First, Jesus' disciples asked Him
if He would explain the events that would surround the destruction of the
temple, because Jesus predicted it would happen. And Jesus went on to explain
that there would be a day when the Roman army would come and it would level the
city and level the temple. And as we learned, that's exactly how history played
out.
And then secondly, the disciples
asked Jesus what would be signs to tell us that the end of this age is coming,
and Jesus gave them signs. He told them to look for earthquakes and famines and
plagues and world wars, and that those things would become increasingly severe
and more frequent. And then, as we looked at the data and we saw that that too
has already begun to happen. So the end of the age is apparently upon us.
And then thirdly, they asked
Jesus, “What would be signs to tell the world that Your second coming (or that
You're coming into your Kingdom, as they intended it) was about to happen?” And
the answer that Jesus gives to that question is by far the longest answer of
all of them in this chapter. And in part (III) of this instalment, we started
that answer, but only got a part of the way into it.
So today we're going to look at
the next section of that. And what we studied in verses 9-14 was six signs that
Jesus said would indicate that His second coming was right around the corner.
Those signs included false prophets deceiving the world and lawlessness running
rampant and love growing cold and others. And all of those 6 signs are unique
aspects of a period of history called tribulation, a seven-year period that
ends this age. And it comes immediately prior to Jesus's second coming.
We learned that the book of Daniel
is the book in the Bible that tells us the most that we know about this period
of seven years. And in the book of Daniel, we're learning that there will be
those who live on the earth, seeing marvellous, amazing and terrifying things
as God does this work, all of which serve as a sign to the world that Christ's
return is imminent.
But the signs that announce the
end of the age, that was the earlier question we studied - those start
centuries before the end of the time, and in fact they've already begun for us
today, and they have more time yet ahead to go. They announce that the age is
coming to an end. So it's a kind of a slow build, a building gradually of signs
that tell the world the end is coming. We’re part of that. We witnessed that.
But the signs that tell us that
Jesus' second coming is about to happen - those signs come in a relatively
brief period of time, just in those last seven years and therefore only those
who live on the earth during the tribulation will actually witness them.
That is, the church will not witness the signs that announce the second coming of Jesus. Because we will accompany Jesus at His return. We don't need to witness signs about an event that we're actually participating in. So that's one of the ways we know that the Church is not going to be present for the signs that we're studying now, in relationship to this question, the question about His second coming. But there's other clues in the text that confirm that for us.
There's another one we've seen
already where Jesus told us that there would be those who would come in His
name declaring themselves to be Messiah. But you remember, He said that would
not be a sign of the end. In fact, He told us to pay no attention to those
people.
But then in verse 11, Jesus said
that one of the signs of His return would be false prophets deceiving many. So
which is it? How can a false prophet not be a sign at one moment, but then be a
sign at another moment?
Well, this is not a contradiction.
In fact, what Jesus is saying is that false prophets are not a sign to the
Church, but they will be a sign to the world. That is, for as long as the
Church is on earth, false prophets will exist, because the enemy is always
seeking to stumble believers with false teachers. That's a given. That's a
normal part of being on the earth with the Church. The enemy is attacking the
Church at all times with false teaching. But once the Church is no longer on
earth, the enemy no longer has believers to target in that way. So he turns his
attention to targeting the rest of the world with false prophets.
And Jesus said, those false
prophets, when they come, will deceive many in the world. So with the Church
out of the way, the enemy is free to deceive the world, and that worldwide
deception by false prophets will be a sign to the world that Jesus’ return is
imminent. So what was not a sign when the Church was present will become a sign
after the Church is gone.
Later, in this chapter, we're
going to see specifically how and why the Church is not present on the earth to
witness the signs of Jesus' return. For now, we move ahead with the rest of the
signs that Jesus gives us that announce His second coming, again, signs that
will happen during the time of tribulation for those who live on the earth in
that time. And as you might expect, they get increasingly intense. We pick up
in verse 15. Jesus says,
Mat 24:15 "Therefore when
you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the
prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),
Mat 24:16 then those who are in
Judea must flee to the mountains.
