The Signs of the Times

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 18:1-15

Psalm 18:1–15 ESV

I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of destruction assailed me; the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears. Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked, because he was angry. Smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him. He bowed the heavens and came down; thick darkness was under his feet. He rode on a cherub and flew; he came swiftly on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him, thick clouds dark with water. Out of the brightness before him hailstones and coals of fire broke through his clouds. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered his voice, hailstones and coals of fire. And he sent out his arrows and scattered them; he flashed forth lightnings and routed them. Then the channels of the sea were seen, and the foundations of the world were laid bare at your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.

Scripture Reading: Deut 32:1-4

Deuteronomy 32:1–4 ESV

“Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb. For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God! “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.

Sermon:

Good Morning Church!

I Was Glad when they said to me let us go and worship in the house of the Lord!

It has been a really Long Time that we have been in Matthew, SO I think it is important that we, as we start chapter 24, take a step back and remember the long flow and structure of the Book of Matthew.

Matthew opened with the genealogy, the generations of Jesus, from Abraham, through David and the exile and all the way to Jesus. then the “introductory matters, the birth and baptism and temptation of jesus. then, after the introductory matters, we moved to the main structure of the book, if you remember it was discourse, some long teaching of Jesus, then narrative, or stories that SHOWED what Jesus taught in some way or another.

So the first discourse was the most famous and most well beloved and the longest, the sermon on the Mount. Where Jesus taught, withhis authority, the Kingdom of God. After that the narrative section focused on miracle after miracle after miracle, each one showing in a different and particular way that Jesus was the one to have the authority to say the crazy things that he said in the Sermon on the mount. Then the second large discourse, what we called the missions discourse. here jesus sent his disciples on mission, telling them it would be difficult, but the would be with them. Then narratives showing some of what that difficulty would be. The third discourse was the kingdom parables. A group of parables, largely held together with the thought “the kingdom of heaven i like” then Jesus living out the foundation of that kingdom. The fourth discourse came in chapter 18 and was focused on teaching the disciple HOW TO LIVE IN THE KINGDOM. teaching how to stand up to temptation, the parables of the lost sheep and unforgiving servant communicating important truths to us. Then in the narratives, the kingdom begins to be lived out, it is grown, the King comes to jerusalem, the people shout: Hosanna in the highest. But the kingdom is opposed, and it is opposed strongly. that was the point of all the tests, and so Jesus pronounced woes to those that oppose those living in the kingdom. And that all brings us to today: the start of the fifth and final long discourse of Jesus.

This one, like the Sermon on the mount is rather famous. but while the SotM is famous for its accessibility and beauty and practical application, this one is famous for it’s difficulty and mystery. It is called the Olivet discourse. Olivet because it is spoken from the mount of olives. If Last week and the seven woes to the pharisees was the portion of Matthew i was most looking forward too, this is 100% the part of Matthew that has kept me up at night in dread and uneasiness as I thought through this book. O’Donnell calls this the hardest portion of Matthew, if not all of Scripture. I mentioned this to multiple pastor friends that this is what we are going through and was ment with various versions of OOF, good luck and rather you than me.” Why is it so hard? Because it is all the difficulties of what is largely considered the hardest book of the bible, REVELATION all shoved into two chapters. it is eschatological in that it deals with end times, it is contextually hard in that there are multiple things being talked about at the time time, it contains difficult parables and important warnings and all that is mixed together in the beauty and profoundness of the words of our savior and the shadow of the cross.

So before we dive in let me share a sort of “philosophy of ministry” or rather a “philosophy of preaching” that will guide us for the next 8!!! sermons in the olivet discourse.

The first is understanding what I will NOT be doing, though this is possibly what some people think that they want. I will NOT be diving into a long and convoluted discussion of the particularities of end-times views. i will not nail down for you each and every detail of exact dates and doing what is called “newspaper exegesis” where all current events are attempted to be read into this passage to discern the time and place of all these things? WHY because I do not think it is helpful but more importantly, because Jesus himself tells us that this is a fruitless endeavor for

Matthew 24:36 ESV

“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

The second thing that I will NOT be doing is shying away from any of the things that Jesus said. Just because it is hard, just because it is difficult or controversial these words are for us, we need them, and so we will engage them.

