I've often awakened in the morning to a local news station. Great way to wake up. Or check your phone for news. It gets your day off to a really cheerful start. You can hear about a war or two, a little terrorism, some of last night's fatalities. Oh yeah, that will get you started! Actually it's not the news I'm actually so interested in, it's the weather I want to hear. And when you hear the weather, then you can plan your day's wardrobe and your activities, you know, that's a good planning tool.
In fact, if I'm in charge of an important meeting or an event that's coming up in a few days, I want the five-day weather forecast. Okay, it's not always right, but it does help me anticipate some of the problems and some of my responses and how we ought to plan. Recently I read a long, long, long-range forecast; one that should help you and help me as we make our plans.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Last Days Forecast."
Our word for today from the Word of God; it comes from Matthew 24. The disciples are asking in verse 3, "What will be the sign of your coming, Jesus, and of the end of the age?" Well, people have been curious about this for two thousand years, "What's it going to look like before the Lord comes and He writes that last chapter of human history?" Well, Jesus, in part of His answer says, "You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation..." Sounds a little familiar doesn't it? "...kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains."
Well, our world really seems to be fitting this description in a lot of ways: religious turbulence, merging with international turbulence, merging with turbulence in nature, all coming together at one time. When that happens, Jesus said, "I'm coming." What will the weather be in the church during those countdown days? Listen to this from verse 12: "Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. But he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."
Now, you'd think that in these terminal days with everything turbulent that Christians would become more and more excited and more and more aggressive in their witness for Christ. But there are two groups, basically, in the last day's weather forecast...the cold and the hot. And it says, "The love of most will grow cold." You know, cooling is gradual, you don't even notice it.
And it might be that you've been drifting toward coldness and you haven't even realized it. Because the way the world has become so corrupt, you still look good, but really you've cooled off tremendously in your walk with the Lord. You gradually start to spend less time with Him. You watch what you wouldn't have watched before, and you listen to what you wouldn't have listened to. You go where you wouldn't have considered going only a short time ago. Sin slowly becomes more attractive; the things of God less attractive. You're not exploded; you're just eroded - a deserter.
But it's a time for heroes too, because Jesus said, "There will be those who will become hotter, who take their stand, who spread the gospel of the kingdom to the ends of the world." So, you're either going to become colder or bolder; no third group. Pick your group. You're becoming one or the other right now. Most, Jesus said, become colder. You know why? Because colder doesn't require any choice; you just drift to coolness. Bolder? Now, that demands a choice, "I will take a stand. I will not compromise. I will be unembarrassed about my association with Jesus Christ." If you haven't chosen bolder, you're probably getting colder.
You know, I'm thinking there's not a lot of time left on God's clock. We don't know but it's looking like the kind of world that Jesus said He would come to. This is a time for passion, for action! The cold winds of earth's last days might be blowing right now. It's time to write your own personal forecast, "Very hot for Jesus until He comes!"