Collierville First Baptist Church

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On October the 25th, 2010,

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a massive earthquake ripped through the tectonic plates

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and unleashed tsunamis that leveled whole villages in the region of Indonesia.

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This could have been avoided or minimized

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had the tsunami warning system worked properly.

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A tsunami early warning system uses seismic networks

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and ocean sensors to detect potential tsunamis.

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It analyzes the data to assess risk

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and then broadcast warnings via radio, TV, sirens, and text messages

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to inform at-risk communities

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and to turn awareness into readiness.

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As followers of Christ, if you'd take your Bible, turn to Matthew chapter 24.

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As followers of Christ, the disciples were certainly aware of his coming and of his kingdom.

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That's obviously, as you look at the questions they ask him,

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they're in Jerusalem on this particular day.

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They ask him basically when would the,

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about the future of the temple, they ask him about when the signs of his coming and the end of the age.

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So they were aware of Jesus coming and his kingdom.

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Now, this was a teachable moment. Jesus, within a few hours, would go to the cross

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and he would transition his disciples from a face-to-face relationship with him

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to a spiritual relationship.

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And in an effort to turn awareness into readiness,

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he taught them about his second coming and the future of his kingdom.

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Now, I wanna say this to everyone within the sound of my voice. In this room, watching live stream, somebody that'll go to YouTube later and watch this sermon, I tell you, there is no excuse

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for anyone to be caught flat-footed about our Lord's return. No excuse whatsoever. Listen, when Jesus come, nobody will be able to stand before him and say, well, you didn't tell me. No, he's told you. You just didn't read it or you didn't study or you were nonchalant about it or you didn't care.

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Anybody can know that Jesus is coming

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and anybody could know that he's going to initiate

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a kingdom that will be eternal and perfect, absolutely perfect.

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So let me ask you a question this morning.

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How many of you, and I want you to do it by show of hands, how many of you are aware that Jesus is coming? Raise your hand.

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Okay, all over the room, okay. You're aware.

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And I praise God that you're aware, but you cannot stop with awareness.

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Your awareness must be translated into readiness, readiness. In Matthew chapter 24, verse 42,

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Jesus said, therefore be on the alert for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.

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We don't know the day.

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And nobody can tell you the day he's coming.

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But I can't stand here behind this pulpit and tell you that he is coming.

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He is coming.

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Look at verse 44. For this reason, you also must be ready. You must be ready.

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For the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think he will.

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And then Luke chapter 21, verses 34 to 36,

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Jesus made this statement, 21, 34 to 36. Listen to this.

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Jesus said, be on guard so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life. And that day, what day? The day of his coming will not come on you suddenly like a trap for it will come upon all those who dwell on the face of all the earth. But keep on the alert at all times praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place and to stand before the Son of Man.

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And listen, Jesus wants to take your awareness

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and turn it into readiness.

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And he wants to take your readiness and turn it into eagerness.

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He wants you to be eager for his coming.

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The Bible says in Philippians chapter three, verse 20 and 21,

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listen to this passage from the pen of the apostle Paul, "For our citizenship is in heaven,

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from which also," listen to this, "from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory by the exertion of the power that he has even to subject all things to himself."

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The Bible says that our Lord wants us to be eager for his coming.

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He does not want us to get so weighted down by the things of this world and so rooted into the world system that we're not actively watching for him to come and eagerly waiting for him to come. Now, here's a good way to think about the second coming.

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We should plan as though Jesus isn't coming for a thousand years,

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but we should live as if he's coming in the next 10 minutes.

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What you believe will happen tomorrow will impact how you live today.

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First John chapter two, verse 28,

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the Bible says, "Now little children abide in him in Jesus,

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so that when he appears," so when he comes,

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we may have confidence

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and not shrink away from him in shame at his coming. You know what the Bible says?

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The Bible says there are gonna be believers who'll be living when Jesus comes

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and they will be ashamed when he comes because they're not ready for him to come.

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They haven't been eagerly waiting for him to come.

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They're into the world system,

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but they're not into the kingdom of God.

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In Matthew chapter 24, verses four to 14,

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the Holy Spirit inspired Matthew

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to share the words of Jesus, seven early warning signs

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that he's coming.

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We don't know when exactly, but he's coming.

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Now, these signs will increase

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and intensify as the Lord's return draws near. It's important that you realize that all seven of these signs have been taking place for ages.

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It's not that they just pop up out of nothing,

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but here's the key to understanding what Jesus is teaching us here.

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Yes, they've been around, things like this have happened forever,

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but when you begin to see these signs intensify and get more frequent,

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then it should set off an alarm in your mind and heart, "I need to get ready, Jesus is coming.

