The End is Near or Nearer Matthew 24-25

 

We hear many voices today declaring that we are near or nearer to the Apocalypse. These words can be disconcerting and frightening. Jesus himself addressed the question of the details of the end of days. Matthew, one of the faithful disciples of Christ, carefully wrote what Jesus told them. And we are the better prepared for the days ahead because of it.

 

The discourse of Jesus found in Matthew 24-25 is regarding the end of human history as we know it. I challenge you to read both chapters right now. In this chapter we see that there will be the dawn of a totally new era, a new heaven and new earth. But before that newness breaks open there will be much trouble and persecution.

 

Did you know that Jesus is coming again? He is. And that is a promise, a very great and true promise. At his second coming, life as we know it will change and end. This is not a promise of doom for those who love God and are faithful to his purposes. For theirs is the kingdom of God. It is a promise of doom for those who are rebellious against God.

 

Doom can be defined as an unhappy destiny or judgment. For those of us who have been acquainted with the Christian walk this is part of the reality we find in Christ. The other part is the reality of forgiveness for sins, the promise of present help in trouble, and the hope of a real life we live with God. For those outside of the faith, it is and should be a terrifying prospect. For God has set a limit on Satan's power and on the length of days evil people can exploit his world.

 

Just before Jesus entered into his time of trial and crucifixion, he told his disciples about what could be expected during this great final exchange—the ultimate exchange for good to triumph and evil to end.

 

I do not claim to be an expert on the end times. There are many out there who make this claim and have studied the details of prophecy seeking to make timelines, deadlines and absolute identities of countries and leaders who they feel are the antichrist. I do not do this. We want to learn what Jesus said about this.

 

I do want to explain two things that I believe. 1) Although there are many theories and theologies about who will be taken when, I believe with all my heart that God will ultimately protect his faithful people. 2) Protection of the highest sort does not necessarily mean the absence of physical suffering or death. Indeed, Jesus himself taught us how to suffer willingly. What we see in these two chapters is the reality of soul-protection from the evil one. Many have gone before us who have suffered and died as martyrs. When faced with the opportunity to deny Christ they did not. Our faith rests beyond the present suffering and in the future joy that has been promised to those who love God with all their heart, soul, body and mind and who love their neighbors as themselves. God's grace will sustain us through many things that we might think we cannot bear. I think of the many Christians who died in the early Roman world. They died by torture, crucifixion, torn apart by animals in arenas and by burning. They did not deny the Christ who gave himself for them. Today many are still subjected to these actions and it is Christ within them, the Hope of glory, who enables them to stand firm, forgive those who persecute and kill them and live victoriously into God's new future. In this light let us enter into the text that Matthew wrote reminding us of what Jesus taught about the end of the age.

 

In Matthew 24:1-14 Jesus again reminds the disciples that what they see now with their eyes is not the final picture. As much as God commanded the Temple to be built, the greater truth is that God desires to live next to us without walls and curtains and sacrifices. It is God's great work to get us back to his initial plan—a creation where we walk in the cool of the evening with him. So, the disciples were beginning to grasp that this Jesus they knew was the true Messiah and will see to it that the world order they experienced will be totally changed. In Matthew 24 will there are around a dozen signs or indicators of the time of the final reversal of sin. It is clear that we already see some of the signs. But Jesus consoles the disciples by telling them not to be alarmed. Such things must happen. They must happen because evil and Satan are real forces in this world and must be dealt with in a violent way. The whole earth groans and waits for Christ's return and for the way it is supposed to be. Because of that the world is beginning to experience the labor pains necessary for new birth.

 

You may know of someone who calls themselves the Christ today.  I have yet to hear someone say that to me. There are many who portray themselves as having the power of Christ, though. There are many who act like they are God. But the day that I hear someone say on television or in a public meeting that they are the Christ, then I will know the end is near. This sign, combined with others, will be what we have been told to watch for.

 

Jesus went on to describe the lifestyle for believers during these last days. In verses 9-14 we read about persecution and death, hatred and false prophets, increasing wickedness and love growing cold. Oh friends, we may face some very difficult things. We may be tempted to turn from God because of false prophets. And make no mistake, there are plenty of those out there today! We may betray and hate one another if we allow ourselves to be deceived by the falsehood and lies that surround us. Our hearts may grow cold because we love wickedness more than righteousness.