Mat 24:17 "Whoever is on
the housetop must not go down to get the things out that are in his house.
Mat 24:18 "Whoever is in
the field must not turn back to get his cloak.
Mat 24:19 "But woe to those
who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!
Mat 24:20 "But pray that
your flight will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath.
Mat 24:21 "For then there
will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of
the world until now, nor ever will.
Mat 24:22 "Unless those
days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the
elect those days will be cut short.
Mat 24:23 "Then if anyone says
to you, 'Behold, here is the Christ,' or 'There He is,' do not believe him.
Mat 24:24 "For false
Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so
as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.
Mat 24:25 "Behold, I have
told you in advance.
Mat 24:26 "So if they say
to you, 'Behold, He is in the wilderness,' do not go out, or, 'Behold, He is in
the inner rooms,' do not believe them.
As we dive into this passage,
remember Jesus is answering the question that was earlier labelled as question
number four in this discourse which is, “What are the signs of Your coming into
the Kingdom?” And as said earlier, all these signs occur during this seven-year
period called Tribulation. And we're going to see further proof of that here,
beginning in verse 15, because Jesus opens here by saying there is one
important and very specific sign that will tell you that “I am about to
return.” And it is the sign of the abomination of desolation, which He says was
first written about in the book of Daniel.
Now we know from Daniel that this
moment takes place in the middle of that seven-year period of tribulation. We
know this because Daniel tells it to us specifically. This is how Daniel speaks
of this moment:
Dan 9:27 "And he will make
a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he
will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of
abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete
destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes
desolate."
He says, one of the signs that
tells you, “I'm about to return” will be a desolation of the temple during the
tribulation. This desolation of the temple will be an abomination. Daniel tells
us it happens in the middle of a week, and the word “week” in Hebrew is “sheba”
or “shibah” and it is simply a reference to the seven year tribulation. Think
of it as a week of years, or seven years. So the midpoint of seven years is 3
1/2 years. So at 3 1/2 years into that seven-year period, Daniel says, there
will be a man who will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering.
Now, sacrifices and grain
offerings only happened in one place. They happen in a Jewish temple. So what
Daniel is saying indirectly is that there will be a Jewish temple operating in
the time of tribulation. And at the midpoint of that seven-year tribulation,
some man will stop the sacrifice and grain offering that is going on in that
temple. And he puts a stop to the temple's operation by causing an abomination,
something that makes the temple desolate and unusable to a Jew. Now Daniel does
not tell us here what the man's desecrating act will be. But the prophet says
that abomination only remains for a short time, and that eventually the man who
desecrates the temple, he himself will be destroyed, Daniel said at the end of
that verse. And as that man is destroyed, so will his abomination be put
away.
And that's all you get out of
Daniel 9:27. The key here is - going back to Matthew - that Jesus says, when
you see that event, when you see a man desecrate the temple such that it is no
longer usable and it puts a stop to sacrifice and grain offering, when that
happens at the middle of tribulation, that is a major sign to you that His
return is soon to happen. And in fact, since we know those seven years of
tribulation are the final seven years in this age before Jesus’ return, well,
then, 3 1/2 years from the end, we get the abomination. That tells you that
when you see it, you’ve got 3 1/2 years before Jesus’ return.
And in verse 16, Jesus says this event will be a turning point for the events of tribulation. It will lead to a great upheaval, unlike anything that's ever been seen. In verse 16, He says, it will be a trigger for those who know Jesus, who are believers in that day, to leave the city of Jerusalem immediately. In fact, He says, their flight needs to be so quick that should they be on the top of their roof, they don't even have time to go back into the house and claim any possessions. If you're out in the field, don't think about going back to the house to get your coat even. You need to just head immediately and directly out of the town and into the mountains, He says.
