Episode 81 Matthew 24 Destruction or Return

Dan: (00:00)
Hi, everyone. And welcome to training for life redeemed. I’m your host, Dan. Today I, with my father David Jackson, today, we are diving into Matthew chapter 24, as we continue our series of the book of Matthew and chapter 24. If you’ve read chapter 24, anytime recently, you’ll understand that chapter 24 is generally quite, difficult to work out what it means highly debated about what is talking about, which aspect of time. So we are gonna walk you through the three major events that Jesus is gonna be talking about. Dad, let’s start with the kind of basic one, the one the disciples asked for, right? They, they came, they asked him when Jerusalem was gonna be destroyed, right? Because he’d told them that, you know, look at this beautiful temple, not one Rock’s gonna be left on another. Yep. and having been there and seen what the Romans did to the temple and seen, you know, those big rocks that have been pushed off the side of the cliff. Yeah. Yep. they did a good job. I think they did destroy that. So Jesus then tells them when that’s gonna happen. Right.

David: (01:07)
well

David: (01:10)
Yeah. They’ve, they’ve got it in their mind that Jesus is gonna bring in the kingdom of God. And they’re thinking geopolitical kingdom drive out the Romans take over the world. One will be treasurer. One will be prime minister and Jesus will be king. They still don’t get it. Even after the resurrection, they’re gonna turn around and say to him, is it now, you know, can we start running the country now? They just, they still don’t get it. But here it’s Tuesday day, he’s finished teaching in the temple. He’s had his argument with everybody and they’re walking outta the temple and the disciples are going past this building going, oh wow. And it is, it was wow. you know, there’s a massive building it’s covered in white marble and gold plate and all sorts of things. Great Marvel of the world. And Jesus says, don’t worry about it, fellas.

David: (02:06)
It won’t be one stone left on another and they are shocked. They assume that if that’s gonna happen, it must be the end of the world. Hmm. So they ask what they think is one question, but it’s actually two, when will this happen? And when will the end of the world be? So that’s how we begin the chapter. And Jesus then breaks up their one question in their mind into three events and they need to be able to separate those three events. And I’m afraid the history of Bible interpretation and every crazy person. This, this is gonna talk about false prophets and people who lead you astray. My goodness, Matthew 24 is where everybody goes crazy and leads everybody astray. Yeah. and the English translations don’t help. So for example, the heading in my new American standard has signs of Christ’s return,

Dan: (03:04)
But nothing in there is about Jesus’ return.

David: (03:06)
It’s not about Jesus return at all. you know, and there, there are two events in the chapter or two words that, that are linked to two separate events. So you have the word coming. So the son of man comes and then you have the son of man’s parousia his appearance. So all of this, if you haven’t read Daniel seven, then the whole thing may as well have been written in a foreign language. so really to get this, you gotta go back to Daniel seven.

Dan: (03:40)
Okay. So Daniel seven, you’re talking about the prophecy that Daniel makes about the so he’s have vision, I guess it’s not so much a prophecy. He sees a vision of someone who looks like a son of man, going on the clouds and returning to the son of day, son of son of days. goodness. I’m doing well. to the ancient of days, right. ascending up into heaven and he’s seated on a throne right next to God. Yeah. Basically. and so it’s interesting the whole way through Jesus been referring to himself as the son of men. Yep. and so would not surprise me to then have him talk about the event from the old Testament where the son of man is talked about riding clouds going up into heaven. Yeah. So which one of those is it that is Jesus going on a cloud? Is that he’s coming? Cause he’s going, or is it his appearance? Because I feel like it’s more of a disappearance if he’s coming up

David: (04:37)
And there’s, there’s the whole confusion, so, I remember I was actually sitting at an academic conference in Italy and I’ve got all these guys from all these universities sitting around the table, discussing Daniel. and they’re all talking about Jesus’s coming as if he was coming down. And I just, I put my hand up in the middle of this, you know, these are great professors from all around the world. And this little voice from Australia says, why are you assuming he’s coming down? Didn’t he come up? And you could have, you could have heard a pin drop. The whole room was never thought of that. We we’re. So self-centered that when we hear the word son of man coming, we think he’s coming to me,

David: (05:24)
But we’ve gotta stop and go back and read the text. He’s coming on the clouds of heaven to the ancient of days. He’s coming up to God to be enthroned. So when we’re talking about, in this past in Matthew 24, the son of man coming, we’re talking about Jesus’ Ascension. So Jesus dies on a cross three days later rises from the dead six weeks later, he jumps on a cloud in the ascends to heaven. Mm-hmm Daniel 7:13, 14, the summer man did his thing. Okay. Not, I can’t find a Bible, an English Bible with a cross reference between Daniel 7:13, 14, and Acts one, nine and 10.

