There is a big difference between experiencing difficulty that you didn’t anticipate and experiencing that same difficulty with full expectation that it was coming. It’s the difference, it seems in some cases, from being able to persevere and giving up and walking away. This is no doubt what Paul had in mind when Luke tells us in Acts 14:22 that they were “strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” How can they “encourage them to persevere” and tell them “that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God”? The answer, of course, is that we’re strengthened to persevere when we’re told what to expect, even if those expectations are to face tribulation.
This is no doubt what is in Jesus’ mind in regards to his disciples in Matthew 24:1-35. After all, the chapter is filled with Jesus’ declarations of what is to come for the disciples. But it’s not simply because Jesus is showing off his ability to declare the future. Rather, he’s telling them what to expect so that they might not find themselves caught off guard but rather equipped to persevere.
The text begins with Jesus leaving the temple, when his disciples point out to him the buildings of the temple (v. 1), noting their glorious nature (according to Mark 13:1). However, instead of jumping in and noting the beauty of the buildings, Jesus says, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (v. 2). This, perhaps, sounds like a harsh way to respond, but keep in mind the judgment he’s just pronounced in chapter 23.
What happens, then, is that the disciples decide they want to know more about this, so they come to him privately and ask him, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (v. 3). Now, to us, that’s clearly two different questions. “When will these things be,” meaning, “When will these temple buildings be destroyed?” is a question that was answered when in AD 70, when the Romans came and destroyed it. “What will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?” is clearly a second question, since we’re now nearly 2,000 years after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, and Christ has not yet returned.
Now, this doesn’t mean that these were two questions in the disciples’ minds. In fact, I think they thought of these two questions as one. They assumed that surely if Jesus is talking about the destruction of the temple, he must be talking about the end of all things in this age. Nonetheless, Jesus answers both of their questions, even if they only intend to ask them as one.
That explains how we get to this long monologue about this age, the age to come, and our readiness for his return that we look at in chapters 24-25. But that’s really only part of what is necessary for understanding this text well. Another crucial element to understand is its structure. I say this because interpretation of these verses have been all over the map. Some think that everything Jesus is talking about in these verses refer to things that have already happened, taking place in the first century. Others think that what Jesus refers to in these verses are things that are entirely future, even to us, only to happen right before the second coming. I think, largely dependent on D. A. Carson here,1 that Jesus is referring to a bit of both. Specifically, here’s how I think we’re to understand the flow of these verses, which I will argue for along the way.
In verses 4-28 Jesus gives a description of what will characterize the entire time between his ascension and his return at the end of this age, focusing mainly on what he describes as “birth pains” (v. 8), as if this age is in violent labor, until the return of Christ.
In the midst of this description of these birth pains that will characterize this entire age, he notes one specific birth pain in verses 15-21, speaking specifically here about the destruction of the temple, highlighted of course because this was one of the disciples’ specific questions.
Then, in verses 29-31 he speaks of the return of Christ “immediately after the tribulation of those days.” And, finally, in verses 32-35, he reflects on the events and signs during this age of “birth pains,” noting that the return of Christ is imminent. And, again, I think his main purpose in laying all of this out so that his disciples are not caught off guard (especially by opposition) but strengthened to endure, and I think that is the text’s purpose for us this morning as well. Therefore, I want to make three points of application that I think we’re to gain from this text. First:
If indeed verses 4-28 are a description of what characterizes this age, you can see this age will be filled with some great difficulty. Now, I want to skip over verses 4-5 for a second because I think there’s an indicator that Jesus wants us to give special attention to this particular issue. But what are some of the things that Jesus says will characterize this age?
There will be cosmic upheaval (vv. 6-8)
Jesus says, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains” (vv. 6-8).
As I’ve mentioned, Jesus compares the stage of things in this entire age until his coming as if they are birth pains, violent labor, awaiting the day of Christ. And one aspect of these birth pains will be cosmic upheaval. There will be national and political upheaval as we will hear (or in our day see and read about) about wars and rumors of wars throughout this age, to which we can testify.