And to emphasize the dire nature
at this moment, He says, it's a bad thing if you're pregnant when this happens,
or if you're nursing babies. In other words, a woman in the later stages of
pregnancy, or burdened with the care of an infant and she's weighed down, in a
sense, she's not as mobile as she might have been otherwise, which tells you
that this escape is so urgent that even just carrying the added weight of a child
could mean the difference between life and death.
And He also adds, “Let's hope you
don't have to escape in winter. Pray for that. Let's hope you're not having to
escape on a Sabbath. Pray that it's not on a Sabbath,” because in the Jewish
culture on a Sabbath, transportation is typically shut down, facilities are not
open. That can make a journey harder to make as well.
And so Jesus says, this is how
urgently you must change your ways when you see this event. By the way, that
reference to the Sabbath is an important clue for us because it tells us that
the believers on this future day will be largely Jewish, because only a Jew
would have to pay attention to the Sabbath day. So Jesus is describing an
escaping of Jewish believers out of the city of Jerusalem and doing it in such
a way, like they're running from a tsunami or from a landslide. Every second
counts in this future moment.
Now, why will this moment of
desolation in the Jewish temple bring the need for such urgent movements, such panic
among the believers in Jerusalem? Well, because what follows for mankind is a
terrifying mix of God's judgment and intense persecution. Jesus says in verse
21 that the abomination will trigger a great tribulation such as never has been
seen on earth before or after. The greatest wrath and destruction that God
could possibly pour out on earth will be poured out in those final 3 1/2 years.
And on top of that, we also know from the book of Revelation that the enemy
will become especially enraged and active in his persecution of believers
during that second half of tribulation. So you not only have the calamities God
is bringing on the physical earth, you also have the enemy seeking out
believers with great rage, which is why that flight needed to be so fast.
Obviously, life on earth is not
going to last very long under those circumstances. In fact, if you go to the
book of Revelation, we're told that part of the judgments that God brings will
result in things like the loss of all vegetation and fresh water on the face of
the earth. How long could life exist on a planet without fresh water? Obviously
not very long. And that's why He says in verse 24 and beyond, that this will be
a day of such great calamity that life itself would have been extinguished for
all humanity had it not been for the fact that God was willing to set a time
limit on these events.
That is, we know that these events
will only last another 3 1/2 years because that's the limit of the seven years
of tribulation. Once you hit the midpoint, you're halfway done. And Jesus is
saying that limit was established by God, because if there had not been that
limit, the combination of His judgments and the enemies’ activity would have
literally resulted in the wiping out of all humanity. God's judgments against
the ungodly would have left none alive, and the enemy’s persecution against the
godly would have done the same. And so God, in mercy, set a limit of 3 1/2
years for this terrible period of history.
And then in verse 24, the Lord
says you will also see false Christ's and false prophets rising up. Probably
because the people will be in such desperate need for hope, they'll be looking
for a Savior. They'll be reeling from disaster and persecution, and suddenly
anyone who says they have a solution will be of interest to them. And therefore
Satan will empower false prophets and give them supernatural power during this
time, misleading people who are desperate for a solution. And Jesus says the
enemy will have such great hope in this deception that he will look to even
mislead the elect, those who have come to true faith in Jesus.
And so Jesus warns the believers
of that future day not to be deceived. And He says, in effect, don't believe
the reports of the false prophets. You do not want to be caught up in the
deceptions of the enemy. They're going to tell you things like, “Well, Jesus
has come back. He's in the wilderness.” “Oh, in these inner rooms (which is a
reference to the temple, the holy place or the holy of holies), He's in the
temple right now. He's come back.” Jesus says to not believe those reports.
They'll be lies. And believers can avoid being deceived in that way, if they're
willing to listen to the Word of the Lord spoken here.
