Transcript

Okay, did Daniel make sense to everybody?

As much as we covered?

Okay, good.

We're going to take the knowledge of what we learned in Daniel and we're going to skip over Zechariah.

I cover Zechariah in the book, but we don't have time for Zechariah.

It's not essential that we cover Zechariah, but people that try to look at Zechariah without understanding Daniel go absolutely crazy, okay?

Because you can't understand Zechariah unless you understand that the Day of the Lord that Zechariah mentions is the strategy of God's people.

That last week of Daniel, that seventy years, is the Day of the Lord in Zechariah.

But we're not going to go there; we're going to get into the New Testament now.

We're going to go to the Olivet Discourse.

Now, this is in Matthew chapter 24 and chapter 25. This is without a doubt one of the most difficult sayings of Jesus.

Here's what He says: They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

And truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place.

Heaven and earth may pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

Matthew chapter 24, verses 30 through 35 and the surrounding verses.

Now, I've got two sons in college; they're both at a Catholic university.

Just this last week, one of my sons said he got into an interesting conversation on abortion in the cafeteria with one of the girls.

They got talking about abortion, and I think you know which side of that my son came down on.

This uninformed Catholic girl argued for limited cases where abortion might be acceptable, and obviously my son started to argue from the Church's authority.

What came out of this girl's mouth was, Well, you can't trust everything that the Church says because even Jesus was wrong.

And this is the verse she pointed to.

She said Jesus said that He was going to come back within that generation.

And He didn't; He was wrong.

Now, unfortunately, she got that from a Catholic theology professor.

Unfortunately.

But this verse that Catholic theology professor is directly in the line of a very well-known atheist, Bertrand Russell.

Bertrand Russell wrote a book on Why I Am Not a Christian, and he pointed to this very verse.

He said, I'm not a Christian because Jesus predicted that He was going to come back within a generation, and He didn't. He's wrong; He's not God.

Now, I got to hand this to Bertrand Russell; he's consistent.

He applied to Jesus' words here the test for an Old Testament prophet.

In the Old Testament, we're told if a prophet prophesies and it doesn't come to pass, he's not of God.

Bertrand Russell was being consistent.

Even a man like C.S. Lewis, who was, in my opinion, one of the two greatest apologists for the Church in the last century, wrote in a book called The Essential C.S. Lewis.

You can find it on page 385. He says that Matthew 24, verse 34 is, quote, certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible, and he takes the position that Jesus was wrong, that Jesus predicted His second coming within a generation, and He was wrong.

Now, there's another way out of this verse.

In fact, there are a couple of ways out of this verse, and one of them is the way that the Rapturous answers this verse.

However, to be honest with you, their solution is worse than the problem because what they do is they say that Jesus didn't really mean what He said.

They say that either when Jesus said that this generation will not pass away, and they usually give us a choice so that if you don't like one explanation, you can go to the other one.

It's sort of like a multiple-choice path to truth.

Either the generation means that the generation that Jesus was talking about was the generation that started to see the signs that He talks about.

We're going to talk about the signs in a minute.

That the generation that sees the signs start to come to pass, that's the generation that will see His coming.

The other way, if you don't like that explanation, is they say that when He talked about generation, what He really meant was the Jewish ethnic group will not go away, will not be destroyed.

The Jewish people, as a people, will not go away before Christ's second coming.

Okay?

Those are the two explanations that Rapturous give.

There's just one problem with both of them: that's not what the Greek says; that's not what the Bible says.

That use of generation is nowhere else in the Bible.

That would be the only time that Jesus used that word in that way.

There are certainly other good words, about five other good Greek words, that Jesus could have used if He meant that the race of Judaism, the race of the Jewish people, will not end before He comes back.

He didn't use those words; He used the word generation.

Now, that word is used thirty-four times in the New Testament, and it's used as this phrase exactly like here twenty times.

In every one of those times, everyone agrees that Jesus is saying this generation, the generation that He's talking to.

If that weren't enough, right in the passage, Jesus speaks in the second person continually.

He says, You, this generation, you, you, you.

He's not saying them; He's talking to His disciples and saying, You, the people alive right there, this generation.

That's how the word is used, and that's what the you means.

It's in this chapter of 24 of Matthew; it's in verse 9, 15, 20, 25, 32, 33, and 34. He is very specific: you're going to see these signs, and you will see the coming of the Son of Man.

So I think the Rapturists, when they talk about the fig tree generation, this is where the fig tree generation comes from.

