Law & Grace - Matthew 24:32-51 Tribulation & 2nd Coming - Part II
Matthew 24 · Vern Peterman · Apr 29, 2012
Law & Grace, No. 63
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926312591797

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

As we step into the passage here, just to kind of bring you up to speed here, last Sunday we began a two-part series on Tribulation and Second Coming going through Matthew chapter 24. We'll continue that here this morning. with tribulation and second coming part two and then looking at the next two Sundays looking into kingdom judging and it's very important that people understand that this judging is kingdom judging and not for you and me but we will get to that To review briefly here, last Sunday we covered Matthew 24, 1 through 31, and we saw there that Jesus was telling his disciples about the coming destruction of the temple, which I'm sure was a shock to them.

It was carried out by the Romans in 70 AD. What happened there, Jesus had talked to the disciples in response to their pointing out, boy, look at these impressive temple buildings. You see all these things? Truly, I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another which will not be torn down. And in fact, that is exactly what happened.

Here is an artistic model of the temple area. The larger temple area was about the size of six football or soccer fields. And then you see in the middle of it is the area where only Jews were allowed to go. As a matter of fact, the back and larger portion of that only qualified Jewish males and specifically the priests were allowed to go into.

That entire structure that you see in the middle was completely demolished by the Romans. This is an artist's depiction of that Roman attack on Jerusalem in 70 AD. Over a million Jews lost their lives in this horrific, destructive event. This is what is commonly called the Wailing Wall. The Jews actually don't prefer that term, but rather the Western Wall.

And if you look to the right of that, just to the right of that, this shows the area where the Roman destruction is still in evidence. Archaeologists have gone through the rubble and taken a lot of it out of the way, but left some of it, which is what you see here. at the bottom of the picture in order for people to see what took place. That's where the rubbish from dumping all the stones of the temple remain. Here's another shot of those same large stones from the temple dumped off the edge there. Some of them, by the way, have some inscriptions on them. One of them that's been found is one that warns the Gentiles, don't go past this point. Another one, interestingly enough, says in Hebrew, this is the trumpeter's place.

Then the question that sets up the entire chapter is the one that comes from the disciples when they get out to the Mount of Olives, which is just out away from the temple, a little over half a mile. He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately asking, when will these things happen? What will be the sign of your coming? So here's Jesus coming again and of the end of the age. Jesus also told the disciples, and we saw that last week and we'll continue on with it, on the Mount of Olives about the events and judgments that are at the beginning.

First he told about the beginning and those at the end of the seven-year tribulation period which is yet to come. We made the point last week that the seven-year tribulation period is one in which the Orthodox Jews, back then and now, still believe in a seven-year tribulation period at the end of which the Messiah will come. Here is the diagram. I've changed it around a little bit since last week with the hopes that it will show a little bit more.

One of the points we have here is all the time from Adam's sin in the Garden of Eden until the time of the Messiah's coming is looked upon and called in the New Testament, it was called by the Jews the present evil age or sometimes in short this age or the present age. When the Messiah comes and reigns that is the age to come or the one to come is sometimes the way it's called. Nonetheless, you have the sequence, the first coming of Christ, shortly thereafter, the events of Acts chapter 2, starting the church, then you have the church age, the rapture, that is the taking up of the church, a seven-year tribulation period, and then the second coming. The rapture is Christ coming for us. The second coming is Christ coming with us.

See the difference there? We'll talk about that more in detail here. Let's look at the tribulation period. That's one you also have as a slide on your handout here. And what you see is the first half being three and a half years, the second half being three and a half years, for a total of seven years. The book of Daniel that Jesus refers to in Matthew 24, describes the break of a treaty in the middle of that time frame, and then the satanic military attack upon Israel that culminates in the, it's often called the Battle of Armageddon, but as we pointed out last week, probably better termed the Campaign of Armageddon, multiple attacks. We point out last week, and this is in last week's handout, not in today's, that the events that Jesus describes in Matthew 24, 4-14, are parallel to those in the other Gospels of Mark and Luke, as well as Revelation chapter 6. One of the points that Jesus also makes at In the passage we covered last week, when Christ returns, it will be visible.