 

But our hearts may not grow cold. We may be disgusted by wickedness. We may remain faithful and love one another. That is an option for us! What Jesus gave to all his disciples that day and today is a heads-up on the end of times. We do not have to be surprised or disheartened by the things to come. We have the promise of salvation! And God sees to it that his kingdom is being preached to nation after nation today! By whatever means necessary—be that radio, television, local Church ministries, missionaries risking their lives, neighbor speaking to neighbor—God's Word will go out for salvation!

 

Let’s look specifically at verses 15-35, please remember that in this chapter are words to guide and comfort believers, as well as a call to repentance for those who have not turned to God. Your response to this text all depends on the choice you have made for or against Jesus Christ.

 

Jesus was responding to the disciples’ question of when the end of time will come and what the signs of the end of that time will be. You can read in Matthew of several signs which include people claiming to be the Christ, nation rising against nation, famines, earthquakes, persecution, people betraying one another and wickedness increasing. Sounds pretty frightening, doesn't it? But it depends on your choice.

 

I watched a fascinating documentary on the different ways the women choose to birth their babies. I watched as women paced, mode, cried out and even screamed as the child in the womb became the child in their arms. One of the mothers said that the pain was bad, but since she knew what it was for, she quickly forgot it after she held her baby in her arms. Isn't that wonderful?

 

And I think that that is God's way for his new creation. We will have to go through a new birth.  Even the heavens and the earth have to go through a new birth. I am sure that if you asked any mother experiencing labor pains if they were enjoying the pain they would say no. Labor is not enjoyable. But the outcome of that labor is wonderful! And that makes all the difference.

 

One of the labor pains that will be experienced will be the "abomination that causes desolation." This concept is one from the Old Testament book of Daniel. You can find specific references to this in Daniel 9:27, 11:31 and 12:11. Daniel was a great prophet who lived centuries before Jesus’ arrival on earth. God gave him magnificent and frightening visions of the work that would need to be done as labor pains before all that newness broke through. Jesus’ reference to this abomination would have been common knowledge for anyone who had grown up in and around the synagogues.

 

For centuries many people have conjectured what this abomination is. There is no final answer. Some, in fact, believe that it has already happened. When Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70 by the Romans, they replaced symbols of God's presence inside the temple with symbols of the so-called divine Roman Emperor who was worshiped in that area. It would be fruitless for us to decide that that was absolutely the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy, for indeed we do not know for certain. But it was a great and terrible thing to hang a false god’s symbol inside the house of the one true God! Perhaps this particular instance was just another stroke of labor pain.

 

What can we take note of in Matthew 24:15-35? People will need to flee from the great persecution. Movement will be restricted because of the great dangers. It will be very difficult for women actually pregnant and nursing. These women need a great deal of safety, rest and protection during these times. For them it will be most difficult. There will be great trouble for everyone, more than anyone has experienced before. Even believers will be tempted to go along with the false prophets. But many will stand against that temptation. This sounds so much like things that are happening in our world today.  Friends, are you listening to the times?

 

Jesus continued to console the believers by telling them that God will still be looking out for those who love him by cutting this time of labor short. Thanks be to God for this promise! How dreadful it would be otherwise.

 

There will be more signs. The things that we set our days, clocks and maps by will no longer be sources of security. The sun and moon will be darkened. Then, and only then, will the Light of the world break in on us.

 

In verses 30-31 we read of the final sign of his coming. If you are looking for signs and wonders, look for these, my friend! The coming Messiah, the Son of Man, will explode into the darkness with his wonderful and glorious light.  No one will miss this coming. It will be apparent to all.

 

And what will be the response from humanity? Mourning. In one incredible revelation every human being will be confronted with the purity and holiness of Messiah Triumphant. The only response to the pure and holy God from impure people will be the stark reality of our nakedness and the sinful world. We will weep with the knowledge of how little we knew about him. We will crumble to the ground in grief, understanding how many times we have failed him as his creatures.

 

Then a beautiful and glorious thing will happen. The angels themselves will call his beloved ones, the ones who have received him as their God and Savior, and draw them out of the rubble of weeping humanity to God himself. This is God's goal through all the labor pains. As it was in the Garden of Eden, so it will be in the new heaven and the new earth.

 

The coming Messiah has given us wonderful words. Do not be afraid, my believing friend. He will never give you anything you cannot handle and his presence will be in your life. Be aware of the signs of the coming Messiah and rest in his promise of ultimate protection and eternity with him.