But, interestingly, Jesus says that we’re not supposed to see some war in the Middle East and say, with great anxiety, “This must be the end.” In fact, Jesus says, “See that you are not alarmed” and recognize that this isn’t telling us the end is necessarily here but rather “these things must take place” throughout this age.
But there’ll not only be upheaval on the political and national scale but also within the earth itself. We’ll have famines and earthquakes. The earth itself will seem like it is in a form of labor, which Paul describes in Romans 8 as the earth groaning for the return of Christ. But again, the point isn’t to see or hear of natural disasters, famines, earthquakes, or even reports (accurate or not) of climate change and panic, but rather to see these things, and, in peace, say, “The Lord told us these things would be. Let’s just press on and remain faithful in obedience.”
There will be persecution and apostasy (vv. 9-13)
Jesus also clearly tells us to expect persecution, noting, “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake” (v. 9). Now, let me first note that when Jesus says “then,” he doesn’t mean that these things will happen sequentially, as if after all the wars, earthquakes, and famines are done, then you’ll be persecuted (but not until then). Rather, he means “then” simply in terms of “in addition to what I’ve already said.”
Thus, Jesus is saying that just as national, political, and cosmic upheaval will characterize this entire age in the sense that we’ll have wars, earthquakes, famines, and the like, so it is true that this age will be filled with persecution against the church. And this is precisely what has happened throughout the age.
We read of persecution against believers happening as early as the book of Acts, and any church history book that goes into detail will tell of believers being fed to lions, put in animal skins and hunted, having molten lead poured down their throats, being made to sit on a seat that was heated to the point that the believer was roasted to death, and on and on. Nor are these episodes contained to the early centuries of the church. It has been noted consistently that more people were martyred for Christ’s sake in the 20th century than in the previous 1900 years combined, and I suspect that trend will continue into our century. We must not be surprised at this but fully anticipate it.
And there is something else perhaps more painful that will take place in light of this persecution; many professing believers will fall away from their commitment to Christ. Jesus says, “And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (vv. 10-13).
In other words, when we profess faith, we are doing just that—making a profession. But what will show whether that profession is real and our conversion genuine is whether or not we endure in faith, pressing on, and holding fast to Christ with repentance and faith. Many will not. This age will be filled with individuals we love and perhaps even found ourselves encouraged in the faith by, walking away from Christ as sin is increased in and around them, and their hearts grow cold toward the Lord. We must not be shocked by this. And we cannot let this take our legs out from under us. We must hold fast in faith ourselves.
But we also see that during this age of cosmic upheaval, persecution, and apostasy …
The gospel will be preached to all nations (v. 14)
As we’ve seen earlier in Matthew, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. In the midst of every form of opposition which leads many to deny Christ, the gospel will continue to be preached to the ends of the earth. That is a picture, then, of our marching orders in this age. We don’t answer persecution and unrest all around by taking up arms or even making the mission of our church stopping wars, lessening earthquakes (if one could do such a thing), or eliminating violence across the globe. Still less do we try to hide, lest we be identified as believers. Rather, we the take the gospel all over the earth, baptize those who profess faith, and teaching them in the context of local church to obey all that Christ commands. These are our marching orders as the church in this age, and we must not shrink from this mission or be distracted from it. We will see success. The gospel will continue to go to the ends of the earth.
But just as we’re faithfully proclaiming the truth in this age, Jesus wants us to know …
There will be many attempting to deceive us (vv. 4-5, 11, 23-28)
Now, I mentioned before that I wanted to skip over verses 4-5 momentarily, and it’s because I think that Jesus wants to draw special attention to this reality that we will hear many powerful and persuasive voices of deception. The reason I say Jesus wants to draw special attention to this is because he fames this entire conversation of what will characterize this age with this point. We see it in verses 4-5, as Jesus exhorts the disciples, saying, “See that no one leads you astray” before adding, “For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.”
