Matthew (24): The End of the Age (II) : Tell Us, When Will These Things Happen? (Part 2)

The Olivet Discourse, as it was told in The End of the Age (I), is one of the most important teachings inall of the Gospels. It runs from Chapter 24 in Matthew all the way to Chapter 25 and we call it the Olivet Discourse because of the location where Jesus was when He delivered this teaching. He was on the Mount of Olives. He had just exited the temple for the last time, a free man, and this is the Tuesday of the week He dies, and He is accompanied by his disciples. They've walked out of the temple through the East Gate, down the Kidron valley up the other side, on the Mount of Olives on their way to Bethany, which is where they spend their evenings during this week. And as they walk out, you remember they gawk at the building, and they asked Jesus to look at it with them. And Jesus responds in that provocative way, saying that this temple would one day be torn down and naturally, that lead the disciples to begin asking Jesus questions about the event that He just alluded to and about the circumstances that would surround it, particularly the end of the age coming and the beginning of the Kingdom age dawning. And we read three questions that the disciples posed to Jesus in that conversation. It was in verse three that we got those three questions from Matthew. And that’s where we start now.

Matt. 24:3 As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”

So the disciples asked three questions. The first one is, “When will these things happen?” That's in reference to the temple being destroyed. And then, secondly, “What will be the sign of your coming?” Meaning, “When will you enter into Your reign as King in the Kingdom?” That is, “coming into Your Kingdom” is a term that they're using there. And then the third question is “What will be signs of the end of the age?” We'll cover why they asked these in a moment.

So we have those three questions. And in part 1, we looked at Luke 21:7, and in Luke 21:7, we found a fourth question that Luke recorded that Matthew did not record. In Luke 21:7, we read that the disciples asked Jesus, “Teacher, when therefore well, these things happen. And what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?” 

You could say that the fourth question is part 2 to one of the three questions, because in Luke's gospel, we find out the disciples also wanted to know what signs would accompany the destruction of the temple. That's kind of part two to question number one.

Let's put them all together: 

1. The apostles' questions were first “When will these things take place?”, referring to the temple's destruction;
2. Matthew then jumps to “What are the signs of the Lord’s coming into His Kingdom?”;
3. Then He goes to one of the signs of the end of the age;
4. And then we go back up to (1), and Luke adds that extra one (1A)“What will be the signs when the temple will be destroyed?”

Now, as mentioned before, there are a couple of interesting aspects to the Olivet Discourse that we need to understand if we're going to interpret it correctly. The first of those aspects or quirks is that Jesus adds an additional question to the four that He received, and He did so because there was something there that they didn't think to ask about, that He knows they will need to understand. And the fourth question that Jesus inserted was “What will not be signs of the end of the age?” And we'll learn more about why He added that one when we get there. 

And then the second quirk that we have to understand if we're going to interpret the passage correctly, is that as Jesus goes into the answers to these questions, He doesn't do it in the order that they came at Him. He changes the order of the answers because He has a purpose in that, and this is the new order:

He begins with His own question, the one that He introduced which are not signs of the end of the age. And then He moves through the others that they presented to Him in His own preferred order. And we know that there are these quirks based on the context of what He says. And as we go into the answers, you’ll see why we know which ones are coming next in the order that Jesus does. So, let’s start by first going to the one that Jesus introduced, which is not one of the four the disciples asked, and it begins in Matthew 24 verse 4, Jesus says, 

Matt. 24:4 And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you. 

Matt. 24:5 “For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many.

Matt. 24:6 “You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.

For a moment. Let's go jump to Luke's version to take a peek at what Luke says on this same passage. It’s very similar. Luke records it this way: 

Luke 21:8 And He said, “See to it that you are not misled; for many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not go after them.

Luke 21:9 “When you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end does not follow immediately.”

I'm sure many of us can identify with what Jesus says in Luke 21: 9, that is, you'll hear of disturbances, and certainly we're hearing of disturbances. But He says, don't be scared of that. It has nothing to do with the end. If anything, it's just indicative of the present, and His first warning to the church is that we should not be misled into believing that Jesus has come back and that we were completely oblivious to it. It's just one of the constants of this age that people are trying to guess the end, with some always saying the end is already here; and others saying that nothing’s ever going to end.  

 And these are two perspectives, both uninformed in their own way. And they are simply characteristic of the ignorance of humanity when it comes to the things God has revealed in His word.