Dan: (06:06)
Yeah. This is a bit ridiculous. It it’s so clear

David: (06:09)
And it confuses everything. So Jesus is telling these people that in lifetime, they will see the son of man get on a cloud, go to heaven in his glory and be enthroned, with the angels in heaven. And from there, he’s going to rule every nation, tribe and language. People will come and worship him and his disciples are gonna go out to the whole world and call in all of his redeemed people.

Dan: (06:39)
Yeah.

David: (06:40)
So this is the gospel mission.

Dan: (06:42)
Yeah. And I find quite often in the Bible, the lack of the, of translating the word anggelos, just cause he gets translated as angels. And you’re like, well, it’s not the word. anggelos just means a messenger. Yeah. Normally it’s a messenger from God who’s being sent so often it is an angel. Yep. but God’s messenger can be Abraham. It can be Moses. It can be Peter James, John

David: (07:06)
. Yeah. And Malachi’s name is my messenger. Yeah. My angel. So what we’re looking at here, there is a passage that talks about when the son of appears, he comes with his angels to bring down judgment that’s in revelation. and you see that whole vision, but on this occasion, he’s not sending them out to destroy the world. He’s sending them out

Dan: (07:32)
To gather them in,

David: (07:33)
To, to gather, to call to summon. This is a gospel mission. and it’s the harvest language that you hear. the, the harvest is plentiful. The workers, a few call on the, on the father to send out more messengers. That’s what’s going on. So he’s, we’ve got a picture. Jesus coming out of the temple, walking across the Kidron valley, sitting down on a rock somewhere on the Mount of olives, looking straight back at the temple and trying to explain to these guys what’s gonna happen during the rest of their lifetime, because they’ve gotta be ready to have all of their thinking. Just totally upended.

Dan: (08:13)
Yeah. And you were saying, look, we were chatting before we did this. And you were saying that, you know, the Parable of learning stuff from The fig tree, it’s not the parable, but learning from The fig tree that, you know, when you see it budding, you know, that it’s gonna produce fruit, you know, these things are gonna happen. Right. You’re just predictive. Right. And anyone who’s Mediterranean and has a fig tree in their backyard knows exactly what we’re talking about. . Yep. and so when that comes then to Jesus saying, you know, because like take the lesson from that, when you see these things happen, know that it’s about to happen, right. Yeah. And, he’s got a lot of instructions in here about, you know, going and hiding and away, when this destruction’s coming. Yeah. because it is, you know, when you look at history, these absolutely terrible what the Romans end up doing.

Dan: (08:57)
Yeah. and what the Jews are doing, trying to get away from it, et cetera. and it’s, it’s really quite, it’s very clear judgment language. I think like, just gonna turn over here and have a look that verse 29, when it talks about, you know, the sun being darkened, the moon, not giving its light, the stars falling from the sky, the same language is used in the old Testament for the judgment when Babylon come and destroy Jerusalem. That’s right. and then you’ve got this language being used here, which, you know, if you’ve been listening to our last two episodes, Jesus has been talking to the Jewish leaders, telling them that they’re about to get judged for what they’re about to do to him. And yeah, we’ve got all these parables of essentially God sending his message, like sending off and destroying the, the city where these guys were, because they weren’t giving back to God, the Kings due to God,

David: (09:49)
you know, when the stewards don’t rebel against him and kill the prophets and kill the son did come in and destroyed their city. And he’s told them that repeatedly, but now the disciples have gotta get their head around what he’s been talking about.

David: (10:02)
Yeah. And that, that’s a bit of a challenge. This language of, you know, the moon is sun will be dark and the moon gonna be dark. And the stars stars don’t fall out of the sky. I mean, for heaven’s sake, it’s like the language in enacts chapter in Joel, you know, the, the sun will be darkened and the moon will turn to blood. Yeah. Anybody who knows their, the superstitions of the day knows that if you see any of these, these are omens and you’re supposed to go, Ooh, the uoogly googlies in the sky have got it for us. Right. so, you know, we’re worried about, we’re watching the stars, we’re reading our horoscopes, we’re doing all of this. And he’s saying all of that is just gonna collapse. Every bad Omen you’ve ever dreamed of is gonna land on your head on the same day.

