Signs of the Times | Matthew 24 | Gary Hamrick

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] matthew chapter 24 verses 1-14 then 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 upon another that shall not be thrown down now 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 and jesus answered and said to them take heed that no one deceives you for many will come in my name saying i am the christ and will deceive many and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars see that you were not troubled for all these things must come to pass but the end is not yet for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and there will be famines pestilences and earthquakes in various places all these are the beginning of sorrows then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake and then many will be offended and will betray one another and will hate one another and then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many and because lawlessness will abound the love of many will grow cold does any of this seem familiar 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 let's pray father we pause as we open up your word now to pray to seek your face and we ask that you would impress upon our hearts these things that you spoke to us and are still speaking to those who have years to hear we're living in a world in a time lord where we're seeing some of these things coming to pass before our very eyes so we know we're getting closer and closer to your imminent return and we pray that you would find us ready and faithful and representing you well in the earth until you come again and so bless our time now in your word we pray in jesus name and everybody said amen chapter 24 here in the gospel of matthew occurs during the last week of jesus's life leading up to his crucifixion the scene of chapter 24 is jerusalem he has gone to jerusalem with his disciples to celebrate the feast of passover which is immediately followed by the feast of unleavened bread so it is an eight-day holiday jesus has gone to jerusalem to celebrate this with his disciples and it was typical for any rabbi but this is standard for jesus we see this through the gospels that during feast time what jesus would do is he would go to the courtyard area of the temple during the daytime and he would teach and then at night time he and his disciples would retreat to the mount of olives just a short walk from the old city of jerusalem down the kidron valley over to the mount of olives and that's where they would find lodging and that was typical for any time they went to jerusalem for the feasts he would go to the city to teach during the day and then they would retreat to the mount of olives at night to find lodging because you have to remember when when feast time would roll around in jerusalem the population would swell immensely and there's no there's no place to find you know there's no holiday inn there's no you know motel six nobody's leaving the light on for yet right so you have no place to lodge except you you know you just sleep against an olive tree or you you pull up the ground and that's your bed and so that's what jesus would typically do and here in chapter 24 what we read is he has just finished there in the courtyard area in fact in chapter 23 our study from last week part of what he was doing when he was teaching in the courtyard area on that day was he was rebuking the religious pharisees and leaders of his day for their stubborn refusal to accept him and for the way they would try to malign him so he's just finished all that he's been teaching of the temple courtyard when we get to chapter 24 he's now retreating with his disciples to the mount of olives to find lodging for the night and as they're leaving his disciples draw his attention to the beauty of the temple there that was built to god to honor him there in jerusalem and it was a spectacular building it was a very beautiful building and we only know as much from what we read in the scriptures because obviously there's no picture there's no drawing and there's no remnant at all of the temple of jerusalem that stood there at one time but it was a very beautiful building built of the white jerusalem stone that was quarried right there in proximity to the temple area and they would transport the the uh hand hewn stones to the temple mount and it would be built without the sound of a chisel or a hammer it would all be placed beautifully the bible says to make this incredible structure to god and we don't even know the full extent of its beauty because by the time we read of jesus's ministry in jerusalem the first temple built by solomon has been refurbished by king herod in fact in the days of jesus it's still in the process of being refurbished but it stood much more beautiful than even what solomon built and in 1st kings chapter 6 the bible gives us the dimensions of the first temple that solomon built so you have to think it's even more beautiful than what solomon built because herod refurbished it but in 1st kings chapter 6 it gives us the dimensions of the temple and in cubits it was 60 cubits long it was 20 cubits wide and it was 30 cubits high that translates to roughly 90 feet long talking about the temple 90 feet long 30 feet wide and 45 feet high so this is roughly four stories high and you have to again put yourself back in the day because this was a very unusual beautiful and large structure for the day this is at a time when most families would live in a single 12 by 12 room with uh with stone walls and a thatched roof that was it so when you get to jerusalem and