Taken from a sermon yesterday. please refer to Matthew
24:3-14.
1. Based on polls, 1/3 of Americans believed in the 2nd coming of
Christ even though they do not attend the church.
2. 6/10 of Americans believed the end of the world prophecy.
3. 1/3 of Americans believed in about few to tens of years later,
Christ will return.
4. 44% of Americans believed that true Christians will be taken by
God before end times, and non believers will remain.
5. 49% of Americans believed in the appearance of Antichrist.
To know about the end times, there is an old saying.
if you want to know about yesterday news, you have to read today's
paper.
if you want to know about today news, you have to read tonite's
paper.
if you want to know about future, you have to read the bible.
when we read about the prophecy in the bible, it has never been
disproved. but there are many people who tried to
prophecised
who will be the next president or the next boxer king, but many
failed in their attempts. Jesus prophecy in the bible
is
worthwhile for us to read.
during the end times, you have to be very careful, and look for 7
signs.
1. False prophets who claimed to be Christ.
a. 19th Century, Joseph Smith, Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27,
1844) was the American religious figure who founded the
Latter Day Saint movement, also known as Mormonism. Every year
there are 33000 new members.
b. Charles Taze Russell (February 16, 1852 – October 31, 1916),
also known as Pastor Russell, was a Protestant
evangelist
from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA and founder of the Bible Student
movement.
Founder of Jehovah's Witnesses.
c. Sun Myung Moon (born January 6, 1920) is the founder and leader
of the world-wide Unification Church and of the larger
Unification Movement which owns, operates or subsidizes many
organizations involved in political, cultural, mass-media,
and
other activities. One of the best known of these is the Washington
Times newspaper. Moon has said he is the Second Coming
of
Christ, the "Savior", "returning Lord", and "True Parent".
d. James Warren "Jim" Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was
the American founder of the Peoples Temple, which
became
synonymous with group suicide after the November 18, 1978 mass
murder-suicide in their isolated agricultural
intentional
community called Jonestown, located in Guyana, South America. Over
900 people died from cyanide poisoning or gunshot
wounds.
To the extent the actions in Jonestown were viewed as a mass
suicide, it is one of the largest such mass suicides in
history,
perhaps the largest in over 1,900 years and the largest mass
suicide of United States citizens.
Now who is the modern False prophets? Someone said he is Li Hongzhi
(Chinese: 李洪志; pinyin: Lǐ Hóngzhì) (born in Gongzhuling
city, Jilin, China) is the founder of Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa), a
system of "mind-body cultivation" related to the qigong
tradition. 100 million follower.
Another is the female Christ appeared in China, one HK Christian
was abducted to Shangdong was surrounded by female
believers
of the female Christ and tempted sexually. In the end, the HK
Christian was brained washed and lost his faith.
There are many false prophets in modern times and they are very
active in reaching out and destroying people's lives.
2. Wars and rumours of wars.
a. 1st World War
b. 2nd World War - death toll is 54 million, Poland 6 million
Jews.
c. if all of the nuclear weapons were to detonate, every man will
die 100 times.
d. biological weapons could wipe out the earth.
3. Hunger and starvation
a. etc. Eithopia, Sudan, Somlia, Rwanda.
b. 4 million died of hunger every year.
c. wars, human population explosion and natural disasters and food
health problems caused worldwide hunger.
d. current food production levels could feed 10 billions, but why
1/3 of population are still going hungry? because of
wide
income disparities. Majority are poor, only a small minority are
very rich. 1/5 population are living in poverty and are mal
-nourished. 3/5 of the world population do not have sanitary
facility. 1.3 billion population are surviving on US$1/-
per
day. 1/3 of the population cannot survive until 40 years of age.
people are wasting food nowadays, if you see the
restaurants
many food are uneaten and wasted.
4. Earthquakes everywhere.
a. Every years the rate of earthquakes are increasing rate.
1st-7th century. Big Earthquakes occurred more than 10 times.
8th-10th century. more than 30 times.
11th century. more than 50 times.
19th century - 2000 times.
20th century - 10000 times.
21th century - countless.
b. almost every year Big Earthquakes happened frequently during the
entry 20th century.
1915 Italy
1917 Central America
1919 Italy
1920 Mexico, China
1923 Iran, Japan
1931 New Zealand, Central America
Death Toll for these earthquakes 340,000
1920 Gansu 180,000 dead
1923 Japan Kwantong 150,00 dead
1976 TangShan estimated 651,000 dead
Death toll highest in China earthquakes. 800,000 dead max.
2004 Earthquake and Tsunami - 200,000 dead.
These are the beginning of "birth pains".
5. The persecution of Christians.
a. Americans Christians are being persecuted, during the class,
some professors (e.g. Standford) allows meditation in
class.
But do not allow students to read the bible in class. They will be
ostracized if they do that.
b. In China, many Christians are being persecuted for their faith.
Many are tutored and jailed.
6. Many illegals things happening, people's heart are indifferent
(cold).
a. In the US, every year there are 3.7 million credit cards being
stolen. be very careful of your letter boxes. many
stole
information from your letterboxes and ID theft.
b. Increasing no. of commercial crimes.
c. Increasing no. of divorces. In China, 1981, there are about
120,000 couples filed for divorce. In 1994, there are about
6
million couples filed for divorce.
d. In the US, the people filing for divorces exceeded no. of people
filing for marriages.
e. Man's increasing self centeredness is the caused of people's
heart getting indifferent (colder).
f. There is a marriage of a person and a mirror, because it is the
marriage of oneself. because one love oneself so much
that
she didn't even consider many suitors in the audience.
g. In the Guinness book of record, there is someone who married 29
times. Who did he married?? Someone who had married 28
times!! what is the reason for their divorce? his son said my dad
saw his wife eating on bed. Another time, he divorced
her
ex-wife because she used his special toothpaste.
So you can see, man's is getting more indifferent (cold) to others.
If more and more people are like this, the world will
get
worse and worse.
7. In the end, the Gospel must be spread across the world, and
reach to every corners of the world. Jesus will then arrive.
a. There are 6.5 billions people in the world. Only 2 billions are
Christians. 2/3 are still non-believers. There are more
work to be done.
If Jesus comes tonight? Are you prepared to go? What can you
do?
1 Peter 4:7-10
7The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and
self-controlled so that you can pray. 8Above all, love
each
other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 9Offer
hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10Each
one
should use whatever gift he has received to serve others,
faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.
Let's all pray for Sichuan and Myanmar, cry with them, donate money
or help them with whatever talents we have and we can. Give hope to
those who needs hope!
