Reading Assignment: Matthew 24:15-31
Main Idea: The coming of Christ
Key Verse: Matthew 24:30
Overview of the sign of the coming of Christ and the end of the age (24:3):
1. Abomination of Desolation
2. Flight to the mountains
3. Great Tribulation
4. False Leaders
5. Return of Christ
6. Gathering of the elect
Prayer:
1. God is the righteous Judge. He will judge the world in righteousness.
2. Christ will guard His people and keep them to the end.
3. Christ is coming again.
Transcript
Let's pray and we'll begin.
Father, we thank You for Your lovingkindnesses. They are new every morning, how great is Your faithfulness! Thank You for Your wonderful grace. Thank You for Your presence with us, that as often as we open up Your word, You speak to us and give to us more and more of Your blessing and Your grace. Thank You that we can spend this time this morning. Bless our time together. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
The next passage to be read is Matthew 24:15-31. The main idea of this passage is the coming of Christ. The key verse is found in verse 30, where Jesus says. “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 on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.” Last time, we focused on Jesus' explanation of the beginning of the birth. These events were not the sign of the end or the coming of Christ. They were “the beginning of the birth pangs,” Jesus called them. They were indicative of the natural course of history before the end of this age. Jesus spoke those words to assure us that when we hear of wars and rumors of wars and famines and earthquakes, and all the other things, we should not be alarmed. Those are just indicative of the normal life in the fallen world. However, starting from verse 15, Jesus starts to show us what is indeed the sign of His second coming and the end of the age. These verses then answer the question of the disciples back in verse 3, “What is the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age”? So this next passage covers all the aspects of the sign of the final period of history. Let me list them out for us here: abomination of desolation, flight to the mountains, great tribulation, false leaders, the return of Christ, and the gathering of the Jewish elect.
Let me go over these with us. First, the abomination of desolation. Jesus begins with the greatest sign of His second coming, something that the prophet Daniel prophesied of hundreds of years before Jesus' time. Daniel called it the “abomination of desolation.” You can read about in Daniel chapters 9, 11, and 12. Jesus makes reference to this in verse 15 and says, “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet (Jesus is actually talking about what Daniel wrote), standing in the holy place…” The Holy Place Jesus is talking about is the temple in Jerusalem. And the prophet Daniel said that there will be an abominable desecration of the temple that will result in a desolation (or destruction). This event refers to the time of the Antichrist who will horribly desecrate the temple. Jesus says when you see this happen, He has a particular instruction for the Jewish people: flee.
This brings us to the second aspect of the sign: flight to the mountains. In verse 16, Jesus says, “then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.” Now, I explained this last time that this chapter is about the Jewish people. You can see this in verse 16 because the instruction to flee is for “those who are in Judea.” They are to “flee to the mountains.” Jesus looks ahead to the time of the Antichrist, when the Jews will be under severe persecution, and He tells them that when the Antichrist arises, to flee and that with urgency. You can hear the urgency in His words. He says, “Whoever is on the housetop must not go down to get the things out that are in his house.” “Don't even pack,” He is saying. Flee right away. “Whoever is in the field must not turn back to get his cloak.” Don't even grab your jacket. Just go and flee, because the Antichrist is going to wreak havoc. Verse 19: “woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!” He means that suffering will be especially grave for those who are pregnant and nursing babies, because the Antichrist will make their lives so miserable. He further adds, “But pray that your flight will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath.” Jesus tells them to pray for no obstacles to their flight, because the assault from the Antichrist will be so terrible.
Then Jesus talks about the Great Tribulation that will come upon the world at that time. The Great Tribulation, of course, refers to what prophet Daniel talks about in Daniel 9 regarding the 70 sevens, or the 70 heptads. In particular, he prophesied of the final seven-year period. And Jesus then refers to that period, calling it the “great tribulation.” This is the period of judgment that “has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will.” This will be the climactic judgment of God, and this will be the worst time the world has ever seen. The tribulation will be worse than the judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah and the ten plagues of Egypt. It will be the worst and the final display of the wrath of God. Jesus even says, “unless those days have been cut short, no life would have been saved.” This is to say that this judgment will be so severe and destructive no one would survive at all. Of course, God is going to mark out the 144,000 of the remnant of Jews (Revelation 7), but even these would not be able to survive the rippling effects of the tribulation, such as hunger and thirst. Therefore, God will cut short that period.
Fourth, false leaders. Jesus then speaks of false leaders, but unlike the false teachers He mentioned before, these perform miracles. Jesus says, “False Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.” We read in Revelation 13 about one particular false prophet who does in fact perform miraculous signs to deceive the world to worship the Antichrist. And the Lord's message to the Jewish remnant at that time is to not be deceived. He tells them twice “do not believe.” He speaks to warn them of this false influence. He tells them in verse 25, “Behold, I have told you in advance.” Jesus then assures them that His second coming will be manifestly visible to all.
