 Luke 21 verses 5 through 11 and I want to develop this with you because it's going to take some time for me to do that and I only want to give introductory remarks and things and then I'm going to be building on this over the next two or three studies and so let's look together here beginning at verse 5 Luke chapter 21 I'll read to verse 11 and we'll get into our study Luke 21 beginning at verse 5 then as some spoke of the temple how it was adorned with beautiful stones and donations he said these things which you see the days will come in which not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down so they asked him saying teacher but when will these things be and what sign will there be when these things are about to take place and he said take heed that you not be deceived for many will come in my name saying I am he and the time is drawn near therefore do not go after them but when you hear of wars and commotions do not be terrified for these things must come to pass first but the end will not come immediately then he said to them nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom there will be great earthquakes in various places and famines and pestilences there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven so as we look at this particular study this study has been called by Bible commentators the Olivet discourse perhaps you've heard that that term before the Olivet discourse the reason why it's referred to as the Olivet discourse or the speech from Mount of Olives is because according to Matthew chapter 24 verse 3 Jesus gives this teaching while on the Mount of Olives and so what we have here is called the Olivet discourse and what it is doing is it's dealing with conditions prior to the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ now the second coming the return of Christ is one of those subjects that gets people into arguments some people as they read Luke chapter 21 would say that that the events that are written of have already taken place other people when they look at this particular portion of scripture would look at Jesus's words as simply a message that that helps people to establish spiritual priorities there are various ways that people will take this particular passage and deal with it we believe that Jesus is speaking of actual events and the events that he's going to speak of here in Luke chapter 21 our events that will take place both in the near future as in terms of when he was speaking them the near future as well as a later time a future event now we know that having a faith in the Lord's return is a very valuable valuable asset in your Christian life and some people will say well the Lord delays is coming he's not going to come he's been saying it that you know we've heard that he's going to be returning all of our lifetime and for centuries that's been being said and all and and and they get kind of lazy in their faith and they even go so far as to believe that if he hasn't come yet he's never going to come but one of the things that I discovered about the subject of eschatology last day's events eschatology the subject of this is is really an important thing because when you study eschatology when you study the last days and the events that are taking place prior to the return of Jesus Christ it's one of those things that actually encourage you to live an unselfish life having a belief that the Lord is returning it gives to you an impetus to live a holy life a devoted life a life of service as you're awaiting the Lord Jesus Christ believing that he's going to return has a way of impacting the way that you live I got saved 30 some years ago in 1970 and and when I got saved as a 20 year old young man I was hearing that the Lord is returning and and you know and obviously over 37 almost 38 years he has yet to return at least in my lifetime and somebody says well you know doesn't that discourage you and the answer is no he's closer now than he was when I first believed he's going to return you know and and I have begun to even more now in these latter days of my life live with more of the conscious awareness of that than ever before because he's going to return I was talking to a friend of mine a friend of ours really raw yesterday pastor all reason anyhow we're visiting and he was saying and he says this to me quite often he says you know David he goes he calls me David he never calls me David it's always David but anyway we're talking and he says you know what he goes we're living in the last days man we're living and I've heard that from Raul and and others for so many years but I especially have heard that from Jesus himself we are living in the last days there's no doubt about that the Lord's return is soon and that ought to provoke us to a certain kind of life if you really believe that he's returning if you honestly believe that Jesus Christ is true to his word and he's coming back it ought to provoke you to a life that is holy it's devoted to service it's a life that's set apart in an unselfish way and you see that in Scripture in 1st John chapter 3 verses 2 and 3 when John was writing there in 1st John chapter 3 he said beloved now we are children of God and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be but we know that when he's revealed we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is and he goes on to say and everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure if you really have the hope that the Lord is returning you are going to live a lifestyle that reflects the reality of that you're going to live a lifestyle in anticipation of the return of Lord Jesus Christ that's what's going to happen with you because you really believe that Jesus is coming back and your belief that he's going to come back actually has affected the way that you are living in in Romans chapter 13 verses 11 through 14 when Paul was