804. The Signs of the Times

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.

The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. His intent was to make a school where Christ would be the center of everything so he established daily chapel services. Today, that tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from the University Chapel platform. Today on The Daily Platform, we're continuing a study series entitled, Return of the King, which is a study of the second coming of Christ. Today's message will be preached by Dr. Nathan Crockett, Director of Ministry Training at Bob Jones University. The title of his sermon is The Sign of the Times from Matthew 24.

Let's turn to Matthew 24. Matthew 24, in the series, Return of the King, I've been asked to speak on the signs of the times and some people have jokingly asked if I'm going to tell when the Lord's going to return or something like that, but obviously Mark 13, 32 says, of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither is the son of man, but the father. And yet through the history of the church, hundreds of people have actually made false predictions saying they know the time of Christ's return.

There's a website that tracks these. It's tracked over 260 of them, many of them by the Jehovah's Witnesses. I'll actually show you some pictures on the screen of various booklets and pamphlets and billboards and signs through the years of people saying they knew when Christ would return. A couple of the more famous of these predictions in recent history were 88 reasons why the rapture will be in 1988.

This booklet actually sold four and a half million copies and more than 300,000 copies were distributed to churches across the nation. I remember as an eight-year-old boy, my dad getting a copy of that and preaching a message that Christ would not return on those three days since no one knows the day or the hour of his return. The author of that book, who had actually worked for NASA at one point, made bold predictions, only if the Bible is in error am I wrong and I say that to every preacher in town. He actually said he would be willing to risk his life on that prediction. When it didn't come true the next year, as Dr. Horn mentioned in his sermon, this author came out with 89 reasons why the rapture will be in 1989.

That book was not nearly as well received as he had already proved himself to be fraudulent. He continued to make predictions up through 1997. And one in more recent memory that probably many of you remember was Harold Camping, the famous doomsday preacher who had for years run a radio ministry out of California, Family Radio, and as an 89-year-old man started making predictions. He made earlier predictions of Christ's return, but this time he raised millions of dollars, rented more than 3,000 billboards all around the world, and made a really big deal about the supposed date of Christ's return, May 21st, 2011. He actually got buses and RVs and they wrapped them and he had several dozen people that quit their jobs and went around the country predicting the time of the Lord's return.

There was a countdown on their website and people took screenshots of it when it got to the final day. Other people, and you can see all kinds of memes on the internet of various things because he had made multiple predictions of Christ's return, with the phrase, the Bible guarantees it. And obviously the Bible did not guarantee it. There were tragic results from this. Not only did people give away their homes and possessions and so on as they waited for Christ's return, but with three days left to go, a mother in Palmdale, California stabbed her daughters 11 and 14 years old, cut her own throat with a box cutter telling people she didn't want her family to go through this crisis.

A man in Taiwan, fearing the earthquake and judgment to come, jumped from a multi-story building and killed himself. Nine months after this did not materialize, of course again he tried to say well maybe it's going to be in October and so on, but finally he and his group issued an apology and camping actually said, we now realize that those people who were calling our attention to the Bible's statement that of that day an hour knoweth no man, they were right in their understanding of those verses and family radio was wrong. One Christian magazine conducted a poll asking do you forgive Harold camping and 31% of people said yes we all make mistakes, 25% said no I don't consider his apology genuine and 44% said I might forgive him if he would give back the money.

