What Makes Jesus Unique? No one else made the claims that He did, He is alive...............
All the great religious leaders of history have one thing in common: they are dead. Only one man has risen from a grave never again to taste death. Jesus Christ died, was buried, remained in the grave for 3 days, then was raised to life again.
Jesus is unique. He is the only one proven to be the Son of God because God validated His Kingship and accepted His payment for our sins all with one incredible stroke: He raised Jesus from the dead!
Paul opens his letter to the Romans with this evidence about who Jesus is:
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which He had promised before by His prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. Romans 1:1-4
Because Jesus Christ is very much alive, five things are true right now that wouldn’t be true if He were just another dead religious leader like Confucius, Mohammed or Buddha.
Because Jesus was raised from the dead and is alive…Prayers are answered, We can talk to Jesus 24/7
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YOU DON'T HAVE TO BEAR YOUR BURDENS ALONE
Done well at hiding the pain in your life
You've hidden the sorrow that calms you each night
If there is something you need to share
I want you to know someone cares
You don't have to bear your burdens alone
You've got a friend you're not on your own
So just take my hand we'll find help at the throne
You don't have to bear your burdens alone
At times life seems unfair and so hard to stand
You reach out for someone just to hold to your hand
Remember the words of our Savior are true
His promise, "I will never leave you"
You don't have to bear your burdens alone
You've got a friend you're not on your own
So just take my hand we'll find help at the throne
You don't have to bear your burdens alone
You don't have to bear your burdens alone
You've got a friend you're not on your own
So just take my hand we'll find help at the throne
You don't have to bear your burdens alone
No, You don't have to bear your burdens alone
You don't have to bear your burdens alone
You don't have to bear your burdens alone
No, You don't have to be alone
You don't have to bear your burdens alone
No, You don't have to be alone.
1
What mystery, the Father, Son, and Spirit,
In person three, in substance all are one.
How glorious, this God our being enters
To be our all, thru Spirit in the Son!
The Triune God has now become our all!
How wonderful! How glorious!
This Gift divine we never can exhaust!
How excellent! How marvelous!
2
How rich the source, the Father as the fountain,
And all this wealth He wants man to enjoy!
O blessed fact, this vast exhaustless portion
Is now for us forever to employ!
3
How wonderful, the Son is God’s expression
Come in the flesh to dwell with all mankind!
Redemption’s work, how perfectly effective,
That sinners we with God might oneness find.
4
The Spirit is the Son’s transfiguration
Come into us as life the full supply.
Amazing fact, our spirit with the Spirit
Now mingles and in oneness joins thereby!
5
How real it is that God is now the Spirit
For us to touch, experience day by day!
Astounding fact, with God we are one spirit,
And differ not in life in any way!
Copyright Living Stream Ministry. Used by permission.
Then the angels showed me the river of the water of life. Bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit yielding its fruit each month, the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed that the throne of God and the Lamb will be in it. And his servants will worship him...– Revelation 22:1–5
I did something similar in the previous podcast episode, just praying through five verses. And I want to do the same here as we see some of the most beautiful verses in all the Bible here. And there’s so much we could pray according to them. So we’re just going to jump right in once I’ve read them.
This Verse Leads Us to Ask the Lord to Come Quickly
They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun for the Lord God will be their light and they will rain forever and ever. Yes, Lord Jesus come quickly. In light of this scene, we pray it today over and over again in the rest of Revelation 22:1–5. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. We long for the day, when we will see your face, we will be with you, you As our light. And we will reign with you, Lord Jesus. We will reign forever and ever. Who are we to reign with you? Oh God, we praise you for your grace in our lives. We praise you for your healing in our lives. We deserve curse. And we deserve condemnation. Lord, we deserve judgment.
We have sinned just as Adam and Eve did with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the very beginning. And now we see healing flowing from this tree of life in Revelation 22:1–5, with fruit for all the nations. Oh God, bring in all the nations. We pray for the spread of the gospel to all the nations. Oh God, may it be so for the Maratha people of India for 32 million of them, hardly any followers of Jesus. God, change that.
We want the Maratha to be around your throne. That day, Jesus, you died to make it possible for the Maratha to be around the throne that day. We pray you would help us to faithfully spread the gospel to the Maratha and every other people group in the world so that they might see your face, that they might experience healing of the nations.
Revelation 22:1–5 Leads Us to Obey the Great Commission
God, we pray you would help us to obey the great commission as your church today to make disciples right around us of the nations, far from us of the nations. God, help us to faithfully proclaim the healing power of the gospel to the nations. As your servants, we’ll worship you, verse three, day and night in perfect communion with you enjoying all that flows from you. Even what’s written later in this chapter, let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires, take the water of life without price.
We praise you for the hope that we have today, amidst whatever we are walking through, amidst whatever happens to us in this world to know that for all who trust in you, Lord Jesus, Revelation 22:1–5 is coming. So help us to hold fast in faith and hope today to the day when you, oh Lord, God will be our light and darkness will be no more. In Jesus’ name, we pray according to Revelation 22:1–5. Amen.
Date:8/9/20....Series: Matthew...Passage: Matthew 24:1-2
Speaker: BJ Chursinoff
Transitions happen in our lives, and they happened in Jesus’ life too. In this message, we'll highlight 3 transitions that took place in Jesus’ ministry after He left the Temple, and discover the lessons they teach us today.
Transitions, our lives are marked by them, both big and small throughout the entirety of our lives, our lives are so marked by transitions that we even are affected by transitions before we're even born. I'm going to keep this PG, but to speak with me briefly. There is a major transition where one time you were just a twinkle in your daddy's eye and then some time later you were conceived in your mom's womb.
The transitions were just getting started and there was no sign that you were in there. And then several weeks later, your mom transitioned to having a cute little baby bump. Some more weeks passed and that little baby bump grew to a ginormous bump. Then the transition transitions keep coming because then you came out and you weren't in there anymore.
And for a good chunk of the early part of your life, you were a little baby and you did a sum total of four things in no particular order.
You ate, you slept, you cried and you poured. And sometimes those things happen simultaneously. Sometimes they're going from one thing to another. But there's a season of your life. That's all you're doing as a baby. And then you transition to being able to sit. You transition to be able to be able to crawl around you. You transition to be able to stand and then walk and then you're running and then you're transitioning to ruin and everything in the house.
You keep growing. Right. And fast forward a few years. There's a favorite time in everyone's life, a major transitional time in our life. The big P word, puberty marks a transition in our growing up in our adolescence.
And then you then you get old and like me, I'm coming up on 40 next year and I'm more tired than I was when I was twenty. I'm weaker and I'm getting you can't see me from the camera, but I'm even getting sprinkled with some whites in the beard.
Transition, transition. A lot of transitions in school. You know, big moments in your life when you transition to going into kindergarten, you transition to going into middle school. Today, back in my day, it was junior high. You transition into you transition into high school. Some of us transition out of high school into post-secondary education. And then we eventually have to transition into the out of school and into the into the workforce. Transitions, transitions, transitions, transitions.
Some transitions are permanent in nature, but some transitions are back and forth. They're cyclical. Think of the seasons in the calendar year. We're in the summer right now and not too long. We're going to transition into the fall and fall from the transition into the winter. And winter is going to transition in the spring and spring, transition back in the summer. And around we go every year. Every day we have transitions. Every day you wake up and you transition to the sun rising and you starting your day.
And at the end of the day, you transition to to pulling the plug out and resting and tapering down into sleep. You wake and you sleep and you wake and you sleep, sleep and you transition in and out of that every day of your life. So some transitions are permanent, but some we go in and out of all the time. Transitions are a common and a necessary part of our life. Which brings us to the place in our study in the Gospel of Matthew.
In this message, the message I want to highlight for you, three transitions in these two verse is that serve as our text for this message in our two verse is our Chapter 24 in Matthew Verse is one, and to let me read them for us. Verse is one. Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple, but he answered them, You see all these, do you not?
Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. Here's the first transition I want to highlight for you, and it's going to be the first film on your outline. Jesus goes from spending time with the crowds. To spending time with his disciples. Jesus goes from spending time with the crowds to spending time with his disciples. In order to show you this particular transition better, I want to take a peek with you at some of the larger context surrounding our two verse is.
In Matthew, Chapter 21, 22 and 23, we can see Jesus mostly, almost predominantly ministering to large public crowds in Jerusalem around the temple as Passover in Jerusalem. The city has swollen to one to two million people have come in. Jews from all over the surrounding area, around the world come once a year to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. This bombing is happening and the temple is right in the center of it all. And this is where our scene is is based and where it's coming out of here.
This is where Jesus had been going back and forth with the religious leaders of his day, as we've seen in Chapter twenty three. With everybody watching. Large crowds packed, Jesus is there, his disciples are there, his friends are there, his enemies are there, everyone is there and he's ministering publicly.
But then we get to chapters 24 and 25, and here we see that Jesus transitions to ministering privately to a small group of his disciples. See again in verse one says that Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple to Jesus leaves the crowds. And it's just his disciples who come to him, who follow after him to spend time with them. And then he spends chapters twenty four and twenty five, teaching only his disciples.
The crowds are gone, and now it's just Jesus with his disciples. This kind of transition going from a large crowd to a small group is not an isolated example in the Ministry of Jesus. One other example, will we see the same pattern play out as back in Matthew? Chapter 13 there, Matthew records for us a bunch of parables that Jesus preaches publicly to the crowds in Matthew 13.
The crowds were so big it tells us that Jesus had to actually get into a boat, push away from the shore and then speak to the crowds on the shore. But he had to make some buffer room between us, between them and him, because he was getting crushed and pressed up by the crowds because it was so intense and it was so it was so big.
But after he had finished addressing the crowds from his boat, teaching them all these parables in Matthew 23, go back and look at the at the scene. At the story, you can see Jesus leave and go into a house. And we also see who follows after him. His disciples, his disciples come after Jesus.
Throughout it all, you can see this pattern over and over and over again.
If you're looking for large public gathering, public ministry, smaller, more intimate groups and big public ministry with the disciples are there amongst the crowds and then smaller gatherings where it's just Jesus and his disciples. I'd argue that both atmospheres, the large public gathering and the smaller and more private ones, both atmospheres were and are important parts in the disciple making process. They were important parts in Jesus disciple making process. See, in the large corporate gathering, you're going to often find the time and the space set aside for more of a monologue type proclamation of the word public preaching and teaching and exhortation from the pulpit, from the preacher.
Usually in a large crowd, you have a mix of a whole different bunch of people, all on different parts of their journey of faith.
Usually a mix of disciples of Jesus, followers of Jesus, and those who don't yet know Jesus or who are warm to Jesus, open to him or even hostile to him, and you have a mix usually in the large public gathering. Think of the four soils that Jesus actually spoke a parable about in that back in Matthew, Chapter 13 is the for soils of the four different hearts you have the the hard ground of the the thorny ground. You have the shallow grounding of the good and you have the good soil.
And that's a representation of people that are in the public crowds gathering at any time in public ministry settings, larger sites, larger sized crowds, makes it challenging to have a lot of different people participate actively in their time together in the same kind of way as one person preaching or a couple of people leading worship.
Usually most people are spectating in the large gatherings, but that's why certain things are taking place in the smaller, more private gathering setting.
Not exclusively, but usually in these smaller settings are these are made up of those who already follow Jesus or those who want to learn more about him. Those are usually the ones that are marking those groups.
In those smaller group settings, you're going to often find more opportunities for those who are there to share and to actively participate in what's happening in that time, some things can actually only be done in smaller groups, verse is in larger groups like really hearing from one another, really knowing one another, really building any kind of relational equity with one another.
