Is the Doom of the World Near?

Selected Scriptures

     Without question, a new horror and a new fear has seized the hearts of men today in our world, and it is the fear of extinction.  For really the first time on a total basis, man lives in a constant fear that he may go out of existence as a species, the fear that at any moment, man's existence may come to a sudden halt.  War, the bomb, polluted air, contamination, famine, earthquake, overpopulation, all of these things have the world in a pall of a death fear that is inescapable. 

And the kind of sad thing about it as you look at men is the fact that there are no answers.  Things are beyond control and man is trapped, unable to cope with his coming doom.  The elite of philosophers and the cream of the crop of scientists are scurrying around as busily as they can, trying to figure out how to stop the terrible suicide of the human race and they really haven't figured it out yet.  They have some ideas, but unfortunately they won't work.

     They've decided the only way to stop the extinction of man is to control man.  And we've been teaching you in recent weeks that what is going on in our world today is an effort upon the parts of some elite and some top-drawer scientist to gain control over the minds of men, over the reproduction of men, over the wages of men, over everything.  And we see in our world, more and more controls being exercised.  We see that there's going to be brain stimulation; LIFE Magazine ran a large feature article on it.  They've already figured out how they can do it, using monkeys, of course, as test cases.

     We hear constantly and incessantly about daycare centers, which are already being subsidized by the government, which are guaranteed efforts on the government's part to take children and indoctrinate them aside from the home in order that they may recreate the human race, in a sense, or create a new kind of people who don't have crime, and who don't have greed and who don't overpopulate, etc., etc.

     Birth control, the talk about putting sterility drugs in water and then handing out fertility drugs to people who are designated by the government to have the right to reproduce.  Money control, price control, wage control, all of this kind of control that you're seeing is man's efforts to grab his existence and keep it. 

Right now there are over 100 bills before the United States Congress under the category of changing human nature; 100 of them.  One of them provides that your infant would be taken out of your home and kept until 5, then sent to mandatory government schools.  One hundred and eighty-six Congressmen voted for it.  It would take $20 billion to implement.

The panic is on, my friends, in our world, in every corner.  The world must be changed; man will never survive his own suicide if it isn't.  But the doomsday machine is already rolling and it's a little bit late.  The heart of man is still deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and my friends, no change is ever going to come in man, no change.  They can try every system they want but they'll never stop man from greed, from crime, from lust, from all of these other things. 

Man will always kill.  Man will always make war; he will always lie; he will always cheat; he will always steal; he will always overindulge; he will always pollute; he will always make waste; he will always hate; he will always rebel.  Because he is a sinner; he is depraved; he is deceitful above all things; he is desperately wicked and he cannot change himself. 

     He's racing to his doom; he has no power to stop it.  Man will not get better.  The world will not get better, my friends, it will get worse.  If you say, "You sound like a prophet of doom."  And indeed I am.  The Bible tells us that the world is doomed; it is inevitable.  Everything in man's own sphere says it's inevitable.  Everything that man sees around him says it's grinding to a halt.  And everything in the Bible says it.  Not only is man saying the end is coming, and some scientists tell us we'll never make the year 2000, but God says the end is coming and God writes history.

     The sun is setting.  The sun of man's day is already casting its red glow of wrath against the clouds, and night comes very, very soon.  The handwriting is, again, on the wall; thou has been weighed in the balances and found wanting.  And a man who can't see the impending doom isn't really looking, because it's there.

     Tonight, I want you to see some of the signs in the word of God that tell us that the day of man is ending.  And I want to give you four general - well, let's say three general and one specific sign - three general signs and one specific sign that the day of man is coming to an end.  Now, there's so much material that we should really stretch this out over months.  But we're gonna try to pick out the highlights for you tonight.

     The first general sign that man's day is coming to a close is lawlessness, lawlessness.  The world will not be peaceful, rebellion and war will not end, and no peace will ever come until the Prince of Peace comes, who is Jesus Christ.  And the age of man will end with a return of Christ, in a great holocaust and a great judgment like the world has never seen.  And the Bible tells us that a sign of the end, as it moves toward that judgment, and the coming of the Prince of Peace, will be lawlessness.

