Signs of the End Times: Modern Clues

Text: Matthew 24:36-44

Introduction: The return of Christ is an event Christians have been watching for since the time Christ ascended into heaven in Acts 1:9. Jesus warned us to be ready in Mt. 24:44, and Paul told us of an event we call the Rapture in I Thess. 4, in which Christians will be snatched out of this world and taken up to heaven. It was not until the early 1800s that this belief was written out in a systematic theological study, but it has been a foundational belief of Baptists since the first century. The question is, how close are we?

Many have tried to predict a date for the Lord’s return. William Miller, a Baptist preacher, declared it would be in October of 1843. When it didn’t happen he refigured the date to October 1844. When the Lord didn’t come he was a broken man, but Baptists continued to teach the soon return of the Lord. Others tried to set dates.

Charles Taze Russell founded the Jehovah’s Witnesses and predicted that the Millennial Kingdom of Christ would begin in 1874, and then again in 1914. In 1914 World War 1 broke out and the JW’s declared it the fulfillment of Russell’s prophecy. They actually believe that Jesus, in spirit form, is living in their headquarters in Brooklyn, New York right now. Of course, you can’t talk to Him, and nothing that has happened since 1914 has given us any reason to believe that we are in the millennial reign of Christ. The earth is not at perfect peace, all the sick are not healed, cripples do not leap like deer, and the world is not a garden as described in Isaiah 11 and 35. We lived in Africa for 14 years and I can assure you lions are not lying down with lambs.

When World War 2 broke out some pre-millennial theologians began to wonder if that wasn’t the beginning of the Tribulation period, and since they were still here if they hadn’t somehow misinterpreted the Scripture about a pre-Tribulational rapture. But when the Nazis and the Japanese were defeated they realized they had not missed anything doctrinally. When Israel was restored to its homeland in 1948 it became clear once again that the Lord was still fulfilling biblical prophecy and that the last prophecy prior to the return of the Lord had finally been fulfilled with the emergence of the Jewish state.

Since the establishment of Israel prophetic teaching has been a hot topic among Baptists, Pentecostals and Evangelicals. The imminency of the Rapture has been of primary interest to serious churchgoers and Bible students. Prophetic conferences are going on all the time all across the United States.

In 1991 Saddam Hussein led Iraq to invade Kuwait, which resulted in the First Gulf War. Hussein claimed he was Nebuchadnezzar reincarnated and declared that he was going to rebuild Babylon to its ancient splendor. Immediately many so-called prophecy experts started changing their tunes. Mystery Babylon in Revelation 17:5 and 18:2, 10, 21, has long been considered by Baptists and Protestants to be a reference to Rome. Suddenly the prophecy preachers started teaching that while chapter 17 was still Rome, chapter 18 was a reference to the real Babylon and that Hussein was going to rebuild Babylon and that by the time of the Tribulation period it would become the commercial center of the world.

This sudden change of opinion by so many was surprising. If the Bible is consistent and our doctrine true, why should we suddenly change direction over a single incident without first thinking it through? Figure it out. Even if Saddam Hussein hadn’t been overthrown, it would have taken years just to rebuild Babylon, but to move the center of the commercial world from New York City to Babylon would have taken more than just rebuilding the city. Iraq would have had to become a world power in economics while the U.S. declined, and even then for that to take place would take decades, if not the entire century, and that’s if everything was peaceful and prosperous. But you have to wonder, what does Iraq have to offer that would draw the world’s economic markets to Babylon? And look what happened after 9/11. The attack on the World Trade Center was an attack on not only America’s, but on the world’s commercial markets. And what happened? We dug out and rebuilt, and New York is still the commercial center of the world.

And now after the Second Gulf War, Hussein is gone, and after all the efforts of the Bush Administration to create an independent free Iraq, Obama has thrown it all away by pulling U.S. troops out too soon, and the Iraqi government has been controlled by Iran, and is in danger of falling to ISIS. But these prophecy experts won’t back down and still refer to Revelation 18 as literal Babylon. If that’s the case, we might as well get ready for the long haul because the Rapture is not imminent if we have to wait for Babylon to be rebuilt and become the commercial center of the world.

The truth is, we don’t have to worry about it because that is not a requirement for the Lord’s return. I do think, however, that we need to be watching, and if we are watching, we will see signs of things happening around us that point inevitably to the conclusion that the Rapture is near. I think also, however, that we need to be careful about what we say and how we say it so that we don’t come off sounding like we are setting dates, or setting expectations too high.

I used to talk to Jonathan when he was young about why we had to serve the Lord while there is still time because He is coming. One day Jonathan said in a rather sad tone, I’ll probably never get to grow up anyway because the Lord is coming. I realized then I was emphasizing it too much. Sure the Lord could come at any moment, but we have to live like He’s not coming at all. We still have to occupy till He comes.

The Lord will come when He is ready, regardless of what the critics say. In fact, if you’ve ever heard someone mocking Christians for our belief in a returning Savior, that in itself is a proof that He is coming. Peter wrote about those who say, “Where is the sign of His coming?” and concluded that they are willfully ignorant of the truth (2 Peter 3:4-5). They also prove him to be right. Ironically, as we pointed out last time, some religious leaders also mock the idea of the Rapture, but that doesn’t change anything. Paul gave us very specific details about the event, and the only way we can ignore it is to come up with some spiritual meaning for it. For one, I’ve never heard anyone give a spiritualized meaning for the Rapture, and two, once you go down that slippery slope there’s no stopping. If the Rapture is spiritually speaking, what else is spiritually speaking, and who decides? Anybody who does not believe the Rapture is literal does not take the Bible literally.

I think also we need to be careful how we present our information. I remember hearing preachers when I was a teenager back in the 1960s talking about how sinful the United States was becoming. They would say things like, “I believe someday God will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah for what He allows to go on unpunished in our day.” It sounded real spiritual, but it wasn’t scriptural, and for all that it wasn’t spiritual either.

First of all, God doesn’t have to apologize for anything. His decisions are perfect. Now I know that these men were speaking figuratively to try and point out the wickedness of our society, but that leads to the second point; what we see going on today is so increasingly worse than anything we ever imagined in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and even the 90s, that they don’t even compare. Even with the so-called sexual revolution going on in American culture in the 60s, we were a virtuous society compared with what we are today.

Let’s give it some perspective. Regardless of how loud and influential the gay community is, it is still only 2.5% of the American population, and even with the support of Democrats, liberal media and the courts, we still don’t have entire cities of gay people demanding to have sexual relations with every stranger who visits those cities. As wicked as things are, we still haven’t sunk that low. It may not be long, but we aren’t there yet.

In fact, there are so many technological advances that have taken place in the last fifty years, as well as an alignment of nations that when we look back we can’t help but think the world wasn’t really ready for the Rapture to take place until now. Now, Jesus told them to be ready, and Christians have always looked at the return of the Lord as being imminent, but we really had nothing to go by to show it was near until Israel was reborn in 1948. What that should tell us is that we should be more and more excited as we see certain events take place because it is getting near. The question is are there any other clues that could be telling us how near the return of the Lord is? Well, let’s look at a few things.

I. Modern technological and worldwide developments.

1. The Mark of the Beast, 666, is foretold in Revelation 13:16-18. It comes in the form of either a stamp on the hand or in the forehead. In order to buy or sell in the antichrist’s world you have to have one of these marks. The question has always been what kind of a mark is he going to put on your skin? I remember as a young boy not understanding all this the first time I heard it in Sunday School, but thinking that if I was in that situation, I sure wouldn’t want it on my forehead. Of course, it's not something that any believer in Christ has to worry about because we won't be here.

Then somebody came up with the bar code method of pricing objects in stores. Suddenly it became popular to talk about again. This bar code was supposedly based on a code, which used a different arrangement of six stripes three times. Then reading credit cards by this same method using an electric eye made sense of it. Another advancement was electronic ankle bracelet monitoring devices that can be used to track criminals or pets, and even your young children. But then they came up with the definitive answer: A microchip that could be planted under the skin. It’s no longer a mystery.

2. Another question that long puzzled preachers was the two witnesses in Revelation 11:9. They have power to call down fire from heaven, and for three years they preach the Gospel to every corner of the earth. Finally they are killed and the whole world sees it.

Over time some clues began to filter in that would give us hope in understanding the passage. First Samuel Morse invented the telegraph. Now a message could be sent by wire. Cables were even dropped across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Then along came the wireless and Teletype. No longer did the messages have to be in code. Then came the radio. But even as much as that helped the message spread, it still didn’t allow for people to be able to see the two dead bodies. When photography was invented in 1826 it began to make sense that people worldwide could see it, but even a picture taken then could take weeks to be spread around the globe and according to Revelation the bodies were only going to be lying in the street for three days before they would be miraculously raised up to heaven.

Then came television, which broadcast a picture right into your home, and then with satellite technology a picture could be broadcast around the world in only a few seconds. But the problem remained; televisions are big and bulky, and everybody doesn’t have one. When my wife was a little girl her family didn’t have a television. She and her cousin would go to a neighbor’s that did have TV, and stand outside the window and look in to watch. Now days almost everybody in advanced countries has TVs, but there are still people in the bush, the jungles and the mountains without this technology.

Then came the personal home computer. The Internet today is the most commonly used forum for socializing and passing news. There are Internet cafes everywhere for people who don’t own a PC, and laptops make it possible to carry your computer with you. But even with laptops and Internet cafes sometimes a computer can be too big and bulky to carry all around everywhere to keep up on the news. Then the technology took one more leap forward. Cell phones, I-pads, and I-phones. Now you can reach anybody from almost anywhere in the world at anytime, and they have Internet connections as well. And everybody has one. Little kids have them. Tribal people in the bush in Africa have them. Aetas up here in the jungles have them. Everybody has a cell phone. When the day comes for the two witnesses to be seen, the message will go out by cell phone and in a matter of minutes everybody on earth is going to see it. For the first time in history some of Revelation begins to make sense.

3. Next let us consider the alignment of the nations.

In Daniel chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream of a great image of a king with a head of gold, shoulders of silver, waste of brass, and legs, feet and toes of iron and clay. In the next couple of weeks we are going to discuss this image so we won’t dwell on it now. But briefly it represents a historical progress of nations ending with a “revived Roman Empire” that will be crushed by Christ at His return.

The revived Roman Empire has ten toes that theologians have long taken to represent ten nations. The groundwork for this revived empire was laid in 1957 with the creation of the European Economic Community, otherwise known as the European Union. When ten countries, all in Western Europe had joined some were thinking the ten toes had been fulfilled. But then the iron curtain came down and countries from the east began to join. There were two legs in Nebuchadnezzar’s image, and the Roman Empire had been divided between east and west in AD 313, so it made sense that half of the toes should come from the east, but now there were more than ten toes. On January 1, 2002 ten of the 12 nations of the EU adopted the euro as a monetary system. The EU has since grown to 25 nations and includes both eastern and western European nations. The Roman Empire at its peak around the second century AD stretched from England across Europe to Turkey, Syria and Palestine, and across North Africa.

The EU today includes Western Europe, Scandinavia,and much of Eastern Europe. Its borders don’t quite match the borders of the old Roman Empire, and it doesn't include the Balkans or North Africa.

So how do the ten toes plus the Middle East and North Africa fit into this picture? In September 2009, the EU signed a treaty in which it created a rotating leadership among the member nations. Prophecy evangelist Jimmy DeYoung claimed that this treaty created ten districts out of the EU, which is the answer to the ten toes. Except that the treaty did not create ten districts, and the existing EU does not fill all of the old Roman Empire borders. I looked up the treaty on the Internet and found that the ten districts DeYoung was talking about is a proposal for future expansion, which will include the Middle East and North Africa. What it means is that the stage is set for a single government to administrate all of Europe and North Africa, which would probably come together very quickly if in response to some kind of worldwide crisis.

