We open our Bibles this morning to Matthew chapter 24, looking again at the signs of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the signs of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I don’t know about your childhood, but my childhood was filled with lots of games. I…when I look back and think of myself as a child, I don’t think of myself in a house, I think of myself outdoors. Maybe that’s because I lived much of my life in Southern California. And we used to play all kinds of outdoor games. And one of the ones that we often played, and you did too, was Hide and Seek. And somebody was “it” and everybody ran and hid and the game was sort of triggered when the person who was “it” said, “Here I come…what’s the rest?…ready or not.” You played it, too. It wasn’t a very sophisticated game but that’s the way it went. Here I come ready or not.
Well, that statement, if referred to the Lord Jesus Christ, has great and profound eschatological implications. And the text in Matthew 24 that we’ll be looking at this morning really could be titled “Here I come, ready or not” because that’s exactly what it teaches. It is a text that deals with the suddenness and the unexpectedness of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re going to be looking at verses 36 through 42 of Matthew 24. And this is really only part one in the message that takes us all the way down through verse 51. Now, I want you to remember the setting so that you understand where we are in this tremendous gospel and in the life of our Lord. He is only a few hours now from betrayal and execution on the cross. He sits on the Mount of Olives and His disciples approach Him with a very important question that’s on their minds and it’s given us in verse 3. They say, “Tell us, when shall these things be and what shall be the sign of Thy coming and of the end of the age?”
They have this feeling inside that the end of the age of man is very near, that the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ is coming very soon. They have been led to believe that because He is, after all, the King and He is there. He has done signs and wonders to prove His Kingdom power. He has recently denounced the false religious leaders of Israel. He has cleansed out the temple of all of the godless enterprises that were being done in that place. He has also announced that there will come soon a desolation of the whole temple complex and He even has pronounced the truth that He would come in glory.
And all of these things have led them to believe that it must be very, very soon. In fact, Luke 19:11 says they thought that the Kingdom of God should immediately appear. I mean, it seemed to them that He was there announcing Himself as King, He was there destroying the false religious system that existed in order that He might establish the true spiritual Kingdom promised to them by the prophets of old. And so they were filled with anticipation.
Now their question has two parts. It has a “what shall be the sign of Thy coming” part and a “when shall these things be.” What are the signs and when will it happen? Now our Lord began by answering the what are the signs question. And the answer we’ve already studied from verse 4 through 35. In that section, He tells them the sign of His coming. And it’s particularly given in verse 29 where it says the moon doesn’t give its light, the sun is dark, the stars fall, the powers of the heavens are shaken and then shall appear the sign. And the sign is the Son of Man in heaven. That’s the sign of His coming to earth, when they see Him in heaven.
Now it will be preceded by some other general signs described from verse 4 through 28. So there will be some general signs. By the way, those general signs are triggered by a very particular event in verse 15, the abomination of desolation when the Antichrist sets up the idol of himself in the Holy of Holies in the temple of Jerusalem and demands that the whole world worship him. That triggers the birth pains. That triggers the signs, the general signs. So you start with the abomination of desolation, that’s the first of the signs. Then there are general signs described in the rest of that portion we looked at which culminate in THE sign which is the appearance of the Son of Man in heaven. That’s the sign.
Now, all of these signs–beginning with the abomination of desolation until the sign of the Son of Man in heaven–are very rapid signs. They come in a very brief period of time. The Bible tells us three and a half years, or 42 months or 1260 days. And that’s why they’re called birth pains, they are rapidly increasing, intensified as they come toward the Kingdom. They are general indicators and finally a specific indicator of the coming of the Lord Jesus. Now that’s the what are the signs question.
Now beginning in verse 36, He discusses the when question. When specifically will He come? In other words, we see the general idea of that time period but when specifically will He come. And beginning in verse 36 and all the way down through verse 31 of chapter 25, He deals with the when shall these things be. And that’s where we begin our study this morning.
Look at verse 36. Here’s the key to the rest of that section. “But of that day and hour knoweth no one. No, not the angels of heaven, nor the Son but My Father only.” And with that statement, He directs their thinking to the issue of when and tells them the when is an unknown. The signs that precede the Second Coming have been clearly given. They are unmistakably detailed here in Matthew 24 and also in Revelation chapters 6 through 18. You can’t miss those. And the generation that is alive during that period will see those signs. They will be observable signs. They will be worldwide signs. They will be unmistakable indications of the collapse of the world and its systems as well as the universe. But the specific moment, that is–notice it in verse 36–the day and hour are not known. They’re not known. And we must remind ourselves that He is speaking of a day and an hour.
Down in verse 42, “Watch therefore for you know not what hour…what hour.” Verse 44, “Therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour as you think not.” Verse 50, “The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looks not for him and in an hour he is not aware of.” Verse 13 of chapter 25, “Watch therefore for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man comes.” So, He’s talking about the specific moment.
Now listen. The time period of the Second Coming will be known, it has to be known. It has to be known because of all the sequence of events. The abomination of desolation will be an historical event. The tremendous worldwide conflicts, the wars, the rumors of wars, the nation rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom, the famines, the pestilences, the descriptions of Revelation 6 to 18 where the fresh water is devastated and the salt water is devastated and the sea is turned to blood and where the day is set off its normal cycle and daylight is shortened and there’s a greater amount of darkness and all of those events that are very observable will indicate that it is the general period and the general time of the Second Coming. But the day and the hour will not be known. That will come with suddenness in an unexpected way. The period of the Tribulation very clearly indicated and we know the coming of the Son of Man, verse 29 says, is immediately after the Tribulation. But how immediately, we don’t know.
To approach it another way, remember this. That both Daniel in the Old Testament and John in the New Testament writing in Revelation tell us that the Tribulation period, the Great Tribulation, is a period of three and a half years, 42 months, 1260 days. We find that in Daniel 7:25, 9:27 and 12:7. We find it in Revelation 11 verses 2 and 3, in Revelation chapter 12 verse 14 and Revelation 13 verse 5. So there are all those indicators, very clearly, that that’s a three and a half year period. It starts with the abomination of desolation in verse 15, the Antichrist setting up his self-worship. So that’s very observable.
Then it will be three and a half years. Immediately after, says verse 29, says the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. Now how immediately after, we don’t know. And once the sign comes we don’t know how long it will be before He actually establishes the Kingdom. So there is some latitude in that. There’s a period of time in there…Daniel gives us a hint of it because in Daniel 12:11, Daniel speaks of a period of testing and tribulation of 1290 days. So he adds another 30 days on the end. And then in Daniel 12:12, he speaks of 1335 days and he adds another 75 making a total…another…he adds another 45 making a total of 75 days. So Daniel sees a three hundred….a three and a half year period, 42 months, 1260 days and then he sees another period which is not described as to its content of 75 days.
So we don’t know exactly the day and the hour. The time period, yes, the general period, yes. Now we only know that once that period has begun, right? We don’t know it now because we don’t know what generation that’s going to come upon. It will be initiated with the Rapture of the church. That hasn’t happened. And then three and a half years of peace as Antichrist comes to the political rescue of the Middle Eastern country of Israel and brings them safety and starts to build his revived Roman Empire in Europe. And everything’s going along fine. And then it’s in the middle of that seven-year period that all this begins when he sets up the worship of himself.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
