The Gospel and the Last Days
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19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
As we launch iTIM,, we highlight the need for discipleship and for every member to become a minister..
While we are studying on the subject of the last days, today we are going to put focus on what our response should be as the church of Jesus.
The study of the end times is meaningless if we do not apply it in the way we live.
Knowing about the end times from the books of Revelation, Daniel and other prophetical sections from the epistles like 1 Thessalonians do not mean anything if it stays in our heads, just merely acquiring knowledge or being educated.
The prophecies concerning the end times are also not just to brace ourselves, just preparing for worst things that are coming, the Great Tribulation.. talk more
It should not leave us as spectators of a coming event, just happily waiting as God’s people for Jesus to return soon..
Worse, the message of the end times is not there to entertain us, it has been the subject of many movies, left behind series..
People look for answers and messages from the pulpit asking, how do I get hope and encouragement in my current situation, how do I retrofit the message of the gospel to my life?
That is why many fall for messages that promise you can have your best life now!
Don’t be discouraged, confess positive things with your mouth and that becomes a mataphysical reality for you, you can discover that power from within! God will empower you to do what?
Well God empowers you to be the best person you can ever be?
You see..
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not about us, it is about Him and the coming of His Kingdom!
Traditional Christianity has turned the church into consumers, what does the gospel has for me? Like consumers in the marketplace, Christians pick and choose parts of the gospel oh I love..
Romans 8:28 - all things work for the good..
Jeremiah 29:11 -
out of context, Christians start with verse 11, but they avoid the whole context, get lost when they for thus saith the Lord, when seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.
No one quotes Luke 9:23
23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
and more specifically the verse after that..
24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
This is a message specifically for us, whoever, anyone...
Losing one’s life for My sake...
While people look at scriptures to find out how to make life good.. Jesus is actually saying we should lose our lives to save it.
Does that mean that everyone will die as a martyr for Christ? No, even the apostle who authored the New TEstament book on the end times, the apostle John, did not die a martyr.. it is the attitude of the heart, when the time of great testing comes, can I say with certainty today that I am ready to give my life for Christ’s sake.
Live our lives for the cause of Christ.
The cause of Christ is the gospel of Christ.
The cause of Christ is the standard of life and this is true, we will not easily jump into the world’s band wagon.
You will align your every decision with the gospel of Christ. When you see everyone doing something for a seeming “good cause” don’t immediately join the majority for the sake of solidarity. Look up what they believe and see if they align with the gospel of Jesus.
Freedom, justice, let us transform society!
Is the Christian life just about having freedom and the power to live our lives the way we want to live.
Yes indeed , Christians are to be empowered by the Spirit but empowered to do what?
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
This is the greater movement that we should be a part of ..
The Movement of the Gospel.
Jesus’ words are not random,,, the gospel is outward...
Jerusalem ==> Judea ==> Samaria ==> End of the Earth
Truths about the Movement of the Gospel.
The Gospel is not meant to stay in one place.
The Gospel is not meant to saturate one place before moving to the next.
How do I know that?
Jerusalem was not saturated with the Gospel before the Lord took it to the other parts of the known world..
1 And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
The advancement of God’s Kingdom will not be stopped, when there was no movement outside of Jerusalem, God used persecution, a severe persecution to bring the gospel out to where, exactly where Jesus wanted it to go to all of Judea and to Samaria..
The Movement of the Gospel cannot be Stopped.
So all of Judea, then Samaria and to the end of the earth.
What happened to the end of the earth?
The story of Paul’s conversion.
47 For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, “ ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ”
Today we are sending off or commissioning 8 short-term missionaries to be in the nations for two weeks starting from the 22nd of August.
They go in obedience to the Great Commission, some of them during or after this mission trip may decide to be long-term missionaries. But as a church, we will be missional in encouraging and supporting those who obey the Great Commission.
What we are doing is not starting a new movement, we are participating in God’s movement to take the Gospel to the end of the earth.
The End of the Earth.
Most of your Bibles will have the missionary journeys of Paul, and there are four..
His four missionary journeys took the gospel north to turkey and then west to parts of Europe, ending in Rome. Then other early missionaries took the gospel to North Africa..
Christianity later on went east..
A man named Hudson Taylor evangelized China..
“The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.” - Hudson Taylor
“The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.” - Hudson Taylor
Many years after Hudson Taylor, God gave a vision to take the gospel westward to Jerusalem, this started the Back to Jerusalem movement.
Map of Back to Jerusalem.
Simon Zhao
His Testimony..
The End of the Earth is the last frontier nation.. in our study of the end times, pause button..
It seemed the vision bogged down, but I believe it is not a problem with the vision, the vision is from God, but it is God Who prepares His church
In 2018, there were 44 million Christians in China.
A baton has been passed to us, let us finish the task in our generation..
6 he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
The movement of the Gospel of Jesus is meant to sweep the gentile nations until the gospel goes back to Jerusalem.. Read Revelation 7 and 14, 144,000 and also Revelation 11, the story of the two witnesses.
Amy Carmichael, someone who heard Hudson Taylor speak and her life was never the same,
When friends buried her in her beloved India, they honored her request that no marker be put on her grave. In her writings, she penned the poignant truth that above all, mission work offers one thing and one thing only—a chance to die.
I cringe...