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October 28, 2021 6:00 am
Meet somebody to preach the gospel seems to me that less and less folks are coming to Christ only maybe they are just not hearing about nothing. I get a letter from Evan Rick is the tally for this week, but this is this is something that every born-again believer should be concerned with.
Because we are not saying Lord rapture us and too bad for them.
We are saying, Lord, let us take with us, as many of them as we can get this is cross reference radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston.
Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the gospel of Mark. Please stay with us after today's message here. More information about cross reference radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching, but for now let's join Pastor Rick in the gospel of Mark chapter 13 for a brand-new study called war gospel according to Martin, 13 at verse 32 but of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the sun but only the father take heed, watch and pray you do not know when the time is it is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants to each his work commanded the doorkeeper to watch watch therefore you do not know when the master of the house is coming the evening at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster in the morning, less coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. What I say to you I say to all watch warned that's the title of this message. We are finishing up our end times consideration in the gospel of Mark. No word of Jesus is casual. Everything he says means something and is important and he had pinpointed for us.
Beginning in verse 28 to 31. Some of the signs that would be signaling the nearing of the great tribulation. And he did this through the fig tree, which we identified as Israel. Israel is the timeclock or the list. It's the clock to watch the calendar Israel but here in verses 32 to 37. He is warning believers to be ready since they know the season this has to do with the rapture of the church because he had already made clear that once the abomination of desolation takes place.
There's 1290 days after that before the end comes.
So they would be really no need to warn as he is warning in this section. This has everything to do with the church strong delusion, including madness or insanity awaits those that are just interested in the Lord Jesus Christ where seeing this with seeing some of this insanity in our time. I mean let's get rid of the police.
A criminal mind came up with that one. And it is the gist of this insane the whole you know the transgender thing, it's a total insanity is a warning that comes with the statement to Christians. There are times when a Christian has a family member that is engaged in some sin and feels that they should be the advocate for that family member when the pastor targets that sin don't you do that yet we you know we love the sinner but were not going to sweep under the rug is the things that God tells us to bring out into the light and to deal with and Romans two talks about that.
Watch out that you're not an advocate for sinners, regardless of how much you love then we say receipt of a Christian may have a great bestand extent against homosexuality until their child says that they are struggling with this. And sometimes that those parents will switch teams and become advocates and this is Satan. This is madness and it should not be this insanity that we are experiencing of courses offered by Satan, but it is allowed by God and controlled by him got to your free to be nuts, but not out of my control. Deuteronomy 28 verse 28 Yahweh will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart that's pretty thorough, and what that tells us God speaking to the Jews. You want to message you say you want to mess around with your relationship with me. The outcomes going to be insanity well if he can do that with the Jews you do with anybody. This is a characteristic of his sovereignty in first Kings.
There was that prophet McKay. You can't help but love this profit at the wicked King Ahab who had married Satan's daughter Jezebel, Ahab, would you decided that when Jehoshaphat, the good king came to visit him that he was going to use this good king and his army as a duo to go against the enemies of the people to take back the land and Jehoshaphat was a good king but he just had no ability. Note he left discernment he would buddy up with the wrong people.
Any pay for. And the Lord would have to come down and help you but anyway, when the false prophets came out and paraded themselves before Ahab suggests king go take back the land for Israel. God is with you now is with you. They want even the prophets of you and Jehoshaphat said, wasn't there a prophet of the is a true prophet in Israel and and Ahab says yeah there's one I hate him, as he never says anything good about me see the insanity will do something good earned it.
You're not entitled to the blessings of God's prophets. You have to leave worthy of of such accolades for such good prophecies, and in his case anyway. They goes, they summoned the prophet Michaela and they tell him listen, don't say anything bad nieces I say would God gives me, and he gets there and they say well Michaela, what does the Lord have to say. And it has to have been in a sarcastic tone. The prophet says oh you find will have going for you window is going be great because how else would the king have detected that he was being sarcastic when he said go God is with you, it had to be in the inflection, the tone well of course he says see what I mean. The king says he never says anything good within McKay of the prophet said all can tell you the truth I'm going to illustrate it for you in a parable.
Now the events that he then depicts for the king or not to be taken literally, but they are from dramatized to make his point and he said the Lord wanted to put a two to send Ahab to war so that he could judge him and have him killed and he asked you know that his messengers he said how we going to do this, and one came up with this idea. One came up with that idea and another came up and this is what he said well he said I will be a lying spirit to him I would tell him what he wants to hear. Even though it's not true. And the Lord in the prophets parable. Granted this permission and that is exactly what happened and then we pick up this part of therefore the provinces of the king look Yahweh has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours and Yahweh has declared disaster against you. God is in control and God is the prophet was saying to the king you are following lies, and there's going to be a deadly consequence for you because you follow these lives and this is our message to the world.
