Following the Way of Jesus (12)

Jesus the Teacher - The Coming of the Son of Man.

Matthew 24:29–51 (ESV)

“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.

“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Last week, Mike looked at the earlier part of Matthew Chapter 24 of which has to do with the destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem and the signs of the end of the age.

You will notice Matthew chapter 24:1-3 refers to the destruction of the Temple when Jesus was leaving “the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 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.”

Jesus’ leaving the temple symbolizes the end of its relevance as the place where God was to be exclusively found for the prupsoes of worship. This is why Jesus says in Matt 23:38 “See, your house is left to you desolate.” And it confirms what Jesus taught the woman of Samaria in John 4:20-24 when she said: “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Christ’s leaving the temple to its destruction is an introduction to a new way of worshipping God, “in spirit and in truth” in which a new covenant is in operation. It is the beginning of “the Last Days” or Spirit-age, in which the Church, Jew and Gentile become “a Kingdom of Priests and a holy nation” bringing the light of the Gospel to the World, and Israel the nation, who had previously occupied that role, does so no longer, a fact confirmed by the destruction of the Temple.

1. The Impact of the First Coming of Christ:

the impact can be summed up four our purposes an “out with the old, in with the new - Jeremiah 31:31-34 cab be read in connection with the destruction of the Temple and signs of the end of the age:

Jeremiah 31:31–34 ESV

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Jewish apocalyptic belief in Jesus’ time was that the temple was indestructible. A similar belief was held in the 6th Century BC when the Jews would say out loud: “the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord” and Jeremiah says to them: “ ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the Lord. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless. “ ‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord. “ ‘Go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for my Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. While you were doing all these things, declares the Lord, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I called you, but you did not answer. Therefore, what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears my Name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your ancestors. I will thrust you from my presence, just as I did all your fellow Israelites, the people of Ephraim.’ “So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you. Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes to offer to the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to arouse my anger. But am I the one they are provoking? declares the Lord. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame?“ ‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: My anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place—on man and beast, on the trees of the field and on the crops of your land—and it will burn and not be quenched.”(Jer 7:2-12) and sure enough in 597BC the temple was destroyed by the Baylonians.

Tragically, the temple is going to be destroyed all over again and Jesus warns His followers saying: “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 is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak.” (vs 15-18).

“The abomination of desolation” is referred to in Daniel 11:31-32 “Forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and fortress, and shall take away the regular burnt offering. And they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate. He shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant, but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.”

And then again in Daniel 12:9-13 “He said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end. Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand. And from the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up, there shall be 1,290 days. Blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days. But go your way till the end. And you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.”

This echoes the similar language of Daniel 9:27. refers to “the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate”, a person who puts “an end to sacrifice and offering”. These abominations then are an idolatrous incursion into the true worship of God. So, a pagan statue was set up by Antiochus Epiphanes in the temple at Jerusalem in 167 BC, ‘desolating’ the worship of the temple and Jesus warns here that this will happen again in Jerusalem - perhaps a reference to the appearance of the Roman standards, regarded by the Jews as idolatrous in the temple - and when it does, His disciples should take this as an indication to flee the calamity that was surely coming.

Interestingly these verses very helpfuly and remarkably helped Christians escape the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 . When the Jewish Wars broke out in AD66 as the Jews rebelled again Roman rule, the Romans under Titus, beseiged Jerusalem and eventually broke through the city’s walls and demolished the Temple , except for three great towers at the northwerst corner of the city. One million Jews were killed and 95,000 taken captive to Caesarea. among them the Jewish historian, Jospehus. What is really interesting from the Christian perspective is that Eusebius, a Fourth Century Christian Historian tells us that the Christians escaped the carnage by fleeing: “The people of the Church in Jerusalem were commanded by an oracle given by revelation before the war to those in the city who were worthy of it to depart and dwell in one of the cities of Perea which they called Pella. To it those who believed on Christ traveled from Jerusalem, so that when holy men had altogether deserted the royal capital of the Jews and the whole land of Judaea…" (Eusebius, Church History 3, 5, 3). This is further documented by Epiphanius of Salamis, a Fourth Century bishop who states: “This heresy (i.e. of the Ebionites) of the Nazoraeans exists in Beroea in the neighbourhood of Coele Syria and the Decapolis in the region of Pella and in Basanitis in the so-called Kokaba (Chochabe in Hebrew). From there it took its beginning after the exodus from Jerusalem when all the disciples went to live in Pella because Christ had told them to leave Jerusalem and to go away since it would undergo a siege. Because of this advice they lived in Perea after having moved to that place, as I said."( Epiphanius, Panarion 29,7,7-8).