So the calamities of tribulation,
and particularly the midpoint, where you have the abomination that Daniel spoke
about, those signs will tell you that Jesus is about to return. But don't rely
on the false prophets to tell you when or where. God is not going to use them to
tell you the details.
This passage in the middle of the
Olivet Discourse, for one way in particular, really reinforces the power of the
Word of God and the power of God to work through His Word to do His will. You
can see the power of that on display right here. Think about the moment we're
studying. Jesus spoke these words 2000 years ago, more or less, to a handful of
men sitting on a remote hillside in ancient Israel; He warned them at that time
about events that were going to happen in the distant future, telling them,
“Don't be deceived when these things happen.”
Now those events did not come to
pass in the lifetime of those men. In fact, they haven't even come to pass yet
for us. And moreover, it's unlikely the men that were sitting there with Jesus
on that hillside on the Mount of Olives even understood what Jesus was talking
about, much less have any perspective on it, given where they were in history.
And for all we know, no one who was sitting there was taking notes.
So Jesus issues warnings 2000
years ago to a bunch of guys who weren't going to be there to see it and
probably weren't thinking, at least at the time, that they ought to be writing
it down. And yet He was confident that His followers, thousands of years later,
would not only know that He said these things, they'd be able to obey them. He
speaks directly through history to them and says, “Don't be deceived.”
He's so confident in the staying
power of the Word of God, in its ability to be preserved and shared, that He
even refers back to a book of Daniel, which was written 600 years earlier than
His time. He was confident that that book would still be available to people in
the day that it mattered.
So if you question the accuracy of
the Word of God, or maybe you've run into these kinds of people who have told
you they can't believe in what the Bible says - because how do we know it's
still the real thing, how do we know it hasn't been changed, how do we know
that this is not just somebody else's writing since it’s been edited thousands
of times and likely to have been corrupted over history - if you've heard
somebody say that, then bring them Jesus’ own perspective on the power of God's
Word to preserve itself over history.
Because clearly, when you look at this passage, Jesus believed that what He said to those men on that hillside 2000 years ago was going to be remembered. It was going to be recorded, it was going to be preserved. And He ordered that it be shared, and He expected that prior works of Scripture, like Daniel, would also be preserved and shared over thousands of years.
And He said, “When the day comes
that the things I tell you come to pass, you need to know how to respond. Here
are my instructions.” And as that future generation, whenever it comes along,
enters into these events of tribulation, they will have this same Word
available to them. And they will have the opportunity to turn to the Word of
God for counsel. And they will find these instructions waiting for them in
Matthew 24.
Notice in verse 15, Jesus added
that quick parenthetical comment saying, “Let the reader understand.” But in
the way that's coming out of Greek, you could translate it more as an
imperative. It could be translated, “Reader, understand!” as if Jesus were
commanding His followers, “Do your homework. Know what this says. Go back and
study Daniel. Don't be ignorant of My instructions.”
So here's a man sitting on a
hillside 2000 years ago, telling you, and those of us who are yet to come in
the future, “Do your homework.” And then later, in verse 25, Jesus tells those
same future disciples “Behold, I've told you in advance.” (2000 years in
advance, that is) In other words, He's saying, “Don't say I didn't tell you.
And don't say you didn't have it available.” And to you today or to anyone who
might say, “This is nonsense.” don't say that it's not true; don't say Jesus didn't
preserve it; don't say it's been adulterated.
The very God we say is God, told
us in advance not only of what would happen, but that it would be available to
be known when the time came. And this isn't just something that's true about distant
prophecies in the Bible. This is true about everything in the Bible - that is,
everything that is written here was written with an eye toward when it would be
needed by those who would come along at some point in history.
And that’s what the Bible largely
is. Unfortunately, we often ignore the warnings until it's too late. And that’s
one of the keys to understanding and obeying the Word of God. That is, you need
to understand this is not a book of solutions. This is not the book you turn to
after the problem has come, and you're looking for the way out. That's not how
the Bible is to be used. It's not a book for those who get into trouble. It's a
manual for living that's designed to keep you out of trouble. And the idea is
you're supposed to study it and learn it and obey it so that it goes well with
you from that point forward.
