I'm going to through the entire chapter of Matthew 24 and share a few thoughts about it as we read along.
Matthew 24:1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.
Matthew 24:2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
Jesus was talking about the upcoming destruction of the 2nd Temple which was to happen a few decades after He spoke those words. On the surface He was talking about the physical building being destroyed but in scripture there are often many layers to be uncovered. I think there is a spiritual lesson here as well. Today we tend to think of a church as a building. You drive by it during the week and think to yourself "there is my church." But a church (ekklesia in the original New Testament Greek) is really an assembly or gathering of Gods people whether you are surrounded by four walls or out in an open field. Now notice in verse 1 Christ's disciples follow Him out of the building in which Jesus had been speaking. Jesus then continues to teach them outside the building, telling them the building itself is irrelevant and will be destroyed. Likewise as believers we must remember that the buildings we meet in today are not "the church" but we are the church. We are only part of the true body of Christ when we following Him outside the building and let Him teach us wherever we are. If the only time you spend with Jesus is an hour or two every week at "church" then you really aren't part of THE church.
Matthew 24:3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?
Matthew 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Matthew 24:5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
Verse 24:4 is the most important warning in the entire chapter. Jesus goes on to forewarn of many things which can get us killed but those things won't cost us our salvation. However being deceived by false prophets just might cost you everything.
Matthew 24:6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
He says to "see that ye be not troubled" by these things you cannot control. What should you be troubled by? Deception by false prophets and false Christs. Why should those things concern you? Because you can do something about it! You can learn to spot false prophets and study the truths of the bible to prevent from being deceived. In verse 7 Jesus continues to foretell of things we will not be able to prevent. There's nothing wrong with keeping track of these things but we should focus on the preventable things.
The key to remember about these warnings is that they are a mixture of things we can and cannot prevent. You have the ability to prevent yourself from being deceived... but it takes due diligence. Are you in the word daily? Or are you only in the word at church once a week? And do you actually follow Jesus wherever He leads you or only when He leads you where you want to go? 2 Timothy 4:3-4 says "For the time will come when they [people who profess to be followers of Christ] will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." Why? Because they only follow Jesus when it makes them happy to do so. That type of mindset is preventable... and if any of us have that problem right now the good news is the Holy Spirit can change us; He can and will lead us into all truth if we surrender our will to Him.
As for the wars, the disasters and the diseases we shouldn't think it our place to stop these things from happening. Jesus specifically said these things must happen so preventing these things is not an option.
Matthew 24:7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
Matthew 24:8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Okay so we cannot stop these things from happening. But is praying for God to slow them down for the sake of bringing more non-believers into the assembly an option? I think so. And also to give the lost sheep, those who profess to be believers but are straying from the path, more time to repent. But make no mistake, the Lord will not spare a people who reject Him once their cup of iniquity has overflowed. I'm an American by birth, but my loyalty is to God by the rebirth He offers me through the blood of Jesus. Whatever past claims this country had to being a Christian are irrelevant. The United States has long since ceased to be a Christian nation and even though it will make people angry, I'm placing the blame squarely on the church. If that angers you let me ask you a few questions. Do you think this country was ever really a Christian nation? I do although we have always had our flaws. If you say "no I don't think this was ever really a Christian nation" then you have no reason be upset. But if you say "yes I think this country was (or still is) a Christian nation" then I have a couple more questions. Do you think as a society we have been dumbed down spiritually? Morally? Politically? Do you think the education system in this country has been dumbed down? If you said yes to any of those I have one final question. How can you dumb down a Christian nation unless you dumb down Christianity first? Sorry if it angers you, but the if the church in general was doing its job this country would not be in the state of decay it is in now.
Remember when Abraham pleaded with God to spare the city of Sodom (see Genesis 18:20-33). Because his nephew Lot and his family lived in Sodom, Abraham asked the Lord to spare that city if at least 50 righteous people could be found living there. Abraham eventually talked the Lord into sparing Sodom if only 10 righteous people could be found. Did He find 10? No, so "the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven" (Genesis 19:24) and I have no doubt the United States has the same fate coming, along with the rest of the world. Jesus said the world in the end times would be "as it was in the days of Noe [Noah] (Luke 17:26). Genesis 6:5 tells us it was like this; "the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." And throughout the bible we are told though the number of God's people (the number of professed believers) will be as the sands of the sea of the sea, only a remnant shall be saved. A lot of people will verbally claim Jesus is Lord, but for most their hearts are actually quite far from Him. In the grand scheme of things there won't be enough truly Godly people in this country to prevent the USA from the same fate as Sodom. Now obviously the bible isn't exclusively for Americans so you can say the same thing about any other country of course. The very next verse in Matthew 24 says Christians in all nations will be afflicted. In fact verses 9 and 10 below continue to foretell of things that are going to happen which we cannot prevent, so we shouldn't think it is our duty to prevent these things. It is our duty to be spiritually strong in Christ so that when they happen we keep the faith because as verse 13 below tells us only those who "shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." So now let's read verses 9 through 14.
