Lesson 83 - Matthew Ch 24 cont 4

[Music] [Music] for the majority of new testament commentators the explanation of matthew chapter 24 is among the most if not the most extensive required of all the gospels combined now the main reason is because yeshua speaks so considerably about the future and the end times what academics call eschatology now that he speaks from a first century jewish mindset using vocabulary illustrations that reflect the common culture of that era makes it all the more challenging therefore it should not be a surprise that we are in our fourth lesson on matthew 24. and we've had yet to reach the halfway point of this teaching that he gave that is so consequential to our faith in god to our spiritual well-being now in a previous lesson i poked a little fun at the modern age fictional writers visualizations and characterizations of the rapture as christians suddenly flying up into the air leaving their clothing behind and i did this to make a point the point was that in every age as we strain to know what some of the future events that christ is speaking about are gonna look like the odds that we're gonna be correct are pretty small now what i spoke about concerning the rapture is the late 20th and early 21st century version of it but certainly such a visual as that one had never before that time existed and likely in a few years or decades from now it's going to change again now while some amount of modest speculation about the actual manifestations of these several end times events such as the rapture is only human we must be cautious not to mix too much of those bible speculations with biblical facts nor should we expand too much upon the frustratingly little biblical detail provided about the end times in a way that seals our expectations in stone such that when those events finally occur we risk rejecting them because they do not fit our preconceptions this is exactly what yeshua has been battling since the beginning of his earthly ministry the jews of his day had drawn mental images derived from evolving traditions about the messiah and then out of that came their messianic expectations and for the most part they had it wrong so when god's messiah did arrive something they desperately wanted and prayed for most of them couldn't accept it let's be careful that we don't do likewise now back in verse 3 the questioning disciple ask christ when the things of the end times will begin to happen and what the sign of them will be so people can know yeshua responds as he always does with first things first most importantly he says watch out watch out don't be fooled and then he goes on to explain why and how people are going to be fooled and they will run after false messiahs and false prophets further he explains what are not the signs of the end things such as wars and famines nations fighting against each other ethnic ethnicities battling one another earthquakes other calamities all around the world persecution's even murdered of believers in yeshua is going to be part of it but none of these things are the signs that the end has come thus much of chapter 24 is spent laying out what does and does not signal the end times and that believers are to be hyper vigilant not so much about world events which yeshua says are just inevitable distractions but rather about the rise of false messiahs and false prophets now magicians the stage kind not the spiritual charlatans in revealing just how they accomplish such pleasing tricks will all tell us that while we're focused on what the one hand is doing it's the other one that's really important the one hand grabs our attention and but it's really a faint it's a distraction so we don't see what's going on with the other it works because of how human brains work it works because how we process we filter what our senses take in this is a good illustration of what yeshua is getting at all these noisy and scary events are gonna absorb our attention but in reality they're just a distraction what we really need to be watchful for are false messiahs and false prophets who like politicians will say never let a good crisis go to waste false messiahs and false prophets thrive on such opportunities they prey on our fears and our worries it can ruin our spiritual lives by filling our minds with wrong information wrong thoughts wrong expectations and very quickly we find ourselves putting our faith in a god or a deliverer of their or our own making a god that is not the god and the messiah of the bible and you know this can be the most difficult thing to recover from once we head down that road which is why yeshua is so concerned about it now by the time we get to verse 24 yeshua is still warning about how from the first century onward believers are going to be faced with all sorts of distractions and charlatans and tells us how we can avoid being taken in and thus perhaps even removing ourselves from membership in the kingdom without realizing what our choices have done to us my final words of our previous lesson words that i was going to tell you how you can be inoculated against the virus of deception as these false prophets and false messiahs come and go yeshua deals with just that in the next verses let's reread a short section of it open your bibles to matthew chapter 24 we're going to read verses 23 through 28 23-28 at that time if someone says to you look here's the messiah or there he is don't believe him for there will appear false messiahs and false prophets performing great miracles amazing things so as to fool even