The following sermon was delivered on October 27th, 2024 at Free Grace Baptist Church in Paulsville, Washington. The speaker is Roy Linberry. The title is The Signs of His Coming. Let's turn our attention to the worship of God through the reading of scripture. I am going to read Psalm 50. If you would please open in your Bibles and we will read this Psalm as we begin our time of worship this morning. Let us read now the Word of God, Psalm 50, beginning in verse 1. The Mighty One, God the Lord, has spoken and summoned the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shone forth. May our God come and not keep silence. Fire devours him and it is very tempestuous around him. He summons the heavens above and the earth to judge his people. Gather my godly ones to me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. And the heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge. Hear, O my people, and I will speak. O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God your God. I do not reprove you for your sacrifices, and your burnt offerings are continually before me. And I shall take no young bull out of your house, nor male goats out of your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains, and everything that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine and all it contains. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of male goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon me in the day of trouble. I shall rescue you and you will honor me. But to the wicked, God says, what right have you to tell of my statutes and to take my covenant in your mouth? For you hate discipline and you cast my words behind you. When you see a thief, you are pleased with him and you associate with adulterers. You let your mouth loose in evil and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother. You slander your own mother's son. These things you have done, and I kept silence. You thought that I was just like you, and I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes. Now consider this, you who forget God, or I will tear you in pieces and there will be none to deliver. He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me, and to him who orders his way aright, I shall show the salvation of God. Amen. I pray that the Lord would add his blessing to the reading of his word. Please open with me in your Bibles to the book of Matthew chapter 24. Matthew chapter 24. I'll be reading verses 1 through 14 this morning and in your bulletin you'll see the parallel passages printed as well from Mark 13 and Luke chapter 21. Matthew chapter 24 beginning in verse 1. Hear now the word of God. And Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him. And He said to them, Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another which will not be torn down. And as He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? And Jesus answered and said to them, See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and will mislead many. And you will be hearing of wars, and rumors of wars, and see that you are not frightened, for these things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. And then they will deliver you to tribulation and will kill you. And you will be hated by all nations because of my name. And at that time, many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. And because lawlessness has increased, most people's love will grow cold, but the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. Amen. May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Word and the preaching of it. If you remember last week, we looked at these contextual guardrails that have to guide us in our interpretation of Matthew 24. And the reason why, and I've been trying to bring this out, we're going to work through this fairly slowly because this chapter is so often taken completely out of its context. And there are reasons why people tend to do that. In fact, you'll see a couple of things even in our reading this morning. This idea that Jesus says these things must take place, but it is not yet the end. Or even as we read in verse 14, the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. And people have taken that word, the end, and they pile it full of a lot of meaning that Jesus isn't necessarily putting in there. You have to remember, again, the context of this passage. So we looked at these contextual guardrails. The first one is that it flows from the preceding context of Jesus pronouncing judgment on Jewish leadership and on their house. If you remember, that's how chapter three ends. It builds up through this sevenfold indictment and then he pronounces judgment. And what does he say in verse 38? Behold, your house is being left to you desolate. He says, even before that, in verses 34 through 36, he says, behold, I'm sending you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, so that on you may fall all the guilt of the righteous blood shed on earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered, between the temple and the altar, and that's when he gives that final, that judgment. He says, truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. This judgment is pronounced on them, and then it's pronounced upon their house. That explains then the continuing context of Matthew 24, where the disciples are then pointing out the temple buildings. As he said, behold, your house is being left to you desolate. And they're pointing out how beautiful they are and how ornate they are, how great they are. And Jesus says, do you not see all these things? There's not one stone here that will not be left upon another. It's going to be torn down brick by brick. And then that leads into their questions, which was our second contextual thing that we looked at last week, our contextual guardrail. We have to understand Matthew 24 as an answer to the questions of the disciples. They asked, they pointed out the temple buildings, and Jesus says, man, I'm telling you, this stuff is all gonna get torn down. It's not gonna be here. Not one stone left upon another, and that leads them to ask the questions, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? Now they're understanding these things to all be together