the difficulties, the challenges. How are you dealing with them? What are these things for? Is there something amiss? Is there something out of control? Is there something to be worried about? Or, since you and I are in the true church, and here we are, the true church being those who have God's Holy Spirit and are being led by it, since we know prophecy, since we know the plan of God, since we're keeping the laws of God, we're okay, right? We're absolutely nailed down, rock solid, okay, bring it on, whatever happens.

Until sometimes things come along that, well, that wasn't what I was expecting. Well this other thing, that's a little, that's not the way I had thought it was going to take place. What's happening in my body wasn't exactly what I had planned for, that's what other people have happened to them. Today I'd like to examine the importance of what's happening in the world, in the church, and in your life from this perspective, the coming day of the Lord, the prophetic coming day of the Lord, that we all pray for when we say, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth, bring the solution to all three of these things, bring it quick.

What is your relationship with the coming day of the Lord? Today in the, in this sermon I'd like to examine the importance of what's happening and the relevance of these three things to each other, in a sense, put it in perspective for our lives. We are humans. We are, as it were, the pinballs that gets bounced around by the events and the deeds of the society in which we live that we're not even part of.

Sometimes it can seem very different when you're the pinball getting bounced all around and the bell is ringing. Some of you can still remember that before video games. And it's not always the course that you thought it would take and the feeling you thought you would feel. So let's look at these three things, the world, the church, and your life in relationship to the day of the Lord.

This is going to be a real deep, let's go look at a million verses, but rather we're going to look at the overview of these kind of events that impact our lives in relationship to one thing. One thing that's going to grow into three, the day of the Lord. First of all, when we think of the end time, how many of you think you're in the end time? What do you think? Hands go up about this high.

Some are now going a little higher, others aren't. So are we in the end time or are we not the end time? When we think of the end time, we think of prophecies like the Olivet prophecy in Matthew 24, where Jesus was asked, when will be the time of the end? And what will be the signs of your coming, the end of the age? And then in Matthew 24, remember all the things he started saying? Well, there's going to be earthquakes in diverse places and wars and rumors of wars.

There's going to be deception. A lot of things are going to happen. You know when earthquakes happen, things start rocking. It's like, whoa, hey, I wasn't expecting that. I didn't even get insurance. But he said, there will be those things, but the end is not yet. Anybody here been rocked by an earthquake badly lately? That hasn't even happened, has it? And the end is not yet. Maybe we should define what the end is. What is the end? Well, there's a time that's getting close to the end, and then there's the end.

The end is something that's the end. You can read of the end, and it culminates 6,000 years of human experience done Satan's way and man's way. And there's an end to that at the seventh trumpet. And at that end, you'll find in Revelation 14 and in the correlating verses that accompany that previous, at the blowing of the seventh trumpet. And there's an end. Now comes the end, you see, and Jesus Christ now comes. And it's the beginning of the day of the Lord.

It's this day of the Lord that we want to be ready for. At the end, at the blowing of the seventh trumpet, is when the saints are resurrected. Remember? 1 Corinthians 15, seventh trump sounds. We're supposed to rise with Christ. It's our beginning. So the day of the Lord is very important. How do the events of the end time that lead up to the end, which is the beginning, the day of the Lord? How do those things impact us? And what should we be doing during that time? When we think of the end, we tend to think of a beast power, don't we? A beast power on earth. A beast power that comes and with enormous power gathers up kingdoms, starts controlling people, and has a second beast, a religious leader, that starts directing with false signs and miracles and lying wonders.

That's leading up to the variant, that seventh trumpet. That's part of the end time, three and a half years. Let's go back to Daniel 7, verse 23, and just get an overview. We're just going to deal with an overview here. Daniel 7, beginning in verse 23. It's talking about various beasts, the first being Babylon, the second being Medo-Persia, the third being Greece, the fourth being Rome, with its various resurrections. It says, the fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all other kingdoms and shall devour the whole earth. So let's just scramble it and break it into pieces.

The ten horns are ten kings, who shall arise from this kingdom, and another shall rise after them and be different than the first ones. This is going to have ten revivals down through time of the Roman Empire. And then they'll have one that's a religious. He'll be different and shall subdue three kings. He'll speak pompous words against the Most High and shall persecute the saints of the Most High.

He shall intend to change times and law, and then the saints shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time, for three and a half years. That's not exactly the way you and I anticipate things, is it? It's not really what we're expecting to happen. We tend to think of ourselves a little different. We know that there are challenges that will come, for sure. We know that some will go into a place of safety while others are not.

We know that it says in Daniel that the power of the holy people will be completely shattered. What does that mean? We're not expecting that. We want to be a strong church, preaches the Gospel, and goes into the First Resurrection. I will say this, when we look at prophecy, we see through a glass darkly. The church has wonderful materials and has developed through the years, wonderful insight through this darkness to where the Day of the Lord, as it says here, should not take us by surprise.