There will be no, I don't know, He's over here! He's over there! You'll find Him here. Hey, look over in this place. No, none of that. Every eye that can see will see Him. In Revelation 1.7, and so this is entirely consistent with Matthew 24, Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him. It will not be a matter of, go look over here, you'll find him there. Not at all. Anyone who points to some location where you can find him is either deceived or a liar or some combination.

When Jesus says you in this passage, we make the point he's addressing the disciples as representatives of the people of Israel in the land of Israel. He talks in those terms. So he's speaking in kind of an editorial fashion, not specifically saying this is going to happen to the disciples. Jesus talks about a future temple in Israel.

There obviously isn't one now. The Romans took that apart. There have been two temples previously, the one that Solomon built, and the one that was built after the Jews returned from Babylon, and that was upgraded under Herod the Great, the not-so-great.

There is nothing in the passage that is addressed to or refers to the Church. The Church, the body of Christ, is not addressed or mentioned in this passage. The church will be raptured before the tribulation period. And that's why the church is not involved. Now, the gospel of the kingdom will be a distinction.

Remember, Jesus had the disciples go out two by two in pairs. He told them to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. That's Matthew chapter 10. Chapter 15, he himself says, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But the distinction here is in Matthew 24, during the tribulation period, the gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world during that time.

And the agents that we have identified are 144,000, and I'll add to that, 144,000 Jewish males, virgins, 12,000 from each tribe. That's what the book of Revelation says. Two witnesses who are centered in Jerusalem and a gospel angel, if you can imagine that, a gospel angel going, basically the terminology is in the atmosphere going around telling the gospel during the tribulation period.

Won't that be phenomenal? I guess it'll be, I won't see it. At any rate, As you look at this, why do you have 144,000 virgin Jewish males? Why do you have two witnesses centered in Jerusalem? And why do you have a gospel angel? The church will be raptured before the tribulation. We'll be gone. That's why you need somebody else, okay?

The 144,000 show up early in the tribulation period. The two witnesses have their ministry, if you will, during the first half of the tribulation period. They are brought in early. They are needed early to get the gospel across to those who will listen.

Jesus says in verse 31, which caps the passage we took that last week, he talks about gathering together the elect with trumpets. And people need to understand, and we get some folks with a Calvinist mindset, oh elect, that's me! No, it's not you. The gathering together the elect with trumpets is about Israel. Gathering together is a passage in Jeremiah and Isaiah, you have those referenced there, actually a couple passages in Isaiah. The term elect, we have references in 1 Chronicles, Psalms, and Isaiah, several different places. In both cases, gather together and elect, it's Jews. who are being gathered.

But one more thing, gathering Israel together is something that comes straight out of the Law of Moses, gathering them together with the trumpet. Straight out of the Law of Moses, Numbers 10, 1-10. Goes like this, and this is a partial quote of that passage.

Verse 2, Make yourself two trumpets of silver of hammered work you shall make them, and you shall use them for summoning the congregation, and for having the camp set out. When both are blown, all the congregations shall gather themselves to you at the doorway of the tent of meeting. And verse 9 is critical to what we're studying today. Verse 9, when you go to war in your land against the adversary who attacks you, and that is what Satan's forces will do, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets that you may be remembered before the Lord your God and saved from your enemies.

And you know what's going to happen to Israel at the end of the tribulation period? They're going to be saved by God from their enemies. And Israel now is largely secular and even atheistic, if not agnostic at least. That's Israel now. But you know what's going to happen? They're going to be so pressed. They're going to see there is no way that we can be saved, and they will be saved. And finally, they will say, only God could do this. Only God could do this. The church will be raptured before the tribulation. We won't be there. We won't be the center of the attack. The reason that Satan attacks Israel is because we won't be there to take on.

Now, from verse 32 to the end of the chapter, we could say it in summary, Jesus' message is this, be informed, be aware and alert, and be ready, be prepared. That's Jesus' message to the rest of the chapter. To the uninformed, to the unaware, and the unprepared, this time of global tribulation will be just the worst nightmare possible.