Matthew 24:9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.
Matthew 24:10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
Matthew 24:11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
Matthew 24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
Matthew 24:13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
Verse 9; we can't do anything about it. It's going to happen.
Verses 10 and 11; these things will also not be stopped... but you can prevent yourself from being one of those betrayers who hates one another. And you can take heed that those false prophets do not deceive you.
Verse 12; we can't stop it.
Verses 13 and 14; you can be one who endures to the end & you can be one who preaches the gospel.
This pattern continues throughout the chapter. My prayer for us all is that we don't focus to much on the things we cannot stop, but will be diligent about the things we can prevent. I'm not saying it's wrong to pay attention to the unpreventable things just don't obsess over them. The church isn't going to stop earthquakes or any other natural disasters from happening. You won't stop floods, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, meteor's or whatever else comes along but you can help bring people to Christ before they die in one of these types of disasters. And you can help people learn to identify and avoid false prophets too.
Keep in mind you can only help people who are willing to listen to reason; most will reject the truth so don't try to force it on people. Focus on people who want to learn the truth, not on those who only want to easy way out. Sad as it to say, most Christians will fall into the latter category. Read verses 9 through 11 again. But before you do keep two things in mind:
#1) Jesus said in John 16:2 "They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service." Jesus is telling us our fellow Christians are going to be the ones attacking us.
#2) No matter how popular the belief is that the greatest threat against Christianity is Islam, with an Islamic antichrist coming up against us one day, the truth is Islam is nothing but a deception from Satan to distract us from the fact that the bible is really warning us about a false Christian antichrist. Look at what the apostle John tells us in 1 John 2:18-19. John points out there are many antichrists even back then when he wrote it, but take note the antichrist's he warns of come from us. Notice verse 19 John uses the word us 5 times. Who is us? This is from a letter to Christians so obviously us means the Christian church. He's driving the point home to be on the lookout for a Christian antichrist, not an Islamic one!!!
1 John 2:18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.
1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
Now do see why Jesus said "Take heed that no man deceive you" and "many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many"? Think about it. There is nothing deceptive whatsoever about Muslims openly declaring they want to kill Christians, yet millions of Christians are convinced Islam is the great end time threat we face. Nope, they are the red herring Satan raised up so false prophets in the Christian church can point the finger at them. The ones who "shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you" are going to be deceived Christians who think they are doing God a service because they are going to think real Christians are the heretics, not them. They are going to think because you don't bow down to "the church" then you are the reason God's wrath is coming upon them and the world. These deceived Christians are going to think they have to kill us "heretics" in order to appease God so He will end the worldwide calamities. Again Jesus said to let "no man deceive you" and their is nothing even remotely deceptive about Muslims openly declaring they want to kill Christians... so don't be deceived into thinking they are who the bible is talking about. Antichrist will be a fake Christian leader who along with his fake Christian false prophets convinces lukewarm Christians to kill real God-fearing Christians. When you read Matthew 24:9-11 that is what Jesus was warning about!!!
Brothers and sisters I pray you are not angry with me for saying these things. Christians must get themselves prepared spiritually for what is coming. Will terrorist attacks against Christians by Muslims increase as time progresses? I'm sure they will and I'm not looking forward to it. But you know what I'm looking forward to even less? How the self-centered, me-first Christian community is going to respond!
I'm not saying this stuff to be hateful or because I think I'm so great. As a man, I'm as much a sinner as anyone else, and I probably have more skeletons in my closet than most of you. But remember Moses was a murderer and King David was a murderer and an adulterer. And the apostle Paul was an relentless persecutor of the church, consenting to the death and imprisonment of Christians before his conversion. The point is not that I'm trying to put myself on a pedestal because that isn't the case. But God doesn't use people who are perfect either. He uses people who are willing to believe Him whether or not the truth is popular. I'm pleading with you, you have got to understand and NOT underestimate what is coming. You must be prepared spiritually because Jesus said only those who endure till the end shall be saved.