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"I need to get ready."

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So I'm using the same takeaway truth I used last week, and it's simply this, and this is what I want you to remember.

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Get ready and stay ready for Jesus to come.

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Get ready and stay ready. Let's just do a little rehearsal of the first three signs that we looked at last week.

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The first sign that Jesus gave us here in Matthew 24 is spiritual deception.

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In Matthew 24, verses four and five,

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"Jesus answered and said to them, "when they asked these questions about his coming, "the sign of his coming, "see to it that no one misleads you,

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"for many will come in my name,

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"saying I am the Christ and will mislead many."

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Look at verse 11 of chapter 24, "Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many."

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Look at verse 24, "For false Christ and false prophets will arise "and will show great signs and wonders "so as to mislead if possible even the elect."

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Three different verses, three different sections here. The Bible says that false prophets, false Christ will arise and will mislead many.

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Ohio, pray that you will not be misled

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of false teachers and by false messiahs. Spiritual deception is the first sign. Then the second sign is global conflict. Now we went over these first three signs last week.

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In Matthew chapter 24, verses six and seven, "Jesus said, you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars.

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"See that you are not frightened "for those things must take place.

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"But that is not yet the end.

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"For nation will rise against nation "and kingdom against kingdom." You say, "Pastor, that's been going on "since the days of Adam and Eve." Yeah, it has.

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But remember, the whole key to understanding these signs

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is when you see an increase in frequency and intensity of these signs,

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it is an early warning system where God has given us a way that we can know that Jesus coming is near.

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I can't predict the date, but we can know when he's near.

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How many of you got up this morning because of an alarm clock?

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Really?

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You know, I don't have to use alarm clock anymore.

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When you get older, you just wake up. At times you don't wanna wake up and it's always earlier than you wish to wake up.

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But when you heard your alarm clock this morning,

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it was a warning.

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Hey, if you're going to church today, you gotta get up, you gotta get ready, you gotta get your shower, you gotta get the kids ready, you gotta get all this stuff together so that you can go to church and be there close to on time.

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So I believe if you look at what's happening in the world today,

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and you look at the wars and rumors of wars that are taking place before our very eyes,

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we can almost hear with our spiritual ears the warning blast of God's signs saying, "Get ready, Jesus come, get ready and stay ready, "Jesus is coming."

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And then the third sign that we looked at last week was natural disasters.

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Now I remind you, these are the words of Jesus, okay?

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And Jesus said, and in various places, Matthew 24 seven, the last part of the verse, and in various places, there will be famines and earthquakes. And we looked last week at the number of people in the world today who are dealing with hunger because of famines.

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The increase of earthquakes,

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especially strong, strong earthquakes.

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Okay, these are the three early warning signs we looked at last week, but in verses eight to 14, I wanna point out four more signs. I thought it was three more, but it's four more. Four more signs that should alert us to the nearness of our Lord's return. Now remember, here's the whole point, get ready and stay ready for our Lord's return.

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Verse eight is sort of a hinge verse.

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Look at it, Matthew 24, verse eight, "But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs."

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Now the metaphor of birth pangs,

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sheds a lot of light on these signs.

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A woman does not go into labor when she conceives a baby in her womb.

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Now I want everybody to understand, that when a woman conceives in her womb, it's a baby.

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It's a baby.

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It's not a blob of tissue, it's a baby.

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It's a human being who deserves to live.

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So when she conceives that baby,

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she doesn't go into labor.

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And she carries that baby through the months of pregnancy. She does not go into labor.

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Now she may have morning sickness.

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I think the first three months when we had our kids, Darlene was sick every morning.

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My job was to jump up, go get a rag,

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put cold water, soak in cold water and bring it to Darlene. Then get out of the way.

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But you know what? During the time that the babies were developing in her womb, she didn't have labor pains.

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You know when she had labor pains?

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When she was getting ready to have the baby. I remember when Heather was coming.

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Darlene was down and she was cleaning

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boards next to the floor, baseboards.

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And she said, "Chug, my back's bogged me."

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And it got worse and worse. And she said, "You know what? We better go to the hospital."

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Well, I threw her in a vehicle quick and I got her to the hospital.

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And you know what? Within three hours she had given birth to Heather.

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But she didn't have those labor pains till Heather was on the way. Same thing with Zach. She had babies quick.

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So if she said one word, you better get on the stick, I'm telling you. But the thing that Jesus is teaching us here

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is that there will be a steady increase in the frequency and the intensity and the intensity of these signs as his return approaches.

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Now, if our awareness of our Lord's return is going to translate into readiness,

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we've got to pay attention to what's going on in the world.

