Matthew 24: 3-14

³ “Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?’ ⁴ And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. ⁵ For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. ⁶ And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. ⁷ For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. ⁸ All these are the beginning of sorrows.

⁹ “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. ¹⁰ And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. ¹¹ Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. ¹² And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. ¹³ But he who endures to the end shall be saved. ¹⁴ And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”

The world is messed up. Sadly, a lot of modern Christianity is messed up, and a lot of what we see in pulpits each Sunday is messed up. However, those of us who take the Bible seriously and study often so that we can handle it well are growing in confidence in its authenticity and accuracy each and every day. This passage alone has been played out right before our very eyes. If we simply look at some of the statements in this passage, we will see that Jesus gave us a road map to 2025. It looks like He was looking ahead to the NEWS headlines and simply pulling the headlines out of the page.

1. False Prophets, vs 5, 11

Just last week, someone was predicting the Rapture. They and we are still here. This kind of evil has been played out time and time again in history past. But the rise of false prophets among us is crazy. Everywhere online you can hear men and women butchering the Scriptures, taking verses out of context to make some ‘aha’ point that gets them clicks and views, making merchandise of the Gospel. These charlatans are leading people down the road to hell with their claims of special knowledge from God. You can hear them begin each reel with ‘God gave me a word today.’ No, He did not. He wrote His Word, His Bible, and there are no new revelations coming, SOLA SCRIPTURA.

2. Wars and more wars, vs 6-7

Now there are wars in Ukraine, wars in the Middle East, and conflicts in Venezuela, and on and on we can go. Most of us did not know of the wars in Africa and the ones in Asia Minor, for which President Trump was able to negotiate peace. There are wars on the horizon; wars between the woke and the awake peoples, wars between the Muslims and those wanting to keep their freedom from Sharia law. Then there will be the wars between those of us who want to be free and WEF and other global governances that want total control. There are wars of words between the conservative Christians and so-called liberal Christians.

3. Natural Disasters, vs 8

Just last week, we saw an earthquake in California, and then a few days later an even bigger one in the Philippines. One of the two hurricanes sitting off the east coast of the USA is so big that the eye can be seen from space. In fact, there are two hurricanes that are about to hit the East Coast at about the same time, and they are huge. There are other things coming, and I am sure that the winter will bring its own disasters.

4. Tribulation and death, verse 9

There are very hard laws being put into place to limit truthful speech. Make no mistake, it is happening in Europe and in the UK, specifically that people are being arrested for what they said, what they shared online, and what they replied to online. If the authorities think that you were intending hatred or, in their opinion, inciting violence, no matter what you said, they can jail you and restrict your use of the internet. Now, one can publish nude pictures, one can promote sexual activities between adults and children, and one can lie about sex and gender, but one cannot tell the truth without fear of retribution.

True conservative churches have to speak the truth at peril. And one must be aware that you can be arrested in the UK for things that you said or posted in Canada and the US. Right now, they are causing great tribulation, but soon, with the mandatory Digital IDs coming, they will begin to want to kill us. Many of them want to kill us now.

5. Lawlessness and a lovelessness, vs 12

What is being paraded as love is not that it is actually hatred to the highest level. But paired with that lack of love is a natural lawlessness that comes. If you have no love, then you will kill your neighbour (like Charlie Kirk), and you will cheat on your spouse and abuse your kids. You will steal from everyone and cheat everyone. You will only think of self, and you will never consider another. This is where we are at. Jesus tells us that one of the greatest commands is to love your neighbour as yourself. However, if you have no regard for God, no regard for God’s laws, and as a natural outflow, no regard for His creation, including other people, you will never treat them well. We see that running rampant everywhere today.

6. The End is not Yet, vs 8

There is still a long way to go. Set your eyes on Jesus and take heart. Trust Him; He has you and will get you through anything. Jesus is coming; look up. Be ready to share the hope in our hearts.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario

“And saying, where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.”
2 Peter 3:4-6

What a tumultuous few weeks, the death of Charlie Kirk and then, in the last few days, the death of Voddie Baucham, both men who loved the Lord, were very outspoken about the truth of the scripture, and did not back down from standing for the Lord. I did not agree with Brother Voddie as far as the Calvinism that he and John MacArthur stood for, but in general, his expository teaching of the scriptures was/is very good, and I have learned a lot over the years. The explosion of Biblical truth on the airways and online has been refreshing, and it is good to see a lot of people decide to obey the Lord in salvation and baptism. It is good to see people returning to the truth.

