180 - Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. Wow, there's been a lot of books and movies made and sensational stuff said about the end of the age.

Yeah, it's very popular and they say a lot of crazy things. Well, why don't we find out what Jesus actually said? I think that makes a lot of sense and He does that for us in Matthew 24 and we'll look at it today on More Than Ink. Well, good morning, I'm Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And this is More Than Ink, where we take a look at God's Word, His scripture, and we just walk our way through it and ask Him to give us insight about what's written here. And instead of jumping into the passage and looking for something to prove our own bias on something, we just let it speak for itself and we'll see what it says. And today what it says is a little difficult to swallow, so I hope you stay with us, but this is something of a contentious section of scripture. Well, it's just a portion of scripture about which there's a lot of disagreement because some of the things that Jesus said are open to interpretation still and are yet to be fulfilled.

Some had some sort of partial fulfillment, but there is a bigger one still coming. And so that's the area of discussion. And, you know, as old as we are, we grew up during the era in our Christian life, during the era of Hal Lindsey, right? And there was the late great planet Earth and there was really presented only one way to understand these things.

Right, right. And so as we have spent more time in the scripture walk with the Lord a little longer, we have learned some things. Well, we'll try and spot a lot of those things, but just keep in mind that a lot of what we look at here can be very healthfully debated in terms of what it means. And what we're looking at is the end of the age, the end of the world, all that stuff about who is the antichrist and what does 666 mean and all that stuff that floats around the popular publications. We're going to look exactly at what Jesus has to say in Matthew 24 and 25, these two chapters, because he spends two chapters talking about the end of that time, the end of the age. Because the disciples had asked him.

They'd asked him, yeah. They were going away from the temple. If you remember back in chapter 24, they were leaving the temple after having seen it. Right, right.

Right. And the implication is Jesus is like, I'm done here. I am going away from the temple. And they asked him explicitly, you know, when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age? And then here we are in the middle of talking just about that.

And we talked about this a couple of weeks ago. What he said to them basically was, don't be misled. Don't be afraid. The end is coming, but it's not going to come yet until the Gospel of the Kingdom is proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations. Then the end will come. Then the end will come. And that's where we left off. The end is coming, but it's not tomorrow.

Not yet. But you don't know, or it's not today, but you don't know when it's coming. Right. And so now he's going to talk about a sequence of events which have been hotly debated. We're picking up the reading here in chapter 24 of Matthew, and we're going to start in verse 15.

And well, let's just dive on in and see what's here. Okay. But again, this is immediately after he had said, but the Gospel will be preached to all the world and then the end will come. And the end will come. Okay. So we pick it up at verse 15.

Right. So, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place, let the reader understand, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let the one who's on the housetop not go down to take what's in his house, and let the one who's in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas for women who are pregnant and those who are nursing infants in those days, pray that your flight might not be in winter or on a Sabbath.

For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now. No and never will be. Should we stop there? Sure.

That's as good a place as any. I was kind of picking up speed. Yeah.

Well, it goes from bad to worse. But he starts off this thing in 15 about this thing called the abomination of desolation. And he says, let the reader understand. Why should we know what that is?

Well, it's possible that Matthew's readers weren't familiar with Daniel's prophecy. Right. Right. And so he says this, you need to understand what I'm talking about here, but he doesn't explain it. So we have to.

Yeah. And he already gives us a clue. It's in the prophet Daniel. That's one of the books of the Old Testament, the major prophets.

And so what he's talking about here is in several places. I mean, Daniel 11, 31, he also mentions in Daniel 12, 11. He also mentions it in Daniel 9, 27.

So this just isn't a one off comment. This is something that when you read the prophecies in the book of Daniel, you say to yourself, boy, these are big clues about something about the end of the age. And here, Jesus says, you're exactly right. You need to understand this, the abomination of desolation.

Well, and that word abomination in the Old Testament is associated with idolatry, with things that are absolutely repugnant to God, an abomination, something he cannot abide. Right. Right. And when you read through the Daniel prophecies. Thank you. Prophecies.