They set in the Bible in more detail and chewing on it more and wrestling with it together. That happens in smaller group settings and it's virtually impossible to happen in the same kind of way in a large public setting. Why am I highlighting this for us in this message out of our text? Well, I believe that this transition from Jesus ministry in large public gatherings to ministering in smaller, more private gatherings and going back and forth, I believe is given to us as Christians, as the church, as a pattern that followers of Jesus need to be aware of and that we even need to emulate in our own endeavor to make disciples today, because that's what you and I are called to do.
Teach these new disciples, guys to observe or obey everything that I've commanded you.
And lo and behold, I'll be with you always to the very end of the age. Go make baptized, teach. I will be with you. Jesus has given us a list of things to do. So the question we could ask is that the list seems pretty plain and easy to understand.
But how do we actually walk this out practically? How do we actually go about making disciples? How do we shape our lives to revolve around this great commission that Jesus has given us?
It's a corny preacher joke, and I've used it once that I'm sure I will use it again, but I love it because this is called the great commission.
Go Make Disciples is not called the great suggestion.
This is a mandate that every single follower of Jesus has to take upon themselves as received from our Lord.
So if we're called to we're mandated as believers, as saved ones, as set apart ones, as are holy people to go into the world and make disciples, what can a disciple making life look like? Do we have any example of what a disciple making life looks like? Well, we do. We do. And the disciples in the 1st century, they had that example given to them. See, Jesus, the ultimate disciple maker.
If you want to learn how to do anything right, you look at Jesus. And over a period of three years, Jesus used a combination of different times and places and sizes of groups that he ministered to in order to make his disciples, Jesus use the large public gatherings often. And Jesus used the smaller, more private ones, too. And he seemed to go back and forth between the two. And we know that the disciples picked up what Jesus was doing when he was making disciples out of them because they did the same things.
When they went to make disciples, they employed the use of both large and large public gatherings and smaller private ones in their own lives. After Jesus ascended back to heaven, we can see them do this if we look ahead to the Book of Acts at how the early church patterned their rhythms of worship throughout the week, it's on your outline. But Acts Chapter two verses forty two to forty seven reads like this. Speaking of the early church, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Everyone was filled with all at the many wonders and signs performed by the Apostles, and all the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold their property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Really highlight here in Verse is 46, every day, they continued to meet together in the temple courts, they broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and and enjoying the favor of all the people.
And the Lord added to their number daily those who are being saved. So we see that.
We see that they met in the temple courts. And there we have the picture of a large public gathering with a mix of a whole different types of people and different places on their own journey of faith. People, pro Jesus, anti Jesus in between hovering, trying to figure out that would have flooded the temple.
We see that they met in the temple courts. And there we have the picture of a large public gathering with a mix of a whole different types of people and different places on their own journey of faith. People, pro Jesus, anti Jesus in between hovering, trying to figure out that would have flooded the temple.
But then they spent time in their homes. And just practically speaking, homes were way, way, way smaller than the temple. And you can only fit a certain amount of people in every home. And so we went from some ministry in the big public setting of the temple into homes where they broke bread and they had a more intimate gathering. The early church pattern, this for us, they used both. How do we do this today, the year twenty twenty, how do we do this in our respective churches?
Well, New Hope Church does this. They have their large public gathering.
You guys do I'm preaching to you know it. You have your large public gathering on the weekend pre covid. It was Sunday nights at five p.m. And now since covid, you've partnered with us at Gorog for four Saturday night prayer and worship nights down at Riverside Community Church.
That's a big, larger public gathering. But you guys also have smaller, more private gatherings as well. I know that your women have a women's group every Tuesday morning and the men have a men's group, a smaller group that gets together on Tuesday evenings throughout the week and throughout the calendar.
Jeff has let me know that the men's group and I think maybe the women's group don't quote me on this is on a pause right now through the rest of the summer. But sometime in the fall, those groups are going to get started back up again.
And if you are a part of New Hope Church and you've attended the weekend large public gathering pretty consistently, pretty regularly, regularly, but I haven't yet got connected in a smaller group. Can I encourage you to reach out and seek out some information about what that might look like in your life? If you attend and are a part of and you hope church on a regular basis, there's a way that you can connect. Jot this down or I might be on your hand out my new hope to see a connect.
If you go there, you'll be able to get connected and find out what happens in the life of New Hope Church. Throughout the week. We have the same pattern of large and small gatherings that I got from church three we met on Saturday nights. But now post covid, we're meeting with New Hope Church on Saturdays at five p.m. and 7:00 p.m. at Riverside Community Church and has been amazing. That's on Saturdays, big, large public gatherings. But then through the weeks, on Wednesday nights, we have our smaller discipleship groups where we get together.
I happen to be coed, but we do that on Wednesday nights. We, too, are breaking through the rest of the summer, but we're going to get started back up in September. And if you're watching this and you've been a part of God Rock Church in some way, shape or form and have yet to get connected in a smaller midweek kind of relational group, a discipleship group, email God Rock Pocho at Gmail dot com. Ask about groups on Wednesday nights, 7:00 p.m. in the fall, and we will be happy to get you the information that you need to get
And I know that every life is different. Every life has a different set of nuances and responsibilities. But I believe that prioritizing this kind of gathering throughout the week, utilizing both large and small group gatherings, equips us. I believe it's paramount for us if we are going to be successful in making disciples in our generation. So I'm calling the church to prioritize this in your life. That's our first transition, here's the second one transition. Number two, it's going to be the second fill in on your outline.
We see a transition taking place from the way worship had been to the way it was going to be, and now is one more time we see a transition taking place from the way a worship had been to the way it was going to be. And now is. At this point in time, as we're walking through our journey through the gospel of Matthew, how had worship been experienced up until this point?
Well, it's really simple worship of the one true God of the Bible centered exclusively around and in the temple that was located in Jerusalem.
Everything revolved around the temple and this temple in Jerusalem was something to behold, the disciples who we know didn't live in the big city in Jerusalem, they lived kind of out in the out in the boonies. They were taken back by the temple when they saw it there. See what they do in verse one in our text says that Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him, the buildings of the temple is like they're they're like, hey, Jesus, would you take a look at that?
Wow, what a beaut. What a beauty.
Isn't she? And I want to I want to if you haven't seen pictures, if you don't know what I'm talking about when I reference the temple in Jerusalem, let me try to paint a picture for you of what a person would have seen if they were there and they looked at the temple, if they beheld the temple for themselves.
Let me try and paint a picture for you both. Mark and Luke's gospels tell us that the disciples were specifically pointing out to Jesus the beautiful stones that decorated the temple and the glorious architecture of all the buildings on the Temple Mount, for example. This was such a sight to behold that the brass gates of the temple were a hundred and thirty feet high.
The main temple building stood three times higher than the Dome of the Rock, which is the mosque that sits on the Temple Mount today, if you ever looked at pictures of Jerusalem in that yellow golden dome, the temple that we're talking about, three times higher than that, taller the stones of which the temple was constructed, the ones that that the disciples were pointing out to Jesus, they measured, get this, 12 feet high by 12 feet wide, by 40 feet long, weighing in at 300 to 400 tons each.
And they were so precisely cut that not even a knife blade could fit between them when they were placed together. The exterior walls were covered in white marble on three sides of the temple, and the whole front wall was covered with gold plates that reflected the morning sun and made the building visible for miles. The Talmud says that you couldn't look at the front of the temple during the day without being blinded by it. Additionally, the wealthy would give donations to the temple, things like gold sculptures, golden plaques and other treasures.
The level of wealth on the Temple Mount at this time was incomprehensible. In fact, the value of the buildings, the materials and the adornments of the temple would clock in at over a trillion dollars today in today's currency. It was the greatest building ever built. The temple was not only incredible, an incredible architectural display, but the temple was the Jewish center for everything, for religion, for society, for identity. The temple was everything for a Jewish person.
Everything revolved around the temple. Like I said, religion, worship, culture, commerce, identity, everything. ABLE-BODIED Jews who didn't live in Jerusalem would come to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the feasts. Right now in our story in Matthew Chapter 20 for everyone is there for one of these feasts as Passover.
Everyone has flocked here. It's where you would go to offer sacrifices to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that would worship would take place at the temple. Now we're talking about transitions in this message. And this is a major one.
This is where worship revolved around the temple, is where it happened for hundreds of years for God's people. But the location of worship, of their worship, was going to change. A transition was taking place where worship wasn't going to center around that physical temple anymore. God was moving worship to a different location. This is no small thing. We know something was going to change because in our verse is that we're looking at here together tonight, Jesus said that the temple was going to be destroyed.
That's what he says. And if it was destroyed, reason with me, how could anyone worship there any more?
Let's take a look again at verse two in our text. But he Jesus answered them after they were pointing out the temple to him. You see all these, do you not? Truly. I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. Want to know something? That's exactly what happened in the year 70 a D were were around the year 30 to 33 A.D. in less than 40 years, Jesus prediction is prophecy comes true down to the very letter.
Less than 40 years after Jesus spoke these words, history tells us that General Titus and I always butcher his name. Vespasian would storm Jerusalem with the soldiers of the Roman Empire, with instructions to completely wipe out the city and its occupants. And although Titus commanded his soldiers not to desecrate or harm the temple, one of them threw a flaming torch into it.
The ensuing fire became so hot that the gold inside began to melt and run down the walls between the stones. To the Romans, it appeared as though the rumors that gold was used as mortar between the temple stones, it appeared to be true. And so the fire had died down. The soldiers began to pull apart the stones of the temple in order to try to get to the gold mortar. And they didn't quit until they had managed to pull down every single stone.
Exactly as Jesus had prophesied. Not one stone remained upon another. That's why if you go to Jerusalem today, all you will see is the Wailing Wall, which is a part of the Temple Foundation. It's a massive wall, but small in comparison to what the temple had been. And you can also see piles of those stones that were pulled down by the Romans. They're still there to this day. You can go hop on a plane, go there and see them for yourself.
But this is the first reason I want to highlight for you why worship couldn't revolve around this physical temple anymore.
And we're going to pick up this text mid conversation to hear what Jesus has to say about worship. Sir, the woman said, speaking to Jesus, I can see that you are a prophet, so this is John, Chapter four, verses nineteen twenty six. I can see that you were a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain. But you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Woman Jesus replied, Believe me, a time is coming when you when you will worship the father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You Samaritans worship what you do not know, we worship what we do know for salvation is from the Jews, Mark this year at a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the father seeks. God, his spirit and his worshippers must worship in the spirit. And in truth, the woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.
Then Jesus declared I, the one speaking to you. I am here. Incredible, here we hear Jesus saying that a time was coming and had come where people would not worship God in Jerusalem anymore as the sole center of worship. Jesus had been talking about this transition for a while. Before we get to our scene in Matthew. Twenty four. He's been talking about it and preparing people is not going to be around, so we know no one.
It's not going to be around the temple because the temple is destroyed to Jesus has been talking about a transition coming. And there's a third reason we know that there is a transition away from worshiping at and centered around the physical temple in Jerusalem, because we're told in the New Testament that Christians are the temple. Now, we are a new living temple and we are filled with the very presence of God. We are where worship of God takes place. In us, this is this is incredible.
There is a transition that's taken place where now each Christian is a temple of God, individually, the spirit of God in us.
The apostle Paul says as much in his letter to the Corinthian church, First Corinthians, Chapter six 19. Paul says this or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God? So the moment that you placed your faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, you place your faith in his sinless life, his sacrificial death on the cross for your sins.
And his resurrection is mighty resurrection from the dead, the moment that you repent of your sins and believe in him for the first time, the Bible says that you are born again spiritually on the inside your made new and God came to live inside of you in that moment. Wow.
Wow, so, Christian, you are an individually a temple of the living God, but the church, the collective body of Christ, all the individual Christians that make up the church, we collectively are also the temple of God.