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Today, we're gonna look at four more signs. Here's sign number four, Christian persecution.

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Christian persecution. Look at verse nine.

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Jesus said, "Then they will deliver you to tribulation."

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It's not talking about the tribulation, not talking about the seven year time of tribulation before the return of Christ. He's talking about tribulation or affliction or persecution. And they will kill you and you will be hated by all nations. Why? Because of my name.

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As we approach the time of our Lord's glorious return, we can expect a rapid increase in the frequency

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and the intensity and the brutality of persecution.

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Dr. Rogers said this, I quote,

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"The world doesn't mind religion,

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"but resents Jesus Christ.

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"More Christians died for their faith in the 20th century." Listen to this now, don't miss it.

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"More Christians died for their faith in the 20th century "than all the other centuries since Calvary."

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You understand what I just said?

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All the centuries for 2000 years,

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you add up all of the martyrs who've been martyred for their faith

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and there was more people martyred for the faith in the 20th century than all the other 19 combined.

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Now look, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer,

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but I believe that's an increase in intensity and frequency.

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And I can hear the warning sirens going off.

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Jesus is coming and we need to get ready

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and we need to stay ready. Now, no one can accuse Jesus

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of pulling off a bait and switch by removing from the gospel the price true believers will pay as it relates to persecution.

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In fact, Dr. Rogers went on to say, "More Christians were tortured and slain "during World War II than under the Roman Empire.

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"Some authorities claimed that over 50 million Christians "were slaughtered in communist countries "for their faith in Christ."

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Matthew chapter five, verses 10 through 12, the very first sermon Jesus preached here in the gospel of Matthew.

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Look what he said.

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Matthew five, 10 through 12, the Beatitudes. This is the end of the Beatitudes. "Blessed are those who have been persecuted "for the sake of righteousness,

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"for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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"Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you "and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. "Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great "for the same way they persecuted the prophets "who were before you."

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I went on the internet to Opendoors, Opendoors.com.

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It keeps up with all the persecution of believers going on in the world.

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And they listed the top 10 countries that persecute Christians.

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Number one is North Korea.

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They persecute because of their communism.

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Number two is Somalia.

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They persecute because of Islamic oppression.

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And then number three is Yemen.

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Again, Islamic oppression. Then Libya, Islamic oppression. Sudan, Islamic oppression.

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Erita, dictorial paranoia. Nigeria, Islamic oppression. Pakistan, Islamic oppression. Iran, Islamic oppression. Afghanistan, Islamic oppression. That's the top 10 countries that persecute believers.

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Right now, 2025.

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More than 380 million Christians are suffering high levels of persecution and discrimination for one reason, their faith in Jesus Christ.

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Now, if we really believe what Jesus said,

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if we really believe that as we get closer to His return, we're gonna see an increase in intensity and frequency of these signs, and we look at what's happening just with the sign of persecution. We've got to know that His coming is near.

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It's near.

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Here's the fifth sign Jesus gave us.

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Massive apostasy.

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To apostasize means you turn away from the faith. You're scandalized by the gospel of Christ. You're scandalized by Jesus Himself. Look at verses 10 and 11 of Matthew 24. At that time, many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.

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The pressure of persecution will cause many believers in the last days to turn their backs on Jesus

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and to reject the gospel,

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even to turn their backs on their own family members who are believers and fellow believers in the church. The Bible says that even in the last days, church members will turn on church members and turn in other church members because of their faith in Christ.

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Sobering, isn't it? Mark 13, verse 12, Jesus said, "Brother will betray brother to death "and a father, his child and children "will rise up against parents and have them put to death."

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You say, "Pastor, I don't want to hear this."

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You need to hear it because it's real.

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Because it's real.

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There's no way that you can escape what Jesus is saying here.

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And during these last days of apostasy,

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people will turn their backs on Jesus, they'll turn their back on the gospel, they'll turn their back on fellow believers, they'll turn their back on their own saved family members

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because they don't want to pay the high price of persecution

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or they're lured because of false teaching

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that will explode across the world in the last days.

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John MacArthur stated, I quote,

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"A person who genuinely belongs to Christ "may sometimes falter and be disobedient." Now we can all agree with that, right? None of us here are perfect.

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But he will never reject his Lord.

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The person who belongs to Christ continues to confess him, to serve him and to suffer for him. He does not endure because of his own strength

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and his own fortitude, but because he is indwelt by the Holy Spirit who never fails to give sustaining grace to God's children. You know, when I read that, I thought about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,

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when Nebuchadnezzar threatened to throw them into the fiery furnace,

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unless they recanted their faith in the one true God

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and fell down and worshiped Nebuchadnezzar's idol God.