4. Interestingly enough, this past week Greece defaulted on its national debt payment and has been removed as a participant in the euro. Does this mean the infrastructure for the Revived Roman Empire is crumbling? I don’t think so. Great Britain, by the way, also does not participate in using the euro, although it is a recognized currency around the world. For example, when you travel to Kenya, at the airport you can purchase your tourist visa by using dollars, pounds, or euros (but not Kenya shillings!).

Revelation 13:16-17 seems to indicate that the antichrist will solve a worldwide economic crisis when he comes to power. With Greece defaulting, could it be the beginning of a chain reaction across Europe with other nations defaulting after Greece?

It remains to be seen, but the commercial center of the world today is New York City. The world’s economy is based on the U.S. dollar, although some nations, like China, are starting to back away from it. The U.S. national debt is today over 18 trillion dollars. By the time the next president is elected it will be over 20 trillion dollars. The U.S. economy right now has almost reached a tipping point. When it gets to the point where the debt payment is higher than incoming revenue, the economy will collapse. And if the U.S. defaults on its debts to several nations around the world, it will likely create a devastating international economic crisis, just the kind of situation that the antichrist is projected to rescue the world from when he comes to power. We are standing on the brink of just such an international financial crisis right now.

5. The question then is with this much information available to us, and our ability to decipher it from the scripture, how will so many people be duped when the antichrist comes? If you’ve read the Left Behind series or seen the videos you might have an idea that there are some who will figure it out and stand up against the antichrist. But that’s not what the Bible teaches. For those who have never heard, there will be a great awakening when the Gospel is preached by the 144,000 witnesses of Revelation 14 in every corner of the earth.

But for those who have lived in so-called Christian nations, where the Gospel has been freely preached, for those who have heard an had opportunity to accept the Lord and rejected Him, 2 Thessalonians 2:10-11 says they will be given over to delusions to believe the lies of the antichrist. To be honest, this isn’t even hard to believe. People already believe in evolution without question. Hollywood movies and TV shows have inundated the public with end of the world scenarios, ghosts, vampires, zombies and aliens. And believe it or not there are undiscerning, uneducated people who believe this stuff.

When Obama was elected president in the United States there were people calling him the messiah and savior. Nearly everything out of his mouth is a lie, yet at least 40% of the US population, including educated politicians and journalists, believe him, and many more without any critical thinking have sold their souls to him because of their political agenda. These people are already blinded by their own deceit. They’ll have no problem believing the antichrist when he takes control.

But for those who may have the power of discernment, if they have rejected Christ and are still here after the Rapture, they will be given delusions to believe the lie.

6. Ezekiel 38-39 describes a great battle that will apparently take place at the beginning of the Tribulation period. In it all the kingdoms to the north will attack Israel.
Two of the nations mentioned are Gog and Magog. It is not really known who these names represent, although through the centuries many scholars have suggested they represent Russia. These kingdoms will have a coalition that will include Mizraim (Egypt), Put (Libya) and Cush (Ethiopia).

Now Egypt and Libya were long time allies of the USSR, but back in the late 1970s, Soviet agents were trying to undermine the government of Anwar Sadat and he through them out. Following the Camp David Accords, Egypt became the closest ally to the United States in the Middle East next to Israel. But that all went away with the Muslim Spring a couple of years ago. The Obama administration turned its back on Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, and backed the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood that overthrew him. But after a year of what Obama called a Democratic government, the Egyptians grew tired of the terrorist government trying to force Sharia law on them and overthrew the Brotherhood. Now Egypt stands alone, with the US having turned its back on her. She is open and ripe for a new relationship with Russia should the time come.

More significantly at the moment, on December 3, 2001, Russia and Ethiopia signed a mutual cooperation agreement. Now Ethiopia would be a small player in any invasion of Palestine, but the important thing to notice is they are in league with the Russians, just as Ezekiel had foretold.

7. Revelation 13:15 says that the Beast (the antichrist) will have the power to give life to an image of himself. This will be an incredible event that will have the world in awe. Through the centuries many scholars have believed that Satan will by then have attained the power to give life. How else could it be explained except as a slight of hand.

Actually, that’s probably what it will be. Satan has no power to create or give life. He has the power to inflict disease and even death apparently (Job 2:6), but only with God’s permission, but there is no evidence that he can actually create life.

For centuries this was a mystery, but not anymore. There are actually several plausible explanations. In the last 60 years or so the development of robotics has made all of this possible. Robotic arms put cars together on assembly lines now, as well as many other types of production, and companies are working on and continually improving humanoid types of robots.
When I was in flight school in 1984 I was selected to be a part of an experimental group flying a carrier-landing simulator. The simulator was located at NAS Jacksonville, Florida. A group of us went down for several days and when we were through we had a day to spare so we went to the Epcot Center at Disney World. There was a program in an auditorium that looked like Independence Hall in Philadelphia on the outside. On the stage they had a program with three players, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams, discussing the writing of the Declaration of Independence. As I recall, Franklin sat at the table when in walked Adams and Jefferson. Then Franklin got up and walked to the center of the stage to make a speech.

So what? So, they were all freestanding, self-balanced robots. No strings attached. They walked, turned, made motions, and their lips moved while talking, on their own. Now they were obviously programed, and there was a sound track for their voices. They were slow and deliberate as they moved so they did not look realistic. But the amazing thing was, they were moving unaided. That was over 30 years ago. I imagine that same technology today could be much more realistic.

Think about it. They now have prosthetic arms and hands for wounded warriors that react to the mental thought of the person they are attached to. So far they can only open and close fingers, but it allows them to pick things up. All of these things are steps in the production of robotics that someday could very well end up being like the android Data on Star Trek; the Next Generation.

There is also the possibility of holographic images. What they can do now is project a light source that shows the image of a person. It is ghostly in nature and can be seen through, but what if some day they are able to project such an image that looks solid? That technology may not be that far off.

Then there is a third possibility. If you ever watched American Idol, you might remember that they had a segment every year called American Idol Gives Back. They raised money by the millions to take to slum areas in various parts of the world to try and help poor people. One year they actually visited the Kibera Slum in Nairobi, and Simon Cowell very sadly said that it was unbelievable.

In 2009 on their give back episode they had a special duet that they advertised for weeks. Celine Dion would be one singer, but the other was a surprise guest. When the moment arrived the backdrop on the stage opened and out of a very bright light walked the two singers and when they reached center stage and the light came up, Celine’s male counterpart was Elvis Presley. It was absolutely phenomenal and unbelievable. But it was a very clever slight of hand. They had an Elvis impersonator who knew all the exact moves that Elvis made when he sang. He sang next to Celine and lip-sinced the music. On TV whenever the camera was from the side or behind it was the impersonator so that they could look at each other and react to each other. But whenever there was a front shot they used footage of Elvis Presley. Now the audience in the auditorium new what was happening, but on big I-mac screens they could see what the world saw. It looked just like Elvis raised from the dead doing a duet with Celine Dion.
Now I don’t know if any of these methods might be what the antichrist will use, but it suggest to us that he will have no problem fooling the world about having the power to bring an image, a statue of himself, to life. The technology to fool the world, especially the lesser-educated third world areas of the world, is there.

8. Third I’d like to consider Revelation 6:12-14. Try to imagine John in AD 95 trying to describe 20th century events that the Lord was revealing to him. These were things he had no understanding of and could not possibly have known how to accurately describe them. Now he reports of an earthquake that will make islands disappear and mountains fall. Back in 2005 the Indonesian earthquake sent a tsunami across the Indian Ocean that killed over 230,000 people. It was massive. South of India is an island nation known as the Maldives. The Maldives islands are so small that the average elevation of the islands is only a few feet. When the tsunami passed over them every island was under a couple of feet of water until it receded. Now because of their location they didn’t get the big wave crashing on the beach, but they were totally flooded.

But earthquakes themselves don’t cause the sun to black out or the moon to turn to blood. Some of you here remember Mt. Pinatubo in 1991. Here is a picture of the first eruption on June 12. It’s taken from Clark Air Base. I have pictures of that taken from Subic and from the air as we scrambled to get some airplanes evacuated after it erupted. Unfortunately they’re all at home in the States. But you remember that eruption. There were earthquakes that went on constantly all day. On June 15th when the big one erupted, it blocked out the sun and put the entire region in total darkness for 36 hours. There’s a possibility if you have multiple volcanic eruptions going on.

But how about the moon turning red? And what about the stars falling from the sky? We have meteor coming into the atmosphere every day, and occasionally a meteor shower. These are mostly burned up and if you ever see one at night it’s just a streak across the sky and then it’s gone. But this doesn’t explain stars falling.

Well let’s think about it. About 700 years ago the Chinese invented gunpowder. Then about 500 years ago the Spanish invented the first musket type of guns. Guns have advanced to very rapid-fire precise weapons in our day. Then they also invented cannons that shot cannon balls, and then artillery that shoots shells, but then with the invention of the airplane came aerial bombs. But a 2,000-pound bomb would never make an explosion big enough to make the sun turn red or block out the sun.

That is until 1945. When the atomic bomb was developed and dropped on Hiroshima we entered the nuclear age. There are some prophecy teachers such as Hal Lindsey that believe these verses are describing a nuclear holocaust. A nuclear bomb can block out the sun and make the moon look red. Many atomic explosions have these strings of debris falling off to the sides of the clouds. That could have looked like stars falling to John. Or what about if there is a nuclear exchange someday? The MAD, Mutual Assured Destruction of the Cold War. A rain of scores of nuclear missiles hurtling to the earth may have looked to John like stars falling from the skies. Of course you know I’m just surmising and there is a point to this, but one more.
John describes the fig tree shaken by a mighty wind. You know the most of the destruction done in a nuclear explosion is not in the intense heat at the center of the explosion, but in the shock wave that spreads out for miles with such force that it knocks everything down.

And one last thought. He describes the heavens opening like a scroll. This last picture is a hydrogen bomb explosion. It meets that description. The heavens seem to open up like a window while the fireball rises up through it.

Are these the things John saw in his vision? We don’t really know. What we do know is that what he saw was very terrible. In chapter 8:1, an angel showed John a Little Book, and after he read it, he told John not to write it down. Certain things were apparently so horrible that God didn’t want John to even write about it. Perhaps it was even more difficult to describe than what he has done.

I don’t know, but the point is this. If what he is describing is a man made phenomenon, we are at an age where all of these phenomenons can be explained and explained quite well. And what that tells us is that there is almost nothing that has to be developed in order for an antichrist world kingdom to be put in place. As never before we are at a place where we should be considering that the Rapture of the saints is imminent. The only thing keeping the Lord from calling us out at any moment is His timing.

These are some of the modern developments that give us perspective concerning the Lord’s return. They help us understand how things described in the Bible could take place. Now let’s consider the moral conditions of our day.

II. As in the days of Noah (Matthew 24:37-38, Luke 17:26).

Jesus said of Noah’s day that the people were eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage, essentially they were having a continual party. The implication is that they were taking multiple wives committing adultery and all kinds of immorality. Genesis 6:3 says that they took wives of all they chose, likely including incest and a whole list of other perversions. They lived in a pornographic world and were unconcerned about God or the consequences of their sin. It was an extremely violent society; murder and rape were probably indicative of their lifestyle (Genesis 6:11). Their wickedness was so great that their thoughts were constantly evil (Genesis 6:5). But it was not just that they had bad thoughts, it was that they never had a good thought. The entire world was corrupt (Genesis 6:12), except for Noah (Genesis 6:8).

Jesus also made the comparison of Lot in Luke 17:28-30. Lot, a righteous man, had vexed his soul living in Sodom, and went about his life completely unconcerned about the will of God. Sodom was a city totally given over to sexual depravity. When the two angels came to rescue Lot and his family the men of the city “wearied themselves” (Genesis 19:11), they wore themselves out, trying to break into Lot’s house to have homosexual relations with the angels, even after the angels blinded them. Their desire was so heinous, that even after Lot offered them his two maiden daughters, they rejected them to get at the angels who were in the form of men.