     Turn in your Bibles to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 3, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 3.  Now here the Apostle Paul is talking about the end and he says this, 2 Thessalonians 2:3, "Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come," that is the final judgment, the end of man's age, "shall not come except there come the falling away first and," and I just want to deal with this, "that man of sin be revealed the Son of Perdition.  And he is called here the lawless one, the Anti-Christ."

     Now go down to verse 6, "And now ye know what restraineth, that he might be revealed in his time.  For the mystery of iniquity," that's the word anamia, which means lawlessness, "doth already work.  Only he who now hindereth will continue to hinder until he be taken out of the way."

     Now watch this.  The Bible says that now there is a mystery of lawlessness at work.  A mystery in the Bible is always something which is hidden and will someday be revealed.  The total full, watch it, the total full expression of lawlessness is still hidden.  It'll be revealed during a period of time the Bible calls the great what?  Tribulation, which comes when the church is taken out.  At the end of man's day, there will be this horrible Tribulation, this horrible time when lawlessness will be full blown and it won't be a mystery anymore. 

     But the mystery of it now already begins to work.  But God has moved into this world and he has set some restraints on lawlessness.  And we believe that the restrainer here is the Holy Spirit.  Now watch that.  The Holy Spirit is in the world now restraining lawlessness from going full blown, see.  But someday it's going to be fully and completely revealed, verse 8, "And then shall that wicked one be revealed."  Then we find out about all of the horrors that are gonna take place when he is revealed. 

God has restrained lawlessness in the world, but someday, the restraints gonna be taken out.  The Spirit of God will leave as a restraining influence.  The Bible tells us those who love Jesus Christ will be taken out of the world before all this stuff begins.  That's our hope, isn't it?  And at that point, when we're taken out of the world, the spirit of God's ministry of restraining lawlessness stops, stops.

But, friends, the mystery of lawlessness already works.  And as you look at your world today, you can't help but see lawlessness everywhere.  In 2 Timothy chapter 3, turn to it with me, please, in verse 1, we get a glimpse of this kind of lawlessness.  And I don't need to tell you about lawlessness.  If you look at the television or read any newspaper at any day, that's all you ever read about, breaking the law every kind of way possible and every kind of law possible.  It's the new thing, you know.  Do your own thing.  Hang the law.  Who cares, right?  Lawlessness. 

And the Bible says that as we get closer to the end, lawlessness will become more rampant, and it is.  Notice in 2 Timothy 3:1 this, "This know also that in the last days, perilous times shall come."  Perilous times shall come.

Now, I want to describe the perilous times, verse 2, here they come.  This is the condition of the world at the end times.  Watch it.  "Men shall be lovers of their own selves."  Know what that means?  Selfish; look out for number one.  Demand your rights.  Do your own thing.  Lovers of their own selves.

Secondly, covetous.  That's a desire to have what belong to somebody else, whether it's possession, his position, his job or his wife.  Boasters; egomania, promoting self, exaltation of self, ego, boy, if that isn't today, I think it's mostly obvious to us in luxuries and clothes and so forth how people exalt themselves other ways.  Proud, that means no need of God.  Self-sufficient, independence, blasphemers, substituting natural philosophy for divine revelation.

Watch this one.  Disobedient to parents, would you say that's a picture of our age?  Unthankful.  Has there ever been a day in the world when more people thought everybody owed them a living?  Ingratitude, unholy, and that's the key to everything, that's the problem. 

Without natural affection.  My friends, we live in a day when the natural course of love has been so messed up that you can hardly find a normal love relationship.  Homosexuality, all kinds of perversions, even people in a heterosexual love relationship are totally unfulfilled and people jump from person to person to person, they can't find it with normal satisfactions of love.  Truth breakers, nobody's word is worth anything.  Liars; false accusers, meaning liars.  Incontinent, which of course is follows in unrighteousness, unable to be trusted and so forth and so on. 

Fierce, despisers of those that are good.  Fierce means they can't be harnessed, they can't be restrained.  Traitors, people sell each other off; heady, high-minded that means headstrong.  Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.  And these are characteristic of the end time and certainly we could pick up any paper and just in a very general way, we could see these as characteristics. 