Christians are individual temples of the Holy Spirit, but collectively we are, as God's people, his temple that he dwells, dwells in and amongst. Do you know what this reality means for us as Christians today? Church buildings are an incredible, incredible luxury to have for people to gather together in and worship God in and to do ministry, and they are a great blessing. But. Church buildings are not necessary they're not necessary to have in order to properly worship God, so we don't need a manmade temple of any kind any more.
All we need for true worship of God is his people who are filled with his spirit, who are loving him according to his word. Which means knowing it, believe in it and doing it, and that is what we need for true worship of the true God today. So give us a tent, give us a football stadium, give us a school building or just a single classroom. Give us an open field in a park. Give us a living room, give us some office space, give us an old barn.
Give us whatever.
As long as we have God in us, which we do, as long as we have each other, which we do, and as long as we have his word, which we do, we can worship God in spirit and in truth, no matter where we are. Question for you. Church, how often do you reflect on this reality as it pertains to yourself, that you are a temple of God and that God lives in you? If you thought about this incredible reality more often, do you think that would change the way that you live your life?
If you realize that everywhere you went, everything you did, you have the presence of the living God dwelling inside of you. I wonder if we knew that and we thought about it more and more. I wonder if we would say the same things that we say. I wonder if we would watch the same things that we watch. I wonder if we would do the same things that we do or would our lives be different if we truly believed we were bringing God with us wherever we went?
This is the second transition I wanted to highlight in this message coming out of Verse is one and two in Matthew. Twenty four, this transition of moving away from a physical location, the temple where worship of God was located, transitioning into this more fluid reality, where Jesus is in his new temple that he made by his hands as he's in us now, as the church brings us to the third transition. I want to highlight all of these two verse is.
It's going to be the third fill in on your outline. And it's this Jesus transitions from talking about things that are the talking about things that are going to be. One more time, Jesus transitions from talking about things that are to talking about things that are going to be. Here's what Jesus has been mainly talking about up until this point in his ministry. In a nutshell, in a snapshot, Jesus has been going around all of Israel from town to town, publicly preaching and proclaiming a simple message repent for the kingdom of heaven and repent and enter the kingdom.
Return from your sin, turn to God, get right with God. And in this message, the Messiah is come. The Messiah is here.
I am the Messiah that that's the message. But the people had rejected him. But that was what he was saying in the present time. The Kingdom of God, the kingdom of God here. And now it's at hand. Get right with God. But then in Matthew, Chapter 24 in Verse is, one to two in our verse is, Jesus transitions to talking about what is to come.
Transitions from talking about what is to talking about things that are going to be in these two verse is Jesus starts talking about the event that's going to take place in the near future, the destruction of the temple in 70 ad this event that we've already looked at here together tonight, but then starting in Verse is three and going all the way to the end of Chapter twenty five, Jesus begins to describe even further events in the future, events that take place after the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. and before the end of this world as we know it and before the consummation of the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth.
Next week, Jeff's going to pick things up for us in Verse is three, and we're going to begin to look more closely over the next few weeks at what Jesus has to say about the end of the world in chapter twenty four and twenty five. And the signs that we can look for that will take place before that happens.
And thinking about this particular thought and in this moment, it dawned on me and dawns on me now that there are some people who don't think the Bible is relevant today, who don't think the Bible has any weight or bearing on our lives today.
Our world is in utter chaos, if you haven't noticed lately, is falling apart at the seams and most people have no idea what's going on. But Christian, you don't have to be afraid about what's going on in our world today. You do not have to be kept in the dark about it. You don't have to be caught off guard about what is happening and what is going to happen.
Jesus told us plainly two thousand years ago what will happen in this world before he comes back. He's like a teacher who's given the class the answer key way before the final exam is given the answer key to the final exam. Here you go. First day of school. There is your answer key to to the test, to the finals at the end. Imagine the teacher giving you all the answers to the finals on the first day of your school year.
See, we know what's on the test. We know what's going to happen before any of it takes place.
Jesus has told people what to look for before he comes back and then he's coming back.
And I hope that everybody watching this message tonight knows that Jesus came once already two thousand years ago, the lamb of God. And he didn't come the first time to judge the world. But he came to what it came to save the world. He came and he was slaughtered as the sacrifice to pay for the sins of all of humanity.
He came once the first time, and we did whatever we wanted to him. He died on the cross. He rose from the dead on the third day. And then you send it back to heaven from where he came and from where he is going to come again. And then. One day soon, Jesus is coming back again. He's coming a second time and the second time around is going to look nothing like his first time around. This second time around, there is going to be zero crucifying the king.
He came as a sacrificial lamb the first time, but the second time around, Jesus is coming as the conquering lion of Judah, the righteous judge. He's coming to save his people and he's coming to deal with unrepentant sinners and all forms of evil once and for all. And there is nothing. There is nothing. There is nothing that anybody can do to stop that from happening. All those who love Jesus, you know it, we can't wait for that day for him to come.
I want you to talk this way.
I want you to to take note of the literal fulfillment of Jesus words in Verse is one and two in our text. You see, this is so important, guys. Jesus said that the temple in Jerusalem is going to be destroyed, and that would have been impossible for anyone to believe back in Jesus day.
But then the funny thing. Well, not so funny thing. The reality is that it happened. Just like Jesus said it would. The temple was literally destroyed less than 40 years after Jesus said the words that he said for us in verse two, there is no spiritualized in what Jesus said. Now, Jesus is important because Jesus says a lot of things in chapters twenty four and twenty five, a lot of intense things, a lot of crazy things to our untrained ears.
Now, these things that Jesus says, they are also going to be literally fulfilled. Every single one of them, just like you said, the temple is going to be destroyed. And then it was all the things that he's going to say to us in chapters. Twenty four and twenty five of Matthew are going to be fulfilled.
And we would do very well to learn what Jesus says is going to happen, we would do very well to learn for our own sake so that we as Christians can be rooted in our faith and not shaken by all the calamities in our world that are only going to increase in frequency and fervor before Jesus comes back.
For us, knowing what's going to happen in the end gives us an anchor for our souls during difficult times, none of us has to be caught off guard. When terrible things happen in our world, we can be prepared for them. We have a living hope. Jesus promises many terrifying things in the last days, but he is also the one who promises to be with his disciples even to the end of the age. The one who tells us what's going to happen in the future is the one who is in us preserving us and carrying us through whatever dark times we may face.
So we need this kind of study for our own sake, for our own faith, for our own foundation. But we also need to know this study for other people's sake.
See, Christian, we have answers to give a lost and a searching world. There are so many people alive today who are so shaken by what's going on in our world and people have no clue what's happening or what's coming. But we have a clue, though.
We have the answer and we can tell people about the things Jesus has done, the things that Jesus is doing and the things he is going to do. And we can share these things with complete confidence. So this study in Matthew twenty four.
Twenty five is for us, but it is for people who wouldn't come to church, who have no idea, who don't know the Lord. We need to be able to equip them and share this with them. I mean, let me close our time together here transitions, they are a part of life. They are a major part of our life and they're a major part of Matthew's gospel. We've looked at three of them here and I pray and I pray and trust God has blessed you.
But the transitions we've looked at in this message coming out of the first couple of Matthew's story, the first couple of verses in Matthew, chapter twenty four.
Now close your eyes and pray with me as we wrap up this time together.
Transition them, Lord, from being spiritually dead to becoming spiritually alive in you. Transition them Lord, from believing and living a lie to the loving and believing and obeying the truth. Transition them from being spiritually dead and spiritually broken, to being spiritually alive and spiritually made whole. Make that transition work as the gospel goes forth, a lost and dying world. Let Your Grace lead sinners to repentance, Lord, and transition them to everlasting life. Transition them out of a relationship with you into a relationship with you.
Do that we pray. And if anyone watch and we have any friends watching tonight, Lord, who need to repent of their sins, confess their sin, turn and trust and believe in your life, death and resurrection, grant them repentance that leads to everlasting life. Now, even now, we pray together.
Lord, do that. So do that for everyone who doesn't know you, and then for us who do know you. Lord, we pray for a transition in our own life. You promised Lord to move us in our sanctification, in our maturity and our growing up in you to be moved from one degree of glory to the next, to transition from one degree of glory to the next. And we pray, Lord, together, that the work that you've begun in us, you'd see it through to completion, that you continue to transition us into the deeper levels of maturity and intimacy with you and holiness and obedience transition as more and more and more to look like and to be conformed to the image of you.
Jesus do that, Lord, for our joy, for Your glory, and for our effectiveness in this world and in this time that we have before you come back, do these things. We pray, Lord, and we pray these things in your sweet and in your powerful and your majestic name. Jesus. Amen. Amen.
Series: Matthew.......Matthew 24:3-14........Speaker: Jeff Thompson
Jesus begins the Oliver Discourse by prophesying about things that would happen in the lifetime of His Disciples, as well as the signs that will tell believers the end times are approaching
New Hope Church has joined with God Rock Church for their study through the gospel of Matthew. And last week, Pastor B.J. got us started on Chapter 24, where Jesus begins to prophesy about future events that are going to affect Israel and then later the world. I want to encourage you in this study, as I do in every study, to be a skeptic. Don't believe anything that I tell you, study it for yourself, examine the text and then determine if I've presented it to you honestly and accurately.
My goal is not to make the text say what I want it to say or what you want it to say. My goal is simply to allow the Bible to say what it actually says. We want the word of God to speak for itself. That's our prayer for this study. And for every study, I'm going to do my best to explain everything as we go so that we can all understand what Jesus is talking about. But I won't have the time to explain every single thing.
If you'd like to learn more about what the Bible teaches about the end times, or if I talk about some concepts that you're not familiar with, the best way to grow your understanding of the subject we're going to be talking about today is probably to study through the Book of Revelation. And I've put a link on your outlines to where you can do that on our church's website. And if you do it, I'll tell you right now, it's a study that will change your life and you'll be so blessed by it.
You'll be so glad if you do it.
So as we rejoin Jesus, he's just been teaching a crowd on the Temple Mount. And as he leaves the Temple Mount, some of his disciples have pointed out the glorious structures and riches on display on the Temple Mount.
And when they do that, instead of saying, yeah, the temple is awesome or Israel's number one, Jesus said this in verse two. Do you not see all these things?
Assuredly. I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another. That shall not be thrown down. Jesus was speaking prophetically about what would happen to the temple and Jerusalem in 70 A.D., as Pastor B.J. taught us last week. But to the disciples, this was a shocking statement. They were under the impression that if Jesus was the Messiah, he was going to step up and conquer the Romans on Israel's behalf. He was going to usher in a new age where Israel and the Jews would take their rightful place as the supreme country.
And people grew up on the earth, and the temple was going to be at the center of it all. It was going to be the throne from where Messiah would rule the earth. And so to hear Jesus say, yeah, this is all going to be destroyed, made all of them say, wait, what? What? And as we rejoin those same disciples now just continuing in the text, Jesus is now walking with them.
He's leading them off the Temple Mount up onto the Mount of Olives, a hillside that provides the best panoramic views of the city of Jerusalem. And at its base is the famous Garden of Gethsemane.
Now, unsurprisingly, the disciples are hungry for answers, which is why we read this in verse three now is he? That's Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives. The disciples will learn from all the gospels that it's Peter, James, John and Andrew came to him privately saying, tell us when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age. And this marks the beginning of one of the most important teachings Jesus gives during his earthly ministry.
In this discourse, in this teaching, Jesus is going to answer the questions the disciples have just asked him in verse three. But before he does that, Jesus is going to give an overview of some End-Time signs and he's going to share about things that will unfold during the first generation of the church, things that are going to happen in the lifetime of these specific disciples.
I want to ask you in your Bibles to underline the questions the disciples ask in verse three, because there are many who will say, well, in Matthew 24 in the Oliver discourse, Jesus is just talking about events that happened in Israel between 70 A.D. and 120 A.D. He's just talking about the destruction of Jerusalem and the fall of Israel.