The generation that starts to see the signs is the generation that will be around when the fig tree bears fruit.

In other words, when the second coming occurs, it's not being honest with the words that Jesus used; it's just simply being dishonest.

Now, if I had my choice, I'm going to be real honest with you: if I've got to twist the words of Jesus in order to be a Christian, I'll join Bertrand Russell.

But I'm going to give you another way out of this passage.

I think this is the way that Jesus meant it, and it's the way most of the early Church understood it, and it's the way the Catholic theologians understood it, and most Presbyterian, most Dutch Reformed, and most Covenant have understood it throughout history until about the last 200 years.

So let's get started on that.

By the way, one other problem with the Rapturist explanation of that generation and all that is there's parallel passages for this Matthew passage.

We're going to look at Matthew 24-25; that happens to be the one we're looking at.

It's got the most details, but this same passage is dealt with in Luke and in Mark.

Luke gives details that make it clear that it is not something that's going to happen at the end of the world.

Luke makes it very clear in chapter 21 that these details are going to happen now.

So, to be honest with you, what the Rapturist does is circular reasoning.

Do you understand what I'm saying by that?

He says Jesus says He's going to come back in this generation, but He didn't, so He must have meant something else.

I think, personally, that Bertrand Russell would laugh at that.

I don't find it convincing, and I'm a Christian, but I think C.S. Lewis is wrong also.

I don't think C.S. Lewis was right when he said this is the most embarrassing verse in the Bible.

I actually find this verse to be a very important verse for understanding that Jesus was who He said He was.

But notice that the sum and the substance of the Rapturist argument in this passage is these signs haven't been fulfilled yet; therefore, Jesus couldn't mean this generation.

If you look in the C.I. Schofield reference notes for this passage, he says that these signs haven't happened yet, so this generation can't mean this generation.

So what's our solution?

The historic understanding of the Church on this passage is that there are two very distinct questions being asked.

Let me give you an example.

Let's say you've got a teenage daughter.

Anybody here have a teenage daughter?

Oh good, okay.

Your teenage daughter comes home one day and she says, Mom, Dad, I want to go to prom because after prom Johnny wants to go up to the cabin for an overnight.

Can I go?

Has your daughter asked you one question, or has she asked you two?

Well, in my family, those are two distinct questions.

They probably would have very distinct answers, although they might both be no, considering what Johnny wants to do with my teenage daughter, okay?

But we have to realize that she sees it as one question.

From my perspective, with more experience, more knowledge, and more fear, I see it as two questions.

The same thing is happening with the disciples; they ask a question that they think is just one question, and it's actually two questions.

Luke.

Makes this very clear because he separates the two questions and the two answers by three chapters, okay?

Matthew puts them back to back; Luke separates them by three chapters.

So it's very obvious this is nothing new that I'm telling you: these are two different questions, okay?

St. Chrysostom wrote the first commentary on the whole Bible, and he said this right in his very first commentary.

He said, When the Lord had finished all that related to the Jerusalem question, He came to the rest, to His own coming.

So the very first commentary of the Bible understood that this was two questions, okay?

So what are the two questions?

Well, the first one is they're looking at the temple at the beginning of chapter 4. They come out of the temple buildings; the disciples look around, and they were phenomenal buildings.

They said that you could see the temple from miles away.

It was built up on a hill, and it was such polished stone that it looked like a diamond in the sun.

I mean, there's nothing built today to equal Herod's temple.

I mean, it was a phenomenal structure.

The disciples turn around and they say, Jesus, isn't it beautiful?

And Jesus just blows them away.

He says, There's not going to be one stone left on another; this whole temple is going to be destroyed.

Now, the disciples should have known that because in Daniel chapter 9, remember where we were just there?

Daniel predicted that to build the temple, the Messiah will come, the Messiah will be cut off, and then what happens?

The temple will be destroyed.

Daniel predicted it, okay?

But this blows the disciples' minds, and they can't wait to get down to a quiet spot, and they ask Jesus a question.

They say, When will this be?

What will be the sign of your coming and the close of the age?

Now, they think that's all one question, but like the prom and the overnight with the teenage daughter, there are two questions embedded in there: when will the temple be destroyed, and when will be the end?

Those are the two questions, and they're two distinct questions.

Jesus answers the first one first.

When He's done answering the first one, He starts to answer the second one.

He answers the second one second.

