Transcript
Well, thank you for coming back this evening. Good to see so many of you here. Those of you who have been to my meetings before will know, of course, that on Sunday mornings I preach, and on Sunday nights and in the additional nights I teach.
I was sometimes amused by my seminary students who had only heard me teach. And when they occasionally got to hear me preach outside of the context of seminary, they didn't think they were listening to the same guy. I sympathize with that. But tonight I'm in my teaching mode. And we're going to try to get you out of here as close to seven o'clock as we can.
And we're going to intersperse the presentation with periods for questions. I hope there will be a lot of questions, not only tonight but also in the nights that follow. Because only by asking questions on the subject matter can you really get to the bottom of it. And we definitely are tackling some of the most significant and difficult subject matter in the entire Bible.
And by that I mean we're tackling prophecy. And there is a large amount of prophecy in the Bible that speaks eloquently for the importance of prophecy from God's standpoint. If He did not regard prophecy as important, He certainly wouldn't have included as much as He did in the Bible. He probably would not have included any if it had no importance at all.
But the significant range of the prophetic Scriptures teaches us that we are dealing with an important subject matter. But the subject matter is difficult precisely because there's so much of it. And one of the challenges of prophetic study is that we have to understand individual sections of prophecy by putting all of the sections together.
And I think I can say that I have been exposed to prophecy for in excess of half a century. And I don't pretend to know all the answers, but I do have some ideas. And that's what we will be sharing with you tonight and in the nights that follow.
May I start by asking you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew 24, specifically. My assignment on this occasion and the following nights is to discuss with you the Olivet Discourse, which is found in Matthew 24 and 25. It is probably correct to say that in the New Testament there is not a more significant segment on prophecy than these two chapters.
And without these two chapters it would be very difficult to understand the other prophetic sections of the Bible. So this is a very crucial and central portion of the biblical teaching on prophecy.
I'm going to start by reading only the first 14 verses. If you'll follow along in your Bibles, we will appreciate it as we go. Matthew 24.
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 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?
And Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no one deceive you. For many will come in My name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there shall be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.
And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
In any study of a section of the word of God, it seems to me that it is always crucial to try to structure the section. To try to discover what the structure of the section might be. And this is an overhead that we will be looking at frequently during the course of these meetings. Because this is my suggestion about the overall structure of the Olivet Discourse.
You will notice that under the heading of the Olivet Discourse we say that verses one to three are a prelude, as we read them just a few moments ago. Of course we have the disciples pointing out the beautiful structure of the temple to Jesus. Jesus prophesied the destruction of the temple. And then we have the disciples asking two basic questions which are recorded in verse three.
Look back at them for a moment. They say, Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age? It has often been suggested that in replying to these questions the Lord Jesus Christ replied to them in reverse order. That first of all He discusses the second question, what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age.
And then He returns to the question of when shall these things be. This is not exactly the approach that we have taken on the overhead here, but it's very similar. You notice that we have structured the Olivet Discourse into two basic segments. And for purposes of teaching the segments I have called the first segment exposition.
And I would conceive of that section as extending from verses 4 to 35 of chapter 24. The second section I have called application. And here I see chapter 24 verse 35 to 25 verse 46.
Now it seems to me that what is covered in the material that is discussed in the Olivet Discourse is that great period of eschatological consummation which we can call the end of the age. That's the phrase that is used here in 24:3, which we can also call on the basis of other scriptures the day of the Lord. We will say more about that later when we get to another overhead.
In the phrase end of the age which is found in this passage we have a distinctive Greek word which I've transliterated into English letters. And it is the word which roughly can be translated by the word consummation. This is a word that occurs only in the gospel of Matthew. My suggestion is that the words which means the consummation and the whole phrase means the consummation of the age is a synonym in Matthew for the end time period which we call the day of the Lord.
So I believe that first of all that the Lord Jesus Christ is addressing the issue of the day of the Lord or the consummation of the age. The first thing He does is to expound the events in brief that occurred during that period of time. And so under exposition we find that there are actually two segments in which He expounds the consummation of the age or expounds the day of the Lord.
