Week 18 - Matthew's Account

Matthew 24

• 24:1 "His disciples came to point out the buildings" - apparently attempting to lighten the mood after the emotionally charged encounter.
• 24:2 "Not one stone left upon another" - literally fulfilled 40 years later.
• 24:3 Three questions: 1:when will these things happen, 2:what will be the sign of Your coming, 3:and of the end of the age?
• 24:4 "See that no one deceives you" - first He tells us what it is NOT.
• 24:5 "I am the Christ!" - many of these were paid by the corrupt governor Gessius Florus to entrap Jews.
• 24:6 "the end is still to come" - all these signs are not the end.
• 24:8 "birth pangs" - while not specifically signs of the end, they will increase in frequency and intensity as the end comes nearer.
• 24:14 "Gospel of the kingdom preached in all the world" - the first hard requirement for the end to come.
• 24:15 "abomination of desolation" - this was attempted by Caligula, but not carried out in AD 40. 70 AD was not a fulfillment. The Romans destroyed the temple without bothering to desecrate it. "Standing in the holy place" - the second hard requirement for the end to come, the temple will be rebuilt.
• 24:16 Nevertheless, like Antiochus Epiphanes, 70AD was a foreshadowing of the future Tribulation and Christians escaped the destruction of Jerusalem by following these instructions.
• 24:21 "great tribulation, never to be seen again" - 70AD was your standard destroy the city and temple, kill and enslave the people of the city. Like with Nebuchadnezzar. Historians list many later persecutions of the Jews as much worse. Another clue that 70AD was not the coming great tribulation.
• 24:24 "false christs" - many of them leading up to 70AD described by Josephus. But the end time versions will have great signs and wonders.
• 24:26 "wilderness..inner rooms" - these were literally what the "messiahs" paid by Florus said.
• 24:27 "as the lightning flashes" - the 2nd coming will not be a secret.
• 24:30 "all the tribes of the earth will mourn" - a million times worse than Trump getting elected. There will be no fooling or hiding from the judgement of Christ.
• 24:33 "all these things" - not just the birth pangs, but the temple and the abomination. While all political nations have heard the Gospel, the word is "ἔθνος", "ethnos": race/people group/ethnicity. There are still unreached peoples.
• 24:36 "no one knows the day nor the hour" - and yet people publish books like "88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988" by Edgar C. Whisenant.
• 24:44 "the Son of Man will come in an hour you do not expect" - i.e. not in 1988 for 88 reasons.
• 24:46 "blessed is that servant whose master finds him doing [his job] when he returns." - THIS is the take home message.