But look at the questions the disciples ask Jesus. Why are those questions recorded in scripture? It's because the Lord wanted us to know the specific questions that Jesus is answering in Matthew 24 and into Matthew 25.
What are those questions? The first one is when will these things be? So in other words, when will the temple be destroyed? When will every stone be brought down, as Jesus had just predicted in verse two the first question is when is this going to happen? Jesus. The next question is what will be the sign of your coming? So in other words, what signs are going to tell us that you're about to begin your reign as Lord over the Earth?
And then lastly, what will be the sign of the end of the age? So what signs will tell us that the end times are almost here?
Those are the questions the disciples ask, and those are the questions that Jesus answers in Matthew 24 and 25.
And that right there, verse three. Those questions on its own should be enough to clearly disprove the notion that Jesus is only talking about events that took place between 70 A.D. and 120 A.D. That should settle it.
Just the disciples questions in verse three.
So write this down. It's the first fill in on your outline the disciple's questions. Tell us what Jesus is talking about in the all of it discourse, the disciples questions. Tell us what Jesus is talking about in the all of it discourse.
Now, to give you an idea of where we're going in this and in verses four through eight that we're about to get into, Jesus is going to talk about some of the things that are going to take place between this moment when he's speaking with his disciples and the rapture of the church, which is going to really begin the end times. The rapture is sort of the major kickoff event of that end times era. When I use the term rapture, I'm talking about the coming future event or Jesus will remove the church.
That means all believers from the earth before he judges the Earth by pouring out his wrath upon it. And again, if you need more detail, we just don't have time to get into it today. Go and listen to the Revelation series, because for now we got to keep moving. So here's the overview. And as I said, then we'll get into it in detail. Write this down.
Verse is four through eight refers to the church age, the church age. So the church age is really the time period between Pentecost, which happens in Acts Chapter two when the church is born, and the Rapture. So Verse is four through eight refer to the church age. These disciples would see the thing.
Jesus is going to talk about what happened, but so will we, because the disciples were part of the church age and so are we. But in different ways, we're going to see these things happen in different ways that I'll explain. In the next few minutes.
We're going to hear Jesus. You might just want to make a note of this. If you're a Bible student, we're going to hear Jesus refer to the phrase the end four times in today's text
That's the time period that begins with the rapture and goes through all of those different end times events.
Then when we reach Verse is nine through 13, Jesus is going to address things that will happen to the first generation of the church specifically.
So things that will happen to these disciples in their lifetime. So write this down. Verse is nine through 13 refers to events that take place during the first generation of the church. The early, early, early church verse is nine through 13 refers to events that take place during the first generation of the church.
So with that overview in mind, let's take a look at those verse is and discover what Jesus wants all of us to know about the end times.
So beginning in verse four, it says, and Jesus answered and said to them, take heed. That means be careful that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name saying I am the Christ and will deceive many.
So firstly, Jesus cautions his disciples to watch out for imposters.
And history tells us that in the century following this teaching by Jesus, a total of 64 different men came on the scene in and around Israel, claiming to be the second coming of Jesus Christ. Jesus says, listen, don't buy it. Don't buy it. This was much more of a concern for the early church because the New Testament hadn't been written yet, the early church believed Jesus would be coming back in their lifetime, and they didn't have all the New Testament scriptures that we do that give us details about how the rapture and the second coming are going to work and the order of events and all these things.
So there was much greater danger in that first generation of the church to people being misled by fake Jesus's.
Because we have the New Testament, we know that believers, the church are going to be raptured years before Jesus returns to the earth in the second coming. We know, in fact, that will be with Jesus when he returns to the Earth at the second coming. And if you read the Scriptures, you'll realize that when the second coming happens, when Jesus returns to the Earth again, there's not going to be any confusion about who he is.
It's going to be like, hmm, there's two guys claiming to be Jesus and I can't figure out which one is actually Jesus.
Is it the guy over there named Greg who's been living in his van for the past few years? Or is it that guy flying through the sky like lightning on a white horse more brilliant than the sun with an army of millions trailing behind them? I mean I mean, which one could it be? When Jesus comes to the earth again, there's going to be no confusion about who he is, but for the early church there was a real risk of confusion because they didn't have the New Testament scriptures yet.
And so Jesus says, here's what you need to know.
Disciples don't buy it when random people show up claiming to be me in Verse is six and seven, Jesus is going to give a famous list of signs that will let us know that we're in the end times.
But in order to understand how we're meant to read and use this list of signs, we have to jump ahead. Diverse eight for a minute, because that's where Jesus shares the key to unlocking these verse is. Look with me at verse eight, Jesus says, referring to all these signs. He says all these are the. And then would you underline beginning of sorrows? All these are the beginning of sorrows. Jesus says that we shouldn't look at any of these signs and verse is six and seven as definitive proof that the end times are almost here.
And then people will rightfully respond with something along the lines of these things are not new phenomena.
They've been happening for thousands of years and every generation of Christians has looked at this list and verse is six and seven and said, oh, look, a war we must be in the last days or oh, look, an earthquake, a famine. We must be in the end times. Here's the key given by Jesus in verse eight to understanding these verses correctly. The Greek word that he uses there for Sorrow's in the original manuscripts is the Greek word, Odin, Odin.
It's a feminine noun that refers to the pangs of childbirth, what we would call labor pains or labor contractions.
What Jesus actually says in verse eight is all these signs that I've just listed are the beginning of labor pains. Now, why does Jesus say something so strange? It's because he wanted us to understand that all these signs are going to occur like labor pains as the end times approach. In this analogy, childbirth is likened to the end times, beginning with the rapture.
And labor pains are likened to these signs that Jesus has just listed in Verse is six and seven. Now, what defines labor pains?
We all know, don't we?
If you've had kids, then you know the routine. They get more and more intense and they occur closer and closer together as childbirth approaches. If you've had your first child or you can think back to what that experience was like, if you're a woman, you had the child. If you're a husband, hopefully you got to be there for that. Then often, you know the experience, there's some pain, there's some contractions.
You call the hospital. I'm having a baby. The incredibly jaded nurse says, well, how far apart of the contractions? You say five minutes.
And she goes, oh, you're only getting started. I know it feels like the world is ended, but things are going to get a lot more intense and they're going to get a lot more frequent. That's the idea.
That's what Jesus is conveying here. All these terrible things we're going to read about in Verse is, six through seven, earthquakes, famine, disease, wars, these things. The idea is they're going to become more and more frequent and more and more intense as we get closer and closer to the end times.
So write this down.
The list of signs given by Jesus and Verse is six and seven will occur with increasing frequency and intensity as the end times approach.
They're going to increase with frequency and intensity as the end times approach. Now, when you understand this, when you get the analogy, Jesus is making you understand why the time we're living in is so significant.
Everyone's already forgotten that we thought 2019 was a bad year.
Do you remember that on January 1st of2020, most people were like, thank God a new year is here. We had no idea what 20/20 had stored, did we? The list of signs Jesus gives is now unfolding with such intensity and such frequency that we're all looking around and saying, well, how much more of this can the Earth take?
Yes, all the things we've seen right now have happened before, but not with the frequency and intensity that we're seeing right now. We've never seen so many things happening at the same time as we're seeing right now. So what is on this list of signs that makes it so compelling, let's jump back to verse six and read it together, Jesus says, and you'll hear of wars and rumors of wars.
Then Jesus says, see that you're not troubled, for all these things must come to pass. But the end is not yet. The end is not yet. Jesus says wars and rumors of wars. They're not the definitive sign that the end is imminent. In other words, when World War Two was happening, that was not the sign that the end of the world was imminent. It was a sign we're getting closer. But there was so much more that still needed to happen.
That's what Jesus said. This verse 7/4, nation will rise against nation. The Greek word used there for nation is ethnos.
It actually refers to an ethnic group. The idea is one ethnic group rising up against another. And scholars believe this also points to fighting within a country among ethnic groups in civil wars. And again, there's just infinite examples of this over the past century and even happening right now, look at America right now.
Who would have thought? That after eight years of a black president, race relations would actually be worse in America and would spiral down to the state that they're in right now.
Who would have thought that today, anti-Semitism would be the worst it's been since World War Two?
Because it is, Jews are literally fleeing parts of Europe because they're being targeted by the increasing Muslim population.
And that's not even mentioning what's taken place in the Middle East over the past 10 years, where ISIS has endeavored to wipe out entire ethnic groups such as Coptic Christians and the Yazidi.
Do you know that in China right now, they have over a million Muslims in concentration camps?
Right now, China is waging an ethnic war against them. It's horrific.
And on and on and on. We could go, despite all our talk about progress and multiculturalism, when you look around, the world is more ethnically driven wars and fighting and killing than ever before. Then Jesus says, and kingdom against kingdom. Do you know that before World War One, war was pretty much always kings in their armies fighting against other kings and their armies?
World War One was really the first time the kingdoms fought against kingdoms, where it was all in. You had even untrained men sent out to fight because it was kingdom against kingdom.
And there will be famines, famines, the awful thing about famines in our day is that they're no longer caused solely by the weather. Famines happen today for economic reasons and because of wicked leaders everywhere where there's a famine, we could end it. Did you catch that everywhere where there was a famine, we could end it. There's enough food. We have the transportation technology to solve the problem.
We simply don't do what is necessary and where famine is not weather related, it's due to wicked leaders, as we're seeing in places like Venezuela right now. We would have thought surely we could have solved this problem by now, by now we could. We just don't. Then Jesus says there's going to be increasing and more frequent pestilence. Now, pestilence is a term for a fatal epidemic, disease, a plague. The idea here is that there will be epidemics and pandemics with increasing frequency.
No present day examples come to mind on this one.
Right. But you know what? If you go back to the mid to late 90s, I started noticing this about a decade ago.
You go back to the mid to late 90s, the world had been relatively quiet as far as pandemics go, as far as serious large scale outbreaks.
And then now, of course, we have covid-19 that's gripped the Earth, then Jesus says, and earthquakes in various places.
Do you know that earthquakes are more frequent today than they've been at any other time in history?
Earthquake activity around the world is exploding exponentially and has for the last 10 to 20 years, just go and Google it.
In fact, just go and Google this whole list of signs that Jesus gives.
And you give yourself a prophecy update and you'll see how these things are happening with increasing intensity and increasing frequency. The reason we look at this list of signs and believe we're close to the end times is not because of what's on the list, because, as I said, each of these things as individual events, they've happened before and they've been happening for millennia. But they've never happened with the frequency and intensity that they're occurring with in our day.
It's unparalleled in the history of the earth, what we're seeing right now. In other words, I'm sorry to tell you, you should probably lower your expectations for 20/ 21.
Now, one more thing on this particular section, because there's something that's just too good for me to leave out. If you love this stuff like I do. That Greek word for labor pains.
Odin shows up again in Paul's letter to the Thessalonians Believer's when he's writing about the end times.
The Thessalonians were worried that they had missed the rapture. And so Paul wrote to them to reassure them that they weren't about to find themselves stuck in the tribulation, experiencing the wrath of God. In First Thessalonians five, I'll read it to you.
You could turn there if you'd like to, but you don't have to. In First Thessalonians five, beginning in verse one, Paul writes this, and I want you to notice the pronouns here, he says, But concerning the Times and the Seasons brethren, in other words, when it comes to knowing the exact timing of everything and times related, he says, you have no need that I should write to you. Why would Paul say you don't need me to clear up the exact perfect timing of everything?
And then he gives us the answer.
He says for you yourselves, know perfectly that the day of the Lord, that time period when God judges the Earth, the day of the Lord, so comes as a thief in the night. Now he switches pronouns for when they say peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape.
In other words, the worst of these labor pains that we're seeing in our world today, the worst of them. Are not going to be for us. Paul says it's for them, for those who have rejected Jesus, that's their destiny. So what's the destiny of the believer? Paul says in verse four, But you brethren are not in darkness so that this day should overtake you as a thief. You are all Sons of Light and Sons of the Day.
