 Okay, welcome back everybody to our second lecture on BC 213, the end times. We are in lesson number five, we are looking at some of the main signs of the times, as we try to understand where we are in relation to the end times and the fulfillment of end time Bible prophecy. So we've gone through several signs and we have a few more left that we're going to look at. So we have looked at, prior up until this point, we've looked at several signs that were outside of the church with respect to the nations. Then we looked at three signs that were specific to the church. One is the church coming to a place of maturity. Then the church bringing the gospel to the nations and persecutions toward the church, the church enduring persecution. Then we look at other signs that again are external to the church, but there are things that are happening around the world globally. We said that there is an increase in deception and false spirituality. Now, we know that these things are always there, false religions cause deceiving spirits at work. But we will see an increase in these things happening in the latter times, deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. More and more people coming, claiming supernatural powers, doing this, doing that, all kinds of things happening, ultimately to deceive people. So that the apostle Paul wrote, some will even depart from the faith. So that's a big thing. And if we look at what's happening, and again, this is not some very sad thing actually. When you look at many western countries, that is what we observe. That there's been such a great departing from the faith, even in parts of the world where the church was once very strong and predominant. There are people who have departed and now there's no indication of faith in their hearts and their lives. And it's sad to see, but we are seeing that happen. Another sign, and this is a sign that the prophet Daniel gave. Angel Gabriel spoke to Daniel. He said, Daniel. And Daniel 12 verse 4, he said, shut up the words and seal the book. Close it. Keep it there. All the prophecies have given you until the time of the end or until the end of the times. And then he gives two signs about the end times. He says, many will run to and fro and knowledge will increase. So when he said many will run to and fro, he's talking about people traveling up and down, going everywhere, traveling. So there's an explosion in travel. Many will run to and fro. They're going to be moving around while people are going to be traveling all over the world and knowledge shall increase. Now both these are signs, he said, until the end of times. So both these are signs of the end of times. And we can see these increased knowledge in explosion travel has heightened a lot in recent decades. Never before has there been some opportunity for people to travel. Travel is becoming easier and easier with so many means of travel, of course. And knowledge increasing at information is increasing at a huge rate. There's an explosion of increased knowledge because now everybody's creating content. We have the internet. Everybody's putting information out there. It's more than what any person can take. There's an overload of information in almost every area, every subject. And there are studies that have been done that kind of estimate, you know, at what rate information is increasing. So, and this was a study put out in 2018. So it's, you know, quite five years old. But in 2018, they were talking about information increasing by 90% or data increasing by 90% in just over a two year period, or almost doubling in two years. And there's, you know, the predictor by 2025, 175 zeta bytes. Well, that's huge. When you can't even imagine how many zeros are there after that. 175 trillion gigabytes of data will be created around the world. People are, you know, generating data, all kinds of data being created, information is being produced. So, you know, when Gabriel said, and again, keep in mind that this was more than 2000 years ago, Gabriel is telling Daniel, Daniel, at the end times, there are two signs to look at. These people are going to travel everywhere up and down, and knowledge is going to increase. And we can say about our times that surely this is what's happening. This is what's happening. So we are there close to the time of the end. Other signs that to look at, and you know, we refer to them as generic signs, meaning these are things that have always been there, but we are going to see them in a heightened way in an increased way. There's going to be more increase in wars and rumors of wars. Jesus said that about the end times. Nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. You know, wars have always been happening, you know, small wars and larger wars. But there's going to be an increase in that. Another sign, there will be hate, error, and despair. Jesus said, on the earth there will be distress of nations with confusion or perplexity, men's heart failing them from fear. So there is distress, there's perplexity, men's hearts are failing them, there's hopelessness and or despair, and there is fear. So this is what's going to happen. And if you look around globally, this is something that's gripping almost every nation. You know, almost every nation, this is what happened. There's fear, there's distress, people are confused, and men's hearts