Matthew-099

 

We continue our study in the Lord Jesus’ teaching, and we now come to Matthew Chapter 24. You will notice that I am staying with Matthew basically because if you study the synoptic parallels, you will find that Matthew is more detailed in many respects than the other two synoptic Gospels of Mark and Luke. But we will supplement materials from time to time from the other Gospels. So today, we read from Matthew 24:1-14.

 

3 things to happen in Matthew 23:39 before the events in Matthew 24

Here we are dealing with important and momentous matters. Just as the day of the Lord Jesus’ birth in his First Coming was fulfilled as prophesied, so it is certain that his coming again will be fulfilled as prophesied. Those days are drawing close but it is important for us not to be misled, and to clearly understand what are the signs of his Second Coming.

First, let me return for a moment to Matthew 23:39, “For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.’” I have mentioned that this provides a frame for fitting other things in the Lord Jesus’ eschatology that is, the doctrine of the last things. (In Greek, eschatos is the last, and “ology” means the knowledge or doctrine or science of a particular thing.) Three points can immediately be deduced from this verse before we proceed to Matthew 24 so that we get the picture together.

 

1. The Lord will come again

The first thing is that they will see him again. “You will not see me again until...” implies you will see me again.

 

2. A dramatic change of heart in the Jews, and they no longer reject him

The second thing is that they will see him again at a point in time when there will be a change in heart on the part of the Jews who had hitherto rejected him. And then they will say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.” The word means “I welcome you in the name of the LORD.”

 

3. The Jews will welcome Lord Jesus due to “the abomination of desolation” and “the sign of the Son of man”

Thirdly, what will cause this dramatic change of heart in the Jews in the days immediately before the Coming of the Lord Jesus? I will only hint at it now, and will develop the answer in Matthew chapter 24 later on.

The first of the reasons why there will be a dramatic change of heart in the last days among the Jews is because of “the abomination of desolation” that we read of in Matthew 24:15. I will have to leave explaining what “the abomination of desolation” means until we get to this verse. When this “abomination of desolation” will be set up in Jerusalem, it will cause a similar crisis among the Jewish people as when Antiochus Epiphanes set up “the abomination of desolation” in 187 B.C. Such was that crisis in Israel that it was changed never to be the same again. It also sparked off the Maccabean Revolt or the Maccabean Revolution. We will develop all this further when we get to this point in Matthew 24.

The second reason is found in verse 30:

The sign of the Son of Man will cause a deep sense of mourning in the hearts of the people. What that sign of the Son of Man is we will also leave until then.

Today, it is sufficient to deduce three things from Matthew 24:30. Firstly, they will see the Lord Jesus again.

Secondly, there will be a change in heart of the Jewish nation, who has rejected the Lord Jesus and continues to do so at this moment. Certainly, there are Jewish Christians, but the Jews as a nation still reject the Lord Jesus. There will be a change of heart at some point immediately or shortly before his Coming.

Thirdly, the reason for the change of heart will be because these two remarkable things will happen: one is the setting up of “the abomina­tion of desolation” in Jerusalem, and the other is “the sign of the Son of Man” in the sky.

 

What signs lead up to the destruction of the temple and close of the age?

Let us now turn to Matthew 24 having seen this framework. The Lord Jesus was leaving the temple at this point, and the disciples were full of admiration for the beautiful temple. Perhaps you have a similar sense when you go into a great cathedral today. It’s fantastic structure—the height of the roof, the stained glass windows and marble pillars—will give you an awesome sense of wonder. Of course, at that point, you are more in awe of man’s creation than of God’s presence, but sometimes some people cannot tell one from the other, so they say they have a sense of worship. That’s fine. But the temple gave the people a sense of awe. The gold, the marble, the enormous stones, some of which are still seen in Jerusalem today, inspired an enormous sense of marvel. Then the Lord Jesus stunned them when he said, “Do you see these stones? Do you see how wonderful is this building which took half a century to build? Well, I’ll tell you something: Not one stone of this building will be left upon another. Such will be God’s judgment against Jerusalem.”

