In his sermon, Jason Dohm explores the prophetic discourse of Jesus in Matthew 24, focusing on the question, 'When will these things be?' The sermon emphasizes the importance of approaching this complex chapter with humility and careful interpretation, drawing attention to key phrases such as 'the coming of the Son of Man,' 'the end of the age,' and 'this generation.' Dohm highlights the connection between the destruction of the temple and the final judgment, viewing the temple as a symbol of man-made religion and warning against the hypocrisy of outward religious practices without true devotion. He stresses the need for sound hermeneutics and provides a structure for studying the chapter, suggesting that verses 4-35 address the temple's destruction, while the latter part concerns the final judgment. The sermon also outlines four approaches to interpreting end-time prophecies: historicist, preterist, futurist, and spiritual. Dohm concludes by urging believers to handle scripture with care and to prioritize plain truths and duties before delving into complex prophetic texts.

Father, I thank You for Your Word. I know that You've given Your Word to Your people to be a blessing, to help us and to instruct us. And so We come with great humility before it, knowing that it contains the wisdom that we so desperately need. And I pray that you would use this chapter, these two chapters, to impart your wisdom to your people. That we would Come away walking circumspectly in this world.

Carefully watching and praying for the great day when Jesus Christ will return. And we'll divide the nations one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. Oh God, may the day of your return be on our minds every day. May we have the heart of the Apostle John who said, Come quickly, come quickly. May we anticipate your coming so eagerly.

I ask it in Jesus' name, Amen. When will these things be? Is a question that comes right from verse 3. And the whole sermon is to set the table for preaching through very systematically. Chapter 24 and then chapter 25.

This week we're just in three verses. We're in verses 1 through 3. Then next week we'll be in verses 4 through 4-14. Then the week after that will be going to Daniel 9. Because in verse 15, Jesus speaks of the abomination of desolation.

And he's quoting from Daniel and he says he's quoting from Daniel. So there's no mystery in verse 15 in terms of where Jesus is taking that from. He tells us. And so we're going to take one week to go and look at Daniel 9 so that we make sure that we're ready for verse 15. And in all, it's going to take us six weeks to get to the end of chapter 24.

And Then there will be three weeks in chapter 25. We're spending quite a bit of time here. If I counted right, it will be January 27th by the time we start chapter 26. We're probably going to be in Matthew a good two years. I think we started on the 27th of March 2010.

So, 2011. So, we will have been in Matthew for a solid two years. What a blessing to be in the gospel where we're seeing Jesus every week, what He does and what He says. As you know, there's been an additional teaching time, an afternoon session, one Sunday a month. In the month of December, the topic is hermeneutics.

Or, to make it a less fancy theological word, just principles of Bible interpretation. Which principles, when we come to a text like this, which is very difficult and which is prophetic, which principles should be brought to bear so that we are so careful and so that we are so certain that we are handling the text in a sound way. So next week I'll be going over to Hope and then I'll be back here the week after that for an afternoon session. Just to talk about sound principles of handling the Scriptures and particularly with Chapter 26 being a great case study. There might not be a handful of more difficult texts in the Bible.

So this is a tough one to handle. And you have to be really sharp on the principles that you're bringing to bear for hermeneutics. There are a couple of key decisions that you have to make when you come to chapter 24. There are a couple of phrases that you have to decide what they mean. When you make the decision, it puts you on a track and heads you off in a certain direction.

So it matters a lot what you decide these things. Here's three of them. The coming of the Son of Man. What does that mean? Does the text require that it be a physical, visible coming?

You have to make a decision on that. And that decision is going to put you on a track and send you in a direction. Or how about the end of the age. When Jesus says the end of the age, what exactly does He mean? There have been different dispensations through time.

There's different covenants through time. Is that what he's talking about? Is he talking about the end of the world? We're actually going to cover this one today because it's part of the disciples question in verse 3. What's going to be the sign of the end of the age?

Or how about this, this generation? Does it mean the people that are living in that time? Or could it mean something else? And again, there are decisions that have to be made. If you want to make sense of the passage, you can't just duck these things.

