Sermons

Matthew 24:23-28 – Winning the world at its worst (pt. 3)

 

Intro: Theme: Winning the world at its worst, @/end (Matt. 24, 25).

• When the world at its worst, X calls for perseverance.
  • Keep going!
    • Persevering is what wins the world to X.
    • Your testimony.

 

• My burden: Show you how this works.

 

Prop: How believers persevere when the world at its worst

 

1. Run from evil (vv. 15-22)

 

[Context] Scene set in the end; when the world is at its worst.

• 144,000 in 7-year tribulation as the LORD’s super-evangelists.
  • Winning Jews and the Nations.
    • Testimony, to stir believers.
    • Testimony to follow in same perseverance!
      • The “No quit.”
      • In terms of Running from Evil.

 

• Fleeing things.

[KEY] Last week, large introduction on end times.

 

• Sermons take on a life of their own.
  • Prepared material only allowed point 1.
  • A lot “on my heart.” More today.

 

3-point sermon becomes a 3-part message.  

 

• Point 1, call to persevere, when the world’s at its worst.
  • Run from evil!
  • Verse 16 says, “…flee to the mountaintops” (v. 16).

 

• Point 2, answers question raised.
  • “What evil do believers need to run from?”

 

• “What we likewise run from.”

 

[TRANS] Answer, point 2, “Flee false Messiahs.”

 

• Running is discerning – Who to run away from.

 

[Illus] To persevere through desperate times is first examining the $100 dollar bill in the light. Scoping out the appropriate markings to indicate its authenticity. Validate it as legal tender.

 

Pretenders out there, dangling money in front of you, where you snatch it, crumple it inside your pocket, thinking you’re richer, when your pocket’s still empty.   

 

 

1. Discern false Messiahs (vv. 23-28)

 

1. Flee false gospels (v. 23)

[KEY] God’s Word replete w/warnings @/false teachers.

• Bc/danger to your soul is what you believe.
  • False Messiah is anyone promising a false way to heaven.
    • 2 Corinthians 11:4/Galatians 1:8-9 warn against lesser gospels and lesser Jesus.
    • Paul declared anathema.
      • Anyone promoting false gospels.
      • Paul says, “let them be anathema!”

 

• Paul’s direct, forthright w/false doctrine and false teachers.
  • Bc/what’s at stake.
  • Unfathomable cost, eternal Hell.
    • To finite thinking.

[Illus] Some experience a sleep condition called: hypnagogia (1 out of 3 experience it!).

• Technical term for sleep paralysis.

 

• Point of reference for how I imagine, state of Hell.

Hypnagogia is the transitional state of consciousness between wakefulness and sleep. It’s the opposite of hypnopompia (normal), which is the transitional state that occurs before you wake up.

Sleep paralysis refers to the phenomenon in which resumption of consciousness occurs while muscle atonia of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep is maintained, leading to intense fear and apprehension in the patient as the patient lies awake without the ability to use any part of their body.

During hypnagogia, it’s common to experience involuntary and imagined experiences. These are referred to as hypnagogic hallucinations. Up to 70 percentTrusted Source of people experience these hallucinations, which can appear in the form of sights, sounds, or even feelings of movement.

Muscle jerks, sleep paralysis, and lucid dreams are also common during the hypnagogic phase.

[Point] Difference btwn/sleep paralysis and Hell is you still have opportunity to wake back up.

 

[TRANS] False doctrines are doctrines of demons, contrived by Satan, twisted lies confusing from believing in the one single way to heaven.

• Jesus warned, beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing (cf. Matt. 7:15).
  • Satan who appears as an angel of light (cf. 2 Cor. 11:14).

 

• Claiming to be X (in any age) carry clear likeness to X and message (counterfit).

 

• “The less obvious to level-headed believer the better.”

 

• False saviors, in the early church, propping themselves over Paul as super-Apostles

(2 Corinthians).

• Dividing households, upsetting families, seducing the vulnerable (cf. 2 Peter).
  • Motivated by greed, sensuality, and power.
  • Compromise the truth.
    • Excuse personal sin.
    • Gospel free of need for repentance.
      • Effectively eliminating grace.
      • Eliminating salvation.

[KEY] False teachers integrate modern ideology w/truth.

Mixing in a “good thing” distracting from fully trusting X.

• “Nature” – becomes Naturalism, creation twisted into being worship as god.
  • Instead of creation revealing God’s attributes.
    • Animism sends people to Hell.

 

• “Science” – becomes Foundational Laws; scientific method of experimental hypotheses.
  • Understanding how the world via human tested theorems.
    • Our world, space, electricity, the human body/brain.
    • Laws of thermodynamics, and the list goes on.

 

• Error, when scientific experimentation is given the same authority as God’s Word.
  • Defaulting to God-eclipsing foundations.
  • Macro-evolution or theistic evolution, undermine God.

 

• Cancels sin and death.

 

• Cancels penalty and need for grace.

 

• “Pragmatics” – becomes “Pragmatism” – Philosophy of Temporal Perspective – driving socioeconomics inherent to inventing and modern advancement.
  • When pragmatics are the measure of success w/in the church, cancels faith.
    • e. crowd size and budgets.
      • Programs necessitate slick standard.
      • Church adopts business consumerism as goals.

 

• Marketing and motivation guide church life.
  • Centers starve not feed
    • People gather to see people.
    • Not evil, necessary.
      • When focus is social engagement, as a proverbial who’s who gathering, God shifts to the background.
      • Canceling accountability.

 

• Social gatherings breed social gospels.
  • Do-gooding for society.
  • Displacing true X’s mission – winning the lost.

 

• “Social justice” – justice and mercy for hopeless is good (biblical).

 

• When helping hurting people becomes a gospel replacement.

 

• Penance as means for unpayable reparations.

 

• Replacement for true repentance.

 

• What’s sad is, moderately healthy churches, flinching on Church Discipline.
  • Accommodating false churches, false teachers.

 

• In the name of non-judgmentalism.

 

• Passively endangering others, w/their tacit approval.

 

• Sin is now graded in terms of being little better than the next person.

 

• Accountability is left on a human level.

  

• Replacing ideologies for true worship is where people:

suppress the truth in unrighteousness (cf. Rom. 1:18).   

 

[Illus] C.S. Lewis Screwtape Letters a parody on how Satan dupes the world/church.

• Satan schemes for religious people to ignore God, to their demise.

 

• Screwtape, the uncle, a mentoring demon, to his demon understudy, nephew, Wormwood.

My dear wormwood,

Be sure the patient remains completely fixated on politics. Arguments, political gossip, and obsessing on the faults of people they have never met serves as an excellent distraction from advancing in personal virtue, character, and the things the patient can control. Make sure to keep the patient in a constant state of angst, frustration, and general disdain towards the rest of the human race in order to avoid any kind of charity or inner peace from further developing. Ensure the patient continues to believe that the problem is “out there” in the “broken system” rather than recognizing there is a problem with himself.

Keep up the good work,

Uncle Screwtape.

 

[Question] Again, “What does a false X look like?”  “Anyone at all.”

• Verse 23, X guides believers in end times to avoid opportunistic Saviors.
  • “Look, here is the Christ!” or “There he is!” (v. 23).
  • w/clear instruction, “…do not believe it” (v. 23).

 

• Do not put your faith or trust there; instead, RUN away.

 

1. Flee false miracles (v. 24)

[KEY] When false doctrine is not enticing enough, Satan sends inexplicable experiences to validate error.

• Supernaturalism, always false validation for Satanic operations.

 

• Revelation, Bible recounts sin’s beginning where Satan exalted himself, leading a third of the angels out of heaven (cf. Rev. 12:4).

 

• Satan, greatest counter fit god, raising himself up to usurp God’s throne.
  • Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28.
  • Seduced Eve cloaked as reptile, serpent.

 

• Satan (in Job) permitted to affect armies, weather (as murderer) and extreme bodily ailment to Job.

 

• Giant Nephilim (hybrid-demons; cf. Gen. 6:1-4), pre-flood progenerated by demons.

[KEY] Post flood, Jannes and Jambres (cff. Exodus 7:11, 22), magicians opposed Moses w/superernatural lesser false miracles.

• False prophets throughout the Old Testament era.

 

• Numbers 22-23, tells Balaam, Balaak, and the talking donkey.

 

• Balaam compared w/NT false teachers.

^ESV  2 Peter 2:14-16 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children!

¹⁵ Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing,

¹⁶ but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. (2Pe 2:14-16 ESV)

 

• Saul channeling Samuel by the witch of Endor (cf. 1 Sam. 28:3-25).
  • All reasons for Laws forbidding divination.
  • Sorcery and necromancy, end by penalty of stoning.

 

^ESV  Deuteronomy 13:1-5 "If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder,

² and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’

³ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

⁴ You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him.

⁵ But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. (Deu 13:1-5 ESV)

 

• Paul’s parallel with 1 Corinthians 5:13, in context of church discipline.

^ESV  1 Corinthians 5:13 God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you."

(1Co 5:13 ESV)

• Applying Deuteronomy to today.
  • When ignored, not fleeing sin.
  • Principle of purging when the stakes are just as high.