We already saw the reason for this, that there is a measure of evil beyond which God will not tolerate from man. Whether it is an individual, or a nation, or this human race as a whole, when you try to go beyond that limit of evil which God has set, you will run into his severe judgment. Jerusalem was destroyed, and this came to pass only forty years after the Lord Jesus said these words. The temple was flattened! It seemed so unlikely at the time the prophecy was proclaimed. The birds were chirping merrily and the sun was shin­ing so warmly. The temple was standing in its splendor. There is the “Pax Romana,” the peace of Rome with its mighty armies governing the world, how could there be a war? Who could do such a thing? Forty years later, the words of the Lord Jesus came to pass, therefore we must take his words most seriously. In Matthew 23:35, the Lord Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away.” Foolish is the man who takes his words lightly.

In Matthew 24:3, the disciples now ask him the question, what are the signs leading up to the destruction of the temple, his Coming again, and the end of the age? They want to know. Let us read again the question of the disciples:

Three things can be deduced from this question all of which are important:

 

1. At close of the age, there will be significant events of instability in Jerusalem

I have also mentioned previously, that Jerusalem is a kind of spiritual thermometer. The house may be very big but the small thermometer is what indicates the temperature of the house. Israel may be very small but it serves as a thermometer for the events of God’s plan for this world. By watching what is happening in Israel, watching that barometer or thermometer going up and down, we will begin to have an idea of what is happening according to God’s plan in this world. It’s not because Israel or Jerusalem is more important than any place else, but it has its special role to play. It’s like a barometer which may be very cheap to buy from a shop but it’s very important if you want to know what is the temperature in the house. Also, some barometers are very important because they govern thermostats which control other devices in the house. So the first point to deduce concerning what will happen to the temple, is that significant things will happen in Jerusalem at the end which cause instability. By watching that thermometer, we will get a good idea how near the end we are.

 

2. The Lord Jesus’ coming will bring this age to a close

The disciples asked Jesus, “What will be the sign of your Coming and of the close of the age?” These two events, the Coming of the Lord and the close of this age, constitute a joint event. The second thing we deduce from this question is that Christ’s Coming will bring this age to an end.

I stress again that we are not talking about the end of the world, but the end of this age. The world will go on. There are some well-meaning but ignorant people who go around with a great big poster which says, “Repent, the end of the world is at hand!” The end of the world is not yet at hand. When the Lord Jesus comes, the world will not end. The world, this heaven and this earth will still be here, but the age, an epoch in time, will close. For example, the Flood in Noah’s time brought an age to a close, so that age of about two thousand years came to an end with the great flood, and a new era started. The next era of the Old Testament period, also approximately two thousand years, came to an end with the First Coming of Christ. Then with the coming of Christ came the New Testament period which we are living in now, will come to an end with the Second Coming of Christ. After that, we will go on to the one-thousand-year reign of Christ with his saints, and only at the end of all that will this heaven and earth come to an end. You can call it “the end of the world” at that time, but not at the coming of the Lord.

There are many basic and simple things that many people have completely misunderstood. Christ’s coming will bring this age to an end. Then a new era will start in which Christ will reign together with his saints on the earth, not the United Nations. His coming is the second thing that will bring this age to a close.

 

“Christ could come at any moment” is not Scriptural teaching!

The question was, “What will be the sign of your coming?” His disciples understood that his coming will not be without any warn­ing. Signs give you a warning that his coming is nearer, and nearer, and nearer. The disciples rightly understood this point, so they asked what the signs of his coming are.

This point is very, very important because these days, there is so much ignorance concerning the last things that it is frightening. The church is totally unprepared for his coming because they don’t have a clue about what is the teaching of the Lord Jesus on this subject. I don’t mean everyone, but generally speaking, the average Christian really doesn’t know. For example, there is the notion in the churches—and it is sometimes even preached from the pulpit—that Christ could come at any time. It sounds Scriptural, but I’m sorry to tell you that is not Scriptural teaching at all. If he could come at any time, there would not be any signs to look for. There is no point to ask the question, “What are the signs of your coming?” because if he could come at any time, there are no signs for his coming. The ques­tion is meaningless. And the Lord Jesus could have replied, “Don’t ask such a silly question. Don’t you know I could come at any time? Therefore you don’t need to know any signs; they are irrelevant.” Nowhere in Scripture is it taught that Christ will come unexpectedly at any moment. And yet, when you try to find a hymn on this subject in a hymn book, you will be amazed at the influence of this idea, that the Lord’s coming could be at any moment.