writing to the church of Rome he said this do this knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep for now our salvation is near than when we first believed the night is far spent the day is at hand therefore let us cast off the works of darkness let us put on the armor of light let us walk properly as in the day not in revelry and drunkenness not in lewdness and lust not in strife and envy but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its loss he said the day is at hand Jesus is returning how are you supposed to live a holy and separated life now the disciples had looked at that temple and as they looked at the beauty of the temple they made mention it mention of it to Jesus you see that in Matthew chapter 24 they they pointed out how beautiful it was and all of that and that's what you see here in verse 5 in chapter 21 when it says as some spoke of the temple how it was adorned with beautiful stones and donations and so they were pointing out this magnificent temple to the Lord Jesus Christ they were pointing out how beautiful it was and and yet Jesus responds he says it's going to be destroyed and and when he says that to them it prompts the questions to ask their rather the disciples to ask their question it says in verse 7 teacher when will these things be and what sign will there be when these things are about to take place so it's Jesus's statement that that these these stones aren't going to be left one upon another they're all going to be thrown down that actually causes the disciples to ask that question and so when you look at their question there in verse 7 I want you to see how Luke divides the question into two basic elements when and what so in response Jesus's answer is the longest answer given to any question in the New Testament now in order to understand their question we need to understand their times during their day just like today there was a great interest in prophetic events the Jews during the time of Jesus Christ were longing for deliverance from foreign oppression for many centuries the nation of Israel had been subjected to foreign rulers and as you study your Old Testament you see that you see that they had been invaded by by Assyrians you see that the Babylonians had invaded you see the Medo-Persians had the Greeks and and and now it's the Romans and and their desire was to be set free they were longing to be set free from the yoke of foreign tyranny and as they had this longing to be set free from this tyranny that they had for centuries been been experiencing they began to remember the promises that God had made and God had made them some fantastic promises in their Old Testament prophets and God had made it clear to them that he would bless them so they remembered things like Isaiah chapter 9 verses 6 and 7 where God had said unto us a child is born unto us a son is given the government shall be upon his shoulder his name shall be called wonderful counselor the mighty God the everlasting father the prince of peace of the increase of his government in peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this and so they knew that God was going to establish a everlasting kingdom they knew through Jeremiah in chapter 23 verses 5 and 6 how Jeremiah had prophesied centuries before the days come saith the Lord that I will raise unto David a righteous branch and the king shall reign in prosper and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth in his days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely and this is his name whereby he shall be called the Lord our righteousness so they knew of the promises of a coming king they knew that there was one who would be there a messiah who would deliver them and so they're longing for the Lord to fulfill his word to them they're asking God for deliverance from his enemies and there's an expectation there's an expectation that it is soon to take place during that time there was a basic set of expectations concerning the coming of messiah there were various things that they believed very strongly they believe for example that before messiah would arrive there would be a time of terrible tribulation they believed before the coming of messiah that a forerunner would be sent who was likened to Elijah they believed that after the tribulation in and Elijah that the messiah would appear and establish his kingdom they believed that the unbelieving nations would ally to fight against their messiah that the nations opposing messiah would be destroyed for their opposition they also believed that Jerusalem would be restored and be the city of the great king they knew that the Jews scattered throughout the earth would be re-gathered to Israel and that also Israel would become the center of the world and that all nations would be subject to messiah and they also believed that after messiah began to rule the earth would enter into an eternal peace and joy so that gives us insight into the question of the disciples you see they'd been influenced by the teachings of their day and the old testament prophets saw the coming of messiah and and they presented it in the way that was being taught her in that time as a single event they believed that that when there was a tribulation struggle and that when the Elijah the one unto like unto Elijah would come then the next step would be messiah establishing his kingdom and one of the things they didn't see and you might want to make note of this is they didn't see the church in all of that they didn't see that God was going to create something called the church the old testament prophets saw the coming of messiah as a single event but they didn't see this period of time that God would actually work through something that he created called the church now Paul speaks about that Paul in Ephesians chapter three verses four and six says this he says in reading this you'll