Matthew 24 is one of the most controversial and misunderstood passages in the New Testament. Any time there is a disturbance in the world, many run to this chapter to try to find answers. This comes particularly from verses 6-7 of Matthew 24.
And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. (Matthew 24:6-7 ESV)
So any time there are wars, people look to this chapter. Any time there is an great earthquake or a bad famine, people run to this scripture. Having an understanding of this chapter is important because there are so many misunderstandings and so many worries that come from this text. It is impossible for me in one lesson to completely unfold and explain everything in this chapter. I have been thinking for some time how to do teach this chapter considering its length and complications. So here is what I have come up with for us. This lesson this morning will be a framework and overview for the chapter. I want to give you and working knowledge of this text so that you can know how to understand it and use it properly. I will use our evening lesson tonight to go deeper into the text and explore some of the more complicated features of the chapter and give some explanation. Then I will use our Wednesday night study to answer any questions you have from these lessons. In short, we are going to take three levels of depth for this study. We will give the overview in this lesson. We will give a deeper explanation in tonight’s lesson. Finally, we will go even deeper and answer your questions in our Wednesday study.
Understanding the Context
To begin our study, we must see the context of what is happening. The first verse of Matthew 24 tells us that Jesus left the temple. This scene reaches all the way back to Matthew 21 when Jesus went into the temple in Jerusalem and cleansed it. This provoked the religious leaders to challenge Jesus and to challenge his authority. Jesus then spends the rest of chapter 21, all of chapter 22, and all of chapter 23 in the temple complex teaching about Jerusalem’s coming destruction. Matthew 23 is full of condemnations and woes upon the religious leaders who have brought Jerusalem to this point. Look at how Matthew 23 ends in verses 37-39. Jesus says that Jerusalem is the city that kills the prophets and messengers of God that have been sent to it. Jesus even proclaims that his effort has been to bring his people to God. But they have refused. They have rejected Jesus. They have rejected his signs. They have rejected his authority. They have rejected his teachings. But then Jesus says something stunning. Look at Matthew 23:38. “See, your house is left to you desolate.” Now initially we can miss what is so dramatic about these words. I know I have read this many times and not really understood what house Jesus was talking about and what this means.
In Matthew 21:13 Jesus cleansed the temple and declared, “My house shall be called a house of prayer.” The house that Jesus is referring to is the temple. Jesus concluded his public teaching by telling the people of Jerusalem that their temple is deserted. Your temple is empty. The Lord is not in that temple (cf. Luke 13:35). Therefore God is not with you (cf. Ezekiel 10). You have the building but God is not there. It is a shocking finale. Jesus ends the teaching in verse 39 saying that they will not see the Lord again until he comes either for their salvation or for their judgment. Read Psalm 118:19-26 to see this connection.
Now come to Matthew 24. Jesus is walking out of the temple complex with his disciples. But notice what the disciples are doing in verse 1. They are pointing out the temple buildings. Why do you think they are pointing out the buildings of the temple? What did Jesus just say? God is not here. God is not in this temple. God is not with this people. “But Jesus, look at these buildings and beautiful this place is!” (cf. Luke 21:5). Look at Jesus’ response in verse 2. There is not one stone that is going to be left on another. This temple with all of its buildings and all of its beauty will be destroyed as God’s judgment. This is the context of the questions that are asked by the disciples in verse 3. For three chapters Jesus has been teaching about the coming judgment on Jerusalem. Jesus even tells his disciples that there will not be a stone left standing in the temple complex when this judgment comes. This naturally leads the disciples to ask Jesus some questions.
The Disciples’ Questions
Look at the first question the disciples ask in verse 3. “When will this happen” or “When will these things be?” When will what happen? What has been the context? Jesus is talking about no stone of the temple complex being left standing. The disciples want to know when that is going to happen. This is very straightforward. There is one more question. “What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” Scholars point out that this is not two more questions but only one more. These two things are combined together. The question is the sign of your coming and of the end of the age. You will even notice that most translations try to show this is the same question by “and of the end of the age” to connect back that this is one question regarding the sign, not two separate questions.