I myself have been brought up in that tradition, that Christ could come at any moment, until I began to search the Scriptures and found that in fact, this was the same mistake that the Thessalonian Church made. The Thessalonian Church also had this notion that maybe Christ could come at any moment, therefore there is really no point to work. We all might as well just sell our possessions, give up our jobs, and wait for the Lord to come because he might be here tomorrow.

That was what the Thessalonian Church did. And this is actually why Paul wrote the letter of the Thessalonians, to tell them to get back to work and stop being lazy. “Don’t use the Coming of the Lord as an excuse for laziness. Get back to work!” He said in 2Thessalonians 3:10, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” That is where the famous sentence comes from. How nice to have a prolonged holi­day on the excuse that the Lord Jesus might be coming tomorrow! In fact, frankly, I am not averse to that idea myself except that it is not Scriptural!

So what is Paul saying about Christ’s coming in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3?

Notice these words: “For that Day will not come unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition.” The word “rebellion” in Greek means apostasy, apostasia, which is where the English word comes from. That Day will not come until these things happen first. He said to the Thessalonians, “Do you see the Antichrist walking around yet? Do you see the great apostasy yet? No, so get back to work!” Paul is pointing to the kind of signs which are exactly what is being prophesied here in Matthew 24. That Day will not come until these things happen. The Lord Jesus uses much the same terms in Matthew 24:6,

The end is not yet because there are other things which must happen.

 

Scripture teaches that the rapture is simply part of the Second Coming event

There is another notion that says: “Granted that the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus will not take place at any moment, but the rapture might take place at any moment.” What is the difference between the rapture and the Second Coming? For us, the Second Coming and the rapture must be the same experience. The Lord Jesus is coming to rapture you to meet him, so the rapture is part of the Second Coming.

But the mistaken say, “The Second Coming has to do with his coming to the world, the rapture is where the saints go up to meet him.” That sounds very plausible too, until you discover that that doesn’t work either. The reason is that in Scripture, the rapture—where the saints are bodily lifted up to meet the Lord Jesus in the air to come back with him—is always inseparably linked as part of the Second Coming event. That is very important to understand. You will not find any reference to the rapture which is not part of the Second Coming event. So Paul says, “Don’t be deceived!” Any teaching that departs from Scripture has an undesirable influence on your thinking, and therefore on life.

The only place where the term “rapture” is specifically mentioned, is by Paul in 1Thessalonians 4:17. Let us read verses 15-17:

Here “fallen asleep” means to have physically died. The Christian never really dies. He is said to be asleep until he is awakened at the resurrection. I would like you to notice “the coming of the Lord” in verse 15, and “the Lord himself will descend from heaven” in verse 16, both referring to the Second Coming of the Lord. It is in this context that Paul goes on to talk about the rapture. The term “rapture” is the Latin form of the word, “caught up.”

It is important that you notice straightaway the rapture is simply part of the Second Coming event. It’s not a separate event, even less does it precede. In fact, Paul mentions the Second Coming first, and only after that the rapture. It’s interesting that this very order appears also in Matthew 24:30-31, that the rapture is part of the Second Coming event and not distinct from it. This point is the Scriptural teaching. It’s not at all originated by me. Any of you who would like to study this point further can read the book by G. E. Ladd called Our Blessed Hope where he deals with this subject on the rapture in detail. Ladd is a professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, and you will find the Scriptural matters faced with great clarity there.

 

3. There will be general and specific signs pointing to his coming

So these are the three issues involved in the disciples’ question. First, significant things will happen in Jerusalem at the close of the age. Secondly, the coming of the Lord will bring this age to a close. Thirdly, there will be signs pointing to the Lord’s coming.

What are these signs? The signs that are given here in Matthew 24 are of two kinds. The first section from verses 6-14, deals with general signs. General signs show a general tendency of things. Then from verses 15-31, you have specific signs indicating specific events that will happen. It’s also important to notice that the specific signs have to do with the approximately last seven years before the Lord’s coming. How do we know it deals with the last seven years? We can read that in Daniel 9:27. It deals with the last week of years, that is seven years.