Hundreds of millions of dollars through the years by the account of some of the people that worked with him, the tax collection thing I think shows somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 million dollars that people gave that was wasted and in many ways gave Christianity a black eye. There have been scoffers since the times of Christ in 2 Peter 3 we read knowing this first that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lust and saying where is the promise of his coming for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation and people like camping and others who've made false predictions have given ammunition to the scoffers. So today we're going to talk about the biblical viewpoint of signs of the times, no radical predictions, no doom and gloom. If you have young children you know that sometimes they use doom and gloom to try to get a point across. My two youngest sons I have five kids three boys and two daughters you can see Shepherd there's in the back but Christian who's four and Avi who's two there's a recent picture of them they were in the bathroom a couple weeks ago we're trying to teach Avi how to use the bathroom so we don't have to pay for diapers anymore and Christian was kind of helping him out and I overheard the two of them in there talking and I heard Christian say Avi don't eat that. Well that kind of perked my attention I'm next door in the bedroom you know and and he said you can't eat that candy cane with the wrapper on it and they'd found a leftover candy cane from Christmas time and Avi was trying to eat it without unwrapping it and Christian said if you eat a candy cane wrapper you could die and and dad will have to take you to the hospital and to try to keep you from dying there have to cut open your tummy to get the candy cane wrapper out and then he starts describing it in more detail and I don't know how he had this detail but he said they're going to use either a knife a really sharp knife Avi not like a little butter knife they're gonna use a really sharp knife or they might use scissors some doctors use scissors to cut your tummy open and Avi's just there like okay what huh you know the two year old trying to figure all this out and Christian goes on he says Avi I don't want you to die you don't even know Jesus yet so you're not going to go to heaven when you die and then his mind goes back to the scissors versus the knife he's like I really I don't know if they'll use this sharp knife or the scissors Avi which do you want them to use when they cut your tummy open and pretty soon I hear this little voice daddy open my candy cane okay the purpose of scripture in the signs of the times is not to scare us into something or some doomsday prediction I think as in so many theological issues we see this pendulum swing that if you had talked to people in your grandparents generation they were almost I think obsessed with prophecy there were prophecy conferences all over the place there were prophecy experts people were drawing diagrams in their Bible is like people were memorizing the book of Revelation before they'd memorize the book of Romans prophecy prophecy prophecy and if they had an obsession with prophecy perhaps the generation your generation has just basically ignored it you don't you don't really know if your pre-trip mid-trip post-trip pre-mil post-mil amel you're kind of like I'm I don't care mill you know that that's the the attitude towards many students that I talked to about this and I think we need to be careful that we don't ignore prophecy and yet we realize that particularly in the nuances of prophecy we're not overly dogmatic as one theologian says where the Bible shouts we should shout more the Bible whispers we should whisper and when we get to the fine nuances of prophecy oftentimes the Bible is not shouting there is this divine tension that there are many passages that tell us very clearly we cannot know the time of Christ's return and yet there are many other passages that tell us that we are expected to be ready for his return we should be waiting for his return we should be anticipating it John MacArthur points out that of the hundreds of Old Testament messianic prophecies and there are hundreds approximately one-third of them deal with Christ's first coming and about two-thirds deal with his second coming and the important point there is all those prophecies that deal with Christ's first coming are fulfilled literally and so our expectation should be that those prophecies dealing with the second coming would also be fulfilled literally I've had you turn to Matthew 24 the Olivet Discourse and let me set the context for you of this sermon verse 1 in Matthew 24 and Jesus went out and departed from the temple and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple and Jesus said unto them see ye not all these things verily I say unto you there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down and as he sat upon the Mount of Olives the disciples came to him privately saying tell us when shall these things be and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world they ask when's it going to happen and what are going to be the signs and Jesus responds and forsake of time this morning rather than reading the text I've bulleted points verse 5 false messiahs there's going to be wars and rumors of wars and fighting verse 6 there's going to be famines and earthquakes and natural disasters verse 7 there will be martyrdom of Christ's people verse 9 and verse 11 we see false teachers and false prophets we see defection of false believers people who said that they were really Christ's children but they fall away all these different issues and problems when you get to verse 14 the worldwide spread of the gospel that there's a really good thing that's going to happen and particularly as we got to the year 2000 many different groups were predicting if we can evangelize the world Jesus will come back in the year 2000 and that's based on this verse verse 24 false prophets working signs and wonders probably demonically or satanically inspired miracles verse 29 earth-shattering events earth-shattering events listen to verse 29 immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the