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[00:00:00] Shall we read together this evening in the first letter of the apostle Paul to the Thessalonians in chapter four, commencing at verse 13?
[00:00:19] The fourth chapter of the first thessalonian letter, commencing at verse 13.
[00:00:35] But we would not have you, ignorant brethren, concerning them that fall asleep, that ye sorrow not even as the rest, who have no hope.
[00:00:47] For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that have fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
[00:00:58] For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that have fallen asleep.
[00:01:14] For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
[00:01:31] Then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord.
[00:01:46] Wherefore comfort one another with these words, but concerning the times and the seasons. Brethren, ye have no need that ought be written unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night, when they are saying peace and safety. Then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall in no wise escape.
[00:02:25] But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
[00:02:34] For ye are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night, nor of darkness.
[00:02:44] So then let us not sleep, as do the rest, but let us watch and be sober, for they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that are drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, since we are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.
[00:03:16] For God appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him, wherefore exhaust one another and build each other up, even as all selves do.
[00:03:44] But we beseech you, brethren, to know them that labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them exceeding highly in love for their works sake.
[00:03:57] Be at peace among yourselves.
[00:04:01] And we exhort you, brethren, admonish the disorderly, encourage the faint hearted, support the weak, be long suffering toward all. See that none render unto anyone evil for evil, but always follow after that which is good, one toward another, and toward all.
[00:04:28] Rejoice, always.
[00:04:31] Pray without ceasing in everything.
[00:04:35] Give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus to you.
[00:04:42] Quench not the spirit, despise not prophesyings.
[00:04:49] Prove all things.
[00:04:52] Hold fast that which is good.
[00:04:56] Abstain from every form of evil, and the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:05:21] Faithful is he that calleth you, who will also do it.
[00:05:34] Now, this evening I'm going to share with you a few thoughts about the coming of the Lord Jesus.
[00:05:45] I was very struck in Daniel, chapter seven by the little word I quoted on Tuesday.
[00:05:55] Here is the end of the matter.
[00:06:00] Remember after those great visions and the interpretation of them concerning the future of God's people under the old covenant and the new right up to the end, it ends with this little word. Here is the end of the matter, or whatever it is, the end of God's purposes concerning his chosen people, the end of God's purpose concerning a bride for himself, the end of Satan's working and activity, the end of the Antichrist and all his worldwide power at the last day, the end of the matter, the coming of the Lord.
[00:07:00] So this evening I just want to speak a little about the situation at the end. What are the features which the word of God speaks of as being signs of the end time?
[00:07:17] Of course, God's people have always thought they were living in the last days. That has been again in the times of the reformation. They firmly believed that they were living in the last days that the Quakers thought they were at the last days. And there has always been a sort of small and few signs that have encouraged the hope. Even the apostle Paul, when he wrote his earlier letters, thought that the coming of the Lord was sooner. But at the end of his life, he said, it's not quite as soon as I had thought farther off. There are a number of things the Lord has shown me that have got to come to pass before the Lord can come again.
[00:08:07] There are, however, in our day, signs which are concrete, which have never, ever before been fulfilled. And we therefore can say, I think, without emotion and without being unbalanced, that if ever there were people living in the end time, it certainly could be now.
[00:08:36] Now we cannot spend this evening talking about all the signs that there are. I am, in fact, not going to talk about the signs. I'm just going to talk about features of the end for particular features, things that are going to characterize according to God's word, the last period of human history as we know it now. Of course, you all know that this book has for thousands of years, both before the Messiah came and after his appearing has told us of what will characterize those end times. We know that one of the things we're told that will characterize the end is the spread of knowledge, literacy. Another thing is travel, world travel. These are little things, in a sense. Wars and rumors of wars, economic difficulties that will be worldwide, giving rise to famine and pestilences, disease and so on. These things we know are in this book, but they are not the things I'm going to talk about this evening. I want just to take us to a few other scriptures first.
[00:09:52] In James, chapter five, letter of James, chapter five, verse seven to eleven.
[00:10:07] James, chapter five, verses seven to eleven.
[00:10:13] Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.
[00:10:19] Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it until it recede. The early and latter reign. Be ye also patient. Establish your hearts. Now that's an interesting word. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. In other words, it is our hearts that can lead us astray at the time of the end. We must see that our hearts are firmly fixed if we are going to go through. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord. Is it murmur not, brethren, one against another, that ye be not judged. Behold, the judge standeth before the doors. I take that to mean that at the last days there will be so much pressure that people will tend to murmur. They will tend to blame one another. And the very spirit of lawlessness that is in the world will come amongst the Lord's children in this way.
[00:11:28] Take brethren for an example and of patience. The prophets who spake in the name of the Lord. Behold, we call them blessed that endured.
[00:11:39] Ye have heard of the patience of job and have seen the end of the Lord. How that the Lord is full of pity and merciful.
[00:11:51] And then, of course, this well known passage that we've been led to a number of times in this last year. Hebrews, chapter twelve, verse 26.
[00:12:02] Hebrews, chapter twelve, verse 26.
[00:12:07] Whose voice then shook the earth, but now he hath promised, saying, yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven. And this word yet once more signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain. Wherefore? For receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace whereby we may offer service well pleasing to God with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
[00:12:50] Well, now, I don't think there's need to comment on that, except just to turn back to the original quotation, which is in haggai and chapter two, which adds one rather important point.
[00:13:08] Haggai, chapter two, verse six to nine.
[00:13:15] For thus saith the Lord of hosts. Yet once it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all nations, and the precious things of all nations shall come. Or as the authorized version puts it, the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former, saith the Lord of hosts. And in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.
[00:14:05] And then in Luke and chapter 21.
[00:14:16] Luke 21 25.
[00:14:25] Luke 21 25. And there shall be signs in sun and moon and and stars, and upon the earth, distress of nations in perplexity, for the roaring of the sea and the billows, men fainting for fear and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens shall be shaken, and then shall they see the son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
[00:15:00] But when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption dwarves nigh.