You're going to have to assign what you think Jesus' meaning was, and that's going to take you in a direction. And you're going to have to see where that direction is and see if that matches up with the book of Revelation and the prophetic books of the Old Testament, like Daniel that Jesus is quoting in verse 15. And so there's a lot of harmonizing to be done to make sure that the decisions that we're making take us in a direction that is actually sustainable when we go and look at the other places that touch on end time prophecy. I want to submit this. How we go about studying this chapter is as important as the conclusions we draw.

In other words, it's possible to lose your mind in Matthew chapter 24 and because you have a certain output in mind, abandon sound handling of Scripture so that you can get to the desired end point. We cannot let that happen. How we handle the Scriptures is going to be just as important as the conclusions that we come to because of what Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2 verse 15. Paul says this to Timothy, Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth. So we want to be able to get to the end of chapter 25 and at least have a clear conscience that we've handled the Scriptures really carefully, really properly.

Now chapter 24 is not isolated. No chapter in the Bible is isolated. It's really, really, really, really tightly connected with chapter 23. And since it's been several weeks since we've been in chapter 23, I just want to go back to the end of chapter 23 and see where we left off. First of all, in chapter 23 and verse 32, Jesus says, "...fill up then the measure of your fathers' guilt.

Jesus started talking about their fathers and how their fathers had treated the prophets. In another place, Jesus says, actually it's Stephen who says, Which one of the prophets did your fathers not kill? Their forefathers were always killing the men that God had sent to them for their blessing, to warn them, to speak truth to them. And Jesus positions this in chapter 23 verse 32 as the filling up of a cup. Their fathers, generations, hundreds of centuries before, their fathers had started to fill up this cup.

Every time they were killing a prophet, there was more going into the cup. And Jesus points at the scribes and the Pharisees and He says, you filled it to the brim. You filled the cup of wrath for unfaithfulness all the way up to the very rim. And then look what he says in verses 35 and 36. That on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barakiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation." So a cup of wrath is being filled up. Now it's full to the brim. And Jesus says, because you have rejected the Son of God, because the Messiah has come and lived among you, worked miracles among you, preached perfect sermons among you, and you rejected Him and you killed Him. All of the righteous blood from the first prophet that was murdered to the last prophet that was martyred will come upon this generation. And then in verse 38 We have the culmination, See your house is left to you desolate.

Your house is going to be left to you like a wilderness. The temple, Jerusalem, all the religion that you built up and constructed is going to be made a wasteland and a wilderness. And then, as if to punctuate it physically, Jesus walks out of the temple. He says, see your house is left to you desolate. And then he closes his mouth and walks out of the temple.

What a dramatic moment. And so this is the context for Jesus' departure from the temple. This is much more symbolic than just going home for the day. Jesus isn't just going home for the day in verse 1 when it says He's left the temple because the last words out of His mouth were, see your house is left to you desolate. And then He leaves the temple.

Now let's read verses 1-3 and I'll talk about them in detail. Matthew 24 verse 1. Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple. And his disciples came up to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, Do you not see all these things?

Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down. Now as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, tell us when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age. Jesus has said your house will be left to you desolate. He has walked out of the temple and he has told them that it is going to be destroyed down to the last stone. No two stones will be left stacked.

Now, The temple was massive. The temple was magnificent. So it was probably hard for them even to imagine what it would be like for a desolation this great to even happen. But Jesus has said it would be so. And the disciples in a very contrary spirit begin to express appreciation for the temple.

So Jesus has said, it's going to be destroyed down to the last stone. And the disciples start talking about how nice the temple is. You don't really get this so much in Matthew. Although I think it's implied. I don't think you necessarily need another account.

You can kind of tell that's what's happening here. But there are three parallel accounts that give this same discourse, this same point in history. Jesus addressing this. It happens here in Matthew 24, the whole chapter, first verse to the last. Then it happens in Mark 13, same thing.

First verse of Mark 13 all the way through verse 37, that's the entire chapter given to this exact same topic. And then Luke 21 beginning in verse 5 and going through verse 36. Week by week as we go through this, we are going to be in Matthew 24 for six weeks. Every single week you need to be taking Matthew 24 and Mark 13 and Luke 21 and setting the portion that we're looking at side by side to look for variation and nuance. We're going to learn a lot this way.