you see this beautiful white glowing glistening building because often it would catch the sunlight in the middle of the day and it would be spectacular i mean you you're enamored by it there's nothing like it anywhere else in the world at this time and so as they're leaving jerusalem at the end of this one day to go to the mount of olives his disciples here at the beginning of chapter 24 they say to jesus wow i mean take a look like let's look back over our shoulder here this is one beautiful building and jesus is basically like ah it's gonna be destroyed and they're like what what are you talking about and this is where jesus prophesies right here look again at verse two he says do you not see all these things assuredly i say to you not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down and jesus's words would come to pass about 40 years later when in 70 a.d the romans in an attempt was a successful attempt sadly to put an end to a jewish revolt the romans went in and totally destroyed the temple led by at the time emperor titus vespasian 70 a.d he ordered his roman troops to go in to put an end to this jewish revolt and they completely and utterly destroyed the temple they burned it he gave orders for it to be burned now how do you burn something that is stone complete completely stone some wooden doors overlaid with gold and the whole interior of the temple was overlaid with gold how do you burn that what they did was they cut down the olive trees from the mount of olives and history tells us that they took then the limbs and the branches of the olive trees and they put them in the temple and they put them around the outside of the temple and then they lit the branches on fire and the natural oil of the olive wood served as an accelerant and the intensity of the fires melted the gold that was inlaying the interior and all of the gold dripped within the crevices of the stone walls and in the crevices of the stone floor and after the fire was over and things cooled down roman soldiers dismantled the temple by stone to chisel out all the gold that had melted in the crevices and that became the plunder for their service they plundered the gold that had melted on the temple mount and so they threw the stones off in the process of dismantling the temple after they had burned it and after they were retreating the gold here's a picture behind me this is in israel today archaeologists have uncovered the original street level during the days of jesus and what looks like rubble over here is actually the stones that had been thrown off the temple mount by the romans in 70 a.d that still lie there in a heap on the original pavement level where jesus would have walked as a reminder and a testimony of what happened in 70 a.d so when we go there when tourists go there we stop and we look we see what jesus said would happen happened about 40 years after he prophesied it now you might be wondering why haven't why haven't the jewish people built another temple since then because there hasn't been a temple for the jews since 70 a.d when the romans destroyed it and the answer is because from the time of the roman occupation and following israel was always under foreign domination so they didn't have the freedom to rebuild their temple until 1948 in 1948 when israel asserted their independence as a nation that was born again and and i don't mean in a spiritual sense they're the rebirth of a nation and god well in some sense in a spiritual sense and god gathered together jews from all over the world they made aliyah they made pilgrimage to israel the uh revival of the of the ancient hebrew language i mean it's a miraculous story and a remarkable story when you when you really study the history of the the reforming of the state of israel it's a god thing and in 1948 when they asserted their independence and about a dozen different arab nations around them waged war to try to prevent them from establishing their independence and they prevailed again a miraculous story now they prevailed in 1948 though at the end of the war israel was divided sorry jerusalem the city of jerusalem was divided east jerusalem and west jerusalem and east jerusalem was in the hands of the jordanians and west jerusalem was in the hands of the israelis but the problem was that the jordanians never really respected the the the peace deal and they continued to prevent the jewish people from having any real access to the temple mount and so the jordanians controlled it and so they they still didn't have free reign to do what they wanted on the temple mount come 1967 and in the 1967 war that israel fought they recaptured all of the city of jerusalem and so they maintained control of it today except as part of signing a peace drill after the 1967 war then minister of defense moshe dayan agreed to allow the muslims to have the administrative control of just the temple mount area it's about 35 acres where the the temple of god used to stand now presently just the dome of the rock and the al-aqsa mosque stand there because it's one of the holy sites that muslims see for them as well so moshe dayan minister of defense for israel signed in the peace treaty that you can continue to maintain administrative right over the temple mount you get to decide what goes there and what does not go there it was not a great decision for this reason moshe dayan has no portrait to him no statue to him no he's basically been scrubbed from israeli history in terms of the public view of anything that honors him and so the jewish people have never had the opportunity to once again build the temple it has been vacant