Matthew 24:1-14
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As we begin this morning, we come to a difficult portion of Scripture.
Matthew 24-25, and these two chapters are known as the Olivet Discourse.
The is known as the last of Jesus’s sermons. Remember, we are in passion week, and so, Jesus is nearing the cross.
And so, Jesus delivers one last sermon on the Mount of Olives.
And in this sermon, Jesus is addressing the disciples’ specific questions about some of the comments he has recently made.
And Jesus is going to prophecy. He is going to speak about events that will take place in the future.
Specifically, he is going to prophecy about, the destruction of the Jewish temple, and He is going to talk about the second coming and the end of all things.
Now, you should know, from the beginning here that this chapter is one of the more debated texts in the New Testament.
I have many pastor friends, seminary professors, men that I respect that are all genuine believers in Christ.
They love the Lord and their churches.
But among those men, there are many views represented.
And there may be significant disagreement about what this and other texts mean with regard to our understanding of the end times.
When it comes to eschatology,(the study of the end times), I think this is probably the area where I’ve seen more disagreement among faithful brothers than really any other area of theology.
In fact, there may be even different views represented among us here this morning.
I think that’s largely to do with the fact that Jesus hasn’t returned yet, and so because it is a future thing, we don’t have the clarity of how these things will happen.
I think another reason is that the passages related to these events are prophetic and there are often images that we have to interpret and they are often difficult to understand.
Go and read the book of Revelation. You will understand what I’m saying there.
And so, because these text are difficult to interpret and people interpret them differently, there is going to be some disagreement.
Now, let’s make something clear…there are some things that are non-negotiable.
There are some things that we must agree on in order to be inside the bounds of true Christian orthodoxy.
For example—
All true believers in Christ believe that Jesus is coming back one day. That is a non- negotiable.
Every faithful Christian believes Jesus is going to win in the end.
Every faithful Christian believes that Jesus is coming back to gather his bride, to punish the evil doers, to create a new heavens and a new earth, and that one day all things will be made right by our glorious king.
No faithful believer would disagree with any of that.
However, the debate rages when it comes to the timing of these things.
The debate rages whenever we talk about when the church will be here or when it won’t be here.
The debates rage when we talk about the identity of the antichrist.
The debate rages when we are talking about whether you hold to a pretribulation, mid tribulation or post tribulational rapture view?
Are you historic premillennial, dispensational premillennial, post millennial, or Amillennial?
Idealist? Preterist, partial-preterist, or futurist?
All of these are arguments and debates that theologians and pastors have about the end times.
But the reality is we won’t know for sure when or how it will work out until Christ returns and He works it out.
Now, I have my view of things, but I think our statement of faith, the Baptist faith and message rightly handles this particular point.
When we look at that document, it says this about this Last Days—
God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end. According to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth; the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge all men in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell, the place of everlasting punishment. The righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive their reward and will dwell forever in Heaven with the Lord.
That is our church’s statement of belief on the end times.
That is a very broad statement.
And it encapsulates all of the major orthodox Christian beliefs that have been represented throughout church history.
And so, there is some disagreement, but I’m not going to get into the disagreements this morning. We will go a little deeper into that tonight.
I do want to make a comment about prophecy in Scripture in general.
All prophecy in Scripture is practical.
What I mean by that is that it means something for us here and now.
I do not believe that the book of Revelation or Matthew 24 and 25 and other portions of prophecy are written simply to satisfy our curiosity about how the world is going to end.
I believe every prophecy is written so that we will learn how to live in this world that still exist.
I do not believe that prophetic passages were written to drive us to the newspaper or to the television to see what’s going on over in the Middle East so that we can draw lines and make claims to know when Jesus is coming back.
Remember, Jesus told the disciples in Acts 1:7
7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.
Later in this very chapter Jesus says—
36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
And so Jesus tells us— no one knows, and he even says— its not for us to know.
And so then the question becomes— Why then, do we have these passages?
If they aren’t written for us to try and guess the date of Christ’s return, what are they for?
I think there are three primary reasons for these passages.
For watchfulness.
For readiness
For obedience
And we will come back to that.
First, Look beginning in verse 1-2
1 Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 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.”
Hopefully, you remember, the last time we were in Matthew, Jesus was delivering the woes of judgment upon the scribes and the Pharisees.