be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ which was not made known to men in other generations as is now been revealed by the spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets this mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel members together of one body and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus that was the mystery of the church they didn't see it you see as i've said to you many times in the Old Testament humanity is basically divided into two two people groups they're Jew and Gentile that's all you have in the Old Testament the Jew and the Gentile but in the New Testament you have Jew Gentile and the church and the church is made up of Jews and Gentiles and that's a new entity in the New Testament Jesus Christ is revealing this but the disciples don't understand it at that mind so in their mind the events of Jesus's ministry pretty much had followed the course that they were expecting Israel had been under severe tribulation John the Baptist had presented Jesus and so certainly now Jesus is about to establish his kingdom and that's why they're they're wondering about these things now Jesus has departed from the temple and he's there on the Mount of Olives which is just east of the temple now according to Mark in chapter 13 verse 1 as he was leaving the temple one of his disciples said to him look teacher what massive stones what magnificent buildings and even as we saw a moment ago in our visual indeed it was magnificent John chapter 2 verse 20 records that restoration work on that temple had been going on for some 46 years and some of the stones that were there in that temple structure were 40 feet by 12 feet by 12 feet and weighed over 100 tons and what's also very interesting about that is they were quarried as a single piece and transported many miles to the building site and that was to keep the sound of man's labor out of that area it was an incredible structure huge huge stones and and it was adorned it was adorned with beautiful stones and donations and so you had the beautiful carvings but you also had these wealthy people who would give gifts of gold sculptures and gold plaques and other treasures and the gifts that they had were displayed on the walls or suspended from the roof and were extremely valuable and the disciples when they would look at this huge beautiful white structure it looked like pure white in the midst of the wilderness there on the hill and when you saw it it was just it was so magnificent and so awesome and so beautiful you would be overwhelmed with it and something inside of the disciples when they saw the beauty of that temple something inside of them went off and they said oh lord isn't that a beautiful beautiful temple that's why they were so surprised when Jesus in verse six said not one stone will be left here upon another that's why it blew their mind that Jesus said it was going to be destroyed so naturally that provokes their question in verse seven and their question is teacher but when will these things be and and what sign will there be when these things are about to take place this is hard to believe can you tell us something about this can you give us some details about this how is this going to happen again cross-referencing this with mark chapter 13 verse 3 mark writes that jesus was sitting on the mount of olives opposite the temple and peter james john and andrew asked him this question privately again their question is basically comprised of two parts when will these things be and what sign will there be when these things are to take place first the question is when will these things be again at this point they don't see the church age they're expecting him to establish his rule immediately after his resurrection and so they're wondering is this what's going to take place but second and i want to point this out and start looking at some things with you what sign will there be when these things are about to take place you have to remember something about the disciples again they thought that the kingdom was about to be established in luke 1911 people thought that the kingdom of god was going to appear at once now here's something for you and i want you to see this with me in verse 7 i want to read it again i want to show you something here you've seen it before but i want to point it out again teacher but when will these things be and what sign will there be when these things are about to take place how many signs does he do they ask what signs no they say what sign now that to me is a very interesting thing because in a moment we're going to see that jesus actually says several things but i want you to see this because it's very important and it may be something that i'm not going to clearly be able to explain to you today but i'll try i want you to see it because they asked the question what sign jesus gives various things we'll be looking at things in a moment like famines and pestilences earthquakes et cetera we'll see those in a moment but they asked the question what sign and i want you to see the immediate response to jesus in verse 8 because he gives to them the sign take heed that you not be deceived for many will come in my name saying i am he and the time is drawn near therefore do not go after them what is the answer to the question guys do you see the answer what is the sign and jesus's response is deception do you see that what is the sign not the signs what is the sign and jesus's immediate answer is spiritual deception that is the primary sign that you are in the last days spiritual deception in the new testament and i didn't want to give as many scriptures as i could because in the new testament this is universally prophesied spiritual deception is rampant will continue to grow and prepares the way for the acceptance of the coming world ruler called the antichrist how is the world ruler going