The first section, which is the section we read tonight, is what I have called survey. What we have here is a brief overview of the entire period from beginning to end. We will come back to that before the evening is over. Having surveyed the period from beginning to end, He goes back to what may be described as the midpoint of that period.
And He focuses on the major crisis of that period, which is the event described as the abomination of desolation. Once again we will talk more about that a little later on. But now He runs through the events that begin with the abomination of desolation and which run to the end of the so-called 70th week of Daniel.
Notice if you will flip over in your Bibles that we have called chapter 24 verses 32 to 35 a conclusion to the expository section of the Olivet Discourse. Here we conclude with the words in verse 35, Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. And here with this statement the Lord emphasizes the certainty of the fulfillment of the events which He has described in the preceding section.
So first of all we begin with a section of exposition. We run entirely through the period of the day of the Lord. And then we go back to the midpoint of that period, which is the central crisis moment of the period. And we run again in more detail to the end of that period.
We have a concluding statement in which the certainty of the fulfillment of these things is guaranteed.
Now this moves us into the section that we have called application. And we have for this section what I've described as an introduction to the application, which is chapter 24 verses 35 to 44. And in case you cannot see the words that are immediately under the scripture reference here, the words are time unknown.
In this introductory section the Lord Jesus Christ emphasizes that this period of time, the day of the Lord or the consummation of the age, that this period of time begins unexpectedly. It begins unexpectedly. It comes upon the world as unexpectedly as the flood came upon the world in Noah's day. Now that's the introduction.
And then the application basically amounts to get ready for that time period. And this application is given in terms of four parables. The first parable is, of course, the parable of the wise or foolish servant, which is found in chapter 24 verses 45 to 51. The second parable is given in terms of the wise and foolish virgins, chapter 25 verses 1 to 13.
Some of this you have difficulty seeing on the overhead here. Good. And it would be very useful for the people to have it in their hands. The third parable is the parable of the loyal and lazy servants, the so-called parable of the talents. The fourth parable is the parable of the sheep and the goats.
Now you will notice that there are arrows down here, arrows there may be, but arrows in this case pointing to the first and third parable. Another pair of arrows pointing to the second and fourth. You I'm sure you cannot see what is written above these lines, but what we have here is advice to church age servants.
And what we have in this line is advice to tribulation servants. We are going to propose that the first parable and the third parable are admonitions to those who live before this period begins, that is church age saints like us. And then we're going to suggest that the second and fourth parables are parables addressed to people who will live during this period of time.
The Scriptures obviously are written not only for us but also for those who will live after us, disciples of today and disciples of tomorrow. And this is the way in which we are going to expound these parables. There is a sense in which this unit which we've called application is an answer to the question, when shall these things be? And the answer to the question is nobody knows when these things will be.
Therefore watch for them. Be prepared for them.
Now I want to pause here for some questions on this. I may defer questions that you ask because we'll discuss them more fully in detail. But I'd like to give you an opportunity to at least clarify the general structure here as we've presented it on the overhead. Arch, okay.
The word exposition. Arch is good at catching me up on these theological jargon words. And I'm going to appoint him, since he's going to serve this way anyway, I'm going to appoint him as my warner and admonisher to get the term straightened out. Exposition just simply means explanation.
So when we talk about the exposition of the day of the Lord, we're talking about a section that explains the day of the Lord. Eschatology means the last things and refers to the doctrine of last things or in other words to prophecy, to the events that will conclude world history as we now know it. Okay, thanks Arch. Keep stay alert.
I'm sure I'll use other jargon words before the series is over.
Well that's because we never used it in seminary, you know the old saying you can take the professor out of the seminary but you can never take the seminary out of the professor. So there you are. That's an excuse probably rather than an explanation. That's an exposition of why we use exposition. Any other questions?
Yes, tonight I want to go, if possible, to the end of this section which is the only section we've read tonight. Hopefully by the termination of the series we would have gone in some detail through all the units that we presented here. But as I've said I think it's really important for us to get the big picture, the overview, the grid that we're working through.
