Understanding the Times of the Signs
From time to time, it is good to take a step back from all the minutiae and historical details and current events relative to Bible prophecy, and reconsider the awesomeness of Big Picture overall.
For two millennia, the faithful have kept watch, looking hopefully for signs that indicated that they might be among the generation whose time would see the coming of the Lord.
For the generation actually living in the times of the signs, there are so many signs to juggle that they almost become routine. There is yet another old saying to the effect that "familiarity breeds contempt."
"Contempt" is too strong a word to apply here, except in the sense that when the miraculous becomes commonplace, it becomes somewhat less awe-inspiring, somehow.
We are living eyewitnesses to events for which the ancient prophets had no words, but somehow managed to describe in symbols decipherable only to one generation, somewhere in time.
The prophet Daniel was so confused by what he had witnessed, and so unsure of how to describe it adequately, that he actually complained to God's Messenger about it:
"And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?"
Just try and see it from Daniel's perspective. He had just absorbed a vision of Israel's future, divided into seventy weeks of years.
God revealed to Daniel the rise and fall of four successive world empires; Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. Much of Daniel's vision would have been somewhat familiar; the mechanics of government and technology of war didn't change that much from the 5th century BC to the 1st century AD.
But Daniel's vision took a hard right turn following the 'cutting off of the Messiah' (Daniel 9:26) and jumped from the middle of the 1st century to somewhere in the 21st century.
Daniel was transported from the destruction of Rome by Titus in 70 AD to the confirmation of the seven year treaty by the antichrist and the start of the Tribulation Period -- Daniel's 70th Week.
Daniel had seen things that staggered him so much he didn't know where to begin.
Consider the angel's reply carefully:
"And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end." (Daniel 12:8-9)
There is a principle in Scripture that dictates that God does not repeat Himself unnecessarily. If God tells you something twice, it's because it is so important that He really, really wants you to get it.
That is the case here. Earlier, Daniel had voiced a similar complaint, and the angel had already told him:
"But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end," but in more detail, adding that, 'in the time of the end', "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." (Daniel 12:4)
As I said, this is something important enough for God to tell us twice. The events that so perplexed the prophets, even Daniel, who was so in tune with the Mind of God that he could divine dreams, would remain a mystery to every generation except the one that would see its fulfillment.
Every generation since Christ has watched for the signs of the times pointing to His return.
The Church at Thessalonika, for example, was so convinced that the Lord had come and they'd been left behind that Paul wrote his 2nd Epistle to the Thessalonians specifically to reassure them. (2nd Thessalonians 2:1)
But the angel told Daniel that the Signs of the Times would only be understandable during the Times of the Signs.
Assessment:
There is a world of difference between 'knowledge' and 'wisdom'. One can have great wisdom without much knowledge. Some of the wisest men I ever knew had little or no education.
And it is equally true that one can have a tremendous amount of knowledge and be utterly devoid of wisdom. The bookstores (and universities) are crammed with examples of Ph.D's who have dedicated their careers to proving that proposition.
Wisdom and knowledge are but two components of understanding and in context, it was 'understanding' that Daniel was seeking from the revealing angel. Indeed, the angel went on to say;
"Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand." (Daniel 12:10)
The Proverbs of Solomon explain 'understanding' as an equation that could be expressed this way: "wisdom plus knowledge equals understanding."
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding." (Proverbs 9:10)
That is the whole purpose of the Proverbs; "To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding." (Proverbs 1:2)
Daniel had wisdom, but the kaleidoscope of images from our time imparted no useful knowledge, so he therefore had no understanding of what he had just witnessed.
As I said, sometimes it is good to step back and take in the Big Picture in order to fully understand where waiting for signs of the times ended and living in the signs of the times begins.
It began when, for the first time since the times of Daniel, there is, in this generation, a political and national entity called "Israel" composed of Daniel's people and living in Daniel's city. (Daniel 9:24)
From the day that Israel was reborn (shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. (Isaiah 66:8) on 14 May 1948, the countdown clock began ticking down.
One needn't turn to Matthew 24's 'fig tree' analogy to make that point. The point makes itself. Virtually every major component of Bible Prophecy's Big Picture traces its genesis to the same point in modern history.
The same 1948 restoration of Israel is also the seminal event responsible for the current war on Islamic terrorism.
Daniel's antichrist is a prince of the people who destroyed Rome and burned the Temple. (Daniel 9:27).
Those 'people' were the legions of the Roman Empire. In 1948, the modern version of the Roman Empire, the EU, was born out of the Benelux Treaty.
The current East/West geopolitical alignment in the Middle East is a direct result of the US/Soviet Cold War which officially kicked off with the 1948 Berlin Airlift.
The first Constitution for a global government, the Universal Declaration of Rights and Freedoms was ratified by the UN Member States in 1948.
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Treaty establishing global economic policy rules (and ultimately evolving into the World Trade Organization) was signed and ratified by the UN in 1948.
The World Council of Churches was established under UN auspices in Amsterdam in August, 1948.
China and Taiwan were divided by the 1947-1948 Communist takeover of the mainland, giving birth to the inscrutable People's Republic of China.
Muslim Pakistan broke from newly independent India in 1948, creating the Islamic republic that ultimately gave the world the first Islamic Bomb, the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.
All that is history, and therefore, common knowledge. But devoid of 'wisdom' (i.e., that it is evidence of the soon fulfillment God's Plan for the Ages) the world can't understand the Big Picture for what it is.
What they see instead is chaos and terror and war and upheaval and, more than anything, fear. That's why so many people mutter "I don't know what this world is coming to," but flee the moment you start to tell them.
It is discouraging to wear the label of 'prophecy nut'.
(But Noah preached for 120 years without a convert -- now that is discouraging.)
So I think it is good to step back once in a while and drink in the awesomeness of the events to which we are now almost daily witnesses.
Our individual setbacks pale in comparison to the awesomeness of witnessing of the Hand of God directly interacting in our world to fulfill His Word in our generation.
If that isn't encouraging, I don't know what is.
Paul tells us of a special crown, the 'crown of righteousness' that is reserved in heaven, "not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing." (2nd Timothy 4:8)
Titus 2:13 says that, believers with understanding aren't quaking in fear "at looking at the things that are coming upon the earth," but that, instead, they are;
"Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." (Titus 2:13)
Looking at the signs of the times is terrifying. Understanding the times of the signs means a 'crown of righteousness' and represents our 'blessed hope'-- the soon Rapture of the Church.
Still, is natural to feel a sense of fear. After all, we all want to go to heaven, but none of us is eager to hasten the process by dying. Being afraid once in a while is not evidence of a lack of faith.
Paul explains that we are dual-natured creatures, part carnal and part spiritual, so it is not disloyal (or schizophrenic) to be afraid with the natural part and overjoyed at its spiritual implications.
That is what 'understanding' is all about.
"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." (1st Peter 1:7)
Maranatha! ("the Lord cometh") Omegaletter.com
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7 comments:
Well done, Mark. I love what you're doing!
AMEN!
'He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!'
-- Revelation 22:20 ESV
Shalom Aleichem.
Hello brothers,
I love what you are doing also
Mac..."I'll be back to your site to do some more growen and knowen!
Love the fellowship god's spirit
brings our way.
“Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!'
Amen to that Sicarii
I have some Christian brothers and sisters who talk about the time
the Lord will come and take us to Himself. We will be taken out of the world
before the wrath of God....The Tribulation. Some say that they are not concerned
about what goes on then.......They will not even look back, they say.
Well........I think since the Bible has much to say about that time period,
we should be concerned about it. Also there is much evidence to indicate that
the Body of Christ may have more to do with what the Lord is doing then we might
presently gleam.
Remember, what you believe about the Rapture has nothing to do with
whether or not you are saved. So let’s fellowship and agree to agree not to get mad
when we should to be glad. We all long for The Lord to return, that is certain, no madder
if you are Pretrib, Midtrib, Post or Pan or even Preterest.