The world generally assumes that or the religious world generally assumes that even the most minor thing going on in the world must be a sign of the end. People who have been keeping tabs on what goes on in the Middle East and what goes on between Israel and the Palestinians or whomever asking if those are signs of the end of the times. The truth of the matter is, those things are not important. They're not signs, generally speaking.

What's really ironic, though, is when the big things do start happening - the things that Jesus actually tells us to look for - when those things start happening, the world will be oblivious to those. It's the irony of prophecy. They make the small things into big things, and they miss the big things when they show up. That's what Jesus is teaching us in this chapter. 

And Jesus says, one of the key things you will see happening throughout history, which will be false and therefore should be ignored, are people who would come saying they are the Messiah, that they're even Jesus himself. And we're told that when that happens, don't believe them. They're always from the enemy. They are always from Satan. They come to deceive the world, and we can be sure their claims are always wrong.

And you might ask, how can we be sure that everyone who says that they are the returned Christ is wrong? Because what happens when the actual Jesus does return? We would be saying He was not really either, right? How do we know when the real one comes versus the false ones?

And the answer from Scripture is that when Jesus comes back, you won't be able to miss Him because the Bible says you will be with Him. The Christian will have already been taken home by that point. And so when Jesus returns at His second coming, He doesn't come alone. He comes with the army of the church and angels, we’re told, in Revelation 19.

So the point is, you cannot miss Jesus' second coming because you will not be here at that moment. And as a result, you can safely ignore anyone who would come along pretending to be Him. And Jesus says many of these counterfeits will actually succeed in deceiving some group within the world. Many will fall for their claims. In fact, we’ve seen men who come at one place or another, in one form or another, claiming to be Messiah, and you wonder about those that follow them. Why did they think that person might actually be Christ? Well, it's because the enemy has real power. 

Now, the second sign, Jesus said, we should not be worried about are wars or rumors of wars. In our world, war is a constant and rumors of wars are just as common, which, Jesus said, in itself means nothing. When you hear about violence in the Middle East, in Europe, or world powers threatening each other with nuclear war, trade wars, etc etc, know that it's meaningless. It's just the by and by of living in a sinful world. It’s not a sign of the end.

But Jesus said, there will be signs of the end. Even though the ones we just discussed are not signs of the end, that does not mean there will be no signs. It means you need to know the difference. And He says those signs take certain forms, and He begins to explain in the third answer on the list of questions now.

Jesus is jumping from what are NOT signs to what ARE signs. This is one of the ways we know contextually that He is starting with question number three. Because if you look at the questions, we know that the things He's about to describe did not accompany the destruction of the temple in question 1 and 1A, that is, what He's about to describe has nothing to do with the temple's destruction. We also then have two left - we have question three and question two. So what we're about to study is one of those two possibilities, and when you look at what He starts with - what are NOT signs of the end of the age - and then He goes into what ARE signs of the end of the age, you'll start to see the pattern that tells us He's talking about question number three.

Later in the discourse, when Jesus gets to question number two at the very end of the discourse, it will become abundantly clear at that point that this ordering is correct. For now, though, let's go to the next question, which is what are going to be signs to tell us that we are at the end of the age. And in order to understand the answer that He gives to this question, let’s talk a little about what an age is for. After all, if we're going to look at signs of the end of an age, we’ll need to know what an age is.

Simply put, an age in the Bible is a period of history that is long but finite period of time. God establishes ages in the timeline of history for His own purposes to accomplish something that He has intended, and those ages have a beginning point and an ending point, and when one age ends, a new age begins immediately thereafter.

So you can think of ages as a way that God blocks off periods of history, and each block has a purpose or something that makes it distinct from other ages. Our current age, according to the Book of Daniel, began in 605 BC when Babylon attacked Jerusalem, and the nation of Israel lost its security in the land and was sent into exile as a penalty for their idolatry.

And the prophet Daniel says that this age, beginning in 605 BC, will go through four stages of world dominating powers running the place. Each of these gentile empires will subjugate Israel and subjugate much of the world. And throughout the period of this age, Daniel says that the nation of Israel will never again be able to dwell securely in its land, always being subjected to some kind of Gentile oppression.

Jesus called this period of history that began in 605 BC - this present age that we live in - He called it the age of the Gentiles in Luke 21:24. And Daniel says it has an end. But that end is at Jesus’s second coming, that is, the end of this age will lead into the age of the kingdom and the event that propels us out of this age and into the next age - when the kingdom on earth comes - is Jesus’ second coming.