There's three really long passages of scripture. I don't think any of the discourses mirror each other so thoroughly at such length than this one. So we've got something that's unusual. This has been preserved in its length. Often one of the Gospel writers was abbreviating to a great extent.

So you have a long passage in one and maybe one doesn't have any of that and one only has an abbreviated portion but there's a long passage in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. So let's keep comparing as we go. Listen to Mark 13, verse 1. This is that parallel text in Mark. Then as Jesus went out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, Teacher, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here.

So in Mark, the marveling about the temple is very explicit. Listen to Luke 21 verse 5. Then, as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and donations, Jesus said, and then it continues. So, in Mark and in Luke, there are parallel texts there. It's so explicit that what the disciples are doing is actually praising the temple.

They're appreciating the temple that Jesus has just said, One stone won't be left on top of another. So Jesus' response to this is firm contradiction. Jesus completely contradicts what they are saying. The disciples are impressed by something that has become repugnant to Jesus. You can tell that here.

The temple has become repugnant to Jesus. But the disciples are appreciating it. This is country come to city. Here's all these Galilean disciples looking up at the temple Shazam And Overwhelmed by brick and mortar Overwhelmed by a building when their Lord has just been rejected and rejected and rejected by this system that the temple represents. And Jesus is going to destroy down to the last stone what they admire.

It's going to be 40 short years. I'm 42 now. 40 years is now short to me. And it will only be 40 years until this building of splendor and majesty will be reduced to rubble. Now you have to get this.

This is the biggest point of what I believe is in this week's text. These three verses hinges around this. The temple is the perfect representation of man-made religion. You have to see the temple this way. When Jesus speaks of it, the temple is the ultimate representation of dead, false religion.

That's what's happening here. The feasts always happen on time. The preparations are made, the priests are on duty, and they make the wheel turn. The cogs in the wheel all turn on time. The sacrifices happen when they should happen.

They've got the right animal in the right place being sacrificed by the right guy. The temple is a well-oiled machine, but their hearts are far from God. There are very, very, very, very few people who have any love for God in their hearts, Even though the building is so beautiful, it's so perfect. Even though there's an outward obedience to the ceremonial laws that have been given to the people of God. Outwardly, so beautiful, just like the Pharisees, so precise, so carefully managed.

The temple was a wonder of the world. It may very well have been the most magnificent structure on the face of the earth at this time. When you read the historians and what they say about the temple that Herod had renovated, Herod the Great, the baby killer, had spent so many resources making this magnificent. It is a wonder of the world. In fact, there's strong, strong historical data that would say that the Colosseum in Rome, that wonder of the world, was built from plundering the temple.

Almost assuredly, the Colosseum in Rome was built because they took the gold and all the wonderful things that were in the temple and they sold them off and they built this pagan building in Rome. Everything runs on time at the temple. The trains run on time at the temple. Religion churns along, and everyone feels good about it. There's no parallel to the building.

To what extent are you enamored with man-made religion? You have to look at this text and ask this. To what extent Am I just pleased that my religion runs on time? That it delivers the comforts to me that I expect from it. That it gives me the nice life that I'm desiring to have.

And It allows me to be visibly good, but I don't care anything about holiness. This is the religion of Jesus' day. Jesus is saying, Literally and figuratively, I'm breaking that down to the last block. If you like a visible, comfortable religion, but your heart is to be far from Jesus. Jesus wants you to consider the temple and know that He will tear that down to the last block.

You love the benefits of the comfortable life that's to be found within the Christian faith. But you have no love for God in your heart. And you have no love for your neighbor. Listen to what Paul says in Galatians 6 verse 7, Do not be deceived. God is not mocked.

For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. This is a universal law like gravity. Like gravity. You can let the quarter go and hope it won't hit the ground, but it's going to hit the ground. You can think it might not hit the ground, but it's going to hit the ground.

God is not mocked, and yet the outward visible people of God had mocked God. By keeping the outward religion running while their hearts were far from God and they thought they could mock Him. But it's like gravity. When you let that quarter go, within a second it's going to hit the ground because that's how God made the universe. He's not mocked.