Many make a big deal out of Matt 24:36 about the day or the hour and not knowing
the day of our Lord’s return. Well in reality, that day in Matt 24:36 is and can’t be talking about
the Rapture. It is merely taking about the longevity of His Word.
Millions of Believers are praying that this will be the day....and one day it will be.
When He happens to come on the day they hoped He would, are they lunatics because they
eventually were right about the day of his return to take us to Himself, “that were I am you
will also be?”And it in fact will turn out in the future, that many did “know the day”!!! These types believe He could come today. Others believe He will come on or around
a Jewish Feast High Day. The fact that is correct is this: “We cannot predict the future! We can only speculate based on our understanding or lack of understanding when He will come. It is too bad
many through history have dogmatically said this is it.” He is certainly coming back on a certain day. They, being false prophets, were wrong again .....crying “wolf” just too many times for the world and sceptics to stomach. I believe scripture has given enough evidence to indicate that the
Day of His Return has been set by Christ as a shadow for pointing to when He will come again.
This day was 40 days after His Resurrection. It is the very day He went up to Heaven. The problem is, we just can’t know the future. Paul said we are not in the dark and we can know the season.
We just have to wait till the future gets here. See Truthroom.com for more gleaming into this.
But.........back to the Tribulation and our possible involvement as the Body of Christ:
Ray Stedman was a great man of God will great in site from the Holy Spirit. Enjoy reading this.
7. The Secret Presence
Matthew 24:23-28
What was the first question ever asked in the New Testament? It was the question asked by wise men who came to Jerusalem, from the east: "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?" (Matthew 2:2).
When King Herod heard that the wise men had come asking about the birth of the Messiah, he posed the same question to the chief priests and teachers of the law: "Where is the Christ, the Messiah, to be born?"
They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea."
So the New Testament opens with a search for Christ. It opens with the all-important question, "Where is He?"
Now Jesus stands on the Mount of Olives, giving His followers a preview of that profoundly troubled period of history, the end of the age. And Jesus tells these men that a time is coming when people will ask, "Where is the Christ? Where is the Messiah?" But, He says, that will be a "trick question"--be careful of it! He says:
"At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time.
"So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather." (Matthew 24:23-28)
Do not miss the words with which Jesus opens this section: "At that time. . . ." This phrase clearly refers to the time of the Great Tribulation He has briefly but ominously described. He says, "If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened" (Matthew 24:22). As we have seen, this is the last three-and-a-half years of Daniel's predicted seventieth week.
During this terrible time of persecution and judgment, the Lord Jesus will support and sustain His own people by appearing to them frequently in a variety of places. These appearances will certainly be made to the 144,000 Jewish Christians in their worldwide ministry, and perhaps also to that "great multitude" of Gentile believers who will come out of the Great Tribulation.
As a result of these appearances, rumors will apparently spread like wildfire that the Messiah, the Christ, is somewhere around. Jesus had already predicted that a situation like this would occur during the forty-day period after His resurrection:
Now at the Feast the Jews were watching for him and asking, "Where is that man?". . .
The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things about him.
Then the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him. Jesus said, "I am with you for only a short time, and then I go to the one who sent me. You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come."
The Jews said to one another, "Where does this man intend to go that we cannot find him? Will he go where our people live scattered among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks? What did he mean when he said, 'You will look for me, but you will not find me,' and 'Where I am, you cannot come'?" (John 7:11, 32-36)
To those Jewish leaders, Jesus was nothing but a tub-thumping, rabble-rousing, troublemaker from Nazareth. They wanted to put Him to death as quickly as possible. Jesus knew their plans--and He knew that their plans would succeed. But He baffled them by saying that after they had done their worst, after they had killed Him, they would look for Him and not be able to find Him. That could have been true only during His forty-day post-resurrection ministry.
After Jesus ascended into the heavens, the Jewish leaders did not look for Him because the disciples were then declaring throughout Jerusalem that He had gone to the Father. But during that forty-day period between the Resurrection and the Ascension, there must have been many disquieting rumors. These rumors, which said that Jesus had been seen here, that He had been seen there, must have been maddening to the Jewish authorities. They thought they had destroyed Him--and now there were reports of His appearing all around! But if they went to look for Him, if they tried to track that rumor to its source, they invariably found that they were too late. Just as Jesus had predicted, they searched for Him but could not find Him.
Jesus appeared to His own--but He completely eluded the Jewish religious leaders. He had established a new and exciting relationship with His faithful followers, and the religious leaders could not intrude on that relationship. They couldn't even understand it.
Pre-Church Christians, Church Christians, and Post-Church Christians
During the forty-day period before Jesus ascended, His disciples had not yet become the church. They were what we might call "prechurch Christians." They believed in Jesus, but the church was not formed until the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out.
During the age in which we now live, the Holy Spirit is among us. The church of Jesus Christ is alive and well and active in the world. We live in what is often called "the Church Age," and we are "church Christians."
At the end of the age, after the church has been removed from the world, there will be new Christian converts. Jesus calls them "the elect." They will be Christians of a new kind--what we might call "post-church Christians." At that point in history, the church will have been removed from the world, and Christians will not be able to have any visible participation in world affairs.
We, the Christians who have been removed from the world (either through death or as a result of the Lord's return for us), will be given glorified bodies like the Lord's. The apostle Paul has said that, once removed from this life, the church will be forever "with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:17). It seems likely that we Christians of the Church Age will join the Lord Jesus in His ministry behind the scenes during the Tribulation. The church Christians will be like Moses and Elijah, who appeared with the transfigured Christ on the Mount (see Mark 9:2-9).
Here is the picture Scripture sketches for us of that time: Jesus will come for His church and take His followers into a new relationship with Him. Then He, along with them, will remain throughout the "end of the age" period, appearing only to those whose hearts are ready to believe in Him. Rumors of His presence will be flying everywhere, and people will say (just as they said during the forty days after His resurrection), "Where is He?" People will search for Him and not be able to find Him. But false prophets will claim to know where He is.
Masters of Deceit
Part of the Tribulation of the end times will be a fresh and powerful campaign of deceit directed against any who are tempted to believe in Jesus. Just as the Lord foresaw the great forces of deception as the end of the age approached, He also foresaw the coordinated campaign of deception during the Great Tribulation.
The first element of this campaign of deception is the rise of powerful, persuasive religious personalities. "For false Christs and false prophets will appear," He says, "and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible" (Matthew 24:24). No program of deception and lying propaganda ever succeeded without a masterful, persuasive leader.
People readily follow those who speak with authority and who manifest powerful, appealing personalities. There is no road to error quite as compelling as a religious one. History shows that more people are misled religiously than in any other way. Almost every false religious movement has had a charming, persuasive, compelling personality in the leadership position. Islam had Muhammad, the Mormon Church had Joseph Smith, the Scientologists had L. Ron Hubbard, the People's Temple had Jim Jones, and on and on.
Lies are much more believable when they are cloaked in religious garb and persuasively presented by a dynamic orator. No one would pay much attention if a blatant atheist were to attack Christian truth. But let a religious leader make the same statements in soothing, religious-sounding tones, and people will swallow the lie as readily as the truth.
So false Christs shall arise, taking full advantage of the superstitious expectancy of the times. As Jesus said in another place, "Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world" (Luke 21:26). False christs will come with a display of signs and wonders, misleading many, and playing into the hand of the lawless one, the Antichrist.
Not only will there be false christs but also false prophets. We have already seen that there are secular as well as religious prophets. A "prophet," in this sense, is an opinion-leader--perhaps a philosopher, university professor, author, journalist, political leader, or scientist. In secular society, "prophets" are people of great intelligence and influence. When they speak, people listen.