So what I'm proposing is that the first question is answered in Matthew chapter 24, verses 4 through 35, as it says up here on the board, along with Mark 13, 1-31, or Luke 21, 5-33. Those are the parallel passages.

Now, the second question, When will it be the close of the age?

is from 36 on, and it actually goes into chapter 25 as well.

We get more details, but that's along with Mark chapter 13 starting in 32. Notice that Luke puts it in a totally different chapter; he puts it in chapter 17 rather than chapter 21. So the bulk of the Olivet Discourse, if you don't count chapter 25, is actually answering the first question: when will the temple be destroyed?

And Jesus says very plainly, I'm going to give you eight signs, eight signs of when the temple is going to be destroyed.

Number one, verse four and five: Take heed that no one leads you astray.

Many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will lead many astray.

The first sign is there will be false leaders, false Christs, false Messiahs.

Josephus was a historian that lived during the destruction of the temple.

He wrote Antiquities of the Jews.

He wrote about three big books, but in Antiquities, he says, Impostors and deceivers persuaded the multitude to follow them into the wilderness and pretended that they would exhibit manifest wonders and signs, and many that were prevailed on by them suffered the punishments of their folly.

Jesus is saying there's going to be false Messiahs.

St. Jerome, who wrote the commentary on Daniel and also on the Olivet Discourse, said at the time of the Jewish captivity, there were many leaders who declared themselves to be Christ.

So that while the Romans were actually besieging them, there were three factions within—there were three different groups of Jews fighting inside the city walls.

One was led by a Jew named Simon that claimed to be the Messiah, another was led by a Jew named John that claimed to be the Messiah, and the third was led by the Sanhedrin, the priests.

Even within Jerusalem, there were two false Messiahs, and then out in the hillside, there were others.

So this has already come to be.

Second sign: the second sign that Jesus says, when you see these signs, the temple is about to be destroyed—wars and rumors of wars.

In verse 6, 24-6, Pax Romana was the peace that the Roman Empire engendered throughout the ancient world, and it disintegrated in the decade before 70 A.D. Judea obviously revolted in 66. On the far western side of the empire, Britain revolted.

But even more importantly, in 68 A.D., the unheard of happened: there was civil war within the walls of Rome itself.

Never had it ever happened.

Armies were not even allowed inside the city walls of Rome, but in 68 A.D., a general brought his army within the walls of Rome, and civil war broke out within the walls of Rome.

It was so bad that many leaders of the Romans felt like the empire would collapse; it would implode.

So here's what Jesus says about this in verse 6: See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.

What an amazing statement!

What do you mean?

There's going to be wars, rumors of wars, civil war, but we're not supposed to worry about it?

That's what He says: don't worry about it; there's still some time.

But that's sign number two.

Sign number three is in verse seven and eight.

In fact, sign three and four: famines and earthquakes.

Now, the famines that raged during Claudius's reign are well known to anybody that's ever studied the writings of St. Paul.

In 2 Corinthians 8, he talks about the fact that there was this phenomenal famine in Jerusalem and Judea, and that the Gentile churches were taking up offerings to send food to those people.

There was a phenomenal famine that the Jerusalem church experienced; that sign has been fulfilled.

Also, there were terrible earthquakes.

Do you remember the book of Colossians?

That book was written to a church in the city of Colossae.

By the time 70 A.D. occurred, that city didn't exist, nor did the church.

The whole city of Colossae was destroyed in an earthquake in the 50s.

So that's why in the seven letters to the seven churches that John writes, Colossae is not mentioned; it didn't exist.

Probably the most famous earthquake right around this time was the earthquake in Pompeii.

We remember that earthquake first of all because it was a big city, and second of all because not too long after that, a volcano buried Pompeii.

And now archaeologists have gone through and found people actually standing there, buried in this volcanic dust, petrified or mummified for 2,000 years.

That happened in 63 A.D., which was when the earthquake happened.

But Jesus says all this—the famine, the earthquakes—that's just the beginning of the sufferings.

That's just the beginning.

Imagine yourself in the Jerusalem church in that famine, where the only way you're surviving is that St. Paul is taking offerings out in the Gentile churches.

That's the only way you're eating; that's the only way you're feeding your children.

And Jesus says this is only the beginning; we're just getting warmed up.

Sign number five: now Jesus gets personal.

He says persecution is going to come.

Now, persecution started early.

Stephen was the first martyr.

Paul, when he was Saul, went around and tried to kill Christians.

But the persecution that Jesus mentions here is a little different.

