EPISODE 237 GOSPEL OF MATTHEW CHAPTER 24 "The Question for our Generation"

Welcome to Share the Word. For all of us who are waiting for the second coming of Christ, this podcast is an important one. Pastor Paul Nitz focuses on what Jesus spoke about on the Mount of Olives. He speaks of the signs, the tribulation, God's future plans for Israel, and the kingdom's ultimate triumph. So, listen closely. Matthew chapter 24: The question for our generation.

At the end of Matthew chapter 23, after a stinging condemnation of Israel's religious leaders, Jesus suddenly turned the focus of his teaching with his disciples onto the future. He was done explaining himself and showing himself to that generation in Israel. He knew he was only a few days from the cross. There was no more time for that. In fact, he remarked as they left the temple for the last time that Tuesday afternoon, They won't see me here again until they say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.' And that was a reference to his future second coming, when Israel will see him again, but at that time in a full display of his power and glory, literally coming down from heaven.

On that future day, the generation which witnesses that will be so overcome, realizing that Jesus was their Messiah and that their forefathers had rejected him. In conjunction with that reference to his future return, he also pronounced judgment on that current generation by saying, Now your house is being left to you desolate. He didn't just mean the temple, but the house of Israel, the nation. They were heading for judgment and desolation. The word means emptiness. The land itself would largely empty of Jews.

There's more to the idea of desolation than that. There is also another reference to the fact, the New Testament teaches this elsewhere, that because of the rejection of their Messiah, Jesus, by the nation of Israel, God's attention would turn away from them and onto building something new, which we later find out is the church, a people of God brought together from all nations, people brought together by their common faith in Christ. True to what the Bible writers said, Israel essentially ceased to exist as a nation after 70 A.D., while the Church of Jesus Christ was by then growing by leaps and bounds. I want to be clear, however, about one thing, and this thing seems to be controversial right now for some reason. God has not abandoned His ancient people forever. The teaching of some that the Church has replaced Israel is, I believe, a mistake.

God made irrevocable covenants with Israel that will be kept. In the future, when Christ returns, those promises will be honored. The generation of Jewish people alive at the second coming will accept Jesus as their Messiah, and He will reign over the earth from Jerusalem for a thousand years, if the New Testament is to be taken literally, and it should be. But we're getting ahead of our passage here. Once again, the chapter division interrupts Jesus, who is now teaching His twelve disciples as we move from chapter 23 to 24. Not surprisingly, after His comments about the future, the desolation of Israel, and His own second coming, the disciples certainly wanted to know more about that.

As they left the city, heading back toward the village of Bethany where they were staying, they would have climbed up the ascent of the Mount of Olives on Jerusalem's east side. And there, apparently, they stopped to rest, and perhaps to survey the city as they sat overlooking it from that vantage point. And it was then that one of them, speaking for the rest, asked, So tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of this age? And that's what launched Jesus into what we call the Olivet Discourse, his most extensive prophetic revelation, his most detailed description of events that will happen just before his second coming. All three Synoptic Gospels record pieces of what Jesus said on that occasion. If you haven't heard our episodes on this already, they are Luke 17 and Mark 14, episode 39, and then episode 154 and 155.

I hope you check those out to get the whole story. Where we are now in Matthew, though, he does not focus on what Jesus taught that day about the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, the 70 A.D. judgment when the Romans came down. Beyond telling his disciples that it was coming, but he gives more details than the other Gospel writers about the second part of their question about signs marking the end of this age and his second coming. Realize the disciples, even after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, certainly did not expect there to be some long interval before he returned. The church age, as we call it now, was a mystery, to use Paul's word, something undisclosed by the Old Testament prophets and only vaguely hinted at by Jesus. And Matthew's Gospel, remember, is aimed primarily not at the church, but at the Jewish people.

And so Jesus' prophecies here were also. In this discourse, the church age is largely, if not entirely, skipped over in order to answer the disciples' questions about the end of this age and his second coming. I want to focus on three things Jesus told them that will be concrete signs that the second coming is close. And when I say second coming, I'm not talking about the rapture of the church, which I believe will happen, but which has to do with the church. I'm talking about his second coming back to the earth, literally back to the very spot they were sitting that afternoon, the Mount of Olives, just outside Jerusalem. That will be the dramatic event that will end this age.

Looking through what Matthew tells us Jesus told them that day, he explicitly mentions three signs. First, in verse 14, he said, And this gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in the whole world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. Gospel of the kingdom. This is the good news John the Baptist proclaimed, preparing the way for Jesus' first coming in Israel. It's the message Jesus himself preached according to Matthew chapter 4 and Mark chapter 1, and what he sent his disciples out to preach according to Matthew chapter 10, Luke chapters 8 and 9. What was the gospel of the kingdom?