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And those boys, I'm telling you, they were strong.

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Here's what they said to Nebuchadnezzar, I'm paraphrasing.

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They said, "We don't even need to pray about this." You know, there's some things you don't need to pray about. You don't have to pray about if it's God's will for you to stand true to Jesus and the gospel. You don't have to pray about that.

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They said, "Look, we don't care. "Our God can deliver us from the fiery furnace "if he chooses to, but even if he does not, "we are not gonna bow down to your idol."

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That's the kind of courage and conviction that every believer within the sound of my voice needs to have.

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In Hebrew chapter three, verse 12,

[01:27:14;51 - 01:27:15;43]
hear the word of God.

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The Bible says, "Take care, brethren."

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That there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from believing God.

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Don't go there.

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One day, you may be put in the cross hairs of persecution.

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Your life may be threatened.

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You may be asked to turn your back on your kids or your spouse.

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And if you don't, it'll cost you dearly.

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Don't turn away from Jesus.

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Because I'm telling you why, Jesus said, "There's great reward in heaven "for those who stay true to him

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"when the price is high." So get ready and stay ready for the Lord's return.

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Now we've looked at five signs so far.

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Number one, spiritual deception.

[01:28:33;37 - 01:28:35;22]
Number two, global conflict.

[01:28:37;04 - 01:28:47;30]
Number three, natural disasters. Number four, Christian persecution. Number five, massive apostasy. You know, I never thought I'd see the day.

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When members of this body, very few, but a few members of this body

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have turned their back on Jesus

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and cast dispersion upon the very word of the living God.

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What has happened?

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Don't let it be you. Here's number six sign, blatant lawlessness.

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Look at verses 12 and 13, Jesus said, "Because lawlessness is increased,

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"most people's love will grow cold.

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"But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved." Lawlessness means to deliberately behave with complete disregard for the laws or regulations of God and government.

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Our nation, think about our nation,

[01:29:55;48 - 01:29:57;38]
the United States of America.

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We have deliberately rejected God's moral law. And we're pretty proud of it in this nation.

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We've legalized abortion.

[01:30:13;40 - 01:30:16;57]
We've affirmed the LGBTQ plus agenda.

[01:30:19;37 - 01:30:21;29]
And we've even redefined marriage.

[01:30:25;07 - 01:30:30;49]
There's even a raging debate going on across the nation.

[01:30:32;07 - 01:30:37;03]
Where the biological males can play in female sports.

[01:30:39;15 - 01:30:40;55]
I never thought I would see the day.

[01:30:43;24 - 01:31:01;50]
I can't believe that the women's organizations that used to consider themselves to be feminists are not raising up an absolute anger over the fact that girls are being forced to go into a locker room with a boy.

[01:31:04;20 - 01:31:12;10]
And they're forced to play volleyball or they're forced to play some kind of sport or swim against a male.

[01:31:19;21 - 01:31:20;24]
And it's not getting better.

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It's getting worse.

[01:31:25;20 - 01:31:28;20]
Lawlessness is reaching epidemic proportions

[01:31:29;28 - 01:31:39;06]
as respect for men and women who work in law enforcement are coming under the increasing lack of respect and outright physical attacks.

[01:31:44;06 - 01:31:45;26]
It's happening in Portland.

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It's happening in Chicago.

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It's happening in Los Angeles.

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It's not only happening here in America, it's happening across the world. It's a worldwide epidemic of lawlessness.

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It's a failure at the core level of government.

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Our president is threatening to send the National Guard into Chicago and Portland and different cities

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that have absolutely become inundated by lawlessness and crime.

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This description of lawlessness strikes a parallel to Paul's description to his young protege, Timothy, in 2 Timothy 3, verses one to five, listen to what Paul wrote.

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But realize this, that in the last days, difficult times will come.

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For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money,

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boastful, arrogant, revilers,

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disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,

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unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God holding to a form of godlessness, godliness, although they have denied its power, avoid such men as these.

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In Mississippi, just this past weekend,

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I think upwards of 10 or 11 people were killed at the end of football games.

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You kidding me?

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Blatant lawlessness.

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We shouldn't be surprised though.

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One day the antichrist is going to unmask himself.

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You know what Paul said about the antichrist?

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Says in 2 Thessalonians chapter two, verse three and four, "Let no one in any way deceive you, "for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first,

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"and the man of lawlessness is revealed, "the son of destruction who opposes and exalts himself "above every so-called god or object of worship "so that he takes his seed in the temple of God, "displaying himself as being God."

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One of these days, I believe the antichrist is alive on this earth right now.