[00:15:17] It's interesting. It says, look up and lift up your heads.
[00:15:22] The idea seems to be that people will be generally rather pressurized and depressed. And so the word is, don't just have your head down, but look up. Lift up your head.
[00:15:39] Your redemption draw us nigh.
[00:15:44] Well, now, those are just a few scriptures that give us some idea of the coming again of the Lord. We know that there's going to be a tremendous shaking, and I cannot help but feel that we are in that shaking. Whether it is a shaking which is sudden and dramatic, like a kind of moral earthquake, or whether it is a gradual shaking over a number of years is not absolutely clear.
[00:16:24] Whether it is both that is meant here by this word, we cannot with certainty say. I personally would believe that it is both that there are a series of tremors that are shaking civilization as we know it, society as we know it, to its very foundation. And then there are sort of sudden, abrupt shocks that simply bring all that's been shaken and weakened into ruins. Now, I don't think that any century in world history has seen anything quite like this last 50 years before the First World War, which in the minds of many of God's people marked the beginning of this shaking.
[00:17:25] Before the First World War in 1914, society as such in Europe at any rate, and the states had more or less continued on basic principles that had been established for century upon century.
[00:17:49] For instance, most of the thrones of Europe were intact as they had been, some of them for close on a thousand years.
[00:17:57] By the end of that short world war, the whole face of Europe was changed.
[00:18:07] A third of Britain's youth were killed, a third of Germany's youth were dead, and a third of France's youth were dead.
[00:18:23] Society was never the same. Now, any of you know anything about history, you know that's a fact.
[00:18:29] The result from after that world war was that one whole form, kind type of society had passed away. In fact, today books are written on it about a way of life which disappeared forever in the 1914 to 18 war. Now, of course, I don't know anything about it and I think the majority here don't. Maybe just one or two that will remain unnamed who can remember before and after the First World War. But if you speak with those folk, they will all tell you the same thing, that it was just like a curtain that came down on a whole way of life.
[00:19:20] And at the end of that short war, it never again came.
[00:19:27] Now, it was during that war and there was a man in this country that I think all of you who are children of God have been children of God for some time, will have heard of his name. We've sung one of his hymns just now, a man called Grattan Guinness.
[00:19:46] And this man was one of the first men to study this matter of the coming again of the Lord.
[00:19:59] And it was he who, in, I think, about 1860 or 70, in a book that you can read upstairs, first tried to work out from scripture, from Daniel's prophecies, when would be the end? Now, he was never foolish, so foolish as to say he'd found a date. But he did find that all the pointers came to a certain date, which was 1917.
[00:20:35] And he published that in books that you will see upstairs in the library called Light in the darkness and the coming dawn was another book. He published these findings of his some 30, 40 years before this, so that it was all clearly there. A lot, of course, was not too good, but the fact was that he'd stumbled on something. For in 1917, two extraordinary things happened which were destined, which are destined to shake the world. The first, of course, was the birth of communism.
[00:21:21] There would have been no such thing as the birth of communism if it hadn't been for this terrible shaking that God had initiated. Now don't make no mistake about it. It was God who initiated the shaking.
[00:21:33] And by locking allowing the whole of Europe to be locked together in a fearful war.
[00:21:41] There the flower of their manhood spent their economic strength and wealth ruined.
[00:21:50] Whilst that happened communism quietly came to birth. If there had not been a first world war there would have never been any communism. For every single army in Europe would have been called to the help of the Tsar and would have wiped it out to begin. But they couldn't do it. It was toward the end of a fearful war in which the strength and manpower of the free nations had been destroyed.
[00:22:19] So that's the first terrible thing if you could call it earth shattering thing that came to birth. That thing which is slowly crept like a disease through the whole of the world that came in 1917. The second thing that happened in 1917 may not be in the eyes or minds of all of you so earth shattering but in fact it was absolutely earth shattering. Will prove to be more and more so. It was the Balfour declaration.
[00:22:50] Now you must never ever think for a single moment that the british government favored the Jews.
[00:22:57] It never had and never will.
[00:23:00] But what happened was this.
[00:23:03] That the gentleman who had discovered TNT was a Jew and he could have offered his discovery to the Germans who at that time were not anti jewish but he offered it to the british government.
[00:23:30] It was because of this jewish gentleman's offer that the british government was persuaded instead of paying him a vast sum of money to give Palestine as a home a national home for the jewish people.
[00:23:53] Now that was destined to be as earth shattering as anything else. But at the time, of course no one thought of it quite like that. The Balfour declaration was quite a simple one and it seemed to almost not mean too much to people. Of course, you all know that Laurence of Arabia also promised the same plot of the earth to the Arabs and of course presented us with the problem we have today. Well now, that's all just to show you the kind of thing that's happened. If that shaking had not been initiated by God these two things would not have come to birth.
[00:24:33] But they have now. At the same time there was another thing that happened also just as remarkable. It was the birth of a young jewish boy called Theodor Herzl who was destined to die a young man but who was the founder of world Zionism and the father are the state of Israel.
[00:25:01] Now perhaps many of you as christians with gentile background will not know too much about Theodore Herzl.
[00:25:10] And we can't go into it this evening too much. But suffice it to say that God, without any shadow of a doubt, has raised up Herzl.
[00:25:28] When he was twelve years of age, he had a vision.
[00:25:33] And in that vision he saw someone that he said was like the Messiah.
[00:25:42] And he came to him and he said, Theodor Herzl, I have raised you in order to take my people back to the land.
[00:25:53] Now, of course, at that time, no one had thought of such a thing really, except a few very pious and orthodox jews.
[00:26:00] No one had thought. And indeed, Herzl was more of a politician than a religious leader. He had thought of establishing a homeland for jews in South America.
