The End, Part 2

In the first part of this series, on the end, we analyzed the struggle for survival that humanity is beginning to work itself into. Jesus Christ prophesied that in the future, the environments of this earth and the circumstances that surround humanity would take it to the place where no flesh would survive. No human flesh would take it. Animal flesh, no fish flesh, no flesh would survive. And so it indicates, then, a struggle between various peoples and powers and religions and entities for who is going to survive. Today, let me ask you a question. It may be the most important question that could be asked of you, by God, even. What or who do you want to see survive in the years ahead? You might think, well, what kind of question is that?

But in analyzing, what is the most important question that would or would not grant you entrance into the kingdom of God? I can't think of a better question. Not that I have found it. But so far, what or who do you want to survive could pretty much spell whether you and I get the door opened or closed for us into the kingdom. And this sermon today will explain that.

The government hopes that the United States and the economy here will survive and continue on. The Somalis hope that food will arrive so that their lives and their children can continue to live. Germany wants to see the euro survive. And the backlash of that is putting it in the driver's seat of the European Union. Each member of the church wants to survive and be in the kingdom. The question again is, what or who do you want to survive in the years ahead?

There's a nasty surprise because your answer to that in mind has a lot to do with whether we would be given entry into God's kingdom or not. The nasty surprise is that those who seek survival for themselves by Jesus Christ are told, whoever desires to save his life will lose it. That's the surprise. You see, while humanity is going to try to save its life and survive at all costs, Jesus said, if you have that mindset and that mentality, you're going to lose your life. So we have to be very careful about what it is we want, what really ambition we have. Why are we in the church? Am I here to save myself, get myself saved, seek the kingdom for myself? Is that why I'm here? Hopefully I've chosen the right group so I can maneuver the end times. We get a little leg up on humanity.

Whoever desires to save his life will lose it. There's a lot in those words. There's a lot more meaning behind those words than just the few words that he gave right there. He continues, but whoever loses his life, for my sake, shall find it. Sometimes we get it turned around. When we look at what should survive or who should survive, we get it backwards. God's will is for us to want something to survive, but often it's something else than what our carnal human nature, which we all have, wants to survive.

Jesus said in Matthew 16, verse 24, If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his state cross and follow me. That's kind of perplexing, but he said that.

If we desire to come after him, deny ourselves and what we want, including our survival, take up an instrument of torture and death and follow him, of things that aren't our dream wishes, things that really would impact us in a negative way, and follow the same route that he followed. I'd like to examine today some prophetic details showing how God's church will survive during the time of the end. The title of the sermon is The End, Part 2, The Survival of God's Church. Will it survive? How will it survive? Why would it survive?

There is a struggle between Satan and Jesus Christ. It's a struggle that Jesus Christ didn't pick. Satan did, and it's become a real battle. It's become a real life and death struggle. Jesus Christ wants to save humanity. He wants to save individuals. He's the Savior. He is wanting to help and embellish lives and raise them up into a family. But Satan simply wants to eliminate the competition. He wants to go out and destroy any competition to him and his realm. He wants all humans deceived. He wants them to miss the resurrection. That's the point of the deception. Deceive them, have them offend God. I don't have to kill them. Let God kill them. Satan's not going to come kill anybody. Satan's not going to throw anybody in the great tribulation. He's the master. He will kill you by having God kill you. He's figured it all out. That's his plan. Get God to do it. And God will do it if certain circumstances occur and certain requirements are not met. So he wants humans deceived. He wants them to offend. He wants them to miss out on the resurrection and be dead. Thus, he's the author of lies and he's the author of murder. He lies so that we will be deceived and disobey God. He's the author of murder because he wants God to kill us. This is a monster. Our generation has a misconception of what typical human civilization is like and what we can expect in the time ahead. Too often in the church we have grown up in the forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, hundreds, and here we are on the tens. And we tend to look at human civilization and the future as sort of what it's been in our lifetime. And we expect Jesus could come any day now. Christ could come any time. I could step from where I am into the kingdom of God. This is normal. We begin to think this is normal. If there's any kind of terrible things that come along, that's abnormal. And yet we have a misconception, as I said, about what typical human civilization is like. You go back to the very first two brothers. Remember one killed the other? That's what typical human civilization has been like. Cain was set a mark so that others wouldn't murder and kill him. There was so much murder and killing and pillage that God had to erase humanity off the earth through a flood.

It wasn't long after that that the broils and the battles continued from Babel and fanning out across the globe. When the Israelites came into Egypt, it was a very oppressive, a harsh environment in which one could live. And people were there trying to survive, to get and to take. It was a battle for survival over food. The Israelites ended up becoming slaves and abused, just violated, slaughtered. The killing of the young was nothing.

