Prophecies of the Church in the End Time

He remembers names pretty well for a 70-year-old. Thank you, Tony. Good morning, everyone. Good to see all of you here. A little bit thin. Maybe a few are still sleeping off the turkey there from Turkey Day. Good to see all of you here on such a beautiful Sabbath day here.

Anybody here not interested in knowing what the future holds? Anybody not interested in knowing what the future holds? I think we are all interested in wanting to know what the future holds. We'd like to know what's going to happen tomorrow or the day after that, or the day after that. We'd like to know what's going to happen in the world. We'd like to know what's going to happen in the nation. Today I would like to focus on one particular aspect of Bible prophecy, and that is prophecies about the church in the end time. Prophecies about the church in the end time. What does the future hold for the church of God? I think that's a question that we would all like to know the answers to. God does give us some broad outlines in many places in the Bible, and some are quite specific. And today, in the sermon time, we will go through some of these things. I might mention, of course, that with prophecy not everything is always clear up front.

Sometimes the meaning of a prophecy may not be clear except in hindsight. After it's been fulfilled, and then we can go look back at it and say, oh, so that's what that meant. That happened with the disciples of Jesus Christ a number of times, where there were different prophecies that they did not understand at all in their lifetime or even while the events were taking place. They only understood them in hindsight that that is what Scripture was referring to. So nevertheless, there are clear indications in prophecy that we should be aware of, because some or all of these things will affect us at some point if they haven't already. So if you would like a title for this sermon, it is Prophecies of the Church in the End Time. We'll go through six different points here, or different prophecies, prophesied trends, and events. The first one I would like to look at is found over in Zechariah 13 in verse 7. Zechariah 13 in verse 7. That is a prophecy that God's sheep would be scattered. That God's sheep would be scattered. So let's look at this prophecy because it has had an enormous impact on the Church of God over the last 15 to 20 years. And it seems to me that this prophecy is likely dual. We do know that many prophecies are dual. They'll have a preliminary fulfillment and then a later one. And if indeed this is the case here, it does explain a lot of things. And this prophecy appears to have set in motion a lot of other developments in the Church that show up later on, and other prophecies we'll talk about later on in the sermon.

So Zechariah 13 in verse 7, it says, Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my companion, says the Lord of hosts. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. Then I will turn my hand against the little ones. Now what is this referring to? Well, Jesus Christ Himself applied this prophecy to Himself and His followers on the night before His death.

We won't turn there, but you might write down Matthew 26 in verse 31, where Jesus Christ does apply this to Himself. He said that He would die and that His followers would be scattered.

And that did indeed happen. We know that when He was arrested and when He was executed, that His disciples scattered like a bunch of frightened rabbits, running every rich way, not knowing what to do because their world had suddenly fallen apart.

Does this prophecy have a dual meaning or dual fulfillment? We've probably all thought a lot about the scattering that took place in the disintegration of our former affiliation after Mr. Armstrong's death. When Christ died, a dozen disciples were scattered. When Mr. Armstrong died and in the subsequent events, 10,000 times that many people were scattered. Think about it in those terms. 10,000 times. Is this a prophecy of what would happen to the church after Mr. Armstrong died? I believe it is, and that this was a dual fulfillment here, initially fulfilled with Jesus Christ and fulfilled again in more recent years. Now, regardless of whether this is the intended prophetic meeting, I don't think any of us would argue with the fact that this does certainly describe what did happen, whether it was prophetically intended that way or not. The church that so many of us knew was divided, divided, and divided again, splitting all kinds of ways.

Several years ago, I was counting up, and just in the Denver area alone, I could count up 12 to 13 different groups that formed or that were splintered or offshoots of our former affiliation.

I'm not sure the exact number because I don't know whether some of those groups still exist or whether some of them have even split further than that 12 or 13. In terms of organized offshoots from our former affiliation, at least those that have official names, the total I've come up with is somewhere around 250 different splinters out of that group. So again, the church has certainly been scattered. The sheep, God's flock, has been scattered. I don't think it's any coincidence also that that happened when it did because just when so many things started shaping up on the world scene, when Europe really started getting its act together with efforts toward unification, the European Union expanding greatly over recent years, when the Middle East started taking one dangerous turn after another, all kinds of events taking place there, the rise of the modern terrorist movements, when Islam began to resurge with its determination to bring down America, different things like that, that just when all of these things started taking place forming and shaping up the things that the church had talked about and foretold for so many years, what happened? The church was devastated, it was scattered, and its voice was quieted almost to a whisper in those events. Not long after the World Tomorrow became the top-ranked TV program, religious TV program, in the country it disappeared off the air entirely.

