Matthew 24:15-28

Transcription

Matthew 24:15-28. See if you can find it in your Bibles. I'm going to just open right up at the beginning. Anybody else need a Bible? I'm going to open up right at the beginning. I'm just going to read to you from uh Matthew 24. I I do have that picture of the Temple Mount. That's just a a miniature version. So, this is happening kind of like literally where this picture is taken from. Jesus is saying these things. He's on the Mount of Olives. It would be a little bit lower perspective, but kind of looking at out over Jerusalem. Jesus is talking with his disciples and here's here's what he says. So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place, let the reader understand, then those in Judea must flee to the mountains. A man on the housetop must not come down to get things out of his house, and the man in the field must not go back to get his coat. Woe to to the pregnant woman and the nursing mothers in those days. Pray that your escape may not be in the winter or on a Sabbath. For at that time there will be a great distress, the kind that hasn't taken place from the beginning of the world until now and never will again. Unless those days were cut short, no one would be saved. But those days will be cut short because of the elect. If anyone tells you then, see here is the Messiah, or over there, do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Take note, I've told you in advance. So if they tell you, see, he's in the wilderness, don't go out, or see, he's in the storooms. Do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the son of man. Wherever the carcass is, there the vultures will gather. All right, let's pray together. Father, we're going to study this passage together, and we ask that you would teach us. We want to come as humble students. We're not the teachers. We're not here to teach you. do. We're here to listen to what you said and then try to apply it into our own lives. And so God, as we cover these verses this morning, as we walk through them, when we talk about end times and esquetology, God, we ask that you would be our instructor, that you would teach us. Lord, we do not know our the number of our days. We don't know when we'll breathe. our last breath here in this body. But we want to be a people that live our life as followers of Jesus the Messiah. And we believe that you want to teach us from your word how to do that. And so we give you this time. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

We're in the middle of chapter 24 obviously and um the material that is here goes back to last week. Jesus was the disciples were uh pointing out the big structures of the temple mount to Jesus and Jesus says to the disciples there's not going to be one stone left on another and it prompts the disciples to ask some specific questions. I'll show you those three questions in just a minute. But to frame this up, I want to talk to you about the just this idea of a cosmic war. We'll zoom out, right? We're in we're in Matthew 24, but I want to zoom out and just talk about the whole of scripture for a second. And then what I want to do is I want to seat Matthew 24 within that broader context. Um, I had a professor named Gary Bashers and he was the one that that in seminary taught this idea. Um, and so I want to I want to bring it to you. Again, it's it's a whole Bible um idea. It's it's a meta narrative of scripture. Satan's rebellion occurred before Genesis 1:1. We could say that based on passages like John 8:44 where Jesus said that the devil was a murderer from the beginning or like 1 John 3:8 where it says the devil has been sinning from the beginning. This precreation rebellion resulted in a war in the heavenlies and on ongoing cosmic conflict between God and the forces of darkness. So if you're new to the Bible, that may sound a little bit strange, but when we open up our Bibles, the very beginning it talks about how God created the heavens and the earth. And there is as we read through the Bible and we learn about this angel um that fell, we call him Lucifer or Satan, we see that he was created being by God and he led a rebellion in heaven against God. And um the that sets the stage. So when you get into Genesis chapter 1, you see that there is darkness and there's chaos over the waters. There's there's just this um unruliness about the earth's state when God begins this creation process. It reflects the idea that there was Satan in this state of rebellion as we are introduced to this creation story. Eden was created in the midst of that war zone. God didn't just create the universe in pristine peace and then evil emerged. Rather, humanity was created in the midst of an already raging spiritual battle. So, Satan is rebelling. The earth reflects that rebellion and Eden is created in the midst of an already raging battle. Again, to proof text this, you you'd have to go Genesis through Revelation. You'd have to pull out of Isaiah and out of Ezekiel, um out of Jesus's teaching in John. And hopefully sometime I get to do like a seminar on this to just kind of walk you through this idea. But as we as you Take in scripture, you get this image of this cosmic battle. So God didn't create the universe in pristine peace and then evil emerged. Rather, humanity was created in the midst of an already raging spiritual battle. Genesis 1:1 establishes God created in the context of this heavenly war. And so humanity is placed as God's strategy. Humans are created as a part of God's battle. strategy. The cosmic battle theory defines humans as blessable. Think about Genesis 1 and two. They're blessed. Remember, they're imagebearing covenant partners with God. Created with a specific mission. What's the mission? To fill the earth with more image bears. Be fruitful and multiply. Who would create communities that are characterized by justice, beauty, generosity, and faithfulness. Again, if you know the Bible well, you know all of this is being pulled from different like a lot of Bible reading being pulled into some big ideas here. The mission itself constitutes an act of war against the chaos monster who is Satan. The command in Genesis 1:28 to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. It isn't merely about reproduction. It is a military strategy. God deploys humanity to extend his kingdom to push back darkness and to establish shalom or peace throughout creation. Gary Berser emphasizes Romans 12:21 where he says, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Meaning that doing good is the primary weapon of spiritual warfare. When believers create justice, reconcile relationships, establish beauty, and form communities of love, they're engaging in a combat against Satan's agenda of destruction. This reframes every act of faithfulness as a participation in the cosmic battle. Many of you have been around the church and you've heard the idea of spiritual warfare. You know that Satan tempted Jesus uh for 40 days when he fasted and was in the wilderness. You know probably of Ephesians chapter 6 and putting on the whole armor of God. But if we take and we tie these themes together, we get this picture of this angel, beautiful angel that rebelled against God and led one third of the angels in rebellion against God. And then remember Jesus said to his disciples, "I saw Satan cast from heaven like lightning." Jesus is probably not talking about that moment. He's talking about when Satan was cast out of heaven with the rebellious angels to earth. And now the earth is called um Satan's realm. He's called the prince of the power of the air. Yes, I will take a question. They can't. We don't see evidence of them repenting.

