MYSTERIES REVEALED: When and What

Read Matthew 24.

As Jesus pointed to the massive Temple and declared its destruction, the disciples immediately thought such a catastrophe must signal the end of the age.  They were not thinking of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, with this interlude that has already lasted 2000 years and the return of Christ.  They held out the hope that the Messianic Kingdom was going to be established now, and thought this must herald it—so they sought an answer.

Remember, in reading this, that the church is not in view here.  Christ’s church will be built on His finished work of His crucifixion and resurrection and birthed after His ascension and the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  This was a mystery—a hidden truth, that these twelve knew nothing about at the time.  The mystery awaited its explanation in the epistles and Revelation.  The content of Matthew 24 and 25 is, therefore, Jewish in focus, and the church is not mentioned.

The signs of the end of the age, mark all the “last days,” which began with Christ’s work on Calvary.  If you read Revelation 6 for instance and compare it with Matthew 24, you will find a synthesis of these signs that happen with the opening of the seven seals.

Some will argue, “Haven’t false messiahs, wars, famines, disease, earthquakes, and religious persecution, marked the last 2000 years?”  Yes!  But, the key is to note Jesus called these “birth pains,” (the meaning of “sorrows” in v.8). A pregnant woman will feel twinges of pain all during her term, but as the time for birth draws near, the labor pains escalate in frequency and intensity. So, it will be in the last days, until the climactic pain of the Great Tribulation and the birth of the New World with Christ’s return.

WHAT’S THIS WORLD COMING TO?

Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.  (Mark 13:26)

What’s this world coming to?  Have you ever heard that question?  Well, the Bible tells us!  The paradise that was lost be the disobedience of the first Adam will be reclaimed by the obedience of the last Adam, Jesus Christ.  Because the first man of the earth, Adam sinned, death came into the world and because the second man from heaven, Christ died and rose again, God’s eternal kingdom is coming!  But the birth of that eternal kingdom is like that of a woman in labor—whose birth pains intensify until the child is born (Mark13:7-8).  So it is that this world has experienced these pains and now as we are approaching the end, we are beginning to see them become more frequent and more agonizing.  Following the rapture of the church, seven years of wrath will come upon a Christ-rejecting world.  The last three and a half years—the Great Tribulation—are the worst ever known on planet earth (Mark 13:19-20). 

Mark 13 presents this period as a time of PERIL (v.14-23). The Antichrist will break his covenant with Israel and enter the rebuilt temple and declare himself to be God.  The world will think their Savior has come.  Most in Israel will believe their Messiah has arrived.  Jesus warned that this would not be the case (v.5-6, 21-23).  If a Jew is to survive—he or she must flee Jerusalem immediately (v.14-17). 

This is a time of POWER (v.24-27).  God’s power will be seen in the shaking of the universe.  We have heard it said that the darkest hour is just before the dawn—and it will be true before the dawn of earth’s new age and the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ as he comes back to earth in power and glory.  That is how it is portrayed here.

This is a time of PROMISE (v.28-31).  What a promise!  The faithfulness of God is seen in the fruitfulness of the fig tree (v.28-29).  We are told to be observant.  In the spring, we may not know the date of the last frost, but we can tell as the earth warms that spring is approaching.  No man knows the day or hour when Christ will return, but we should be able to discern the season!    

It is a time of PREPARATION (v.32-37).  The key thing about Christ’s return isn’t whether we get all the details right, but whether we are right with God.  Prophecy isn’t given to satisfy our curiosity but to move us to get ready!  Jesus didn’t tell us these things for information or even inspiration but for preparation.  The message over and over is, “Prepare to meet your God!”  (Amos 4:12)  God intended to leave a certain uncertainty about the timing so no one would presume on His grace (v.33-37).  What difference would it make if you knew the next 24 hours on earth would be your last?  They may be!

THE DYNAMIC DUO

And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.”  (Revelation 11:3)

There are things that go together: peanut butter and jelly, bacon and eggs, peas and carrots.  There are names that go together: Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Batman and Robin.  Speaking of Batman and Robin—those two are known in comic book lore as the dynamic duo.  The caped crusaders are from a writer’s imagination, but there is a real dynamic duo that arises in the end time—not fighting crime in Gotham, but standing for truth in Jerusalem.  Revelation chapter eleven tells their story.