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And one day he's gonna pull his mask off.

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And his core heart character is one of lawlessness, Paul said.

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And people who have rejected Christ, Antifa, these other groups who have rejected Christ,

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they have fallen into the trap of this lawlessness

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that is destroying this very nation

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and destroying families

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and putting those who are in law enforcement in great danger and peril.

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What did Jesus mean when he says, "The love of many will grow cold"?

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I'll tell you, there's a connection, there's a parallel here, do you see it?

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Great lawlessness leads to love growing cold.

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They're tied together.

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Ladies and gentlemen, I look at these signs

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and I look at what verse eight taught us

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and I can hear those warning sirens going off.

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Jesus coming.

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Can't predict the date, won't predict the date,

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can't predict the date,

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but I can tell you if we pay attention to what Jesus said, we look at what's going on in the world, we gotta realize that his coming is near

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and we gotta get ready and stay ready for his coming.

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Here's number seven, gospel proclamation.

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This is the positive one out of all the negative ones. Okay, look at it. Verse 13 and 14, "But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

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This gospel of the kingdom shall be priests in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations

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and then the end will come."

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So how will the gospel ever be priests to the whole world?

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There's upwards of 8 billion people on the planet.

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You realize that just in our lifetime or my lifetime, not some of the younger ones here,

[01:37:38;48 - 01:37:39;48]
but in my lifetime,

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I've seen the invention of the internet

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and through the internet, radio, TV,

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social media, just about anybody in the world has access to the gospel if they want it.

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But like John MacArthur said, it's not just natural means of getting the gospel Lord, they're supernatural means.

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In Revelation chapter seven, the Bible says there's gonna be 144,000 Jews who are sealed who will take the gospel to the world.

[01:38:30;43 - 01:38:32;18]
In Revelation chapter 11,

[01:38:33;55 - 01:38:38;32]
there are two witnesses that God sends to this earth

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to preach the gospel to the world

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and they will do great signs and wonders

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and they will even rise from the dead before a watching world.

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And in Revelation chapter 14, just prior to the pouring out of the bold judgments,

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God sends an angel from heaven with the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth to every nation, tribe, tongue and people saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come and worship him who made heaven and earth the sea and springs of water.

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So I want you to understand that prior to the tribulation,

[01:39:25;24 - 01:39:28;22]
gospel getting out everywhere in a lot of different ways.

[01:39:31;38 - 01:39:33;17]
And even during the tribulation,

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the gospel will be preached through supernatural means

[01:39:39;38 - 01:39:44;47]
and the whole world will hear that Jesus saves,

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Jesus saves that he is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the father but through him.

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So with all that being said,

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I say to you again, get ready

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and stay ready for the Lord's return.

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The seven signs that Jesus mentions here, spiritual deception, global conflict, natural disasters, Christian persecution, massive apostasy, blatant lawlessness and gospel proclamation.

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I'm telling you, every one of those signs

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is increasing in frequency and intensity.

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Our staff and our security team have a warning app it's called Raptor.

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And if something were to happen in this church,

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if someone were to try to get in here and do harm to us,

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one of them would trigger that and we would take every means possible to protect you. We see it's an early warning,

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benefit that we have.

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And Jesus has given us an early warning signs here.

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It will just pay attention

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and get ready and stay ready for his return.

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This morning, if you've never been to the church,

[01:41:30;30 - 01:41:31;05]
this morning,

[01:41:33;18 - 01:41:34;15]
if you've never

[01:41:36;04 - 01:41:38;29]
repented of your sin and placed your faith in Jesus,

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I'm gonna ask you to let this morning be the day that you get ready.

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I'm gonna ask our staff to come, our worship team to come and listen, if you wanna be saved today and know that you're saved and know, remember we talked about he will hold you fast. If you really wanna know that you're in the hands of Jesus in the hands of the Father,

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admit to God that you're a sinner,

[01:42:11;33 - 01:42:20;35]
turn from your sin, place your faith in Jesus, who went to the cross and died for your sins and was raised from the dead so that you could be justified before the Father.

[01:42:22;48 - 01:42:30;22]
Just come to a staff member and tell him I wanna be saved today, today.

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And if you're in this room and you're a believer,

[01:42:36;10 - 01:42:40;19]
you've been sorta slacking off in your spiritual life,

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come to this altar, bow the knee to Jesus and ask for the filling and the anointing of the Holy Spirit and ask Jesus to help you to abide in him.

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As the nearness of his return draws near.

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Father, in the name of Jesus,

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help us to get ready and stay ready

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for the return of the Lord Jesus, in Christ's name, Amen. Let's stand and worship and you come as God leads you.