Matthew 21:37-44 - As in the days of Noah

24:37-41

Earlier Jesus spoke about wars and rumours of wars, earthquakes and famines, and said that this does not signify the end, but they are the beginning of birth pangs (Matt 24:6-8). Now He tells us that people will be going about their normal daily lives just before Jesus returns. Note that this is the complete opposite of the approach taken by the prediction merchants. They look at the frequency of earthquakes or other events and claim that this means the return is soon. Jesus takes the opposite approach. In the days of Noah it was not as though people did not have the chance to learn, but they chose to ignore the message of Noah. 

24:42-44

“Therefore keep watch”. This does not mean keeping watch to see if we can work out when Jesus will return. The whole point is that we do not and cannot know when He will return. Moreover, we do not need to know when He will return. In fact we have the explicit statement that Jesus will return when we do not expect Him. So to spend our time trying to work out when He will return is the most idiotic, disobedient , utterly stupid thing to do.

Knowing the Father

Knowing the Father, a sermon preached at Gate Church International 

Matthew 24:26-36 - The return

24:26-29

When times are troubling we can become vulnerable, willing to believe anything that seems to offer hope. This is why the Nazis gained power in Germany. So we need to be very wary of people who say the Messiah is here, we are not to believe them. When the Son of Man returns there will be no doubt about it, no special knowledge or insight needed for it will be like lightning flashing from east to west. The carcass of v28 is the whole world system, there will be “vultures” who seek to take advantage of its demise. The end of the world will be marked by cosmic events.

This quote comes from Isaiah 13:10 and 34:4, but similar figurative language can be found elsewhere in the prophets. It is important to realise that the language is figurative. Now it might be that cosmic events do occur, but the focus is on God’s judgement upon the earth. It is the judgement, and the return of Christ that are the key messages of what Jesus is saying. Things will change!

24:30-33

Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven. The people of the earth will mourn, for the foolishness of their ways will be evident, those who trust in the Lord will be saved. Soon Jesus will tell us that no one knows the day or the hour, but this does not mean we are not to be unaware of the signs or what is going on. “When you see all these things ...” I think we should take this as applying to all that has gone before in this chapter. So when various things happen to a fig tree it indicates that summer is near, when the things talked about here it indicates that the return of Christ is near, “right at the door”. So what are we to make of this? There was a temporal application. The fall of Jerusalem also coincided with a time of turmoil in the Roman Empire, there was one year when there were four emperors. The realisation of what is going on does not mean we will know the date! It is a matter of understanding where the world is going, and how we should act and respond in that world.

24:34,35

“This generation ...” causes great problems to some. I think we should take it in two ways. One is that the immediate generation would indeed see the events that happened in AD 66-70. The second is that the whole of mankind will see the events spoken of, the “wars and rumours of wars”, the persecutions, and the return of Christ. In Isaiah we have specific prophecies about Cyrus, the defeat of Babylon and the return of the Jews to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Those things happened and were real, but we also know that the words of Isaiah are looking forward to a much greater fulfilment, the fulfilment in Christ. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away”. We can and we must put our trust in God’s word.

24:36

This is the very clear teaching of Jesus that no, except the Father, knows the day or hour. There are two great mistakes we can make about the end-time stuff in the Bible. One is to dive into all sorts of speculations. Speculations about when, speculations about who is the antiChrist. This is almost uniformly unfruitful and a distraction. The other error is to ignore it, and the idiots who indulge in the former error are part of the reason many ignore the end time teaching. God has chosen to include endtime teaching in His word, and this must have been a very wise decision. So what are we to do with it? There are two very important lessons. One is that there is an end, this world will not carry on as it is forever, Jesus will return. If you like, we know the final result! The second is that it prepares us and teaches us how to act. If we look at this chapter there are instructions on how to live, particularly under persecution. The lessons about the end times are not just for the end times.

Matthew 24:17-25 - Time to flee

24:17-21

At this time there was to be no hesitation in fleeing, no time to put things in order.

There was only one imperative, and that was “get out!”.

They are also told to pray to God that this does not happen on a Sabbath,

when it would be far harder to get out.

Note that even with events that are decreed by God that we should still pray.

In verse 21 Jesus says the events would be absolutely terrible,

far worse than anything that had ever happened before, or would happen again.

The Jewish historian, Josephus, described the events in similar terms.

So how are we to interpret this?

Are we to take this as an absolutely literal description,

or as a graphic description meant to impress the horror of the events,

but not meant to be taken absolutely literally?

Utterly terrible events did happen in AD 70.

Does that mean these events are the complete fulfilment of the words of Jesus?

I.e. supporting a preterist view point? The problem with this is that it is hard to say that these events have never been equalled again in history. What about the holocaust?

24:22-25

These would be bad, but they could have been much worse.

Jesus says they were cut short for the sake of the elect.

This seems to have two important implications.

One is that there is an “elect”, a people elected by God for salvation.

The second is that the elect will be around at the time of tribulation.

People will be so desperate that they will long for some sort of Messiah,

so they will be ready to grasp at any straw.

It is at times of desperation that dictators tend to arise in nations,

for people long for order to be restored and think “things cannot be any worse than they are now”.

We need to watch out for false messiahs and not be taken in.

Some of these false prophets and messiahs will perform “great signs and wonders”.

We must not be deceived, the truth of God’s word is what matters.

Then again we have mention of the elect, and Jesus tells us that He has pointed these things out ahead of time.

Note that while we are the “elect” this does not mean that we do not have any responsibility.

We do have responsibility, and part of that is to be on our guard.

Sermon on Ecclesiastes

A sermon on Ecclesiastes, preached at Gate Church International 

Matthew 24:13-16 - Better news

24:13

We do then get some better news! “Whoever stands firm to the end will be saved”. What are we to do in such times? We are to stick to Christ and the gospel. There will be many forces seeking to make us abandon the faith, or at least to compromise it. We must not do so, for if we do we will be lost. Instead we must stand firm. Note that the lesson is not “pray that these things don’t happen”, instead it is stand firm in the midst of such circumstances.

24:14

And then we are told that the gospel will be preached to the whole world as a testimony to the whole world. “Then the end will come”. The Bible teaching on the end times is not given to tickle our ears, or to induce idle speculation. Rather, it is given to instruct and strengthen us, and the two key lessons so far are about standing firm and continuing to proclaim the gospel. The enemy will try to stop this happening, but will not succeed. The lessons of Matthew 24 and Revelation are for the church in all ages.

24:15,16

“The abomination that causes desolation” comes from Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11. The first “fulfilment “ of this was when Antiochus of Epiphanes put up an altar to Zeus in the temple. The Romans desecrated the temple in AD 70. Jesus is alluding to this latter incident and follows it with a very practical instruction, “run for the hills!”. There was a cultural instinct to believe that Jerusalem was the safest place they could be, that God would defend the temple. This had proved to be misplaced in the time of the Babylonian conquest, and would prove equally misplaced in AD 66-70. 

A sermon on Psalm 93

A sermon on Psalm 93, Spiritual Arythmia