I couldn't think of the word all of a sudden. Well, yeah, you come to build this picture of the fact that what's going on here is someone is actually going to come into the Jewish temple, into the very holy place in the Jewish temple. Remember, you had to be very careful about how you cleansed the inside and kept it holy. Someone's going to come in and desecrate it and actually promote themselves as being greater than God himself and do this in the Jewish temple, which is holy and only reserved for God.

And that's kind of the conclusion you come to about this. Some really powerful person will come in and actually proclaim himself to be God. Which actually is a picture that is completely unpacked in the Book of Revelation, right? This person is identified as the Antichrist, capital T, capital A, whereas there are small Antichrists, right? John refers to them in his epistles, who are opposed to Christ.

But there will be one, it will all coalesce in a single figure at the end of the age. And this is the very famous Antichrist we talk about. In fact, there's a little bit of trivia about the word Antichrist. Anti in the Greek means two things simultaneously. It means against, which is how we use it today, and it also means in place of. So there was a very popular use of it in warfare when a commander, say a captain of a Roman legion, if a captain suddenly was killed in battle, then his second command would come up and be the anti-commander.

He would come up and take his place. So when we talk about the Antichrist, we're talking simultaneously about someone who is against Christ and someone who attempts to take his place. And sure enough, when you read the prophecies, that's exactly what it looks like. So that's very interesting because that was Satan's original sin, wasn't it? That he didn't want to serve God, he wanted to displace God, take his place. So this person, this one who will be acting at Satan's discretion will be seeking to take God's place.

Exactly. And in the previous section we looked at, Jesus is so careful to say watch out for false Christs and false prophets. Even if they do miracles, even if they do great stuff, even if they tell you, look, he's here, he's in this place. So he's going to repeat some things in this portion of the passage that he's already said to them, but he's going to add detail. And I might add, Paul interprets the Daniel passage for us in 2 Thessalonians 2 verses 3 and 4. He's very straightforward about it, you know, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, this is the one we're talking about, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called God or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

As being God, yeah. So all of that is wrapped up together, the Daniel passages, the 2 Thessalonians, even the revelation, and here right now, Jesus himself talking about that very thing. Look for this unmistakable event, the abomination of desolation, which will happen in the Jewish temple. Interestingly enough, there is no Jewish temple in existence right now.

Right now, yeah. And you know, for years, before 1948, when Israel became a nation again, people doubted that it could ever really take place, because how could a dispersed nation before 1948 rebuild a temple? That's impossible.

And if they're back on the land, well, it's possible, except that there's some logistical problems. There's something else built on that. We won't get into that. We won't get into all that. But then immediately following this very mysterious event called the abomination of desolation that involves the temple and the antichrist, he says there's going to be a great tribulation, and we just read that up through verse 20 and a little bit beyond that. Following that, it's going to be bad.

It's going to be really bad. And interestingly enough, the destruction that happened in 70 A.D. when Rome came in and kind of put down what's going on, and man, they smashed Jerusalem and scattered Jews and Christians all over the place. It's kind of a prefiguring, a foreshadowing. That's like part one of the fulfillment of it. But there's still more to come. Yeah, it's the partial fulfillment.

They even erected their own holy places right on top of the Jewish holy places in order to, again, obliterate what went before and replace it with themselves. Yeah, yeah, that's right. So part of the debate that you'll hear today is whether or not what happened, the destruction in 70 A.D., whether that was the full fulfillment of all this or if it was just a piece of it. Based on the power of the language here, I say it's just a piece of it because some big things have not happened yet. It seems pretty clear that that was a foreshadowing and not a complete fulfillment. Yeah, yeah. But we want to read the rest of the chapter. Yeah, in fact, where did you stop? I forget where you stopped.

21? It's the end of verse 21. Yeah, yeah. Well, because Jesus says there's never been anything like it from the beginning of the world until now and never will be.

That's what I was thinking. Okay. Well, you know, the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. was a big, stinking deal locally. Right. But it wasn't a global event. It wasn't a global event. Yeah. I think that's its biggest problem in interpretation.

Okay, let's go to 22. Okay. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved.