During the tribulation period, a temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem (Rev.11:1-2). Preparations are being made by Jews to bring this to pass.  It is the great yearning of their hearts.  It may be part of the peace settlement that Antichrist will promise to Israel to entice them to sign a treaty.  This temple, however, shows Israel still failing to receive their Messiah.  Jesus came and sacrificed His blood to establish the New Covenant.  Many times in the epistles it is stressed that returning to temple worship is rejection of His atonement.  Eventually, the Antichrist will enter this temple and defile it, setting himself up as God and demanding the worship of the world.  The measuring rod here is a symbol of judgment.  This temple doesn’t measure up.  Its worship is repudiated.

God will raise up his dynamic duo to proclaim the truth—to call Jews and Gentiles to Christ (v.3-10).  During earth’s darkest era, God will have His two lampstands shining brightly.  Their ministry is supernaturally confirmed by great miracles.  They stand in the spirit of Moses and Elijah.  Some think they are literally Moses and Elijah returned.  Some scholars suggest Enoch and Elijah.  While I respect their views, I believe more likely they are two who have the attributes of those mighty men of God, but not actually those servants.  Other things are clear.  They are invincible—divinely protected.  The Antichrist will want to silence them because they expose him for the liar he is.  Sinners will despise them because they confront their evil deeds.  George Whitefield said, “We are immortal until our work on earth is done.”  There comes a time when their ministry is finished—God’s appointed hour for His anointed heralds—and they are slain.

The world has a holiday.  What a celebration when they are killed—their bloated bodies are paraded before the gawking masses and beamed around the world by television!  Just when evil thinks it has triumphed, God shuts the party down (v.11-14).  Isn’t it reminiscent of what happened when Satan thought Jesus beaten and silenced in the grave?  Death was defeated—up from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o’er His foes!  In that resurrection power He will summon the dead in Christ back to life and with living saints rapture them.  The world tried to explain that away.  God will show them that reality by raising and rapturing the dynamic duo.  The scene shifts from earth’s temple to heaven’s (v.15-19) with the Hallelujah Chorus sung victoriously.  Lightning flashes and thunder rolls; more judgments fall on a world that despises God.  I want to be with that throng above don’t you?  Jesus is the way, the truth and the life—trust Him today and be on the winning side, not left behind to face these horrors of the tribulation!

THE SEVENTH SEAL

When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.  (Revelation 8:1)

I have known many women, who by the ninth month of their pregnancy, are yearning to have a baby.  There is no recollection, however, of any of them saying, “I can’t wait to experience labor pains!”  You can’t have one without the other—the wait that seems interminable and then the period of pain that feels immeasurable, when the baby begins his or her journey from the birth canal.  The joy of holding that newborn drives away the memory of the labor—new life emerging from when a mother feels as close to death as she can without dying herself.  That is what Jesus says the end of the age will bring.  In Matthew 24, our Lord calls the horrors that convulse the planet, “the beginning of sorrows,” which literally means, “labor pains.”  The signs mentioned—earthquakes, wars, famines, and the like—have all been present in this period of earth’s “pregnancy,” just as a woman has certain discomfort during the whole pregnancy—morning sickness, back pain, and such—sometimes more, sometimes less.  Yet, when it comes time for the baby’s arrival there is a dramatic intensifying of those pains in wave upon wave.  Just so, that final seven years, and in particular the last three and one half years, bring earth’s contractions leading for the delivery of a new world order in which righteousness dwells!

Before that last push—there is a hush in heaven (Rev.8:1-6).  This is the calm before the storm.  It is like the stillness of a hot, humid summer night that hangs heavy over all—when suddenly a wind stirs, lightning flashes, and a thunderclap signals a breaking storm.  Just so, this silence in heaven is a prelude to the storm of judgment.  Six seals of the scroll—the title deed to the universe—have been opened by the Lamb of God (Rev.6).  With the breaking of each seal, a terrible judgment has broken on the Christ-rejecting world.  After an interlude of sealing 144,000 Jews and saving a multitude of Gentiles (Rev.7), the next chapter brings the opening of the seventh seal, and a holy hush in heaven.  That is a place always filled with praise, streets echoing with singing saints and joyful greetings, but not now.  The Judge has come into the courtroom.  All gathered there are silent.  The condemned awaits the pronouncing of the sentence.  Quiet reigns—the pause is pregnant with meaning.