[00:26:12] This became his life passion. And he spent his whole life traveling in Europe and in the states seeking to persuade jewish leaders of the necessity of a homeland. Now, it was through him that such people as the name's gone for me, but they're millionaires.
[00:26:40] Rothschild. Yes, Rothschild, that's right. It was through him that Rothschild began buying up large tracts of ground in Israel, which later, of course, meant that they had the deeds, the title deeds, to quite a lot of ground. Well, now, all that again may not seem a lot to you, but in fact it's all extraordinary because in Germany, the jewish leaders of German Jewry were very much against Herzl.
[00:27:15] They wouldn't listen to him.
[00:27:18] The tragedy of it is that they all died in the hitlerite Holocaust. If they'd listened to Herzl, many of them would have been saved. Well, now, another interesting thing, perhaps to all of you will be that Herzl relied very, very heavily upon a converted jewish brother Christian minister, who, being a jew, understood Herzl and also understood the scriptures. And it may interest you to know that in the first two world congresses of Zionism in this world, it was a christian Jew who addressed them and first spoke to them from the scriptures of the necessity of returning to Palestine. Now, it would never have come about if it hadn't been for the shaking.
[00:28:09] It was the great shaking of this world, initiated in 1914 to 1918, which has brought about so much of what we're talking. Then, of course, you all know the rest of it. Many of you have lived to it. You know the rise of Hitler. You know the growth of communism. On the other hand, you know the terrible story of the concentration camps. Then you know the last world war in which 55 million people, it is estimated by the International Red Cross, died. And now today the shaking is going on and on and on. Well, now, what are the features of the end according to the word of God? Well, now, one of the first features I would just like to mention is what we touched on on Tuesday evening. It is in two Thessalonians, two Thessalonians, chapter two, verse seven and eight. For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work. Only there is one that restraineth now until he be taken out of the way and then shall be revealed. The lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to naught by the manifestation of his coming. Now, in the authorized version, you will see that it is translated, the mystery of iniquity doth already work, and it translates the lawless one as the wicked one.
[00:30:09] I think it is much more correctly translated in the revised version. Lawless, you have exactly the same word in one John, chapter three.
[00:30:20] One John, three, four.
[00:30:23] Everyone that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness.
[00:30:28] And sin is lawlessness. Now, the idea is behind this word lawlessness is simply that they are without law. They are not responsible to law, either God's law or any other law, but principally God's law.
[00:30:51] They are not responsible to the moral law of God. They will not be refused to be. They put themselves outside of it. They are without law less. Now, I cannot think of anything that describes the society into which we are moving and which many influential people wish to produce more completely, more fully. I can think of nothing that more adequately describes it than this word, the mystery of lawlessness.
[00:31:32] I take our own nation, for instance.
[00:31:37] I once heard a message by a well known christian minister in which he said, which he said that there were what he called hidden persuaders.
[00:31:51] The hidden persuaders, we don't know them. They're the faceless one.
[00:31:55] Yet behind our society today, there are a group of young men and young women who have deliberately set out to break up society as we know it and the traditional concepts of morality, chastity, of purity, of love, of faithfulness, and to substitute it with an altogether different kind of society.
[00:32:26] We don't really know who they are. They are in the fashion world, they're in the theater world, they're in the film world, they're in the television world, the radio world, in the journalistic world.
[00:32:39] The whole thing is that the kind of society we've known is a bondage.
[00:32:45] It is the means, the source of a lot of mental trouble and instability, and that we now are moving into a new age and therefore we need a new society with a new morality and a new pattern for a new age.
[00:33:06] Now, what is this new morality? The new morality, is this our morals? Your morals are not the concern of the government.
[00:33:18] They are no one else's concern but yours.
[00:33:23] Therefore, if you wish to commit adultery, you are perfectly at liberty to do so. If you wish to sleep with anyone, you're perfectly at liberty to do so. As long as they don't mind and you don't mind, that is, your morals are your own business. If you wish to have a child out of wedlock, that's quite all right, that's your business.
[00:33:49] This is what has been called dubbed the permissive society.
[00:33:57] Now, the word of God calls it the mystery of lawlessness.
[00:34:03] Many of us who have to deal with some of the problems that life presents, I mean, in people, have found out that this permissive society produces far more problems than the old society.
[00:34:26] You see, the whole point of society is that we have to live together.
[00:34:31] And when you have a group of people living together, there is a mutual discipline. We don't like it.
[00:34:36] We like to be able to have it for ourselves to our own advantage. But the whole point of society is everyone has to give and take in order to be in any kind of society, there's got to be some kind of law, be it tribal law or a highly sort of sophisticated kind of law. But there's got to be some kind of law by which a community lives together and honors one another. Now, this new pattern that is being produced or being sought, they're seeking to bring in, is that morals, and everything to do with morals is the concern of the individual.
[00:35:26] And no one else has any right at all to interfere.
[00:35:34] Now, the scripture calls this the mystery of lawlessness.
[00:35:45] The landslide in Sweden took place literally within a few years.
[00:35:50] From being a country that was known for its righteousness, in many ways, this whole permissive society came into being and with it, a collapse. We've surely seen it in our own country. If you just think back, we now see things, hear things, accept things that ten years ago wouldn't have been dreamt of.
[00:36:18] So swift is the landslide. Now, if people are going to produce something better than what we thought it would be, perhaps there would be some hope.
[00:36:31] But are we really going to get something better? The point is society. None of us are going to hold up the society in which we live as the paragon of all virtue.
[00:36:43] We all know its hypocrisy, we all know its veneris, its facade. But we have to say this, that it has been built on traditional concepts, if you like, or concepts of honesty, of righteousness, of selflessness that are embedded in the word of God.
[00:37:07] It is the word of God, the whole Bible, which has produced at least the good aspects of our society, guarding us against so much that is unhealthy and unhappy and at the same time producing much that has been for some other nations, their glory.
[00:37:37] Now, all that is being thrown aside, and you can see it in every way now.