He says in verse 9, 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.

This persecution that Jesus is talking about is coming from the nations, from the Gentile powers.

It's a state-sponsored persecution.

When do we know that that happened?

It started in July of 64 A.D., immediately after Rome burned.

We know that in that short three-year persecution, St. Paul was killed, Saint Peter was killed, Saint James, the bishop of Jerusalem, was killed—all of these people and thousands of others were killed because Nero blamed that on the Christians.

Christians were burned as lanterns at the parties of Nero in his palace; they were thrown to the animals in the Colosseum.

All this happened.

This persecution was different; it wasn't just the Jerusalem leaders trying to get to the Jews.

This now was Rome itself, with all of its power, with all of its authority, with all of its influence, going after the Christians.

Eusebius wrote the earliest church history, and he said that the Neronian persecution had been a wholesale onslaught of reckless fury.

Sign number six: apostasy, verses 10 through 13. Many will fall away, and many will betray each other.

Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.

Most men's love will grow cold.

Do we need to really talk about the apostasy that existed before Jerusalem fell?

Have you ever read St. Paul's epistles?

It's all about apostasy.

Apostasy came early and often in the Church.

I grew up in the Chicago area, and so I remember the old Mayor Daley.

How many of you remember the old Mayor Daley?

He said that—or I don't think he said this, but somebody said about him that he liked Democrats to vote early and often.

You know, at every election, vote early and often.

Well, in very much the same way, the apostasy in the early Church came early and it came often.

The Nicolaitans are mentioned in the book of Revelation; that apostasy was started by one of the seven deacons appointed by the apostles themselves.

Apostasy was so rampant in Ephesus before St. John died that he went to the baths one day.

I mean, they had to bathe just like we do, but they were public baths, and he found out that one of the leaders of the apostates was in the baths, and he refused to take a bath that day.

His name was Serinthus.

Number seven: the seventh sign that the temple—remember, we're on this first question: when will the temple be destroyed?—will

be that the gospel will be preached worldwide.

Verse 14: The gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Now, most people that have been with me so far but that want to remain Rapturists at this point say, Now wait a minute, wait a minute, that hasn't happened yet.

Well, if you say that, you're disagreeing with St. Paul; you're not disagreeing with me.

You're disagreeing with St. Paul because St. Paul, on two occasions—Romans chapter 1, verse 8, and Colossians chapter 1, verses 5 and 6—says the gospel has been preached as of his time.

This is before he was martyred; this is before the Neronian persecution.

The gospel has been preached throughout the entire world.

Clemens of Rome was the bishop of Rome, the pope of Rome, during the time in which the Jewish-Roman War was going on.

He said that the gospel had been preached throughout the whole world.

Justin Martyr, who lived right around the turn of the century, also wrote that the gospel had been preached throughout the whole world.

So when we say that it hadn't, we're disagreeing with the people that lived at that time; they said it had.

Now, part of it, you've got to look at the Greek word used for the world.

There are two words for the world: one is the civilized world, and one is the earth, the globe that we live on.

Jesus uses that word globe—what I'm going to call earth.

He uses that word elsewhere in Matthew when He's talking about the whole earth, but that's not the word He uses here.

The word He uses here is the word for the civilized world.

In other words, they didn't have to reach the American Indians in South America and North America; they had to reach the Roman Empire, and St. Paul says that was done.

Clement of Rome says that was done.

So this part of it was done; the seventh sign came true before 70 A.D. Now, the last one—this eighth sign—is different than all the other signs because Jesus says that when you see this sign, when this happens, you must take immediate action.

When you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

Now, first of all, let me talk about this for a second.

The advice that Jesus is giving is antithetical to every ounce of loyalty and common sense in any ancient Jew's body.

When an army comes and attacks Israel, where do you run to hide?

It's the same place you went in the Middle Ages: you went into the fortified cities.

But Jesus says when you see this—the desolating sacrilege—get out of the cities.

It doesn't make sense unless this is the last sign before the temple is destroyed.

If Jerusalem isn't going to survive, then you don't want to be in the city.

Now, Jesus is disagreeing with the Jewish scholars of His age.

The Jewish scholars said that the Daniel prophecy that we looked at had already been fulfilled in 167 B.C. by Antiochus Epiphanes.

Jesus is specifically disagreeing; He's saying, No, that's not history; that's prophecy.

Yes, there was a desolating sacrilege when Antiochus Epiphanes came, but there's another one, and when you see that, hightail it, okay?

