This week we study the contextual clues of Matthew 24 in depth.
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00:00Welcome to Studies with Stearman.
00:06Join us as we look deeper into the Bible.
00:10Strengthen your faith with us, even as we see the day approaching.
00:15And now, here's Gary.
00:17Well, we're going to be in Matthew 24 today again, so we'll keep hammering away at this
00:26until we get it right.
00:28Matthew 24, when?
00:32Disciples ask two questions, when and what?
00:34And everybody wants to know when and what.
00:36I mean, there's nobody who doesn't want to know when.
00:40When's he coming?
00:41And they said, what will be the signs surrounding your return to set up your kingdom?
00:48And in that question, we have two problems, because there are two comings of Jesus.
00:56He's coming for the church, and then he's coming back at the end of the tribulation
01:00period in power and glory, and every eye shall see him.
01:05The big, big, big, and I mean the number one prophetic problem, is separating the prophecies
01:12that refer to his return for the church versus the prophecies that refer to his return to
01:20Israel at the end of the tribulation.
01:24Therein lies the problem.
01:26You can confuse Israel and the church.
01:28You can confuse Israel and the Gentiles.
01:31The Bible talks about the times of the Gentiles.
01:36Times of the Gentiles, as mentioned by Paul and by Jesus himself, are times that are foreordained
01:43in order to give the Gentile world powers time to rise to their maximum wickedness before
01:50God steps out of the heavens and judges them.
01:53At which time he will end wickedness, he will also create a worldwide revival, which
01:58I think is amazing.
02:00Right in the middle of that judgment will come the greatest revival in the history of
02:03the world.
02:04And finally, well actually let's say for the first time in their long history, Israel will
02:11bow the knee to God sincerely and say, we have sinned, we have erred in our pathway.
02:20Only through you can we ever do right.
02:22I don't know, it's fascinating.
02:24Through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Jews have been blessed unbelievably.
02:29They have been given talent, they have been given wealth, they have been given leadership.
02:33And to this very day, if you look at Jews individually, in science, in literature,
02:42I don't care whether it's poetry or documentary literature, I don't care if it's entertainment,
02:48if it's comedy, whatever it is, you're going to find a Jew somewhere up there at the top
02:53of the list.
02:55Sadly, if it's evil, if it's really first-class wickedness, you're also going to find a Jew
03:01because they have gone the wrong way.
03:04And God has given them a maximum potential as a people to use either for good or for
03:11ill and they've used it both ways.
03:13Jewish philanthropists have been the greatest philanthropists in the history of the world.
03:18Jewish criminals rank among the top names in the history of the world.
03:24And I'm not going to name any names, although three or four just whipped through my mind
03:29and wisely, the other side of my mind said, don't mention those names.
03:35And I'm glad I have that side of my brain working.
03:40So the Jews are going to be broken in their power as a result of the tribulation, meaning
03:47that they will no longer rely upon their schmarts.
03:51As one Jew said to me once, he said, the difference between us Jews and you Gentiles is that we
03:56got schmarts.
03:59And he was right.
04:00Couldn't argue with that.
04:02But they rely on their schmarts and not on God.
04:05And that's a problem.
04:06Romans 11.25, I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest
04:12you should be wise in your own conceits that blindness has happened to Israel until the
04:16fullness of the Gentiles become in.
04:18The fall of Israel is the blessing of the Gentiles.
04:22The rise of Israel will be the blessing of the world.
04:26But the Gentiles have to be dealt with and they will be dealt with severely.
04:31Now we've been looking at Matthew 24 and examining these two questions, when and what.
04:39Last week we dealt with the illustration of the days of Noah.
04:45Basically those who believe in a pre-tribulational rapture, and I've said this a hundred times,
04:53use the fundamental rule of exposition, context, context, context, they say.
05:01And they say the context of Matthew 24 is the Jews.
05:05Well when I started about three or four weeks ago talking about Matthew 24, I used this
05:11context, context, context rule, and context declares historically that when the disciples
05:20ask their questions what and when, they were talking about the kingdom, the coming of the
05:26kingdom.