Of course, the king goes off and he is killed in battle or as a result of battle, and the prophets word comes true and much of Earth's population will resent God for behaving as God as they do now. Anybody else can be God. Any false God has a right to be God, but the only true God cannot be God.
According to the response of many many people through the ages what God is going to give the people who reject him, the person behind the lies that they cherish and love so much the lying spirit they going to gobble up the lie because they have no love for the truth, as was the case with Ahab, the king, the prophet told him write out a lying spirit you believe the lying spirit, but here prophet of God speak to you because you don't care for what he is saying he has to be rejected well at the time of the great tribulation.
When God gives those living at that time the person that they want Satan. Not all of them.
There will be converse, but most of them.
It seems will will be following the lie we pick it up in Revelation 6. How these people think the madness to craziness. Revelation 6 verse 15 and the kings of the earth. The great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. What the prophet is saying you say I'm revealing this to you that when the judgment of God falls on this earth in this great tribulation age there going to be those that would rather hide from the creator than repent and turn to him.
They will have no excuse because the word is here and it will be going forth. This is the madness is very serious business and so as we talk about the coming of the rapture, the removal of the evacuation of the church. We have to do so as those who are sober minded were telling the world listen.
There is in this insanity available to you that can make you a functioning kook. That's what they become.
They can be. They can stay in their lane on the roadways, they can still go to work and function and build things they can work in hospitals.
You know the tremendous care that is available today in the hospitals they can do all these things they can function even though they are spiritually insane was noticed something about this. Once we hear for and we Christians should be praying Lord put me in front of somebody to preach the gospel. It seems to me that less and less folks are coming to Christ only maybe they aren't, I'm just not hearing about not like I get a newsletter from Evan a rake is a tally for this week, but this is this is something that every born-again believer should be concerned with.
Because we are not saying Lord rapture us and too bad for them.
We are saying, Lord, let us take with us, as many of them as we can get and you know if God put you into a bank vault and said you got five minutes bring out as much cash as you can you be going crazy and God is saying.
I put you in the loony bin. This planet and I want you to grab out of it as many people as you can see what I can't I can't I try staring the DOS will inherit Lord sister state pray to me, that's going to get in with the student read that he'd watch, pray, pray for what they would be able to escape the hell that is taught by God that awaits those who flat out reject him. And so, with that brief introduction we got about two minutes left. You, I could probably practice church. If I cut the sermons down to 10 minutes but anyway verse 32 but of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the father now. Again, this is the rapture which we know to be the miraculous removal of the church and the Lord doesn't he, of course get into that the existence of the church of the time he spoke these words are still not here yet. There was no such thing as a New Testament church as we know it when he spoke these words, he will leave it after Pentecost for his apostles to begin its teachings and then future disciples to develop it, but the church as we know it has emerged from Judaism and had it not been for Gentiles joining the church because it started again with mostly all choose, it likely would've been lost to realignment to Judaism and of then and Judaism didn't give up and kept trying to bring the Christians back in and this is part of the problem in Galatia when Peter and Barnabas reacted to those who came from Jerusalem sent by James and Ed all the sudden they didn't want to be with the Gentiles.
They stay with the Jews and Paul.
He went right to guns on the this is not little you killing the church is going to make it just like Judaism and of course he says, I rebuke Peter to his face because he needed to be rebuked and when Peter received that rebuke and so this or what I'm discussing here is the church. The New Testament church what it is we know what the times are going to be because crisis told us.
First Corinthians 1st Thessalonians chapter 1 chapter 5 chapter 5 first Thessalonians.
The first four verses concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night for when they say, peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them pause there while Christ said, and when you see the abomination of desolation to get out of Jerusalem and the 70 days you have is no peace and safety of their soul and the distinctive the point I'm making is what all is talking about here is the rapture of the church and that's when he says what when they say, peace and safety, then sudden instruction comes upon them that be the great relation.
As labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape what you brethren are not in darkness so that this day should not overtake you as a thief.
Christians are supposed to know okay with getting close.
We gotta wrap it up now and this is of course what the preceding verses were were all about Jesus laying out this end times scenario earthlings will be shocked when Christians are extracted, but they will have their hands filled with a lot of other things, there will be power plays and wars and natural disasters, and these things will keep going in and escalate and it will be a time as Jesus said, such as the world has never known.
He says here, not even the angels in heaven.
It's classified the day of the Lord that ignites the tribulation.