It will take the world by surprise, but it shouldn't take us by surprise. But at the same time, while there's good overview in those symbolic things, the detail is very slim. Let's just turn a page or two over and look in chapter 11 for an example. Lest you and I and all of our understanding that we have that we really can appreciate, lest we get to thinking, oh, we know everything.

We can put ourselves on autopilot. We don't need any direction. We're good to go. We know what to do as the world goes through its craziness, as our church gets impacted, as God said it would. The love of many will wax cold, etc., etc.

As our own lives and environment, these things, brethren, will shake us. It will be what Jesus said. The winds will blow. The rains will come. The floods will hit. And it's only those founded on the rock who are getting their input from Jesus Christ, who have Him as their source, their strength, their mind, their faith, their confidence, their power.

Those are the only ones that are going to make it through the storm. You and I are, in a sense, set up to think that we know more than we know, to think that we are more than we are, and to think that we are more powerful than we are. We are not. We are not. For a moment, let's go to Daniel 11 here. If you think you are, then you need to read the Beatitudes.

Because Jesus marches right down there and tells you everything you need to know about being in the Kingdom. First, you don't know anything. Second, you need to rely on Him. You need His mercy. You need to think of yourself as not knowing how to direct yourself, and on and on and on, and act like God, and be like God, and trust God. He says, you'll be in the Kingdom. That's who He's called. He's called us. Yes, He's given us enough knowledge, but you know what? Knowledge can make us feel powerful, can it? It can make us have confidence in ourselves. Like, well, I didn't know how to live, but I do now. No, no, no, no. Not so. Let's just look at a little bit of prophecy and see how our prophecy between now and the blowing of the seventh trumpet compares with Daniel 11 and a prophecy that was given back in his day. Just look real quick. Also, in the first year of Darius the Mede, even after I stood up to confirm and strengthen him, and now I'll tell you the truth. Here he's going to start telling what's going to happen in his future. Three more kings will arise in Persia, and the fourth will be far richer than them all. By his strength through his riches he will stir up all against the realm of Greece. Greece didn't exist yet. I mean, it was there, but it was nothing. And a mighty king shall arise who will rule with great dominion. And when he has risen his kingdom will be broken up and divided into four winds. What do you think Daniel was thinking as he wrote that? Let me think about that. What's going to happen? Who's Greece? What's this king and four kingdoms?

I think I've got this figured out. In verse 5, Also a king of the south shall become strong, as well as one of his princes, and he will gain power over him and have dominion. In verse 7, But a branch of her roots one shall arise in his place, who will come with an army and enter the fortress of the king of the north and deal with them and prevail. To us this is like gobbledygook, because it's not part of our prophecy. You know, we know our prophecy. We've got the end time figured out, right? It's going to go according to our plan. But if we go back to verse 1, first year of Darius the Mede, Babylon had just fallen.

Daniel's world had just been shaken. The unshakable Babylon the Great had gone down the sewers in the sense that the sewers were opened up and drained and the armies came in of the Persians and conquered Babylon. It was amazing. Daniel was right there, and now he works for the new king. And in the first year he's saying, OK, God is now telling him there's three more kings arising in Persia. And the fourth? Hmm. You know, this is...

let me just tell you who the people are here. Esther's husband Xerxes, the mighty king was Alexander the Great. The four winds were the northeast, west, and south, the four new generals that took over after Alexander the Great. In verse 5, the king of the south was Ptolemy the first. One of his princes was Seleucus Nicator. Down in verse 7, from a branch of her roots, this is Ptolemy the second one shall arise in his place. Enter the fortress of the king of the north. That was Seleucus the second. It's like, wow! Do you think Daniel had any clue? In fact, he, at the end there, didn't he ask, you know, can you tell me what's going on here? And, you know, he was a little bit of a mess. He was a little bit of a mess.

Verse 13 of the last chapter of Daniel, Daniel 12, it says, But you, Daniel, go your way to the end, for you will rest, and you'll arise to your inheritance at the end of the days. We have this view, and I really appreciate the prophetic view we do have. It gives us some ideas of what's going to happen.

But God is not specific, just as Jesus Christ in Matthew 24 is not specific. Revelation talks about another kingdom with ten, another beast with ten horns, ten nations as part of the last of the beasts. Ten nations, we call them. It's not ten nations, it's ten kings or ten kingdoms. What were the kingdoms? Were the ancient kingdoms? Were the Austrians, Austro-Habsburg dynasties? Something going back into the Ottomans?

Something in some of the divisions of Austria or Poland or some of those other areas? When you look at Italy, are we talking about the Venetians who were a different people to the mainland people in the south, a different people to the Northerners? When you look at, you know, we just don't know, do we? We think we've got it all figured out, and in our minds, this is working pretty well with what we see in the world, but how do you factor in China?