So we live in an age that started in 605 BC, and it will end when the Kingdom begins. And that's what the disciples understood. They had been taught from their youth about what the prophet said, and they would have understood that Daniel gave these prophecies. And so they know that there is a date at some point when the Age of the Gentiles would end and then the Kingdom would begin. And that's what every Jew looks forward to.

So when they hear Jesus saying that their temple would be destroyed, they think about apocalyptic things. Their mind naturally goes to this prophecy of Daniel, and they ask plainly, “What will tell us when we're finally going to be done with this age and the Kingdom age is going to begin?” So their interest was in this little piece of time, some undefined period of time at the end of our current age, when signs would begin to happen on the earth. And as someone who might be living in that period of history would experience those signs, they would know, “Oh, this is our indication that we're about to run into the Kingdom age, that we're about to finish the age of the Gentiles”. 

I think of it like going to the cinema – when the lights in the movie theatre dim and cell phones are muted, you know the movie is about to begin. In a sense, that's what God is going to do on Earth, right before the age that we currently live in comes to its end, and the next age when Jesus sets up the Kingdom begins. At the end, the lights will dim, so to speak. But more specifically, Jesus says that those signs will come in some very particular ways:

Matt. 24:7 “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.

Matt. 24:8 “But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs

Let’s start by understanding what “birth pangs” mean - because if you don’t have the basics of how birth pangs work, you’re not going to understand how the signs of the end of this age will manifest to us.  Now, the number one characteristic of birth pangs is, of course, that they are painful, and quite uncomfortable for the woman as she gives birth.  So, if birth pangs start with painful things, then we should also expect that these painful things will be part of the signs of the end of the age.

And the contractions that accompany birth are intense, and they interrupt normal life (you cannot be a woman in labour and go about your normal day). And yet at the same time that painful experience is telling you something. It's giving you an indication that something new is about to come. And so it will be for the signs that come at the end of this age. They will be painful experiences for the world in general, and they will interrupt normal life in every imaginable way, but at the same time, they are an announcement to us that something new and better is soon to come. 

Secondly, as they are often mild at first, they are imperceptible. For many women, there're times when they think they're having birth pangs and they're not. And so they go to the hospital and they find out it was just false labor and then later the actual labor begins. But because it's very mild and very subtle, they're not sure if it's real or not. And that's how it also will be for the signs that accompany the end of the age. They will start relatively mildly, and as a result, many will not notice or recognize that what they're seeing are the signs Jesus proposed.

But what happens after a while? Well, we all know this, of course. After time, birth pangs begin to increase and they increase in a couple of ways. First, the increase in severity, that is, the contractions get stronger and stronger, the pain increases and so on. And again, so it will be for the signs of the end of the age. They will repeat themselves. We aren't going to get just one of these signs. You're going to get repeated experiences of the same kind of signs, but with each repetition, they get worse and stronger.

And then lastly, birth pangs increase in frequency, that is, in the way a woman gives labor - those contractions come sooner, they get closer and closer, more of them per minute, so to speak, or per hour. And so it will be also with the signs that accompany the end of the age. They will repeat, and as they repeat, they will come more frequently than they were in the beginning. And that is in itself a sign.

So it's not just the mere existence of certain things that tell us the end is near. It’s the pattern in which these things present - mild, then strong, occasional, then frequent, always painful, always disruptive. But there's one other characteristic to birth pangs that we don't want to overlook, and that is that they ultimately lead to the birth of new life. That's where we're headed in all of this.

And so as the pains of the last days signs increase and the end begins to approach, the attitude that a Christian should take in the midst of that is an understanding that these things were about to lead to something marvellous and glorious, something we've been waiting for, something that makes the pain worth it: a new world, a new glorious world, a new Israel, a new world structure, a new government and new king, new everything.

And that's the comparison that Jesus begins with, and that's where we need to have our head as we think about the signs that He’s telling us to watch for. 

And now let’s go back and look at these signs with the birth pangs framework in mind. In verse 7, it says “nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom”. That’s war in effect. But now we just heard a moment ago, Jesus said to not look at wars and rumors of wars as signs. And then He says, “but when you see nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom, that is a sign.”

Well, now we understand why He started the way He did. Because we see that the kind of signs He's going to provide to us could easily be mistaken for something that is not a sign. To say it simply, there’s ordinary war, which is not a sign. And then there's a special kind of war, and that’s your sign.