Whatever you sow, that you'll reap. That's true for individuals. That's true for churches. That's true for nations. When they're sowing, they'll be reaping.

And God will put an end to His name being taken in vain. The Jews at the time of Jesus Christ who rejected the Messiah, even though they knew their Old Testament inside and out, is the classic example of taking the Lord's name in vain, taking His name upon you, saying that you're His, but having a heart that's so far from Him. They were not His. They had taken His name in vain. And when that happens, it's only a matter of time to when they'll be exposed as hypocrites.

For us, if we take the name of Christian upon ourselves, but our hearts are far from him, you must know that it's not a matter of if, it's only a matter of when. Because God's not mocked. If you sow hypocritical religion, the quarter will always hit the ground. It's only when, it's not if. Turn your Bibles to Luke 19.

Luke 19. Luke 19 we're going to read 41 through 44. In Luke 19, this is the triumphal entry. So this is less than a week chronologically from what we're reading now, Jesus having left the temple. So this is Luke's account of the triumphal entry.

Luke 19 beginning in verse 41. Now as Jesus drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, If you had known even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace. But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you and your children within you to the ground. And they will not leave in you one stone upon another because you did not know the time of your visitation." Jesus has already said that one stone won't be left upon another.

He's not saying this for the first time when he leaves the temple. He had already said it less than a week earlier during the triumphal entry. And this, When you read Josephus' account, and I'll send a link, I'm sure it's available on the internet, but when you read Josephus' account, the Jewish historian of the fall of Jerusalem, You could not write something that would be more literally fulfilled than what Jesus says here. There are embankments that are raised up. They surrounded them and destroyed Jerusalem in exactly this fashion.

Here's what we have to know as we come to this text. Jesus always tears down false religion. He always does. Now, we're talking about the physical temple. And I'm not denying that.

I'm not saying that's what Jesus is primarily saying. I'm just saying you have to understand how symbolic that is. That the source of pride for the Jewish people, this magnificent temple, that enough resources would come out of the plundering of it that they could build the Colosseum in Rome. That tearing down of this isn't just physical, it's not. It's symbolic that Jesus Christ will not Let false religion stand.

If we want to play at religion and be hypocritical in our religion and have an outward structure where we love the comforts but our hearts are far from Him, we must look at the temple and know that Jesus Christ will tear that down to the last block. In verse 3, the disciples want to know more. They come to Him privately. I believe it's in Matthew where it says it's Peter, James, John, and Andrew. But they come to Jesus privately and they come to Him while He's sitting on the Mount of Olives.

Now, We're from Youngsville. We don't get it. But let me help. The Mount of Olives is elevated above Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a walled city, but on the Mount of Olives, you're looking over the wall into the city.

So they're sitting up there, undoubtedly. Jerusalem and the temple are in full view of this discourse. They are looking down on the temple from the Mount of Olives, looking over the wall into Jerusalem as Jesus speaks of the destruction of it. And they ask Jesus three questions here in the text. Question number one, when will these things be?

They have to be asking about the destruction of the temple because that's what Jesus has just spoken about. So when is the temple going to be destroyed? Question number two, what will be the sign of your coming? Question number three, what will be the sign of the end of the age? Now again we're going to keep going to our parallel texts in Mark 13 and Luke 21.

In Mark 13 and Luke 21, the questions are much less delineated. There are clearly three distinct questions in Matthew, but you don't get any of that in Mark or Luke. They just ask when will these things happen and what will the signs be? So as we approach Matthew 24, We always have to keep the questions in mind because what Jesus is going to say is in response to the questions. But because in our parallel text they are not delineated, They are not three distinct items in Mark and Luke like they are in Matthew.

We can't read too much. We can't draw too many conclusions from the questions. Here's what I mean. Jesus' answer is more important than what the disciples thought that they were asking. Because in truth, The disciples have no idea what they're asking.

I mean, they're asking questions. But we shouldn't impart to them too much underlying intelligence in having asked the questions. Why is that? Well, In Luke 19, Jesus tells the disciples a parable because they thought the Kingdom of God was going to appear immediately. So Jesus has to teach them a parable because they're not thinking right about the Kingdom of God.