That's just the way life is. Life has always been cheap. And the experience that humans have had on this earth has always been very, very difficult. When you come to the kingdoms of Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Greek, Roman times, you see ruthless people killing, slicing. You look at David himself. His life was all about slice and dice. It's what the Israelites did. Just to get an idea of the way civilization was at the time of the Exodus, there was really no exception made or resistance to the idea of when you go to the promised land, you're going to kill every man, woman, and child in every town you come to, in every country, in every district. You're just going to go in and you're going to kill them all. It doesn't matter what they say or what they do. It's just going to be a real bloody mess. But just go do that. That's what people did. That's what the Philistines did in the Amorites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. It was always a time like this. When you come down at the time of Esther, it was nothing. The Jews were just going to be annihilated. There was no hue and cries. It's what people did. You walked up to a people and you just got rid of them. You saw during the time of Daniel what they did. I mean, it wasn't just the three guys that were thrown in the fiery furnace. That's the way business was done through torture and extreme consequences if you didn't do what you were told to do. If you go look at some of the architecture and some of the drawings, some of the murals from, say, Assyria, you see the heads of people hanging on gates and what people did. Remember David? He met with somebody and they had 12 on each side, or 10 or 20 other guys jump up and they thrust swords in each other. That was kind of before lunch. It's just what you did, you know?

The whole fighting, warring, people all over did these things. It was just a way of life. By the time you get down to Greece, Alexander the Great, just going across the landscapes that surrounded Greece and fanning out, just murdering and massacring and wiping out civilizations, he was the great because he killed so many people. In the backlash, Gengis Khan coming down. You have the Roman Empire get started. The Roman Empire was just a bloodbath from beginning to end. Herod the Great, no special deal. He just kind of liked the rest of them. In Herod's rule, you know, if you look at the last Sabbath letter I sent out and click on the link down below at Herod the Great, you'll see some of the typical things that you can do. It was just part of what happened all the time. Not even really that much news. When Jesus was born and he had all the one and two year olds killed, it didn't even make history. You only find it in the Bible as far as I know.

It was so commonplace to do things like that. It was just part of life. When Rome got going and it began to, I don't know if it was one third of Rome where slaves or two thirds were slaves, and the rest were free people. Need more slaves, need more roads, need more goods. Finally, just send out your army, take another country, chop them up, haul some in, kill the rest, take a bunch of people down to the Colosseum every day, you know, wipe out a few hundred, a few thousand, burn them, torture them, crucify them. When Christ was crucified, there's no record of it because crucifixions were just a common, common way of life. So very common. When you look at what was going on around Jerusalem and Herod's time and all of the just butchery, it was just commonplace. And what the Maccabees had been through, you know, when Herod first got his appointment from Rome and came back, he started pursuing the remnants of those who opposed Rome and the Maccabean revolt that had gained them independence for some time. He just brought a bunch of Roman troops back in there and just slaughtered them and when they ran off into the mountains and they went down the cliffs into the caves, but you'll read about in Hebrews 11 how they hid themselves in the caves.

It's the only thing in history I know of, and Paul would have been very familiar with all of this. Herod had those soldiers make up some beams with some ropes and they lowered down, scaffolding in front of the caves, threw fire in those caves. When the people came out, they got long hooks and pulled them off.

You know, that was just the way it was. This isn't horrific. It's just life. March through the Roman period of the persecution against any and everybody, by any and everybody. It was just a time of carnage and you don't think you might say, well, that's just a little bit of the Roman Empire. Don't forget that I believe the population of Jerusalem in Christ's Day was about 8,000. That kind of stuff affected everybody.

The entire Roman Empire in its zenith, when it went way over through the Middle East and way over to Spain and all the way up to England and down through North America or North Africa and Egypt, had less people in it than greater Los Angeles does today.

All of that was seen and known and affected everybody all the time. It's not like today where you read about something, you know, a hundred people, oh, this happened to a hundred people, that's terrible.

That was life. You know, when you come down further, the Roman Catholic Church was a reign of terror for a good thousand years. I mean, what they did is they moved across southern Europe and into France and over into Spain and up. You know, the very famous, when they went after the Cathars and these Cathars didn't believe quite like they did. And so, you know, as they came in and they were torturing and they just killed people and tortured to death in order to get you to get a birt, well, a lot of people went into this church.

I mean, a lot of people. And so the head of the Legion calls up the local church official, not the local, but the regional church official and says, what should we do? He says, kill them all. Let the Lord decide who are His.

So they just surrounded the church, burned it, and didn't let anybody come out. Carcassonne is a walled city with huge, thick walls and gates. It's never, ever been breached. It's so fortified. You walk the walls of that thing, it's got grates where they can pour hot oil down onto people coming up. They can drop big rocks on you. Nobody ever breached the walls of Carcassonne. But when the Catholic Church came up to the walls, they opened the gates. Just come on in. Because if you're going to burn people in your own church, or in a church, but half of them at least were Catholics, these people are too ruthless.