[00:37:47] You can't leave a case in a station anymore. You can't leave car doors unlocked.
[00:37:55] Some of you older ones remember when you could leave us a case, even an attache case in Richmond station, and not a soul would touch it.
[00:38:08] You could leave a handbag on a bus and it would come back to you. Not only the handbag, but what was in it as well.
[00:38:17] But not today.
[00:38:19] Still. Now and again it does. But I think we're all surprised these days when anything comes back to us. Now, this is what the scripture calls the mystery of lawlessness. Now, this lawless one, the man of sin, the Bible calls him the Antichrist, this personification of Satan, this last great figure of world history, of whom all former despots have been but the palest reflection and foreshadowing this last great dictator who will come will be, or what the scripture calls the sort of focal point of this desire for a new society.
[00:39:08] That's why the scripture calls him the lawless one. Indeed, in Daniel chapter seven and verse 25, it goes so far as to tell us about this man. He shall speak words against the most high. In other words, the whole, the very concepts of the gospel will be rejected out of hand and shall wear out the saints of the most high. He shall think to change the times and the law, and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and half a time. Well, that's enough for us just to understand that this strange figure in the Bible that we know as the Antichrist is going to be someone who, I believe anyway, promises this world a new society for a new age.
[00:40:11] In other words, all the unrest in the younger generation, all the unrest in the student bodies, not only in the so called free countries of the world, but behind the iron curtain, too, will be somehow or other drawn into sharp focus by this figure when he appears with his promise of a new way of life. Now, I think all of you know, especially those of you who were in the studies we took some year or two ago in Daniel, you will remember that the figure that the type of Antichrist was a king called Antiochus Epiphanes. He was called the manifestation of God. He believed he was God and he called himself epiphanes, the manifestation of God.
[00:41:04] And this man in jewish history is looked upon as the darkest and most terrible personage that ever arose. He made Israel's hills and valleys run with blood. He was the one who sacrificed a pig on the altar in the temple and set up a statue of Jupiter outside the entrance into the holiest place of all. It was called the abomination of desolation. This man started a pogrom against jewish people throughout the Mediterranean. And literally one wiped out hundreds of thousands in terrible massacres. Now, we all think of him as a dreadful figure. Yet the other side of the coin is extraordinary.
[00:41:59] All the gentile world thought of him as one of the most enlightened men that had ever stepped onto the sea.
[00:42:07] He was an extraordinary figure. He was very greatly loved, both in Rome and in Athens, because of his democratic ideas and because of his clear cut vision. Altogether new at that time of reunion.
[00:42:26] Sounds almost modern, doesn't it? He wanted to see the whole of the Mediterranean reunited in a kind of pan hellenic state federation, all speaking greek, all adopting greek culture and thoughts and so on.
[00:42:45] And above all, a kind of new religion brought out of a melting pot of greek mythology, roman mythology, persian zoroastrianism, that is, the worship of God as invisible. And Judaism.
[00:43:06] Now, this was his dream child.
[00:43:11] And everywhere he went, he spoke of this possibility of bringing the whole of the Mediterranean, which was, of course, the civilized world, into one great federation, like the United States of the Mediterranean.
[00:43:26] This idea, United States of the Mediterranean with himself as emperor.
[00:43:32] And then his whole idea was, if we do this, we can draw upon all the resources of these different nations, instead of them being wasted. It's all marvellous. They're all thinking people were behind the man.
[00:43:47] Instead of all this terrible waste, hunger and famine here and plenty here, we can somehow, because we're all in one great trade area, we can sort of balance the whole thing out. Then another thing that will. His idea was these petty wars that come through tribal jealousies and national jealousies can be completely ruled out by this federalism idea. And of course, all this awful war between religious groups will break that. Now, of course, he made great headway, but there was one group of people throughout the MEditerranean who were just like steel.
[00:44:28] They were the jewish people.
[00:44:31] And wherever he went, they refused to adopt GReek dRess, they refused to accept GreeK culTure. They still clung to speaking in Hebrew, though they spoke in greek and other languages as well.
[00:44:45] And above all, they refused absolutely to even think of the idea that the worship of the living God should be prostituted into something less or more than what had been revealed to them. So he pleaded with them. He got rid of the high priest in the temple. He instituted a kind of traitorous jewish man with a Greek who took a greek name addressed like a greek, even though he was high priest.
[00:45:14] And that didn't work. He got beautiful, great greek games going and all the young people. He managed to get all jewish young people into his. Into the orbit of Greek influence. So he went on. But he couldn't do it. So in the end, there was only one thing for it wipe them out.
[00:45:32] In other words, let them. Let this be the lesson to for the sake of the good of all, we must destroy this old, narrow, bigoted, prejudiced minority.
[00:45:51] Now this man has become the archetype of the Antichrist, the lawless one. You can just see what will happen in these days of the mystery of lawlessness. Who are the people who are going to be unyielding as steel?
[00:46:04] True children of God?
[00:46:06] Who are the people who are going to refuse to be swept into some great melting pot of religion in which everything is found in a debased form, so that there's a compromise on everything and the worst features probably of all coming to the surface.
[00:46:24] True children of God, who are the people who are going to cling to the older concepts of chastity, purefante and faith in marriage into the marriage relationship as of children of God?
[00:46:43] You can see the whole thing building up, the lawless one. Well, if we stop there, we'll be there the whole evening. But that's the mystery of lawlessness and the lawless one, that's one of the features of the end. Now, is anyone so blind that they can't see something of those things already in our society and moving so fast that it is hard for us to keep up with it?
[00:47:18] Of course, I'm only going to touch on the second feature, and that is something I've already mentioned. A world counterfeit church.
[00:47:26] 2030 years ago, this would have been unheard of. In fact, it would have been a joke to have even thought of the possibility, possibility of such a thing as a world church. Yet it is no longer a joke. It is a possibility.