Which leads me to what we will be doing. Here is my heart. If we properly understand this passage, we will know the comfort, joy and peace that has been with all believers, regardless of the time. Those words were given the the WHOLE CHURCH for the WHOLE LIFE OF THE CHURCH, if he comes back tomorrow or in another 2000 years these words will still be true and of use for your life, and for your growth in godliness. In Sum I will, do my best, in the reliance of the Holy Spirit, to see what there is here for us, for our comfort and solace in Christ, for our continued sanctification and our continuing growth in holiness. I will NOT dive down into endless debates, I will however stand on the truth of Scripture.

So with that out of the way, let us begin our journey through the Olivet Discourse. Our passage for today is Matthew 24:1-14. Lets read God’s Word this morning:

Matthew 24:1–14 ESV

Jesus left 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.” As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 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.

These are the words of the Lord for us this morning, Lets open with a word of Prayer

Our father in heaven, we humbly come before you thins morning. We are grateful that you have spoken to us, grateful that you see fit to communicate to us, your people. thank you for THE WORD made flesh, our king, our guide, and our brother, the one who reveals you to us, Our Lord and savior, jesus Chrsit. Help us to understand his words this morning. Thank you for the Spirit, the comforter and our teacher, the one who brings illumination to our hearts and souls. May he bring illumination to this passage today. Speak to our hearts, use this time, we do pray, to conform us into the image of your son, sanctify us in your truth, for your word is truth. i pray that you would speak through your servant this morning. In Jesus name we pray. AMEN.

As we open this discourse, we start just a little before the discourse. Jesus and his disciples leave the temple, and in fact, Jesus here leaves the temple for the last time. He has conquered in some sense all the trials and enemies he faced there. the herodians and the disciples of the Pharisees are put in their place. the Sadducee are stumped and shown they really now neither God’s words nor his power and the pharisees are shown that jesus knows the law better than them and knows the Son of God better than they do because he IS the son of God. Then in talking to his disciples and the crowds he has heaped woe upon woe upon seven woes to the pharisees and their false sense of righteousness. then, if we remember, sitting there in the temple jesus predicted that Jerusalem would be left desolate. And off all these things, it is this thought that sticks with the disciples. This is what lays heavy on their hearts and this is what they begin to wonder about and ask jesus.

And what we see is that the catalyst for the whole discourse, the things that starts this ALL off is THE TEMPLE

The Catalyst: THE TEMPLE

As they leave the disciples ask jesus to turn around and look at the temple. OK Jesus, Jerusalem, o jerusalem, it may be left desolate, but surely not the temple. Surely not this 1) beautiful building that 2) is not just the symbol but the actual vessel (they believe) of Gods presence with us that 3) is the one thing that all our people can rally behind. Surely THAT will be left, surely THAT will not be left desolate, surely THAT will be spared.

nope.

Not only left desolate, Jesus makes a promise, there will not be left here one stone upon another. This whole thing will be torn down. its done with. Note here, this thought of the temple is what starts this whole discourse. Jesus predicting the destruction of the temple which WILL HAPPEN less than 40 years after Jesus says these words. So on one hand as we start the Olivet Discourse we have a prophecy about some future event,. something that we can look and see and say: surely Jesus knew the future, and we have a tangible grounding of this whole discourse. No matter what we think about prophetic language, no matter how we read this, it cannot be LESS than dealing with events that took place in history. but there is much more than that going on, for as always with Jesus this is a chance for their hearts to be spoken too. so while The temple was an important and beautiful building, and plainly the Jews were very proud of it. Jesus was more interested in the service of God than the beauty of the place of worship, and he immediately prophesied the destruction of the magnificent edifice.

The heart of the people in light of this particular catalyst is the central issue in this whole discourse. Sure there are many things that Jesus will say concerning a great many things that go far beyond the destruction of the temple, and pan all the way out to the end of all time, but in all these things worship of the Son is central.

