War, Is Jesus Coming?

There are wars, and rumors of war. Does that mean Jesus is coming soon? I’m Joel Fieri. Let’s talk about it. This is What You’ve Been Searching For. Stay tuned.

Right, If you caught our previous podcast here on What You’ve Been Searching For, we talked about how to look at the situation in Ukraine. As of this taping, Russia is still invading Ukraine, and a lot of people, naturally, as Christians, are looking at the situation, wondering, “Is this the biblical Gog and Magog moving in the world? Is this a final stepping stone in prophecy? Does this mean Jesus’ return is imminent?” And if you caught the podcast, you heard me say why I don’t necessarily look at events like this to give me insight or determine whether or not I think Jesus’s return is imminent, next week tomorrow, whatever it may be.

I’ve been a Christian a long time, and I’ve heard a lot of predictions, and I mean, a lot of predictions, a lot of prophecy talks, a lot of people saying, “This event or that event is a fulfillment of prophecy in Isaiah, or Daniel, or Matthew,” whatever it is, and I talked about why I don’t look at these events to give me insight or certainty about Jesus’ return. I’m certain Jesus is going to return. He said he would, and he said, “When you hear of these things, look up, for my coming is nigh, is soon,” but he said that 2,000 years ago. So, there’s obviously a meaning there that doesn’t mean soon being tomorrow, or next week, or next year.

So, what I wanted to tell you today is I told you last time what I don’t look for when I think of biblical prophecy. This podcast, I want to tell you what I do look for, and there are two things that Jesus said in Matthew 24, that should guide us significantly in how we think of biblical prophecy, and specifically Jesus’ return, and the end times. In Matthew 24, Jesus says a couple things. First, he says that “When all nations hear the gospel, when this gospel of the kingdom goes out to all nations, to all the earth, to all the world, then the end is near,” and he also says later on in Matthew 24, “I don’t know when that is.” Jesus did not know when that is. He said, “Nobody knows. Not even me. Only the father knows.” So, those two things right there give us significant clues when we think of when will the end times come? When will Jesus return? When will he return, and set up his kingdom? Well, not until the entire world hears about his kingdom.

So, that’s why in my life, just full disclosure here, I’m on the board of directors of an organization called Talking Bibles, and what we do at Talking Bibles is we take Bible translations, and instead of turning them into printed Bibles to distribute, we turn them into audio Bibles to distribute to the approximately two or two and a half billion people in the world who can’t read, and they never will read, their grandparents and parents never read, and their children and grandchildren are not going to read. That’s not how their culture takes in and processes truth and information, they do it orally.

So, what we at Talking Bibles do is we take Bible translations, and we record them on little MP3 players, and we try and get as many of those distributed to villages, to pastors, local pastors in places where people don’t read the gospel, places where the gospel has not been heard, and where people are not going to pick up a Bible and read it, but they will sit around in their village if someone has an audio Bible player, and they’ll hear the gospel in what we call their heart language.

So, we have a plan to do this. We have a plan to distribute these Bibles to all two billion people, but that’s going to take an awful long time. So, given what Jesus says about the end times and about what will have to happen before for the end comes, it could be a long while. And again, just think about the Christians throughout history that must’ve thought back in the early church, when Rome was persecuting, and Christians were being fed to the lions for entertainment in Rome, people must’ve thought, “The end is near. It can’t any worse than this.” And fast forward all the way to the American Civil War, World War I, World War I was the war to end all wars. It couldn’t possibly get worse than World War I, until World War II came along, when it was twice as bad, at least.

Well, by that time, people had to think, “This has to be the end. It has to be end times. Look at all the suffering that people are going to. We’re looking up, God, we’re looking up. Your coming must be soon,” and like I said, if you look just recent times, everything from 9/11, to Y2K that we talked about, all the way up to our modern situation, our present day situation, again, these things mean that God’s coming, Jesus’ coming is closer, for sure. Just every day, we’re closer to his return, and all these things are contributing, but keep in mind, we’re not supposed to know the answer to that question. We’re not supposed to know when Jesus is returning. If anybody has any prediction, certainly if they give you any date or time because of this prophecy lining up, or that prophecy lining up, please don’t listen. I listened for years, and finally, I got to the point where I’m not listening anymore. I’ve heard too many predictions, too many sure things not happen, too many sure predictions not coming true.

We have an assignment while we’re here on this earth to know God, to make his kingdom known. When all the earth hears the gospel of that kingdom, then the end will come, and only God knows. So, the trouble in the world that we’re having now, this very scary invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the possible invasion of Taiwan by China, that could be real trouble, but it shouldn’t matter for us as Christians. God doesn’t promise the absence of trouble in our lives. What he does promise is that he will be with us through that trouble, and that we, as Christians, don’t focus on the trouble of this present time, we focus on eternity, when we eventually will be with him face to face.

So again, pay attention to what’s going on, definitely pray for the people of Ukraine, pray for the people of Russia, pray for the whole situation. Again, if it causes you to examine your faith, if it causes you to be more serious about telling people about the kingdom, the gospel of the kingdom, that’s fantastic, because that’s what our assignment is, and that’s what our number one concern is. Let God worry about when Jesus is coming back, because he’s the only one that can.

So, I hope that’s helpful. I hope that gives you some perspective in what is obviously a scary time. That’s what we’re here for at Christian Podcast Central. If you like what we do here, like and subscribe, share with someone else who may be a little bit scared right now, or wondering what the best way to think of this is, and go to christianpodcastcentral.com, as always. We’ve got a lot of good stuff there, folks. We think you’ll enjoy it. Comment below if you think I’m right, if you think I’m wrong. Let us know. Join the conversation. I’m Joel Fieri. Thanks for listening.