End-Time Prophecy, Part 1

The title of today's sermon is End-Time Prophecy. Matter of fact, I want to talk about End-Time Prophecy, but I want to talk about End-Time Prophecy and you and me. Do you think about it? Do you worry about it? Is it on your mind? You know, the end times and Christ's actual followers were on His mind. They were on Christ's mind the last three days of His life. And three days before He was actually killed, He spent an entire day delivering some of the most poignant and impactful messages ever given. I wanted to look at that. I'd like you to turn there, if you will, with me to Matthew 21, the 21st chapter of Matthew. And if you look in verse 18, it says, "'Now in the morning as He returned to the city, He was hungry.' This was the start of one day, three days before His death. And so, in case you have never put it together quite like this, starting at this point in 21, you are going to go through a day in the life of Jesus Christ. Because it will cover chapter 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25.

All that in one day loaded messages. And His thought at that time was on His followers. Not only the 12 clueless guys that were hanging around that day, because they were totally clueless about what was going to happen. He had been telling them what would happen in three days for three years. But they didn't see it. They, like too many of us, were caught up in the day-to-day routine of life, thinking it's just going to go on like this forever. That was wrong. I'd like you to read these, because this sermon is part one. There's probably going to be three or four parts, because basically, that whole day you can't cover in an hour. You can't cover in three or four hours what He covered, because it's so important to us. It's so important to you as His follower. But I'd like you to, as you read chapter 21, 22, 23, 24, we know chapter 24 is called the Olivet Prophecies. How important that is. I'd like you to delve into the mind of Christ. I'd like you to think about Christ during your reading of those chapters. Because what would your mindset be if you knew you were only going to be able to spend three more days in the physical with these guys? And you want them to get everything that you've been teaching them for three and a half years, but they're kind of clueless. They're not taking it that serious. As we delve into that, we see in chapter 22, we see in chapter 22, He begins, The kingdom of God is like, as He's describing the ultimate goal of us all, is to make it into the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is like, and at which time He gives parables. And the parables so upset the teachers of the day that there's a conflict. There's a conflict that the Pharisees, the spiritual leaders of that day, have with Jesus Christ. There's a conflict with the Herodians, who also are on Christ's case. There's a conflict with the Sadducees. So chapter 22 pretty well covers all the conflict that happened, obviously, that morning. And you go down to chapter 23, as I covered probably a year ago, just that one chapter, the woe. Woe to you, spiritual leaders, which we will go into later at a later time. But then it leads up to chapter 24, which Christ then tells His followers, the twelve that were there, plus all those that are in this room today, and those who have followed Christ's true teachings over the years. He tells them what it's like, or what it will be like at the time of the end. As a matter of fact, chapter 24, verse 1 says, Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, because He had spent His time in chapter 21, 22, and 23 in the temple, preaching. But He went and He departed, and He went up to the Mount of Olives. And as they were departing that way, His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. There is that. Wow! Look at this!

Because Herod had been repairing and building and refreshing and making the temple this thing that could be seen from miles around. And it was this beautiful, beautiful place that everybody came to for the Holy Days. And they were only a few days away, and all the people were going to get to come up and see this beautiful temple.

And they had been working on it for at least 40 years.

And what does Christ say? It's in verse 2, and Christ said to them, Do you not see all these? Assuredly, I say unto you, not one stone will be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down. This is all going to be destroyed.

And they said, What will be the time? Tell us when these things will be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age. And Christ proceeds to do that.

He tells them what's going to happen.

What I'd like to, as some movie directors do today, they have in the past, if you remember the movie, Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder, made the movie, and you saw the very end at the very beginning.

That's kind of what I'd like to do today. I'd like to come to the end of his day.

And one of the last things that he taught about. So that we can have a ringside seed, as you might say, and we can see the ending and see how we get there and what's going to happen to us.

Like you turn with me to Matthew 25.

Matthew 25, and I want to start in verse 14. Matthew 25 and verse 14, I'll be reading from the New King James Version. Because this is prophecy. This is not a Christian living sermon. This is prophecy because it deals with us. It deals with the very people who are in this room today. And to those all over the world who are followers, God and Jesus Christ.

And here we have Jesus Christ at the end of the day telling a parable. A parable. Now, what is a parable? Well, according to the definition, a parable is a short allegorical story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, some religious principle, or moral lesson. Well, this one teaches all of those. All of those. To us, His followers.