So if this prophecy of the destruction of the temple is the catalyst for the discourse, the heart of the discourse is seen in TWO QUESTIONS

The Questions:

Jesus laments over Jerusalem, predicts the destruction of the temple and then his disciples approach him. Matthew 24:3 “As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately” A few things to note here. One is that Matthew is being very intentional in his language here. Just a quick comparison of the beginning of Dicourse 1. flip back if you will to Matthew 5

Matthew 5:1 ESV

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.

and again Matthew 24:3

Matthew 24:3 (ESV)

As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately

We have in both Jesus sitting, on a mountain and his disciples coming to him. these form the skeleton of Matthew’s whole book, If the sermon on the mount kicked off in some way the teaching of Jesus, this one then finished that thought and draws it to a close. THE END IS COMING just the setting tells us, but the questions themselves that the disciples

The first thing they ask: WHEN WILL THESE THINGS HAPPEN

The first question is about “THESE THINGS”

“THESE THINGS”

Which things, we should ask are “these things” and the context tells us this very clearly. “These things” are the lament over jerusalem in general and the destruction of the temple in particular. The Disciples pull Jesus off to the side and ask him what is going on here. Note this is in Private.. these are not questions you ask in public. These are world altering, paradigm shifting, world breaking sorts of things here. You ask these in public Jesus could get himself killed… Turns out that will happen anyway. But privately they approach him. But note a few things. one is that while they might not fully understand, they do believe. Their question is not one of WHY or HOW or even ARE YOU SURE. but one of WHEN.

WHEN are these things happen. OK Jesus,. not one stone on another, even though these stones were HUGE and the thought of anyone moving a single one, let alone all of them, is well, probably outlandish, we are going to trust you, so WHEN. When are you going to over throw the temple, when are these things going to happen, how long must we wait to see this happen.

or maybe their thought in asking WHEN is to figure out how long they have to get ready, I mean, this is going to take work, and a whole army, if we are going to do this it is going to take a while. So how Long do we have. When exactly are we talking about that these things will be happening. Do we have years, weeks, days, tomorrow? When are these things going to happen.

The thing that I need you to see, and remember not just today, but for this whole series that ONE of the questions that Jesus was answering is this one, when will THESE THINGS happen.

But that is not their whole question, the disciples ask two things here. when will THESE THINGS HAPPEN? that's one and, to finish verse 3, “AND WHAT WILL BE THE SIGN OF YOUR COMING AND THE END OF THE AGE”. That’s question 2

So we deal with “these things” and we wrestle with “the end of the age”

“THE END OF THE AGE”

So we start by understanding that this is part of whats this whole discourse so difficult. It is in understanding these two questions together. Jesus is answering questions that deal with VERY different times. When will these things happen? well they happened in AD 70. But when is the end of the age… i don’t know, because we are not there yet. This is why its hard to understand, but lets take a step back and understand WHY this would be the natural question for the disciples.

It is because for them, this was not two separate events, but it was one. The destruction of the temple was the end. it was the end of God being with the people, it was the end of all his promises, it was the end of all times. it was the beginning and the end and all of “the great day of the Lord” that all the prophets spoke of. So while Jesus makes it clear in his teaching that we will see that these are two separate things, for the disciples surely they were one. This was natural question for them.

It is like I often ask in the GracePoint Questions, sometimes we ask the same question 2 ways for clarity, But I have learned that it can also cause confusion. Why would you ask the same question twice, there must be something different here. The disciples may have thought there question brought clarity, but in honesty it brings up for us some difficulties. Because Jesus answers this in such a way that but what r we get is a blend of both things woven together in a way that only prophecy can be with multiple times of fulfilment looking forward to the grand fulfillment with promises and hope and these things all littered in between.

That is the foundation on which we will build our understanding of the Olivet discourse, but I do not want to leave us with just that, I would like to spend some time seeing how all these things come into play as we seek to understand our saviors words to us. So on this foundation, lets start to understand what Jesus is teaching us. Because those are the questions, but verse 4: JESUS ANSWERED THEM. I don’t want to leave us with Just the foundation today, I want to see these sort of thoughts put into practice as we work our way through this discourse. So we see Jesus ANSWERS THEM these very questions.

Matthew 24:4–8 ESV

And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

this first section I have called “BIRTH PAINS”

“BIRTH PAINS”

We have to deal with these. “Birth pains.”

But in doing so we can get to see the picture of the heart of jesus. Jesus knows he's answering these two questions. And in doing so his heart then, First and foremost, is what i would call pastor. What he says here Tended more To promote caution than it does to satisfy curiosity. He does more here to prepare their hearts for what will happen then to give them definite clarity about what will happen. His goal here is to steal their heart More than give them a timeline or a rubric by which they can measure all of these things.