Because they're not holy, right? So, they're in rebellion. They don't seem to re We have no record of angels repenting. They are just judged. And their judgment is to be

Hold on. Say that again.

You're saying

Adam was placed. Yeah. So, this Yeah,

exactly. Yeah. So, he's placed uh in the middle of this cosmic

hold on. Don't don't cut me off. I got to be able to finish what I'm saying and then answer ask your question. So, Adam's put in the garden, right? There's this cosmic battle that's going on. And what does that mean? What does that mean? It means that these humans are meant to engage in this b battle that's that's going on. They're participating in God's victory. What was the next question?

Yeah. Yeah. What was the

Yeah. Yeah. So,

why they why the angels can't repent, right?

Yeah. I don't know. I I know what it's like to be human.

Yeah. No, angels obviously they have this ability to make a decision and rebel, which which is pretty wild. Now I got another I got a voice down there. That's okay. Okay, so we've got this image, the cosmic battle. This it's important to understand that imagery because I think what Jesus is teaching in Matthew 24 is going to fit within that. Let me see if I covered all of my Okay, so we'll go into the immediate context, right? Um when believers I just but be I just those are great questions. But I just want to make sure that you don't miss this idea, okay? When believers create justice, reconcile relationships, establish beauty, and form communities of love, they're engaging in combat against Satan's agenda and destruction. Is that how you think of your good works? Oftentimes, we think of like we're doing good because it makes God happy and that he's the judge and that we um want to obey him because he's saved us and rescued us. We want to live our lives for him. But the the um cosmic battle theory is that it's not just that, but that our good works are the spiritual warfare against the reign and terror of the chaos monster being Satan. So Satan is th this is his realm, right? Fel's point is his is his realm. He has probably there we read in Ephesians about legions and um powers and principalities. So, Satan's army of rebellious angels are well organized just like you would or like an a general would organize his army. And so, it's very likely that there are um demons, fallen angels that reign. They have authority in Fels Point or or I don't know if they're they're um space is like based off how we organize neighborhoods. But there is a sense that they have authority over different regions and they are able to carry out this agenda of rebellion against God. And God has placed you and I in the middle. He's plopped you down. You ever play Fortnite? All you young you younger people played Fortnite, right? Where you get like you get launched and you kind of fly into that world, the makebelieve world, and then you go you're like do in the battle. That's that's this image here is that God's placed you in the midst of an ongoing battle where Satan is rebelling against God and the good things that God created. So as and and what we know I'm jumping ahead to my conclusion, but what we know is Jesus has already won, right? So so now the now the question is like okay in the midst of the bit the battle getting to its point of finality when Jesus ultimately destro destroys Satan. The humans that exist, where do they fall in the midst of that battle? We We've been talking about as a church that God is so loving. He gives you choice. He tells you, "Here's who I am. Here's how I've created you. Here's my plan for the world. Um, but I'm not going to force you to obey me. I'm inviting you to be a part of my family. I'm inviting you to be on the winning side. In fact, I'm even going to tell you here's how things are going to turn out in the end. I'm going to tell you the be the end right now. But it's on you. You get to decide how you want to live your life and what you want to do. You just need to know that the the victory is already baked in because of what Jesus did on the cross. All right. So, let's go back over to Matthew 24. There's a lot of verses there. And again, we're we're dealing with these three questions that the disciples ask. When will these things happen? Remember, because Jesus said that the temple's going to be destroyed. So, they ask, "When will these things happen?" What is the sign of your coming. What is the sign of the end of the age? So, if you're Jewish, you got your Jewish hat on, you know, got your Yamakan, you you're um you would be anticipating the coming of the Messiah. Now, the coming of the Messiah doesn't mean like he comes in at the airport. There's we could say that even within the first coming of Jesus that he came at his baptism. We could say that he came at his birth. We could say that he he came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. All of those were like like the coming of the Messiah within the first coming of the Messiah. Does that make sense? Right. So, when we talk about the second coming of Christ, again, if you have this Jewish hope of a Messiah, there's a sense of there is the coming and the disciples are referring to that because if you