While the church is on earth, it acts as salt, pervading every aspect of society. Godly prophets serve to spread the savor and preservative of salt throughout the world. But at the end of the age, there will no longer be room in secular society for the light of the Christian gospel, no place among intellectuals for what Paul calls "God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden" (1 Corinthians 2:7). Since people of faith will no longer have a place among the world's elite, individuals possessing tremendous intellectual ability will arise, becoming instruments of error. These are the false prophets. They will convince millions that the lie of the Antichrist is the essence of reason. They will lead millions to an eternal doom.
The masterful, persuasive personalities of the last days will use the most powerful propaganda techniques ever devised. They will claim to know who and where the Christ is, and they will deceive many. Does it seem unbelievable to you that millions of people could be so deceived by so great a lie? Then let me share a personal experience.
I was once invited to meet a certain Bible "teacher" in a private home. As we sat down to talk, he said to me, "Christ has already returned to earth and I belong to a group of people who know where He is. If you are really interested in preaching the truth, I can tell you how to get in on the secret."
I would have thought his comments laughable if they were not so tragic. Wanting to know just how deluded this man was, I said, "Since you know where Christ is, would you tell me?" "Oh, He is in a special place in the desert, here in California," the man answered. "I have seen Him and talked with Him many times. Only those who are in the inner circle are permitted to know where He is."
I opened my Bible, turned to Matthew 24:26, and read these words to him: "So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it." I thought it significant that this man specifically told me that the Christ was out in the California desert--and Jesus had specifically said, "Don't go out in the desert looking for the Christ!" But this man was completely unfazed by the clear teaching of Jesus. "Oh," he said, "Jesus wasn't referring to our group when He said that. He was referring to false teachers talking about a false Christ. But the Christ I'm telling you about is the true Christ!"
Well, that is a crackpot approach to prophecy. But many people are perfectly willing to follow crackpots! False followers will readily swallow a false gospel in the last days.
Lightning in the East
As a clincher, Jesus says that these false leaders will "appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible" (Matthew 24:24). What form will these signs and miracles take? We do not know. But we see many individuals and movements already in our society who claim to present the truth, attested by signs and miracles.
Some of these false prophets, false christs, and false movements are pseudo-Christian. They maintain the trappings of Christian faith while subtly undermining and distorting biblical truth. Some are New Age cults that teach the deification of the self, and the miraculous power of crystals and herbal magic. Some are covens of witchcraft or Wicca. Others are openly practicing satanists. Some preach that reality is made up of many dimensions or spiritual realms, from which UFOs, alien beings, crop circles, and other manifestations come. There are many -isms and -ologies, and they all claim to be backed by miraculous signs and wonders. Jesus says that some of these signs and wonders will appear so convincing, so miraculous, that even Christians may be fooled by them.
In contrast to the false propaganda and false signs of the last days, Jesus discloses to us a true and foolproof method for finding Him. He says:
"For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather." (Matthew 24:27-28)
Here again, as He did in Matthew 24:3, the Lord uses the word parousia to predict His coming. It is a different word than He uses later when He speaks of "the Son of Man. . . coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory" (verse 30). It is easy to confuse these two comings because of His reference to lightning in verse 27. Since lightning is a form of power and glory, many feel the Lord is using it as a symbol of His coming in glory. But note carefully what He says.
When lightning flashes in the east, its effect is seen all over the sky. Jesus uses the symbol of lightning to describe a manifestation of glory that takes place in one place but is universally visible. Its effect is everywhere. Like a flash of lightning, Jesus will be seen by His own in specific places, at specific times, but the effect of His various appearances will be felt throughout the earth. Though the parousia itself will only be witnessed by the Lord's own people, the effects of the parousia will be seen everywhere.
As lightning is unpredictable and uncontrollable, so will be the presence, the parousia, of the Son of Man. He will appear and disappear at will. Whenever there is need for Him, He will be present, just as He was during the post-resurrection period. There will be no need to search for Him for He cannot be found that way. There will be no need to look for Him in the desert or in the inner rooms. He will come whenever and wherever He finds a heart ready to know Him.
In the parallel passage in Luke, Jesus says, "For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other" (Luke 17:24). A "day" used in that sense always refers to a period of time, not a sudden, climactic event.
Using a common proverb of His time, Jesus indicates the proper way to find Him: "Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather" (Matthew 24:28).
Once, when I was a boy attending a remote high school in Montana, we had an evening basketball practice. At the close of the practice, the coach called one of the team members aside. I watched him go to the other side of the room. The boy was a close friend of mine and came from a poor family, trying to eke out a living on a ranch about ten miles north of town. I watched the boy's face as the coach talked to him. He paled, then walked off with his head lowered.
Then the coach came over to us and said, "I just gave Joe some bad news. His dad has been found dead." Then he told us how he was found.
One of the neighbors owned a ranch about four or five miles away, across a deep canyon from Joe's home. The man had looked over and noticed that there was no smoke rising from the ranch house, so he saddled a horse and rode over. When he came to the cabin, everything was still and no one was around. The rancher wondered if anything was wrong.
Looking to the sky, he saw a group of buzzards circling in the sky about half a mile away. He rode off to investigate and found the body of Joe's father under the circling buzzards. I have never forgotten that incident. I recall that tragedy whenever I read these words of Jesus: "Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather. "
Unmistakable Marks
What does the Lord mean by these words? Why does He compare His appearance on earth to a decaying corpse? He is simply taking a common saying of the day to suggest that whenever you are looking for something, be aware of the accompanying signs. We have a similar proverb today, "Where there's smoke, there's fire."
In the last days, people will ask, "Where is Jesus Christ? How do you find Him?" The answer: Look to those places where you see signs of His activity. They are unmistakable. Jesus comes to transform life, to make life anew. He comes to remove delusion and deception, and to lead us into truth and reality. He comes to deliver us from guilt, fear, and hate. Even in those terrible days of unprecedented violence, terror, and death, Jesus will be busy with His everlasting ministry among human souls.
If you want to know where Jesus is, look for the signs of His activity, look for the evidence of transformed lives. That has always been true. It was true during His ministry two thousand years ago. It is true now of His ministry through His followers on earth. It will be true even in the last days.
Whenever you see evidence of healed, transformed lives, you know Jesus is there. Like lightning, He is sovereign, uncontrollable, unlimited by geography. False faiths and false prophets will claim, "Christ is here! We have Him hidden away in the desert! If you want to find Him, you must come to us!"
But no individual or group of individuals has the corner on Christ. To those of honest faith, He is universally available. He is instantly present with any humble heart that seeks Him.
8. The Power and the Glory
Matthew 24:29-31
Up in the northwest corner of the "boot" of Italy, on the Italian Riviera, is the seaside town of Portofino. Famed for its lush terraced landscape and pastel-painted Old World buildings, this beautiful resort town was once a small fishing village. Here, shellfishers dived for mussels and clams in the bay of San Fruttuoso and deep-sea fishing boats sailed toward the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
If you know where to look, you can find a nine-foot-tall bronze statue of Jesus Christ. That statue is one of the most famous landmarks associated with the town of Portofino. Thousands of tourists and vacationers stream through Portofino every year, enjoying its warm, sunny climate, elegant villas and hotels, and historic architecture--yet only a comparative handful of people have ever seen that famed statue of Christ.
Why? Because the statue is under fifty feet of water!
The statue is called the Christ of the Abysses, and it is located in the waters of the bay. On an exceptionally calm and sunny day, it can sometimes be glimpsed from a boat on the surface. But throughout most of the year, it can be seen only by divers, many of whom consider it their protector.
The Christ of the Abysses is hard to find and rarely glimpsed. But a day is coming when Jesus Himself will appear, and everyone in the world will see Him. It will be impossible not to see Him. That day will be the most dramatic event in human history--the day of the visible appearing of Jesus Christ. It is an event that Jesus Himself describes for us in His Olivet prophecy:
"Immediately after the distress of those days
'the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'
"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other." (Matthew 24:29-31)
This is the most prophesied event in the Bible. The Old Testament contains many references to it. Some Bible scholars estimate that one-tenth of all the verses in the New Testament refer to this event, the coming of Jesus Christ at the close of history. If all the references to Christ's return were removed, the New Testament would become virtually unintelligible. So the event we are about to examine is clearly one of the most important occurrences in all of history.
