I was quite refreshed last week at the Richmond Conference—or actually, it is Longwood in Farmville, Virginia. I will not go into that. They now meet at Longwood University, and there were, oh, I do not know, six hundred and something people. It was a wonderful time, but I was so refreshed by the ministry of the Word dealing with the Lord’s coming back.
Brother Lance, Brother Stephen, Christian Chen, and myself—we had four speakers, and we all spoke on this matter. I was actually given an assignment off-topic, but I was greatly blessed by the time. So my thoughts have been very much on these matters of the Lord’s return, and I want to share some things in that regard.
Unfortunately, we are going to be looking at probably some of the most controversial passages in the Scriptures, and I do not want to pick a fight with anybody here. I am just not in the mood.
I think most of us have realized that the Lord holds us together in the unity of the Spirit, even while we fellowship over these matters of interpreting the Word of God. So I hope that if I interpret things and I am way askew from the position of truth that you know to be the facts, you will just bear with me, and we will have good fellowship together.
That passage, of course, is the Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24–25. I want to share on these things while we are together in these days.
I would like you to turn to Matthew 23 so that we can pick up the thread and get a little background. I will share some things by way of introduction tonight. I want to get into the end of Matthew 24 and Matthew 25, but I am going to call the four parables “Between the Two Comings”—that is, what to do with our lives between the first and second coming.
I would like to start here tonight in Matthew 23, verse 34.
After pronouncing woes upon the Pharisees and scribes for all manner of evil, He comes to the conclusion and says:
Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes.
Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city;
so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth,
from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.
Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!
How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.
Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!
For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”
Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him. He said to them:
Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.
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?
Jesus answered them:
See to it that no one misleads you.
For many will come in My name, saying, “I am the Christ,” and will mislead many.
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 nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.
But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.
I think we can stop right there for tonight, but let us have a further word of prayer.
Lord, we are so thankful that we can come into Your presence and bow before the throne of grace and say, “Have mercy. Give grace.”
For all of us gathered into this place, drawn from various places, I am quite tired—disoriented, in a new place, with a new sound system, and all kinds of things that could possibly distract. We pray that, by the presence of the Holy Spirit upon us, Jesus might be real to us tonight, that we may touch something of His prophetic insight into our lives in these days.
Oh, help us, Lord, we pray. We thank You that we have joined together, that we stand by Your grace. Thank You for all the support of the saints. We stand together to share the Word of God as one.
We commit this time unto You, in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Just to give a little background to this passage that we just read, I know you are all familiar with this, but there was something in Jesus’ spirit that set His face for Jerusalem. He pressed on until He came to Jerusalem on what is called Palm Sunday.
It was no mistake or chance that He got on that donkey and rode down the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem. No, indeed, it was the fulfillment of Scripture. Jesus was openly conveying His testimony: “I am the Messiah, the Messiah of Israel.”
He rode down so worshiped, and in such a way that there could be no mistake. Neither was there any doubt as to why He went into the Father’s house—the house of prayer for all nations—and cleansed it, threw out the money changers, and did not simply leave it empty.
He returned the glory of God to the temple as He stood there day by day teaching. Hungry people came from hither and yon to hear the Word of God. Children were healed. The lame were touched. The temple became the house of God again.
Of course, that brought out all the animosity of the leaders—the Herodians, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the scribes. All of them set themselves against Jesus. One by one, or sometimes teamed up in conspiracies, they came to test Jesus because they could not stand Him standing in the truth of His Messianic place there in Jerusalem.
They questioned Him and attacked Him, but He overwhelmed them with wisdom—prosaic wisdom and simple scriptural clarity—that made all the people say, “Amen,” and made the leaders walk away one by one.
That was a difficult day. Group after group came up to Jesus on this day of controversy. At the end of the day, we come to this section presented before us, where all of these great leaders, having shot their wad, are invaded by Jesus: “Woe!”
When He spoke these words, do not ever think He spoke them softly and meekly. He spoke them with the authority of a Messiah who had been, and at that very moment was, being rejected by His own people.
