Preparing the Way

To begin the sermon here, if you'll turn with me over to Malachi chapter 3.

Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament.

And read words that are familiar to us and words that are repeated and fulfilled in the New Testament. But in Malachi 3 and verse 1, it says, Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.

Even the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

So there in Malachi it says that there is someone coming that will prepare the way for the coming of Jesus Christ. You know, without turning over to Mark 1, verse 3, that those very words are there at the beginning of Mark, that John the Baptist, he came before Jesus Christ to prepare the way for him.

And he came with a message of repentance to a nation and to a religion and to a group of people who thought they were doing everything the way that God had wanted them to do, but they didn't realize how far off the track they had gotten. So John came with a message of repentance that might have startled the Jewish nation at that time, but he was preparing the way for Jesus Christ who would come to them suddenly and preach the same gospel as that, as John did. Let's go back to Isaiah because it's mentioned there again in the book of Isaiah because it was a notable event that John the Baptist would precede Jesus Christ to prepare the way for him.

In Isaiah 40 and verse 3, it says, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Eternal, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low. The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Eternal has spoken. Prepare the way for him.

We read it several times in the Bible and we see one of the ways in which God works. He prepares the way. It's interesting if you look through the commentaries and see that more than one of them will talk about preparing the way as something that happened back in the time of the East. Let me read from Barnes' notes that talks about this in relation to preparing the way. It says, The idea is taken from the practice of Eastern monarchs, who whenever they entered on a journey or an expedition, especially through a barren and unfrequent or inhospitable country, they sent heralds before them to prepare the way.

To do this, it was necessary for them to provide supplies and make bridges or find fording places over the streams to level hills and construct causeways over valleys or fill them up and to make a way through the forest which might lie in their intended line of march. This was necessary because these contemplated expeditions often involved the necessity of marching through countries where there were no public highways that would afford facilities for the passage of an army. The state of those countries in every age, where roads were almost unknown and from want of cultivation, in many places overgrown with brambles and other thorny plants which renders traveling, especially with a large retinue, on accommodating and requiring this precaution of preparing the way.

So when Isaiah would write and when Malachi wrote and when the people of the New Testament heard prepare the way, they may have thought about what goes on before and the preparation that has to be to get from where your starting point is to where you're going. That's what they had in mind.

How do we get there? We can't just send the king out. We just can't send out an army and just say, go there. You have to go and you have to know how you're going to get there and you have to have the way prepared so that you can see and have a path from the beginning to the end point.

Back in the book of Revelation, we see the same concept in Revelation 16. You know, as we look at the prophecies of the Bible and we know, we know what the end result of the prophecies are. God has given us a very good outline of where we're going, what is going to happen, that Jesus Christ will return, what's going to precede him before he returns, what the world will be like, what the day of the Lord is going to be like.

In Revelation 16 in verse 12, it talks about the sixth angel, the sixth trump, if you will. It says, the sixth angel poured out his bull on the great river Euphrates, and this water was dried up so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared. Well, we know in Revelation, at the end of time, there's going to be the battle at Armageddon, and there's going to be those armies gathered against Christ. And somehow, from the kings of the east, a 200 million man army is going to have to make its way from there to Armageddon outside of Jerusalem.

How will that happen? How would you march 200 million people, almost the size of America, from one place to another because that's where they need to be? And look what God has done. He's prepared the way. What better way for the Euphrates to dry up and you have this huge wide riverbed that who knows how many people wide can march through there and have a direct path down to Jerusalem.

God prepares the way, and that happens before the time that the prophesied end events occur. Before the battle of Armageddon, before the armies could be gathered there, God prepares a way for them to get there. We know that God's prophecies are sure. As you and I are here today, we know that what it says in the Bible, it's going to happen.

But you know, sometimes we can look at those end results. We can look at what is prophesied to be in Revelation. We can look at a power that's so foreign to anything you and I have ever grown up or even known in our lifetimes. An autocratic, totalitarian government where the king worships himself and he makes everyone do what he wants to do and to follow his religion, where he has complete control over people.

And their only job is to worship him and to follow the suit. And if they don't take him, then their lives become miserable and they don't have the things they have. And we look at that and we think, how could that ever happen in this world? Look at the age we've lived in!

With the advent of America back in the 17 and 1800s and the way it's gone, America brought freedom and democracy and look how the world has progressed during the last 200 and 300 years under that form of government.

How can we get from here where we are today to a government that the world would not only follow, but as it says, marvel after them and be excited about what is going on.