to be accepted the way the world ruler is accepted is through spiritual deception that's how the world is going to follow and wonder after one the scriptures refer to as the beast and and you see this over and over again in first timothy chapter four verse one paul said the spirit speaks expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons the apostle peter and second peter chapter two verse one says there were false prophets also among the people even as there shall be false teachers among you who secretly shall bring in damnable heresies even denying the lord who bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction in first john chapter four verse one john said beloved do not believe every spirit but test the spirits whether they are of god because many false prophets are gone out into the world and jude in verses three and four said beloved although i was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share i felt i had a right and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints for certain men have whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you they are godless men who changed the grace of our god into license for immorality and deny jesus christ our only sovereign and lord you see that in the testimony of paul the apostle peter the apostle john and jude you see that in the lips of jesus christ what is the sign the sign is deception it's the overwhelming sign that you see that is presented in scripture it's the first and primary sign i really believe very strongly that we're living in days that answer to that sometimes as a minister then i have to be careful here because i don't want this to come off wrong and i don't want you to misunderstand what i'm trying to say but as a pastor sometimes i'm absolutely flabbergasted over what people who claim to be christians say they actually believe and i've discovered that there are several reasons why people can believe the wrong kinds of things one is they may go to a church that simply doesn't teach the bible it just doesn't teach it i mean you you get there and and you don't even need to bring the bible you don't need it because it's not going to be taught they might give you sermon outlines or they might give you a book that the pastor recently either read or wrote himself and you'll get that and that's basically what you get on a sunday and though you guys may have grown up in calvary chapel and and this hasn't been your experience i can tell you that that is the experience of many people who go to church on a sunday it's a prepared thing for you you don't even have to read the bible there's no encouragement for you to do that you'll go to church and the individual who's behind the pulpit doesn't even teach the bible who give you something for you for that day and and that's about it and so when they're not being taught the bible pastors are refusing many pastors are refusing because they're afraid of of upsetting congregants they're afraid to get people upset at them because of the things that they say what the bible may actually be presenting to them and so they won't read it to them and they don't they don't teach it they're afraid of upsetting people because the bible sometimes can cut right to the heart and people don't like it especially today they don't like hearing that they're not the best thing since sliced bread they don't like to hear that they might need to get their life in order a lot of people get insulted and upset over that kind of thing to actually have the bible presented to them in a way that that takes them from the A to the Z is going to point out that yes there's blessings and yes God loves them and yes there's heaven but there's also curses and there also is is God's anger towards sin and and there's also another place called hell and when you give the full counsel of God you're going to see both heaven and hell because it's presented that way you see and not everybody wants to hear that so there are pastors unfortunately that will not they refuse to teach the whole counsel of God and because the pastors don't teach and value the whole counsel of God the congregation does not receive love and abide in the things of the Lord so they end up messed up they go to a church that doesn't teach fact is just because a person goes to church doesn't mean that they're getting saved or believers i was listening to somebody just the other day who was asked a question now maybe you heard the same thing it was on on a cable news network and i was listening to a conversation where the the interviewer asked a question of his guest and he asked him something like this he said to him do you think that Jesus was in favor of of abortion do you think that he was in favor of of abortion and and the guy said oh yes of course he said i believe that there are things that jesus believes that that you would consider to be radical today but he was a revolutionary and he and and i'm certain that that that he had no problem with that at all and as i'm listening to him and saying other things similar to that i'm realized and of course this man doesn't read the bible he most certainly doesn't know the lord jesus christ but he absolutely believes what he's saying is true but the thing that bothers me the most is there are other there are other people who are professing christians who would argue hammer and tong that jesus would be in favor of of abortion he's in favor of gay marriages somewhat argue i have heard the arguments i've been part of the arguments and i know those arguments are there and they're coming from people who don't believe the word of god i had a meeting a few years ago i was invited to go to it was in another city here in the local area and it was in i was invited to attend because there were some arguments and debates going on at that time related to some some legislation that was being debated and looking to be established as law in california that related to homosexuality and all and so i went to this particular meeting and there were in that meeting there were about 60 or so pastors and religious leaders representing churches and all in this area and so as i was part of that meeting it was put on by one of our state senators um as i was um i believe as a state senator as as we're there anyway it was one of our our elected officials and as as i was there uh they began to discuss the merits of the legislation whether it should be something the church is behind it's the church opposed and that kind of thing and as i listened to it the debate and the discussion went on and several pastors uh spoke and and and then finally uh i raised my hand so that i could make a comment and and i shared a little bit about about what the scripture has to say about about that issue homosexuality and how that the lord is a gracious god who forgives those who have committed the sin but he never gives permission for us to continue in it read the scripture and quoted it and um you know and gave my contribution the people who are who are hosting us got absolutely really upset because it was a woman pastor and a lesbian assistant and she didn't like hearing what i said for some reason i don't know why she got she got upset that isn't so disturbing because i would have expected that but one of the other quote-unquote pastors raised his hand and he said he said this is no big deal he said i don't know why we should make an issue out of it he said it's only mentioned in the scripture a few times and i couldn't contain myself i was sitting in the front and i turned and i looked at him and i said how many times does god have to tell you something before you listen to him he doesn't have to say it more than one time if god says it one time that's enough for me one time so if he says it a few times doesn't that emphasize the reality of what god is saying but there are a lot of people who don't see that i'm telling you i this is this is what i do i'm telling you that's out there and you know that too some of you know that too it is out there this attitude and it comes from not getting in the word of god it comes from not studying the word of god not believing the word of god that's how deception occurs it flows into the church from pulp it's very often it flows into the church in a variety of ways and it's all deception because they're not seeing Jesus for who he is there are quite a number of people that go to churches just like this one and throughout the united states quite a number of people i would say many many many people who go to church who think themselves to be Christians when in reality they have never committed their hearts to Jesus Christ and they just think they're believers even in churches like this i see it all the time i have people who get saved in this church who have been in the church for years i've had people say i was here for five years before i realized i'm not even saved and i'm amazed at that i'm amazed they could put up with me for five years you know but they did and they've told me many i've heard this many times they said i finally realized that i had told myself for years i'm a christian when i never have embraced Jesus as my lord and savior i simply knew the christian terminology i was able to talk the born again talk i learned a foreign language i was able to communicate with other people you know we have christianese you know we have a language of our own christianese how you doing well praise the lord i'm doing fine well hallelujah i'm doing fine too bro yeah amen you know we have our own language you know christianese we learn how to speak it fluently but that doesn't mean we understand it it doesn't mean the number one thing and this is something i actually should i could have just taken you just to this one thing deception deception check your heart are you really walking with Jesus Christ check your heart when you hear a study and i say living together is a sin do you agree with that or disagree with that when you hear me say you know what man why are you drinking and getting drunk do you get mad or do you make excuses well you know what i inherited this because you know i'm a hispanic and we like to drink what can i say you know it's part of my culture you know you know what do you you know you make excuse for your sin because you don't turn away from it you don't repent you think it's okay because you've misunderstood grace you think grace is permission grace isn't permission to continue in sin grace is god making it possible for you to flee sin and to go to heaven and perhaps you haven't understood that deception and the worst deception is self-deception because you have convinced yourself that you're a christian when in reality you're not and so jesus is speaking he also speaks in verses nine and ten when you hear of wars and commotions do not be terrified for these things must come to pass first but the end will not come immediately and he said to them nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom a second thing he points out is that you will hear of wars and commotions also rumors of war you hear them and that word here is in a greek tense it means you will be hearing of it constantly you will constantly be hearing of wars and commotions it's been pointed out that out of 5 000 years of history there has been over 4 000 years of war in the first portion of the 20th century over 60 million people died in two world wars alone and it's been said that mankind has stockpiled enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world 17 times over in flames reaching 130 million degrees in our lifetime we have seen third world nations with aggressive designs continue to increase there are several military dictators who are presently ruling and some will bomb israel when given the opportunity and if they had nuclear technology it's a sure thing that they would do so since 1992 over 15 nations have nuclear technologies of one kind or another and yet the lord jesus christ is making it clear that this is part of what will take place yet do not be dismayed he goes on and gives another sign he speaks concerning earthquakes we understand that don't we earthquakes earthquakes in various places well we see that there are at least several million earthquakes a year but many go undetected because they're too smaller they're in remote areas i i was looking up something today about earthquakes and i discovered that in the month of july alone there was an earthquake off of the coast of russia north just north of japan in eastern russia of magnitude 7.7 there was one off of hanshu japan of 7.0 and another of 6.8 and the one we had here in our area was at magnitude 5.4 that's in july in 2008 this year in 2008 alone 87,743 people have died in earthquakes so earthquakes are continuing and will be increasing in frequency so jesus points out you're going to have wars rumors of wars you're going to have international wars you're going to have earthquakes and he goes on and he speaks concerning famines famines i was reading this today as a result of severe drought and greatly reduced food production at least six different african countries are currently experiencing widespread famine and starvation the country's most impacted include ethiopia with 15 million zimbabwe 6.1 million zambia 2.3 million mozambique 515 000 the sotho 444 800 and swazaland 231 000 they are experiencing severe drought and famine in 1985 the 1985 world reported famine in ethiopia and it predicted that the current crisis that the current crisis there would be seven to 15 times worse for zimbabwe half of their overall population of 12 million risks starvation because there's been no harvest and no no rain moreover due to increased vulnerability to disease brought on by the famine another 3 000 deaths could occur in the next few months in these countries the menonite central committee reported an estimated 12 million newborn babies die of malnutrition every year in developing countries and millions in america live below the poverty line jesus speaks of pestilences those are also plagues the lasagne committee for world evangelization wrote some 250 000 children will go blind this year for lack of a 10 cent vitamin capsule 230 000 will contract polio because they don't have polio shots 14 million will die of common illnesses and malnutrition and 100 million children will live on the streets and enter into crime prostitution and corruption worldwide there are at least one million deaths by malaria per year there are some two million who die of tuberculosis almost three million children die from vaccine preventable diseases and four million children die of pneumonia and this is increasing we have something now called AIDS of all the AIDS victims in the world 70 live in africa that means 30 million of the 40 million victims of who have been infected with hiv live in sub-sahara africa as much as 20 of the population is infected and 6 000 people die every day in africa because of AIDS what's interesting is AIDS was first reported in 1981 and in that year there was a total of 189 cases that were reported to the centers for disease control from 15 states in the district of columbia 76 percent of those reported were from new york and california 97 percent were men 79 percent were homosexual or bisexual men there were no cases amongst children but in 1990 43 000 cases were discovered over 66 percent reported were outside new york and california 11 percent were women 800 cases were children under the age of 13 but now AIDS is the leading cause of death in both men and women under the age of 45 and children between the ages of one in five in the united states it started out small in cases in numbers in a total of 189 cases and now the estimate is something like 40 million infected with this plague this plague called AIDS 63 percent of all STDs affect people under the age of 25 every year there are a million new cases of pelvic inflammatory disease 1.3 million cases of gonorrhea 134 000 new cases of syphilis and 500 000 new cases of herpes when i was in high school just because i was not because i was interested but because i like to i thought i was shocking i like to shock you know they gave us an assignment in one of my classes and i actually did some research on venereal diseases just because i wanted to appear to be cool to the teacher and in my you know 17 year old zeal for for trying to get down to the facts i could only find that there were two basic kinds of venereal disease that that people were dealing with at that time it was syphilis actually it was one no syphilis syphilis and gonorrhea that was basically it now we have so many that they just give them strains they come x or y strain or whatever there are so many varieties of these diseases and so that's what we're seeing right now jesus is saying that the days prior to his return are going to continue to escalate in evil and pain that's what's going to happen in that interesting we'll look at that in some detail as we go through this but that's the point that he's making and yet in matthew chapter 24 verse 8 jesus said all these are the beginning of sorrows all these are the beginning it's just beginning so what do we do well what we do is as believers we live for jesus christ and we keep encouraging people to get right with god and to wait for him and to renew our strength in him you know as i look out today i have to be honest with you and this you know sometimes i as a minister i i can get discouraged and i do i can you know i wish that i could walk up here and say do you know what guys i have never i don't ever get discouraged i am always man i'm on top of it i am always