The Second Coming Of Christ - Part 3: More Exploration Of The End Times Series

The Second Coming of Christ

Part 3 - More Exploration of the End Times

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 24:13-31

Sermon by Rick Crandall

(Prepared March 4, 2023)

MESSAGE:

*Learning about the second coming of Christ takes us from the Old Testament to the New. We go from prophecies written hundreds of years before the Lord was born to prophecies written almost 100 years after Jesus was born. And as we look into God's Word, we will find different viewpoints and different levels of understanding. Today we will review some of the information we looked at before, and we will explore some other issues surrounding the Lord's return.

*First: Let's go back to the beginning of Matthew 24 to see what prompted the Lord's discussion of His return. Jesus had just finished strongly condemning the Jewish religious leaders. The Lord condemned them for stubbornly rejecting Him as the Messiah, plus their arrogance, lack of mercy, hypocrisy and more.

*Matthew 24:1-3 tells us what happened next:

1. Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came to Him to show Him the buildings of the temple.

2. And Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.''

3. Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?''

The disciples wanted answers, and that's what we are looking for in Matthew 24. We need to learn everything we can about the second coming of Christ, and God will surely bless us as we look into His Word.

1. FIRST TODAY, WE FACE THE PROBLEM OF THE TEMPLE.

*When we talk about the Lord's return, we have to face the problem of the Temple. This problem arises down in vs. 14-15, where Jesus said:

14. . . "This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

15. Therefore when you see the 'abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place'' (whoever reads, let him understand)."

*Jesus told them to look for the "abomination of desolation." The original words mean "an idolatrous, detestable, foul thing that spoils something else." Here the Lord was talking about someone making the holy place in the Temple desolate. And Jesus was referring back to the prophecies given to Daniel about 500 years before the Lord was born.

*The Prophet Daniel mentioned the abomination of desolation three separate times. For example, when the Angel Gabriel was speaking to Daniel about the end times, Gabriel said this about the Antichrist in Daniel 9:27: "Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; but in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. and on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate.'' (1)

*But who is the Antichrist who will carry out the abomination of desolation? As we saw last time, some think that it was Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king who reigned in Palestine around 170 B.C. Antiochus desecrated the Temple by slaughtering a pig on the altar, forcing the priests to eat pork, and setting up an idol to Zeus. But he cannot be the abomination Jesus spoke of in Matthew 24:15, because Jesus was warning about something in the future.

*Most Biblical experts agree that the abomination of desolation the Lord spoke of here had its initial fulfillment 40 years later when Jerusalem was conquered by the Romans, and the Temple was destroyed. That was a terrible, terrible thing. Over a million Jews were killed. But that massacre also must not be the ultimate fulfillment of the abomination of desolation. I say that, because as bad as that was, worse things have already happened. In the 20th century, Communists and Nazis were responsible for the deaths of well over a hundred million people. (2)

*But in Matthew 24:21 Jesus said, "THEN there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be." The final fulfillment of this prophecy must come in Daniel's final seven-year period of Jewish history when the abomination of desolation is committed by the Antichrist in the Jerusalem Temple. And that puts an obstacle in the way, because there is no Temple in Jerusalem today.

[PICS 1-4] -- These pictures help us understand what was on the Temple Mount when the Lord first spoke these words. But right now, there is no holy place where the Antichrist can perform the abomination of desolation.