Prior to that— Jesus had gone into the temple and cleansed the temple of the money changers, and those selling sacrifices.
And so, Jesus has been dealing with the temple and the temple leader for a few chapters now.
If you go back a few verses, to verse 38 of chapter 23 listen to what Jesus says
38 See, your house is left to you desolate.
Jesus talking about the temple, says it will be desolate.
Desolate means in a state of emptiness. Abandoned. No one there.
This is a statement of judgment.
And so, we come to chapter 24, and the disciples are curious.
They have heard Jesus say the temple will be desolate.
And so as they leave the temple, they point out toJesus the temple building.
Look how great it is.
Now… Why would they do this?
Jesus has seen the temple.
A large part of his ministry is spent in and around the temple.
But the disciples want Jesus to notice how beautiful this building is.
If you read Mark’s account, Mark tells us a little more.
1 And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!”
Again, why do they do this?
Why do they want Jesus to appreciate the temple so much?
And to me It’s obvious that they just want Jesus to give them more information about what he meant when he said that the temple was going to be left desolate.
Now to be sure this temple building and the area around it was big and beautiful and impressive.
It had limestone walls and gold accents everywhere along the top of the building.
It’s been said that it was the architectural wonder in the region during that time.
The Jews were proud of this temple.
It was their house.
And so for Jesus to say that the temple is going to be desolate, they want to know what he means.
But rather than just asking him what he meant by what he said, they point out how beautiful the building is.
It’s like whenever you’re a kid and you’re trying to get your parents to buy something for you and you pass by that beautiful bike in Walmart and you say, boy that sure is a nice bike. I sure would love to have a bike like one of those.
You’re bringing it up without bringing it up
And so Jesus is going to respond… but he doesn’t say anything about the beauty of the building.
Listen to what he does say
2 ..“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 responds to their comments about how wonderful these buildings are by telling them that there’s coming a day where nothing will be left of this place.
There will not be one stone left upon another.
In other words, there’s coming a day when this place you all are so enthralled with will be flattened and decimated.
Now, This was a big deal for him to say this.
The Jews believed that the temple was permanent.
They believed it would stand as long as Jerusalem stood.
Most of them believe that the temple was invincible.
Furthermore, this was the place they met with God.
It was the place that they maintained was the only place you met with God.
SDFS
And so now, we start to understand…. For Jesus to say that the temple was going to be destroyed, that seemed to them to be synonymous with the end of the world itself.
And we know this is how they understood it, because listen to their question in verse 3.
3 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 so, they ask two questions—
When will these things be? (That is the destruction of the temple)
And what will be the sign of your coming and the of the end of the age?
For the disciples all of this is connected.
SDFS
And so, the rest of Matthew 24 and in Matthew 25, Jesus is answering their questions, but in this, he is going to correct them by disconnecting the destruction of the temple with the end of the world.
In other words, as we read Matthew 24-25, Jesus is going to talk about the destruction of the temple which will happen very soon historically speaking and every body will know it, but he is also going to speak of his second coming which is further away, and it will come unexpected but when it happens, everybody is going to know.
And so, this is really important here. Jesus is answering two questions—
When will the temple be destroyed?
What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?
….
Now, Jesus’s prophecy of the temple being destroyed is going to be fulfilled in the very near future.
Let me just tell you a little of the history here.
In 66 AD which by the way is just over 30 years after Jesus said these words.
The Jews began a rebellion against Rome.
And they actually did well at first.
They won a few battles and pushed the Romans back.
And they believed that their initial success was a sign from God that it was their time to be liberated.
And so, This started the Jewish Wars.
But, long story short, The Roman army ended up being way too big and eventually overpowered them.
We know all of this because during this time, The was a man named Josephus who was a commander in the Jewish army and during all this he was captured by Rome.
But Josephus was able to record the events that happened when the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem.
And if you go a read, It was a devastating siege.
The Romans just obliterated the Jewish army and the Jews in general.
A very cruel and crushing defeat. They had to run for their lives.
One of the things Josephus says in his writing is this— paraphrase—
“When the Romans could find no more Jews to kill, they started dismantling the temple stone by Stone.”
So… hear that.. not even 40 years after Jesus says not one stone will be left, his prophecy comes to pass. The temple is taken down stone by stone.