[00:47:42] But the sadness of the whole thing is this, that it has always been religion that has been the greatest persecutor of the true child of God down through the ages will be in the end. Now, if you turn to revelation, chapter 1817, verse three, we eat and he carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet coloured beast full of names of blasphemy. Blasphemy having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet and gilded with gold and precious stone and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations, even the unclean things of a fornication. And upon a forehead, a name written mystery. Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the earth. Now, I don't think it. For those of you who know your bibles, it doesn't take me long to see that this is a caricature of the other woman. The other woman is a virgin, the wife of the lamb.
[00:48:53] This one is the mother of abominations, the mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the earth. She's a prostitute.
[00:49:04] One is produced out of gold and precious stone and pearl. You read in revelation 21, the whole thing, through and through, is gold, precious stone and pearl that you've never seen gold like it, refined so that it's as transparent as glass. You've never seen gold like that. This woman, you've never heard of a woman made out of this cider. It's all symbolic. But this woman, who's the wife of the lamb, the bride of God, she is made out of this material. This woman is gilded with it. In other words, it's literally skin deep. Just literally skin deep. Gilded. Outwardly, if you had the two side by side of statues, you would think, oh, they're the same. But you chip a bit off of one and you'll find underneath any old material, the other you could cut in half and you'll find the gold goes right through. Do you see? Then again, you all know that the church is called the mystery of Christ. This woman's called the mystery.
[00:50:11] You know that the church is called the New Jerusalem, the city of God. This is called Babylon.
[00:50:18] The great.
[00:50:20] Remarkable correspondence, of course, in verse nine, it says, here is the mind that has wisdom, the seven heads of seven mountains. Upon these seven mountains the woman Sitteth. All who have interpreted revelation of all come to the same conclusion, that this is Rome.
[00:50:42] Even the Roman Catholic Church says this is Rome. Roman catholic church says this is imperial Rome, the protestant church says this is Roman Catholic Rome, but everyone agrees that it's Rome.
[00:50:57] And now what do we say?
[00:51:00] I think we can say that it is not just Roman Catholic Rome, it is a confederation of Protestantism and Catholicism and even probably in the end a kind of apostate Judaism and many other things. A hotchpotch of everything.
[00:51:26] And it will find its headquarters in the Vatican.
[00:51:31] Now I won't say more about that except to turn you to revelation 13 and to point you out that this world church has also a great leader without whom the Antichrist cannot perform his mind or will. Verse eleven and I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. Now mark that. Another beast coming up out of the earth. The first beast is a great conglomeration of babylonian ideas, persian ideas, greek ideas and roman ideas. In the society in which we have western civilization is exactly that. A great conglomeration of babylonian, persian, greek and roman ideas.
[00:52:21] We are in that. Now that's the first beast in the first verses of this chapter. Then from verse eleven we get and I saw another beast coming up out of the earth and he had two horns like unto a lamb and he spake as a dragon.
[00:52:41] Well, of course you all know the lamb in scripture speaks of the Messiah and the dragon of Satan shows a false messiah.
[00:52:50] In other words, a false religious leader.
[00:52:59] Well now, I won't say any more about that. We've said a lot, I think, in times past about a counterfeit church. Now I'd like to speak about another feature of the end, and that is the jewish return and conversion. The jewish return and conversion. Now I think all of you know that scripture has foretold for over 2000 years that after the jewish people were dispersed into all the nations of the earth, they should at the time of the end be drawn back to the promised land. Although the jewish people are God's rejected people, yet they are still the sign and evidence of God in history. There has never been anything like the jewish people scattered into every single nation of the earth. Do you know there are some chinese Jews? There's even a kibbutz in Israel made up of those returned from China.
[00:54:06] There are indian Jews. There are all the most extraordinary nations.
[00:54:11] You will hardly believe it that the jewish people were dispersed into. Some have been in those dispersed areas for over 2000 years before the destruction of Jerusalem, most since.
[00:54:27] But they were scattered into every part of the earth. There has never been a single instance in world history of a nation scattered into all the nations of the earth. And at the end of 2000 years maintaining their national life, their national characteristics, even their national physiognomy.
[00:54:54] It's all there.
[00:54:57] The most extraordinary thing of all is Hebrew as a language.
[00:55:05] I think I've said this before for 2000 years, Hebrew ceased to be a language even in the times of our lord, the times of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 ad, Aramaic was the language of the people, not Hebrew. It ceased to be anything but a sacred language.
[00:55:23] Yet today, eleven national newspapers are published in Hebrew. Three universities teach in Hebrew. A vast amount of literature is published in Hebrew. There's a college of rabbis sitting all the time making up new hebrew words that do not exist in the extant literature in Hebrew, such as dishwasher, television, telephone, aeroplane, all these things are not, in extent, hebrew literature. The Talmud never heard of such a thing, nor the Mishnah, nor the Old Testament scriptures had never heard of such things. So we have a college of rabbis sitting down working out how they can put into Hebrew such words as these.
[00:56:15] Now you understand, that's a miracle. It is just as if a tiny nation of people, that the scots people were dispersed into every corner of the globe and into every nation for 2000 years, and then after 2000 years, brought back after 2000 years, and then after 2000 years, suddenly they all start to talk in Gaelic.
[00:56:49] Now, wouldn't that be a miracle if suddenly all their newspapers were published in Gaelic, if their universities taught in Gaelic? Maybe it'll happen, I don't know. There are enough of them dispersed in the world, I must say. But the fact is, if it is, it's the second time, the second biggest miracle in history. If it did happen, the fact is that the jewish people lost their home land.
[00:57:15] And although all the way through there has been a tiny little group of jewish people living in different parts of Palestine, never at any time had they owned much of what was their homeland. Now from the beginning, God promised that they should return. And furthermore, he said they would not return. And this is at thing that I think many Gentiles, Christians with gentle background, forget. He did not say they would return in belief or faith, but they would return in unbelief.
