Calvary Bible Church of Kalamazoo, Michigan

Please open with me to Matthew 24.

The disciples ask Jesus a question that interests all of us, I’m so glad they did. Follow along as they ask in Matthew 24:3, and as Jesus answers them in verse 8 and 33.

This week I was examining just how much God has left for us to know about the future. Here is what I found summarized by a series of NUMBERS!

I hold in my hand the ONE Book that God wrote—the Bible.

That one book has TWO parts—the Old Testament and the New Testament.
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As we open to Matthew 24:21-22, we come to the Second Coming of Christ, the 4th of 7 Big Events on God’s Calendar that we are examining from last to first.

The Second Coming of Jesus Christ is the single greatest visible expression of God’s power to the entire Earth, since the Flood of Noah. But as we look at Christ's Coming, and the Tribulation it follows, we must understand why Jesus comes when He does.
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Please open with me to I Corinthians 3:10-15.

This evening we look at one of the most sobering day of our lives as believers. The entire Trinity will be involved in that day.

We all were saved one day by God’s grace through the Cross of Jesus;

We all live each day energized by the grace of the Holy Spirit; but

We all will stand and have all our days lived as believers analyzed and tested by Jesus Christ for the works we used those days to accomplish. (Read More)

As we open to II Peter 3, think about the greatest day of our lives. That will be the day we each get to stand before the Lord Jesus Christ—and kneel in front of the One who loved us so much that He came and took our sins upon Himself, died in our place on the Cross, and freely gave us His forgiveness, cleansing, and salvation. (Read More)

Jesus enclosed a snapshot of what life on earth was like--just before He touched down on the Mt. of Olives, the Ground Zero of His Second Coming.

Those snapshots are in Matthew. So please open with me to the greatest sermon on the end of the world ever preached—Matthew 24. Jesus is mapping out the future. He is walking His disciples through a long and complex answer to their simple question in v. 3: (Read More)


As believers, God gives us an insider’s knowledge. There is an eventual major upheaval in the worldwide social and economic situation. All the currency of the world: its money, possessions, fashions, and whims, will be worthless at our death or Christ's return, either of which could be very soon. This insight should utterly change our investment strategy.
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As the end of the physical world approaches, earth’s darkest spiritual hour also arrives.

Satan knows that God has plans to save “a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands…” (Revelation 7:9).
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Please open with me to I Timothy 3:15.

God designed His Church to be pillars, grounded in truth as God’s household living on earth; but that truth is under assault--and God has said the war against truth will intensify as the world nears its final hour.

We have gathered as Christ's Church. We are members of God’s household and part of His family; and our purpose is to uphold by what we live and say God’s Truth as recorded in the Bible. Please stand as we listen to God describing us this evening:
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Jesus sat on the olive tree covered slopes of the Mt. of Olives, and gave His disciples a private briefing of the End of Days for Planet earth. In the shortest and yet most complete summary He describes life from His 1st Advent through to His 2nd. That sermon called by theologians the “Olivet Discourse” is again our focus, as we open to Matthew 24:7. Tonight we hear Jesus is describing another element of what the Earth would be like at His Coming.
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Do we as present day believers get to escape all of the dangerous times of death and destruction of the Tribulation? In a precise, accurate, Biblical, and theological way the true answer is: YES. Christ's church is not destined or appointed to go through that wrath (I Thessalonians 5:9).
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We can see on the horizon this evening, the world Jesus described as Earth at the End of Days.

As we open to Luke 21, remember, Christ's sermon called the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21) was His description of what the world would be like during the Tribulation’s horrors. But He framed His horrific description of the End of Days by these incredible words in one of these three parallel accounts, the one recorded in Luke 21:28:

“When you see these things (listen) BEGIN to happen, look up…”.
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Please join me in Psalm 119 and look over God’s curriculum in “The School of Suffering”, where our Lord shares with us what He expects from each of us as we go through all the various painful forms of suffering, afflictions, trails, and troubles.

The longest chapter in the Bible is the summary of the entire Old Testament written by Ezra after he had copied all of the chapters of the Old Testament into what we would call Biblical Hebrew, In fact, the famous Dead Sea Scrolls would be copies of the scrolls that Ezra hand wrote as the founder of the Biblical Scribes. (Read More)

Jesus lives—The Tomb is empty.

Death is defeated—The Grave is opened.

God is in control—His Word is true.

The Devil’s power is destroyed—God won.

Historic Faith can say Christ Lives—but Saving Faith always says Christ Lives in me! (Read More)

As we open to Psalm 119:71, we as a nation are in the midst of one of the most challenging times American’s have faced for over a generation. But as bad as it may seem, think about how hard life was here in the USA in 1917.

That year, World War I was sapping the finances, wearing down the resolve, and destroying the young men of this nation. In the midst of all that, there was no government security for the sick or unemployed.
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Adam’s sin allowed death to enter the world. Our original parents were first to taste the warmth of life, and also first to feel the coldness of death. Before the fall there was no disease, no coughing, fevers, convulsions, or death. But death brought sickness when it arrived, and now sickness accounts for the most deaths each year around the world.
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Satan the Dragon has a fixation on destroying the people of the Name (Rev. 15).