China going to the moon on its own, all by itself. How do you factor in the nuclear warheads? Seven nations have them already. Many others are trying to get them. There's going to be a race for them once Iran gets them. Looks like there's no stopping there.

Where does that factor in end-time problems? Where do you throw in the nukes? In your mind, you're going to have to be a leader. You're going to have to be a leader. In your figuring the end-time, where do you put the nuclear weapons dropping and impacting? My point is, we keep seeing things like Fukushima, a small power plant over in Japan, now sweeping radiation. I was told yesterday that the Canadian government has actually switched off the detections because too much in the Japanese current is coming around and polluting the fish that come down our seacoast, and they're finding fish in California that I've read a report on recently, with radiation from that power plant.

There's just not much you can do. There just isn't a whole lot that can be done. That's just one little problem that we have. What else is in the news? Syria is dividing its closest ally, Turkey, suddenly is one of its arch enemies, threatening to go to war over the weekend or at least have some military interaction, depending on the placement of a certain plane that the Syrians shot down.

Egypt, just a powder keg today as the election finishes up there. The whole Middle East, ready to go into meltdown, it's figured, spiraling out of control with Israel on one side. These are just pockets. You've got wars and regional wars that are happening all around the world. This is what Satan does. Satan divides. Satan breaks down. He pits people against people all the way down to the family level and prevents families from even forming today, let alone staying together.

So as all this chaos begins to hit us and we look at some of the prophecies, we shouldn't get too smug and say, well, I've got it all figured out. There is a lot of chaos that we have to deal with. We have to deal with it. There is growing lawlessness in our world, lawlessness to the point where and this is not a political statement, to where world leaders you and I are very familiar with will step out and step over the law and make certain rulings and judgments and not be brought into any sort of penalty for that, to where local people have that same mentality from a source of lawlessness and everything from speed limit signs to do not steal signs to just whatever, do not kill signs, don't apply anymore.

A teacher goes on a killing rampage, children go on a killing rampage. It's just too bizarre anymore. If you're in the United States and you log on to internet news on the big carriers, all you see is this unbelievable kind of soap opera of who has been doing what.

It's not even news. You have to click on the international edition at the top of the page to be able to see what the world is actually taking place. It's just gotten so bizarre that you can fill an entire news source with the bizarreness of life. It just gets stranger and stranger. So the rules that used to be, they just no longer exist. Maybe in your neighborhood, if you're like mine, they put up a sign, do not enter or whatever. That's the first fence gate or whatever to be pulled down, and adults and kids and everybody else is right back in there.

You can put up legal law fines and everything else. I was talking to some people in one of the towns here in Phoenix. Somebody was doing some work on one of my vehicles, and he had to do it outside the boundary of the shop. He said, I don't like coming out here.

He says, why not? He says, you see all these people over here? Look at them. Those two women in that man, in that car, in that house, they're all doing drugs. They're all selling drugs openly on the street. He says, you just watch. They're going to get into a fight here in a minute, and they're going to start screaming and yelling that you took my drugs. Somebody will drive by in a car and sell them drugs. He says, they'll get mad. They'll start coming over into my business. He says, I had one in a choke hold on the ground and told them never to come back again. You know why? Because when we call the police, they say, we have in our community a standing order not to respond. You call about a drug deal, a drug standing order.

We do not respond unless somebody is hurt. Otherwise, our officers will get hurt. So, we're not going to respond. See, the laws, the rules, they're breaking down everywhere.

They're breaking down the high seas. They're breaking down in countries themselves. The rules and laws just don't seem to apply. The ethics, what we used to call ethics, are so bent out of shape that even the population of this country has a very, very high level of support. This country has such a low rating of Congress who makes our laws that a new show this last week rated about 15 other things that people like better than Congress, like drug abuse. They support drug abuse above Congress. They have more support for that. And it went through just radical things, just radical things. Law in Congress is a very, very powerful thing. Ethics just out the window. The Supreme Court ruled this week that you really can't enforce gross speech, you know, immoral speech or lewdness or nudity on TV because it's hard, I forget what their words were exactly, but it's sometimes hard to define. Oh, great, so boom! Open up more sewer for that. Insolence. Some of you drive school buses, you know about this, but there is actually, I guess, a school bus this last week that the kids overpowered the school bus driver. Our economy, I mean, you know, we can't even begin to get a handle on an economy. Someone said, I shouldn't say someone, it was written by an authoritative financial service that there are $700 billion of derivatives that are floating around out there waiting to hit. I'm sorry, is it $700 trillion? Yeah, $1 trillion of derivatives. I don't even know what comes after a trillion, but I think we're all going to be learning that soon. A Godzillaian or a Babylonian or some nasty word comes after a trillion. A trillion seems like a new word because we just got used to our budget, you know, being up in the trillions, but now things just are nuts. We don't know if the euro is going to fall, we don't know if the Ramebi is going to fall, we don't know if the dollar is going to fall, or we know it's going to fall, we just don't know when it's going to fall. They say that as soon as the dollar ceases to become the world's reserve currency, the U.S. military ceases. The Chinese are opening banks around the world, including in this country, and now they and many other countries are exchanging goods and products without using the dollar. It's a growing movement. It's compounding some financial issues in doing that. It further increases the volatility of the world economy.