Luke gives us a few more details on exactly what this desolating sacrilege is.

In Luke 21:20, he says, But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.

The very presence of a Gentile army from Rome on the holy land of Israel was a desolating sacrilege to the Jewish people.

The Roman army worshipped the emperor and the eagle.

The emperor was only a man, and the eagle was an unclean bird that a Jew wouldn't even touch.

The presence of that army around Jerusalem—Jesus tells us that is the sign to hightail it out of there.

Now, how did that fulfill?

Let's look at what happened in the first century.

In 66 A.D., we talked about this already.

The Roman general Cestius Gallus attacked Jerusalem to try to force them to reinstate the sacrifices in the temple to Nero.

He came right to the gates of the temple, and basically, most observers thought that he had won the battle.

But for some reason, he despaired of ever winning.

He retreated.

He retreated across the whole Judean countryside, and before he could get to a safe place, he lost 6,000 soldiers.

As we already talked about, the Roman garrison was then slaughtered.

Nero was livid; Nero declared war in February of 67. Now, in that time and day, wars were fought in the summertime.

There were only five months when you could fight battles.

In the summer of 67 A.D., Vespasian came and fought a battle.

His strategy was to conquer everything but Jerusalem, to isolate Jerusalem, and then besiege it until it fell.

In 67, he fought battles; in 68, he came back and started fighting again.

But something very important happened in 68 A.D. in the summer, and that was who committed suicide?

Nero.

Nero committed suicide, and for a moment, for just a moment, Vespasian took his army from around Jerusalem and he started to bring them to Rome.

For just a little window of opportunity, you could get out.

He had second thoughts about it and sent part of his army back.

He ended up fighting all the way through the summer of 69 to get the emperorship.

There were three other people that he had to knock off, okay?

Three other people that were battling for the throne.

It took him until the summer of 69. He fought a very small battle in 69, very small little engagements—not much in 69. And then in 70, he didn't come back; his son came back, General Titus.

Titus was also a Caesar; he was named co-Caesar with Vespasian.

When Titus came back, they tightened the noose, and in that five months, 7,000 people died every day for five straight months.

But the Church wasn't there.

The Church wasn't there.

The Church had listened to what Jesus said.

Jesus said, When you see the desolating sacrilege, flee to the Judean hillside.

Now, Eusebius is the first historian of the Church, and he tells us that during that whole campaign, the word came to the Jewish Church, the Jerusalem Church, that the time was there to go—go, go!

People left their belongings; people left anything that would slow them down, and they ran for their lives.

They went to Pella in Transjordan; some of them went down to Alexandria in Egypt, but most of them went to Pella in Transjordan, and they were under the country of King Agrippa, and they were safe there.

But the Jerusalem Church, Eusebius tells us, did not lose a single soul in the Jerusalem battle when the temple was destroyed.

The Jerusalem Church was saved.

Why?

Because the Jerusalem Church knew this prophecy.

You see, anybody that says that this has not been fulfilled yet is disagreeing with the people that placed their lives on the line when it was being fulfilled.

This already happened.

These people ran for their lives when they saw the desolating sacrilege.

The Church at that time was young and was small; it would have wiped out the whole Eastern Church.

Imagine, if you know anything about early Church history, if there had been no Eastern Church, if none of the Eastern Fathers had existed—that's what would have happened if the early Church had not believed Jesus and run for their lives when they were told to.

Now, Jesus goes on with a few more details.

He backs up and He says, Now I can tell you this much: at this time, this persecution that I told you, this is going to be a great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, and never will be again.

I declare to you that that is the great tribulation.

We only see it five times in the Bible.

That is the great tribulation.

The one that Jesus is speaking of right here was from July 64 A.D. to February 67 A.D. That is the great tribulation.

We're going to see the great tribulation come again in Revelation.

And Revelation is going to use the same word for it: great tribulation.

It's going to refer to the exact same time.

It's when Nero and the Jerusalem leaders teamed up and almost wiped the Church off the face of the earth.

Remember, Daniel told us that was the battle strategy of the beast; this was just the implementation of it.

Daniel told it; Jesus prophesied it.

But Jesus' prophecy was more than just academic.

You see, the survival of His kingdom depended on the early Church understanding this prophecy and obeying it.

But there are other things that Jesus says are going to happen around this time.

He's worried about the great tribulation, and He warns His disciples about it.

He tells them it's going to come, but it's not going to go forever.