the chosen if possible there i've told you in advance so people say to you listen he's out in the desert don't go look he's hidden away in a secret room don't believe it for when the son of man does come it will be like lightning that flashes out of the east fills the sky to the western horizon wherever there's a dead body that's where you'll find the vultures christ says we are not to pay any attention to someone who excitedly and sincerely tells us that the messiah has returned and he's over here he's over there and in fact there will be unusual men who can do just what they say they can do possible things they can only be taken as miracles it's not just that we're not to fall for it because it's not a work of god it's that we're to dismiss even the person who tells us that the messiah has come and tells us who he is and where he is because that person is dangerously deceived let's think about this for a moment is it going to be pagans and those who clearly don't worship the god of israel telling others that the messiah has arrived of course it's not going to be these folks aren't looking for a messiah something they don't know anything about it's only going to be christians and jews who are going to be deceived and some will become deceivers see in our time there's a man rabbi schneerson who many orthodox jews believe is the messiah even though he died in 1994 yet those who are most devoted him believe that he's going to return to them he led the large jewish large jewish sect that you probably heard of called but the belief that he was the messiah was not accepted by all its members so this caused an acrimonious split of so the sort of thing yeshua is speaking about is not hypothetical and it's not unlikely and yeshua's era within normal conversation the term prophet meant anything from a teacher of god's written word to a seer of the future in fact in the new testament the term prophet is regularly applied to those who interpret and teach the holy scriptures this is how we should understand it so in our day if yeshua were standing among us he would use the term prophet mostly meaning bible teachers pastors and rabbis unless he was speaking about a particular biblical prophet or prophecy what's a false prophet then well generally speaking we should understand that as meaning a bible teacher a pastor or a rabbi that misrepresents god or his word this is not about simple unintended error or accidentally saying one word one another's meant something everyone who teaches god's word will do from time to time i guarantee it this is about those who are or claim to be god worshipers that either knowingly teach doctrines of men as though they were commands of god or they teach from god's word but intentionally don't do so truthfully and this is in order to fulfill an agenda now where that line between ignorance and willful intention to teach falsely falls in god's eyes i do not know but i do know that god holds prophets to a higher standard of accuracy and truth than he does for listeners students and laymen in fact says jesus in verse 24 the things said and done by these false prophets and false messiahs are going to be so amazing that even the chosen would be fooled if possible if possible so why can't it be possible for the elect to be fooled if that is exactly the people yeshua was warning to begin with some of your bibles will not say the chosen but rather say the elect now i want to be careful not to over analyze these two terms and find a distinction without a difference but when we turn to mark 13 verse 20 we find that both words chosen and elected are used and the first usually translated as the chosen is the greek word eclectos the second is the greek word ecleggo usually translated as the elect now clearly these are two related terms but they do have a slight difference in meaning between them eclectose may refer to the status of a group while ecleggo seems to refer to the individual whom god's selected so one is the elect the other is the chosen in matthew 24 24 the greek word is eclectos so the status of that group the group is of those who've been selected therefore my interpretation is that is to say that even the group of believers could be deceived if possible this means it's referring to the congregation of believers the chosen or elect group as opposed to individual believers that were selected to become part of the group now while this may not answer yet why it's not possible to fool the eclectos the group of believers it seems to me that yeshua is building on what was said in the torah in the book of deuteronomy which effectively deals with exactly the same matter in deuteronomy 13 starting in verse 1 everything i am commanding you you are to take care to do do not add to it or subtract from it if a prophet or someone who gets messages while dreaming arises among you and he gives you a sign or a wonder and the sign or wonder comes about as he predicted when he said let's follow other gods which you have not known let us serve them you are not to listen to what that prophet or dreamer says for adonai your god is testing you in order to find out whether you really do love adonai your god with all of your heart all of your being you are to follow adonai your god fear him obey his commandments listen to what he says serve him cling to him and that prophet or dreamer is to be put to death because he urged rebellion against adonai your god who brought you out of the land of egypt redeemed you from a life of slavery in order to seduce you away from the path adonai