If you look all around you, there are signs of what is coming in the days ahead. The leaves are off of the trees, the wind is getting colder, and the sun is setting earlier. If you walk in to Wal-Mart, the shorts are on clearance and the scarves, gloves, shovels, and ice scrapers are in prominent places. If you see all of these things, your conclusion can only be one thing; what’s coming? Winter is coming! Snow is on its way! It’s easy to see this because the signs are all there. Everything is pointing towards winter and we even got a little preview the other night with a light snow.
Well, something else is coming. As we continue in our look at the book of Matthew, we have arrived at the 24th chapter. Here, Jesus’ disciples ask him a question that all of us have thought about at one time or another. What will the end be like, and when will it come? Everyone has a curiosity about the future. Everyone has wondered, at one time or another, what’s going to happen at the end of time. The Book of Revelation, a guidebook of prophecy that lays out the end of the story, the future of mankind, is always a hot topic for study among Christians. When the Left Behind series came out, based on the events in Revelation, they were an instant hit. Christians and Non-Christians alike read the books ad looked forward with great expectation to the release of the next one in the series. People want to know what’s in store for us when life on Earth is done. We’re curious! Satan has used that to his advantage and led many people astray with psychics, mediums, astrology, horoscopes, palm-readers, and on and on. Each of these capitalizes on our natural curiosity about what tomorrow brings. The disciples were no different. They had listened to Christ’s teaching, they had followed where he led them, and now, as His teaching became tougher to understand, as He talked about death and resurrection, they wanted to know when the end would come and how they would know when it was close. Just like we can recognize the signs that point to winter, Jesus shares with them some truths about what signs will point to His return, to the Second Coming, that day that all of history has pointed towards and led up to when the trumpet will sound and the church will rise to meet our Savior in the air! It is the most blessed truth and promise in all of Scripture. Jesus is coming again.
We’ve had to skip a chapter here so I want to just catch you up to where we are this morning. We are in what’s known as Passion Week. This is the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry before He is Crucified by the Romans through the efforts of the Jewish leaders. Everything in this week is boiled down to the essentials. He re-teaches and hammers home the points that He wants to make sure the disciples grasp before He returns to heaven and unleashes them to the ministry He has called them to. Much of the early part of the week is spent with the Pharisees. He has told three parables, each one exposing their hypocrisy. He has fielded three questions, each designed to trick Him and expose Him as a fake. Each had the opposite effect and it was the Pharisees who looked bad. And then in chapter 23, which we are skipping over, the gloves come completely off and just in case anyone had missed the subtlety of the parables, Jesus rips into the Pharisees. He lists seven woes and dresses the Pharisees down for their hypocrisy, their false piety, their worthless outer holiness, and the way that they have oppressed the people and led them astray. He uses the word hypocrite over and over, He calls them fools, He calls them snakes and He wraps it up nicely with this thought:
MT 23:33 "You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?
No one talked to these men like this! These were the religious leaders, these were the men with all of the power but with righteous passion, Jesus exposed them for who they were and revealed the heart of God, what was important to God, a clean heart, a humble heart.
Even in the midst of this discourse, Jesus shows compassion and shows a depth of love and a longing for these men to “get it” and to turn to Him.
MT 23:37 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.
And knowing that they were not going to change, He left the temple. That’s where it picks up at the beginning of Chapter 24. Read verse1. This has always been interesting to me. As the disciples are walking away with Christ, they turn back and try to draw Jesus’ attention to the temple building. Almost like tourists. Have you ever gone to NYC and watched the tourist who walks around grabbing the arm of the one that he’s traveling with and pointing at this site or that site. That’s the sense you get here. The disciples grabbing Christ by the arm and saying, Look, look at this building. Scholars guess that this would have been about the time of day when the sun was hitting the temple just right and it truly would have been a marvel to behold. The Jewish temple in Jerusalem was the cornerstone of all that the Jew believed and held dear. It was the symbol of who they were and the relationship that they had with God. As long as the temple stood, all was right in the world. This was known as Herod’s temple, it had been rebuilt by Herod and was actually the third temple to be built, following the destruction of the other two during times of war and displacement for the Jews. It was a marvel to behold. The supporting stones stretched 40 feet in length and weighed over 100 tons, archeologists and engineers are still not sure how those stones were placed without modern machinery. The temple itself was marble and plated with pure gold. As the sun hit it it would have been a beautiful sight, it would have stirred the hearts of the disciples, it was a symbol of the Jews place in the world.
As the disciples point to the splendor of this building, Jesus gives them this grave announcement:
"Do you see all these things?" he asked. "I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."
Jesus goes a bit further down the road and sits down and the disciples wait for a private moment and ask Him some questions. This is where things get a little bit tricky in this passage. This is one of the tougher passages to interpret correctly in all of Scripture. There are many different opinions as to the answers that Christ gives and what they meant for the Jews and what they mean to us today. So as we look at His response, it’s important to note a couple of things, some keys that will help us to unlock this passage:
1) He is answering 2 questions.