Sorry, hold on just a second. If you um are Jewish, you've been you've been eating and you've been you've been fed on the scriptures that there is this ultimate hope for humanity. You've read through Daniel and you're hoping that the Messiah will come in your lifetime because it promises just this perfect reign of God from Jerusalem. That's beautiful. What was your question?

Yeah, that's right. I was listening to a podcast about that as I was driving to church today from the Bible project. It was awesome. Um, so every generation, can I just get give you just like the little because it's a little bit off topic, but I'll just the nugget I had in that. Um, hold on just a second, Rene.

The little nugget that I heard when I was listening to the podcast today was that every generation of Christians has looked at the world events and has thought This is it. This is the end time. Living in the end times. And there is this aspect of apocalyptic literature where it it you remember like the old um when you were in high school and your teacher would put up um the use the projector to put up slides and they were the thin clear slides that you could write on. Remember that? Right. And and you could literally sometimes there was the one where you'd have a map and then you could have another layer that would go on top of that. and and you would have like one thing would map on top of another thing and then you could add another layer like a topographical map. You can even do that nowadays I think with Google maps where you add granular details right the way apocalyptic literature is written is in a way where history repeats itself and so there is the ability to read through the book of revelation there's the ability to read through a um Matthew 24 and 25 and the book of Daniel and be like man I can see those kind of things right I can see those things I can see wars and rumors of wars and plagues and disasters, um, famine, pestilence, right? There was a bunch of people during CO who were like, "This is the sign of the end." But you just need to know that for the last 2,000 years, every generation of Christians has been saying that because history repeats itself. And what we're going to see as we go further along is Jesus actually wants us to live as a people, anticipating his near return. He wants us to live as if he could come back. today. He doesn't want us to be these lazy um servants that get live a loose life and get off, you know, kind of lose focus and and get distracted by life and and sit back and think, oh, you know, Jesus isn't coming back. He wants us to live as if, hey, that's happening right now. So, you're looking at Israel, we're looking at Israel things and it's like, well, maybe that's maybe this is it. Maybe that's it.