Sun be darkened the moon shall not give her light the stars shall fall from heaven the powers of the heavens shall be shaken and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn one of the key things we need to realize when the key New Testament teachings about Christ's return is what we sometimes call the doctrine of eminence that Jesus could come at any moment this is throughout many of the prophetic passages Jesus could come back before this service is over or Jesus may not come back for another 2,000 years we don't know but we're said to be ready we're told to be ready and three quick applications of that the Bible itself gives us very specific concrete applications of eminence the first is patient faithfulness the second prayerful anticipation and the third holy conduct let me show you this quickly patient faithfulness James 5 8 be also patient establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord drawleth nigh Hebrews 10 24 and 25 talks about exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching prayerful anticipation first Peter 4 7 says the end of all things is at hand be therefore sober and watch unto prayer have you ever prayed about the Lord's return holy conduct 2nd Peter 3 10 and 11 the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the element shall melt with fervent heat the earth also and all the works that are there and shall be burned up seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness and that King James word conversation means conduct holy conduct how many of you you have ever before been a babysitter maybe for your siblings and we I don't know why we use that term because it's usually not a baby that you're watching and you hopefully don't sit on them but I guess child watcher sounds kind of weird but maybe you've been a nanny you know you've been a nanny before and the fact that that people presumably are paying you for this maybe not if it was your parents asked you to watch your siblings but you're getting paid to watch other people's kids motivates you and the fact that they're coming back to control the way those kids act you probably don't let them have a spaghetti food fight in the living room with white carpet or let them swing from the chandeliers why because their parents are coming back and Jesus says the fact that he's coming back should motivate us to holy conduct you think about that particular besetting sin of yours that you may be continually struggle with you fall flat on your face you feel so ashamed when you do it you would be horrified if the person sitting next to you right now found out about it what if you're doing that when Jesus comes right the fact that Christ is coming back should motivate us to prayerful anticipation of faithful steadfastness and also a holy conduct listen to 1st John 3 2 & 3 beloved now are we the sons of God and it does not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is and every man that hath this hope in him purifyth himself even as he is pure now the teaching of Scripture about the signs of the times is that it gets worse before it gets better and I want to focus now on the fact that it does get better in verse 8 of Matthew 24 it compares it to birth pains King James says beginning of sorrow most translations say the beginning of birth pains and anyone who's been particularly those women in the congregation who've had a child they know that when when you're expecting it gets worse before it gets better but when your child is born it's totally worth it more than 200 years ago a philosopher noted that often the night seems darkest just before the dawn and in recent superhero movies they've really taken off on this almost any superhero movie you can think of things are at the absolute worst the villains are in total control and then enters the superhero and there is this theme that runs through scripture that it often gets darkest just before the dawn if you think about the the biblical worldview the meta-narrative the overarching big story of God's plan we oftentimes talk about creation fall redemption and I wish I had more time to just walk us through what God says about that in his word creation fall redemption but I really think I agree with many of the theologians that say we really need to add a fourth thing to that that the Bible is about creation fall redemption and recreation that the Bible begins and ends in a perfect garden that God's gonna make all things new listen to the first five verses of Revelation 21 I love this and I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea and I saw and I John saw the holy city new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband and I heard a great voice out of heaven saying behold the tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be as people and God himself shall be with them and be their God and guide God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away and he that sat upon the throne said behold I make all things new and he said unto me right for these words are true and faithful our God makes all things new you realize the Bible says a lot about the beauty and the wonder of God's creation in Psalm 19 we read that the heavens declare and the sky proclaims and the days speak and the nights reveal in 1st Chronicles 16 the heavens are glad and the earth rejoices and the seas roar and the fields exalt and the trees sing for joy in the Amaya 9 6 the hosts of heaven worship God in Psalm 93 the floods lift their voice in Psalm 96 the heavens rejoice and the earth is glad and the sea roars and the fields are joyful and all the trees of the forest rejoice in Psalm 98 the rivers clap and the mountains sing and Isaiah 55 the mountains and the hills burst forth into song and the trees clap their hands and in Luke 19 40 at the triumphal entry Jesus says if these people didn't praise me the very stones would cry out creation has been called God's first missionary when God chose to reveal something to us about his nature his design his love his power his attention to detail he took this galaxy and this blue planet and he fashioned a masterpiece God writes in capital letters through his creation but listen to what Paul says in Romans 8 18 through 