But we also see it in verses 23-28. There, Jesus again warns against deception, noting, “False christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (v. 24). By saying, “If possible, even the elect,” I think Jesus is reminding us that he’ll hold us fast but also letting us know that the pull of these voices may be stronger than we anticipate. We also saw it there in verse 11 where Jesus noted that “many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.”
We tend to think of false prophets as someone who’s obviously crazy or obviously wrong, but false teachers have often been most powerful by taking partial truths that we all know and promoting them as the whole. They’ve often been those who are kind, gentle, and understanding communicators. And Jesus wants to warn us against this, even adding, “See, I have told you beforehand.”
This is why I want it to be proclaimed clearly that Cornerstone Community Church must never be about a man, or even the vision of a man. The Lord hasn’t made his church’s success dependent on the gifts of any one person.2 We always want to be shaped by the Scripture, quick to accept it, and slow to grab hold of anything that can’t be grounded in the Word. This will be the only thing that will sustain us generation after generation as a church.
And specifically Jesus warns us not to be deceived about his coming, as if someone tells us that he has returned and we’ve missed it or as if it has been low key. Rather, Jesus tells us, his return will be like lightning in that it may come from the east, but will light up the whole sky westward as well. We’ll be as certain to see it as vultures are certain to find a corpse (vv. 27-28).
And then Jesus notes one particular birth pain, one issue his disciples have asked about, namely,
The destruction of the temple (vv. 15-21)
In the midst of speaking of all that will fill this age until the return of Christ, Jesus mentions one particular birth pain in verses 15-21, as he mentions the fall of Jerusalem, writing, “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountaintops. Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. For then there will be great tribulation as such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.”
Now, why do I say that this is referring to the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70? Well, we have a few clues, but the most obvious one is Jesus’ language about the “abomination of desolation.” It’s not obvious at first what this means, but it isn’t the first time this phrase occurs in the Scripture. In the book of Daniel, we find the phrase three times (9:27, 11:31, and 12:11). And it seems that at least one of those uses of the phrases refers to Antiochus Epiphanes, who indeed brought desolation and was an abomination as he went into the temple, set up an altar to Zeus, and sacrificed pigs on the Lord’s altar. But the other references in Daniel seem to refer to another act to come in the future in which the temple will see desolation. Therefore, when Jesus (or Matthew) notes, “Let the reader understand” in verse 15, I believe he means, “Let the reader of Daniel understand,” because Jesus is talking about the event that fulfills Daniel’s centuries-old prophecy.
But what is Jesus, then, talking about by this phrase, “abomination that causes desolation?” Well, thankfully in Luke’s parallel of this text, Luke does give us a hint. We read in Luke parallel account of Jesus’ teaching here, “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near” (Luke 21:20). And you’ll note that the following verses are almost the same as those verses which follow Matthew 24:15. Therefore, it seems that Jesus is here talking about the day when the Roman armies would gather around Jerusalem, lay siege to the city, and destroy it (including the temple), which happened in AD 70.
Jesus tells his disciples that when the armies surround Jerusalem, they should flee to the mountains. Don’t waste any time. If you’re on the housetop (where the roofs of the houses would have been connected), don’t come down, just run across the housetops. If you’re in the field, don’t waste time getting your cloak. For those who are pregnant or nursing, it’ll pose a great challenge. And they should pray it doesn’t happen in winter, for that would make fleeing even more challenging. Indeed, he tells us that there will be such tribulation that there has not been any like it before nor after, till the end of the age.
