00:07
Welcome, everyone. This is Russ Scalzo, Chronicles of the End Times. I'm so glad to be with you today. Today, we're going to be talking about a subject that I get a lot of questions on, whether I'm teaching in a class, we're just having a discussion, or people just randomly ask me how it is going to end. What does the end look like? How is this last war going to begin? How is the whole world going to be deceived? Is that possible?
00:38
Is it true that tens of millions of people are going to perish in this final battle called Armageddon, and what actually does the Bible say about it? Is the Bible clear about how this is all going to happen? People ask me why do I need to know about this? Why are we even doing a podcast on it? We're not going to be here, we're going to be raptured. Well, I believe in the rapture. I believe in the taking away of God's people. I believe the scripture tells us that God has not appointed us to wrath, but I also know we are not exempt from persecution, from the wrath of the world, the wrath of the enemy. It's all over the world. Why should we think we're going to be scot-free of this? Suppose the rapture doesn't happen exactly when you and I want it to. We don't know when it's going to happen for sure. We know certain things. We know that we're not going to suffer the wrath of God. We know that for sure because we are the children of God. But the exact timing of the rapture, no one knows. There is a lot of debate on it by theologians and a lot of people smarter than me, but it's still up for grabs. So, we need to know the whole word of God. Remember, in Thessalonians, they got all confused because they forgot what Paul told them about the coming Antichrist, about what's going to take place, and about the lawlessness and all the things we're going to talk about today. So it's important for us to know the entire truth. We need to be as alert smart, and educated as possible. Let's get to it, and this could turn into two or three podcasts. I really felt this needed to be addressed, and it's also an extremely interesting subject.
02:17
It all begins with deception. Now, deception in the Cambridge Dictionary says it's the act of hiding the truth, especially to get an advantage. The act of hiding the truth. Well, we know as Christians what the truth is and that's the Word of God, that's the Bible, jesus said I am the truth, I am the light, I am the way, and through Isaiah and you've heard me quote it before I am. There is no other God before me. And in a world that accepts all types of gods and all types of beliefs, Jesus stands out. He says no, I'm it. There are no other gods. It's the first commandment. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. And that's important because there are other gods. There's only one true God.
03:06
In fact, in Daniel, chapter 11 talks about the other gods that this antichrist and false prophet and the beast are going to bring into the world. So I think we'll start there. Just to get us going, we look at Daniel, chapter 11, starting with verse 36. Might be a scripture that you're familiar with. It says the king will do as he pleases. Now, this is talking about the future king, the Antichrist himself. He will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will say unheard-of things against the god of gods.
03:42
So here we see that the scripture's telling us that there are other gods, menial gods, smaller gods, which are beings that God created. They're part of the principalities and powers that we read about in Ephesians. These might be angels, they might be some other type of created being that is eternal. In the original language it uses the word Elohim to describe these smaller gods, the gods with the small g, not the God. These are those who have turned against the Lord, God Almighty, and fell with Satan. We see all types of powers with angels. We see it also in Daniel. There's a great example of that in chapter 10, verse 12 when the angel is talking to Daniel.
04:30
In chapter 9, we see that Gabriel had come to Daniel and showed him the vision of the 77s. And here he's continuing to talk and he explains himself. When he shows up, he says do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before God. Your words were heard, and I have come in response to them, but the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me for twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me because I was detained there with the king of Persia. Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to detained there with the king of Persia. Now, I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.
05:11
Angels have different roles. Now, we don't know everything about the angel Gabriel, but we do know that he is a messenger, and he came as a messenger. He appears four times that we know of in the Bible two in the Old Testament and two in the New Testament, especially in the sense where we see him come to Mary and announce the baby Jesus to be born. Yet, this powerful angel Gabriel needed help with this other principality, this fallen Elohim, this other fallen so-called God, and that's when Michael came, a powerful angel, and fought back the evil. So we understand that there are other beings that we don't know about, many things in the spiritual world that we don't really know about. God gives us what we need to know. We know there are good angels and there are bad angels, and beyond that, there are different principalities and powers, as Paul talked about.
06:06
We don't understand everything that they are, but we know they're not demons because angels have bodies. They can appear as men, whereas demons are always looking for a body to inhabit. They are lost spirits that roam the earth, as Jesus said, looking for a place to go. We see in Matthew 12, 43 through 45, that Jesus is talking about it, and he says when an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says I will return to the house I left. When he arrives, he finds the house unoccupied, swept clean, and put in order, and that talks about someone who's been delivered from a demon but has not accepted Christ, and his soul's still empty. So, though he's cleaned up and looks good, he is not protected by the power of the Holy Spirit and so the Spirit can come back in.
07:00
So this Antichrist figure, this person who's going to come on the scene, which is going to be part of how things will end, is what we're going to be talking about says he will show no regard for the gods of his fathers or for the one desired by women. So he's going to show no regard for the gods of the other religions of the world or for the one desired by women. All Israeli women. They wanted to be the mother of the Messiah. That was their hope and their prayer that when they gave birth to a male child, they'd hope that maybe this one would be the Messiah. No regard for the tradition, but he will exalt himself above them all because he will consider himself a God, but we know that the God of gods, as the scripture says, is in complete control.
07:48
But these beings have the ability to deceive. So deception is something that's extremely tricky. You can believe something with your whole heart, but you could be deceived. We see that in the world today. We see how we're so divided, especially here in America. We're so divided over what's true and what's not true, what's conspiracy and what's not, and even when it's proven to be true, there are millions who will not accept it. There is a delusion that comes along with the deception, and that is the basis of how the Antichrist will come into power because the delusion is already set. The Antichrist doesn't come up with all these things, all these inventions, or all these clever things. They are set, already in place.