So really devastating events. You might fast forward to now, even our day, as Mr. Wilkie was reading in the announcements here about Beyond Today TV, several months ago we had a wonderful opportunity extended to us to go on nationwide cable TV on WGN. Wonderful time, Sunday mornings, very good price for that. And suddenly no sooner had that happened than all kinds of problems started cropping up in the United Church of God. And that's not the only thing. There are other examples. I could go into other situations where our efforts to preach the gospel have been stymied, have been frustrated, different things there. Is all of that just coincidence that just when the church is doing so much to preach the gospel to get the message out that things happen, to divide the church, to distract the membership of the church? Is that just coincidence? I don't think it is, by any means. It doesn't take much to figure out who would want to diminish and destroy the church's message going out. And it doesn't take much thinking to guess who it is. It would want us arguing among ourselves. It would want the church to be divided rather than carrying out the mission that Jesus Christ gave his church to do.

I truly believe that the time is very close if it's not at hand already when Satan does come down to earth, as prophesied in the book of Revelation, with great wrath, knowing that his time is short, that his reign is about to come to an end. And he comes down to earth with great wrath and viciously attacks the church of God. That will happen at some point, regardless of whether it's not, whether or not it's happening right now. It will definitely happen at some point.

And we need to be prepared for that. Second point I'd like to turn to talk about, let's turn over to Matthew 24, a well-known section of prophecy. And you may want to put a marker in your Bible there, because we'll come back to this many times. We'll stay here for much of the rest of the sermon.

And this is, of course, the Olivet prophecy. And it tells us a lot about the future of the world, but also what we should expect in the church. We'll begin in verse 3. Verse 3 in Matthew 24.

Now as he, Jesus, said on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? And Jesus answered and said to them, take heed that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many. So the second aspect of prophecy regarding the church is that many self-appointed leaders and false teachers will rise up.

Many self-appointed false teachers and leaders will rise up. And again, let's consider that this is talking in two contexts. One, about the world as a whole, but also about the church.

We'll see it's remarkable how many times in this prophecy Jesus Christ does talk about false teachers here. You might think it was something He's trying to tell us here. It's a message that He wants us to understand. It's the very first thing that He mentions here in verses four and five. For many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many. And this word many here means many or much or a large multitude. It's not talking about just a few who will be deceived by these false teachers. Skipping down to verse 11, we see another mention of this from Jesus Christ. He says, then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.

Repeat what He said in verse five. Down in verse 24, we see another warning about this.

He says in verse 24, for false Christ and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. So again, there are three separate warnings here in Matthew 24, the last of which is clearly in the context of the church, where they will be so powerful, so persuasive, that if possible, they could deceive even the very elect of God's church.

Now, reading through these, we should have taken the hint 15 or 20 years ago, but we didn't. We always thought that the false teachers would arise from outside the church, not from within it.

And yet, it's clear from Christ's words here that it was there all along. We just overlooked it or thought it could never possibly happen that way until it did happen and took so many people by surprise, because we weren't prepared for that. Let's turn over to Acts 20 in verse 28 and look at another section here. There are several other passages that we should have paid more attention to at that time, but we didn't. And this one in Acts 20 in verse 28 is Paul's warning to the elders of the church in Ephesus as he was leaving there. He was leaving them for Jerusalem. He understood that he would probably never see them again, so this is his last warning to the elders there in Ephesus. And he wanted to leave them with some final instruction. Let's notice what he says here in Acts 20 in verse 28. He says, therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood. So we see here that an elder's role is to shepherd the church. That means you protect them, you feed them, you care for the sheep. Verse 29, for I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. A shepherd protects the flock. He feeds it, he nourishes it, he provides for it, but a wolf doesn't protect the sheep. A wolf devours the sheep. Verse 30, also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears. Paul understood what would happen. He would see this repeated various times over the course of his ministry, and he understood that aspect of human nature that some people want to gain a following for themselves. My wife and I were just talking on the drive over here for services, and I mentioned to her that two of the leaders of other offshoots of the church won't name names or whatever, but two just in recent months have proclaimed themselves to be apostles now. They said they finally come to see the light, and yes, they are indeed apostles of God. These men taking these titles upon themselves. It's very sad, and there's there's no question that this prophecy here that Paul gave the elders in Ephesus was fulfilled in part in the first century, and in time this gruesome widespread that before long the church of God was barely recognizable as these false teachers rose up with their own sets of doctrines and teachings and trying to gain followers for themselves. Both of these things have happened since then of men rising up to gain followers and some rising up spreading false teachings. These things have happened since, and they will happen again, and they'll happen again because Satan is consistently find something that works. He gets a game plan that works, and he sticks to it because it does work. He used this method 1900 years ago in the first century because it worked then, used it over the years since then, and he's using it today. Pains me to say this, but over recent months several pastors of the United Church of God have chosen to take this route of splitting off as many members as they could for themselves from their congregations to create their own followings. The pattern is very consistent. They begin by raising questions about the leadership of the church, question their legitimacy, make false accusations about them, accuse them of this or that evil, supposed wrong behavior, whatever.