The Splendor of His Coming
Many Christians confuse the presence (or parousia) of Jesus with the sudden, worldwide, visible appearance of Jesus. The parousia begins when the church is taken out of the world. It is commonly called the "rapture" of the church. In that event, which takes place before the end of the age begins, the church is removed from the restrictions of time and Jesus becomes secretly present in the world. Jesus is secretly seen by His own during the dark days of the Tribulation, but the world does not see Him.
Then comes a moment that marks the end of His secret presence--the brilliant, globally visible event of His appearance when Jesus ends the secrecy of His presence and the whole world suddenly sees Him. This is the outshining of His presence before a thunderstruck world, the dramatic unveiling of the One who has already been secretly on earth among His people.
At that moment, Jesus will confront the lawless one, the man of lawlessness, the Antichrist. Paul writes of that moment, saying, "And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming" (2 Thessalonians 2:8).
That last phrase, "the splendor of his coming," is literally "the epiphany of His parousia." Epiphany means "unveiling" or "outshining." So, in other words, Paul calls this dramatic appearance of Jesus Christ "the unveiling of his presence." It is the startling climax of the whole period that Jesus calls "the close of the age."
Editor's Note: In 2 Thessalonians 2:8, epiphania describes the return of Christ as King, but the term also refers to the coming of Jesus for His church (the Rapture) as in 1 Timothy 6:14; 2 Timothy 4:8; and Titus 2:13. Premillenial Bible teachers generally hold that the context must determine the exact meaning of the terms parousia and epiphania.
Humanity's final hour is described for us as a series of three astonishing occurrences of escalating power and importance. The first of these three events involves catastrophe and destruction in the natural realm:
"Immediately after the distress of those days
'the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'" (Matthew 24:29)
Notice that the Lord Jesus makes a clear distinction between this event and the preceding time called the Great Tribulation. The Tribulation is a time when the naked brutality of human beings is widely manifested, when there is unbelievable cruelty and violence throughout society--which is what happens when humanity is completely unrestrained by the grace of God. The Tribulation is described for us in detail in the book of the Revelation, especially in the judgments of the seals and the trumpets. It will be a time when the horrors of Nazi persecution, the gas chambers of Buchenwald and Dachau, will be repeated a hundred times over throughout the earth; a time when violence stalks those in the streets, and nuclear terror rains down from the skies. It will be a time, as Jesus said, of unprecedented evil, slaughter, and human misery.
But immediately following the Tribulation is a natural catastrophe of unimaginable scale. Terrifying signs will appear in the heavens. Note especially the phrase, "and the heavenly bodies will be shaken." This suggests a severe gravitational disturbance in our solar system. A disruption on that scale would produce phenomenal effects on the earth, ranging from frightening displays of falling meteors in our skies to deadly, destructive earthquakes and tidal waves. Volcanoes will erupt, spouting lava and toxic clouds of cinder and ash, darkening the sun while reddening and obscuring the moon. In Luke's parallel account of the Olivet discourse, Jesus says:
"There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory." (Luke 21:25-27)
In that great and terrible day, all the people of the world will instantly know whether they have made the right or wrong choice with their lives. It will be, for some, a moment of infinite joy; for others, it will be a moment of infinite terror and horror. As C. S. Lewis observed in Mere Christianity, "I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks onto the stage, the play is over. . . . It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing. It will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen."
Voices from the Past
Jesus is not the only person to describe the catastrophic events coming at the end of the age. Old Testament prophets have also foretold these disasters. Compare the prophecy of Jesus with the words of the prophet Joel:
I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. (Joel 2:30-31)
The Old Testament prophet Isaiah described the same event in strikingly similar language:
See, the day of the LORD is coming—
a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—
to make the land desolate
and destroy the sinners within it.
The stars of heaven and their constellations
will not show their light.
The rising sun will be darkened
and the moon will not give its light. (Isaiah 13:9-10)
In the New Testament, the apostle John described a vision of that same cataclysm. In the book of Revelation, he wrote:
I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. (Revelation 6:12-14)
All these passages confirm the dire prophecy of Jesus: A day will come when some cataclysmic celestial force will create tremendous, terrifying events upon earth. These catastrophes will signal the swift-approaching end of the long and bloody history of human civilization.
The Unveiling of Christ
We have just seen the first in a series of three escalating occurrences that mark for us humanity's final hour: A violent natural catastrophe in the heavens and upon the earth. This violent upheaval in nature is followed immediately by the second astonishing occurrence: The sign of the Son of Man in the heavens. Jesus says,
"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn." (Matthew 24:30)"
That word "sign" is important. The second event that marks humanity's final hour is the appearance of a sign in the sky--the sign of the Son of Man. Remember that the Olivet discourse was the result of a question that the disciples of Jesus asked Him. In Matthew 24:3, they said, "What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" Now, in verse 30, Jesus answers their question--though the answer He gives is not as clear and understandable as the disciples might have, liked, or, for that matter, as we would like.
When the disciples asked that question, they did not mean (as we frequently take it), "What is the sign that will mark the time of your coming?" We tend to associate "signs" with schedules. But that is not what the disciples were thinking of. They were asking Jesus, "What is the event that will reveal the meaning of your coming?" This is always the purpose of signs in Scripture. That sign, Jesus now says, will appear in the sky just before He is made visible.
It is crucial to note that Jesus links this sign with the statement, "and all the nations of the earth will mourn." That is the New International Version's translation of that statement. The King James Version and the 1901 American Standard Version both translate this statement, "and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn." The Greek word that is here translated "nations" or "tribes" is phule. It is most commonly used in the New Testament to refer to a tribe or kindred group--and especially to one of the twelve tribes of Israel. The Greek word commonly used to refer to nations, (particularly Gentile nations, "the nations of the earth") is ethnos. But that is not the word used here.
When Jesus says "all the tribes of the earth will mourn," the Greek word for earth is ge. In the Greek New Testament, ge usually refers to the soil, the ground, or a tract of land within fixed boundaries, such as the nation of Israel. It is less common in the New Testament for ge to refer to the entire world.
So I believe the NIV is less accurate here than the KJV and the ASV. Jesus is saying that when the sign of the Son of Man appears in the sky all the tribes of the land of Israel will mourn. If the sign of the Son of Man is linked with Israel, then the evidence strongly suggests that the sign will consist of the reappearance of the cloud of glory that accompanied the nation Israel in the days of Moses. That cloud of glory was called the Shekinah. It was the sign of God's presence with His people, Israel, while they wandered in the wilderness for forty years.
Many years later, when the temple was built and Solomon dedicated it to God, the Shekinah glory came down and took residence above the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies in the temple. The Shekinah glory was the sign that God dwelt among His people.
This shining cloud of glory may well be what Jesus Himself refers to when He says, "They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory" (Matthew 24:30). There is an obvious reference to this same event in the book of Revelation. There John says:
Look, he is coming with the clouds,
and every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him;
and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. (Revelation 1:7)
Of course, this passage may simply refer to the atmospheric clouds, but the repeated emphasis seems suggestive of more. When Jesus appears, it will mark the close of the age. But His appearance will also signal the opening of a new chapter in God's program. The supreme characteristic of that new chapter will be the profound fact that God dwells with His people. The apostle John relates how this fact was revealed to him in his vision:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God." (Revelation 21:3)
Since the Shekinah is the sign of God's presence with man, it is fitting that the Shekinah would reappear as the sign that explains, clarifies, and reveals the meaning of Christ's coming. He comes that He may be, as the Old Testament prophets whispered, "Immanuel--God with us."