And so, Jesus in Matthew 24, is prophesying about that event, that happened in AD 70, but he is also going to be answering their question about the second coming and the end of all things as well.
And so the hard part when interpreting this text is knowing which event he is referencing as he explains.
But again, these prophecies are written for a practical reason
Look at verses 4-5
4 And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. 5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.
Jesus’s first order of business is to make sure the disciples are not deceived.
His first order of business is that they would understand that after he ascends to the father, there will be many people who come claiming to be the Christ.
Jesus says to the disciples don’t be led astray.
Now why would he say that?
He says that because we have a tendency to be led astray.
One thing that we have to deal with regularly is not only the internal sin and flesh that you and I deal with on a daily basis, we also deal with people who seek to try and deceive us.
Here specifically he says that people will come claiming to be him.
Jesus says many people will fall prey to that.
Jesus even says here that they will come in his name.
But just because someone comes in the name of Jesus does not mean they are Jesus.
There is a larger point here— Just because something bears the name of being Christian does not necessarily mean that it is faithful to the Bible.
I don’t know of many more frustrating things for me than to walk through a Barnes & Noble or a Books-A-Million and walk through the “Christian” section.
There are so many books that pose as Christian that go against the Bible.
The sad part is, it’s those books that seemed to sell the best.
Especially books that focus on the end times.
It’s been said— If you want to become a best selling Christian author, just write a book claiming you know when Jesus is coming back.
But here’s the thing— if we just took two seconds to go and read what Jesus says, we would know that people claiming to know when he’s coming back are lying.
Much of what claims to be true and biblical is not.
Jesus warns us here not to be led astray.
The overarching principle here is that Jesus desires his church and his people to be firmly grounded in that which is true.
It’s really important for the believer to be discerning. To be watchful.
Especially in the historical moment that you and I live in, where there is more content being produced than ever before, it is really easy to be sucked into something that will lead us astray.
So just because a Movie, or TV show, or a book, or music has the name Christian on it does not necessarily mean that it is in line with what the Bible teaches.
We must be careful.
Jesus tells his own disciples that he spent time with discipling not to be led astray.
Stand firm in the truth.
They have to be watchful over themselves.
But he continues on.
6 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. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.
So Jesus says that there are going to be wars and rumors of wars.
He says nation will rise against nation
He says kingdom will rise against kingdom
There will be famine and earthquakes in various places.
But there’s also a consistent exhortation in verses 6-8.
See that you are not alarmed when these things happen
He says the end is not yet.
He also says this is the beginning of the birth pains.
And so here, Jesus just talks about things that have been present ever since the fall of man.
Wars have been going on since the fall up till now.
Earthquakes and famines are apart of every day life.
Jesus says here… Don’t be alarmed.
These things are just the beginning.
These things are common things.
And so Jesus literally tells them, not to let world events like wars, and natural disasters, alarm you.
Don’t focus on that.
What’s interesting is that I remember as a child attending prophecy conferences where books were being sold and preachers were preaching, and the main content of their sermon was focused on world events like wars specifically in the Middle East, and the main point of it all was that the end was near because all of these different things are taking place.
But that seems to go pretty firmly against what Jesus is saying that we are supposed to be doing.
Jesus says all those things are going to happen.
Again, Jesus’s whole point in telling them all of this is not so that they will pull out their prophecy charts and their newspapers and begin to try to chart when things are going to happen
The overall point that Jesus seems to be making is not to be that way..
Jesus tells us that we should probably should expect some of these things to happen but the end has not yet come.
These are things that are apart of our world.
Don’t be alarmed at that.
Be watchful. Yes. Be ready at any point for his return. Yes. Be obedient. Yes.
But don’t be alarmed and focused on that stuff.
And then Jesus takes a step further to talk about personal difficulty that they are going to experience.
Look beginning verse 9
9 “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. 10 And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. 11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
Jesus here says that the disciples are going to be delivered up to tribulation.
That they’re going to be put to death for his namesake.
By the way, that happened.
The disciples went through tribulation.
They were put to death.
Just as Jesus said.
Jesus says many will fall away and betray one another.
He says many false prophets will come and lead many astray.
Church, these are things that happen regularly.
Ever since Jesus has ascended into heaven, it is just true that persecution and tribulation are written on almost every page of church history.
The church going through pain and suffering and persecution and tribulation is not an uncommon thing.