But there's something more important.

He's already mentioned it as a sign.

He says there's going to be heresy; there's going to be bad heresy.

He says there's also going to be false Messiahs.

But He said, Let me tell you something: when I come the second time, my second advent, when I come the second time—and this is in verses 27 and 28—when the false Messiahs come, you're going to know they're false Messiahs because when I come again, the second advent, it's going to be like lightning from one end of the sky to the other.

Now, what does that mean?

If something's lightning from one side, how is that going to be like His coming?

It's going to be sudden; it's going to be relatively unexpected, and it's going to be very public.

In other words, He's saying there are signs about when this first question is happening, but the end of the age is going to be sudden; it's going to be unexpected, but it's going to be public.

It's not going to be a secret rapture.

Nowhere does Jesus say that His second coming is in any way going to be anything other than extremely public.

Jesus' second coming, this part of the question, is going to be like lightning; everyone’s going to see it.

Everyone's going to see it for themselves.

Now, some people that are Rapturists look at the next verse, the next description of Jesus, and say, Well, see, that hasn't happened yet.

Here's what Jesus says: Immediately after the tribulation—so that great tribulation that we had that ended in February 67—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 earth will be shaken.

Can we go back to the ground rules?

Does anybody remember those ground rules?

That's ground rule number six—no, five.

Ground rule number five: Jesus is talking in apocalyptic language.

This is a very, very well-known use of language to anybody that's read the Old Testament.

This is political catastrophe, and that's exactly what happened.

Every one of the protagonists in the battle of the Jewish-Roman War came out a loser.

Nero committed suicide; Vespasian's dynasty lasted one generation.

His son Titus took over, then his other son—name just slipped out of my head—took over, and then his dynasty ended.

None of their dynasties lasted.

But more importantly, the Jewish people—Jerusalem—that was destroyed forever.

That star fell from heaven, never to rise again.

Biblical Judaism cannot be recreated.

The Judaism that we have today is Rabbinic Judaism; it's not Old Testament Judaism; it's not Biblical Judaism, and Jews will agree with you on that.

Rabbinic Judaism is not a sacrificial system.

The Old Testament sacrificial system was obliterated when the temple was destroyed, so this verse too has been fulfilled.

The shaking and the sun being darkened—all that is, as we found in ground rule number five, very common apocalyptic language for political upheaval.

Then the last thing that Jesus says is going to happen is there's going to be a sign of the Son of Man.

This is probably the heart of the passage, but because of the work that we did in Daniel, I think we're going to find this very understandable, and we're going to say, You know what?

Bertrand Russell was wrong; C.S. Lewis was maybe wrong, but this verse too has come to be.

Jesus says that at this time there will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and 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.

When we hear about coming on the clouds, what should we be thinking?

He's coming as the judge, right?

In His glory.

So they will see the judge coming, 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.

So what does this verse mean?

That Jesus was going to come as judge on the clouds.

Remember our ground rule number six: when Jesus comes on the clouds, He's coming as a judge.

But just as with Egypt and Assyria, just as with Babylon and Medo-Persia, when God comes on the clouds, what do the people here on earth actually see?

They see an army.

They see a Roman army, or they see an Assyrian army, or they see a Medo-Persian army.

It's the way the Old Testament uses that language, okay?

But moreover, Josephus tells us that at this time in Jerusalem, there was a sign in the heavens.

Now, Josephus didn't believe it.

He says, I suppose this account seems to be a fable, but it was related to me by those that saw it, and the events that followed were so important that he says I sort of accept it, but he was a little skeptical about this.

Here’s what he said: a whole group of witnesses saw the whole city of Jerusalem.

There was a star resembling a sword which stood over the city, and a comet for a whole year before the Jews' rebellion started.

So great a light shone around the altar in the holy house that it appeared to be bright daytime, which lasted for half an hour at night.

Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner court of the temple was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night.

The men of learning understood it as the security of their holy house being dissolved of its own accord.

So these publicly declared that the signal foreshowed the desolation that was coming on them.

You see, the Jews at that time even understood what was happening; they understood that the judge was coming.

The judge was coming.

Now, Jesus foretold this.

He said that the days will come upon you when your enemies will cast up a bank upon you and hem you in on every side because you did not know the time of your visitation.

The Sanhedrin's condemnation of the Messiah had consequences.

Jesus looked the Sanhedrin in the eye and said, You will see the Son of Man coming in glory, meaning, I will come back and judge you.