And what is the special war that He's talking about here when He says “nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom”? Well, the difference between this special war and the kind that you see all the time - the difference comes from understanding the phrase “nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom” in its original context from the time of Jesus. In Jesus’s day, rabbis used this terminology quite frequently to describe a certain kind of war, a war of a type that had never been experienced before on Earth. And the term to put it simply refers to a level of warfare unknown before a certain time in history. We call it World War, that is, “nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom” is not just two nations or two powers warring. It's the entire globe immersed in a common conflict. And that had never happened. It was unprecedented in Jesus’s day, never been seen, and in fact, it remained unprecedented until the 20th century. 

In 1914 Europe engaged in a war that eventually dragged most of the planet into the conflict, whether in the fighting or whether simply in the providing of soldiers or armament to other armies in one way or another, through allies of one kind or another. You ended up with 88% of the world's population involved in World War I in some fashion. That was the first time in human history that a war of that scale had ever been fought. And it meets the definition of a war that is fought “nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom”.

In fact, this war was so unique that you may remember that at the time it was initially given a special name: war to end all wars. That hubris just reflected the fact that no one could have imagined that a war of that scale could ever be repeated. They felt like it was so unprecedented. It was a one-off event. Of course, they only could hold that attitude for about two decades because it wasn't long after that that we got World War II.

Now you remember World War II was larger than World War I, and comparatively worse than World War I. In fact, it had a greater percentage of the world involved in that war than in World War I. Doesn’t that remind us of birth pangs? Now we know why Jesus ruled out regular war - He didn't want us to be upset when there's a regional conflict, thinking that the end is near.  That would be incorrect. The world is always at war in one way or another somewhere on the planet. But it is not always a world war.

So when the world wars of the last century kicked off, they became the earliest signs to tell us that we are now approaching the end of the age. And notice that in the list that we're studying now in Matthew 24, Jesus gives us a number of different signs, and the first of those was world war. And as we see from our past, the first of these signs to be fulfilled has also been world war.

The next sign Jesus gave was famines in various places. Now, here again, famine is a common event on Earth. And here’s where the birth pangs framework helps us to understand this sign, and it’s helpful, and essential, because not every famine that occurs is a sign of the end. But when famines begin to increase in frequency and severity around the world (that's what “various places” in verse 7 means) well, then we start to see a pattern, and that pattern now becomes a sign.

So when famines are no longer limited to the poorest countries in the world, when they start to hit various places, that is, places that you never expected it to hit, and coming in frequency that you never imagined you'd ever see - well, then, now you know you're starting to see the fulfillment of the end of the age.

And when you see that in combination with world wars and so on, they all start to line up. And if you do some research on your own, you'll find that famines have been increasing both in frequency and in severity, and they have been happening at times and in places that you never imagined, and even just recently in our own world we've all experienced this calamity. You've noticed that food supplies have become an issue – with shortages and all, in part due to over purchasing and/or from a lack of production and so on.

But my point is, these things aren't all by themselves signs, and they aren't necessarily producing famine. It’s simply an example to us of how easily these things could be triggered when God is ready to disrupt the normal. And there are indications that famine is increasing even apart from that. So as we move closer to the end of this age, you could expect this sign to get worse as well.

And then next in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus says earthquakes will be a sign of the end of the age. Here again, the Earth has always had earthquakes. So what are we looking for? We're looking for that birth pangs pattern. Now of all the signs Jesus gives, this one's actually the easiest to measure because scientists have made quite an effort to track earthquakes around the world. And data shows that there is a general rise in earthquake activity worldwide. That's been going on now for a number of decades. And if you look at the data at a much broader level worldwide, the average number of high intensity earthquakes per decade over the last 100 plus years has gone up 43%.

So the world would look at this perhaps and say it's just within the norm, that in another 100 or 200 years it will drop back down. That's what you'll hear sometimes. But the Bible says if you see that, and you see increasing famines and you see world wars, you ought to know what the Bible says.

In other words, these things mark the end of the age. And because the Lord has selected these signs which have a common variant, it's easy for the world to overlook them and not to make much of them.

But if you know your Bible and your head is in the Word of God, you get to know what they mean. That's how God's prophecy works. He speaks through the Word to the believer in such a way that the unbelieving world is oblivious.

