Episode Transcript
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Hello, I'm Josh.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: And I'm Gabriel.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: And today on Reading the Gospel, we have something special for you. We're going back to our event last week on the End of the Age, and we're giving a bonus episode. Now, if you haven't already read through Matthew 24, pause, go back, listen to that episode, and then come and hear this one. Because we're not going to read in Matthew 24. We'll review the chapter, but we're going to get into more discussion, a deeper dive.
We also are curious, did you study this chapter this week? Did you look into it? Did you find anything?
Share with us. We'd love to hear that. But diving into Matthew 24 again, a brief overview of this chapter. Jesus is sitting with his disciples.
The temple was there. And he tells them that this temple is going to be destroyed. There won't be one stone upon another. And so the disciples come to Jesus on the Mount of Olives and say to him privately, hey, when's the temple going to be destroyed? And also, when's the end of the age? They say it as one question, but really it's two different questions. They saw the events as the same event, that how could there be an age without a temple? And so Jesus answers this, and he answers both the questions and there are sections here. So he starts by warning us about false Christs. Then he tells us about wars and famines and earthquakes and all these natural disasters that are taking place, warns us about false prophets, says lawlessness will increase.
Then he talks about the abomination of desolation, spoken of Daniel standing in the holy place. And he gives a warning that those at the time should flee.
He talks about the false again, gets back to false Christ, false prophets, talks about the tribulation and the days of Noah, what's going on in the days of Noah. He talks about the coming of the Son of man. Then he gets into the faithful and wise servant who his Master has set over the house and how he will act before Jesus comes. So again, brief summary of the chapter. Let's dive into it in a little more detail.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: So let's start with a light motive, with a theme that's being repeated over and over. Do not be deceived.
Do not be deceived by false Christs, by false prophets, and by misunderstanding the signs at the end.
And this idea is being expressed in different ways.
And what is important is that Jesus Christ gives us enough insight as well as warning to be faithful, to be wise, and to have that gift of understanding. So we will Never be deceived. This idea of being deceived is significant in moments of crisis. When you don't know what to do and when you panic, when you don't see a way out, you are tempted to do whatever, to believe everything.
This is why when I do premarital counseling, I ask one of them, for instance, the girl, have you observed him through at least three times of crisis so far before you attach your heart to him forever? Because moments of crisis reveal who we are.
And in moments of crisis we tend to switch to autopilot. That means to react as our parents or grandparents or loved ones have reacted in a similar situation.
It is very important now to have a very clear understanding of the final crisis so we know how to react. Let me give you one more illustration.
It was in the early 70s when Shell was nicknamed the dark girl of the oil industry in America. But in their off site meetings, their leaders was always playing a game of oil crisis.
So when the 1974 crisis hit America, these guys knew how to play that game and they were at least six months ahead of the competition. By the end of the oil crisis, Shell became number one company in America. Let's take this lesson to apply it to us. We have to understand, play this game in the mind. So when the final crisis comes, we shall not be surprised. We know exactly how to react.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: So I think it might help to look at this chapter almost chronologically. Go back and start with the destruction of Jerusalem and come through because there are points we can hit on here. And in 70 AD the temple was destroyed. The Romans came in. This was in response to revolts and just the Jewish nation rebelling and prodding and pushing the Romans back. And so they come in and they surround the city.
And as they're surrounding the city, Jesus told that this was going to be a sign.
And then they pull back from the city, they stop the siege. And at this point, many of the followers of Christ who had heard these words, who had studied these words, see these signs and they flee. They take off and they flee and they're protected. But then the Romans come back and they surround, they come in and they destroy the temple. And the destruction is described as so bad that the streets are running with blood.
And so this is the first event that we have here.
How does the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel tie in?
[00:07:01] Speaker B: I think this is primarily a reference to the Romans who entered the holy places like the temple, which were not allowed to be touched by non Jewish people in and the temple was destroyed in the 70s, but it was surrounded sometimes before, a couple of years before, and the general was called back to Rome to be the next emperor. And for a short while, you know, things look good. Yeah. And when you see the city surrounded by the army, you tend to believe what Jesus Christ said. But in good days, we tend to forget what the Bible says.
So those who never came back to Jerusalem, they were saved. Those who came back to Jerusalem, their lives are not saved.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And so we then get into this tribulation immediately after this, this time of persecution.