and they're understanding the end of the age. Again, this is the end of the old covenant age. He says, when's it gonna happen and how are we gonna know? That's what the disciples are asking. When is this gonna happen and how are we gonna know? And Jesus begins to answer them. They're not about the second coming. They're not about the final judgment. When we read here that the end is not near, he's speaking of the end of the age. The end of the Old Testament era, the Old Covenant era. He does go on in chapter 25, as I think pointed out last week, and he begins to talk about the millennial age and the kingdom, and then he gets into the final judgment. And he speaks of those things that will happen at his second coming, but he's not dealing with the second coming of Christ, his final return in judgment and the consummation of all things. That's not what's in view here. And unfortunately that gives people some very weird views of the end times when they try to take this and put it into the second coming of Christ. The third contextual element we looked at was that it has to fit within the demonstrated use of apocalyptic language. Now this gets beyond our portion of the text this morning, but as we look forward into Matthew chapter 24, we see that language of the sun not giving its light, and the moon going dark, and the stars falling from the sky. And we have to understand how familiar that language is to the Jewish people. How familiar that language would be and it had very specific meaning. We often read it in our modern 21st century context, and we have this very literal hermeneutic that we always want to bring to the text, and we're thinking that the sun is literally gonna go black, the moon literally going dark, and stars literally falling from the sky, and we don't have to look any further than the Old Testament to see that's not how that language is being used. We saw in a number of places, That very same language being used throughout the Old Testament. We saw it in Isaiah, speaking about the fall of Babylon. We saw it also speaking of the fall of Egypt. We saw it speaking of the fall of nations as a whole. Every time that sort of decreation language is being used, every time we see it being prophesied against the nation, it is a prophecy of the downfall of that nation, of the collapse of that kingdom. is God's judgment coming upon that nation or that kingdom. And it was used, in fact, as we saw last week in prophecies of judgment against or upon Israel. They're not literal astronomical phenomena that are happening here, but rather they're descriptors of God's judgment on a nation. And here it is, Israel's world that is going to be in an upheaval. It's a very picturesque way of saying that very thing. Your world is going to be turned upside down. It's going to be in an upheaval as the judgment of God comes and your nation is judged. The fourth contextual element from last week was that it's something that will happen in the lifetime of the disciples. Matthew 24, verse 34, Jesus says, truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Now remember that we just read in Matthew 23 when he's speaking of the judgment and he says, truly I say to you, 23 verse 36, all these things will come upon this generation. This is a theme through this. This is something that the people to whom Jesus is speaking are going to see, they're going to experience. At least many of them, many of them may die in the meantime, but he says the generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Now. We did deal with this last week, so I'm not going to go into great detail. But there are other ways that people will, you can either say that Jesus was wrong or that he lied, which no conservative Christian would make that argument. You could say that it is, that there are people from that generation who are still alive today who just haven't died yet. And there are a few people who try to make that argument. I think there's not a whole lot of evidence for it hermeneutically Historically, or you could say that this generation means something besides the generation that he was talking to. And some people, many people, will interpret that to mean the generation who sees the start of these things will see all of them fulfilled, that they will all happen within that generation. But again, contextually, That doesn't fit with how Jesus is pronouncing judgment on the leadership of Israel and speaking about the destruction of the temple. Others will interpret this, and I didn't get into this last week, of this generation meaning this people will not pass away. And the word can mean that in certain contexts, but it causes almost a little bit of a ridiculous circular argument. which would have Jesus saying, Israel will not pass away until Israel passes away. It's sort of a, if they're going to experience those things, of course, they won't pass away before it happens. That doesn't even really make sense to say that. But those are the kinds of things that people will argue because of a pre-commitment to to pulling this out of its context and throwing it forward to the second coming. That's why I really want to make sure that we put those contextual guardrails in place as we walk through. Because when we have all those in place, we see what Jesus is talking about. He's not describing events far in the future related to his second coming here. He's speaking about a judgment on Israel that was very near What happened within the generation as they filled up the measure of their fathers who killed the prophets and stoned those who were sent to her. And Jesus had just got done saying that. I'm going to send you people. You're going to do exactly like your fathers did. I'm going to send you prophets and wise men and scribes and you'll crucify some of them. Some you'll scourge in your synagogue. Some you'll persecute from city to city. You're going to do the very same thing that your fathers did. and then he's going to judge them for it. And now we're getting into the descriptions of when that will happen as the Old Covenant age then comes to an end. So we've got a number of signs that I want to get through here in the first 14 verses. There's seven of them. I'll just walk through them. I'm