The start with just one or two people in the congregation. Spread it out if that works to two or three more than five or six more, and so on, spreading it to more and more people throughout the congregation. And this typically takes place over several months, and eventually word of this gets out. Somebody disagrees, perhaps a deacon or elder, somebody like that, and then someone higher up in the ministry comes out to talk to this pastor and says, you know, it's just utterly inappropriate for you to be taking a paycheck from the United Church of God while you are dividing your congregation here in the church. It's just utterly inappropriate. We cannot have that. And unfortunately, what typically happens then is these men jump up and say, oh, I'm being persecuted. I'm being persecuted. Then they leave and they tell the members of their church that, well, I have to protect you from these evil leaders that we have.

And then set up a following and set up their own services and split off and form their own congregations. Again, that's happened, unfortunately, several times in recent months. Very, very sad, but it does happen. The same exact pattern that I've described here. Their excuse is that they're doing this to protect the church members from the leadership of the church. And the sad reality is they themselves are the maligners, the slanders, and they're setting people up to have a following for themselves. When Mr. Lugar writes a letter, some of those he's done recently, or gives a sermon and a DVD about wolves, and he talks about wolves who are drawing away members after themselves, this is what he's talking about. Fortunately, we've been sheltered from that here along the front range, but that is the unfortunate reality in some other places. And again, Satan uses this method because it works. You might think back to Paul's writing, some of the things that he was accused of. He was accused of trying to gain followings for himself. People said he was a lousy speaker, that his writings were hard to understand. They were maligning him as a leader of the church, making false accusations to try to discredit and to undermine him. They did it then, and they're still doing that today. So we need to be aware of this, and don't be taken in by it.

These warnings and these examples are in the Bible for a reason, that none of us are to follow men, that Jesus Christ is the one that we are to follow. We only follow individuals as they are following Jesus Christ, but ultimately we have to look beyond them. Our relationship has to be based on Jesus Christ and God the Father, and not our relationship with other individuals.

Third point, there's another aspect of prophecy we need to talk about in conjunction with this, and that is because for false teachers to succeed, you have to have people willing to listen to and to follow them. And that's a whole other aspect of the equation. So the next aspect of prophecy we'll talk about is that some people will not have ears to hear. Some people will not have ears to hear. What does Bible prophecy tell us about in this regard? Let's turn over to 2 Timothy 4 in verse 1. 2 Timothy 4 in verse 1. This gives us another prophecy of the church and warns us what we need to know and look out for. And this is a prophecy that I think is certainly being fulfilled today. And you can sum it up by saying that people will have an attitude of being unwilling to listen and to learn. Now to give you some of the background for this prophecy, Paul is writing this from prison. He's waiting to be executed. And he writes here some of his final instructions to a fellow elder, Timothy. And notice what he tells Timothy is going to happen. 2 Timothy 4 in verse 1. I charge you, I command you, I order you. Therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead in his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and teaching.

So this is part of what the ministry is to do, part of the job description. It is to preach, to convince, to rebuke, to exhort, and to teach. And this is why I'm talking about this subject today of the church, of what will happen to it in the kinds of attitudes and problems that we should expect in the church in the end time. And why is the ministry to talk about these things? The next verse tells us, verse 3, For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. But according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. Anybody here seen that happen? We certainly did in our former affiliation. We saw friends, we saw family members, loved ones who would not endure sound doctrine any longer, but they were turned aside from the truth to listen to fables. Happened in the tens of thousands of people. Now we're all glad that could never happen to us, right?

Never happened to us, not us. No, we know better, right? Well, maybe not. Maybe not. I'd like to list a few of the bizarre teachings and outright heresies that have sprung up just among United Church of God members that I'm personally aware of. United Church of God members. We're not talking about others, but these are just some of the bizarre things that have sprung up here in the last 15 years. One individual that I know decided that the United Church of God was too soft on people. He wanted the elders to give hellfire and brimstone sermons every Sabbath to teach that only a tiny handful of people would ever make it into God's kingdom, that the vast majority of people who've ever lived are doomed to extinction in the lake of fire.

And when the pastor and elders would not cooperate and preach his view of what God is like, that God is going to send the majority of mankind to the lake of fire, he left us, left us, and would not participate anymore. And I don't know about you, but I don't think God is like that, that God is a God who will send the vast majority of his children, the human race, to the lake of fire. I just do not see that happening myself, but this individual did.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, another small group that I'm aware of split off and adopted the view of universal salvation, the exact opposite. They believe that everyone, absolutely everyone, will be saved regardless of what they think or do or believe. They teach, for instance, that the scriptures referring to the lake of fire and eternal death apply only to Satan and his demons rather than to unrepentant people, and that everyone, every human being, will be saved regardless. Personally, I can't figure out some scriptures like Malachi. I can't see that applying to fallen angels becoming ashes under the feet of the righteous, but they have a way of explaining inconvenient truths like that. Another trend I've seen, some people that I know believe that God had spoken to them and given them a burden to pass on to the UCG ministry or the membership or the church as a whole. They were convinced that they are now God's prophets, and they had a message for the church. Just a couple of months ago, I got a call from the Archangel Michael.