And we know that as we look at those prophecies and as we look at the things in Matthew 24 that Jesus Christ said would happen before his return and as we talk about being in the end time, and we know that we are in the end times because we see prophecies being fulfilled and we see the state of the world the way it is, how do we get from here to there? How can we get from here to there if we're talking about being in the end time? You know, things seem so different today and they will be so different at that time before Jesus Christ's return. Well Barnes, in his commentary, has an interesting note, you know, in adjunct to the physical preparing the way for kings to march from the east over into the Middle East and wherever they were going. He says this in his thoughts about how that pertains to John the Baptist preparing the way for the Messiah. Let me read what he says because he's got an interesting point. He says, the Jewish church to which John was sent to announce the coming of the Messiah was at that time in a barren and desert condition, unfit, without reformation for the reception of her king. It was in this desert country, destitute at that time of religious cultivation, of true piety, and in good works unfruitful, that John was sent to prepare the way of the Lord by preaching repentance. So he takes this physical, and so many times we can see what happens physically and take it to a spiritual level. He says, John the Baptist had to be there. The people, it wasn't, the way had to be prepared for Christ and the message that he was going to be there. The church was a desert. It was unfit. It wasn't producing fruit, the church of the Jews at that time. And we look at the landscape of America today. We look at the landscape of the world today. Are we any different? I mean, they believed that they were at least keeping the things of God. Today we live in a very desert condition where religion and God is concerned. People don't even, people don't follow what God says. They don't even want to hear what God says. In fact, they mock God and they count it as antiquated and that we are so much smarter and so much beyond anything God would say or anything that the Bible would say. So as Jesus Christ will return, as these events will occur, and we can even look at the trumpets preparing the way for Jesus Christ, right? That there has to be a preparing of the way, even for the message of Jesus Christ, and a preparing of the way for Him to return. And there has to be a preparing of the way to get from where we are today to where Christ says we will be in the times before His return.

Well, we stand at a time in history where we can look at Revelation, we can look at Matthew 24, and we wonder how all these things are going to take place. But let's pause and take a look at how we are today. Let's turn back to Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 1.

And as we read these words and recognize where we are in America, and perhaps the world and Britain and, you know, the Israelites states, as we call them. In Isaiah 1 verse 4, just look at these words and see how they apply to the civilization, the society that we live in today.

God says, alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corruptors. They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel. They have turned away backward. And then he says in verse 5 to Israel, why should you be stricken again? They were stricken once. Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed or bound up or soothed with ointment. Doesn't that a picture of the society we live in today when we look at it honestly, when we look at it objectively? No one knows what we're doing. The whole head is sick. Everywhere you turn, everywhere you turn, there's something that isn't right. There's doubt, there's suspicion, there's wounds everywhere, and no one, no one knows how to heal them or to bind them up. Let's go over to Micah, minor prophet Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah.

Micah has some things to write that sound like us as well. Micah 7. Micah 7 in verse 1. He says, Why? That they may successfully do evil with both hands. And then he speaks of the corruption that marks this land where he can't find the summer fruits or the grapes that he's looking for, the good fruit. That they may successfully do evil with both hands. The prince asks for gifts. He's always got his hand out. What's in it for me? How do I profit for this? He's not there with a public service attitude. He's not there with the true service attitude that leaders should have. The prince asks for gifts. The judge seeks a bribe. He's not interested in true justice.

How do I do this? What is it that I have? Where does my opinion come in as opposed to the law and maybe favoritism that comes in to the judgment as well? The judge seeks a bribe and the great man utters his evil desire. The rich who say, this is what I want. And shouldn't everyone be listening to me? Who knows what the end of it is, right? And you and I have seen the things during this pandemic time we've been living in and things that have come across that indicate this or this about maybe some great men and what their desires are. So they scheme together. So they scheme together. They know what's right. They've got a plan. They're working together. The best of them is like a briar. You know what a briar is like. You can't get close to it. If you touch it, you come close to it, you get pricked. It hurts. The best of them is like a briar. There's no softness there. There's no love. There's nothing. There's nothing there. The best of them is like a briar. The most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchman and your punishment comes.

Now shall be their perplexity. Now what do we do? What's the answer to all of this? Where is the truth as we ask? A question that we ask in the world that we live in today. Where is the truth?

And that's the state, the verses that we've read of America today and other nations as well. But we live here and we know well what's going on in this country as we watch the news and as we pay attention to what's happening. We're in a miserable state. We're in a miserable state. And you look back over America's past. It's a glorious past. We're here on Memorial Day weekend and there's time to think about the triumphs of old and America, how it was founded.