And I'm going to show you this overhead every night including. And of course Arch's promise that we'll have copies of this which will be very good to possess. Anything else about the? Yes right down here. No.
What we have said here is the whole unit which we've called exposition or explanation is an answer to the second question, what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age. The whole unit is that. And then we have said that the second unit which we've called application is the answer to the question, when shall these things be?
This is a presentation is often made in explaining the Olivet Discourse that these two questions which the disciples have asked are answered by Jesus but not in the order in which they were asked, in reverse order. And so from that standpoint I would say question number two is answered in the first unit and question number one is answered in the second unit. Jack? Yes.
Let's not get into the verses that I've read yet because I'm working my way toward them gradually. His basic answer to the question when shall these things be is nobody knows. They come unexpectedly. Jeff? They apparently are.
But at this point in their understanding of the prophetic program the destruction of the temple could have theoretically lain within the framework of the end of the age. One of this is a question that we want to not get into heavily. But in Luke which has a section that is parallel to the Olivet Discourse we have units that apply to the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D.
And we have units that apply to the period that we call the day of the Lord. Apparently in the full Olivet Discourse if we put the material in Matthew and Luke together we had both areas of prophecy discussed. However in Matthew, despite the fact that the question that is raised is simply about the destruction of the temple, we pass by entirely the issue of 70 A.D. and moved directly to the day of the Lord.
I think the reason for this is that potentially the day of the Lord could have come within the lifetime of the apostles. And I happen to hold the view that in Acts when we discussed Acts last year that in Acts there is an offer of the kingdom. And had the kingdom offer been received by the Jewish people all of the events of the end time would have been fulfilled in the first century.
So what we have here is a question about the destruction of the temple. It will be destroyed. It is not yet obvious because prophecy has not run its course yet that that will not occur within the framework of the day of the Lord. But all that is discussed in Matthew is the day of the Lord.
So that question is shall we say the launch pad of the discussion. Gary? There from the standpoint of the Greek language there are only two sentences here. Now granted the second sentence has two parts but there are basically only two complete sentences and therefore technically only two questions.
The question would still remain however in answering the second question is there a distinction between the sign of Your coming and the consummation of the age? I don't want to address that right now but let me just say that I think the answer is that the structure of the Greek text shows that there are fundamentally two questions. Yes because it was given on the Mount of Olives. Yes sir.
That's a little ahead of us but let me nevertheless respond to it. The term and the end shall come is not however the same word that is used in verse 3. And in the verse that you're referring to I believe it refers to the end of the entire period of the day of the Lord. In other words the point at which Christ comes back.
But I am suggesting on the overhead that the phrase used in verse 3 the consummation of the age refers to the whole time period. It's not evident from the English but it's clear in the Greek that we're dealing with two different words. And so the use of the word end here does not pick up the word. It picks up a similar word but not the same word.
So I would say that the term end which occurs twice in verses 4 through 14 refers to the end of the tribulation or the second advent of Christ. But all of this will hopefully be a little bit more clear when we have had a chance to go through the whole section in detail. Okay thank you for your questions. Let's move on from here.
It certainly seems to me that it's almost impossible to talk about the details of Matthew 24 and 25 unless we have a general overview of prophecy as a whole. The complication that is involved in prophecy is that there are details of the events of the end times scattered throughout the Bible. And unless you can understand the framework or the grid that I am using to interpret Matthew 24 and 25 it will be difficult for you to follow.
But we have to say so I think this is the point at which we need to talk a little bit about the fundamental events of the day of the Lord. Notice therefore we have talked about the chronology of the day of the Lord meaning the things that will occur during that period. For the moment you can more or less ignore the top part of this where we talk about the man of sin is the king of the north and the man of sin is the beast plus the false prophet.
That doesn't figure into our discussion yet. And come down to the blue line which is at the heart of this namely the prophecy concerning Daniel's 70th week. And I think that's so important that we ought to turn to this prophecy in our text. Daniel chapter 9.