Just let them in. That's just life. And so at some point you had the Protestant Reformation. You had a huge outcry. So this isn't fair. In Europe, various people began to break away from that organization. And what did you have after that? You got Old England, burnings at the stake. You had rampant warfare. You had all kinds of persecution. For that, you'd have people killed if they owned a Bible.

Suddenly you could own a Bible, but you could get killed real easily if you didn't agree with the local religion. People where I'm from, the Elliot clan next to the Armstrong clan, and other clans, the Campbells and those up in the border region between England and Scotland. When England, Scotland finally united, the first order was to go kill everybody in the borderlands. That's how we got to America. We had to beat it out of there, because they came in.

It turns out that all those people up in the borderlands were so wild and wicked and warfaring and mongering that they wanted some peace, so they decided to kill them all. So they fled to Ireland, and then people came over here. People in this country and around the world have continued with the mentality of, you know, if you don't do what I want, we'll put you in the blocks, we'll burn you at the stakes, we'll fight against you. It leads us in this country up to the Civil War.

There were huge losses against families battling each other. And after that, there were even greater wars. It took us into World War I and just the debauchery of that struggle.

And after World War I, people ramped up again and took us into World War II. World War II was carnage just, you know, around the globe in many areas. What Japan did to China and the Southeast Asian countries is unmentionable. I mean, we won't even go there.

But you can't just let other nations off the hook. Like when the English, a few hundred years before, were pirates and they would sail up to a Spanish galleon and attack it, one commander of the Spanish galleon says, we're not going to let all these 50 raiding ships of the British take us. They sunk their ship and burned it.

Well, the English took all the 350 people off the ship and beheaded them.

You know, this is just what people do. This is what it's been about. Now, the thing that's different about your life and mine is the atomic bomb.

That's when it all got checked. When the bomb fell on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the world had to stop all of its carnage or the United States would possibly bomb them. And everybody had to sit up and play pretty because the United States began to circulate bombers, long-range bombers around the world. And these bombers never landed.

One was called the peacemaker. These things carried huge, not just atomic weapons now, but nuclear weapons. And anybody that didn't play nice got what Vietnam got. And they didn't want to get into that. They were threats. And so, the world has sort of been on hold. And it's made an economy that's sort of combined and made tourism real nice. And you and I have grown up and lived in a time that is not like what the world has experienced. I haven't just described a little pocket here, a little pocket there, a little pocket there. You can go back to the history of China. You can go back to the aboriginal histories of any of the lands around the world. You can look at how the whites came to this country and what was done. It's just been a way of life until our lifetime. Now, we can get this false sense of what typical human civilization is. And yet, we see we're in the middle of an arms race. And humanity is beginning to break out. People are starting to thumb their nose at the United States and its power.

Countries in South America and the Middle East and now in Asia are beginning to say, hey, we don't have to do what you say. We don't have to be nice. We can pillage and we can create a situation here where we can blow away anybody we want, anytime. Now, we have the world outfitting itself equally, getting ready for World War III, as we'll probably call it, a climactic battle. This period of time, I think it's important for you and I to realize how unique it's been. We can appreciate the blessing of it.

But we need to realize that you and I weren't called to live in a life or an environment that's easy and cushy. It's not expected for us to just step from our nice, well-regulated lives into the kingdom of God. It's not the way it's been. It's not the way our forefathers in the Church have lived. It's a little different when you look at what's been in the past and what's coming ahead. And it's important for us to get this. I think you will see by the time I'm finished, it's important to get this because it all comes back to the question, what do you want to survive in the years ahead?

Your Church contains the next humans to enter into the divine family of God. We have one already. Jesus the first fruit. 1 Corinthians 15. He is there. You could say from Satan's perspective, though, he was away for a bit and then he went back. No big deal. He's got the same foe he's always had. He tried to kill him while he was on earth, tried to butcher him when he was an innocent baby, tried to tempt him away and get him to fail so that the Father would kill him. That didn't work. So he's back. He's back sort of where he was, only now bigger titles, bigger authority. But you and I and the Church that you are part of contains the next humans to enter the family of God and that's a problem for Satan. Satan is under pressure to persecute you. He's under pressure to deceive you so that God will kill you. He is under pressure to kill you. Anything he can do because it's about his survival that he is concerned about. If we go to Revelation chapter 12, we'll see this very struggle down through time and then into the future described for us in an interesting story. This story is quite unique. It's written in a way to educate us, but it has nothing to do with chronology. It's all mixed up into a story that explains what I'm talking about. Revelation chapter 12 and verse 1 says, Now a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. So we see this woman. This woman is actually, probably, you and me, the church. It's a woman which represents a church, and this woman, as we see, is clothed with light. She has light shining on her from somewhere, and the moon, or darkness, is under her feet. She doesn't go there. She is above darkness. She's above sin. And she has on her head a garland of twelve stars, symbolic of the foundation of the church. It's built on the apostles and the prophets and Jesus Christ. The twelve stars, there are twelve tribes of Israel. There are twelve apostles.

