Turning Point

Guest (Male): Jesus said that before the world ends, there will be more wars, plagues, and deceivers. But even more amazing is what he said will happen with the gospel. Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah returns to Matthew, where Christ declares the gospel will reach the entire world. What does that mean for believers today? Listen as David shares his message, In a World of Bad News, BE THE GOOD NEWS.

Dr. David Jeremiah: Well, many of you have heard the prophecy. If you are a Christian, you've heard the fact that the gospel will be preached throughout the whole world and then comes the end. Many people misconstrue that to mean that has to happen before the rapture. And of course, there are no signs required before the rapture, and the worldwide preaching of the gospel is certainly not one of them.

But it is a sign for the second coming, which is seven years after the rapture. Who knows but that this whole plan is that that begins to ramp up as we move toward the second advent. What we know is the gospel will be preached in the whole world to some degree before the rapture through the technology that's been given to us, and absolutely promised it will be after the rapture during the tribulation through the witnesses that God sends to this earth to trumpet the gospel.

We'll have this today and tomorrow as we talk about in a world of bad news, you be the good news. And this is from the book *The World of the End*, which is available to you this month for just a few more days. We want you to have this book. It's yours for the asking when you send a gift of any size to Turning Point. All you have to do is say please send me *The World of the End*, and we'll do it. We'll be happy to do it.

Thank you for your generosity. These days of broadcasting are so critical because of what's happening in the world. As you stand with us, we can make a difference. You are so special to us and we're grateful. Once again, a shout-out to our Canadian friends. Just remember, when you give your gifts, they stay in Canada. They go to support the Canadian radio stations that bring you the message of the gospel and the teaching of the Word of God. Thank you for your faithfulness. Here's part one: In a World of Bad News, You Be the Good News.

It was July of 1986, and thousands of men and women from developing nations around the world boarded airplanes, many of them for the very first time in their lives. They checked into hotels to find something they'd never seen before: indoor plumbing. They were called barefoot evangelists, men and women with little education or training who hacked through jungles, forded rivers, endured rejection, and took the good news to huts and hamlets all over the world.

Evangelist Billy Graham had raised millions of dollars to bring 8,000 of these local preachers to the Dutch capital for days of training and encouragement. I remember when he did that. Never in church history had such a gathering occurred on this scale. There were representatives at that conference from 180 different nations. In one of his sermons that week, Billy Graham preached a very unique and yet very common Billy Graham sermon.

I can't preach like Billy Graham, but I'm going to read to you what he said. Biblical evangelism preaches Christ alone as the savior of men. Paul told the Corinthians, for Jesus Christ and him crucified. Jesus alone is the way to God. Apart from him, we are spiritually dead and lost. Jesus Christ, by his death and resurrection, became the gospel. Jesus Christ is the gospel.

I heard him, and sitting in rapt attention was one particular barefoot evangelist named Joseph, a converted warrior from the Masai tribe of Central Africa. During the conference, he asked to see Billy Graham. For logistical reasons, as you can all imagine, with 8,000 guys there, a lot of people wanted to see Billy Graham. It was very difficult. He couldn't meet very many people, but Joseph was given a few minutes to tell a story.

As a young man, Joseph had heard the gospel on a dusty African road, and he responded instantly by trusting Jesus Christ as his savior. He soon longed to return to his native village and share the good news of the kingdom of heaven. So he went from door to door when he got home, telling others what had happened to him. He expected everybody's face to light up. Instead, they were filled with rage.

According to his report, the men of the village seized Joseph and held him down while the women brutally flogged him with barbed wire. After the beating, he was dragged into the bush and left there to die. He crawled to a watering hole, spent several days recovering, and decided he had either left something out of the story or shared the message incorrectly. So he worked on his testimony, rehearsed it, prayed, and limped back to the village to try again, saying Jesus died for you so that you might have forgiveness and come to know the living God.

He got another flogging. Recovering a bit, he went back and was whipped a third time. The barbed wire of the third time was cutting into the old wounds of the first time. By now, one of the women who was beating him started to weep uncontrollably. As Joseph lapsed into unconsciousness, he saw others who were beginning to cry. He awoke in his own bed, his former tormentors trying to save his life. As a result of his patient witness, the whole village came to Jesus Christ.