MT 24:3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"
The disciples want to know: A) When is the temple going to be destroyed.
B) How will we know that you are about to return again.
In the verses that follow, you have the answer to both of these questions and those answers are woven together and wrapped together so that there are some answers that speak of the near future, the coming destruction of Israel, and there are some that speak of the distant future and the coming end of the age when the Day of the Lord arrives and there are some that address both at once. If we try to interpret all of this passage as answering one question or the other, this passage becomes impossible to understand, but if we keep in mind that He is addressing two questions at the same time, things make a bit more sense.
2) His Intent
As we look at Jesus’ response, we need to understand that this is not an end times timetable like we see in the book of Revelation. Jesus’ intent and purpose here is not to illuminate the minds of the disciples so that they would understand everything that was to come. They may have expected Him to pull them into a huddle and say alright, here’s the plan, this is the date set for my return, God’s kingdom will be set up in this many days, and these are the things you need to accomplish between now and then, any questions? That’s not what he did. He tells them in verse 36 that He doesn’t even know the about that day or that hour, even if He wanted to lay out the specifics, He couldn’t. Jesus had a different reason for what he shared. It was threefold:
A) He wanted to warn of Events that would Happen Soon
B) He wanted to Prepare them for Action
C) He wanted to Stir up Expectation
There has always been a tension between the imminence of Christ’s return, that it could be any moment, and the delay of His return, as He continues to give people a chance to repent. The Day will come, it is imminent. But it will come when God has ordained it, in the fullness of time. Christ wants to make sure that His disciples stay watchful and are eagerly expecting that day.
A few years ago I was sitting in a movie theater and the lights had just gone down. There was that brief moment of hushed silence right before the screen comes to life and then it happened. The blaring trumpet music and the familiar words scrolling across the screen: “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.” I got goose bumps! Three minutes later, it was over. This wasn’t the actual movie that was playing, it was a teaser, a preview of what was coming soon. It was brief and left the viewer with a whole lot of questions but it also built up a sense of anticipation. I couldn’t wait for the actual movie to come out! Jesus wanted to give the disciples and us, today, a preview of what was going to come so that we would be waiting expectantly. He ends this passage with a story of two servants. The master is away and the time of his return is unknown. One servant is diligent and eagerly expecting the master, the other thinks he can do whatever he pleases. The master returns when he is least expected. The good servant is rewarded, the other one is punished. Christ wants His disciples to be expectantly waiting for his return, that was a big motivation behind the way that he answered the 2 questions.
So, this is less of a Revelation account and more of a Call to watchfulness and Preparation. Let’s look at the different aspects of His answer.
First, He:
I. Spoke of the Near Future
While the idea of the destruction of the temple, as we’ve already mentioned, is woven throughout the passage, verses 15-22 speak specifically of the destruction that is facing Israel in the near future. READ
It’s certainly not a pretty picture that is being painted here. Jesus is predicting that a time of distress and pain that is unequaled will come upon Jerusalem. The destruction will be so terrible that if God did not display some mercy, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, he will not bring about the complete destruction of Israel. Some will remain and God will be faithful to His promise and covenant with them. It’s during this time that the temple will be destroyed in such a way that not one stone is left upon another. These words and this prophecy was fulfilled in the year AD 70 by The Roman Army under the command if Titus. The historian Josephus records that the destruction of the temple was so complete that a passerby would not have supposed that the place had ever been inhabited. He also describes this attack as a time of famine so severe that parents turned upon their own children for food. 100’s of Jews were crucified and over one million were killed by every sort of brutality imagined. Hundreds of thousands were sold into slavery.
The words that Jesus spoke, with sorrow, that day were carried out in the lifetime of the apostles. Remember the intent of Christ’s answer was to warn. Josephus also records something very interesting about this attack. He tells us that most of the Christians had already fled the city and escaped into the mountain city of Pella and were spared the horrors of the attack. Jesus warned them and they heeded his words and recognized when the day came and many survived that would otherwise have perished! God provides for His children.
Now look at verse 34. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. This can be confusing because if we take this verse to mean the second coming, we know that that generation did pass away and Christ did not return. Some have tried to say that Jesus really meant “this people” will not pass away, meaning that he would spare the Jews from complete destruction until the time of His return. But if you take the words literally, they make complete sense when you understand that they are tied to His answering the first question about the temple. That generation lived to see the glorious temple, that place where Christ was circumcised, where he confounded the teachers of the law, and where he was tempted by Satan, they lived to see that Structure utterly destroyed just as Christ taught them on the mountainside here in these verse.
