The Signs of the End are Clear by Greg Laurie – SubStack
Our life is governed by signs. You’re looking at signs from the minute you get up in the morning—an alert on your alarm clock or your smart phone—and you spend your day staring at computer screens, car navigation screens, billboards and building signage all day long.
Then there are the roadside signs. There’s a red one shaped like an octagon with four letters on it. What does it mean? Judging by how people in my world respond to it, it must mean “keep on rolling.”
Another sign bears the letters S-L-O-W.
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We love helping others and believe that’s one of the reasons we are chosen as Ambassadors of the Kingdom, to serve God’s children. We look to the Greatest Commandment as our Powering force.
What does that mean? Absolutely nothing to most people.
In the book of Matthew, Jesus coined a phrase that I’m sure you’ve heard before: “signs of the times.”
Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; 3 and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. 4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” And He left them and departed.—Matthew 16:1-4
These two religious groups—the Pharisees and Sadducees—were united in their hatred for Jesus. They came to Him demanding a miracle. Of course, Jesus had been doing miracle after miracle already—healing the sick, casting out demons, calming storms on the Sea of Galilee, feeding thousands of people from a little boy’s lunch.
He had even raised Lazarus from the dead.
And these guys needed a “sign”?
No matter how many miracles some people witness, they will never allow their hearts to believe.
Anyway, these Pharisees and Sadducees demanded that Jesus show them a “sign from heaven.” In Mark’s account of this story, we’re told that Jesus “sighed deeply.”
I imagine I would have sighed deeply, too.
Seeing What’s Plainly Obvious
Have you ever had someone say something to you that was so lame or off the wall that you couldn’t even come up with a reply? Maybe all you could do was sigh, shake your head, or shrug your shoulders and walk away. Maybe that’s how Jesus felt with these cold-hearted religious leaders.