The law says this to the nation of
Israel in Deuteronomy 4:40. The Lord says,
Deut 4:40 "So you shall
keep His statutes and His commandments which I am giving you today, that it may
go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may live long
on the land which the LORD your God is giving you for all time."
So the idea is simply this: we're
going to make mistakes, and when we learn from them, we'll hopefully do better
the next time. And that's a common experience for all of us. But it doesn't
have to be that way. We can learn in advance what Jesus has already told us to
stay away from, or to do more of, or whatever. And if we're listening and
obeying, we can stay out of a lot of trouble, not all of it, but we can
certainly find our way around most of it.
And if someone is to obey the Word
of God in that way, including heeding the signs of the future events that Jesus
is talking about here and so on, you have to be a student of Scripture. And
more than just a student of Scripture, you have to be a student of all
Scripture.
In this case, for example, if you would
understand what Jesus was saying about the signs of His return, you'd have to
have studied the book of Daniel, which is why He says, “Understand this,
reader.” And in the book of Daniel, you'd understand about the abomination of
desolation and the timeline and so on. And then when you come to Jesus' words
in Matthew 24, it all clicks. You'd have an understanding that now you can put
into action, and do what Jesus asked you to do, if you were those who were
living in that time. And Jesus says, “Reader, do your homework. Pay attention.
It's for your own sake.”
And that's not just true again
about prophecy. When you look at the New Testament epistles, where Paul and
Peter say, “Don't do this, do that.” That's intended to keep your walk out of
trouble. It's also true for the prophecies of Old Testament prophets who would
tell you that even though you won't live through these events, you need to know
them as a student of Scripture for other reasons. And even though you and I may
not live through some of the events that we're studying now or others that were
written in the Bible, realize that we are part of the chain of custody that
moves this information forward in history.
Why do we know it now? Because
good men and women of God wrote it down and carried that writing forward and
learned it and taught it to someone else. And as they wrote it down, the Lord
sovereignly ensures that that process went without interruption through the
hands of obedient servants who moved the Word outward.
So even if you look at this and
say, “Well, this isn't about me. Why do I need to know it?” True enough. But do
you care enough about the next generation of believers that you would preserve
the knowledge and ensure that it is shared with those who do need to know it
somewhere down the road?
There is a purpose in the body
knowing the Word of God – it’s so that we can share it with those who will
ultimately benefit from it. We learn the study of prophecy, remember, for
reasons beyond merely the knowledge of it. We’ve gone over the reasons throughout
this passage for why you study prophecy. Until now, we've come to three
reasons.
We've learned first, that it helps
knit the body of Christ together in a unified understanding about our common
future. And in that way, we become closer as a body.
Secondly, it brings us hope and
comfort in the midst of a chaotic world of evil. It focuses our attention on
eternal things so that we don't get weighed down by the sin and the depravity
of our world.
Thirdly, it prepares us for coming
difficulties so that we will respond to those things in the right way, either
by escaping them when we can or by facing them with our witness intact if
necessary.
And now we have a fourth reason - we
study prophecy because it's part of the Bible, and we are called to understand
everything in the Bible. And if you're going to fully understand and obey
what's in the Bible, you have to open up and read all of what's in the Bible.
And self-evidently, Jesus expected
His disciples to read and understand and pass along what He told them in this
chapter as part of that mission, and we should do no less. If you skip large
sections of God's Word in your personal study, because someone told you, “You
don't need to know prophecy. It's a distraction.” You're wrong. In fact, you're
proving yourself to be a poor student of Scripture, and as a poor student of
Scripture, you are automatically a poor disciple of Jesus.