since 70 a.d and jesus prophesies this it comes to pass now um before any of that happened though jesus just prophetically says this is going to happen his disciples react as you might imagine they would they're like what in the world are you talking about and so his disciples then come to him privately now they've gone to the mount of olives and they're sitting there with jesus and they ask him two questions because they really want to know three things and here are the two questions it's in verse three if you look at your bibles again verse three it says now as he sat on the mount of olives the disciples came to him privately saying tell us when will these things be and second question and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age so the second question has really two parts to it here are the three things they basically want to know one when will these things happen meaning the destruction of the temple two what will be the sign of your coming three what will be the sign of the end of the age now at first glance it looks like the disciples are making some pretty intelligent theological questions here about the end times i mean the d team is interested in eschatology like whoa you know but at closer examination what we really find is in reality they are showing their ignorance about end times and jesus is going to use the rest of the chapter to kind of straighten out their theology because it is thought that when the disciples hear jesus talk about the destruction of the temple they think it is tied to the end of the age so they want to know well when will these things happen the destruction of the temple because that must mean then it's the end of the age and also in there what will be the sign of your coming now it's unlikely that they really understood that he's coming again so what they probably are asking is when will be the coming of your power and and your your your ruling here because they were they understood he was messiah but their concept of messiah was you're coming to put down the oppression of rome and you're going to establish your kingdom right it's going to be the end of the age so when you describe the destruction of the temple you're telling us that you're coming into power and it's going to be the end of the age right when will these things happen and jesus is going to spend the rest of the chapter kind of untangling their their theology here to help them understand that the destruction of the temple is not tied to the end of the age not directly at least he's not coming back at that time he didn't come back at that time the destruction of the temple was just one pivotal event in the course of human history that does serve a major purpose though you know in god's economy of things look at what he did by allowing the temple to be destroyed a temple that was built to honor god yeah but you know what happened at the temple animal sacrifices that people would make to atone for their sins once christ came he did away with the sacrificial system because he came as the lamb that takes away the sins of the world to die for the sins of the world once and for all atonement is through faith in jesus now not through the slaughtering of animals so it's kind of a wonderful thing in effect that what god did was eliminating the animal sacrificial system by eliminating the temple where you would sacrifice your animals so that the focus could be on his son jesus the lamb of god who came to take away the sins of the world so jesus said this is going to happen it's going to be destroyed but the temple itself as a place where animals would be sacrificed not needed anymore and god can be worshipped in all places and so they started to move into synagogues instead of a central temple but the animal sacrificial system at that point was done jesus is the only sacrifice that we need so he helps his disciples here and us to understand the chronology of events that will happen leading up to a second coming everybody needs to understand jesus is coming again he's coming again the old testament gave more than 300 prophecies related to his first coming and jesus fulfilled them all related to a second coming the bible gives three times as many prophecies and you better believe jesus is going to fulfill all those as well and so we're going to look here together yes amen and amen we're going to look here together at chapter 24 and again i apologize i'm gonna rush through this the good thing is this will get archived tomorrow you can put me on pause and take notes if this is too fast for you for today but we're gonna take a look at the events that jesus says will be leading up to his second coming i have put them in i've enumerated 15 major events but you can you know you can enumerate them a little bit differently that's not the issue i just wanted to try to try to make this as concise as i can with you but i'm counting 15 major events that will precede his second coming from matthew chapter 24. and jesus seems to break down these 15 major events into three phases three phases and he likens the phases to a woman who is pregnant and going into labor and i'll show you in a moment where he actually says that but you know it's an interesting progression of things because the phases in chapter 24 get more intense as you get closer to a second coming you know and just like when a woman gives you know birth and she starts to go into labor it gets more and more intense until she actually has the baby not that i speak from experience i you know i've never had a baby i only helped a lady have one my wife uh actually three um i lose track but um but but