Matthew 24:1-14
For the past five weeks we have been looking at just one day in Jesus’s life… Tuesday of Holy Week where Jesus was involved in a long series of discussions with the Jewish leaders who were literally directing people away from God.
In just this one day…Jesus, in an attempt to counter their understanding of the Law, tells a series of parables and teachings to put in perspective for the common person:
…how to receive eternal life.
…how we are to live our life while on earth.
…who is admitted into the kingdom of Heaven.
We have examined all six of these teachings and parables:
…Parable of the Two Sons
…Parable of the landowner
…Parable of the Marriage Feast
…His teaching on paying taxes
…His teaching concerning the resurrection
…His teaching on the Greatest Commandment.
Now the day is about over…but He’s not finished…as He’s leaving the temple the disciples call His attention to the magnificent buildings on the temple mount [24:1].
1 Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. 2 “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; everyone will be thrown down.”
3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you…
So now the disciples have two major concerns…first…Jesus’ own account that once in Jerusalem He will be condemned to death [20:18] and secondly…the destruction of the temple.
There were few things more magnificent than the Temple…so Jesus’ prophecy of doom got the disciples curious, and probably more than a little concerned…when they were alone with Jesus on the Mount of Olives, they asked Him:
Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age? [3]
Two seemingly harmless questions
—when will that happen
—what will be the sign of your coming.
This begins what is referred to as “The Olivet Discourse.”
In Matthew’s Gospel he brackets Jesus’ ministry between two sermons: The Sermon on the Mount—which defines the expectations on how we are to live our life while on earth—then at the end of His ministry the Olivet Discourse, in which the emphasis was prophetical.
Need some history or you start out confused and it just gets worse…Jesus begins to give a summary to the disciples of what’s going to happen…but…here’s where the confusion comes in…
First…Those events are not all end time events.
Secondly…The events in Matthew 24 happen after the rapture.
The Church age is the time between His first coming and the rapture…the Church age stops at the rapture…everything Jesus talks about in Matthew 24 is after the rapture…any attempt to tie Matthew 24 to Christ’s return for His church is exegetically incorrect.
It’s important to understand that Jesus’ return to earth is in two stages.
The first stage is where He comes back invisibly to take all Christians and all Christians who have died up into Heaven; called the Rapture…the second stage happens seven years later when Jesus comes physically back to earth at the end of the Tribulation.
You will never have a clear understanding of what Jesus is referring to in Matthew 24 if you fail to consider what has been written on this subject in…Isaiah… Jeremiah… Daniel…Zechariah…1 Thessalonians…and Revelation.
What’s interesting about the Bible…God never gives to one writer all the details on one subject.
The Holy Spirit gives bits and pieces to various writers and it necessitates you combine all of them together…if you just read Matthew 24 in isolation you get a distorted picture of the events leading up to Jesus’ second coming.
I doubt if you can find anyone who doesn’t have an opinion on the end times…but because most people are ignorant…nothing wrong with being ignorant…it just means you don’t know.
Not KNOWING how to interpret Matthew 24 people believe these are the signs that will happen immediately before Christ’s return…and that is exactly correct…but it’s important to know that the ‘what’ and ‘when’ happen between the rapture and His visible return to earth.
Jesus is describing the things that will occur immediately prior to and during the tribulation…all these things will happen but not while the Church is still present on earth…they all occur after the rapture.
Again…more detail…anything in Scripture causes controversy…regarding the rapture some believe Jesus will remove the Church prior to the tribulation…before all that is mentioned in Matt 24 starts…these are ‘pre-trib’ believers.
Some believe Jesus will remove the church in the middle of the tribulation…that the Church will have to go through at least half of the Tribulation…these are ‘mid-trib’ believers…and some believe Jesus will make the church go through the entire devastation of the tribulation…these are ‘post-trib’ believers.
BUT…what Jesus is referring to in Matt. 24 has nothing to do with the rapture…at that point in the history of the world the rapture has already occurred…that’s why you’re all pre-trib…for some of you…you just didn’t know it.
Here’s why we’re all ‘pre-trib’ because the Bible says we are…God will not allow His children to go through the horrible…pain…suffering…and death that will accompany the tribulation…He says so Himself: [Rev 3:20]
Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth
The word ‘rapture’ is one of those words people like to ask you about to make you look silly…‘where’s the word ‘rapture’ in the Bible’ …the word Rapture never appears in the Bible…it’s a Latin word that was carried over when they translated the Bible from Latin to English.