Just even go back 70 years. You can look back at America. And as you look at her history on what American life was back through the decades that have led up to the 2020s here. You go back to the 50s and history says it was kind of an idyllic time. Kind of an idyllic time in American history. They'd come out of World War II. The country was at peace. There was a nuclear family that the divorce rate was very low. People were working. People were going to church. It was a very calm time and you had a very steady leadership in the White House during the 50s. But then everything changed as the decades, as the decades, you know, produced. They said sometimes, you know, maybe it was the shock of World War II and what had happened and what the world could be that made the people turn back to look at their true values and what values they would like to live by. But as the 60s came upon us, you know, you had things happen. You had a birth control pill that was developed in the 60s and sexual liberation began to be talked about. You had the hippie movement near the end of the decade. You had Vietnam and people lost faith in their government and they didn't want to fight another war. They didn't want to go someplace and you had a whole counterculture that was developing in America. You had the Cold War going on at that time and one of our allies became someone that someone that we had to be afraid of. The Cuban Missile Crisis during that time and the attitude in America changed. It led into the 70s. In the 70s, you had Watergate, more corruption in the government, a distrust of what was going on there. But then you had the notable Roe versus Wade decision that brought abortion to America and legalized the killing of the babies of the unborn babies. You had a continuation of the drugs and the sexual revolution that occurred that continued through the 80s. In the 90s, you had a sex scandal in the White House and you had an impeachment that went over and that and it further brought down American morals and it was just a time that that occurred. We also saw some terrorism acts, some homegrown terrorism acts during that decade that people began to wonder what's going on and how can people do these things the way they do.

As the 2000s began, you had 9-11 right there in September of 2001 and all of a sudden the security of the American always felt, you know, a land that was bordered by two oceans that had friends to the north and friends to the south and all of a sudden security is gone. There is someone who can attack us on our own shores and we were attacked for the first time. That changed the way life in America was. Later on in that decade, we had the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008 that showed up our weaknesses and what the excesses that we had done and experts will say no one really knows how close we came to the brink of extinction back in those years, but it was God who kept the country going. In 2015, as we moved into the next decade, you had this notable Supreme Court decision that permitted same-sex marriage and then along with that came all the litany of sexual perversion that all of a sudden became commonplace, championed, and touted as these people are truly free, etc., etc., etc. You know, so as we would look back at Sodom and Gomorrah and know that Jesus Christ said, as it was in the days of Sodom, it'll be at the time of the coming of the Son of Man, we might have looked way back then and said, how could America ever become like Sodom?

And yet today we see that the land champions that and that that has been permitted. And then we come up to the 2020s. Here we are today and already in 2020, just the first year here of this decade, doesn't technically start until 2021, but it's 2020, two notable things have happened. You know, all those things in those past decades were preparing the way to the return of Jesus Christ.

All of them, all of them brought about things and changes in our society, drove us further and further away from God and more and more about ourselves, even the prosperity that we have.

Take us farther and farther away from God and draw us closer and closer to the times that Jesus Christ said would be there at the time of His return. You know, Jesus Christ mentioned many things, but let me, you know, in 2020, and as we're sitting here today and we've gone through this coronavirus, this pandemic period, and there's a feeling in the country we're coming out of it, right? I mean, it's just like the world is going back to work again, people are coming out of their homes again, and it sounds like we're going past it, but it's time to pause, and it's good to pause and look and see what did this period do? Could it have some prophetic implications in preparing the way, preparing the way for Jesus Christ and His return, preparing the way for the end time?

You know, back at the beginning of 2020, it seems like it seems like decades ago. In 2020, back in January, Britain officially was dismissed from the European Union. There's no turning back. They're gone. They have to go through a period now, or they have to go through all of their processes to, you know, develop alliances and treaties with people and trading agreements and things, but back in January, it was officially done. It began back in 2016 when, in a surprise vote, I think, the British people said, we want to leave the European Union. You know, we probably wondered as we watched prophecy, and we knew that if indeed Britain was Ephraim, and America is Manasseh, as we have taught, and as the Bible would indicate, and when you look at the prophecies, those countries fulfill perfectly what the latter-day prophecies of those countries would be, how could Britain, that's prophesied to fall in Osea 5, be part of the European Union? Yet it didn't seem that there would ever be a time they'd be apart from it, but then we had that surprise in 2016 where the people over there voted to exit the Union, and it became final in 2020. Opening the day, opening the door, preparing the way for that prophecy where, in Osea 5, it says that America, and Ephraim, and Manasseh, and Judah would all fall within, all within a new month, within a new moon of each other.

