In the Word

Pastor Mike Warren: In our Bibles, there are four scriptures that we're going to try to look at tonight, and the first one's Daniel, chapter two. So turn to Daniel, chapter two, put your finger there on verse 31. We're going to read a few verses there. I want to walk you through this evening the chronology from the broad brush to the details of where we're at presently in the prophetic timeline.

It will be shocking to you to see as we walk our way the next two Wednesday nights through the scriptures just how close we are living to the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You know, he gave us a promise in John chapter 14 when he told us not to let our hearts become troubled. And we're living in a troubling world, would you agree? And it's becoming more troubling as it moves forward. I just can't believe how things have degraded in the last few years and just the vileness of the direction that certain leaders in our country want to take us.

This would never have been discussed 10 years ago. This would not have been discussed 20 years ago. And so we are moving toward what I would say in our culture, what would demand the judgment of God. I think we're really living that close. And so we're going to look at these things over the next couple Wednesday nights. We finished Malachi, we finished the 12 minor prophets. When we're done looking at this, it may take us more than a couple Wednesday nights. When we're done, then we'll pick up the book of Proverbs and another Old Testament book and we'll work our way through it.

But let's pray as we dive into our study tonight. Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you, Lord, that we're not left to our own devices to figure these things out. We're going to read a few scriptures concerning prophecy tonight and the beauty of it is, Lord, you don't leave us in the dark. You have made it very clear to the prophets and through the prophets in the Old Testament of your first and second coming. And in between there, the rapture.

And so Lord, as we look at these things tonight, I pray that even if we've heard it before, it would stir in our hearts to hear it again. And so we ask these things tonight in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. You know, we've just come through the minor prophets and Amos in chapter three, verse seven makes an interesting statement. It's a statement that you've heard me quote often, but I think it's very interesting when it comes to studying prophecy.

Now, you know that 27% of the Bible, almost one-third of it is prophetic in its nature. It is telling us what's going to happen in the future. I find this incredibly interesting because I've read a lot of literature. I love a good book, I love reading, but there's no other literature. And I've read and I had to in college, I had to study all the different religions, comparative religions, I had to take a class on it. I don't even know why, in a secular college we had to take a class on ethics and comparative religions.

And it's interesting, you can read any other religious book and it does not read like the Bible. You know this is inerrant, you know it's inspired, you know it's authoritative because it goes past your mind and the things it has to say go right into your heart. Just like Paul told us in Hebrews chapter four it would. It's sharp. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. It divides asunder the flesh and the intellect and all of the physical and it goes right down into the spiritual and it does its work.

In fact, the Bible tells us even of itself that its words don't return void. But Amos made this statement, "Surely," and it's a positive statement, "Surely the Lord God will do nothing but he revealeth his secrets unto his servants the prophets." So God's whole redemptive plan has been laid out in extreme detail from Genesis to Revelation. But it behooves us to become students of the word, that we study to show ourselves approved, workmen, because it's work to dig these things out and put them in order.

Workmen who need not to be ashamed, who can rightly divide the word of truth. And one of the reasons we get all of these weird views of eschatology, and then some Christians won't even study it because they don't know how to approach the scriptures in a systematic way. They don't know how to use the tools of proper biblical interpretation. So they can come up with some really weird things and you can torture any verse out of context to make it say anything you want it to say.

But we don't do that in Calvary Chapel. We study, we do line upon line, precept upon precept, and we try to connect the dots. So what I've been feeling deep in my heart that I wanted to do when we got done with the 12 minor prophets is spend a few weeks, because I think we're right there, we're on the very precipice of the Lord returning and him fulfilling that promise in John chapter 14 to us, to just show you from the scripture why I often make this statement: I believe we're living in the last of the last days.

That's not a whimsical fantasy kind of a statement for me. If I didn't believe that from the scripture, I would never make that statement because I would be proved to be a false prophet or a false teacher if I were making statements that don't line up with the scripture. But I'm telling you I am more convinced than ever that many of us seated in this auditorium tonight will not taste of death. You're going to be changed in a moment and in the twinkling of an eye.

You're going to hear the last trumpet, you're going to be caught up with great force to meet the Lord in the air. And this corruption is going to put on incorruption and this mortal immortality, and you're going to stand in his presence and it's going to happen just in 1/1000th of a second. I believe we're living so close to the coming of Jesus that the next time your eye blinks, it could blink standing in the presence of the Lord because that's how fast the rapture's going to take place.

The next time your heart beats physically in this body, the next beat might be in the new body and you're standing in the presence of the Lord. We're living in that time. And we can know these things. Jesus chided the people of his day when he came the first time because he told them you could have known the very day through a simple mathematical formula from Daniel chapter nine, the very day that I would come triumphantly into Jerusalem. And by the way, it happened on the very day.