Here, He's telling His disciples it's going to be right after the great tribulation, right after 64 to 67 A.D. I will come as judge upon the Sanhedrin.

Did He do that?

Yes, the Roman army came and killed an unbelievable number of people in Jerusalem.

All of a sudden, now we can look at the statement of Jesus at the Transfiguration, and it's not a hard passage at all.

At the Transfiguration, Jesus says to His three disciples, Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.

St. John was still alive in 70 A.D.; St. John saw the ascension, and then he saw Jesus come back figuratively as a judge, embodied in the Roman army.

That passage is in Matthew chapter 16, verses 27 and 28. So what we're saying here is that the miracle of His birth and His childhood was known to a very select group of family members and some people from Persia, a couple of shepherds.

Then His glory is revealed to a few of His disciples—that's the Transfiguration.

Then His glorious power is revealed to more people, almost 600 people at the resurrection, but still, most of those 600 people were believers.

Then this same Christ, who was publicly condemned, is publicly exonerated, publicly vindicated by God the Father.

How?

Because 40 years earlier, before His death, Jesus said, You reject me?

Not one stone will be standing on another.

I will come in the clouds to judge you.

Old Testament apocalyptic language, meaning the Roman army will come and destroy the city; not one stone will be left on another.

Chapter 24, verse 30 tells us, Then all the tribes of the land will mourn.

This has already happened.

You see, Bertrand Russell was wrong.

He said that none of this had happened, and so Jesus was wrong.

But when you understand Daniel, and you understand Isaiah, and you understand Jeremiah, and a few of the other passages that we've already looked at today, all of a sudden, Jesus' promise came true.

This is not the second coming that He's talking about here; this is the answer to the first question: when will the temple be destroyed?

Now He turns, and we're going to answer this very, very quickly.

Now He turns to the second question: what about the close of the age?

When is the second advent going to come?

When is the whole history of the world going to end?

And what He says should make everyone sort of sit up and realize that there's a change of venue.

In verse 36, He's just gotten done giving us eight signs and described the great tribulation and described the political upheaval and all that's going to go on.

And then He says, But now He's talking about the second question: but of that hour and day, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

You see, what would happen in 70 A.D., the judgment on the Sanhedrin?

We knew that had to happen within a generation, and Jesus said, Okay, there are eight signs that I'm going to give you, and the reason I'm giving you eight signs is because if you don't obey the eighth one, if you're not alert because of the other seven and ready for that eighth one, there's no time to waste.

When the eighth one happens, you have to obey immediately.

The Church did all that.

Now He's done with that question.

He says, You know what?

But of the second coming, of when I come back in glory to judge the whole world, nobody knows the time.

Nobody knows when that's going to happen.

He repeats this over and over again in the second part of the questions.

He says, No one knows; they do not know; you do not know; you do not expect.

Over and over again, He says nobody knows.

But then He uses a play on words.

He says, Nobody knows; you don't know, but know this.

He says, Know this in verse 43: You must be ready.

So you have no idea when the second coming is going to happen.

It's not going to happen in 1988; nobody knows that.

It's not going to happen in 1999; it's not going to happen in—what's the next date that they've got out there?—2007,

okay?

Forty years after 1967, we don't know; nobody knows.

But know this: you have to be ready.

You have to be ready.

Now, Jesus then talks a little bit about that second coming, and I've got to give credit where credit is due.

The Rapturists have done a phenomenal job in these next couple of verses of convincing us of what these verses mean.

Jesus says there's going to be two men working out in the field; one's going to be taken, one's going to be left.

There's going to be two women in the kitchen; one's going to be taken, one's going to be left.

And I've got to hand it to them; they've convinced everyone that in that scriptural verse, this is the only place they come up with their left behind idea—that those people will be left behind, right?

Sorry, it's not in the passage.

In fact, the Greek word is not left behind.

The Greek word there is another Greek word that means to leave behind; that's not what Jesus uses.

He doesn't use that word.

The word He uses is more properly just left out, and that's what Jesus is saying.

The startling thing about this passage isn't that one is taken and one is left; that's not the startling thing to the disciples when they see this passage.

What's startling about this passage is that a kingdom subject and a non-kingdom subject are working together.

That's not how the worldly kingdoms work, is it?

All the Greeks were in Greece, all the Jews were in Israel, all the Romans were in Rome, right?

You didn't work alongside someone that wasn't in the same kingdom; you didn't even geographically have any contact with them in the ancient world.