your god ordered you to follow this is how you are to rid your community of this wickedness notice the final words in this passage that speak of ridding the community of wickedness what precedes those final words then concerns the community as a whole a group as opposed to selected individuals in the torah israel is the eclectos the chosen group and just as jesus warns in matthew also in deuteronomy god says there will be false prophets that arise among israel that will do miracles they will give signs and wonders and when they do when they grab everybody's attention some of them might even say to follow and serve other gods who will these false prophets be pagans gentiles outsiders heavens no they'll be israelites because they will have some amount of standing among their brethren that wouldn't even bother to listen to them in the first place if they weren't however says deuteronomy 13 5 if you will obey god's commandments the law of moses and serve the god of the torah then you will see through a false prophet because what he says will not match god's word that is god's word is the standard to measure everything else by even more god says we are to take these false prophets those who teach things that are against the torah put them to death because it's the only way to purge such wickedness from the community from the eclectos from the chosen group so how do we apply and use matthew 24 24 deuteronomy 13 1-6 in our time now obviously in our day we can't put a false bible teacher rabbi or pastor to death but we can know god's word and we can cling to it and thus discern when we are hearing false words of men and when we follow doctrines of men that virtually counter man the words of god and in the so doing still claim we are following god we're living in a deception we've given ourselves over to a false god a god we have not known why is that because false doctrines of men can only teach us to construct and follow a god of our own imagining that by definition is not the god of the bible no matter how wonderful and lovely and satisfying and spiritual sounding those doctrines might be i can only conclude then that the truly chosen group the eclectos are those who don't just claim god but they know god and they know his word and they obey it for these it is not possible to be fooled now knowing god's word and shunning the doctrines of men then are the active ingredients in the vaccine to prevent us from being infected with deception knowing god's word means to trust and obey his word from genesis to revelation there can be no part or parts of god's word that we can set aside because then god's word is incomplete and it opens us up to deceptions that claim to fill in those gaps those whom god has chosen are more than those who only claim trust in jesus they we must sincerely believe his word and actively obey it otherwise we're going to be deceived and false beliefs will likely prevent us from being part of the chosen now if this doesn't convict you in your spirit to get serious about knowing god's word from beginning to end and obeying it then if nothing else i hope it scares you into it out of self-preservation verse 25 continues with where we should not look for christ when he returns he says don't search for him in in the desert don't look for him in a secret room the idea being expressed here is not about a list of specific places to not look for him if someone says that's where he is rather it is that his return is going to be public and highly visible don't listen to rumors rather his return will be like lightning that flashes across the sky everyone that's looking up can't avoid seeing it in fact even those not looking will notice it because the light is so brilliant and the thunder's so loud although it can be tempting to try to draw some hints or mysterious meanings from the phrase like lightning that flashes out of the east and fills the sky to the western horizon i don't think it's there to flesh out yeshua was making a simple metaphor that ought not to be overly analyzed his return can be compared to lightning and thunder that is impossible to miss whether it's welcome and expected or not his return will be so unlike his first coming when he came into this world privately quietly born in the guest house through a guest area of a house the celestial sign of his arrival was a star that just moved silently through the night sky only a few even noticed it a handful of local shepherds in the tiny rural town of bethlehem were treated to a chorus of angels announcing the coming of the messiah but that was the extent of those who immediately knew of this world-changing event but when jesus returns at the least the entire land of israel will learn it all at once and perhaps the extended region or even the whole planet will witness it next christ says something that must be an expression rather than some kind of a prophecy he says that wherever there's a dead body that's where you'll find vultures that's jury now as for the the lightning metaphor this is another illustration using something known and obvious if something dies out in the open it's inevitable that very quickly vultures will start circling overhead conversely when you see vultures circling overhead clearly there's something dead laying on the ground death and vultures are inseparable companions one does not have to look for an ultimate reason for their presence after this yeshua begins a new phase of his end times instruction so let's read a little more open your bibles back to chapter 24 we're going to start