We are not of the night nor of darkness.
Let's skip down to verse nine in this same paragraph, in this same section of Scripture.
Addressing the same subject is where Paul famously states emphatically, for God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us. That whether we wake or sleep, whether we live or die, we should live together with him, therefore comfort each other and edify each other, just as you are also doing for believers.
For those who have rejected Jesus, these labor pains are leading up to God, pouring out his wrath on the Earth. They're going to keep getting worse and worse and worse till they become literally unbearable.
Now, all of that was part of the overview of the timing of the end times in Verse is nine through 13, Jesus is going to share with his disciples the things that will unfold in their future during the first generation of the church.
What do you know that, Jeff? How do you know that Jesus is switching subjects in this?
Well, verse nine can lead to a lot of confusion, a lot of confusion when you're trying to understand the order of events, because verse nine simply begins with the term then.
So people read that and they think that whatever Jesus is talking about next must take place after all these signs. So after the tribulation.
But fortunately, Luke's account of the all of it discourse makes all of this a bit clearer because the English translation is a little muddled in. Matthew, on this one specific point. Luke, 21 12, it's on your outline, tells us that at this point of the Olivet discourse, Jesus actually says, but before all these things. So I hope you're tracking with me.
Luke tells us that in verse nine, Jesus begins telling his disciples about things that will happen to them before.
All the stuff he described in the list of signs that we were just reading, so we really should be reading verse nine like this, but before all these things, they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.
And this was the story of the early church for the first 250 years of its existence, she was persecuted by 10 consecutive seizures, who all hated Christianity. Five to seven million Christians were killed in those 250 years.
And here's where that number becomes truly mind blowing, because if you take the percentage of the world's population, that five to seven million was back then and you convert it into the same percentage of today's population, it would be as though around 253 million, 800000 Christians had been killed over the last 250 years, 250, three million, 800000 over the last 250 years, an absolute massacre of the church during our first 250 years.
Then Jesus says, and then many will be offended. That just means cause to stumble, many will be caused to stumble, will betray one another and will hate one another. Luke's gospel records Jesus saying you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death and you will be hated by all for my name's sake. To ensure their own safety, family members would betray and rat out their own Christian family members, their own parents, their own brothers and sisters.
Their own children. And sometimes those doing the betraying would be people that everybody thought were Christians. But if you'll take your mind back to Matthew, Chapter 10. This shouldn't have been unexpected. Because back in Matthew Ten, Jesus had told his disciples, do not think that I came to bring peace on Earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword for I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother and a daughter in law against her mother in law.
And a man's enemies will be those of his own household. He who loves father, a mother more than me, is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it. And he who loses his life for my sake, will find it. And I would wager that the disciples were kind of shell shocked at this point.
But this type of epiphany still happens all the time when believers find out that Jesus is not a genie who exists to grant our wishes, many believers are shocked to find out that what the Bible teaches is that what God considers good for us might include us dying for him or serving him through some very difficult, prolonged circumstances.
That's how the disciples felt they were getting ready at this point for a cushy eternity that they thought was about to begin. They thought any day now Jesus is going to start ruling the Earth and we're going to be his posse. This is going to be awesome. But instead, Jesus is talking about persecution and betrayal and death.
Would have been shocking, their heads would have been spinning. And Jesus goes on in verse 11, he says, then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many, and we're able to read about some of those false prophets in the epistles like Galatians and Thessalonians, which Paul wrote to combat the teachings of some of these false prophets and teachers, verse 12.
And because lawlessness, which you underline the word lawlessness, because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. That word lawlessness doesn't just mean bad stuff. It's the Greek word, anemia, anemia, and it's defined as the condition of without law. It's a rejection of the very idea that there are moral laws that were bound to.
That's what this word means. It's a lawlessness. That is the doctrine of moral relativism or the idea that morality is just an illusion, it's a social construct. And even though we think that this is a new philosophical development happening in our day, it was the type of thinking that was prevalent in the Roman Empire during the years of the early church, especially in the major cities of Europe.
Just go and read First and Second Corinthians, where Paul has to address this type of thinking in the church.
In the early years of the church, this lawlessness was all around them in philosophies like hedonism, cults like the Dionysian and the removal of moral restraint from society under the guise of enlightenment. And as sin ran rampant all around them, many, many chose sin over Jesus as they still do.
Because for them, it was persecution and death or sex parties in honor of Roman gods. I'll take the sex parties. Thanks. Sin is always, always appealing to our flesh. But let me tell you, sin is exponentially more appealing when the alternative is not Christianity. But the alternative is Christianity, persecution, betrayal and death.
And so in the early church, there were many who chose to love sin over Jesus, leaving the church in the faith, I know we're cramming a lot into this message, but this stuff is so, so important.
So please hang with me. I want you to notice that Jesus specifically links lawlessness. He links iniquity. He links unrighteousness. He links choosing sin over Jesus with love growing cold.
I want you to notice that link Jesus makes, he says, because lawlessness will abound. The love of many will grow cold.
Now, obviously, Jesus is speaking first and foremost about people's love for him, his love for the Lord, he's saying that rampant cultural sin would cause many in the early church to choose sin and love sin over loving him. But there's a secondary reality, a secondary lesson I think we can pull from this.
And it's this when we give ourselves over to the willful pursuit of sin.
So in other words, when we consciously choose sin to pursue it and not repent of it, to walk in sin, it naturally damages our relationship with Jesus because we're willingly doing what we know grieves the heart of God.
And as we tune out the Holy Spirit, because we have to, right in order to sin, we have to tune out the Holy Spirit, the voice that is convicting us, saying this is not good. This is not pleasing to the Lord. As we tune out the Holy Spirit in our lives, we are also tuning out the author of Love in Our Lives.
The only real love in existence is God. The only real love in existence flows through us from God, and so when we cut off that flow into our lives, we naturally begin to become less loving, less empathetic people.
Or we might know how to go through some of the motions, but when we're cut off from that source of love, we can only keep the charade going so far and that begins to damage all of our relationships, all of our relationships.
Would you make a note of this? Sin causes love to diminish in all of our relationships.
Sin causes love to diminish in all of our relationships.
It's true in marriage. It's true in parenting. It's true when it comes to your brothers and sisters in the church. And it's true most of all when it comes to our relationship with the Lord.
Sin causes our love to diminish, and that truth debunks the lie that we love to believe about sin.
It's this lie.
My secret sin is not affecting anybody else. Jesus says, yes, it is, yes, it is, it's damaging your relationships because your secret's sin is cutting off the flow of the love of God into your life.
It's diminishing your ability to love God and to love others.
In verse 13, Jesus says, but he who endures to the end shall be saved. I want you to hear this, really hear me on this. Jesus is not saying if you endure, you'll be saved. He's not saying that that's a work based gospel. Jesus is saying if you're saved, you will endure. It's meant as an encouragement, not as a warning, because his disciples are shell shocked at this moment.
Jesus isn't taking these shell shocked, terrified disciples and saying, but if you endure to the end, you'll be saved. He's saying, no, no, no, no. If you're saved, if you have faith in me, you will endure, First, Peter, one five.
It's on your outlines tells us that true believers are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Our part is to believe God, to have faith in God and God is the one who provides the perseverance. God is the one who provides the endurance. God is the one who provides the grace. We need to stand firm. Never forget Jesus promising John when he says, I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.
Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My father, who's given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand. Now back to our text, Jesus has just shared again some some very difficult things that are coming the disciples way in the future. And so he's ending this part of the all of that discourse with encouragement. I just explained that.
And now he shares another encouragement in verse 14, he says, And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations and them.
Then the end will come. He says, Guys, listen, let me encourage you. None of the things I've told you are going to stop the gospel. None of them are going to overcome my plans for you. None of them are going to overcome my church. It's going to happen.
The Gospel is going to reach every corner of the earth.
The more the church grows, the worse the persecution gets, the more the church grows, despite those 10 waves of persecution under 10 Caesars, despite those millions and millions of Christians who were killed during the first 250 years of the church, despite that genocide. You know what else happened?
The church exploded. Exploded, could not be contained, could not be controlled.
The gospel explodes now in places like China and Iran, where persecution is so severe because it cannot be stopped, the kingdom cannot be stopped, and the gospel will indeed and pretty much has penetrated every corner of the globe.
Remember in this verse, in verse 14, when Jesus says then the end will come, he's referring to the end Times era, the beginning of end times events, starting with the Rapture. And as Jesus continues with the all of that discourse, he's going to get into the disciples specific questions from verse three. And his answers are going to be coming up over these next few weeks in our study. This is the promise Jesus gives in Luke's gospel at the end of this portion of the Olivet discourse in Luke, he says, but not a hair of your head shall be lost by your patience.
Possess your souls. If you die for Jesus now, if you're martyred, how in the world can not a hair of your head be lost? This is what Jesus is saying. If your earthly body is destroyed. You have lost nothing. Let that sink in if your earthly body is destroyed. Jesus says you've lost nothing. Jesus is telling his boys, his disciples, you're going to wake up in heaven, in my presence, in glory, in the presence of the father in paradise.
And when you see what you've gained in eternity by laying down your life for me, you will realize you have lost nothing.
On the contrary, you have gained everything. Every disciple who lost their lives for Jesus is in the presence of God right now with a full head of hair, not a single hair has been harmed.
And I think that truth may be more impactful for me than for some of you.
What does Jesus mean when he says, by your patience, possess your souls? He's saying, don't freak out, don't freak out, don't stress out. When these things happen, fear will want to possess your soul. Do not let it. Be patient. Let God's plan unfold, bring those fears under submission to the word of God, and by doing that, you possess your souls, you take control of your soul, you command it to be in submission to the word of God.
You don't let fear possess your soul. And that applies to every situation we face in life, which causes fear to well up in us.
The solution is to be patient. It's to look back at God's faithfulness in your life and remind yourself he's been perfectly faithful and he'll be perfectly faithful in the days to come. Don't freak out in the moment. Have faith, be patient.
Give God's plan time to unfold. Trust in his goodness. Do not let fear possess your soul. Going to wrap up with this. If you find your love growing cold toward your spouse, towards your kids. Your co-workers or anybody else, I've got to ask you, frankly and honestly and directly. Have you willingly chosen to walk in sin in some area of your life? I know you're telling yourself there's not a connection, but there is there is a connection between choosing sin and cutting off the flow of God's love into your life and your love for others growing cold.
There is a connection. And if you've chosen sin over God. Your source of love is being choked out right now, if that's you repent, repent, turn away from that sin, do everything you can to get it out of your life. Turn to Jesus. He brings life to every relationship. Sin brin
gs death to every relationship. Change. Now do it. And then listen. Jesus doesn't only know the future of our world and the future of our universe.
Don't worry about future issues, don't fear, possess your soul and trust in the Lord, he is God over all things, including your future and the future of our world.
Date:8/23/20
Series: Matthew
Passage: Matthew 24:15-28........Speaker: Jeff Thompson
As Jesus continues His Olivet Discourse, He issues a warning that will save Jewish lives in the middle of the Tribulation...
New Hope Church and God Rock Church are studying the Gospel of Matthew together, Pastor Bj are currently in the all of that discourse of famous teaching given by Jesus toward the end of his earthly ministry to four of his closest disciples in which he prophesies about future events, including the end times.
If you missed last week's message, you're going to want to catch up online because we've already covered events prophesied by Jesus that include things that have already happened, like the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and the persecution experienced by the first generation of the church.
Jesus spoke about those things literally, and they happened. Therefore, logic tells us that as Jesus continues to speak about things that are yet to come, he is speaking literally and they too will happen.
I need to be straight up with you and let you know that there's not a lot of practical application in today's message.