not going to bullet them out out front. We'll just walk through as we go. The first one is the sign of false Christs. This comes from verses four and five. So the disciples have just asked their question, when's this gonna happen and how are we going to know? And Jesus in verse four answers. So he is answering their questions and he says, see to it that no one misleads you for many will come in my name saying, I am the Christ and will mislead many. Now I want you to remember that this period in history was a time of fervent eschatological excitement. It was a time when people were looking for the working of God to come and do something big. They were waiting for the Messiah. There was a lot of messianic fervor because the Jews were eagerly awaiting If we jump back in our Old Testaments to Daniel chapter nine, we see his prophecy of the 70 weeks that were given to Israel really as a timetable or a calendar of when to expect the Messiah. In Daniel chapter nine, verse 25, the prophecy reads this way. So you are to know and discern. So he's telling them, understand this, this is gonna tell you, you're to know this and discern this, that from the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there will be seven weeks and 62 weeks. It will be built again with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Now we don't have time to really go digging into all of this, but a week is, the word there is literally seven. There are 77s. We translate it as weeks, but it's a period of seven years. So we have 62 periods of seven years and seven weeks. So it gives us a total of 69 periods of seven years. That brings us right up from the time of the decree to rebuild Jerusalem, brings us right up to the first century in the time of Christ. So the Jews were eagerly and anxiously awaiting their Messiah. They knew God was going to do something. And there was a fervor in the air very much in the first century of God is coming to do something. His Messiah is going to set us free, gonna throw off the yoke of Roman slavery, set up the Messiah on the throne of our father David, and there he will reign and all of our enemies will be kept at bay from here. That was the kind of thinking that was happening in the first century. And that's part of the problem. We've seen this over and over again. The Jews were looking for a political revolutionary. They were looking for an earthly king. Their idea of the Messiah was an earthly king who would sit on an earthly throne in Jerusalem and who would then reign and throw off all of their political enemies. And they actually thought that it was Jesus. There was a time, at one point, people were so convinced that it was Jesus, they tried to force him into that role. If you remember from John 6, verses 14 and 15, it says, when the Pharisees saw the sign which he had performed, they said, this is truly the prophet who is to come into the world. So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take him by force to make him king, withdrew again to the mountain by himself alone. There was a time when the leadership was convinced it was going to be him, and they wanted to install him and take him by force as this earthly political king. And I'll just take this moment to throw one more stone at the dispensationalist viewpoint here, which is, in the dispensationalist view, they would say that Jesus came to be that kind of a king, to be an earthly king, and the Jews didn't accept him. They didn't accept him as that. But the scripture says the exact opposite. The scripture says they wanted him to be that kind of a king, and he didn't accept it. That's not why he came. But that messianic fervor that's happening here in the first century also explains those cries of Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, as he wrote into Jerusalem. People were expecting the Messiah. But it was short-lived, as we are gonna see. Within seven days, they're calling for his crucifixion. They're asking for Barabbas to be released in his place. And then after that, the picture was very bleak for the disciples. It was hard to see Jesus as the Messiah. Why? In chapter 26, verse 31, right after the passage that we, or at least that I generally read from for our Lord's Table services in Matthew 26, verse 31, Jesus says to them, you will all fall away from me, fall away because of me this night. For it is written, I will strike down the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. That's exactly what happened. And when it happened, it appeared that Jesus surely could not be the Christ. The time after Christ's death, it was ripe for those who would seek to gain a following and who would lead the Jewish revolution. People who wanted to be that messianic political figure, wanted to claim to be the Christ. Now the Jewish historian Josephus records, and by the way, I need to give credit where credit is due. Most of my historical references in this are courtesy of Ken Gentry. He's done a lot of work compiling a lot of these things. So Josephus records many people and groups that fit the title of a false Christ. Some of them he names by name. Simon of Perea, Theodosius, Judas of Galilee, and a number of others. There are people who claimed sort of this messianic title or role and wanted to lead the Jewish people to victory. There's others who were just defined by titles or descriptors. The imposter is one of them. He names a group of religious people who led their followers into the desert. And I want to read for you how one of them is described. This comes from Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews. Now it came to pass, while Phaedus was procurator of Judea, that a certain magician, whose name was Theodos, persuaded a great part of the people to take their effects with them and follow him to the river Jordan, for he told them he was a prophet and that he would, by his own command, divide the river and afford them an easy passage over it, and many were deluded with his words. He also says, during the reign of Felix, which was about 53 to 60 AD, the country was full of robbers, magicians, false prophets, false messiahs, and imposters who deluded the people with promises of great events. So this was happening all throughout the first