Matthew 24:1–14

"And Jesus went out and departed from the temple." For what was it now? A corpse, and nothing more. "See, your house is left to you desolate." … The hearts of the disciples then, as too often now, were fixed on present appearances and on the great show of grandeur in God's service. The glow of old associations was bright before their eyes. But Jesus passes sentence on all that even they admired on earth. In truth, when He left the temple, all was gone that gave it value in the sight of God. Outside Jesus, what is there in this world but vain show or worse?

This discourse is not a casual incident in the ministry of Christ. It is Christ's closing testimony in the middle of Israel. … The disciples did not see the inward meaning of the Lord's words and action. They came to Him to show Him the buildings of the temple. Their hearts were attached to the earthly system of which it was the centre. But a temple, however splendid, is of no value when its God is disowned. And Jehovah was there in the person of Jesus. The nation did not know Him and did not recognise Him; or if they recognised Him, they rejected Him. He leaves the temple with sorrow, and desolate indeed is what Jehovah forsakes.

The discourse grew out of the disciples pointing His attention to the splendour of the temple buildings. Their hearts were not yet weaned from those buildings. They believed that Jesus was the Christ. They believed that they were born of God. But their hearts stayed tied to Israel's hopes until the day He ascended to heaven.

The Lord does not try to turn their eyes away from the object that held them. Instead He foretells the complete destruction of what seemed to be the indestructible palace of their religion. The temple was needed for carrying out the duties that religion imposed. It was also the required place for the offerings, and those offerings were the only means of putting the people in relationship with God. All was about to be destroyed, from top to bottom. Their religion, and all their relations with God under the ancient covenant that centred on the temple, would be entirely abolished with it.

All that we have been reading, from Matthew 21:23, had taken place in the temple precincts. Now, in Matthew 24:1, Jesus departed. The disciples wanted to call His attention to some of its splendid buildings. Their words only drew from Him the prediction that the temple would be levelled to its foundations. … The first words of His reply show what His predictions are for. They are meant to forewarn and forearm us. They are not meant merely to feed our curiosity, or even our thirst for accurate knowledge. We are to take heed to ourselves.

Not many years later (in A.D. 70) the Romans destroyed the city and burned the temple. It remained in ruins for many years. Then, it is reported, the Emperor Julian "the apostate" ordered the Jews to return and rebuild the temple. He had once embraced Christianity, then turned on Christ with scorn, and his aim was to prove the Lord's prophecy false. However, finding the building so badly damaged, the Jews decided to take it all away and build anew. It was fully demolished then, but they were prevented from even beginning to build again. So the effort to prove the prophecy false became the very means of proving it true!

The disciples did not see the inner meaning of the Lord's words and action. They came to show Him the buildings of the temple. Their hearts were tied to the earthly system that had the temple at its centre. But a temple, however splendid, has no value when its God is disowned. Jehovah was there in the person of Jesus, and the nation did not know Him or recognise Him; and if they did recognise Him, they rejected Him. He leaves the temple with sorrow, and whatever Jehovah leaves is truly desolate.

Jesus leaves the temple, and leaves it for ever. It is a solemn act, and we may say that it carried out the judgment He had just pronounced. The house was now desolate. The disciples draw His attention to the magnificent buildings, and Jesus announces to them its complete destruction.

"Jesus left the temple and was going away." What was it now? A corpse, and nothing more... The hearts of the disciples then, as too often now, were taken up with what they could see, and with the great show of grandeur in God's service. All the memories attached to the place made it shine in their eyes. But Jesus passes sentence on all of it, admired as it was even by them. When He left the temple, everything that gave it value in God's sight was gone. Outside Jesus, what is there in this world but empty show, or worse?

The rejected Messiah passes sentence. Believing Jews found it most solemn to hear, for they rightly saw the temple as the great public witness on earth to the one true God and His worship. It had been destroyed once before, when reigning sons of David turned away from God and made it the seat of Gentile idols... This time it fell not because of idols, but because the Jews first refused their own Jehovah-Messiah and then had Him crucified by Gentiles.