Lot tried to reason with them but they were without tolerance for Lot’s opinion against them, and threatened him harm. Has there ever been a time when the world is closer to Sodom and Gomorrah than it is now?

In 1987 my Navy squadron was deployed to Thailand and we stayed in a hotel in Pataya Beach and had a driver to take us to the airfield each day. In his van he had several travel and tourist magazines. Thailand is known for being the place in the Far East for sex, and these magazines were full of advertisements for sexual entertainment, but what we noticed was that there were more ads for homosexual sex than normal. One of the pilots mentioned this country must be more than half gay.

In the Philippines for decades gays have been winked at as being different. They are common in the entertainment industry and many are just a satire of themselves, yet people treat them as if everything is okay. In this strongly Catholic country there is a crisis of morality. But it’s worse with all the transgenders. They are everywhere. The Pemberton-Laude trial was in the news again this week. An American after cheap sex wound up with a transgender and apparently killed him. It’s a monumental tragedy, but indicative of where the world is today.

The US Supreme Court decision last week now forces gay marriage on all fifty states. It’s a tyrannical, unconstitutional ruling that is opening the door for gays to flaunt themselves in front of the whole public. But the gay agenda doesn’t just stop at marriage. They are intolerant of any dissenting opinion to their lifestyle. If you oppose it they call you a homophobe, racist, hateful and intolerant. Yet not even a week had passed since the decision before the gays started demanding that churches be denied tax-exempt status. They are demanding that the Bible be changed to allow their lifestyle and that preachers stop preaching against the sin of homosexuality.

Even so, we are a long way from Sodom and Gomorrah, even from Thailand. The US gay population is only 2.5%, but its influence is great and many non-homosexuals in the country support them. We may not be far from becoming like Sodom, but we aren’t there yet. Things in this world could still become a whole lot more wicked.

In fact, Jesus questioned in Luke 18:8 whether there would be any believers left when He returns. This is an incredible statement. There was only one faithful man and his family left in the world when God sent the flood. There was only one believing, but compromised man and his family left in Sodom when fire rained down from heaven. In both cases the people at the time were given an opportunity to escape. Noah preached for a hundred years before the flood came. Lot vexed his soul in Sodom, but when the angels came he had one last chance to warn his family and neighbors before he was taken out of the city and judgment fell.

Conclusion: How does that compare to where we are today? We aren’t down to the last man or family yet. Before this worldwide judgment, which is known as the Great Tribulation, falls on the earth, those believers who are left are going to be raptured out of this world to be with the Lord. We saw last week that the only prophecy about the time frame for the Rapture is the establishment of Israel as a nation back in their land. That happened in 1948.

The Bible also gives us a description of several events and situations, which will also take place in the end times, and today we have seen how those events will be able to take place, something we’ve never known with certainty before. Now the return of the Lord at the Second Coming will take place after the seven year Great Tribulation period, but the Rapture will take place before the antichrist rises to power and before the seven year Great Tribulation. So what does that tell us?

Simply this: All of these signs are indicative of the world condition when the Lord returns to set up His kingdom, but the Rapture will happen at least seven years before that. Now I don’t know if that blessed hope will be today, next year, ten years from now or twenty. What I do know is, everything is in place. The only thing holding back the Rapture right now that I can see is, when comparing with the days of Noah and Lot, that the world isn’t wicked enough yet. You mean it could get worse? I’m afraid it could and I’m afraid it will.

What that means is that we need to be stronger than ever in our faith and walk, and taking every opportunity we can to try to reach people for Christ while there is still time. From what we can see we believe the time is close, but close in God’s timeframe could be many, many years away yet. We need to be ready, but we also need to occupy until He comes. It’s not time to go sit on a mountain and wait. It’s time to be busy about the Lord’s work. The question is, are you ready? If you are, are you watching?

Signs of the Times, The Place of Israel

Eschatology is the study of the end times. I taught the subject several times at the college in Kenya, and I’ve preached on the Rapture, but I’ve never preached an entire series on the subject. So, last Sunday I started a series, and I thought I would write out the first message for your perusal. For extra reading I recommend to you Dr. David Jeremiah’s book, What In the World Is Going On? from which I have taken some of this information. Recent events, such as the US Supreme Court decision last Friday on gay marriage cause us to wonder how much longer the Lord will wait before calling us out. I hope this series will help give some perspective.

Signs Of The End Times
The Place of Israel

Text: Matthew 24:44.

Introduction: We are living in a day when people are obsessed with the end times. Every time there is an international crisis the question is asked will this lead us to Armageddon? Hollywood produces dozens of movies every year about end of the world scenarios, zombies, vampires, demons and aliens. Climate change fanatics tell us we are destroying the earth. Al Gore predicted the end of the world in 2016 if the US didn’t sign the Kyoto Accords. The US didn’t sign. Does that mean we only have a year to go?

The issue is further confused by end time preachers who set dates for the Rapture. The most recent was Harold Camping in Oakland, California who predicted May 21, 2011, and then refigured it October 21, 2011. Many of his followers had sold everything to travel across the country to warn people, but on October 22, they were disappointed. I sent an email out to everyone on my list asking if anyone had been raptured!

In the 1970s Hal Lindsay popularized end times teaching with his book, The Late Great Planet Earth. More recently evangelist Jimmy DeYoung has renewed interest in the subject. John Hagee has taught on the Rapture many times in his church. Perhaps you’ve seen him on TBN. He puts big charts on the platform and teaches through them. If you are not familiar with eschatology, which is the study of the end times, these charts can be confusing. This is one of Hagee’s charts about the Tribulation period.

Then there is Jack Van Impe, who is a one-subject preacher, the Rapture of the saints. He finds evidence in every event on a weekly basis to prove the Rapture is coming at any moment. He doesn’t set dates, so he says, but he has tried on several occasions to pinpoint a time frame for the Rapture. In 2001 he proclaimed that the Lord had revealed to him that it must come between 2002 and 2012. But hardly had he made that prediction when he had another revelation in 2004 saying that the Lord had revealed to him that the Rapture would take place by the end of 2018. Can we expect that to happen?

Based on the 70 weeks of Daniel in Daniel 9, and compared with I Thessalonians 4, I Corinthians 15:51, and Revelation, we believe in a system of theology called Dispensationalism, which specifically focuses on a pre-Tribulational Rapture.

Around 540 BC Daniel predicted a period of 70 weeks of years that would begin with a decree from the king of Persia to rebuild Jerusalem. That decree was given to Ezra around 458 BC, and was completed by Nehemiah in 445 BC. When 69 of those weeks had passed, the Messiah would be cut off. The time frame coincides with the crucifixion of Christ.

The 70th week has been on hold during the Church Age, which began with Christ. It will begin after the Rapture takes place. When we talk about the end times most people are interested in knowing what are the signs that lead up to the Rapture, and the Second Coming of Christ. When will they take place? Are they at the same time or separate? We believe that the Rapture of the saints, when Christ will call all of the believers out of this world, will take place seven years prior to Christ actually coming to establish His millennial kingdom.

An opposing view, held by Presbyterian and Reformed churches, is called Covenant Theology. It claims that the New Testament church is the extension of Old Testament Israel, and that the Jews are no longer God’s chosen people, rather Christians are. Leading covenant theologians like Hank Hannegraph and Gary DeMars mock Dispensationalism, which is the Baptist belief, as a discredited theology that was only invented 170 years ago. We might also say the same thing about Covenant Theology because it was only invented during the Reformation 500 years ago. Therefore, if we depend on the argument of time, Covenant Theology is no more valid than Dispensationalism.

The argument of time does not actually disprove Dispensationalism. The Greek word translated “dispensation” is found four times in the KJV New Testament (I Cor. 9:17, Eph. 1:10; 3:2, Col. 1:25). The word means to administer or manage something. It is translated three other times in the New Testament as “stewardship.” The term is also found several times in the works of medieval theologians, but the modern revival of the teaching began with a Scottish theologian, John Darby, around 1830. In its biblical usage a dispensation is the administration of a period of time in history.

There are seven dispensational periods beginning with Adam and Eve in the Age of Innocence. We are now in the sixth, the Church Age. The Millennial Kingdom will be the seventh and last dispensation.

Dispensationalism depends on the literal interpretation of Scripture. Hannegraph and DeMars will tell you they believe in a literal translation, but then immediately contradict themselves by making the entire Book of Revelation an allegory that was fulfilled in the year AD 70. Of course that can only be possible if they take some spiritual meaning out of the book and not literal. When Hannegraph was asked about the thousand-year reign of Christ on his radio program, The Bible Answer Man, he made comparisons to Peter’s comment in 2 Peter 3:8, that a day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day, and concluded that the Millennial Kingdom is not literal. Clearly they do not believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible.

We do believe in a literal interpretation. We believe that if the 69 weeks of Daniel came true, and they did, that the 70th week will also come to pass when God is ready. We believe that Paul was not writing about some spiritual heart moving event when he wrote that we shall be caught up to be with the Lord in the air in I Thessalonians 4. We also believe that the 70th week will be the Tribulation period taught in Revelation 5-18, followed by the return of the Lord to the earth and the Millennial Kingdom of Christ.

The question then is, how close are we to the Rapture of the saints described in I Thessalonians 4? Are there signs and wonders that we can point to that tell us it is close? Can we set a date or a time frame when we believe it will happen? Since World War 2 Baptists have been sounding the clarion call that the Rapture is imminent.

As we have seen events unfolding, particularly now with ISIS creating a murderous Islamic state in the Middle East, the persecution of Christians increasing, an intolerance of Christianity growing in the United States and elsewhere, with the increase in sin, particularly homosexuality, and the total turning away from God by formerly Christian nations, can we say for certain we are in the last days? Is there any prophecy that gives us a clue to the time of the Rapture?

First, let us understand two things: 1. We are not setting a date for the Lord’s return. Jesus told the Apostles in Acts 1:7, it was not for them to know the time or season. And 2. There is only one prophecy that gives us any clue as to the time of the Second Coming of Christ. Everything else may help us understand the time, but only one prophecy gives us a clue as to the time. That’s what we are going to look at today.

I. The Abrahamic Covenant (Genesis 12:1-7; 13:14-17).

In Genesis 12 God called Abraham and told him to separate from his family and move to a place which He would show him. He made a covenant with Abraham, which is known as the Abrahamic Covenant. In this covenant God made four unconditional promises to Abraham.

First he told Abraham that He would bless him. This promise was only partly fulfilled in Abraham’s lifetime. Abraham was likely the wealthiest man in all of Palestine at the time as he had 318 servants that he trained to use weapons of war (Genesis 14:14). But this promise also extended to his descendants. When Solomon was king of Israel, the Queen of Sheba came to see the grandeur of Jerusalem she declared that the half had not even been told her (I Kings 10:7). No kingdom in history has ever owned the wealth that Solomon had. The temple, completely inlaid with gold, was likely the most magnificent building ever built in history (I Kings 6).

But God’s blessings didn’t end there. Jews throughout history have been among the leaders in education, science, literature and economics. From 1901 to 2013 there had been 855 individual Nobel prizes awarded. Of those 193, 22.6%, were awarded to Jews.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/10/29/richard-dawkins-perplexed-by-high-number-of-jewish-nobel-prize-winners/#

Atheist Richard Dawkins was perplexed by these numbers and could find no explanation for it. The answer is that God has blessed the Jews, in spite of the persecutions and pogroms that have been launched against them through the centuries.