Now, for some, its too much.
in verse 12—
12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
Why does he tell his disciples that?
He tells them that to encourage their love of Christ, despite these things going on.
He is telling them so that they will be aware that this stuff is going to happen.
There’s going to be persecution.
There is going to be tribulation.
There’s going to be wars and rumors of wars.
There’s going to be earthquakes and famine
Our present situation in this life should not discouraged our love of God and our perseverance in Christ.
These things that are going to happen, we can’t allow to affect our love.
JC Ryle helps us with our expectations—
“We are not to expect a reign of universal peace, happiness, and prosperity, before the end comes…Our Lord bids us look for “wars, famines, pestilence,” and persecution. It is vain to expect peace until the Prince of Peace returns. .. We are not to expect a time of universal purity of doctrine and practice in the Church of Christ, before the end comes…. Our Lord bids us look for the rising of “false prophets,” the “abounding of iniquity,” and the “waxing cold of the love of many.” The truth will never be received by all professing Christians, and holiness be the rule among men, until the great Head of the Church returns.”
We ought not expect everything will be peachy at this point.
This is why verse 13 is here.
13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
This is a consistent exhortation in scripture that we endure.
If you go and read Revelation, this refrain is repeated over and over and over again.
The one who conquers. The one who endures.
Jesus is prophesying these things so that his disciples will be able to endure to the end.
He’s telling them “hey this is going to happen, be ready for it. Don’t be alarmed by it. Don’t be led astray by any of these false prophets that are coming.”
Endure.
Firm to the end.
I think too much of our end times theology teaches the exact opposite of what Jesus is teaching here.
Some of us have been taught not to worry about any of this stuff because we’re going to be gone.
You know, I’m not sure when Jesus is coming back to get his church, but I am sure of this.
That we must listen to Jesus here and we need to expect to endure suffering and persecution and difficulty, and tribulation.
Jesus literally tells his disciples you will be hated. You will go through tribulation. You will have to endure.
And the one who who endures to the end will be saved.
I told you to begin with that these prophecy passages are all extremely practical.
They are written for us to be watchful, ready, and obedient.
So as we apply this—
We are to watch over our lives.
We are to watch over what is taught in our churches.
We are to watch ourselves to make sure that we are not being led astray into any false doctrine or false prophecies.
These prophetic passages also encourage us to be ready
We are to be ready for Christ return.
We are to be ready for endurance.
We’re not to be taken by surprise when things in this world do go wrong.
It shouldn’t surprise us when many people do go astray.
Jesus is telling us this so that we are not surprised when that stuff happens.
We are to be ready to go through that.
Church, I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news this morning but I do want tell you what Jesus said.
He said, be ready for it.
Finally, He’s given us these passages so that we will be obedient.
Jesus has given us a mission.
He told us to take his gospel to a lost and dying world.
And there are people every day for walking by us and one day they’re going to meet God.
And we have the gospel of Grace that can change their life.
There is an expectation of obedience.
Listen to what Jesus says in verse 14 and this is where we’re going to end with this morning.
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.
I believe Jesus gives us this passage to give us what we are to be about.
Jesus is not telling us these prophecies so that we can jump out of bed every morning and run grab the newspaper to see what’s going on.
He has not given us these passages so that we can pinpoint the time and place of his return.
He has given us these passages so that we will know that there is coming a day when he will return, but until then, we have been given a mission to take the gospel to the nations.
1. Stay Watchful, Be Ready,
2. Guard Your Love
Are you growing colder toward Christ or toward others? Evaluate your heart regularly.
Passion for Christ doesn’t just stay strong on its own—it must be intentionally nurtured through Word and worship.
3. Obey the Mission
The focus of Jesus’ teaching isn’t speculation about dates—it’s the urgency of spreading the gospel.
Everybody here who claims the name of Christ Has a Role in this.
God hasn’t called us to wait passively for His return, but he has called us to live purposefully until He does.
Prophecy is not for prediction—it’s for preparation. Jesus gave us these words not to satisfy curiosity but to shape our character: to keep us watchful, ready, loving, obedient, and enduring.
Now, let me speak briefly to the unbeliever..
Friend, if you don’t know Christ, let me tell you: the warnings in this passage…are meant to wake you up. There is a Judge coming, but there is also a Savior who has already come. (Gospel)
Are you ready?