In Power and Great Glory
We have just seen the second of three escalating occurrences that mark humanity's final hour: The sign of the Son of Man in the heavens, the shining cloud of the Shekinah glory. The shining cloud will be followed by the dramatic appearance of Jesus Christ Himself. It is not a silent appearing, not something that takes place in a corner, but a bold, triumphant revelation.
The dramatic appearance of Jesus is often called the "Second Coming of Christ," though to be precise, the term Second Coming actually refers to the entire period of Christ's secret presence as well as His appearance to the world. This dramatic unveiling is, in fact, the second time the world sees Jesus Christ. The last time the world saw Him, He was hanging on a blood-stained cross, writhing in His death-agony. He looked like a complete failure--without power, without honor, without glory. But the next time the world sees Him, He will appear in power and triumph. All glory will belong to Him. As John declared in Revelation 1:7, "every eye will see him." And as Paul wrote to the Thessalonians:
God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (2 Thessalonians 1:6-8)
The present age, when God allows human beings to exercise their rebellious will upon the planet, is finally brought to an end. God now reasserts His right to rule over all the earth. This moment is described with striking language and imagery in the book of Revelation:
The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said:
"The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever." (Revelation 11:15)
When Jesus says in the Olivet discourse that the whole world "will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory," we are reminded of the closing words of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen" (Matthew 6:13, NASB). The prayer that our Lord taught His disciples to pray reflects the anticipation of God's people, through all the dark centuries, of the approaching day when the power and the glory of the universe will be in the hands of the One to whom it rightfully belongs. That is our hope and our confidence as Christians.
Satan, of course, does not want Jesus to have the power and the glory. Three times, Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness in order to prevent Jesus from attaining the power and the glory that was rightfully His. In the third and final temptation, Satan took Jesus to a high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. There Satan said to Him, "All this I will give you if you will bow down and worship me." In effect, Satan was saying, "The kingdom, the power, and the glory are mine, not yours." And Satan was right--for the moment.
Jesus did not rebuke Satan for making a preposterous claim that had no justification. Instead, He answered Satan using the only weapon available to a believer in an hour of darkness or temptation: the unchangeable word of God. Jesus said to him: "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only'" (Matthew 4:10).
With those words, Jesus set aside the temptation to take a short-cut to power and glory. Jesus had come in order to receive the power and glory that was His--but the way to that power and glory led through the cross. Satan offered an easy path to glory. Jesus chose, instead, the hard path, the narrow way, the darkness, agony, and humiliation of the cross. But in doing so, He made possible a future moment--the very moment described here in the Olivet discourse, when He will appear before the entire human race. It is the moment when He will come in power and great glory to take His place over the kingdoms of the world.
When Israel Mourns
The unveiling of Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords will accomplish certain immediate results. The first will be the mourning of the nation of Israel. As we have already noted, the Lord states in His Olivet discourse that all the tribes of the land of Israel will mourn. And in the book of Revelation, John says, "all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him" (Revelation 1:7). There will be national sorrow in Israel, as well as global sorrow.
This time of great mourning fulfills the Old Testament prophecy of Zechariah, in which the prophet says:
''And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great, like the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo." (Zechariah 12:10-11)
Why will they mourn? Because they will see the One whom they have pierced, and they will realize their sin and error. To their utter astonishment, they will discover that the One who appears in power and great glory bears wounds that they themselves have inflicted. They will see the wounds in His hands, the marks of nails. They will see the wound in His side, the piercing wound of the spear. And they will see the wounds they have inflicted on Him by rejecting Him and spurning the sacrifice He made for them upon the cross.
In a strange and tragic way, it will also be a fulfillment of the demand of the crowd who called for the death of Jesus. In Matthew 27:22-25, we see that the crowd demanded, "Crucify him! ... Crucify him! . . . Let his blood be on us and on our children!" And so it was. And that is why the world will mourn in grief over the One they have pierced.
Perhaps the very words of their mourning are recorded for us in a well-known passage from the prophet Isaiah. According to that Old Testament prophecy, there will come a day when Israel shall look on Him whom they have pierced, and they will say to each other:
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:3-5)
On the day that Jesus is revealed to the world in power and great glory, the people of Israel will recognize that the One whom their fathers crucified in ignorance and blindness was the One who loved them and gave Himself for their sins. They will mourn and weep not only for His pain, His wounds, His suffering on their behalf, but also for their own rejection of the One who gave Himself for them.
Righteousness Triumphs-At Last!
But that is not all that will happen in Israel when Jesus appears in power and glory. Concerning Himself, Jesus adds:
"And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other." (Matthew 24:31)
Who is Jesus talking about? Who are the "elect"? We do not need to be in doubt about the identity of God's elect. In the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah tells us:
In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea.
He will raise a banner for the nations
and gather the exiles of Israel;
he will assemble the scattered people of Judah
from the four quarters of the earth. (Isaiah 11:11-12)
The prophet Jeremiah confirms the same promise. Jeremiah chapter 31, loved by many for the beauty of its language and the gladness of its promise, contains this wonderful prophecy about the elect of God:
This is what the LORD says:
"Sing with joy for Jacob;
shout for the foremost of the nations.
Make your praises heard, and say,
'O LORD, save your people,
the remnant of Israel.'
See, I will bring them from the land of the north
and gather them from the ends of the earth.
Among them will be the blind and the lame,
expectant mothers and women in labor;
a great throng will return." (Jeremiah 31:7-8)
The gathering that the Lord promises through the prophet Jeremiah will undoubtedly include the 144,000 Jewish believers who are sealed, according to Revelation 7:4. Perhaps it will include as many as are left alive of the "great multitude" of Gentiles who believe in Jesus because of the testimony of the remnant of Israel. In the parable of the wheat and the weeds, Jesus Himself describes this same gathering of elect believers, and His description suggests that there are Gentiles included as well as Jewish believers:
''As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear." (Matthew 13:40-43)
Some Christians believe that this gathering up of the righteous by the angels is the same event as the removal (or Rapture) of the church, as described by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4. I am convinced, however, that this gathering of the righteous is not the same event. Jesus does not say anything here about gathering the elect into heaven. Rather, His parable suggests that living believers are gathered into an earthly kingdom. In this parable, Jesus does not mention the resurrection of the dead; however, in the case of the removal of the church from the world, resurrection is a primary emphasis.
Also, when the church is removed, as Paul relates in 1 Thessalonians 4, there is no indication that evil men are judged. But in the Lord's parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew 13, Jesus makes it very clear that "everything that causes sin and all who do evil" will be removed from His kingdom at the same time that the elect are gathered. He underscores this fact in another parable in the same chapter:
"Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 13:47-50)
It is logical to suppose that this is the time that the lawless one, the Antichrist, will come to his well-deserved end, as described by the apostle John from his vision in the book of Revelation:
Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the rider on the horse and his army [the rider, of course, is the Lord Jesus]. But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. The rest of them were killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh. (Revelation 19:19-21)
So ends the reign of the Antichrist--and with his destruction, the reign of evil is ended as well. Righteousness has triumphed on the earth at last. The Lord Jesus Christ receives what was rightfully His from the beginning--the power and great glory of the King of kings and Lord of lords.
The Lesson of Israel
In His Olivet preview of His dramatic return to earth, the Lord Jesus has laid great emphasis on how this event will affect the nation of Israel. Non-Jewish readers may ask, "What is the significance of all these events for us?" As we have previously seen, whenever God wants us to understand how He works in the lives of Christian believers, He uses His workings in the life of the nation of Israel as an object lesson.
As we retrace the history of Israel, we see that everything God did in the life of the nation of Israel, He has done in our lives as believers. The people of Israel were slaves, living in bondage in the land of Egypt, just as we were once slaves, living in bondage to sin that ruled our lives. But the angel of death passed over the people of Israel and spared them in that first Passover. At that moment, they were born as a nation by the grace of God--the Israelites were redeemed, brought out of bondage, and set free. As believers, we know that Jesus was sacrificed for us on the cross during Passover. Just as the blood of a lamb was smeared on the doorways of the houses of Israel, the blood of the Lamb of God stained the cross--and that cross became our doorway to freedom and salvation.