And the interesting thing is in verse 5, where it says they, "Have a form of Godliness but deny the power of it."  In other words, with all of the things that are going on, they still maintain religion.  Forty-nine percent of the people in America go to church.  And you can read clippings from any newspaper and you can see all of those things; they're obvious. 

     But notice verse 13.  That's the one I really want to point to you.  "But evil men and seducers shall become worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived."  Now, there's always been lawlessness and there's always been these other things.  But the point is, in the end time it's going to become worse and worse.  It's going to come to a place where it is completely out of control. 

Now watch this, backing up, I'm going to pick up some of the pieces.  God basically, according to Romans chapter 13, instituted human governments.  And he instituted human government to punish evil-doers and to reward those that are good.  That's Biblical.  Government is to punish evil-doers and reward those that are good. 

My friends, you live in a day when that is in the process almost of being reversed.  With all of the things that are going on today, government is failing to punish evil-doers, failing to stop lawlessness.  And government is going to come to a halt and anarchy is going to result, and then Anti-Christ world, and then Jesus is gonna return.  It's all coming right to a head. 

Law breakers go unpunished.  Courts won't convict anybody.  Police have a terrible time trying to do their job.  They catch a criminal, turn him into the courts and the courts turn him loose.  Our own police chief wrote the governor a letter last week and he pleaded with the governor to revoke a new law in California that permits the prisoners 72‑hour passes, because already in the last month or so, two of those on passes have murdered two people. 

A judge in Pasadena recently had a person brought before him who was a rapist and the person told him that he'd never do it again; the judge let him go.  He did it again, only this time he murdered the little girl after he'd raped her. 

And government, because of the tangling of law and all the other problems, sentences are commuted, juries are hung, probations are given, early releases, police can't get convictions, etc., etc., it goes on and on and on.  Civil disobedience is in order, everybody breaks a law, do what you want, burn the buildings, march, protest.  And I'm not against a healthy, normal kind of attitude that desires to see change, obviously.  But there's no place for disobedience and yet we see it all about us and it's a sign of the end.

The Bible says, when you start seeing lawlessness on a worldwide scale, look ahead, the end is near.  You see, there is only way to deal with lawlessness, there is only one way.  That's to create a police state.  That's the what you do.  Ultimately, it drives itself to a police state.  And you see, that's what Anti-Christ has when he comes.  He sets up a total world rule.  And why he'll be such a hero, evidently, from the word of God is that with all the lawlessness all over the world, lawlessness on an international basis and on a national basis, is that he is evidently gonna be able to resolve this and get control everything. 

And I believe what the world is going to exist under, according to the Bible, is a Tribulation that is a police state.  Why, if you take the mark of the beast, what happens to you?  You get killed.  That's the only way you can control lawlessness.  And that's what's gonna make that great hero out of the Anti-Christ possibly, the fact that he can resolve the lawlessness into a controlled situation.

All right, that's a general sign, very, very general.  Let me give you another general one.  Not only is lawlessness a general sign of the coming of Christ but so is false religion.  False religion, look at 1 Timothy 4, 1 Timothy 4:1, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly," pointedly, specifically, "that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith."  Now, in the latter times, my friend, in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith.  Boy, have we seen that in liberalism, rampant everywhere.

Who denominations have rejected the faith that was once there, tenants and their _____.  Who churches, schools, seminaries, have kissed the whole thing goodbye for rationalism.  "... depart from the faith given heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils." 

In the last days, my friend, false religion, sponsored by demons, is gonna reign.  Did you know that all false religion is demon worship, did you know that?  We taught that several weeks ago.  All false religion is demon worship.  All idolatry is demon worship.  Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter, "The gentiles sacrificed to devils."  All other religion, than that which is true, is demon worship.  And, my friends, we are in the heyday of false religion, in a heyday of it. 

Never been like it is now: 455 million Muslims, 400 million Hindus, 350 million Confucianists, 250 million Buddhists, 100 Shinto and Taoists.  And in all of those religions, there is demon and spirit worship; 750 million who have no religion or are in primitive kind of animism.  Thirteen to 14 million Jews, 200 Zoroastrians, and 1 billion atheistic communists. 