And this persecution starts around that time, right around 70 A.D. we start seeing Christians being persecuted even a little bit.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Before, in 34, when Stephen, one of the seven deacons, was killed and the persecution picked up steam.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: Well, but at that point, most of the persecution is coming from the Jewish nation.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: We see a switch to. To where Rome starts persecuting not just the Christians, they're persecuting the Jews as well.
But this Roman persecution goes on. And in one sense or another, this persecution of Christians goes all the way through the Middle Ages, where Christians are burned at the stake for being heretics, for believing something other than what the official church says is right.
And so we have these times going on.
[00:09:12] Speaker B: I just want to build on what you just said. Persecution is progressive, and the persecutor sometimes is religious leaders, like in the Middle Ages, sometimes are oppressive power like the Roman Empire.
But most of the time is a union between the political leaders and religious leaders. And especially throughout the Middle Ages, when the religious power and the political power was in those two hands of the same person, that is when the persecution will always happen.
I strongly believe that what keeps the persecution away from us is the separation of powers between state and church.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: I agree. There we get down to this, as in the days of Noah.
So we'll be at this sign of man, this idea that God's people are taken. And this has led to a theology called the Rapture or the Secret Rapture.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: Or the Left Behind.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: Left behind theories that, you know, came from a series of books that you're flying in an airplane and all of a sudden half the passengers are gone and the pilots have been taken to heaven and you're left behind and you're here on this earth to go through the trials, the tribulation, this time of darkness.
And while this started as a fiction, it has become a large belief among many Christians that this is what the end of the age is going to be. What does the Bible tell us in.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Verse 37 from Matthew 24 says, for as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For in those days before the flood, they are eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them away. So will be the coming of the Son of Man. The idea that is very clear in this passage is people will continue their life as usual without paying attention to the invitation of the gospel. In the time of Noah, the gospel was, come inside the ark. This is a safe place. Save your lives.
In the same way in the time of Jesus Christ, the invitation was, believe in me and your life will be saved. Believe my words, because my Father has sent me.
The gospel will have different shapes based on circumstances throughout the time, but essentially it will be the same. It is God's way to save his people by believing in his Son, Jesus Christ, and by obeying his words. And in the same way, we have to obey the words of Christ today.
And that will be the only safe place to save us from the final destruction, from the day of judgment.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: And the big problem with the secret rapture theory is it takes away finality, because in secret rapture, there's seven years of tribulation, but then Christ comes back at the end. And so if you didn't get secret rapture, you'd have to go through a time of trouble on the earth. But there was a chance for salvation.
Jesus could come back. You could get your life in order.
And so it doesn't give us that urgency. We can delay, we can wait.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Removes accountability.
[00:13:03] Speaker A: It does. And so they look at Noah and they say, well, when Noah went on the ark and his family went on the ark, the door closed. But it didn't rain right away. It waited.
But what they don't realize, right before the rain, the door didn't open again. You know, it wasn't like, okay, anyone, any last callers? Anyone want to come in? When the door of the ark was closed by the angel of the Lord, that door remained shut even though the rain didn't come right away.
The decision was final, that everyone had made their choice. And this is what Satan wants to trick us with the thought that we can delay. We can wait, we can make the decision another day, but none of us are guaranteed another day. None of us are guaranteed the opportunity to make the decision even later on today.
And we can't wait until we see people disappearing or wait until sometime. We must make the decision for Jesus.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: Now, because repentance to avoid consequences will not Change the heart will not transform the character. That is not a biblical repentance that God is, you know, expecting from us. Repentance is when you see Jesus Christ and him crucified and you see that as an expression of God's love for you. And you turn around and you want to honor him, you want to glorify him. That means to live for him. When you want your life and your will to be in sync with God's.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: Will, the question is, where are we? Are we focused on doing what God has asked us to do, or are we focused on doing what we want to do? That's kind of a trick question because I think as Christ lives in our hearts, what we want to do becomes what Christ wants to do. Christ changes us and brings us to a place where we desire these things.
But if we're not, if we don't have Christ in our lives, these things are foreign. And we want self, we want to please ourself. We want to do things for us. And in doing that, we end up hurting people around us.
Let's pray. Father God and I pray that everyone listening will make that choice right now to accept the gift of salvation offered by Jesus Christ. That they'll surrender their lives and we won't wait another day, that we'll be ready today, tomorrow and always.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: Go with us. In Jesus name. Amen.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: Amen.