If it is true that we could probably not understand prophecy without Matthew 24 and 25 it's equally true we could hardly understand it without Daniel 9. And so I'm going to read the prophecy of the 70 weeks as given in Daniel chapter 9 beginning at verse 24.
Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.
Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. The street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times.
And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, and till the end of the war desolations are determined.
Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week. But in the middle of the week he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation which is determined is poured out on the desolate.
Now if you've studied this question at all and we won't go into the details by which this conclusion is reached but each of the weeks of Daniel 70 weeks apparently equal seven years. And the years have a period of 360 days in them. If you happen to have a new Scofield Bible you will find that there is an extended note on the interpretation of the 70 weeks.
For the moment I'm going to assume that that is the correct understanding and that therefore the 70th week of Daniel which is still future is a period of seven years. We know that it is a period that can be broken down into two halves of 1260 days because a reference to 1260 days occurs both in two occasions in the book of Revelation.
So we are saying that the 70th week of Daniel is the final seven years preceding the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ back to earth. Now you will notice that on the basis of the prophecy in Daniel 9:27 that something happens in the middle of this period. they shall cause the sacrifice and offering to cease.
It is clear that at the beginning of this period there is a covenant between we are suggesting the people of the prince that shall come and the many probably a reference to Israel. And evidently under this covenant they are permitted to re-establish their temple worship. Several years ago two or three I would say there was a most interesting article in Time Magazine on the rebuilding of the temple.
It was of interest to me because it was in a major national periodical and they frankly stated that there is exceedingly great interest in the land of Israel in rebuilding the Jewish temple. Moreover as we know on the Temple Mount there are currently two Muslim mosques which are standing there. And has often been thought that these mosques must be torn down in order for the Jewish temple to be constructed.
But there is now a theory propounded in Israel that as a matter of fact the Jewish temple did not stand on exactly the spot where the two mosques stand. So that it is theoretically possible that the temple might be rebuilt on the Temple Mount without disturbing the two Muslim mosques. We are aware of the fact I think that the issue of the future destiny of the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem is very much in the forefront of modern news.
And the Jerusalem question is very alive in international politics and the Arabs believe that they are entitled at least to East Jerusalem. We are probably headed toward a solution that will internationalize at least the Temple Mount and which will permit the reconstruction of the Jewish temple. The reinstitution of Jewish worship under some kind of international guarantee which would be functionally no doubt the treaty that is mentioned in Daniel 9.
However after three and a half years this treaty which permits the ongoing of Jewish worship and Jewish sacrifice in the temple is broken by the nations by which it was made. And sacrifice and offering cease. And at this point the end time figure who is called the beast in the book of Revelation or the man of sin emerges and becomes a persecutor of all believers in Jesus Christ during the last three and a half years of this period.
Now as you are aware the book of Revelation presents us with a series of divine judgments that will fall upon the world during this period of time. These three series are represented by the seals by the trumpets and by the bowl judgments. The overhead suggests that the seal judgments stretch over the whole period and bring us right up to the end.
We also suggest that the trumpet judgments which we're going to look at a little bit in a moment that the trumpet judgments carry us only through the first half of the 70th week. And that the bowl judgments apparently occur in the last half week and probably toward the end of the last half week. With that in mind would you turn to the book of Revelation chapter 8.
I would like you to follow me through the trumpet judgments that are presented in Revelation 8 and 9 starting with verse 6 of Revelation 8.
So the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. And the first angel sounded, and hail and fire followed, mingled with blood, and they were thrown to the earth. And a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.
Then the second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea. And a third of the sea became blood. And a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
Then the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch. And it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the water, because it was made bitter.
Then the fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened. A third of the day did not shine, and likewise the night.
And I looked, and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!
Then the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star falling from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit. And He opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit.
Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth, and to them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. And they were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth or any green thing or any tree, but only those men who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. Now when you skip down to verse 12 the rest of the verses are a further description of this plague.
And then it says, One woe is past. Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things. Then the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.