So Joseph's telling Dr. Graham this story, and in order to make his point, he pulls up his shirt so that he could see the scars on his chest and on his back. After he left, the famous evangelist could say only, "I'm not fit to untie his shoes, and he wanted to see me." Have you ever thought of yourself as a barefoot evangelist, someone who can share the gospel anytime, anywhere, whatever your level of training or education, regardless of the reaction? Well, that's what you are.

The world is filled with those of us wanting to tell others what Jesus has done for us. That reality reflects another prophecy from Matthew 24. Remarkably, on one of the last days of his natural life, Jesus predicted a time when the gospel of the kingdom would be preached to the ends of the earth, heralding the approach of his return. No one in those days could have ever dreamed of it. Jesus was a country preacher from a rural mountain in Galilee.

He encountered a lot of skepticism on the rare occasions he came to Jerusalem for the festivals. He spoke in simple parables, pastoral teachings. Few people outside of his circles even knew who he was. People know way more about Jesus now than they did back then. Yet speaking privately with his disciples shortly before his brutal death, he said that one day his unique message would touch the furthest corners of the globe.

It would go to the ends of the earth, and when it did, the world would never be the same. Now of all the prophecies that we've studied thus far in Matthew 24, I must tell you this is the most implausible. I mean, one could imagine the continuation of war. Deceivers come and go. There's always going to be disease and famine. But who in the world could ever imagine that the words of a rural rabbi from Galilee would transform human history?

Who would ever believe that his words would reverberate in every subsequent generation and be as life-changing 2,000 years later as the disciples had known it to be in their own life? This is our Lord's positive prediction. So far, we've looked at a lot of grim prognostications in the Olivet Discourse. But during all those difficult days at the end of history, one thing will be unstoppable, and that is the relentless spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In every generation, in every continent, and through every difficulty.

Like a beam of light through the blacken night, the good news will bring the world its only hope. The message of Jesus, crucified and resurrected, will echo through all the turbulence of the times and herald his swift return. Think of it: the gospel that you and I have in our lives, in our hearts, in our hands, is the only message of hope for the world in which we live. Matthew 24:14, Jesus said it this way: And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to the nations, and then the end will come.

I want to talk with you today about the unstoppable message of the gospel. Let's start with the word gospel itself. The Greek term is *euangelion*. You can instantly see how we get our word evangelism from that Greek word. *Euangelion*, evangelism. But look closer. Notice that in the middle of that word is the word angel: E-V-A-N-G-E-L-I-O-N. What is an angel doing in the middle of the gospel? Well, the word literally means messenger.

The Greek prefix *eu* means good, so the word gospel literally means good messenger, good news. I always love this because the word angel is also used to describe a preacher. So I am an angel. My wife wouldn't agree, but I'm going to say it. This word appears for the first time in the Bible at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. In Matthew 4:23, it says, "And Jesus went about all of Galilee teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of the kingdom."

The gospel, as you know, is a set of facts rooted in history based upon the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The son of God, son of man, came to this earth and paid the penalty for the sin of the whole world. He could do that because he was the infinite God. One man could not do that for another man, but God could do it for all men. And he did. He came to this world. That's the fact of the gospel.

And those who put their faith in Jesus Christ, as we know, enter a living relationship with God by grace and through faith. Christ alone is the one who can bring forgiveness and eternal life. Ephesians 1:13 says it this way: "In Christ you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation." When we receive this message called the gospel by simple faith and we confess Jesus Christ as the Lord of our lives, we become living recipients and embodiments of the good news.

In other words, we say yes to Jesus. I can't help but pause here and ask this question at the beginning of this message: Have you said yes to Jesus? Everything in life and eternity depends on your answer to that question. In Romans 1:16, Paul said, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ." Watch this: "For the gospel of Christ is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes."

So when you go back to Matthew 24, there's something else that's very interesting. Matthew says this gospel of the kingdom will be preached. Why is it called the gospel of the kingdom? Let me try to deal with that because it can become a theological hornets' nest if you let it. The gospel of the kingdom isn't any different really than the gospel that we know, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It was preached during Jesus' life. And the answer sounds complicated, but I'll keep it simple. The word kingdom is short for the king's domain. Jesus is the king, and we are a part of his kingdom. When we accept Jesus Christ, he sets up his throne in our hearts. He becomes king of our lives. So when he came to bring the gospel, he brought his kingdom. We are now part of his kingdom because he lives in our hearts.