 

The Lord gives signs to help us not to be deceived; endure to be saved

Let us turn to verse 4:

What is the purpose of our studying the Lord Jesus’ teaching concerning the last things? Is it so that we can fill our minds with more knowledge on theology and eschatology? That we may go out and feel superior to other people because we know these signs whereas other ignorant people know none of them? Not at all! The signs are given to us for our survival. This is the point. Our spiritual survival is what the Lord is concerned about, because unless we know these things, we will be deceived. That is why he immediately answers the question of the disciples beginning with these words: “Take heed that no one leads you astray.” The word literally means “take heed that no one leads you into error, no one deceives you.”

Why is the Lord Jesus very concerned that we should not be deceived? As you go on through the chapter, we are going to see that deceiver after deceiver will come in the last days. Why do deceivers come? Deceivers are like sharks which prey upon people. They gobble up people in their weakness, need and confusion. This is because as the time moves towards the end, there will be increasing turbulence, increasing disorder in the world that creates confusion, uncertainty. You can see that uncertainty causes stock markets to topple. Whenever something happens in the Middle East, shares tend to go all haywire, the value of the dollar goes into confusion, and situations of uncertainty multiply. When the Arabs say, “We are raising the price of oil,” immediately, inflation shoots up and the banks cannot keep up with inflation, so you begin to worry: “What’s going to happen to my savings? When I retire, I’m going to end up with nothing. Maybe I’ll put it into stocks and shares.” Then the whole stock market collapses and you’ll end up with nothing again. It creates confusion and uncertainty. People wonder, “What’s going to happen in this world?”

When you have this state of uncertainty, deceivers will come. Some will say, “Ah! I know the answer. Just follow me.” When you look at him, he looks all right, he has a nice pair of glasses and looks quite intelligent, and he says, “Come on, I’ll show you. I know the answer.” Then he will show you an ad in the papers saying, “How to become a millionaire in three months.” And he says, “Just spend five dollars and I will tell you how to become a millionaire.” These people, who claim to know the answer to all the problems, make another million dollars because everyone paying them five dollars think that will make them a millionaire. There is a book called, How to Profit from an Inflationary Situation, and it sells like hotcakes!

Many things will happen in the spiritual sphere. There is uncertain­ty, confusion, and a false prophet comes along and says, “Just listen to me. I’ve spent a lot of time in God’s presence. I know his mind like nobody else. Just follow me. I know the way.” Then he goes into the wilderness and you follow him into the wilderness, and everyone perishes in the wilderness. That is how it is because these deceivers profit from people who are unstable, people who are weak and gullible. They are the kind of people these deceivers will prey on like sharks. This is the Lord Jesus’ concern as the end approaches, and as the situation puts so much pressure upon people. Most human beings are like sheep without a shepherd, as the Lord Jesus said. People will think: “Here is the shepherd! Let’s follow him. He doesn’t look bad.” Or they might think, “This fellow is a bit taller. I think I’ll follow this one.” So you take your pick.

It’s like election time when you don’t know who you are voting for anyway. Last time at the elections, you thought President Regan’s face looked rather nice so you voted for him. To vote on this basis is utterly ridiculous as you can well imagine. But many people don’t know enough about their candidates to know how to vote. You and I have voted before, and we don’t even know who we are supposed to vote for. The local candidate came and knocked on my door the other day. He wanted to become a councillor in Pincourt, and he was going on and on saying, “I am the one to solve the problems in Pincourt.” Then the next fellow comes along and he’s also the one to solve the problems. So you look at this one and that one, and you think, “Okay, who do I vote for?” The Lord Jesus has warned that we are to watch for false prophets and teachers who aim to deceive us.

When persecution comes, you may wonder, “Hey, what’s happening to us?” But the Lord Jesus has warned us that this is going to happen. These are the two important reasons for the Lord Jesus to give us signs: First, we are not to be deceived, and secondly, we can endure as a result of his teaching.