23 as I wrap this up he writes this for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us for the earnest expectation of the creature in Greek that's the creation waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God for the creation was made subject to vanity not willingly but by reason of him who subjected the same and hope because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God for we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain until now and he talks about the fact that God will redeem all of creation and you stop and think about that the hills are alive with the sound of music but they're singing in a minor key when you think of the beautiful creation that we see around us and I know many of you like me you love hiking you love all the different things you've seen in creation I think of a time that I stood on the Maid of the Mist boat and I was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of Niagara Falls you look up 167 feet and you watch the Horseshoe Falls 2200 feet wide pour 150,000 gallons of water a second and the roar of the water is so loud you can hardly hear yourself think I remember flying past Mount Rainier in route to Seattle and having my breath taken away as I saw that mountain peeking up through the clouds I think about the middle Saluda River that meanders through Jones Gap State Park where I love to take my kids hiking I think about a life-changing 10-day rafting trip on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon and you think about series like Blue Planet or Planet Earth that just show all these incredible scenes of God's creation when you think about sunsets and waterfalls and nature trails and starry nights and majestic oceans do you realize that the exquisite beauty that we see all around us is just a shadow of what's coming revelation 21 describes the new heaven and the new earth and the fact that our God loves us so much he makes all things new if you think about it and you look around you at the gorgeous beautiful creation God has made and you think if this is what creation looks like when it's groaning what will it be like when it shouts let me close with this a couple months ago I was at the funeral of my 95 year old grandfather he was the last of my grandparents to enter glory and I was reminded of about five years ago when I preached my father's funeral the Lord took my dad as a 59 year old pastor it was the hardest sermon I've ever preached shortly after my dad's funeral I was rocking to bed to sleep my three year old son Shepherd he was three at the time and we were singing songs together and one of our favorite songs to sing was give me Jesus and we sang that last verse and when I come to die and when I come to die give me Jesus you can have all this world but give me Jesus and my three year old son looked up at me and he said daddy is granddaddy really dead and I said yes Shepherd he is he's in heaven if someday you come to know Christ you'll see him again my dad would read pop up books to my son Shepherd and he loved it my son loved that Shepherd looked at me he said daddy mommy told me that everybody dies is that true and I said yes unless the Lord comes back everybody dies he said daddy does that mean you're gonna die one day and I said yes Shepherd unless Christ comes back to get me one day your dad is gonna die he said who's gonna take me swimming and go wrestling with me I said well someone else will have to do that daddy is mommy gonna die yes Shepherd unless Lord comes back mommy's gonna die who's gonna make Shepherd cookies I was thinking through all this stuff he kind of pauses and he looks up at me he says daddy is Shepherd gonna die and I said yes Shepherd as your dad I hope I never see that day but unless Christ comes back everybody dies even Shepherd dies well dad who's gonna eat all the candy and there's another pause and I don't know if it was kind of a stroke of God-given brilliance or if he didn't even know what he was saying but my three-year-old son looked up at me and he said but daddy not everybody dies God can't die because then who would save us and it hit me like maybe it never had quite that specifically before that the God who created us became the lamb who would die for us who would conquer death so that someday he could save us and in this series we are talking about the return of the king and we're talking about a God who's so great that he doesn't leave us in our misery but he does the thing that only God could do he comes back to save us let's pray father your glory fills the earth you are incomparable in all your ways there is none like you and when we read the prophetic portions of Scripture if we take the Bible literally there's a part of our heart that is prone to fear as we think about anguish and struggle and battle and destruction but we realize that the overarching message even of a book like Revelation is that Christ wins that your son is victorious that you are sovereign that you've never made a mistake that you have everything under your control and that you're coming back for us someday and father we praise you for that we look we pray that we would live in light of this that we would love you and love others as the great command tells us we pray these things in Christ's name amen you've been listening to a sermon preached by dr. Nathan Crockett director of ministry training at Bob Jones University if you appreciate this program and benefit from the faithful preaching and teaching of God's Word would you consider sending us a special financial gift you can easily do that through the website The Daily Platform calm I'm Steve Pettit president of Bob Jones University thank you for listening to The Daily Platform the Bob Jones University School for continuing online and professional education offers convenient and affordable online programs whether you're seeking to expand your skills pursue a passion or develop a ministry on your own time qualified and engaged instructors will help you reach your goals for more information visit scope dot bju.edu or call 888-253-9833 this sermon was part of the study series about the second coming of Christ join us again tomorrow as we continue this series here on The Daily Platform