Now, see, okay, so there's another clue that that wasn't completely fulfilled in 70 A.D. because lots of people survived that. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

Okay. No human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short. Then if anyone says to you, look, here's the Christ or there he is, do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I've told you beforehand. So if they say to you, look, he's in the wilderness.

Don't go out. If they say, look, he's in the inner rooms, do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. Yeah. So this is such a clear thing.

Jesus is not, when he comes back, is not going to be a secret return. Right. He's not going to miss it.

No. I mean, it's as visible as when lightning goes across the sky from the east to the west. Everyone sees it at the same time. So don't be fooled. Well, and he's not coming back to some obscure, out of the way place. He's not coming back to some hidden group of people in the inner rooms.

He's coming in a manner that every eye on earth will see. Yeah. And how many popular cults today say, Jesus is coming back in such and such a time, or he's already come back and he's appeared in our room.

And you go, well, no, I mean, it's exactly what he's saying here. No. When Jesus comes back, you will know he came back.

There just won't be any, there just won't be any discussion. Well, because it's the end of everything because then we'll be, as we're going to get into in another chapter or two, the great division, right? You are sheep, you are goats. Yep.

Yep. So there'll be lots of deceit, lots of great signs and wonders leading people astray. There'll be a whole lot of, a lot of misdirection on the part of Satan for us to believe that Jesus has come before he's come. But when he comes, it'll be obvious. Isn't it interesting that the, again, the parts that stick out to me here, if we take the big view, Jesus says, now when you see these things happening, don't hesitate, pray, but don't be deceived because I've already told you it's going to happen and it'll happen this way. So we get so caught up in the flamboyant details of the things, we forget his point was, don't be deceived. Don't be deceived. Don't fear. And it'll be a period of great deceit. Right.

And demonstration of great power on both sides. Okay. So talk to me a little bit about verse 28, wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather because, well, go ahead. Well there's lots of ways to look at this. I take a very simplistic approach, which is, this is very true to life when you're out there where animals die and there's vultures. Right.

I mean, you can ask yourself, where's the dead animal? We look up in the sky and everyone will say, everyone will say, well, over there where the vultures are hovering. So it's one very simple way of saying, his coming is not going to be a secret.

You're just going to be able to look up in the sky and figure out where he is and what's going on. Right. So that's one way. But then there is this symbology of the vultures, the birds of prey, feasting on the dead at the great day of judgment. It does mention it. That's mentioned in Ezekiel and it's picked up in Revelation 19. So it's possible that Jesus is making reference to that too, but he's using an image that they all can identify with. Yeah. So if you want to go to your dead sheep, well, just look where the birds of prey are circling. It's very common. Yeah.

Even when I was doing some ministry in rural California, Northern California, you look at the vultures up in the air and you say, well, there's something dead over there and the whole county knows it because you can look up in the air. So yeah. Anyway, so he's coming back. I might also point out too, that says, so will be the coming of the son of man. This word coming is very special word called parousia and it really just means presence. It was a word that was used when a king would come into a county or a town and he may have an official visit. You know, I'm having my official visit right now.

Someone of high rank, someone of a state rank. So this is really kind of a regal way of saying Jesus is going to come back and he's having his official visit here now. And it's impossible to not know he has come. Yeah. Very important.

Very, very important. Cause there will be this outshining, this visible presence. Yeah.

Yeah. So when we, when we get through the end of 28 here, watch out for deception. Some big event called the abomination of desolation involving the temple and the Antichrist will happen immediately followed by a horrible time of tribulation, which is prefigured and foreshadowed by the 70 AD destruction.

And and he won't come secretly to be quite open. And apparently we'll just interrupt the whole thing. Just step right into the middle of it. Yeah.

Yeah. And of course, a lot of debate goes down about this tribulation period. A lot of Christians ask, well, will I be subjected to the horrible time of the tribulation? And then that discussion, that debate rages to this very day, it goes around and around. Boy, in a sense, it's almost a pointless question because believers have been subject to great tribulation since as long as there have been believers.