Second, God promised to make Abraham’s descendants a great nation. Again, in spite of efforts to eliminate the Jews through the centuries, efforts like no other people have ever faced, today Israel is the strongest nation in the Middle East. Israel has a population of 8.2 million, of which 6.2 million are Jews, and there are some 9 million Jews living around the world outside of Israel. The Jews make up only 1/3 of one percent of the world’s population, but Mark Twain said of the Jews in 1899, “the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.”

Third, God promised to make Abraham a blessing to all people, and he has been. Through Abraham’s descendants came the Old Testament Law, the Savior, and the way of salvation, which is free to all men through Jesus Christ.

Fourth, God promised to bless those who bless Israel. The United States is the only nation to fully support Israel in the world today, and the U.S. has been blessed like no other nation in history has ever been blessed. Now the argument could be made that God has blessed us because of our Christian foundation and God-honoring Founders, and that may be true. But America’s borders have always been open to Jewish immigrants, and while other nations have persecuted the Jews, there has never been a government-sanctioned persecution of any kind against the Jewish people.

God’s judgment has fallen upon all nations that have ever oppressed the Jews, from ancient Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Syria and Rome, to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. None of these nations, ancient or modern, exist today. Of course there is a Germany, but it is not Nazi. Even Great Britain has suffered for turning its back on the Jews. At the beginning of World War 2 the British Empire was the largest in the world and had been for 150 years. It was the British that had helped to establish the modern Jewish state, but as soon as Israel was recognized by the United Nations, Britain walked away and offered no help in the Jewish struggle against their Arab neighbors. The result was that in only 15 years the mighty British Empire crumbled.

The second part of the Abrahamic Covenant involved the Promised Land (Genesis 15:18-21). God told Abraham wherever he walked and as far as he could see would be the inheritance of his descendants, and then He delineated the borders. In this part of the covenant the word land means land here on the earth. It is not a spiritual reference to heaven. It is also an everlasting covenant (Genesis 17:7-8). The land will always be Israel’s land. No matter how loud the Palestinians shout about a homeland and non-existent heritage, the land belongs to Israel. The borders run from the Nile River to the Euphrates and includes Egypt, the Sinai, Jerusalem (Jebusites), the Hittites (eastern Turkey), and includes Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

You can see from this map just how small a portion of this land Israel holds today. And actually, this map is not quite accurate. The Hittite Empire before 1200 BC included most of Eastern Turkey, so the northern border goes much higher than is depicted here. Compare this with the extent of David’s and Solomon’s Kingdom from about 1015 to 975 BC. David had only conquered or controlled about 40% of the total, but this is the inheritance the Jews will have during the Millennial Kingdom.

II. The Scattering of the Jews.

The question then is what happened? Why have the Jews never occupied or controlled all of their Promised Land? Moses warned Israel that if they ever turned away from God into idolatry that God would scatter them (Deuteronomy 4:27). That’s exactly what happened.

Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived. He wrote Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon, yet he never learned from his own wisdom. He collected 700 wives and 300 concubines and they turned his heart away from the Lord to the point that at the end of his life he was leading Israel into idolatry. The result was a civil war that divided the kingdom in two. Ten tribes in the north became known as Israel, while two tribes in the south became known as Judah.

Israel turned away from God immediately and by 722 BC the Assyrians overthrew the kingdom and scattered the Jews all over their empire. Judah had a few good kings and revivals mixed into their history, but they finally rebelled against God as well and in 586 BC the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and scattered the remaining Jews.

The Babylonian empire fell to the Persians and in 536 BC a decree by Cyrus the Persian allowed the Jews to begin returning to their homeland (Ezra 1). They remained in their land and won their independence from the Syrians in 175 BC, but 112 years later they were conquered by Rome. This was the beginning of the fullness of the times for Christ’s birth, but in AD 70 the Jews tried to throw off their yoke of bondage and were defeated by the Roman general, Titus, who leveled Jerusalem, and once again scattered the Jews.
Jewish communities have existed all across the Middle East to Persia, in Africa in Ethiopia, in Russia and all over Europe. They were persecuted severely for centuries, but the rise of the Nazis in Germany brought the worst persecution of all, the Holocaust. In 1933 there were 9 million Jews in Europe; in 1945 there were only 3 million.

Then suddenly, after being without a homeland for 1900 years, the Jews became a nation again. They are the only people in history to have been so decimated and scattered for so long to be reconstituted as a nation.

III. Rebirth of the Nation of Israel.

The return of the Jews to their homeland in Israel was prophesied several times in the Old Testament. Isaiah 11:11 says the remnant will be recovered. Isaiah 43:3-6 says they will be brought back from every direction. In Ezekiel 36-37 is the Valley of the Dry Bones vision showing that the nation will come alive again, and in Amos 9:14-15 it says that once they are returned they will never be removed again.

How this came about is primarily the due to the accomplishment of Chaim Weismann. Since the invention of gunpowder weapons had used a black powder that left heavy smoke and could blind the armies on a battlefield. In 1904 Weismann invented a smokeless powder, which gave the British an advantage on the battlefield.

The Ottoman Empire had held Palestine for over 500 years, but in World War 1 the British defeated the Ottomans and took control Palestine. Then in 1917, as a thank you to Weismann, the Balfour Declaration was issued declaring the intent of reestablishing a Jewish state. On May 14, 1948, Israel was recognized by the United Nations, but not before U.S. President Harry Truman cast the deciding vote, against the advice of his closest advisors including General George Marshall. Truman was a Baptist, and in spite of his problem with foul language, he understood the importance of Israel and would not turn his back on the new nation.

IV. Prophetic significance to the End Times (Matthew 24:32-35).

In Matthew 24 Jesus gave His longest and last discourse on the end times. In verse 32, He referred to the fig tree. Whenever the fig tree is mentioned in prophetic writing in the Scripture it is a reference to Israel. When you see Israel is in its homeland the time is near. This generation, He said, will see the coming of the Lord.

This verse has often been misunderstood. Critics often point to this passage to prove Jesus got it wrong. I’ve heard preachers as well teach that it meant that the return of the Lord is imminent and could have happened in that generation if God had intended. But that’s not what Jesus said. The generation He was talking about was the one that saw Israel in its land, the implication being that they had been out of it again.

I’m going to go out on a limb here because Baptists have always taught that the Rapture has always been imminent. I don’t think it has been. I imagine that the first century believers likely thought that Jesus was going to come back in their lifetime, so for them it was imminent. But once Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews no longer had a homeland that changed, and the return of the Lord was not imminent for 19 centuries. But that changed on May 14, 1948. Since Israel has been restored as a nation we can definitely say that the return of the Lord, especially the Rapture, is imminent.

Conclusion: A biblical generation was generally considered to be 40 years. That would have been 1988 and is long passed. Van Impe used a formula from a passage in Jeremiah to suggest a generation is 70 years, and that’s how he came up with 2018. Don’t put any faith in that. It may be that the Lord will come before then, maybe not. Depending on how events in the world turn it could be some years. There is no specific definition in the Bible of a generation. To use the Van Impe model we might conclude from Genesis 6:3 that a generation is 120 years, which would mean Christ’s coming could still be 53 years away. Considering current affairs in the world I don’t think it will be that long. There is no way of knowing a specific date, but we do know that since May 14, 1948, the return of the Lord is imminent. It could come at any time.

Next week we will look at more specific details including the recent Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, and see how events in the world and modern technology can help us understand how events described in Revelation may take place, and how the nations are aligning for the antichrist. The thing we need to learn is to be ready because Jesus will come when we don’t expect Him (Matthew 24:44). Are you watching? Are you ready?

SCOTUS Wiser Than God?

Five justices on the Supreme Court just decided they know more than God. The decision to redefine marriage overturns 6,000 years of historical precedent established by God Himself in the Garden of Eden. The ruling overthrows the Constitution as it is based on no constitutional principle, it violates the rule of law, usurps the sovereignty of the states and essentially invalidates the Tenth Amendment. And it is not kind as some are rhapsodizing. It opens the floodgates of wickedness by legitimizing debauchery, undermining the family, and unraveling the basic structure of our society. It is an attack on the First Amendment as well as it will force churches to perform ceremonies they object to because of their religious conscience. Ultimately it is an open invitation to the judgment of God.

Combined with the twisted decision yesterday to uphold Obamacare by allowing for the intent of the writers of the law, not the actual wording of the document, SCOTUS has effectively ended government of the people, by the people, and for the people. We are now a government run by five leftists and one president who have no regard for the Constitution, the God of our Founding Fathers, or anything that is decent and coherent in our modern society, and will determine intent based on their own biased preferences. We are seeing the dismantling of America before our eyes.

But is this any surprise? Is it not ironic that the intent of the Founders is ignored even though their writings and the Constitution clearly state what they envisioned for America? This has been going on in our public schools and institutions for fifty years, but now the intent of the writers of an unconstitutional law, one that over 70% of Americans are opposed to, becomes the basis for upholding this unconstitutional law. The day following that decision the meaning of marriage is ripped apart even though the majority of Americans in more than half of the states have passed laws defining marriage as one man and one woman. The will of the people no longer matters.

Since the first colonists came to the New World America has been an example of moral probity before the world. That's not saying we haven't had problems along the way. Christians are far from perfect, but the Christian influence on our nation has given us a moral conscience and a sense of who we are, as well as a purpose for our existence among the nations. And God has blessed America as He has blessed no other nation in history.

For the last hundred years at least America has been the moral compass of the world. World War 1, World War 2, and the Cold War were all won because of American leadership. The two Gulf Wars were won and the War on Terror has been led by the United States. That is until now. Under Obama America has abandoned its leadership role in the world, not only militarily, but morally as well. This pathetic, milquetoast weak foreign policy is the result of the loss of character and resolve in America's soul, and what is happening to America internally is clearly illustrated in these two decisions.

In 1962 and 63, SCOTUS threw God and the Bible out of the public schools resulting in a sexual revolution and "new morality" that became the catalyst for the moral deviance that is flaunted today. As Christian influence has been increasingly shoved out of the public discourse, our government has turned away from God and embraced a politically correct philosophy that pretends to be tolerant of everything and everybody, but in reality has no tolerance for Christianity or anything decent, and no respect for the Constitution or love of country.

America is coming apart and this decision on marriage by an ungodly majority on the court is indicative of a nation that is dying. The question is, can America be revived? The 2016 presidential election will likely determine whether we survive as a free nation or not. There are a lot of good conservative candidates on the Republican side and conservatives need to get behind which ever one is chosen and make sure he or she wins. But evil is not only defeated at the ballot box.

Chuck Colson once said of the Reagan election victories that conservatives won the argument at the ballot box, but failed to win the hearts. That's why the country quickly turned to the Obama forerunner, Bill Clinton, when conservatives no longer had a leader with the quality and ability of Ronald Reagan. Colson was right. If there is not a return to the Bible and the God of our Fathers, even a conservative win will only temporarily slow our slide to destruction.

We've known it all along; we need to pray for America and God's mercy on our nation, but now we need to stop giving lip service to it and start praying like we mean it.

Honoring Our Fathers

Text: Ephesians 6:1-4

Introduction: We live in difficult times. The Middle East is in flames. Uncertainty is everywhere. This last week a white man in Charleston, South Carolina murdered nine black people at a Bible study in a church. You have to wonder if there is any decency left in the world? Marriage is under attack by homosexuals supported by left wing media, the ACLU, and courts that have no regard for God, Christian principles, or decency. The NEA wants to teach kindergarten children the “value” of same parent families, and promote gay sex education to first graders. California has made it a crime to counsel young people with gender identity problems to be straight. Effeminate and transgender men walk the streets flaunting their wantonness, and anyone opposing their lifestyle is accused of homophobia and hate crimes. To make matters worse, many so-called Christian leaders have surrendered the clear teaching of Scripture to embrace a view more acceptable to an ungodly world. You can’t blame children growing up in this era if they are confused.

