The End - ‘Endure and be Saved’ Pt 1
Jesus said:’For the things concerning Me have an end’ Luke 22:37.
“But you Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase” Daniel 12:4.
“Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and the end of the age?” Matthew 24:3b.
“Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world (ages)”Amen’ Matthew 28:20.
‘So it will be at the end of the world (age). The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just’ Matthew 13:49.
The end of the world as we know it is clearly written about in the Bible. As a believing Christian, you must have a clear understanding of the end, and know that there is actually an end, if you are to endure the immense pressures that will be on this generation before Jesus Christ returns to earth. With all that has happened in 2020-21with the pandemic, economy and politics, it is becoming very clear we are now closer than ever to this truth. The world talks of a ‘global reset’ for all nations, and that may be their agenda, but the Church in this time has begun a transition into a spiritual reset to get us ready for these end days before Jesus returns.
Many Christians know we are at the end, but most don’t want to really believe it is the end. They would agree that the sign’s of the end are all here right now. ‘The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard’ Isaiah 24:20. In the past 2 years to 2021, humanity has come under increasing stresses at many levels, and it is accelerating like never before, but will many who are Christians have the character and strength in their faith to endure these pressures in life to the end?
Twenty - thirty years ago, preaching and studying on the end-times in churches was a common practice, but since then the world has changed, escalating at an unprecedented rate. Knowledge, technology, and the pursuit of the unending levels of success and material gain have changed people’s priorities. There is nothing wrong with being prosperous, as the fulfilment of God’s purposes and vision requires great levels of resources. The Bible also tells us to prosper, and in a time of gross darkness at the end there will be a great transfer of wealth from the world to the Church. This will also enable the Christian Church worldwide to completely reach the nations for Jesus (Isaiah 60).
However, the image of much of the modern day contemporary Church does not focus on the end and its complete finality as much as it used to. Hence today most of the new generation of young Christians don’t really want to consider an end of things. After all, it is deemed ‘negative and doomsday’; many just want to stay bright, positive, party, be successful, or famous, and accumulate houses and wealth any way they can, for that is where the good and best life is. Really?
In many churches, being positive and successful, with a future that always will be good, has often been the more prevalent promoted yearly message in these end days. Nonetheless, although it is important, it is not by far the full picture of Christianity. The Bible also has another voice other than just success, Jesus Christ exhorts all Christians to live absolutely watchful, sober and ready for the end, and gives clear scriptures to know what to expect. Now is the time for you to know the truth.
If your church just continues to expound a soft leadership gospel of success, comfort and lifestyle, and doesn't teach and inform on navigating with critical thinking, the end days in which we live, then you need to take responsibility and work out your salvation and knowledge and discover it for yourself (Philippians 2:12). The signs are everywhere now and if you are a believer seeking truth and answers, you need to study, search, find, and grasp the reality of the truth of these days now we live in.
Ahead of us, there will be incredible pressures to endure, at a level humanity has not seen in all history. Post 9/11 in New York, when a spirit of fear permeated the earth, humanity has had a growing awareness and is now awakening to the fact, that something is terribly wrong in our rapidly changing world. In 2008 I first released this book, The End - He who Endures shall be Saved. Now in 2021, the message of the end-times is increasing rapidly. People are hungry to know the truth and how to be prepared to navigate through these times as believers. The challenges are on our door step, the last of the last days are upon us.
Rewind 2000 years: Jesus sat quietly on the Mount of Olives gazing down at His beloved city of Jerusalem. The burnt ochre light of the setting sun burst its dusty beams across his face. One by one His disciples were joining him in the grove of trees, they quietly sat down and chatted among themselves not wanting to disturb the Master’s thought. The eyes of the Lord were twinkling in the sunset; rimmed with glistening tears. The deep wrench of emotions still agitated within Him, as He replayed in His mind the lament He had for that city (Matthew 23:31-39).
He felt the pain for the prophets He had sent over the centuries to guide Jerusalem’s way. They were often killed by the serpents of religious venom; now He sat there on the Mount feeling waves of Fathers love for them all. He longed for them like an old man His grandchildren. But in His eyes He saw only the coming destruction of the city He loved; every stone thrown down, a necessary evil that would surely happen in a not to distant future.
