Apocalypse Talks: The Fall Is Approaching
Matthew 24:9-14
Here is a truism: making good choices comes from experience; experience comes from making bad choices! Will we ever NOT make bad choices?
Failure Is A Fact Of Life
Warning from the Law-Bearer ~ Deuteronomy 31:23-29
- 23 encouragement to leader: be strong and have courage
- 24/26 command to religious: keep the Word
- 27 awareness against a rebellious heart
- 28/29 warning to people: NOT a self-fulfilling prophecy: a promise that if you sow evil, God will have you reap it
Learning from the Living Word ~ Matthew 24:9-14
- 9 this started with Saul, and kept going for 300 years until Constantine [carrying this call will not be easy]
- 10/11 shown to be true in Scripture (2Tim 2 w/ Phygellus and Hermogenes) and history (Tacitus under Nero: “at first, several were seized, who confessed, and then, by their discovery, a great multitude of others were convicted and executed.”) [fake faith fades under fire]
- 12/13 not ONLY a prophecy of early Christians, but of CONDITIONS: when this starts to happen, and Christians just let it be, their love for God gets weaker, which detracts from their ability to stand firm in their faith! [apathy in face of evil saps spiritual energy]
- 14 history shows this happened: the early Christians were scattered all over the world (ex. Thomas made it to India in 52AD); the end OF JERUSALEM did come, in 70AD
If the fall of Jerusalem caused Jesus to give these warnings to early Christians – do they still speak for our own context? Right now, we hear the challenge to “make America great again”… but what KIND of greatness? Are we allowing evil to expand while our zeal for righteousness contracts? Failure Is A Fact Of Life: Be conquered by it, or Compensate for it?
A Transformed Life 