That the Messiah had come, so repent and accept him. It's interesting to me that here in Jesus' prophetic discourse about the end of this age and his second coming, he says it's the gospel of the kingdom that will again be proclaimed to the whole world then, to all nations before this age ends and he returns. Is that a different gospel than what we preach today, or even from what the apostles preached after Jesus went back to heaven, the gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Christ? Well, yes and no. It's not really a different message so much as a different emphasis. Getting right with God has always been a matter of repentance and faith, but the emphasis of the gospel of the kingdom is specifically that the King is coming.

Get ready to accept Him. Nearing the end of this age, during what we call the Tribulation era, that will be the emphasis once again, just as it was with John the Baptist and Jesus long ago. The King is coming. Be ready to accept Him. Because, as I said a few moments ago, Jesus is really coming back as King, as Israel's Messiah, to fulfill God's promises to Israel and establish His literal kingdom as the Son of David was promised to do. The whole earth will hear this message and will be challenged to accept Him, Jesus said, before He returns.

The second statement from Jesus those alive then can regard as a concrete sign that His return is very close comes at verse 21, where He said, Then there will be great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, and never will. And unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short. Tribulation is something Jesus said we should always expect so long as we are in this fallen world. This is not that. When He said His second coming is very close and there will be great tribulation just before it, unlike anything the world has ever seen, the word tribulation, thlipsis, means intense trouble, affliction, pressure. The world has seen some periods of very serious trouble, very scary times, like, say, the world wars, for example.

But Jesus said the generation alive at the time of His second coming will experience tribulation at an unprecedented level beyond anything the world has ever seen before. In fact, God's chosen people, Israel, who I think He is referring to here when He uses the term the elect, would be completely destroyed if this coming tribulation was not cut short. That will be by the Messiah's sudden return to rescue his people. This coincides with what I've been saying. On the same point, the apostle Paul writes in Romans chapter 11, I don't want you to be ignorant, brethren, of this mystery. There's that word again.

So we're getting some new information here, that means. A partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, and then all Israel will be saved. Just as it is written, the Deliverer will come from Zion and remove the ungodliness from Jacob. This is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. Paul goes on, from the standpoint of the gospel, they, that means the Jews, are enemies for your sake. But from the standpoint of God's choice, that is, they're being God's chosen people, they are beloved for the sake of their fathers, that is, the patriarchs, Abraham, Moses, David, and so on.

Four, don't miss this part. The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. That passage teaches that after the rejection of Jesus as Messiah, God turned away his attention from the nation of Israel for a time to focus on building something new, the church. But after the full number of Gentiles has come into that new spiritual body, then all Israel will be saved. And that will happen when Jesus returns to deliver his chosen people. We learn from Revelation, he will save them from the Antichrist who is bent on destroying the Jewish people in the tribulation time.

But even more importantly, he will save them from their sins, it says, because when Jesus returns and they see the one that they pierced, Prophet Zechariah put it this way in his chapter 12, they will mourn like one mourns for the death of an only child. And God will then pour out on them a spirit of supplication and grace. They will realize Jesus is their Messiah, and they will repent for their rejection of Him, and then all Israel will be saved. Why? Why would God turn back to them? Because God always keeps His covenants, and the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.

We find out when we get to Revelation, which will be in the not too distant future, just what kinds of things are going to be going on in the Tribulation era that are unprecedented, and also see Satan's final attempt to annihilate the Jewish people then. But Jesus' point is, when you see the madness dialed up to never-before-seen levels, you can know that my return is close. And the third concrete sign that Jesus told them about, which will indicate the second coming is near, comes in verse 15 and following. And it's actually what triggers the Great Tribulation. Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, let the reader understand, then there will be a great tribulation such as not occurred since the beginning of the world. The parenthetical let the reader understand is urging close attention to this.

Jesus is referring to something written about three times in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, described as an abomination that causes desolation. Abomination is a word frequently used in the Old Testament for something God finds detestable. Actually, most often it's referring to idolatry. Daniel, in his vision, saw someone he called the prince who is to come, stopping temple sacrifices in the future in Jerusalem, placing in the temple then something abominable to God. Sounds like it could be both a person and a thing. In Revelation chapter 13, it clearly is described as an image of the beast, the name used in that writing for the person we call Antichrist.