He pronounced woes on those most responsible—the Pharisees, the scribes, and the other leaders with all their hypocritical ways. Finally, He said, “Your house is left to you desolate. From now on, you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
He was predicting that there would come a day when the Jews’ eyes would be opened and they would say with full hearts, “Hosanna, hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” That will be a miraculous day, a wonderful day, when this happens in this world.
Well, the disciples were absolutely stone silent. They had become increasingly aware of the hypocrisies of the Jewish ways—those external ways that allowed hearts full of rubbish while still putting on the guise of being righteous. They were picking up more and more things, but they were hardly ready for a judgment upon the whole city of Jerusalem.
They walked out of the temple after Jesus’ pronouncements in silence.
The Scripture says that one of the disciples, I suppose trying to salvage something, said, “Lord, look at the temple. Look at the beauty of these buildings.”
Trying to salvage something.
You know, the Jewish hope was in Jerusalem and the temple. The people would talk of the temple, speak of the temple, and desire to visit the temple in their lifetime. It was the highlight of their life to go up to the city of God, sing praises in Zion, and come before the Lord in His holy temple. Their desire was to offer sacrifices in that place. So it was with the disciples as well.
Herod had built one of the wonders of the world through his forty-six-year construction program. He took that rather shabby-looking second temple built through Zerubbabel in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, and he fixed that thing up in ways you cannot believe.
It was literally one of the wonders of the Roman Empire. People visited it. It was the largest and most conspicuous religious temple anywhere in the Roman world—made by Herod.
Now, Herod did not use any pattern he saw on the mount. Neither was he instructed as David was by the writing of God, as David wrote out the design for Solomon’s temple. No, no, no, no. Herod simply came up with these ideas by human inspiration and replaced glory with beauty.
He fixed that place up. The Temple Mount itself—he leveled off a space five hundred yards long and three hundred yards wide, absolutely level: the courts of the temple. He built colonnades all around with wonderful Greek Corinthian columns. He put a gold vine with grapes right over the front of the temple. Of course, it was not by the instruction of God. He just thought it was a great idea.
He put gold on all the doors. In the nighttime, the place shone. It was a magnificent, magnificent place. The city of God—glorious? No, beautiful.
The Jewish leaders themselves declared in the Talmud that during the days of Herod’s temple, a few things were missing from the temple, despite all its beauty, finery, and money:
This has been the symbol of what happens when men disobey God and His glory leaves: you are left with something beautiful. As a matter of fact, the less glory there is in a place, usually the more beauty man substitutes.
So, instead of the presence of God, you get beautiful music, beautiful stained glass, beautiful pipe organs, beautiful liturgies, beautiful—la, la, la—beautiful messages. Man substitutes beauty for glory.
Jesus would have nothing of it.
So He said to His disciples, who were perhaps looking at the sunset as the gold temple was beaming there, “You see that place? I tell you, not one stone will be left on top of another.”
Thus says the Lord.
And the disciples were shamed into silence.
Finally, when they climbed up the Mount of Olives and sat over on the hillside, probably overlooking Jerusalem and this place that would soon be devastated, the disciples came privately—Peter, Andrew, James, and John.
They said, “Jesus, when is this going to happen? What is the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
That is a very humble question. The disciples decided to stop using tricks on Jesus, because they really needed to know these things.
Here we see Jesus in His wonderful way. It turns out that Jesus is still the same loving Savior who cares for His people. Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One, but here we see in Matthew 24–25 quintessential prophecy by the Prophet of prophets. There is no greater prophet than Jesus.
He speaks these words, and they have become central to the understanding of the church with regard to the second coming. Wonderful things He spoke.
Now, Jesus, being the Prophet of prophets, had to minister wisely to His disciples. You can tell by the questions they ask in Matthew 24:3:
Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?
These are three questions, which the disciples thought were pretty much simultaneous and also very soon.
Every generation of disciples believes Jesus’ coming is very soon. Now, I just want to get a couple of facts straight. “When will this temple be destroyed?” is the question they are asking. Then, “What is the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?” They figured it was going to be barabing, barabong, badabadam—whatever the third bara is. This, this, this, this, a couple of signs, boop, it is all over. He comes back.