It's quite an interesting situation that we're in. It cannot be solved. There's terrorism that is just everywhere all the time. The U.S. government has pulled all of its people out of Mombasa, Kenya, as of I think it was today, due to an imminent threat. The terrorism that spills and goes around, you go try to deal with it, and then it comes back to bite you because there's retaliation that happens and all the chaos.

And then finally, of course, we have the threat of nuclear weapons. I was reading an article this week about how much nuclear material is out there. I read it and I thought I started pondering it later. I thought, well, I want to share that with you today, and I couldn't find it again. It came from a major news source, linked to a lesser news source, went out to some think tank that's out there. And the amount of nuclear material that these nuclear plants, these electric plants produce around the world, getting rid of that stuff has always been a problem. You really can't get rid of it. Storing it's been a problem and big high security for a while, there hasn't been much security for a long time. And then some of the world governments, I think China has by far the most nuclear weapons right now. They've just gone crazy building nuclear weapons. The Russians had 22,000 active nuclear weapons.

The Soviet Union did when it broke up. And then the states that broke away ended up keeping a bunch of those. And the Russians have no knowledge of what happened to them. Many of them are known to be stored in insecure sites. There's no documentation as what was even there anymore. You've got a lot of stuff. I think it takes something like three pounds or five pounds to make some sort of a weapon that could take out Long Beach, California, for instance, and essentially decimate Southern Cal by the trickle-down effect. Well, if it takes five pounds of that, there's something like 100,000 tons of it all over the place.

And they're not even sure where it all is in the world. It's just a matter of time. It's just a matter of time. Our food, our environment is coming apart. Our food is coming apart. Things are changing so fast and dying out so fast. It's really something. And so are we in the end times? Well, good question. If we're not, it's going to be a terrible dime when we get there. If we look over in 2 Timothy 3, verse 1, here's a comment about the end time. Time of the end. It's not the end, you know. The end is the end. That's when a beginning takes place. And the kingdoms of this world will have become the kingdoms of our Lord and Christ, and He will reign forever and ever. That's the beginning. But in 2 Timothy 3, in verse 1, it says, Know this, that in the last days, parallelize or dangerous times will come. To some of the things we're seeing, they're very dangerous, aren't they? For mankind will be lovers of themselves. That's what it's about. It's all about Me. That coincides with being lovers of money, whatever it takes to get money.

And you can see how crazy the world is in creating money and trying to get money and make money work for as many people as can have control over it. Boasters. Boasting that this is us. We created ourselves. This is humanity. We can praise ourselves and be proud of ourselves. And what we've done is we've evolved through the years. Proud and blasphemous.

There's no God. We don't want to hear about God. Get Him out of here. Get Him out of our schools. Get Him out of our everything. Disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal. Seeing any of that?

We used to have heads getting cut off on TV just ten years ago or so. Brutal. The brutality is unbelievable. Despisers of good. Traitors. Headstrong. Hotty. Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. This is what's coming in the end days, the last days. And we're getting a belly full of it right now. Notice the last phrase here. In verse 5, having a form of godliness but denying its power and from such people turn away. There is a group of people in there that is supposed to come out of that. Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, in the penalty of those sins. Come out of the world. Don't be a part of that, we're told. So as we look at what is happening in the world, we look at what is taking place even in the church and what will take place in the church. Not that everything isn't real peaceful and great now, but what's happening maybe in your own life or your own family or how that will be torn apart because Jesus said we have to put Father, Sister, Mother, Brother ahead or behind Him if we're going to be in the Kingdom. Those things can tear us up. There is a people that have to be above this, have to turn away from this, have to not be part of this. No matter what happens, this is the bouncing ball. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You're not one of the flappers, you see, trying to get what you want, the little things that move the pinball around. You are being affected by, like Jesus Christ was, trying to kill Him here, persecute Him there, finally murdered Him there, trying to murder the apostles, Satan the devil is after everybody. And we, from our viewpoint, don't have a stable existence. We just don't. In Hebrews 11, it says, some were destitute, hid in caves, had to run off to Pella, here and there, wherever dying is it we're in the Lord and we're waiting. We're asking for God to return.