In case you're wondering, he lives in Canada, and he had to use a phone. I kind of wondered about that. I guess it was too long a trip for an angel to come down from Canada and meet with me personally, but that's the way it goes. So I hear about this type of thing from time to time.

A fair number, and another area here, a fair number of Church of God members have become enthralled with sacred names. This is something that crops up every few decades in the church there. The basic thrust of that is that you and I are destined for the lake of fire if we don't know how or cannot figure out how to correctly pronounce the Hebrew name of God.

Now, never mind that that pronunciation has been lost for something like 2,500 years there. It has long involved history there, but the exact pronunciation has been lost for about 2,500 years. And it seems that each sacred name group that pops up has a slightly different way to pronounce that sacred name. Now, think about that just for a minute.

Each group believes in sacred names, but they all pronounce it differently. So, and you have to pronounce it differently to properly address God, otherwise you're into idolatry and false worship and blasphemy and stuff like that. But if every group pronounces it differently, how do you determine which is the proper way to pronounce it? So, again, it's just one of those issues that crops up. You might say the same thing about calendar issues. Different people have different ideas as to how to calculate when you're going to keep the holy days and so on. And again, it seems like every group, every individual has a different way of calculating how the calendar should be. So, they can't even agree on as to which days to keep the different holy days on. Another point, heresy that's popped up. One man who this happened a number of years ago, but he was a United Church of God member, wrote a book, and apparently quite a good one from what I heard at the time, a book about the lost ten tribes. A number of people bought the book, liked it, read it, thought it was good. And again, I heard good things about it at the time. I didn't read it myself. Then a year or two later, he came out with another book, and lots of people, based on the first book, eagerly ordered his second book and read it. But what they didn't realize is that after the first book that the author had decided, that Christianity was a fake religion, that Jesus Christ was a myth, an imposter, that the books of the New Testament were part of a vast conspiracy orchestrated by the Catholic Church. And several hundred people were taken in by this, by these screwball beliefs, and they rejected Christianity altogether.

A number of them reverted to Judaism, things like that, based on this. So again, this is a heresy that popped up several years ago in the United Church of God. More recently, a fair number of Church of God members have now adopted the view that Jesus is a created being, and not the divine Son of God. Of course, if Jesus is a created being and not God, what does that do to the concept of a Savior? Do we have a Savior then? Is a created being capable of being a Savior? How are we saved from our sins if Jesus is not our Creator who gave his life as the Creator of all things to pay the penalty for all the sins of human race? Just one other heretical idea that's popped up recently.

Another one, a former pastor that I know now teaches that he and his wife are the two witnesses.

And they also believe that the Great Tribulation began a year or two ago, and he believed this so fervently that he and his wife actually packed up and moved to Jerusalem and stayed there where he was going to begin his ministry as one of the two witnesses, he and his wife. And they moved there and kind of waited around, and nothing happened, and all these great signs didn't come to pass. So after a few months, started running out of money, so he packed up and moved back here to the United States. So we're rather a disappointing start for one of the two witnesses there, or for the two witnesses there. One other thing, he also prophesied several years ago that all of the ministry of the other groups of the Church of God that did not recognize him as God's true representative would start dying off quickly. It would start with this church group, which he named, and then this church group, and then this one. And by his reckoning, by his timetable, all of the ministry of the various Church of God groups should be dead by now.

Unfortunately for him, I'm still around. Mr. Wilkie's still around. Mr. Neff's still around. Mr. Hale's still around. So we're all, unfortunately, living proof that he is a false prophet, because he prophesied we would have all died off by now. I could give other examples. There's various others, but I won't take the time. And I think you get my drift from this, that as Paul warned, as we read here in his writings to Timothy, some people will not endure sound doctrine, but they have itching ears, and they find their own teachers, or unfortunately they pass themselves off as great teachers, and they turn from the truth to fables. How many times you have heard that we need to stay close to the trunk of the tree? You know, we've had that drilled into our minds over the years, and that's where you're safe near the trunk of the tree. We're not to get off on all the the twiggy limbs and branches and twigs and things like that, the twiggy ideas, the twiggy concepts, because that's where you fall out of the tree, out there on the flimsy branches and the twigs and so on. And I think we've all seen that happen with some people. They get their they become obsessed with their own unsound ideas or the unsound ideas of some self-appointed teacher, and they turn to fables, as Paul described it here. If you think about it, Satan's goal is to take each and every one of us out of the game, to take each and every one of us out of the game. And he has many ways of doing that, and all it takes is one. All it takes is one. He doesn't have to deceive us about everything. He just has to deceive us about one thing. That's all it takes.

He has many tactics, many ways of doing that. That's why we need to stick close to God.

So Satan cannot split us off from the group and take us out of being a productive member of the body. We need to be aware of these warnings here, and that's unfortunately what a lot of these prophecies to the church in the end time are. They are warnings for us as to what is going to happen.