[00:57:53] In other words, God said, I will draw them back to the land, not because they are anything, but because I love them.
[00:58:03] Now that is precisely what has happened.
[00:58:08] And it is quite, quite incredible. Now, I had meant to bring the version of the Old Testament called living prophecies because really when you read something, it just simply lives in an altogether new way. All kinds of portions of scripture, I know when we were in Israel, all kinds of little portions of scripture which have, of course, a deep spiritual meaning, suddenly take on a physical meaning as well.
[00:58:41] Things like Isaiah 43 and verse five and six and seven. Fear not, for I am with thee, I will bring thy seed from the east and gather thee from the west. I will say to the north, give up. That's interesting, because it is Russia that has kept them, and she's the one that's had to give up. But she gives up a few every now and again, lets them out, and then she holds onto them again. I will say to the north, give up. Unto the south, keep not back. Bring my sons from far, my daughters from the end of the earth. Every one that is called, called by my name. Now, there are so many other scriptures that are just remarkable.
[00:59:31] There's this one in Amos.
[00:59:35] Amos.
[00:59:39] You can find Amos, chapter nine and verse 13. Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that the ploughman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes, him that soweth seed and the mountain shall drop sweet wine, and the hill shall melt. And I will bring back the captivity of my people, Israel. And they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them. And they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof. They shall also make gardens and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God.
[01:00:28] Now, thats exactly what is happening.
[01:00:31] Gardens have been planted in desert places.
[01:00:36] Vineyards, forests are being planted. The whole ground is being reclaimed. What was once just howling wilderness is now farmland. And people are sitting there, and they're eating the produce that they themselves have grown. Now, remember this, that for close on a thousand years, jewish people in Europe have not been allowed to tend ground with their hands.
[01:01:05] The general idea in the gentile world is that that Jews are only good for making money.
[01:01:11] But it is the Gentiles that have made the Jews look after money. Do you know why? Because law after law after law after law has been passed in Europe, not permitting jewish people to own farmland, not permitting them to till ground, not permitting them to be market gardeners. Only were they allowed to lend and borrow money.
[01:01:40] Now, God so blessed them in this one thing that they were allowed to do, that they got the influence in many nations.
[01:01:50] And the british jury would never have been here if poor old Henry VIII hadn't got into such a mess that he had to be bolstered up with jewish money and was lent such a lot that he opened the country to Jews and refused to persecute them for quite a while. And that's why they're all here.
[01:02:10] And that's probably really partly the only reason. Now, the thing is this, that when you read scripture like this, it is, I say, a miracle, an absolute miracle. Now, we can't stay there. But, you know, God is so amazing. I have to say this from observation, that most jewish people would not have thought of returning to Israel. Only the most pious and orthodox would have thought of going back to Israel.
[01:02:42] Most would have stayed. And if only gentile society in various nations had been prepared to give them a fair and equal prospect, they would have stayed, become an integral part of life in every way. But it has been the russian pogroms, the hitlerite persecution and so on that has forced jewish people to return. When you think that 6 million jewish people died in concentration camps in the war, when then after that, there were those that survived who was going to Poland wouldn't have them back.
[01:03:26] Poland just wouldn't have them back. Hungary wouldn't have them back.
[01:03:31] Many other countries, France opened its arms to them, but then was very embarrassed.
[01:03:37] Thousands and thousands of displaced persons. What are they to do? No one wanted the jewish. There was only one answer. Yes, right. But unfortunately, the british government then had promised the land to the Arabs as well, and was very, very bothered about the oil wells upon which our economy is based. So they didn't know what to do. They promised it to the jew. They promised it to the ant the same grounds. So what they did was dither.
[01:04:10] You know what has happened. Oil interests were behind it. Within ten years, Britain had lost all its oil interests anyway, and Israel was a fact.
[01:04:24] Now, the fact of Israel, the proclamation of the state of Israel in 1948 is a miracle.
[01:04:31] When the british army pulled out of that mandated terror, it is on official records that they gave the jewish population one month in what they deemed to be the bloodiest massacre in history.
[01:04:51] What happened was that instead the jewish people obtained the larger part of the territory.
[01:05:01] Of course, they developed a little gun called little David, which was just like a Tino. Now, really. I mean, an old tin can on a thing, which sort of sent off something which made the most fearful noise. And they were outnumbered in nearly every city in which they were. And on the night of the thing, they set off these things and they had a population up and left literally, literally in place, called Svart, where they were outnumbered three quarters arab population to one quarter jewish. The three quarter arab population got up in one night and fled and have never come back.
[01:05:46] And the result is that the folk in Svart not only lived happily, but there were plenty of homes and everything else for everyone else, coming from all the displaced people, people's camps. It's the most extraordinary story. Now, I'm not talking about the rights and the wrongs of it. I realize there are rights and wrongs of it and people can argue till they're blue in the face about it. But the fact is, it's scripture fulfilled.
[01:06:09] It's absolutely extraordinary.
[01:06:13] Now, this is still happening. You see, the vast majority of those that have returned to Israel are eastern european Jews and Sephardi Jews. That is, those from the oriental countries.
[01:06:30] Persia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Morocco, Libya, all those countries and so on. They are the vast majority that have returned. But the more wealthy and the more educated have not really gone back in great numbers. But now there is a great movement back to Israel. You see, France has been the traditional friend of european jury. And because of the Vichy government in the last war that was the one country which managed to preserve most of its jewish population in spite of the hitlerite occupation after the end of the war, they have still stayed french jew. But now President de Gaulle has made some anti jewish speeches. He has withdrawn support of Israel and has now supported the arab peoples. And what has happened there is the most extraordinary flow of educated jewish people from France to Israel. A tremendous flow out from France. So much so that Israel itself, when we were there, were all talking, the papers were all talking about the great return of french Jews because they see the writing on the wall, de Gaulle, as they feel it's no longer secure for them. Now, this could well happen here. Just the other day, we were talking about it in the house here. There was a private member's bill in parliament which I don't suppose most of you even thought about. It was called. It was about humane killers for slaughtering of animal.