In verse 2, then being with child, see this is a story. It's descriptive. Being with child, this child is associated with her, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.

And another sign appeared in heaven, Behold, a fiery red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems on his head. This is the false political system of Satan and Satan himself. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. See, it's out of sequence here. Lucifer's rebellion draws a third of the angels. They're thrown to the earth at some time. But this tells us now of the contest that he wants to bring against the woman and against this baby, this child that is born. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. He was right there having Herod kill all the children so he could get him when he was helpless. A baby, totally helpless baby. Let's kill him when he's little. And his parents had to take him to Egypt and get him out of there. He wanted to thwart the plan of God so there was no sacrifice for you and me. There would be no salvation, no chance for anybody else to come along.

Verse 5, And she bore a male child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God and to his throne. So at the end of Christ's life on earth, he went up and sat on the right hand of God. And he's ready now to rule the nations.

Verse 6, And then the woman fled into the wilderness where she has her place prepared by God. The story continues in verse 9. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was cast to the earth and his angels were cast out with him.

Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now salvation to humans and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ has come, for the accuser of our brethren has been cast down. He accuses them before God day and night, never ceases accusing. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they did not love their lives to the death. And therefore rejoice, O heavens, in you who dwell in them, because this plan of God and the kingdom of God is moving forward. It hasn't been thwarted. But woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea, for the devil has come down to you having great wrath, because he knows he has a short time. The end time, Satan zeroes in on Jacob, which in Revelation, I think it's the seventh chapter, has to have a seal put on 12,000 from each tribe so they don't get exterminated. And so the events of the day of the Lord don't kill them.

He comes down against the church with great wrath. This is really tough. He wants to stop the work. He wants to stop the plan of God. He wants to stop at all before it stops him. In verse 13, now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. And that's us. And the dragon was enraged with the woman and he went to make war with the rest of her seed. Verse 17, the offspring who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. What we learn from the Bible, from Jesus, from John, from Peter, from James, from Jude, from Paul, is that the church is not a protected sanctuary. The church never has been a protected sanctuary. It's not been a special place where only the holy come and God always protects them and somehow if they get put in jail the door is miraculously open. No. What we've just seen is an overview from God's standpoint is that Satan wants to stomp out the church and he's going to try and try to do everything he possibly can and he's going to be given a lot of latitude in that direction.

Satan is prowling among us, seeking whom he may devour all the time. He tries to draw away. Let's go to Revelation chapter 1 and verse 1. I know this is tough but somebody's got to tell us this. Somebody's got to get us to open our ears and listen to what Jesus is telling us and what all of his warnings about the end timer about him. What's coming on the church? It's not going to be like it's been the last 50, 60 years in the world. We can't suddenly say, oh what was this? I didn't sign on for that. I didn't know about this. You are part of a church that has the cross hairs of Satan the devil and his demons on it and he will do, he will stop at nothing to annihilate you, to offend you, to deceive you, to kill you, to get God to kill you.

It's supposedly in his best interest to do so. Revelation chapter 1 verse 1, the book of Revelation opens the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show his servants. It's not to the world, it's for us to show his church members what must soon take place. Now the world takes the book of Revelation and says this is an apocalypse, it's apocalyptic writing and you know we don't we don't look at that. We in the church say, well I'm in Philadelphia so it's not going to happen to me. We don't look at that. Somebody's got to look at this because Jesus said this is what's going to take place. I'm writing to you. It's our future. We need to know what's coming. We need to know the correction that we need, that he gives us, and we have to endure on a spiritual path. Revelation chapter 2 and verse 12.

One thing he says, verse 13, I know your works and where you dwell where Satan's throne is. Does that sound like a sanctuary? The church where Satan's throne is. Satan's been cast down to the earth. He's not up there with God. He's down here. He lives where you and I do. He's walking around prowling trying to kill us, get us killed. Look in verse 24 of chapter 2.

Now I say to you and to the rest of Thyatira, as many as do not have this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan. He is a very much present individual and a very threatening individual. He brings sin into the church as much as possible. Notice verse 20. Nevertheless, I have a few things against you because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants. He gets sin to come in because, you see, if we will just sin, if we'll just break God's laws, God will vomit us out. He'll throw us out. We'll end up in the lake of fire.

What's Jezebel about? Jezebel was an individual that got people's lusts going, got them focused on what they wanted to do, selfishly. Get in touch with your passions. Get in touch with your personal desires, whatever that is. Don't do what God wants. Do what you want.