And that's because before we start drawing out practical application lessons from a biblical text, we need to make sure that we first understand what the text says. We need to make sure we understand what the writer and the Holy Spirit wanted us to understand. And it's going to take all of today's study for us just to understand what Jesus is talking about. It's going to be a fascinating study and it's going to take us all over the Bible and into the Old Testament as well as the new.
And when we reach Matthew, Chapter 25, Jesus is going to switch gears and teach in a more practical way.
He's going to answer the question, what should we do with all this information? What should we do in light of all of this prophecy? So hang in there until then, because that's going to be powerful. The all of it discourse appears in three of the four gospels. The all of it discourse shows up in Matthew, Mark and Luke and in Luke 21, it records Jesus sharing a warning for believers that would save their lives in 70 A.D..
It's absolutely fascinating and unfortunately, I don't have time to get into it in this study. But if you'd like to check that message out and I think you should, you can do so on our website. And I've put that link on your outlines.
And I mention that because while Luke, 21, contains a warning for believers that would save their lives in 70 A.D., Matthew, 24, where we're studying today, contains a warning for Jews that will save their lives in the tribulation. That's the first fill in on your outline.
Jesus shares a warning for Jews that will save their lives in the tribulation.
And the reason for the difference between Luke and Matthew is just because the different gospels were written for different audiences and the gospel of Matthew was written primarily for a Jewish audience.
So let's dive into our text in Matthew 24. We're going to pick it up in verse 15. Jesus says.
Therefore, in this case, it just means then when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet standing in the holy place. And if you've never really dived into the stuff before, I just want to let you know that I recognize you're probably thinking what the heck did I just read? And I understand that Verse is is a string of references that likely make no sense to you. But hang with me. We're going to walk through this and you're going to understand everything before we're through.
To him specifically, an abomination usually involves worshipping an idol or some other false God.
In some way, the word desolation is defined as a state of complete emptiness or destruction.
So the phrase abomination of desolation refers to some type of worship of a false God that is disgusting to the Lord, and it causes a place to become physically and spiritually empty.
We're going to find out. That's exactly what happened and exactly what will happen. Jesus refers to a location more specific than just Jerusalem in this prophecy. You'll notice that he refers to the holy place, and every Jew would have known that that was a reference to the holy of holies, the innermost room, the innermost part of the temple, the room that the entire Temple Mount was built around.
And it was the special place where the presence of God dwelt in the temple before Pentecost took place in Acts Chapter two, when the presence of God, the Holy Spirit, was given to every believer. Once Pentecost happened, every believer could have the presence of God in them. Before that, the presence of God dwelt in this room called the Holy of Holies in the temple in Jerusalem.
The Holy of holies was so sacred that only the high priest was allowed to enter and only once a year on Yom Kippur to repent for the collective sins of Israel.
Now, something to keep in mind is that Jesus is prophesying about a future event that will take place long after 70 A.D. when the temple was destroyed. So think logically with me for a minute. If there's a holy of holies that can be desecrated after 70 A.D. by something being physically placed in it. That's only possible if the temple in Jerusalem is rebuilt. It has to exist once again. We haven't seen that happen yet, but we will. How do we know?
Because Jesus is telling us right here in this passage and many other passages in scripture tell us the same thing, then take a look at what Jesus said next.
He says, whoever reads, let him understand. That's a command. You and I just received a command from Jesus to understand what he's talking about. Jesus didn't say, well, I'll skip over this part because it's not relevant to everyday life.
Jesus didn't say it's all allegorical and apocryphal language, so don't even bother trying to make sense of it.
It's all poetic anyway. No, he commanded us to understand our task is clear.
We have to figure out with the help of Scripture and the Holy Spirit what Jesus is talking about when he mentions the abomination of desolation and what it has to do with somebody called Daniel the Prophet.
So let's get to work.
Fortunately for us, the abomination of desolation was an event known to practically every Jew because it was even more serious than Pearl Harbor or 9/11 is to an American.
Let me tell you the story. There was a king of Syria who was a descendant of Alexander the Great and a Grecian Antiochus Epiphanies was his name, and he ruled the region of Syria from 175 B.C. to 164 B.C. He was a horrible, horrible human being.
He was clearly under the control of what the Bible would term, the Antichrist spirit that appears multiple times in scripture and throughout history, possessing men like Haymon, Herod, Nero and Hitler.
Where he murdered eight hundred thousand Jews in cold blood, 800000, he wanted to establish Greek culture in Israel, including polytheism and a lifestyle of hedonism and paganism. And if you didn't conform to his vision, you were killed.
So anyone who was committed to serving God, anyone who was a follower of Yahweh was killed, 800000 of them.
And TICAS epiphanies outlawed circumcision and observing the Sabbath by penalty of death.
And he built a pagan altar in the holy of holies.
On his birthday, he decided to strip the temple treasury and use that pagan altar for the first time, sacrificing a pig on it before an idol of Zus, turning the most sacred space and building in Israel into a pagan temple, spilling unclean swine blood on the floor of the holy of holies, an abomination according to the Law of Moses.
All of this is recorded in Josephus Antiquities of the Jews.
That event, that desecration of the holiest part of the temple was devastating to the Jewish people, and they refer to it as the abomination of desolation. Every Jew, every Jew knew the story not only because of its tragedy, but also because it was the event that sparked the Maccabean Revolt, which actually ended in a great and miraculous victory for the Jews and which they celebrate every year still with the holiday of Hanukkah, Hanukkah.
So write this down. Historically, the abomination of desolation was committed by Antiochus Epiphanies around 168 B.C when he sacrificed a pig to zus in the holy of holies.
That's the sort of historical abomination of desolation. So let's take stock of what we know so far.
Jesus is referring to an event that the Jews believed had taken place around 168 B.C, but Jesus is referring to it in the future tense. He's referring to it prophetically, as though it's yet to come. He's giving a warning about something that is yet to take place. Jesus says when you see. So in other words, when this happens. So understand this.
The Jews assumed that Daniel, who had written this prophecy about the abomination of desolation, they assumed that Daniel had been prophesying about Antichrist epiphanies.
When that happened, they said this This must be the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet. And that's where they got the term from. They got it from the Book of Daniel, which was written hundreds of years earlier.
But Jesus is now saying. Guys. The abomination of desolation that Daniel wrote about it hasn't actually happened yet. It wasn't Antiochus epiphanies. It is yet to come.
It's going to be the trigger sign, the warning sign for something yet to come. So how do we make sense of that? Well, the first thing we need to understand is that we generally view prophecy in our Western mindset through the Greek perspective. We believe there's really only two aspects to prophecy.
There's a prediction and then there's the fulfillment.
And this is how prophecy works to the Greek mind, to the Western mind. But in the Jewish mindset, there's a third component to prophecy. And that component is pattern.
Pattern. Pattern can also be prophecy.
And this is a huge concept. You've got to wrap your mind around if you want to begin to really understand Bible prophecy. So write this down from the Jewish perspective.
Pattern can also be prophecy. Pattern can also be prophecy.
And when you study the Bible, you'll quickly come to understand this. The most obvious example are the different types of Jesus that we find in the Old Testament. These were men who were not Jesus, but certain aspects of their lives were patterns that pointed prophetically ahead to Jesus.
So when Jesus talks about a past event, the abomination of desolation, and he talks about it as a future event, what he's actually implying there is he's saying, guys, what happened in 168 B.C Antiochus epiphanies, that was not the abomination of desolation Daniel was prophesying about. What that was, was a pattern.
It was a prototype. It was a model of what is really going to happen, the real abomination of desolation that's going to take place in the future. Are you with me? I hope that makes sense.
This is a real treasure hunt through the scriptures, and we're going to need to put this thing together piece by piece.
So you might for a little bit be thinking, well, Jeff, how's all this stuff connected? We're going to connect it all. But first, I need to point out what the puzzle pieces are before we put the puzzle together.
However, I do this, I'm not going to be able to get into the level of detail. I would like to I'm going to do my best.
But if there's anything you don't understand, any questions you have, anything you need clarity on, please feel free to email me or message me online.
We know what the abomination of desolation was historically.
So we know the pattern. We know the prototype. The next place we need to go is where Jesus told us to go, the book of Daniel. And so we're literally going to go into the book of Daniel. We're going to do a word search for these unusual terms that Jesus used abomination and desolation.
And we're going to see what comes up in the book of Daniel around these terms. It's pretty logical stuff, right? And the place we're going to end up, if you want to turn there, is Daniel nine twenty seven.
You can turn there. I think it was to put it on your outlines.
And you need to know that in Daniel Chapter nine, the word weak w e k, the word weak is the Hebrew word.
For a seven year time period. We have ten year time periods called decades. The Hebrews have seven year time periods known as shovelware shovelware.
So I need you to remember that every time I mention the word weak, when I'm talking about Daniel Chapter nine, I'm referring to a seven year time period in Daniel Chapter nine, Daniel records a prophecy he received from the Lord about 70 weeks.
OK, now what is a week? Again, it's seven years. So if he's talking about seventy weeks, he's talking about seventy periods of seven years, 70 times seven, which is 490. Hope you're still with me when Daniel is writing this. Israel is in exile in Babylon. Jerusalem is destroyed. But Daniel prophesies that the day is coming when the command will be given to rebuild Jerusalem, and he says from that day to the day when Messiah reveals himself publicly, which Jesus did on Palm Sunday, Daniel prophesies in Daniel nine that there will be a time period of 69, nine weeks, 69, nine shovelware 69 periods of seven years between these two things, between the day the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem and the day that Messiah appears in Jerusalem, revealing himself to be messiah.
That was Palm Sunday and subject for another day. That is exactly what happened in history, exactly what happened. It was exactly 483 years.
Now, of course, this leaves us with one final week, one final period of seven years, a seventieth week that doesn't get dealt with in this prophecy, this seventieth week of Daniel.
This final time period of seven years is going to begin shortly after the rapture of the church in the big series of end times events that the Bible prophecies and books like Revelation. The first major event is the church. All believers on the Earth being taken up to be with the Lord removed from the Earth in the event known as the Rapture. Now, shortly after that, the seventieth week of Daniel, this final time period of seven years begins. If you're having a hard time following me, you can go and listen to the Daniel study on our website.
Again, I wish I could explain everything better, but I have to keep moving because this is a matter of study, not a revelation study or O'Daniel study. So the rapture happens.
And then shortly after that, the one who's commonly known as the Antichrist shows up on the world scene and he rises to prominence politically.
And Daniel 927 tells us this about what the Antichrist is going to do in that seventieth week.
Daniel 9/27 addresses the seventieth week. It says then he that's Antichrist shall confirm a covenant with many for one week, now a week. And Daniel nine is how long?
It's seven years. So it says here Antichrist will make a seven year peace treaty between the world and Israel. But in the middle of the week, how long will the middle of the week be?
Three and a half years. Halfway through seven years.
In the middle of the week, he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. Now, sacrifice and offering can only take place one place if you're a Jew, the temple in Jerusalem.
This is another example of how we know the temple is going to be rebuilt in the future. It's also why we suspect that giving the Jews a temple on the Temple Mount will be one of the things that Antichrist will offer Israel as an incentive to sign the seven year peace treaty.
And many Jews today believe that the rebuilding of the temple will be one of the signs Messiah will give when he comes.
Remember, the Jews don't recognize Jesus as their messiah.
They're still waiting for their messiah, and they may very well be fooled for a time for, say, three and a half years by the Antichrist when he arranges for their temple to be built. There's a very good chance most Jews will begin to believe that Antichrist is the Messiah.
So write this down. The temple will be rebuilt in the seventieth week of Daniel. That's the seven years shortly following the rapture as a result of Antichrists peace treaty.
But at the halfway point of those seven years, three and a half years in, the Jews are going to realize that they've made a huge mistake when Antichrist puts an end to sacrifices in the temple. Here's what I keep saying. And Daniel, nine, 27 and on the wing of abominations, underline abominations. There's that key word.