[01:08:14] Of animals for consumption. And I think most of you know what kosher food is that there's a certain way in the scripture of the way it should be killed. And a private member's bill has been brought into the House of Commons to make it illegal to kill animals for human consumption than by the humane killer method.
[01:08:41] The jewish name for their way is Shechita. So this means that if that bill were passed, which I doubt very much that it would be, but if it were passed, a large section of orthodox jury in this country would have to face whether they would stay here or return to Israel because it goes right to the very root of their whole way of life. Now, it's such a small thing as that that could bring about this enforcement. In other words, here is the Lord shaking. Shaking. And what is he doing? He's shaking his people, the jewish people, back to Palestine. Well, now, just enough of that. Let me say this, that Jerusalem has been, is and will be the focal point of political history.
[01:09:33] Even more so at the end. If you read in Zechariah chapter twelve, it says this.
[01:09:39] Zechariah, chapter twelve.
[01:09:43] And verse one to three, I'll read two and three. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of reeling unto all the peoples round about. And upon Judah also shall it be in the siege against Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass in that day that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples. All that burden themselves with it shall be sore wounded, and all the nations of the earth shall be gathered together against it, says the Lord. Well, no more about that, although we could spend a lot of time on it. The fact is that Jerusalem is going to be, in the last days, the focal point of political history.
[01:10:24] And it is a very interesting fact. I think, I hope all of you have noted that the soviet government is now looking upon Israel as the touchstone of everything.
[01:10:36] That's very interesting. No longer Berlin in soviet foreign policy, it is Israel which is the touchstone now. And that's why they have increased their fleet in the Mediterranean. That's why they've got bases in Syria, in Egypt and in Algeria.
[01:10:52] You can see what's happening. The whole thing will build up in the end to the last great battle of human history called Armageddon.
[01:11:02] Now, what can we look for in this feature? We can look for this at the end. There is going to be a tremendous conversion of Jews.
[01:11:15] A tremendous conversion of Jews. It's already begun.
[01:11:19] Large numbers of orthodox Jews have been converted to Christianity in the United States and Canada, many in Europe. But this is only the beginning of a huge movement, which is the movement of the spirit of God that will spread throughout the world and finally will sweep over Israel. Israel as a nation is in one sense irreligious.
[01:11:52] It is extraordinary that although all the customs and all the law is observed, yet as a nation it is irreligious.
[01:12:01] They are reacting very much against all that is petty and small and binding from the past. There's a tiny minority, of course, of ultra orthodox, but many are very, very open. Now, if you turn to Romans, and this is the only scripture I think we can really look at in this. Romans, chapter eleven.
[01:12:26] Romans, chapter eleven, verse 25. We read this for I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel until the fulness of the gentiles be come in.
[01:12:50] And so all Israel shall be saved. Even as it is written, they shall come out of Zion the deliverer. He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And this is my covenant unto them. When I shall take away their sin. As touching the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, for your sake. But as touching the election, they are beloved for the father's sake.
[01:13:18] Now what this says is that there is in God's divine for ordination a number of gentiles.
[01:13:36] And when the fulness of that number has been drawn in, then once more the jewish people will be gathered back into the covenant of God.
[01:13:52] Now this is a very important point. And even if we take it up again another day, I just draw a little diagram on the board that will help you. I hope to understand what I'm talking about. There is no matter over which there is greater confusion than the jewish future amongst christians.
[01:14:12] Now, if you read in verse eleven, you read this, I say. Then did they stumble, that they might fall? God forbid, but by their fall, that's the jewish fall. Salvation has come unto the Gentiles to provoke them. That's the jewish people to jealousy. Now, if their fall, the jewish fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulness.
[01:14:52] But I speak to you that are Gentiles, inasmuch then, as I am an apostle of the Gentiles, I glorify my ministry. And we won't, for saving time, we won't. Read more. Verse 15. For if the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them that's the jewish people, be but life from the dead?
[01:15:16] Now listen to this, all of you. And if the first fruit is holy, so is the lump. And if the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were broken off, and thou, a gentile, being a wild olive, was grafted in among them and didst become partaker with them of the root of the fat of the olive tree, glory not over the branches. But if thou gloriest, it is not thou that bearest the root, but the root that bears thee, thou wilt say, then branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well, by their unbelief they were broken up. And thou standest by thy faith. Be not high minded, but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches, neither will he spare thee. Behold then the goodness and severity of God toward them that fell severity, but toward thee, gods goodness. If thou continue in his goodness. Otherwise thou also shall be cut off. And they also, if they continue not in their unbelief, shall be grafted in. For God is able to graft them in again. For if thou wast cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree that is gentile and was grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree that is the jewish people, how much more shall these, which are the natural branches. Be grafted into their own olive tree?
[01:16:36] Now, if you look at this little diagram, I shall draw very beautifully and swiftly I shall put down there. Abraham.
[01:16:51] Abraham, in scripture, is the father of all them that believe. Is that clear?
[01:17:01] Now, here I shall put old test rooms clear.
[01:17:10] And here I will put Messiah, born a jew.
[01:17:21] All right.
[01:17:28] Now, here are the beginning of the branches we could put John.
[01:17:40] John was a jew.
[01:17:43] Peter, it was a jew.
[01:17:49] Paul.
[01:17:51] Paul was a jew.
[01:17:55] Then something terrible happened, you know, the branches, the branches of here that could have been in were cut off.
[01:18:08] They were laid in a great castle.
[01:18:11] All right.
[01:18:16] And the gentiles were grafted in here. We all are.
[01:18:30] Beautiful. Isn't it beautiful?
[01:18:38] There you all are, all grafted in.
[01:18:45] Now, at the end of world history, God will take these people and put them all back in, and so shall all Israel.