And so, you know, in in smaller on a smaller scale and localized and it is happening today, all of the world. So, you know, it comes down to believing is God's grace sufficient for me in whatever he calls me to face. Right, right, right, right. And that's really important. And we also remember the fact that out of the tribulation comes some new believers as well. They'll be subjected to it. So is God is God's grace sufficient for whatever he has you walk through? Do we need to do we need to be concerned right now about whether or not we're gonna be subject to this tribulation? Well, God sovereign. I mean, he's got this all figured out. We may or we may not and you can make some good biblical cases both ways. But that's really not the right question, not a core idea.

But people will sit around at dinner and debate this, you know, ad nauseum, it really goes places. It's crazy because the things you just said is important is now don't be afraid of it. Don't be ready. Be ready.

Watchful. I'm coming. I'm coming. I'm coming to happen. I go to prepare a place for you. I'm coming again to take you so you can be where I am.

Yeah, right. Let's focus on that. Be encouraged. He is coming.

That's a promise that he's made and will happen. Well, let's finish out this section. We go to verse 29. Do you want me to read? Why don't you?

Okay. Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the son of man. 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. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other. Wow.

Big doings here. So after we went through that sequence where we finished with the coming of Jesus after the tribulation, he comes back and talks about the same coming after that. But now we focus up in the sky.

Now we see cosmic stuff happening with the moon and its light and the sun and the stars and the powers of heaven. And this has caused a lot of debate about is this literal or is this figurative? Could be both.

It could be both. That's exactly right. This is such a repeated idea in the prophets. This is not new.

Oh, no. This is not new. It shows up together strings from Isaiah, from Ezekiel, from Joel, from Amos, from Zephaniah. Shows up a lot.

Those are just a few. Yeah. It shows up again and again and again. The darkness, the powers in the heavens shaken, the evidence in the sky that something big is happening. Yeah.

Yeah. And there was kind of a symbolic conflation, I don't know if I really want to say those words, but I mean between the powers of heaven, we're talking about God and the angels and stuff like that, and kind of their symbolic representation with the lights in the sky, where the big lights come from. Because it was like, well, God's the one who brings light, so there is some thinking that maybe what we're talking about here is a shakeup in the powers of heaven versus the satanic powers as they're fighting in this realm and they're represented in the moon, sun and stars.

You could go that way, and I don't have a dog in that particular fight. But what we do know, that something big, something big is going to happen in the sky, and as you're looking at that stuff in the heavens, as the heavens are shaken, then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man. And that phrase right there has been a head scratcher for millennia. What is the sign of the Son of Man that will appear in heaven?

I don't have a good guess. Well, no, but isn't it interesting that Jesus says repeatedly, the sign of the Son of Man, the Son of Man, the Son of Man. This emphasis on this one in human form. The humanity of this one. God coming in judgment in the human form of Christ. Right. And something about his appearance will cause them all, everyone on earth, to mourn. They'll recognize him. Right. And there's a passage in Zechariah that mentions that, they'll see whom they have pierced.

So I think that's actually part of it. They'll see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, but this time with power and great glory, the one who voluntarily offered himself to die on the cross is now the one who's coming in great glory. What a contrast that is between the first coming and the second coming. And then at the end of that, as he comes back, he'll send out his angels, 31, send out his angels with a loud trumpet call and, oh, great hope, they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. And you know, when he says four winds, he means every direction, everywhere.

Not just Israel, in fact, it's deliberately not just Israel. So he gathers his elect together. So throughout this entire craziness of this end time thing, the tribulation, the stars, the moon, the sun, all this kind of crazy kind of stuff going on, the tribulation, ah! Well, you can be confident of the fact that he's coming to gather his elect and he won't make any mistakes about that. You know, that is so important to remember because if you think way back now, at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, he told the parable of the weave and the tares.

Oh, exactly. He said, you know, the kingdom of heaven is like a field in which an enemy came and sewed tares and the workers came and said, well, let's root them out. And the master of the field said, no, don't, because you can't tell the difference. Let them grow up to the end of the age and then the angels will be sent out to reap and they will be able to distinguish the difference between the weave and the tares. But we can't always tell. We would make mistakes, but they won't.