And Paul, in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, calls that person the man of sin and says there he will set himself up in God's temple, exalt himself as God, and demand worship. Well, that will be an abomination, all right. So this abomination of desolation event Jesus mentions will amount to the Antichrist, that future political world leader during the tribulation era, a man who is empowered by Satan, setting up in a future temple in Jerusalem some sort of image or idol of himself. And get this, Revelation 13 also says the image will be able to speak and have breath in itself, that is, appear to be alive. Seeing this will be an unmistakable sign for those living then that the return of Jesus is close. It will trigger the Antichrist's turn against the Jews and will unleash the worst of God's judgments described in Revelation.

I don't think I'm alone in noticing this. There seems to be a general unease among many, many people today, a gut feeling that we are racing toward the end of the world, as they'd put it, or if Christians perhaps they'd say the end of this age and the return of Jesus. Surveys on this topic indicate that this is a growing sense among an awful lot of people. The last one I saw said 40% of Americans responded yes to the question about whether Jesus would return in their lifetime. Why is that? Well, I think it's for a combination of many reasons, which all seem to be converging.

Talk of how close we are to the singularity, the point at which artificial intelligence overtakes us and we lose control of it. The imposition of digital currency, which is starting in places around the world already. The rise of a new and violent anti-Semitism. The constant threats from climate change scientists telling us how the world is going to go extinct. The warnings of new unmanageable global epidemics we hear about from health experts. Threats that one of the many regional wars gets out of control, triggering another world war.

Nuclear and hypersonic weapons, weapons of mass destruction, now in the hands of unpredictable regimes. A collapse of many people's trust in government and politics altogether, and on and on. Many, many people feel like things are no longer not only not in their control, but not in anyone's control, that we are speeding inevitably towards some kind of global catastrophe which will mark the end of the world. If you feel that way, take a deep breath. God is in control. Jesus and other prophets in His Word tell us what's going to happen at the end of this age, and it won't be a global implosion.

Beginning at verse 29, Jesus told His disciples, Immediately after the anguish of those days, that is the Great Tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the moon will give no light. The stars will fall from the sky and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then, at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens. And there will be deep mourning among all the people of the earth, 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 mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from all over the world. Then the seemingly inescapable troubles of that final several years will give birth to a new age at the return of Jesus, like labor pains worsen and quicken until a new life finally emerges.

That's the New Testament's analogy. Just after this prophetic discourse, this is at verse 32 and following, Jesus told his disciples, Now learn this parable from the fig tree. When its branch has already become tender and put forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So when you see all these things, referring back to the stuff he's described, recognize that he is near, right at the door. He means the returning Christ himself. The tribulation era, which in total lasts seven years according to biblical prophets, the Great Tribulation being the second half of that period, is the time at which God returns his focus back to the Jewish nation.

They will be back in their land at that point, as many are by now, by the way, and they will be worshiping in a new temple in Jerusalem, which they are not yet, by the way. But if my understanding of prophecy is correct, the scary things Jesus described in this Olivet discourse will not be things believers from the church age will experience. I've already explained in some detail, especially in episode 87, why I believe the generation of Christians alive in the last days will be raptured before the tribulation dawns, as promised, I think, in 1 Thessalonians 4. We're not destined to experience God's wrath, Paul wrote, but salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

But I think it's still accurate to say that the last generation of Christians on this planet will be like people who come to a theater production a couple hours early, who sit in the gallery and watch the stage being prepared, the lighting tested, the performers warming up their voices or rehearsing their lines, the set furniture being carried in place and the backdrops being rolled into position. It's not time for the show just yet, but there are things that have to happen in preparation for that show to begin. If you see all the preparations underway, you know the show will soon follow. So, although I don't expect believers to go into the tribulation era and experience the things Jesus described, those things will definitely require some setup. The question for our generation is, are we seeing the necessary setup?

For example, remember when he said the gospel of the kingdom would be proclaimed to all nations before the end came. Could that be our time? He said unprecedented trouble of all kinds will overtake the world during that era. Is that something that could happen in our time? And he described the very specific sign he called the abomination of desolation that would trigger the final three and a half years of great tribulation before he returned to rescue the Jewish people and set up his kingdom. How close could we be to that?

What kinds of setup are needed for those things to be able to occur? Guess what? I'm not going to tell you how I'd answer that question just yet. But stay with Share the Word because we will have 20 or so episodes on Revelation coming soon, and we will get into these questions deeply then. If you read or watch the news every day, and the things in our world seem to be getting more dangerous and more volatile and more unsettling and more out of control, it's natural to feel anxiety. But remember, Jesus told us the end of the story.

God is in control. For His people, there will be a happy ending. So stay spiritually alert, was Jesus' challenge at the end of this chapter, and keep your faith in Him. Thanks for listening. This has been Paul for Share the Word. Thanks again, Paul, for an important and impactful lesson delivered.

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