In verse 15, you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which I hate, God says. We've got that in the church. Things that God hates that we say, but I'm in the church, and I'm doing things that God hates. There are seven things God hates. Over in one place, there are other things that God hates. God says, if you do these things in Revelation 21.8, I'll burn you alive. We say, I'm in the church, I'm special, and we have those things. Satan gets those things in and then gets us to try to do them. In verse 2, I know your works, your labor, your perseverance, that you cannot bear those who are evil, and you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not. We've got people in the church who are supposedly apostles that aren't apostles. Jesus warns, and he'll have false teachers. Paul said, even some of you will turn out to be wolves. He's talking to the Ephesian elders. So we have that in the church. In verse 9, I know your works, your tribulation, your poverty. I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan in the church. See, brethren, just because we came to church today, or just because you're in the church, doesn't mean this is a safe environment where we all just sort of flock together, and we're all safe here, and no problems. It comes back to that question. What is it you want to see survive? If you're here for your own survival, this is a very risky place to be, by Jesus's own definitions. It's very risky. But as we'll see, if you're here for the survival of something really important, this is a great place, and it's going to work out just fine.

In 2 Peter chapter 2, first two verses, we see kind of a summary of the church environment. If you want to know what is the church, what's it like here from the Bible, 2 Peter chapter 2, beginning in verse 1. But there were also false prophets among the people. Even so, there will be false teachers among you. Why false teachers? Because Satan wants them there.

In one way, it works well for the God family for them to be here. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's evil. But sometimes things perform a certain service.

They will secretly bring in destructive heresies. Now, what's a destructive heresy? It's something that's going to destroy you. Now, who's the author of that? And why would you fall for something that God hates and God does not want you to do that would cause him to have to destroy you, if you're really of God?

They bring on themselves swift destruction, verse 2, and many will follow their destructive ways, and because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.

Church is not going to look good. This is not going to be the, oh, it's the shining... It's a bad world, but we've got the true church at least. Now, it's going to look terrible.

Jesus talked about the love of many growing cold, and nasty things would happen.

By covetousness, they will exploit you with deceptive words. For a long time, their judgment has not been idle and their destruction does not slumber.

You and I have to watch. You and I have to pay attention. You and I have to watch out for that thing that is precious, that thing that we want to see survive. Otherwise, it'll be snatched from us, along with our crown. We will be deceived. We will be suckered into doing something that gets God to kill us. This all plays out into what Satan is trying to do, because he's very, very clever. Jesus talked about the church in Revelation 3, verse 4, being few.

There are a few among you that he supports, that are doing righteousness, he said. A few.

Satan created a counterfeit Christ.

He created the Jesus and the manger. He created the stories. He created all of the stuff as a counterfeit to get people to buy into an invented Jesus that gets you to break God's loss.

That's Jesus number two. The one who really is Nimrod, the one who was born on Christmas day, the one that's about Easter, the one that's about on and on and on. Simramus and Nimrod, Isis and Horus, and all the gods of the pagan world, sort of swirled into one. And you come up with Jesus and, oh, follow this Jesus, and do all the things that the real Jesus will come back to fight against as Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots, and will, by the sword of his mouth, the word, he will kill them. Oh, yeah. Satan would love you to support that Jesus. Yet how many members of the church say, well, there's only one Jesus, and everybody else has him too, and it's just that one little difference about Sabbath. No, he's clever. He's clever. Just come over to Jesus number two, and I'll get you. You know, it's everywhere.

In Matthew chapter 24, Jesus gives us the hallmark of the end times. He starts out with at the beginning. Here in Matthew 24 and verse 3, right after the disciples asked him, when's going to be the time of your coming, the time of the end, and when's all this going to happen? So Jesus begins. In verse 4, Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no one deceives you. That's the first thing out of his mouth. That's going to be your problem, because Satan wants me to kill you. See? That's just one of his devices. He's a liar, and if you'll follow him like Eve did, remember I had to kick Eve out of the Garden of Eden with her husband? I have to kick you out of the kingdom of God? Slick dude. Don't get deceived.

He talks about this false Christianity that's going to deceive the many. Mr. Armstrong always said it wasn't he's going to deceive many. He's going to deceive the many, or most, and most of anybody that's ever heard of Jesus Christ that believes him, believes Jesus number two. And they're going nowhere with that. For many shall come in my name.

The problem, again, is the teachings are contrary. The teachings of Jesus number two will get you killed. And for those who have been called to the truth, they've sampled the truth, they've sampled the true love, the agape, the Holy Spirit, and they go off after Jesus number two, that's it. Go down to verse nine. If we just get into this, what's going to happen? Nation rising against nation. Verse seven, verse nine, they will deliver you up to kill you, and you will be hated for all nations for my namesake. Whoa, what's that? What's that about? You know, where's that in our church literature? This is not a church of God. You're going to be betrayed and killed and hated by everybody. Sign up here.