There was a program on Fox TV that I was alerted to. It's for teenagers. It's called GLEE. G-L-E-E.

And I'm sure Fox wouldn't mind me describing this because they describe it themselves. And it kind of reminds me of a former TV program that I was very upset with a decade ago that was humorous. It was a half hour, you know, friend's satire of, that brought all the evil you could possibly do.

Every imaginable thing that you could pervert life with was in that show with some humor to go with it. It just fed a whole generation. Well, now they've taken it a step lower and they've gone down after the junior high and high schoolers with a musical show. That's got to be good because it's got music. And so in advance of summer camp and one of the presentations I'm going to give to the kids there, somebody said, oh, you might want to show them this little episode because here's what happens. And this little part of it, you've got this one homeschool guy talking to another guy and they had made this pact.

You say, we're going to be virgins until we get married because we're Christians and we believe the Bible. And well, this homeschool guy finally goes to the real school, you know, not real school, but a school school. And he finds his friend and turns out his friend hasn't kept the pact. And he says, well, I don't think you're keeping the Bibles pact either. Look at your tattoos. And it says over there in Leviticus, you shouldn't have tattoos and look at you. So what's the difference?

And the guy says, this just isn't right. And the other teen says, listen, bottom line, you can have God or you can have the girl. Oh, and that's and they kind of make fun of the Bible and then move on. Okay, next little segment. Two young men in a bedroom think the worst.

It's intended to think the worst ones just brought in the food and he describes we're just about to get into something, you know, and the one cool looking dude says, I noticed on your cell phone that you've been texting this other guy and they have this fight. Well, you don't pay me enough attention. So I got to go to the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? Well, finally, they break up and they go into the music room and this cool guy starts telling the other boys and girls at school, this guy's been cheating on me because he's texting another guy.

And the girls say, you have? Well, that's not right. You shouldn't be cheating on your boyfriend. And then they break out into song about this boy cheating on his boyfriend and it's all in four part harmony, blah, blah, blah. You know? This is eight o'clock Tuesday night fair in America that gets picked up internationally and shown around the world. You know, it just turns your stomach.

Over 15 years ago, Bill Mayer, host of Politically Incorrect, himself a little bit on the edge, said this. He said, he sees television as a daily monument to the breakdown of civilization. Very true words from one who participated in it, by the way, according to my opinion. You know, very true words. It's a monument to the breakdown of civilization. Now, when we see these things, we should know that the time is short. Like Jesus said over in Matthew 24, in that same Olivet prophecy, he says, look, learn a parable of the fig tree.

When his branch is tender and puts out leaves, you know that summer's near. So it is when you shall see all these things, not some of them, but all the things he talked about in Matthew 24 know that it is near even at the doors. Now, prophecy is a wonderful thing for you and me. What it does is it kind of keeps us from being overly surprised and keeps us scanning. God has given us that as a tool by which we can be reminded, reminded, reminded.

If we will use it, we can be reminded that we need to not be part of this world. Things are going to get really tough. It's a good reminder. If we also realize that our lives could be snuffed out any second, right now one of those jets flying overhead could simply have a part fall off.

It happens. And that part could come right through this building and kill any one of us in an instant. Just like the Tower of Siloam fell over and killed 16 people. You know, it's just some of the bizarre things that happen. Today, the news story about some people, I guess, were working on a car.

I think it was a cross in a graveyard fell on them. Maybe they were actually attending a grave site or something. I think the cross fell on them from an old grave site next to them. You just never know what's going to hit you. You just never know.

You could walk into a doctor's office and be told something that would really change your life. We had an individual in the church here recently that was told, your blood pressure is falling and we can't stop it. And it kept falling through the hours and the person died. You know, a perfectly healthy person, you can get into a situation, the whole point is, that you just can't recover from. So your or my day of the Lord might arrive a lot sooner than we think. We might be sort of planning out there, well, we've got a lot of time.

Judging by today's news, I think tomorrow's okay. I think the next week or the next year is okay. Jesus said, you just never know. You never, never know. Now, in the church of God, we can use prophecy in a way that gets your heart rate going. We can say, see what's going on in the world?

You better be living right, because Jesus is going to come any minute. They're like, oh yeah, on my knees and is it coming today? Is it coming tomorrow? You know what's going to happen in Syria?

What's going to happen with the euro? What's going to happen to the dollar? And we can just worry ourselves. You might start getting stomachaches. You might start having to take some drugs or something for your ulcers. Well, back in the 1940s and then the 1950s and the 1960s, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and we're going to go to war with Russia, and then we had the presidents were being shot.

We knew this is going to happen any time. I knew growing up, us young people that were my age at the time knew we would never graduate from high school. It was always boom, boom, boom, stress is on.

