What did Jesus say about the end times?

But in Matt. 24 He does give the sign of His coming, and of the consummation of the age. He is meeting the inquiries of the disciples from their own Jewish point of view; He enters into full particulars respecting Jerusalem, Judea, the temple, wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, etc., which were but the beginning of sorrows. The end was not yet, nor should it come before the gospel of the kingdom was preached in all the habitable earth for a witness to all the nations. Then He describes minutely the particular marks of the closing crisis, up to His manifestation to all the tribes of the earth, or land, and the complete ingathering of His elect (Israel) from the four winds.

Matt. 24. In this chapter we find the plain teaching of Jesus to His little flock of Jewish disciples. It is the same subject as the seven parables, only in plain words, not in parables. In the first few verses Jesus foretells the destruction of the Jewish temple — which, we all know, came literally to pass. He was seated on the Mount of Olives — the very spot where His feet shall stand when He comes to reign. The disciples came and enquired privately, “Tell us, when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world (or age)?” Now read carefully from the fourth to the last verse, and mark, there is not one thought of the world’s conversion. He foretells there will be false Christs — deceivers — wars, and rumours of wars — famines, pestilences, earth quakes — persecutions, sorrows, death — iniquity abounding, and the love of many waxing cold. And instead of the world receiving the gospel, it is preached for a witness; and then the end comes. Much has been fulfilled; and much in this chapter has yet to be fulfilled. Bear in mind, that all these words of Jesus were spoken to His Jewish disciples, and have special reference to what shall befall that nation. In the fifteenth verse He says to them, “When ye, therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso reads, let him understand,) then let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains,” &c. This evidently proves that the temple at Jerusalem has to be rebuilt; for the abomination of desolation is to stand in the holy place. And if you read Dan. 12:11-13, and compare it with 9:27, you see the fearful act of the head of the Roman power, who causes the sacrifice and oblation to cease in the midst of the week — then mark when the abomination stands in the holy place. Then the words of Jesus will be most valuable to the godly Jews, who believe His testimony in that day. The moment they see this take place, they take it as the signal to escape. They have not even time to go into the house to fetch their clothes. Then takes place “the great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time — no, nor ever shall be.” The remnant who have escaped may count the days that are shortened, 1290 to 1260, or half a week of years. The angel, speaking to Daniel of these days, says, “And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time: and at that time thy people (that is, the Jews) shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” (12:1-2.) Clearly, then, the setting up of the abomination of desolation, and the time of tribulation, are both future. And in proof of this, our blessed Lord says, what will take place immediately after, the tribulation: “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” (Ver. 29, 30.) Most certainly, then, all tribes of the earth are not converted; or why do they mourn when Jesus comes? Jesus says, “Verily I say to you, This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled.” How remarkably this is so before our very eyes! Though scattered among all nations, the generation or race of the Jews still exists, and waits the fulfilment of all these things. The Lord then goes on to state, “As the days of Noah were, so shall the coming of the Son of man be.” Oh, what a solemn thought, that this world is to go on eating and drinking — rejecting Christ, just as the world despised the preaching of Noah, “and knew not until the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be!” The most solemn warnings to watch and be ready are then given: “for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man comes.” Terrible will be the doom of that servant who shall say in his heart, My Lord delays his coming. Yes, he calls Him, “My Lord;” but his portion will be with the hypocrites, “where there in weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.” Such are the solemn words of the Son of God. Oh! that my reader may be awakened to the solemn enquiry, Am I ready, and waiting for the Lord?

False Christs are foretold together with wars and rumours, but these things do not indicate the end. There are to be famines, pestilences, earthquakes, as well as wars, but these are only the beginning of sorrows. Coupled with these things there shall be the persecution and martyrdom of disciples, the apostasy of some who have professed discipleship, the rising up of false prophets, the abounding of iniquity, and backsliding in heart of many professors. In an hour like that the real ones will be marked by endurance to the end when salvation will reach them. Moreover, all the time God will maintain His own witness among all the nations, and when this is completed the end shall come.

Three times in these verses does the Lord speak of "the end," and in each case He refers to the end of the age, as to which the disciples had enquired. To His true disciples, marked by endurance, the end will bring salvation. He emphasizes this first, before saying that it will bring judgment for His foes. Let it be noted that it is "this Gospel of the kingdom" which must be fully preached before the end comes; that is, the Gospel which the Lord Himself had preached — see Matt. 4:23; Matt. 9:35 — announcing the kingdom as at their doors. The Gospel which we preach today — see, 1 Corinthians 15:1-14 — could not in the nature of things be declared before Christ had died.

At the close of Matthew 23 the Lord Jesus grieves over Jerusalem, saying, "Ye shall not see Me, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord" (verses 37-39). When the Lord spoke of the impending destruction of the temple, the disciples asked Him, "When shall these things be? and what is the sign of Thy coming, and the completion of the age?" (Matt. 24:3). In reply the Lord tells us of the events that will take place at the close of the present age, and of His coming to usher in the age to come. These instructions are especially for the remnant of God's earthly people, who will have to pass through the tribulation of those awful times of wars, famines, pestilences and earthquakes, with antichrist ruling in the land of Israel and idolatry defiling God's temple.

Some of the godly will be slain for Christ's sake, others will pass through times of persecution and hatred, but when the climax is reached, the "sign of the Son of Man" will appear in heaven, and He will come for the deliverance of His own. Having brought salvation to His elect in the land, He "shall send His angels" to gather His elect from the four quarters of the earth. He will at that time fulfil what was prophesied in Isaiah 49:6, raising up the tribes of Jacob and restoring the preserved of Israel.

Nor does the Lord's reply point to the end of the world. It is a prediction of woes, partially accomplished in the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, but awaiting a far more fearful fulfilment when the "abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stands in the holy place" (v. 15); and during a period of "great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world, to this time, no, nor ever shall be" (v. 21). But in their darkest hour; there shall suddenly "appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth [or land] mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (Matt. 24:30).

The sign of the Son of man in heaven. — "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then shall all the nations of the earth (or, land) mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (Matt. 24:30). The disciples had asked, "What shall be the sign of thy corning, and of the end of the age?" The Lord had already instructed them about the end of the age; now He tells them that the sign of His coming will be the coming itself, for they should see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. The expression, "sign of thy coming," is the genitive of definition, for Mark and Luke give the substantial coming of the Son of man without referring to it as a sign.

The angels and the trumpet. — "And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, and from one end of heaven to the other" (Matt. 24:31). Whatever in that day may have been done by man, as a political measure, in placing Jews in the Holy Land, and though that people may have autonomy under their own false king, the antichrist, yet the scattered condition of Israel under the sentence of Jehovah remains. But when the Lord comes, He will, by the instrumentality of angels, gather His elect from the most distant parts of the earth. How beautiful will it be to the despised, persecuted, and oppressed remnant, to suddenly find that they are the objects of enquiry and succour by the angels of the Lord! Romance cannot show such a brilliant reversal of position — yesterday, thought not fit to live; now, the quest of Jehovah's angels! How good has it ever been and ever will be, to be faithful to God in the face of a corrupt and unbelieving world.

Luke 21 gives a further view of the world's course. It says, “When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.” This distinctly points to the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, when it was invested with armies perhaps more completely than at any point of its eventful history. But not a word is here about “the abomination of desolation” or that “then shall be great tribulation” such as never had been, nor shall be. It only tells us “these be the days of vengeance”: two very different things. Here again we read, “But woe unto those who are with child and to those who give suck in those days, for there shall be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people.” This was fulfilled in what befell the Jews when Titus took the city and “this people” passed into captivity for the second time. “And they shall fall by the edge of the sword and shall be led away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” So it came to pass. Jerusalem has been for many centuries trodden down by Gentiles. One national power after another was to have possession of the holy city. So it is still: that treading down yet goes on, for seasons allotted to Gentiles are not yet fulfilled.