But Jesus wanted to minister to these dear disciples of His. In fact, these three events were not at all simultaneous, as we realize. The temple was destroyed in AD 70. We are still waiting for the second coming, and the end of the age has not come yet either. They asked Jesus about three distinct things.
But Jesus had to add so much more in order to speak a word of prophecy in such a way as to help not only His immediate disciples sitting around Him, but also you and me. Jesus is indeed the Prophet of prophets, because everything He says speaks on different levels: to the immediate need of those disciples around Him, who would die within twenty or thirty years, and also to us, who are still waiting for His return centuries later.
What wisdom from God is contained in these prophetic words.
Jesus had to deal with Israel’s destiny. Having rejected the Messiah, Israel faced a destiny that broke His heart. He wanted to gather Israel like chicks under a hen, but they rejected Him. Now He had to trace some of the history of what is called Jacob’s trouble, as they would go through century after century of provocation, persecution, and trouble.
He had to carry all of that in there. He had to speak in His prophecies so that we could understand the risings and fallings of the outward kingdom, as well as the secret progress of the kingdom of the heavens.
Even as a greater issue than all of this, you see, Matthew 24 especially has become a bone of contention for fundamentalists, evangelicals, apocalypticists, prophetic meetings, teachers, and preachers. They fight over this stuff night and day.
I just hope that in some way we can see this as Jesus’ ministry to His disciples—and to us—as very personal and very helpful. Jesus was not interested in ticking off some sort of prophetic chart. There was something much more He was trying to do.
We must realize, just looking at these two chapters together, that Jesus was only telling them prophetic things on a minimal need-to-know basis. There was so much more He could have said, but He did not say it. That says to me that there are some things we do not need to know.
But we need to trust. We need enough to encourage our hearts as we walk along the way between His first and second coming.
Here is Jesus with His disciples, and they are asking these questions: “When is this beautiful temple going to be destroyed?” Here is Jesus’ burden: How can I, in the last few hours I have with My disciples, begin to cause a spiritual transition in them? How can they stop depending on outward things, outward religion, outward kingdom, and outward forms, and begin to sense the inner rumblings and spiritual reality of the kingdom?
How are these men going to be transformed from guys hoping the temple will not be knocked down because, gee, it means so much to us, into men who understand that God is building a mansion, has gone to prepare a place for us, and that it is a house not made with hands?
These are the very things Jesus took up within a couple of days with these disciples, recorded in John 14–16—a tremendous section of spiritual transition.
Get your eyes off the outward things. Are you not seeing the reality? “Have I been with you so long, and you have not seen the Father? Do you not know that I am building you a house? Do you not know that I am going to go away? I am going to come back to you and disclose Myself. Do you not understand these things?”
“Well, Jesus, if You just tell us where the Father is, then we will be happy. We do not know the way. Show us the map.”
Christians still today depend on outward things. So we need our Jesus, the Prophet, to draw us through the last days. From the time Jesus first came until He comes again, it is called in the Bible, technically, the last days. We are in the last days.
Jesus lovingly carries us and the disciples through the last days, interpreting the present to us so that we know what to do in the present hour, preparing us for the future, and not telling us things that are too much for us to bear.
But overall, Jesus was impressed to do one thing by His words through these chapters: to spark the blessed hope of His second coming in their hearts with such a light that it would not go out.
These dear brothers faced persecution and tremulous times beyond our understanding, but they truly knew the blessed hope, and it kept them going through all these terrible times.
These disciples had tasted the kingdom of God because they had been around Jesus. They knew, in some measure, the outward kingdom. They knew of the earthly kingdom of Israel, and they knew something, a little bit, about the mystery of the kingdom of the heavens because they had been around Jesus.
But now they were asking for some signs—markers along the way of their kingdom service. You see, they were dedicated. They were consecrated. They were absolutely given. They had given their lives to be servants of the kingdom. “Now, Lord, would You please give us a few markers along the way?”
Today, Christians are so confused about the kingdom that one wonders how many really live in the good of the kingdom. It is true that they are born again and born into the kingdom by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. But because of such ignorance as to what the kingdom is, how to serve in the kingdom, and the reality of the kingdom—though invisible, very present upon us—most people just live as though this were just another day, just another conference.
