Knowledge, rapid travel, and lukewarm Orthodoxy

Daniel prophesied the increase of knowledge and rapid travel (Daniel12:4) and when we tie that sign together with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as mentioned in Joel 2:28-29 along with the pleasure craze mentioned in 2Timothy 3:4 and religious formality in 2 Timothy 3:5, it all fits into the lukewarm Orthodoxy found in Matthew 13:24-30 and also mentioned in Revelation 3:14-21. There will be scoffers who will deny that Christ came or is coming and live by their own conscience (2Peter 3:3-4).

Does this not portray what is taking place in the Church and the world today?

When we look at the Lord’s return, we are looking for evidence and signs so that we can be aware of what is happening around us.

Matthew 24:35~39 The heaven and the earth shall pass away, but My Words shall not pass away. 36 But of that day and hour no one knows, no, not the angels of Heaven, but only My Father. 37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered into the ark. 39 And they did not know until the flood came and took them all away. So also will be the coming of the Son of Man. (MKJV)

Matthew 24:35~39 tells us something important. It is giving us a sign of what is going to happen before Jesus comes back. People eating, drinking, marrying, life is going on just like we know it is. That is just a normal pattern.

When we look at Noah, he was building a ship for 120 years. He was telling people there was going to be a flood. People said, what is flood? He said when the rain comes. People said, “What is rain?” they never knew what rain was. They had never experience rain or even a flood. They had no idea what a ship was.

He was building this big thing and he probably had people help him work. He was telling them that one day this water will come, and people will die, but people were eating, drinking, marring, having children, living their lives, they had no worries and no need of a big boat or God.

Today people have become comfortable, they think they don’t need God. They have knowledge of a god or something about a god, but they don’t think they need Him. Noah was preaching for 120 years, or should I say Noah was telling people that this flood was coming, and only 7 people believed him, his wife, his 3 sons and their 3 wives, that’s all he got saved. Seven people, because they went into the ark, and they were lifted up upon the water. All the people in the water, his brother, cousins, and his aunts were taken away by the flood and taken away by the devil.

Success is like the flood. People don’t have any need of God. People don’t understand that a lot of success comes from Satan, he gives them success. Success is like sitting in the room, the door is open, you can come and go out of the doorway, like today we have Taobao (Chinese eBay), and we can do all our shopping and get it sent to our homes. It’s almost like we don’t have to go outside. We could run a business on Internet; we can make some money there. We don’t have to ever leave the house. We have a door, and we are free to come and go. We could be successful, and we have no need of God, then at the end of our life the door is closed. When it gets closed you can’t get out. It’s like the devil can give you so much success you don’t go out for God, then the end of your life the door is closed, then it’s too late. You can’t be saved after your death. Noah was saying to the people, come in, into the protection of God, but they were blessed by the enemy, they didn’t think there was any danger. We call that in English: complacency. It is to think you are comfortable and to not have any problems in the world. It was in the days of Noah so it will be like when Jesus returns.

Today in China, people are more comfortable! We are living as probably the most prosperous generation in history. We have more today than most young people in the world. What people don’t realize about China is that we have two types of people in China. There are those who are farmers who work very hard, and they don’t have much money. Then there are those who work in the city, who have jobs, and they have more money, they are living comfortably. This city is very modern compared with many other cities in the world, probably more modern than Melbourne where I used to live. China is in that place now where they are becoming complacent, they are becoming so used to the warm conditions of life, they have become comfortable, and they have no need of God. It’s telling me, according to the Scripture, the return of Jesus Christ is not far away. Let us go out and tell people about Jesus, so if they die, Jesus can come and get them. Once you die, and if you do not believe in God, and you do not believe in Jesus, you are going to find out the truth that there is a God, there is a heaven and hell. You can beg as much as you like, you can never get out of hell and come into heaven, because there is no right of appeal after death.

It’s like when you go to the court, the judge will say guilty, you can pay your lawyer some money, he could make an appeal to change the verdict, if you have enough money, he might make a good appeal, so the verdict is changed. But our lawyer in heaven is Jesus, you cannot make appeal once you died! You must make the appeal now.

We need to tell people because the next scripture is very important.

