Watch and Wait

Thank you again, Mr. Evans. In fact, I was noticing it seems like it's getting a bit darker outside. So if we get some special emphasis to any of my points, I'll hope it's the good emphasis that I want and not anything bad. We often keep track of the news, and that's something that's been a part of our church culture for many years. And watching the news, you can't help but hear about a conflict between the nation of Israel and hostile forces just across the border. After years of skirmishes and hostilities, Israel has enough, launches airstrikes over the border, not long after that followed by ground forces.

Ceasefire is arranged, but it doesn't last very long. It's broken. Another ceasefire. It's broken. The United States Secretary of State flies to the area and begins the process of what's known as shuttle diplomacy, flying to meet with one side and flying back to meet with the other, going back and forth, trying to stop the fighting. Interestingly, the news of this makes us almost forget another big event that was dominating the news not long before, a major upset in one of the largest, most powerful Islamic nations in the area.

In that case, what sounds like a combination of either a revolution or a military takeover, perhaps both, affects one of the largest, as I said, most powerful countries in that region. And the government there, along with, it seems, United States intelligence is taken completely by surprise. Very quickly, rebel troops overwhelm government soldiers. Many of them, it seems, supported the revolution anyway. A small number of Americans in the country are in danger. They have to decide, do I flee?

Do I hide? Is it already too late for either? In a quick succession, a number of dramatic events lead to a pro-Western government being overthrown and an anti-Western authoritarian theocracy being proclaimed. A radical Islamic cleric is publicly proclaimed to be the supreme leader. Now, those of us who understand the truth of the Bible and God's plan revealed in it, at times like that, have a compulsion to start examining prophecy. Or I shouldn't say to start, many of us have been. We want to determine what these things mean. Does this affect either the king of the south or the king of the north from Daniel 11?

Will this lead to Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, as Jesus mentioned in Luke 21? Is this a part of the modern descendants of Israel having the pride of their power broken, as is mentioned in Leviticus 26? How much does this fighting in the Middle East bring us closer to the return of Jesus Christ? That's the biggest question. Now, all of us might make some guesses, very educated guesses.

We might say we're not sure, but I can say one thing with certainty. Of all the events I described, I can be certain that the return of Jesus Christ won't come within at least about 30 years of those events. You might say, 30 years? How in the world do you possibly say something like that?

Well, I can, because you might have noticed I was being deliberately a bit vague in describing some of these. I haven't been describing the current crises in the Middle East. I was describing instead the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, followed a couple of years later by the border war between Israel and PLO-backed forces in Lebanon.

Of course, as I said, I focused on the 1982 one, because that came shortly after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. I could have picked the one that happened in 1974. There we go with the glasses. Or the fighting in 1996 or 2006. Israel's gone into Lebanon a number of times. But when those things happened, and some of us remember them very clearly, it sure seemed prophetically significant. And it probably was.

I'm not saying that it wasn't prophetically significant. And a lot of other things were happening in the late 70s and early 80s to make us think, we're at the edge. The time must be close at hand. But it wasn't quite as close as we thought, as some of us thought. Not as close as many hoped. A lot of us have been looking and saying, come on, bring that time. Thy kingdom come. Now, when I say this, though, some people might think that I'm being a little disdainful of paying attention to world events, of trying to understand how they fit into prophecy.

I'm not. And I want to say that clearly. I'm not saying that we don't pay attention to world events or that we don't study prophecy. It'd be absolutely foolish for me to do that. Jesus Christ Himself commanded us to watch. Let's turn to one of those commands, if you will, in Mark 13, verse 35. This begins with that important word. Watch, therefore. For you do not know when the master of the house is coming in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning, lest coming suddenly he finds you sleeping.

What I say to you I say to all, watch. That's pretty clear, isn't it? Or is it? We might think, well, I'd like to have a little bit more information, like watch what? Watch for what? And what do we do about it as we're watching?

So the title I was thinking of for this sermon, and often people in the sounding booth come up with better titles, so I'm open to suggestions, but I was thinking of the title watch and what else? First, let's review some of the basic fundamental prophecies about the end time that do give us an idea of what to watch for, and a lot of these should be familiar to us.

There's that emphasis. Now, it's useful for us to think of some of what I call the fundamental or basic prophecies, because otherwise it's easy to get lost in details. There is a fair bit of complexity in Bible prophecy, and I've been reminding myself of that. I've been preparing to begin teaching the class on the major prophets at ABC, so I've been delving deeply into the book of Isaiah, saying, wow, you tend to forget how much is in there. There's a lot, and there's poetic language, and there's complex symbolism. So for good reason, often when we make a start at something like this, we turn to Daniel 2.

You can turn there if you want, and I'll give some of the summary because I don't want to go through all of that chapter. But the essence of that chapter is the fact that God Almighty gave the Emperor, King Nebuchadnezzar, a special dream. In that dream he saw this statue that was made out of four different metals, and he was able to understand what those metals were. He didn't understand what the statue meant. But, of course, the prophet Daniel was there and was given the interpretation of dreams so that he could gain that understanding. And it turned out that God was revealing to Nebuchadnezzar that there would be a succession of widely ruling governments.