So the four angels who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. Now the number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred million. I heard the number of them. Thus I saw the horses in the vision.
Those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow. And the heads of the horses were like the heads of lions. And out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone. By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which came out of their mouths.
Now this is a horrifying judgment and again I don't know how it's going to be fulfilled. It is entirely possible once again that there's a microorganism which under magnification looks very much like the description given here. We have been told in recent years about the declining effectiveness of our antibiotics even against organisms that we thought we had conquered.
And now we're hearing about new organisms. The Ebola virus that has broken out in Zaire is a case in point. And what is increasingly emerging to the consciousness of the media is that the human race is surprisingly and alarmingly vulnerable to new and unknown microorganisms which could sweep the world.
If an organism fortunate of the Ebola organism is not airborne but if an organism were airborne then it is quite possible that a plague could break out that could indeed decimate the population of the world. If we're thinking in terms of 5 billion people a third of mankind would amount to 1 billion 666 million people who die. This is grim stuff but this is what lies ahead for humanity.
Notice the way in which the text goes on. For their power is in their mouth and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents, having heads, and with them they do harm. But the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk.
And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. Incredible. A third of mankind is decimated by divine judgment. Do men repent? They do not. They do not. They harden their hearts and they continue their rebellion against God.
Now there follows in chapter 10 the account of the angel in the little book which I want to skip over. And moving to chapter 11 you will see the relevance of this in a moment. We pick up at verse 3 with one of the remarkable prophecies of the book of Revelation. The prophecy of the two witnesses.
And I will give power to My two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies.
And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner. These have power to shut heaven, so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy. And they have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues, as often as they desire.
When they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the streets of the great city which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
Then those from the peoples, tribes, tongues, and nations will see their dead bodies three days and a half, and not allow their dead bodies to be put into graves. And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them, make merry, and send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth.
Let me pause here. According to the statement that is made in verse 3 these men prophesy for one thousand two hundred and sixty days which is three and a half years. During the period of their prophecy they are invulnerable and they have power to bring down all sorts of plagues upon mankind.
When people want to get rid of them they are unable to do so because fire goes out of the mouth of these prophets and destroys those who attempt to kill them. But when their prophecy a period of prophecy is over in other words when the three and a half years is over the beast the final end time world ruler to whom Satan gives world power will kill them.
And he will allow their bodies to lie unburied on the streets of Jerusalem for three and a half days. Now notice verse 10. And those who will dwell on the earth will rejoice over them, make merry, and send gifts to one another because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth.
The earth is so relieved by the death of these people that they have what might be called a satanic Christmas and people send presents to each other to celebrate the death of these two prophets who have tormented them with plague after plague. Now notice that this is the three and a half days would be here and the celebration of their death would be here after the end of Daniel's 70th week which is not possible in the light of the passage we read in Daniel.
Because the 70th week brings in righteousness seals up prophecy makes an end of sin. We are therefore forced to conclude not forced to conclude but we are driven to conclude that the two witnesses prophesied during the first half of the 70th week of Daniel. When they have come to the middle of that week they have finished their prophecy.
The beast kills them. And then as we know from other passages the beast walks into the temple and He says I'm God. And He will have powerful evidence in favor of that because here are two men who for three and a half years prophesied in the name of Jehovah of Israel.
They have been able to call down plague after plague. They've been able to shut up the heavens like Elijah shut up the heavens. They are able to strike the earth with every plague turn the waters to blood like Moses did. Nobody can touch them. They seem invulnerable and invincible.
And here comes this man this man of sin and he kills them. How he does it I'm not we're not told but he kills them. And he is in a position to say they they prophesy in the name of Jehovah but I killed these invincible and vulnerable prophets of God. I'm God.
And of course the apostle Paul tells us that He has God sits in the temple of God showing Himself that He is God. Everything makes perfect sense here. The man of sin takes occasion from His triumph over the two witnesses to present Himself as mankind's deity. And then His rule over the entirety of the world begins and He launches a vigorous persecution.