You see, that's not often what we're expecting. And if we're not careful, we can be expecting sort of a cakewalk on into the kingdom and get ambusiled by everything that we've been reading all these years, but never took to heart. Because we didn't think it was going to apply to us. And then many will be offended. You see what happens? The persecution comes. Others don't like you. Hey, I'm offended by this. I'll offend God. I will turn. I will save myself. They will be offended and betray one another. Why do you betray? I've got to survive here. You know, I've got to survive. I will turn you in like people always have in order to save my skin and stay alive somehow. I will start not loving other people and selling them like the Apostle Paul and people in Hitler's time and people the Stasi's over in Poland and Russia and places like that, selling other people to stay alive, selling them out. They'll betray one another. And will hate one another. That's the opposite of love. Doing things that are spiteful, but I'm going to survive this, you see. And then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.

This is coming at us in a just a flurry and a bevy. What is it you want to survive in the years ahead? Is it you? What is it? Is it your country? What is it that you want to survive? Because that really will tell you and God a lot about your relationship with His kingdom. In Luke 1232, Jesus said, do not fear little flock, for it's the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. A distinct minority is the flock of Christ. Little flock, it's called. They asked Jesus, will many enter the kingdom? Will it just be a few that enter the kingdom? Jesus said, many are called, few are chosen. How little is few? How small is small? If you look back into any of our lifetime in the church, I go back to 60 years in the church coming up next month, over 90% of everybody that was in the church is gone. I don't mean they just left this particular church name. They're gone. They don't keep the Sabbath of the Holy Days anymore. Over 90% have cashed it in and are somewhere else believing something else.

As we'll see in a little bit, the end is not coming until the falling away happens in the church. If that's not a falling away, what is a falling away? I mean, what do we really have left to separate? Let's go to Daniel 7, verse 24.

Prophetically speaking, looking ahead at the end times, he's talking about the ten horns, the ten kings. We have these ten nations that are going to, not nations necessarily, but ten kings or kingdoms. They could be ancient kingdoms, houses that align under a beast power. Another shall rise after them. He will be different than the first ones and shall subdue three kings. He shall speak pompous words against the Most High and shall persecute, or as the Hebrew would say, wear out the saints.

Wear out the saints. When we look in the end time, we see the beast, we see all the stuff coming down and the persecution against the church. You ever get weary?

He shall wear out the saints, one translation says, and shall intend to change times and law. Then the saint shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and a half a time, for three and a half years. You know, what is it that you stand for? What is it you want to survive? What is it that you're on this trip down the path for? The revived Roman Empire will be such a machine that the events I've described historically leading up to the last century will look small in comparison. Jesus said it'll be worse than anything ever before. And the church is going to be worn out by persecution.

In Matthew 26, verse 31, Jesus said, all of you will be made to stumble because of me this night, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. It's not going to be an organized church during those three and a half years for the people that Satan is going to be coming after. If you said, I want the church to survive, well, scattered is what's going to happen. What is it that you want to survive?

Shall come to pass, verse 7, and the land says the Lord that two-thirds in it shall cut off and die, and one-third shall be left in it. I will bring the one-third through the fire, and refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is refined.

Jesus said in Matthew 24, verse 24, that great signs and wonders, you know, if the rest didn't convince you to offend God, to be deceived, to leave, great signs and wonders will take place.

So as to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

You know, signs and wonders. You know, if somebody stands up and does something huge, you know, powerful, mighty, wow, miracles. Wow, I didn't believe before, but look at this, you know, not just a rabbit out of a hat, but you know, maybe cruise ships, you know, out of a thimble or something, or massive power shows. This is pretty big.

What is it? Jesus said in Revelation, behold, I come quickly, hold fast, hold tight, grab on to what you have that no one may take your crown. That's what it comes down to. You're going to have to really hang on not to fall for the deception, not to fall for sinning, not to fall for things in the church that would get you in trouble with God, not to stop loving and start supporting yourself and trying to survive.

It can all be deceived. So in Luke 13, verse 23, the disciples said, Lord, are there few who are saved? And he said, strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, many will seek to enter and will not be able.

We have to realize that we don't expect this. We kind of expect a oneness within the church body.

We expect in Ephesians 4, 16, the body's edifying itself, it's growing, it's building itself up, it sounds nice, it's harmonious, it's warm, and it is. But that is not, the body is not composed of everybody that's in the church, in the corporate attendance, let's say.