God knows human nature. Satan knows human nature. He knows our weaknesses. He knows the tools, the things he can do to take us out of the game, to split us off.

Turning back to Matthew 24 and verse 9, we'll pick up, pick this up here. This will be the fourth point, and this is another grave danger for the members of the church in the end time.

And that is that the church will experience offense, betrayal, and hatred.

Offense, betrayal, and hatred. Matthew 24 and verse 9, Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.

I won't go into that for a great deal here, but the facts are there will be persecution of the church in the end time, and it will be very ugly. As conditions in the world grow worse and worse, people will look for a scapegoat, as they always have. Governments, leaders will look for people to blame.

And those who have been saying that the world is finally getting what it is deserving for its sins, for its rebellion against God, they'll find a convenient scapegoat in the church of God, and there will be massive persecution. That's a subject for a whole other sermon we don't have time to cover.

So the persecution will come, and there's not a lot that we can do about it one way or the other. It's going to happen. What I would like to focus on in the sermon is the things that we can affect, not the things that we cannot affect by our own actions. So verse 10 tells us here that many will be offended, as that happened in the church, but certainly has. I know I've been offended.

In some cases, the things that people have been offended about actually happened. A lot of cases, they got offended over nothing. Basically nothing. Well, what about you? Will you be one of those who does get offended over basically nothing? Have you already been offended? I know I have at times. It's caused me huge attitude problems of the things I've seen and witnessed in the church over the years. I had to think about it long and hard about the consequences of getting offended in the process of what that does in our thinking and in our minds. If you do get offended, you'll have lots of company. Trouble is it won't be good company. You might write this down Psalm 119-165.

Psalm 119-165. You don't have to turn there. It's a simple scripture, one that we're familiar with, and it says, "'Great peace have those who love your law, and nothing causes them to stumble.'" I actually prefer the way the King James Version puts it, which is, "'Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them.'" That's Psalm 119-165. The knowledge of God's law should give us a great deal of peace of mind. But why is that? Because the more we look into God's law, the more we realize how imperfect we are, the more we realize how much we need to change.

In James 1, James compares God's law to a mirror. It's called a glass there, I think, that we look into and we see what we're really like. God's law is a mirror. It helps us see that, helps us understand that. When we look into God's law, what happens? Well, one of the main things that should happen is that we realize that we are center, too, just like every other human being, and that we need God's grace and mercy just as much as the next person. When we come to fully realize that, what right do we have to be offended by what someone else does? We really don't have a right to be offended and to get bent out of shape because, in all likelihood, we have offended other people at one time or another. We may be guilty of the same thing or something even worse, in many cases. Now, what's so wrong with being offended? Well, being offended in itself is not the problem. It's what it leads to that becomes very dangerous because being offended can easily start a chain of events that leads to something else. It starts out with not being willing to forgive when someone does something that offends us. We start out being not willing to forgive, and that leads us to something else. Let's turn over to Hebrews 12 and verse 14 and read about this.

Hebrews 12 and verse 14. We find that being offended can lead to bitterness, a very dangerous fate. Hebrews 12 and verse 14, "...pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord." And reading over that, that reminds me a lot of Psalm 119.165 that we just discussed. "...great peace have those who love your law, and nothing will offend them." This is saying essentially the same thing in different words here. Verse 15, "...looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled." So what this is saying here is that if we are not pursuing peace with all people, if we are not pursuing holiness, that we can allow bitterness to take root and to start growing inside of us.

And this tells us here that many can become defiled by that bitterness growing within us.

What happens when a person becomes bitter? Well, first of all, he becomes most important.

Other people aren't important. It's what someone did to him or her that becomes most important in that person's mind. And with this mindset, a person then becomes the judge of others.

He sets himself or herself up as the judge of others. And if you're a judge of others, guess who's always right? You are. You're always right. Everybody else is always wrong.

And this is why getting offended by why getting better and setting yourself up as a judge is so dangerous because you lose sight of who the real judge is. The real judge is Jesus Christ, to whom God has entrusted all judgment. And you are a sinner. Your sinner is no better than anyone else and who needs God's mercy and God's forgiveness, just like anyone else. And what does this attitude eventually lead to? Let's turn back to Matthew 24 and verse 10, where we were. We see where this kind of bitter attitude eventually leads, and it's not a pretty sight. Matthew 24 and verse 10, it says, And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. And this shows a progression of attitudes here from being offended to judging others to betraying others to hating others. And again, this is in the context of talking about the church. It's not talking about the world. It's talking about the church here that these things are going to take place. I used to wonder how this could happen, especially among people who are or were a part of the church of God. I don't wonder about that anymore. I've seen it happen an incredible amount of bitterness, of resentment, of name-calling, of backstabbing, and hatred among people who have or at one time had God's Spirit or part of His church who are called themselves Christian.

I've been on several internet forums where I've seen absolutely shameful things.