That couldn't happen, that prophecy, until something like that happened. No one foresaw it, really, but it happened, and it's there. You know, we look, and as we've talked about recently, not too long ago I gave a sermon on the coming changes in the world order, and we talked about how in Daniel 11 it talks about who the end-time world powers will be. It'll be the kings of the north, the king of the north, the king of the south, and the kings of the east, as we just read you know in Revelation 16. No mention of the west in Revelation, no mention of that in the end time, but today the world looks to the west. It's the western powers that lead the world. It's America, that's the economic might. It's America that's the military power, but at the time leading up to Jesus Christ's return there is no mention of the west. The west has disappeared. The west is gone, and so we look at those things and we think how could that be? Can America ever fail? It's so big, it's so rich, it's so powerful. How could something like that happen? Yet we know from Bible prophecy it will happen, but the way has to be prepared. You know, we saw some of that being prepared as we've looked through the decades. We've seen some of that in 2001. We saw some of that in the financial crisis of 2007. We see some of that in 2015 with the pronouncements and the verdicts that bring us further and further away from God. In 2020, in this coronavirus, we may see more and more things that have happened that prepare the way for the demise, the prophesied demise of modern-day Israel. So let's look at a few of those. Let's go back to Matthew 24.

Matthew 24.

Well, let me turn to Matthew 24. Let me talk a little bit about the economy here. We know that in reading in Revelation 13, we see a beast that arises out of the sea, and the world marvels out of it. It's who can war with the beast, and he has everything, and we read then that it's the economic giant of the world. How does that power go from the West today to the King of the North then? Because it looks, and most people in America would say, America is unbreakable. It's unsinkable. But look over the last few months what's going on in this country. You know, before we have talked about how does our economy, how is it so strong when we have the debt that we have? How is our stock market so high? It's not based on anything that the original intent of the stock market would be. It's more of an opinion poll now, and more of a, you know, roulette spin than it is anything based on the soundness of an economy. And we look at what's happened over the last, just during this pandemic period, how many trillions of dollars have been poured into our economy? How much our debt has been increased? And it's been not just a United States phenomenon, it's been a global phenomenon. Europe has done the same type stimulus packages that we have. The world has pretty much given it up just to see the economy through, to offer, if you will, to the economic gods of this age to keep it going. And yet the debt is there, and there is a breaking point. You can't sustain that level of debt forever. The economists will, the economists, I'm sure, scratch their head, but they're not really, they don't really come out and say, but I think most people understand there is a breaking point and something has to give. And as the country talks about yet another stimulus and another two or three trillion dollars to pour into this pandemic, look how that's weakened us. Somewhere along the line, somewhere along the line down the road, the way is being prepared that America's economy will fall. And when it falls, the fall will be great and it will be heard around the world because the world has followed and the world goes as modern day Israel goes. And when modern day Israel falls, the world will be in a state that has never been in before. It will be in a crisis that is never before in the history of the world, nor ever again will be what was coming upon us. But you're in Matthew 24. Let's look at some of the things that Jesus Christ said and bring it down to a more personal level of some of the details of the things that He said the life our lives would be like as the time of His return approaches. In Matthew 24, you know, Matt, it's the Olivet prophecy. Down in verse 7, He wraps up the first four things that He says in there, the things that will come first. In verse 7, He says, For a nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. You know, we've just been through a pestilence, if you will. We've been through a pandemic. That's mild compared to what is coming, would be my speculation. You know, famines, there have already been predictions by some of the experts that we're going to be seeing some very significant famines as a result of this, probably over in Africa, things that will really get our attention. And He says in verse 8, All these are the beginning of sorrows. You know, we've just been through a beginning of sorrow.

This coronavirus pandemic period that we've been through is certainly the beginning of sorrows. It's not the end of sorrows, but it's the beginning of sorrows. It had a purpose. It brought us along, and it's going to usher in a time that's different. You know, no matter how things may go back, there will always be this thing hanging over us about what could be. Beginning of sorrows, verse 9, He says, as He brings it home to a personal level, to His disciples, they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you. And you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake.