Now let's continue with our text verse 12. Remember they have been lying here for three and a half days everybody is rejoicing over their death. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, Come up here.
Wait a minute 11 is where we need to be in now. After the three and a half days the breath of life from God entered them and they stood on their feet. And great fear fell on those who saw them. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Come up here. And they ascended to heaven in a cloud. And their enemies saw them.
In the same hour there was a great earthquake and a tenth of the city fell in the earthquake. Seven thousand people were killed and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven. Now notice the words of verse 14. The second woe is past. Behold, the third woe is coming quickly.
After these men have been dead for three and a half days they are resurrected and they go up into a cloud. And their enemies who had been rejoicing in their death see them go up. As this happens an earthquake strikes the city of Jerusalem and seven thousand of the inhabitants of Jerusalem are killed in the earthquake.
And the rest of the people of Jerusalem give glory to the God of heaven. And then the text says and the second woe is past. And that's very important here because that shows us that all of the woes that have preceded this also precede this moment in time. In other words the ecological disasters and the two plagues of Revelation 9 and 10 occur during the first half of the 70th week.
That is exceedingly important observation one that is often in my judgment missed. And it is here that the man of sin takes over a world that has been decimated by the judgments of God. And he organizes mankind's final rebellion against His maker. That's the 70th week of Daniel.
And this is the point at which I would like to pause for questions. Arch? Yeah. Yes I have. And I might say that this the placement of the two witnesses in the first half week is not original with me. I first encountered it in W. R. Newell who argued for it in the same way that I've argued for it.
He persuaded me many many years ago that they belonged the first half week. And then it is clear because of the placement of the woes that the woes of chapter nine precede the death of the two witnesses. It certainly would it would blow away His view and He also blows away the the mid-trib argument which tends to take the first half week as a period of peace.
Not only the pre-wrath rapture you know puts it even puts it in the middle of the last half but the mid-trib the mid the people who believe that the rapture is in the middle of the tribulation put the rapture here. The pre-wrath rapture is put here by Rosenthal but all of these on the presumption that the judgments do not cover this period of time.
But that's a false conclusion it seems to me quite obviously from the text of Revelation. Yes sir. Yes power. David strike the earth with every plague as often as they will. So they say you know this is we're reminded by the description of them of both Moses and Elijah.
But remember Moses said to Pharaoh tomorrow the frogs will come tomorrow the flies will come tomorrow this and tomorrow that. These men will be doing the same thing tomorrow ecological disaster number one tomorrow ecological disaster number two. They will prophesy the plagues so that and the point of this is that God is now dealing with the world in judgment.
And there's to be no misunderstanding that these plagues come from the creator and ruler of the earth. And man does not accept God's claim to creatorship or to sovereignty. And after three and a half years of devastating blows from heaven the world will rally around an agent of Satan.
And let me let me just say something else here. It is clear absolutely clear I don't know where the other idea came from even though I've heard it for years. If you read Revelation 19 very carefully the beast is at the head of the armies of the world and His purpose is to fight with Christ and the battle of Armageddon.
The battle of Armageddon is not a war between eastern or western powers. It's a war between heaven and earth. And as this period approaches its climax the beast will say this person called Jesus no we don't know exactly how He will explain this but a lot of obvious options occur.
He's a spaceman who was here earlier and He's coming back with an invading army or maybe He's a using New Age terminology a powerful spirit but I'm more powerful and we can find Him. And remember that Revelation prophesies that that John sees four frogs going out of the mouth of the beast three frogs going out of the mouth of the beast and the false prophet and the dragon.
And these are the spirits of demons working miracles before the kings of the earth to gather them together to the battle of Armageddon. So the beast as this period brings itself to an end the beast will of course known as Satan knows that Christ is coming back.
The beast will say we must now mobilize the entire world to resist the return of Jesus Christ. We can destroy Him we can succeed. And their agents will be these spirits these demons who go out and perform miracles in front of the kings and persuade them that the beast and the false prophet have this power and the dragon has this power.