When Titus captured Jerusalem, he was very anxious to spare the Temple, with all its splendour and religious associations. So the question was this. Would the word of Titus stand — a successful general at the head of a powerful army, proud after victory — or would the prophecy our Lord made forty years before come true?... A soldier stood on the shoulder of a comrade and managed to throw a torch through a door in the wall that led to the rooms on the north side of the Temple. Titus would have stopped this, for he did not want to destroy what was the glory of the whole world. But the fire spread, fanned by a storm.

The Romans destroyed the city and burned the temple. It lay in ruins for many years. Then, it is reported, the Emperor Julian "the apostate" ordered the Jews to return and build the temple again, in order to prove the Lord's prophecy false. This Julian had once embraced Christianity and then turned against Christ with scorn. But the Jews found the building so badly damaged that they decided to clear it all away and build new. So it was fully demolished then, and they were stopped before they could even begin to build again. The effort to prove the Lord's prophecy false was the very means of proving it true!

Matthew 24 is very clearly taken up not with the church, as such, but with Jerusalem and the temple, the close of the age, the clash of nations and kingdoms, famines, plagues, earthquakes, persecutions, and trials... That is the general picture down to verse 14. After that, the scene becomes more specific in time, place, and circumstances.

As the Lord Jesus sits on the Mount of Olives, Peter, James, John and Andrew ask Him privately when all these things will take place, and what sign they should look for. As in Matthew 24:3, the Lord gives His outline of prophetic events not to the crowd, but to disciples — and here in Mark, to disciples who are deeply concerned. No one ever understands prophecy rightly without serious spiritual exercise.

They were disturbed and distressed by such a thought. Was He not the Messiah? Was He not going to establish Israel? Was He not about to restore the tribes — who had waited so long — to their place as God's chosen nation? What, then, did such solemn words mean, that everything was to be levelled to the ground?

The disciples ask a question with three parts. When will these things be? What is the sign of Your coming? What of the completion of the age? It matters greatly to see that the record of the discourse, as the Holy Spirit gives it, passes over the answer to the first question, "When will these things be?" We can tell this, because the Lord says nothing in the discourse about Jerusalem or the destruction of the temple.

Their first question is, "When will these things be?" But He does not tell them the time. What mattered then were the facts, not just the timing — and they could not have grasped the timing until they knew their own place (as the body of Christ) in God's purposes.

When the Lord uses it, He is not speaking of Christianity, which had not yet begun. When His disciples said "the age," they had no thought about Christianity. They meant the Jewish age, the age in which the Messiah was expected — the age of the law, lasting until the Messiah would come for the Jews. Their question was: when will the end of that age come?

The Jews were not as ignorant on this point as many today who have less excuse. They did not confuse the end of the age with the end of the world. They knew well that God meant to bless this earth — to bless it as a whole. Not only His children passing through it, but the nations and the earth itself. He would overthrow Satan's stolen rule, and free the whole creation from the bondage of the curse. So the disciples, who as Jews rested all their nation's hopes on prophetic testimony, were anxious to know the sign of His coming or presence, and of the end of the time of sorrow and distress in between. They knew that desolation can only end when He comes in power and glory.

The word "coming" here, and often elsewhere, is parousia. It means not just the arrival, but the state of being present — that is, "presence." Still, a person who is now absent must come in order to be present. So "coming" is often given as the English equivalent, fairly enough, though "presence" is the full meaning.

They were not yet the Church... When the disciples stood with Him on the Mount of Olives, they were just a handful of Jewish believers. In the face of their whole nation, they were sure that the lowly Nazarene was the expected Messiah... The coming they mean here is certainly not the descent into the air — "the blessed hope" — for He had not yet said one syllable about that. The disciples had in mind the glorious appearing, which prophets and psalmists had written about in glowing terms and at length long before their day.

He brought the full weight of His prophecy to bear on the consciences and hearts of those who heard Him. Their question may have come largely from curiosity, but His opening words lifted the whole matter to a far higher level: "See that no one leads you astray." The course that prophecy reveals runs against everything people would naturally expect. False prophets are attractive because they always predict what fits people's desires and sounds entirely reasonable. … The first warning concerns those who come pretending to be the Christ. The central point of the conflict is always here. The devil knows that if he can deceive people about Him, he can deceive them about everything else. Being rooted in our knowledge of the true Christ makes us immune to the appeal of the false ones.