Now again, we can look at that verse even today and say, man, it is hard to understand in America that has freedom of religion. My neighbors don't hate me. The people I work with don't hate me. The people I go to school with don't hate me. How can we get to the point where today they don't care if I go to church on Sabbath? They just, you know, if I'm a good neighbor, they're happy to do that. How do we get from here to a point that they will want to kill us for Christ's sake? Because we believe what we believe. How do we get from here to there? And there's still a road that will be prepared for that. But I think it has probably not gone unnoticed on any of us. As we've gone through this period of time, the churches have been looked on negatively during this time. It's the churches that, you know, met together and that had an untold percentage of people who were infected because they didn't practice guidelines and they didn't heed the government's warnings. There hasn't been anything positive said about churches. It's all been negative. And if, you know, and one of the things that we've had to look at is, you know, if we were to meet together and someone, someone contracted a virus, if someone was carrying it, they didn't even know because they're asymptomatic, what would happen? We would be on the news. We'd be looked at. We would be looked at in not a good light because the news and the media champions those things to the point that it was just yesterday that President Trump had to step in and say, churches can meet. Enough is enough. But, you know, churches, churches and God and the Bible and whatever comes down the path, probably we will see more and more anti-religion, anti-church. You know, the church will preach the gospel strongly before the return of Jesus Christ. And as God directs that gospel message to be stronger and as the church and his people cry aloud and spare not and show the people their sin, there will be, there will be some price to pay for that. And there will people, you know, it says down in verse 11, many false prophets will come. In response to that, don't believe what these people have to say. Everything is going to be fine and good. Follow me, follow me, follow me. And as the, as the message gets stronger and as God allows that message to sink in in some whatever way he decides to do it, to get that message out to people, there will be a response. And people will hate the messenger.

They hated Christ, the messenger of the kingdom. They were, they were his own people. They were Jews. They thought they had it all. Or they thought they had all the truth and they were doing things right and they wanted to put him to death. There will be things between now and then, if we keep our eyes open, that we see. Further this along to the point where we will be able to see, we will be hated by all nations for Christ's namesake. And that in that government that's to come, that totalitarian, dictatorial government that's come, that people, people won't be champion tolerance and love for all. It'll be these people, these people put to death. We want nothing to do with them. That's coming. But we can keep our eyes open on what, how that happens as God prepares the way for the fulfillment of that. In verse 10 of Matthew 24 there, it says, and then many will be offended. They will betray one another and they will hate one another. Again, that prophecy brings it down to a you and me level. This is talking about us. Many will be offended. They will betray one another. They will hate one another. And you know, we live in a society today where it is very notable that, you know, people do get offended very easily. Do we ever watch the news anymore? Does the week go by where someone hasn't said something that some group was offended and someone has to go back and recount their words because people are so sensitive and so aware that no one is trying to make any judgments on them of what they do. Many will be offended, it says. You know, as we've gone through this pandemic crisis, you know, we'll betray one another. Another thing that's difficult to see, you know, could we have seen a year ago, how would people betray us? You know, I mean, we know what's going to happen. We know that there is going to be a come of time where they're going to say, well, they keep the Sabbath, they believe this, and turn us in. But how does that happen? How do we get from where we were? But during this pandemic period, you know, I think I've been surprised by how the things have been handled and some of the things that have been said. You know, social, I have no issue with social distancing guidelines or the things that have been said, you know, those are the experts that have done that. But what I have been surprised about is how, you know, the media, you know, would say if anyone, especially as restaurants began to open up again and they weren't practicing the first 25% occupancy and then 50% after that, if you see anyone that isn't doing these things, you know what? Call law enforcement.

Call law enforcement. Turn them in. If you see your neighbor with a group of 20 there and there should be no more than 10, call the police on them. And it's put in the mind of America, hey, we're the police. If we don't like what they're doing, it's perfectly good to turn them in. You know, we live in an age of cell phones and things where we can take a picture of anything.

And it's kind of like amazing when you watch the videos that are taken, how they have, you know, right on the screen there of exactly what happened because someone had their camera ready and they had it there and it is perfect evidence of what's going on. We live in a society where it's very easy to see what we all do. We are all monitored and we are all under surveillance and that will continue. That will continue as time goes on. But there's a time where, for the first time in American history, I think the people have been told it's okay to betray your neighbors. It's okay to betray your family. It's okay to call the cops on them.

It's okay to get them arrested. And actually, they should be arrested, you know. As a nation was gripped by fear, by fear over this virus, what will they be gripped with when a greater fear comes their way? And what will they do to you, to me, to each other? A time of betrayal. Now we can see that the American psyche has been touched in a way it hasn't been touched before this pandemic.