05:27So the context is when will you come back, reveal yourself to the world, set up your
05:34throne, declare your kingdom.
05:36And that's Jewish business, not Gentile business.
05:41That's the classical way to interpret Matthew 24, it's not Gentile business at all, it's
05:46Jewish business.
05:48And it is, because he talks about the tribulation, he talks about the birth pangs of the nation,
05:55talks about the affliction of the Jews, he talks about the abomination of desolation,
05:59that's to the Jews.
06:00He talks about the tribulation, the great one, which is for the Jews.
06:08He talks about false Christs coming to Israel.
06:11He talks about his second coming.
06:15Matthew 24, 27, for as lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even to the west,
06:20so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.
06:24Clearly that's the second coming and not the rapture, because he goes on to say, for wheresoever
06:28the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together, and then he says immediately after
06:33the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, the moon shall not give her light,
06:38and so forth, and that'll be the time when he comes again.
06:43He shall send forth his angels with the sound of the trumpet.
06:46A lot of people say that's the rapture, no.
06:50Second coming.
06:51Then he talks about the fig tree, Matthew 24, 32-35, which is Israel again.
06:57Jeremiah prophesied that figs would be replanted in the latter days.
07:03The good figs of Israel, and that they would grow up as trees.
07:08Well, that's the parable of the fig tree.
07:12And so we come to the end of that still in the context of national Israel in the latter
07:20days.
07:21Classically, then, you go on to the illustration of the days of Noah and those who plead
07:27context, context, context will tell you that that's an illustration of the tribulation
07:32and the judgments thereof.
07:34And I've believed that for a long time.
07:39But over the years I began to shift my position because what I've learned about prophetic
07:45scripture is that you can have a context, say ten verses in a row, and eight of those
07:55verses will clearly illustrate that context, but two of them, maybe right in the middle
08:01of the context, will be talking about something else.
08:05Or as in the case of Daniel 11, the prophecy of the willful king, Daniel's talking about
08:11Antiochus IV Epiphanes who reigned from 167-164 BC, and then without taking a breath he talks
08:20about the willful king.
08:23And the willful king hasn't even come yet.
08:25So from 164 BC till the present is the space in the Bible between one verse and the next
08:34verse.
08:35Big, big, big skip in time.
08:38So context doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means.
08:44And we're going to really see that today as we reexamine the prophecy of the days of Noah.
08:51Next week we commented on verse 36, Matthew 24,
08:54"...but of that day and hour knoweth no man, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."
09:00Classic contextual exegesis will tell you that that day and hour is the time of Jesus'
09:07second coming.
09:08Context, context, context.
09:11Problem with that is, and we mentioned this but I want to repeat it because we'll be digging
09:16into this a little bit more today, is that you will know the day and the hour if you're
09:22in the tribulation because the thing that starts the tribulation is the Antichrist's
09:26signature with the elders of Israel on a covenant which begins a seven-year period which is
09:33interrupted in the middle by what Jesus calls the abomination of desolation.
09:38And if you were alive during the tribulation you could set your watch, if you've got a
09:45watch that has a calendar on it, and you'd know the exact time of Jesus' second coming
09:51if you were in the tribulation.
09:53So verse 36 can't be in the tribulation because that day and hour will be known by the people
10:00living in the tribulation.
10:03Very clearly.
10:04Secondly, as we mentioned in the contextual exegesis of Matthew 24 there is a break at
10:12verse 36 where verse 35 says,
10:16"...heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."
10:23And then verse 36 says, "...but of that day and hour."
10:26And there is a construction in the Greek, it's called the peridot construction which
10:33means the introduction of a new topic.
10:36So you could read this as follows.
10:39Verse 35, "...heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
10:42And now on a new subject, of that day and hour knoweth no man."
10:48So the day and hour is a brand new subject.
10:51We're no longer talking about the tribulation, we're now talking about something else.
10:55What are we talking about?
