End Times

"So when you see standing in the holy place `the abomination that causes desolation,' spoken of through the prophet Daniel--let the reader understand--then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now--and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. At that time if anyone says to you, `Look, here is the Christ!' or, `There he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time.

"So if anyone tells you, `There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, `Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather" (Matthew 24:15-28).

When a pastor asks a group of his parishioners what book of the Bible they would like to have a study on, almost always someone requests the Book of Revelation. I think that people want to study Revelation for two reasons—first of all, it is written in a style that involves a lot of symbolism which makes it hard to understand. But more importantly, the Book of Revelation is about the End Times—the troubles that Christians will go through, the spectacular ending of the world, the punishment of those committed to evil, and the beginning of eternal peace and happiness.

It is natural to want to know more about these things. When we watch the news or read a paper, we are saddened by all the tragedies that are hurting people everywhere—severe weather, war, divorce, crime, dishonesty. We ask ourselves, "how much worse can it get? When will it all end? How will I get through it all?" We need the security of answers to these questions.

But the answers are not restricted to the Book of Revelation. Jesus Himself addressed these issues in the Gospels, and in today’s reading He speaks to His disciples about the end times. So let us examine what Jesus tells us through the pen of Saint Matthew about the last days of this earth.

In the verses just before today’s reading, Jesus had said these words: "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." These words clearly speak of the end times. Then Jesus says: "So when you see standing in the holy place `the abomination that causes desolation,' spoken of through the prophet Daniel--let the reader understand--then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains." Here Jesus backs up and explains when the end times are going to begin. He warns His disciples that the end times will commence with `the abomination that causes desolation' entering the Holy Place, and He refers us to the prophet Daniel for details. The pertinent section is Daniel chapters 11 and 12, where the prophet speaks of a king who will pay heed to those who forsake the holy covenant. Forces sent by him shall occupy and profane the temple and fortress. They shall abolish the regular burnt offering and set up the abomination that brings about desolation. Jesus reaffirms God’s word spoken through Daniel that a foreign government would take over God’s Temple in Jerusalem and desecrate it; this happened less than 40 years after Jesus spoke these words, when the Romans took Jerusalem away from the Jews and made it uninhabitable. The disciples seated before Jesus did not realize it at the time, but the Master was telling them that the end times would begin only a few decades in the future!

Jerusalem is a city of tremendous importance in the Bible. It was built on the mountain where God asked Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac, centuries before God would sacrifice His son at the same place (Genesis chapter 22). When God gave Abraham a ram to sacrifice in the place of Isaac, Abraham called the place "The Lord Will Provide", and Jerusalem was the place where the Lord did provide the sacrifice that spares all of us from death, His Son Jesus Christ the Lamb of God. King David built Jerusalem on this site, and his son King Solomon built God’s Temple there. Every day the priests of God offered sacrifices in the Temple for the forgiveness of God’s covenant people, pouring out the blood of animals to atone for each Israelite’s sins. These sacrifices were a pale shadow of the final blood-sacrifice of God’s own Son, who was sacrificed upon the cross to atone for all human evil, once for all. Jerusalem was the center of Jewish life, the place where the faithful found their connection with God.

But Jesus was going to make Jerusalem obsolete. When Jesus died to atone for every human sin, the sacrifices of the Temple would become unnecessary. When Jesus speaks of the beginning of the end times, He speaks of a time when it will not matter if the forces of evil destroy the Temple, because the Temple will no longer the source of God’s grace to His human children. Jesus told His disciples, "where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them" (Matthew 18:20). The grace of God comes through Jesus to His believers wherever they gather to worship Him.

And so Jesus tells His followers to be ready to flee Jerusalem when the desecration begins. Men resting on the flat roofs of their homes in the cool of the evening should not take the time to go downstairs and gather any valuables, but flee the city leaping rooftop to rooftop. Men working in their fields should not head back to the house to get traveling clothes. Jesus warns women to pray that the evacuation does not come at a time where they are pregnant or nursing, because flight would be so much harder under such circumstances. All should pray that the time to run not be during the rainy winter or on a Sabbath when neighbors would refuse to aid them (because a Jew is not permitted to work on the Sabbath).

