The End of This Dispensation

[00:00:00] Do just turn with me to the gospel according to Matthew, chapter 24. [00:00:06] The gospel according to Matthew, chapter 24. [00:00:17] I'll read just a few verses in the middle of this chapter from verse three. [00:00:26] And as he sat on the mount of olives, the disciples came unto 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? [00:00:39] And Jesus answered and said unto them, take heed that no man lead you astray. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am the Christ and shall lead many astray. [00:00:52] And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that ye be not troubled, for these things must needs come to pass. But the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And there shall be famines and earthquakes in divers places. But all these things are the beginning of travails. Then shall they deliver you up unto tribulation and shall kill you. And ye shall be hated of all the nations for my names sake. And then shall many stumble, and shall deliver up one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall arise, and shall lead many astray. And because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall wax cold. But he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations. And then shall the end come. [00:02:03] I want you just to note very carefully verse 14. [00:02:09] This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for testimony unto all the nations. And then shall the end come. [00:02:25] I like the rendering of Weymouth, particularly here in this verse 14. [00:02:33] This is how he renders it. Most of the versions have found difficulty in actually getting over the real thought of the original. And here we have this rendering of Weymouth, and this gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed throughout the whole world to set the evidence before all the Gentiles. And then the end will come. [00:03:06] I suppose one of the things that the Lord's people are asking each other more and more in these days is how near really to the end of this age we are. [00:03:22] We see tremendous movements on every side of us. We begin to see things looming up which cannot but fill men's hearts with fear. [00:03:39] Apart from anything else. When you look back over the past hundred years, even the last 50 years, although there have been thousands and thousands of years of human history, and in that time, although there's been some progress, there has been some advance on the whole, things basically have been the same it has been the horse. It has been the carriage. [00:04:03] It has been instruments that were handmade. And they, although there has been advance in technique and so on, nevertheless, for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, these things have just slowly advanced. And yet, in principle have been the same. [00:04:24] Then suddenly, in the last hundred years, or we could even narrow it down to less than that. The whole face of the world has been changed. [00:04:37] And things that our great grandparents would not, would not believe us if we told have come into being. [00:04:48] We can get to the other side of the world in a matter of hours. [00:04:52] We have every kind of technical device now which is gradually changing the whole face of the world. You think of the radio, you think of telephone, you think of the film industry, you think of the motor industry, you think of the air industry. And so we could go on. All the multitude of things, all of which have spread suddenly into life in the last hundred years. [00:05:25] And so much else that we could point out as being somehow or other when taken in perspective, seen in perspective with the rest of history, must make thinking. Men and women wonder exactly why this sudden spurt, why this sudden advance, this tremendously forward. So much so that now we have in our hands devices and we have in our hands inventions and instruments that are far too big for men themselves. They know it. Most men today realize that we now we have outstripped ourselves. [00:06:06] The things got ahead of us, the things too big for us. [00:06:10] And here, you know, the whole question of the end of the world has absorbed people's minds from the beginning. [00:06:20] We must not ever think that this is just peculiar to the 20th century. The 19th and 20th century right down from Adam. There have been those who have been absorbed with this question of when will the end come? [00:06:37] When will the end come? [00:06:39] When will righteousness be brought in? [00:06:43] When will the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of God and of his christ? [00:06:51] And the disciples came to the Lord Jesus and asked him this question. And he gave them a pretty clear picture. [00:06:59] He said that the mark of the end, and we must take it. What he says also with all of the rest that has been said by the prophets. [00:07:08] He said one of the great marks of the end would be terrible unrest amongst the nations, terrible eyes between kingdom and kingdom and nation and nation, wars and rumors of wars. Not just wars, but the whole atmosphere filled with this continual edginess as to whether there's going to be or whether there isn't going to be. Whether there's going to be a conflict, whether there isn't going to be a