26 “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the desert,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. 27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28 Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.
29 “Immediately after the distress of those days
“‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’
30 “At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
32 “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 33 Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. 34 I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
Jesus begins this passage by warning them again about false deceivers. The coming of the Son of Man won't be some secret event - it's going to be obvious, like lightning stretching from the east all the way to the west. The whole world will see it!
And then He uses an analogy of vultures tearing into a carcass to describe the judgment of God tearing into the carcass of the sinful, decaying world.
MacArthur explains the parable of the fig tree and then he also gives reasons for his pre-trib position on the rapture. Sorry this is long, but I found it fascinating! ....
So, He says to them, "You want a sign? Watch for the birth pains triggered by the abomination of desolation. And when they are over, then comes the sign. And the sign is the Son of Man in heaven. All the heavenly bodies have gone black. It is darkness in the universe and then appears the sign of the Son of Man in blazing glory in heaven come to defeat the wicked, to gather the elect and establish His Kingdom." That's what to look forward to.
Having given them those things as indicators, He knows in their mind they still have a question. When all those signs begin, how long will it be? How long does it last until the Kingdom is established? How long until the Son of God reigns as King of Kings and Lord of Lords? How long do the birth pains last? How long is it from the sign in heaven to the kingdom on earth? And so to summarize and act as a transition into the "when" question, He gives this parable and its explanation in verses 32 to 35...
And here's the story: "When its branch is yet tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near." Now nobody can misunderstand that. When you see a fig tree put forth leaves, you know that summer is near. What does that mean? It's time for fruit and harvest. In other words, when the tree buds, it's spring, right? It's really not very complex. What does He mean "when the branch is yet tender?" In this time of year when the sap begins to flow through those branches they become somewhat swelled and tender, as that life begins to pulsate and pour through and push out the end of the branch in the form of a leaf. There is a tenderness to the tree. There is a need to care carefully for that tree in that period of time. And so, that's what He's referring to. When its branch is tender because it's soft with swelling sap and it pushes out its leaves, you know its spring and spring means summer is near and summer means harvest. Summer means harvest.
And whenever the Lord in the gospel of Matthew speaks about harvest, He is speaking about the time when He comes to separate the good from the bad. Harvest in the gospel of Matthew speaks of judgment. It speaks of the Lord's coming to deal with the good and the bad...
Now in all of those incidents in the gospel of Matthew where you have the look at a harvest, it is a time of rewarding that which is good and of burning and punishing that which is evil. So what the Lord is saying is very simple in this uncomplicated analogy. When you see the leaves come forth in the spring, you know that the coming of summer is near and there will be soon a harvest. And since they would perceive the harvest to be the Second Coming, the coming of God's judgment, they would very easily understand the intent of what the Lord is saying.
So, the uncomplicated analogy leads secondly to an unmistakable application..Verse 33, "So likewise ye," He says, "when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, at the doors." Now in saying "so likewise ye" He links the parable or the analogy to the application. When you see all these things. And somebody says, "What are all these things?" And the answer is all these things.
You say, "What is the antecedent to all these things?" Well, it's all the things that He's just talked about. What are all those things? The birth pains of verses 4 to 14, the abomination of desolation of verse 15, the need to flee because of great tribulation in verses 16 to 28. So, the birth pains, the signal for the beginning of the birth pains, the calamities that come upon the earth, the subtle confusion of those who cry out the Messiah is here and the Messiah is there, the sinful corruption like a dead carcass to be eaten by birds. And then the sign of the Son of Man in heaven as the sky goes black and the Son of Man appears in all His glory. All these things, He says, when you see all these things...it's like the tree putting forth leaves, you know that it is near...."it" means the Kingdom of God. That is the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is the end of man's day, it is the beginning of God's day. Know that the Kingdom is near. The Millennial Kingdom of Revelation chapter 20 verse 4 and 5 is in view here, when Jesus Christ reigns with His redeemed saints for a thousand years upon the earth and Satan is bound. The glorious Kingdom promised to Israel when Israel will be back in its land will be preserved from all its enemies and become the servants of the Most High God, the time when Gentiles ten at a time will grab on to the skirt of a Jew and the Jew will take them to God that they may know the true God. It is the time promised by all the prophets of old, that great Kingdom....