century. After the death, burial, the resurrection of Christ, after his ascension, it was ripe. And there were people saying, okay, it didn't happen because they didn't believe that Jesus fulfilled what they were expecting of the Messiah. So there were many people trying to step in and take that role. And the record of history confirms The prophecy of Jesus here, that these messianic figures would arrive and that they would delude many and that they would gain themselves a following. And so he tells his disciples, see to it that no one misleads you. See to it that you don't fall for it. Pay attention. Know ahead of time, disciples, that this is going to happen. And don't go after these people. Don't follow them because there will be many who arise. They come in my name and they will mislead many. John spoke also of this phenomenon as being present. when he wrote his first epistle and he recognized it as a sign that the time was near. Knowing what Jesus had said to his disciples, now John is writing and he recognizes this as a sign that the time is near. 1 John 2, verse 18. What does he say? He says, children, it is the last hour. Children, it is the last hour. And just as you heard that Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have appeared. From this we know that it is the last hour." John was seeing a proliferation of people exalting themselves up against Christ as false prophets and as false Christs. And he was saying, because of that, we know that it is the last hour. He remembered the teaching of Jesus and says, we know that this is now coming near. And as the persecution of the church began rising, it would have been tempting to follow a charismatic leader who promised deliverance for the people of God. And Jesus warns against that. But that would be the first sign. The second sign he gives is wars and rumors of wars. There will be wars and rumors of wars, and boy has this one been misused. I can't tell you how many times in my life a conflict erupts somewhere around the globe that somebody doesn't come to me and say, wars and rumors of wars, it's coming. They're looking for the second coming of Christ because there's a skirmish happening somewhere around the world. And what's crazy is for our sort of egocentric, Americanistic view of things, we tend to really think about it when America's involved in a conflict. Now, all of a sudden, we're serious about it. Wars and rumors of wars. Now, of course, with all of the stuff going on in the Middle East today, The fervor for this is reaching a fever pitch in the minds of many. Wars and rumors of wars. But in verse six, we pick up, you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And in various places, there will be famines and earthquakes. Again, if this is to be applied to the second coming of Christ, then I can see where people get all crazy about the fact that there are wars happening everywhere. But this is not referring to a future event. It's the first century judgment on Israel. And here's another thing about wars and rumors of wars. I can't think of a time where there hasn't been wars and rumors of wars, at least in my lifetime. There hasn't been something going on. And the thing is, is in order for something to be a sign, it has to be unusual, right? It's saying, well, yeah, the sign will be that when you start seeing rain in Washington, then you know. What would that mean? Would that tell you anything? We see rain in Washington all the time. That wouldn't be a sign. In order for wars and rumors of wars to be something that would signify that something is coming, that would have to be an unusual event. And in a world that is riddled with battles and wars, this is not much of a sign. But we see those conditions in the first century. Historians tell us the record of what's known as the Pax Romana or the Roman Peace. The Roman Empire was fierce, and they were powerful. They had a standing army, paid professional soldiers, paid by the levying the taxes from all of the places that they had conquered, and they were formidable. And they had established what we would call peace through strength. They had established a peace in the empire that was unparalleled in all of history. Historians such as Eusebius and Pliny record this very remarkable peace that Rome had established in the first century throughout the empire. And this unparalleled period of peace lasted until the reign of Nero Caesar, who ruled from 54 to 68 AD. And he persecuted the church tremendously. But upon his death, in particular, that Pax Romana, that Roman peace collapsed with Roman civil wars, leading to severe turbulence within the empire. Under his reign, The reign of Nero Caesar, again, 54 to 68. If you're following the timeline, the destruction of the temple was in 70 AD. So this is just a few years prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, that this period of peace starts to crumble. and that the Jewish war begins, that that actually ends in the climax of the destruction of Jerusalem. Josephus records that there were a number of conflicts between Jews and their neighbors also at that time. People started persecuting the Jews, and so there were these skirmishes and these battles popping up. And that's why wars and rumors of wars were such a stark sign for the Christians in the first century, because it was not the norm for them. Now there might have been battles going on other places in the globe, but it's not like today where you flip on the news and you get to hear about what's going on 20,000 miles away. And their experience, where they were at, there was peace established. Peace through strength, surely, but peace, war was not a common thing. And so that when this started happening, for them, that was then a sign. Pay attention, wars and rumors of wars are happening. Okay, we asked Jesus, when's this gonna happen and how are we gonna know? And he tells us, false Christ, false messiahs, he tells us that there are gonna be wars, battles, something that we're not used to, something that is strange. In fact, during the civil wars that were happening in Rome, many of its provinces actually rose up in an attempt to secede. Tacitus speaks of the Gallic provinces, including Germany, that there was trying to break apart from the empire, literally nation rising against nation. The third sign that he gives is famines and earthquakes. Again, that is, the second half of verse 7 and going into verse 8. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes, but all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. Another sign for the Christians that this judgment is drawing near is the rise of famines and earthquakes. And famines are nothing new, but Acts tells us of a very specific and a great famine in chapter 11, verses 27 through 28. We read this, now at this time, some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them, named Agabus, stood up and began to indicate by the Spirit that there would certainly be a great famine all over the world, and this took place in the reign of Claudius. So there was a famine then that was prophesied here in the Book of Acts that took place during the reign of Claudius. Now the response, if we kept reading, the response of the Christians was to contribute to the relief of those in Judea, indicating that this was not a global famine, but one that spread throughout the entire Roman Empire and was particularly bad in Jerusalem. Now it says, as we read in Acts, there will be a great famine all over the world. This is important as we work our way through Matthew 24. The disciples were able to say, let's contribute what we have to help those who are in Judea. Indicating that the famine was the worst there, but it was probably throughout the Roman Empire, this famine. Now there's a Greek word that's used here for world. It's the Greek word oikumene. And it refers to the inhabited earth, and it's often used of the empire. or a very specific region. It gets translated as world, but it's sort of like the inhabited world, the inhabited earth. It's the very same word that we read in Luke chapter two, when we read in the story of the birth of Christ, that Joseph and Mary were heading to Bethlehem because they were of the house in the city of David, why? Because Caesar Augustus had decreed that all the world should be taxed. Well, he's obviously speaking of everybody under his reign, in his empire. He's not speaking about folks all the way around the globe. This is used in a limited way, and we see the same thing here with the famine. Now, it's not just a single famine. One commentator notes that there were four distinct periods of scarcity during the reign of Claudius. Tacitus. speaks of a famine from a shortage of grain that happened in 51 AD. So there were a number of famines that were happening here in this area. Earthquakes also very frequently recorded during the time leading up to 70 AD. Records indicate that there were earthquakes in Crete, Rome, Laodicea, Macedonia, Pompeii, and a number of other places in the Roman Empire. And the reigns of Caligula and Claudius were marked by various earthquakes. But the phenomenon wasn't just in the far reaches of the Roman Empire. Josephus, again, tells, he's a Jewish historian, so he focuses primarily around the Jews in Jerusalem. he tells of an event in Jerusalem in AD 67, just three years prior to the destruction of Jerusalem. He says, there broke out a prodigious storm in the night with the utmost violence and very strong winds with the largest showers of rain and continual lightnings, terrible thunderings and amazing concussions and bellowing of the earth that was in an earthquake. These things were a manifest indication that some destruction was coming upon men when the system of the world was put into this disorder and anyone would guess that these wonders foreshadowed some grand calamities that were coming. The historian Josephus. is recording this and he's saying it was so bad and it was so different from anything that we know that anybody would guess that these wonders are foreshadowing some grand calamities that were coming. Now again, for the Christian who is familiar with Jesus' message here, all of these would be pointing them to the coming judgment on Jerusalem and letting them know that it was drawing near. But while these indicate that it is near, it is not here quite yet. That's what he says. These things happen. They must happen. Don't be afraid. The end is not here, he says in verse eight, all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. If we were to read Luke 21, the parallel passage, Luke 21 verse nine, when you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be terrified for these things must take place first, but the end does not follow immediately. And we're gonna see why, by the way, as we work through Matthew 24. We're gonna see, when we get to verse 15 next week, Lord willing, we're gonna see why. Because there's something that happens that is the immediate, now's the time. Right now, these are just getting people ready so that they realize that it's drawing near. But we read that they're the beginning of birth pangs, and the imagery is that of a trial that is building to a final culmination. There's this glorious imagery of birth. These are the beginning of birth pangs. Not just that it's the end of something, but there's the beginning of something new. The travail of Old Testament Israel is bringing forth the kingdom of God as the New Covenant age dawns. What's occurring here is what Paul describes with the bondwoman and the free woman in the book of Galatians. Chapter 4 verses 28 through 31 says, But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also. But what does the Scripture say? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir with the son of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free woman. He's drawing a distinction between physical Israel and spiritual Israel, those who are descendants of Abraham according to the flesh and those who are descendants of Abraham according to the spirits. And it says that they will not be heirs together in the sense, not that those who are physical Jews cannot be saved, but that they cannot be saved in any other way than all of the children of God are, by grace through faith. They will not be saved through the law, through the keeping of the works of the law. That's what's happening here. Please understand what a tumultuous time this was, and not only that, why it was such a tumultuous time. God was doing something tremendous in history. He was ending the old covenant. The old covenant age was drawing to a close and the new covenant age is being born, is being given birth to. And the kingdom of God is now expanding with that mustard seed now having been planted. All of history is changing at this point in time. This happens through the work of Christ Jesus, through His death, His burial, His resurrection, through His ascension, through His enthronement, His coronation as the King. It's all centered around Him. Let's go to the fourth sign. The fourth sign, verses 9 through 10. Persecution, apostasy, and betrayal. Then they will deliver you over to tribulation, and they will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. And at that time, many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Jesus has already said that this was going to be the case when he pronounced judgment on the Jewish leadership. We already read this, already talked about it. Chapter 23, verse 34, when he says, therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes. And what did he say they were gonna do? Some of them they were gonna kill and crucify. Some they'd scourge in their synagogues. Some they would persecute from city to city. He already told them that this was going to happen. He prepared the disciples for it. In fact, when he sent them out to preach to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, Matthew chapter 10. verses 16 through 18, when he's sending the disciples out to go preach to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, he says, We're going to look at that concept there as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles when we get to the end. But this is part of what God's doing here. He sends them to the lost sheep of the house of Israel so that it will be a testimony to the Gentiles, a testimony to the nations. Keep that in your back pocket. We'll pull it out in just a little bit. But the persecution here wouldn't be limited to just the Jews. Christians also suffered at the hands of the Roman Empire as well. It wasn't just Jewish persecution of them, but also Roman persecution. And the book of Acts records that over and over again. We don't need to go digging into all the instances of the persecution and betrayal of Christians that we see in the book of Acts. And if we look at the historical record, history records for us the brutality of Nero toward the Christians to the point of even lighting them on fire as lamps to light his garden. He was brutal. Apostasy also is recorded for us by John. John records the apostasy of a number of Christians in 1 John 2, verse 19. What does he say? He says, they went out from us, but they were not really of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out in order that it would be shown that they are not all of us. He says there's people leaving the faith. And he's encouraging his readers not to lose heart, to recognize that they are doing so because they're not truly saved. But we're recognizing that there are people who are apostatizing from the faith, and John is recording that. Paul spoke a number of times of those who have deserted him. So we see this persecution, apostasy, and betrayal happening here in the first century, in those years of the early church, leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem. The fifth sign, false prophets. This is very closely related with false Christs, which we saw at the beginning. But in addition to false Christs, he says that false prophets will mark the coming judgment on Jerusalem. And again, scripture indicates for us that this was happening in the first century. Acts chapter 13 verse 6 says, when they'd gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they found a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet, whose name was Bar-Jesus. So we see these false prophets already starting here in the book of Acts chapter 13. 2 Corinthians chapter 11. verses 12 through 15. What does Paul say? He says, but what I'm doing, I will continue to do that I may cut off opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are. in the matter about which they are boasting. In other words, there's people who are looking to be seen as apostles, to be seen as prophets, apostles. He says, for such men, in verse 13, are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore, it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their deeds. 2 Peter 2, verses 1-3. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned. and in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep." So Peter again is talking about the rise of false prophets happening here in the early church. 1 John chapter 4 verse 1, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." So the scripture testifies that this sign is being fulfilled here in the first century, leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem. Let's look at the sixth sign. And I know I'm going quick, there's a lot of stuff. The sixth sign is lawlessness. We see this in verses 12 and 13. Because lawlessness has increased, most people's love will grow cold, but the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. Now, lawlessness is the natural outworking of the last two signs. Persecution, betrayal, false prophets, all of these things are lawlessness. And Jesus is warning that there will be a time of tremendous sin and many Christians will cease to love one another as the church is called to do, or at least many professing Christians will. Listen to what James says in chapter four, verses one and two. What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members you lust and do not have, so you commit murder, and you're envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. He starts by recognizing this fighting and quarreling that's happening within the church. It also may refer to their love for Christ growing cold as well. We see that again spoken of in the book of Revelation, chapter 2, verses 4 and 5, where Jesus says, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore from where you have fallen and repent and do the deeds you did at first or else I'm coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent. And Jesus