But in each case His disciples are to be forearmed by His warnings. They are not for one moment to be deceived by false Christs, or follow them. They are not to be afraid of the violent movements of men, nor imagine that these convulsions mean that the end is coming immediately.

The Lord does not begin by satisfying their wish out of curiosity, natural as that was. He treats it as a serious matter about their own service. His absence would put them to the test. Because the Jews rejected the true Christ, they were left exposed to every false pretender. Many would come in His name. It is always so: rejecting a truth hands it over to Satan, who then gives his own version of it to deceive.

The letters of the New Testament never carry quite this thought of warning people against false Christs. They were written to Christians, and a Christian could not be fooled by a man's claim to be Christ. The warning fits here, because in this chapter the disciples stand not for us Christians now, but for godly Jews in the future. … They were the godly remnant of the nation, looking for the Messiah to bring in glory. So the Lord warns them: if anyone rose up among them saying, I am Christ, they were not to believe him. … In any case, rejecting the true Christ leaves them open to receiving a false Christ.

His first words are striking: "See that no one leads you astray." History has proved how badly this warning was needed. Deceptions about prophecy today are almost beyond counting, and they have multiplied since the 1800s. Many have already come claiming to be Christ. Some do not use that exact title, yet they lift themselves into a place that belongs to the Lord Jesus alone. Many have been deceived by them.

In Matthew 24 the disciples asked three questions (verse 3). The Lord did not answer the question of when these events would happen. His reply is itself a further prophecy. Matthew 24:4 to the end of verse 44 concerns Israel. Verses 4 to 14 line up with the first half of Daniel's seventieth week, and verses 15 to 28 with the second half.

The Lord did not satisfy mere curiosity. He warned them to be careful that no one deceived them. When it comes to prophecy there are countless deceptions. But if we are deceived, we are to blame. God is not deceived, and honest fellowship with Him, in submission to His Word, will keep us safe.

The Lord does not answer the disciples' question at once. Instead He warns them about the dangers they would meet in their service after He left them. Satan would raise up false Christs to deceive the Jews, and many would be taken in. They would have to be on their guard.

The Epistles never really carry this kind of thought — a warning against false Christs — because they are written to Christians, and a Christian could not be fooled by a man's claim to be Christ... These disciples stood for the godly remnant of the nation, who were looking for the Messiah to bring in glory. So the Lord warns them: if anyone stood up among them saying, "I am Christ," they were not to believe him.

The godly remnant will be right to look for Christ to appear on the earth, so a report that He had come could easily fool them.

The great thing that marks the Church out is the presence of the Holy Spirit. So the deceit we have to watch against is false spirits, not false Christs, though there are many antichrists... What gives Satan power over someone who claims the name of Christ is allowing sin. Satan has not one atom of power against a child of God who is looking to Jesus. But where self is allowed, it is an opening for Satan to come in.

They received glory from one another. They did not seek it from God. They had not the love of God. So they would not receive the One who came in His Father's name. But that would hand them over to the Antichrist. He will come in his own name, doing his own will, and they will welcome him. It is a solemn thing to realize, and yet completely certain: everything that would displace Christ in the soul makes room for the Antichrist.

He warns them not to be fooled by the lies of the many who would come claiming to be Christ. These verses 5-8 apply in particular to the first three and a half years of Daniel's seventieth week. Yet of course similar things have appeared in our own age too... These things would be only the beginning of sorrows, signs of things more serious to come.

In A.D. 131 a fanatical deceiver, Bar-chobab, arose, giving himself out to be the promised Messiah.

Many have already come claiming to be Christ. Some of them do not use this exact title, yet they lift themselves into the place that belongs to the Lord Jesus alone. They have deceived many. These first words of the Lord's prophecy have already been fulfilled again and again.

When it comes to prophecy there are countless deceptions. But if we are deceived, we are to blame, for God is not deceived. Honest fellowship with Him, staying under His Word, will keep us safe.

Notice that our Lord gives two great moral warnings. First, they were to beware of a true hope wrongly applied. The Jews ought to be looking for Christ, and false Christs would exploit that by claiming to be Christ. Second, the enemy, who knows how to use such circumstances, might terrify them. So verse 6 guards them against alarm.