Matthew 25:12~27 But he answered and said, Truly I say to you, I do not know you. 13 Therefore watch, for you do not know either the day or the hour in which the Son of Man comes. 14 For it is as if a man going abroad called his own servants and gave them his goods. 15 And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to each according to his ability. And he went abroad at once. 16 And going he who had received the five talents traded with them, and made another five talents. 17 And likewise he who had received two, he also gained another two. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the earth and hid his lord’s silver. 19 After a long time the lord of those servants came and took account with them. 20 And so he who had received five talents came and brought another five talents, saying, Lord, you delivered five talents to me. Behold, I have gained five talents above them. 21 His lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord. 22 He also who had received two talents came and said, Lord, you delivered two talents to me. Behold, I have gained two other talents above them. 23 His lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord. 24 And he who had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew that you were a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter. 25 And I was afraid and went and hid your talent in the earth. Lo, you have yours. 26 His lord answered and said to him, Evil and slothful servant! You knew that I reaped where I did not sow, and gathered where I did not scatter, 27 then you should have put my money to the exchangers, and coming I would have received my own with interest. (MKJV)

Here it is talking about 3 types of people and their talents. There is one who has lots of talents! They can do many things, like Noah. He could preach, he could build and organize people, he did lots of things. He has many talents and for 120 years he used his talents as much as he could. When he went home to heaven, God said: well done.

Then there is another type of person, maybe like one of his sons, maybe he couldn’t preach, but he could build, he could do some other things. So today we can look at people and say that that person has 10 talents, that person used all his talents to do many different things for one purpose for the Kingdom of God to come. So we wash dishes, make a coffee, we say hello to people, we preach the Word of God, we teach the Word of God, we run church, we can work on a computer, we can write books, we can do a lot of things. So that person has lots of talents like Noah. When they die, they will hear God say: very faithful servant, come in.

Someone else may come along and say, I can’t sing, I can’t wash dishes, I can’t write books, I can’t preach, but I can do this, and I can do this for one purpose, for the Kingdom of God to come into someone’s life. So, they might bring people to church for one purpose to see people get saved. So the person who has 10 or 5 talents, are exactly the same, they will hear the same words from God: well done very faithful servant, come in.

The third Christian, say this: thank you, I’m saved, I believe in you Jesus, but I’m not going to tell anyone, because I’m afraid, I have nothing to offer, I’m not going to tell anybody, I believe in you, you are a wonderful God, hallelujah, and God will say to them: you evil servant, you are evil, because you has not thought of anyone else, you don’t care whether people come into the Kingdom of God, I don’t even know you, go away from me.

God gives us something. That one talent He gives every single Christian is their story. Every single Christian has their story of how they met Jesus Christ, so they have the story of Jesus, which is married to their story, which is the story of salvation. If you failed to tell your story and the story of Jesus together, and you don’t tell people so they can get saved, you are an evil servant. God gives us something, and if we don’t go out and do something, of course we have a choice, do we want to tell people about the Kingdom of God or not. I would not like to have 10 talents but only use 5; I want to use them all. I would not want 5 talents and only use 2; I would want to use them all. So that is a choice, is it not? Do we want to do it?

Today in the church, especially the western church, I see lots of people sitting in the church, they preach about making money, because everybody wants to have a better financial life. They are using some of their talent and they think they are going to be regarded as faithful servant, no, they are not! They will be regarded as evil.

If you are a Christian, and you are making a million dollars a year, and you think because you are making that money, you are a successful Christian, you are deceived. The Devil could be blessing you. If it is God you should be giving half of that into missions, so that you can bring the Kingdom of God to many. That’s one of the signs of these last days and it is a sure way to give God the glory.

Let us take countries like America, England, and Australia, they have many millionaires. They cannot take their money to the grave. You cannot take your money to heaven. Can you imagine a box full of gold, you tied a rope on the box, and you tied it on your ankle, and the resurrection comes, their body will go up, keep going up until rope becomes tight, they get pulled back down to the ground. Up, down, up, down. I could see millions of Christians in America, England, Australia and even in China will be like that, because they make, making money their purpose. It can be a gift from God to be successful; it can be a gift from devil too. God does not have the rope. We need to break free of the thinking, so we can make a million, and give half away. We could be given talents to make money, and when we come into heaven, God will says come in, faithful servant, thank you for feeding me, clothing me, thank you for giving me some where to sleep. And that servant will say: when? When did I do those things? God will say when you did things for little people.

I have found one of the hardest things is to get support for missions, which tells me the Lord is coming back soon, because people have become cold, and they do not see the urgency of Christ return.

There are many in the churches that don’t even know He is returning! The shepherds and pastors are not teaching about His return. They don’t know the hour, they don’t know the day of His return, we don’t either, but we don’t ignore the fact that HE is coming back. They are ignoring the fact that He’s coming back, and they are like the evil servants that builds up a big storeroom and filled it up with all goods, saying;” I will go there make this, and I will go there make this, then the next day, they die”, they cannot take it to heaven. There is only one thing we can take to heaven besides ourselves and that is someone else. The only way we can take someone else to heaven is to share the Gospel. And if we can’t share it, maybe we can help someone else by supplying them with finance so they can go and share it.

James 4:13~14  Come now, those saying, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and spend a year there, and we will trade and will make a profit, 14 who do not know of the morrow. For what is your life? For it is a vapor, which appears for a little time, and then disappears. (MKJV)