Something you wish you could cover your eyes, but you can't. It's there. You can't just cover your eyes and stop it from happening. It'll be ghastly. Even those in Israel who are informed, as Jesus is seeking to make them, aware and ready, the situation will be threatening in the extreme. And I mean threatening because Jesus, as we saw last week, said don't Hesitate a minute. If you're up at the top of the house, don't go inside to get anything. Run. If you're out in the field, don't go back to the house to get your cloak. Run. It will be threatening in the extreme. Some will endure to the end of that tribulation period, and then all Israel will be saved out of Romans. Those who endure to the end will be rescued It's verse 13 in Matthew 24.

Jesus has in the verses 32 and 33, he uses a fig tree illustration. Of course, all the disciples knew this is the way things work with fig trees. When the fig tree begins to leaf out, summer's near. It's an indication summer's coming. So Jesus used this fig tree signal, if you will, for summer as signs before Christ's return. In other words, if you see the fig tree leafing out, summer is right around the corner.

When you see these signs, I'm coming. Because what did they ask him? What will be the sign of your coming? And of the end of the age? And he says, I'm telling you, this is it. When you see the things I've described to you, up to this point, my coming is right around the corner. It's right there. It's near. When the events that Jesus had outlined in verses 4 through 28 take place, the informed and aware and alert Israelite will know that Christ's coming is very near and then can be prepared.

Now, this generation term, we've got to look real closely at that, okay? So look real closely at this generation term because there's people who have gone all sorts of different directions with that and we want to understand what's the truth, right? Okay, first interpretation is Jesus mistakenly thought these things would happen in his generation. Give me a break. Next one.

Jesus meant that his generation would see these things. That view is known as Preterism, the idea that When the Romans came in and destroyed Jerusalem, that was Jesus coming again. That's all you get. You want Jesus to come again? It already happened. That's preterism. That's nonsense. We're going to the next one.

Jesus, number three, Jesus meant that this generation referred to the continuity of the Jewish people. Now that is true, but I don't believe that's the case. The reality is the continuity of the Jewish people is already assured by the covenant with Abraham that was repeated to Isaac and was repeated to Jacob. Oh, by the way, what's interesting is some, you know, millions of Jews, some A few percent, I've heard around five, a percent of the world population is Jewish. Do you know that that 70 AD destruction of Jerusalem was the end of all the descendants of Esau? Here they were brothers. And one is continued, and even though a minority is very identifiable, the other is gone almost 2,000 years ago. So, continuity of the Jewish people, yeah, that's true, but we don't need this to tell us that.

Here is Mary told by the angel Gabriel that Jesus will reign over the Israelites and over the house of the Lord forever, over his kingdom forever. Will there be continuity? Of course. Yes, there will. But number four, some say that Jesus meant that all these things would start in his generation and then continue on. No, they don't continue on.

We know they all happened within a seven-year period of time. The fifth, I believe, is the intended meaning. Jesus meant that this generation referred to the generation of the time of the tribulation period. These events would all fall within that seven-year period of time, not spread out over years and years of history. Not spread out over some long period of time. All this would happen within that seven-year period of time and not otherwise.

Now, in verse 35, Jesus talks about, you know, my words will last forever. Psalm 119.89 says, Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven. Isaiah 40, verse 8, The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.

So Jesus is making a statement like God already has written in the Old Testament. What is He saying? He's saying that His words regarding what's going to happen are eternally true. He's saying that these things will most certainly come to pass. This isn't Jesus' best guess. This is not Jesus saying, I kind of think this is going to happen. No, this is most certainly going to happen and you can count on it.

He is also claiming deity. Because when he says, my words will continue on, he makes his words equivalent to the words that are claimed there in the Old Testament. And finally, he will preserve his words for future generations. His word will not be cut off. Now, this is a biggie. Verse 36. It's a day and an hour that no one knows.