Matthew 24:6 and Mark 13:7 use "be troubled" in exactly the same sense as here: present troubles should not make them think the end is near, or the day of the Lord come. In neither case is it wrong expectation. It is trouble from present circumstances, alarming the mind and taking away its security, so that it fears as if the day of the Lord were already here. "When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, see that you are not troubled." The trouble plainly came from disturbing causes at work and felt at the time.

Besides the false Christs, political unrest, restlessness, real wars and rumours of them would draw attention and mark the state of things on earth. But the disciples were not to be troubled. All this would happen; these things were no signs of His coming; the end was not yet. So the Lord provides what would guide and strengthen His witnesses, keeping them calm and steady in their places... He gives them the kind of instruction that would keep them calm in service — not stirred up by circumstances or by false hopes, not saying, "Look, here!" or "Look, there!", not shaken by what shook the world. They might still serve quietly on.

The Greek word dei is the more general word. It points to any kind of necessity: what lies in the nature of the case, or, in particular, what comes about by God's appointment. That last sense gives it greater strength, and "must" is its most common translation... These passages, out of many, show the necessity established by the will and word of God: Matt. 16:21; Matt. 17:10; Matt. 24:6...

Moral improvement, truth winning the day, peace for mankind — these were still misleading dreams, and they were to be on their guard against them. His own rejection would open the door for many false claimants to lead many astray. Wars and their rumours would be heard. Only when He takes His great power and reigns could it be otherwise, as Isaiah predicts.

Notice that this chapter deals with a "beginning of sorrows" and the "time of the end." Wars and disasters are "the beginning of sorrows," "but the end is not yet" (vv. 6-8)... "The end" is not the end of the church period described in 1 Thess. 4:15-18 when the Lord comes for the church, but the end of the age when the Lord comes and appears to the world.

But the passage we are looking at does not speak of Christians. It speaks of the Jewish disciples as they were then, and as they will be... Do we ever find the apostles saying, "The end is not yet," about us? On the contrary, 1 Cor. 10 says of us that "the ends of the world have come upon us." But when the Lord speaks to the Jewish remnant, He says, "the end is not yet" — because many things must still happen before the Jews can come into their blessing.

The new age is not yet come, nor can it while the Lord Jesus is away. Whatever men promise and hope for, their scheming will not succeed. All their expectations must prove false. "Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom"; that is to say, a state quite contrary to what is held out for the kingdom. The prophets glowed as they looked forward in the Spirit to the time when "the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains... and all the nations shall flow to it. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem" (Isaiah 2:2-3).

...The four judgments of God on earth; Ezek. 14:21. They are the four deadly plagues which God sends to carry out His judgments. Here it is something that stamps God's character on the state of things in the prophetic earth. It shows that He is intervening. Men should pay attention to this; Matt. 24:5-8.

In the future judgments on the earth, earthquakes are often mentioned. Isa. 29:6; Matt. 24:7; Mark 13:8; Rev. 6:12... As symbols they point to an uprising of the lower classes of society, overturning the social order in part or in full.

The Greek word translated "birth pains" occurs only four times in the New Testament. It refers literally to the pangs of a woman in childbirth, in which sense it occurs in 1 Thess. 5:3; twice it refers to the pangs that will seize the wicked when God's judgments are poured out upon the earth, Matt. 24:8; Mark 13:8; and once in reference to the pains of death endured by the Lord. Acts 2:24.

He gives them, though, a very significant character: they are the beginning of labour pains. It is as if nature were pressing on to the birth of a new and better time, unable to rest content with the present evil. Nor is there anything forced in this... The apostle says: "For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now" (Rom. 8:22).

These verses 5-8 apply in a special way to the first three and a half years of Daniel's seventieth week. Even so, similar things have been seen in our own age... Famines, pestilences and earthquakes would occur in many places. These things would be only the beginning of sorrows, signs of things more serious to come.

In a general way you could predict wars for the whole period of the world's existence. But this prophecy speaks of something special. There is not now, nor has there been, any condition that would fulfil the language of the text.

Men vainly dream of a new order, and are busy with their plans to end war and establish a world marked by peace and safety. But the world is not improving through the efforts of men. These prophecies teach that the evils of the world will increase. In the end all mere religious profession heads up in apostasy under Antichrist, and the government of the world becomes utterly corrupt under the rule of the beast energised by Satan.