And on the wing of abomination shall be one who makes what desolate, desolate underline that even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate. There's that word again.
Those are key words, abominations and desolate. So Antichrist is going to show up performing abominations.
And we're told that as a result of these abominations, a place is going to be made desolate and this is going to continue until the consummation. Now, consummation just means the point at which something is complete or finalized.
So in other words, this is going to continue, continue until an appointed time. That's what it means. Until the consummation, until an appointed time.
So if you put all this together, hang with me. You put it all together. We're told that someone Antichrist is going to make a covenant or agreement of some type a peace plan that's meant to last for seven years.
After breaking that seven year agreement at the three and a half year mark, someone is going to do hateful and disgusting things to a place. And the implication is that it's the temple as it's the subject of this verse and those things will result in that place being left deserted and empty, desolate. And this is going to continue until an appointed time is reached.
And I suggest that scripture points to that appointed time being the end of that seventieth week of Daniel, the end of the seven year tribulation. We're going to add more pieces of the puzzle in just a moment, but remember, Jesus has revealed that Daniel's prophecy about the abomination of desolation has not yet been fulfilled. Again, this means Antiochus Epiphanies was a prophetic pattern. He was not the abomination of desolation. So in our minds, we need to be thinking what sort of future event would fit this profile and include all of these pieces.
And the more pieces we add, the clearer the picture becomes. Next puzzle piece in Revelation 12 six. We read about the halfway point of Daniel's seventieth week. It's on your outlines. It says, then the woman. And if you study Revelation 12, you'll find that that's a reference to the Jews.
Then the woman or the Jews fled into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days. Now, that's an incredibly specific number, wouldn't you agree?
And guess how long that number comes out to three and a half years exactly by the Hebrew calendar.
Halfway through Daniel's seventieth week revelation, Twelve tells us that the Jews are going to need to flee for their lives.
And if you study Revelation, you'll find that's because Satan is trying to prevent the second coming of Jesus by killing all the Jews, because Jesus has promised in places like Romans that he is going to save the Jews at his second coming.
So Satan things.
If he can kill all of the Jews, then he can turn Jesus into a liar and somehow prevent his second coming.
We believe that when Antichrist turns against the Jews after three and a half years, they're going to flee to a very specific place called Petra, that ancient rock city carved into the sides of these hills in the country that's called Jordan today.
And if you want to know why we believe that, listen to the revelation study. Now, if the Jews need to flee at the three and a half year mark, there has to be a major reversal of things. Right. And that's what Jesus, Daniel and Revelation all point to Antichrist, reversing his peace plan, kicking the Jews out of the temple and instead attempting to wipe them all out.
That's another puzzle piece. Let me give you one more in second Thessalonians the Apostle Paul, it's on your outlines as well. The apostle Paul writes that Antichrist is one who opposes and exalts himself. Above all, that is called God or that is worshipped so that he and then underline the rest of the verse sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
Now, this cannot be a reference to God's temple or throne in heaven, because no one's ever going to dethrone God in heaven can't happen.
It's not a reference to the throne of our hearts, because before this verse, Paul makes it clear in the same sentence that he's writing about Antichrist, the person, an Antichrist, the person cannot come into my heart. The only explanation is that this is referring to the temple on Earth in Jerusalem.
Paul tells us that Antichrist will go into the temple in Jerusalem and declare himself to be God. Daniel tells us the same thing. This is what Jesus is referencing. When we put all this together, it becomes clear that at the halfway point of the seventieth week of Daniel, that seven year period that will begin shortly after the rapture.
Halfway into that, after three and a half years, Antichrist will go into the temple, put an end to sacrifices, expel the Jews, set up a throne for himself, declare himself to be God and demand to be worshipped.
And at the same time, he will initiate a genocide against the Jewish people. Make a note of this at the halfway point of the tribulation, three and a half years in. Antichrist will set up his throne in the holy of holies and demand to be worshipped as God. That is what Jesus is talking about here in Matthew, 24, Verse is 15 through 24 hour two fascinating notes for you Bible nerds.
Remember that Jesus said when you see he says when you see, not when you hear or when it happens. He says when you see now, how would they be able to see what's taking place in the holy of holies? I suggest it's very, very simple. When Antichrist does this, it's going to be live streamed. He's going to broadcast it around the world, something that couldn't have happened before, 50 years ago, 30 years ago, maybe second.
Interesting, though, and this one kind of blows my mind. Around 40 A.D., Caligula ordered his governor in Judea, whose name was Petronius, to put a statue of him in the holy of holies.
Caligula said Petronius put a statue of me in the holy of holies.
However, Petronius was smart enough to realize that if he did that, he would have a repeat of everything that had happened two centuries earlier. He would have a whole nother Maccabean revolt on his hands because the Jews would be so outraged.
So Petronius delayed obeying the order for over a year. When Caligula heard of Petronius insubordination, he sent orders by mail for Petronius to be executed.
But as the message is on its way across the sea, Caligula dies and something gets mixed up in the mail system.
And it causes news of Caligula's death to reach Judea before his command to execute Petronius. And if the order giver is dead, the order was considered null and void. Can you imagine that moment when it shows up when someone's like a Caligula?
I'm not Caligula, Petronas. We've got an order to put you to death. Lucky for you, Caligula died a few days ago. So you're a good man. That was a close call and that's what happened.
But what's so interesting about this is that God seems to have intentionally intervened in history to prevent another event happening in 40 A.D. that could have been interpreted as the abomination of desolation that he's speaking about in Matthew 24. Now, why would God do that? Well, because firstly, it wouldn't have fit the prophetic pattern he wanted in place.
And Jesus didn't want to create confusion by having people say, oh, well, when Jesus talks about the abomination of desolation in Matthew 24, that happened in 40 A.D. when Caligula set up a statue of himself, Jesus didn't want his people confused.
So he seems to have intervened miraculously with the Roman mail system to prevent another abomination of desolation from taking place. And now it can only take place when the temple is rebuilt is pretty incredible.
Verse seventeen. Let him. Who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house? Here's the idea. Israel, when you see Antichrist, go into the temple, set up his throne and demand to be worshipped as God, you need to know that things are about to take a turn so dark it will make the Holocaust seem tame by comparison. When you see this happen, don't grab your things, don't pack. Don't call your friends because there's no time. Just run. Flee Israel.
Get out of there. Verse 8 team and let him who is in the field, not go back to get his clothes, but woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days, because nobody is going to be able to slow down for them and pray that your flight may not be in winter.
Most of us think of Israel as a scorching desert like place, but looked this up online. When you get home today, parts of Israel, especially in the mountains, can become completely impassable due to snow in winter. There's a ski resort in Israel, a real thing.
And then he says also pray that your flight might not be on the Sabbath, which you underline Sabbath.
And I want you to underline that because, again, it shows us this is not an issue that affects the church.
And I don't mean theologically. I mean practically. This does not affect the church. The Sabbath, which is Saturday, doesn't really change anything for us other than we might go out and do something.
In Israel, though, still today, everything shuts down on the Sabbath. The streets are pretty much empty. Society grinds to a halt. That is why Jesus says it's going to be very difficult for you if this happens on a Sabbath.
One more indication, Jesus is talking to Jews in Israel when he gives this warning, he's warning them that when they hit the halfway point of the tribulation, when Antichrist takes over the temple and demands to be worshipped as God, things are going to change dramatically.
The persecution of the Jews is going to become unbearably intense. That's why Jesus says this in verse 21 to get your pen ready for then there will be great tribulation. So when you see this happening, you need to flee. Why? Because there's going to be great tribulation then underlying the rest of us.
21, such as has not been since the beginning of the world. Until this time, no, nor ever shall be.
He says nothing this intense or bad will ever have happened before in history to Israel or will ever happen again.
Now, would you agree that as far as reliable sources go, Jesus is pretty accurate? I think he is.
And I hope you feel the same way. So get this.
Jesus himself is telling Israel that 70 A.D. and TAI EX epiphanies, the diaspora, the Holocaust, it's all nothing compared to what is going to happen to the Jewish people in the second half of the seventieth week of Daniel in the tribulation back hath Jesus is echoing the words of Daniel 12 one which says there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that time. And by doing this, Jesus is telling us that what Daniel spoke about in that verse in Daniel 12 had not yet happened as of 32/ 33 A.D. But Jesus adds to Daniel to this little detail, he says, nor ever shall be.
The Holocaust killed one out of every three Jews on the Earth. Zechariah, 13 eight through nine, tells us that the back half of the tribulation will kill two out of every three Jews on the earth. These words of Jesus are so important because they completely destroy the argument of anyone who says, well, the Book of Revelation and the Olivet discourse are just talking about things that have already happened.
It's all about the fall of Israel between 70 A.D. in 120 A.D..
That's not what it's about, because Jesus said, for then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world, until this time, no nor ever shall be the Holocaust was worse than the fall of Jerusalem and 70 A.D. So Jesus cannot be talking about 70 A.D. because Jesus says whatever he's talking about, there will never be anything worse than it that will happen to the Jewish people. I hope you're still with me. And then to underscore his point, Jesus says this in verse 22, he says, And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved.
But for the elects, the word elects there just means chosen ones. But for the elect sake, those days will be shortened.
So Jesus says unless God had set a limit and he has to this amount of time, he's limited to three and a half years.
Everybody would die. There'd be nobody left. Now some will try and say, aha, see that term Jeff V. Elect. Clearly this is talking about believers. And so this must mean the church will be on the earth during the tribulation.
The only problem is that in the Bible, the phrase the elect is used to refer to Jesus, Israel, the church, tribulation, saints and even angels. And here it's used in reference to Jews who survived the tribulation, as well as those who become believers during the tribulation.
Verse 23.
Then if anyone says to you, look, here is the Christ or they're do not believe it for false Christ's and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive if possible, even the elect. Jesus is clearly implying, by the way, that it's not possible to deceive the elect, he's not saying it is possible. He's saying it's not possible.
But he's saying if there was any way that the elect could be deceived, they would be, because that's how convincing this false Christ is going to be and that false Christ is going to be specifically the Antichrist.
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Verse 8 /25, Jesus says, see, I have told you beforehand. Now those words by Jesus to those are written to those who will read this during the tribulation, to those who are panicking and looking for guidance, to those Jews who who pick up the scriptures in desperation in the time of Jacob's trouble.
Jesus says, See, I told you beforehand, what he's saying is he's saying, stop doubting.
You know, I've told you the truth because I've predicted exactly what you're going through right now. Jesus himself declares here that one of the primary purposes of prophecy in the Bible is to prove that God is who he says he is.
So clearly, Jesus thinks prophecy is pretty important. And he built his word on Bible prophecy because it proves that his word is true
Therefore, if they say to you, look, he's in the desert, do not go out or look, he's in the inner rooms, do not believe it.
While these Jews are hiding after fleeing at the halfway point of the tribulation, there will be many rumors that Messiah has appeared.
And In verses 27, Jesus tells these Jews why they don't need to worry about missing Messiah, why they don't need to worry about missing the second coming of Christ, he says, for as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will be the coming of the son of man.
So he says, guys, just like the most intense lightning you've ever seen, the kind that seems to go from one end of the sky to the other and light the whole thing up. When I come back, it's going to be like that. Nobody's going to miss it. Trust me, my entrance is going to be epic.
Verse 8 /28 for where the carcass is there, the Eagles will be gathered together, this phrase was also used by Jesus back in Luke 17/37. And at the time I taught on this, I shared that I had no idea what it meant. And I've realized since then that I still have absolutely no idea what that verse means.
I've read lots of really bad explanations from other pastors and scholars. But but I just want to be honest with you, rather than share an explanation that I don't even find credible myself, if you know the answer, if you're enlightened, please email me.