They're ready for a physical kingdom to come on the scene immediately. And so Jesus has to tell them a parable because they're not thinking rightly about the kingdom of God. It's not a visible kingdom like that. So He has to disavow them of that. In Acts chapter 1, which of course is after what we are reading in Matthew 24.

The disciples say to the resurrected Jesus, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And what does he say? It's not for you to know times and seasons that have been fixed by the Father. And so the disciples really don't even know what they're asking. Almost certainly, in their minds, in their brains, they've lumped all three of these things together and they're thinking of them as a single event.

That's really how you harmonize the three questions from Matthew, from really the central question that you have in Mark and Luke is that they were thinking of these things all as one and the same, but they're not one and the same. In the answer, verse three is the question, when will these things happen? What will be the sign of your coming? What would be the sign of the end of the age? In the answer, there are two things in view.

The first thing is this, the destruction of the temple. They've asked specifically when that's going to happen, and Jesus addresses specifically that. And then secondly, the final judgment. They might have meant to ask that, but I don't know. As I look across these parallel texts, I don't think they're asking for that.

But the right answer takes you to the final judgment. As we go through chapter 24, one of these two things is always going to be in view. The destruction of the temple or the final judgment. Now we come to the meaning of the end of the age. And it's used, that phrase, the end of the age is used two other places in the Gospel of Matthew And both times it's Jesus who's speaking it.

So turn in your Bibles to Matthew 13. So if you remember Matthew 13, it's parables start to finish. Lots of parables in Matthew 13. And Matthew 13 where we're starting is the parable of the wheat and the tares. We'll begin actually at Matthew 13 verse 24.

So I'm going to read 24 through 30 where he gives the parable and then I'm going to skip to 36 and read Jesus' explanation of the parable. Matthew 13 beginning in verse 24. Another parable Jesus put to them saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.

So the servants of the owner came and said to him, Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares? He said to them, an enemy has done this. The servant said to him, Do you want us then to go and gather them up? But he said, No, lest while you gather up the tares, you also uproot the wheat with them.

Let both grow together until the harvest. And at the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, first gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn." Now skipping to verse 36 in Jesus' explanation. Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And his disciples came to him saying, Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said to them, He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.

So now Jesus is starting the explanation and he is saying this is that, this is that, this is that. Verse 38. The field is the world. The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil.

The harvest is the end of the age." So here's our phrase, the harvest is the end of the age and the Reapers are the angels Therefore as the tears are gathered and burned in the fire So it will be at the end of the age The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the Son in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." So there's nothing ambiguous about the phrase, the end of the age, when Jesus uses it in Matthew 13. Could it be any more clear that this is the final judgment when the righteous go to eternal life and the unrighteous are cast into the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

It has to be that. I can't see how any other interpretation would do. Now just flip the page to verse 47 or you might not even have to flip the page. But Matthew 13 47 we read this. Again the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind which when it was full they drew to shore, and they sat down and gathered the goods into vessels, but threw the bad away.

So it will be at the end of the age The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. So the end of the age actually appears three times in Matthew 13. And in each of the three uses, the meaning couldn't be more clear. You really can't do anything other than to acknowledge that it's the final judgment.

The other place that it's used in Matthew is Jesus. All the way at the end in the great commission, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." How can that mean anything else? If Jesus just meant to the end of the time of the Jews, then it means We're on our own. Jesus is only with us till the end of the time of the Jews. Now you boys are on your own.

No, that's not what Jesus meant. He meant till the end of human history with the earth as we know it, at the time of the final judgment. Final judgment. The rest of the chapter comprises Jesus' answers to the disciples' questions. Look at verse 4.

And Jesus answered and said. And now he's going to start. And there's going to be practically nothing but red letters until the end of chapter 25. So Jesus is specifically answering specific questions that were put to Him by the disciples. I believe that the chapter is divided by verse 34.

So I think, and I'll put verse 35 with it because he's affirming his authority in verse 35. I believe that verses 4-35 address the destruction of the temple. Now, you have to make a decision. It's very clear that some portions of 24 are about the destruction of the temple. And it's very clear that some portions of 24 are about the destruction of the temple.