This point in Matthew 24:13, “He who endures to the end will be saved” is not that he who is saved at the beginning will be saved, but he who endures to the end will be saved. That is the Scriptural teaching. Therefore, notice, be careful of deceivers who tell you that once you are saved it doesn’t matter whether you endure to the end or not. That is not the Lord Jesus’ teaching. And yet, multitudes are carried away by this kind of false prophets and false teaching. You have to endure right to the end to be saved. The Lord Jesus had already said exactly the same words earlier on in Matthew 10:22, in case you did not understand it: “He who endures to the end will be saved.”

 

The general signs

False prophets and teachers claiming to be “the Christ” will increase to deceive

Having seen these things, let us begin to look at the signs. Today, we will deal with the general signs, and the next time, the Lord willing, we will look at the specific signs. What are the general signs?

We have already seen the first of these general signs in Matthew 24:5, that there will be many claiming to be “the Christ,” many who will claim to be saviors in this time of distress.

 

Bar Kochba, the self-proclaimed “Christ” in A.D. 135

When I read that, I think of what happened already 1,900 years ago, not very long after the Lord Jesus said these words. At that time, a certain man called Bar Kochba proclaimed to be the Christ. He said, “I am the Christ,” and do you know what happened? The Jews did exactly what the Lord Jesus said they would do. In John 8:42, 49 he said,

That was exactly what they did. Bar Kochba professed, “I am the Messiah. I am your Savior. Follow me.” And the Jewish nation followed him, and in fact, one of the greatest rabbis of that period who should have known better, threw in his support for Bar Kochba, leading the whole nation to ruin. That was in the year A.D. 135, the same year as the revolt led by Bar Kochba, the self-proclaimed “Messiah” who raised the standard of revolt against the Romans. The result was the Roman army came into Israel and into Jerusalem. Perhaps you have heard of Masada, which has become very famous lately. That was part of Bar Kochba’s uprising, and the final remnant got stuck in the fortress in Masada. All the approximately one hundred people finally committed suicide. And it was at that point that Israel was wiped out as a nation. The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70, but Israel was still there; yet after A.D. 135, the Jews were wiped out for good as a nation until 1948.

Since that time, various self-professed “Messiahs” have appeared from time to time. And in fact, in the last forty to fifty years, you would be surprised how many people have proclaimed to be the “Messiah” in North America alone, some even claiming to be divine, to be some incarnation of God. The same will happen, that more and more of such people will appear. Although some of them are not very plausible, they will become more and more convincing when we move closer to the end. And when the final Antichrist appears, he will be extremely convincing indeed! He will deceive even the elect if possible. When we get to section in Matthew chapter 24, we will also study what that means.

 

2. Intensification of wars

We find the second sign in verses 6 and the first half of verse 7. Verse 7 is not well-divided by the person who did this division:

This second sign is the intensification of wars. Wars have existed from the beginning of human history. When you put two people together, you will soon have a fight. When you put two nations together, you will have a war. Human beings are always like this. But this is not the point of this matter. The point is that wars and rumors of wars will intensify as we approach the end. The Lord Jesus has told us to prepare our hearts for these things.

In WWII, it is estimated that 55 million people died as a direct result of the WWII, but no one knows how many died as an indirect result of the war. Never did so many people ever die in the past history of the world. In the WWI, it was thought to be terrible when several million people died, but WWII made that look very small. And everyone knows that in the WWIII, 55 million will not be a big number at all. One atomic bomb could instantly wipe out a whole city like New York with all its 10-12 million people. As wars go on, they get bigger, more dangerous, more intense.

Some of you may have read a famous paperback written by a British general called The Third World War in which he predicts that the WWIII will start in 1985 which means there are only four more years to go. We will see whether or not it takes place in four years’ time. Some may think it will be sooner, and others later. But this general, based on his military experience, says that the military situation and the military balance should be such that by 1985, there will be a war because the Russians may feel that the situation has shifted to their favor. The power is no longer evenly balanced, that either they strike at that moment or they will miss their chance. Many people who have read the book have found its reasoning very sound. There’s no war as long as there is more or less a stalemate; but when the balance shifts in the favor of one side, that side will say, “It’s now or never! Here I go!” Then we will find ourselves in the middle of a war. When that happens, we are going to run into astronomical figures of deaths and casualties. 55 million is already astronomical, and no one dares to imagine what the next war will bring. The Lord Jesus says, “You will hear of wars, and the wars will get bigger and more terrible as time goes on.” That is what this second sign is about.