David: (10:51)
now let me take a couple of those. My favorite is in acts two in Joel. if the sun is darkened, we normally think of an eclipse. Yep. And everybody’s, you know, immediately going out and sacrificing birds to, you know, whatever statue they’ve got hanging around. Yep. There’s a thing called a blood moon. Yep. We all know blood moons. They happen regularly. Go out there. The moon turns absolutely blood red. That’s an eclipse of the moon. Well, here’s the geometry of that. You can’t have the moon block out the sun from the earth and the earth block out the sun from the moon at the same time, the physics just doesn’t work. Right. Yep. But if you want to talk about Omens, he’s saying mate, when God’s judgment falls, think of every bad Omen you’ve ever dreamed of, it’s gonna land right on your head. Only worse. This is the fall of all the powers. The authorities are things you put your faith in. and they’re gonna come crashing down on your head because the son of man is going to be enthroned in heaven and he’s taking over and replacing all of this. It’s it’s an exciting picture.

Dan: (12:07)
Okay. So that you mentioned that there’s the coming of Jesus, but the other word parousia the appearance stuff. So does that mean that if the coming is going up and Jesus Ascension, and that then means everything’s happening in this lifetime where the judgment of Jerusalem. So when does Jesus then switch over to talking about his appearance, which I can only presume is his next coming, which hasn’t happened yet.

David: (12:33)
That’s right. so there’s a switch in verse 35. So in verse 34, he says, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. And then in verse 35, he says heaven and earth will pass away. My words won’t. But of that day, that’s the day when heaven and earth passes away. I don’t even know when it’s gonna happen. So once the fall of Jerusalem, you can see that coming. And when you see it coming, go, run for your life. But the second coming, what we call the second coming, the appearance judgment day, you won’t see that coming. That’s gonna be a shocker. and God has planned it because he’s going to catch you either being faithful or not. And you have to be prepared for that. And that’s, as long as you’ve got, he’s gonna delay that day because we’ve gotta spend that time going out and telling the whole world, giving them an informed choice so that they can come to Christ before judgment falls later on in the Bible, he’ll tell us that he has set that day for a time to give people room to repent.

David: (13:52)
So this is the grace of God, but we don’t know that day, but you can see the fall of Jerusalem coming a mile away. And what do you do? I mean, when Jesus comes back, there’s no point, you know, running from your house, you can’t head for the Hills. That’s not gonna do you any good. But if the Romans are coming, fast as you can. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a grand scene. So one of the other things that we’ve messed around with is this little passage about Noah and the flood. So Jesus says in the second coming, his parousia is gonna be like the days of the flood. Well, the flood was a judgment. he baptized the world in water, washed it clean and started again. But that’s a warning. The final judgment is a baptism of fire. Yeah. So when that comes, that is the end of the world. But you get this interesting language. when that day comes, some will be taken and some will be left.

David: (15:00)
Now we get the idea. A guy’s actually made millions of dollars, writing a book, bunch of books called left behind, right? Here’s a problem with that little series of books left behind who’s left and who’s taken the ones who are taken are the ones who are dead. okay. The flood takes them away. The ones who are left are the redeemed who are taken to be with God in glory. So if you go to the Thessalonians passage, the so-called rapture passage, you know, those who are alive with when Christ returns, they are taken to be with him in the air, in that story taken means you are saved. Yeah. In this passage taken means you are dead. because you are taken out by the flood. Yeah. And so when we put these things together and we mix ’em all up, we end up with a whole different gospel.

David: (16:03)
So the punchline of Matthew 24 is don’t worry about the wars and the famines and the climate change and everything else. God’s got it all under control. Jesus is on his throne that he said it would happen. And it happened. The Temple’s gone. You don’t need the temple anymore. Jesus is your temple. Holy spirits come to dwell in you. You are a temple. So Hey folks, what are we doing here? We’re enduring a world, gone mad. That’s all under control. And we’re gonna go out there and tell people about Jesus so that when he comes back, we will be alive forever in a new creation. There’s your plan in Matthew 24. Don’t panic. just enjoy the ride. It’s all about to happen. This is Tuesday, Thursday night. The bomb goes off. Yeah. the starting pistol is shot and away. We go.

Dan: (17:02)
Well, dad, thank you very much. That brings us to the end of this episode. If you would like to grab the study notes that go along with this episode, please head over to trainingforliferedeemed.com/81. And if you enjoyed the episode, we would love for you to leave us a review and make sure you hit the subscribe button, come back and join us again. Next week, when we continue to look through Matthew 25.