Matthew 10:23 Explained

[Music] welcome to north winds nuggets where we take a few moments to answer questions about the bible i'm pastor dave the lead pastor at north winds church and many of our north winds nugget segments will come from what we're studying together in our sermon series which you can access on our website mynorthwinds.org let's jump right into today's challenge in matthew 10 23 jesus is preparing to send his disciples out to preach the gospel of the kingdom and he says this when you are persecuted in one place flee to another i tell you the truth you will not finish going through the cities of israel before the son of man comes you will not finish going through the cities of israel before the son of man comes our question for today is this jesus said there was an urgency to share the gospel so much so that when the disciples were rejected or persecuted in one place they were told to flee to another and share the gospel there because they wouldn't get through all the cities of israel before the son of man comes why the urgency when we're almost 2 000 years later and jesus hasn't come back okay so what we're going to do is we're going to give the quick answer before teaching two important bible study principles and then giving a more detailed explanation the quick answer is that jesus wasn't referring to what we traditionally understand as his second coming when he said to be urgent in sharing the gospel before he came again he was referring to judgment he was going to bring to israel a judgment that culminated in the destruction of jerusalem in a.d 70. now two important bible study principles number one don't allow what's difficult to understand to distract you from what's easy to understand so what's easy to understand in this verse there's an urgency to sharing the gospel don't miss that simply because you don't fully get the last part of the verse the second bible study principle was this never assume the meaning of a word or a phrase simply because of the way it's used elsewhere in the bible let me give you a quick example most of the times that the word saved is used in the new testament it refers to being rescued from sin by grace through faith but that's not always what the word saved means in acts chapter 27 paul is on a ship he's bound for rome but a violent storm comes up that beats the ship up so badly that in acts chapter 27 verse 20 we read paul say this when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging we finally gave up all hope of being saved they hadn't given up hope of being saved from their sin they had given up hope of being saved from the storm so most of the time that you read the word saved it likely is going to refer to being saved by grace through faith but not always so we have to keep in mind this principle never assume the meaning of a word or a phrase simply because of the way that it is used elsewhere in the bible why does that apply to today's verse verse matthew 10 23 from other parts of the bible we know about the second coming of jesus and we naturally assume that in our verse for today when jesus says you'll not finish going through the cities of israel before the son of man comes that the phrase the son of man comes must be referring to his second coming it's led honestly to an abundance of crazy interpretations of this passage but the interpretation is actually rather simple if we remove our bad habit of automatically assigning meaning to phrases we think we know we're left with a couple simple questions what return is jesus talking about and is there a return other than the second coming that jesus has in mind and the answer seems to clearly be yes there is a return that jesus was speaking of that wasn't the rapture and wasn't the second coming it's actually likely that jesus has come many times since his ascension to heaven not a physical visible return such as will take place with his second coming but that he has come in judgment if this all sounds crazy look with me to revelation chapters two and three here you're going to find letters to the seven churches and in revelation chapter two uh we see a letter to the church in ephesus chapter 2 verse 5 says repent and do the things that you did at first if you do not repent i jesus will come to you i'll come to you and remove your lampstand from his place it's not talking about the rapture not talking about the second coming yet the lord says that if they don't repent he will come in judgment letter to the church in pergamum chapter 2 verse 16 jesus says repent therefore otherwise i jesus will soon come to you again not talking about the rapture not talking about the second coming but jesus says he'll come there's a pattern that we see in the letters to the churches here in revelation repent or i will come in judgment not the rapture not the second coming but i will come jesus knew the judgment that he would bring to israel in a.d 70. and he told the disciples there's an urgency to sharing the gospel before i come and bring this judgment make sure that you share it with urgency there was an urgency to share the gospel then there's an urgency to share the gospel now who are you sharing the good news with thanks for taking the time to join us for north winds nuggets if you have a question that you'd like us to address send an email to dave at mynorthwinds.org and use the subject line north winds nuggets thank you stay in the word and god bless

Channel: NorthWinds Church

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Length: 5min 51sec (351 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021