reading it verse 29. we're going to read 29-35 but immediately following the time of the trouble of those times the sun will grow dark the moon will stop shining the stars will fall from the sky and the powers of in heaven will be shaken then the sign of the son of man will appear in the sky all the tribes of the land will mourn and they will see the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with tremendous power and glory he will send out his angels with the great shofar and they will gather together his chosen people from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other now let the fig tree teach you a lesson when its branches begin to sprout and leaves appear you know that summer is approaching in the same way when you see all of these things you are to know that the time is near right at the door yes i tell you that this people will certainly not pass away before all before all these things happen heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away so after describing what christ says is the trouble of those days meaning everything he's warned up to now something else is going to happen that is now that the end times is underway here's what happens next the complete jewish bible says the trouble of those days nearly all other english translations say the tribulation of those days i don't want to pound the drum too loudly with something we've already covered but the words the tribulation even though the definite article the is present in this case does not mean it in the sense of a set apart named event it's more like saying the pain i'm in the pain is not a set apart named event it's just common english grammar and syntax explaining i'm in pain you're in pain the point is that jesus is announcing the coming climax at the end of this stage a redemption history this means that the fulfillment of the kingdom of heaven to its completion is about to happen the entrance into the thousand-year reign of christ is about to begin with all the people in the world under the government of yeshua and so at least for a time the only people left alive will be righteous god worshipers here's some food for thought the length of the time of suffering tribulation the jesus says that the father is going to cut short is unspecified it might be that the daniel timeline where he speaks rather cryptically about weeks of years and a time and times and half a time might come into play here concerning this period of suffering and affliction our own brute corpsman of seat of abraham's live israel.org ministry makes a good case that it does so i recommend you listen to his teaching on the subject yet there's another item that some believers are so certain can be counted down nearly to the second when it begins and happens comes from this and i'm skeptical about it in defense of my position on this in just a few more verses yeshua says he does not know when god will return him he doesn't know and since his return is directly timed to the end of this indeterminate period of tribulation suffering and affliction it seems to me that if daniel's timeline was meant to directly correlate to this then christ wouldn't express such a lack of knowledge on the timing of the sequence but you be the judge of it verse 29 continues with what some bible scholars say is a paraphrase of the prophet joel but i see it more as a conflation of several biblical prophecies including joel that yeshua has borrowed from that no doubt remind those that he's speaking to of some of those ancient prophecies here's a small sampling of them isaiah 13 10 for the stars the constellations in the sky will no longer give their light the sun will be dark when it rises the moon will no longer shine joel 2 10 at their advance the earthquakes and the sky shakes and the sun and the moon turn black and the stars stop shining amos 8 9 when that time comes since adonai says that on thy elohim i will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight later john will echo the same prophecies in revelation 6 12. then i watched as he broke the sixth seal and there was a great earthquake and the sun turned black as sackcloth worn in mourning for the and the full moon became blood red see there's additional prophetic passages as well that express the same idea just as earlier we're told that yeshua's return will be seen by all in a way that people will understand that either their doom or their deliverance has just arrived even if it's a little more than an emotion or an instinct among the doomed so will the workings of the entire cosmos herald yeshua's reappearance at the end of the age whether the happenings in the sky occur immediately upon yeshua's coming or shortly after or is a sign of it we probably can't know but regardless of a precise or serial sequence we can say that these several events will happen in concert paul takes his teaching of christ a step further and no doubt he also incorporates thoughts that the jewish intellectuals and teachers had taught him long before he knew jesus we read about it in the book of romans in romans 8 19-23 paul says this the creation waits eagerly for the sons of god to be revealed for the creation was made subject to frustration not willingly but because of the one who subjected it but it was given a reliable hope that it too would be set free from its bondage to decay and would enjoy the freedom accompanying the glory that god's children will have we know that until now the whole creation has been groaning as with the pains of childbirth and not only it