[01:19:11] Now, I hope that just makes it clear to you what the Bible talks about.
[01:19:17] Some people seem to think that the jewish people are distinct altogether. And have nothing to do with the church at all. But in Christ, there is neither Jew nor gentile.
[01:19:28] The middle wall of PETitiOn is broken down. Here is Abraham, the father of us all. He is not a Jew, says the apostle Paul, who is one outwardly, but he is a Jew that is one inwardly.
[01:19:41] You are all sons of Abraham. By faith.
[01:19:45] He is the father of all them that will be.
[01:19:50] Then comes the Elect People of God. The true Israel was within the Jewish people. Even rabbis teach that within the Jewish people. Now comes the MesSiah, born of the stock of Abraham, born of the root of David. Here he is the messiah, and he is rejected by the jewish people.
[01:20:18] They say, crucify him.
[01:20:21] His blood be upon us and upon our children.
[01:20:24] And from that moment, the kingdom is taken from the jewish people. And they're cut off and laid on one side. And from that moment begins the bloody story of jewish history.
[01:20:38] Terrible suffering, terrible persecution. In fact, so much so that it is a strongly held concept amongst Jewish people. They are born to suffer and that their mission is suffering.
[01:20:54] Now comes the gentiles, brought in from every nation and tongue and kindred and people. A tremendous concept of God. His whole concept in choosing Abraham and in choosing the family of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and then the patriarchs, was that they might bring the light of God to the Gentiles.
[01:21:16] Not that they might just be nice JEWisH people, but that they might share the whole thing with the whole world. And that in Abraham shall all nations be blessed.
[01:21:29] But they rejected the messiah.
[01:21:33] And so God, in his wonderful sovereignty, still brings in all the gentiles into the true Israel of God. For the true Israel of God never rejected the Messiah.
[01:21:49] Never.
[01:21:51] Now, finally, at the end, the hardening that has befallen the jewish people shall be removed when the fullness of the gentiles is coming.
[01:22:05] And then they will come back, and so shall all Israel be saved. Now, you know we're living in those days.
[01:22:16] And as the scripture says, if it were salvation that they were cast away, what were they receiving be but life from the dead, absolute glory.
[01:22:29] Now, in Zechariah, chapter twelve, verse, we read just the early part. But in Jechariah, chapter twelve, it says this, verse ten, speaking of the terrible sufferings of Jerusalem in the last days, it says, and I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication. And they shall look unto me whom they have pierced. And they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son. And shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. Chapter 13, verse one. In that day there shall be a fountain open to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.
[01:23:14] Now, most people take this scripture to mean that the jewish people will behold the Messiah coming on the clouds of heaven, and that when they see that, they will be saved.
[01:23:28] But I do not think. It does not. It does not say, they shall look upon me. It says, they shall look unto me.
[01:23:37] And also it says, I will pour upon the house of David, upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication. That wouldn't be necessary. If they see the Messiah coming, they don't need faith. They will recognize him as the messiah in the heavens. Who? I mean, all the nations are going to recognize him as well. Every eye shall see him. This isn't talking of that. It talks about a great movement of the spirit of God which will come upon Israel as a nation amongst nations. Not the spiritual Israel, but Israel after the flesh.
[01:24:13] And that the Lord will pour upon them the spirit of supplication and of grace.
[01:24:22] And that hardening of heart. That blindness in part, that veil which has been over the mind will be torn away.
[01:24:32] And they shall look not upon but unto him who may it be, and they shall mourn.
[01:24:41] There is going to be a recognition in the last days that Jesus Christ, Jesus Nazareth, was the messiah.
[01:24:50] And that will be the great turning point in jewish history. Already a group of jewish lawyers in the United States sought to reopen the case of the trial of the Lord Jesus. But of course, it's almost impossible. There are no records. But they have said that if. If the case, the Lord Jesus could be tried again by a jewish court sitting in Jerusalem, the biggest stumbling block between gentile Christian and Jew, so called Christ, nominal Christian and Jew, would be removed. But just think what would happen if a jewish court actually sat. Not that I don't. I can't think that it could happen, but just supposing what would happen if they did.
[01:25:33] And then it. Investigating the claims of Jesus Christ, they said that he was not worthy of death.
[01:25:46] It could be the most extraordinary. I don't know. But what I do know is that this is going to be one of the features of the end. Well, I think we'll have to leave it there. Our time's completely gone.
[01:25:57] We could have talked about the church being built at the end and recovered. That's absolutely true as well. And even more wonderful, perhaps that is marvellous. But the most wonderful thing of all are those scriptures that speak of the absolute sovereignty of the Lord in the last days, slain by the breath of his mouth, brought to naught that Antichrist, that lawless one, by the name, by the manifestation of his being, that is the Lord Jesus.
[01:26:33] And then against is a stone not cut out by hand, that will hurtle from the heavens and just smash that great colossus and bring it into pieces.
[01:26:47] Finished.
[01:26:49] Just like that.
[01:26:52] And the rapture?
[01:26:54] Have you ever thought about the rapture? Oh, the poor devil.
[01:26:59] I feel so sorry for him.
[01:27:01] The rapture. What can he do about it at the end, when the Lord changes his own in the twinkling of an eye? What vested interest the devil has got in these old bodies?
[01:27:19] What a lot. He manages to get at us through our bodies, our feelings, the sin in our members. But think of it. In the twinkling of an eye, you look at my eye. If you can see a twinkle in it, it's just like that. In just that moment, the Lord will change us. Change us. Our actual bodies. It was our resurrection body and the dead in Christ.
[01:27:43] That weapon that the devil has used to keep people in bondage and in darkness all the days of their life.
[01:27:49] The dead in Christ raised first.
[01:27:53] Oh, it's just tremendous. Effortless. Effortless.
[01:27:59] The word of God shall be heard, the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and then this miracle will take place.