This brings us to the fifth aspect of the sign of His coming, which is His coming itself, the return of Christ. Jesus says in verse 27, “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.” The second coming of Christ will be universally visible. It's not something that you can miss. It's like lightning in this regard. When a lightning flashes, you can't miss it because the entire sky lights up. When Jesus comes again, it will be like lightning in this way. It will be impossible to overlook. It will not go unnoticed. Jesus also says, “Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.” It's a proverb that captures this impossibility. Even as it is impossible for vultures to not notice a roadkill or a carcass (a carrion), so humanity will notice the coming of the Son of Man. The return of Christ will be absolutely visible. There will even be signs in the skies. Verse 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.” No one’s missing the coming of Christ, because the heavens themselves will change. The sun, moon and stars will all indicate that the end has come, and that Christ is returning to Earth. Verse 30: “then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn.” This is clearly not the rapture; this is the second coming of Christ. This is when all the peoples of the earth, all the tribes of the earth, will mourn. Why will they mourn? Because they rejected the Messiah. They rejected Christ. “They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.” This the language of Daniel 7 that described the second coming. So then, unlike the rapture, where Jesus removes the church from the earth before the great tribulation, the second coming of Christ will be visible to all, and all will mourn because they have rejected Christ.
Then finally, Jesus speaks of the gathering of the Jewish remnant. Verse 31: “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.” In Revelation 19, we read that Jesus returns to earth with the raptured church. He comes back with a horde of people described as an army wearing white robes. These are Christians who have been glorified and are fitted for eternal dwelling in the presence of God. It is with these that Jesus comes again, and He then gathers the rest of the saints, the Jewish remnant, whom He calls the elect, because they also were chosen of God unto this salvation. He will gather these elect Jews to Himself to enter into the Kingdom of God, which He will establish on the earth.
This is Jesus's explanation of what's going to happen in the future, and there's going to be remarkable signs that accompany His second coming. We’ve seen six facets of this: The abomination of desolation, the flight to the mountains, the Great Tribulation, the rise of false leaders, the sign of Jesus’ second coming, and the gathering of the Jewish elect. All of these things are impossible to miss. And so with these things, Jesus answers the question of the disciples, “What will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3). The point of all this is this: Christ will definitely come again. We should not be alarmed by the everyday indication of the fallen world that will perpetuate in the pains of the birth pangs. Those things are simply the reality of the fallen world in which we live.
In light of all these things, what can we pray about? How do we respond to the Lord? Number one, we can acknowledge that God will indeed judge the world in righteousness. There is so much in the Bible about the judgment of God, because God is a righteous Judge, and He has indignation every day (Psalm 7:11). God is angry, because man has revolted against Him. Instead of worshiping Him and thanking Him as Romans 1:21 teaches us is man’s duty before his God, man has spurned God, even snubbed God. Instead of turning to God with devotion, love, and obedience, man has ignored God and has behaved as practical atheists who don’t give any consideration to the Creator who created them, who has provided for them, who has given them His laws for their good, who has even sent the Savior to save them. And therefore God is provoked to anger. And that anger will reach a boiling point, a tipping point, at the end of history, when God will bring His great tribulation upon the world. That's the first thing: acknowledge God’s position as the righteous judge. Second, we should thank God that Christ will guard His elect to the very end. Even though Matthew 24 has largely to do with the Jewish remnant, but the heart of Christ to preserve His people is the same for us Gentiles as well. Jesus loves His people, and He guards them. Through we will not go through the same thing that the Jewish remnant will go through, it's not as though there is no persecution or trials or difficulty for us in this life. Even as Jesus says in John 16:33, “in the world you have tribulation.” But the Lord guards His people to the very end. Lastly, we can pray to acknowledge that Christ is coming again. If you really believe this, you should absolutely pray, “Come, Lord Jesus” as John prayed at the end of the Book of Revelation. Or as the Apostle Paul says in Aramaic, “Maranatha” which is just the same expression, “Come Lord.” Christ is coming again and there will be visible, spectacular, unmistakable signs in the sky. And all will see it and mourn, because they had rejected Christ. Friends, we are looking ahead to one extraordinary day amid the many ordinary days. Even as it was in the days of Noah, when everything seemed to be going just fine, then one extraordinary day came when rain started to pour down upon the whole world incessantly and the world was flooded in a global deluge. The coming of Christ and the end of the age will be like that. We will live through many ordinary days. Then there will be one spectacular day in which Jesus will rapture the church and bring God’s final judgment upon the world, then will come Jesus’ second coming. We are looking ahead to that one extraordinary day. We should pray in anticipation of that one awesome final day.
Let me pray for us and we'll wrap it up.
God, You are the righteous Judge. This is Your world. And we believe in Your word that the world lives in violation of Your law and that You are indeed provoked. But we thank You that You have sent the Savior and that all who humbly embrace Him and confess Him as Lord, all those who turn to You with a heart of repentance to be reconciled to You as Your worshipers and obedient children, You welcome us, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from our every sin. God, we thank You for Your saving mercy and grace. We also believe that Christ is indeed coming again. And that He will gather all of His people together into Your Kingdom. Thank You for Jesus’ wonderful care for His people. Even as Jesus warns the Jewish remnant, His saving care is still with us today. Thank You for Jesus. Thank You for His love and protective care for us, even this very day. We thank You for these glorious truths we had a chance to think about this morning, and we pray that You would help us to be mindful of them this day, so that we would live in eager anticipation of Christ. It's in His name we pray. Amen.
Thanks everyone and we are done for this morning.