Jesus warned in Matthew 24 that there would be lawlessness, abounding. Lawlessness is the opposite of what godliness is, and righteousness, and that would abound. And the love, the agape love of many, would grow cold. That's not the church of God, that's not God's nature coming out. Something's desperately wrong, you see, within a percentage of the church. There's goats instead of sheep, there's tares instead of wheat, there's foolish virgins who have no oil, no spirit, that are all part of the group.

There's a big sign of the end, and it is that there won't be oneness in the church. In 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 1-12, I'm going to read this from the modern King James Version. It's just a little bit different than the new King James. 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 1, Now we beseech you. Somebody beseeches you, they don't say, Oh, hi, how are you doing? No, I beg of you, my brothers, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together with Him. This is what we're here for. We're celebrating the Sabbath, this is our goal, we want to be there. I beg you, I beseech you that you should not be soon shaken in mind or troubled, because you will tend to be. That's what he's saying. Neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter, as through us, as if the day of Christ is at hand. Verse 3, Let not anyone deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come unless there first comes a falling away.

Wow! Do you see the cross hairs are on you as a person, as an individual?

There's going to be a falling away. We in the church have called it a great falling away, simply because it's mentioned here. It's got to be big. It's a sign of the approaching coming of Jesus Christ. You can see why there's a falling away. Love goes down, lawlessness abounds, people are turning each other. There's all kinds of persecution. There's problems. There is a falling away, and the man of sin shall be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that's called God.

Verse 9, Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, this lawless one, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteousness. Now here's where we come down to figuring out what it is we want to survive. What is it that you want to survive in the coming years?

With all deceit of unrighteousness in those who perish. We're talking about baptized members here, evidently. The working of Satan with all deceit of unrighteousness in those who perish. They're only perishing because they're baptized. They have God's Spirit. The rest aren't being judged because they did not receive the love of the truth so that they might be saved. What are they saved by? The love of the truth, the agape, the doing of God, God's law, God's way of righteousness. You know, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness, which is love for others. Love for God, love for fellow man.

And for this cause, God shall send them or allow to be sent to them.

Strong delusion that they should believe a lie. God does not want people in his kingdom who are according to the working of Satan, deceit and unrighteousness who don't love the truth. This separates them, you see.

The end times will cause events to happen to where they will be separated into wise and foolish virgins, sheep and goats. It will be clearly defined. And those who want the self to survive will be in one selfish group. And those who want righteousness and godliness and the mindset of the godly family to survive under any and all circumstances will survive. In other words, they may die, but they will be in God's kingdom. It's important to God, you see, that those who do not believe the truth but delight, verse 12, in unrighteousness might be condemned. If you delight in unrighteousness, we have to be condemned. And it's important that we are condemned. And you might say, I want to be condemned if I'm in that category because in God's kingdom there should be no sin. There should be no corruption. There should be no Satan. And if all I'm going to do is show up and beg, oh, bring men with my sins, that would be wrong. So he needs to know those who don't believe in the truth but delight in unrighteousness, that they might be condemned. He needs to separate the herd. You know, you've got the herd. You've got to separate into sheep and goats. And sometimes it's hard to know the sheep and the goats. I'm always amazed when I'm in Kenya. They run the sheep and the goats together. And the type of sheep they have and the type of goats they have, they look so similar. And the only difference that you can tell between the two of them at any kind of easy glance is the tail. Does it go up or does it go down? And that's the last thing usually people look for. They look at the face, they look at the features, they look at the body or something. They try to figure out the hair. Can you make wool out of this thing? We look close. In other words, we have similarities. So what do you want to survive? Do you want to save the kingdom of God? Do you want to save the righteousness of God? Do you want to save the agape mindset of God? Do you want to see that protected and not killed off by Satan?

Just like Jesus was protected and he wasn't killed off and now he's got others that he is working with and we don't want to see that nature killed off. Do you want to see that protected?

Or do you want to save me? In Hebrews 11 and verse 35, we have a great example of brothers and sisters in the faith. It says, breaking into the verse, Hebrews 11 and 35, others were tortured. You know when you're tortured, it's not fun. I can't even imagine what torture is like. Sometimes I'll get something in my eye and I'll think, hahaha, scream, you know, this bloody murder. It's a big enough stick and you think, wow, this isn't even torture. Not even on the rack here. I don't like that word, but what would you do? Would you say, well, I need to survive and so I'm going to cave on this one. I'm going to start turning in people or I'm going to start doing things that offend God. Some had, oh, they were not accepting deliverance. Why? To accept deliverance would mean to end and terminate godliness. And that's a very precious thing. That's the precious commodity. That's the fruit that God has worked through millennia to have some to harvest. That they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings. What's that like? When you're made a fool of and you're scourged and you're ripped open and stuff.