Sad things that should never be said among God's people. In some cases, I've seen people who have come to the point that they absolutely hate other people over things that aren't even true.

Sad to say I've seen people who held on to the truth in a physical sense, but some of them have come to absolutely hate this or that organization or this person or that group of people. In 40 years in the church, I've never seen anything like the spirit of attacking an accusation that's going on right now. We have to remember who the accuser of the brethren is, as we heard in the sermonette here. The accuser of the brethren is Satan the devil.

I'm seeing unbelievable lies being spread around as though they were absolute fact.

Just several months ago, I came across a website where an individual stated as absolute fact that the Council of Elders of the United Church of God had surveyed the ministry of the United Church of God and found that a large majority of them were open to changing the doctrines of the church.

Elmer, you got that survey, right? Right? Yeah, well, I didn't get it either. They left me off the list, even though I'm the one who supposedly made the decision to do this. I have yet to meet any elder who has heard of this supposed survey that this website talks about as absolute fact that the Council, the leadership of the United Church of God, surveyed the ministry and found that the majority of them were open to changing the doctrines of the church. And this guy's stating it as absolute fact, and it is total, total fabrication. We've never surveyed the ministry about anything like that, anything remotely like that. He also stated that the Council had met to discuss ways to water down the content of the Beyond Today program, as Mr. Wilkie was reading some of the titles of the program, Will I Go to Hell? Yeah, that's really watering things down, isn't it? The day after Christmas, yeah, that's really watering things down, isn't it? And yet, this person states his fact that we met to discuss this. I wrote the individual back three times, said, hey, look, I'm a member of the Council. Everything you're saying here is totally fabricated. It never happened. I told him the Council had never even had a meeting to discuss content of Beyond Today, much less how to water it down to make it more palatable to the general public. It's never happened. I don't know where you're getting these things. Why are you saying this? Who is telling you this? It's all total fabrication. The meetings you're describing just never happened. He also said the leadership of the United Church of God is planning to change the Sabbath and the Holy Days. And unfortunately, a lot of people out there have grabbed this rumor and are running with it. For the record, the year and a half I've been on the Council, we have never discussed any doctoral issues changing anything that the Church teaches. We've never even brought it up for discussion, much less planned to change it. Never done that in any private discussions, anything like that. It's just crazy stuff. And again, I wrote to this individual three times, explained who I am. I'm a member of the Council. What you're saying is a total fabrication. This has never happened. The person wrote me back. He was polite enough to do that and said, sorry, I don't believe you. I've got my good sources, and my good sources tell me that this is true, and this is what is going on, and I do not believe you. What do you do? What do you do with somebody like that? Of course, he refused to say who these sources were, who's telling him these types of things. I offered to look, I'll contact these people. I'll set the record straight. I'll tell them exactly what we have and have not done in our Council meetings.

And no, he said, no, I cannot identify my sources because I have to promise them confidentiality, otherwise they won't tell me these things that I need to tell the whole Church. So this is the kind of stuff that we're dealing with out there. Another Council member, he didn't know I had had this experience. I didn't tell anybody else about it, but another Council member had a very similar experience, wrote to this person, pointed out the things that were saying that were not true.

And again, this person turned around and then accused that Council member of lying to him.

And distorting the truth, and so on. And he keeps putting out stuff that's totally untrue. Just last time I looked at his website about two weeks ago, this person was claiming that by the next Feast of Tabernacles, the United Church of God will be teaching the Trinity. So I'm just giving you a fair warning. Here, when you start hearing these sermons at the Feast, you'll know what's coming. What he doesn't know is I've actually been working on a booklet for several years about the Trinity that's going to be the most thorough demolishing of the Trinity doctrine that's ever been published by the Church of God.

And yet he has it on good authority that we're going to be teaching the Trinity by next Feast. It's just absurd stuff. I've had similar experiences. There's various Facebook sites out there where some of the tremendous amount of misinformation is being spread around. I've written to three separate individuals who were posting some stuff to set the record straight to tell them that what you're saying is not accurate.

Here is what really happened. Here's the truth of the matter. In all three cases, these individuals, church members, wrote back, accused me of lying, took what I had said, twisted around to say something that was totally different from what I said or believed, and used it to attack me when I was just trying to set the record straight.

One particular Facebook site, I won't mention names or anything. I certainly don't recommend these, but I personally know of four people, four people who are friends of mine, who have gotten on to this site and posted information that was factually correct, specifically to set the record straight about some of these falsehoods, some of these lies that are appearing on this site. And guess what happened to those four people? All four of them had their messages yanked off the site.

The messages that were true and accurate were pulled off, and those people were banned from posting things on that site. Again, this is a site that is supposedly run by people who claim to be part of the Church of God, and the whole purpose of the site is to attack and undermine and discredit the leadership of the United Church of God. Again, it's sad. I'm frustrated beyond words to see this kind of thing going on and to have to share it with you, but unfortunately it's a reality. And I know I'm starting to hear more and more people come up and ask me about these types of things, and I'm just giving you a fair warning.