here follows back in Matthew he follows this sign of lawlessness by saying that the one who endures to the end will be saved and we see that also in the book of Revelation chapter 2 because Revelation is really an expanded view of what we see in Matthew 24 here. But what does he say? He says, do not fear for what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation 10 days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. He is encouraging his people to hold the faith. He's telling his people that there is bad stuff coming. And that's a sign of this destruction coming upon Jerusalem and the temple. And he says, it's gonna get nasty, but keep the faith, but hold on, but hold fast, be faithful until death. The church in the first century was set to undergo a tremendous tribulation. Christ is encouraging them to persevere and hold fast in the midst of it. And our final sign, That was lawlessness. Our final sign is here in verse 14, which is the proliferation of the gospel, the proliferation of the gospel. This is where a lot of people can kind of get lost on understanding this as applying to the first century. Verse 14 says, the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. Again, remember he's answering the questions of the disciples. What will be the sign of the end of the age? He says, and then the end will come. The gospel of the kingdom will be preached to the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. As I said, this is probably the sign that causes most people or many people to balk at the idea that Jesus is speaking of a first century occurrence, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Because we ask the question, how can we say in good conscience that the gospel has been preached or was preached at that point in time to the whole world as a witness for the nations prior to A.D. 70? Are there not yet still nations that haven't been reached? Are there not yet still nations that have not yet heard the gospel? Surely there are. So how are we to understand this? Well, again, I'm going to point you to the use of Jesus' word, the word that Jesus uses here, oikumene, speaking of the world, which gives us an indication. He's not speaking about global evangelism when he says, preach to the whole world. Again, we've seen in a couple of places now where this is used of the empire, sort of the known world, the world of which they were a part. It's speaking of something a little more local, likely to the Roman Empire. But here's where the rubber really meets the road on how we ought to understand this. What does the scripture say? What does it tell us? Based on all of these contextual elements, if there were nothing else, I would have to say it must have been preached to all the world because Jesus said that it would before the end came. However, we're not left to make that leap of faith. Now a person could argue that the gospel was preached to all nations, even in Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2, the day of Pentecost, verse 5, it says, So Luke uses language like that to speak of the gathering of the Jews, those who were gathered together at Pentecost. And he says they were Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And sure enough, They were there. They heard the gospel being preached. So one could argue just from that, that it reached every nation under heaven, at least in the way that the biblical authors are using these terms. Again, we have to make sure we get out of our heads and get out of the way that the definitions we want to oppose on words and understand how is it that the audience, the original audience would have understood this. It's imperative that we allow the text of Scripture to speak in the ordinary use of language and not force our own interpretation on it. Luke was recognizing the broad representation of nations from which this gathering of Jews came. And he uses that language, from every nation under heaven. Now some people may still balk at the idea, but I want you to see how Paul recognized the progress of the gospel when he wrote the book of Romans. Romans chapter one, verse eight. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all. Why? Because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. So Paul recognizes and uses the same sort of universal type language. And he says that this is already happening. It is your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. Interestingly, he uses a different Greek word. He uses the word cosmos, which is generally speaking of the entire world. It's a very broad word. But Paul recognized that there was a fulfillment of the gospel being preached to the whole world, even in his day. Romans chapter 10, verses 16 through 18. He also says, however, they did not all heed the good news, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? So faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. And then he says this, Paul is great. He always likes to bring in objections to his teaching. Like I know what you're gonna say, so let me say it and then let me answer it. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. But I say, surely they have never heard, have they? Indeed, they have. Their voice has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world." This is Paul speaking about this in the first century, and this is how he's understanding the progress of the gospel. All of it's being said in the first century, prior to the destruction of the temple, and it's not isolated to the book of Romans. Colossians chapter one, verses three through six. Again, we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Jesus Christ, and the love which you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you have previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel, and then listen to verse six, which has come to you, just as in all the world also, it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing. even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth." So again, he says the gospel has come not only to the Colossians, but also into all the world, where it's constantly bearing fruit and increasing. Further on in chapter 1 of Colossians, verses 23 22 and 23, yet he now has reconciled you in his fleshly