God has written history, and put on paper that He is going to save a remnant of Israel at their final and most desperate hour (Zechariah 12-14).

Satan can read. He knows the written down parts of the plan, and for the past 2600 years since that plan and other parts were revealed, he has intensified his efforts to thwart God. (Read More)

As we approach God's Word we know that God has clearly and simply laid out His Word for us to know and live confidently for Him. Among the most fundamental truths in the Scriptures is contained in God’s eternal plan for His chosen people of promise the Jews and His nation Israel.

No matter what your background has been in understanding the Bible there are three markers plainly seen in God’s Word:

God makes an eternal covenant promise to Abraham and his descendants the Israelites, or Jewish people—making them the Chosen People of Promise in Genesis 12. (Read More)

Three thousand years ago the greatest human fortune ever amassed on Earth was passed on from father to son. Please turn with me to I Chronicles 22.

King David in 970BC gave Solomon 1 million talents of silver (that means somewhere between 60 and 100 million pounds of silver, or 30 to 50 thousand tons of silver, worth 14.4 to 24 billion dollars today at recent market closes of about $15/ounce).
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As we open to Romans 11, we all need to understand more and more about how God has worked in the past, and what He has planned for the future. One of the richest ways to do that is through a closer look at Israel and the Jewish people. God has declared that they are His chosen people of destiny. First we need to remind ourselves of the reality God presents to New Testament believers of: 

Our Amazingly Jewish Heritage

As believers, we are headed: (Read More)

God has made hundreds of promises to the direct descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-know as the nation of Israel, the Jewish people. In fact, there are more verses and chapters of the Bible are devoted to the Jews, the Nation of Israel, and their future on Earth before the end of the world-than any other subject or topic in all of the Scriptures.

All of the promises and predictions that God made are part of His offer to us that identifies Him as the true God. We could boil all of those hundreds of promises down to 12 clear groups. (Read More)

As we open to Jeremiah 30-31 tonight we are looking at the 12 keys God has given us in His Word to identify the nation among nations that will signal the end of days. Those people are the Jews, the nation of Israel, His Chosen People of Promise:

These keys are only part of the evidence, as we shall see, that the prophesied "last days" are upon us and that our generation will likely see the remainder of Bible prophecy fulfilled.   (Read More)

God uses 12 promises in His Word to identify Israel as the nation that will signal the end of days. God has declared that the Jews, are the nation of Israel, and are His Chosen People of Promise:

I believe that the prophesied "last days" are upon us and that our generation will likely see the remainder of what God's Word has foretold would happen to the nation of Israel. (Read More)

The God who recorded the beginning, that no one but Him witnessed in Genesis; is also the God gives us the ending, that no one but Him could have ever written, in Revelation.

Isn't it amazing that God devotes 1/4^th or 25% of the Bible to the indivisible union that the world's destiny has with God's Chosen People of Promise, Israel, Jerusalem, and the Jews? Never forget: (Read More)

As we open to II Chronicles 6, always remember that God has had His eye one very special piece of property for a long time. (Read More)

We have come to the twelfth and final promise God made to Israel.

God PROMISED in His Word that: Jesus will return as Israel's Messiah, Jesus Christ the Pierced Messiah will rescue the Jews at their darkest hour, after defeating all their enemies and locking up their fiercest adversary the Devil they will rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem for all the world to visit, and finally that Jesus Christ, the Son of David will sit as the Promised King on the Throne of David. (Read More)

Nothing can ever compare to the return of the King.

Earth again will see its Creator no longer shrouded in the form of a humble servant. Christ's Return is with the blazing glory that slightly glowed from the Mount of Transfiguration, but that on Patmos was as blinding as the Sun in the witness of the Apostle John. (Read More)

Each year we get to start a new fresh page.

This year that page is named 2010, and it contains 365 1/4 days, 8766 hours, 1/2 million minutes[1], and 31 1/2 million seconds.

But more than anything else, this new year is a new opportunity for each of us to invest as much of that time as we want to into the First Eternal Bank of Jesus Christ, located at the Throne of the Almighty Ancient of Days, at the source of the River of Life, in the center of the Crystal Sea, also commonly known as Heaven. (Read More)

The closer we get to the end of days, the more we need the bright hope of the early church that radiated from the catacombs and arenas of persecution to radiate from our lives today.

As we open to Luke 21 we find Jesus explaining how to impact our lost world for Him on a daily basis. We can make a choice, that makes our life able to powerfully display Him to a watching world; and that choice is to live in hope. When we live in hope we redeem our time. Daily life when filled with hope makes every moment count for eternity. (Read More)

True salvation implants an inextinguishable hope within us. Prophecy is probably the most encouraging and affirming study we can do in God's Word and especially prophecy. Prophecy has inspired believers since the very first recorded teaching on prophecy in the earliest days of Christ's church; and it is the hope we have of Christ's return that has inspired believers to face troubles, afflictions, and wearying persecutions. This morning, as we read the darkest hours of mankind's earthly journey, note how Jesus weaves into this dark fabric, the rays of HOPE. (Read More)