we all know whether you've got a baby or not there's like an intensity that happens and so especially you ladies who've had babies right that first phase of like those little contractions that like i think they call it like the braxton hicks got like oh oh that little twinge oh oh little twinge there oh i felt that okay all right but it's mild mild contractions then you go in the hospital you get hooked up to the monofetal monitor and then all of a sudden they start to pick up they intensify now you're like all right all right all right you don't quite hate your husband yet but you're getting there you did this to me all right and then and then the last phase is like like give me an epidural ah you know that that's the last phase right where things are really intense and they're happening and that's the way we see it progressing through chapter 24. now lest you think i'm exaggerating which sometimes i can i think it's a spiritual gift i'm not sure but i actually want to point it out to you look here in your bibles verses four through eight this is the first phase verses four through eight and jesus answered and said to them take heed that no one deceives you for many will come in my name saying i am in the cry i am the christ and will deceive many and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars see that you are not troubled for all these things must come to pass but the end is not yet for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and there will be famines pestilences and earthquakes in various places verse 8 all these things are the beginning of sorrows or the beginning of sorrows now if you have an niv bible or esv it says these things are the beginning of birth pains and the greek word is odin and that's what it means so he's putting this in the context of there's going to be a mild aspect of labor but it's going to intensify it's going to get phase two is going to get you know more intense and then the final phase is the hardest and most difficult and painful part of the whole thing and so this is this is how he speaks here concerning this and actually paul would write in first thessalonians 5 using the same analogy of a woman in labor first thessalonians 5 1-3 paul says but concerning the times and the seasons brethren you have no need that i should write to you for you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the lord so comes as a thief in the night for when they say peace and safety then sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman so this is the you know the analogy here and so what we're going to look at are the three phases the signs of the times before christ comes and the verses i just read between verses four through eight really spell out phase one and phase 1 includes number one deception by false christs number two wars and rumors of wars number three famines number four pestilences number five earthquakes i'm going to touch on each of these just real quickly the deception by false christs is a reality that probably you may not be as much aware of there's actually a whole page in wikipedia not that everything is reliable in wikipedia but there's actually a whole page in wikipedia that is entitled list of people who claimed to be jesus in the 18th century there were only two who claimed to be jesus in the 19th century it went up to seven and in the 20th and the 21st century in our lifetime 36 people claimed to be jesus among them some of the more familiar names uh sun young moon jim jones charles manson david koresh all these people claim to be jesus now you might say well some of them might have had mental illness i get that others were probably possessed i get that too but regardless these are people who are saying that they are jesus uh here's a couple of pictures of some people that you may not know about this guy's name is sergey uh torup he's a russian guy he even addresses the part doesn't he kind of looks like what our concept concept of jesus is uh you know i don't have a concept that he jesus spoke with a russian accent but this is sergey uh he uh he used to be a former traffic cop and then he decided no i think i'm jesus and so that's what he does now and uh in in russia uh nyet uh not a real christ yet uh so sorry sergey um and then check out these folks i think they got a little lost after woodstock but uh but this is aj miller allen john miller and mary luck and he believes he's jesus and she believes that she is mary magdalene and they're married and they have a ministry in australia and it's it's really bizarre if you go to their website which i'm not going to give out because then it just uh you know gives them traffic there but but on the on the home page i looked it up last night and said here's a message from jesus well i kind of already have the message from jesus it's kind of right here but thank you very much aj and so um they're in australia um so that's kind of a weird thing that jesus has an australian accent not that he's gonna have an english accent you know by the way but um the real jesus but a.j miller used to be a jehovah's witness elder and decided i guess he wasn't deceived enough so i'm gonna then also be jesus and these people are out there it's just it's crazy but they're out there all right back to our list real quickly wars and rumors of wars number two according to thewars in the world.com presently there are 851 conflicts in 70 countries around the world right now famines in 2019 800 851 million people are considered food insecure and of that 149 million are starving right now pestilences do we need to talk about this i mean we're in a supposed