Now the way has been set that it's okay to tell. And your responsibility to betray or to turn in or to talk about your brother. Let's go back to Micah again. Micah 7. You can keep your finger there in Matthew 24. We'll be back there in a minute. We read through the first four verses of Micah 7. Let's read through the next three. Micah 7. Micah 7 and verse 5. Don't trust in a friend. He writes, don't put your confidence in a companion. Guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your bosom. What a suspicious society. Where what a society where you have to kind of watch every word you say. A society like we live in today where many people are even afraid to say who they would support for the leader of the land. Has there ever been a time where there's been a time of suspicion and people need to just I can't say that. I can't say that. I have to watch every word I say. That's where America has come. Not just through the pandemic, but over the last four and five years. Look how America has changed. Guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your bosom. For son dishonors father, daughter rises against her mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's enemies are the men of his own household. How true is that? That's what Christ was talking about. That's where it's going. You know, as as Micah writes here, he looks at any things. What a hopeless situation. What a place to live. You can't trust your leaders. No one is producing any fruit. They're far from God. I can't even trust people. And he comes to the only logical conclusion that there is. He says in verse 7, therefore I will look to God. I will wait for the God of my salvation. He will hear me. The same place that our hope needs to be. The same place that we need to be looking to more and more. To God, he is the only answer out of the mess that has become the land that we live in. That has been furthered along as the way has been prepared for the return of Jesus Christ a little bit more during this time that we've just been going through and coming out of. Well, the last part of Matthew 24 that we were in, you know, said that people will offend one another. Many will be offended. You know, you hurt my feelings. How could you say that? They'll betray one another, and they will hate one another. That's a strong word, hate. They will hate one another. But I think as we look at our country today, unless we have our heads buried deep in the sand, we can see hate. We can see that there is hate. There is hate at the top levels of our government. There's hate between people down below. There's people that hate simply because you don't agree with me, or you don't side with the same side that I do. And it happens on every side, right? Every single side. No one is exempt from that. Not one side of the equation is different than the other. Hate is very real in America today.

And hate leads to division, right? And even as we've gone through this pandemic period, it's been interesting to see the suspicion and the things that have come out. Ah, we don't trust this person. What is he up to? What's his gain in this pandemic? What about this person? What are they doing? What is this group up to? What does it really mean? Is there something behind this? And then one group will hate the other, you know, and everything. You know, there's even a major network now that has a shio on every night that calls it. The name of the show is A Nation Divided.

And it's come about from this pandemic as they talk about, this side says this, this side says this. Wear a mask, don't wear a mask. Open up the country, don't open up the country. A nation divided. And the media has a large part to play in this nation that's divided. And Christ has, of course, you know, something to say about a nation divided as this nation is divided as it never has been before on so many levels. He says in Matthew 12, a house divided against itself cannot stand. It cannot stand. And so as we see this evolution of America and the emotions and the the attitudes that people have toward each other, we look at it and say it can't go on this way. And there's no one. There's no one that's trying to heal it. There's no way to heal it. The wounds are too deep and no one wants to heal it. They just want to go on the way they are.

Well, the way is being prepared. The way is being prepared. And that hate that's there now will eventually go down to people of belief as well. Well, let's drop down to verse 12 in Matthew 24.

Christ says, because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.

Because lawlessness abounds. Now, some time ago I gave a sermon by that title, because lawlessness will abound. And we talked about the things that lawlessness brings about.

And again, as we look honestly at our country today, anyone that says we're a lawful land is not really looking straightly. Every, or clearly, every law has been dismantled. Everything goes except the very basics of murder and and whatever, but every single law of God has been dismantled. The morals of our country are in shreds. They, we stand for nothing. But I guess if we stand for anything, we stand for everything that's outside of what the laws of nature would be.

We live in a time of lawlessness. A time of anything goes. There was a song that, you know, I don't know if it was the 60s or 70s, a song, anything goes. And that certainly is a time that we live in today. You know, it's a time of lawlessness. If you look back at history, the great kingdoms or empires of the earth, as they became older and older, as they became more and more prosperous, as they became more and more powerful, you would see the moral fabric just disappear. It would just fade. And they became, it happened to the Roman Empire, and of course there's been many comparisons of America, the American Empire to the Roman Empire, of how they descended into nothing, and as their moral basis, as the foundation of their country, faded and dissipated, then their empire was lost. And we look at America today and the principles that we live by, the principles that are espoused for us, you know, as a nation are far, far, far from what this nation was founded on. And so we do live in a time of lawlessness, and often it occurs in a time where there's so much economic prosperity. And there has never been a time like you and I have lived in, in the history of the world, there has never been a nation with as much as we have. There's never been a people who have been able to enjoy the blessings of life in the way that people in America, and really the Israelite nations around the world the way that we have.

It's been a time, and it's been a wonderful time to live, as we've seen the advent of so many things that we take for granted today, that the people who live before us, even our parents who have died and grandparents that would could not even have imagined the type of way that we live today.