We often say world ruling because they were ruling the known world to those people, the Western world. From that time, it turns out that Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar, you are that head of gold. So starting there, going down the chest and arms and the torso and the legs all the way down to the toes. And of course, at the very end would be the time when Jesus Christ would establish his kingdom. But it's interesting, even if we didn't know what those metals represent, and we think we do know, we think they represented, of course, the Babylonian Empire, since Nebuchadnezzar was the head of gold, followed by the Medo-Persian Empire, often historians just say the Persian, then the Greek, followed by the Roman.

And the last, from our understanding putting Daniel 2 together with several other prophecies, the last, the Roman Empire, to be revived a number of times. Even if we didn't know all of that, though, we would be able to discern from this, it just dawned on me that I should turn to Daniel chapter 2, so I can read a scripture from there.

But we would discern that at the time of Christ's return, there will be 10 rulers operating together in a fairly weakly united Confederacy. I'm going to read Daniel 2 beginning in verse 41. As I said, we know that this is going to be a revival of the Roman Empire, but even if we didn't, we would know to look for this. In verse 41, Daniel was giving the interpretation of the dream, whereas you saw the feet and toes partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided, yet the strength of iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay.

And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, the kingdom will be partly strong and partly fragile. As you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay, they'll mingle with the seed of men, but they won't adhere to one another. That's why I say a weakly united Confederacy. And then the days of these kings. Who was talking about kings? I thought we were talking about toes. Well, we're talking about symbolism. These toes represent 10 kings, which we'll make more clear by looking at another prophecy. But in the days of those kings, I would say 10 kings united as well as iron and ceramic clay unite together.

They might stick a little, but they can come apart. In the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. The kingdom won't be left to other people. It'll break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. That's got to be an end-time prophecy, the end of the age of man, at least. So, as I said, even if we didn't know it was the last incarnation of the Roman Empire, we would look for 10 kings coming together.

If you will, turn to Revelation 17. And as I said, we'll add a little bit more understanding to this. And I'm emphasizing this because I said we know that we need to watch. What do we watch for? Well, this is one thing to watch for. Revelation 17 and verse 12, this is the interpretation of another symbolic vision. Here an angel is giving an interpretation to John the Apostle. It says, The ten horns which you saw are ten kings.

We were just talking about ten and kings. These ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they'll give their power and authority to the beast. These will make war with the Lamb. And the Lamb will overcome them. Who is this Lamb? He is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. That Lamb must be Jesus Christ, obviously. And those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.

And He said to me, The waters which you saw where the harlot sits are peoples, multitude, nations, and tongues. The waters symbolize as many different peoples, nations, and tongues. And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot. And we already saw that those ten horns are ten kings. They'll hate the harlot and make her desolate, naked, and eat her flesh and burn her with fire. You don't want to be her. For God has put it into their hearts to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind, to give their kingdom to the beast until the words of God are fulfilled.

So this tells us, and again we see these ten kings making war with the Lamb, with Jesus Christ. You can't make war with Him if He's not here. But as those of us who were here for the Bible study saw, there will be a time when Jesus Christ does return.

We saw that in Revelation 19 verse 11. He comes symbolically represented on a white horse. And this confederacy of ten kings are going to want to make war with Him. But they won't win. Put this with Daniel 2, of course, God's kingdom will be established and rule the entire earth. So we know this is an end-time prophecy.

We know that one of the things we need to watch for is a federation of ten different nations or kingdoms. And of course I should mention, because the prophecy was given many years ago, the borders of those nations might not match exactly with borders that we think of today. In Europe especially, which is where we think this will happen, the borders have moved a great deal. You had the feudal system. I was just thinking in teaching history class, you often get feudal spelled F-U-T-I-L-E, and it seemed very feudal, even though that's not the way we mean it.

But you have different, as I said, different divisions. So we know it will be ten kingdoms. It might not be like Belgium and Luxembourg and the Netherlands as three different kingdoms. Sometimes the Benelux countries are considered one kingdom, as they have been in the past. Actually, a lot of that area was ruled by Spain for centuries, which always seems weird to me. Spain's not even near there. But I'm getting sidetracked. Anyways, we want to be mindful also. That image in Daniel 2 had two legs.

The two legs and the two separate feet seem to be coming at the end time. Is this representing the fact that Europe, over many years, has had a division between East and West, and so has the Roman Empire and even the Orthodox churches that dominate those areas? I'll only bring that up because if that East-West division is an important factor in end-time prophecy, does a conflict over who's dominating Ukraine bear into prophecy? No? It'll be interesting to watch.

As I said, good questions. How does the European Union fit into this? Does the Ukraine? We need to watch. Back in Revelation 17, we read something about a harlot. I've glossed over that fairly quickly, but actually that harlot is the main focus of this chapter. If you go back to the beginning of the chapter in verse 1, it says, One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked to me, that is, came to John, and he said, Come, I'll show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters.

Now, as I said, we read the interpretation already that the many waters represents peoples, nations, and tongues, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication. Now I want to interject here, of course, because I don't want to make this a full course on prophecy and all the symbolism, but often women represent churches or nations in prophecy, and fornication is presented as false worship.

As I said, I've been going through Isaiah and Jeremiah. You see that time and again. God portrays that as fornication. We're confident that the identity of this woman fits perfectly with the idea of false religion. If you look in verse 5, it says, on her forehead was a name written, Mystery Babylon the Great. The great false religion, Mystery Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots, meaning from this Mystery religion, a lot of other religions have spun off that share the same roots and of abominations of the earth.