The reason I am showing you this is so that you can have a framework for reading Jesus’ answer in this chapter. You will notice that Jesus answers these questions in the reverse order that they were asked. Verses 4-35 describe the signs that will precede this judgment against Jerusalem. There are going to be false messiahs. There are going to be wars and rumors of wars. There are going to be earthquakes and famines. Notice verse 8 says that this the just the beginning. In other words, these are the signs of the coming judgment. Further, there will be persecutions and many will fall away. When these signs are occurring, the people who are in Judea are to run to the mountains and not return to their homes (24:15-16). Now I want us to think about this for a moment. If Jesus was talking about the end of the world and final judgment, then why would people run to the mountains? It makes no sense to see this chapter pointing to the end times because of these kinds of directions.
Now sometimes people read verses 29-31 and think that Jesus cannot be talking about Jerusalem any more. It does not sound like Jerusalem. It sounds like the end of the world. I will go in depth about this in the next lesson. But look at what Jesus says in verse 32. You will notice that Jesus is still talking about signs and he uses the fig tree as an example. A fig tree producing leaves is a sign that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, then you know this judgment is near. All these things sum up all the signs that are found from verses 4-35. Now notice a very important statement in verse 34. The generation that Jesus was speaking to would not pass away until “all these things take place.” This helps us clearly see that Jesus is not talking about the end of the world. We might be confused about the pictures in this chapter (which we will unpack in the next lesson). But we can know this: Jesus is talking about things that would happening the first century, during the lifetimes of the listeners of Jesus’ words.
The other question is answered in verses 36-41. What was the other question? Go back to verse 3. “When will be these things be?” What was the context? The context is the destruction of the temple and the judgment on Jerusalem. When will this judgment and destruction occur? What is Jesus’ answer? In verse 36 Jesus says that the day or the hour no one knows. Jesus says that no one knows except the Father. Now people can be confused about how Jesus is God and yet he does not know when this judgment would come. Does this mean that Jesus is not God? How could Jesus be God and not know? I think the answer is simple. The exact day and hour in which God would unleash this judgment had not yet been determined. I do not have the time to explain this point in detail. But we see in the scriptures places where God is allowing sins to continue until there is a final point in time where God’s grace and mercy finally stops (cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:16).
Rather than giving the precise date and time of Jerusalem’s judgment, Jesus says in verse 37 that this judgment will be sudden. It will be like the days of Noah where everyone was living life like normal unaware that judgment was coming against them. So the when had not been determined but the signs have been given to give people the opportunity to run when the judgment is coming. Now why does Jesus connect this judgment with the flood and the days of Noah? You will notice that Jesus connects the suddenness of the judgment. This is the way God operates with his judgments. God’s judgments are always without warning. Jesus says that the people in Noah’s day were not ready, even though Noah warned of the coming judgment. Jesus says that this generation would not be ready, even though he is warning of the coming judgment and giving the signs.
Ready For Judgment
So what is the message for the people in Jesus’ day with a warning of coming judgment? What is the message for us who also have a warning of a coming judgment which we will look at when we get to chapter 25? What does God tell everyone about the judgments that he sends? First, stay awake (24:42). Jesus says that the day of the Lord is never known. The Lord does not say when judgment will be. There is a point when it is time for judgment and no one knows when that will be. In verse 43 Jesus says that if you knew when a thief was coming, then you would have kept watch through the night so they would not break into your house. So we also need to stay awake and remain ready for judgment. History is filled with God’s judgments on peoples and nations. Further, God has promised a final day of judgment in which we will all stand before the Lord (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:10). So are you ready for his coming?
Second, Jesus asks who is the faithful and wise servant (24:45)? The faithful and wise servant is the one who the master finds doing the master’s will when he comes. Readiness means doing God’s will while we wait for judgment. So what is the problem? The problem is identified in verse 48. People are going to think that God is delayed in his judgments. Everyone thinks that judgments will never happen. Our nation will never be judged. Our lives will never be judged. God does not care. God will not judge. But Jesus says that this is not the case. Jesus says in verse 50 that the Lord will come when he does not expect and judgment will come on those who are not awake and those who are not ready. The problem is we forget that judgment is coming. We forget that God judges and it is not only the final judgment but in national judgments. We forget that our life is but a breath and we never know when God will call us to account for our lives. Blessed is the person whom the Lord finds doing his will, ready and awake for that day.
Friends, the question is as simple as this. Are you ready to meet God if he were to come in judgment in the next 30 seconds? Has time caused us to not longer be intense about our readiness for the Lord’s coming? What will our Lord find us doing when he comes? Will he find us too busy for him? Will he find us busy with the emptiness of the world? Will he find us truly seeking his kingdom first? Are you ready?