Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on December 28, 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Audio Transcript
Take your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 12 in your Pew Bible. That is page 925, Luke 12:54 through 56. Today we’re going to be talking about understanding the times. And the challenge is to really ask God, what does this next year look like for us personally, for our families, for our church, our community, for the world? Things are going to be different this next year.
I mean, one thing we’re already seeing is church attendance with everybody we’ve talked to is up like 25%. People are interested in spiritual things. That’s just one way that we as a church need to be seeking the Lord. How are we going to meet this need and this interest? I begin reading in verse 54.
He, being Jesus, also said to the crowds, when you see a cloud rising in the west, right away you say a storm is coming. And so it does. And when the south wind is blowing, you say, it’s going to be hot and it is. Hypocrites. You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why don’t you know how to interpret the present time?
May we pray? Heavenly Father, we thank youk for your Word. And we ask that yout Spirit would give us understanding of it, not just what it says, but what yout want us to derive from it today, how youw might want us to change our lives, how we should pray differently and live differently and speak differently because of it. Let us not just walk away as a person that looks in the mirror and then forgets what they saw, but let us look intently at your Word and dwell in it and ask for your guidance. In your Son’s name, we pray.
Amen. Jesus starts out by talking to the crowds first about weather. How many of you check the weather when you get up in the morning? You know, the meteorologists are the only people that get paid to be wrong. That’s what I’ve always said, especially here in Wisconsin.
I mean, I woke up one Sunday morning, no one had told me there was going to be snow, and I had to shovel my driveway. It just changes and comes about. So Jesus is talking. He says, you know how to tell what the weather’s going to be like, but why can’t you interpret the present time? And there are two words in the Greek.
One talks about time in general, but this word, kairos here is talking about a very specific moment of critical decision or of utmost importance. And what Jesus was referring to is that you’ve heard the prophets for years telling you that things are going to change because A particular person is coming. The Messiah. He’s here now. The situation’s changed.
Why don’t you understand the present time? In Matthew 16, he had also gotten onto the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Of all people that had the Scriptures and understood them, they should have read the Times and known that this was Jesus, the Messiah. But they didn’t. You know, ever since Jesus came, he has expected his followers to interpret the time that they live in.
The prophecies aren’t hidden anymore. We understand them and their fulfillment in Christ. And because all of them have been fulfilled in Jesus, we are now to live differently. We’re supposed to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, but we’re also supposed to live according to the Word. And we’re supposed to be anticipating the imminent return and living according to the Word, being under the guidance and the leadership of Jesus and knowing that he could return at any time.
We should be looking at the times and saying, how are we supposed to live? I want us to go to the Old Testament to see three examples of people who understood the times. And the first one is in First Chronicles. And what we learn here is that understanding the times means knowing what needs to be done. How many of you like knowing what needs to be done?
How many of you like not knowing what needs to be done? I mean, maybe some of you enjoy that, but for me, that just makes me feel uneasy and chaotic. It tells us in First Corinthians, Chronicles 12 that David was about to become king. And it says that people, men came from all of the tribes. The number of the armed troops who came to David at Hebron to turn Saul’s kingdom over to him according to the Lord’s Word were as follows.
And I’m not going to read all of them, but each tribe brought something different. Judah brought armed troops, and they came with their own shields and spears. So they came with equipment. Simeon came with valiant warriors who were ready for war. They were trained from the house of Levi.
There was a spiritual leader, Jehoiada, who was the leader of the house of Aaron. And also with him was another priest named Zadok, who was not only a priest, but he was a valiant warrior. And they had 22 men that were trained to be commanders. You can see all of this fitting together, that God was preparing David to have the men in the army that he needed. Naphtali sent 1000 commanders.
They must have had some type of leadership training school who came with shields and spears. Dan and Asher sent men that were trained for battle. Reuben And Gadda, it says that their men came equipped with all military weapons of war. But the men from Issachar, the Issacharites, they offered something different. And we read it there in verse 32.
Read it with me. The Issacharites, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do, they came with wisdom. The rest came with tools. But without this understanding of what needed to be done, what would they all be doing? To understand the times means to know what it is that we are supposed to be doing.
And it’s something that every day we need to be praying. God, what do I need to be doing today? But we also need to be praying as a church. What does our church need to be doing in this time? The next two examples we have come from the Book of Esther, where we learn that understanding the times means looking beyond yourself.