just i just no no that's that would be a lie i get discouraged i get discouraged sometimes because i see people who call themselves christians you don't even have a concern for the things of the lord i i get discouraged because i see young people who who think you know what i don't need to walk with jesus right now i can go out and sew my wild oats and do the things that i want to do yeah why not party why not drink why not do these things why not waste my life because when i get older i'll get right with god i know the basics i'll get right with him later on and and what they do is they waste all the great opportunities that they would have to share with their friends about about jesus christ because they simply don't care about them that much and later on when they get married they marry somebody who says oh yeah i'm a christian and it turns out that person is just like them who claims to be a christian but doesn't walk with the lord and then god may get a hold of their heart and when god gets hold of their heart and starts changing it now they want to get right with lord and do things for god but their their husband or wife doesn't want to anymore because they never really did in the first place and then they end up miserable and i see that all the time and so as a minister i i'll stand up here you know and i love my fellowship and and i'll tell you the truth you know as i stand up here i i sometimes will stand up here thinking gosh lord i pray that people will actually listen and take this to heart and do something with it i pray that they do and i realize that on sunday people go to church because this is the united states don't we go to church on sunday and by the way this is closer than the church i usually go to i don't want to spend the money on the gas and everything like that i can swing in there and get the same kind of stuff that i get wherever it is that i usually go and that's how this church grows i understand that i understand that people look at churches like supermarkets they go in and they say well can i get five dollars worth of grace today well thank you very much and i understand that but it breaks my heart because in reality i see kids right now especially young people right now who are wasting their whole lives they're wasting their lives are buying into lives they're wasting their lives on relationships girls who are going out with guys who don't love the lord girls who are giving up their purity to these guys giving themselves to them for nothing other than the guy saying i like you or you're pretty and then dumping them and then they come and they cry to me and they cry to the people in our church you know he said he loved me and you know and i gave myself to him my dad gave me a purity ring and now i have to take it off because i gave up my purity for somebody who doesn't even care about me and guys are the same way you know going from one girl to the next you know who cares impregnating them some of our and some of our in some of our cities 80 percent of the girls giving birth aren't even married to the guy who's impregnated them 80 percent all you need to do is pick up the newspaper every saturday and look at birth announcements and you'll see that yourself you know mary smith and bob jones gave birth to a little boy you see that they're not married and they have no shame about it at all they think it's just fine i heard one young lady this is something i heard she said that she says my goal in life she was about 17 my goal in life is to have four kids you know with my boy friends she said so i can get enough money from the government so i don't have to work i can make 60 000 a year with four kids and i heard her say that there are a lot of kids are doing that and you know that some of you know that beyond a shadow of a doubt it's true they do there are people who actually do that and that may sound fantastic to you but it's true it's absolutely true and you have girlfriends some of you have girlfriends who have slept with guys just to find out what it's like they don't care and these are girls who go to this church or these are girls who go to church just to find out what it's like you know and then discover it isn't everything that was supposed to be and then they say oh god i blew it and that's kind of you know what god's grace they don't care it breaks my heart we are living in a time guys very serious times where the love of many will wax cold where jesus christ doesn't really matter that much where the bible is a cool book to have i've got several copies but i never read it and the only time that i ever get into it at all is when that guy reads it to me when i come to church once in a while when i feel like it and that's the state of the church in many places today and this church is no different than the average church and so i am concerned jesus is saying he's returning and he's warning us and he's telling us these are the things that are going to take place and we see these things in our day and what we ought to do is we ought to say you know the lord's word is true this is happening in my day nation rise against nation that didn't happen during the time of christ they had local wars but somebody would get in a boat and sail across an entire ocean to fight in a different country that takes them forever to get there no that didn't happen that happens now that happens now when you can get in a plane and you can fly a few hours and you can get to a foreign country and be on the ground fighting within two days that happens now it didn't happen then it didn't even happen during world war two but it happens now we're living in that day and we have to see that for what it is we have to get right with god and we ought to live in such an anticipatory mentality that the lord is returning that it changes our life we'll be looking at this in detail as we go through chapter 21