The Greek word odin occurs only four times in the New Testament. Its literal sense is the pangs of a woman in childbirth, and it carries that sense in 1 Thessalonians 5:3. Twice it refers to the pangs that will seize the wicked when God pours out His judgements on the earth: Matthew 24:8 and Mark 13:8. Once it refers to the pains of death the Lord endured, Acts 2:24.

Notice that this chapter deals with a "beginning of sorrows" and the "time of the end." Wars and disasters are "the beginning of sorrows," "but the end is not yet" (vv. 6-8). Further on, the Lord says the time of the end will start when the gospel of the kingdom is preached in all the world.

There would also be wars, and rumours of wars. The disciples were to stay calm. The end — that is, the end of the age — would not be yet. Nation would rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There would be famines and earthquakes in various places. It was the beginning of sorrows that would end in the accomplishment of the ways of God.

These beginnings of sorrows are to continue until the time of tribulation ends them. It will be tribulation "such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be" (v. 21). And His own personal appearing ends the tribulation in its turn, and nothing else ends it — not the wide spread of Christian principles among the nations of Europe, or in any other part of the globe.

Verses 4-14 contain the prophecy of our Lord about the beginning of the end of the Jewish age. The 15th verse describes the end itself, in its fearful great tribulation and "the abomination of desolation." The whole period is the last week of Daniel's great prophecy, a prophetic week of seven years. That week cannot begin as long as the church is on the earth. The first part of it is now before us. The Lord says, in answer to the question about the sign of His coming and the end of the age, that these things He mentions first are "the beginning of throes" (verse 8).

Many have recognised that these first four judgments match what the Lord calls "the beginning of sorrows." When telling His disciples of the future judgments coming on the prophetic earth, He speaks first of "wars and rumours of wars." Then He speaks of internal warfare — "nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom." Third, the Lord foretells famines, and last of all pestilence (Matt. 24:6-8).

My own feeling, judging from Scripture, is that this war is certainly not one of those spoken of in Matthew 24. Those wars come after the church is gone, when the Jewish remnant has been formed and false Christs are presenting themselves to the Jews. See Matthew 24:3-8, and especially verse 6: "You will hear of wars and rumours of wars… this must take place, but the end is not yet." So if this were one of the wars and rumours of wars of Matthew 24, that would be proof of the opposite: the end is not yet.

The Lord never says that this present age and world are getting better, or that the end will be righteousness and peace. Neither does the Spirit in giving the Letters of the New Testament. The testimony of the Scriptures is wholly on the other side.

Verses 4-14 contain our Lord's prophecy about the beginning of the end of the Jewish age. Verse 15 then describes the end itself, with its terrible great tribulation and "the abomination of desolation." The whole period is the last week of Daniel's great prophecy — a prophetic week of seven years, which cannot begin as long as the church is on the earth.

So the Lord prepares the Jewish disciples, or remnant, for their special trials. This was partly true after His own departure, up to the destruction of Jerusalem. It will be fulfilled more fully before God once more acknowledges Jerusalem, after the destruction of the Antichrist. This means there is a defined period of endurance — an end will come, as surely as there was a beginning of sorrows. When our Lord speaks of the Christian's lot in the Gospel of John, He never names a beginning or an end. He implies instead that tribulation should be expected right through the Christian's life: "In the world you will have tribulation."

Many people today, as in the past, have taken the whole discourse as if the Lord spoke it to Christians. They imagine that it all describes the position of Christians at one time or another. But this idea is mistaken. The Lord begins with the Jewish disciples, before Christianity itself was revealed. Christianity rests on the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord. These are the pillars of Christianity.

The Lord was not speaking to sinners. He was speaking to men He had already brought into a relationship with Himself — His disciples. At that moment they represented the chosen remnant of Israel, who will be on earth at the time of the end.

Though they are Jews, they have come to see that the Jesus whom they crucified really was the Messiah. So the nations persecute them not simply as Jews, but, as the Lord says, "for my name's sake."

The one nation will draw on itself the hatred of the other nations, and that for the sake of His name. At that time they are the Messiah's missionaries, and they proclaim Him without fear.