We start: Jesus, when will these things happen. jesus, When will be the end of the age? that matters much less than what jesus says first: verse 4 See, that no one leads you Astray. That's what matters. Ultimately these things and the end of the age are coming. There's no fighting against that. First and foremost, do not be led astray. There will be false christs — We see this happen throughout the beginning of church history. Before even the temple was destroyed. There were those who would stand up and say i'm the messiah. I'm going to do this. They were false christs for only jesus was the true one. And they led many astray even before “these things” happen. but note, This phenomenon still exists today. Doesn't matter if we want to be to use the fancy language pre-post, a- millennial, and all of these things and reading what's going on here. This is our call: stand firm! see that No one leads you astray, the responsibility is placed on you. Don't let some false teacher come and take you away for many Will be led astray.

It's remarkable, I think, when we actually sit down and think about, Okay. Sure. I'll bite David. The main thought here is when you hear these birth pains, don't be led astray, but, but Let's dive deep. Okay. Wars. And rumors of war. A challenge you to find a time in history, where that wasn't happening. Kingdom against kingdom. This is always happening. Turn on the tv and what will be the thing that leads every news thing that you'll hear? It's the upcoming war with russia, civil war in russia threats against us in china war in the middle east, strife, and discord here and there. Jesus intentionally Gives us something here, that will ring true in all times. Famines. They're always happening. Record setting. Drought in California until the next one comes... Earthquakes in various places all around the world. Jesus, i believe mentions these, it is important to note. This is what one of the commentators says. And i think this is very insightful. it's remarkable how often occurrence is such As those mentioned in these verses are appealed to by those who are trying to work out a definite pattern for end time events. But in fact, they are mentioned here precisely to discourage any such speculation.

Jesus is intentionally vague. Why? Because these are just birth pains. It's the start. But jesus is doing and moving. I'm spending a lot of money, trying to get a seminary degree. Let me give you the quick summary. Of all of the church history classes that I've taken. The first century church. They experienced birth pain. second century church. They also experienced Birth pain. Third century church where the church sort of gets its legs, but there's also a lot of you guessed it. Birth, pains fourth century birth, pains 21st century church. Birth pains. These things will happen. For all time until jesus return.

Because the thought here in seeing these as just birth, pains is to know he is coming. What you are experiencing, no matter how you read this, no matter how you want to dive into and dissect This portion of the, olivet discourse these are birth Pains be ready because jesus is coming. When? i don't know. But he's coming. So as we experience these birth pains, do not be led astray but even more than next point. Jesus makes, ENDURE.

“Endure”

These birth pains will get difficult. - Endure. This part does not — as we read this Please hear me -- It's not intended To answer some chronological question. but it is intended to give the disciples encouragement In unsettling times.

Matthew 24:9–14 (ESV)

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation (TROUBLE IS COMING) and put you to death (TROUBLE IS REALLY COMING), and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake (TROUBLE IS COMING). And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another (EXTERNAL TROUBLE IS NOT ALL THAT IS COMING, INTERNAL TROUBLE IS COMING TOO!). And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray (PHYSICAL TROUBLE AND SPIRITUAL TROUBLE). And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold (IN CASE YOU ARE NOT GETTING THIS INTERNAL TROUBLE IN THE CHURCH AND INTERNAL IN OUR OWN HEARTS, I SAY AGAIN TROUBLE IS COMING). But (VERSE 13) the one who endures to the end will be saved (ENDURE, FOR TROUBLE IS COMING). 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.

The spotlight moves from sort of world events — wars, and rumors of war, things in the political realm and geographical events — earthquakes and famines. The focus now moves to The impact on the people of jesus. It's hard. Persecution, death, apostasy, betrayal, a loss of your love. These things are very real dangerous. So hear our saviors words: endure. And again, this word rings, true, no matter where you live In the time frame of these things to the end of the age, you must still ENDURE.

Dan Doriani says this: A wise preacher dealing with this passage may find particular value in focusing on this point. When Jesus gives instruction concerning future events, his purpose is not to satiate our curiosity or answer all or our speculative questions. Instead, his purpose is to protect and guide and instruct his people. Jesus gave relatively little attention to the question “When?” and much toward the question “How shall we live faithfully?” Preaching [and I would add studying and reading and hearing] on such texts today should be shaped by Jesus’ concern for the welfare and endurance of his church.

So when will these things happen and what will be the sign of the end of the age? Stand firm. Let no one lead you astray for no matter what you are enduring, these are the birth pains.

And endure.

Let's pray.