Make no mistake, our enemies have not died or laid down; they are still very active in our governments, and more and more we can see the end times playing out before our very eyes. In Canada, our very Liberal government is moving toward a ‘voluntary’ gun buy-back or confiscation that will become mandatory by the Fall of 2026. There has never been a case in history where a government dis-armed its people and then did good by them. Free speech in Canada is dead for the most part, and one can be arrested for speech. This is already rampant in the UK, and one report said that between 2008 & 2017, some 5,300 people had been arrested in the UK for social media posts under the Communications Act of 2008. This kind of censorship is legal here in Canada, and I am sure it will be more and more enforced in the years to come.

The UK just announced that they are moving ahead with the Digital ID that will be compulsory in the next year or so. Everyone will be required to have one to work or travel. This is no less than a Governmental tracking law that will lead to less and less privacy and more control over the lives of her citizens. This is just more and more evil. Those of us who know the Scriptures understand that these things are happening as a setup for the One World System that will engulf the world and the governments of the world. We know that there will be heavy-handed tactics to force compliance with the laws of the coming World Order. In Revelation 20:4, we see that there will be a severe punishment when people defy the government.

“And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.”

During the COVID control experiment, many were threatened with job loss, being shunned by family, being unable to travel, see loved ones, attend events, and the like, and the Governments of the world saw that there was still a very large group that would still say no. So, the next time that some kind of enforcement is done, it will be even heavier handed. They will shed blood and do so with the idea that they are doing society the greater good. More and more, we are seeing that our governments have been lying to us for a very long time, and they still are. As such, it will become more and more important for the Lord’s churches to be bastions of truth. But, telling the truth will make us a target to the left-leaning population around us, and to be honest, I am surprised at how many ‘churches’ are left leaning in their politics and, of course, their teachings.

This is where we find the naysayers. Just this week, I watched a short reel of a Catholic minister teaching that the Rapture is just a hoax – a story made up by Christians who are afraid of the world we live in and are looking for a way out. In 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, Paul tells us that we are to live expecting Jesus to return and catch us up into the air.

“By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise. After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.”

This is not the Revelation 19 appearing; in Revelation 19, Jesus comes WITH His saints, and in the other above, He comes FOR His saints. Two very different events. But this Catholic priest said that we should just live out our days in expectation of dying because Jesus is not coming to get us. In his view, even Revelation 19 seems to be a dream, a mere story and nothing to be hoped for. In his estimation, Jesus is NOT coming back.

My question is, well then, why live for Him? If He is not coming back, He is not coming to get us, and there is no reward for obedience, then why live for Him? But we are warned by Peter in our text not to listen to these ‘naysayers.’ They don’t know the Bible, and they make stuff up. These are the same people we are told that made fun of Noah right up until the heavens opened and the waters of the firmament rained on them. God did not lie then, and He is not lying now. Jesus is coming to get us. I don’t know when; no one on earth does. Jesus will come and get us when The Father is ready. That is it.

The rapture completely mimics the traditions of the Jewish wedding that is played out for us in John 14:1-3: “I go to prepare a place and then I will come and get you.” Jesus is coming; we can see the Digital ID system being laid out for what will become the ‘Mark of the Beast.’ We can see it, and this is why we need to know the truth, so these things will not catch us off guard, nor will they unsettle us. Do they spark a bit of hesitation? Of course.

I wonder, how will this affect my family in the short run? Will this affect my ability to get a job? How long before the government goes from voluntary to mandatory? But those of us who know Jesus, who have put our faith in Him alone for the full payment of our sin debt, have this confidence that to die in Jesus is gain, and to be killed for obeying God is gain.

So let the naysayers naysay; their lies will not destroy the promises of God that one day Jesus will come to get us. I will listen to the Bible and not let the naysayers shake my faith. One day, too, they will believe in the Rapture; sadly, for them, it will be too late.

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3).

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario