Teaching by: Pastor El
Lesson on YouTube: https://youtu.be/9fnpFxJih0k
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.
15 “Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand), 16 “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. 18 And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. 19 But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! 20 And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22 And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.
23 “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. 24 For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand.
26 “Therefore if they say to you, ‘Look, He is in the desert!’ do not go out; or ‘Look, He is in the inner rooms!’ do not believe it. 27 For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 28 For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together.
The word "deceive" - it is like a slight of hand, or a lie. We can't deny what is going on in the world right now. We are in the end times, and many believe this generation will see the return of Chris Jesus.
There are many lies, from different sides, and opposite sides. The only thing we can rely on is the Word of God. Truth is the ultimate reality, and the only one who has the corner on truth is our Heavenly Father. Truth can exist all by itself. But for a lie to exist, it is dependent on the truth.
1 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 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. 3 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. 4 And where I go you know, and the way you know.”
5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Whenever God says something about Himself, He is revealing another layer. But you also see the overlap. He is love, but He is also light. We are seeing different facets of Who God is.
In John 14:6 Jesus is saying, if you are in doubt, look at His word, and if you know the truth of His word, then it will make it really easy to find out what is right. Anything that is right will promote life, but not just life, abundant life! If we are following this, every single step we are taking we are stepping into God's ultimate plan for our life. We might see earthly things like the money we could be making, but when we look at what we've choosen based on what the Word says, we see God's plan manifest in our life.
There is nothing in the natural that understands the Truth of God. We might see discomfort, the wind and the waves, but when you hear God speaking to you on the inside you see the peace of God working in the situation. And we can see what He is asking us to do. When God shows up it has nothing to do with us, whether we're up to snuff. It's all about Him.
17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.
When we aren't living in the perfect nature of God's truth it doesn't mean we aren't God's children. It means we are engaging in a lie.
The tangible always preceed the things that we see. The truths of God are what allow us to look at the tangible things and understand them. We understand them through the ultimate reality that God has created, and how the thoughts He has given us allow us to understand them.
The world is changing right now at such a rate that it is going to challenge the believer's trust in the Father.
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
Lean not on what we think, what economies say, what the world says. Lean on the understanding God has given us. Like the song Wreckless Love, God goes all in. Faith isn't a hedged bet. God will work with us as we grow. And he will get us to a place where it is all Him, but we have to be all in and working toward that. God is not a hedged bet. We have to want to make Him our everything. More and more God is calling us away from the things that make sense, the things of this world.
What insurance plan did Jesus have? You have to ask this question. Because God is going to get us to a point where the Holy Spirit is like the kerosene oil inside of us that lights us up and God is all we got.
Divine healing is for the unbelievers. Divine health is for believers, and becomes a matter of taking care of what we already have.
If you have symptoms of illness, we don't say "we are sick." Why? The devil wants us to say that so that we establish the lie in our life. Look at Proverbs 18.
21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.
When we say "I'm sick," we establish that in our life. When we say "we are fighting sickness," we are identifying the lie and fighting against that attack of the devil.
13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
When we know the truth of God, we know the escape from every attack. When we look like we are comfortable, okay, or doing fine, that is when the devil attacks. If you think you are good at something, we are in pride, automatically resisted by the Father, and vulnerable to the attacks of the devil.
The way of escape is sort of the tricky piece. Here is how God delivers that.
25 “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. 28 You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I.
It is the Holy Spirit that is bringing it to our rememberance. We have to get really good at running to the Father. Depending on Him. Being humble, and avoiding pride.
If we can't find the way, the truth, or the life, we have to look at which way promotes God's abundant life and that is the way to go.
Free people can free other people. Slaves can't free slaves. When we are free, and we walk in the love of Jesus, then we are moving in a way that can free others.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
Love is not just what He does, it is who He is. So if we are children of God, then we will know His Love. This gives us another way to understand how to interpret what is right. If it is the way that promotes the love of God, then it is the way. If we are operating in a way that does not do this, then we are operating in a lie. But when we operate in the gifts of the Spirit, we are releasing the Love of God into this world.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
Whatever promotes love, that is truth. What's more important than right or wrong, winning or losing an argument, is the relationships we have with people. Jesus forgiving the Roman soldiers is the kind of wreckless and crazy love that the Father has for us, and the kind of Love He calls us to have for others.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
There is nothing we can do to stop God from loving us. But what we do can cause us to stop loving Him. This is what our sin is designed to do.
When we get into the lie that we don't deserve to be loved, that is what trips us up. But when we receive it, then we can freely give it.
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