Matthew 24:6–9

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.