And Jesus made a statement, "Had you known the day of your visitation, it would not have overtaken you unaware." That was his first coming. He's coming for the church and he describes that coming as a thief in the night. Will suddenly and unexpectedly again, he will come and remove the church before he can deal with Israel again because that's what he's after, he's going to fulfill that covenant with his people. But he's warned us in the gospels over and over, read through them.

You need to be watching. You need to be wide awake. You need to be ready. He taught parables on it because you do not know the day or the hour the Son of Man returns for the church. But it will be as a thief in the night, it will be sudden and it's going to be unexpected, and it's going to come at a time he says when you think not. And I think that has to do with the world lulling us to sleep. In fact, Peter in Second Peter chapter three, verses one through four, Peter's writing about the time we're going to be looking at in his second epistle.

And he starts out chapter three by saying these words, listen carefully. He says, "This second epistle, beloved, I write unto you in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance." Peter knows shortly after, and most scholars tell us within a couple weeks of him putting pen to paper and writing Second Peter, he was taken outside of Rome and crucified upside down. He knows that his time of departure is at hand. He mentions that in this short little epistle.

But as he comes to chapter three, he's got something in his mind he wants to do because already toward the end of the first century, the church is cooling and they're no longer excited about the coming of the Lord. They're no longer excited about that moment when they're going to be whisked away. They've lost that excitement, they've lost that thrill, that passion. They've lost that focus. And maybe you're sitting here tonight or listening by live stream or maybe watch on the internet later as you browse the studies on our website.

Listen, you may be sitting in your living room listening to this study and you might be completely asleep in the light. You may be thinking every day is just going to happen like the next. But I'm here to tell you over the next couple weeks, if you'll come back and tune in, that you and I are that generation that will shut off the lights and lock the doors as far as the church is concerned in this generation. And I'm going to prove it to you from the word. But Peter was so concerned he said, "I want to stir up."

Twice he will mention that in these first four verses. And that's what I'm aiming to do. I want to stir you up because the Bible says all who have this hope purify themselves. They make themselves ready. And maybe you're too tangled up with the world. Maybe I'm too tangled up with the world. Maybe we together need to look at these things again to be woken up. It's the whole parable of the ten virgins: five wise, five foolish, but all ten of them need to be woken up when the bridegroom came.

And maybe you've lulled to sleep a little bit, maybe you've gotten too involved with this world. Maybe this world owns too much of you and heaven doesn't own enough. Now listen, when I first got saved, man, we were all about prophecy. I remember having watch night services. I can remember in 1977 a bunch of us got together, young marrieds in our church, and we had a watch night service and the theme for that watch night service was 1977 we're on our way to heaven.

We knew the Lord was coming in '77. She sang some of those songs tonight that reminded me of those watch night services. You see, I know Chuck Girard, he's led worship in our church, and I knew Tommy Coomes and Love Song, and some of those songs that we sang tonight were songs that we sang because we knew Jesus was coming immediately. And he didn't come in '77 and we were bummed. But we had a watch night service in '78 and we had a theme: '78 it'll be too late.

Jesus is coming, he's coming soon. Bummed out, he didn't come in '78. And so we had a watch night service in '79. Guess what the theme was? '79 it'll be divine. And Jesus still didn't come. But I'm going to tell you right now my belief is that I'm one day closer. And it still burns in my heart. I'm one day closer to my departure. And that's how you want to live with the earnest expectation that any moment Jesus might interrupt human history, like he did in the days of Noah, and remove the righteous and judge the wicked.

Because God does not measure time by seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years. He doesn't measure in decades, he doesn't measure in centuries. He doesn't even measure in millennial because the Bible says a day to him is as a thousand years and a thousand years is one day. Time has no value to God, but what does is morality. And when the morals of his creation sink so low that they demand the judgment of God, then he judges.

And there are things going on in this culture that I'm going to tell you in times past brought the judgment of God. And we're moving quickly into that same setting. And so that's one of the reasons. But Peter writes, "I want to stir something up in you. I want you to go back and remember." In fact, he goes on in the next verse and says, "That you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets." Remember what the prophets have said and the commandments of the apostles because they wrote profusely on it.

Peter and Paul, the two main ones, wrote profusely on it. John wrote profusely on it. So that we would understand the time so that that day would not take us unaware. Peter's saying, "I want to stir you up. I want to bring you back to that place." And by the way, that word "to stir up" means to stir up a fire that has gone low and is about to go out. You stir up the coals so that you can ignite the fire again. He says, "I want to stir you up. I want to remind you of what the prophets have said, what the apostles have taught, what Jesus himself has said."

Knowing this first, he says, that there shall come in the last days—and I believe we're there, I believe we're there with all of my heart—he said scoffers walking after their own lusts. Man, pray to God you're not one of those scoffers because here's what a scoffer will say and saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? Are you kidding me? You're going to do the prophecy thing again, like you do every year, the prophecy update. You're going to talk about—we've heard that a hundred times, Mike.