At the beginning of this century, when science was still relatively in its infancy, people thought quite the reverse, that things were getting better and better all the time: “Now that we have this wonder called “science,” it will be a paradise on earth for us.” None of you probably, and myself either, were old enough to remember those days. But you can see the optimism clearly in the books written by writers and philosophers of that period. There will be a “brave new world”—a very familiar title, isn’t it? And science, this new wonder that was coming, will erect a new paradise on earth for us. So the notion was that the Lord Jesus was wrong. Things wouldn’t worsen, but would get increasingly better because we have “science”!

Such optimists don’t exist nowadays. You simply realize that things are getting worse and worse indeed! After WWI, all that generation of people who talked about paradise on earth with the wonders of science began to disappear. This whole notion changed. It was in WWI that one of the wonders of science, the airplane, which was going to bring new horizons in communications and travel, turned into a deadly monster! For the first time, the airplane was used for war. For the first time, bombs came down from the sky! This was a new experience altogether. By WWII, these same monsters became bigger and more powerful, dropping tons of bombs on cities, on women, children and defenseless civilians. Then by the end of WWII, they did not just drop tons of bombs but megatons; they dropped an atom bomb! What is the wonder of this airplane? Look what is happening to it now! People began to realize that man can turn every good thing into something evil. Everything becomes evil. That is the disaster of mankind!

Let me read to you some words by General Omar Bradley, the famous American general who saw this whole situation very well, and really sums it up in these words:

That sums up exactly what the Lord Jesus is saying. We know more about killing, about going down this broad road to destruction than about living. We don’t know the way to the narrow road to life. We are nuclear giants, who can make megaton bombs, but morally, we are infants who don’t even have a conscience to know how to handle these bombs. This is the problem as it says here: “We have knowledge without wisdom (insight); power without conscience.” Man is spiritually too small to handle the business of his intellect. He is spiritually too small, therefore he cannot remain in balance. Therefore there is going to be turmoil and worse turmoil as we reach the end. Man himself understands that too, but he doesn’t know how to handle it. He knows how to build a space ship, and he is also going to fight in space. Therefore you have the movie “Star Wars” that we all like to watch. People will not only fight on earth, but also in the heavens, in the stars. They will fight everywhere they go. Man will fight all the time. As the general said, “We have power without conscience.” We know more about killing than living. We don’t know how to live, but we know how to kill. That is exactly what the Lord Jesus is pointing out.

That is why we are reaching the end. Man cannot remain in balance. He may have a very sharp mind, but he has a very dull spirit. He has no spiritual insight. He may do wonders with electronics, but in his spirit, he is just an infant; he has never grown up.

I notice this all the time, and I am sure you notice it in society. We live in a society that is prosperous, that is so called “advanced,” but as you notice, human beings are simply spiritual babies. You see this in everyday incidents. Let’s just take a small incident. The other day, I was driving into the bank parking lot, which is very small and circular-shaped. There is a driveway by each side of the parking lot, but if you want to park, you go through the middle into the parking lot which is quite a small area. I was just driving in to park when some man shot out from somewhere at enormous speed, came head on to me and screeched to a halt with his bumper to mine, blocking my way so that I couldn’t get into the parking lot. And he just sat there. Actually, he didn’t want to park, but just wanted to go through. I said there were two lanes on either side for him to go through, but no, he chose to go through the middle so that I couldn’t get into the parking space. Now one could get out to argue with him, and sometimes, this can even develop into a fight because no one wants to back down. I didn’t want to mess around with this. I simply backed out and let him pass. In fact, he was so surprised that I backed out that he felt rather embarrassed. People don’t expect that. They think there will be a stand off to see who is tougher.

People own big cars and beautiful houses, but they simply behave like babies spiritually, completely infantile. There’s no point arguing with such mentality. Let them go. You don’t want to get into a quarrel for this; it’s completely fruitless. Otherwise you’ll show that you are also a spiritual baby. Man is dissident, therefore the situation gets worse. Here you have a war, a stalemate situation – bumper to bumper, and who is going to move? If no one wants to back down, we will have a war. So the second sign in verses 6-7a is that wars will intensify.