And they will assemble the world armies. They will mobilize in the plain of Armageddon. They will flow down to the city of Jerusalem and to the base of the Mount of Olives where Jesus is prophesied to come. And they will engage Him in battle with disastrous results for them.
But the battle of Armageddon is not another world war between the nations of the earth. It's a world war in the sense of the world versus God. The world versus Jesus Christ. Yes. Well the Holy Spirit is working first of all obviously through the two witnesses.
Their prophecies their miracles are the work of the Holy Spirit. We also know from Revelation 7 that there will be enormous number of people saved during this period. First of all there will be 144,000 who are saved Jewish men I believe. They're probably the evangelists who carry the message worldwide.
And then John sees a vision of Gentiles from every tribe tongue and nation and He asks who they are and He's told that these are those who have come out of the great tribulation have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. While the world as a whole will be unrepentant this will be a great revival in the sense that multitudes of men and women will come to personal faith in Jesus Christ.
So the Holy Spirit is very much active in this. One of the things we must notice here we live in a society which has told us that God is a benign God if He's any kind of a God and He would never do disastrous things. And we have lost the vision of God our society has lost the vision of God as the creator who has a right to judge the world who has a right to punish the world for its iniquity and rebellion.
And the two prophets will reintroduce the world to the creator God who is also the judge of all men. It'll be a very difficult reintroduction but the outcome will still be wonderful in the sense that multitudes will turn to Christ and be saved. Yes. Yes you have heard that somewhere.
That is an interpretation that is given to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. It talks about the one who restrains shall be taken out of the world and that is usually used as a proof text for the rapture of the church. I must say I'm not persuaded by either of those interpretations there and I'd rather not get into my interpretation of 2 Thessalonians that would take what little time I have left.
I think we can say that the church in the Spirit will leave the world in the sense only that it indwells the church and the church will go. But a world without the operation of the Spirit would be a world in which God was not doing anything and God is doing a great deal during the tribulation including the conversion of souls.
So the Holy Spirit is here but I would say He's here in the Old Testament sense and not in the New Testament sense. That's the way I would put it. Yes. Ow that that would suggest that however. Al it's interesting as you study the book of Revelation that God is presented as the God of heaven and earth.
He created the heavens and the earth and the seas and the fountains of the water. And it is interesting here and and they blasphemed later it said they blasphemed the God of heaven who has power over these plagues. There is perhaps the suggestion that God is viewed as having power in heaven but not being sovereign on earth.
That's a possibility but it would not surprise me that as a result of this that lots of people would get saved. You remember the story in the Old Testament where the Syrians were defeated by Ahab and the advisors to the king of Syria said the reason we suffered this defeat is because the God of the Hebrews is the God of the hills.
And if we fight Him in the valleys we won't be defeated. And so they mobilize again and try to engage in the battle in the in the valleys. I may have it reversed. It may have been the valley the mountains and they're going to engage them in the mountains or something like that.
But the point that is made there is that God sends a prophet to Ahab and He says because they have called Me the God of the mountains and not the God of the valleys I'm going to deliver them into your hand. In other words they questioned they thought God had limited power. And there may be a situation like that here.
Because the Satan will need to deceive the world into thinking that God's powers are limited and rather than unlimited. Otherwise they don't have a chance. So He may be presented as a deity whose power is in the sky or in in heaven but Lucifer has power on earth. And if we fight Him on earth when He comes to earth we'll beat Him on earth something like that.
But you may be right and I wouldn't even question what you're suggesting but there may be a little bit more to it than that. Okay let's take a few minutes and then we'll be finished for the evening. Come back to Matthew 24. We haven't forgotten that that's the passage we're dealing with.
We read together the first unit of Matthew 24 what I have called a survey or overview of the day of the Lord in Matthew 24 verses 4 to 14. Will you notice that this overview divides itself into really two parts. The first part is from verses 4 to 8 where the statement is made all these are the beginning of sorrows.
Now let me pause here on this. You see that phrase in Matthew 24:8 all these are the beginning of sorrows. The word that is used here for sorrows refers to the labor pains of a woman who is giving birth to a child. And it is a very common expression in the Bible for the labor pains of the world during the day of the Lord.