Thanks for reading. God Bless.
Matthew 24:1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.
Matthew 24:2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
Jesus was talking about the upcoming destruction of the 2nd Temple which was to happen a few decades after He spoke those words. On the surface He was talking about the physical building being destroyed but in scripture there are often many layers to be uncovered. I think there is a spiritual lesson here as well. Today we tend to think of a church as a building. You drive by it during the week and think to yourself "there is my church." But a church (ekklesia in the original New Testament Greek) is really an assembly or gathering of Gods people whether you are surrounded by four walls or out in an open field. Now notice in verse 1 Christ's disciples follow Him out of the building in which Jesus had been speaking. Jesus then continues to teach them outside the building, telling them the building itself is irrelevant and will be destroyed. Likewise as believers we must remember that the buildings we meet in today are not "the church" but we are the church. We are only part of the true body of Christ when we following Him outside the building and let Him teach us wherever we are. If the only time you spend with Jesus is an hour or two every week at "church" then you really aren't part of THE church.
Matthew 24:3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?
Matthew 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Matthew 24:5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
Verse 24:4 is the most important warning in the entire chapter. Jesus goes on to forewarn of many things which can get us killed but those things won't cost us our salvation. However being deceived by false prophets just might cost you everything.
Matthew 24:6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
He says to "see that ye be not troubled" by these things you cannot control. What should you be troubled by? Deception by false prophets and false Christs. Why should those things concern you? Because you can do something about it! You can learn to spot false prophets and study the truths of the bible to prevent from being deceived. In verse 7 Jesus continues to foretell of things we will not be able to prevent. There's nothing wrong with keeping track of these things but we should focus on the preventable things.
The key to remember about these warnings is that they are a mixture of things we can and cannot prevent. You have the ability to prevent yourself from being deceived... but it takes due diligence. Are you in the word daily? Or are you only in the word at church once a week? And do you actually follow Jesus wherever He leads you or only when He leads you where you want to go? 2 Timothy 4:3-4 says "For the time will come when they [people who profess to be followers of Christ] will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." Why? Because they only follow Jesus when it makes them happy to do so. That type of mindset is preventable... and if any of us have that problem right now the good news is the Holy Spirit can change us; He can and will lead us into all truth if we surrender our will to Him.
As for the wars, the disasters and the diseases we shouldn't think it our place to stop these things from happening. Jesus specifically said these things must happen so preventing these things is not an option.
Matthew 24:7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
Matthew 24:8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Okay so we cannot stop these things from happening. But is praying for God to slow them down for the sake of bringing more non-believers into the assembly an option? I think so. And also to give the lost sheep, those who profess to be believers but are straying from the path, more time to repent. But make no mistake, the Lord will not spare a people who reject Him once their cup of iniquity has overflowed. I'm an American by birth, but my loyalty is to God by the rebirth He offers me through the blood of Jesus. Whatever past claims this country had to being a Christian are irrelevant. The United States has long since ceased to be a Christian nation and even though it will make people angry, I'm placing the blame squarely on the church. If that angers you let me ask you a few questions. Do you think this country was ever really a Christian nation? I do although we have always had our flaws. If you say "no I don't think this was ever really a Christian nation" then you have no reason be upset. But if you say "yes I think this country was (or still is) a Christian nation" then I have a couple more questions. Do you think as a society we have been dumbed down spiritually? Morally? Politically? Do you think the education system in this country has been dumbed down? If you said yes to any of those I have one final question. How can you dumb down a Christian nation unless you dumb down Christianity first? Sorry if it angers you, but the if the church in general was doing its job this country would not be in the state of decay it is in now.
Remember when Abraham pleaded with God to spare the city of Sodom (see Genesis 18:20-33). Because his nephew Lot and his family lived in Sodom, Abraham asked the Lord to spare that city if at least 50 righteous people could be found living there. Abraham eventually talked the Lord into sparing Sodom if only 10 righteous people could be found. Did He find 10? No, so "the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven" (Genesis 19:24) and I have no doubt the United States has the same fate coming, along with the rest of the world. Jesus said the world in the end times would be "as it was in the days of Noe [Noah] (Luke 17:26). Genesis 6:5 tells us it was like this; "the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." And throughout the bible we are told though the number of God's people (the number of professed believers) will be as the sands of the sea of the sea, only a remnant shall be saved. A lot of people will verbally claim Jesus is Lord, but for most their hearts are actually quite far from Him. In the grand scheme of things there won't be enough truly Godly people in this country to prevent the USA from the same fate as Sodom. Now obviously the bible isn't exclusively for Americans so you can say the same thing about any other country of course. The very next verse in Matthew 24 says Christians in all nations will be afflicted. In fact verses 9 and 10 below continue to foretell of things that are going to happen which we cannot prevent, so we shouldn't think it is our duty to prevent these things. It is our duty to be spiritually strong in Christ so that when they happen we keep the faith because as verse 13 below tells us only those who "shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." So now let's read verses 9 through 14.