In contrast, I think most fathers of any worth would like to think of themselves as a masculine model of leadership for their children. They would like to be John Wayne tough, or project a Clint Eastwood soft-spoken machismo. But I think sometimes we confuse macho for real fatherhood.

When I was at The Basic School in Quantico, Virginia in the Marine Corps, we held a three round boxing smoker at the end of our training. (TBS was a beginning infantry school that all Marine officers went through before going to their specialty field.) Several guys volunteered to participate and the heavyweight bout touted two big bruisers named Olivo and Leuks. Olivo came from the wrong side of the tracks in Pittsburg. He was about six-foot-two, with a solid square body, and was a tough-as-nails street brawler. He talked like Sylvester Stallone in the Rocky movies. Leuks was six-foot-four and came from California, but we didn’t know much else about him.

At formation the morning of the smoker the bouts were announced with each participant assigned to the red or blue corner. When Leuks was announced in the red corner, Olivo broke discipline and yelled out from the formation, “Hey, Leuks, you’re gonna be in the dead corner.”

The smoker was held with matches in each weight category until finally the anticipated heavyweight fight began. The bell rang and Olivo charged to the center of the ring and threw a flurry of wild punches at Leuks. Leuks protected himself and backed up, but rather than pressing what looked to be an early advantage, Olivo turned to the crowd, raised his arms in the air and strutted around the ring. When he turned back to face Leuks again, Leuks threw a sledge hammer punch into Olivo’s breadbasket knocking the breath out of him and he went straight to the canvass. He rolled over and briefly stood up, but then had to lie down on his back again to try to get some air. The fight was over in forty-five seconds. It turned out that Leuks had been a Golden Gloves boxer in his youth and was more than a match for the street-brawler from Pittsburg. Olivo saw himself as a macho man, but he was hardly a good role model for children. Just being a tough guy isn’t a qualification for being dad of the year.

Contrast that with the story of a school that had collapsed in Chechnya about ten years ago. Rescuers had searched for four days trying to find survivors and had announced that no one else could have survived. They prepared to knock down the walls that still stood, but one man would not let them give up the search. He stood in the way of the bulldozers and single-handedly started carrying out chunks of concrete still searching for his son. Others joined the search and three days later in the bottom of the rubble he found his son and several other boys still alive in a small pocket. It turned out that when the other boys had given up hope, there was one that kept their spirits up and encouraged them through the long days in the darkness. It was his encouragement that kept the other boys alive.

When asked later by a news reporter why he had not given up and where he got the strength to keep their hopes alive even after seven days of no food and water, he said that his father had told him that if he was ever in trouble that he would come. He said he knew his father would come. That’s what gave him the will to survive, and then his father came. That father had lived a life of integrity in front of his son that gave his son the confidence to trust his father’s word even in the most hopeless situation.

That is the true example of manhood. That is the real definition of a father. One who is strong, faithful, and true to his word. If your father was or is like this man be thankful, because many men have children, but not many are good fathers. Many times people will have someone who was like a father to them in the absence of their own. Some were adopted. In my case my dad left when I was seven years old and in many ways my grandfather filled in. But some have never known their fathers, and this may be the greatest tragedy of all. My heart goes out to you.

Today is Father’s Day and we are honoring our fathers. So let me start with this manhood issue.

I. What does true manhood require?

There are many words we could use to describe manhood, but I think there are two that rather encompasses them all, masculinity and authenticity.

Many think masculinity is being macho, but it is more than that. Masculinity has nothing to do with size or muscles. When I was a flight student in Beeville, Texas, there was a family at the church I attended named Barber. They had a son named Jay. Jay was a kid after my own heart. He loved baseball, and he wasn’t afraid to play it. The problem was, Jay was the smallest kid on his team. He was the smallest kid in his class at school. I went out and watched him play. They had him pitching and playing second base. When he got on the mound he looked like he belonged in a younger league because he wasn’t half the size of some of those other kids, but he stared down the batters and pitched the ball. Now Jay wasn’t very macho, but he was every bit a manly man and a picture of masculinity. Masculinity doesn’t depend on size or muscles.

Masculinity is discipline of character. It is doing what is right simply because it is the right thing to do. It is a refusal to compromise on personal convictions. It is a strong determination to set a course of action and the courage to stay at a task. It’s facing your fears, and as John Wayne would say, “It’s being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” Masculinity is a man choosing marriage as a course of action and then staying with it through better or worse, not giving up on his wife or children no matter what the circumstances.

Authenticity is showing affection. It’s all right for a man to hug and kiss his children. They need to know you love them. Authenticity is being vulnerable. It’s all right to cry when you are sad or heart broken. Your children need to see your compassion. Authenticity is not being afraid to ask for help when you need it. When I need help with the computer, the person I go to for help is Jonathan. You don’t need to be a superman to your family. You need to teach them there are limits and there are ways to get help. Authenticity is integrity. Do not be afraid to apologize to your children if you are wrong. Nobody is perfect. Everybody is going to make mistakes. Your children need to see how you handle things correctly when you’ve been wrong, so that they will learn to do the same and not try to cover up something that is better confessed.

A father doesn’t need to be perfect; he just needs to be real. The best definition of a father I think is someone who is there for you when you need him.

II. What does fatherhood require?

Being a good father begins with being a good husband. A father needs to love his wife (Ephesians 5:25). The greatest gift a man can give his children is to love their mother. Along with that a father must honor his wife (I Peter 3:7). Understand that women are emotional, even unreasonable. Learn to deal with it and treat her like a princess always.

A father must show his children a fond affection. Affection means to “feel drawn to someone or something.” The term is both masculine and tender, as a father gently holding his child and being affectionately drawn to that little one. My grandfather used to carry my cousin’s babies, his great grandchildren, around and he would sing, “Draga, draga.” Nobody knew what it meant, and he couldn’t sing a lick, but he would carry them around just soothing them with his voice. This was a man who was every bit macho. As a young man he had a farm and when a horse died he dug the hole by himself and buried the animal. And that with a bad heart and asthma besides.

Affection needs to be demonstrated, especially as the child grows older. Remember in the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15, how when the son came home the father ran to meet him, and hugged and kissed him. A father should have such affection for his children.

A father should be transparent. Let your children know what you believe and teach it to them. They should hear the Gospel from you. Put your life into your children’s lives and teach them proper values, how to make good decisions, how to handle finances; give them assurance that you value them, give them a positive attitude about life. Show them you have a sense of humor, but also talk about stresses and failures. Share your life with them.

A father needs to show his children a diligence in labor. Show them by example how to be devoted and dedicated to a job. They will learn to work or be lazy by what you do.

There also needs to be a spiritual authenticity. You need to not only speak spiritually, but also act spiritually. You must practice what you preach. A father must lead his children by example. He must be a positive influence on their lives. Discipline is also necessary, but discipline should be positive. Make it purposeful. Do not be unfair and drive your children to anger, but in love make a point and teach them scriptural principles that will bring them to God.

III. What does honoring our fathers require?

First we must obey our fathers. This shows respect and is a public testimony of honoring them. Second, love your father. That should go without saying, but it often doesn’t happen. Sometimes fathers find it hard to tell their children, “I love you.” Love them anyway. You don’t know what factors led them to where they are today. Some men find it hard to show affection because they were never shown affection. Others went through experiences that may have marred them for life. They carry the burden and stresses of taking care of the family.

In 1969, Crosby, Stills and Nash, introduced a song called “Teach Your Children.” With a very beautiful, thought provoking harmony, they expressed the difficulty of fathers to be affectionate. Just briefly, some of the lines of the song were these: “And you of tender years can’t know the fears your elders grew by.” “Teach your children well, their father’s hell did slowly go by.” “Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would die, so just look at them and sigh, and know they love you.”

Now you know that I don’t get my doctrine from 1960s hippie culture folk rock songs. In fact, I don’t know another song ever performed by Crosby, Stills and Nash. This one just happens to be popular even to this day and you hear it from time to time. But it seems to illustrate the point that there are experiences men face that may leave them cold and distant, and cause them to be unable to show affection.

My dad always gave me hugs, and I’m sure when I was young he probably told me he loved me. But somewhere along the line he stopped, because I have no conscious memory of him ever saying it until my 26th birthday. It was a Sunday morning and I was in South Carolina getting ready to go to church. When we talked occasionally it was always at night so I was surprised to get his call, but I was stunned when he said, “I love you, son.”

What really shocks me is the disrespectful attitude that some Christians have for their fathers. I was staying in a place once and I heard some shouting outside that was so loud that I went to see what was happening. Out in the yard it was the pastor yelling at his father who was also a pastor in the most ungodly, disrespectful manner you could imagine. My dad was an ungodly man but I never in my life spoke back to him, much less yelled at him.

The last conversation I had with my dad, as I was getting ready to leave, he stood, even though it was difficult for him because he was suffering with MS, and I gave him a hug and spoke softly in his ear, “Dad, do you know you’re saved?” He assured me he was, and with tears I told him I loved him, and he told me. I’m sure that for all his faults, that as much as he was able he did love me. And for all my faults as much as I was able, because I held a lot of bitterness, I tried to love and honor him.

Conclusion: Today we honor our fathers. The best way we can honor them is to love them and obey them. If you had or have a godly father, one who was masculine and authentic, you should be thankful, and you should tell him. If he’s passed on you should thank the Lord for him. If you did not have a godly father, you should still thank the Lord, because the experiences you’ve been through have shaped and molded you to become who you are today. And if there was someone else in your life who was a fatherly example to you, you should thank the Lord for that person, and tell him thank you also. To all the fathers, I hope this is an encouragement to you. And to all the children, I hope you will honor your father today.

Happy Father’s Day.

Whatever Drives the Agenda

News of the tragic shooting in Charleston, South Carolina had hardly broken before Obama got up to use the occasion to call for more gun control. These things don't happen in other advanced countries, he claimed. Oh, no? What was it that happened at the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris last January? What goes on with the drug cartel wars across the border with Mexico all the time? What is ISIS doing all across the Middle East? What about the fanatic that killed 77 at a youth camp outside Oslo, Norway in 2011? Or do we not consider those advanced countries?

This was one of those Saul Alinksy opportunities that liberals never let go to waste. The agenda is gun control and this was an opportunity to put in a plug. Then to show just how much he really cared for the black lives that matter Obama took no questions and boarded Air Force One for three fund raisers out in California. Once again when he could have been presidential and attempted to bring comfort and healing to the distraught families he chose to go partying instead.

Next South Carolina state senator J. Todd Rutherford blamed the shooting on Fox News, and Salon, a leftist website, called it right-wing domestic terrorism. Of course, let's place the blame on conservatives before we know anything about the killer or his background. Let's once again show ourselves to be the idiots we are by accusing law abiding citizens for the criminal's behavior. As always, let's not let the facts get in the way of a good story that promotes a liberal cause. Let's not tell the truth about the fact that the church is located in a "gun-free zone." As well, South Carolina prohibits bringing firearms into churches. The maximum gun control law was already in affect in the area where the shooting took place and it prevented nothing.

What is even more unbelievable is the news anchor on CNN Overseas who went to great lengths to show her sorrow on the air and then suggested to her black guest that maybe people should be allowed to carry guns in the church for their protection. Before the bodies were even cold this anchor was suggesting black people carry guns. But wait, doesn't that go against CNN's anti-gun agenda? This is the same network that is a leading advocate for gun control and the repudiation of the 2nd Amendment. So it's situation ethics after all that rule at CNN rather than a realistic, clear-headed, consistent policy or position.

And now, no sooner has the killer, Dylann Roof, been caught than there are tweets showing up comparing his peaceful arrest with the takedown of Michael Garner. There's no comparison. Garner, who was huge, wouldn't allow the police to cuff him. Roof surrendered without a struggle. For that leftist racists are calling it "white privilege." If Roof had put his hands up and the police had shot him to pieces anyway this same crowd would be crying out against police brutality and the Justice Department would be prosecuting them.