Yes, chains and imprisonment, stone, sawn in two, tempted, slain with the sword, wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, tormented, destitute, afflicted. There's 38. Wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth. They did all of this and they did not accept deliverance. Now when you come to chapter 12, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, what are we going to do? Are we going to say, well, it wasn't fair that these things were put on me. I had to survive. Or are we going to say, it's not about me, it's about godliness. It's about that kernel of life that must die that God can give it eternal life. It's about God. It's about His nature. It's about His kingdom. It's about getting rid of Satan, getting him bound and out of here, getting rid of every trace of sin and selfishness. And I would not want any smidgen of that in the kingdom of God. So much so that God, if that's what I am really wanting, don't let me in your kingdom. Because I could spoil it. I could be some super Satan or something someday. I could grow into something evil. Prevent that from happening. In the meantime, cleanse me. Create me a clean heart.

Help me not to be that way.

Now we're told that not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, and you're my Savior, I want you to save me, save me, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of God. Matthew 7, 21. Now, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, save me. I added the save me part. But that's what it's about. Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, done many wonders in your name, save me, let me in. They'll be knocking on the door. He said the door's closed. They'll be pounding on the door. Let me in, saying, let sin in your kingdom. Let someone who really likes sin and wants that way and self-promotion, let us in. Let us spoil your kingdom. And he will say, depart for me.

Depart for me. I never knew you. You who practice lawlessness. They are begging for sin to survive. We must not be about that. God can't be about that. It just can't happen.

What will become to the church in the end? Well, in the very end, news gets a little better. Daniel 12, verse 1, to those who are really committed, those who want to see godliness and pure righteousness prevail, wants to see it survive. Maybe not in me. Paul says, if I can make it, that's fine. But at least get these purified and into the kingdom. If that's our end, we just want to see God's family survive in the physical state to where they are then sealed and raised. That should be the goal. Daniel 12, verse 1, at that time, Michael, the archangel, shall stand up who looks after the people, that great prince who stand watch over the sons of your people. There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that time. This isn't just Jesus telling us about it. Now it's Daniel telling us about it. This is not just the continuation of things the way they have been in our lifetime, or even a return to the way things were in the gruesome past. Time, trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that time. This is very, very scary. And at that time, your people shall be delivered. Everyone who was found written in the book, the book of life, they're going to be delivered. Don't say they're going to be spared. Few will be, but they will be delivered. It's a promise of deliverance into eternal life for those who are the faithful, those who endure in godliness in all situations. Do what you do to me, but I'm still going to be godly. That was Jesus' example to us. That was the faithful of Hebrews 11 example to us. Godliness is going to survive, even if I don't.

In verse 2 of Daniel 12, And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame, and everlasting contempt. Christ assures that if we are faithful, we will not suffer in vain.

See, Jesus suffered. Let's go back to Revelation chapter 1 again as we wrap this up. Revelation chapter 1, when he tells us the church what's going to happen in the future, this is going to be the future of the church, to show his servants what things must shortly take place. He takes us in verse 18 to an example he said to us. I was dead, he said. See, I know you're going to go through some things, but I was dead. And see, I am alive forever and ever.

What he's saying is, I went through what you'll be going through, many, what many have gone through. There's life after that. I can give life. God gave me life, I can give life. Going on. And I have the keys of death and of Hades, or the grave. You know what that means? I got the key to the door. You are in the grave when you die and you're locked, and there's no way out. I have the key. I can get you out. I can raise you to eternal life. Nobody else can do that, but I've got the key. Elsewhere, he says, I have the keys of the kingdom. I've got the key to the door. The key to the New Jerusalem. I can let you in there.

Chapter 2, verse 10. Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. I've got the key to the grave. No matter what happens, if you want to see righteousness, if you want to see godliness survive, you'll be part of the kingdom. I'll guarantee it is what he says.

The most important thing on earth in conclusion to the righteous members of the family of God is that the righteousness of the family members of God survive the coming end. That there are righteous, that there is fruit, there are virgins to be the bride of Christ, that they won't all succumb to the temptation, to the deceptions, to the death that Satan so wants his opponents to face.

The most important thing on earth is the righteousness in the family of God to continue.

It will survive the end of this age. Jesus said, On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the grave. Now, what are the gates of the grave? This is referring to the walled cities, and the protection that a walled city had was its gates. It was the last line of defense after the armies in the field failed, and the armies came up to siege, you had the gates. And so here you have God's church, and the gates of Hades, or the grave, shall not prevail against it. In other words, I've got the key. I can open the gates. You won't stay in the grave, is what he's saying.

The first resurrection is coming. In Revelation 20, verse 4, it says, I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. And then I saw the lives of those who had been beheaded, for their witness to Jesus, and for the word of God. Those who had not worshipped the beast, or his image, had not received his mark on their foreheads, or on their hands, and they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

Who will remain faithful to seeking the kingdom of God and righteousness in the time of the end? Next time, we're going to take a look at the end, part three, a place of safety for some.