 

3. Famines and earthquakes will intensify

The third sign is in the second half of verse 7:

There is nothing unusual again about famines and earthquakes. The world has had famines and earthquakes for quite a while. But again, the idea is that this is intensifying. The earthquakes will become more frequent, bigger and more destructive. The famines will become more severe. The economy will collapse when the harvests are destroyed by pollution, or by bugs, locusts, or wars, whatever the causes may be. All these things will intensify.

Strangely enough, yesterday, the whole house shook suddenly as we sat in it, and it came to us that we had been hit by a mini earthquake in Pincourt. And I was waiting to hear if there’s a report on this in the news. The whole house shook, and my wife was so startled she let out a little yell you might say, by the sudden shaking of the house. Then it passed and it was peaceful again. Even the dog on the other side of the road started barking with the sudden jolt. But these are the beginning. There will be more and bigger natural disasters coming along, and some of the famines may not be so natural.

 

4. There will be world-wide and bitter persecution of Christians

Let us move on to the fourth sign in verse 9,

There will be world-wide persecution of Christians. You can see that we are not there yet. It’s quite obvious that Christians are persecuted in about half the world, but not the other half of the world. So this particular sign, as you can see, has not yet taken place. Yes, we are moving there quite steadily, but have not yet arrived. This is why you must remember, that “he that endures to the end will be saved.” There will come a day when it will not be as comfortable to be a Christian as today. You are not going to have the kind of freedom that you enjoy at this moment. Don’t think that this will last forever. It will pass away. That is what the Lord Jesus is telling his disciples.

There is going to come a time when to be a Christian for you and for me will not just be a matter of facing opposition from your family, as some of you face; you are going to face the opposition of the world. “You will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.” Some of us who became Christians in China already had quite sufficient taste of that, but more of it will be coming. I had three years of that and I know what being persecuted feels like. But worse is yet to come. There will come a day when all of us are going to be faced with very bitter persecution, and many will not survive.

 

5. Love will grow cold – many will fall away and betray others

That takes us to the fifth sign in verses 10-12:

Many will depart from the faith. Now this is something that we must grasp. Isn’t it enough to fall away? Not enough. There will be some who will sacrifice someone else’s skin in the hope of saving their own skin. They will betray someone else to secure their own safety. They will betray one another and hate one another.

In the midst of confusion of the state of affairs, the false prophets are going to feed on this again. The false prophets are active even amidst the persecution.

Notice the word “most.” Most people will find that this pressure is too much, so their love will grow cold. I hope that you and I will survive, by God’s grace.

I have already seen it happen in China. When the Communists came and turned on the pressure, the love of most grew cold. They could not stand the pressure. Some even betrayed one another in order to save their own skin. Some eventually settled accounts because they didn’t like someone in the church, they hated one another, so this was a good chance to settle the account, to report them to the authorities. You could do this directly or anonymously, either way is quite effective.

I wonder if you and I will be prepared for this when that time comes. Don’t sit here and say to yourselves, “It will never happen to me. It is precisely people who say, “It will never happen to me,” that they are the ones who don’t survive. They are unprepared when it comes. It is the same as the person who says, “Other people’s houses will burn down but my house will never burn down.” So they are not ready when the disaster comes. “The hotels where other people stay in catch fire but the hotel I stay in never catches fire.” Then lo and behold, how many people die in hotel fires! Prepare yourself. That is what is so essential. Know how to handle the situation. Ask yourself, “How will I face it when it comes?”

 

The gospel will be preached to every nation in the world

The sixth sign is an encouraging one. We are told in verse 14,

This is something remarkable! If the love of the majority grows cold, who is going to preach the gospel to the whole world? Clearly, it’s that minority that survives; that purified minority that stands the persecution. It is these who will see to it that the gospel is preached.