That is, you're incapable of obeying as well as you could. You can't obey what you don't understand, and you can't teach others what you yourself have not studied. And that's what discipleship is all about. It's about reading and heeding. It's about knowing and going, which is what Jesus said at the end of this book, when He said in Matthew 28:19,
Mat 28:19 "Go therefore and
make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Mat 28:20 teaching them to
observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end
of the age."
We have been directly called by
Jesus to teach future disciples to observe everything that He told His first
disciples that we have written down. And that includes things like commanding
people to know what to look for when the days are short and how to be prepared
when the time's come.
And when we devote ourselves to
understanding prophecy, our obedience brings its own reward. Beyond just what
you learn in the future events of this world, there is actually a specific
blessing promised in Scripture to those who read and heed prophecy.
There's a specific one in the book
of Revelation - in chapter one of Revelation, verse three, we're told that
those who read that book are blessed. But there's also a general blessing in
the Old Testament in Isaiah for any who would engage in bringing the Word of
God to others, especially the good news of Jesus’ coming. Isaiah 52:7 says,
Isa 52:7 How lovely on the
mountains Are the feet of him who brings good news, Who announces peace And
brings good news of happiness, Who announces salvation, And says to Zion,
"Your God reigns!"
Now, yes, that's a reference to
the Gospel, bringing the news that Jesus came and saved us by His death. That's
true, but it doesn’t stop there. Notice how that passage ends. “Those who would
say Your God reigns,” It's an illusion, an indication of Jesus' second coming
to reign from Mount Zion. So it is not merely the Church's purpose in
pronouncing to the world of what has happened. We're also here to announce what
will happen. So let's do that. Let's understand both the past and the future as
God has provided it so that we can teach the world all of what Jesus commanded
us to share. And in that mindset, let's finish this answer to the fourth
question.
It goes now from verse 29. Jesus
says,
Mat 24:29 "But immediately
after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL
NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the
heavens will be shaken.
Mat 24:30 "And then the
sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the
earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE
SKY with power and great glory.
Mat 24:31 "And He will send
forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect
from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.
That ends Jesus' answer to the
fourth question on what are signs of His second coming or of His coming into
the Kingdom. Remember, we're still looking at signs that take place entirely
within the seven-year tribulation. And if you think about how He's progressed
in this answer, He started with signs that will happen near the earlier part of
the seven years - the lawlessness, love growing cold, and so on.
And then earlier, we saw Him move
to the midpoint of the seven years with the abomination of desolation and the
persecution that follows.
And now He completes this answer
by looking at the very end of the seven years. Notice He begins by saying,
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days,” - a reference to the seven-year
tribulation. And He says, at that point, His return is only hours away, and then
will come some undeniable, unescapable signs that the Lord's return is
happening.
In verse 29, He says, “The sun
will stop shining’ and “the moon will no longer have any light”. Beyond our
solar system, He says, “The stars in the universe will fall,” which is a way of
saying they'll no longer be visible either. The uncountable number of suns in
the universe, of galaxies that are around us, all of them go dark.
Now, obviously, we know the sun
provides us with daylight. But at night, we keep our world lit, technologically
speaking. And so your house has got light regardless of what time of day it is.
Our streets, our businesses, are illuminated night and day. So in our world
today we tend to take light for granted. But we know that after seven years of
unmitigated disaster during tribulation, the world will no longer be
industrialized. There will no longer be an electrical grid. There will no
longer be infrastructure. The book of Revelation and elsewhere tells us that
people in the last days of this period of history will be living in caves.
They'll be under rocks. It is the most rudimentary of living the world has ever
known.
So the only light the world will
have at the end of tribulation will be natural light, the light produced by the
sun in the day and the moon and the stars at night. So there comes this moment
right before Christ’s second coming when all light is extinguished, all natural
light, all of it. There is not a single source of light in the universe at the
point of Jesus' second coming. The world will be plunged into utter and
complete darkness. Now that's a darkness that few of us have probably ever
experienced. There's never been a place on earth at any time, day or night,
when you've been outside in complete and utter total darkness, because it
doesn't exist. But it will in that day, the kind of darkness where you can put
your hand in front of your face and not see it. And out of that utter, intense
darkness, there will come a bright sign in the sky.