Its meaning is found in [1 Thess. 4:17] referring to being ‘caught up’ which is what rapture means.
Why translators continue to use the word ‘rapture’ instead of the Greek word ἁρπάζω which means the same thing…just adds confusion…so when people say the word rapture is not in the Bible tell them if they knew Greek, they would know better.
In Matthew 24:1-14 Jesus is talking about the events that will proceed His second coming…His visible return to earth…He mentions a bunch of things that are going to happen…which causes people to make misleading statements every time something happens in the world…they ignorantly—not knowing—attempt to immediately tie it to Matt. 24.
Every time there’s a conflict in the Middle East people want to tie that to Matthew 24 …wars and rumors of war…every time there are natural disasters people want to tie that to Matthew 24. Here’s the latest example:
One of the signs that will occur before Jesus returns is pestilence so the un-natural thing is to associate any infectious epidemic disease with Jesus’ second coming because it’s mentioned in Revelation…again the importance of knowing the completed Bible.
…the most recent disease fear is covid-19…killing hundreds of thousands
…before that it was ebola which killed thousands in Africa
…before that it was aids, which has killed tens of millions
…tomorrow something else…an even greater plague leaving death and destruction.
There are some today who equate coronavirus with the end time…at the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic I preached a sermon on that…and said:
—the Coronavirus is not the beginning of the end of the world.
—the Coronavirus is not God punishing the United States.
Conspiracy theorists proclaiming, ‘the day of reckoning has begun’ using [Matt. 24] as the foundation for such outlandish claims.
Any attempt to tie the first 14 verses in Matthew 24 to Jesus’s return is premature… look what Jesus Himself says about this… that is not yet the end [24:6]. You cannot make sense of Matthew 24 & 25 unless you understand that.
Jesus makes it clear that the fulfillment of what occurs in these two chapters is in the future…a time the disciples would never experience…a time we or any other Christian will ever experience.
Jesus is saying there will be those signs in the world that hint of the end…not everything that seems to be a sign of the end…is in reality a sign…people claiming to be the Messiah…the earth experiencing wars…nation rising against nation… kingdom against kingdom…famines… pestilences… earthquakes… BUT this is not the tribulation…Jesus says all those are just the beginning of birth pangs [24:9].
There are signs that are being interpreted as being indications that the end is near, they’re not…they deserve the name “mistaken signs”. (Hendriksen, William; Kistemaker, Simon J., Exposition of the Gospel According to Matthew, Baker, 1953-2001)
The Kingdom of God/Heaven can best be seen as being ‘already but not yet’.
We live in what theologians call ‘the already, but not yet.’ The kingdom of heaven has already come to earth…it was inaugurated by Jesus in His earthly ministry…He plainly tells us ‘the kingdom of God is in your midst’ [Luke 17:21].
In His coming He brought the kingdom of God to earth…but it has not yet been fully realized—not until Christ returns in person as King.
In Matthew 13 Jesus gives eight parables explaining the “mystery of the kingdom of God”.
In this series of parables Jesus explains what will occur on earth between his first advent and the rapture…how Satan works in the world during the time we are living in today…the time referred to as the Church age.
Then in Matthew 24 He tells us what will occur between the time of the rapture and His second coming.
Meanwhile, our lives—including our work…our leisure…our worship…everything we do is framed by the reality of living in a world partly controlled by the old corrupt ways of the Fall…and yet partly ruled by God.
I have spent almost all of my time in preparing you for what Jesus is preparing to reveal in chapter 24…every Preacher has a different preaching style…one thing about my preaching style is I teach more than I preach.
I do that because I want to you know what the Bible says…I’m not here to tell you stories…or jokes…or give illustrations…I have a limited amount of time and I want it to be of benefit to you…so at times that necessitates explaining the background on what I’m about to teach/preach on.
This is one of those times because without having any knowledge of what has occurred up to this point you’ll be like the social media folks…everybody has their own opinion and most of the time that’s based on very little evidence because they have very little knowledge.
Over the course of the next couple weeks in explaining Matthew 24 I’m going to be going deep…not to show you how smart I am…not sure most people realize how much work is involved in maintaining a ‘C’ average.