We live in a world that says, do what you want to do, speak your mind, say whatever you want to say. It’s all centered on self satisfaction, self gratification. But understanding the times means that we don’t think about ourselves. We think about the person next to us in the pew. We think about our spouses, we think about our children, we think about our neighbors, we think about our church.
Whenever we make decisions about what God wants us to do, we have to have the broader picture of how it’s going to affect others. We go to the Book of Ex. Not exactly Esther. And the queen had embarrassed the king. He was having all of his rulers there, and he was very proud of his wife.
It’s a good thing to be proud of your wife. And he asked her to come in to meet everybody. And Vashti refused to come. And the king felt what? Embarrassed, upset, angry, mad?
A lot of feelings arose in him. So he consulted the wise men that he trusted in. They were the ones that he trusted in the most. They held the highest positions in the land. And it says that he trusted them because what does it say that they did?
They understood the times. It was a normal procedure to confer with experts in the law about justice. But there was one particular advisor there, and he was able to look beyond himself, says Mimican said in the presence of the king and his officials, Queen Vashti has wronged not only the king. So, king, you shouldn’t just be offended, but she’s wronged all the officials, she’s wronged all the people who are in every one of King Ahasuerus provinces. You know, he could have said, you need to deal with this personally.
This is just between you and Your wife. He could have made a suggestion that would have benefited him the most, or it would have kept peace just in the palace. But he had the wisdom of understanding the times because he was looking to how this was going to affect who, everybody in all corners of the king’s land. Understanding the times means looking beyond yourself when you make decisions about what’s supposed to happen. We also have our third example here in the book of Esther, and that’s Esther herself.
And what we learn from her is understanding the times may mean personal sacrifice. In other words, when God tells you that you need to do something, or when he tells our church that we need to do something, it could mean that there’s going to be some personal sacrifice that’s very small or it’s very great. And the thing about it is, you can’t say, God, I’ll do this if I like the outcome. You know what I’m saying? Yeah, God, I’ll do that.
And then all of a sudden you find, oh, well, if I do that, it’s going to cost me this, or it’s going to take up so much time now I’m going to back off. You have to be fully committed when you come to the Lord and ask him, what am I supposed to do that if it means personal sacrifice, that you’re committed to whatever that is. And what had happened here is, you know the story. Esther had risen up to take Vashti’s place, and there was an evil man that lived there, and Haman. So I didn’t write it down.
Sometimes my mind forgets things. But I’ve got Mary here to remind me. Haman had it in his mind that he was going to destroy a group of people. And there were a significant number of these people in the land. They were the Jews.
And he had, in essence, fooled the king into allowing him to say that all of them were going to be destroyed on such and such a day. And. And Esther had Uncle Mordecai, who heard about this, and he knew what was about to happen, and he understood the times, and he came to Esther and this is what he said. If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place. But you and your father’s family will be destroyed.
Who knows? Perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this. Now, if you know the story, you understand this, but let me explain.
Esther was a Jew herself. And what Mordecai is saying is, if you don’t do something about this, don’t Think that you’re going to escape from the situation. He wanted her to go into the king, her husband, and plead on behalf of the Jewish people to do something. But there was a custom in that day. If you walked into the king and he had not called you into his presence, if he didn’t hold his scepter out to you, you know what happened to you.
You were axed.
And he had not had her in a while. He had not seen her in a while. She may have felt forgotten, but she made the personal sacrifice. Walking in there, knowing that it may have been the end of her life. But she and her uncle understood the times and understood that she was there at the right time and the right place.
You know, our lives are not just a series of random events in random places. God knows everywhere you’re going to live. He knows every person you’re going to meet. He knows how much time you have. And in his mind, he has things prepared for us to do in all those places.
And understanding the times, meaning that you are responsible to know what you are supposed to do, willing to sacrifice if necessary, for your personal life, but also for your family life, to be willing to sacrifice if God asks you to, for your friendships, for your work, for your church, your community, even for the world at large. God may ask you to do something that will cost you something. But that’s all part of the example of understanding what it means to understand the times and live. I want us to go to Second Peter, chapter three now. And Peter is giving some encouragement on how to live and what you need to understand and what you need to know in these times.
Second Peter 3, verses 1 through 18. He starts out, Dear friends, this is now the second letter I have written to you. And he said, in both of my letters, I want to stir up your. Your sincere understanding. Again, understanding the times, not just living your life and letting things come.