So, we have here the disciples being extremely impressed by the architecture of the Temple, the quality of the workmanship and the colossul nature of the structure and Jesus says: “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” and understandably the disciples are astonished and literally respond in this way: “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and end of the age?” (Note also that the phrase “end of the age”(Grk: synteleia tou aiōnos)is used again in Matthew 28:20 where Jesus promises to be with His disciples “to the end of the age” ).

The disciples question is governed by a single definite article in Greek, indicating that the ‘coming’ (parousia) and the ‘end of the age’ will happen in their minds, simultaneously. They thought this way because to the minds of these Jews the destruction of the temple was so catastophic, that no future for humanity seemed possible!

This was not the case however! The link, such as it is is not that the destruction of the Temple would bring about the end of the age, but it would be one of the defining points to tell us that “the end of all things is near”(1 Pet 4:7). That the “end of the ages”(1 Cor 10:11), something which the Bible refers to as “the last hour”(1 John 2:18) or “these last days”(Heb 1:2) have come.

The incarnation, the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ has introduced the turning point of history! - “In His coming the “last days” to which the Old Testament looked forward arrived, but they have not yet run their course; the Christian church is still living in this eschaton. Jesus’ first coming inaugurated it; His second coming will consummate it. The coming of Jesus was, therefore, the beginning of the end.” – R.T. France

Human history has now entered a new covenant era in which the gospel of Jesus is being preached with an end time in view in which God “has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”(Acts 17:31)

What then of the “signs of your coming?” What should we take from this?

Jesus does distinguish between the destruction of the temple, and His second coming but the point about whether these serve as predictive timescale signs is clearly dismissed by Jesus. He does not deny they are signs of His coming but he does not want us to treat them as hints to the exact timing of His return but just of the certainty of it! That’s why all attempted date setting has failed to date!

Jesus therefore warns us that we must not be easily deceived by jumping too hastily to eschatological conclusions either because of particular claims charismatic persons may make to be “the Christ” or by those events which are common throughout human history, namely, natural disasters; persecution; wars, which according to R T France “are, and always have been, part of human history; they must take place as part of God’s overarching purpose, not in any specific connection with the end.” Jesus makes it clear that these are just “the beginning of birth pains”(v8).

Instead, the single most significant time-indicator we get from Jesus is given here - “this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” - when every tribe and nation under Heaven have heard the gospel, then and only then, will Christ return.

So, our job is not to spend time trying to figure out the significance of individual events as time-indicators of the timescale of Christ’s coming but rather to persevere in preaching the gospel, regardless of the persecution we will experience. As Jesus says in John 9:4 “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.”

This is an important for us to grasp because Jesus warns that during persecution, “many will fall away” or literally, ‘be tripped up’, (see Matt 5:29–30; 13:21; 18:6–9). That is, those who profess to be disciples but do not stay the course when trouble hits (see Dan. 11:41).

Part of this falling away will involve professing Christians, giving themselves over to “lawlessness” leading to their “love” cooling towards Jesus because Jesus makes it clear: “If you love me, you will obey what I command” “It is a sombre picture of a church in decline.”(R T France)

And part of our loving Jesus and obeying what He commands is to “go into all the world and preach the gospel, baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you and lo I am with you always to the end of the age”(Matt 28:19-20).

