PH 4-minute Bible teaching

End of the world

For this week’s “You Asked for It” question, we tackled the controversial subject of all that’s going on (and everything that has gone on in the past) in Israel. A non-essential element of the Christian faith, we dive into whether modern Israel is the same as biblical Israel, hit a brief history lesson, and more.

The initial question also asked whether what we’re seeing and witnessing across the ocean right now is the end of the world. So, yes, it was kind of a loaded message! But here’s a clip from it that I hope is a blessing. If you want the audio-only version, click here.

If you want to see the full sermon associated with this clip, you can find it here.

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Transcript: End of the World

Wed, Nov 1, 2023 : Peter Heck

(Begin transcript)

The question, the original question, does this mean it's the end of the world? Is this the end of the world as we know it? Okay. I will say this. There is nothing wrong, in fact, I think it's good for believers to keep one eye here on Earth and one eye in heaven. We know what is coming. We know what's written in Scripture.

Paul tells us that we eagerly wait for the Lord Jesus Christ to come back. He says to the Philippians, to eager, eagerly await a Savior, the writer of Hebrews talks with excitement as we see the day approaching when all of this ends. That's great. And as we Christians are doing that, we're keeping one eye on the heavens, are waiting the return of Jesus, we then see what Jesus tells us. Don't flip there. We don't have time for that. I'll read it to you. These are Jesus's words in Matthew 24.

He says, “Many will come in My name, claiming I am the Christ will deceive many listen to this, you will hear of rumors of wars and wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen. But the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.”

Jesus is talking about the end of the world. And so what do we do as we're cognizant believers aware of what's going on? We're looking at the world. We're reading the scriptures. And what we see is Matthew 24. And we said, “well, this fits.” I mean, there was just it was just an earthquake in Afghanistan. And now we got nations rising against nations, and it's happening in the Middle East, right there where Jesus came the first time, it makes total sense, this could be it. And there's a lot of Christians who believe that to be the case.

But look at verse eight, what Jesus says here in Matthew 24, verse eight, after saying all that's going to happen, he goes on and says, “all these are the beginning, the beginning of birth pains.” He doesn't say it's going to happen right away. He says, “These are the beginning of birth pains.” The fact of the matter is, and I know you're not going to like this, some of you that are eager for the end of the world, but we have extraordinary recency bias. We see these things and we think, “well, that fits scripture.” I just need you to understand that for 20 centuries, people have been seeing evidence around them and saying, “Well, I see that right there in Scripture.”

Dr. David Jeremiah is a brilliant biblical mind. And I know a lot of you read him and really appreciate him. I do too. I've learned a lot from him. He believes that he's going to see Jesus come back before he dies, and he's what, in his 60s or 70s. Which I mean, I don't know, I don't know if Jesus is going to come back. But what I need you to understand is there have been Dr. David Jeremiah's, in every century, since Jesus was first here on Earth. They could be right. I don't know. No man knows the hour.

So it may be that all of this is fulfilling what the Bible is talking about. Or it may be like it's been for the previous 20 centuries, these are the beginnings and Jesus may tarry, for another 2000 years. I don't know, I just use the word tarry. No, that's not a normal word for me to use, but I just did. Alright, so here's what I'm going to suggest to you.

I don't mean to rain on anybody's Apocalypse parade, okay, I know a lot of you are excited, you're going to be there and you're going to witness it, you're going to film it on your cell phone and post it to Instagram, “hey Jesus is back.” I don't know if that's what you're counting on.

But when I see scripture, here's where I am. When I look at the events of this world, and I'm not telling you, you should be like me, I'm just saying, I think this is a healthy response for Christians. We see the events of the world and we're tempted to rush to Scripture and make predictions about the end of the world. Here's where I think our testimonies should be as believers, we should see what's happening in the world. See what happened to those Jewish families. See what's happening now to the Palestinians who are innocent and don't even like Hamas, but they are facing retribution, just retribution, for what was done to Israel. We should look at the suffering of this world and long for what the prophet Isaiah talked about when he said there's coming a day when:

“His greatness and His government and peace there will be no end to that. That's what's coming, that he will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.” Praise God that that's coming. That's what I want to say to the world.

(End transcript)