pandemic with covid and there are now mutations and variants and all this stuff there's antibiotic resistant bacteria because of the over prescription of antibiotics we know this right we got mrsa we got serious stuff like cancer we got hiv so there are all kinds of things that are happening in our world in terms of diseases number five earthquakes the us geological survey my dad worked for them before he retired they on their website they say about 20 000 earthquakes around the globe happen every year we just don't feel most of them they're minor that's 55 a day since they started keeping records in 1900 on average there are 16 major earthquakes a year that's 7.0 or higher on the richter scale and in 2010 just you know like a decade or more ago there were 24 in that one year look in your bible to phase 2 look at verses 9 to 14 verse 9 then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you and you will be hated by all nations for my name sake and then many will be offended the greek word there is scandalidzo it means they will fall away from the faith will betray one another and will hate one another and then many false witnesses will rise up and deceive many and because lawlessness or wickedness 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 so labor intensifies here phase two includes this number six persecution of christians number seven apostasy a falling away of the faith number eight betrayal and and hatred in the world number nine increased deception by false prophets number 10 increased wickedness number 11 decreased love number 12 the spreading of the gospel globally and so these are the things that will also happen prior to his second coming the top five talking about persecution of christians the top five countries in the world who persecute christians according to open doors number one north korea number two afghanistan number three somalia number four libya number five pakistan 245 million christians around the world suffer what is called high levels of persecution for their faith that's one in nine christians we just don't see much of it because we enjoy relative comfort in our country that might be changing though and in 2019 when they last did stats 4136 christians were killed for their faith just in that year 2625 christians were detained without trial arrested sentenced and imprisoned and in the same year 1266 churches or christian buildings were attacked so persecution is on the rise number seven apostasy and abandoning of the faith number eight betrayal and hatred hatred is running high in our nation number nine increased deception by false prophets number ten increased wickedness now verse 10 verse 12 jesus uses the word lawlessness in new king james but it's a greek word that means that they have shunned the law of god so it's wickedness that is increasing number 11 decreased love verse 12 says the love of many will grow cold that's agape by the way the agape love will grow cold number 12 is good news the spreading of the gospel globally i mean we're living in the information age and so this is wonderful that the gospel is getting out and getting into places where otherwise it has never uh reached and uh and you know just even in our own church we're reaching more people across the globe than ever through our social media and our online presence just four months ago the subscribers to our youtube channel was 3 000 and now it's 45 000 and growing just four months ago so i mean god is working in different ways i get mail every day from some other part of the world i've gotten mail from christians in iran who follow us south africa australia england india i mean it's amazing at how the gospel is going forth so that is happening but let me look at the last phase before we close with you and if you'll look at verse 15. in verse 15 jesus says therefore when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by daniel the prophet standing in the holy place whoever reads let him understand then let those who are in judea flee to the mountains let him who was in on the house top go not go down to take anything out of his house and let him who was in the field not go back to get his clothes but woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days and pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the sabbath for then there will be great tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time no nor ever shall be and unless those days were shortened no flesh would be saved but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened then if anyone says to you look here is the christ or there do not believe it for false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive if possible even the elect see i have told you beforehand and therefore if they say to you look he is in the desert do not go out or look he's in australia or russia yeah no if he's in the inner rooms do not believe it for as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west so also will be the coming of the son of man for wherever the carcass is there the eagles will be gathered together that's kind of a funny verse but what he means there it's basically a figure of speech like what we would say where there's smoke there's fire that's what he means there the last phase is the most intense this is the you know this is the excruciating painful time that's coming upon the earth just prior to christ coming so in the scale of you know intensity of labor giving birth this is the worst part of it now when i look at bible chronology i don't believe that we're here for phase three but nevertheless in phase three he talks about the