08:34
The Bible uses the phrase appointed time about 25 times in the scriptures the appointed time. God has an appointed time for everything. Nothing is arbitrary, nothing is by chance, nothing is through the power of the human race. No, everything is in order. Everything has an appointed time. And just like Jesus Christ when he came in the fullness of time, when God had appointed the moment that he would be born, so it'll be with the God of deception. He will come in the time appointed, not by him, but by God. So where are we in this timeline of the end, and how does it come about?
09:16
We are in the season of lawlessness. We're in the season of self. I need to be happy. Whatever, it makes me happy. No matter how extreme I have to go, I need to be happy. And happiness makes me happy. No matter how extreme I have to go, I need to be happy. And happiness is such a fleeting thing, isn't it? You get up in the morning, maybe you're feeling good and you're happy. You know what I mean. All right, feeling pretty good today, and you get a phone call, or something comes in the mail, or you get an email and changes your whole demeanor, changes your whole day. Happiness is out the window. We are in the season of lawlessness now.
09:48
In 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2 talks about lawlessness, and in fact, it calls the Antichrist the man of lawlessness. Actually, the word Antichrist only appears four times in the whole Bible, and that's in 1 John and 2 John. The rest of the time, he's referred to in many other ways, and this is one of them: the man of lawlessness. So let's just check that out because this is all important. I don't want to skip over stuff. You know, sometimes we like to keep the podcast short. Just make our point and go.
10:21
I know we're all busy, and that's important, but we're going to take this slow, and we're going to look at the scriptures and get a real definition of what God is saying Now concerning the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and our being gathered to him. We ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by spirit or spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has already come. So he's covering everything here. He doesn't want them to be alarmed by a spirit, which means a prophecy, a spoken word, or a letter that supposedly had come from one of the apostles or Paul. They'll let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, also known as the son of perdition, doomed to destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. And we are experiencing the rebellion now.
11:34
Obviously, rebellion against God has been going on since the beginning of time, since the Garden of Eden, but we are now a world of over 8 billion, and we are in defiance. The great majority of the world is in defiance of God. So, if we're really going to look at this and be truthful, if we really want to know if you're listening to this podcast and you want to know, how did things get so crazy? How did we get so out of whack in all our beliefs? Well, we'll get a turn to Romans, chapter one, for that, and it is very revealing. Although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man, birds, animals, and reptiles.
12:30
So what's he talking about here? He's talking about worshiping other things. Now, it doesn't mean you have to have one of these statues in your house that you worship because what we've done is we've turned the worship inward. So we have become the idols. It has become so evident we love ourselves, we love our bodies, we become the idol. What does that turn into? Here's the answer. Therefore, God gave them over in their sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the creator, who is forever praised.
13:18
What's Paul saying here? He's saying we could get to a place where we don't want God. We feel we don't need God, and we become God. That scripture is very revealing. So basically, god is saying this: if you want it so bad, you will turn your back on me, and you will call me a liar. That's what we're doing. We're calling God a liar. That's a bunch of foolishness. People say that's all about the time in which this person lived. Things change. God is really not like this.
13:50
Now we look in the Old Testament, and we can see nations got wiped out, cities got totally wiped off the face of the earth because of this very thing, but yet we say, nah, there's nothing to worry about, we will make the rules. So when we make the rules, we get lost. God leaves us to ourselves, and that is just terrifying. Think about that. The creator of the world is just saying okay, you want to do that? Not only am I going to let you do it, but I am going to encourage you to do it. Wow, that's hard to swallow, isn't it? As Christians, we can't say, oh, that can't be right. But it is right. We get to a certain place, and only God knows where that is, and he says okay, he allows the delusion. We read more about that in Ephesians, chapter four. Let's just read a couple of verses out of that.
14:39
Now, stick with me because this is important in order for us to understand how we got here, where we are right now, and where we're going. Ephesians, chapter 4, verses 17, 18, and 19. So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in their futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. That's where we are, and that's how we got here, and it will accelerate into what we're going to be looking into next.
15:32
Well, someone might say well, that's not fair. If God is encouraging me to believe something, that's not right. If we think that way, we're not listening to the scripture. He says due to the hardening of our hearts, and your heart doesn't get hard in 24 hours, okay, your heart hardens over a period of time, and over that period of time, god is calling, he's opening doors, he's putting people in your path to reach you. But once your heart gets so hard, if you read Revelation, chapter 16, three different times, it says that the people of the earth at that time shake their fists at heaven and curse God. So what are they saying? We don't believe in you. No, saying we don't want you, we don't want what you represent, we don't want what you have to say, we want our God. And eventually the world will find their God in the Antichrist, the son of perdition. I hope you're understanding that, because it's important. God made everything; he laid it out for us, and then we turn around and say that's a load, man. I don't believe any of that stuff. I have the better way. These are part of the early elements of the Battle of Armageddon. We have to understand that it is the rebellion that causes the Battle of Armageddon and the destruction of so many.
16:54
So listen to the next podcast, part two. They're already up, so you can go just one from another. I think it's going to be very important for you to listen to them. We're going to talk about the actual armies. How does it begin? Who's involved? It's stuff we need to know. God put these things in the Bible for a reason Not to be hidden, but to be studied and to be shared. There are a lot of people out there that you know, and they are confused and looking for answers, and the more we study the Word of God, the more we'll have those answers. So God bless you. Keep going for Jesus. This is Russ Scalzo for Chronicles of the End Times. Keep looking up. The King is coming.
00:07 / 17:46
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God bless, Russ.