Somehow we've ended up this far down the road, but we know he's going to be here in five to ten years. It's always been the way. And it kind of can get you to a state where when it doesn't happen, you know, we're still here.

You might begin to think a little like this. Let's go over to 2 Peter chapter 3 and verses 3 and 4. 2 Peter chapter 3 and verse 3. Knowing this first, that scoffers will come in the last days. Scoffers. They're going to say, walking according to their own lusts and saying, where is the promise of His coming? Now, what scoffers would say that? It kind of sounds like they know about His coming, don't they?

They've been expecting His coming for a while. They've probably been in the church, and they're saying, where's the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. We want to be careful that we don't suffer some kind of self-created burnout. When you see events happen in the world, and you see events happen in the church, and you see events happen in your own life, you might become like an individual who started setting dates, and there have been many, but one recently has been in the news.

You may know about Him. Jesus Christ will come on Pentecost 2012. You know, had $200,000, $300,000 of outstanding debt to the IRS, but it didn't matter, you see, because Christ is going to come, and that would solve everything.

Tribulation would start. Something would happen, you see. Start setting dates. Well, we can't do that. We can't do that. Where is the promise of His coming? Should be visible every time we look at the world, every time we look at the church, every time we look at our personal lives. We should realize these things all are pointing to the end of an age that has to end. That's why we pray your kingdom come. Where is the promise of His coming? Well, there's a growing movement in humanity today that's out with God, forget God, disprove the Bible.

If you want to see a good program on the Bible, guaranteed it will water down your confidence in the events of the Bible, from creation to the flood to crossing, the Red Sea. Did Jesus even exist? Mysteries of the Bible and things like that. Just go in and tear that all apart. But you and me, we're different.

We're confident, aren't we? We know what's coming. We're ready for it. In Revelation 3, verse 10, it says, Because you have kept my command to persevere, I will also keep you from the hour of trial, which shall come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth.

Of any people, the church or churches of God take Revelation 3 and verse 10 as our ironclad guarantee of confidence in the end time. Because we are the faithful church. We are, verse 9, the Philadelphiaan era of the church. Therefore, we don't need to read what else he wrote in Revelation 2 and 3. We are confident. We are knowing. We know what we're doing. I can show you literature that's going to tell you what's going to happen.

And we have this confidence, don't we? We don't need a counselor. What is Jesus Christ's name? Mighty God, Prince of Peace, wonderful counselor. Don't need you. We don't need you. See, what's he saying there in Revelation 2? He's saying, if you have ears to hear, hear what I'm saying to my churches. No, we've got Revelation 3, verse 10. We are good. We're Philadelphia. We're spared. Now, there can be some surprises.

If you read United Church of God's publication called The Book of Revelation Unveiled, and you begin to go into what Christ says to the churches there, you'll find that a very balanced description and definition of what chapters 2 and 3 about is described. This is about, sure, it was seven ancient churches on a mail road, but what is said there speaks to you and me as single individuals, plus sometimes local congregations, sometimes the church as a whole.

But more than anything, these are words from our counselor, Jesus Christ, telling us that with the events that are going on in the world and the events that are going on in the church and the events in your own life, you need to be ready for the Day of the Lord. And there are some that are referred to as a type of the Philadelphian church that will do that. But six out of seven don't.

Let's turn back to Revelation 1 and begin in verse 11. As we look at the coming Day of the Lord, we should realize and have this in mind, here is the Lord that's coming. Here's what he's saying. We shouldn't sort of think that we, the students now, are smarter than the teacher. This is 60 years after he died, probably 63 years after he gave the Olivet Prophecy. I can't say that for sure, but somewhere around there. About 60 years, actually, because that was toward the end of his ministry. Verse 11, chapter 1, I am the Alpha and Omega.

The first and the last. He says here to John, what you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches. Send this to the church. Verse 18, I am he who lives. I was dead. This is the resurrected me, 60 years later or so. And behold, I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys of the grave and of death, or the unseen realm and of death. It, it, it won't even get into there. Verse 20, the mystery of the seven stars in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you are, are, saw are the seven churches. A lot of this, you see, isn't real clear. Many people will assign these two chapters to eras of the church. I'll give you a thousand dollars cash today if you can show me any reference in the Bible that these are eras of the church. Okay? There's no reference anywhere that these are eras of the church. They could be, because it's pretty easy to look at Ephesus and say, well, the first church, you know, there's a lot of trouble after Jesus's day. And Philadelphia, there is going to come a time when some will be spared. So we've got sort of one in six or beginning and end. Maybe we could do something with the ones in between. Those are the ones that get real hard, by the way. It's hard to find seven eras down through time and say, well, that must have been one. Or these people were in the church. It just gets real, real transparent. You don't really see the church down through the ages. So what are we left with? Where's our confidence here? We live in a world that's heading towards a climactic end through a chaotic time. So chaotic, the God of this world, the God of chaos, the God of confusion is leading it. And our road map is more in symbols than anything definitive.