This is how the end times began—but it was not all bad news. Because of the destruction of Jerusalem and the awful persecution in Judea, God’s children were scattered all over the world seeking safety—and as they traveled, they spoke of their faith in Jesus to the strangers that they met. Spurred on by the desecration of God’s holy place, His children fulfilled Jesus’ parting command to them: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20).

Starting with verse 21, Jesus speaks about what it will be like to live in the early days of the end times. He says, then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now--and never to be equaled again. We look at the horrors of our world—World War II being a recent example—and we find it hard to understand how Jesus could claim that the years following the destruction of Jerusalem would never be equaled again for the terror that they held. But we have to listen to Jesus’ words from the perspective of a Jew. Jesus was saying to the Jews listening to Him that, from their perspective, things would never be so bad again. One of the horrors of WWII was the Nazis’ extermination of millions of Jews, yet even this evil was not as traumatic as the loss of Jerusalem and its Temple, God’s house among His people. And this assault on the Jewish nation was permitted by God—permitted in order to punish the nation who had been extended God’s grace again and again only to keep on rejecting it, until the Son of God Himself was rejected and condemned to death for no sin of His own.

If those days had not been cut short no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. Even though God was punishing the Jews who persisted in rejecting Him, we see evidence of God’s grace. The Roman persecution could well have spiraled out of control and resulted in the deaths of everyone living in the country. But Jesus knew that there would be Jewish converts, Jews who became believers in Christ. And God would make sure that His children by faith would not be caught up in the punishment of those Jews who persisted in rejecting Him. For the sake of the elect—those promised salvation by God—those coming days would be shortened. It is just as true in the world today as it was then; God shows mercy to nations in spite of their wickedness, for the sake of the Christians who are living there.

At that time if anyone says to you, `Look, here is the Christ!' or, `There he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible. The world has been filled with false prophets since Jesus’ time among us. We think of Muhammad, who claimed that Jesus was not the Son of God but only a prophet, and that Muhammad was chosen by God to reveal the truths that Jesus left unsaid. We think of Joseph Smith, who claimed that Jesus had a ministry here among the Indians of America and gave Smith the final words that lead to our ascension to godhood. These men, and so many others, have claimed to be the Christ, the one anointed by God to lead us to heaven. Some have even allegedly produced miracles—miracles that delude even the greatest philosophers and skeptics of the world, but not those who have the truth of the Word of God living within them.

Jesus next issues a warning to we who also live in the end times; He says "if anyone tells you, `There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, `Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man." Jesus is telling us that when He returns to bring about the final end, He will be impossible to ignore. When Jesus returns, we won’t have to go looking for Him among fanatics living in the desert or among cultists hiding in secret meeting rooms; when Jesus returns it will be like a bolt of lightning. Even if you are facing in the wrong direction, when lightning strikes you can see the whole sky light up. When Jesus returns, there will be no doubt among any living on earth that God Himself has come in all His glory to render judgment upon mankind.

Jesus concludes, "Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather." A carcass is a dead body. This puts us in mind of Ephesians chapter 2 where we read, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath." Those who fill their hearts with anything else than the love of Jesus are dead inside. Only a relationship with Jesus brings forgiveness for the sins that condemn us before God; if we choose to follow any other god, or no god at all, we are walking dead men, dead in our transgressions and sins. And what is attracted to dead bodies? Vultures. When people exclude Jesus from living in their hearts, vultures come—false Christs who offer false hopes of freedom from guilt and loneliness and death. Look at where the false saviors are—you will see them getting fat off of those who are dead inside.

So what have we learned about the end times? First, we have learned that the end times are now—we have been living in them our entire lives. Second, we have learned that God loves His children so much that He limits the tribulation of the end times so that we may remain protected. Third, we have the assurance that the Bible tells us everything that we need to know about our salvation; the next time that Jesus comes to speak in this world is when He comes to speak judgment on those who have rejected Him, and speak the warmest of welcomes to those who have put their trust in Him. Jesus summarized these points when He said in the Gospel of John (chapter 16 verse 33), "I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."