And then in verse 34, further in an unmistakable application, He says, "Truly I say to you," and that's for emphasis, to emphasize the importance and verity of the statement, "this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled." This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled.
Now the question comes immediately at this juncture...what generation is He talking about? What generation isn't going to pass? Well, to pass means to die, to come to an end. The generation will not come to an end until all these things be fulfilled. What generation?..the this has to modify the people who see all those things. This generation that sees all those things will not end until the rest is fulfilled.
In other words, what He's saying...they're wondering how long is that going to take? And when we see the sign...the signal, rather, or the abomination of desolations and start to see the other birth pains and then all of a sudden the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, how long is that going to take? And what He is saying is the generation that sees all these things will not die off till everything's fulfilled. In other words, He's emphasizing again the concept of the pushing forth of a leaf. When you see the leaf, you know summer is near...summer is near. That's the whole point.
Or, the idea of the birth pains. Birth pains come in rapid fire at the very end, just before birth. So if you see the leaf, you know you're going to be alive in the summer. If you see the birth pains, you know you're going to be alive at the birth. The generation that is alive, the generation that sees these things, the generation that experiences the phenomena of signs and wonders at the end time will not die off till all these things be fulfilled. In other words, when it comes it will come fast. In fact, we that it is a period of seven years called the time of Jacob's trouble, but the real tribulation period lasts how long? Three and a half years, 1260 days or 42 months, and that's reiterated again and again by Daniel and John. It is a very intense condensed period of time. And the generation that is alive when it begins is still going to be around when it ends because basically it lasts just beyond three and a half years...
Who is this generation? ...
the church, I believe, will not be here. I believe we will be taken out. And I'll give you some reasons....
Reason number one, the church in the book of Revelation appears in chapter 2 and chapter 3. In fact, it is the theme of chapter 2 and the theme of chapter 3. And our Lord speaks to the church and purifies the church and writes letters to the church and messages to the church and then ends that whole section at the end of chapter 3 with the idea that He stands at the door and knocks ready to come. You move right into chapter 4 and the church is in heaven.
The church is in heaven in chapter 4. And the church is in heaven in chapter 5. Chapter 6, the Tribulation breaks out on earth and from chapter 6 through 18, the whole story of the Tribulation, there's never one mention of the church...never one mention of any local church or of how the church ought to act. The word church isn't there. So, the absence of the church from Revelation 6 to 18 seems, to me, rather significant, especially when they've been on earth in 2 and 3 and they're in heaven in 4 and 5.
Another point. There is an absolute absence of literature in the New Testament to instruct the church about how to endure the Tribulation, about how to conduct itself in the Tribulation. The church is not mentioned in Matthew chapter 24 as such and it is a unique group of people, from Pentecost to the Rapture that I'm speaking of. In a sense, in a larger sense, we're all part of God's redeemed people. But the unique church is not mentioned here in Matthew 24 and there's no warnings given to us about the Tribulation and how to deal with it and how to live through it and how to handle the antichrist kind of thing as a church and so forth and so on. In fact, the only church that I can find during that period is called the mystery harlot, Babylon, the prostitute, the false church which is to be destroyed.
Thirdly, the Rapture seemed to me to be absolutely pointless. The Rapture is described in 1 Thessalonians 4 where we're caught up to be with the Lord in the air and ever are we with the Lord. That seems pointless to me if it happens at the Second Coming. Why bother to go up and come right back down again? I mean, if He's coming to earth with His saints to reign and rule, why doesn't He just come down and we'll meet Him right here when He gets here? How long does it take Him to get from up there to down here? What's the point? It eliminates the point of the Rapture. Why does Paul make such a great point about the Rapture if that's all there is to it? Phist-phist and that's it.