The irony is that the main-stream-media would likely not even have covered this story if it had been a black guy walking into a white church and shooting nine white people. The reality is, black lives don't matter to the left. It's whatever drives the agenda. Hypocrites all!

God is Still God, and God is Still Good

I preached this message this morning in memory of Zac Smith. I hope it will be an encouragement to you.

Text: Matthew 19:16-17a: And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God.

Intro: In Matthew 19, people had brought their children to see Jesus and the disciples tried to keep them away. But Jesus rebuked the disciples and told them to let the children come to Him. Jesus showed His love for the children, by hugging them, holding them, blessing and praying for them. While all this is going on a wealthy young man comes to Jesus and asks what thing he could do to earn eternal life. He didn’t understand that you cannot buy or do any good work to get salvation. It cannot be purchased, and you cannot do anything good enough to deserve it. You have to accept it as a free gift, much like these children that came in their innocence to see Jesus and accepted Him as He was.

But before addressing his question, Jesus addressed the rich man’s salutation. When the young man greeted Jesus he said, “Good Master.” Jesus then replied, “Why do you call me good? There is only one that is good, and that is God.” Now Jesus pointed out two things in His answer. One, if He is good, then He is God, and two, God is definitely good.

For some people that’s a hard proposition to accept. When you look at all the trouble in the world today you can’t help but wonder what is going on. ISIS, terrorism, Christians beheaded, Nepal earthquake, China threatening the stability of the Southeast Asian region, crime, disease, where does it all stop? The atheists, the critics, the skeptics, the unbelievers, those who reject Christ will mockingly say, “Where is your God now?” “Why does He allow evil like ISIS and other terrorist groups to exist?”

When the trials come into our own lives and our homes, when we struggle with sick children, no job or income, when we can’t seem to find an answer for our problems they say, “How can a loving God allow these things to happen?” “You foolish Christians, what meaning of life do you find in your God who allows this to happen to you when you have faithfully worshipped Him?” Sometimes it’s hard for us not to ask the same questions.

I. When Ruth Nayve was diagnosed with cancer, we all prayed for her and begged God to heal her, and to meet their financial obligations which were excessively high. He did. But just as she ended her chemotherapy and was recovering her mother came down with cancer, and then her father had a paralyzing stroke. Just when it seemed like things were looking good for Ruth, they became worse for her family. Who could blame them if they were to wonder when it will all end? When will it be enough?

II. When Pastor Terry Overstreet, whom we prayed for this morning, and I met in college, we were young, and strong, and athletes. I played baseball; he had been offered a scholarship to play football at the University of Maryland. We both loved the New York Yankees! He gave it up to follow God’s call into the ministry. I chased my baseball dream and when I didn’t make it went into the military before finally becoming a missionary. We are both 60 years old. While I’m relatively healthy, he just suffered his second stroke. Almost as if adding insult to injury, his church had just celebrated its 30th anniversary and two days later he was struck down. He is a good pastor and well loved by his church. You can’t help wonder why does God allow these things to happen?

III. My family has been plagued with Multiple Sclerosis. My great grandfather died of it in 1935. My Aunt Marianne came down with it in her 20s, her sister, Carol, got it in her 60s, and my dad came down with it at age 73. All three of them died from the disease and now my cousin’s daughter, Marisha has MS. She’s fighting a brave battle, but there is no cure for the disease and now, only in her 30s, she needs a cane to walk, but is often so weak she needs a wheel chair. When the disease was first diagnosed she called her grandmother, my Aunt Carol, and they cried together over the phone because they both knew what it meant for her future. MS is a genetic disease. It is passed down within a family, but the tendency is to skip generations. That is it will pass from a grandparent and then reappear in a grandchild. Since my two aunts and my dad all had it, and my cousin’s daughter has it, I can’t help but wonder if someday it’s going to afflict either of my two young sons, and I pray for God’s mercy.

IV. Then besides illnesses, tragedies and death, there are other kinds of trials that we often struggle with. When you’ve dedicated your life to a cause or a profession and then you fail to reach your dreams and you’re left with bitter disappointment; when you start a business and it fails and you’ve lost your investment; or you’ve studied as hard as you know how and you still failed a test; when you’ve worked your hardest and done your best and then you get fired from your job unfairly; when you try to do right and people oppose you and slander you; when the person you love leaves you, and friends betray you; you sit there and wonder, Lord, Why? Why have I failed? Why has this happened? Why are people treating me this way? Haven’t I served you? Haven’t I been faithful? What am I going to do now? You look out at your life and you see no direction ahead. You’re going to have to start over but you don’t know how or what to do, and you wonder, What is God doing with me?

In the Aeta village is a woman named Carmen. She’s an intelligent woman. When she was young she was able to leave the village and get an education. She learned to play the piano well and having tasted a more comfortable life her hope was to be a professional musician. But it didn’t happen. Her dreams were smashed and she had to move back home. Discouraged and depressed she turned to alcohol. Now she’s the village drunk. She must wonder, is there no hope? There’s got to be something better than this in life. She said to us once in a drunken stupor, “I just want to die.”

V. In 1873, Horatio G. Spafford sent his wife, Anna, and four daughters on a ship to England. He had intended to go, but a last minute business emergency forced him to stay behind. Spafford would follow when the business was done. On the voyage his family’s ship came into a violent storm and in the middle of the ocean collided with another ship. Anna Spafford was rescued, but their four daughters drowned. Spafford took the next ship across and as they reached the location of the tragedy the captain told him this was the place. Then as Horatio Spafford stood at the rail and looked out at the watery grave that held his children, he wrote the hymn we sang this morning.

When peace like a river attendeth my way; when sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say, It is well; it is well with my soul.

Did you ever go to the mountains and sit by a stream or small river and just listen as the water flows over the rocks forming pools and then cascades on its journey down through the hills and canyons? It’s a soothing, relaxing sound that as you listen and enjoy the beauty around you seems to cause an overwhelming peace to come over your spirit. Sometimes that’s the way life is and it is easy to say, “Yes, it is well with my soul.”

But what about when the sea billows roll? What about when the storms of life break your way, you are devastated and there is no relief? When nothing goes right and you can’t see your way out of the trial, and you feel like you want to lash out at God and say, “Why?” It’s not so easy then to say, it is well. When God’s sovereign will goes against your personal will and desires do you still recognize He is God? When the trials beat you down and it seems like there’s no end and no answer, can you still say God is good?

VI. A few weeks ago in our Missions Conference I told you about my cousin, Sharon, how she and her husband, Jim Smith, had worked with Rachel Saint in the jungles of Ecuador. Today I want to tell you more of her story. In 1976, Sharon gave birth to her first child, a son they named Zac. Zac was born two months prematurely and was in an incubator in the hospital struggling to breathe. One day our grandfather went to the hospital with Sharon to see his first great grandson. As he and Sharon stood outside the window looking in at Zac in the neo-natal intensive care ward, Sharon began to cry.

Grandpa put his arm around her shoulder and as they walked down the hall and he told her a story. In 1914 he had enlisted in the Dutch army. He was just twenty years old. But not long after in a physical exam the doctor determined that he had a heart murmur. It was so bad that he was immediately discharged and the doctor told him he probably wouldn’t live passed thirty, only ten more years. By 1976 he had lived another 62 years, had six grandchildren, two great granddaughters and now he had seen his first great grandson. “Don’t worry,” he told Sharon. “God has plans for that boy.”

Indeed God did have plans, but as it turned out they were not the plans that Zac or his family would have hoped for.

VII. (Show video.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4Qb1qdXn4o If you haven’t seen this video you need to. It’s four minutes and thirty seconds and well worth your time.

VIII. Five years ago yesterday, May 16, 2010, Zac Smith passed into the arms of Jesus. The cancer had riddled his body until he was hardly more than skin and bones. There was no relief for his pain. How he suffered. In the end he was so weak he couldn’t speak or even open his eyes. His last conscious act was to raise his right index finger just enough to point up, apparently signaling that the angels had come, and then he died.

Zac has a great family; this is a recent picture of his wife, Mandy, and children, Lizzy, Jake and Luke, with my cousins Jim and Sharon. He had a great ministry at his church. The Lord has given them grace and comfort, but after these several years you couldn’t blame them if they still just wonder why? But Zac gave us the answer. No matter what happens God is still God, and God is still good.

Con: No matter what happens, whether you know the reason or not, God’s plans for you are better than any plans you could ever make for yourself. Whether it includes a life of ease and great success, a life of struggle and heartbreak, or anything in between, God’s will is always best.

Zac Smith wanted to raise his family. He wanted to serve God. He was taken before his children reached their teen years. In life he served in a large church doing the multi-media, where he also made this video, and influencing perhaps hundreds of people. In death, through this video, he has influenced and encouraged hundreds of thousands of people. This video, not only on Youtube and Vimeo, but also in churches and elsewhere has been shown all over the United States and all around the world.

There are people who would never have known the comfort God gives if they had not seen this video. People who were in despair have found hope and encouragement in this video. People whom Zac will only know when they get to heaven have come to Christ because of this video. Whether we concur with God’s will for Zac’s life or not, God knew what was best even in Zac’s suffering and the heartbreak of his family. And the eternal rewards are unending.

Listen, no matter what you go through, whether you live in wealth or poverty, whether you live in health or struggle with disease, whether you are successful or struggle through failures and disappointments, whether you live a long life or die young, God has a plan for you and it is the best plan because God is still God, and God is still good. To God be the glory.

A Godly Mother

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. - Proverbs 31:10

Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that fears the Lord, she shall be praised. - Proverbs 31:30

I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of you in my prayers night and day; Greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy; When I call to remembrance the sincere faith that is in you, which was first in your grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded that in you also. Wherefore I put you in remembrance that you stir up the gift of God, which is in you by the putting on of my hands. For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. - 2 Timothy 1:3-7

Intro: Abraham Lincoln is considered by many to be one of the two or three greatest presidents of the United States. He was born in the wilderness in Kentucky and never went to school. His mother taught him to read using the Bible as a textbook. From his humble beginnings he became a lawyer, a politician, and finally president of the United States. His speeches were filled with Scripture references, and it was his leadership during the Civil War that saved the Union. His mother instilled in him the foundation that molded his character. On one occasion, having borrowed a nickel from a friend, when he was paid for some work and had the money he didn't wait until the next time he saw the friend, instead he walked several miles to find him and repay the debt. Lincoln once said, "No one is poor who had a godly mother."

Mother's have an advantage of relationship with their children over fathers, siblings, and friends. She has a nine month head start. There is a bond that is created in the womb. After a few weeks the child begins to hear his mother's voice and it is soothing. It is good for mothers to sing during pregnancy. The child gets to know her, her attitudes and feelings. Newborn babies find comfort in their mother's arms before anyone else's.

When Ethan was born Lhey was very weak after a very difficult pregnancy in which she almost lost him twice. Often when Ethan cried I would carry him around the house and sing to him until he quieted down. But if Lhey was feeling up to it, she would take him and he would stop crying almost immediately. Even now if he's sad or crying, if Lhey is out and I try to comfort him, he will say to me, "I want mom."

Let's consider what we can learn from a godly mother.

I. Transparent tenderness (2 Timothy 1:4).

Most of us learn tenderness from our mothers. I know that men can be tender, but most of us try to exude a macho kind of air. We want to be tough and strong, and we often don't show an example of tenderness. That comes from the mother. It is the mothers who teach their children to be demonstrative, caring, and full of compassion. With apparently an absent father, Timothy was raised by his mother and grandmother. He became a man with a tender heart as illustrated by his tears. That came from his mother.

We were at the Battlefield Mall in Springfield, Missouri one time when Ethan was about four years old. They have a play area for small kids with a little house in the middle and a slide, and then four stations around it. One is a hollow log with a caterpillar crawling over it, another is a car, one is a rowboat, and one a spaceship. They are all made out of hard rubber and the floor is covered with a soft padding like they put on jogging tracks, so it's safe for small children to play and climb around.