He is. I know. I wish I could do like so much on this topic. We would have so much fun. Felicia, I only have time for three verses and I'm going to show them to you. First of all, let's talk about the abomination of desolation and great distress. Both of those are in your text, right? So, um and then we're going to look at um we actually that we only may get through um just looking at the abomination of desolation in verse 15 and and we'll look at verse 21 and then I'm probably going to point your attention to verse 27. Okay, I'll try to put those on the screen. Verse um 15 says, "So when you see, this is Jesus speaking. So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place, let the reader understand." So he makes this obscure reference like unless you grew up reading the book of Daniel, a lot. This is like, well, what is what's he talking about? So, remember disciples asked Jesus, what's the sign of your coming? So, we've already covered, you can go back and listen to last week's sermon or go read, you know, verses 3 through 14, and you can see the first part of Jesus's teaching. Some of it we talked about has a near um focus on it that would be fulfilled in 70 AD. But then some of the stuff that Jesus is talking about doesn't seem to have yet been fulfilled. So there's the near and there's the far focus of prophecy. But here in verse 15, we're just picking up right in the middle of the Olivet discourse. He says, "So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place, let the reader understand." So let's try to understand what is he talking about because he's going to go on beyond um verse 15 and he's going to give some more instructions. But I just the the instructions that he's going to give is is all about like, you know, pray that you're not caught out in the field. Pray that you're not pregnant or nursing a child. Like, so he's going to he's going to say this thing, this abomination of desolation, you don't want to be in this state. Like if you're up on the rooftop, like don't go and pack up. Like this when this happens, the abomination of desolation happens, it's time to go. So what Is this what is the abomination of desolation? The abomination of desolation, it's a reference point in time that goes back to that question when the disciples asked, "What is the sign of your coming?" Here is a um a definition. An abomination in the Bible refers to something that causes disgust or hatred in God's sight, particularly acts of ide idolatry or corrupted worship that defile what is holy. So that's what an abomination is, right? In the Bible, a desolation is signifies utter devastation and destruction, often as a result of divine judgment and God's abandonment. Together, the phrase describes a specific defiling act that leads to the destruction of what is sacred. And so when Jesus brings this up in Matthew 24, he says to you, it's the abomination of desolation that Daniel spoke of. Well, we have the book of Daniel. Let me uh put it up in front of you. This is Daniel 9:24- 26. And this is Michael the Archangel speaking to Daniel, helping him understand uh this this apocalyptic idea. this end times vision. He says, "Seven weeks are decreed about your people, the Jewish people, and your holy city." What's the holy city? That's Jerusalem. To bring the rebellion to an end. Okay, interesting. There we have the rebellion. So, there's some kind of rebellion that is being brought to an end within 70 weeks to put a stop to sin. Wow. We know sin is a huge issue in the Bible, right? And the ram ifications of sin to atone for iniquity. Right? So this idea of atonement is all throughout the Bible. Um but we we talk about how Jesus atones for our sin. So we're familiar with that theological language to bring in everlasting righteousness. Wow. That's that's a significant moment that's being spoken of that there's going to be everlasting righteousness and to seal up vision and prophecy. In other words, to conclude it to fulfill the vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. Okay? So, it's not explicitly clear what exactly he's talking about, but I want you to just notice that he's giving a time frame of 70 weeks. Know and understand this. From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an anointed one, the ruler will be 7 weeks and 72 weeks. If you take and add 7 plus 72 or 62, what do you get? You get 69. Good. You did well in math. I can tell. So, you have if you have 69 weeks, right? So, a week is a seven for us. It's a 7 day period. Here in prophetic language, apocalyptic language, it is a 7year period. Now, why? Don't ask me that one, okay? I don't know. Why? I did look that one up. So, a week here is a reference to a 7-year period. It will be So, he says it's in that time it will be rebuilt with a plaza and a moat, but in difficult times. We'll come back to this verse in just a second. After those 62 weeks, the anointed one will be cut off and we'll have So, when we read anointed one, that's the word Messiah. So, the Messiah will be cut off. and will have nothing. The people of the coming ruler will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come with a flood and until the end there will be war. Desolations uh are desolations are decreed. So you kind of get you ever look through um like binoculars and they're really