Much more follows: “There shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity, sea roaring and rolling waves, men ready to expire through fear and expectation of the things coming on the habitable earth; for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken,” etc. These scenes did not take place when Titus took Jerusalem. We have had the capture of Jerusalem in verse 20, etc., after which Jerusalem is trodden down and must be till the seasons of Gentiles come to an end. But in the following verse we are transported into the final scenes. “And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.” The earth's destruction is not here intended, but the blessing that comes after the end of the age when God terminates the time of man's wickedness and misery and trouble and suffering. The coming of the Son of man is never coupled with the end of the world in any such sense, but with the close of Satan's misrule and the shining forth of the kingdom of God. For the world there can be no permanent general blessing till the Son of man comes in displayed power and glory to reign over it to God's glory.

The fixing of dates as to the coming of the Lord is a pernicious thing, and those who do it are presumptuous people. The Lord Himself said, "But of that day and that hour knows no man, no, nor the angels which are in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father" (Mark 13:32). Yes, says some one, but we know the year. Indeed? Then why did the Lord add, "Watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is" (verse 33), and again, "for ye know not when the Master of the house comes, at even, or at midnight, or at cock-crowing, or in the morning" (verse 35)? To the apostles who have given us the Word of God by the Holy Spirit's inspiration, the Lord said, "It is not for you to know the times and the seasons, which the Father has put in His own power" (Acts 1). If this knowledge was withheld from them in the Father's wisdom, where is there any indication in the Word that it would be revealed to us? These sayings of the Lord have to do with His coming in glory, and they surely abide true in regard to it. The church period has intervened, it will close with the Rapture, but not a word or a hint is given in relation to the Rapture that the time of it may be known. Days, months, years and numbers are given in the Scriptures, but they have their relation to Israel and the earth, and are all in abeyance until the heavenly company is secured and caught up, then the clock of prophecy will start again, and God's calendar will justify itself. Meanwhile we must accept the words of the Lord, and wait and watch and work.

Next we find here three classes, the goats, the sheep, and the brethren of the judge; that is to say, those who had not received the messengers, those who had received them, and the messengers themselves. It is the judgment of the quick, of the nations; a final judgment. They go thence to Gehenna, to everlasting torment, whilst the righteous possess everlasting life here on earth, but enjoy it with God. It is the judgment of the valley of Jehoshaphat when Jehovah shall have gathered the nations, and there shall be multitudes in this valley of decision. The judgment of the quick is a scriptural truth as certainly as the judgment of the dead. Not only so, but the Jews were much more familiar, and this according to their own scriptures of the Old Testament, with the judgment of the quick than with the judgment of the dead. Doubtless there were in the Old Testament words which had given the Pharisees to understand the latter, as also the Lord justifies them on this point whilst He condemns the Sadducees. Yet these were held as good Jews, and the high priest and his family were of this sect. Nobody put their orthodoxy in question. They were wrong, we know; but when we see the passage by which the Lord convicts them, we understand how some who had not the Spirit of God might remain in ignorance of the truth in this respect. If one did not seize the fact that God looks at man as having a body as well as a soul, so that the life beyond death demonstrates also the resurrection, one has still trouble to seize the force of the proof alleged by the Lord. For him who knows that the Lord is risen and that we are to be conformed to Him, the thing is simple. Death touches only the body; if one subsists afterwards, it is to be a complete man. One thing proves the other. The soul is happy with Christ meanwhile, but the man is not complete. He lives, the man who died; after death, all live for God, they are only dead for man; this last state of death must cease, but will only cease at the resurrection. Meanwhile the soul is with the Lord, the witness, since life is not terminated, that death is not to retain him who is subjected to it.

Mark the phrase “all these things,” from the first troubles down to the last, and the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. Clearly here “this generation” cannot mean a mere period of thirty years, or a man's life. The phrase signifies, what it frequently does in Scripture, a line characterized by certain moral tokens entirely independent of a brief limit of time. Hence we find particularly in the Psalms, this use of “generation.” One text is enough to prove it. In Psalm 72:7 we read “Thou shalt keep them, O Jehovah, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever.” “This generation” is supposed to go on, and it is an evil generation, a generation which has no faith, a stubborn and Christ-rejecting generation. “This generation” or the non-believing race of the Jews is not to pass away till all these things have taken place. Thus the same generation which crucified the Lord of glory is going on still, and will, till He comes again in the clouds of heaven. They are still the same proud, self-righteous, Christ-rejecting race as they were then.