He also:
II. Spoke of the Beginning of the End
He gives the disciples a list of general things that will take place that will mark the beginning of the last days. Read 4-13
He tells us that these are the end in themselves but they are the beginnings of birth pains. Any woman who has given birth to a child can tell you a thing or two about pain. Guys, we have no idea! Bill Cosby once asked his wife what it felt like to give birth. She told him to grab his lower lip. He did and thought, that’s not too bad. Then she instructed him to pull the lip all the way over his head! Yeah, that might hurt. Jesus says that there will be signs of “labor” to signal the coming of the end. Like birth pains, they will become more and more intense as the birth nears, and like birth pains, the end result will be glorious. Erin would be the first to tell you that the pain was worth the two beautiful children that were the end result. When these pains, these events, have taken place, Christ will return and we will be with him in glory.
Tell me if you think any of these birth pains have begun:
A) Many will be deceived.
Jesus says that many will come and claim to be able to offer what Christ offers, a way to God and to heaven and many hearts will be turned away. Certainly that describes the world we live in today with the ideas of tolerance and that any religion or belief is valid as long as the believer is sincere.
1JN 2:18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.
2 timothy 4:3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
That’s what we see happening, we have gathered around us those who will preach a message of health and prosperity that will give us a warm fuzzy feeling but ultimately will not save us! Many have been deceived and have turned away. George Barna tells us that in Main Line evangelical churches: 59% of people don’t believe in Satan, 51% believe that praying to dead saints will get your prayers heard quicker, 35% believe that we can communicate with the dead, 50 % believe that salvation must be earned, 75% believe that we are born neither good or evil but we choose as we mature, 44% believe that the Bible, the Koran, and the Book of Mormon are all different expressions of the same Truth! The Bible clearly teaches the opposite of each of these things but we are in the last days and we are surrounded by those who look good and sound good but when they speak they speak the very lies of Satan and we are being deceived!
B) Wars and Rumors of Wars – just read the paper
C) Famines and Earthquakes –
Countries without food, tsunamis, earthquakes leveling cities, hurricanes destroying lives, Christ said these would come.
D) Persecution –
Legislation is being presented that makes any public prayer or Bible reading illegal. A man lost his job because his Christian bumper sticker offended a co-worker. Friends it has begun, even here in America and it will get worse, are you ready for that.
Jesus also tells us that in those days, because of these birth pains,
E) Many will turn away
We are in the midst of these things today. And Jesus says in verse 33 that when we see these signs, the end is at the door. There is one thing that has to happen before Christ can return, there is a key event that needs to shape the way that we live.
III. The Key Event
Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come.
What are you doing to bring back our Lord? Jesus says that while all of these other things are signs that point to the coming End of the Age, it is the gospel being taken to the ends of the earth that will usher in that Day. This is what A.B. Simpson claimed as the vision for the Alliance that we would be a people who is doing everything that we can to bring about the return of Christ. We can’t control any of these other things that Jesus shares with His disciples, but we can preach the gospel. We can take the Word of God to those who haven’t heard. We can pray for our missionaries and give towards our missionaries and go to the mission fields ourselves. When every tribe and nation has heard, Jesus himself tells us that He will return.
He talks about the timing of this Day as He answers the 2nd question of the disciples.
IV. The Second Coming – There is so much more that needs to be taught and preached on this subject. It needs to be its own series but for now I just want to touch on what Christ teaches here in this passage.
He tells us first that it is:
1) Imminent –
MT 24:36 "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. MT 24:42 "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
Jesus will return for His church, we can see the signs that precede His coming, but we cannot know when it will be. God alone knows that Day and it’s written in stone and all of History is hurtling towards it. We must live each day like it may be our last. His return could be this week, next month, or in 50 years, but when He comes will you be prepared? His return is imminent.
It is also:
2) Immediate:
He warns the disciples that many will claim to be the returning Christ but that you will see them rise to power, their ascension will be gradual. Do not be fooled, the return of Christ to take up His Bride will be immediate, like lightning.
27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
His coming will be quick and visible. Finally, His coming will be:
3) Incredible
MT 24:30 "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
Have you thought about that day? We will hear the trumpet sound and see Christ coming in the sky and we will be caught up with Him in the heavens to begin our eternity, to collect our inheritance, to worship at the feet of our Lord forever. If you can hear that without getting excited you may want to check your pulse! In answering the second question of the disciples, Jesus explains what that day will be like.
Imagine the looks on the disciples faces as Jesus shares these things with them. What a mix of emotions they must have had. To hear of the pain that was to come, the persecution, to hear of the glorious return of Christ, and the unprecedented spread of the message. So much has already taken place and been fulfilled, more than we had time to discuss today. So much is still to come. I want you to take these things away form this message.
1) We are living in the last days
2) Christ’s physical return is imminent
3) We have a role to play in bringing about that day as we take the gospel where it has never been.
Christ gives us a sneak peek at what’s coming, a preview of coming attractions. It should get us excited and it should have us on the edge of our seats for when the real show begins.