10:57Escaping from that horrendous time.
11:02Who's Jesus talking to?
11:05Now the contextualist, someone who pleads context, context, context will say Jesus is
11:11being asked these questions, when and what, by Jews.
11:17His answer is then to Jews, and his answer has to do with the future of Israel.
11:27But in my mind, those are not just Jews, those are his disciples.
11:32A little bit later, they are to become the heads of the church.
11:37So he's really talking to the church, as well as he is talking to the Jews.
11:40The disciples are not just Jews, they're apostles.
11:45Not yet, but they're soon to become the apostles of the church, therefore the context legitimately
11:53can include a reference to the church, which I think it does.
11:56Starting in verse 36, "...of that day and hour, which I take to be the rapture, knoweth
12:01no man, know not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."
12:04And that makes a lot of sense to me, because the angels in heaven are going to know about
12:09the second coming of Christ.
12:12If you read Revelation, it's a production number.
12:15I mean, Revelation's got the stage props, it's got the lighting, it's got the music,
12:21it's got the dramatic pauses, the silence, it's got the sweeping chorus, you know, and
12:26it's got the casts of thousands.
12:29It's got everything.
12:30And people are moving here and there in accordance with the activities of the high priest culminating
12:36in the second coming.
12:37It's a production number, CB DeMille.
12:40There's a guy over here with a megaphone saying, cue the elephants.
12:44There's another guy over here saying, get the giraffes ready, roll sound, roll film,
12:52you know, and so forth, and then somebody has to get the giraffes moving, somebody's
12:57got to get the elephants moving, and somebody else has to turn on the giant water hoses
13:03that wet down the ark.
13:04It's that kind of a production number.
13:07And that's what tribulation is.
13:10The rapture is not a production number.
13:13It could happen like five minutes from now, quietly, quickly, and the world will not see
13:21it.
13:23It's going to be one of the most amazing phenomena, maybe the most amazing phenomenon in the history
13:29of the world.
13:31The angels of Heaven don't know about it.
13:34Imagine that.
13:36That raises a question in my mind, because I've always tried to visualize the rapture.
13:41How many people are going to go in the rapture, you think?
13:45Let's say, let's be generous and say 50 million out of six and a half billion people.
13:53Although I don't think it's going to be that many.
13:55But let's say it's 50 million.
13:58Those 50 million people in a millisecond are going to be gathered up and ushered off to
14:04various places.
14:06You talk about a logistics problem.
14:09How would you like to be a director at the rapture?
14:14Getting ready for all these people who are coming up, and you have to get each one to
14:17his right place, and you have to measure him for his robe of righteousness, and get him
14:22over there to pick up his robe of righteousness, and just say, you stand here until I get back,
14:26because I've got another 25,000 people to take care of.
14:29It's going to be, well, I'm exaggerating probably, but then it says right here in the book, no
14:38man knoweth the day or the hour.
14:39Not the angels in Heaven.
14:41They don't know when it's coming.
14:45I don't understand that.
14:46But then I don't have to, because the Lord's got it all taken care of.
14:50All I know is that I'm expected to be lifted up in a moment, the twinkling of an eye.
14:57And then we go into the days of Noah, and we've now talked about this for three weeks.
15:04The days of Noah illustrate not an evangelist, but a herald of a new age.
15:13Noah was born, he lived 600 years.
15:18During that 600 years, he saw the world degenerate into something horrible.
15:24And the Lord set him apart and said, I want you to take your family, do what I tell you,
15:28I'm going to save you, but I'm going to destroy the world.
15:33There have been discussions about what Noah represents in terms of biblical metaphor.
15:39What does Noah represent?
15:41Does he represent escape from the judgment of God, or did Noah have to go through the
15:47judgment of God?
15:48A lot of people argue on both sides of that question.
15:53Some people will take the position, well, Noah didn't really escape the judgments of
15:59those days.
16:00He had to go through the judgment.
16:03Therefore he can't be a type of the rapture.
16:05Other people say, no, no, Noah did escape being drowned.