[TRANS] Verse 24 Jesus warns, “For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray [planaw], if possible, even the elect” (v. 24).

• Jesus himself faced Legion, the demon possessed man.

 

• Ultimate human picture embedded in Judas Iscariot.
  • Apostles (performing miracles).
  • While apostate having a heart ultimately given to Satan.

[KEY] Then to the book of Acts.

• Early missionary journey’s where Paul and Silas faced Bar-Jesus or in Acts 13:6-12.

 

• Chief priest, Sceva (cf. Acts 19:14-16), had seven sons who attempted to cast out demons by demonic power.
  • Out of their depth.
  • Stripped, defeated.

 

• The façade of miracles are counter fit acts meant to distract establishment of early church.
  • Even 1 Corinthians 12:1-3.

^ESV  1 Corinthians 12:1-3 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.

² You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led.

³ Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says "Jesus is accursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except in the Holy Spirit. (1Co 12:1-3 ESV)

 

• In the context of gifts reveals abuses.
  • When people claimed to be NT prophets.
  • Cursing X during worship.

 

• Why Paul called for all to be done in decency and order (cf. 1 Cor. 14:40).

 

[Appl] Pagan practices in modern church settings where emotional manipulation is applied is invariably Satanic.

 

We have been exposed to false teachers who claim the power of Christ, who utilize hypnotic practices through to power of suggestion to cause people to lose control.

 

These modern tactics, some natural while others, supernatural, lead people astray.

 

• False confidence projected onto a false leader.
  • This is to be avoided at all cost.
  • Now and in the future.

 

[Question] “What about the reference to the hypothetical that the “elect” could be led astray?”

• Taught last week that since the “elect” are chosen to be saved by God’s plan, God promises to faithfully preserve them to the end.

 

• Appreciate Jesus’ tone, that though “elect” – though secure, nevertheless responsible to flee what’s false.  
  • They will flee.
  • Commanded to flee and will.

 

[TRANS] Jewish remnant discern question, “Who is Christ?” and “What is the origin of experiences?” Finally, will be lured to follow the crowd into false communities.  

 

1. Flee false communities (vv. 25-26)

[KEY] Jesus on false communities or false churches.

• Verses 25-26 X gives an earnest plea to avoid keeping company “in the wilderness” or “in the inner rooms” (v. 26).

 

• The appearance of being authentic (wilderness).
• The appearance of being credentialled or sanctioned (inner rooms).

 

[Illus] There is nothing more tempting than peer pressure.

The influence of friends or family to follow is powerful.

Jesus’ own family tried to pull him off mission, to which Jesus chose the people on mission over family concerns.

• X is saying no matter either how authentic or classy, avoid these settings at all cost.

 

• 1 John 4 calls believers to evaluate where they are by testing the spirits.

^ESV  1 John 4:1-4 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

² By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,

³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

⁴ Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. (1Jo 4:1-4 ESV)

 

[Appl] Evaluate the setting, peer group, and message carefully. Settings of modern worship can be very compelling and serve as a blinding effect on unsuspecting attendees.

 

• “Elect” in the future called to run and we too must avoid settings at all cost.

[Illus] I was asked one time by a pastor whether he (if asked) should preach in a setting associated at Joel Osteen’s church.

In a private meeting, later, I told him if he preached in that setting, he should give his message, like Paul did at Mt. Areopagus where he was preaching on behalf of the unknown God, in view of future coming judgment to command on behalf of the LORD for all men everywhere to repent.

In other words, preach in such a way that you would basically be thrown out, never to be asked to return.

• You are not supposed to fit into certain situations.
  • Reign in your curiosity.

 

• Again, the call is to not be seduced, “…do not believe it” (v. 26).

 

 

1. Flee false promise (vv. 27-28).

 

[KEY] What is the ultimate reason to flee from evil?

• X’s judgment is coming on everyone who doesn’t flee.

 

• Ask yourself, “What’s really in the wilderness?”

 

• “Curiosity killed the cat!” (cf. Prov. 5-6).

 

• When lightning strikes at X’s return, do not want to be near, in proximity to X’s wrath.
  • “…the coming of the Son of Man” (v. 27) will be a world-wide event.

 

• This event in future, unequivocally tied to all preceding events, leaving no room for the prior events being past tense.

 

• Jesus’ harrowing words, “Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather” (v. 28) summon pictures of finality, with death to Jesus’ enemies.

 

• Believers persevere and unbelievers are struck dead where their carcasses are devoured by “vultures” (v. 28).

 

• This is the gruesome end for the lost.