Hey, Pastor, we've been here the 24 years you've been here, almost 25. How many times have you told us the same thing?" Well, listen, one of these times I'm not going to be here to tell you it again. You may, I'm not. In fact, you're going to have to break the little glass thing with the prophecy updates in it and play them. And I pray that you're not one of those people. I pray that you are ready. But you know the odds are, he said, "Two in a field, one taken, one left. Two at the grinding wheel, one taken, one left."

Jesus said not everybody who says "Lord, Lord" is going to enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of the Father. Very interesting things Jesus has to say. But they go on to say, "For since the fathers are fallen asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." Uniformitarianism. It actually has a name: the false teaching. And it's that doctrine that is so pervasive in the church we could call it amillennialism, where there is no millennial reign, there's nothing, it just kind of goes on and on and on.

Or you can call it dominion theology, this taking very popular roots through the Bethel teaching, the NAR, the New Apostolic Reformation where they're saying that Jesus can't return until the church dominates every aspect, the seven mountains of society. Listen, the church is never going to dominate anything. We're not called to dominate anything. We're called to be a light and to be a witness. We're called to be salt. We're called to bring people to the kingdom, not create a kingdom because God's kingdom is already here. You're it.

But he's telling us that in the last days people will fall asleep. They'll forget. And that's why John writes, "Everyone who has this hope purifies himself." Why? Because there's an expectation. There's an understanding. There's a consciousness, there's an awareness as you study scripture. That's why we go through the Old Testament and the New Testament and we don't teach from the Bible, we teach the Bible because it takes a whole Bible to make a whole Christian and it takes a whole Bible for us to understand eschatology.

And so if you got your pen and pad out, let me give you the four verses we're going to try to get through tonight. Not verses, four sections, I should say, we're going to try to get through tonight. And then next week there are two more verses or two more sections, actually, we're going to try to get through. Because what I want to do if I have time tonight is I want to walk you through the scripture right up to the point we're at right now this very moment and show you that we're living on the very precipice of the return of Jesus Christ.

And then next week I want to talk to you about what's going to take place just in the near future. The stage is being set for it and what comes out of that: the rise of the Antichrist into power, into authority. And by the way, you and I will never know who he is, so stop thinking about it. Stop looking for the Antichrist or trying to figure out who he is. We're not looking for the Antichrist, we're looking for Jesus Christ. We're going out of here and then they can have it. All of it.

You know, I want to put a sign up in front of my house: after rapture everything that's here you can have. Enjoy it for the next three and a half years because the last three and a half years of the tribulation's pretty rough. Have at her. Because my reward has nothing to do with what's parked in my garage. It has nothing to do with my garage or the house I live in, it has nothing to do with the clothes on my—it has nothing to do with anything material. My hope is heaven. My hope is one day to stand in my Father's house. That's my hope.

So we're going to look at Daniel chapter two, verses 31 through 45 and that gives us—make note of this—that gives us the broad brush of world history as far as the great empires will come and go. God walks us down through Daniel's prophecy in chapter two and he repeats in chapter seven—we're only going to look at chapter two—and he walks us through a very broad brush through the prophet Daniel of what we can expect coming down to the moment that we're at, starting with the Babylonian, the first great empire coming down to the revived Roman Empire, and we'll take a look at that tonight.

And then we come to Daniel chapter nine, verses 24 through 27, the 70-week vision concerning Israel. He gets very specific. After he paints the broad brush, he gets very specific because Israel is always the timepiece of God. You have to keep your eyes on Israel. We're a parenthesis, the church is. That 70-week vision, that 490 years that was given by Michael the archangel to Daniel, he tells us that there's 70 weeks determined for his people Israel. Now that pendulum on that clock stopped after the 69th week and we'll take a look at it.

And it'll start up again after the church is gone for that last seven-year tribulation period. But we are the parenthesis. We'll read you scriptures where Paul said this was a mystery. You and I as the church are a mystery that were hidden in times past. But Paul says we bring it to the fore now because when Israel rejected her Messiah, God put them on hold and opened up wide the whosoever: the highway and the byway people like you and me that we could come in.

And that listen, that door is going to shut just like the door on Noah's Ark. It's going to shut with the rapture and then God's going to deal with Israel again. And I don't know about you but I look around and I see storm clouds. I think it's about to rain again. And don't be one of those people down there mocking old poor old Noah. He's down there 120 years banging away on a boat and it never rained. And he's telling people water's going to fall out of the sky for 40 days and 40 nights and all of the earth is going to be underwater, the fountains of the deep are going to break up.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, Noah, we've heard you say this for a long time. And it's never rained, Noah. You're building this boat miles from any river." We don't even know if they had rivers because we knew the dew watered the vegetation. But you're a long ways away, Noah, if there are. And they mocked and they laughed. They criticized. I can but imagine Noah was the entertainment. "Hey, let's go down and mock old Noah and his three sons and their wives. Let's have a little fun, let's poke a little humor at them." And they did that until the door was shut and it began to rain. Do you smell it? Can you see it? The storm clouds forming. How long do you think God's going to allow his creation to be aborted?