WE HAVE TO BE BUSY! - 2 Peter 1:10-13: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.”

2. The Events that Herald the Second Coming of Christ:

There is then a shift from discussion around the detruction of the temple - the first part of the question asked by the disciples to the second part, the second coming of Jesus - “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…Immediately after othe 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 tall 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 whe 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.”(vs27-31).

The point Jesus draws out here is that His Second Coming, unlike His first will not be shrouded in mystery, in some remote corner of Palestine in a stable in poverty and obscurity but it will be sudden, unmistakable and unavoidable, akin to the appearence and impact of lightening!

So if somebody claims that it has happeneed already and been whispered about in secret in some “inner room” or in some “wilderness” where most people have missed it, Jesus says, don’t believe it and don’t be deceived by such claims!

Paul warns against such deceivers in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12, “Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 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. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

Jesus will appear to the whole world, and “every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him”(Rev 1:7).

His coming on the clouds of heaven - His “parousia” (Matt 24:3, 27, 37, 39), refers to His personal return to earth, the Greek word refers to a ‘presence’ (so 2 Cor 10:10), of an official, high-ranking person, a state visit of a King.

It is also a fulfilment of Daniel 7:13–14, “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”

His coming will bring about the final consumation of the end of this current world system, with “the elect” being “Gathered” from all over the world whilst those who have rejected Christ and the gospel will ”mourn” and lament their foolishness and stubborness of heart! (see Zechariah 12:10–14).

“The second coming of Christ will be so revolutionary that it will change every aspect of life on this planet. Christ will reign in righteousness. Disease will be arrested. Death will be modified. War will be abolished. Nature will be changed. Man will live as it was originally intended he should live.”​― Billy Graham​

3. The importance of Being Ready for the Second Coming of Christ!

As to dates, no one knows - “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only”(v36) so, they must “learn the lesson of the fig tree”

- Most common trees in Palestine are evergreen, but not the fig tree. It is without leaves in winter and its large leaves do not appear until late in the spring, a sure sign of the approach of summer.

All these things that Jesus has spoken of are are similarly a sure sign that His coming is near just as “this generation” will see the beginning of its fulfilment in the destruction of Jerusalem!

And when it does happen, the day will feel like every other day, people getting on with their lives; going about their everyday buisness as they did “in the days of Noah” not aware that a great flood was coming, and so the message being emphasized again is this - BE READY! BE PREPARED!- “Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.(v44)

- Be faithful; be wise!

DO NOT BE CAUGHT OUT! - “Precisely because we cannot predict the moment, we must be ready at all moments.” – C.S. Lewis

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 “Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”

“If the time is unknown, it will catch people unprepared. The analogy with the days of Noah suggests that judgment is to be a major feature (though it is not the whole picture) of the coming of the Son of man. But the main point is the unpreparedness of Noah’s contemporaries. Whereas Noah and his family were ready, everyone else carried on oblivious to the threat of judgment, and so, while Noah was saved, they were swept away. The implication is that it is possible to prepare for the parousia, not by calculating its date, but by a life of constant readiness and response to God’s warnings and introductions. There will apparently be only two categories, the prepared (and therefore saved) and the unprepared (and therefore lost)”(R. T France)

And this division between the saved and the unsaved; the ready and the unready, is seen from the illustration Jesus gives from everyday ordinary life which is suddenly disrupted - “two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding oat the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”(vs 40-42). Note theat it is not a difference in work or situation which causes the separation, it is a difference in readiness.

And Jesus reinforces this with a longer parable in Matthew 24:43-51 “But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Being ready means, exercise your stewardship well. Be a loyal and faithful servant in whatever you do!

Do not neglect your Master just because you feel like He’s not looking - if that were ever really possible! - but be faithful; be about your Father’s business, “in season and out of season”.

As Peter puts it in 2 Peter 3:3-10: “you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.”