I'd like you to look at verse 14.

It says, for the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a faraway country. We have to stop right there because something's been added. You may see it in your Bible. It's maybe in italics. But to be true to God's Word, the kingdom of heaven was not originally put in the Greek. That was added. Okay? I want you to know that. Now, does it change anything? No. When I read why it was added, it was actually brought out to help us to understand. Because in most of Christ's parables, He would say, the kingdom of heaven is like, the kingdom of heaven is like, the kingdom of God is like.

But here, here, how it was originally put was for, like a man traveling to a far country. This is a parable. Who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them.

Hmm. And verse 15, And to one, he gave five talents, five talents, to another two and to another one, to each according to his own, what? Let's say, ability, abilities. And immediately he went on a journey. Now, I want to talk about a talent that I want us to understand. Because if this is written to us, we need a clear, crystal clear comprehension of what Jesus Christ is talking about. Because our eternal life, our destiny are in His words.

I want to make sure we're clear. Talent. We may say someone's talented, they're gifted. Well, they may be, but this isn't talking about that kind of talent. Talent comes from the Greek word teleton. Teleton. It's a Greek word. And in the Hebrew and Roman world at that time, a talent, as they were calling it, a talent is not an ability or skill, it's a unit of measure.

It is a unit of measure. It's a weight, you can even say, considered to be the largest of all measurements at the time. We would think today, what, a pound? We would think the largest would be a ton, that we basically use, right? Well, theirs was a talent. And most of the time, it was used for the measure for silver. Silver. Because silver, they traded, they used. Silver, typically, this talent weighed 75 pounds. 75 pounds. And you may even find this in some translations, especially the New Living Translation, that actually references this talent to silver.

Because it was the most commonly used trading nomination at the time. You also found that this talent is also referenced at the end time, in Revelation 16, somewhere 4 or 5, somewhere in there, maybe it's verse 7, I can't remember exactly. That at the end time, God is going to reign hell from the sky down upon this entire world. And the weight of the hellstones will be a talent. Can you imagine a 75 pound? A 75 pound hellstone coming down? I don't think you'll have to worry about whether it breaks the window out of your car.

You don't have to worry about whether it destroys your car totally at that time. But I bring this up because I want you to understand that something is said there. Today, if we were to use this talent, this weight, and use it for silver, here it says this Lord as he was, this overseer, this man represented by representative of Jesus Christ, because that's who Jesus is talking about. He's going away on his journey. But he's going to leave, as you might say, resources with his servants.

And he puts it in a way that they can understand about talent. Because you bring in money, people usually pay attention. And so I want to demonstrate that today that this individual left his servants. He had, as we already looked there in 15, and he gave one man five talents. He gave another one two and one he gave one.

So what does that tell us? Well, it tells us first thing off that all men are not created equal. That some have more than others. Some of us are given more than us. If you doubt that, watch the ballgame tomorrow and see LeBron James play. You realize that I played basketball, but not the same type that he plays. Gifted. He uses his resources.

And this is kind of where Christ is pointing here. Okay, what about us? He's given these men talents, and say it's silver. So I actually brought silver today. And I brought five times the amount in this one. And so I wanted to look. An ounce of silver today is worth about $16. And so if we were to take the silver value of today and apply it to this parable, then by using the market price today of silver at 75 pounds, as you can imagine, $16 an ounce times 16 ounces, that gets you a pound, times 75 times 5.

We had the Lord, as it's called in this passage, hand this first man $96,000 in silver. $96,000. You had the second man. Got two talents. So we handed him roughly $38,000. And then the last individual, he gave one talent too. About $19,000. And then let's see what happened. Verse 16, then he who had received the five talent went and traded, or as one translation said, invested or traded with them and made another five talents. So here, great big one. He took that $96,000 and he invested it, he used it, and he made another $96,000.

Pretty good. I'd like to have an investor that, or a guy that invests my money do that. Right? Let's see what it says. And likewise, he who had received two gained two more. So here he took the $38,000 and multiplied it. But he who had received one went and dug in the ground and hid his Lord's money. After a long time, how much is a long time? Five years? Ten years?

How about 20 years? How about 2,000 years before the Master returns? After a long time, the Lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them. So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, Lord, you delivered to me five talents? Look! He's excited! Look! I have gained five more talents beside them. He doubled the investment. What is this showing? This guy was working till the Master returned.