It’s knowing what you are supposed to do, understanding what’s going on in the world. And he says by way of reminder, so that you recall the words that were previously spoken by the holy prophets and the command of our Lord and Savior that are given through, through the apostles. What are the words spoken by the holy prophets? It’s what we call the Old Testament today, saying, you need to understand the Old Testament. But then he’s talking about the words of Jesus that we have recorded in the Gospels and the other words that are given through the apostles, the New Testament.
In both letters he said, I want to stir up your sincere understanding. And so that you recall all of God’s word so that you know how to be living in these last days. Then verse three says, and above all, be aware of this. Everything’s not going to be great. There are going to be scoffers who will come in the last days.
And they’re going to be scoffing and they’re not following the desires of God. They’re following their own evil desires, saying, where is his coming that he promised? Ever since our ancestors fell asleep, all things, they just continue as they have been since the beginning of creation.
There are scoffers out there that say, you know, well, Jesus lived 2,000 years ago. He said he was coming, he’s not coming back. Everything’s been the same, just keeps going on and on all the time. It’s called uniformitarianism, I think is the right word, that everything has always existed, everything always will exist. And Peter’s going to address that here in just a minute.
But they have no consciousness that God has been involved in this world. Verse 5 explains this more. It says that they being the scoffers to they deliberately overlook. It’s not that they can’t see God in this world. They have creation, they have the stars, they have even the small things that we see under microscopes, how it all works together.
And they deliberately choose to overlook these things that by the word of God, the heavens came into being long ago, that we all belong to God because He created us. And they also want to overlook that the earth was brought about from water and through water, meaning that through the world of that time perished. The flood came that covered the whole earth and destroyed everyone. They want to deliberately ignore that fact, even though we have fossils from ocean creatures at the tops of oceans. How did they get there at the top of mountains?
And I’m sorry, you can’t have sea creatures at the top of mountains. Unless what they lived there at one point or that was underwater. I mean, there’s so much that they just ignore. But he says that by that same word, the word that God used to create and to destroy, that the present heavens and earth now are being stored up for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. The day of judgment is coming.
But that day of judgment means that God is going to bring about a new creation in this world. And the scoffers are saying it’s never going to happen. But we as believers say it is coming and we need to understand the times and we need to live differently, that we’re promoting the gospel, that we’re Bringing people to Christ, knowing where we’re headed. Verse 8. Dear friends, don’t overlook this one fact.
With the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. I’m almost 64 soon. And when I look backward at 64 years, how much time do you think in my mind is past? It’s very short. But if you’re a kid and you’re looking forward to Christmas Day, it can seem, what, like an eternity.
I mean, that’s. That’s kind of what I think it’s saying here is that when God looks at a thousand years, that’s. That’s nothing. But we’re like, wow, we’ve been waiting 2000 years for Jesus to come back. But even though we’re having to wait and wait, he says the Lord does not delay his promise as soon as some understand it.
The reason why God is delaying, because he is patient with us.
And here’s the reason why. Read it with me. He is not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. How many people does God invite to salvation? Everyone.
And how many people does he hope will come to salvation? What are the words there? Oh, and every day that he puts off Christ’s return, he’s allowing more people to hear the Gospel, more to come to him. God is patient, and we take thanks in that. We go on.
In verse 10, Peter says that the day of the Lord will come like a thief. We don’t know when it’s going to happen, but we have to be ready for the thief. Thief. And it’s not that Jesus is a thief, but his return is going to be like that. It’s going to be a surprise.
And we need to be prepared. Because on that day when he comes, the heavens will pass away with a loud noise. The elements will burn and be dissolved, and the earth and the works on it will be disclosed. And since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, he says it’s clear what sort of people you should be. And the first thing is, he says we’re supposed to be holy in our conduct.
To be holy means to be set apart. It means to be different. It might even mean that you’re weird. Some people might tell you, no, it’s kind of weird that you do this and that. And your answer is, well, of course that’s what I do, because that’s what the Bible says that I’m supposed to do.
Thank you for telling me that I’m weird. That means that I’m living the way that I’m supposed to. We’re supposed to be set apart. We’re supposed to be different. We’re not supposed to look like the world, holy in conduct and in godliness.