From this it seems clear that the nations who now profess the name of Christ will have given it up. In Scripture's own words, the Apostasy will have come (2 Thess. 2:3) — the complete abandonment of Christianity.

So there will be persecution, and of the severest kind. The Lord Himself warned His disciples about this same period: "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake." The Holy Spirit will have departed with the church. Nothing will hold back the will of man and the power of evil. It will be man's hour and the power of darkness, and the result will be relentless hatred against everyone who holds to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

He spoke as though the disciples in front of Him would be there at the end, because He saw them as representatives. The "brothers" spoken of at the end of the discourse are the disciples of the last days, and the disciples of the first days, whom the Lord was addressing, stood for them. A little later the Spirit baptised these first disciples into the one body, which is the church, as recorded in Acts 2. But at that moment they were simply a remnant of Israel who had found the Messiah in Jesus and joined themselves to Him.

But this persecution from outside would cause people to fall away inside. Many would stumble. They would turn against those who had once been their companions, betray them and hate them. And because lawlessness was spreading, many hearts that were not fed straight from the flame of Christ's love would grow cold.

There would be false profession, and hatred of those who were true, even among themselves — not only troubles from outside... So there is a set period of endurance. An end will come, as surely as there was a beginning of sorrows. But what trial, darkness, suffering and scandal before that end comes! When our Lord speaks of the Christian's lot in John's Gospel, He never names a beginning or an end. Instead He implies that a Christian should expect trouble all through his life: "In the world you will have tribulation."

As well as the outward sufferings of the remnant, their trials from within will be sharp. Under the fierce temptation of that time, some will treacherously desert their ranks, causing all the shame and disappointment such failures must bring. Ties will be torn and friendships broken... The "many" here must mean many of the remnant. It could not mean Israel as a whole, because they will be hardened and estranged from God, as they are now. So those whose love grows cold must be people who had love that could grow cold.

Opposition from outside is bad, but opposition from inside is far worse. They hate, betray and trip up one another... Losing trust, respect and affection for each other is the greatest loss of all. When people cannot be trusted like this, faith in God must be very strong, because His support alone can hold a person up.

Both Gospel writers speak of hatred, persecution and betrayal, but the character of it is different. Luke foretells the sufferings that the early Jewish Christians would suffer at the hands of their own countrymen and closest relatives... In Matthew, though, the persecution is a very different one. It comes from the Gentile rulers who oppressed the nation before the Lord's coming in power. So Matthew leaves out the feature of family conflict.

So the Lord prepares the Jewish disciples, the faithful remnant, for their special trials. This was partly true after His own departure, until Jerusalem was destroyed. It will be more fully proved before Jerusalem is owned again, after the destruction of the Antichrist… There would be false profession and hatred of the true, even among themselves — not only troubles from outside… So there is a defined period of endurance. An end will come as surely as there was a beginning of sorrows.

Here false prophets and their deceptions stand out. Luke does not mention them, for there the warning is meant for believers before the siege of Jerusalem. But for the Jews waiting for Christ's return, the danger from this source will be very great. So the warning carries special emphasis, and it foretells how far the deception will spread.

False prophets are attractive because they always predict things that fit men's desires and seem perfectly reasonable. We must be on our watch, for false prophets are everywhere today in the pulpits of Christendom. The devil knows that if he can deceive men about Christ, he can deceive them in everything else. To be rooted in our knowledge of the true Christ makes us proof against the attractions of the false ones.

This Scripture prophesies of false prophets. They prophesy false things — the reverse of God's judgment of the world. They will speak of the world's abilities and its greatness, of man being made perfect, and of the world's institutions becoming his noble state. And the world listens to them.

Minds in such a condition welcome the words of the false prophet. Those words turn many aside from the truth and deceive them.

False prophets will arise, misleading many. The Jewish age has false prophets; the Christian age has false teachers. "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies" (2 Peter 2:1). Evil spirits will possess these false prophets who come at the end of the Jewish age. The same thing happened in Israel's great falling away under King Ahab. The Lord then allowed a lying spirit to take control of the false prophets, as the prophet Micaiah revealed (2 Chronicles 18:18-22).