abomination of desolation that is that the anticipation of the antichrist there will be a charismatic global world leader who emerges on the world scene to be a world dictator over the globe that's what the bible tells us this antichrist will be opposed to god and everything about god he will be possessed by satan and in 2 thessalonians 2 4 it says that he will set himself up in god's temple in jerusalem and proclaim himself to be god and demand to be worshipped which also tells us that the temple will be rebuilt in order for that to happen the temple will be rebuilt unfortunately it will be rebuilt to honor the antichrist and he will set himself up there to be worshiped as messiah and the eyes of many will be opened when he breaks a covenant of peace daniel talks about this in his book that's why jesus says as spoken of by the prophet daniel he breaks the covenant of peace halfway into a seven year deal and the eyes of the jewish people will be opened in particular to the fact that they've been duped he's not the real messiah so this person is coming onto the world scene again i don't believe that we'll be here as christians will be taken will be raptured before the appearance of the antichrist but he's going to come number 14 great tribulation on earth that's what jesus says in verse 21 uh all of these things we've covered in our wednesday night study the intensity of the great tribulation between revelation 6 to 18. you can go back in our teaching library to listen to our wednesday night revelation study that's what he's talking about what is going to happen upon the earth cataclysmic world events and then finally number 15 the rise of more false christs and false prophets performing false signs and wonders but jesus said in verse 27 he goes listen but don't think that you're you need to be deceived when somebody says well he's here or the the messiah is there because he says in verse 27 as lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west so also will be the coming of the son of man the second coming of jesus will be visible and powerful and every eye will see him and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that jesus is lord you don't have to worry i'm going to miss it you know oh i didn't know he showed up in australia no no like lightning in the sky everybody is going to be able to see him and that's why jesus says this in verses 29 and 30 immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light the stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken and then the sign of the son of man will appear in heaven and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory can i get an amen to that now before we close just give me two more minutes you've been gracious but two more minutes because the question becomes on the minds of many people well what phase are we in okay clearly we're in phase one and most of phase two um it's undeniable really even in phase two when you think about the persecution of christians more christians have been persecuted in the last century than in the previous 19 combined okay when you when you talk about apostasy i mean there's a denial of truth and god's word in churches and seminaries like never before people who are denying the faith there's a hatred in our country a vitriol like i've never seen before there's the increase of wickedness for sure because we are legalizing and celebrating sin like never before we're seeing also in a good way the gospel spreading around the world at a record pace because of social media and technology so i think we're into phase two i would never presume to put a date on when christ will return that's a false teacher who would ever do that kind of a thing but i think when you look at the signs of the times we're in phase one and into phase two and the only thing that separates phase two from phase three is the rapture of the church so we need to be ready which is the bigger question not as much the question what phase are we in the bigger question is are you ready because if you look at verse 36 jesus says but of that day and hour no one knows not even the angels of heaven but my father only and then he follows up in verse 44 and he says therefore you also be ready for the son of man is coming in an hour you do not expect that's the bigger question not what phase are we in but are you ready are you ready for the second coming of christ now interestingly after jesus makes that statement there the rest of chapter 24 and into chapter 25 he teaches three parables so we can know what it means to be ready those three parables will be the topic of the next three sundays okay so read ahead because we need to be ready amen amen let's pray together lord thank you for your word and thank you for the reminder that when we start to get weighed down by the things of this world that you're coming again so we don't need to lose heart we need to represent you well in the earth until you come again we need to be watching and ready but lord when our hearts start to get weighed down may we lift up our heads and look up because our redemption draws near we look forward to your imminent return and i pray lord over the next few weeks that we would examine our hearts to make sure that we are ready for your second coming find us faithful lord find us ready and watching in wonderful expectation of your second coming we love you and we praise you together in jesus name and everybody said amen

Channel: Cornerstone Chapel - Leesburg, VA

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Length: 37min 31sec (2251 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 01 2021