conflict, whether there's going to be a collision, or whether there isn't going to be a collision, it's going to be that atmosphere of war as well as actual war itself. There are going to be earthquakes, there are going to be pestilences, whatever that means, and there are going to be famines, all these things. There are going to be religious movements that will lead many astray, that will become strong and populous at the end of the age. But the thing that has interested me more than anything else is this little word the Lord Jesus gave as the greatest sign of becoming the Lord. [00:08:22] And that is this gospel of the kingdom must be proclaimed throughout the whole world, and the evidence set forth before the nation, then shall the end come. [00:08:45] Now, what does that mean? [00:08:48] Does it simply mean that the good news is to be preached by word in every part of the earth, and that when that happens, then the Lord Jesus will return? [00:09:02] I think there are many people who believe that. [00:09:05] They believe that this scripture means simply that the gospel has just got to be proclaimed, that throughout the whole world, from end to end, in every place, the gospel has got to be beamed over to them. It's got to be proclaimed. Got to be declared. But is that what the scripture means, really? [00:09:33] You look at it carefully. This gospel should be preached in the whole world. And this is the phrase that the translators have had the difficulty in for a testimony. [00:09:46] Darby puts it as a witness, Weymouth puts, to set the evidence before the nation. [00:09:56] It is not just a question, mark you? It is not just a question of preaching a message. [00:10:03] It is the question of something coming into being as a result of the message which is called later on by the apostles. The testimony of Jesus. [00:10:17] When through the proclaiming the proclamation of the good news, the testimony of Jesus is established in every part of the world, then the end shall come. [00:10:30] Then the end shall come. [00:10:33] If you look at Ephesians chapter six, you will find that there is a very, very interesting little phrase there. Paul speaks of the mystery of the gospel, chapter six and verse 19. To make known with boldness the mystery of the Gospel. To make known the mystery of the gospel. This mystery that was given to Paul so that he spoke of the gospel as my gospel. Paul, as you know, had seen something which even the other apostles had not seen absolutely clearly. [00:11:18] He had seen the nature of the purpose of God in a way that the others had not seen. He saw something that was in God's mind from eternity to eternity. [00:11:33] And he always refers to it as the mystery, the mystery of Christ, the mystery of the gospel the mystery, he says, which has been hid from ages and from generations, but which has now been revealed unto us through Christ and through his apostles. What is it to it that Christ is in us plural? In you plural? Not just in one, not in an individual, but in you, the hope of glory? That's the mystery. [00:12:06] Elsewhere, he speaks of it as the church, which is his body. That is the mystery. What is the testimony of Jesus? [00:12:15] Is it a message? [00:12:17] Is it just the proclamation of the gospel? [00:12:21] Is the testimony of Jesus just the ministry, a ministry of the word, just somehow sounding forth truth, doctrinal and scriptural truth? All this is very important, for it is by the hearing of the word of God that faith is created and we are saved by the proclamation of the Gospel. But I want to ask you a question. Is the testimony of Jesus. [00:12:52] Is the testimony of Jesus something to do primarily and merely with the word, with the word of the lip, with just simply declaring things? [00:13:09] I don't think it is. If you look into the word of God, you will find that the testimony of Jesus everywhere is the Lord Jesus himself, what he is, and his people absolutely united with him. That is the testimony. [00:13:32] It is the life of God. The testimony of Jesus was simply to what God wanted, what God desired, what God intended. The testimony of Jesus was simply that in him God had got the first mandev of a new creation. The testimony of Jesus is simply that the Lord Jesus is the head of a new race. [00:14:00] That's the testimony of Jesus, our brother, when he was with us the other Friday evening, spoke of the testimony of Jesus being the spirit of prophecy. [00:14:13] And at the first glance, you would think that means straight away simply some ministry of the world. [00:14:21] But as he pointed out, and I saw so clearly myself, that mysterious phrase, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. [00:14:32] It is simply that the church is meant to be a corporate prophet in the world. [00:14:40] It is meant to call men back to God, to warn them of what is coming by its own inherent nature and life, to shock the world into an understanding of what they've lost, into an understanding of the devastation that is coming, the degradation that must be the result of sin. [00:15:04] What is prophecy? Just someone standing on a corner and talking religion? [00:15:11] No. [00:15:13] Prophecy is simply the very expression of the mind of God in such a way that it shocks people. It's like an electric shock upon people. It makes them sit up. It