Life is like that when you are in the “under the sun” syndrome of Solomon in Ecclesiastes. Under the sun, things of the kingdom become la, la, la—blah, blah, blah. “Jesus is coming back.” It hardly sparks a Christian heart anymore.
Even Christians are sentimental about it. We get sentimental songs about Him coming back. I guess folks can choke back a tear, thinking about how sentimental it is, completely devoid of any understanding of the cost—what is going to happen, the travail that is going to bring that second coming to pass.
“Oh, we want to hear the trumpet sound.” I do not want to hear the trumpet sound. If I hear the trumpet sound, that means I have been on earth through a great tribulation.
We have plenty of songs to talk about that. It is just our sentimental thing.
But my question is simply this, and I put it to you like this because Jesus wants to minister to us: He knows that we live in an unbelieving and adulterous generation. Jesus knows that most of us hardly know what the kingdom is. Jesus knows that most of us are actually hoping He will put off coming back so that we can at least get back to normal in our bank account, get that new house we want, be able to retire, get married, or whatever it is.
We all have a kind of fingers-crossed thing. We hope He does not come back tonight because we have some unfinished business. You see? So different from the disciples.
Our dear brother Christian was picturing the Apostle John. Ever since the day on the Mount of Olives when he saw Jesus taken up into the clouds and then disappear out of sight, John, for forty years, wondered every time he saw a substantial cloud blown by, “Is Jesus in that cloud?”
It was not until the book of Revelation unfolded to him what Jesus was doing in heaven that he understood what was going on beyond the cloud. But they were looking. They were watching. They were waiting.
Peter, Andrew, James, and John wanted Jesus to come back. Whatever it meant for Him to go away, they wanted Him to come back.
Christians today, do we want Him to come back? Do we have that blessed hope?
It makes all the difference in a life. It brings a person out of, “This is just another day,” into, “This is kingdom now.”
I believe it has to be seen, but I do not believe it can be seen except by those who have consecrated themselves to serve in the kingdom of God.
It is always interesting to me that the book of Revelation is written to His bondservants, not to just any old person. There is a wonderful consolation in these chapters for those who really love the Lord, diligently serve Him, look for His coming, and are in the kingdom.
May the Lord lift us. We do not need to be living under the sun like everybody else. All our plans and all our worries have to do with this life. I do not know. The Lord needs to recover and revive the saints again and stir up that blessed hope that brings us up on another level, where we do things with an awareness of Jesus’ presence with us. How wonderful that would be.
Well, we are just introducing this tonight. As I said, I am going to take the four parables that begin in Matthew 24:45 and run through Matthew 25. I will deal with those four controversial parables, and then you can tar and feather me, but that will be on the next occasions.
Tonight, I just want to take an overview of the earlier section of Matthew 24 and look at it as Jesus trying to help His disciples live between His first coming and His second coming.
First, He speaks of the first sign. It is not the sign of the end, but it is a sign of the last days. That sign is this: creation is in travail with birth pangs. The whole creation—earthquakes, pestilence, famine—the whole world is in a shake-up because the Lord is eventually going to shake everything that can be shaken in order to bring His unshakable kingdom into full view.
He speaks to them beginning in Matthew 24:4:
See to it that no one misleads you.
For many will come in My name, saying, “I am the Christ,” and will mislead many.
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 nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.
But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.
It is what it says literally: birth pangs. These things—wars, rumors of wars, false christs, pestilence, famine, and the like—will continue, and they will continue with greater intensity as the birth time gets near.
You know how that goes, ladies and gentlemen. I do not need to rehearse for you the birds and the bees. The closer it gets to the end, the more grunting and groaning and upheaval there is going to be.
Jesus is telling them because He is trying to comfort them in this time: “This is not the end. This is the scene you are going to live in, so I am telling you ahead of time.”
This is not a time to try to settle down, find yourself a house deep in the woods, get yourself a dog, and settle down where everything is cool. You have a job, job security, and all of that.
The United States has been so blessed for generations. When you see saints who love the Lord all around the world, there is hardly a group of people outside the United States that has received such blessing as we have.