And it's very clear that some portions of 24 are about the final judgment. That's almost nobody disputes that. The question is, which goes with which? So in my mind, and whatever decision you make there, and different people have decided different points, some people think they're mingled together, and some people think that 34 is the dividing point. I think 34 is the dividing point because Jesus assures in Matthew and Mark and Luke that verse is a significant dividing point.

There's no difference in order or sequence that you have to factor in. And Jesus says that all these things will come upon this generation. So when we get there, we'll talk at length about why I think this generation means this generation. And there's no need to impart another unnatural meaning to it. So in verses 4-14, Jesus warns his hearers about deceivers and false prophets.

And he talks about all kinds of ominous events. Wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, persecutions. But he says, not yet. You're going to see all these things, but not yet. The end is not yet.

And he says that while all this upheaval is going on, the gospel is going to be preached to the nations. Then in verse 15-28, he talks about catastrophic events, including things that are happening in the skies, in the firmaments. And it's local. He's talking about Judea. He speaks specifically of Judea.

And he says, when you see these things, flee. Don't spend another second. Don't go down into the house to get your stuff. Go. Get out of town.

By the way, this saved the Christians. That Jesus said this saved the Christians in Jerusalem. When the Roman armies are approaching In 70 AD, the Christians did what Jesus says in Matthew 24. They didn't go back for their stuff. They immediately headed for the hills.

What did the Jews do? Jerusalem is the safe place, and they holed up in Jerusalem. And they were slaughtered. 1.1 million Jews were killed in Jerusalem. At the conclusion of that scene.

But the Christians weren't because they did what Jesus said in Matthew 24, 40 years before it came to pass. In verses 29 through 35, Jesus talks about immediately after the days of tribulation that He's just described. And He says that the Son of Man is coming in the clouds of heaven. And then he gives the parable of the fig tree. And he says, when the fig tree looks like this, you know you're there.

That's my summary of the parable of the fig tree. And then we have verse 34, which I believe is the hinge point of the chapter that divides Jesus talking about the destruction of the temple from Jesus talking about the final judgment. Verse 34, Assuredly I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. And then through the balance of the chapter, verses 36-51, Jesus starts that in 36 by saying, But of that day and that hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only." And the whole gist of the rest of the chapter is, watch and be ready. Make your hearts ready.

And then we have chapter 25, which has the three parables about the final judgment. You have the parable of the ten virgins. You have the parable of the talents. And you have the parable of the sheep and the goats. And in those parables, Jesus is shepherding His people, and He out of love is warning us to be ready.

To be ready any day. To be ready at any time, because no man knows the day and the hour, so he can't afford to sleep. Because Jesus could come back at any time. His people ought to live that way. His people ought to be looking to his return.

And so he gives us these parables for readiness. We would make ourselves ready. Now, I want to give us quickly five points to consider as we continue in this study. Every week, I want this to be top of mind for you, these five things. One, this is a hard chapter.

Anybody who tells you differently is selling something. This is tough to break down and get right. Prophecy is clearest when you look back. And then you can marvel at exactly how precisely God fulfilled it, and in ways maybe that you didn't expect. This is how it works.

Look at Old Testament prophecy, look at how it was fulfilled, and you say, that is marvelous. It's just exactly what was said, but man, if I had been living before the fulfillment, I'm not sure I would have expected that. So, this should bring us to this text with a great deal of humility. Very reliable, godly expositors have failed at this text. How do we know?

Well, some of them had to have failed. They say different things. They can't both be right. They can't all be right. And so you look at these men who are reliable and reliable and you just resonate with them in so many other places of both the New and the Old Testament, and then you come here, and somebody, they can't all be right.

And so very reliable expositors have failed at this text. This should make us humble too. We're talking about Men who have given their lives to the study of Scripture, who know it so much better than we do, have come to it and gotten it wrong. And we know that because so many different views exist. So, we're going to have to be humble as we work our way through Matthew 24.