Now there's one more sign that we didn't see in Matthew's gospel because he didn't record it, and it’s found in Luke's Gospel, in Luke 21:10:

Luke 21:10 Then He continued by saying to them, “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom,

Luke 21:11 and there will be great earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

So Luke has that last one on terrors and great signs from heaven, which we will get on to later. But for now, let’s just take a quick look at the one that he mentions in conjunction with famines that Matthew did not record. He says there will be plagues in various places.

Now what is a plague? Well, it’s a spread of disease over a wide area, otherwise today known as an epidemic or pandemic. Jesus said these will start to happen as we approach the end of the age and they will get progressively worse. Birth pangs?

So they might start like SARS or MERS, and then progress to become the coronavirus, and then somewhere in our future become another one, and it will be worse than this one because this is itself a sign. A sign that the end is coming. A sign that this age is almost over. A sign that the world needs to know what's coming next.

They follow a pattern of birth pangs, getting worse and more frequent. And for those who know their Bible, these events are not only understandable from the standpoint that we see and know what they mean, they're also a sign that encourages us, that it tells us something that we long to know, that you realize that as these things happen, there's no going back. There's no recovery. I mean, we're all sitting around right now, saying, “I wonder what normal will be when this is all done. When is normal coming back?”

But know this: when a mother goes into labor, there's no going back. There's no place in which you go back to the point before the child was coming, to a life without the child. There's only one direction: you go forward into the birth, and that's what you want.

Jesus is saying when you start to see these signs begin, you need to know there's no turning back. There's no stopping until the end of this age, and the new age comes. This is a one-way trip to the Kingdom, and that's a trip you want to take.

For those who read the Scriptures and those who understand the events of our world today, we should be encouraged and even excited. The pages of the Bible are coming to life, right in front of our eyes, right now in our world.  it has been since last century, and it’s only going to become more and more evident, and it's all saying the same thing. The Kingdom is right around the corner.

We aren't wishing for death. I'm not saying we want to see the world torn apart. We certainly don't want to see people dying. That's not the point. We would all like to live as long as the Lord allows, and I would certainly prefer to do that in a peaceful and calm world. Having said that, we are going to have to come to terms that sooner or later, there was going to be a generation of believers who lived at the end of the age. Sooner or later, somebody was going to play that role, and that generation was going to live in turbulent times.

But you know what else? They were going to be the privileged generation. They got to experience things that earlier generations of believers could barely even imagine, and perhaps even longed to see. We're going to see prophecies of the Bible coming true before our very eyes and the Bible itself says that that experience of being wrapped up in the fulfillment of prophecy, it builds faith. It builds our assurance. It excites us for the truth of what we've read.

But of course, that's only true if you understand it. You have to understand what you're seeing. You have to understand what the Bible says. You have to understand what the world is showing you in relation to what the Bible says. And Jesus says the only way to the end of the Kingdom age is after this age ends.

Someone had to be there to see it. And by all accounts, we are among the privileged generations to see these things playing out. Now, granted, it’s not so much fun to wake up in the morning and watch your world falling apart on the news or to not be able to find toilet paper and chicken and all, or to not be able to go to church when you want to. 

I mean, no one enjoys that side of this, and if you look around today, our world is certainly rocking and reeling, and it's only just begun. But it also means our Lord's return is right around the corner and time is short. So, as the signs appear, take some encouragement in the chaos. It's a privilege to have access to this revealed knowledge of God, and it is a blessing to be able to experience them fulfilled in our lifetime. And if you turn a blind eye to what it says or pretend it's not there so that you don't have to be bothered with it, you're neglecting the blessing that God has given you in the Word of God.

And if you should suggest that you're supposed to ignore it, because it will only confuse you or distract you, well, that's close to blasphemy, because the Bible is not given to us for any reason, except that we would learn it and know it. Our God is not a god of confusion. He gave us the Word so that we would be blessed with the knowledge of what is coming and be prepared for it, and in that knowledge, we can serve Him better.

And in fact, the Bible itself encourages us to do that, evidenced by the very fact that 40% of it is prophecy, and a proper study of it brings us closer together in unity and prepares our hearts for what is coming so that we are not deceived.

But now, from what we’ve just discussed, there's a second reason you can see developing here for why we study what we're studying right now, why we needed to learn about these things, why we needed to know that as we approach the end, we're going to see four basic categories of signs materializing in front of us.

