Matthew 24 vs 1-14
Matthew Chapter 24 Verse 1
•This is the last time Jesus will be in the temple…ever. As He goes out, we just read, He also departs. “Jesus went out and departed.” Why? Because what He is about to do, pay for death with His perfect blood, satisfy and fulfill the law for all of mankind, that action will completely nullify the temple as the dwelling place of God as 1 Corinthians 3 and 6 both tell us that in Christ, the temple is no longer a place but a heart…and so Jesus departs religion to accomplish relationship…
•And the disciples perceive that He is not happy…He has just pronounced the woe statements upon the Pharisees, the scribes…all of mankind really…in that man has broken and rejected every covenant that God has offered and He is grieved as He departs so they try to cheer Him up, take His mind off of it all, release Him for just a minute from the pain of the previous occurrence…just good friend stuff…and they show Him the massive wonder of the temple.
Matthew Chapter 24 Verse 2
•Jesus calls the temple…a “thing,” after earlier calling it “My Father’s House.” SO much changed with Jesus…Now, the structure was massive itself! Solomon’s temple, the first temple, had been destroyed so this temple was originally built by Ezra and Zerubbabel and yet Herod the Great greatly increased it! After Herod’s work the temple was huge, measuring 500 yards long by 400 yards wide. It was big and it was beautiful. Josephus wrote that the temple was covered in gold plating and when the sun hit it, it was blinding to look at…
•But Jesus says here that not one stone shall be left upon another and this prophecy would soon come to pass. The temple was destroyed just 7 years after it was finished. Finished in 63AD, Rome crushed Jerusalem in 70AD and Israel was no longer for 2,000 years…but what happened was that the temple was burned and the heat of the fire was so great that the gold melted and flowed between the huge stones…so the Romans dismantled the temple stone by stone to essentially quarry out the gold…
•You see there was no mortar between the stones to dam up the gold as it flowed in melted form. Why? Because this structure was so impressive, so astonishing that these massively huge stones were cut so precisely perfectly that they fit together leaving not even room for a knife blade between them. No mortar, no slime (if you recall Genesis 11), was needed and I like that.
•Genesis 11 we read of a temple being built by men, for men (the FUBU tower, HA) to make a name for men…and to hold that together, slime was used inside and out…but God’s temple, what God wants to do in my heart…raw, man. No slime needed, no mortar, no glue…no outside adhesive…nothing of myself!!! He holds it all together and when we come together, stone by stone, things fit perfectly. There’s a great lesson there…
•Jesus says this whole place will be thrown down…literally meaning that it will come to nothing…and man made religion will certainly end the same way…Now this literal prophecy given by Jesus to begin this chapter came to pass precisely literally and that gives us a precedent, a rule for the remainder of this chapter. We should expect literal fulfillments of the remaining prophecies as well…
Matthew Chapter 24 Verse 3
•Now really they’ve asked three questions…when will these things be, when will be THE sign of Your coming, and the end of the age? Jesus will answer all three of these questions in the remainder of this chapter. Exciting stuff…
Matthew Chapter 24 Verses 4 – 14
•Ok, let’s break this down just briefly. First, these prophecies are somewhat vague and He will get much more specific for us in verses to come but I just want to say one thing about this vagueness. One reason why prophecy may seem vague or imprecise is because God wants every age to have reason to be ready. We should not think of Jesus’ return as an event far off on a time line but something we have been running parallel with since the Day of Pentecost.
•He begins by saying that many will emerge claiming to be the returned Jesus Christ. Interesting, throughout history there have been many people, hundreds, perhaps thousands that have claimed to be the returned Jesus upon the earth. Even women…I don’t get that...HA! But whatever. Crazy thing is…folks actually follow them! Perhaps a few names you will recognize, Sun Myung Moon…leader of the Moonie Cult. David Koresh. Maybe a name you don’t know, Apollo Quiboloy – OVER 4 MILLION FOLLOWERS! Crazy! Why crazy!? – Because in THIS chapter, Jesus will tell us EXACTLY how He will return…
•Jesus continued…nation will rise against nation (literally people groups against other people groups) and yet He separates kingdom from nations which means that within the powers there will be super powers…and they will rise against one another…super powers in terms of nations has only been a thing for the past couple of hundred years and now just a few countries alone have the power to destroy anything, anywhere, at anytime…
•Famines, pestilences…anyone hear about Zika anymore? Pig flu? SARs…it seems that stuff pops up, freaks us out and then it’s gone…well not everything. Aids, HIV, cancer…these pestilences remain…all of these things are, what Jesus calls…the beginning of sorrows…or literally, birth pangs.
•And interesting…Jesus says, “lawlessness will abound” and because of that the love of the world will grow dark. You know that isn’t necessarily rebellion but rather its ignorance…the willful ignorance of one generation leads to the total darkness in ignorance of the next…and the gospel will be proclaimed in all the world and He uses the word witness…I like that because during the Great Tribulation, mentioned in Revelation 11, there are two witnesses showing great power on earth and the Bible says that all nations see them AND during the Great Tribulation there is an angel flying about in the sky proclaiming the gospel (Revelation 14:6-7)…but now Jesus gets a bit more specific…
Matthew Chapter 24 Verses 15 – 16
•We know that this is the midpoint of the Great Tribulation in accordance with Daniel 9:27, and 12:11…also mentioned in Daniel 11:31. I believe the actual event is given in 2 Thessalonians 2: 3-4…
Matthew Chapter 24 Verses 17 – 22
•He is speaking quite locally here. Fields, housetops, flee…surely it’s not the whole world because then it would not be fleeing at all but rather swapping places…and Jesus says that at that time it will be so horrible on earth, worse, far worse than anything that has ever come upon the earth > and somehow that even counts the flood > you can read about what will transpire in Revelation Chapters 6 – 19, and He mentions the elect here, and that may confuse you…but remember, there will be few but some that do come to faith during the Great Tribulation…but the rapture is already past…
Matthew Chapter 24 Verses 23 – 26
•And here comes the single THE sign of Jesus’ return, His second coming…
Matthew Chapter 24 Verses 27 – 28
•The unmistakable sign of the second coming of Jesus to the earth. Not in the desert, not hidden until adulthood again, nothing like what these false Jesus’ say and emerge as today…like lightning…and there’s more…
Matthew Chapter 24 Verse 29
•(Now we are into Revelation Chapter 19…) The world will be in complete craziness and no one will miss the second coming of Jesus BUT this is SO IMPORTANT…look at the response of the earth…
Matthew Chapter 24 Verse 30
•Why would the church mourn? Why would the people filled with the Holy Spirit…having awaited the Great Tribulation to end…why would they mourn!? It’s a trick question to make a point. There is NO WAY the church would mourn the coming of Jesus! They would shout for joy! But even Revelation says that the people of the earth cry out for the rocks to fall on them to hide them from Jesus at His return. What’s my point…THEY’RE gone…or more accurately, they are with Jesus, the church…the power of God unto salvation, descending to the earth! Watch this…
Matthew Chapter 24 Verse 31
•Where are the elect? One end of HEAVEN to another…so very encouraging, comforting and clear! But eternally more important than answering the question as to where the church is at Jesus’ return, or when will these things be…is answering the question, are you the church? - - I know far too much to buckle now