The Lord has effectively turned
off all the lights in the universe so that only His light will be visible.
Nothing will compete with it. And the world therefore, will witness the return
of Jesus, followed by the Church and the angels as we've studied already,
coming out of pure darkness and coming with pure light. Now we know why He's
been so adamant from the very beginning about not listening to false prophets
who would try to tell you that He has already come back. Because He knew that
the way He is planning to come back is such that you can't miss it. No one will
need to tell anyone else when Jesus’ second coming happens, because you'll
either be with Him, as a part of the event, or should you be on earth, you will
be those who will see Him appear out of utter darkness with no question of
what's going on.
But notice, Jesus says when He
does arrive in this way, the tribes of the earth will mourn at the sight of Him
coming in power and in glory. And He uses that odd term “tribes of the earth.” He
could have just said the “people of the earth”. He could have just said “humanity”.
But He says, “Tribes of the earth.”
And the reason He does that is to
make a contrast with another group, another set of tribes, specifically the
tribes of Israel. So the tribes of Israel who are on the earth during this time
will not be mourning Jesus’ return, because they will be celebrating. Their
Messiah is coming to them, because they will have just called out for Him at an
earlier moment. It will be that the Jews who are enduring the tribulation and
make it to the end of that seven-year period and call out for Jesus - as a
result of their trial, that group of Jews will prompt Christ’s second coming.
And He will come for them and for the other believers who are on earth. And
that's why the tribes of Israel will not be mourning.
But the tribes of the earth, which
is a way of referencing the unbelieving Gentiles on the earth - they will not
be celebrating, because the Lord's about to return to their judgment.
We're going to study more about
the judgment moment that follows His return later in this discourse, in chapter
25. But for now, we just want to note that Christ's return brings different
things to different groups of people. To the Jew, the Lord is going to bring
faith and redemption, and along with it, the Kingdom. And to the believing
Gentiles, He brings the promised Kingdom as well. But to the unbelieving
Gentiles on earth, the Lord is bringing judgment.
And then we have a final sign, one
final sign on earth that indicates the Lord has now returned. He says there
will be a great gathering accomplished by angels. The Lord will send His angels
out to the earth and gather the elect, which is a way of referencing all Jews
wherever they may be in that day who have come to faith and are assembled now
as a result of this gathering in Jerusalem, along with any believing Gentiles
that are also on the face of the earth.
And this gathering is necessary
because of an Old Testament promise that God gave to the nation of Israel. He
promised them that at their Messiah's coming and the Kingdom's arrival, they
would all be assembled in the Promised Land for the beginning of the Kingdom.
And the Old Testament prophets also promised that at the moment of this great
re-gathering, at the outset of the Kingdom, there would be a great trumpet
blown. And that's what Jesus referred to here.
This prophecy comes out of Isaiah,
for example, Isaiah 27. He's not the only prophet who mentions this, but in
Isaiah 27:12 we hear this - speaking of this future day when the Kingdom comes,
Isaiah says,
Isa 27:12 In that day the LORD
will start His threshing from the flowing stream of the Euphrates to the brook
of Egypt, and you will be gathered up one by one, O sons of Israel.
Imagine angels, one by one,
gathering the believers wherever they are. However that's going to be done, it
will be an amazing thing to see. And then in verse 13, Isaiah goes on.