He was using the resources that were given to him. Verse 21, His Lord said to him, What? Well done! Well done, good and faithful servant! You are faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord. Guess what? He just made his Master very happy. When the Master is happy, everybody else is going to be happy. Verse 22, He also said to the who had received two talents, came and said, Lord, you delivered to me two talents?

Look! I have gained two more talents besides them. His Lord just said, Well done, good and what? Faithful servant! Wouldn't you want to hear that from your Master? I would. I used to like to hear that from my Dad. When I would go home, He would leave me a job to do on the farm. He would come home at night. He would look out, and the job was done. His deal was, boy, I'm proud of you.

Good job. Thanks. But there were a few times I didn't do the job. And that was a longer conversation. You know, as we come to chapter 23, when He said, Well done, good and faithful servant, He looked and said, Well, wait a minute. This other guy just brought me $98,000. You only brought me $38,000 additional dollars. But He didn't do it, did He? Why? You go back to the Scriptures. He said, He gave each according to His abilities. All of us are given abilities, and we're given gifts, and we're given the life of each other.

God knows! Who knows better than God? What we can handle, what we can't. I will make you rule over many things. Enter into the joy of the Lord. Then verse 24, He who had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew You to be a hard man. A harsh man, as one translation says. Did the others say that? You know, we see people today, they just want to look at the Old Testament and say, Oh man, that was a harsh God.

Jesus, nothing like that. Ridiculous. He said, Lord, I knew You to be a hard man. Reaping where You have not sown and gathering where You have not scattered seed. What? It's all His. The Lord owned it all. If He wanted to get it outside the threshing floor, it's His. And verse 25, I was afraid, and I went and hid Your talent in the ground.

Look! But look here, look here. Oh man, I got what You gave me. Here. Aren't You happy? I didn't lose any. Didn't gain any, but I didn't lose it. I buried it in the ground. Say, well, I guess that's good. Didn't lose any. That's not what God's about.

That's not His purpose for us being here. And He said, I was afraid, and went and hid Your talent in the ground. Look! There! You have what is Yours. See how that's phrased? Look! You have what is Yours.

There wasn't like the other two. Look! I have gained this. It was more like, what do you expect?

Verse 26, But His Lord answered and said to Him, What? You wicked! You wicked and lazy servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. No growth. No growth. You know, this is by many theologians, they compare this talent to that of the Holy Spirit. Because it is something that God gives us. It is something that you increase in.

It is something that He expects us to grow, use, and to grow, like Stephen in Acts 7, where He said He was a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit.

It's amazing. Turn to Acts 2. Turn over to Acts 2 for me, please. Acts 2. Acts 2 and verse 38. See from the day of Pentecost. 38. Then Peter said to them, Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a gift of incredible value.

Verse 39. For the promises to you and to your children and all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.

It was this gift that's spoken about in 1 Timothy 4, where Paul says, Paul says, I laid my hands upon you, and through me was a gift given. And you used it.

It tells him in 2 Timothy also. 2 Timothy 1 verse 6. Stir up the gift of the Holy Spirit. Stir it up! Let's go down to verse 27. So, as he's telling the man that decided it wasn't that important to put the Master's plan and materials to work.

So he says, So you ought to have deposited my money with bankers, and in my coming I would have received back my own with at least a little bit of interest.

Therefore take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. Give it to him. I want to work with people who is going to work. And to use, apply yourself. I think about this one chapter, and I think about the one thing. Work. Work. Do something. And I think of my own Father's own words of the farm. He would always say, Do something, right or wrong, but do something.

Don't just stand there and do nothing. And this is what he did. He did nothing.

And see, this is written to us. This is end time prophecy. How do we fit? He tells us he's parable so we can get the story. So we can kind of understand where this is coming from. So verse 28, Therefore take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten. For to every one who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance. But from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. God's telling us, You can't waste it. What I give you, you cannot waste.

He said, And cast the unprofitable servant. You remember what an unprofitable servant he talks about over in Luke, I think, chapter 17? He talks about somebody that goes in and does their job. And they just do their job that they're supposed to do, and no more. And what happens? He calls them unprofitable servant, because that's what you were supposed to do.

Yeah, we have people who follow God today, say they follow God today, baptized, have hands laid upon them, receive the Holy Spirit. I'm done.