Matthew 24:9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.
Matthew 24:10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
Matthew 24:11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
Matthew 24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
Matthew 24:13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
Verse 9; we can't do anything about it. It's going to happen.
Verses 10 and 11; these things will also not be stopped... but you can prevent yourself from being one of those betrayers who hates one another. And you can take heed that those false prophets do not deceive you.
Verse 12; we can't stop it.
Verses 13 and 14; you can be one who endures to the end & you can be one who preaches the gospel.
This pattern continues throughout the chapter. My prayer for us all is that we don't focus to much on the things we cannot stop, but will be diligent about the things we can prevent. I'm not saying it's wrong to pay attention to the unpreventable things just don't obsess over them. The church isn't going to stop earthquakes or any other natural disasters from happening. You won't stop floods, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, meteor's or whatever else comes along but you can help bring people to Christ before they die in one of these types of disasters. And you can help people learn to identify and avoid false prophets too.
Keep in mind you can only help people who are willing to listen to reason; most will reject the truth so don't try to force it on people. Focus on people who want to learn the truth, not on those who only want to easy way out. Sad as it to say, most Christians will fall into the latter category. Read verses 9 through 11 again. But before you do keep two things in mind:
#1) Jesus said in John 16:2 "They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service." Jesus is telling us our fellow Christians are going to be the ones attacking us.
#2) No matter how popular the belief is that the greatest threat against Christianity is Islam, with an Islamic antichrist coming up against us one day, the truth is Islam is nothing but a deception from Satan to distract us from the fact that the bible is really warning us about a false Christian antichrist. Look at what the apostle John tells us in 1 John 2:18-19. John points out there are many antichrists even back then when he wrote it, but take note the antichrist's he warns of come from us. Notice verse 19 John uses the word us 5 times. Who is us? This is from a letter to Christians so obviously us means the Christian church. He's driving the point home to be on the lookout for a Christian antichrist, not an Islamic one!!!
1 John 2:18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.
1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
Now do see why Jesus said "Take heed that no man deceive you" and "many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many"? Think about it. There is nothing deceptive whatsoever about Muslims openly declaring they want to kill Christians, yet millions of Christians are convinced Islam is the great end time threat we face. Nope, they are the red herring Satan raised up so false prophets in the Christian church can point the finger at them. The ones who "shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you" are going to be deceived Christians who think they are doing God a service because they are going to think real Christians are the heretics, not them. They are going to think because you don't bow down to "the church" then you are the reason God's wrath is coming upon them and the world. These deceived Christians are going to think they have to kill us "heretics" in order to appease God so He will end the worldwide calamities. Again Jesus said to let "no man deceive you" and their is nothing even remotely deceptive about Muslims openly declaring they want to kill Christians... so don't be deceived into thinking they are who the bible is talking about. Antichrist will be a fake Christian leader who along with his fake Christian false prophets convinces lukewarm Christians to kill real God-fearing Christians. When you read Matthew 24:9-11 that is what Jesus was warning about!!!
Brothers and sisters I pray you are not angry with me for saying these things. Christians must get themselves prepared spiritually for what is coming. Will terrorist attacks against Christians by Muslims increase as time progresses? I'm sure they will and I'm not looking forward to it. But you know what I'm looking forward to even less? How the self-centered, me-first Christian community is going to respond!
I'm not saying this stuff to be hateful or because I think I'm so great. As a man, I'm as much a sinner as anyone else, and I probably have more skeletons in my closet than most of you. But remember Moses was a murderer and King David was a murderer and an adulterer. And the apostle Paul was an relentless persecutor of the church, consenting to the death and imprisonment of Christians before his conversion. The point is not that I'm trying to put myself on a pedestal because that isn't the case. But God doesn't use people who are perfect either. He uses people who are willing to believe Him whether or not the truth is popular. I'm pleading with you, you have got to understand and NOT underestimate what is coming. You must be prepared spiritually because Jesus said only those who endure till the end shall be saved.
Thanks for reading. God Bless.
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