Isa 27:13 It will come about
also in that day that a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were
perishing in the land of Assyria and who were scattered in the land of Egypt
will come and worship the LORD in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
Isaiah says the Lord will be engaged
in a time of great threshing right before this moment. And that's a metaphor
for tribulation. Threshing is the act of treading down on stocks of grain in
order to release the seeds, the fruit. Well, similarly, God is treading down on
Israel and the world with His judgments for the fruit of producing a faithful
Israel at the end of it. And he says, as this threshing is going on, all
Israel, wherever they're scattered, will be gathered up and brought back to
Jerusalem so they can worship the Lord at the holy mountain of Jerusalem. And
in conjunction with all of that, there'll be a great trumpet blown to announce
this moment.
So let's put all this together as we summarize. To the answer of, “What will be signs of Jesus’ coming?” The details are first, the onset of tribulation. The overarching sign is tribulation. When tribulation is happening, you know you're close, and specifically within that time there's going to be persecution of believers, which would lead some to stumble and hate each other. There'll be lawlessness. There'll be some false prophets. There'll be lack of love and yet, at the same time, a worldwide evangelistic effort, Jesus told us.
Then, at the middle of those seven
years, He said, another sign to you will be the desecration of the Jewish
temple by a man who will do some kind of abomination there, leading to intense
supernatural judgments from God and persecution of believers, which then
prompts believers to flee rapidly into the mountains and from the upheaval.
Meanwhile, false prophets sent by Satan will deceive the whole world into
following after the wrong kinds of Christ.
And then, at the very end, the
heavens will fall away. There'll be lights gone, the world witnessing nothing
but utter darkness from out of which, Jesus will appear in a bright light. And
then the elect, the believers on earth will be assembled by angels and readied
for the Kingdom, announced by a great trumpet.
And the unsaved on earth, they
will mourn as their fate becomes clear, witnessing the Lord return in glory.
All of those things are signs to the world that the second coming of Christ is
here. And if you think about what is just described - the whole set of it - there's
not much subtlety, is there? We call them signs, but it's almost comical in a
way to refer to these events as signs, as if we need a hint that Jesus is
coming. It would be like telling a woman in labor that, “Hey, that's a sign
you're pregnant.”
And that's going to be the sense
of what it's like in these seven years. The world will need this kind of
obvious sign, because in their unbelief they will be resistant to the truth.
They will deny it. Even in the face of the obvious nature of it, they will be
resistant to the truth. That's why these signs take such a strong, obvious form.
Whereas the signs of the end of the age are relatively subtle - earthquakes and famines, things that people
can explain away if they choose to - signs for the believer to know that the
end is near and to be ready for our Lord's return.
And because we've been counseled
by the Word of God, and because our hearts are open to it, we're receiving it.
But during the time of tribulation, it'll be a hard hearted, loveless world,
and the signs for them will be clear and obvious, and even still, many or most
will ignore them to their own judgment. And for now, the Lord is content to
allow that ignorance and to allow that defiance, and as we get closer to the
end, He will do more and more to break through it. And as that day dawns, as
the day draws closer to tribulation and to these intense signs, it will
eventually culminate with the Lord's return. And if there was ever a sign to
know that the end has come, it will be the sight of Jesus appearing out of
darkness to an unbelieving world.
And in that moment, as Paul predicted,
every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. It will not be possible to
ignore the signs of Jesus' second coming forever. You can ignore them for a
while. Even the most hard-hearted might be able to ignore them for the full
seven years of tribulation.
But at the very end, at Jesus'
second coming, no one can ignore that moment. You will either be with Jesus at
His coming, or you will be mourning His arrival as you witness it from earth.
And the key is where you put your
faith. If you place your faith in Christ now and during this window of
opportunity that's been given to us, then, you can be a part of that return.
That's the promise of Scripture.
And on the other hand, if you reject the truth of what's being shared now, you will one day see Jesus face to face, as we all will. But in that day, the Bible says, you will be mourning. And so, don't remain defiant in the face of the Bible's testimony. Don't ignore the signs that we've already seen that are coming and continue to grow. Join in the family of God by believing in the testimony you've received, by placing faith in Jesus Christ, by trusting in His finished work on the cross to pay the price for the sin that we all have.
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