And the reason is that is how we find hope in the midst of these circumstances. Paul says in his first letter to the church in Thessalonica about certain things coming in the church. He tells them principally about the Lord coming for the church, and then he talks about the time of tribulation, and he talks about the Lord's second coming. And as he's laying all of this out for the church in Thessalonica, there's an interesting moment in the middle of it, just one verse, in 1 Thessalonians 4. He's gone through a good part of this eschatology (which means the study of end times) and he's got a bunch more to tell, and He's walking the church through it. And then He pauses for one little moment in 1Thessalonians 4:18, and this is what he says: 

1Th. 4:18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.

Now, think about that statement for just a moment. Paul says (and remember, he's talking about the same things we’re talking about here Matthew 24, and that is, about the last days) “comfort one another with the words that he offered to that church concerning the events of those last days”.

What Paul’s saying is this: an in-depth understanding of the events that surround the end of this age and the Lord's return and so on - those things are a comfort to the believer who understands them. They're not divisive. They're not troubling. They're not confusing. They're not frustrating. They're not anything other than comforting.

If the study of prophecy scares you, you're not doing it right. Because that's not its purpose. The Lord says He gave it to us as a comfort. And what's more, Paul says we don't just read it for our own comfort. We're supposed to comfort one another with this teaching. So we're supposed to share what we know about the end times events, about what these signs are about, what they mean so that other believers would be comforted about them as well.

And the Lord promises that it would be a comfort, so that when you turn to a believer in this day, for example, and you tell them that you think the coronavirus follows a pattern, a pattern that indicates we are at  the last days - in other words, this whole thing that we're struggling with right now is labor pain, which means there's a birth coming, which means there's new life right around the corner - if you can bring that to one of God's children, out of the Word of God, you're taking them from a state of panic and worry and fear and a desire to restore things to a normal that never wanted to be normal in the first place to a mindset that looks forward and says, “Well, I guess if these things have to happen, then it means good things are right around the corner. I can look forward to those things. I can put up with the now, knowing what's coming next.”

And that's how these things comfort us. They tell you that the chaos that you're seeing around you right now is not random. It is not out of control. And most importantly, it is not a problem that needs to be fixed. Earthquakes, famines and pandemics are not a problem. They are signs from God that the real solution is about to come.

Look, if there's only one solution that fixes the things that make this world such a hard place to accept, then we want that solution sooner than later. Are you upset that there's injustice in the world today? Do you believe that hate and lawlessness is running rampant in the world and needs a solution? Are you mourning the tragedy of disease, of hunger, of violence, of natural disasters when they come? Do you wish all of that would end well?

Well, you know what? There's only one solution for all of those things: it's Jesus’ presence on the earth, ruling in His kingdom. You aren’t going to get justice before that. You're not going to get rid of sin before that. You're not going to stop death before that. Wars and all the rest keep going until that.

Do you want those things solved? Then you want Jesus back, and you want the Kingdom on earth. And you cannot get the kingdom on earth in your own power by trying to fix something that's broken and irreparable. You get it by the Lord doing His work in producing something new.

And the signs that we're all experiencing right now which have affected us all are signs that tell us that God is ready finally to bring that solution.  Hallelujah!

And how long has the church been waiting? And how glorious it is that we have the privilege to be those counted among the privileged to see it transpire in our own eyes in our own day!

So when you study the Bible, you realize that these events that rocked the world are a part of what God is doing to announce His return. An analogy is this: it's like when you go into your final exams before you graduate from college. If you've ever gone through that experience, you know how that feels. Those final exams are hard, usually, not a lot of fun, usually. You have to work hard to get through it. But you know, at the same time as you're studying and you're trying to get ready for those exams, there's a part of you that's pretty excited about the whole process. Because you know that graduation is right around the corner. You’ll getting the degree, the diploma, the certificate, the whole reason you went through the effort in the first place.

Well, the signs of the end of the age that are already upon us and are getting worse tell you Jesus is right around the corner and that you're among the privileged to see those things. And if you endure just a little longer, you'll be glad for what comes next. So as Paul said; “Comfort one another” with these words.

Don't get wrapped up in the politics or the culture wars or the angst and the fear of the society around you. Put all that aside. Let that go. Because it's going to go. What you should be thinking about instead is where Jesus is going to bring something new and better soon, and that you're a part of that future by faith alone. And because that's coming soon, as the signs are telling us, we don't have to worry about what's going on around us. God will take care of that. 

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