fuzzy. That's what reading this is like. You're like, "Okay, I kind of I hear some references to time. I hear about the anointed one being cut off, but like what does that mean? Does that mean like he got cut off his food stamps or did he get killed or like what happened to him? Right? So, he gets he's cut off um the people of the coming ruler like what's going on there? That's this is the nature of apocalyptic literature. You got to take this then you got to go and read keep reading. You read the book of Revelation. You read Matthew 24 and 25. You read 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. All of these things you got to piece it together in order to try to make a little bit of sense. And even with piecing it together, you still get Christians who have convictions about, well, it might look like this or it might look like this, and here's what 70 weeks and 69 weeks are. So Jesus refers to the um abomination of desolation. Just so you know, verse 27, which I will I think I have in my notes, I'll read to you in a second, is the next ver the Verse 27 is the verse that speaks of the abomination of desolation. So I want you to see 70 weeks being talked about. Here we have desolations are decreed. Um that there is a destruction of the sanctuary. I mean we've talked about that, right? Jesus just said, "Hey, this temple that you're seeing, no rocks going to no stone's going to be left on another stone." So Jesus is orbiting this material here as he's answering the question. that the disciples posed to him. Let me see if I have so 69 weeks math. Here's the how that works. If you look at um I guess I don't have the slide. There was a um retired uh I think he was a detective in England who put together the math of when was when was the decree to rebuild When when was this from the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem? Well, we know that that if we look at the book of Nehemiah, Israel is um exiled. They got in trouble with God for 70 years. They're exiled in um Babylon and um the ruler there issues in a a decree for Jerusalem to be rebuilt. If we turn to the book of Nehemiah, we see that whole historical account. Daniel is giving this prophetic word that it is from this declaration the when you count from basically when that decree w happened and you go forward 69 weeks, you end up with which would be um 483 years. You would end up and in the years are measured in 360 days, not 3605 days, you would end up with Palm Sunday. So again, maybe this is kind of you've checked out, but give you a quick quick summary. Okay, the um Daniel gives a prophecy. He says it's going to be 69 weeks. That would come out to 483 years. If you go and break that down into days, you get to B basically Palm Sunday to the day. So this prophet 500 years before the time of Christ predicts the anointed one, the Messiah's day of coming into Jerusalem. But what happens to if it was 70 weeks? Remember 70 weeks are decreed about your people in the holy city. Where's the missing week? Because we see 69 weeks fulfilled. to the day with Jesus. But there's one more 7-year period that's missing. You got to go and read other parts of the Bible. That's that's where we get this idea of a 7-year tribulation. We get the idea in of a midway point of three and a half years through that period of time. That's let's uh if you want to read it later on this afternoon, go to Revelation chapter 13, 14, and 15, and you can see it. But I'm going to to just warn you, it's obscure. The language is apocalyptic. It's like looking through a like a fuzzy glass. You just got to you got to work your way through it. Um, so we have 483 years, which would be 173,880 days. Wow. That's a 360day prophetic year. All leads up to Palm Sunday. So, here we are. the week like we're in the week in our reading. We're we're just a few days. We're probably on Tuesday. So, we're three days past Palm Sunday when Jesus is saying all this. Daniel's just been fulfilled, right? And um so we have verse 27. He will make a covenant. We're referring back up to that ruler that was talked about in the previous verse. That ruler will make a covenant with many for one week. Oh, there's our one missing week, right? But in the middle of the week, three and a half years in, he will put a stop to sacrifice and offering. Remember, he's talking to Jews. So, we're talking to Jews who are familiar with temple worship. This ruler is going to put a end to it. And the abomination of desolation will be on a wing of the temple until the decree destruction is poured out on the desillator. All right. So Jesus tells his disciples, you want to know when you want a window, let me pull back the curtain a little bit into the signs of the end, right? People are all into what are the signs. He's like, "Okay, I'll give you a sign. It's the abomination of desolation. It's in the middle of this seven year, the m the 70th year, in the middle of that period, three and a half years in, this ruler We call him the Antichrist. Once we get into the book of Revelation, the Antichrist is going to make a covenant with God's people, but then halfway through, he's going to get rid of temple worship and he's going to establish something that profaines the temple. Crazy. Jerry, I think Jerry fell asleep and he's okay, but help him back up. I think he's okay.