I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints. A lot of martyrdom has occurred from this church, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And John says, when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement. This church that this represents is impressive. It really can bowl you over with its magnificence. And John was, wow, I'm really impressed. And the angel had to say, don't be so impressed.

Let me tell you the truth about this. We might likewise be impressed at times. Now, we believe this represents the great false church, Roman Catholicism. And that that church at the end of time will have a very close relationship with this ten-nation confederation that will make up a revival of the Holy Roman Emperor.

That alone would be enough to tell us, good idea to watch the Catholic Church. But something earlier in Revelation indicates something specific to watch for. If you'll go with, turn with me to Revelation 13. And I'll remind you, this is a review of some of the basic prophecies showing us some things to watch for.

So one of these things to watch is the Roman Catholic Church. And I would add to that the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. Of course, they have a hierarchical rule and one person can make decisions. Let's read Revelation 13 in verse 11. Here again, we're speaking in symbols. It says, I saw another beast coming out of the earth. We believe – if you read through all of this, it'll show that this beast is representative of the same church that the harlot later represents.

Coming out of the earth, he had two horns like a lamb, so it looks like the lamb of God, but it's not. It spoke like a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed. And I was leading up to this. And he performs great signs. Great signs so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on earth in the sight of men and deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast, who's wounded by the sword and lived.

We understand that the beast represents the final revival of the Roman Empire and that the second beast is the great false church. And as I said, this seems to be giving us something to watch for as this world or this age is drawing to a close. Within this false church, perhaps likely a great religious leader will start performing miracles. Real, live miracles, not tricks, not things that can be explained away. You know, I'm not... I was going to say David Copperfield, but I don't know how he does his tricks, so I'm not going to say I can explain them away.

And they'll be witnessed by many people. That fits very well with what we could read in 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians 2 and verse 3. I'd like to read a couple of verses from there. 2 Thessalonians 2 and verse 3. Let no one deceive you by any means. For that day, and speaking of the day of the Lord, will not come unless a falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

Do you not remember when I was still with you? I told you these things? If you will, skip to verse 8. Verse 8, he says, Then the lawlessness, lawless one, will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is, according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs and lying wonders, lying wonders, or the original King James says, lying miracles. I wanted to tie this into what we read in Revelation.

Someone who is this great false leader is going to work miracles, but it's not by the power of God. It'll be by the power of Satan. Now I want to stop reading through all this, because I want to continue on the idea of watching.

What are we watching? Some people believe that this will be the Pope. Others say it'll be some other charismatic religious leader who comes on the sign, seen, maybe a great evangelist who has a TV program or does this or that. Nowadays, I wonder, could it even be an Islamic cleric?

It doesn't fit with my paradigm of this, but as I said, I want to be watching. And we know we're watching Europe. We're watching for that revival of ten nations forming some Confederacy. We're watching the Pope and the church that he leads. What else should we watch? Well, we also need to watch the Middle East. We learn this from the prophecy of Daniel 11.

I'm not going to go through all of the prophecy of Daniel 11, but if you'll turn there, I'd like to read a few verses. Daniel 11, beginning in verse 40. I mention this because Daniel 11 is often called, and I believe because it is, the longest continuous prophecy in the Bible. It's a long chapter, and it covers a lot of ground.

We know, though, that it reaches all the way to the end of this age because of what we're about to read. Daniel 11, beginning in verse 40. At the time of the end, okay, so it's the time of the end, the king of the south shall attack him. Attack who? The king of the north, because the king of the north has been attacked, he'll come against him like a whirlwind with chariots and horsemen and many ships. Now, if this happened at the time that Daniel was riding, it probably would have been literal horsemen and chariots, but this could be representative of great military forces and modern arms.

And he'll enter the countries and overwhelm them and pass through. He'll also enter the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown. These shall escape from his hand. Edom, Moab, and the prominent people of Ammon. I could get sidetracked here. I'm not going to go into why they're exempt.

But we do know he'll stretch out his hand against the countries, and the land of Egypt will not escape. I lost where I was in my notes. I want to see if I want to go on. He'll have power over the treasures of gold and silver, over all the precious things of Egypt.

Also, the Libyans and Ethiopians shall follow at his heels. But news from the east and north will trouble him. Therefore, he'll go out with great fury to destroy and to annihilate many. He'll plant his tents of his palace between the seas and the glorious holy mountain.

Yet, he'll come to his end, and no one will help him. So this is going to be basically fighting that starts with the Middle East. Who is the king of the south? That's a question we might think we know the answer to. We question exactly. We believe the king of the north corresponds to that beast power of ten nations. One of the things I wonder, does this fit with Luke 21 in verse 20 through 23?

Let me turn there quickly. Luke 21, beginning in verse 20. Luke 21 in verse 20. Jesus is giving what's known as the Olivet Prophecy says, When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near, and let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those who are in the midst of her depart, and let those who are in the country not enter her.

These are the days of vengeance, when all things that are written may be fulfilled. Now, it's interesting, in the same spot where this is described in other Gospel accounts, Jesus, instead of saying Jerusalem surrounded by armies, says the abomination of desolation. And it's brought to question, is the abomination of desolation the act of Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, or is it an act of cutting off sacrifice, or is it both?