They won't. Indeed. I dare say, through history, we have made many in this regard.

Let them grow up together and we'll leave that decision about who's in and who's out to God. And we say that to this very day, too, someone will say, so am I saved? Well, it sort of depends.

It depends on a lot of factors. I can tell you what it takes to become saved, to put your trust in Christ. But have you? I don't know.

And it's actually falling back on the wheat tares decision. I'm not really sure, but we can talk about this with some clarity. But we can have an assurance of our own salvation. We can. And Jesus says repeatedly, the one who endures to the end, the one who clings to me and does not step away or distance himself.

We've talked about this before. And Hebrews 3, I think, is the passage that talks about that. And 1 John gives us a very clear verse about our assurance. So we can have all that.

We really can have all that. But we have to recognize that in the end, distinguishing based on outward behavior, Christians from false Christians, is going to be very hard. Which is why it's going to be interesting when we get into the next chapter when Jesus talks about the sheep and the goats. Yeah, exactly.

Because the sheep and the goats don't have a clue which one they are. Exactly. Yeah. But in the end, you can have confidence in the fact that God is just and God knows our hearts. He makes no mistakes about who are his and who are not his. And so in the midst of all this what looks like powerful chaos at the end of the age, everything is actually going exactly according to plan and you're not going to fall through the cracks of the tribulation.

No. He's not going to overlook you. He's not going to overlook you.

He's not going to make a mistake about you. Remember, Jesus said back in John 10, nobody can snatch you out of the hand of the Father. Right, right.

The Father or one. Yeah. And that point is just so important to impress when we talk about end time stuff. Because we get so overwhelmed by the power and the chaos of this picture that Jesus is painting. Well, the magnitude of it. The magnitude of it.

Yeah. And we suddenly look at, you know, I don't think I can cope with this. I don't think I can deal with this. I don't think I can stay in control. And that's exactly right. God's in control. He's got you.

Well, you never have been in control. That's exactly right. There's the illusion.

That's exactly right. But when big things happen, that's the first thing that comes to your mind. I'm not equal to this. I don't know how to get through this. But he's got you. That's the different side. Right.

And that's what we continue to emphasize. He will gather his elect from the four winds. He'll make no mistakes. And you can be confident and you can rest in his sovereign power and love for you, even through the tribulation and all the craziness of the end times.

Because he knows those who are his. Yes. It's the scripture. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and also, you know, when he announced to the apostles, I'm going somewhere that you can't go. You know, he says this in John. Once in a while you can't go.

Then he reassures them after they say, I mean, they're just so confused. Where are you going? Yeah.

Yeah. And how do we get there? Well, you know the way.

Well, you know, it's a great conversation. But in the end, what a comforting statement. He says, I'm going there so that you might be where I am. Right. And that's the end story of the entire end times.

I'm going to make a place for you. So that where I am, you may be also. Right. That was his assurance to the apostles and that's his assurance to us through all of this. And yet he still wants us to be aware of what's going to go down, which is why he's spending two chapters in chapters 24 and 25 telling us all about this end.

And if you think about it, it's interesting. The apostles heard all of this as Jesus is speaking and they never benefited by actually living through these events with the exception, perhaps of the foreshadowing in the 70, 80 destruction. But really, and so Jesus deemed it relevant for them to know what's coming. And even if this does not come in our generation and our age, it's still important for us to know what's going to go down and how it's going to go down and our assurance of his holiness.

We have known people in our age who claimed to be Christ or who claimed to be God in the flesh. So, you know, in little measures, this has already been true for all of us. Yeah. Yeah.

That guy that sat down next to me in the park that time. Hi, what's your name? That's a story for another day. My name is Jesus.

Yeah. We don't have time for that. Anyway, come back with us next time. We're going to go to part three on this end time discussion as Jesus so clearly walks us through the events that add up to the end of the age in Matthew 24 and 25. So I'm Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And we're glad you're with us and we'll continue to unwrap this together on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. Hooja, hooja, hooja, we're right on our way. We're so good. This has been a production of Main Street Church of rhythm city.