Well, what's coming to America? Can we anticipate widespread spiritual revival or should we expect a deepening social degeneracy? It's a question from a listener named Cole. "Hello, Pastor John. I'm a 21-year-old recent college graduate and I've noticed over the past few years among younger believers, especially in the college setting, a lot of encouraging talk of revival.

Everyone seems to be expecting an awakening, that is, a lot of non-believers repenting and coming back to God. However, the more I read scripture, it seems like we should actually be expecting things in this world to get worse. There are so many instances in the Bible where it says that in those days there will be more egregious sins, even within the church and a lot of deceptive teaching and people walking away from the faith.

Should we really be expecting revival and where did that notion come from or should we be expecting the number of believers to dwindle up until the coming of Christ?" Pastor John, what would you say to Cole? I surely do not want to in any way discourage prayer for and God-given expectation of a great move of God in our church, our denomination, our city, our ministries, our nation, or the world.

But I want to provide a biblical orientation, perhaps, for how to think about such prayers and expectations. So I've got seven positions that I hold and I'll try to show that they're biblical, just briefly for you to think about, Cole. One, this age, until Christ returns to establish his kingdom, will draw to a close with an intensification of evil and a great outward rebellion against God.

And the reason I say that is mainly because the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2 says this, "Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion come first." And I think "rebellion" is the right translation there, as opposed to just kind of a gradual drifting away.

Rebellion come first. "And the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of 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. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who restrains it will do so until he is out of the way, and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming." So my conclusion from that is a great rebellion and a singular figure of great arrogance claiming to be God will arise at the end of the age, and then the Lord comes and slays him by the sword of his mouth.

That's position number one. Number two, this time of intensified evil and rebellion is already happening in some measure in Paul's day. He says the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. There's a man of lawlessness coming, there's a great rebellion and lawlessness coming, but the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, or as John says in 1 John 2.18, "Children, it is the last hour." And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come, therefore we know it is the last hour.

So we have been living in the last hour for 2,000 years. That's the biblical perspective since the time of the apostles. But a final upsurge of lawlessness and rebellion, a man of lawlessness, is yet to come. Number three, there's no teaching in the Bible that I'm aware of which says that a great rebellion will come by a steady, irreversible decline of the church through history.

So we have no authority for saying there can be no great revival. The gospel has advanced in the last 2,000 years in history mainly by great awakenings and great declines. And I just assume that's the way it's going to happen until Jesus comes. There will be seasons of remarkable awakening, and there will be seasons of sad decline.

No teaching about a gradual worsening with no interrupted blessing. Number four, Jesus describes the progress of the gospel to all the nations in and through the very time when the love of many grows cold, which means that not all have grown cold at the end of the age, because it will not be cold people who take the gospel to the nations at the cost of their lives.

So I'm getting all that from Matthew 24, 11 and following. Here's what it says. "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death." This is Jesus talking. "And you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And because lawlessness will be increased." Now that sounds a lot like the man of lawlessness in that season of outbreak at the end, because lawlessness will be increased.

The love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end—he's not going to be cold—will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. That gospel proclaimed in the face of great tribulation is not going to be proclaimed by cold people, but white-hot people.

So many may grow cold at the end, but not all, because only those with a passion for Jesus will endure to the end through martyrdom, required to finish the Great Commission, and therefore there will never be a time when the church is completely cold and ineffective. She rises with faith and passion and mission, and she declines in church history, but there's never a time when there are not people who are red-hot for God and pursuing his mission.

Here's number five. Is there biblical warrant for knowing that a revival, a great revival, millions repenting and coming to Christ, a great purifying of the church—is there biblical warrant for believing that's going to happen? Can we expect this with biblical certainty? And my answer is, I don't know of any such promise in the Bible.

The many promises, for example, in the Old Testament that all the nations will worship the Lord may simply refer to the time when Christ has established his kingdom in person on the earth. For example, Psalm 22, 27, "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will worship before you, for kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations." Amen, amen, come Lord Jesus, that's going to happen.

I don't think we can assume that refers to a great revival on this side of the Second Coming. It certainly is an encouragement to press on with world evangelization, because Jesus underlined that promise, that people from every tribe and tongue and nation are going to be saved because they're bought with the blood of Jesus, Revelation 5, 9.

You were slain, and by your blood you bought people from every tribe and tongue. They are going to worship. All of them, sooner or later, are going to worship the Lord. Six, there is one great awakening that we may expect, and that is a great turning of the Jewish people to the Messiah, Jesus.

That's what Romans 11 promises. Romans 11, 15, "If the Jews' rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits," that's Abraham and his people, "is holy, so is the lump," Jewish people as a whole, "and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

Or even more clearly, if you," the Gentiles, "were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree," that's the Abrahamic covenant, "how much more," here's the key sentence, "how much more will these," the natural branches, that is ethnic Judaism, "be grafted into their own olive tree?" So that "much more," in my understanding, is a great movement of God in this world.

And then he adds, "A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, and in this way all Israel will be saved," which I take to mean corporate Israel turns remarkably, amazingly, to their Messiah, Jesus. That is a great awakening. I think we should work toward, pray toward, and hope in.

And lastly, number seven, so how should we live? Picture the end—this is my conception, this is how I have done my ministry for the last 40 years—picture the end coming like a glacier over the world, because it says the love of many will grow cold. It doesn't tell us how fast it's coming, it doesn't tell us whether it can come and recede, it's just coming like that.

Matthew 24, 12. But there is no requirement, none, no biblical warrant, mandate, demand that your church or your city or even your people or nation be frozen by the glacier. Instead we should live by God's command for white hotness, not His providence. We don't live trying to sniff out God's providence, we live by the commands of Scripture, not His providence that brings cold on the earth.

Who knows, but that you and your church could be among the wide awake white hot servants when Jesus comes. So my picture for ministry is wherever I'm speaking, wherever I'm living, wherever I'm pastoring, I'm going to torch the glacier. So if it looks like a glacier is coming over Minneapolis, I've got my torch, my torch of the Word of God, and I'm poking it, picture me now, poking it up into the glacier, and I'm melting big holes in the glacier.

So the glory of God is shining through, and who knows, but that enough churches poking holes in the glacier would make your city a vibrant white hot witness being found faithful when He comes. Amen. That's very hopeful and hope-giving. Thank you, Pastor John. Well it is not uncommon for us to get emails from listeners who are wearied by this life and who want to know if it's okay to anticipate death.

Sometimes the thought of a world where suffering and pain is over is a hope so strong that we can feel inside of us a strong longing to be released from this life. It's such a desire, sinful. And at what point does that desire become a sinful desire for escape?

It's a really tricky pastoral question, but that's what Pastor John is known for on this podcast, and that question is up next when we return on Monday. I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.