If you will just permit me to let you turn over to 1 Thessalonians 5. Keep your place in Matthew 24. I think I can show you that that idea. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 1.
But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.
So the first half of the 70th week marks the beginning of the labor pains of the world. As we have already pointed out the world is struck repeatedly by divine judgments by plagues that are poured out on it. These are the beginning of travail pains.
Then there comes the period which we call the great tribulation which is the last half week in which the judgments of God are consummated. Man is defeated and the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ is established. Now in covering this period of time in the brief and surveying way in which He is doing it we notice several things.
In this first half of the unit we have reference to religious deception which will be multiplied during that period of time. And we also have reference to wars and rumors of wars famines pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places. This is our Lord's way of covering the dramatic and tragic events which we have described from Revelation chapter 8 and 9.
But notice that the second half says then they will deliver you up to tribulation. All right what happens here at the middle of the week as we have seen the two witnesses will be killed. But by this time they have many converts no doubt mainly Jewish converts.
And these Jewish converts will become the new missionaries the 144,000 I would suggest from the book of Revelation. Notice that that is a multiple of 12 12 times 12,000. So we now have you know Jesus started with 12 men. Now the new world revival will start with 12 times 12,000 with 144,000 missionaries going out into all of the world.
But they will suffer persecution as will all Christians. But notice the way that the section ends verse 14. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come.
So God has His own program during the 70th week in addition to the judgments that He's pouring out upon the world. First of all He is creating the groundswell for revival through the ministry of the two witnesses and through their converts in Israel. When the beast steps into power then these people will have to flee for their lives and the missionaries will go all over the world.
We'll see further reference to them I think in Matthew chapter 25. They will evangelize the nations. This gospel must be preached in all the world for a witness and then the end shall come. So when God is finished with this last great world revival the Lord Jesus Christ will come back in power and glory.
Put down the world's final rebellion and establish His kingdom a kingdom upon earth forever and forever. Questions right back here. In the second Thessalonians chapter 2 it does speak of God's sending strong delusion that they should believe a lie who believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
I believe that that teaches that those who have rejected heard and rejected the gospel prior to the rapture will be deceived by the delusion that comes from Satan through the man of sin. But there are still multitudes of people on earth especially in the third world countries who have not heard the gospel.
I've never consciously rejected it and therefore there's a huge mission field still out there. We wish that it were true that the church were reaching every single individual but it's not. And so what will happen here apparently is that those who have previously heard the gospel and rejected it will not get saved during the tribulation period.
But those who have not previously heard the gospel will have the opportunity to be saved. It's very clear if you look at Revelation chapter 7 that there are a great multitude of Gentiles who come out of the great tribulation wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb. Yes yes I think so because the 12 there are twelve thousand sealed out of each of the 12 tribes of Israel.
So the each tribe will be represented by twelve thousand missionaries. God is able to accomplish that. I you know I understand that the Jews can in some cases trace their tribal origins in other cases probably cannot but God knows who they are and we'll win that kind of representation from each of the tribes.
One of the things we've noticed in our own day and time of course is that as a result of the collapse of Russia and the collapse of the communist bloc in Eastern Europe that there has been an enormous influx into Israel of Jews from the former Soviet empire. And that is likely to continue. It's abated a little bit now but there's still people going up there.
I remember seeing a picture in Time Magazine of people in the Tel Aviv airport just a mob of people a sea of people who just arrived from Russia. So by the time that the Lord reaches the point where He needs these missionaries the possibility of having something like 500,000 converts is not out of the question.
And of those 500,000 there might easily be 144,000 who become preachers of the gospel. I think what we're looking at is a first of all an amazing revival in Israel which then spreads through the agency of the 144,000 to the ends of the earth. So although this is a very tragic period it's also a very fruitful period and a triumph for the gospel of the grace of God.
Thank you for your attention. We'll pick up our study of Matthew 24 the Lord willing tomorrow night.