The American dream is just a fiction, according to Jesus, because no sooner do you think you have attained that wonderful niche you have been looking for than the whole thing gets shaken up again. These are the signs of birth pangs.
Later, when John, forty years after these things were spoken by Jesus, finally sees into heaven and sees what is going on, it is Jesus who is ripping the seals off the scrolls and causing all the commotion down here. It is not the devil; He is using the devil. It is Jesus who sets the seals loose and sends out the horsemen, because Jesus is going to shake men up, and hopefully into the kingdom.
This is the time of shake-up. These last days are going to be known for this kind of shake-up.
Jesus wants to say to His disciples that not only will there be birth pangs on the globe, and eventually even in the skies, but there will be a shake-up in your own life.
Matthew 24:9 says:
Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.
At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another.
Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.
Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.
All of those things are going to happen. There is going to be persecution. Then He really opens a can of worms when He says much of the persecution will come by other so-called Christians—people who betray you.
The Jews, or these disciples and apostles, discovered that the synagogues became synagogues of Satan, betraying Christians. They would be put to death. Lawlessness would increase. The hearts of the saints would grow cold. All of these things are part of the upheaval.
What do we do about it?
Jesus wants to tell His disciples. This is not merely, “Mark this down on the chart. Things are going, and the church is getting cold. Now move out to Montana.” Apologies to anybody here who lives in Montana. I understand it is the best place to go if you are trying to escape.
But Matthew 24:13–14 says:
But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.
This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.
I think the Lord is encouraging His dear disciples. He is saying, “When all this stuff gets stirred up, I want you to know something: I am using all of this stir-up to get My gospel out to all the nations.”
If a nation wants to sit still on the gospel, then He will blow them up. That is exactly what He did in Jerusalem, right? “Oh, what a happy family. Why, we must have ten thousand Jewish Christians all here in Jerusalem. What a wonderful time.”
God scattered them. They said, “What a terrible thing has happened. We have an earthquake. We have a famine in Jerusalem. Oh, this is terrible.” God says, “That is right, and I am going to use it to get those apostles out where they belong.”
So it is today. If the United States has been blessed, if there are so many men and women of God who love the Lord, and we are all sitting on our pews, then may the Lord blow our country up so that the gospel of the kingdom can be preached throughout the world, because then is when He is going to come back.
Not when we get our little mansion down there by the stream and retire, tipping our hats to God once in a while. This is not the age for that.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed. Jesus is trying to awaken the saints to reality. As soon as you accept that this is the scene for the last days—birth pangs—it helps you interpret all of the crazy things going on in your life.
So much trial and tribulation in your life—of course, a lot of it is because you and I are dodos—but a lot of things going on in our lives have nothing to do with us. It has to do with the fact that God is shaking up even the people around you, even the church members around you, and all kinds of things are startling you.
So He says to His disciples, “Listen to Jesus the Prophet. The last days are upon us. Do not let it be to you a day of attempted ease. Consecrate yourself. He who endures to the end—that is what I am looking for: servants of the kingdom out in the uttermost parts of the earth.”
I cannot think of anywhere more uttermost than California. Get out to all the corners of California. I am not sure, but if the kingdom were known in California, Jesus would come back.
I leave that with you. I am not telling you that you have to chase over to Africa. You just have to be alive to the kingdom now and to all the opportunities you have during the shake-up.
One positive thing about living at the gates of hell in New York City is that there are so many people shaken up that you can counsel and witness to them about Jesus. There are enough people going back into jail again, going through this again, unemployed again, and all of that. It gives you an open ear to speak the gospel.
May it be that we see that first sign.
Then we come to the second sign, in Matthew 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—
then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.
Whoever is on the housetop must not go down to get the things out that are in his house.
Whoever is in the field must not turn back to get his cloak.
But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!
But pray that your flight will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath.
He has nothing against pregnant women or people with babies. It is simply unfortunate if that is what happens in that day.
Here we see a second great sign: the abomination of desolation. Jesus had to give a clear word to the disciples regarding what was going to happen in AD 70. There had been an abomination of desolation after Daniel prophesied it, when Antiochus Epiphanes, of Greek descent, went into the Holy of Holies and sacrificed a pig. But Titus himself also set up ungodly things in the temple as an abomination of desolation.