False prophets also have arisen during this age, as they will at the end. "As you have heard that antichrist is coming… so now many antichrists have come" (1 John 2:18), and they have deceived many.

In tender concern for our weakness, then, the Lord, through His servants, has warned us in advance of what we have to expect among His professing people. Two important things follow. First, only in the light of the Scriptures can we read the state of professing Christianity correctly. Second, if we do not know the teaching of the Word of God, we are open to disappointments and deceptions of every possible kind.

Luke records the parts of the prophecy about the events before the destruction of Jerusalem. He leaves these verses out completely, because no such falling away as the one foretold here happened then. But such a falling away will be one great feature of the days Matthew's prophecy speaks of. Many who begin to wait for the coming of the Messiah will grow cold. They will grow weak under the persecution and oppression they will suffer then.

There were also their own immediate sorrows and trials. Men would hand them over to be afflicted and killed, and all the nations would hate them for Christ's sake. But this persecution from outside would produce desertions inside. Many would take offence. They would turn against people who were once their companions, betray them and hate them. And because lawlessness was everywhere, many hearts that were not fed straight from the flame of Christ's love would grow cold.

Opposition from outside is bad, but opposition from inside is far worse. People hate one another, betray one another and take offence. False prophets will rise and lawlessness will spread, while love grows cold. The loss of mutual trust, respect and affection is the greatest loss of all. When people cannot be trusted, faith in God must be very strong, because only His support can hold a person up.

The "many" here must mean some of the faithful remnant. It could not mean Israel at large, because they will be hardened and far from God, as they are now. So those whose love cools must be people who had love that could cool. Some will desert and betray, while many others will become half-hearted — which will surely grieve the eager and true ones.

"The many" is the mass of the people, in contrast with the godly remnant. They are the ones who will make the covenant.

"The love of many will grow cold" — and no wonder, when self-love grows so hot… Once a man makes self his whole aim, that is the end of loving others or praying for them. Love cannot live in a house as narrow as the self-lover's heart. In fact, love is opposed to it: love "does not insist on its own way" (1 Cor. 13:5).

You might have imagined that widespread lawlessness would stir believers to greater warmth, but it does not. Growing prosperity leads to growing lawlessness in the world. That does believers harm too, turning them away from the spiritual realities that are their true life.

"Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold" — this is a common, natural experience. The heart has been let down by the world around it. It had promised itself much from that world, and in earlier days it did gather something there, so now it tends to shut itself up. But it was not so with Paul. His heart was as large, as earnest and as loving as ever. If it could not go out and spread over a wider area, it would turn back and pour its warmth on the little that was left to it.

These words come in His prophetic discourse, recorded in Matthew 24 and Mark 13. They do not tell sinful men how to receive the salvation of their souls. The Lord was not addressing sinners. He was addressing men He had already brought into relationship with Himself — His disciples. At that moment they stood for the chosen remnant of Israel, who will be on earth at the time of the end.

Those whose love cools must be those in whom there was love that could be cooled. So while some will desert and betray, many will become half-hearted, to the grief, no doubt, of the zealous and true. Then follows a text which has troubled the peace of many a Christian. But it really belongs to the Jewish remnant of a future day — "But the one who endures to the end will be saved." It refers to salvation when the Lord appears in judgment.

"The end" here is not the end of one person's life. It is the end of the whole time of persecution, trial and sorrow. The second coming of Christ will bring that time to a close. Endurance is the supreme virtue which is to mark these saints, for their salvation is sure when Christ appears.

We are also quite free to say that salvation in its fullest sense looks on to the final deliverance from the very presence of sin — the consummation in heaven. There is also a governmental and external salvation; such, for instance, as is spoken of in our Lord's prophetic discourse: "he who endures to the end will be saved." This, we need hardly say, does not refer to the salvation of the soul, but the deliverance from the Great Tribulation through which the Jewish remnant will be called to pass, with an indirect application to us also.

The hatred of all men will grow, and it will be far more marked after the Church is gone. The remnant of Israel will suffer badly. In this connection we are told, "the one who endures to the end will be saved." Anyone who bears the suffering of the tribulation and endures to the end would be saved for earthly blessing in the millennium.

