March 11th, 2022

Transcript (Automatically generated):

Hello Community Bible Church this is Pastor Joel.

I wanted to address a few things and really just a few worries that I've been hearing. A lot of people have asked me, I've been getting a lot of questions about the war over in Ukraine right now. And if this is a sign of the end, if this is going to be the end of the world, or should we be anxious, should we be worried here?

And so I wanted to just to take a minute and address this because Jesus actually addresses this same thing with his disciples 2000 years ago. Whenever Jesus was sitting on the Mount of olives. His disciples came to a Matthew 24 and said, Jesus, what is the sign of your coming back again? We know that you're coming back again.

So can you tell us, can you give us some indication, can you give us some hits some insider knowledge to let us know that you are about to return soon? And Jesus graciously answers them and starts to give, uh, some hits some indications about when he is going to return back what they can look for. And so in Matthew 24, He says, “see that no one leads you astray for many will come in my name saying I am the Christ and they will lead many astray.”
And that word for Christ means Messiah. It's really just somebody that claims that they can get to God and they can, uh, uh, show you the way as well. But we know that there's only one. That Jesus Christ was the one true Messiah. And so there's many other false religions, many other false teachings who claim to be like a Messiah that says we will lead you to God, but we know that it's not true.

And so we look around and we say, certainly that is true here today  that we know that there is many, many people that are being led astray. And so certainly we are in the in times, and I believe that that we are in the entire. And he goes on and actually even makes a more compelling case. And the next verse six, it says, and you will hear of wars and rumors of war.

And we say, well, that's definitely true, right? Every time that I turn on the TV, every time I go on Facebook, every time I turn on my phone, I just getting updates of wars and rumors of wars. And now maybe what if America gets pulled into it? What if there's a nuclear war? How is this all going to end?

We're worried about our economy or worried about our kids. We're worried about everything right now, because we are hearing wars and rumors of wars and thinking that this certainly must be the. But listen to what Jesus said next. “See that you are not alarmed”. See that you are not alone, even though there's wars and rumors of wars going on.
And there are false religions leading people away, don't be alarmed. And we say, how in the world could we not be alarmed? Does he not understand the modern warfare and nuclear war? Does he not understand how scary this can be? Yes, he understands it. And the reason why we ought not to be alarmed, number one is because this place is not our home.

America's not our home. Similarly, if we were to go over to Ukraine, you know what we would be probably alarmed. We would probably want to help those people out in any way that we could. But at the same time, we would not nearly be as invested in. As if we were people of Ukraine Ukrainians, right?

Because if it was your home, you would be completely invested in it. But if you were just an American over there, you would want to do the best to help out. But yet you could know that I'm going to go back to America and before. And in the same way for us here, this world is not our home. So, we can look around and we shot a be doing good.

We ought to do good by the city that we are in, as Jeremiah, the prophet, told us. At the same time we ought not be scared because this world is not our home. America's not our home, Florida is not our home, our home and our citizenship is in heaven and that remains undefeated, amen? And so we ought not be scared, we ought not to be worried.

And then the second reason that we ought not to be sacred, is because it's all in God's plan. God has been orchestrating every single thing. And so, yes, I do believe that this war is helping lead us to the second coming. But I also think that World War Two was helping us lead to the, in terms of what it was able to do for the nation of Israel.

And, and even though Satan gave his worst attack that he possibly could try. God was still in control over that. Wasn't he and every single war since Christ has ascended back into heaven, I was just been in preparation, preparing this place, put player in this earth for the return of his king and the new heaven and the new earth.

So we can rest assured knowing that even this is all in His plans. I don't believe he causes a, this type of bloodshed, but I believe he is using all of this in order to bring people to Him, and make all things work together for good. And that good is that he is going to come back.
 but [the verses] go on, It says “for this must take place, but the end is not yet. The end is not yet.” So just because you hear of wars and rumors of wars does not necessarily mean that this is the end. We might be scared, and if that is you today and you are scared and you are worried. Let me encourage you go to the one who can help alleviate that, go to the one that said, take my yoke upon you. It is easy and light. That is Jesus Christ. And so if you are anxious, if you are scared, if you are worried about any of this, I encourage you to take it to the Lord in prayer. He can handle it and he can give you that peace that you are. One day he is going to come back and that might be today, or it might be after we all pass away, but that is in God's hands, and we can just anxiously await for Him and we can longingly look for Him, but then we can also get on our knees right now and talk to Him and what a blessed hope that is.

And so that's what I have here for you today. I hope it encourages you just to remind you. Don't be anxious. Don't be scared. Don't be worried because it's all in God's hands and we can rest in him and know that his plans are for our good too. God bless.