Jesus is saying, “Now, you disciples of the kingdom, when you see this happening, flee the city. Get out of there.”
You know what happened in AD 69 and 70: the Christians fled Jerusalem according to the prophecy. It was their lifeline. They saw it happening, put it together, left the city, and moved out to Pella. They were not part of the million who were massacred in Jerusalem in AD 70, when Titus decided to attack at Passover and caught them all in the city. He starved them out, burned them out, took three or four months, and killed a million of them.
The Christians were gone. Why? Because Jesus spoke a word to their hearts: “When you see that abomination of desolation, get out of town.”
The wonderful thing is that our Lord has this kind of prophetic wisdom. All the prophets were given a word from God that had layers of prophecy in it. Jesus was speaking to that immediate generation that would face the temple’s destruction in AD 70, but He was also giving a prophecy that has application yet to come down through the centuries.
Notice how it says at the bottom of Matthew 24:15, “Let the reader understand.” There is further application to this than simply the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.
“Let the reader understand.” There will be another time when there will be an Antichrist who will move into the holy place and be an abomination of desolation. When you hear about that, understand what is going on. Flee. Revelation tells you to flee—flee the harlot.
Jesus is speaking to them about the dangerous times ahead. Then He lengthens out the prophecy, not only for the immediate believers but also for us who are still waiting, and these things are still to happen.
Who is this really for? Are you going to be there when the Antichrist takes over? I am not even going to go into all of that. But let us put it this way: there are going to be some people for whom this will be their holy writ when they are going through this time. They are going to know exactly what it means.
Jesus is trying to prophesy to us.
Then comes the third matter He mentions. This is not a sign in itself, but after the abomination of desolation, there is going to be great tribulation. Notice Matthew 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.
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.
He talks about those days, and of course the disciples knew He was talking from Daniel, because Daniel says the exact same thing. Daniel was talking about more than the destruction of Jerusalem. Daniel was talking about the end, when that fourth beast comes from the sea, when the Antichrist comes into the temple, and when the terrible great tribulation takes place.
This will be the Word of God for people who have to go through the tribulation.
One of the things that will happen because of the pressure of the tribulation is found in Matthew 24:23:
Then if anyone says to you, “Behold, here is the Christ,” or “There He is,” do not believe him.
For false christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.
Behold, I have told you in advance.
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.
Here it is talking about false prophets doing great signs and wonders. Many people apply this to the many false christs who were around in the days when the temple was destroyed in AD 70, and there were many false christs. But they were not false christs who performed great signs and wonders.
There are false christs yet to come who will perform great signs and wonders in a time of great tribulation. They will try to deceive the elect. They will be so powerful that people who think, “If something happens and it is miraculous, it must be of God,” are going to be hooked, line, and sinker into the Antichrist, the false prophet, and all that is going to be going on.
Here is the warning: “Behold, I have told you in advance.” Do not listen to these people who say, “Here it is. There it is. I am the prophet.”
The only sign that is accurate in the days of the great tribulation is this:
For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.
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.
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.
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.
Now, I do not know how you interpret all of this—the day of the coming recorded in Daniel 7, the coming of the Son of Man on clouds of glory with His armies with Him—but I hope you are part of that army coming with Him. I hope this is not a sign for you.
If you are going to go through the great tribulation and afterwards look up to see the skies open and the Son of Man coming down with the blowing of the trumpets, I think you have missed something.
Who are these people? Well, I believe, when it speaks about these elect, that it is referring to the Jews who are going to go through a tribulation that opens their eyes to who the Messiah is. I think they are going to see Him coming.
Part of Jacob’s trouble, perhaps the most terrifying part, is that they will go through the tribulation. You remember how, in Revelation 7, the angel is told to stop—stop unrolling any more scrolls or allowing any trumpet to sound—until the 144,000 from the twelve tribes are sealed.
Something is going to happen on this earth because God is still dealing with the Jews.