You good, Jerry?

Okay. I know the the weeks going through all of those weeks is like a little bit rough.

I don't blame you at all.

You okay? We love you, Jerry. We're glad you're here, man.

So, abomination of desolation in the temple. Jesus is like, "You want a sign?" That's your sign to look at. It's going to happen. Now, in um further on in Daniel, again, it's referred to, we don't have time to look at it right now, but Daniel 11:31 again talks to that exact same became abomination of desolation. Again, in chapter 12 11, from the time of the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 100 1,290 days. Okay, a lot's going on there. I I recognize that this is a little bit into like the um the technicalities of scripture, but you all ask for a sign, right? The disciples ask for a sign I get I get from people. I was talking to people in the food line on Tuesday and they're like, "Well, what are the signs?" You know, and I was like, "Well, you should come to church because we're talking about it." If we go further in verse 21, because Jesus covers, he gives some instructions about what to do during that sign. Now, I I personally don't think that this that the abomination of desolation has happened yet. There's some uh there are many scholars that think that the abomination of desolation happened in 70 AD when the temple was destroyed. And the reason for that is because there's no temple anymore to have an abomination of desolation. So if you hold my view, you have to believe that a temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem in order for there to be an abomination of desolation. Does that make sense? So many people would say it happened in ver in it happened in 70 AD. But look at verse 21. This is this is why I have a hard time believing it happened in 70 AD. For at that time there will be great distress. Well, 70 AD was distressing. The whole city was sacked, set on fire, turned upside down. It was distressing. But he goes on, he says, "It's the kind that hasn't taken place from the beginning of the world until now and never will again. So, we've seen a lot of hard things. There have been a lot of hard moments like Felicia was saying like this could be it. You know, the s we could have the signs now. We don't know. But um this distress that Jesus is referring to is unparalleled. There will have been no other time. And so when I look at um verse 15 and the abomination of desolation in my kind of timeline that I hold to humbly and am very flexible on. I think that we haven't yet seen the rebuilt temple and the abomination of desolation with the antichrist. Last little thing here, verse 23 through 28, 23- 26 provides us with this description of false prophets about the Messiah's return and location. And remember in you we read it together Jesus said you're going to hear about Messiah here, Messiah there. Don't go don't go out. It describes false prophets and Messiahs arising and performing signs and wonders. Jesus makes it very clear in verse 27 what his return will be like. So if you have any question about the sign of his coming here in verse 27, he says, "For as lightning comes, from the east and flashes as far as the west. Right? Imagine a lightning storm and how it flashes. So will be the coming of the son of man. It's going to be visible. It's not going to be a hidden dark room. So don't be deceived. Don't let somebody come up to you and say, "Hey, I know the Messiah. He's actually really hiding out at that 7-Eleven over there in the back room." If somebody tells you that, that's not true.