Okay, just let the kingdom come.

There's no growth.

There's no interest.

Doing the most powerful thing, the very essence of God, His Holy Spirit, He gives us that very essence of power, the energy of God, and He says, Use the Holy Spirit! Use it!

And what do we have?

It's a shame.

This is a prophecy to us about us. And the bottom line is to do something to max out your spiritual potential.

Multiply the Holy Spirit! Multiply it!

Point to grow!

What would you do? She's like here, Miami. Imagine 20 years ago buying a piece of property. You took the money. Someone gave you money. 20, 30 years ago. She says, here, go buy this piece of property.

And it costs $50,000 or $60,000. And you wait 20, 30 years and say, well, I think it's time to sell. What do you think it's worth now?

Will Iron Sharp and Iron this week in your life?

Will Iron Sharp and Iron?

Will laboring in the Word produce something? Anything this week?

Will you have interest on God's investment? Because see, when He gives His Holy Spirit, He's investing in you.

It's still His Spirit, but He's investing in you. He's investing in me.

Or will we hear some day, you lazy and wicked servant?

Lazy! You didn't do anything!

All you did was wait for my return.

Because then I get my reward.

Verse 31.

Verse 31 to the end of 44 teaches us something about the talent.

Because it's still on the same...we're going down the same road. Except now it's going to teach us that it's not limited to money.

It's not limited to just one resource.

God's investment covers a wide range of resources.

What are we doing with it?

Verse 31.

When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. Time we're all looking forward to. In time. Jesus Christ's return.

All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the go-to.

I don't know how many farmers we've had, but it didn't take a lot.

I can tell...they run ten sheep in here. I can tell who the five goats and who the five sheep are.

I think most of you can too. Right?

So at that time, He says, I'm going to gather those who are faithful and those who are not.

I'm going to gather them before Me.

He's going to call sheep, and He's going to call goats.

And He will separate them one from another.

You know the one thing about it?

Sheep don't look like goats, and goats don't look like sheep.

And sheep don't act like goats, and goats don't act like sheep. Right?

In verse 33, He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on His left.

Then the king will say to those on His right hand, Come, come, you blessed of My Father.

Inherit the King of God prepared for you from the foundations of the world.

Prepared for you. Blessed!

You feel blessed? Do you thank Him for being blessed that He's called you out of this world?

That He is offering you eternal life in the God realm? Inherit the King of God prepared for you from the foundations of the world.

And then He finishes His story. He finishes this parable, and He's talking.

And He says to these sheep, For I was hungry, and you gave Me food.

I was thirsty, and you gave Me a drink. I was a stranger, and you took Me in. I was naked, and you clothed Me. I was sick, and you visited Me. I was in prison, and you came to Me.

And don't you love these words?

Then the righteous will answer Him, Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, and thirsty, and give You drink?

Do you see?

It was second nature to them to do this. What were they doing? It says, Lord, when did we see You a stranger, and take You in, or naked, and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You? They didn't even think they did anything. Because why? It was second nature to them. It was part of their nature to help other people. It was one of the resources God has given each and every one of us. And what do we do with it?

Let's see how much of this I can...

You were hungry.

I fed You.

It was who they are. It was part of them. It's part of God. And God is so giving. Right? See, God is so merciful.

To the merciful. Do we get it? Remember the Sermon on the Mount? I think it's Matthew 5, verse 7. It said, Blessed are the merciful, for what? They shall obtain mercy.

This is a sheep.

If you ever been around sheep, they'll come and nuzzle you. A goat?

Always conflict.

A goat is about taking care of himself.

Sheep represented here because you have the Good Shepherd.

As the Scriptures say.

See, there's not... These verses... It's not enough to just obey the law, which we must. We've been given that. That's simple.

But we must obey it with the heart of God. That's what this is about.

Verse 40. Verse 40. And the king will answer and say to them, Assuredly, I say to you, And as much as you did it to the... One of my best, greatest servant, he was a minister, he was a rich guy, you took care of him?

No. Did it to the least of these. I had a discussion this week with a young lady. They didn't understand that God would bring certain people, instances into your life, so that you can practice being God. You can practice being like God and showing the love of God.

Each and every one of us has a unique opportunity in this life, many times.

