THY WORD IS TRUTH
John 17:17
“Signs Of The End Of The Age? Part 1”
We have had this week a large earthquake on the Island of Hispaniola. The western half of the Island is the nation of Haiti.
And it appears as if there maybe as many as 100,000 thousand dead for there are reports on the news
Friday night that 40,000 bodies have already been buried.
And it immediately made me try to put this terrible tragic event into perspective. Just how strong was this earthquake compared to others we have had in history and in past history.
The initial reports were a 7.0 on the Richter Scale.
The Richter scale is a logrhymic scale so the first number on the scale is 10 times the force of the next number.
In other words a 7 on the Richter scale is ten times stronger than a 6 magnitude quake.
But for most of us that does not help us much understand just how strong one earthquake is from another. So to get a comparison we might go to the Internet to find something to get the clear in out minds just how strong one earth quake is versus another.
And I found a fact about earthquake that was healpful ion this regard.
When I looked up the word Richter I found a good comparison that jumped out at me. The webpage made this statement.
An earth quake of 5.0 on the Richter scale releases as much energy as the atomic bomb exploded over
Heroshima Japan in WWII.
And this quake in Haiti this week was a 7.0 so it was 100 times more powerful than a nuclear exposion.
And then the Richter scale was laid out like this.
A 4.0 quake is widely felt and is strong enough to crack plaster.
A 5.0 is strong enough to damage chimneys and weak building.
A 6.0 is strong enough to damage average buildings.
A 7.0 earthquake is strong enough to damage well built buildings.
An 8.0 quake will damaged reinforces well built structures.
And a 9.0 will have flatten all structure in a widespread area.
So the next question is how does this quake stand up in comparison to other earthquakes in human history. Have there been 8 and 9 magnitude quakes strong that the one in Haiti in modern history.
The answer is yes.
There was a 8.0 quake in Chile in 1964 but it was not a deadly as this one.
Even a small earthquake a 5.0 is deadly is the epicenter is near a population center.
So the most deadly modern earthquake happened just a few years ago in Indonesia and it happen on the day after Christmas in 2004 and more than 250 people were killed in the Tsumami that it cause.
So what about the strongest and most deadly earthquake ever recorded?
That happened in on January 23, 1556 in China and was 8.0 (but that has to be estimated because the Richter scale was not in existence yet) and it killed 800 thousand people.
The highest death toll is the 230 thousand death toll of Jan 26th 2004.
The earthquake is as old and as deadly as a devastating as far back as human history goes and is well documented in the bible and in the days when Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth.
And we hear Jesus this morning in the New Testament reading from chapter 24 of the gospel of Matthew answer a question that one of his disciples asked him when they were gathered on the steps of the Temple.
The beautiful Temple remodel by Herod the Great just before Jesus was born.
And Jesus said that this temple would be destroyed and not one stone would be laid upon the other.
This prophecy of Jesus came to pass just 37 years after his death on the cross in AD 70 when the emperors son Titus burned Jerusalem and tore down th temple and over 1,000,000 Jews were put to death by the sword according to the Jewish historian Josephus who was an eyewitness to this event.
But after Jesus says that not one stone of the temple would be left upon the otherm Jesus and his disciples had arrived on the Mt of Olives and the disciples came up to him privately asking, “Tell us, when shall these things happen and what shall be the sign of the coming of the age.
The New International Version translates this question as “What will be the sign of the coming of the end of the world?”
And this is a big question of life for anyone.
It is like on of the other big questions of life like what happens after I die or why am I here and what is my purpose in life.
What is the meaning of life and how did this earth an all of nature happen.
So the disciples must have eagerly anticipated Jesus answer for they had seen his power over nature by calming the storm and walking on water.
And we hear from the reading this morning Jesus answer.
And these are his words, “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many shall come in my name, saying I am the Christ; and shall deceive many. And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars… for nation shall rise against naton and kingdom against kingdom and there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in many places…. And later he says many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
And the modern translations like the NIVsays: “
12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. The King James says, “Because of the iniquity of those time the love of many will wax cold”.
Regardless, both phases are not well understood by the modern mind.
When is the last time you heard the biblical word iniquity in comversation?
And let me know when you heard the word “Wicked” spoken in every day conversation.
Both are very old fashioned words because the world view of many modern Christians is that human beings are basically good and when we do bad we are either mentally ill or have made a mistake.
The concept of "sin" is obscure and a mystery to the modern mind.
Sins become mistakes or bad choices or are due to illness that any one can fall into!
But Jesus is not done describing the end of the world!
He says when the end of the word will come about in his next sentence. “But he who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all the nations; and then shall the end come.
So Jesus acknowledges that there will be an end of the world.
And Jesus quotes that when an abomination of desolations appears in the temple and desecrates the Temple as spoken about by the prophet Daniel then:
Let him who is on the housetop not come down to take anything form his house. Neither let him who is in the fields return back to take his clothes.
But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that are nursing children.
But pray that your flight might not be in winter or on a Sabbath day for there shall be a great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be but for the sake of the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.
Jesus tells us that the church or the "elect" are on the earth and going thorugh the great tribulation and becasue they are going though the tribulation the trubulation is shortened!
In Jesus words, "there is no rapture of the chruch".
And later in the passage Jesus says, “Just like the lightning comes from the east and shine in the west shall the coming of the Son of Man be".
(The son on man is also from the prophesy of Daniel and Jesus refers to him self of 70 times in the gospels as the fulfillment of the Son of Man prophesy of Daniel 7:14).
Jesus is talking about his second coming after his death.
And then we come to his words that are removed from the modern translations like the NIV. The King James gives exactly when the tribulation will happen and who will be in it.
Here are his most misunderstood word perhaps in the whole bible!
“IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE TRIBULATION OF THOSE DAYS.” (KING JAMES).
What will happen?
Jesus continues, “The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give it’s light and the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of heaven shall be shaken and then the tribes of the earth will mourn for they will see the Son Of Man coming on the clouds of heaves with power and great glory.”
And so Jesus describes in gruesome detail what will happen at the end of the age but does that help us with the interpretation of the current age.
Many modern interpreters of unanswered biblical prophesy would have you believe that these are the birth pangs and the great tribulation is just around the corners for we have the earthquakes and the pestilence and the wars and rumors of wars that our Lord spoke of right now.
But we have always had those conditions on the earth thorough out history since the cross and resurrection.
What about the black and bubinic plauges of the middle ages.
The aids epidemic is real and has caused thousands of orphans not only in Haiti but thorugh out the world especially in Africa where millions have died from this terrible pestilence but it pales in comparison with the black plague and the bubonic plague of the middle ages and around two centuries before the Reformation of the Church.
So antibiotics and other drugs have made these plagues an non treat but there is not antibiotic effective against viral diseases.
But we could focus on when the end shall come according to Christ.
Many biblical scholars do not go back to the original Greek and take their biblical research to the Latin translation of the Church Father Jerome.
Jerome translated the New Testament from Greek in to Latin and that bible is known as the Vulgate.
And we have scholarship in the their self-center humanistic way translating the gathering of the elect as the gathering of the church and a concept called the "Rapture" of the church before the tribulation and some have splintered away and interpreted the rapture of the church in the middle of the tribulation.
As I said before word rapture is a modern word taken from a vision of a woman named MacDonald in Scotland in the 1800s.
But the King James version makes it clear and tells us when it will happen amd the taking away of the chruch is at the "Resurrection of the dead" that all the disciples of Christ belived in.
It will happen after the tribulation so the church will go through the tribulation and Jesus reinforces this with "if these day were not shorted no flesh would be saved."
Let Me Close In Prayer:
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