Number two, even so, it's a blessing. I'm so glad we go to a church where we don't skip text. Man, I would have skipped Matthew 24. I just would have skipped it. I would have put it off for ten years.

I really, in some ways, wish I could preach through Matthew 24 10 years from now when I've soaked in Old and New Testament for so much longer so that I see the connections. But it's good not to skip text. It's good to just trust that what God has given to us, He's given to His people on purpose for their blessing. And we might not get everything in Matthew 24 and 25 right, but we'll be blessed because we've been here. Because some things are So clear, so plain, like the destruction of the temple.

We can be warned. We can learn from looking at Jesus talking about the destruction of the temple. We don't have to have any controversy about this. There are many things in chapter 24 that will be above controversy, be above debate, and will be a blessing. God has given us this so we'll think rightly, so we'll walk circumspectly.

I hope we come out of Matthew 24 walking wisely, thinking about that day when He's going to come and there will be a mighty separation of the sheep from the goats. I think we'll be thinking about that more when we get to the end of Matthew 24 and Matthew 25. Jesus is shepherding us. Do you get that? This is Jesus as a shepherd talking to disciples.

Are you a disciple? I'm a disciple. I want to follow Jesus. So here He is in love, shepherding His people, warning them to be ready, warning them to watch for His coming. Number three, prophecy didn't begin with Matthew 24.

There have been other prophecies before this. So we can't just come to Matthew 24 and isolate it and try to just make decisions based on what's inside this text. Now, I mean, obviously what's inside this text is going to have to get the lion's share of our time. But God said prophetic things, foretelling things, in Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and Zechariah, and Micah. And those things were fulfilled.

So many of them, we know exactly, even from Bible history, how they were fulfilled. So we can go back and say, how did God speak about that? God's not saying things for the first time in Matthew 24. A lot of these phrases have been used before. Okay, so when he used it in Isaiah, and it was fulfilled, what did that mean?

This is going to inform us about what it might mean this time. So we can't come to Matthew 24 as if it is the first prophecy that's ever been given. No, the Bible is full of prophecy. So many of them have been fulfilled and we can go and look at the language that God used when He wanted to communicate certain things to His people and it will inform us about how we should think about some of the key phrases here in Matthew 24. We're going to be spending a lot of time determining what's literal and what's figurative.

Prophecy isn't always literal. Sometimes it's literal. So it can either all be literal, or it can all be figurative, or it can be some of both. And you've got to know, how are we going to make those decisions? Well we're going to be going carefully and Hopefully we're going to be making decisions based on data and not just at our whim.

But seeing what God has said before. Number four. These two events are very related. In other words, it's not talk about the destruction of the temple and the destruction of Jerusalem. New topic, talk about the final judgment.

Do you understand how closely related those things are? The destruction of the temple and Jerusalem and the annihilation of that people at that time is a picture of what's coming. It's a microcosm. Microcosm is just Greek for little world. It's a little world of the big world that's coming.

It's a little Petri dish that shows us what's going to really happen at the end. So they're not separate events. Study this, change topics, study that. The study of this is a study of that. A little version of that.

And it brings us to the total destruction of the wicked. Listen to verse 21. Listen to this, it's terrifying. For then there will be great tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no nor ever shall be." So you think the Holocaust in World War II was worse, but Jesus didn't think so. Jesus knew all about the Holocaust at World War II, and He says this is worse.

So we're going to have to calibrate our... The pressures and the suffering that happened in 70 AD was worse than anything that had happened before it, and is worse than anything that happened after it, and you have the authority of Jesus Christ, and that's true. And when we're thinking about hell and the judgment of the wicked, now think back, just a couple of weeks ago when we were preaching on it, you almost have to say, imagine the worst thing possible and it's way worse than that. Well, this is a microcosm of that. When you're studying the fall of Jerusalem, it's the worst thing that's ever happened in the world.

From the beginning of time till that time or to the end of time. And that is a microcosm of this final judgment. Finally, number five. There are four basic approaches for viewing end time prophecies. Including, so this is a big major end time prophecy, but obviously Revelation fits in that.