But it says immediately after, these signs will be seen. Now, I ask you the question: Is this Scripture for the disciples? Are they going to see this happening?
Well, the disciples were Jews and they were listening. But of course, this did not happen in the days of the disciples. People interpret these things in so many different ways.
Jesus goes on to give this summary. I do not believe Matthew 24:32–35 is a sign as much as a summary:
Now learn the parable from the fig tree: when its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.
So, you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door.
Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.
I believe Jesus is speaking first of all to His contemporary disciples and saying, “I have spoken. Jerusalem will be felled and destroyed, and My word will come to pass, and you will see it.”
So learn this lesson: when you see all these things taking place, even the people fleeing because of the abomination of desolation, know that it is near, even at the door. The destruction is near, and even the second coming of Jesus.
But then He also has this little lesson of the fig tree for Christians. The disciples had seen Him curse the fig tree in the past and came to understand that He was talking about Israel and its hypocrisy, because hypocrisy is all leaves and no fruit. So He cursed the fig tree.
But now the fig tree stands for something else. There are interpretations about what it means when the fig tree’s branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves. You know summer is near.
Most people have thought that this meant when Israel became a nation in 1948. It could mean when Israel gets saved. That would certainly liven things up, and suddenly something that used to be dead—a dead fig tree—would become fruitful.
But in any case, what Jesus says is that when you see Israel being shaken back into life, like dry bones with skin coming on them and all of that, then know that Jesus is very near, even at the door.
For the early disciples, I am sure they interpreted this regarding the end of Jerusalem. For us, how do we determine that? What do you think? Have you seen Israel, the fig tree, coming back to life? Are you satisfied with what has gone on? Do you feel Jesus is at the doors?
This old expression has to do with eastern houses, where you had a porch, then an anteroom, then perhaps a terrace area, and maybe you went through three or four doors before you got to the inside of the house. The idea is that when you see these things regarding Israel taking place, Jesus is already through the first door.
The word coming—parousia—means presencing. The Lord is coming, but He is not coming all at once, or at least it does not seem that way.
The story goes on with the final, fourth sign of this section. Matthew 24:36 says:
But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.
For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah.
For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,
and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.
Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.
Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.
But be sure of this: that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into.
For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He is.
I see this as a fourth sign, a very contemporary sign to Christians even today. The next event that needs to happen will not be the Son of Man coming on the clouds of glory with a trumpet. The next event that is going to happen is a disappearance.
There are going to be people eating and drinking, like the days of Noah, as though everything is just another day. Then suddenly the family is gone missing, and judgment begins. “Where did that family go?”
Then there will be two women and two men. One is taken, and the other is left. This is a sign of rapture. Again, I do not know who that sign is for—those who get left behind.
Jesus is telling us a secret regarding His coming: perhaps there is more than one stage of His coming. When He finally comes on the clouds and all men see Him, even those who mourn who crucified Him—but before that happens, there is going to be a coming as a thief, a coming without a trumpet, at an hour we do not know. Some who are ready will be snatched away.
His bottom line is this: therefore, you need to be ready. You need to be living in the kingdom now, because you do not know the day or the hour.
I remember one night, we were in a Bible study, and this very smart girl said, “Well, I am waiting for the Antichrist.”
I said, “What do you mean by that?”
She said, “Well, because I believe that the church is going to have to go through the first three and a half years of tribulation. But as soon as the Antichrist comes on the scene, I know that is the marker that I am going to be raptured out.”
I said, “You know, the Bible says we should be waiting for the Lord to come back, not waiting for the Antichrist.”
Now, imagine if we had that marker. If our marker is the Antichrist, then it means everybody can live sloppy and lazy, but when you see the Antichrist, get your life together. Believe me, if Christians had that kind of way out, everybody would do it.
But Christian Chen last week gave a summary sheet for one of his messages, which he hardly even touched. He had five thousand eight hundred-something prophecies listed, and then he wrote out the twenty last prophecies—the things in the whole Bible, the twenty major prophetic things that have not happened yet.
He listed the twenty of them and said, “The next thing that needs to happen before the rapture is nothing.”
That was number one on the list. Other things can happen, but the Bible does not say there is any more sequence. The rapture is next.