body through death in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach. If indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven and of which I Paul was made a minister. When we back up and don't impose our idea of what... verse 14, the gospel of the kingdom being preached to the whole world means, and we allow the scripture to inform us, then we see that this also was fulfilled in the first century. Paul's words describe that this had happened to the extent that it needed to, the extent that it was being expected by the Jews as a sign of the coming judgment on Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit Inspired testimony of Paul is that the gospel had been preached to all the world. And he says this, as he says it, it is an indication that the impending destruction of Jerusalem is drawing near. All of these are signs to answer the questions of the disciples. Now, as we close, And we consider the fact that all of these signs pointed to God's judgment on Israel. Let's consider the last half of verse 14. The gospel is being preached to the whole world. Why? As a testimony to the nations. And it comes back from what we saw in chapter 10. It's a testimony to the nations. Remember that Jesus first came to his own, and his own didn't receive him. The gospel went first to the Jews. The gospel preaching was to start where? In Jerusalem, and in Judea, and then Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth. The gospel of the kingdom went to the Jews throughout the world. If you remember in Matthew 10, there was another time verse there. It says, you will not have finished going through all of the cities of Israel before this happens. The focus was the people of Israel. Why? As a testimony then to the nations. They overwhelmingly, the Jews overwhelmingly rejected the gospel, but that was the very impetus. for the turning to the Gentiles. Acts 13, verse 46 says, Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, it was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first. They're speaking to the Jews. It is necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first. Since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we're turning to the Gentiles. And now the gospel starts going to the nations en masse. Paul recognized this, that the Jews' rejection of the apostles' preaching would bring about the blessing to the Gentiles. Remember what I said, God is doing something tremendous in history here. This is cataclysmic. What's happening? As the temple is no longer the place where worship happens. Where one no longer has to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in order to offer sacrifices because the once for all sacrifice has already been made. Where those who worship Him will worship Him in spirit and in truth. Romans chapter 11 verses 11 through 12, Paul says, I say then, speaking of the Jews, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be, but by their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make them jealous. Now, if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be? And if we were to dig further into that text, we would see that there is blessing upon blessing upon blessing to come to the world when the Jews are converted. but recognize that it was the rejection of the Jews, their rejection of Christ and the gospel of the kingdom that brought about salvation for the Gentiles. And so Paul turns to the Gentiles when the Jews have deemed themselves unworthy of the gospel. The events between Christ's crucifixion and his coming judgment on Jerusalem again were earth-shaking, they were earth-shattering, they were cataclysmic. This was a huge transition that was happening. The old covenant age coming to an end as the new covenant age is ramping up and the kingdom of God begins to grow and to expand and to flourish. It's a change from the old order of things to the new order of things, a movement from the types and the shadows to the fulfillment of those in the true sacrifice by the true priest who's building the true temple and who will be worshipped in spirit and in truth. This is literally, this time period is the hinge of all history. It's hinging here as that old covenant era draws to a close and the new covenant era begins. It's a fascinating time and it's worthy of our attention and our study. And we do tremendous injustice when we take these things and we push them out thousands of years into the future and apply them to a second coming. So I pray that God would bless the preaching of his word this morning and that he would apply it all to our continued growth in Christ. Let's pray. Our God and our Heavenly Father, we thank you again for this day. We thank you for the time that you've given us, bringing us here together, here on the Lord's Day, that we might open your Word, that we might sit under the teaching of your Word, that we would sing, psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, that we would lift up our voices in praise to your name, that we might enjoy fellowship together this morning, that we might enjoy opportunities to pray for one another and to minister to one another. We pray, God, that this would be a time for you to build your church and to grow us in the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Savior. We thank you for the scriptures that we have. We thank you for the reminders of your tremendous judgment on the leadership of Israel and on Jerusalem. And Father, we stand knowing that it's only by your grace that we are in Christ Jesus and that it's by your doing that we are in Christ Jesus. And we thank you for your grace. Father, we see the terrors of your judgment. We see in the picture of the judgment that comes upon Jerusalem, your wrath against sin, and particularly against those who would break covenant with you. And Father, we thank you that our being kept is not contingent upon us and our ability, but rather on your power to keep us in Christ. Father, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for the salvation that we have through the blood of Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sins. And we pray now that you would bless us as we continue our time together this morning. In Christ's name we pray, amen.