That means that we’re supposed to reflect the character of God. Everything that we know about him. He’s good, so we should be good. He’s merciful, so we should be merciful. He’s kind and he’s loving and he’s sacrificial.
All of these things are what godliness looks like. And we are, in this day, if we understand it, supposed to be living that way. We’re also supposed to be anticipatory. That means we’re waiting for the day of God. We want it to hasten its coming.
Because of that day, the heavens will be dissolved with fire and the elements will melt with heat again. Peter’s got this good news. Jesus is coming back. Everything’s going to be wonderful. But you have to understand the times that there are people that are going to face judgment.
And all these things that we hold onto, the possessions that are dear, they’re all going to be dissolved because we’re finally going to understand what it means to have the most precious gift, and that is a relationship face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ, understanding the times we are to be holy in conduct. We’re supposed to be godly, we’re supposed to be anticipatory. Then verse 13 says, but based on his promise, even though the scoffers are saying it isn’t happen, we still wait for the new heavens and the new earth, where finally righteousness will dwell and there will be no more evil. And from Second Corinthians, chapter one, we know that whatever God promises, Paul says, it’s yes. We always tried not to promise anything definitely to our kids because what inevitably happens, you get a phone call, something happens, and then you have to go back and tell your kids, you know, I’m so sorry, you know, we can’t do this or that today.
And their answer is, but you what you promised. You know, we don’t ever, ever have to go to God and say, but you promised. Because what he says he will accomplish, yes, Is this answer to everything he’s promised. Therefore, we are able to say amen to the glory of God. Paul’s saying we can say with certainty at the end of our prayer, whatever it is, that, yes, God, we know that you’re going to do it, not because I want it, but if it’s something that you promised.
Verse 14. Therefore, dear friends, while you wait for these things, make every effort. What does it mean to make every effort? It means it may cost you money, it may cost you time, it may cost you suffering, it may cost you your reputation. But he’s saying, whatever you need to be, do, make every effort to be faithful, found without spot or blemish in his sight, and at peace with God.
What’s that saying there is that we’re supposed to be in cooperation with God and how we live when we get saved. There’s what we call justification, that God says, yes, at this point, you belong to me, your sins have been forgiven. But the rest of our life, we’re in a process of what we call sanctification, that God is making us more and more and more like His Son. And you can either cooperate with God in that, or you can not cooperate, but he’s still going to work in your life. And what I say by cooperate is, if God has something, His Word says, don’t do this or do this.
If you’re going to be cooperative, you’re going to say what to the Lord. Yes, I will do that.
If the Holy Spirit gives you a prompting in your mind that you need to talk to somebody, or you need to pray for someone, or you need to do something, you still have a choice in your sanctification process to cooperate with the Lord. And that’s what he’s saying. Make every effort that as far as you can tell, there is no spot or blemish in your life. The other example here is like you have a dirty piece of laundry and you squirt extra stuff on it, or you scrub it with a toothbrush, or you put extra soap. You examine yourselves and where those spots are and where those blemishes are that you can remove.
You’re supposed to, with God’s help, make every effort to remove those things so that hopefully when God looks at you, he sees you trying to live your life according to according to His Word, and you’re at peace with Him. Now, if you don’t cooperate with God, he disciplines you and you’re not going to be at peace, but he’s still going to continue to work with you to make you like his son. Verse 15. Also regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. We’re supposed to be happy about things being awful while God delays his return because every day someone else gets a chance to hear the gospel and to respond to the call to salvation.
So we wait patiently. Lord, my life isn’t the best right now. I sure wish that you would return today and take care of things. But if he doesn’t return today, we can live with this joyful attitude that hopefully someone else, someone that we love or even people that we don’t know will come to faith. Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.
Just as our dear brother Paul has written to you, according to the wisdom given to him, he speaks about these things in all his letters. He said there are some things that are hard to understand in them. You ever find the Bible hard to understand? I mean, even Peter found some of the things that Paul wrote hard to understand. But he’s giving this warning here, these things that are hard to understand, that now we’re not talking about scoffers, but he’s going to talk about there can be people inside the church who are untaught.
They’ve not really been studying the Word. They’re unstable. And they’re going to take these difficult things in God’s Word and they’re going to twist them to whatever they want it to mean. And it’s going to lead to destruction. And not only with the difficult things, they also do it with the rest of scriptures.