We live in an economic time where, you know, we have free time, we have machines that can do a lot of work for us, we aren't spending all our time growing our food, cleaning our food, preparing our food. You know, keep your finger there in Matthew 24. Let's go back and just visit Ezekiel 16 here for a moment. Because again, Christ said, you know, as it was in the days of Sodom, it'll be in the days of the time of the Son of Man. And we should recount here in Ezekiel 16 just exactly what the sin of Sodom was, because it was these things that are listed here in verses 48 and 48 to 50 that really led to Sodom becoming the depraved, perverted society that it was. And it was a good place to live physically. That's why Lot and his wife, they didn't really want to leave. God had to drag them out. Like, yeah, we got a lot of there's a lot of easy things. Life is easy here. Ezekiel 16 verse 48, as I live, says the Lord God, neither your sister Sodom nor her daughters have done as you and your daughters have done. Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom, a land that we look at and say how depraved and how disgusting. She and her daughter had pride.

She and her daughter had pride. America is full of pride. They had fullness of food. We have fullness of food. Doesn't it boggle your mind when you see the food lines that they show on TV and how so much food is just available to be given away? We live in a land that is so prosperous and full of food. It's an amazing and we should be absolutely thanking God for everything that he has provided for this country. She had pride. She had fullness of food, abundance of idleness, so much time on her hands, so much time we have on our hands. When we compare ourselves, if we step back into the 1700s and 1800s, the time that we have for ourselves is so much greater. Sodom had it as well. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before me. God says, therefore I took them away as I saw fit. Well, that was the land they lived in. Those were the sins. That was at the basis of what Sodom became. We look at ourselves. That's the basis of where we live today and where we are. And as we can see, you know, and the rulings of the Supreme Court and the things that we live with today, that we certainly are well on the way to the way things were in Sodom. Well, when lawlessness abounds, it says, the love of many will grow cold. The love of many will grow cold. Now, lawlessness occurs typically during good economic times. And as you've heard me say many times here recently, is that we can have many trials, the not so good times in our life. The not so good times where we may be driven to God. Please heal me. Please get me out of this situation. Please help me to find the job, whatever it is, the trial that we're going through. But perhaps a bigger trial is when you're living in good times and you have everything you need and you forget God. You know, don't ever forget that God, through Moses, several times reminded ancient Israel, when times are good, when your bellies are full, don't forget me. Don't forget me. And it is so easy to do when things are going along fine and we have money and we have health and everything is going well to just forget God, who, you know, not that we consciously think who needs Him, but we just kind of like forget Him.

Don't forget Him. It's during the good times we should be even closer to God, that we should be making ourselves get closer to God. We should be praying more, asking Him to give us a strength. We should be with each other more. We shouldn't be neglecting our salvation. We shouldn't be selecting the opportunities that we have to be together and to learn His Word.

Oh, that's what happens during the time of lawlessness, during the time of an economic good time, the love of many, the love of many waxes cold.

If you're there in Matthew 24, let's drop down to verse 37.

Matthew 24, 37. As the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

For as the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark. And they didn't know, until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

You know what was there? Building an ark in the middle of dry land for a hundred years.

God was preparing the way. You know Noah was telling them what was going to happen, why he was building that ark, and what was going to happen. But they, times were good.

You know, it was a corrupt land. It was a violent land. The Bible tells us in Genesis 6, but it apparently was a prosperous land, and they didn't want to hear anything about God.

They just were going about their life, and, ha ha Noah, look at Noah. What a, what a, how funny is he to be building this boat out in the middle of nowhere and, and proving it to be there and preaching these things. You know, you can almost hear the same words that in 2 Peter 3, where it talks about, those will scoff, oh, you've been talking about the return of Jesus Christ forever. He's not going to come. No one can, no one can topple what we have. We're foolproof. We can't be toppled. And it says, they went right up until the time that the rains came, right up until the time the floods came and those doors were shut, and then they realized, wow, what we've been told, what we've been told is really happening. And it was too late. It was too late for them. Their time of preparation was gone. Noah tried to prepare the way for him. God tried to prepare the way for him to let him know what was going on, but they didn't believe.

God's preparing the way now. You note here that it says, suddenly, to the world it was suddenly that it came. It wasn't suddenly. Noah had prepared that way, prepared that arc for 100 years.

You know, it talks about the same time at the end time. Suddenly these things will happen.

You know, we got a good primer and what the word suddenly means with this pandemic that we were in.

Suddenly, at the beginning of March, or somewhere between the March 7th and March 14th, we were told we can't meet together anymore. And then literally overnight it went from groups of 100 down to 50 down to 10 and stay at home. No one goes anywhere, close up everything. We got a good lesson in what the word suddenly means and how things can change literally overnight. At the time of the Jesus Christ return leading up to it, there will become a time when suddenly these things happen. And the Bible talks about those who are on the other side of the door when that suddenly happens, who weren't paying attention, who weren't preparing or watching God prepare the way, who fell asleep and got enamored with all the things of the world and weren't watching carefully what went on and saw Him at work and see Him at work. Oh, things can happen suddenly.