Three months after the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt, the people camped in the desert at the foot of Mount Sinai. Moses went up on the mountain and talked with God, and God gave him a message to take back to the people: "You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself" (Exodus 19:4). In the Bible, an eagle is usually a symbol of God's power. We see this symbol, for example, in Isaiah 40:31: "But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles."
You may recall that J. R. R. Tolkien drew upon this same potent symbol of divine strength in The Lord of the Rings. In that book, Gwaihir, the great lord of the eagles of Middle Earth, rescues Gandalf from prison atop the tower of Orthanc, and then rescues the hobbits, Frodo and Sam, from the fiery Mount Doom in the land of Mordor. That is what the redeeming strength of God is like, swooping into our prisons of sin and despair, rescuing us from the clutches of our enemies, redeeming our souls from the fiery pit, lifting us to unimagined heights of peace and joy. That is what God did for the nation of Israel when He carried them out of Egypt on eagles' wings. That is what God has done for every sinner who is saved by His grace.
But Israel repaid the Lord's goodness and grace with pride and self-righteous attempts to please God without hearts of true worship and love. The people of Israel murmured, grumbled, and complained. They fell into moral failure and sin. And that is so often what happens in the life of the believer. We respond to God's redeeming grace with pride, with attempting to please God with our own self-righteousness, with grumbling and ingratitude and sin. Like Israel, we even slip into patterns of unbelief and rebellion.
When we, as Christians, feel that we are wandering aimlessly in a wilderness of hopelessness and despair, we would do well to ask ourselves, "How is my life like the life of Israel? Is my 'wandering in the wilderness' the result of the same kinds of patterns that caused the people of Israel to wander in the wilderness after being redeemed out of Egypt?" For forty years, the nation of Israel wandered in the desert before they came into the Land of Promise.
Forty years after the crucifixion of Jesus, Israel was destroyed as a nation and dispersed as a people. Even so, God preserved Israel. For centuries, the Jewish people have been dispersed throughout the length and breadth of the earth. Though their temple was destroyed and they have largely fallen into disbelief, the people of Israel have been preserved as a nation, as a distinct culture, as a unique people. When the nation of Israel was carved out of the former British protectorate of Palestine in 1948, the Jewish people once again had a homeland. Many returned to Israel and reestablished themselves as a nation--but they did so largely in unbelief.
But, says Jesus, the hour is coming when God will gather the Jewish people from all around the world and bring them back to the land. This will happen by an act of God's own sovereign grace, without any merit on the part of the Jewish people--just as you and I, as Christians, are saved by His sovereign grace, having done nothing to earn our salvation.
The time when Jesus is revealed to Israel and to all the world will be an hour of mourning and repentance. Every eye will see Him, and every ear will understand at last what God has desired to accomplish in their lives. The people of Israel will then enter into a time of national healing and wholeness. Israel will become God's instrument of blessing to all the earth.
If you read the book of Romans with care, you will see that the same story is told in Romans 5 through 8. There, Paul details for us the way God has designed to bring men and women into genuine liberty, genuine joy, and the true excitement of life. In Romans 9 through 11, Israel is brought in as the illustration of these principles. Paul uses Israel as the example of how God will work in our own lives.
When we come to the place of utter spiritual bankruptcy, when we stop thinking we can contribute something of value to God, when we finally begin to rest and rely wholly upon His power to redeem us and work through us-then we begin to enter into the fullness of life that God has planned for us. That is the meaning of God's dealings with Israel. That is the meaning of God's plan for your life and mine.
9. A Thief in the Night
Matthew 24:32-44
Girolamo Cardano was one of the greatest mathematicians of the sixteenth century. He was also a great believer in astrology, the "art" of foretelling a person's future on the basis of signs and omens in the planets and stars. Born in Pavia, Italy, in 1501, Cardano cast his own horoscope, then predicted that he would die on September 21, 1576, at the age of seventy-five.
History records that Cardano did indeed die on the exact date predicted!
But on closer inspection, this fact is not as amazing as it might seem. On the appointed day of his death, Cardano arose from his bed and found himself in excellent health. Knowing that he had to die that day or his astrological prediction would be proved false, Cardano committed suicide.
Well, that's one way of making sure a prediction comes true!
As you have been surveying the prophecies Jesus made in the Olivet discourse, you have undoubtedly wondered when and how all of these things will come to pass. You may want to know exactly what date God has in mind for the culmination of His plan for human history. You may even have doubts that these prophecies will come to pass.
You are not the first person to ask these questions. While Jesus was unfolding the Olivet prophecy to His disciples, I suspect He saw an inquisitive look on their faces. He read the questions in their eyes: "When, Lord? How will it happen, Lord? How can we know for sure, Lord?" So Jesus breaks away from His description of the last days to address the questions that are on our minds, as I'm sure they were on the minds of His disciples. In this passage, He offers three powerful guarantees that everything He has said will truly come to pass. Here is the first:
"Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door." (Matthew 24:32)
The Lord draws a pattern from nature to illustrate the point He wishes to make. Everyone knows that when trees begin to put forth their leaves it is an infallible indication that summer is near. Some have misread this to mean that the fig tree is a symbol for the nation Israel, and that the Lord is telling us that when Israel shows signs of life as a nation, the end is near. That is perfectly true, of course, but that is not what Jesus is saying. In the parallel passage in Luke, Jesus says that this parable is not only a parable of the fig tree, but of "all the trees" (Luke 21:29).
What is the Lord telling us? Simply this: As history unfolds and it becomes apparent that the world is heading toward the conditions Jesus has described in the Olivet discourse, then we can be sure that His coming is near. The trend of world events is the guarantee that He has been telling the truth about the future. History will confirm His predictions because history will unfold in perfect alignment with all that He has said. When the world reaches the stage He describes, and the coming of the Antichrist looms on the horizon of global events, then we know that the arrival of Jesus "is near, right at the door."
Here we stand at the end of two thousand years of Christian history. The land of Israel is revived. In that land, plans are already being drawn to rebuild the temple and restore the Old Testament pattern of Jewish worship. Many of Israel's former friends have begun to switch sides and question the right of Israel to exist. The enemies of Israel are amassing all around the tiny nation, seeking an opportunity to drive the Jewish people into the sea.
Has the "tree" of history begun to put out its leaves, as Jesus pictures for us in His prophecy? I will let you judge for yourself whether the world is moving closer and closer to the events Jesus foretold in His Olivet prophecy.
The Indestructible Generation
Next, the Lord offers a second guarantee, contained in a statement that is widely misinterpreted and misunderstood:
"I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened." (Matthew 24:34)
Many people have wondered exactly what Jesus meant by those words. Was He referring to the generation to which He was speaking--the disciples and their contemporaries? Many critics of the Christian faith have claimed this to be so. They say, "Jesus predicted that the people He was speaking to on the Mount of Olives would still be alive when the world came to an end. Clearly, that generation died out and the world did not end. So the prophecy of Jesus has been proven null and void."
Others have suggested that Jesus was saying that the generation on earth when these events begin will still be living when they are completed. To accept this interpretation, however, one must accept a forced and unnatural meaning for the word "this" in the phrase "this generation."
As I have studied these words and compared them with other passages of Scripture, I have concluded that neither of these is the correct interpretation. The key to understanding this statement is the phrase "this generation." I believe that Jesus uses the phrase this generation as a reference to the Jewish people. He is saying, in effect, "This people, the Jewish people, will not pass away until all these things take place."
At first glance, you may think this is a forced interpretation of Jesus' words. But once you understand both the biblical context and the language and cultural context of this statement, you will see that this is, in fact, the most logical and natural interpretation of these words.