"The one who endures to the end will be saved." Some say, Oh! that is said to the Jew. True, it is so: but it is as true of you and of me as of the Jew. There is a present salvation, and there is also a salvation which is future. Who receives that future salvation? Those who prove their reality by continuing, or those who do not? I say, if I remain to the end I shall be saved. Does that disturb me? Not at all. I know God has worked in me, and I know that He will continue to do so. I am quite at rest about it. If, however, a professed believer turns away, and does not endure, but lives in sin, can we say that it is sure to be well with him? Never. The proof of reality is continuance.

The reason he endures to the end is not any perseverance of his own. What I believe in, and what the Word of God clearly teaches, is the perseverance of the Holy Spirit. When He begins a work, He never gives up until it is completed. That is our confidence.

But the one who endures to the end will be saved — whatever the end may be, whether a martyr's death or the coming of Christ to the earth. As ever, the test of reality is continuance. There may, indeed, be failure, and even the love of many growing cold, but those that are real will endure. Peter broke down, but his faith did not fail; he continued to the end.

That is the primary bearing of this passage. But there are, of course, many useful applications we may make for ourselves. Using it to teach that no one can be sure of salvation until death is not one of them.

The gospel of the kingdom, simply put, announces the soon coming of Christ as Messiah, His authority, and the resulting need to repent. John the Baptist had already announced the coming kingdom: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2). The Lord Himself preached the gospel of the kingdom (e.g. Matt. 4:23). Here the Lord told His disciples that this gospel of the kingdom would be preached again. It will not stay in a limited circle. It will go through the whole world, as a witness to all the nations. That global announcement of the coming king and kingdom will take place at the end, just before the Lord's appearing in power. Jews who join the faithful remnant of Israel will believe this gospel, and so will a large number of people from various nations (Rev. 7:9-17).

But in Matthew the "end" is the one the disciples had asked about — Christ's coming, and the end of the age. And before that event the gospel will be preached to all the Gentiles. It is not, however, the gospel of God's grace, but "the gospel of the kingdom." That term is never applied to Christianity. It announces the kingdom of the Messiah, and it goes out before His appearing. It goes not merely to all nations, but to all the nations, or Gentiles, as distinct from the Jews. Christianity erased that distinction. It matters greatly again when the Lord is about to set up His earthly kingdom.

The gospel of the grace of God takes your heart to heaven. The gospel of the kingdom, if believed, will eventually make a man very happy on earth, because it asserts the glory and rights of the Son of Man, who is about to come and purify the earth by His righteous judgment.

All the world shall hear of Him as the coming King. Thank God for that. Only a small part of the world has had "the gospel of the grace of God" preached to it in our day. But I comfort my heart with this. Within a very short time from tonight the Lord could come, the Church could be taken up, and this blessed company of what I may call earthly evangelists could appear. Then a wonderful change would be seen... Christ does not say or mean that all nations will be converted. Many will not be converted. But they will still hear a clear, distinct testimony.

Before the cross, the gospel of the kingdom was strictly confined to Israel: "Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans" (Matt. 10:5). But now, look — a devoted band goes out to the nations. They announce that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and that the Son of Man will come in power and great glory to judge the world. Christendom will have given Christ up. It will be a marvellous thing that despised Jews then carry the fragrance of His name through the world!

The testimony must be borne worldwide, in the middle of every kind of trial, and the witnesses must fight the good fight in the power of faith; but "when this gospel of the kingdom" (not merely the gospel, but this gospel — that of the kingdom) "shall be preached in all the world for a witness (nothing more) to all the nations, then shall the end come." The preaching of this gospel of the kingdom, throughout the habitable world, is the immediate forerunner of the end.

In the first place, "the end" here is not the same as the Lord's coming for His saints, or the end of the church period. It is "the end" the disciples had just been asking about — "the end of the age."... The rejection of the Messiah broke off the course of "the age." When the church period ends, that age starts running again. Its end comes just before the glorious age of the Messiah. That is the "end" the Lord was speaking about.

How many earnest servants of Christ have gone to the far corners of the earth, thinking they were speeding the Lord's coming by carrying the gospel where it had never been before! The Master will no doubt accept such devoted labour and reward it richly. But as far as it rests on our text, it is based on a complete misunderstanding.