The startling thing about this passage that would have stopped the disciples is Jesus saying there's going to be a kingdom person and a non-kingdom person doing chores together.

One's going to be taken into the kingdom, and one's going to be left out.

He gives three stories so that we know exactly what He means—three parables.

The first one is a parable of two servants.

There's two servants: one faithful, one wicked.

What Jesus is emphasizing is that His coming is going to be without any warning.

He says when the master comes back, the faithful one will be rewarded, but the evil one—and this is His words—He will punish him and put him with the hypocrites, and there men will weep and gnash their teeth.

If you look at the timeline that's assumed in what Jesus is saying, there is no thousand or seven years in between when those two things happened.

Jesus is saying you're going to be here on the earth; the master is going to come back, and eternal judgment happens at that point.

There's no seven years; there's no thousand years; there's eternal judgment the next time Christ comes.

Number two: the second parable is the parable of the ten maids.

Remember them?

Five had the oil, five didn't have the oil.

Now, the oil usually stands for the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, but what's the main message in this parable?

Okay?

That you have to be ready, right?

You may hang around Christians; you may hang around Catholics, but even then, you might be left out.

Now, once again, notice how clear it is that they're left out; they're not left behind.

They're left out, right?

Because the bridegroom comes back, the five come in, and the other five try to get in, and they're left out, right?

What are they left out of?

The marriage supper of the bridegroom.

The marriage supper is a symbol in the New Testament, without exception, of our eternal bliss that we have with God.

So once again, the timeline is we're all waiting for the coming.

The coming happens; some are taken into the kingdom, and some are left out.

There's no seven years more; there's no thousand years more.

We're into eternity; we're into the marriage supper of the Lamb.

The last parable is the parable of the three talents.

There are three people: one is given five coins—let's call them coins or talents—one is given two coins, and one is given one coin.

The two that are given more do a lot with theirs while the master's gone, and the one just buries his talent.

Remember that one?

Okay, now notice something interesting in this timeline.

Jesus specifically says that the master will be gone a long time, much longer than any one of the three servants expects.

Now, how many of you have heard someone say that Jesus and the early Church and the apostles all expected the second coming to be within their generation, but they expected it to be soon?

Have you ever heard somebody say that?

That's not what the passage says.

Jesus says it's going to be a long time.

Now, the temple is going to be destroyed in one generation, but every time Jesus talks about the second coming, He says we don't know, and it's going to be a long time.

That's the message of the second one, okay?

Then where does Jesus go in Matthew chapter 25, verse 30? He's done with the three parables, and in every one of these, right after the coming of the master or the bridegroom, right after that, we are thrown into eternity.

There is no seven-year tribulation.

There is no thousand-year millennium; we're right into eternity.

Now, Jesus makes that explicit because in chapter 25, verse 30, right after these, He says, Here's what's going to happen next, and now we have the great white throne judgment where Jesus separates the nations.

All come to Him; they come as nations, but we're judged as individuals.

And we're judged as individuals based on what?

What we've done—corporal works of mercy.

You saw me in prison; you visited me.

You saw me hungry; you gave me food.

This beautiful passage shows that the basis of what we're going to be doing for all of eternity is based on the corporal works of mercy.

That's the timeline that Jesus lays out for us.

It would have been a perfect time to talk about that seven-year great tribulation, to talk about the two-stage coming, to talk about the thousand-year millennium, but He doesn't talk about any of that.

He says you're going to be working in the field; one's going to be taken into the kingdom, the other one's going to be left out, and we enter eternity.

That is the timeline assumed in every one of these parables, as assumed throughout Jesus' entire speaking once He starts to talk about the close of the age.

So if I can summarize just real quick for a minute, I hope you're starting to see that this is starting to sound—when you get into Daniel, when you get into the Olivet Discourse—it's starting to sound increasingly like the traditional teaching of the Church.

That there will be this kingdom that was set up during the Roman Empire, just like Daniel predicted, that that kingdom will grow like a mustard seed to encompass and become a big tree, become a big mountain, as what Daniel calls it.

And that kingdom, when that kingdom is ended, will be when the second coming occurs, and at that point, there is nothing more on the agenda other than judgment and eternity.

There is no seven years; there's no seven years anywhere.

We looked at Daniel; it wasn't there.

And we looked at the Olivet Discourse; it's not there.

There is no thousand years in the future.

There is nothing more on the agenda other than judgment and eternity.