Let me say again, as I have said many times before: Victory in the spiritual life is not accomplished through numbers. It’s not how many missionaries you send out, but what kind of missionaries you send out that will make the difference. You can send out a thousand missionaries and they accomplish nothing. But you can send out ten men of God and they will turn the whole place upside down. There­fore, to reckon the success of world missions in terms of numbers—as I hear it all the time in the Chinese and western churches—is sheer nonsense. Here the Lord Jesus tells us the love of the majority will grow cold, but the task of bringing the gospel to the nations will be carried out by the faithful minority. They will be the ones who will get it done.

The question is: Are you part of that faithful minority? Am I part of it? Are we the kind of people that God can use? Never forget, the Lord Jesus had twelve men—Matthias was chosen after Judas hanged himself—and he turned the world upside down with these twelve. Today, we have thousands of missionaries, not twelve but thou­sands, but we are getting nowhere! In fact, if you read the statistical accounts in most places, the mission work is falling behind. Even the birth rate of most nations is outgrowing the number of conversions. Therefore, when the birth rate is increasing at a much faster pace than the conversion rate, it means that the work is actually falling behind. You can see that it is the quality of men that matters; it’s not the quantity. Nothing has ever been achieved through quantity in the spiritual life. So it is the minority who will remain faithful, and it is the minority who will bring the gospel throughout the world. I wish that you could grasp this principle in Scripture.

 

Reach out to all nations with the gospel to hasten his coming!

Notice another point about this verse: The end will not come until the gospel reaches to every nation. The end will only come after the gospel has reached every nation. Now there is one way that Peter speaks about in 2 Peter 3:12, that we “expect and even hasten the coming of the Lord.” How can we hasten it? So long as the gospel does not reach out, the end will not come, as the Lord says here. Therefore, the way to hasten his coming is to reach out to all nations. That is what I intend to do, and I trust you as a church intend to do.

But before that, we must have the faithful men to do this task. This is why we have disciple training; that is why we have lay disciple training, that every single person in the church will not just have knowledge, but also quality, and be the kind of person that God can use. Wherever you go, you can build up groups of disciples who in their turn can build up groups of disciples. And anyone who understands geometric multiplication will soon see that this way of spreading the gospel is much faster than any evangelistic campaign can. It will seem slower at the beginning, but it will move much faster once it gets going. It takes a longer time to build the foundation to make it secure and strong. I once shared with the Training Team the geometric results of such expansion within a few years could outdo any kind of campaign that you would like to launch.

 

7. When Israel is revived as a country and nation

I have to jump to Matthew 24:32 for the last point, and I will not spend much time on it now. You can say that this is an intermediate sign; it is general as well as specific. That is, it doesn’t belong to that group of specific signs taking place in the last seven years. Verse 32 reads:

What does this mean? If the fig tree puts out branches, summer is near. If the flowers, the crocuses begin to come up, you know that spring is at hand. That is easy to understand. But then what is the spiritual fig tree that shows us that the spiritual summer, the harvest is near? That fig tree is the State of Israel. As you know, from Luke 13:6-9, and many places in the Old Testament, the fig tree was a symbol of Israel. The Lord Jesus is saying, “When you see the fig tree come to life after winter, you’ll know that the spiritual summer is near. When you see Israel begin to come to life again, after being dead for a long winter, for 1,900 years, you’ll know that what I am talking about is very real.”

 You and I live in these last days. This is the miracle predicted by the Lord Jesus. Remember, Israel, the barren fig tree was cut down, but from the stump there came forth a new growth. Israel, unlike any nation in the world, was extinct for nearly 1,900 years. That is incredible! Israel was dead for not 9 years or 900 years but 1,900 years as a nation. Then you all know what happened. In 1948, the incredible thing happened. The fig tree began to put forth leaves again! Israel became a nation in spite of the bitter hostility of the Arabs, in spite of the bitter hostility of almost everyone. When the Arab armies advanced, even the British refused to help and disappeared, leaving that little Israeli army to face the modern tanks of the Arabs. But somehow, they survived the onslaught from all directions, because God’s purpose was that it would survive. That is the remarkable thing! You can say that verse 32 was fulfilled in 1948. The nation of Israel came into existence. It resurrected after a long winter of its history. The Lord Jesus says, “When you see the fig tree, you will know that what I am talking about is very near.” And we are living in these days!

Let us be quiet before God in prayer.