Of course, he believes there is a coming in stages as the Lord gets closer. Just as the Bible says that when Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives and began to rise, He rose to the clouds and then disappeared into the heavens, so they believe, in the same way the angels told them, Jesus will come back in the same way. He will come to the clouds first, where He will rapture believers, and then from the clouds to the earth, when everyone will see it.
Now, have I started enough controversy for everybody to fight? Everybody take a position. When you get into fellowship group, you can fight with other people and all this kind of stuff.
But I just want to tell you what Jesus the Prophet says about all of this. The only guarantee is that you need to be ready, because He makes a promise to you. Here is the promise: He is going to come when you do not expect Him.
If you expect Him to come at this conference time, then do not worry about it. But at a time when you do not expect Him, when it is really inconvenient and you have just got too much going on—at the time you least expect—then He is going to come.
Will we be ready?
And so begin these four parables of what it means to be ready for the Lord to come back.
Again, I leave you with this thought: I do not think the Lord Jesus was giving His disciples fuel for theological, apocalyptic, prophetic conferences, nor was He giving them fodder to fight over.
I think all He was trying to do was this:
You are going to see the Jews go through things. I understand why the Jews shake their fists at God. There are many Jews who do this when they pray. Even there at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, they stand there and they bob back and forth, and some of them shake their fists at God and say, “Why, God? Why have You done this to us? Why have You made us the most hated people in the world? Why can we do nothing without being hated and persecuted? Why are they trying to build nuclear weapons that would destroy us right now? Why, God? Who are we? Why do we deserve this?”
They pray that way all the time. Part of their prayers expresses their anger at God for putting them through it.
Of course, because they are blind to the Messiah, they do not understand. One day their eyes will be opened, and they will understand. But meanwhile, it is a great burden and grief when we see Jewish people who love God going through trouble like that.
Brother Lance was sharing last week about Israel’s struggle. He talked about two neighbors who were children in concentration camps. Their job as children, after people had been gassed and the poison gas had cleared, was to run into the gas chamber and pull all the gold teeth out of those who had died.
He had two neighbors, now old people, for whom that was their job when they were children. As Lance told the story, he broke down and cried, because when you hear their story and hear their suffering, you realize they are really suffering.
The only answer is that they are in the hand of God, who is disciplining them. According to His election and gift, which He will never revoke, He will bring them to the place where they see the Messiah. Once again, Israel will be saved.
They have to go through tremendous times. The disciples had to see that. Do not forget: all their relatives were Jewish. They watched them go through the time of the abomination of desolation in AD 70. It must have been really tough.
What do you think Judaism was like in AD 71? “It is Passover time. Let us go to—oh, we cannot go. Well, we need to offer the Passover. We might as well let the sheep go. We cannot offer the Passover. On the Day of Atonement, we can have our sins forgiven. Well, we do not have our home. Where do we go? What should we do? Just get together?”
There was no more.
These are tremendous times. We are living in the birth pangs of God changing everything around and bringing the kingdom of Jesus to pass, coming to the earth in glory. Meanwhile, we are going through all this stuff.
So read Matthew 24 and Matthew 25, so you can argue more vehemently with me over the week. We will discuss these other things in the days to come.
Lord, we thank You so much. You are the Prophet of prophets. We want to learn more about what You were saying to Your disciples than we want to piece things together to our own liking.
Lord, there is so much mystery going on even today. We do not know, even about the United States, whether we are under judgment and wrath, whether this is another one of those things that happens because of selfishness, foolishness, and sinfulness, and we are bearing the price.
Oh, Lord, revive Your people. Give unto us a blessed hope that enables us to overcome and endure to the end. Give us that faithful desire to preach the gospel of the kingdom to all the nations, even in this time, even though we are hated and despised.
May it be that You would place in our hearts this unmistakable blessed hope that keeps us looking for Your coming, even as we serve You during our days.
Lord, begin to place these things in our hearts. Revive Your people for a real expectation of Your coming. May our lives begin to be shaped by Your coming. May we put off things unnecessary as we await Your second coming.
Oh, Lord, shape us according to Your divine will, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.