makes them realize, what have I been missing? Where have I been? [00:15:28] What's gone wrong? I've been deceived. I'm deluded. [00:15:33] That's the effect of prophecy. And either people will come into a knowledge of the truth as a result of it, or they will utterly reject it out of hand and will have nothing to do with it. Why were the prophets so despised? Why were they so manhandled? Why were they so, so rejected? Simply because people either had to accept their message or reject it. There was no neutrality and they knew it. It wasn't simply that they were speaking something. It was that inward power of something inside of them, not just the words, but something behind what they said. [00:16:25] The Lord Jesus here told us that this gospel of the kingdom has got to be preached in the whole world. That's the first thing, the gospel's got to be preached. [00:16:41] The second thing is this, that when the gospel is preached, the testimony of Jesus has got to be established in every part of the world. [00:16:53] And then the end will come. [00:16:57] I think, and we're not being critical, but I think, and we must thank the Lord for it. With all the great missionary endeavor of the last hundred years has been the mighty proclamation of the good news throughout the world worldwide. [00:17:16] But the thing that all the missions are now asking themselves is this, has the preaching of the gospel produced the church and the church that can go through tribulation and can go through persecution? China was the great warning to worldwide missionaries. All agree that you get any great missionary, statesman or leader here and he would tell you that China, China was the place that woke them up. Since then the great cries a native, as they call it, a native church, a national church. We must do away with white supremacy. We must do away with all the government and administration and preaching being in the hands of westerners. We must have a national church and so on and so forth. But where did they learn this? They learned it in China. When communism swept over China, all that was produced by the preaching of the gospel, if it was not the testimony of Jesus was swept into oblivion. [00:18:16] Swept into oblivion. [00:18:20] And I am quite sure, and I know many of you would be, that if ever such a scourge of God came to this country, it would sweep a tremendous amount of so called christian energy and activity into oblivion. [00:18:37] If we just go into oblivion, the Lord said here, they shall hate one another, they shall give one another up. The Christians themselves will get into such a state that they will accuse each other, they will slander each other, they will give each other up to wicked authorities to be put to death, the love of the men who shall wax cold because of the iniquity that will abound on every side. [00:19:07] I haven't much time but the burden of my heart. And I could say a lot about this little scripture is this. Do you know? I'm convinced of it. That we are living even as the Lord's people here in this town. Even we are living, I'm sure, half deluded. [00:19:33] I'm sure that if we realized how near. [00:19:37] Near to God's judgment we are. [00:19:43] And how near everything that we know of life is to being broken up and devastated and derelicted. I'm sure that if we knew it, we would wake up. We would abandon ourselves to the Lord. And our great cry would be the establishment of the testimony of Jesus. Here in this locality. And in every locality where it is possible to establish it. [00:20:11] The Lord has said, the end will come. Now, mark you. Nation against nation. Kingdom against kingdom. Pestilences, earthquakes, famines. Great heretical religious movements and so on. Are only the beginning of the end. [00:20:35] It is a question with me as to whether we shall suffer. [00:20:39] I mean, as Christians. Will the Lord. Will the Lord preserve us from the families that will sweep over the earth? Will the Lord preserve us from the pestilences? What are pestilences? You know what pestilences are. Surely they are simply those plagues. Those terrible things like influenza and other things that will sweep that around the whole world in the last days. Wiping off thousands and thousands and thousands of people. [00:21:14] And what we shall escape from one form of trouble, we shall gain in another. We may not be in the earthquake region, but we shall gain it in another way. Now, will the Lord save us? [00:21:26] Will our homes? Will our families? [00:21:29] Will we, as the Lord's people, be saved? Or will we suffer as it says in the word of God? God. Storms fall upon the just and the unjust gods. God's rain falls upon those in God's sunshine upon them. The end. This is the beginning of the end, not the end. [00:21:47] We have a period in front of us, if I am right. Of the most devastating shaking that the world has ever known. For it says here that she that is with child. Oh, he says, you will be sorry in that day. [00:22:03] You will need to flee to the mountains because of it. [00:22:08] The things that will come upon the earth in those days. Well, our hearts may fear. I'm sorry if they are. [00:22:17] But it may do us all a lot of good. [00:22:21] Many of us will not look at things and face things. You see, we're building on the false basis, many of us. We're building