
Wars & Rumors of War 2024
About this sermon
Dean Odle revisits his watchman calling in light of intensifying global conflict, reading Ezekiel 33, Matthew 24, Ezekiel 38, and Revelation 8–9 as a connected warning. He argues that Israel’s regathering, a future Russian-led invasion, earlier trumpet judgments, and a coming nuclear sixth-trumpet war show prophecy accelerating like labor pains.
Chronological teaching outline
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After conference announcements, Odle recalls being called through Jeremiah 1 and Ezekiel 33 to warn people rather than seek popularity. He frames the sermon as an update because events he once expected decades away now appear, in his view, close at hand.
Matthew 24’s wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes are compared to labor contractions that intensify and draw closer together. Ezekiel 33 then defines the watchman’s duty to sound an alarm when the sword approaches so hearers can respond.
Ezekiel 38 is read as describing Israel gathered from many nations and living in its restored land before a massive coalition attacks. Odle stresses that the “latter years” setting and Israel’s second regathering separate this invasion from the Babylonian return.
Odle identifies Magog’s Scythian descendants with Russia and cites Joel Rosenberg’s reporting as a modern point of comparison. He then interprets Revelation 8’s second trumpet as World War II, pointing to destruction at sea and the era’s vast naval losses.
The name Wormwood and Ukrainian memorial imagery are offered as evidence for identifying Chernobyl with the third trumpet. Revelation 9’s sixth trumpet is then presented as a future nuclear conflict capable of killing a third of humanity amid several nuclear powers in Asia and the Middle East.
Second Peter 3 warns that last-days scoffers will dismiss Christ’s return because life appears to continue normally. Odle says similar skepticism exists inside churches, while an Israeli rabbi’s comments illustrate both growing expectation and the danger of accepting a false messiah.
The sermon presents Odle’s political interpretation of the Ukraine conflict, including Western involvement, NATO expansion, and Russia’s security concerns. He rejects simplified portrayals of Vladimir Putin and argues that deceptive geopolitical narratives can push nations toward a wider war.
Odle warns that even limited nuclear use could crash markets, disrupt fertilizer and food supplies, and expose national vulnerability. He links farmland, engineered food, and UN or World Economic Forum agendas to his broader expectation of an emerging Revelation 13 control system.
Galatians 6 is used to warn believers not to become spiritless or lose courage under pressure. The practical response includes prayer, fasting, Scripture, repentance, and modest physical preparation rather than denial or panic.
Odle says advance warning is mercy because it allows believers to brace for hardship while expecting God’s light amid darkness. He closes with prayer and Christ’s warning against the unfaithful servant who treats an apparent delay as permission to live carelessly.
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Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.
- 0:02:50
Let me be to your presence in our lives, Lord. God, we are thankful that you said that your spirit would bear witness with our spirit, that we are children of God. We can know that we are born again through faith in the blood and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord. We can be filled with your spirit. The gifts of the spirit can flow and work in our lives. You have not changed. You were the same yesterday, today and forever. God, you've also given us all the signs, all the prophecies to let us know that we're in the season of your second coming and we pray, God, that you would help us to prepare to be ready in every way because we know things are gonna move quicker and quicker as we move along here.
- 0:05:54
We ask for your anointing today, your presence today. Again, I ask you to touch those that are here and those that are watching and listening with the power of your spirit, Lord. Open ears to hear and understand your word today, your truth and the message that you have for them. Lord, it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen and amen. You may be seated this morning. I wanna welcome everyone. Welcome those watching and listening out there all over the place. Good to see everybody today. Just quickly, I feel like I'm supposed to do this first before we get into the word. Can we put up the skyfall? I want to normally do this at the end of the service, but I just felt like I'm supposed to do it at the beginning because we're a month away, so we wanna encourage everybody, don't miss this. It's going to be good. Things are starting to come together and I'm really, really excited. Now, I've got a month to get all my stuff ready because I'm not ready at all, but I think most of our other speakers are ready to go, but we're also gonna have more worship time, more ministry and prayer time. We're not gonna be as speaker-focused one after the other after the other. It's going to be more ministry time, so that's why I didn't, I did not ask as many speakers this year, so we're just gonna take our time. We're not in a hurry, and that's why I believe God moves in a special way. I know some of you may be on the fence about coming to Skyfall from all over. Well, we want to encourage you, get off the fence, come on. You'll have enough time to get back home before the election so, because chaos may ensue, so it's perfect. You can come to Skyfall and then get on the plane or back in your car and get back home and go vote and then get ready. Yeah, all right. I want everybody this morning, I want you to take your Bibles and go ahead and turn to Ezekiel chapter 33. We're gonna start there first and you guys can get ready with the first title slide I have for you guys this morning. You know, the Lord, he, when he called me to the ministry 37 years ago, matter of fact, it was June 1987, so we're talking about 37 years ago, he used both the book of Jeremiah chapter one because I was 19 years old and Ezekiel, some of what I'm gonna read to you right now, Ezekiel, when he called me to the ministry and one of the things if you, you can flip to it if you want to but in Ezekiel chapter one, Ezekiel said he saw the heavens open and he saw the glory of God so when God called me in 1987, that was in June and I came back to Jesus fully,