Don't be deceived. The tribul ation that we've looked at here. It isn't random suffering. It is the final phase of the war that began before creation. Remember we talked about the cosmic battle. Satan knows his time is short. You look at that in Revelation 12:12. So, Satan unleashes his full fury through the Antichrist system, Book of Revelation. attempting. He's attempting to prevent the completion of God's plan to fill the earth with his imagebearers. The cosmic battle framing elevates, let me see, the cosmic battle framing elevates the role of believers during this tribulation period. Those who refuse the mark of the beast, who maintain their testimony for Jesus, and who endure to the end are not passive victims. They're active soldiers in this climactic battle. A crucial component of this cosmic battle framework is that the outcome has already been determined. Christ's death and resurrection accomplishes the decisive victory over Satan. The tribulation and Christ's return represents the execution of the sentence that is already passed. I think that's the extent of my notes, but I have a little bit more I want to share with you from Matthew 24, which we've looked at starting in verse 30 through31. This is a teaser for next week. It describes Christ's coming in glory to gather his elect. This is the commander returning to claim his victorious army. and to establish his kingdom fully. The cosmic war that began before Genesis 1:1 concludes with Satan cast into the lake of fire and God's original purpose filling the earth with his imagebearers living in peace fully realizing realized in a new creation. So we started with a cosmic battle. God's put you and I dropped us into that cosmic battle and our warfare is doing good as citizens of his kingdom. We're in a part of Matthew where Jesus is helping the the tone the season of ministry for Jesus has changed where we're at. The intensity is ratcheted up because Jesus is talking about the coming days and he said there's going to be persecution. There's going to be hardship. You're going to be hated for be because of my name. There's going to be deception. There's going to be things that are scary. All of that is taking place. But what I'm asking of you is to be a people on mission. This is where we closed last week. We'll close here again. The gospel of the kingdom, the good news about Jesus's kingdom goes out to the whole world, whole earth. That is taking place in the context of Satan's realm. We are declaring the good news of the kingdom in the face of Satan's kingdom existing. And the The things described here, the abomination of desolation, the tribulation period, all of that is this moment, this climactic moment of the war where the things that are now hidden war where you've you're you have the attack of Satan against you in a hidden way, more subtle way in the tribulation, it just becomes fullon real. It just it is just a brutal seven-year battle between God and the forces of evil. And the end result, the end result that you're invited into is that Jesus is going to win and he's going to reign from Jerusalem. So, we're going to do a baptism. The the baptism, those of you that are going to get baptized, if you want to go get changed, you can go get changed now. Use the use the restrooms. Um, when we do a baptism, what we are celebrating is and signify ing is this person that's getting baptized has made a personal decision, their own decision that they own to um signify, hey, I am a follower of Jesus. I've made that personal decision and we all get to participate in it. We get to watch it. The act of ba baptism, it signifies the death and the resurrection. In a minute, I'm going to take people and I'm going to dunk them on under the water and then I'm going to pull him back up out of the water. Going under the water is the image of being buried with Christ. You see, when we give our life to Christ, we're stepping into all that he has already done, which is that he's already gone to the cross, he's died, was buried, and then he rose on the third day. Our baptism act is like a reenactment of the death and the resurrection. I used to live in New Jersey where they would um do these um Revolutionary War reenactments and these guys would get all dressed up. You'd have the red coats and you'd have like the rebels, the patriots that would like fight against and they would fire their musketss at one another. It was a reenactment. A baptism is a reenactment of what Jesus did. And so, um in a minute, we're going to head out to the baptism tank that's in the parking lot over here. And what I'm gonna the way that I want you all to participate is we're gonna we're going to worship. Um Ezekiel is going to lead us in a couple of songs while we're doing it out there. But I'm going to be taking these individuals that are coming forward to be baptized. I'm going to pray with them. I'm going to talk to them. And as they come up out of the water, I want you to cheer them on. We're going to celebrate their baptism. And um after we're done with all the baptisms, we will um celebrate communion together. That's that is um the plan. Okay. And so far the rain is held off. So I don't think we're going to get as wet as I I thought we were going to get wet last night. As these guys get just to give these guys just a second longer to to get ready. Some of you are on a spiritual journey. Some of you are um you haven't been to church in years. Maybe you haven't been to that church ever. And you're just like, I don't know. I just ended up here. I don't know what's going on. Just very simply, as you're watching people who are getting baptized, they're just a couple of months ahead of you. They've been coming to church, they've been listening to me preach, they've been hearing about um Jesus and and his teaching and the life that he lived and and the kingdom that he proclaimed. But the most important thing that Jesus did, his hour, was when he went to the cross. He was willing to go to the cross as a sacrifice uh to be punished for your sin and my sin. The Bible says that all of us have sinned, right? We've all lied. We've all been angry in our hearts at some point. We've hurt other people. And it doesn't work to just be able to say, "Well, I'm not as bad as the next guy." The measurement that God measures you off of is his own holiness. Are you as holy as God? Are you perfect? No. If you're not perfect, then the Bible says that the judgment of God against you and against me, what we deserve is death. It says the wages of sin is death. What you and I earn with our rebellion against God is death. But God created you because he loves you. He doesn't want you to die eternally and be separated from. He He created humans not to nuke them, but to be friends with them. And Yet you and I have this problem, sin that stands in the way of our friendship with God. And a death needed to occur. Somebody had to die to take away the guilt, the penalty that stands in the way between us and a friendship with God, being reconciled to him. And so God sent his son, who is the only human perfect, who could stand in that place and say, "I I am I'm going to stand in and be the substitute payment, the sacrifice for your sin. Our death is deserved. The death of Jesus was not deserved. But it says that the father laid upon him the sins of the world. So he went to the cross on your behalf. But the resurrection of Jesus is a demonstration that God the father received the sacrifice of the son on the cross because Jesus rose in victory. When we die, we stay dead. But Jesus didn't stay dead because the father vindicated. He accepted that penalty of the cross and he raised Jesus up to new life in victory. And so if you're like new, you're like, "What's this whole Christian thing? What's this whole thing going on in the Bible, you just need to know that God loves you. He created you to be his friend. And he has stepped in to take care of your rebellion, to take your rebellion, the the punishment, the penalty of your rebellion away through the cross. And then he's been raised to new life, and he's inviting you into that new life with him. That's the invitation. You can take it or leave it, but at the end of the day, Jesus is going to win. And You can either be on that winning side with him or you can um live out your life in rebellion and then God will honor your decision and let you live an eternal life separated from his presence. We call that hell.