on our self life in many ways. And there's going to come a day when suddenly the whole thing's going to flood down on us and we shall discover, oh, if only we had woken up earlier. If only. [00:22:45] We must take note of the signs of the times. We don't want to be scaremongers and sort of just get everyone worried and upset. But you must take note of the signs of the times. The fig tree, when it blossoms, you know it's summer is coming now. When you see these things come to pass, you must take note. You're a fool if you don't take note. If you don't take note of the fig tree beginning to burst into blossom, then what more can the Lord do for you? He has given the very things. You must take note. You must act accordingly. [00:23:19] Those things are the beginning of the end. But, says the Lord, the end will not come until the testimony has been established before all nations. [00:23:31] Well, I think I must close. I would like to say an awful lot more about the testimony, about this evidence being set forth for the nations. What is the evidence? God doesnt just want the gospel proclaimed. Thats the first thing. Thats an elementary, primary thing. But he wants to have the evidence in flesh and blood which men and women of every nation can see with their eyes, can touch with their hands, can handle, and could say, this is the life of God. [00:24:12] What a mistake it is when people just believe that. It's just preaching the gospel everywhere without anything else. What the Lord wants is the establishment of the church. [00:24:23] When he's got that, he's got the body of Jesus, then men can handle the Lord again. Then men can see the Lord again. Then men can touch the Lord again. It is the principle of incarnation, and it is the great principle with the principle of the Holy Spirit, of this age and dispensation, the Lord Jesus made flesh, and now in the glory, now his church, of his flesh and of his bone, the means by which he wants to go on doing things, the means by which he wants to contact the world. [00:25:04] Well, perhaps it will at least. If these short few words this morning do nothing else, perhaps it will stir a few questions in your hearts to come and ask a few questions about the end. But now, remember this, we don't talk, do we? And all of you know this. We talk very rarely about the second coming of the Lord Jesus. [00:25:27] We've seen only too clearly the dangers that come from excess and extremism, from an overemphasis upon the coming again of the Lord Jesus. But we must take note that day will come as a thief in the night. Even the Lord's people, if they're not absolutely on tiptoe will miss it and it will come, I bet here. [00:25:56] If the Lord said to his own, in a day such as you think, not that day will he come. [00:26:07] A testimony, the evidence. [00:26:11] Oh, that's tremendous. [00:26:14] It costs a tremendous amount to preach the gospel, to lead these shores or to go anywhere and preach the gospel faithfully. In these days, a full gospel. It will cost you everything. But believe me, to establish the testimony of Jesus will cost much more than even the proclaiming God. It will take everything. Everything indeed. You must fall into the ground in time, otherwise there can be no testimony. No testimony. No wonder Paul said about the end, forgive me, those of you who are all married and so on. No wonder the Lord, Paul said at the end that he thought the end was near. He said, don't you get married. [00:27:01] Those last days are going to demand everything from you that you will not be able to give with other cares. [00:27:12] Take note, those of us who are single and those of us who are married, let us take note of these things. We are moving irrevocably into the last days of this dispensation. [00:27:28] And what you see in your papers and what we hear over the radio and see on television are going to grow steadily worse and worse. And we are going to be involved. Now, make no fuss about that. We're going to. We're going to be involved in the end. It's going to reach us in the things. [00:27:47] And unless we've got deep roots in the law, when that great shaking comes, we'll not know where to put ourselves. We'll not know how to go through because we won't be able to make up suddenly for what we've lost through the years. It is going on. Those of you who've got children instructed, instruct them in the Lord. Instruct them at their youngest years in the Lord. Let them know, not in a fearful way, but let them know the truth so they may stand when that day comes upon us for its coming. We must be those who already given to the establishment of that testimony amongst the nations, those who love his appearing. You know, the days will get so bad, I'm sorry to be so dreadful, but the days will get so bad in the end that we shall really long for his appearing. I believe that they will be so terrible, there won't be anything for us down here. There's nothing at all. We shall just long and long the appearing of the Lord. [00:28:50] May the Lord help us then to awake from any stupor or sleep or apathy, lethargy or compromise or anything like that before it's too late. Let us not be drunk. [00:29:03] And let us not sleep as those that sleep in the night. But let us awake. Let us cast off these works and let us be absolutely ready, watching unto the coming of the Lord.