The sun’s rays turned His eyes into burnished fire. In His mind He was now far away from the Mount of Olives, rushing down the corridors of time viewing the pain and heartache of man’s wars and destruction, and also their achievements. Yet Christ could see the end coming in about two thousand years ahead, but to Him it was only like two short days away. ‘with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.’ 2 Peter 3:8.
Jesus is the Omega (Revelation 1:8) - The End seeing the end, for history is His-Story, and it all has a final culmination (Luke 22:37). There is an end to come before Jesus returns to earth, and this world system as we have known it, will be no more; devastation that will make the fallen stones of Jerusalem in 70AD pale in comparison.
The disciples of Jesus were now getting impatient and broke into the eternal thoughts of the Master. He came rushing back at warp speed to the present time on the Mount of Olives. His eyes were clear and shiny but seemed far away somewhere; then the disciples questions came, lots of them. His thoughts never lost their stride and He began to immediately answer. His eyes were still fixed on the temple and Jerusalem as He spoke of the things to come and the immense changes to the end-time world, things that would not even concern His dear friends sitting with Him.
It was like He was watching a giant movie screen high above the city, seeing a future that was as inevitable as the throwing down of Jerusalem. He spoke of the end, because there is one to come, and said, “He who endures to the end shall be saved” Matthew 24:13.
Jesus spoke to them about many signs, but what was assured, the hour when Jesus comes back to earth to redeem His Church, there would be a total end to man’s endeavours as we know it. The words of Jesus have echoed down the corridors of time for centuries, the two days that Christ saw 2000 years past is nearly over. Will the end truly come? Do we believe His words? Are we close now? “And the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come” Matthew 24:14. The answer is yes!
As we sit on a beach with the breeze in our hair, the sun on our skin, watching the sunset over the beautiful waves, it’s hard to believe that an end is truly coming. We tap away on our computers and phones, that we all now live through with instant access to the world, devices so entwined with our lives we use them for everything including zooming to church.
Our phones are the end-time apples of Eden, spewing the knowledge of good and evil at us with the rapidity of a machine gun, cloaking us in too much information, anxiety, depression, and addiction. The devil saw the apple work with Adam and Eve, and now he has succeeded in getting one into the hands of billions; the bite out of the apple a reminder. We look at our children and ache as we consider their right to a blossoming future. We try to work, survive and navigate destructive mandates we cannot choose, wondering how could the life we once knew all end? The words of Jesus tell us otherwise.
Two years ago early 2020 the demonic tentacles of the pandemic began to invade our world like an invisible alien army, yoked with the spirit of fear and the political and economic global ambitions of unscrupulous men. And in the rapid changes till now, end 2021, many are waking up to realise, the hour of an end is upon us. The apocalyptic movies on a multiple of streaming platforms have been prophesying it for a long time!
If we truly believe in God and His words, He said it will all end, and unfortunately the end won’t be all nice and rosy. Watch the news and the many streams and channels and you can see this to be true all over the world. Jesus said, “He who endures to the end…” then endure we must. “Heaven and earth will pass away but My words will by no means pass away…therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not expect Him” Matthew 24:35,44.
We can see many echoes of the end through the prophetic nature of the arts, through movies, music, and other entertainment worlds. Movies of impending disasters, diseases, meteors, or even giant waves that wipe out humanity. The band REM and their 1987 radio song ‘The End of the World as We Know It,’ was not wrong. The inevitable ending to the world is embedded in our human DNA, and in the spirit of the age we live in, but we don’t really need the entertainment of the world to tell us this truth.
Should we be fine with it, just be successful and safe, without concern about an end? I don’t think so. The end-times are not fine times at all, but a time of great darkness, stress and pressure, where we need to be able to endure with the great character of Jesus Christ, in a world with an immense need of its Saviour.
The end stares you in the face every day. There has been the world housing mortgage crisis, rapidly rising and fluctuating petrol prices, increasing food costs, food chain supply breakdowns, family breakdowns, teenage suicide, binge drinking, loss of jobs, debt, diseases, poverty, earthquakes, wars, and constant rumours of wars wrapped in fear, are thrust before us in every form of media, every minute of every day.
We are now facing global hyper-inflation, financial chaos and great changes, the crash of currency and an uncertain economic future. Let alone all the other distractions and choices we have to deal with, all eating at our precious time, keeping many from knowing and pursuing God. All these things are bringing great pressures and stresses to our world, and with the current pandemic driving the narrative, draped in politics and economics, many people are not coping.