Now most of you know that's not the end of the story because one day after the rapture, after the tribulation, he's going to return to this earth, we'll be with him and the angels, and he's going to set up his earthly kingdom on this earth. And for 1,000 years, he will literally reign as king without any sin or jealousy or any of the other things that happen in earthly kingdoms. It will be a perfect kingdom. The Bible says David will be his vice-king, and they will run this world for 1,000 years, and it'll be the best time the earth has ever seen.

That is what we call the millennium, that's the kingdom. So get this straight. The kingdom of God is in your heart now, but the kingdom of God will also be in the world on the earth during the period of millennium. There's a famous theological phrase for this: It goes like this. God's kingdom is already but not yet. It's already but not yet. When Jesus came to our world the first time, he planted the kingdom on this planet, infiltrating the nations and making the church a part of his kingdom as he came into our hearts.

Colossians says it this way: He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of his son of love. When we became Christians, we became members of the kingdom of God. And when he comes again, he will establish his theocratic kingdom in Israel and reign there for a thousand years. So there you have it, that's the kingdom. And so in one sense, Jesus' kingdom is already here, and in another sense, it is still to be established.

In Mark's version of the Olivet Discourse, Jesus was recorded as simply saying, "And the gospel must first be preached to all the nations." That's the key point. Both the current kingdom of the church and the coming kingdom of the millennial age come from the historic fact of Jesus' death and resurrection. The same gospel that makes you and me instant members of God's kingdom right now will be the powerhouse that allows Christ to rule the world after his return when he sets up his kingdom.

There's not more than one gospel, men and women. There's only one gospel, it's the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's the gospel of his domain. It's the gospel of our heart. It's the gospel of the millennium. It's the gospel of God. So as we study Matthew 24, we'll see how this works out of a kind of double fulfillment. Let me tell you what I mean. The message of the gospel, first of all, will be preached before the rapture. We're living in what we might call the gospel age.

The gospel is being preached all over the world in ways that many of us are quite unaware of. There is a flourishing of the gospel in the midst of the decadence of our culture, hard to understand. But the darker the night becomes and the more desperate people become, the more they grab for anything that offers hope, and the gospel of Jesus Christ is eternal hope. We live in a terrible time culturally and in a wonderful time for the opportunities that we have to share Christ with our loved ones and friends.

The first verses of the Olivet Discourse carry on an already-but-not-yet flavor. They describe the days leading up to the rapture of the church, and then we have to rewind those words because after the rapture, those things that we're beginning to see little pieces of now, they develop into a full-orbed experience. When the rapture happens, what happens when the rapture comes? The Holy Spirit is removed. Do you know what his second name is? He's called the restrainer.

Can you imagine this world without the restrainer? When the Holy Spirit is removed, all the people in whom he exists are gone. All of the impetus for good is taken away. No wonder the tribulation happens. No wonder the world becomes the most awful place it has ever been. So when Jesus said the kingdom is going to be preached to the end of the world, he was predicting that it would be preached during our lifetime and afterwards.

During our lifetime, he was predicting that during the deterioration of world events, during the epics leading up to his return, there would be the preaching of the gospel. The gospel is being preached now. I am preaching the gospel. And the one positive trend amidst the signs that we have discussed so far is that the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all of the world as a witness to all the nations and then the end will come. And it will be the end of the church age.

One of these days, the last person will be saved and the rapture will happen. One of these days, the last invitation will be given and the rapture will happen. I hope you aren't waiting for a sudden decision when you see everybody else going up. It won't happen. You don't want to do that. You don't want to take a chance on your eternity because of some silly reason or something somebody else has told you. If you're not a Christian, if you're not saved, today is the day of salvation, this is the day of opportunity.

You do not know when the rapture is going to happen, nor do I. But let me tell you something I do know: there is nothing that needs to happen before it takes place. The rapture is an imminent event. That means nothing needs to happen before it happens. No one watching Jesus that day on the Mount of Olivet could have imagined this prediction coming true, that the gospel coming from Jesus, who was sitting four feet away from them, would cover the whole earth.

Acts 1:8, Jesus said, "You shall receive power as the Holy Spirit is come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and to the end of the earth." Now did that come true? Let me do a little arithmetic with you, a little math. I love the math of the book of Acts because it tells you what happened. Shortly, 40 days after Jesus was back in heaven, the day of Pentecost happened.

And Peter preached a great sermon. I don't know exactly everything that was in the sermon, I know a little bit, but it must have been a good one because 3,000 people got saved at the end of the sermon. And many of them went home from the day of Pentecost, and they were enabled to understand the gospel in their own language. It was the miracle of Pentecost. And soon the number of believers reached 5,000. That's in Acts 4:4.