How confident should we really be? Should we really feel? Should we say, like he says in chapter 2 in verse 1, the angel of the church of Ephesus write, these things says, he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the middle of the seven golden lampstands. I am walking through my church, and here's what I'm going to tell you. Do we say, la, la, la, la, la, I'm not listening because of chapter 3 verse 10.

We've decided that there are eras here, and I'm not in this era, so la, la, la.

See, I don't need counsel. I don't need input. I don't need direction. I don't need light to get me through this terrible, complex time. I'm going to do it on my own.

I know your works, your labor, your patience, or should say perseverance.

You cannot bear those who are evil. Yep, that's me. You have tested those who say they are apostles and are not and found them liars. You've persevered. You have patience. You've labored for my namesake. You've not become weary. That's me. Okay, you can say that. Yep, that's me, Lord. How are we doing? Nevertheless, verse 4, I have this against you that you have left your first agape, godly love. You're doing all this stuff, but you're not becoming like me. You're not producing the fruit for the harvest. There's not something there that when I return on the day of the Lord, you're going to identify with well.

So he says in verse 5, remember where you've fallen from and repent. What do you repent of? Sin. And do the first works. What were they? Agape. Or else I will come and take your lamb stand from its place. Verse 7, he who has ear to hear, let him hear. Should we be hearing? Should what's going on in the world, what goes on in the church, what goes on in our personal life cause us to say, I need Jesus Christ more than ever. I need to humble myself. I need to let him speak loudly to me. I need to be directed through the dark shadows of the valley of death as we head into the end times. Or do we say, no, I got it. I'm okay. Do you want the day of the Lord to come?

It says in one place, who can bear the day of the Lord? Day of clouds and gloominess. Day that's going to come and just like a whirlwind, as it were. Who can stand in that day, it says?

Well, some can stand. Do you want the day of the Lord to come? Second question, what do you need to be doing before it arrives?

I'm not preaching to you. This is what I preach to myself every day. I'm just sharing this with you. I'm not so intelligent or so smug that I've got it all figured out and I'm confident. And just, you know, oh, there's confidence, but it's not in me.

Not at all. But we can be confident. We can be rock-solid confident and march forward with the very boldness that Paul showed there in about the 22nd, 24th chapter of Acts where he had to head on to Jerusalem and eventually to Rome to be killed. He said, let me at it.

Okay. A useless amount of time gets spent in wasted effort by us. How many of you try to fix the world's problems? How many of you listen to political speeches and, well, we've got to get the right guy in here and get some stuff fixed? How many of you run little scenarios in your head? Well, if this guy and that guy, they just, you know what, there's this email. And if we just send this email to everybody we know, you know, that would solve it. And if you heard about this nasty disastrous thing, you know, send this to everybody, you know.

And if we could just get enough people, enough signatures, or enough marching or something, we could solve this mess. A lot of useless time gets spent there. Look, that's not the solution.

There is no solution other than remove Satan the devil, which none of our fixes will do. You know, you're worried about the economy and, you know, Geithner and Treasury and Euro and, you know, how many illegals are here or how much trade is overseas and factory jobs or, you know, education or whatever, you know. The real deal is Satan is here. Until you get him out and bind him up where he can't deceive the nations. Can't even start. Can't even start. So quit trying to fix it with Jesus Christ, without Jesus Christ. We need to each take a stand. Here's what I'm for, the Bible. Here's what I stand for, the principles and the rules and the laws of the Bible, no matter what, no matter if I succeed monetarily, if I'm happy in this life, no matter if I live or I die, this is me. This is becoming me. I'm going to build this into my heart and my mind and live the law of God. All right, so that's it. Quit being an activist for Satan Society and trying to make it work. Jesus wasn't an activist, you know, during the Roman conquest of the Holy Land. He wasn't saying, well, you need to get rid of Caesar, get a better Caesar in there.

Nor was he trying to fix the Jewish problem or get a better Herod than the one who was trying to kill him as a kid. He wasn't into that kind of thing. Two questions we need to deal with. One, do you want to stand in the Day of the Lord? The Day of the Lord is actually three distinct events, and you want to stand in all three. So do I. Most refer to the seven trumpet plagues that begin at the seventh trumpet. At the seventh trumpet, you want to stand with Christ on the Mount of Olives, Revelation 14, 1-3. That's where you want to be. You want to be standing, immortal, part of Jesus Christ's bride, ready to start fixing the world at the start of the Day of the Lord. There's another side of the Day of the Lord, and that is those seven last plagues.