We'll hold that thought for a moment. Let's go back here. I'm going to come back to that in a minute, but let's finish up here verses 13 and 14 of chapter 24 here in Matthew. It says, He who endures to the end shall be saved. We have to stay awake and we have to stay on top of things. We have to stay close to God to the end, no matter whether times are bad or good. It's our responsibility to stay close to God. He doesn't move. It's us. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached and all the world is a witness to all the nations and then the end will come.

Somewhere along the line, God will open the doors for His gospel to be preached.

It will happen. But let's go back. Let's go back to the time of Noah and the things, what our life will be like as we see these things in Matthew 24 when he says about his people, the things that we will face. And hopefully you've seen a little bit how this pandemic period has been preparing the way for those un-end results that will face you and I in the months, years, or wherever, whenever God decides it's time. Well, let's go to 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians 5.

1 Thessalonians 5. Let's read through the first 11 verses here of 1 Thessalonians 5 because Paul talks about the end times, the times that we're in, the times that we've been talking about, and I'm talking about how God prepares the way little by little. Sometimes many steps, then it may stop for a little bit. And then more steps until we get to where He says it will be. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 1. Concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.

For when they say peace and safety, peace and safety, when they say peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape. There's a world of meaning in that verse.

Don't be surprised. I have absolutely no idea it's God who directs the things of earth.

Don't be surprised if we enter into a time that is economically strong, where you might hear people saying, oh, the world has gotten really safe. Look at what has happened. We can do whatever we want. I don't know that that's going to happen. I have no idea. God knows what it's going to happen. But notice what Paul says here. When they say peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes.

The completion of the preparing of the way has taken place, and then sudden destruction comes as labor pains. You know what labor pains are? They indicate the baby's about to be born. As labor pains come upon them, the return of Jesus Christ is imminent. The new world order. The land where Jesus Christ is King and King, King of kings and Lord of lords comes upon them. But there is that time that leads up to it, and he says, and they shall not escape. Paul tells the people, don't be asleep. He'll say that here in a verse later on. Don't be asleep. Keep your eyes open. Don't get lulled into it. Don't think, oh, everything's okay. It's going to go on for decades more, centuries more. America can never fall. Everything is good, and we've got decades ahead of us.

Always keep that sense of urgency. Always keep your eyes on God. Always stay close to him and put on that armor of God daily because you don't know, none of us know, when that sudden destruction will come. And none of us want to be in a state where the door is shut behind us, and we find ourselves on the outside looking in because we simply weren't prepared. Verse 4, Paul goes on, he says, but you, brethren, are not in darkness so that this day should overtake you as a thief. You know better. It's going to take the world as a thief, but that shouldn't happen to you. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us, who are of the day, let us, let those of us who are of the light be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath. He called us, and if we're living our lives in concert with Him, if we are allowing His Holy Spirit to produce the fruits and to produce the character that He wants to have to see in us, He didn't appoint us to wrath. He appointed us to salvation. God didn't appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.

Therefore, comfort each other and edify one another, just as you are doing.

Come back together again. Comfort one another. Love one another. Build up one another. Encourage one another. Do the things of God on all levels. Stay close to Him, and get even closer to Him, as if and when things get better. Let me close. Let me close in Isaiah again.

I opened up with some verses about preparing the way, and we've been talking about how through this time you and I have lived in a time like none of us expected. None of us have lived through before. What has happened and how things have been moved along, even in the psyche of the people around us, that we can see revelation and the prophecies, excuse me, that we can see the prophecies and the end results of them. But let's look at Isaiah 62.

Here, again, God has inspired Isaiah to talk about preparing the way. What he is at work now.

We prepare ourselves, but God is preparing the way. Let's not ever close our eyes to what God is doing and get well to sleep. Isaiah 62, verse 10, go through. Go through the gates. Prepare the way for the people. Build up. Build up the highway. Take out the stones. Lift up a banner for the peoples. You can feel the excitement in here. Prepare the way for them to come, just like it talks about in Isaiah 35, when the way will be prepared for Israel to go back to where God had wanted them to be. Indeed, the eternal has proclaimed to the end of the world, say to the daughter of Zion, Surely your salvation is coming. Behold, his reward is with him and his work before him.

And they shall call them the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord. And you shall be called, sought out, a city not forsaken.