And disciples began multiplying exponentially, and the number of the churches multiplied as well. In fact, I love the fact that finally in the book of Acts they don't have any way to describe it any longer, so they just say a lot of people got saved. From Antioch, the first official church sent missionaries. Paul and Barnabas were commissioned, and they organized missions. And by the early 300s, the Roman Empire had been reshaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Nothing was the same. The gospel had penetrated every institution, every government, everything. The gospel had literally become wild in its propagation. Every generation of Christians from that time until this have spread the news to those around them. There have been some people of gigantic stature who have led the way, men like Wesley and Carey and Moody and Billy Graham. Most of the work, however, has been done not by the great people that we know.

We would call them the goats. I didn't use that word very much before I understood what it meant: greatest of all time. They're goat evangelisms, did you know that? But the goats didn't do it. It's the sheep that did it. We're the sheep. And we get the chance to spread the gospel. We're the barefoot evangelist. The gospel didn't spread all over the world because of a few men. They led the charge, they stood in front of us and challenged us, but the world was changed because of men and women we call them laymen, people like you and me who have shared the gospel wherever we have gone.

And today, in this world, we have made progress in sending the gospel everywhere. Let me give you a little progress report. There's a group called the Joshua Project that keep track of the gospel and how it's doing in penetrating the various people groups around the world. A people group is a group of people who speak the same language. They're self-incorporated, they're together, they're a people group. About 10,000 of them have been reached with the gospel.

That means there's some people groups that need the gospel that don't have it. What that means is they don't have the Bible, they don't know the gospel, they don't have anybody preaching to them, there's no missionaries. If you ever go to Washington, D.C., and get a chance to go to the Museum of the Bible, there's a room there that you can walk into that is overwhelmingly powerful. It has a wall with little boxes that look like a mailroom, and it shows you all of the people groups of the world.

And the ones that have been reached are different than the ones that haven't been reached. They literally take donors into that room and show them all the people groups that are yet to be reached, and sometimes people who have great resources say, "My wife and I are going to take that one," and they pay whatever cost to get the gospel. You say, "Well, how do they do that?" Well, we're living in this time, men and women, where it's not as hard as it used to be because of technology.

The gospel now can be taken out of our language and into another language much quicker. I wish I could explain to you how this happens, but they find the different sounds and all, and they create the gospel in technology, then they marry the technology with the word of God, and it comes out at the other end of the computer a Bible. With the technology we have today, we can reproduce a Bible in another language in one-fourth of the time it used to take us.

And we are making progress. We are seeing the Bible and the gospel go into languages every year, every month, every week. The good news is that today, we're starting to penetrate even the most difficult barriers by means of technology. The internet is essential, but cheaper methods for setting up satellite TV and radio have also allowed preachers to reach difficult homes. And we preach in places where you can't preach. For instance, through the internet, we're reaching Iran. Oh, the stories that I could tell you of what God is doing around the world through the gospel of Jesus Christ before the rapture, before the tribulation. The gospel is literally reaching the world in which you and I live.

It's interesting that today before I came into the studio to do this message, I received an internet message from somebody on our team telling me that they're celebrating the video that was seen by 192 million people. And they show the video of the rapture. And if you remember that video, it showed a bunch of kids on a bus who disappeared when the rapture happened. That video went to 192 million people, the most often watched and most watched video we've ever produced. And an illustration of the potential of the gospel even in this day.

We'll have more about this tomorrow in part two of this message. Until then, let me remind you that you can get this book, *The World of the End*, and the study guide, and the CD package, and the DVD package. You can find out all about that by going to davidjeremiah.org. And you can actually get the book by sending a gift of any size to Turning Point and asking for the book. When you do that, you'll receive it. It'll be sent to you right away. It's our way of extending this message and making it more permanent for you, for your use, and we pray that God will bless you as you do it. And we'll see you right here tomorrow.

Guest (Male): For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series, *The World of the End*, please visit our website, where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected: our monthly magazine, *Turning Point*, and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/radio. That's davidjeremiah.org/radio. Or call us at 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's informative and inspiring book, *The World of the End*, with a special "Be the Answer" bookmark, yours for a gift of any amount.

You can also purchase a Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King James versions, complete with notes and articles from Dr. Jeremiah's decades of study. Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org/radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series, *The World of the End*, on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.