I would love to hear it. If not, add it to the list of questions we have for God when we get to heaven. And we'll find out what the answer is going to wrap up with this now.
Why does this study matter to us today? Why does it matter to us today? Because Jesus was dead accurate about what he said would unfold in 70 A.D., he was dead accurate about what he predicted would happen to the early church, and that same Jesus has made predictions about the future which have yet to come.
And I believe we're living in the age when we'll see them come to pass.
That means I need to take what Jesus said about the future very seriously. And I don't just mean end times events. I mean that Jesus has demonstrated that he has a command over time itself, that when he shares prophecy, he's not saying this is what I think is going to happen. He's sharing what he knows happens because he's already there. He's in the future. He's in all of time. At the same time, he's there and he is reporting back to us from the future, what will happen, what is certain to happen.
And so when Jesus tells me that I need to be forgiven by putting my faith and my trust in him, he's telling me the truth. When Jesus says that I should spend my life living for him and storing up treasure in heaven rather than treasure here on the earth, he's telling me the truth because he's seen eternity and he knows what benefits me the most.
When Jesus says that he'll never leave me, never forsake me, but he'll be with me to the end of the age, he's telling me the truth because he's already there at the end of the age with me right now. That's why this prophecy stuff matters so much, it proves the Bible is true, that it's real, it's supernatural, and that we can trust what it says about our future.
But more importantly, it proves that we can trust the one who wrote it. And it means we can also trust everything he said about the best way to live in the best way to spend our lives.
Date:8/29/20
Series: Matthew...Passage: Matthew 24:29-35......Speaker: Jeff Thompson
Jesus wraps up His Olivet Discourse prophecies by talking about when He will return to the earth again at the Second Coming, and how Israel's miraculous return will mark the beginning of the end times "season".
And today, we're in the third part of our study through the Olivet discourse, a famous teaching given by Jesus to his disciples on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem just before his arrest, trial and crucifixion.
And in this teaching, Jesus talks about the future, including the end times.
He shares some incredible prophecies, some of which have already come true and others that lie in the near future. And if you missed either of the last two weeks or pastor BJ's introduction to the Olivet discourse before that, I encourage you to hop on Facebook. If you're a member of God Rock New Hope Church's website, if you're part of that church and just catch up, because this is fascinating stuff and it all builds upon itself.
And in this study, we're going to take a look at what I think is one of the most amazing prophetic subjects in the Bible. And it's a huge, prophetic subject because it was actually fulfilled potentially. In less than 100 years from where we are right now, it happened in the 20th century and so I hope I've intrigued you with that.
I'm just going to leave that hanging as we get into the study.
And if you're wondering why we would take the time to study a subject like Bible prophecy, if you're thinking, why don't we just talk about something more practical and related to everyday life? It's because Bible prophecy builds our faith.
It reminds us that God is real. His promises are real. His word is true. He knows the future and he holds it in his hands. And so let's allow the Holy Spirit to build our faith as we discover more that God has said in his word that has already happened and is yet to come.
If you were with us last week, then you will recall that in Matthew 24, Jesus spent Verse is 15 to 28 talking about events that are going to take place in this span of time called the seven year tribulation. We're talking about some freaky stuff like Antichrist, the abomination of desolation and all that stuff. And if you don't know what I'm talking about and you're suddenly scared that you've maybe stumbled upon a cult, you haven't, I promise. Just hang with us, see where we're going today.
Go back and listen to last week's message and you'll be caught up on everything. Says we dive into today's study at Verse 8/ 29. Read there with me. Jesus shifts gears and he says immediately after the tribulation of those days. And I want you to underline that if you're a note taker, because whatever Jesus is about to talk about next, he's telling us that it's going to take place after the seven year tribulation.
But I want you to notice what Jesus also says. He says it will take place immediately after the tribulation immediately. In fact, this event could easily be considered the event that ends the tribulation. Jesus is going to be talking about the event known as the second coming. You supposed to gasp there, let's do that one more time, OK? Jesus is going to talk about the event known as the second coming. I know, I know. It's incredible.
It's incredible. I had to underline that first part of Verse 8 /29 for a simple reason. You know, when you talk about Matthew 24, the Olivet discourse, Jesus talking about the future, there are many Christians who love Jesus.
They're going to heaven, but they have a different view on this. And they will say, well, Jesus is really talking about events that actually all happened between 70 A.D. and 1/28 between the fall of Jerusalem and the diaspora and these events where Israel was scattered all over the Earth and all these things have already happened.
Now, let me ask you, this is not a trick question. Was the tribulation experienced by Israel between 70, 80 and 120 A.D. immediately followed by the second coming of Jesus, back to the earth?
No, even if you weren't there, you know, no, it was not so therefore, Jesus is clearly referring to a tribulation that is coming in the future. It hasn't come yet. And here's what Jesus says is going to happen at the end of that future tribulation right before the second coming.
He says the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. The stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
Now it means what it says. When this time comes, the sun and the moon are not going to give any visible light.
And when it says the stars will fall from heaven, the word fall in the original Greek means be without effect.
And so when you put it all together, I believe that Jesus is telling his disciples that at that time the sky is going to be completely blacked out. The sun, the moon and the stars will not be visible. There will be no light at all coming from the heavens.
And it could be the result of a nuclear winter or it could be just a straight up supernatural event. God can do whatever he wants.
Whatever the case may be, it's going to be pretty terrifying for those on the Earth at this time.
And again, this has not happened yet in history and it didn't happen between 70 A.D. in 120 A.D. Luke's gospel records the same teaching by Jesus.
And I put something from Luke's gospel on your outlines. Luke adds these details. And on the earth, distress of nations with perplexity. That just means problems with no solutions. The sea in the waves, roaring men's hearts, failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming upon the earth. You see, during the seven years of the tribulation, people are going to be terrified because one terrible judgment from heaven after another is going to rain down on the earth.
And so everyone is going to be wondering with dread what's next.
Kind of like how we feel in 2020, but way, way, way, way worse, and yet we know from Scripture that most of the people on the earth at that time will continue to stubbornly reject God.
And their desire to reject God will be even stronger than their fear.
And they still won't turn to God. Now let's go back to Matthew 24, In verses 30, and this is one of those verse is that it just hypes me up and I honestly generally struggle to read this aloud because I'm just so overwhelmed by it. This is like it's going to be the greatest moment of my life when this happens Verse 8 30 than the sign of the son of man will appear in heaven.
And then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, with power and great glory.
And I want you to underline the words see other places in scripture.
Tell us that when Jesus returns to the Earth at this time, he's going to make a pit stop at a place in Israel called the Valley of Megiddo, where the poorly named Battle of Armageddon will take place. I say poorly named because it's not going to be a battle.
Unbelievably, there's going to be a force allied to Antichrist and Satan, and they're going to think that they can take on God with weapons. It's bizarre, but that's what they're going to think.
And so I don't know that it deserves to be called a battle when it's over in one word from the king of kings. So that's what's going to happen.
Jesus tells us that as the whole world sees him, they will mourn.
They will mourn. That's a strange word. Why would that be the case? Jesus is coming back to the earth. Why are people mourning?
Well, just imagine this. Hundreds of millions of people who have rejected Jesus rejected the gospel over and over and over, wouldn't listen, wouldn't repent. Even as God is raining down, judgment from heaven wouldn't listen. Even as angels fly across the heavens, preaching the gospels wouldn't listen because no sign is ever enough. And then all of a sudden those people see Jesus coming on the clouds and glory and power. And you know what, disappears in an instant.
At that moment, every stupid argument that says God doesn't really exist when he's right there. There he is.
And every eye will see him.
And in that moment, in that instant, when they're confronted with the reality of Jesus in his glory and power, here's why they're going to mourn, because they're going to know it's too late.
It's too late. That's why they're going to mourn. I had you underline the word see, because it's a fascinating thing in the original Greek, the word sea actually means sea and that's important because of everything Jesus is talking about has already happened.
If it all happened in the first and second century A.D., I got to think, at least, at least like a few people would have noticed, the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and glory. If everyone's going to see it, I think a few people would remember.
Obviously, again, the only rational explanation here is that Jesus is talking about events that have not happened yet. And so just to make sure we're all on the same page here, make note of this.
It's your first fill in. The second coming takes place at the end of the seven year tribulation.
The second coming takes place at the end of the seven year tribulation and will go on in verse 31, it says, and he that's Jesus will send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet and they will gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
And I like the way that Mark 13 records these same words of Jesus. Mark says it like this from the farthest part of Earth to the farthest part of heaven.
You see, when Jesus refers to his elect, he's referring to those on the earth who turn to Jesus during the tribulation and somehow survived, as well as all of the surviving Jews.
But I want you to notice that, as Mark points out, these elect are both on the earth and in heaven. And so this tells us that that this is a gathering of all the saints of God, those on the earth and those in heaven.
And they're all coming together to join with Jesus on the earth in Jerusalem for what is basically is welcome back party. That's what it is. And it's going to be the greatest party that has ever taken place in the history of the world up to that point.
And then Luke, 21, adds this comment from Jesus.
Now, when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads because your redemption draws near. Jesus says, listen, if you're one who turns to me in the tribulation, you weren't saved when the rapture happens, but you turn to me in the tribulation and you see all these signs happening, it's good news for you because I am you're king.
Jesus Christ is about to return to the earth. Hold on. I'm coming, he says.
Finally. Make them recognize him as their messiah and he's going to redeem Israel, our brother Paul tells us in Romans 11 that at this time all Israel will be saved. And the redemption that we're talking about when Jesus is your redemption draws near the redemption that comes along with the second coming. It's not just for the Saints. It's not just for the Jews. It's not just about people. He's talking about the redemption of the earth and the whole universe.
You know, the whole universe is in a state of entropy. It's in a state of decay. The universe itself is winding down. Everything in creation right now is dying.
Everything, every star, every cell, every bit of material matter in the universe is dying.
And when Jesus returns to the earth, entropy will be reversed and everything that is broken will begin to be made whole and made new and put back together and healed and restored and redeemed. They're going to close hospitals and orphanages when Jesus reigns on the earth because we won't need them, we won't need them. People will be made whole. All the people that are in prison because they're part of the cycle of generational abuse and trauma.
They're going to be healed. There's going to be redemption. There's going to be restoration when Jesus comes to the earth. That's why he says now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads because your redemption draws near.
And now, for clarity's sake, I want to make sure we understand the rapture and the second coming are two completely separate and distinct events. The big picture is that the rapture is Jesus coming for his church to collect this church.
The second coming is Jesus coming with this church. We're with him at the second coming. The rapture takes place before the tribulation. The second coming takes place at the end of the tribulation and we move on to verse 32. We'll make it through two whole words here. Jesus says, now learn, now learn. And I want you to underline the word learn, because there's only three times that. Jesus says specifically we are to learn something.
And I think there's something significant here in Matthew nine 13, Jesus says, go and learn what this means.
I desire mercy and not sacrifice in Matthew. 11-29.
Jesus says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and lowly off heart and you'll find rest for your souls.
And then here in verse 32 in Matthew 24, once again, Jesus is going to say Learn now, learn.
Now, let me ask you again, not a trick question.
Do you think that Jesus was serious those other two times he said learn he was serious? You bet.
So I think we can safely assume he's serious here, too. And according to those verse is, there are three things that Jesus wants us to be students of now. Now, when we say students, we mean Jesus are saying, I don't want you to just read this. I don't want you to just believe this and agree with this. I want you to dig into this and understand what it means. I want you to really dig into this and study this and understand what it means.
According to Jesus, the three things he wants us to especially be students of are mercy, Jesus himself and Bible prophecy. He says, you got to learn mercy. You got to learn how to understand it. You've got to learn about me. You've got to know me personally. And then you've got to understand Bible prophecy because it'll change the way you live your life.
With that in mind, he says in verse 32. Now learn this parable from the fig tree when its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves.