Tonight, we are continuing in a series; Prophetic Insights from Jesus, from the passage of Scripture that is called the Olivet Discourse, the 24th and 25th chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. And what we are going to see tonight as we move into the discourse, which means an address or a sermon, we're going to see the disciples asking Jesus questions. And that's why I'm titling this, Questions About the End. Questions About the End. And we're just going to walk through these verses one section at a time, and break this down in a way that hopefully we can grasp the things about which Jesus is speaking, and how His prophecies are going to be fulfilled. And we talked about the importance of interpreting Scripture with Scripture. So given the backdrop of the prophecies of Daniel, and we've studied the book of Revelation, we're going to see how these words of Jesus can be beautifully harmonized in that prophetic tapestry of the two prophetic books we have already looked at. So we're going to begin in verse number one where, "Jesus went out and departed from the temple and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, 'Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here up on another, that shall not be thrown down." Now I am intrigued by the fact that Jesus has just wept over Jerusalem. He has pronounced desolation over Jerusalem in the last verses of the previous chapter, chapter 23. And now, His disciples want to show Him the buildings around this beautiful temple there in Jerusalem, which was called Herod's Temple. And I'm not sure why it was of interest to them to show Him the buildings of the temple, because I'm sure Jesus had seen this illustrious temple and its surrounding buildings many times in His 33 years of life. But there's a contrast that Matthew is drawing here between their focus on the architectural wonder, and the aesthetic beauty of the temple, versus what Jesus said was going to happen to that very structure. Jesus prophesied something very harsh when He said, that "No matter how beautiful this structure is, I'm telling you not one stone is going to be left stacked on top of another." This was the prophecy of utter destruction. And here's what we know, is that a generation later, 40 years later, just as Jesus prophesied, the Roman army under General Titus, sacked the city of Jerusalem and completely destroyed the temple. Historians tell us that Titus, the General, wanted to spare the temple of destruction. But his overzealous soldiers could not be restrained and they destroyed the temple despite his desire to save it. So I want you to, for the sake of your own knowledge, just to note that the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D. That's when the armies of the Roman General Titus sacked the city and burned the temple. And so 70 A.D was when the fulfillment of the desolation about what Jesus spoke in the last verses of chapter 23, 7O A.D. is when that happened, which is about 40 years after the cross. These barbaric armies, barbaric in the sense that they invaded a holy space, they invaded Jerusalem and they erected scaffolding around the temple and they attached wood, which would serve as firewood, so to speak. They attach wood to the scaffolding and surrounded the temple with this wood and set it on fire. And the fire was so hot that many of the stones actually crumbled from the heat of this fire set by the Roman army. Other historians have told us that the expensive gold facade on the East side of the temple, it was the gold face of this majestic temple that when the sun would rise from the East, the rays of morning sunlight would reflect off the golden facade of this temple, which Herod had built for the Jews. This gold melted under the flames of heat. And as that gold on the facade of the temple melted, it flowed like lava down to the base of the temple. And it settled between the joints of the stones that formed the foundation of the temple. And some historians have said that in order to retrieve all of this very valuable goal that had melted, the armies had to overturn and dislodge the stones at the base of the temple in order to retrieve all of this valuable gold that it turned into liquid and it seeped down in the crevices. And so do you see with me when Jesus is saying to them, looking at around the temple there in all of how beautiful the temple is; He says, "I'm telling you, very soon, not one stone around here is gonna be left in its place stacked upon another, but every stone will be overturned." And that is exactly what happened some 40 years later. He prophesied it and it came to pass. So now I want us to look in verse three where it says, "He has moved to the Mount of Olives, and as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately saying, 'Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?" So if you were to look at the city of Jerusalem, you can trace their steps that they walked outside of the Eastern gate of the city, from the temple, down through the valley to the East of Jerusalem which is called the Kidron Valley, and then up the slopes of the Mount of Olives. And that is where verse three takes us. And here on the Mount of Olives, the disciples have some questions for Jesus. And I'm interested in the fact that Matthew says, they asked Him privately. Privately lets us know there were others besides the disciples who had joined them on this journey up the Mount of Olives for this conversation. So maybe when they pull Him aside privately, they're thinking that He was going to give them answers to their questions and that they were deserving of a private consultation and that the general public was not worthy of of listening to the response. But whatever the case, I want you to think about where they are. This is the last week of Jesus' life. They're on the Mount of Olives. And if you will fast forward and think about just sometime after this, He's going to the cross. And then three days later He'd be raised from the dead. And then 40 days after the resurrection, He's going to be ascended back to the Father. And do you remember what happened at the end of His post-resurrection period of 40 days? The place from which He ascended, is this very place where they are in the last week of His life. It is the Mount of Olives. And Luke who wrote the book of Acts, describes the conversation Jesus had with these disciples on this same mountain just before He ascended to heaven. And he tells us in Acts chapter one in verse six, "When they had come together, they asked Jesus saying, 'Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" Now, the reason that I'm pointing that to you is not to distract you from our passage, but it is just to say that, here, before He's going to the cross, He's given them some prophetic insights and they're asking Him as we just saw in chapter 24 in verse three, when is the end going to be? And what is going to be the sign of Your coming? They're asking Him prophecy questions. After His death and resurrection, and just before His ascension, they're back the Mount of Olives. And they're asking Him another prophecy question, "Will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" So I just think it's interesting that the disciples have prophecy on their minds. They had prophecy on their minds before He went to the cross. They have prophecy on their minds after His resurrection and just before He departs from them. So I wanna get back to verse three and let's break down their questions. Here's the first question, "When will these things be?" You don't have to write that down I'm just literally quoting from verse three. Well, the question that you have to ask is, what do they mean by these things? When they say, "Jesus, when will these things happen?" Well, what things are they talking about? Well, I happen to believe that we have to go back to the last verses of the previous chapter, which is why I started there last week before getting to chapter 24. So when will these things be? I think the first answer is, the return of Jesus. Jesus had said to them, "I say to you, even though Jerusalem did not accept Me," He said to Jerusalem, you're not going to see Me again until you say, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!" So Jesus prophesied in chapter 23 and verse 39, that even though they rejected Him the first time, when He comes again, they will cry, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." It was a clear reference to His messianic return. Could it be when they're asking Jesus in verse three, when will these things be, that they're thinking of what He said about a time when Jerusalem will accept Him; which would be a future coming. I believe in addition to this, you can add to it, that, remember we just talked about His prophecy about the temple being torn down and not one stone being left on top of another. When will these things be? Number one, His return. Number two, the overturning of the temple; where He said, "Everything's going to be thrown down." And we know that happened in 70 A.D. But here they are, and they're simply asking the question, "Okay, You've thrown out some teasers here. That Jerusalem is one day going to welcome You. That one day the temple is going to be overturned. When will these things be?" But let me tell you something else that they ask, they ask, "What will be the sign of Your coming?" What will be the sign of Your coming? Now, why would they ask about the sign of His coming, if He's standing right there in front of them? I mean, thinking about it. Here they are on the Mount of Olives, Jesus is there and they're asking Him, "How will we know when You are coming?" But He's there. This lets us know that they were anticipating some type of future return of Jesus. And this is before He's even gone to the cross. So I love the fact that when you couple this question, which is asked on the Mount of Olives, with the question they asked in Acts chapter one, just before He ascended, here are several conclusions. And I think they're inescapable conclusions. One is, the disciples clearly understood that Jesus was going to return at some point in the future, as a triumphant Messiah. They believed in some type of future entrance of Christ in a different capacity. Another conclusion is, they understood that there would be signs to give them indications of the eminence, the nearness, the closeness of His return. That's why they said, "What will be the sign of Your coming?" They understood there would be some sign. Another conclusion is, they understood that His return would be related to the kingdom being restored to Israel, which is what we just looked at in Acts chapter one and verse six. Just before He ascended to heaven. After the resurrection, they said, "Will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" So think about these conclusions we're drawing, just from these few verses that we're looking at thus far, the last verses of chapter 23 and the first three verses of chapter 24, combined with Acts chapter one and verse six. And do you remember after Jesus did ascend and He disappeared into the clouds, and the disciples were standing there watching? The angels came and spoke in verse 11 of Acts one and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven." All right, so think about it. They are, see, the angels are saying, "The same way Jesus went up, is how He's going to come back." So this fortifies their belief in a return of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I want you to understand by this time, it's written, it's etched indelibly on their hearts, Jesus is coming back as a triumphant Messiah one day. Now, remember we're in chapter 24. He hasn't even gone to the cross yet, but what I'm showing you is, they believed in a return of Christ before He ever died, before He was ever raised. Before He ever went back to heaven. Don't understand everything that they believed, but their questions reveal so much. So what I want us to do is to look back in verse three. They asked Him, "And what will be the sign of Your coming?" But look at the translation, the comma then, "And of the end of the age?" So if you look at that verse, some interpreters, take that verse and they combine the sign of His coming with the end of the age and treat this as a question about one event. Meaning that Christ coming will mark the end of the age. Or perhaps the translation is correct, inserting a comma there, in that when they asked this question, it was really two questions. Number one, what will be the sign of Your coming? And number two, what will be the sign that the end of the age is near? So we really don't know all that was intended by their questions, but what we do know, is that Jesus' response to these questions became what we call the Olivet Discourse. Their questions prompted His answer; and His answer, a very lengthy answer, was recorded in what is for us, the 24th and 25th chapters of Matthew spoken to the disciples of Jesus on the Mount of Olives. And thus, it is called the Olivet Discourse. And something I think is interesting when you look back at their questions, they were asking the question like, "When will these things be and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?" And this is how I summarize it; they asked when, and they asked what, but they did not ask where. And the reason they did not ask where, is because they knew where. They may not have known when those things He prophesied would happen, they may not have understood what signs to look for before those things would happen, but they knew where those things would happen. They believed with all of their hearts that He, upon His messianic triumphant return to earth, that it would take place in Jerusalem. So where, is not a question for them. And that reveals a lot, because think about it, they're on the Mount of Olives. And if you have not been to the Holy Land, you just need to understand that to capture, if you want to take a picture of Jerusalem, the best vantage point is the Mount of Olives. Because you can see it and you better put your camera in panorama mode. Because you had this sweeping view of the city in its entirety. And here they are. They're saying, "When will these things happen and what will be the sign of these things happening?" But they did not ask where because they knew just over the Kidron Valley, Jerusalem is where all of this was going to happen. And we know from reading Zechariah 14, that His feet are going to touch the Mount of Olives on His return. Do you not see the significance of where they are on the Mount of Olives, in this the most expansive passage of Jesus teaching on prophecy? Oh, it's all significant. They didn't ask where, because they knew where. Now, let's look at Jesus' message to them. You don't have to write all of this down. I just want you to understand that we've already established. if you didn't listen to last week's message, I want to encourage you to go back because I gave you the interpretive background for this, that many Bible interpreters, not all of them, and it's not a conservative versus a liberal thing. It's just a differing perspective on one's interpretation of this passage. But I want to display a chart for you, some interpreters believe, that Matthew 24:4-44, describe the Tribulation period. And if you break it down, based on that interpretation, these same interpreters believe that verses four through 14, describe the first half of the Tribulation. And that verses 15 through 44, describe the last half of the Tribulation. Now, again, you don't need to write that down. I just wanted you to see it because I like to see charts. And when we display charts, they're not always such that there's ample time for you to write down everything in a chart. And that's why on Wednesday nights, one of the best things to do is to have your phone nearby. And if you're watching on your phone or on your tablet, you can actually learn how to do a screenshot. I imagine most of you already know that. But if you're watching it, mirror it on a television, you can take a picture with your phone, camera and so forth. But I just wanted you to see which we'll revisit this idea because I'm interpreting it this way. So in light of that, if chapter 24 in the Olivet Discourse is about the Tribulation period, we're going to see how that makes sense. So let's look in verse four, Jesus answered and said to them, remember they've asked the questions; "When will these things be and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?" He says, "All right, here's my answer. Take heed that no one deceives you." He says, "Many will come in My name saying, 'I'm the Christ." And remember the word Christ means Messiah. I'm the Messiah. And they're going to deceive many, that's His prophecy. This is Jesus saying this, count on it. "And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars" But Jesus says, "Don't be troubled by this. All these things must come to pass but the end is not yet." Verse seven, "For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences;" which means wide-scale death, "and earthquakes in various places." Now don't miss verse eight. You see what He says, "All these are the beginning of sorrows." And I believe that verse eight, it tips us off. It clues us in. When He says, "These are the beginning of sorrows." That perhaps if we're interpreting this correctly, that this is referring to the beginning of the Tribulation. He said, "All of these things are just the beginning of sorrows." And we know that the entire Tribulation is going to be a time of difficulty, of death, of pain and sorrow; but He says here, "These things are just the beginning." So do you see how it leans itself to this understanding that we believe Jesus is looking past the Church Age, the mystery as we call it; based on Paul's words in Ephesians. And He is describing the events of the Tribulation. And He says, "This is just the beginning." Now, if you are familiar with the judgments that John wrote about in the book of Revelation. And do you remember the Tribulation was coded in symbolic sequences of judgments. Seven seals that were broken around the scroll, seven trumpets and seven bowls that were poured out. If you were to go back and catalog the seals and the trumpets and the bowl judgments, you will see many similarities between the judgments of Revelation and what Jesus describes here in Matthew 24. This is where it gets so real. And it is because of the similarities and parallels, between what Jesus is describing in Matthew 24 and what John described in the seals and the trumpets and the bowls of the Revelation Tribulation judgments, that we can infer that Jesus is prophesying about the Tribulation period in Matthew 24. So again, don't try to write this down. We're not gonna leave this up long enough for you to write all of this down. I simply wanted you to see a comparison that fortifies, that confirms this idea that Jesus is speaking about the Tribulation period. And I'm going to display something in a moment where we show you the specific types of judgments, or calamities that He mentions here in Matthew 24, and how they correlate with the first four seals in the first outbreak of judgments in Revelation six. So there's the chart before you. Matthew 24 He said in verse five, there are gonna be false Christs. And when the first seal was broken by the Lamb in Revelation six, there was the rider on a white horse that we believe is the Antichrist. And he's the false Christ. Jesus spoke about wars in Matthew 24 and verse six. When the second seal was broken in Revelation six, a red horse was seen, and that horse symbolized war. We saw that in verse four of Revelation six. In Matthew 24, Jesus spoke about famines in verse seven. And when the third seal was broken in Revelation six, there was a black horse who symbolizes famine in the fifth verse of that chapter. And then Jesus spoke in verse seven of Matthew 24 about death or pestilences. And in Revelation six, when the fourth seal was broken, there was a pale horse that went forth to carry out widespread death upon the earth there, in the eighth verse. And you remember these first four seals are the first four horsemen of the apocalypse. What I'm showing you is, a direct parallel between what Jesus said was going to characterize the last days of sorrow, and what the first four seals depicted to John. And he then recorded for us. I believe it's inescapable that Jesus is talking about the Tribulation period. So I want us to look at this for a moment; because in verse six, when He speaks of wars and rumors of wars, this is international unrest. And it is because of this that many people have, through the years thought that when there was a time of global conflict and we can of course think about the two worldwide conflicts of the 20th century; World Wars I and II. And we know that in theory, we are all just moments away from some type of global conflict. I personally am watching very carefully, the provocations of Putin in Russia, as he has now deployed armies to the border with the Ukraine. And you know they annexed the Crimea, which was an unlawful aggression against an independent country and our nation sat by watch that happen. And now he is threatening to take over more of another country. And the nations of NATO have warned him. Our president has slapped sanctions on Putin and Russia for some other reasons, but there's also some tough talk now from the current administration, warning Putin to be careful. And I was listening to someone the other day describe, that if anything were to get out of hand and to escalate, that Russia has the capability, with missiles aimed probably at the city where you and I live in Atlanta and maybe in some other cities of viewers watching, but certainly in the major population centers of our country that could reach us in the time span of 30 minutes and bring about such widespread death and destruction. It's the type of thing that we could literally be moments away from experiencing. But Jesus says, you're just going to hear about them. Not necessarily experience them, in verse six He says, "You're going to hear wars." And by this, I think He means literal conflicts; but then He says, "Rumors of wars." And I just happened to use some of my sanctified imagination. And these would be two different things. One would be, you'll hear about wars and they're true and factual reports. And then you'll even hear rumors about wars which means they might be fake news as it were. And so I believe this expression, rumors of wars, can refer to the often false news that can generate unrest through the split second capability of social media to disseminate information globally; literally within seconds. A false report about some type of conflict, the hearing such rumors about which, could cause great instability, global markets, but also among militaries of world powers. He says, "This is all part of what is going to happen during the Tribulation period." And then He says, "Don't let these things trouble you, these things have to come to pass." Oh, well, (chuckles) it would be hard not to let such news legitimate as it is, and even rumors based in false it, masquerading is true. It would be hard not to let such things trouble you. But let's press deeper for a moment. If Jesus is speaking these words about wars and rumors of wars and we're concluding as I believe we rightly are, that this is referring to the Tribulation period, then why did He say to these disciples 2000 years ago, "Don't let this trouble you." He said, "See that you are not troubled by these things." He said, "See that you are not troubled." He's talking to them. And if they lived 2000 years ago, and we're living 2000 years after He said this to them, and the Tribulation still has not taken place, how is it that He said to them, "See that you are not troubled." They're not even going to be around. They died. And they've been with Him in heaven all of this time. So certainly when He's saying, "See that you are not troubled by these things;" He knew that His direct audience in front of Him would not be there during the Tribulation. And here we are reading it 2000 years later. And we wonder, well, is He talking to us? See that you, we, you and I who are watching and studying this tonight. Well, if we believe, that we are raptured before the Tribulation, and He is speaking about the Tribulation itself, then none of us will be reading this word of comfort; see that you are not troubled by wars and rumors of wars. And it leads us to believe them that Jesus spoke these words, "See that you are not troubled by these things;" He spoke these words and Matthew wrote these words down in order for the Tribulation saints, those who will be saved during the Tribulation to have this copy of God's Word in their hands and to have the words of Jesus. Which have been interpreted by many people as referring to present things and to things that have already happened perhaps, could it be that that is a word of comfort that is reserved for Tribulation saints? Those who will be saved after the Tribulation begins. Now I will tell you this, there are people who hold and I believe respectably so, the position that the church will go through the Tribulation, I don't believe that; but there are grounds for establishing that belief. And then there is a growing trend in the interpretation that the church will be raptured at the midway point. So if either the mid Tribulation rapture interpreters or the post Tribulation rapture interpreters are correct, then this promise or this word of comfort, see that you are not troubled by these things, could be claimed by the church. But if we believe that church is out of here, then His word the disciples 2000 years ago, see that you are not troubled by these things, it wasn't meant for them, even though He said it to them. And if we believe the church, those of us in the mystery age of the church, you're gonna be raptured before the Tribulation, then we have to believe these words weren't meant for us, but that these words are reserved to be claimed as messages of comfort from Jesus to the saints of the Tribulation. Now hope you followed everything as I just shared it. Now, do you remember they asked, "When will the end of the age be?" And Jesus is responding about all of this buildup and the last thing He said in verse six is, "The end is not yet." And in verse eight He says, "This is just the beginning." Let's look at verse seven again though, He says, "Nation will rise against nations, kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, and pestilences and earthquakes in various places." I think that the mention of earthquakes there is worth noting, because earthquakes are mentioned repeatedly in the sequences of judgements in the book of Revelation. And there are even instances where the word earthquake is not used in Revelation. But instead, there are descriptions of intense geological upheavals in the layers of the earth, such as where mountains are being cast into the sea and that kind of thing. So earthquakes are going to intensify. He's referring to that here. The book of Revelation describes it throughout the sequences of the seals and the trumpets and the bowls. So earthquakes, seismic shifts and upheavals in the earth's topography. These will be characteristics of the Tribulation period. Again, another parallel between what Jesus is saying in Matthew 24 and what John told us would be true of the Tribulation. But since we're in verse seven, remember verse six was, there will be wars and you'll hear rumors of wars. This seventh first expands upon that in letting us know, that not only will there be wars and rumors of wars, but there's going to be a continuing rise in global conflict the deeper into the Tribulation the world gets. Nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom. So what I thought I would do for a moment is just to revisit the first two seals that we looked at in Revelation six; which we believe is the outset of the Tribulation. John describes in Revelation six, He says, "I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals; and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, 'Come and see.' And I looked and behold a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow and a crown was given to him and he went out conquering and to conquer." Okay, I just wanted you to see that because this rider on the white horse, we believe is the Antichrist. He's got a bow, which is military weapon, and he's given the power to go out and conquer. This is warfare language right here. So at the outset of the Tribulation, which we believe Revelation six denotes, the Antichrist is going to be a man of war. And I'm seeing the parallel there with chapter 24 of Matthew verses six and seven, where this wars and rumors of war in verse six; verse seven says, "A nation against nation kingdom against kingdom." There's this idea of it compounding. So when the second seal in revelation was broken in verse three of chapter six, John says, "When the Lamb, who is Jesus opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, 'Come and see." And the second horse, which was the red horse went out, and it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth and the absence of peace is war and that people should kill one another. And there was given to him a great sword, another military weapon. So the second horse of the second seal, the first two horsemen of the apocalypse, tells us Antichrist man of war, war is going to be his mechanism. The red horse of the second seal is symbolic of war and global conflict. The sword and the removal of peace and widespread death. All of this is a parallel with what he's saying here in Matthew 24. And what I believe if you combine these things together, it tells us that the Antichrist is going to capitalize on global unrest in order to lure nations into alliances. And in order, by affording them his protection, through his ability to broker these peace deals, he will obligate nations and their leaders to him, to himself. And the stage is going to be set through what Jesus is describing here in chapter 24 of Matthew. So all of the calamities described in the seventh verse of Matthew 24 are a summary of the conditions which will plague the earth during the Tribulation, all right? Let's move into verse nine. He says, "Then they're going to deliver you up to tribulation, they're going to kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, will hate one another and many false prophets will rise up and deceive many." So here's what I want us to do as we look at those verses; remember, I believe here, he is talking to those who will be saved during the Tribulation; and He's saying, "They will deliver you up to Tribulation." They will kill you. And you will be hated by all nations. We're establishing that the things He saying up to you, could not have been to His immediate audience of the original disciples who were standing with Him on the Mount of Olives when He delivers this message. We believe He's referring to Tribulation believers. So here's what I wanna do based on the verses we read, I just wanted to present this chart. Tribulation believers according to Jesus, in verses nine and 10 of Matthew 24; they will be prosecuted and punished for their faith in Christ. Because remember, their faith in Christ is going to be in contradistinction to faith in the Antichrist who will ultimately command a worldwide cult. Secondly, Jesus is saying Tribulation believers, many of them will be killed. And when someone is killed for their faith, we refer to that as being martyred. And we call such, Christians who die for their faith, we call them martyrs. But He also said, that Tribulation believers are going to be the object of universal hatred and rejection; and remember in verse nine, He said, "For My name sake." The rejection of believers during the Tribulation is going to be over their love for loyalty to, and willingness to proclaim the name of, say it with me, Jesus. All right, I just wanted you to see that was a chart summary of what Jesus said was going to happen to Tribulation believers. Now, I wanna speak for a moment, about what you could call, two subjects; apostasy and betrayal. Because in verse 10, Jesus indicates, that during this Tribulation period there's going to be a terrible time of betrayal that true believers are going to suffer from those they have trusted and those whom they love. I wanna display verse 10 in the New American Translation. These are the words of Jesus. He says, "At that time, many will fall away." Well, guess what? To fall away, they have to, at first profess their faith. They will fall away from their confession of faith, and what are they going to do? They're going to betray one another and hate one another. This means they're gonna fall away from their professed faith in Jesus, because they would rather defect from the Christian calls during the Tribulation and from identification with Christianity, they would rather defect from that, than to suffer or pay the price that will be required of them by the Antichrist in his global system. Obviously the cause of defecting will be that, remember you gotta take the mark in order to buy and sell and to survive. And they're going to say, "Well, everybody should understand why I would turn my back on Christianity and the faith and those who claim to be Christians. I've gotta provide for my family. Everybody has to have a job. You can't expect me to sacrifice or for my family to suffer for my children to starve, just because of my religious beliefs." And Jesus says those people are going to defect, they're going to fall away. And He says, after they fall away, they're even going to turn and betray. Turn on him, betray the believers with whom they were once associated. And this is referred to in Scripture as apostacy. And apostasy is a Greek word that means falling away. But when we refer to it, we don't just mean falling away down a clip, apostasy in our dictionary as Christians, is when someone falls away from the Christian faith. When they say, "I'm a Christian," today and tomorrow, they say they're not a Christian. And listen, this is happening even now. We don't even believe the rapture has happened. We don't even believe we're in the Tribulation. But we are living through instances of apostasy where Christian, authors and writers and pastors, and even Christian personalities and social media influencers for the Christian faith, they're saying, "I'm an atheist now. I don't believe in God anymore. I'm questioning everything I ever believed." They are apostates. They are committing apostasy. They're falling away. And I wanna tell you, the best verse in the Bible about apostasy, write the verse, just to reference. You don't have to write the whole verse, but it's 1st John chapter two and verse 19, "They went out from us, but they were never of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us." So I just wanted you to see that verse because when people say, "Oh, what about this person? He used to be a Christian, now he's not." 1st John 2:19, don't forget it tonight. You can't let defectors, you can't let apostate, you can't let those who renounced their faith, trouble you or unnerve you in your faith. When someone says, "I'm a Christian," and they're no longer a Christian, they never were a Christian to start with. That's what the Bible teaches. So apostates who fall away, never were truly saved. And these will be many during the Tribulation. Now, verse 11, you read it said, "Many false prophets are going to rise." I wanna tell you, this is different from what He said, when He talked about many false Christs are going to come in verse five. So verse five is false Messiahs, verse 11 is false prophet. What is the difference? Well, a false Christ says, "I am God." A false prophet says, "I'm not God, but I speak for Him." And there's a sense in which a false prophet can be more dangerous because you can spot a fruitcake who says, "I'm God," the only man who can ever say that was Jesus. And He really was God. So a false Messiah is easier to spot than a false prophet. False prophets operate more subtly. So I thought I would give you some false prophet trademarks. Since he said, "During the Tribulation many false prophets are going to arise." And here are some of the trademarks. Number one, what they prophesy does not come to pass. Number two, what they prophesy is in conflict with Scripture. Number three, there ministry draws people away from the true God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So I just wanted you to see that these are the trademarks of false profits right there. So what I want us to do now, is to look at the last three verses of this section and then we'll close. Verse 12 says, "And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come." Now remember, their question is, "What will be the sign of Your coming, and the end of the age?" They asked that question all the way back in verse three. And it's not until verse 14 that He says, "And then the end will come." After He was talking about wars and rumors of wars in verse six, He said; "The end is not yet." But He finally gets down to verse 14 and said, "And then the end will come." Now just briefly, verse 12, I want you to look at it. We just read it. Lawlessness will abound. It's interesting that word, lawlessness; because when the Apostle Paul was prophesying, about the Antichrist and he did; Paul wrote about the Antichrist. The Antichrist who manifest during the Tribulation, the Antichrist we believe is symbolized by the first horsemen of the apocalypse in Revelation six, the first seal. The rider of the white horse, the false Christ. Paul wrote in 2nd Thessalonians chapter two in verse three, he said, "That day will not come until there is a great rebellion against God and the man of lawlessness is revealed; the one who brings destruction." So verse 12 of Matthew 24 spoke about lawlessness abounding. Paul spoke about rebellion against God, universally manifested and the man of lawlessness, same word Jesus used in Matthew 24:12. This couldn't be referring to none other than the Tribulation period. Now verse 13, has presented interpreters with challenges because Jesus said, "He who endures to the end shall be saved." Now I want to clarify some things for you. This does not mean that stamina and endurance that causes you to persevere through tribulation, that these are the requirement of salvation. There is no requirement for salvation other than faith in Jesus Christ. So when He says, "He who endures to the end shall be saved," this is not a works-based salvation. I believe that rather than this being interpreted to say that endurance and stamina are the requirement of salvation, rather endurance and stamina are the characteristics of salvation; (laughs) are the marks of salvation. Basically what I'm saying is, true believers do not fall away. True believers do not fall away. That's why Jesus said, "He who endures to the end;" it's not that enduring to the end earns you, qualifies you for salvation; no, he who endures to the end simply proves, that you are truly saved. Because apostates, those who fall away, never were truly saved. But true believers in Christ do not fall away. And when He says, "He who endures to the end, shall be saved;" think about this. If He's talking about the Tribulation period, it could be that the word saved here is not just used in a spiritual sense, but can also be understood as being in a literal physical military sense. That those believers who are not martyred during the Tribulation, who aren't killed for their faith, but they're actually alive at the end of the seven years when He comes back. And maybe this is referring specifically to Jewish believers in Jesus; who have reassembled in the Holy Land. And remember, the battle of Armageddon, the armies of the world will be gathered in the Holy Land to wipe out Israel. And by this time, Israel's population will have been whittled down through the Antisemitic hostility of the Antichrist. And you're going to have this remnant of, by that time, believers who will have been prepared to receive Christ or who already know Christ. But what Jesus is saying, those who endure through all of this will be saved. It may mean this, that those who survive all the assaults of the global line to the antichrist, and they endure to the end and they're still living, they will literally see the return of Christ. And He will save them in a physical, visible kind of way by His triumphant return. (laughs) I love to look at the different vantage points of interpreting a verse such as this. And then verse 14, He says, "This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come." Okay, let me ask you a question, when He says this gospel is going to be preached in all the world, does this mean, is this a reference to world missions? That before Christ can come, the missionaries have to get the message out to all of the unreached people groups in the 1040 window and all the tribal communities that have never heard the name Christ? Well, we certainly are motivated by our Master's call to make disciples of all nations; but is that what He's referring to here? Or does this mean when He says, the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all of the world, and then the end will come, does He mean the spread of the gospel through television and through internet like the live stream, what we're doing right now? Or could verse 14 be referring not to any of those things, although those things contribute to it; but could it be that the point at which Jesus is directing our attention in verse 14, that there's going to come a final installment of the proclamation of the gospel? And He says, "Then the end will come." Could it be, that it's not just missionaries reaching unreached people groups, and it's not just technology saturating the globe with the gospel message, but could it be that He's referring here to the final proclamation of the gospel during the Tribulation period, and then the end will come? I believe it is option three. Because when we study what will happen in the Tribulation, I wanna just display this chart for you. The final universal preaching of the gospel is talked about in Revelation. In chapter seven, John talks about those 144,000, 12,000 from every tribe, who are messianic, Jewish believers in Jesus, they are evangelists on fire with the Holy Spirit. Bold as lions, who will cover the planet preaching the gospel. Then John in Revelation 11, talked about those two mighty witnesses who minister in the likeness of Moses and Elijah who are killed but who in front of the whole world, watching through technology, are literally resurrected from the dead after having their bodies displayed for all to scorn their corpses ridiculed. The two mighty witnesses preached the gospel with literal fire and supernatural power. And then chapter 14 of Revelation describes these angels who are summoned to blanket the globe one final time to preach the gospel. See, I believe that it is these three instances about which Jesus is speaking in verse 14. Okay, so I just wanted you to know that, that some people believe that the reason that Jesus has not come back, is He's waiting for the gospel to fill all of the earth. And when the last message of the gospel has been preached the last person who needs to be saved is saved, that's when He's going to come back. That is a misunderstanding of this verse. Because what we do is, we distinguish between the rapture of the church and the return of Christ. And if we rightly assume, that the rapture precedes the Tribulation, then what Jesus is referring to in verse 14, is not talking about things that have to happen before the rapture. He's talking about what will happen before He returns. As He says, "After the gospel has been preached in all the earth, then the end will come." The end is when He returns in triumph to set up His millennial kingdom. And so you see when He appears in the clouds to end the Church Age, He is coming to rapture His saints. After the seven year Tribulation, He is coming back to the earth with His saints to rescue Israel, to vanquish the Antichrist and the global armies with His wrath, and to raise the flag of His messianic kingdom over the city of Jerusalem, and reign for 1000 years. So in closing, I'll just summarize what I've just said from the Believers Bible Commentary on verse 14. The writer says, "Verse 14 is often misused to show that Christ could not return for His church at any moment because so many tribes have not yet heard the gospel. But the difficulty is removed when we realize that this verse refers to His coming with His saints, rather than for His saints." And with that, we simply say that the rapture could happen at any time. But what Jesus was referring to in verse 14, is not the rapture. He's referring to His return, which will not take place until the end of the Tribulation. Father, thank You for allowing us to delve into the depths of the words of Jesus about prophecy and to compare it with the other things that we've studied in prophecy; particularly in Your glorious book of Revelation. I pray that tonight's study has been meaningful, and enlightening and informative, and that it helps us to rightly divide the word of truth and to be informed Christians who know which signs we are to anticipate. We love You and thank You for being such a good and gracious God, in Jesus name. Amen.