I wish it weren't this way. I wish we didn't even have to deal with things like this. I certainly wish this type of evil behavior and lying and slander, and that's exactly what it is. I wish it were not going on, that none of us needed to be aware of this, but I'm giving it to you as a warning as to the kind of thing that is going on out there. There are people who are just outright lying.

I never thought I would see anything like this in the Church. I never thought I'd see this kind of slander directed at me. People out there accusing me of wanting to change the doctrines of the Church, as being one of the ringleaders in that, accusing me of being a liberal, a doctrinal liberal here. But that's the sad reality of this prophecy, that people are being offended, they are betraying, they are hating one another, and sadder still it's going to get worse. So just give you this warning.

I hate to share it, but it's the facts. It's the reality of the sad world that we're in and the reality of the work that Satan is doing in the lives and the attitudes of some people who have allowed this kind of bitterness to take root. As we see here in Matthew 24 and verse 10, we need to do what we can to inoculate ourselves against being easily offended and getting into this kind of judgmental and critical attitude toward others.

And of course, we do need to remember who the accuser of the brethren is. When you hear accusations going on, just program yourself to remember who the accuser of the brethren is, and that should tell you something. Fifth point, let's move down to verse 12 of Matthew 24 and pick up another aspect of prophecies of the church at the time of the end.

And this prophecy is the fact that the love of many in the church will grow cold. The love of many will grow cold. In verse 12, and because lawlessness or iniquity will abound, the love of many will grow cold, but he who endures to the end shall be saved.

And I must admit that this one puzzled me for a long time because it seems like the opposite should happen, that when iniquity abounds, when we see evil in the world, around the world, growing worse and worse, that that should make God's people more zealous, more on fire, for serving God. And yet, unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case. It seems to be exactly what we see here, that as iniquity abounds, that that tends to rub off on people in the church, too. God's people are influenced by the society in which we live. That's why he repeatedly tells us not to be like the societies around us, not to be like everyone else. If you think back about it, the Corinthian church obviously had that problem. Too many of them were thinking and acting like all of the other people in Corinth around them. They had all kinds of problems as a result of that.

We go back and read the books of 1 and 2 Corinthians. We think, how in the world could people in God's church think or act this way? What's going on? And it's really not that difficult. They were not all that different from we are today.

Paul had to put one person out of the congregation in Corinth there because he was doing something that was disgusting even by the standards of the society at that time. And believe me, they were pretty low standards. But a man was having an adulterous relationship with his own stepmother there. It's how degenerate their attitudes had become. And we're, unfortunately, not all that different today. It seems that church members today can rationalize around all kinds of things, even in some cases things that most people in society recognize are wrong. It's because we are influenced by the society in which we live. And there is a real warning here for us in Jesus Christ's words. It's clear that we as Christians are not to get offended. We're not to betray one another. We are not to hate one another. We're not to be deceived by one another by teachers who rise up and try to get followings. And also that we are not to be so affected or wrapped up in the world around us that our love grows cold. We have to clearly resist those things and to endure to the end, as Jesus Christ said here, if we are to be saved. Perhaps this is where part of this spirit of accusation that I just talked about enters in, comes into play. Perhaps there is just so much maligning, so much accusation, so much infighting that goes on that some people do not even know what to believe anymore. That they get turned off at everyone and everything having to do with the church. And this is another side, another awful side effect of bitterness here. That people just get so turned off they don't know what to believe anymore. And their love grows cold. And they turn away from all the things they've learned. The sixth point I would like to talk about goes hand in hand with this. And it also is something that is quite surprising. And it's the next aspect of prophecy, and that is the fact that many will be taken by surprise and unprepared at the time of the end. Many will be taken by surprise and unprepared at the time of the end. It seems kind of hard to believe, but it's true. It's very true. We'll now turn over to Luke 21 and verse 34. This is a parallel account of the Olivet prophecy, but I think Luke here adds a few details about Christ's words of warning that are not included in Matthew. Luke 21 and verse 34.

And Jesus Christ says here, But take heed to yourselves. Pay attention, in other words. Wake up!

Listen to this. Take heed, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and that day come on you unexpectedly. Now, take heed here means to be spiritually vigilant. It means to pay close attention to yourself, to apply yourself.

In other words, Jesus tells us to be sure that we are spiritually ready for the things that are to come to pass in these prophecies. And he contrasts that here with the opposite attitude, which is to be weighed down with self-indulgence, with carousing, with drunkenness, with the cares of this life. Because if that is our focus, we are going to be caught unprepared. No doubt about it.

Verse 35, he says, For it that day will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth.