It's for the least of these. And he said, if you've done it to them, you've done it for me. Oh, it'd be so easy if we saw a crowd. Oh, man, yes. But the least of these? It's hard to judge. That's why we get a chance. We get a chance to see. To let the Holy Spirit lead us and guide us in those decisions. Where it's a matter of the heart. He called us for fear.

Beautiful. Beautiful. When I was studying this this week, I had a sermon I pulled out a couple weeks ago that I gave 10 years ago. And I just put it right back in because it just didn't have the impact. Once I read it now, 10 years later, it's just like, Yeah, this is about me. This is talking to me.

You know, there was something done. Remember, this is all taking place. This is the end of that day. The third day before Jesus Christ was killed. This is at the end of the day. Yes, remember, just the day before, the day before, He gave this message. I'd like you to turn back to Matthew 21. Matthew 21.

And Jesus Christ is in the temple in verse 14 of chapter 21. He said, Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He did what? What's it say, brethren? He healed them. He healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He did and the children crying out in the temple, Hosanna to the Son of David, which means, Save us! It's kind of like you would hear today, God saved the King.

They were what? Indignant.

And said to Him, Do you hear what they're saying? And Jesus said to them, Have you never read out of the mouths of babes and their infants? You have perfected praise.

Another time they wanted to praise like that, and they said, Keep them quiet! Look what they're doing! He said, I can't. The stones will cry out.

But here it was, just the day before, He had healed the blind and the lame. These people have maybe been blind their entire life, lame their entire life, and they're able to actually be healed. They can see for the first time.

I don't know if I mentioned this. I mentioned it somewhere, but traveling. There's a video, I think you can find it on YouTube, where it actually found a way that people can hear for the very first time. People have been deaf their entire life. It's a video of about 20 people that they're able to come in and they're able to give them something and they can hear. You've seen that, Annie? All of a sudden, they hear for the very first time. They're from this little girl's age all the way up to almost Nora's age.

You should see the reaction on their face. They've never heard that before. Most of them, they're shocked, and then all of a sudden, tears roll down their face. They realize what they've missed. Can you imagine the feeling? If you were Jesus Christ, go into that mind. Go into that incredible loving and caring mind of where He's actually given sight to this person who has been blind and all they could do is feel and stumble around and beg for food. He gave them eyes to see and they saw for the first time. The leaders, the men who were supposed to be teaching them, look over and go, what are you messing with them for?

Shame on them.

Let's make sure it's never shame on us.

That's why this is here. That's why this lesson is here for us. Let's go back and finish this now.

Matthew 25.

Matthew 25.

I think we came down to verse 41.

Then He will say to those on His left hand, the goats. The goats. Depart from Me, you curse into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and His angels. As you see, that's Gehenna fire. You see who it's prepared for? Not really for humans. It's prepared for the devil and His angels. But there are going to be people who are thrown into it. Except they're everlasting fire. They won't be alive very long.

For I was hungry, and you gave Me no food. I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink, you goats.

I was a stranger, and you did not take Me in. Naked, and you did not clothe Me. Sick, and imprisoned, and you did not visit Me. Then they will answer Him, saying, Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or naked or sick or imprisoned and did not minister You?

You see what they did? They didn't even think about it. If it was the Lord, they'd have done it. But they weren't about to do it to anybody else. They weren't about to take care of somebody less fortunate than them.

Why heal that blind person?

Then He will answer them, saying, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me. God created every human being. They're all His sons and daughters, each given different abilities, some called at different times.

But God loves them all, and He gives us a chance to love them all. Now, does that mean we just take our money and we just throw it out? Oh, here you go! Homeless guy, every place I stop on the road. Here you go! Take that! Take that! Take that! Yeah, Stephen's back there ready for take his. No. Because the same reason Jesus Christ said, The poor you shall have with you always. One of the reasons He said that was a lot of the poor do the things that keep them poor. Yeah, you don't work, you don't eat. You know, these things. But there are opportunities here for us. And then He says in verse 46, And these will go away into everlasting punishment. But the righteous into where? Eternal life. Sheep and a goat. The righteous into eternal life. What is in your future? Is there wasted potential? Or is there a well done, good and faithful servant? A sheep or a goat. End time prophecy, ask, where will you be? On God's left? On His right? What's in your future? Next week, we'll go into chapter 25 about virgins. Five foolish and five wise. End time prophecy. So hopefully, you sheep will have a good week.