Once that rapture comes. It starts that he says no, the sun will this actually is a very easy answer. You may be saying how could Jesus not know when the day of the rapture is if he is God the son and the answer is quite simple.
When he spoke these words. These are the days of his self-imposed limitation his humanity. He restricted himself in many ways them and we certainly will. For instance, they crucified him see that was a restriction that he placed upon himself. I called 12 legions of an effect I don't even need the angels he could've done it that way, but he did not and what he is saying to us.
I am submitting myself so that I can say those who will come to me his deity was never put on hold. He was always God from the from the time and married to the bar always got but his sovereignty is slowly God tied his hands behind his one behind his back. Sort of thing. For example, Christ was not ubiquitous. He was not everywhere the same time, but if he wanted to find something out. All he had to do was ask his father.
In fact, when it when he says the sun doesn't know if these disciples knew would we knew if I was standing in the group.
Knowing what I know now, I would've said, what can you ask the father because he's going to tell you and then tell us a bit.
Of course it didn't play out that way because I wasn't there, so the sun does not know.
In his humanity. He would suffer in his humanity loose gospel chapter 17 verse 25 but first speaking of himself. He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. And so, in his humanity. He suffered, but never in his glory after the resurrection new no more getting to Christ.
Hebrews 928 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many.
So much for those who think that he is repeatedly suffering that is a lie is on biblical as against what is clearly taught and continues in Hebrews 9 to those who eagerly wait for him he will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.
So he humbled himself in the form of a servant. Paul writes to the Philippians and there was a progression was a development in Christ has a good Luke tells us he grew in stature with with men.
You know had had you not known I was about my father's business and there was this development. And as you travel through the New Testament, you begin to discover the difference between the days of his humanity and the days of his glory, and I like to think that I stayed on this a bit when we went through the gospel of Luke and so these disciples going to ask him this question again after his resurrection, and then of course he is now in his glorified form.
He is not limited and acts chapter 1 verse six. Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel, sort of asking the same question a different way maybe to like catch him offguard a bit of course, I'm not sure that's what happened, but I like to see it that way anyway and he said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons which the father has put in his own authority. He could've said I told you I don't know but he does know at this point because this self-imposed limitation is gone now. He is not admitting here being ignorant, but subject to the father and the having dawned humanity on him that humanity of Christ was dismissed at Calvary father in your hands a command that was the end of that. Now he is is to Christ that walked with them as a Paulson at we knew him. According to the flesh we know him no more. He did the Christ Jesus, that they walked with through Galilee was in his glorified state, much more. And this is why when he appears to John in the Revelation trusses.
I fell down dead before him, and he touched me in and told me to fear not. And so there you have another picture of this changed the relationship which he eased into those disciples so that after his resurrection, he sort of appeared to them and they will like who is this guy you know that if people don't want sure this is the Lord you know and that development is clear Mary Magdalene didn't really care about the development she just loved him as John and the others hesitated a little bit. Mary Magdalene grabbed hold of him and of course we know don't cling to me not to get used to me being here Mary I'm not staying but these are pictures of our Lord and how he conducted business when he was here and he insisted that his followers cultivate an attitude of alertness concerning his return again.
Is there listening to this, they're not putting it all together but they going to be grabbing hold of the things he said once he ascends into heaven, and they've gone through the resurrection with with him as far as witnesses of all Daniel and a Dell Christ of this in verse 14 when he talks about the desolation quoting Daniel and from Daniel 12 and from the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away and the abomination of desolation is set up, there shall be 1290 days 3 1/2 you. Of the great tribulation of Jacob's trouble. So the world will be going to tribulation and then at the 3 1/2 year mark Israel really go through it the day of the Lord, that will than not, does not include his church starts at the rapture and the last for over a thousand years.
Even when Christ returns that still under the umbrella of that prophecy the day of the Lord is very broad prophecy. The prophets, they neither spoke nor wrote about the church is that foreign of a concept. It was held back and and rightfully so because it was hard enough for the Jewish Christians to begin to depart from Judaism. This why we have Paul's letter to the Hebrews and stop it. You're no longer Jewish. As far as religion goes your Christians now and if you continue this, the cross of Christ will profit it is obsolete and he goes into Melchizedek and Abraham before Levi was even born and just quite remarkable how he shuts down this having an idea of the signed written religion, Judaism mixture of Judaizing sign the Judaizers were trying to merge Christianity with Judaism move. Thanks for tuning in to cross reference radio for this study in the book of Mark cross reference radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia to learn more information about this ministry. Visit our website cross reference radio.com once you're there you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick.
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