First, the biblical context makes it clear that this is what Jesus means. He used this same word, "generation" (Greek genea), in the same sense just one chapter earlier. Speaking sharply to the Pharisees, He said:
"You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation." (Matthew 23:33-36)
That last word "generation" is, again, the Greek word genea. By that term, Jesus clearly was not referring only to the first-century Pharisees and their first-century contemporaries. He was not saying that a group of people who lived in one time in history would bear the blame for the injustice of the ages.
No, Jesus meant that the generation known as Israel was chosen to be the instrument of God to teach the whole world what God is like. When Israel failed, the nation itself became the recipient of all the dire results that come from a major moral and spiritual failure.
Look, too, at the language and cultural context of that word "generation." In the first century, the word genea referred to a group of people of common family stock, of shared nativity or descent. In this sense, everyone who was descended from Jacob--from his twelve sons to King David to Jesus Christ and beyond--were all of the same "generation," the same genea, the same group of people known collectively as Israel. This genea covers thousands of years of history, but it is all one "generation" in the sense that Jesus clearly uses it here.
While it is true that genea can also refer to a group of people who are living in the same time, or to a space of time covering roughly thirty years, the context makes it clear that Jesus was referring to the nation of Israel. The testimony of history also confirms this interpretation.
Throughout twenty centuries of dispersion and persecution, the Jewish people have given the world a remarkable demonstration of the reliability of God's Word. The Jewish people have been targeted for destruction and genocide several times in their history. In my own lifetime, the world witnessed an unprecedented atrocity: the systematic extermination of six million Jewish people. That death toll constituted one-third of the entire Jewish population in the world, 90 percent of all Jews in eastern Europe, and fully 1.5 million Jewish children. Of the three million Jews living in Poland in 1939, roughly 100,000 remained in 1945. Eighty percent of the world's rabbis, Jewish scholars, Jewish teachers, and Jewish students were slaughtered.
It is difficult for Gentiles--non-Jews--to comprehend the horror of the event we call the Holocaust, and which Jews call the Shoah. But this is certain: It is the one event that dominates the Jewish psyche today. It has scarred and scorched the Jewish soul, damaging the ability of many Jewish people to have any faith in humanity or in God.
Yet the Holocaust has also shown us something profound: the Jewish people are an indestructible race. As a people they have survived centuries of dispersion, persecution, pogroms, and genocidal insanity. Without question, Satan has been obsessed with the destruction of God's special people, yet God's promise to Israel has been proven true again and again through the centuries: "whoever touches you touches the apple of [God's] eye" (Zechariah 2:8). Those nations that have enslaved, attacked, and persecuted the Jewish people have always ended up on the ash-heap of history--yet the Jewish people survive.
What Jesus promised in the Olivet discourse has been proven true down through the centuries: "this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened."
Surer than the Sunrise
What Jesus has predicted will surely come to pass. This is the third assurance Jesus offers: His own infallible promise:
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." (Matthew 24:35)
Do you believe those words? The One who spoke them declared that He would give His life as a ransom for many--and He did. He said He would rise again from the dead--and He did. Now He says He will come again--and the question is: Do you believe Him?
What is the one thing in this world that everyone takes for granted as an unchanging, dependable reality? The sun will always rise tomorrow. We never know if we will live to see the next sunrise, but we know that it will come nonetheless. Sunrise, sunset, day after day, the world keeps spinning in its orbit, one revolution every twenty-four hours. We regulate our lives by that unchanging pattern.
But Jesus has made an amazing statement: He says His own words are more durable than the unchanging pattern of this world. "Heaven and earth will pass away," He says, "but my words will never pass away." The earth will stop spinning in its orbit, the sun will cease rising and setting, before the words of Jesus pass away! What does that tell us? It tells us that the promise of His return is more certain than the most certain thing we know--more certain than the sunrise, more durable than the universe itself, more trustworthy than the laws of nature. Paul tells us that Jesus Himself created the universe: "all things were created by him and for him" (Colossians 1:16). The existence of the entire universe rests on the word of the One who has said, "My words will never pass away."
Unpredictable Timing
At this point we come to a definite break in the Lord's prophetic discourse. Jesus has completed His outline of the events at the end of the age. He has revealed His parousia, His presence on earth, during the entire period of the last days. He has pulled back the curtain from the spectacular outshining of His presence on earth when every eye shall see Him. Now Jesus underscores the awesome meaning of that event in individual lives. He says:
"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left." (Matthew 24:36-41)
At this point you may be confused: Which "coming" is Jesus talking about here? Is He talking about His arrival to remove the church from the world--the event that is often called the Rapture? Or is He talking about His glorious manifestation to the world as described in Matthew 24:30? Many people confuse these two events--and it is easy to see why. In the Olivet discourse, Jesus goes back and forth between them, and if you do not read carefully, you might think He is describing one event. In one sense, He is describing one event: His parousia, His presence on earth. The parousia begins with His return to remove the church, and it climaxes with His glorious manifestation. So these two events are really different aspects of one parousia, one presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The first sentence of this section, however, makes it clear which aspect of His parousia presence the Lord is describing. At the beginning of the passage, He clearly states that His coming will be completely unpredictable: "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." This description fits only one aspect of His parousia: The removal of the church, the Rapture. The unpredictable nature of this event is underscored by an additional warning Jesus makes later in the discourse.
"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." (Matthew 24:42-44)
It would be impossible for Jesus to use these words in reference to His later coming in power and great glory at the end of the Great Tribulation. That event will not happen without warning. It will be preceded by numerous dramatic signs. As Jesus warned in Matthew 24:29, "the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken." No person who understands the Scriptures could possibly miss those signs. Any believer who had seen those signs would expect the glorious appearance of Jesus at any moment. But here, in verse 44, Jesus tells His disciples, "the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."
When Jesus comes to take His church out of the world His coming will be as a thief in the night. The church is the unsuspected treasure of earth, and He will come to take it to Himself. The world will have no inkling that it is about to occur. As Jesus has just said, we can know in a general and approximate sense that the time is drawing near because we can observe certain predicted patterns taking shape in human affairs. We can see ungodly attitudes emerging as the dominant philosophy of the day. We can see certain events taking place that suggest the end of the age is just over the horizon. But we cannot know the day or the hour. The angels do not know. Even the Son of Man, in the time of His earthly limitation, did not know. Only the Father knows.
The great Scottish minister, Horatio Bonar, once met with a number of fellow ministers. "Do you really expect Jesus Christ to come today?" he asked. One by one, he put that question to each minister around the circle. One by one, they shook their heads and said, "No, I don't expect Him to return today." Without comment, Bonar wrote some words on a piece of paper and passed it around the circle: "So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."
Jesus is coming suddenly, unexpectedly. In fact, Jesus compares His return to reclaim His church with a felonious act--a breaking and entering by a burglar. What a shocking comparison! Why does the Son of God compare Himself to a criminal? Because He is making a crucial point and He doesn't want the impact of that point to be lost.
Jesus is saying that if the homeowner had known when the thief was coming, he would have watched in readiness in order to prevent the robbery and catch the thief. If you know that on a given night, at a given hour, someone will enter your house to rob you, then you won't be caught napping--you'll be ready to nab a burglar! The problem with burglars is that they do not give advance notice. Burglars strike unexpectedly, without warning.
What is the only solution to the problem of burglars? Eternal vigilance. Constant readiness. Continual watchfulness. Never let your guard down. Never be caught napping. So, says Jesus, since you do not know when your Lord is coming, be ready all the time.
Does that mean we should stand on a rooftop, watching the skies for His return? Of course not. We have too much work to do, too many people to reach for Christ, too many wounded souls all around in need of His healing touch. Jesus told us, "Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest." (John 4:35)
A white field of wheat is not merely ripe--it is overripe. Jesus is telling us that the work of the harvest is a crisis, it's an emergency. We don't have time to gaze foolishly into the skies when the work of the harvest is so urgent!