There's some parts of 1 Corinthians that do, some parts of 1 and 2 Thessalonians that do. Probably the Olivet Discourse that we're in now and Revelation are probably the two biggest ones. And there are four grids, approaches to viewing this. So some of this is going to be, hey, how do other people in evangelicalism look at this? And we need to understand the arguments that are being made.

So here's the first basic approach, the historicist approach. The historicist approach says that the fulfillment of this and revelation has been unfolding for 2, 000 years. And so the historicist looks at the Roman Empire and says it's this in prophecy, the Greek Empire says it's this in prophecy, and they'll go through and they're pegging historical events to things in the Olivet Discourse and Revelation. So it's been unfolding for 2, 000 years and continues to unfold. The Preterist is a second approach.

Preterist. The Preterist approach says that some or all has been fulfilled. So the preterist is towards more having been fulfilled already. There are some actual preterists, pure preterists, who believe that it's all been fulfilled, including the final judgment. I have to say, I'm a little disappointed if that's true.

That's not true. That's not true. And there are partial preterists. I'm a partial preterist. I think some of it's been fulfilled.

I think when I look at Matthew 24, I say a bunch of that has been fulfilled in 70 AD. And a bunch of it, I'm probably a 50-50. I'm a 50-50 preterist. I think half of it's been fulfilled, and I think roughly another half of it has yet to be fulfilled. The next approach, the third approach, futurist.

The futurist believes that almost all of it is to be fulfilled in the future. That very little has been fulfilled to this point and most is to be fulfilled in the future. And then finally, the spiritual approach. In the spiritual approach, they don't believe that there's one fulfillment, but that Jesus and Revelation is describing a cycle that happens in every generation. So every generation will be able to see, well that's happening.

False prophets, yes, I have false prophets in my generation. Deceivers, yep, got that in my generation. Tribulation, earthquakes, pestilences. And so it's a cycle that just repeats itself again. And this has been given to us in order to help us function in our generation because every generation has every facet of this.

I'm not one of those. Although, I don't think you can deny that many of these things that we see here happen in every generation. Two exhortations in closing. First, let's be careful with the Bible. Let's be careful with the Bible.

Let's be so careful. This is the most precious possession. What do we have to train our brains with if it's not the Word of God that we can go back to the same passage? The Holy Spirit and the Word of God are all we got. That's it.

So let's be so careful with how we handle this book. This should make us humble. It should make us go slow. Lastly, let's be humble. Here's my excitation.

Don't love eschatology. Eschatology is not worth loving. The number of people who have obsessed about eschatology but have no love for God in their hearts, I mean, you could fill a stadium with them easily. They read books and they write books and they have no desire for holiness. We cannot become that.

Let's not love eschatology. Now it's been given to us for our benefit. So let's study it because God has brought us to the text, but let's not love it. Here's what Matthew Henry says. Christ preached this prophetic sermon in the close of his ministry.

So far Henry is right, correct? This is at the very end of his ministry. There are five discourses in Matthew, and this is number five. This is the last one. As the apocalypse is the last book of the New Testament.

So Henry says this is Jesus's last sermon. Revelation is the last book of the Bible, and the prophetical books of the Old Testament are place last. So he's saying, end time prophecies always last. In Jesus' ministry it was last, in the Bible it's place last, in the Old Testament it's placed last. Here's what Matthew Henry says, to intimate to us that we must be well grounded in plain truths and duties.

And Those must first be well digested before we dive into those things that are dark and difficult. Matthew Henry is exhorting us to master plain duties, plain truths, and to have them be well digested until we decide we are going to dive into dark things. Here's what he says, many run themselves into confusion by beginning their Bible at the wrong end. Amen. Many run themselves into confusion by beginning their Bible at the wrong end.

May it be so that we're so well grounded in the plain duties and truths of Scriptures. So that when we begin to very carefully handle these dark things, these more difficult to understand things, that we're doing it from a solid foundation. Let's pray. Father, I do thank You for this text and I pray that you would use it to make us wise. I pray God this would be so much more than an intellectual exercise for us, but that our hearts would be ablaze for the return of the Lord Jesus.

That we would be looking for Him like we never looked for Him before. That we would be saying come quickly for Jesus in Jesus name amen