The world is full of false religion.  It's dominated by the doctrines of demons.  And demons are behind the cults, as we know it.  And the cults are growing as a rate that's absolutely unbelievable.  Some of the cults have tripled and quadrupled in recent days.  And people have gone so far that it's not only necessarily a religion or a cult, but they're actually worshipping directly demons and even the devil himself.

And you know about Anton Lavey and the Church of Satan, in San Francisco; mediums, séances, horoscopes, Ouija boards, ESP and whatever else.  Ten million Americans subscribe to horoscopes.  Typical demon work can be seen in the pseudo-Christian literature, for example, of Jeane Dixon, Edgar Casey, Ruth Montgomery, Arthur Ford, etc.  All over America we have witch's covens.  And all this to an extent never known in the history of the world.

And the Bible says that in the end times, watch it, the doctrine of devils.  It's all over the place.  And the doctrine of devils in an organized, religious way will come to a head, in Revelation chapter 17, in that false‑world church.  We'll look at that a little bit later.

All right, let me give you the third general sign: apostasy, not only lawlessness and false religion, but apostasy.  Apostate is one who knows the truth and rejects it.  Religious liberalism; and by that, I mean, those who have departed from the truths of the word of God; preachers and teachers who teach less than the inspiration of scripture, the Deity of Jesus Christ is virgin birth, substitutionary death, atonement, resurrection and coming again.  Anybody who teaches less than that is an apostate.

And the tragic thing about apostasy is it finds itself in denominationalism, in church pulpits, in "colleges" of a Christian nature and in seminaries.  And most seminaries, and most so-called Christian colleges in America are producing liberals who are apostate.  The rise of liberalism in colleges, seminaries and churches, gives abundant evidence that men are departing from the faith fast. 

I've told you many times about the time I went to seminary to finish up the year on my doctorate and they told me that my problem was in a seminary, religious seminary.  I think it was a Methodist-sponsored seminary.  They told me, "Your problem is, you've got too much Bible to get a degree in Bible." 

False teachers everywhere.  And Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 that they are dressed up like angels of what?  Of light.  Dressed up like angels of light.  Yes, some shall depart from the faith.

People say to me, "You know, I'm in a church where the pastor doesn't believe in these things.  What should I do?"

And I say, "Get out."  That kind of stuff is damned, my dear friend.  No Christian sits under the doctrines of demons and prospers. 

You say, "Well, how can you tell an apostate?"  Two ways: number one, he denies the deity of Jesus Christ, that he's totally God.  Number two, he denies the Second Coming, always.  Number one, denies Christ's deity. So just what Peter says, just clearly as possibly can be said.  2 Peter 2:1, "False teachers, even denying the Lord that bought them." 

And over in chapter 3, they say, "Where is the promise of his coming?"  And they laugh.  See, they always deny two things: the deity of Jesus Christ, that he's God in human flesh, and the Second Coming, always.  Because the Second Coming is tied with judgment, and they are subject to God's damnation.

But you know, they're gonna be busy.  They're busy fellas, the apostates, very busy.  Because they're building a great church, they really are.  The only problem is, when the true church is gone, they'll just get rolling.  The Bible says in Revelation chapter 17 that when the true church leaves, they just begin to really move on their church.  The true church in the Bible is called a bride, their church is called a whore, Revelations 17.

They're building a church, all right.  It's the devil's church.  Revelations 17 is a fantastic prophesy that, bit by bit, describes the church of the Tribulation, the church that's here on earth after the true church is gone and it's being built today by the apostates.  Friends, you and I are seeing it being built.

Now, there's only two things necessary for the apostates to build a church that's the whore or the harlot.  Only two things: number one, a lot of apostates to do it; number two, a drive for all of the apostates to get together and build one church.  Have you been watching your papers?  Have you heard about ecumenism?  Have you heard about COCU?  Not cuckoo, COCU, which is the Council on Church Union.  Have you heard of the World Council of Churches?  The National Council of Churches?  These are apostates banding together to build their church.  They're gonna be very successful 'cause it's energized by Satan.

There's a new step every hour toward a world unified church, uniting under - not doctrine, not Jesus Christ - social actions, civil rights, anti-war, housing, welfare, you know, whatever.  A recent article in the paper said this, "60 Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish religious leaders have announced the convening of an emergency religious convocation in Washington to mobilize to end the war in Indo-China."