 

Do be afraid, unbeliever, for your fate is worse than death itself. There is time to repent now there will not be time when you are placed in eternal hell. He wanted you to be free so badly that he sent his one and only Son to die for your sins. He planned ahead of time for your salvation. God loves you so much that he sent his only Son, the coming Messiah, to cover your sins and the sins of the world by his precious blood, to rise again victorious after his bodily death, then to come back a second time to absolutely redeem you and his world. Ask him to forgive you and protect you today and the Coming Messiah will receive you.

 

Make your list of the signs, friend. Memorize them because Jesus taught us that his words will never pass away. Even in the midst of tribulation his Word will keep you safe with hope and alert with joy. Watch the world as it turns in the human community and as it moves into labor. Everyone who hears these words must repent in order to receive the consolation of the Triumphant Messiah.

 

Amen

 

© M.R.Hyde 2024

Identity in the Church – A Quick Study on Division - 1 Corinthians 1:1-18

The Apostle Paul had been in Corinth for several years helping to build and grow a Christian church there. As an evangelist he was always wanting to get things started, establish local leadership and press on into the horizon to establish another and another church. His message was urgent, his preaching was unvarnished and, more importantly, it was imbued with love. He pushed off from the shore of the new Christian church in Corinth, but kept in touch with them. We have two of his letters to them preserved as 1^st and 2^nd Corinthians.

 

It is clear from his letters that he loved these Christians in Corinth. What love had filled Paul’s life? It was the love of God through Jesus Christ. In several of his letters, we can read the accounts of his pre-Christian behavior, describing himself as having been a powerful and loveless religious leader, bent on the destruction of those new Christians. But then he became one of them. That day on the Damascus road he was struck down by the weight and beauty of the ­­pure, altruistic love of Christ Jesus. From that point forward not only was Paul converted to the way of Christ, but he continued to grow and mature as a Christian. For a lengthy time he sat under the steady teaching of Aquilla and Pricilla, discipled and guided by folks who became his trusted friends. The suffering and persecution he experienced as a Christian also shaped him. There is little doubt that his skills as a religious leader and scholar prior to knowing Christ were transformed as he worked with new bodies of believers to help plant the Christian Church of Jesus Christ.

 

So, when he got word that members of the Corinthian church were squabbling like children, he had to address it. It’s important for us to be realistic about this situation, especially in relationship to identity and maturity. In all likelihood this church was a very young church with very young Christians. Not that they were all youth, by any means. But in the timeline of the New Testament, they had not been a religious organization for long at all. Think about this. What kinds of growth, jostling and exploration might they have been doing as a relatively newly-gathered group of people trying to be like Christ together and toward the world? It is easy to assume that the Corinthian church was a well-formed, mature body of believers. But it was not. They were learning how to have appropriate structures of governance and accountability. They were still experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit in new and fresh ways. They were still learning how to be loving. They were still immature. They were still struggling with their identities in the Corinthian culture.

 

Not only were they immature, but they also were deeply entrenched in their culture. Craig Keener gives us a quick synopsis of the culture in which these Christians lived.

 

“Corinth was one of the major urban centers of the ancient Mediterranean and one of the most culturally diverse cities in the [Roman] empire. A Greek city by location, the capital of Achaea (which made up most of Greece), Corinth had been a Roman colony for about a century, resettled by Romans after its destruction, and Greek and Latin cultures coexisted and sometimes clashed here. Its location on the isthmus of Corinth, a short land route across Greece that spared seafarers the more treacherous voyage around the south of Greece, made it a prosperous mercantile community. Its mercantile character contributed to the presence of foreign religions and may have accelerated the level of sexual promiscuity, although promiscuity was characteristic of Greek male culture in general. Corinth was known for its prosperity, and the proverbial sexual looseness of ancient Greek Corinth seems to have continued in Roman Corinth as well.”

 

“Roles were determined by social status in antiquity, and those with wealth and power preferred religious, philosophical and political ideologies that supported their base of power . . . status ideals, although theological errors were involved, the biggest issue was that people were not getting along. The conflicting values of diverse groups in the broader society had been carried over into the church as divisive issues.”[1] 

 

What are some of the first “natural” things humans do when faced with conflict and division?
What is at stake? Often when someone’s identity is attacked or they feel insecure about who they are, they lash out. They are trying to answer these fundamental questions.

•      Who am I?

•      What is my place in the world?

•      Who do I belong to?

•      How can/do I contribute?

 

It seems apparent that some of the new Corinthian Christians were struggling with their identities. And this was creating profound and disturbing divisions in the church. Paul, as the found of this church and traveling to establish other churches, had to write them some letters. These are occasional letters – not every now and then, but written for a particular situation or occasion. Therefore, when we read them, they are quite like listening in on only one side of the conversation. However, in 1 Corinthians, Paul has had some visitors and they had brought him some first-hand reports of identity problems and division in this church.