but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit groan inwardly as we continue waiting eagerly to be made sons that is to have our whole bodies redeemed and set free now truly the longer god allows me to live i cannot help but notice that all creation is bound up together as one great integrated unit which is really the meaning behind our calling the vastness of space and everything that exists a universe all of god's creation spiritual and physical energy and matter was by design made interdependent to work cooperatively in perfect harmony therefore all of its parts and elements also suffer together as a unit now this is not to say that humans aren't different from rocks and trees and even stars and energy and a hierarchy of purpose and importance to god but over time science has even coined terms like ecosystem to explain their recognition of a clear interdependence of entire systems of life any part of which is interrupted affects the whole paul kind of a i don't know first century combination of c.s lewis and sir isaac newton recognized this reality and that god through the ancient prophets had spoken about the universe in terms of mysterious interactions and so decay and thus finite longevity of the universe is directly tied to the fall of humankind into sin and death what happens with man affects the universe and what happens with the universe affects man thus it's to be expected that as wickedness reaches its zenith on earth and as christ returns to purge the earth of it it means that as a new chapter of redemption history approaches of course the cosmos will participate in it as well verse 30 continues with yeshua using thoughts from the ancient prophets by saying that when the son of man appears when christ returns an awesome and terrifying fashion all the tribes of the land will mourn most english versions say that all the tribes of the earth will mourn there are two distinct and different meanings that we have to be able to decide between the term the land is a common one in the bible and it's shorthand for the land of israel so is this saying that the tribes of israel are going to mourn or that all the tribes all the people all over the earth are going to mourn now while not a precise quote christ's statement is no doubt taken from zechariah 12. zechariah 12 10 says and i will pour out on the house of david and on those living in yerushalayim a spirit of grace and prayer and they will look to me whom they pierced they will mourn for him his one mourns for an only son they will be in bitterness on his behalf like the bitterness for our firstborn son we also find that john in the book of revelation uses the same thought in revelation 1 7. look he's coming with the clouds every i will see him including those who pierced him and all the tribes of the land will mourn him yes ami now although the greek word that is alternately translated as land to earth as ghee which can be rightly interpreted by the way either way why would tribes of people all over the earth that have no interest in the jew yeshua and that will represent the majority of people on earth mourn over it so these tribes that mourn must be referring to the tribes of the land of israel not people all over the world now while this mourning among the 12 tribes is going to be universal the reason for the mourning will not be those israelites that have been trusting in yeshua will mourn over the circumstances of his death when their very own people were complicit in it the remaining israelites that to this moment have refused to accept their messiah will mourn because their own fates of judgment and the lake of fire have been sealed thus it can be said that all the tribes of israel will without exception mourn over him now verse 30 continues with yeshua remembering daniel's vision about the coming son of man in daniel 7 13 we read i kept watching the night visions when i saw coming with the clouds of heaven someone like a son of man he approached the ancient one and he was led into his presence now as part of this incomparable event he we're told he will send out angels for the great shofar and with that blast the angels will go to gather his chosen from the four winds meaning from the entire planet now if the he is jesus and it's hard to take it any other way then it seems that he has charge over at least some of the host of heaven later he will reaffirm his command over angels as he hangs on the execution stake it will be at the sound of the shofar that the angels are assembled and set into motion the greek word that the complete jewish bible translates as shofar but almost all english translations his trumpet is salt peaks and indeed it literally translates to trumpet however david stearns is right that the better translation is probably so far greek has no word for shofar so it translates to trumpet now when israel was ready to go into battle a ram's horn a shofar was used as the signal a trumpet was used in temple ritual played by levites as a musical instrument so a shofar was the equivalent of a bugle that was used in the days when there were horse soldiers different sounding blasts meant for the troops to do different things the use of a shofar here also helps to make clear the meaning at the beginning of the verse about the sign of the son of man what's the sign some commentators say that the appearance of the son of man itself is the sign some say the fairly early church fathers say that the sign was a christian cross that was going to appear in the sky when christ returned the reality is that because the scene