He not only makes that statement here, Acts 1, 6, and 7, so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, Lord, is it at this time you're restoring the kingdom to Israel? They're asking a timing question. Okay, look, we've been waiting around and this kind of crucifixion and burial and resurrection stuff, that was all kind of exciting, but now are you going to establish a kingdom? So that's their question, and it's sort of natural since they don't understand very well.

He said to them, it's not for you to know the times or epochs which the Father has fixed by his own authority. Isn't that in complete agreement with what he says here in verse 36 in Matthew 24? Yes, it is. Jesus' message is consistent. However, those who say they know the timing are not consistent with Jesus' message.

In 632 AD, Muhammad died. They had begun and continued a Muslim invasion into Asia, went all the way to the Philippines. A Muslim invasion into North Africa that went into Europe. A hundred years to the year after Muhammad died, they were fighting back the Muslims in Tours, France, just outside of Paris. Charles Martel, Charles the Hammer, said, Muslim Europe, bad. Christian Europe, good.

Right? And he fought them and turned around the Muslim invasion in 732 A.D. The thing is that people thought that, well, this is really, really bad, so it must be the end. Right? And guess what? After that, they pushed back the Muslim invasion, and then the Vikings came. And they thought, this is really, really, really bad. It must be the end. That's not all. Then people, you remember Y2K? Y1K, a whole bunch of people put on white robes and sold everything and got on top of mountains and everything, and they said it's time for the Lord's return. No. All sorts of things happened. There was the Black Death. Some people said, well, that's it. It's really bad. We lost some 25 million people.

It must be time for the Lord's return. No. Y2K came. Okay, people said, oh, this must be the time for the Lord's return. No. Then now this year, we've got this, you know, Mayan calendar and it somehow stops and, you know, this year, so this must be the end because the calendar stops. No. Then as you're all likely aware, there's a fellow last year, okay, Harold Camping that said May 21st, Last year, 2011, that'll be the day of the rapture and the Lord's coming back and He's going to wrap everything up. And that came and went. He said, it's October 21st. That's the right date. No, I'm sorry, I messed up. Now, you're in for a good one this time. This Harold camping guy came up with I mean, it's complicated.

Yeah, I know how he arrived at this stuff It's really it looks like a wiring diagram for the space shuttle or something, you know now There's this other guy comes along okay is Ronald wine something or other anyway He's saying May 27th. So you got less than a month.

I is the date not know this is not when christ will rapture the church that's when christ will return and and he says that you've lived through all but the last month of the tribulation that's what he says congratulations they you've lived through the all but the last month of the tribulation i hope you've enjoyed it uh... that's what he says or by the way he says is one of the two witnesses so anyway i i don't know what to do with these guys they don't get it Jesus said, of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven.

Jesus doesn't even know! Not the Son, but the Father alone. What part of no one knows don't they understand? Verses 42 and 44, he will give a similar message. I don't know why these guys don't get it. As soon as they announce it, it should be evident this guy is a charlatan. But you have people like, I don't know what the problem is, they can't read or something. No one knows. Jesus says in verses 37 through 41, as in the days of Noah, Jesus compares his second coming to the great flood of Noah's time. What happened then? Some will be saved through the trauma and rescued while a great many will be ended disastrously.

Now we have the passage about two men working in the field and two women at the mill. Well, it was common to have, you know, you could go out there with somebody and they're working in the field doing whatever. In this case, they're doing some threshing. But, winnowing. But this is not the rapture, okay? It's in the context of judgment. It's about judgment, not the rapture.

And so, some will endure to the end and some, like with a flood, will be swept away. That's what Jesus is saying. Two men working in the field, one of them not going to make it. Two women working at the mill. Typically, the way they did it was they had two. You'd go like this. One woman would be turning the mill while the other would pour the grain in the middle so that it would be ground up. And one of them will be gone, he says. Now, we pointed out in the past, and I'll remind you, a chiasm is a mirror image in written form, and the next part is a small chiasm, if you will.

Verses 42 and 44 both talk about being on the alert, or being ready, and then no one knowing when the Lord is coming. Verse 43 then is in the focal point, the center point. Be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. And notice that verse 42 says, you don't know the day? Which I look at the two guys I told you about, what did they do? They gave a day. Come on. Anyway, and then it says, and not even an hour. Don't know day, don't know hour.

2 Peter 3.10 and 1 Thessalonians 5.2 also talk about this thief in the night. And so let's talk about the thief in the night. Some things to discover here.

In our era, if a person tries to break into a house or does break into a house, that is a criminal event, right? It's a criminal event. You can call the police. You can have the police arrest them, et cetera. And if you're threatened, defend yourself.

Now, having said that, in biblical times, it was different. If you had something stolen from your house, it was your problem. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. You are responsible for keeping thieves from doing anything at your house. And it's not a criminal issue if they come. Instead, a civil issue. And you are responsible for making sure that you don't get anything stolen.

Now, here's what would happen. In order to avoid thieves, they would have high windows that were too small for a thief to get in. They would, in the doorways, have them barred, especially at night. And it would be something like this. And so they would bar it, sometimes with multiple bars across there.

So a thief wouldn't try to go through a window because they couldn't reach it and they would get stuck. And the thief wouldn't try to break through the front door because that was typically barred. And so what would the thief do? The thief would go in and he would dig underneath the house to undermine a wall.

That's what he would do. And he would do it at nighttime, where everybody's all bedded down in the house. And then as soon as the wall collapsed, he would run in, grab whatever he wanted, and run. So that's why you have multiple times in the New Testament talking about a thief in the night. That's like a surprise you don't want. And so be prepared for this thief in the night. He's not going to come through the window. He won't come through the door. He's going to undermine your wall. That's what this thief in the night phrase is about.

Jesus then, in verses 45 through the end of the chapter, he talks about a faithful slave and an evil slave. The faithful slave is given greater authority in the kingdom, and the evil slave is not given lesser authority, but rather, the evil slave is cast into hell and does not enter the kingdom at all. This is, to make the comparison, this one entered the narrow gate from the Sermon on the Mount, And this one entered the wide gate. So the distinction that he has between the faithful slave and the evil slave is kingdom or hell difference. It's not heaven and hell, it's kingdom or hell difference. This is not your judgment. If you're a believer here today, this judgment is not about you. This is very important.

Let's talk about it. We're going to be looking, because this passage here, these last several verses, are an introduction to what we'll be looking at the next two weeks, kingdom judging. So Jesus is introducing judgment prior to people entering the kingdom. When he comes again, that's the judgment, the one we just read, and what he's going to continue to talk about in chapter 25.

But that's not your judgment, okay? We, are we to be looking for that time of judgment? No. We're to be looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, as we pointed out last week, Titus 2.13. We have these statements in scripture, and this is certainly important, but not all of the points.

Romans 5.9 says, much more than having been justified by His blood. Whose blood? Christ's blood, right? And justified means that's you, because you believed, right? We shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

Next, 1 Thessalonians 1, 9, and 10. Paul is writing to the believers there at Thessalonica, and by the way, he'd only been there a few weeks before that. He says, you turn to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, that is, Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come. And finally here, 1 Thessalonians 5, 9, and 10, for God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us.

So whether awake or asleep, we will live together with him. Let me put it this way. This is not in your handout. People in the tribulation period will be subject to the wrath of God or of the Lamb for a period of seven years. It will be a time focused on the nation and people of Israel, not the church, However, we in the body of Christ are told repeatedly that we will not be subject to the wrath of God. We looked at those verses just on the prior slide. We will be kept from the hour of testing for those who dwell on the earth. By the way, that phrase, those who dwell on the earth, is a tribulation specific phrase. A phrase used of those who are living on the earth during the tribulation period.

Revelation 3.10 is the promise you won't be among them. You'll be kept from that hour. Therefore, other views of you might get taken out during the middle of the tribulation, or three quarters, or at the end, or something like that, those don't fit this.

You have on page three of your handout this chart. And while there's certainly plenty to study and look at, we won't do that here. You're certainly welcome to do that yourself. We want to look at just certain portions of it in the upper left-hand corner, up through what is shown there is chapter 6. We want to look at the pattern for the church, and we want to look at this pattern for wrath. And here's how we want to do that. We put those together this way. What we find is in the Book of Revelation, which spells out from the Church Age into the End Times, A church or churches is mentioned 17 times. 17 times.

But never during any of the subsequent chapters in the tribulation. Not once. The church is not mentioned again. Now the wrath of the Lamb, the wrath of God, starts off twice, as we notice here, twice in the first chapter that talks about the tribulation period. It also talks about it in the last chapter of the tribulation period and a number of times in between. The point being this. The church will not be subject to God's wrath. That's the promise in Romans. That's the promise twice in 1 Thessalonians. We will be kept from the hour of testing for those who dwell on the earth. We've got repeated promises.

The focus, even of what Jesus says here in Matthew 24, is Israel, not you and me. The church will be raptured before the tribulation period. You have this slide that we showed last week, and you also have it on page one of your handout. I want to shrink it down for a minute for a particular purpose, and that is this.

When Christ comes again, the judgment that he describes, that we just read at the end of chapter 24 and that we'll study next week, will be a judgment that takes place on earth after Christ comes again. It'll be a judgment on earth after Christ comes again.

It'll be a judgment of those people who live in these kinds of bodies, not resurrection bodies, not new bodies. The judgment for you and me, those in the church, takes place seven years earlier, at least, and it takes place in heaven. The judgment that Jesus just described sends some people in hell. Is anybody who arrives in heaven's gates going to go from there to hell? No. a very different kind of judgment. And that's what I'd like us to focus on here, just to kind of keep it in mind. We're not looking at the same judgment at all. You have this slide on your handout.

Believers are promised five crowns. There may be more, but these are the ones spelled out. A trial crown is once even mentioned twice, James and Revelation. There are five different crowns that scripture mentions. And by the way, What's the third one? It's a rapture lover's crown. Are you longing for the Lord's coming? Do you know that that's eternally rewardable? So if you really want the Lord to come, good! Because that's indicated you'll be rewarded forever for that. So long for Him now so that you'll have a crown forever. So there are five crowns. By the way, they're not diadem crowns like royalty. These are victor's crowns in an athletic competition. It is specifically that word. Okay? Specifically that word. Here's the Stephanos, the victor's crown.

Then there are three rewards that are mentioned as well. A solid foundation reward, a voluntary service reward. By the way, I think we had some people volunteering for service yesterday, right? Okay. inheritance reward so there's at least three rewards that are mentioned this is great because what's going to happen what's going to happen you won't be subject to the judgment we just read about at the end of Matthew you don't need to worry about it okay it's not your judgment we instead We instead, who have believed, will be taken to heaven for a judgment, and the question that Jesus is going to be asking is, how can I reward you? He's not sitting there saying, ha, ha, ha, Vern's really blown it, and I'm going to fry him. That's not what he's going to do. It will be a time we will see him face to face. 1 John says, we shall see him as he is.

We shall be like Him, for we'll see Him as He is. Right now we get to behold the Lord in His written word until the day we see Him face to face. That day when we see Him face to face, we will behold Him as we sang the song. Face to face with Christ my Savior. So the call for us believers is not to worry about this judgment that Jesus just spelled out that will be for those people at the end of the tribulation period. The call for believers is to behold the Lord in his word until the day you behold him face to face. You live this day by his life for that day by his life.

Right? That's our call. Not to sit there and tremble and say, am I going to go to heaven or go to hell? That's not our place. That's not our judgment. If you're a believer, it's this day for that day, all by faith. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you as we look at this immensely hopeful set of truths here. Jesus is giving certainly true cautions and warnings for those whose whose fulfillment of promises, whose fulfillment of their place is here on this earth.

That's not where we have our citizenship. That's not where our life is. That's not where we're seated. We are seated with you. Our life is from you. Our citizenship is from you. And so, Lord, we just ask that our hearts and minds would be drawn to behold you day to day until the very day when we see you face to face. And I hope that's today. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.