 

So, what was Paul’s tack in approaching these issues?

 

1.      He told the who he was. We read in 1 Corinthians 1;1 “Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” It is quite clear that Paul knew who he was. This calling and his following of Jesus was what gave him not only the strength, power and authority to call out corrupt behavior, but to give from the vast well of love that God had given him for them.

 

2.      He told them who they were already in Jesus Christ first. They were not citizens of Corinth. They were citizens of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. He called out their new identities over them. We can’t just breeze by these initial verses, because they establish the ground from which Paul can admonish them to grow into the kind of Christians that he knew they could be!

 

Read I Corinthians 1:2-9.

 

Can you list out all of the declarations of identity that Paul speaks over them?

·         A church of the One True God (not a political, social entity or pagan religion) v. 2

·         Sanctified in Christ Jesus v. 2

·         Called to be His holy people v. 2

·         Together will all who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ – everywhere v. 2

·         Grateful to be members v. 4

·         Covered by God’s grace v. 4

·         Enriched in every way, and in speech and knowledge, by being in God through Christ Jesus v. 5

·         With Christ among them v. 5

·         God-confirmed v. 6

·         Not lacking in any spiritual gift v. 7

·         Awaiting the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ v. 7

·         Kept firm by Christ to the end – for a blameless life v. 8

·         Called into fellowship with Jesus Christ. v. 9

 

That’s an amazing list of positive gifts that Paul said they already had from God! Because they placed their faith in Jesus Christ they were already transformed into citizens of the Kingdom of God. But they were not yet certain of their identities in Christ. And this led to a lot of trouble and division.

 

Read I Corinthians 1:10-17.

 

These dear Christians were getting things very wrong. Richard Thompson wrote: “Believers still had too much ‘Corinth’ in them.”[2]  There were many great tragedies in the Corinthian church that Paul articulated. The first was mistaken identity. They were not of Christ. They were still identifying themselves with other people—deriving from them their position in society. Their roles were determined by social status—power by association. Human power was preferred over the power of Jesus Christ—which could help them overcome their weaknesses and sin. They were clinging to philosophical and political ideologies to support their base of power and their positions in the church. This led to fractured fellowship, disunity and division.

 

One of the great tragedies was that Jesus Christ was lowered to the same status as any other human and used as a tool to declare their human power. He was just one of the bunch – not the Supreme Sacrifice and Savior!

 

Paul didn’t need to spend a lot of time on himself because he knew the greatest need was for Jesus Christ to dwell and rule in their hearts. The Wycliffe Bible Commentary states: “Paul is not defending himself against opponents but addressing the misbehavior of the Corinthians . . .The Gospel must never be presented as a human philosophical system, it must be preached as a salvation.”[3] Kevin Anderson described that the Corinthian Church needed to be perfectly united in purpose, restored to proper condition, rearticulating bones out of joint.[4]     

 

And all of this is so that they could follow the teaching of the Savior, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35) The Source of true Christian identity is not found in our culture, our politics, or our particular Christian practices. It is found in Jesus Christ! With him as our singular focus, divisions and disputes can melt into forgiveness, understanding, prayer, compassion, and love—real love for our Christian brothers and sisters.

 

What did the non-believers in Corinth learn about Christianity through the un-Christ-like behavior of some of the people in the Corinthian church? Why would they be attracted to Jesus Christ when they saw this or heard of it? What of our churches today?

 

We need to return to the fundamental questions of identity as Christians by answering these questions.  

•      Who am I? Where is my identity grounded?

•      What is my place in the world?

•      Who do I belong to?

•      How can/do I contribute?

 

Perhaps we can all declare these statements together:

•      I am a disciple of Jesus Christ – learning how to be like Him in all ways.

•      I find my identity in Him and can effect positive changes through the power of the Holy Spirit.

•      I belong to Christ and His Church – becoming who I can be in Him.

•      I contribute to the Church and the world by – forgiving, offering grace, being humble and prayerful, and declaring the Gospel which I have gladly received.

 

Amen

 

© M.R.Hyde 2024

 

 

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[1] IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL, 1993, p. 451-452

[2] Illustrated Bible Life, Spring 2024, The Foundry Press, Kansas City, MO.

[3] Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Moody Press, Chicago, IL 1990, p. 1231

[4] Illustrated Bible Life, Spring 2024, The Foundry Press, Kansas City, MO.