is the beginning of the battle of yeshua to purge the world of all the wicked powers and governments then this must have a biblical war motif in mind a shofar was used in conjunction with a battle flag sometimes a battle flag in the bible is called an ensign other times a banner and sometimes it's translated to sign just like it is here a battle flag works similarly to a shofar in that it was used as a signaling system to the troops such as which troops needed to assemble where in more ancient times each of israel of israel's tribes had their own banner or ensign and no doubt it was used sometimes to tell where those particular tribal members were to assemble for battle see in tribal culture a tribe usually fought as a single battle battle unit thus the scene is of the angels going to battle at jesus's call being signaled to assemble by use of an ensign a sign and a shofar but who are the chosen people that are going to be assembled by the angels now despite what i've just told you by jesus day tribalism among israel had all but ended israel was no longer being assembled tribe by tribe for battle the twelve tribes were dispersed tribalism had morphed into nationalism and the tribes battling foes alongside one another was a thing of the distant past so it may be that while the ensign and the shofar are what matthew intended to bring to mind for his jewish audience it could as easily be and i think it is in this case that for jews in casual conversation the terms trumpet and shofar had ceased to have much difference except as regarded temple ritual so it might be we don't want to get too picky over whether we ought to demand the term in our passages is so far as compared to a trumpet now as for the chosen people here i think the complete jewish bible is taken too great of liberties the term used is ecliptos just as christ was talking about a little bit earlier no doubt in the pashat sense the simple sense this can only be talking about tribes of israel which is how his disciples would have understood it however in the remez the hint sense this past expands to in time include gentile believers notice i said include not gentile believers replacing israelites my reading of this prophecy is that the gathering of the 12 tribes of israel from around the world is a long process that occurs prior to the return of messiah so this is something that ought to have already happened by the time of yeshua's return yet this gathering of the chosen also seems to include all those that will fight alongside and with yeshua we'll get into all that in a later lesson now i want to shift for just a few minutes to the use of the trumpet or shofar at the return of messiah yeshua we've learned that this is going to have direct relationship to the prophetic messianic significance of the seven biblical feasts of the torah we have found that not coincidentally all the major works of redemption by yeshua have happened upon one of those feast days in a specific order in fact by the final chapter of matthew of the seven biblical feasts four of them will have been prophetically fulfilled passover unleavened bread first fruits and the feast of weeks that in english is better known as pentecost literally and precisely christ died on passover went to the grave on unleavened bread or rose on first fruits then next 50 days later the holy spirit came to indwell believers upon the feast of weeks pentecost this means that there are three feasts remaining to have their redemptive messianic prophetic meanings fulfilled the feast of trumpets the feast of yom kippur the day of atonement and the final feast sukkot or the feast of booths what did we just read about trumpets perhaps shofars being blown to signal yeshua's long-awaited return accompanied with a host of angels might this be the fulfillment of the meaning of the meaning of the feast of trumpets as with all prophetic fulfillments that are yet to happen it's wisest to hold lightly what we think they're going to look like however what we learn from the first four prophetic feast fulfillments is that an imitation of how closely together they are scheduled in the hebrew calendar so were they fulfilled it took four days four days for the passover unleavened bread first fruits feast to be totally fulfilled and then only a weight of 50 days for the fourth the feast of weeks pentecost to be fulfilled there has been a 2 000 year dormancy as we wait for the fifth of those feasts to be fulfilled biblically the final three feasts begin within a short span of 15 days of one another therefore i think these final redemptive events involving yeshua will also begin within 15 days of one another and happen precisely on those feast days so when the clock hits 12 and these things begin to unfold it's gonna happen at lightning speed lightning speed unless one is already well prepared before it starts no one's going to have time to figure it out soon jesus is going to use some parables to make this exact point okay we'll continue in matthew 24 next time help support god's people 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Channel: Torah Class

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Keywords: Beatitudes, Hebrew Heritage, Parables, Torah Class, Bible, Bible Study, Christ, Christian, Christianity, God, Hebrew Roots, Jesus, Jews, Matthew, New Testament, Seed of Abraham, Sermon on the Mount, Son of God, Tom Bradford, Yeshua

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Length: 52min 38sec (3158 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 24 2021