I want you to have an understanding of what is going to occur at some time in the future…God has given us these Scriptures so we won’t be fearful of the future.
Here are Jesus’s disciples…trying to understand what Jesus has been telling them …still trying to make sense of why Jesus was not going to overthrow the Roman oppression…why He was going to die…and if you’re going to die…when are you physically coming back…so they ask Matthew 24:3:
when will these things be and what will be the sign of Your coming, and end of the age?”
So, Jesus begins to tell the disciples about all the traumatic events that will occur before His return…beginning in [24:4] Jesus answers the disciples’ question… here’s where some of the confusion starts in understanding this portion of Scripture …Jesus answers their question…but He responds in reverse order.
They ask ‘when’ and ‘what’ …Jesus answers in reverse order… ‘what’ and ‘when’ adding to the confusion…he doesn’t deal with the ‘when’ until verse 36…He addresses the ‘what’ first….in verses 4 – 14…where He describes six things or “birth pains” that will occur before the tribulation even starts.
The first is deception; Matt 24:4 – See to it that no one misleads you…Jesus gives this deception un-paralleled priority…and there’s a reason for that.
There is a time coming when deception by false prophets…and false preachers will be so great…that if possible, even the people of God could be deceived if it were not for God’s providential protection:
For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect [24:24]
This has already started…shortly after Christ’s resurrection there arose impostors… every one of them professing to be the Christ…today…we have people pretending to hear from God…receiving new revelations…having new insights into the Bible …receiving visions regarding re-interpreting a Scripture…let me share one instance with you.
It has been suggested that Jesus’ command to ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ has replaced the Ten Commandments.
How…by grouping them all into one easy to follow instruction.
Andy Stanley, pastor of the 40 thousand plus North Point Community Church expressed this view in a Sept. 18, 2018, commentary for Relevant Magazine:
Jesus issued his new commandment as a replacement for everything including
the big ten. Jesus’ new commandment replaced all the old commandments. Participants in the new covenant (that’s Christians) are not required to obey any of the commandments found in the first part of their Bibles. Participants in the new covenant are expected to obey the single command Jesus issued as part of his new covenant: as I have loved you, so you must love one another.
Does anyone not see a problem in that statement…that we are not required to obey any of the commandments found in the first part of their Bible?
Here’s the danger…hundreds if not thousands of people who heard that statement will understand that all that is really required of me is to love one another… ‘well, I can certainly do that.’ Then I don’t have to feel guilty about my lifestyle.
The affair I’m in…I’m stealing from my company…I’m lying to my spouse… even murder is really not that relevant any more as long as I’m loving people.
Jesus in no way is compromising The Ten Commandments…replacing them…or suggesting they are no longer valid…some imply that the Sinai covenant which included the Ten commandments came to an end when Christ came…but how do you account that Jesus Himself recited five of the commandants?
Here’s where this all goes wrong…when you fail to realize that love for others is the cornerstone of obedience to God [Matt. 22:36]. Which includes the Ten Commandments.
How do you know if something from the Old Testament is applicable today?…if it’s repeated in the New Testament.
Loving one another as Jesus loves us in the evidence that you are a Christian because everything in our life should be a reflection of the Ten Commandments.
This is the first ‘sign’ Jesus’ mentions…being aware of those who would deceive you…you can easily see the level of priority it demands.
TWO LESSONS from the statement ‘See to it that no one misleads you.’
First…As your pastor my responsibilities are to lead worship service…shepherd the flock… to be knowledgeable of the Bible…challenge you to follow biblical principles…and whatever else the Constitution says I’m supposed to do…but first and foremost Scripture identifies my calling to:
Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God…Acts 20:28
If one of you is led astray because I have failed in allowing the spreading of a false Gospel that leads to deception and corruption of Biblical doctrines, God will disqualify me from preaching…I’m not sure all pastors take that seriously.
Secondly…as Christians we are told that we should no longer be tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting… [Eph. 4:14]
As Christians…here’s a challenge…give this verse a chance to be fulfilled in your life…study the Bible so that you will not be ignorant—without knowledge—or become a gullible victim of deception whereby you become easily swayed by false teachings.
There is only one way that can be accomplished…the more Biblical spiritual knowledge a person has…and the closer your walk is with God…it allows you to enter that realm where God unfolds the Scriptures through the Spirit of wisdom and revelation.