Of course, there's an earlier fulfillment, we believe, of that when Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the second temple and cut off sacrifice. As I said, I don't want to get into defining the abomination of desolation, but we know Jerusalem being surrounded by armies is an important thing, and it may be tied to this king of the north coming against the king of the south. That's something we know happens at the end time.

Jerusalem's been surrounded by armies a number of times since Jesus spoke. When it happens again, will it be the last time? One way to find out is to watch. Keep watching. Who are the kings of the north and who are the south? Many theories have been proposed, as I said, but to be sure, we need to keep watching.

And with all this watching around the world, we'll do well to keep an eye on developments here at home. We believe that an understanding of Bible prophecy shows very clearly that the modern nations of the United States and the British Empire, or the former British Empire, represent the modern descendants of the nation of Israel, especially Ephraim and Manasseh. And that because Jacob blessed Ephraim and Manasseh and said, let my name be named on them, it seems to show that many end time prophecies for Israel apply specifically to those peoples.

And there are plenty of such prophecies. As a matter of fact, too many to go into, but if you'll turn with me to Ezekiel, the first chapter of Ezekiel, I'll just cover a couple of the highlights to remind us of some things that we know are coming. Ezekiel 1, verses 1 and 2. Here, Ezekiel is first, from our understanding, commissioned as a prophet.

Now, it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, I was among the captives by the river Kebar, and the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God on the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's captivity. So he was among those from Judea who had been taken captive by the Babylonians. And that was about 130 years after the northern kingdom, which was known as the Kingdom of Israel, had been taken captive by the Assyrians. So Israel had already fallen and they were long gone. If you'll turn to the next chapter, Ezekiel 2, that's why it becomes significant that Israel has already been punished.

Here, it says, he said to me, son of man, stand on your feet and I'll speak to you. And the Spirit entered me when he spoke to me, and he set me on my feet. And I heard him who spoke to me. He said to me, son of man, I'm sending you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that's rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day.

They're impudent and they're stubborn children. I'm sending you to them, and you'll say to them, thus says the Lord God. That seems very clear. Okay, the nation of Israel is rebelling. I'm going to send you to give them a message. But if you read through all of Ezekiel, there's no indication that he ever went anywhere. He was captive. He was held in slavery. He couldn't go. And besides that, the children of Israel were a long ways away. And of course, these were prophecies of a future punishment, not of the punishment that had happened over a hundred years before.

So this is a long way of saying we believe that many of the prophecies that we find in Ezekiel and also Jeremiah, Isaiah, throughout the minor prophets, that they have not been fulfilled. And a previous fulfillment may have been, but there are prophecies yet to be fulfilled. And if you'll turn over a couple more chapters to Ezekiel 6, we'll see some of those prophecies that we believe are yet to be fulfilled.

Thus says the Lord God, pound your fists and stamp your feet and say, Alas! for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel, because of their evil abominations, they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. This is in future tense, so it's not referring to what had happened to them by the Assyrians.

And the Assyrians were pretty nasty dudes. They treated Israel pretty badly. They suffered. But this is what was yet to come. We believe this is referring to a captivity yet to happen. And I could go to many other prophecies in the Old Testament that describe Israel as sinful and having great moral decline.

And that moral decline and that sin to be followed by punishment by God. And that punishment, it seems, will include exile and captivity for those that are not destroyed by the war, famine, and disease. So I'm not going to wade through. I shouldn't say wade through. Actually, it can be very interesting to study them, but there's a lot of them.

But I'm not going to do that. But I just want to add, what do we do about that? Watch. Watch to see that happening. How is it being fulfilled? Though I do want to add, we see this as our duty as a church. We've been commissioned to preach the gospel. That's to carry the good news of the Kingdom of God. But since we do that largely to the nation of Israel, we look at what God asked Ezekiel to do, and we feel a responsibility to warn Israel of their sins, as it says in Isaiah 58, cry aloud like a trumpet and warn my people of her sins.

Okay, so we do know a number of specific things to watch for. We know places to watch. We watch the continual decline of the United States and Britain. We watch the Roman Catholic Church and the papacy that leads it. We watch the Middle East. We keep an eye for the rise of a potential king of the South and the danger of armies surrounding Jerusalem. We watch Europe for a revival of the Holy Roman Empire. I hope this helps us to keep in mind where to watch, but there are some principles that we want to keep in mind as we watch.

Remember, I started off describing some of what we saw during the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and of the Israeli-Lebanese War of 1982. And although there seemed to be great similarities between what was happening then, how many years has that been? Is it coming up on 30 or past 30?

I said, that can't be. I was an adult when that happened. But there seemed to be similarities between those things decades ago and what's happening now. That tells me I need to exercise some patience while I watch. I need wisdom to interpret what I'm watching. And here's where I want to shift gears and talk about some principles that I think might help us, to help me as well.

And some of these I learned largely as an adult when I had the opportunity to begin hiking on mountain trails. And I say as an adult because most of you know I grew up in central Ohio. And my idea for most of that time was hiking and backpacking would consist of trudging across cow pastures. So I didn't care much about hiking. When I finally got to go out west and see the mountains, I said, oh, I'm beginning to see the charm of this.

And I took a great interest in hiking in the mountains. And you might wonder, okay, how did we get from prophecy and the rise of the beast to going hiking in the mountains? Well, the reason is I learned of some principles and some illusions that can happen to hikers on the trail that I think can be illustrative of what we can have happen when we look at prophecy. These illusions can distract or even deceive a hiker.

And similar things can happen to those watching prophecy. I will mention, when you're climbing a mountain, and it doesn't have to be Everest where you've got to have sherpas and climbing spikes and all that, just walking a trail up to the peak is climbing a mountain, it's good to visualize that goal. Know what the top looks like. Have that in your mind, what the goal is, and that you're going to get there. Because if you don't, the obstacles, the fatigue, the pain, might make you say, it's not worth it, I'm not going to go all the way to the top.

And there's what I want to mention. Prophecy provides us that. We have a vision of our end goal in our lives as Christians, and it's good for us to have that firmly in mind. A climber that's going to climb a mountain might see that peak miles and miles away, often in the car driving to the trailhead.

I've had that experience, it hasn't been lately, but in the past, and you want to keep that vision in mind. Because once you get on the trailhead, a lot of times then you can't see the peak.

There's trees in the way, and there's outcrops of rock and ridges and things like that. And the fact that the trail has all those features can make a hiker susceptible to a number of illusions. One common one is seeing what I call a false summit. A false summit. You might be hiking through the tree, and you reach a clearing in the trees, and there it is. You see it. It's obviously the highest thing around. There's nothing in the vicinity. You get pretty happy.

Boy, that's closer than I thought. You start walking a little faster. I'm going to get there. But as you climb, your perspective starts to change. And I've had this happen, and I remember the disappointment, because gradually it seems somehow rising from behind that peak that I saw as a higher peak. It starts coming up as my perspective changes. I said, you're on a hillside, so you're looking, and your vision is blocked. But as you get up there, you realize, I wasn't so near to the top as I thought.

I focused on an illusion. A false summit. That's no great calamity. As I said, experienced hikers expect it. And they know you just have to accept that. You can't change the angle of view that the trail gives you. But you do need to learn to trust your map. You know, if you say, oh, I see the peak, it's right here, but I'm only here on my map. Well, that's probably not the real peak. And I can see this as being a fairly decent analogy for what we saw when Muslim extremists took over Iran in the late 70s.

Now, is the rise of the, what they call it, ISIS, their proclamation of a new caliphate? Is that a false summit in our watch for the Middle East? And to be honest, I don't know. We need to keep watching. Let me add something else. You might hear some people say, what about that new pope? Boy, he's different than his predecessor. He's a real man of the people.

He's bringing new energy to the papacy. He's going to make some big differences. He's promoting the ecumenical movement. He's trying to end all these long-time divisions of these different branches among the so-called Christian churches. He's the one to watch. He'll be significant to prophecy.

Have you heard people say that about Pope Francis?

No, maybe not. But, or maybe you have, maybe not. But the things that I wrote these down as things that I heard said about Pope John Paul II nearly 40 years ago when he succeeded to the papacy in 1978. Some of you probably remember that. Boy, was he different than his predecessor. What energy, vitality, how he reached out to other groups. A lot of us were so certain he's got to be the one that's going to be in the office when Christ returns. But he wasn't. Maybe Francis will. I don't know. That's a good reason to keep watching. Now, there's another illusion I experienced once hiking out west. I learned a lesson the hard way on this one. This was during my senior year at Ambassador College, and it was common that the senior class would get to take a trip. And I don't know how extravagant any of them got. Ours wasn't, I didn't think, that extravagant. We got to go to Palm Springs for a long weekend. It's about an hour and a half drive, you know, to the east, into the desert. And we stayed in some nice condos. I think it was off-season where they got them pretty cheap. And so we stayed there, and we barbecued out, and we had church services there. And I remember one afternoon playing in the pool with my friend. It's funny, I say playing in the pool, because I do that, well, not all the time, but Connor loves to play in the pool. But we were splashing around and all that, and there were these arid, you know, brown hills all around us.

One of my friends said, you know, we ought to climb up there. Yeah, I said, we ought to do that. You know how young guys are. So with about that much planning, we jumped out and changed our clothes, put our shoes, we headed up. It's going to take us 30 or 40 minutes. Man, it's right there. No false summit. That's the top. But as we climbed, and we climbed, it seemed that the closer we got, the more it moved away. We climbed up, and it wasn't that we lost view of it. It was just further than we thought. It took us three hours to get up there. And I got a pretty good sunburn out of it, too. And I think we just plain had misjudged the distance. It looked like it was real close, I suspect because of that dry desert air. I don't know, I think I've experienced similar things on long drives at times. And some of you might, if you're in the car and you see something and you think, oh, I'll pass that in a couple minutes. You know, and a half hour later, you're finally getting closer to it. Well, I thought of some examples, maybe a fulfillment of prophecy. I want to point out anything that I point that I use as an example might not be an example, because it could be a false summit. But one possible example could be the reunification of Europe. If we understand prophecy correctly, the next unification of Europe, forming the Holy Roman Empire or revival of it, will be the last. That's what we expect to happen. And we've been watching Europe come together for decades now. It began with the 1951 Treaty of Paris. That treaty formed what was called the European Coal and Steel Community with six nations, what was it, the Benelux countries, France, Germany, and probably something else. I didn't list them. But that was in 1951. Then in 1957, the Treaty of Rome changed that into the European Economic Community. Remember the EEC? Then in 1991, the Maistricht Treaty changed that into the European Union. Many of us thought, wow, they're the European Union. They're calling themselves that. Pretty soon we're going to have a beast and all that's going to happen. But we've been watching, and we seem to be steadily getting closer and closer. But like that peak at Palm Springs, it's taken a long time to get there. So we've got to keep on watching. Not get discouraged. As I said, don't stop watching by any means. Let me describe one more experience I've had while hiking. This one's not an illusion, but it does come from not being able to see everything on the trail ahead. I've had this where I might be hiking, and a lot of, as I said, especially early on when you're below the tree line, you've got trees all around you. You can't see much, and you get higher, and you have these zigzags back and forth, and sometimes you circle around something. I've had this where, you know, I know I'm getting near the top. Sometimes you even see the summit. And, okay, I'm not right there, but I'm going to get there, you know. And then you come around to bend, and in front of you, you see the trail goes down. There's a valley in between you and the peak. It's not going to be steady progress. It might even be a pretty steep ravine. Great. Now I've got to climb down, and wind my way through in order to get up. And actually, that's very common in a mountain trail. I'd be surprised to find a hike where you didn't have that, because mountains are not perfectly symmetrical cones. They were. They wouldn't be that interesting to hike. As I said, they have clefs and rock faces and precipices and other multi-syllabic things that I didn't think to write down.

But again, if I had to make an educated guess to look for an example in prophecy that might parallel this, I thought, what about the decline of the United States, especially our moral decline?

We've been watching that, and we know it's going to lead to punishment.

Some people say that great decline began with the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Boy, did things start changing then. And I was right on board with that until I started getting into studying history in grad school. And I'm still not saying I'm not on board with it, but I started reading about what happened in the 1920s. Boy, did they have a big sexual revolution in the 1920s! I mean, it was dramatic. A lot of big change. It was shocking. Morals declined steeply.

But then the Great Depression hit, and World War II, and suddenly that decline reversed itself.

Now, my metaphors are opposite of each other, because what I want to say, if you're climbing towards a peak, it's like suddenly you've got to go down into a valley. The progress isn't steady.

In the late 70s and early 80s, I heard many ministers look at the world events and politics and diplomacy and quote Leviticus 26, where it speaks of God speaking to Israel, says, I'll break the pride of your power. And we looked in, especially with the Vietnam War, and said, you know, we're still the most powerful nation in the world, but our pride in that power is broken. But in 1991, when the first President Bush sent U.S. forces to launch Operation Desert Storm, boy, it sure seemed like we had a lot of pride in our power. Remember people flying the flags and singing God Bless America? And, you know, a lot of people totally forgot about the 70s in Vietnam. And some people could say maybe that happened in 2001 with the launch of the Operation Enduring Freedom. I had to get on the Internet to look up the names of these operations. And people would argue, you know, did we have pride in our power then, or a lot of people were still ashamed? I don't know, but my point is, along the way to our moral decline, our economic decline, you know, all of this decline, we've had a lot of ups and downs. But we need to keep watching. We don't need to stop watching. That would be foolish. But I could say, you know, boy, Frank, at this point, you're getting a little discouraging. Why bother to study prophecy and watch these world events if we can't seem to figure out when and how it's going to work out? Why? But then I want to stop and ask, well, whoever said that we could figure it out, whoever said that that was the reason why we watch? Part of the answer is not Jesus Christ.

Let's look through our Bibles and see some of what he said about watching.

One important lesson for studying prophecy and watching to see it fulfilled is just to show us that this really is God we're dealing with. As you said, why prophecy? Why do we bother? Well, there are some good reasons. Let's turn, if you will, to Isaiah 46. I'm not far from there. I've got my Bible open to Ezekiel. Isaiah 46, beginning in verse 9.

This again is God speaking in the first person. He says, Remember the former things of old, for I am God. There is no other. I am God, and there's none like me, declaring the end from the beginning. And from ancient times, the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand. I will do all my pleasure. So God is saying, Look, I can do this. I am God. And if you read several of these chapters, he makes a distinction between the idols made with men's hands. They can't do anything. They can't even move around or save people. Let's go back to chapter 45. Isaiah 45. We'll find a prophecy that was given hundreds of years in advance of it happening, of the man who would lead the Persian armies to defeat Babylon. And it's interesting, this is given before Babylon was a power of any note worth destroying. So God leaps ahead of Babylon conquering Judah and becoming a great empire to Babylon being conquered. In Isaiah 45, verse 1, Thus says the eternal to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, to subdue nations before him and loose the armor of kings, to open before him the double doors, so the gates will not be shut.

And the study of history shows this seems to be referring to the gates of Babylon, that he was able to divert the Euphrates River and get under there and then open the gates. But let's drop down to verse 4. For Jacob, my servants' sake, and Israel, my elect, I have called you by your name. So we say, for the elect's sake, for my people, I've called you by your name. This is hundreds of years before he was even born. I have named you, though you have not known me, I am the eternal and there is no other. There is no God besides me. I will gird you, though you have not known me. And here comes the reason, that they may know, from the rising of the sun to its setting, that there is none besides me. I am the eternal, there is no other. He's going out of his way to say, I'm going to do this to prove that I am God. I can name by name the person that's going to do something that nobody would even envision needing to be done, and I'm going to tell you how it's done and who's going to do it, to show you that I'm God. That should inspire all within us. We should want to worship a God who can do that. And I say, hey God, he's the only one, but he can do that and he proves it.

Now, let me pose another question. Do we study prophecy and do we watch so that we can avoid the problems and the trials that are to come? Because when you study that prophecy, you start seeing, boy, times are going to get tough. A lot of bad things are going to happen. But if I can figure it out, you know, can I not have those problems? Can I make sure that I stay safe?

If you will, turn to 2 Timothy chapter 4, because I would say the Apostle Paul taught something rather different. And it's funny, Paul understood a lot about prophecy, but the one thing he didn't understand was how soon Christ would return. From his writings, it seems pretty clear that he expected Christ to return while he was still alive.

You know, he was off by about 2,000 years or so. But he did understand some important principles, and this is one. 2 Timothy 4 and verse 5, he's the Apostle Paul is an older apostle giving advice to a young minister, Timothy, and he says, But you be watchful in all things. Well, that's been our focus here in the sermon. Watch. Watch. Be watchful in all things, comma, endure afflictions.

Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry.

In this case, at least, watching is not at all in order to avoid suffering. It goes right along with it. Be watchful, endure afflictions. One does not preclude the other. You know, and he's basically saying enduring afflictions is part of being in the ministry, Timothy. You know, sorry about your luck. If we look at Christ's instructions to watch, we'll find that he does not say, watch and brag about how much you know. He doesn't say, tell everybody about how much you know the meaning of the prophecies. Never says, watch and gloat.

He also does not say, watch and hide, because once you know what's going to happen, you can hide from it. He just plain didn't teach that we would ever figure out when he would return, or exactly when and how the tribulation would come on. In fact, he pretty much said the opposite. I want to go to Matthew 24. Of course, I'll point out, you know, if people that are studying all the time and predicting when Christ will return, sooner or later, someone's going to be right. And that's okay.

You know, it's okay, though. You know, we all want him to return, so if all the events we're looking at now lead to that, that's great. But let's see what he said. Matthew 24 and verse 42.

Matthew 24, 42, this is parallel to the scripture that we read earlier.

Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore, you also be ready. The Son of Man is coming in an hour that you do not expect. Who then is a faithful and wise servant whom his master made ruler over his household to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find him so doing. One of the things I find interesting is that Jesus says, watch. You don't want to be caught off guard, but there's no condemnation for not knowing when he'll come. He doesn't say, if you don't know when I'm coming, you're going to get it. You're going to be in big trouble. No, he's pretty much saying you aren't going to be able to figure it out. And when he says that if the master of the house knew when the thief would come, he would have stopped it.

That's not a warning for us to figure out when Christ will come. He's drawing a parallel saying, in the same way the master never knows when the thief is coming, so you'll never know when Christ is coming. So just like the master of the house, then, he locks his doors and things like that, you do everything to be ready for whenever Christ comes. Whether it's at midnight, the crowing of the rooster or the break of day, be ready. And since we don't know when he'll come, we need to do what? We need to pray. He said, watch and pray. And I'll add to what we were just saying, stay ready. Jesus Christ said, pray always. We need to stay in close contact with God all the time, not just when it seems like there's a crisis going on. And by the way, I don't mean this to sound corrective as though, oh, everybody's getting riled up, so you're bad. No, we need to always do that. And we can get excited when we see events happening, but we need to always be watching. As I said, how many of you got phone calls from people you know or family members, you know, on 9-11? Because, you know, I know I did, you know, because people say, I know you watch prophecy. What does this mean? And I'd say, well, I don't know for sure, but I'm going to keep watching. If we go to Luke 21, we'll read that Jesus tells us to do something else to be ready. Luke 21 and verse 34.

Luke 21, 34.

To take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing and drunkenness and the cares of this life, and that day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the earth. And a snare is like a trap that, you know, an animal puts its foot in and it's gone for it knows it. It's really unexpected. 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 we've read this passage many times, and we should. But it's possible to sometimes get, I think, a mistaken idea that studying prophecy and watching, that those acts in themselves are what might spare us from suffering in the Tribulation. But that's not true.

All the knowledge in the world won't accomplish that. You know, it's not knowing, it's not understanding the prophecy that spares you from persecution or suffering in the Tribulation.

Jesus said, pray that you would be counted worthy. I think that's important because he doesn't say you'll be worthy because, in a sense, none of us are worthy while we're still in this flesh.

We're all trying to become perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect, but we're not there yet.

But we want to have Christ's blood applied to cover our sins so that we're counted worthy.

But he also said, along with praying, what to not do. Don't get caught up in the affairs of this world, carousing and drinking and all that. I could sum that up in another way by saying it's character that counts. It's living God's way of life. It's not how much we know about prophecy.

Now, although we don't understand that prophecy should inspire us, it should motivate us. As I said, if you're going to climb a mountain, if you see the peak as you're going to the trailhead, having that vision of where it's going to end is very important. And prophecy gives us that. We know where it's going to end, and we know there's going to be ups and downs. We need to have that. But let's, if you will, turn to 1 Corinthians 16. Let's add another point to this.