And the fall of Jerusalem indeed fits this. From 66-70 A.D. the Jews were in revolt against Rome. And eventually Roman armies surrounded and laid siege to the city. It was a terrible scene. The Romans would take Jewish prisoners and crucify literally hundreds of them on a daily basis. Because they laid siege to the city, Jerusalem suffered through times of famine so severe that mothers were reported to have roasted and eaten their own children. But the cries of the mothers to stop the revolt achieved nothing. In fact, a number of zealous Jews went about killing their own people who wanted to end the revolt. Eventually, the Romans made their way to the temple where thousands of Jews had crowded around the altar, and they were slaughtered. There were hundreds of thousands Jews killed in all so that Carson notes, “Never so high a percentage has a great city’s population [been] so thoroughly and painfully exterminated and enslaved as during the Fall of Jerusalem.”3
But though there were many Christians in Jerusalem, there were very, very few who died after Rome laid siege to the city. Why? It is because they trusted their Lord’s words, and when they saw the armies surrounding the city, they fled to the mountains. They trusted and obeyed, and it saved them from being part of this horrendous event.
This is, I believe, a fitting illustration of the point of this text. These will be tumultuous times in many ways, but our task is to love and obey our Lord, even if we don’t understand what he’s commanded certain things. Ours is not to know the why but simply to obey. May we be faithful in this.
So, this then is a picture of all that will characterize this age. Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70, and the entire age has been filled with wars, earthquakes, famines, deception, persecution, apostasy, and gospel proclamation. We’ve lived through these days ourselves and felt these things to some degree. And Jesus notes the seriousness of evil in this age by noting in verse 22, “And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short,” which obviously cannot refer simply to the fall of Jerusalem, for “no human being” must be a broader reference than those in Jerusalem. Jesus is saying that this in this age we will see such opposition, hardship, and upheaval that were he not to cut this age short, mankind would simply destroy itself. But there is good news, namely, at the end of this age, Christ will come to gather his people.
Jesus says, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (vv. 29-31).
These verses are so helpful in determining what Jesus has been talking about. First, this is an obvious reference to the return of Christ. Elsewhere where this imagery is used, that’s it’s obvious reference. For example, in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Paul writes of the Lord descending from heaven with the sound of a trumpet and gathering his people to meet him in the clouds. Even earlier in this gospel, in Matthew 16:27, Jesus speaks of the Son of Man coming with his angels to bring final judgment, as he also speaks of in 25:31.
And since he says that this will happen immediately after the tribulation of “those days” (v. 29), this cannot refer simply to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 but at the end of the age, meaning that we have been right to see that verses 4-28 describe events that will characterize the entire age until his coming, filled with the birth pains that precede Christ’s return.
So, how do we respond to the news that this age will be filled with such difficulty that will eventually give way to the return of Christ? I think the answer is simple.
We obey our Lord and endure faithfully in this age, always keeping our eyes on the age to come, remembering that the suffering of this age is not even worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us at the glorious return of our Lord (Rom 8:18).
But I want I want to add one other word of application from verses 32-35 as well, where we see:
Jesus doesn’t leave us alone to think about application. Rather, he tells us at least one thing that he wants us to learn, declaring, “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (vv. 32-35).
When Jesus says that this generation will not pass away until all these things take place, “all these things” clearly cannot refer to everything he has spoken about in the prior verses, for they include the return of Christ and gathering of the elect. Nor does it work, however, to say that “this generation” doesn’t refer to the very generation who would have first heard his words. So, how do we understand this? I think what Jesus is saying is that within the very generation to whom he was speaking, they would see all the birth pains he’d referred to in verses 4-28 happen. By that I don’t mean they’d witness all the wars and earthquakes that would happen in this age, but they would see wars and earthquakes. They’d see the destruction of the temple and great persecution and apostasy. They’d even see the gospel make its way to the known world.
In other words, I think Jesus is saying to his original hearers and all who live after them that we all need to live our lives with an understanding that Christ could well return within our lifetime. That is, we don’t wander around always in a state of constant worry and fear, as Jesus reminded us in verse 6, saying, “See that you are not alarmed.” But nor do we lose any sense of urgency. We obey Christ. We work hard as a church toward fulfilling the mission he’s given us. And as the opposition and troubles of this age press on us, we look to the age to come, remembering our Lord, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame (Heb 2:12), a joy he knew at his resurrection and a joy we’ll know when he returns and we are raised as well.