Sermon Tone Analysis

How many of you would like to know the future?

How many of you would like to know what your life would be like one day?

If someone could come in here today and tell you what your future would be, would you like that?

Today, Matthew shows us, through the words of Jesus, the future.

***CBC Creed

As we prepare to read chapter 24, here are a few things I want you to consider:

Exalting Jesus in Matthew (Return of the King (Part 1) (Matthew 24:1–36))

1. Are you ready for whatever may happen in your life this week or in the next year?

2. Are you prepared for what may happen in the world in the next ten years?

3. Are you absolutely certain of where your life will be in eternity?

If you remember last week in Chapter 23, Jesus had his last conversation with the Pharisees, the Scribes, and the Sadducees.

And he warned them of their own destruction.

Seven times he used the word “WOE.”

Woe was a word used for judgement, warning, and damnation.

He was calling them out for being hypocrites.

Showing they were one thing when they were really another.

He used words and phrases like only washing the outside of the cup but not the inside.

They were like caskets, white on the outside, but dead on the inside.

They looked religious, but their actions and faith were dead, and they were leading people to an eternal death by their requirements.

The last thing Jesus said to them was this:

That time would be when he returns at the end of the ages.

Jesus is telling them of the events of the future…the return of Jesus Christ at the end of the ages.

After that Jesus, in Matthew 24:1 leaves the temple when he had this conversation with the Pharisees, as as they are walking away the disciples looked at the temple and were amazed at how big and beautiful it was.

Let me try to paint a picture in your mind what the temple looked like...

Exalting Jesus in Matthew (Trust in the Authority of Christ)

It was built with large stones, some of which measured 40 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 12 feet deep.

These stones could weigh more than 200,000 pounds each and they were stacked on top of one another—quite impressive for a day in which there was no advanced construction equipment!

The massive, stacked stones led up to a roof bathed in a sea of gold.

The white marble on the top of the temple would virtually blind you when you looked at it in the reflection of the sun.

You can understand the shock of the disciples, therefore, when Jesus told them that not one stone would be left upon another

What did Jesus say about this beautiful place?

Matthew 24:2

Matthew 24:2 (ESV)

2 But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not?

Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

This was the first of two prophesies that Jesus would make.

The temple would come down.

It would be destroyed.

This was sometime around year 30 or 32.

In year 70 the temple would be destroyed and many Jews would be killed because of their faith at the hands of the Romans.

So he makes his way to the Mt. of Olives, sits down, and the disciples ask the question.....when will all of this happen?

When will the coming of the end of the age happen and what will be the signs.

He tells them the signs, but first he gives them a warning...

Then he begins to show them some signs that will happen...

There have been wars and rumors of wars for years.

Nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom…is going on right now…but he said this will not signal the end.

Earthquakes, famines…still not the end.

All of these things plus people falling away from God and betraying each other.

Will that be the end?

No. Look at verse 11

False prophets have been in existence since the apostles preached the gospel.

They are even here in Nigeria.

So is that the end?

No. Look at verse 14.

Matthew 24:14 (ESV)

14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

There is an organization called Finish The Task.

Finish The Task.

And their passion is to identify groups of people around the world who have never heard of Jesus and the gospel message.

In their research they have identified 144 unreached people groups.

Now let me explain what a people group is.

Like you are Igbo, or Hausa, Youraba or TIEV, those are people groups.

So around there world there are 144 people groups who have never heard the gospel.

Those 144 groups amount to 5.7 million people on the earth.

5.7 million people who have never heard the gospel, and as of right now, don’t have anyone to tell them.

No missionary, no church, no gospel film or radio…no one in their community has a Bible or the truth of the gospel.

Why is this important to know?

This verse (Matthew 24:14) When the world of God reaches all nations…every tongue…then the end will come.

Here is a map of the unreached people groups of the world....There are alot in India....but looks sat this...

There are two in Nigeria.

This world is decaying…there are false teachers, people are falling away from the faith, they are not loving one another…and there is coming a time when that last group of people will be reached… and the events that we see in the book of Revelation will unfold, and the world as we know it will be over.

For those who trust him and follow his as Savior, we will be caught up with him, but for those who have denied him, they will look around and many people will be gone.

Are you ready?

Knowing that this could happen very soon, are you ready?

Are you prepared?

But here is another question.

Why not you?

Why can’t you be the one who goes to the _____________________ group and bring the gospel to them?

Why can’t you be the one who goes to the __________________group and brings the gospel to them?

We need to stop thinking about education, stop thinking about making money, stop thinking about what our friends will think and start thinking about what we can do to welcome Jesus as he returns for his children.

Jesus then talks more about what that time will look like.

Jesus talks about the “abomination o8f desolation” What is that?

The prophet Daniel talked about this, so for a moment I want to take you back to the Old Testament.

So Jesus used this phrase, the abomination of desolation.

Here is what that means.

Some one other than God would come into the Temple and place themselves in the Holy Place and say...WORSHIP ME.

The abomination of desolation is the when a ruler, a king, even the anti-christ will put himself in the most Holy Place of the temple and say…I AM GOD.

WORSHIP ME.

So Daniel wrote this almost 600 years before Jesus.

And between this writing of Daniel and teh birth of Jesus there was a time (about 150 years before Jesus that this happened.

There was a ruler named Antiochus Epiphanes (An-ty-uh-cus E-pif-an-ees) who did this.

He came into the temple, set up a false god and even sacrificed a pig on the altar.

ANd for the Jewish people…pig was very unclean.

So this had happened in the past, but Jesus said, this was also coming.

Here is his second prophesy...He prophesied that this would happen at the end of the age.

When these events happen, it will be a place you will not want to be.

But as a believer, you must understand that you could experience persecution.

Now this morning, I can give you my thoughts on what the end of the age looks like.

And when I mean, my thoughts, I mean how it might happen based on the Scripture.

But other people look at Scripture and and sometimes come up with other explanations.