How does a snare work? A snare works because you're walking along thinking everything is just fine. And then suddenly, wham! You're caught. You're trapped. You can't break away. You can't break free. You're doomed. You're toast at that point. That's the way a snare works. And that's the analogy that Jesus Christ is using here. And that is what is going to happen to those who are not prepared, who are not spiritually vigilant and alert to what is going on. Verse 36, he continues this theme, Watch therefore and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man. So here Jesus uses another important word picture here. He uses the snare to help us understand. Here he uses another one. This word watch is applied to the duty of a soldier on watch, somebody who's to be alert and keeping guard for protection. He's on guard duty watching for the approaching danger, so he's not caught unprepared. And Jesus Christ tells us to be like that soldier, to be alert, to be awake, to be on watch for the approaching danger so that you can act appropriately when that time comes. Let's turn back to Revelation 3 now and take another look at this kind of attitude. It's summed up very well in a familiar passage. Revelation 3 in verses 14 through 19.

And this is Jesus Christ's warning to the church of Laodicea.

And notice how well it ties in here with what we just read in the Olivet prophecy.

Revelation 3 verse 14, And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, These things, says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God, I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot.

So then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth.

Because you say, I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing, and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.

I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich in white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed, and anoint your eyes with eyesab that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten, therefore be zealous and repent. These words don't need a whole lot of commentary. They're pretty blunt, quite blunt, that you are blind and wretched, miserable, naked.

You know, Mr. Price in the sermonette talked about the way our mind works and how we can deceive ourselves at times, and the worst kind of deception is self-deception.

And this is clearly what is being talked about here. Clearly, a lot of people are going to be deceived about their own spiritual condition shortly before Jesus Christ returned. They're going to think everything's fine. I'm rich. I don't need anything. I'm wealthy. I'm in good shape, spiritually. Whereas Jesus Christ looks at him and he says, you're wretched. You're miserable.

You don't realize that you're poor spiritually. You don't realize that you're blind to your spiritual state. You don't realize that you're naked when it comes to the garments of righteousness that you should be wearing. They're in a pitiful spiritual condition, and saddest of all, they have deceived themselves about their state. They just don't see it.

Yet we see clearly this is going to happen with members of the church at the end time.

These are Christ's words of warning to his church as the time approaches for his return.

Are we paying attention?

I don't want to leave us with the impression that everything that is prophesied to happen to the church is bad at the end time because it's not. God reminds us every year through the holy days. We just finished a wonderful holy day season. He reminds us through the weekly Sabbath as well of the wonderful future that he has in store for his people, for his church. But we do need to be reminded and not be surprised at the tough times that we have in store that we'll have to go through. God warns us about these things for a reason so that we can be prepared. And there are some very positive promises and prophecies about the church. I'd like to conclude with two of them here. First is found in Matthew 16 and verse 18.

And here Jesus Christ is talking to his apostles. And he says here, and I also say to you that you are Peter, a petro, a small rock, a pebble. And on this rock, this petra, this huge massive cliff, Jesus Christ referring to himself, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. So what we see here is a two-fold promise. Jesus says that first he will build his church. He is the one doing the building.

So a question we need to ask ourselves is, are we helping in that building, or are we hindering the process? As Jesus Christ is carving out the stones, is polishing them, is fitting them, that sort of thing, the spiritual building of the church, are we over on the other side digging a hole that's going to undermine the foundation of the church? Are we over there messing around and breaking the tools? Are we over on another wall taking the stones out as fast as Jesus Christ can put them in? Is that what we're doing? Are we helping that building process go smoothly to build firmly and solidly for the edification of all? Or are we hindering that process?

A second part of that promise is that the gates of Hades, or the gates of the grave, will not prevail against the church. And that is a really reassuring promise here, because the church will survive. It will never die out, and it will be there at his return. Some will be alive and remain to meet Jesus Christ in the air as his return, and some will die before that time. They will rest in the grave so that time will come, until the time comes, that they will rise from the dust to meet Christ at his return as well. So the church will never die out. It will survive. It will be there at Jesus Christ's return. That is something that is very positive.

I'd like to close back in Daniel 12 and verses 1 through 3. And this more or less sums up the message of this sermon and what we should take with us here. This is the conclusion of a message that is sealed up until the time of the end that Daniel was not allowed to understand, but it is something that we do understand. Daniel 12 beginning in verse 1, At that time Michael shall stand up, the great prince or the archangel, who stands watch over the sons of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that time. And this, of course, is talking about the time of the Great Tribulation that Jesus foretold there in Matthew 24, a time of great trouble that we'll also see the church, the Church of God, experience its own share of great trouble as well. And he says, And at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, the heavens it's talking about, looking up into the night sky and seeing all the stars up there, the galaxies. They shall shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars, forever and ever. They will shine like the stars because they will then be the immortal and glorious and resurrected family of God. And this is the ultimate prophecy of our future as members of the church and of the family of God, to shine like those stars forever and ever as glorified spirit beings. This is the future that God has in store for us if we heed those messages and apply them not to others but to ourselves, to our own spiritual condition, our own spiritual state. May we all have the ears to hear what Christ says to us in these prophecies to the church in the time of the end.