| Time | Text |
|---|---|
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7000 Ethnic Groups Witnessed
00:03:44
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| We're talking about the three categories of the signs. | |
| So get these sign events, sign trends. | |
| Okay, give me a sign a minute. | |
| And then cosmic signs. | |
| So you said trends? | |
| There's positive ones and negative ones. | |
| But you say the gospel will be preached in all the world is a goodness. | |
| That's a positive trend. | |
| That's just one of them. | |
| Yes. | |
| One of the trends. | |
| Yeah, here's a staggering. | |
| Now, that one's fulfilled. | |
| No, but getting really close. | |
| Getting really close. | |
| Right now, they identify 7,000 ethnic groups in the earth. | |
| 7,000. | |
| I mean, there's only 200 nations. | |
| 7,000. | |
| I'm talking about the missiologists, the experts on people groups, and the top mission leaders in the world. | |
| And I don't want to break down who they all are, but the top ones in the world have got together a number of times. | |
| I've had the privilege to be with them and small numbers on a couple occasions. | |
| And the top mission leaders in the world are saying this. | |
| Of the 7,000 ethnic groups, Jesus said the gospel will be preached in every nation, every ethnic group, all 7,000. | |
| They said by the year 2020 will be the first time in history that a beach head of the gospel will be in all 7,000 groups for the first time in history. | |
| So that one is within sight. | |
| You can see where that's going. | |
| Not the gospel saturating the nation, but at least a beach head in all 7,000 ethnic groups. | |
| In 1960, there was no Christian television. | |
| Pat Robertson, and then I came to help him, built the first Christian TV station in the world. | |
| And there was no Christian. | |
| And since 1960s, when we started CBN, TVN, PTL, all that, this television thing has gone to the entire world. | |
| So the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then shall the end come. | |
| We're right there. | |
| We're right at that point. | |
| And only a few tribes and all don't have to be able to do it. | |
| Out of 7,000 ethnic groups, by the year 2020, every one of them will have a witness of the gospel. | |
| In translation of it. | |
| And well, they're saying, now that you mention translation, they're saying by 2025, there's 12,000 languages, those 7,000 ethnic groups. | |
| Because some ethnic groups have multiple languages among themselves. | |
| They said by the year 2025, there will be a segment of the New Testament, like the Gospel of Luke, in every nation by 2025. | |
| Not the whole Bible, but a beachhead again. | |
| But even 50 years ago, this was impossible. | |
| This has exploded in the last 10 or 20 years. | |
| Yes, absolutely. | |
| And basically, all the major nations have. | |
| And so these are positive trends. | |
| But there's quite a list of positive and quite a list of negatives. | |
| Can you name a few negatives? | |
| Yeah, yeah, a few negatives. | |
| You know, as we know, the nation against nation, the ethnic strife, I mean, that's obviously. | |
| But the point we started the program with is that in Matthew 24, though Jesus talks about persecution, tribulation, he talked more about deception than any other thing. | |
| Deception is what he highlighted the most. | |
| Now, when we read, we're most interested in tribulation and persecution. | |
| You know, how hard it's going to get, tribulation. | |
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Spirit of Obedience
00:01:49
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| Who's going to be against us? | |
| And the Lord said, yeah, those are important, but deception is the one he emphasized the most. | |
| Isn't that interesting? | |
| The deception is, and he's talking in Matthew 24 to the church. | |
| He's not writing Matthew 24 to unbelievers who never read Matthew 24. | |
| He's writing to the church, warning them not to be captured in a spirit of deception, because in the last days, in the generation the Lord returns, there would be so many false witnesses of the gospel and mixtures and convoluted presentations of the gospel that were not substantially biblical, though having a portion of biblical language and content. | |
| So how are people going to know if they're deceived or not? | |
| I think it's easy. | |
| I think if we read the Bible and if we're connected to godly people in fellowship that read the Bible, that's really simple. | |
| And we're committed to a spirit of obedience. | |
| Not that we obey perfectly all the time, but we're committed to it. | |
| So when we stumble, we really repent. | |
| We push delete. | |
| We start fresh again. | |
| So there's room for people to stumble, but we don't camp out in our stumbling and our compromise. | |
| We repent of it. | |
| So I call that the spirit of obedience. | |
| That's the heart cry. | |
| So we read the Bible. | |
| We talk to Jesus. | |
| We have fellowship with godly believers, not just people who have a church background, people pressing into the Lord. | |
| And we've got a spirit of obedience. | |
| We're not casual about our compromise. | |
| Jesus is a far better leader than Satan is a deceiver. | |
| And so those simple things will put us in the spirit of truth. | |
| Everybody can live in the spirit of truth if they want to. | |