are failing them, people are giving up. You're seeing that happen. Again, another sign are weather and geophysical conditions. There will be great earthquakes in various places, famines and pestilences, that's the next point that we talk about. There will be great signs from heaven. So we can look at weather and geophysical conditions, great earthquakes in various places, signs from heaven. So things are happening, unusual things are happening with the weather and with geophysical conditions and signs from heaven and so on. And along with that, there's going to be famines and pestilences in many places, various places, famines and plagues. And this again is something we can look at that these are on an increase in different parts of the world, various places and famines and pestilences. Last one, the 17th sign, lawlessness will abound, people will grow cold in their hearts. There will be increased lawlessness of violence and crime, lawbreakers. This will increase and people will not care about loving one another. The love of many will grow cold. There's no issue of love. People are cold in their heart, heart-hearted and so on. Jesus said, as in the days of Noah, and if you look at the days of Noah, there was gluttony and drunkenness and corruption and violence. As in the days of Noah, that's the way it's going to be when we get closer to the end. So these are 17 signs of the times. Some of them dealing with how nations are aligning themselves, the political interactions among the nations. Some of them dealing with the church, what's happening with the church. Some of them dealing with environmental conditions. Some of them dealing with the condition of man, humanity. So these are the broad categories that we can put these signs into and say, okay, let's observe what's happening. This is what's happening. We are seeing all these happen around us. And therefore we can say, look, we are really close. It's like we are in the final countdown. So I would encourage you, whenever you get a chance, whenever the Lord leads you to preach about this. Preach about the signs of the times. And through that, we can challenge people. We can invite people to make a decision for Christ as we talk about these signs. So with this, we come to our first run through this course material. What I'm going to do next week, the next two next week, we'll spend both hours reviewing everything. So I'm going to go back to the beginning, start from the beginning and just review chapter by chapter. Just go give an overview of everything. So then you get a full picture of the end times. We haven't gone into detail on Daniel's prophecy and revelation that we will do next year. But the purpose of this course was to get an overview, to understand the sequence of events, to understand how things are going to play out, as far as the prophecies that are waiting to be fulfilled. Starting with the rapture of the church and then what is going to happen. That's what our goal was to cover. So I would encourage you to please take some time to think about this. Just quickly glance through the notes before our next class. So that if there are any questions, we can bring them up and we'd be happy to discuss any questions that come up. And next week probably will be our last set of classes. I'll go through the full overview and we can discuss any questions you have. I want all of us to be very clear in our minds on the whole sequence of events. And if you can, are able to explain from the chart, the chart that we shared in the earlier lesson, lesson number four, then if you can explain that, okay, this is the sequence would be, then that would be useful. Lyndon, were you trying to say something? We can't hear you. Do you want to type in the chat? Because we're not able to hear you. Okay. I'm not sure. Maybe there's too much noise there. All right. So any questions so far? Is everyone following me with me so far? Okay. So we'll pause here for today. And we will meet next week. We'll do a full review of the course and go over any questions you may have. And after that, I'm going to post some assignments, which will just cover everything. You just give you help you go through the whole course content again, review everything and you can answer those questions. It'll be an open book, open Bible assignment so you can refer to the notes and refer to the Bible as you respond to those questions, which is for an assessment of your understanding of this course. All right. So next week, let's get together and we'll do a full review of this course. Okay. Could somebody please close in prayer and then we will dismiss please. Rosalind, would you be able to pray? Let's pray. Hallelujah. Wonderful Lord Jesus. We thank you Lord for this wonderful class that we have this morning. Lord God, so much we learned. I'm still learning. Father God from your word. Father, we ask you Lord to give each one of us the grace that we may meditate on what we learned. And Father also that we may share with others for the good. God, we thank you and we bless you. Lord, we also bless our dear pastor, Ashish. Lord bless him. Give him the grace and give him Lord anointing for the good. And use them mightily for your glory. God, we ask you this prayer in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Amen. Thank you everyone. I will meet again next week. God bless. Bye now.