Sermon Tone Analysis

Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

And He said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.

And they will say to you, ‘Look, there!’ or ‘Look, here!’

Do not go out or follow them.

For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.

But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man.

They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulphur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back.

Remember Lot’s wife.

Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.

I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed.

One will be taken and the other left.

There will be two women grinding together.

One will be taken and the other left.”

And they said to him, “Where, Lord?”

He said to them, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”[1]

Jesus Christ is coming again.

When He ascended into the heavens on a cloud, angels appeared to the disciples with this message, “Why do you stand here looking up into the sky?

This same Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come back in the same way you saw him go into heaven”[2] [*Acts 1:11*].

This promise is but an iteration of the promise of the Lord recorded in *John 14:3*.

“I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

The divine promise has comforted believers throughout the millennia.

However, the anticipation of His return seems to grow less vibrant, less important as we move forward in this Dispensation of Grace.

Perhaps that is the reason the Master mused, “when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth” [*Luke 18:8*].

Christians are commanded to live in anticipation of the Lord’s return.

Throughout the Gospels, we are told that He is coming again to receive us to Himself.

Even in the act of observing the Lord’s Table, Jesus Himself taught us who are the professed people to live in anticipation of His return to receive us to Himself.

Until He returns, He commands us to be busy at the task of winning the lost to faith and building one another in this most holy Faith.

I cannot say with absolute certainty that we are in the Laodicean period of the Church Age, but professing Christians appear cavalier about obeying Christ’s command to evangelise.

Personal comfort is of far greater importance to Christians than is Christ’s glory.

Christendom has generally grown complacent about obedience to the Master; Christians are generally nonchalant concerning the command to win the lost.

When it requires more than 32 church members to bring one person to faith, we are in trouble.[3]

In fact, the figure is likely far worse than what is reported since it does not take into account the biological growth of churches as they baptise children of their own members.

Tragically, the situation is possibly worse for most other denominations.

The Bible teaches that the next great event on God’s divine timetable is the removal of His people from the earth in order to set the stage for judgement of the earth.

This event, known as the Rapture, will occur suddenly, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” [*1 Corinthians 15:52*].

Those left on the earth will enter into a period identified as the Great Tribulation, as God pours out awesome judgements on the earth.

At the conclusion of seven years of judgement, Christ Himself will return to the earth to judge those surviving those awful days and to usher in His Millennial reign.

On one occasion, Jesus was asked by the Pharisees to give His opinion concerning the Kingdom of God.

They especially wanted to know His view of the timing of Messiah’s reign.

Jesus answered acceptably, cautioning them to cease looking for the Kingdom out there when it needed first to be within.

The Pharisees, like many contemporary Christians, wanted to know the “sign” of Messiah’s coming.

Jesus cautioned them to care for themselves rather than be always looking for “signs.”

Then, having addressed the question asked by the Pharisees, He privately instructed His disciples, giving them detailed instruction that is reproduced in our text.

He spoke of the days when He would return to judge and to reign.

The time of which He spoke is at the conclusion of the Tribulation.

The immediate application of Jesus’ words is for Jews living during the days of Antichrist.

However, that does not mean that His teaching has no application for us today.

Indeed, we understand that our Lord can return for His church at any time.

Therefore, Christians are not to invest time looking for signs.

One observation of the period known as the Great Tribulation, when Christians will have been removed from the earth and those individuals who turn at last to faith in the Son of God will be relentlessly pursued and annihilated by the Antichrist and his minions, is that righteousness will be absent from the earth.

This became apparent as I led Bible studies in Revelation during the winter months just past.

I saw John’s Apocalypse in a new light that I had never noticed in my many previous studies.

In particular, I noted what is said concerning society during the Tribulation.

The one reading the account of the judgements unleashed on the earth as the sixth angel blows his trumpet, reads of demonically inspired war that brings death and destruction throughout the entire earth.

Then, in *Revelation 9:20, 21*, the reader discovers this arresting statement, “The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.”

Reading those words, I wondered at the language John used.

He spoke of “murders” (plural), of “sorceries” (plural, referring to people resorting to drugs to escape reality), and of “thefts” (plural).

In other words, John testifies that in those awful days of the Great Tribulation, life will be defined by the dictum that “might makes right” and “you owe yourself.”

Personal desire now reigns over the thoughts of mankind, and what is a general trend today will become an awful reality in that day.

It will be a day when godliness will be utterly absent from the thoughts of all mankind.

And yet, the ordinariness of daily routine will prevail for the most of mankind.

Jesus spoke of the mundane aspects of life at the time of His return, indicating that those then living would not be anticipating His return.

They would be trying to get ahead, to make a buck, and to enjoy life.

It was that mundane, pedestrian aspect of unsuspecting routine that would stun mankind when the Saviour at last returned.

Let’s review what He said, drawing appropriate applications for our own lives and for our own day.

*An Ordinary Life* — It is vital to remember that Jesus was not speaking of the days preceding the Rapture when He spoke the words recorded in our text.

Rather, His words point to conditions that will prevail immediately before His return to judge the wicked at the conclusion of the Great Tribulation.

Nevertheless, we must always bear in mind that “coming events cast their shadows before.”

In *Luke 17:20*, the word translated “observed” is used only here in the New Testament and means in classical Greek “to observe the future by signs.”

It carries the idea of spying, of lying in wait, and even of scientific investigation.

The point Jesus made was that God’s kingdom would not come with great “outward show” so that people could predict its arrival and plot its progress.

The Lord did not give away anything to the Pharisees questioning Him.

However, when He had opportunity to speak in privacy with His disciples, He seized the opportunity to instruct them in greater detail.

His words reach from the immediate to the distant, plainly telling those who listened to Him that He would indeed suffer.

This was the same message that He had delivered throughout His ministry.

The Passion of our Lord should not have surprised those who walked with Him.

In *Luke 13:33*, He intimated that He would die in Jerusalem.

Matthew, however, records the Lord as speaking quite plainly about His suffering.

In *Matthew 16:21*, the evangelist records, “from that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed.”

This message that He would be killed in Jerusalem is iterated in *Luke 9:22*.

Matthew also records Jesus as saying, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him” [*Matthew 17:22, 23*].

Therefore, the message that Master would suffer had become so common as to be easily overlooked.

What was new was the context in which He spoke.

He spoke of His return, but placed it in a future time when those disciples then listening would no longer be present.

Indeed, they would long to see “one of the days of the Son of Man,” but He added that they would “not see it.”

In other words, they would pass off the scene before He returned.

Then, to emphasise that He was speaking of a time far removed from that moment, He prefaced His statement with the words, “but first.”

He would suffer, just as He had often said, and that suffering would set in motion the events that would ultimately lead to His coming as the promised Messiah.

With verse 26, Jesus begins to reveal the tenor of life in the days preceding His return.

He spoke of an ordinary life in which people are preoccupied with eating and drinking, buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage.

The life He describes is routine; in fact, He compares it to life preceding the Flood that destroyed all life, except for Noah and His family, and the animals preserved in the ark.

He also compares life in that day to life in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

There, the people were “eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building”— a rather humdrum description.

For most people, the comfortable rhythms of everyday life went on undisturbed until the very moment in which Noah entered the ark and floodwaters overwhelmed life.

It will be the same in the period preceding the coming of the Son of Man.

Again, the residents of the “cities of the valley” continued living as they always had until the moment destruction rained down on them.

Comparing the events preceding the Flood with life before the return of the King suggests that people will not be thinking of His return.