Now let me ask you another question. If all the believers are raptured up at the Second Coming and come back with Him, who's left on earth alive to populate the Kingdom? In other words, when the Lord comes the Bible says He will destroy all the wicked. And if He comes down and raptures all the redeemed, all the redeemed are raptured, all the unredeemed are destroyed, there's nobody left on earth to populate the Kingdom except spiritually glorified beings and the Bible says there will be children born during the Kingdom. Who's going to have those kids? You know, there's got to be people there. There have to be people going in because they'll produce a whole generation. They'll produce a whole population, many of whom will not even believe and will start a rebellion at the end. Remember that in Revelation? So somebody's got to be alive. But if the Rapture occurs at the same time as the Second Coming, then all the redeemed are out and all the unredeemed are destroyed, there's nobody left to populate the Kingdom.
And then a couple of passages of Scripture that I think are important. Revelation is one, chapter 3 verse 10, I think maybe the most important one. In Revelation 3:10 it says of those who are the redeemed, "Because thou hast kept the Word of My patience," that is obeyed the Word of the gospel, the Word of God, "I also will keep thee outside--I think is the best way to translate tereo ek(?)--to keep the outside the hour of temptation." And He's not talking about some little trial that comes upon the church at Philadelphia, or some local deal, but I'll keep you outside the hour of temptation which will come upon all the world to try them that dwell on the earth. I believe that's a promise to those who have kept the Word of God by faith in Christ that they will be rescued from out of that period of time and literally what tereo ek means is a state of continued existence outside. It isn't that we'll be taken out of the middle of it as a mid-trib view might say, it isn't that we will be kept in it, but kept from it, it is that we will be maintained in a condition outside of it. That is the opposite of tereo en(?) which means to exist within, this means to exist without, to be kept out. So I believe we will be kept out of that.
In John 14:3 it says that when Jesus went away, He prepared a place for us that I may come again and receive you unto Myself that you may be with Me, right? That where I am, you may be also. So the point He says there is I am preparing a place for you. It can't be down here, true? It's not here. He's preparing a place in the Father's house which is up there in glory and I'm coming again to receive you unto Myself that where I am there ye may be also. Now what that tells me is that He's not going to come down here to be where we are, He's going to take us to be where He is. So if you have a post-trib Rapture, we...He's simply taken us up half-way, put us right back and come to be where we are. You understand what I'm saying? So the whole point of John 14 is He's preparing a place for us to be where He is. And that's where we go in the Rapture and remain for those years until we return for the glory of the Kingdom and all that it promises.
Now there are many other reasons. I believe the nature of the church is unique. I believe it was born at Pentecost. It didn't exist before that. And at the Rapture there's a sense in which that part of God's redeemed community is self-contained and taken out of the earth and that the Tribulation time is called the time of Jacob's trouble. It is particularly for Israel that God goes back to dealing with them. It's like Romans 11 where Israel was cut off and the church was grafted in but He says don't be too proud because the time will come when you're cut off and Israel is regrafted. I believe God's going to go back to dealing with Israel. It's the seventieth week of Daniel. We weren't in the first 69, why should we be in the seventieth? So it's a time for God to deal with Israel. The distinction of Israel, the nature of the church, I believe, sets them apart and so they'll not be in that period of time, we'll not be in it.
Now also, have you ever thought about the fact that Paul wrote the Thessalonians and they were all upset because some Christians died and they thought they had missed the Rapture. They thought they'd missed the Second Coming. They've died and so he writes them and says, "Don't sorrow about the people that sleep." Don't be sad about them. "Because when the Rapture comes, you will not precede them," right? The dead in Christ shall what? Rise first.
See, they were worried. "Oh, those dear folks have died, they're going to miss it." He says no, no, no, no. But look, if the Christian church is looking for the Tribulation and not the Rapture, then they would have been sad that they were alive. They would have reversed their problem and said, "Oh, those dear lucky saints that have died, I mean, they're already with the Lord, we have to go through the Tribulation," see. But they were looking for something which is joyous and felt bad that people might die and miss it, which proves to me they were not looking for the antichrist, they were looking for Christ. They were not looking for the Tribulation, they were looking for glory. And that's consistent with the Christian hope. The blessed hope is not looking for antichrist, is it? Yes, we wait the glorious appearing of antichrist....no, no, no. We are waiting for Christ.