The end, as spoken of in the word of God, is now very possible in our lifetime. Jesus said of His return, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Mark 13:32. The people who endure, and overcome the suffering and pressures of this present life, will do so through faith and God’s ‘exceeding great power,’ (Ephesians 1:19). God will raise up a standard (Isaiah 59:19), and they will truly impact the nations in the last days before Christ returns. “And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations” Revelation 2:26.
This relates to overcoming the depths of satanic darkness that is being unleashed on the earth. It takes the character and strength of Christ in us by faith, to overcome these pressures, and Christ is the only answer for them. We cannot ultimately do this on our own, although many people have been fashioned and strengthened alone in times of wilderness. The Body of Christ however, universally needs each other with all parts of the Church functioning in proper fullness, to really endure to the end.
“For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now if the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?” 1 Peter 4:17. Peter was talking about believers who had suffered according to the will of God, to keep doing good and stay faithful to a faithful creator. When you do go through suffering and trial, where your character is tested, it either drives you into the gospel or away from it. These times also give you greater compassion and empathy for the lost in this world.
The context of this scripture is in a previous statement. “But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers” 1 Peter 4:7. According to Peter 2000 years ago, the end was already at hand; now the hand of time has just about run out, and the word says get serious! Peter further exhorts believers to keep sober (abstain from wine), be temperate and discreet, be totally awake to these end-times, living prayerful, with our eyes wide open. Why? Because there is an end and we have to be ready for it. There is no option.
The question is, what is really important in life? God wants the gospel preached to the whole world before the end comes, that is why He sent his only Son Jesus to save it.
“…But now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgement, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation” Hebrews 9:26-28.
Jesus came to save the world and take away its sins at the end of the ages, two thousand years ago; a couple of day’s back! Now he is getting ready to return!
After this current pandemic upheaval on the earth, ask yourself the question; Are we now eagerly awaiting his second appearance for our salvation at the end of the end? Or are we so busy caught up in all the demands, pressures and distractions of our lives to even consider it all?
No matter where you are in your Christian walk, Jesus is with you, in your triumphs and your trials… to the end. “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world (ages)”Amen’ Matthew 28:20.
Gabriel, the messenger Archangel himself, showed the Prophet Daniel that the end of the world would surely come at the appointed time. Whether you like it or not, there is an end, and we all need understanding. The question is: Are you prepared to endure?
“…And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of the Ulai (pure water), who called, and said, “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.” So he came near to where I stood, and when he came I was afraid and fell on my face; but he said to me, “Understand, son of man, that the vision refers to the time of the end.” Now, as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep with my face to the ground; but he touched me and stood me upright. And he said, “Look, I am making known to you what shall happen in the latter time of the indignation; for at the appointed time the end shall be.” Daniel 8:16-19.
That appointment time, is now closer on the earth schedule than we realise.
By Stephen Bennett 10/11/2021
Author - The End - He who endures shall be Saved
https://store.bookbaby.com/book/Prophet-Musician
https://store.bookbaby.com/book/The-Divine-Artist
Book coming soon: First released in 2008, re-written for this time.
The End - He who endures shall be Saved
After thought
Nov 2021: Change is now moving at a rapid rate on earth; it is not comfortable, especially when it is questionable enforced compliance, as we are seeing everywhere. There is a prophesied great spiritual awakening yet to cover the earth, but part of that is the believing remnant church also standing up for what is right in this world. We need to wake up to the truth of the word of God, but also wake up to the truth of our laws, constitutions, sovereignties, and the rights that protect us.
Standing up for what is right, speaking the truth, be it spiritual or otherwise is not easy or comfortable, but it can change history and your lives. Jesus resisted the religious status quo in his days, Moses did it with Pharaoh in the Egypt of the world, as did Daniel the prophet, among many.
How will you navigate change in the end-times? The church has been too comfortable for years, just turning up every Sunday, going with the flow. Following men who just promote their own ministries. The pandemic has shaken everything up. It is forcing people to intentionally use their intelligence and think about what is right and true on all levels. Now is the time to engage, as great change is upon us. Change requires action at the right time. Do what you need to, and be awakened.
(see the next Blog: The End - ‘Endure and be Saved’ Pt 2)