Or another way of saying the same point. 1 Corinthians 16 and verse 13.

Here again, there's that word. Chapter 16 verse 13, watch. Yes, watch. But also, stand fast in the faith. Be brave. Be strong.

Let all that you do be done with love. That's another way of saying live God's way of life, the way of love. Now, that should be our focus. Living God's way of life, standing fast. Our focus should not be, how can I get into a place of safety? How can I avoid tribulation?

Not that it's wrong to want to avoid tribulation. I mean, I'm not signing up saying, hey, somebody pull out my fingernails, or cut me up. I don't want that any more than any of the rest of you.

But our focus needs to be on standing fast, all that we do, doing in love. Be strong in the faith.

And with that in mind, I want to turn to a passage, an incident in Christ's ministry that I like to look at to help me keep study of prophecy and perspective. And by the way, I want to make it clear, I'm not saying any of this to say, oh, don't study prophecy or it doesn't matter. We do study prophecy and we can understand it like no one else in the world and we should. If we forsake that, we've let down on something that Christ told us to do. We said, watch, study. But let's go to Matthew 19, if you will. Matthew 19, I sidetracked myself, in verse 16.

So I said, this has always been a go-to for me just to help keep my perspective when I can get caught up on some other things. And it's an incident, it seems like I read about this a lot. I keep finding more that can be dug out of this incident. Matthew 19 and verse 16 says, Behold, one came and said to him, that's to Jesus, good teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? Now, that's got my interest, too, because just like this young man, I would like to have eternal life. So what do I have to do? Tell me what to do to have eternal life.

Now, does Jesus tell him, well, you better master an understanding of Daniel 11, and you've got to figure out the 70 weeks prophecy. Does he tell him, you need to calculate the year that Jesus Christ will return. You've got to know the place, the location of the place of safety. Is he going to tell him, you need to know the difference between who's Laodicean and who's Philadelphia if you want to have eternal life? Jesus answered this in verse 17. First, he said, why do you call me good? No one's good, but one's God. But if you want to enter life, this is what we've been waiting for, keep the commandments. You want to have life, keep the commandments. As I said, he doesn't say anything about Philadelphia or Laodicean or Sardis. He doesn't say anything about a place of safety. Now, the man, this seemed a little vague to him, so he said, well, which ones? Which ones? Is it the command to watch? Jesus Himself said, watch. I could find a scripture in Revelation where it said, count the number of the name of the beast. So Jesus Christ will clarify, though, in verse 18, he said, which ones? You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and your mother. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

He said, what? Living God's way is the way to eternal life?

Or to add something that came up in the Bible study, obedience. Obedience to God is a key to prophecy. That's a key to understanding prophecy. That's what's more to it. Now, I might say, but we know so much more. We've got this great understanding that other people don't have.

Isn't there a bonus if I understand the meaning of prophecies in Ezekiel or in the Book of Malachi?

This young man also thought there must be something more because in verse 20 he says, all these things I've kept from my youth, what do I still lack? And Christ is going to answer. So he says, see, there is something more. Jesus said to him, if you want to be perfect, go sell what you have and give to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven and come follow me. I say, oh, the more isn't about prophecy. It's about giving. It's about caring for those less fortunate. It's about following Jesus, becoming like Christ. You know, things like, let this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus, or be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. On the subject of how to obtain eternal life, Jesus Christ said nothing about prophecy. Now, that's not to say in his ministry Christ said nothing about prophecy. He did, and we do need to study prophecy, but we want to have our priorities straight and the right balance. Because I could ask the question, is it possible that a person could humbly serve God and the people of God, living by both the letter and the spirit of the law, guided and motivated by the spirit of God dwelling in him?

And that person could be so busy with serving, praying, fasting and such, that he doesn't have time to devote as much of his life to studying end-time prophecy. And yet, that person could still enter God's kingdom? Is that possible? Well, according to what Jesus Christ said, yes!

I think that's possible. And once again, please don't take this to mean that I'm saying prophecy is a small matter. I'm not saying that. You know, I've spoken on prophecy, as I said, in a few weeks, I'm going to start teaching a prophecy class at ABC, and I'm not going to tell them this class is unimportant and you're wasting your time. It's very important. We need to study, and we need to understand, but we need to have balance and our priorities. If all we studied were prophecy, we wouldn't be fulfilling what Christ said we needed to do to have eternal life.

So then, let's keep our priorities straight. Let's be studying God's Word. Let's be obedient to God's commands. Let's be giving ourselves to God's people and to his work. And I would mention, I believe that part of that work is warning the people of Israel of their sins and of what's going to happen. And we can only do that by an understanding of Bible prophecy. And while we keep our main focus on living a godly life, let's never forget that Jesus Christ commanded his disciples. And that means he commanded us to watch world events and see how they fit into prophecy. We need to watch the decline and the moral decay of the modern children of Israel.

We need to watch for nations that might take on the role of the King of the South.

And of course, the King of the North, we need to watch for the rise of a united Europe.

And keep an eye on the actions of the Catholic Church and of its leader. When we do those things, we'll be able to fulfill another important thing. I'm just going to cite this. It's Luke 21, verse 28. But in the context of watching, he said, when you see these things happen, look up, lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.