On this day we were sitting by the spaceship. A lot of children were there running around playing, and Ethan was playing with a group of boys. But there was one boy there who had no arms. He was playing by himself and had managed to climb into the seat of the spaceship. But when he climbed out of the seat he tripped and fell on his head. He wasn't hurt, of course, but as he rolled over on his knees, Ethan saw him and came and knelt down beside him and said, "Are you okay?" The boy said yes, and Ethan spent the rest of the time playing with that boy until his family left.

You can't imagine how proud I was of my son for having such compassion. But I'm sure he got it from his mother.

II. Authentic Spirituality (2 Timothy 1:5).

Paul thinks of Timothy as a man who is not hypocritical in his Christian life. He is a man of character, which he got from his mother and grandmother. Grandmothers also fill a role in baby-sitting or even raising their grandchildren.

When I was seven my dad left my mother with three small boys to take care of by herself. Since Mom had to work, we often spent time at our grandparent's home. One of my best memories of those days was my Grandma Boonstra sitting in a chair crocheting and singing, "At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light." That's where I learned that song, and it's always been one of my favorites.

My Grandma Patterson also played a role in raising one of her grandchildren. My Aunt Marianne had polio in her left arm as a young girl, and then came down with Multiple Sclerosis in her twenties. She had a baby boy named Mike. When her husband left her, she struggled to care for Mike by herself, but as her condition worsened, Mike often spent time at Grandma's house. As old as she was, she put her life into Mike and cared for him. Today Mike is married, has two grown children, and a successful business in Loveland, Colorado. He has done well in his life, but it started with his mother and grandmother.

A church, a Christian school, a circle of Christian friends can teach the facts of Scripture and be influential, but it is a mother who can make the facts real by walking the Christian walk daily in front of her children. It is often the mother who is first to speak to her children about salvation. My mother introduced me to the need of accepting Christ as my Savior when I was seven years old. I finally trusted the Lord when I was twelve, but it was my mother who helped me understand the need.

III. Inner Confidence (2 Timothy 1:7).

With all the derelict fathers in our societies children depend more and more on their mothers. Moms often do all the child rearing, discipline and providing. They have to try to be a father as well as mother. You know how much I love baseball, but it was my mom who always tried to encourage me. She tried to help me build up the confidence I needed to play. Now if you know anything about baseball, you may have heard it said that baseball is 90% from the neck up. That is, you have to have an inner confidence to be able to stand in the batter's box and hit the ball.

Paul tells Timothy that the Holy Spirit instills in us an inner confidence that drives away fear. But that same power that drives away the spirit of fear is often inbred in us by a strong, godly mother.

IV. Unselfish Love (2 Timothy 1:7).

This kind of love seeks the highest good for others. It doesn't quit when it is tired or hurting. Mothers get up at all hours of the night to take care of crying babies and sick children. Even when they are sick themselves, their unselfish loves transcends their own problems to care for their families.

This kind of love doesn't flinch when discipline is necessary. This love will laugh while under pressure. It is unselfish, giving, secure moms that somehow manage to deposit healthy, wholesome kids into our lonely, frightened society.

V. Self-Control (2 Timothy 1:7).

Love needs the balance of discipline to be consistent. A child that is not disciplined will come away believing he is unloved. Last week in Baltimore a certain mother saw her sixteen-year-old son protesting in the streets on TV. She went down to the protest, found him, drug him away, and slapped him on the head saying, "I didn't raise you to be a drug addict, a drug pusher, or a thug." She physically removed him from the rioting and took him home. When a TV reporter interviewed the boy later he said that he was glad his mother loved him so much to take him home. That mom showed her love by disciplining her child.

A psychological study at the University of California showed that 1) boys with high-esteem were clearly more loved and appreciated at home than boys with low-esteem; 2) the high-esteem group came from homes where parents had been significantly more strict in their approach to discipline; 3) the parents of the low-esteem group had created insecurity and dependence by their permissiveness; and 4) the homes of the high-esteem group were also characterized by democracy and openness.

Discipline is necessary for the proper raising of children, but it also needs to be controlled. Often a father will get angry and punish a child unfairly, where the mother in tenderness knows just how much is needed, how to discipline in love, and when to stop.

Con: You may have heard people say, "Everything I am is because of my mother." In my case that is true. My dad left when I was only seven and it was my mom who raised me, disciplined me, took me to activities, and worked full time while doing it. Now Dad wasn't completely absent from our lives, but even he recognized how much Mom did. One night he met our neighbor in a bar somewhere in town and as they were talking the neighbor mentioned to him that he sure had some good boys. Dad said, "It's all due to their mother."

Now you also know that I'm not perfect, but everything I am, every good thing in me, apart from the Lord's doing of course, is because of my mother. Today I hope you will join me in honoring our mothers.

The Greatest Fight of the Century?

It was billed as the "Greatest Fight of the Century," or the "Era" at least. A fight five years in the making. Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao had finally got the fight he wanted with Floyd "Money" Mayweather, who had dodged him for years. The hype was tremendous. A 400 million dollar purse to be split 60-40 for the winner, with some 60 million going to the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas. The largest pot in history.

The showdown was compared with the great Sugar Ray Leonard-Thomas "Hit Man" Hearns fights of the 80s. Mayweather was putting his perfect undefeated record on the line. Could he survive and join the great Rocky Marciano as the only undefeated champions in history? Could Pacquiao, the national hero of the Philippines, pull off another upset and win a ninth title in a storied career that had seen him win in several weight categories?

The suspense was thick world wide. In the Philippines the one thing the country unites behind totally is Pacquiao. Every time he fights crime rates drop all over the country because nobody is on the streets. They're all watching the fight somewhere. Giant screens were put up in parks in Manila for crowds to watch. In Olongapo the convention center was showing the fight, as well as bars and restaurants all over the city and all over the country. In America so many people had signed on to Pay-Per-View that the system couldn't handle the orders, and the fight was delayed forty-five minutes while the networks were brought up to speed. The ringside announcers kept the hype going talking about the boxers and comparing them to the great fights in history until all was ready.

Finally the moment had come. From the outset it was not only strange, but bewildering. To honor Mayo Uno, a communist Labor Day holiday that is celebrated in Mexico, and has nothing to do with the United States, a Mexican singer was introduced to sing the National Anthem of Mexico. But it wasn't enough that he just sang the song. When he finished he went on a rant in Spanish about "Viva Mexico," or something along those lines. My first thought was, What the heck does Mexico have to do with this? Why would we have the Mexican anthem sung before a fight in which neither boxer is Mexican or speaks Spanish? It became clear a few minutes later when the ring announcer gave the name of the hispanic president of the Nevada State Boxing Commission. No doubt a liberal Democrat supporter of open borders and illegal immigration making a statement in favor of the Mexican invasion of the Southwest.

The only good thing about the performance was that the crowd seemed not to appreciate it either. There was no applause, only a sense of wonderment about what was going on. Next a group of several Filipino men and one woman dressed in traditional barongs sang the Philippine National Anthem, Lupang Hiniram. They sang it proudly and beautifully. Then came the American National Anthem sung by the actor and sometimes singer Jamie Foxx. This is the same Foxx that has declared in open mockery of Christianity that Obama is his savior. His stylizing of the anthem was a joke that fortunately also brought little applause if any.

Then the fighters came in with their entourages. Pacquiao arrived first wearing a T-shirt instead of the customary robe that fighters usually wear. Then Mayweather came in wearing some kind of a jacket instead of the robe, and behind him in his gaggle was somebody dressed up in royal garb wearing a head mask with a crown looking like the comical king in the Wizard of Id. The entry took on the air of an All-Star Wrestling event. It was a joke, which was a portend of what was about to come.

The preliminaries were done and the fight finally got under way. It was a party atmosphere here in the Philippines and the group I was with screamed and laughed every time Pacman threw a punch. But it was clear right away that he wasn't connecting much and Mayweather's height and reach seemed to be to his advantage. He was the only one getting any real hits in during the first round. Round one to Mayweather.

Round two was a little more neutral but by then a pattern had become obvious that would continue throughout the fight. Pacquiao brought the fight to Mayweather. He chased him all over the ring backing him into corners and against the ropes, but Mayweather with continued sideward movement kept out of Pacman's range. Round two was pretty even. In Round three it looked as if Pacquiao was beginning to reel Mayweather in, and in round four they had several toe-toe exchanges. Pacquiao won every one of them.

Mayweather wouldn't let it happen again. He ran from a frustrated Pacman who couldn't draw a bead for a big blow, and counterpunched, hitting Pacquiao time and again, apparently building up points with the judges, but not with the fans. Looking at the faces of the spectators at ring side there was no excitement, just stone-faced stares. When the final bell ended the 12th round, and the lopsided scorecards were announced, Mayweather climbed on the ropes to boast in his victory and instead of cheers received a chorus of "boos." It was just strange.

Mayweather then to his credit in a post fight interview was gracious in his comments about Pacquiao and what a good fighter he is, but when the ring side announcer asked Pacman what he thought, he said, "I thought I won." The announcer was incredulous. "You really thought you won?" he asked, as if it was beyond his belief. But even the announcers pointed out in the eighth and ninth round breaks that Mayweather's corner seemed to be quite concerned that he was losing.

What blew my mind was that at the beginning of the twelfth round one of them said he scored it 8-3 in favor of Mayweather. I was stunned by that. It seemed to me that Pacquiao had won at least the third, fourth, sixth and ninth rounds. The first and fifth had gone to Mayweather and maybe six, seven, and eight, but the other rounds seemed to me to be pretty even. The disparity of the scorecards was really puzzling. One judge had it 118-110, and the other two 116-112. If they were judging it by the number of hits scored as they do in Olympic boxing, then Mayweather won, but this wasn't the Olympics. This was a professional boxing championship, and even if you consider Mayweather the winner, it was a much closer fight than those scorecards indicated.

The real story here is that one man came to fight and the other didn't. What the fans saw was the new way to win a professional fight: run around the ring for twelve rounds to avoid getting hit, and when you do stop to throw some punches, get in a clinch and put a headlock on your opponent. Then showboat before the final bell rings. Mayweather scored more hits, but they were all counter punches and none of them hurt or even marked Pacquiao. Pacman's problem was he couldn't corner Mayweather long enough to get in enough hits. He was the aggressor bringing the fight to Mayweather the entire bout, but the Money man just dodged and weaved and ran for his life. Pacquiao actually thought he had won. If Mayweather had stood in and traded punches with him it's likely he would have won. But that must have been Mayweather's strategy: Don't box so you don't lose.

Disappointment here in the Philippines is indescribable. This evening everybody everywhere was talking about the fight. Even the very popular Senator Miriam "Defensor" Santiago joined in. She tweeted, "Congratulations Mayweather on winning the 3K Fun Run."

The ringside announcers continued to play up the greatest fight of the era in their post fight comments. The people who paid thousands for tickets at ringside certainly got their money's worth tonight they said, almost as if they were trying to convince themselves. Comparisons to Leonard and Marciano and his perfect record were made over and over, but there is no comparison. This was no battle of the Titans ala Foreman-Ali and Frazier-Ali, or even Leonard-Hearns and Leonard-Hagler.

Neither will Mayweather ever compare with Rocky Marciano even if he does win his next fight and retire with a perfect 49-0 record. Marciano only went the distance six times. He KO'd forty-three of his opponents, most of them within the first three rounds. That's what you expect of a champion. You expect him to stand toe-to-toe with his opponent and beat him up. Mayweather ran for his life and took little potshots at Pacquiao doing no damage and not showing any of the courage or skill that makes a boxer great. He was a totally unworthy winner.