- 0:08:58
repented of my sins and God began to show me starting in about, I guess it was in October of that year that I was called to the ministry and that I was called to be a prophet and he did that by opening, I literally saw heaven open, I had an open vision of Jesus standing before the glory of the Father in heaven and the doves of the Holy Spirit's wings stretched out, the glory was so strong and the power was so strong when I had this vision that I thought the rapture was happening because of course I didn't know the truth then and but I thought Jesus was coming, that's how powerful it was and in fact, the power and presence of the Lord was so strong that I had to tell him at one point, I think you need to ease off a little bit because my body's about to not be able to handle it. Now anybody that thinks that's strange does not know the Bible because in Acts chapter two, God said in the last days, he would pour out his spirit on all flesh, he said, your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams and those are prophetic dreams and he went on to say that it would be primarily about, there would be blood, fire and pillars of smoke. Now that's in Acts two and it's in Joel two if you wanna check me but I'm just giving you a little introduction. So he was talking about our sons and daughters and young men and old men seeing visions hearing from the Lord prophetically and also women as well hearing from the Lord prophetically about the things that would be coming on the earth in the last days. Now I can just tell you that I have no doubt after walking with the Lord all these years that we are living in the last of the last days. Now, nobody knows exactly how long we have left. I don't know. Now it's interesting, there've been times that the Holy Spirit's come on me. I remember when I was pastoring in church in Montgomery back in the mid 90s and I remember somebody around 97 asking me the question, when do you think these things are gonna really start happening? Like the big things that we see in the word of God? And I said, well, I said, I really feel like it's about 20 to 30 years. We'll do the figuring right there. 20 years would take us from 97 to 2017 and then 10 more years after that takes us to 2027. And we're right here in the midst of it. And I really wanna tell you, I feel very strongly that the next few years, particularly 2025, 2026, 2027 are gonna be different than we've ever experienced in the world, probably since World War II. And the evil people in this world are moving quicker.
- 0:12:00
They're becoming more desperate. And Satan is really, really, I guess he's sensing he has a short time. You know, as it says in Revelation 12, he will sense that he has a short time so he will come down to us with great wrath. So that is where we are. Now, again, I'm a little different because I know some people say, well, we got all these different voices and I know there's all kind of different people with all kind of different opinions and I really don't care. I have to do and I do what God has called me to do and what God has revealed to me I share with you. And that's what we're supposed to do. I mean, that's what Jeremiah did and that's what Ezekiel did. Every prophet just said, here's what God's given me. You guys gotta figure out whether you accept it or not. But I'm gonna tell you that these things are gonna happen in our lives. We don't have 50 more years. We don't have 100 more years. That kind of nonsense, and we're certainly not in the millennial reign like these crazy people think that we are, they think Jesus came in 70 AD and all that Preterism nonsense. To me, I'm blown away because the things that are in here, all these things that we're gonna talk about, they precede the second coming of Jesus and his second coming has not happened. And let me just go ahead and say at the outset, the things I'm telling you today and I've preached on and taught before, that the Bible does not teach a pre-tribulation rapture. Like we're getting out of here before these things happen. Now I know most of you were taught these things. Taught that doctrine, so was I. But the Lord woke me up to the truth by simply making me fast for seven days. Then on day five of a seven day fast, he said, read Matthew 24. And I read Matthew 24. In Matthew 24, we're gonna read verse in a minute, but Matthew 24 is real clear. They asked Jesus, what would be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? And Jesus said, well, these things are gonna be the beginning of sorrows. He said wars and rumors of wars, right? Famine, pestilence, earthquakes and diverse places. He said, these are the beginning of sorrows. Now the word sorrows there means like travail upon a woman with child, meaning that it's gonna be, you know, it starts out slow and then it gets more intense and the intense contractions begin to get closer together. And that's what he said, it'll start out slow and then things will move very fast. And Matthew 24, Jesus was clear. He said, these are the beginning of sorrows, then this will happen, then this will happen, then this will happen. If you go all the way through it,
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