So part of the way we’re supposed to live during this time is to be aware that there are going to be false teachers in the church. And there are also going to be people in the church that are truly believers, but they’re not studying the Word. And they’ve heard something on the news. They read something in the National Enquirer. I don’t even know if that’s still a magazine.
Y’ all remember the National Enquirer? You could trust it 100%, right?
And they take that and they come up with what Scripture means. And he’s saying there are going to be people at church. You need to know your Bible, Old Testament and New Testament so that you can pick these things out. You need to be aware of it, that you compare everything to Scripture verse 17. Therefore, dear friends, since you know this in advance, he says, be on your guard.
Don’t just walk day by day, lackadaisical. You’re supposed to be paying attention. You’re supposed to be alert, trying to understand the times and doing what God wants you to do. Because if you’re not on your guard, it says that you’re going to be led away by the error of lawless people and you’re going to fall from your own stable position. Now, it doesn’t mean here that you’re going to lose your salvation, but what it does mean, if you’re not on your guard and you listen to These things that are not true, you’re not going to be vibrant in your spiritual life.
You may fall away from the church because you get discouraged. You’ve always got to go back to God’s word and be aware that other people can lead you astray. But instead, he says, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Growing in knowledge about Jesus is a lifelong process that helps you in your sanctification. And he says to him, be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity.
Be aware. Be continually growing in knowledge about Jesus and the place where you can go to grow in your knowledge about Jesus. Here’s your test for today. What is it? Tell me the Bible.
You have the Bible, but you also have the Holy Spirit inside of you. And when you spend time in prayer, if you don’t just talk to God all the time, if you take time to listen to him because it’s supposed to be a two way conversation, you’re going to learn more about Jesus. Prayer is like texting. It can be a short little note, it can be a long written letter, it could be a conversation on the phone. It’s supposed to be like talking with a friend.
But it isn’t just talking. You always wait to what? To hear back. It’s a conversation. Grow in the knowledge about Jesus.
Spend time in the Word. Spend time in conversation with God. You know we’re facing a new year and God wants us to be aware of the times. And there are three things we need to ask ourselves today. Are we going to be like those from the tribe of Issachar?
Do we know what needs to be done? And if you can’t tell me today what you know, you need to do in the next year, you need to be spending time in God’s word and time in prayer. Because if God wants you to do something and you’re willing to do it, he will let you know. He’s not trying to make it mysterious to you and hide it and make you try to figure it out.
Example, Babylon Bee. How many of you read that? Don’t raise your hand. Said the husband made a big mistake because the wife said, you don’t have to get me anything for Christmas.
And all of her friends said, oh yeah, we heard her say that. So you know what he did? He didn’t get anything for Christmas. And she was all upset because she didn’t want anything for Christmas. She wanted a very specific thing for Christmas that he was supposed to have figured out and he didn’t get it for her.
God is not that way. He makes it very clear, clear in his word what we are supposed to do. It’s not this great mystery to figure out. And if you spend time in prayer, if you talk to people around you within the church, you can get wisdom from them on how it is and what we need to do. Mean, like Mimikan, are we looking beyond ourselves?
Are you heading into this year saying, God, I’m not going to live just for myself here for my family, I’m here for my friends, I’m here for my church, I’m here for the people that I work with. I am here for the world to do your bidding. And thirdly, like Esther, are we willing to make necessary personal sacrifice? And again, I want to iterate you tell God I’m willing to sacrifice anything for you before he tells you what that sacrifice sacrifice is that you need to make.
Lastly, just I want you to go back and look at Second Peter, chapter three and just make it a matter of meditation this week and maybe throughout the year that we keep coming back and focusing on how we are supposed to live during our time of invitation, we’re going to do something a little different. Mary’s going to come up and play the keyboard and I’m going to ask you to come and pray at the altar. We’re going to leave the questions up here and I want you to ask God, what is it that I need to do and what is it our church needs to do. I want you to come and pray at the altar and say, God, am I looking just at myself? Help me to grow in looking to the needs of others.
And I want you to get to the point that you’re willing to pray even today. God, I’m willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to do what you want me to do. And I want our church to be willing to sacrifice what we need to do as a church. Now, I know some of you won’t feel comfortable coming to forward to pray. You can pray in your pews, maybe you can’t.
But just a time of prayer today. I’ll close this at the end of that and then Kelly Jo will come up and lead us in the.