A lot of people here are speculating about a rematch, but there won't be one. Mayweather is going to fulfill his contract with Showtime and have one more fight in September, probably against a weak opponent to make sure his undefeated record stays intact. He won't fight Pacquiao again because there is too much of a chance that he would lose.

In the end it was just kind of a weird day. Everything about this fight was strange from the entourages, to the judges, to the running around in the ring. It had been ambitiously and presumptuously promoted as the greatest fight of the era, but it turned out to be the greatest disappointment.

With Malice Toward None

One hundred fifty years ago this morning America, yea, the world, lost one of its greatest statesmen. Shot in the back of the head by a coward the night before while watching a play at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C., Abraham Lincoln breathed his last at 7:22 a.m. Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War, had taken charge of the scene in the Petersen boarding house where Lincoln was taken. "Now he belongs to the ages," he said.

Lincoln's sons, Robert and Tad, had not been allowed in the room, and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, sat in a parlor weeping in agony as she descended deeper toward the insanity that would eventually overwhelm her. A young army surgeon, Charles Leale, had been the first in the presidential booth at the theater to attend Lincoln. To the end he sat by Lincoln's side holding his hand to let him know if he regained any amount of consciousness that he had a friend.

Lincoln's assassination was a tragedy of monumental proportions. Binding the wounds of a divided nation would never be accomplished with the "charity for all" that Lincoln had envisioned. His death was also controversial. Loved by millions, he was equally despised by many, and out of that hatred emerged what some have called the "Lincoln Myth," the belief that Lincoln was not the legendary "Honest Abe," and that he trampled on the Constitution and usurped the Tenth Amendment rights of the states. The myth accuses him of tyranny, blames him for starting the Civil War, and denounces him for freeing the slaves as a political move, not because of any belief in the equality of all men. What is most surprising is that there are people still fighting the Civil War, mentally at least, who bitterly malign Lincoln to this day.

Are these accusations true or are they the sour grapes response of sore losers who refuse to accept the verdict of a war that ended a century and a half ago? Is there credibility to the charges or are they the rewriting of history to support a utopian view of America that never existed?

The argument centers around slavery. Lincoln, by his Emancipation Proclamation, became the "Great Emancipator," and the end result of the war was the abolition of slavery, but the anti-Lincoln argument is that the war was never about slavery. It was about state's rights. This may be partially true, but the only "right" the southern states were worried about was the right to own slaves. Every other issue on the table could have been settled through the legislative process, but slavery was the one issue that could not. The South was willing to go to war and destroy the Union over slavery.

The proof is in the secession commissioners that scoured the South in 1860 stirring up legislatures and mobs into a secessionist fury. They had only one message. Lincoln was going to end slavery; we must secede. It was only after the war when the Confederate Vice President, Alexander Stephens, wrote a history of the United States that the argument shifted away from slavery toward being primarily a state's rights issue.

The myth then claims that Lincoln was actually a racist who cared nothing for the slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation was a political move to gain a moral high ground and prevent European nations from supporting the South. Such arguments ignore Lincoln's letter to Joshua Speed in 1855 in which he expresses his hatred of the institution, and his comments in the Lincoln-Douglass debates that negroes also deserved the rights to life, liberty and happiness. Looking at it with clear eyes it would seem that those who defend slavery are hardly in a position to hurl charges of racism.

Next the argument is that Lincoln was going to be a tyrant and illegally end slavery, thus forcing the South to separate. But in those same Lincoln-Douglass debates Lincoln clearly stated that he had no legal power and no intention of ending slavery where it existed. He believed that the intent of the Founders was to let slavery die a slow death on its own by leaving it alone where it existed and not allowing it to expand to the territories. Politically he was against the expansion of slavery, but had no plan to do anything about it where it was established. The southern states ignored his clearly stated intent and embarked on secession because they foolishly feared Lincoln would end slavery.

Lincoln is accused of starting the war because he invaded the sovereign state of Virginia. The problem with this view is that there was a standing Federal army with troops stationed in every state. On April 12, 1861, Confederate rebels fired on the Federal installation at Fort Sumpter in Charleston, South Carolina. The South provoked Lincoln to act in order to save the Union. Lincoln made it clear that he believed it was his solemn duty to preserve the Union. He would not have called for volunteers to join the army to put down the rebellion if the South had not rebelled.

The argument is made that Lincoln was the first major politician to argue that the Constitution was perpetual and that individual states had no right to secede. But this is historical ignorance. Daniel Webster was a giant defending the Union "now and forever." He fought for the Union of all the states as one nation for fifty years. Along side him before he became a secessionist when it was more convenient was John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. The first threat of secession had come from New England in 1807 and Calhoun vehemently argued against it. The argument for a perpetual union was well known long before Lincoln's Cooper Union speech in 1860.

The accusation then is that Lincoln became a tyrant and trampled all over the Constitution by illegally denying the writ of Habeas Corpus, illegally putting thousands in prison, and by invading and waging war against the sovereign states. He is blamed for being the cause of big government overreach and tyranny to this day. The facts tell a different story.

The Constitution, in fact, allows for the suspension of Habeas Corpus "in cases of rebellion or invasion (when) the public safety requires it" (Article I, Section IX). Habeas Corpus has been suspended twice in America's history, the first time by Lincoln and the second by Grant. Lincoln suspended it on April 27, 1861, in Maryland and parts of the midwestern states in response to riots and anti-government actions by local militia. The country was in a civil war and the suspension was well warranted. Several people were arrested, but it was not thousands, or even hundreds. Lincoln acted within the limits of the Constitution. It was the southern states that trampled on it. The results of the war they brought on themselves.

Big government usurpation of Tenth Amendment rights and its overreach in modern times has been attributed to the tyrannical government Lincoln "created" during the war, but this is hardly fair. Lincoln never argued against the rights of the states. He clearly stated he would never interfere with slavery in the states where it existed for the very reason of state sovereignty. His concern was the spread of slavery into the territories. The Emancipation Proclamation was indeed a political move. It declared the slaves free only in the states that were in rebellion and not yet subdued. It did not free slaves in the border states that had remained within the Union. Had it not been for the war, slavery would have been left alone to die its own slow death in the states where it was allowed.

What Lincoln might have done during Reconstruction will never be known. His untimely death ended any hope of his agenda "with malice toward none" ever being accomplished. It was the "Radical Republicans" led by Thaddeus Stephens that set out to punish the states that had been in rebellion that led to ever increasing government control of internal affairs in the states. If Lincoln had lived that likely would not have been the case.

Lincoln should be remembered for being the man that he was, a man of character forged in a wilderness and hardened by experience. He was a man of strength, a "rail-splitter," not only physically, but mentally as well. He learned to read by firelight in his home. His textbook was the Bible, which he quoted often in his public life. "No man is poor who had a godly mother," he wrote. He was a man of integrity. The story of his walking miles to return a borrowed nickel is not a fabrication.

He was a man of compassion and passionate about his causes. "Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid," he wrote to Speed. "As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.'" He was a militia captain in the Black Hawk War in the 1830s, and knew the rigors of troops in the field. As president he agonized over the casualty lists and begged God for His forbearance. He was raised on the frontier and never became a regular church attender, but he understood Scripture better than many theologians. "Men are not flattered by the knowledge that God is not on their side," he once said.

His inaugural addresses, the 1863 Thanksgiving message and the Gettysburg Address are among the finest works of literature ever penned. His humbleness before God is evident in all of them. His challenge in the Second Inaugural is as convicting as it is tender. He points out that both sides read the same Bible and pray to the same God, but God has His own purposes, and "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." He quoted Psalm 19:9.

It is almost fitting that the Second Inaugural was the last formal speech he would ever give. The closing lines parallel the closing of a life that was both humble, yet strong; firm and resolute, yet tender and empathetic; sagacious, yet practically simple. It also seems appropriate that at the theater Lincoln was laughing when the fatal shot was fired. He had also suffered the death of two sons, one while carrying the burden of the war, and for the first time in four years he was relaxed. His personal secretary, John Hay, wrote that as he took his last breath "a look of unspeakable peace came upon his worn features."

The magnitude of the importance of Abraham Lincoln to America is simply this: Without George Washington there would have been no United States of America; without Abraham Lincoln those United States would not have survived.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Liberal Hypocrisy

Dave Kistler is an evangelist and president of World Hope On Line in Hickory, North Carolina, and a friend of mine. He posted the following which I am reposting with permission. This incident pretty much illustrates the bias and hypocrisy of the Liberal, Leftist, Gay community.

Lance Patterson

Have you heard this? A Castle Rock, Colorado man by the name of Bill Jack is making national headlines for his successful attempt to illustrate the grand hypocrisy within the judicial community. His effort? He entered a bakery whose owner is supportive of gay marriage and asked him to bake three "anti-gay marriage" cakes. Each of the three cakes would contain Bible verses that clearly state God's opposition to same-sex marriage, as well as strong verses declaring the gospel. The result was a firm refusal to bake any such items.

At that point, Mr. Jack, a committed Christian, filed a suit with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission claiming discrimination. The CCRC ruled against Bill declaring that the baker was not obligated to bake any cake with “derogatory language and imagery.” So, it's OK for a Christian baker to be forced to bake a cake that violates his/her beliefs, but it's not the same when a gay-friendly baker is asked to bake a cake that is contrary to his/her values? Plus, since when are Bible verses "derogatory language and imagery?"

Of course, Bill Jack believes that it's a bakers prerogative to refuse to bake a cake AT ALL, if he/she wants to! His point was to merely illustrate the incredible hypocrisy that now exists within the judicial system, and the strong anti-Christian sentiment that now exists in America. In Mr. Jacks own words, "Christianity has now been granted second-class status!"

Is it any accident that the strong anti-Christian bigotry so prevalent in America coincides with the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama? I don't think so! No, Barack Obama has purposefully and dramatically altered the religious climate in America! Obviously, the anti-Christian bigotry did not start with him. However, that movement has found a willing accomplice in him! Even today, he made more comments that demean those of us who hold Christianity dear! As he ventured toward strong anti-Christian rhetoric, he abruptly caught himself and declared, "That's a discussion for another time!"

What is not a "discussion for another time" is the ongoing and escalating animosity that is being fostered toward Christians across the globe! No, NOW is the time for a discussion of it, especially in the United States! It is not enough to say, "Well, in another year and a half this president will be gone and the attitude will return to more normal!" NO, we dare not wait another year and a half! In fact, Christians (especially preachers) have been silent for too long!!! No, this conversation must be had NOW!!!

If your state legislature is working toward it's own RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act), then get busy informing your state legislators of your support for that bill--provided it is well-crafted and doesn't, through the back door, condone Islamic Shariah Law. In the days ahead, my own state of North Carolina will take up just such a bill. I have no doubt it will be well-crafted and do what it is intended to do--protect the beliefs of those of us who adhere to the Scriptures and take seriously our sincerely held CHRISTIAN beliefs! If your state has no such legislation proposed, then get busy calling on your legislators to craft a RFRA!

These days are NOT for the faint of heart! These days demand dedicated Christian men and women (especially preachers) with tough hides, tender hearts and thinking heads, who'll assume a position of leadership in the home, church and civil government! It's well past time that we concern ourselves with the scowls of those who do NOT love God, His word, or the gospel enough to earnestly contend for our religious liberty! I say this lovingly, but VERY directly! I am tired of worrying about those who are passionless and purposeless when it comes to the cause of Christ! By the grace of God, they will NOT infect me with their tragic illness of complacency!

We don't sing it often anymore, though we should! But, I love the words to William P. Merrill's grand hymn, "Rise UP, O Men Of God!" It's beyond applicable at this critical time in our national life!

"Rise up, O men of God! Have done with lesser things! Give heart and soul and mind and strength to serve the King of kings!

"Rise up, O men of God! The church for you doth wait! Her strength is unequal to her task, so rise up and make her great!"