You don't want to be a human, then. That's where you want to fear the Lord. You want to fear God. You want to fear not being this way, because it does not work out if you're not part of the first Day of the Lord. There's a second Day of the Lord, and I say second day. They all really three work together. Second Peter 3.8 refers to God's Day versus Satan's Day. You have six days of the week, and then the thousand-year reign of Christ. That Day of the Lord that begins at the second trumpet is also described as a day with the Lord as his a thousand years, and a thousand years is a day. That Millennial Day, symbolic of the seventh-day Sabbath that we're celebrating today, is a day you want to be part of, living and reigning with Jesus Christ.

The third Day of the Lord we find in Revelation 2 Peter 3, verses 10 through 12, talks about there's a coming a Day of the Lord in which the heavens will be on fire, and the earth will melt with fervent heat. That takes place at the erasure of the physical realm, the third resurrection we call it at the end of Revelation chapter 20.

That's for burning up those things which are not spiritual, that have not inherited the Kingdom of God. If we're in the first Day of the Lord, you've been called as firstfruits, the new covenant, to rise with Christ. If you're in the right place then, you'll be great for the other two. If you're not there in the first one, well, you won't be there for the second one because that's in the Millennium, unless you're alive and live into it. And you sure don't want to be there for the third one as a human being because that's the time to get burned up. The Day of the Lord to you and me is a wonderful blessing. It's what we pray your Kingdom come, bring the Day of the Lord.

But it's also a fearsome thing if we're playing games, if we're not being children of God, if we're not being led by the Holy Spirit, it's a fearsome thing. It would be a terrible thing to not be ready for that. So we need to desire all three days of the Lord because they all accomplish the plan of God in bringing many sons to glory. We need to want to be part of that. Those are intended to be blessings to the children of God. The big question is, is what is my relationship to those days? What is my relationship in what the world is going through, and what the Church is going through, and what my personal life is going through to the Day of the Lord? Are they preparing me these events? Are they preparing me for that? Am I being strong? Am I being courageous? Am I putting on the whole armor of God in Ephesians chapter 6 and letting Him in His strength and His armor and His truth and His Spirit guide me through whatever comes and through this valley of the shadow of death we're going through, we're starting into, we can have no fear, for if you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

It's not a matter of fear unless we're not prepared.

Jesus gives a parable in Luke 18 verses 1 through 8. I won't take the time to go through it with you today, but it's a great parable. It's the parable of the unjust judge. And here you have a woman, almost like the church, who is pleading with an unjust judge, one who doesn't care, has no love, no compassion, no concern. She's in a sense living in an evil environment, and she's wanting to be relieved from it. And she appeals daily, please relieve me from this.

And Jesus said, hear what the unjust judge says.

That's not God. God's not unjust. The Father is not unjust. The Father is listening.

But in the end, there in verse 8, let's just read there in Luke chapter 18 and verse 8. Let's read the conclusion of that, because I don't want to speak for him incorrectly, as I am want to do as a frail human.

My memory not being anything like it should be. Luke 18 and verse 8. I tell you, verse 7, And shall God not avenge his own elect? The word avenge there, in a sense, won't he fix it?

The problems that we sigh and cry for, the issues that we get bounced around by, will he not fix it speedily?

We who cry out day and night to him, though he bears along with them.

You and I aren't going to just be delivered. It doesn't look like. If you look at the prophecies, some will get to go to a place of safety. Not everybody. Bear, try out day and night, God bearing with us, as we sigh and cry for the abominations and call for his kingdom to come.

Verse 8. I tell you that he will fix it for them. He'll do it speedily, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump. He'll do it when Jesus Christ comes back. When? Verse 8, second part. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith in the earth? What will your relationship be to the Day of the Lord? That's the big question. He's going to come, and he's going to fix it. But what will our relationship be? Will we have the faith with the works, the obedience, the storms are coming? The signs of the approach of the Day of the Lord are everywhere, really. They're multiplying. They're getting more bizarre. They're getting larger all the time. Let's conclude by finding out what you and I should be about during these times. It's 2 Peter 3, verses 13 and 14. Second Peter, chapter 3, beginning in verse 13. Nevertheless, we, according to his promises, we look forward to notice this carefully, we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. That's what we're looking for. That's what we want. Righteousness, new heavens and new earth, spiritual, in the family of God. Verse 14, therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by him in peace without spot and blameless. Verse 11, therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness? Brethren, those who are focused and busy in putting on the mind of Christ, doing the will of God, which is becoming godly children, building the fruits of the Spirit into our life, we will be focused on those things, and we will be in the right places at the right time when the day of the Lord comes. So let's all be busy about our Father's business, and not this other stuff that's going on in the world. Let's come out of that. Let's be busy about our Father's business of loving him, loving our fellow man, keeping his commandments, and growing his children. And then, all of these things will work together with regards to the day of the Lord.