When Jesus tells us to be watchful and ready, He means that we should not be fooled by the deceitfulness of the age in which we live. We are surrounded by seductive lies. It is all part of the great satanic brainwashing campaign behind the philosophy of the world. If we fall for it, we will not be ready when He comes. The only defense against the satanic deception that surrounds us is a continuous, step-by-step reliance on the truth of God as illuminated for us by the indwelling Spirit of God. Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31-32). The only defense against the world's deception is the Word of Truth. And the Word tells us that our duty is to serve God and others through an unceasing ministry of love and service in the name of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "Occupy till I come" (Luke 19:13 KJV). In other words, "Remain at your post, do your duty, carry out your orders, and keep busy in the strength and the purpose of God."
Business as Usual
Even though Jesus has clearly said that He will return at a completely unexpected time, many Christians are obsessed with setting the date for His return. It doesn't seem to matter to them that their obsession is in direct violation of the Lord's own words. Again and again, down through history, we have seen religious leaders announce that the Lord's return would occur on such-and-such a date. Their followers sell their property, don white robes, and climb to some hilltop to await the Lord's appearance.
The result is that the entire subject of the return of Christ is made to look foolish! Though God's Word has a great deal to say about the Lord's return, God maintains an inscrutable silence about the exact timetable for that event. Jesus has told us that the day and the hour of His return are tucked away in a file marked TOP SECRET. As believers, we show disrespect for God by attempting to pry that file open, or by claiming to know its contents. As Jesus told His disciples after His resurrection, "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority" (Acts 1:7).
Jesus discourages date-setting. He encourages only one thing: Continual readiness. "So you also must be ready," He warns, "because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." We must be daily, hourly, momentarily prepared, because His return will be completely unexpected.
Jesus underscores the unexpected nature of His initial coming by comparing it to the days of Noah:
"As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." (Matthew 24:37-39)
Some Bible teachers have interpreted the Lord's reference to eating, drinking, and marriage as indicators of evil activity. Some have suggested that "eating" is a reference to increased gluttony throughout the earth, that "drinking" refers to rampant drunkenness and alcoholism, and "marrying and giving in marriage" refers to the climbing divorce rate. But there is not even the slightest hint of evidence that this is what Jesus is saying.
Elsewhere in the gospels, when Jesus wants to talk about gluttony, drunkenness, or divorce, He uses those precise terms. Here, He is not talking about moral vice or marital breakdown. He is talking about life as usual. He is saying that people will be going about their normal, everyday lives as they have always done--and in the blink of an eye, the whole world will change. Believers will be swept out of the world, and unbelievers will be left behind.
That is how it was in the days of Noah. Before the rain and the flood, life went on in an ordinary way. Yes, moral conditions were bad, and there was violence and corruption upon the earth. But those conditions had been going on for a long time--they didn't suddenly worsen just before the flood. Jesus is quite clear about this. He is saying simply that His coming will be sudden and unexpected, and the people of the world will be caught unsuspecting in the midst of their normal routines.
Of course, the people of Noah's day should have expected God's judgment. Noah was a tireless preacher, and he faithfully warned his generation that God would judge the world. He built his huge boat miles and miles from any ocean, and the people saw it and ridiculed him--then they went on about their normal lives. But when the rains came, Noah and his family were lifted safely above the floods while the rest of the world was left behind to drown in the waters of judgment.
The same is true today. The people of this world will have no excuse when Jesus comes for His church and they are left behind. Just as Noah preached to his generation, this generation has had many preachers. The gospel of Jesus Christ has gone out, the promise of His return has been broadcast far and wide. People hear it, they ridicule the message--then they go on about their normal lives. A day will come--and it will come unexpectedly--when Jesus will arrive to lift His church safely above the waters of God's judgment. In terms that are visual and unmistakable, Jesus describes what that moment will be like:
"Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left." (Matthew 24:40-41)
Jesus Christ will come stealthily, without warning, like a thief in the night--and a select company will be removed from the earth. Those who are left behind will have no excuse. Like those who ridiculed Noah, they will have sealed their own judgment by their disobedience and unbelief.
Yearning For His Return
The event that Jesus describes will be highly selective, distinguishing even between two people who are working side by side. Further, it will be worldwide, for in the parallel passage in Luke 17:34, Jesus says, "I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left." While men work in their fields on one side of the earth, others will be asleep in their beds on the other side. Simultaneously, across both the nightside and the dayside of the planet, a great removal will occur.
Most people believe that we enter life through the door marked BIRTH and we exit life through the door marked DEATH--that there is no other exit. But Jesus has shown us another door. On the Mount of Transfiguration, the Lord showed Peter, James, and John that there is another way by which people can leave this life and enter glory. On that mountain, Jesus was suddenly transfigured before their astonished eyes. His clothing began to glow, and Jesus became a different person, though He was the same Jesus. The transfiguration of Jesus Christ was a foretaste of that great and wonderful mystery described by the apostle Paul:
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed--in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:51-52)
This event cannot be explained in natural terms. It is a miracle beyond human imagining. Some people might wish to "spiritualize" these words or treat them as a metaphor rather than a reality. But the Scriptures do not allow us to treat this event as anything other than a literal miracle that will envelop all believers, living and dead, at the moment of the Lord's return for His church. Again, Paul describes that event in clear, unambiguous language:
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)
There is a strange paradox in all of this: While we look for the Lord's return, He is already with us. While we await His parousia, He is already present. He is coming, yet He is with us now. There is great comfort in that truth.
Jesus never intended that we should live in fear of His return--yet many Christians do. I've known many believers who seem to think that awaiting the Lord's return means living in constant terror of making some brief slip, then having the Lord appear and say, ''I caught you!" That is not the point of the Lord's warning. Jesus is not a motorcycle policeman, waiting behind a billboard, ready to surprise you in that unguarded moment when you drive three miles an hour over the speed limit. Jesus is our Lord, our Savior, our Redeemer, and our Friend.
Jesus wants us to know that there is a deep relationship between His presence with us now and His future coming. If we eagerly await His coming, if we look forward to His arrival with a sense of love and expectation, then we are experiencing His presence now. If we fear His coming, then we are not fully realizing and experiencing His presence in our lives. If the thought of His coming fills you with fear and apprehension, then you know little of His presence now. The heart that truly loves and serves Jesus is a heart that yearns for His return.
Mac,
Can you add me on to comment on your
blog. I too get tired of the same ole Mc Ole comments trash McDonalds.
Why can't they quote some Sriptures.
BrotherMark
Mark, your comment has been added. Gee, I see that your blog is really kicking off. Once again, well done and my prayers are with you, brother.
I intentionally moderated the comments section in anticipation of all sorts of negative feedback to my article. I certainly did not intend it to be provocative and I try not to argue different rapture positions. As Christians we should never argue amongst ourselves over issues not affecting salvation. However, I felt the need to respond to that particular article on Fulfilled Prophecy. Quite frankly I’m tired of people denigrating the likes of Lindsey, Ice and LaHaye purely because of their eschatological differences. But that is probably an indication of my own failings.
I think Holly and her husband are fine Christians who write beautiful devotional articles but I think they should stick to watching and reporting the news and not prognosticating about Javier Solana and the ENP, or questioning Pre-Tribber’s motives and faith. I think there’s a certain amount of self-righteousness in doing that. I also feel very strongly that promulgating the idea that we are already in Daniel’s 70th week is seriously misguided and can have negative consequences down the track.
I don’t know when I’ll be posting another article. I think you’re doing a superb job as it is and I’d like to link your site to mine so people can visit you.
Maranatha
Mac,
You are doing a great job. Keep posting. Please add me to your site.
and please keep in touch. I agree with your post about not cutting one another down over our Rapture positions....but we can expect negative from non pretrib, just too bad for what they are missing out on.
God bless BrotherMark
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