Well, those are a few reasons. At the Rapture, the church meets Christ in the air. At the Second Coming, Christ returns to the earth with the church. At the Rapture, Olive is untouched. At the Second Coming, it's split in half. At the Rapture, living saints are translated. At the Second Coming, no saints are translated. At the Rapture, the world is not judged and sin gets worse. At the Second Coming, sin is judged and the world gets better. At the Rapture, the body goes to heaven. At the Second Coming, it comes to earth. The Rapture is imminent, it could happen at any moment. The Second Coming has very distinct signs, doesn't it? And the Rapture concerns only the saved and the Second Coming concerns the saved and the unsaved. All that to say the Rapture and the Second Coming are two different things with a time period in between.
So, this generation refers to the people that are alive at that time that were not taken in the Rapture because they did not know the Savior. So they'll be Jews and Gentiles. But during the time of the Tribulation, what happens? God takes a hundred and forty-four thousand Jews, according to Revelation 7, they witness all over the world. Jews are saved. Gentiles are saved so that they can't even be counted. So you have a redeemed group and an unredeemed group and that unredeemed and redeemed group of Jews and Gentiles that have not gone in the Rapture because their salvation came after that, or they've never been saved, they're the generation who will see these things come to pass. And when they start to see them come to pass, they'll not die off till all those things are fulfilled. I think that's what He's saying....
verse 35, "Heaven and earth shall pass away," stop at that point. That's a flat statement, period-paragraph-tremendous unbelievable statement, heaven and earth shall pass away. You see the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, you've already seen the collapse of the stellar bodies, everything is moving into chaos that we already learned, didn't we, back in verse 22 that God's going to shorten the daylight hours during the day. The whole calendar goes crazy, the tides will go crazy. And the sum of it is in verse 35, "Heaven and earth shall come to an end," as we know it, heaven and earth will end. The earth that we know, the heaven that we know will cease.
Now just exactly all that that embodies is very, very difficult for us to perceive. We've read much of Revelation and many things written by Isaiah the prophet and others, so we know that heaven and earth are going to pass away as we know them. And in their place is going to come a new creation...a new creation.
Finally, Jesus said this, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words...what?...shall not pass away." That is an unchanging authority. And He closes the parable with an unchanging authority. My Word shall not pass away. InLuke 16:17, He said heaven and earth will pass away and it's easier for them to do that then for one tittle out of the law to pass away. He said not one jot or one tittle in Matthew 5:18 will pass away till all is fulfilled. In John 10:35He said Scripture cannot be broken. And so if we believe the Word of God, we believe this is going to happen...it's going to happen.
And the question we ask you is are you ready for that? To go with the Lord's raptured people to be in His presence, or do you find yourself staying for the holocaust that follows? Seeing that you know all these things, what manner of persons ought you to be, Peter said. You ought to be godly and holy. You ought to be looking for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. You ought to be growing in grace. You are a redeemed people looking for the Savior.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Matthew 24:36-51
3 comments:
I just found your blog through the Year of Less blog and am so encouraged by this project! My husband and I have been reading through the Bible in about a year (or so) for awhile now using something called the Read Through the Bible Program for Shirkers and Slackers. (You can Google it, it's really good!)
Thanks Becca. It's been a lot of work but so worth it. In the past couple of years (since starting this blog) I've grown in my faith more than all the years prior combined!
Another "project" I've started this year is scripture memory - it's an incredible method that doesn't actually take up any additional time - you're just redeeming the time when your hands are busy but your mind is idle (brushing teeth, showering, driving, cleaning, etc). There's a link to that blog on my sidebar as well.
Thanks for stopping by, hope we can continue to be an encouragement for you!
Very interesting! Thank you for including that information.
Post a Comment