Then the gavel falls (Rev.8:7-13)!  Beneath the seventh seal, there are seven trumpets that will sound, and each trumpet blast brings a judgment.  Four of those trumpet judgments are described in this chapter.  Trumpet one sounds—hail and fire destroy one third of earth’s vegetation (v.7).  Trumpet two sounds—what may well be an asteroid strikes the sea with the force of a nuclear explosion and tidal waves decimate the ships and the shoreline (v.8-9).  The third trumpet sounds—a comet with poisonous gas or a meteor with radioactive matter disintegrates on entering the atmosphere, poisoning a third of the fresh water (v.10-11).  The fourth trumpet sounds—smoke from the fires and dust from the impacts upon earth fill the skies with a third of the light is dimmed by the cloud.

You do not want to hear those trumpets of doom.  You want to hear the trumpet of deliverance (1 Thess.4:16-17)!  Give your life to Jesus; flee to Him for salvation!

LEFT BEHIND

Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals; and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, “Come and see.”  (Revelation 6:1)

“Left Behind,” was a series of popular books that later became the source of several movies.  The characters and conversations are fictional, but the basic story line is Biblical.  Scripture portrays the end time commencing with the rapture of the church.   When Christ raises the sainted dead and raptures the living believers, those who are “left behind,” will face a world gone mad.  The primary restrainer of evil—the church—is gone.

Imagine a powerful magnet suspended over the earth—a magnet that would only attract gold.  As it moves over the planet, the iron, copper, silver, and aluminum are unaffected.  Only the gold is drawn to the sky.  That is akin to what happens when the rapture of the church occurs (1 Thess.4:16-17).  The light of the world and salt of the earth is removed.  The darkness of evil then completely engulfs the globe.  The rot of sin has no restraint.  With the eclipse of hope comes the outpouring of God’s wrath.

It is called the time of tribulation—seven years of judgment on a Christ-rejecting world.  The last half of that is known as “the Great Tribulation,” so intense will the suffering be.  Jesus described it in Matthew 24 as a period of unparalleled horror which if not brief would bring extinction of all life!

This wrath is outpoured as the seven seals of the heavenly scroll begin to be peeled open in Revelation 6.  The scroll has been delivered into the hands of the Lamb.  Jesus holds the title deed to the universe.  When each seal is opened, a judgment is unleashed.

The first seal is the judgment of a false messiah (v.1-2).  This rider on a white horse has the appearance of being Christ, but he is instead a counterfeit—the Devil’s hand-picked man who will rule the world.  Satan will have his man waiting to takeover.

The second seal opens to reveal the judgment of war (v.3-4).  The pseudo-peace promised by the Antichrist is quickly broken, as covetous men jockey for power.  War sweeps in a crimson wave across the planet—a time of “wars and rumors of wars” (Matt.24:6).

The third seal discloses a time of famine (v.5-6).  Famine will follow the fighting.  Our economy has become global in scope, so that when it is disrupted by world war, the entire financial system collapses and people will be starving.

The fourth seal pictures the rider on a pale horse and that is death (v.7-8).  A quarter of the world’s population dies as a result of war, famine, and disease that comes in its wake.

The fifth seal is the martyr’s seal (v.9-11).  There are many in our world that have never heard the name of Christ.  God is so gracious that even in such days, those people groups will be evangelized, and many converted.  They will seal their testimony in their blood.

The opening of the sixth seal unleashes an earthquake as the foundations of the earth are shaken.  Rather than fleeing to the Rock of Ages for salvation, they cry out to the rocks to hide them.  Such is the steadfast heart of sinful man, set against the True God and His Son, Jesus Christ.  You do not want to be in that number—the multitudes of those judged. 

Trust in Jesus!  Don’t be left behind!