Christ's Teaching About the End-times, part 1.

Christ On the End-Times
Matthew 24-25

The setting of these prophecies:

• Jesus predicts God turning over the kingdom to Gentiles (21:33-44).
• Christ condemns the chief teachers of Israel (23:1-36).
• Christ predicts the city’s destruction (23:38).

Christ begins His prophecies.

• All the buildings in the temple complex will be knocked down.  1-2.
• Later, the disciples ask two questions. The second question is compound. (24:3).
• First exhortation: “Don’t let anyone deceive you.”
  • Many will come and successfully deceive people. (4-5). History only preserves a few names (Anthronges, Simon bar Kohkbar), there must have been more.
  • These disciples will hear about real wars, and rumors of wars. They should not be frightened. (6). There would be famines and earthquakes. These were all Braxton Hicks [false labor pains]. (7-8)
• Then, a time of persecution (9-14). Rome picked up after Israel went down.
  • Roman persecution: “At first several were seized, who confessed, and then by their discovery a great multitude of others were convicted and executed.” Tacitus, speaking of persecution of Christians under Nero. Annals of Tacitus, book 1.15.
  • Persecution would come with other ills: apostasy, internal betrayals, false prophets, love for Christ turns cold. However, genuine believers would stand firm to the end of their lives, and by that faith be saved.
  • If Christ is still answering their first question, and I think He was, then the “end” (14) is the end of the Temple and the Jewish system. Romans 10:18 – the Gospel had spread through the known “world” by the time Paul wrote Romans in 56-57 A.D. Rome unintentionally broke the Jews’ power to systematically persecute believers.

 

• Christ was already prophetically looking beyond the immediate situation. God was preparing to judge and set-aside the nation of Israel, until a future date.​
  
• Jesus in this section was straight-forwardly answering their first question from 24:3. Not everything in this chapter is about the end-times.
• Israel’s glorious restoration was not the next event on God’s time-table. The Jewish disciples had a very hard time accepting that (Acts 1:6), especially because the Church Age was a new revelation.