16:11And he rode through and came out the other side of the great judgment.
16:16And started a new life.
16:18So therefore he is a type of the rapture.
16:21I've heard both sides argued quite vehemently for a long time.
16:26I take the view that Noah did not experience judgment in the sense that it was delivered
16:32to the world.
16:33He escaped judgment.
16:34Therefore we have this, as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the son
16:39of man be.
16:42For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating, drinking, marrying, giving
16:45and marrying until the day that Noah entered the ark, and do not until the flood came.
16:51We've talked about this now for a couple of different weeks and different perspectives.
16:57The people on earth in that day were ignorant of the coming flood.
17:02The people on earth today, right now, are ignorant of the coming tribulation.
17:10Everybody's trying to guess how the world's going to end.
17:12You don't have to guess if you read the Bible.
17:14A great consortium of world power is going to create a global government which will rise
17:20until it covers the whole world during a time of war.
17:24Out of those wars will come a man called the Antichrist who will create a system that everybody
17:29will think is the messianic kingdom.
17:33It's going to be a time when everybody says, oh, everything's going to work wonderfully
17:37now.
17:38We've got our man.
17:41So when you look at the idea of Noah, you have a man who lived in a world that was totally
17:49ignorant of the coming judgment of God.
17:52We have that man and his family lifted up and riding above the judgment and safely being
18:01delivered on the other side.
18:04And to me, that is a wonderful illustration of the catching away of the church.
18:09Noah was distinct in one way.
18:12He and his family were considered righteous.
18:15That made them different from the rest of the world.
18:19The church is considered righteous.
18:21That makes it different from the rest of the world.
18:25We are different from the rest of the world because we are righteous.
18:30The rest of the world that is not righteous does not recognize that the body of Christ
18:35is righteous.
18:36In fact, they think the body of Christ is a bunch of silly kooks who don't have good
18:42sense and they don't understand righteousness.
18:45So it was in the days of Noah.
18:48Well then we discussed verse 40 of Matthew 24.
18:52Then shall two be in the field, one shall be taken the other left, two women shall be
18:55grinding the mill, one taken the other left, watch therefore, for you know not what hour
19:02your Lord doth come.
19:05Your what?
19:06Your Lord.
19:09Well the world is not expecting its Lord to come.
19:13The world is not watching, expecting its Lord to come.
19:17Quite the contrary.
19:18The world thinks the Lord's gone away forever and not going to come back.
19:24The perspective here is to watch.
19:28And as we mentioned last week, that word watch in Matthew 24, 42 comes from a Greek
19:35term that means to be spiritually awake.
19:39Keep your spiritual eyes open, therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord doth
19:43come.
19:44And that is the truth.
19:45We don't know what hour.
19:47We have a suspicion that it's not far off.
19:51But verse 43, know this, that if the good man of the house had known what watch the
19:55thief would come, he would have watched, would not have suffered his house to be broken
19:59up.
20:00I want you to look at that word thief because we're going to revisit that in a minute in
20:05another context.
20:07If the good man of the house, that is if the homeowner had known in what watch the thief
20:13would come, he would have watched, would not have suffered his house to be broken up or
20:19broken into.
20:22The good man of the house, the homeowner, who is he?
20:27Well, I think he's a righteous man, or at least potentially righteous.
20:35We all as righteous people can either be watching or not.
20:41And Jesus here exhorts us to be good watchmen and to be ready, therefore be ye also ready
20:48for in such an hour as you think not the Son of Man cometh.
20:52Now, I used to think that that coming there in verse 44 was to Israel, therefore be ye
21:00also ready for in such an hour as you think not the Son of Man cometh to Israel.
21:06Because the contextualists all say Matthew 24 pertains only to Israel and therefore this
21:12is His second coming to Israel.
21:15I tend now to doubt that.
21:17I tend to think that the spiritually alive who live in these days are intended here.
21:28In Genesis chapter 6, Noah built an ark.
21:32He entered the ark and the Lord shut him inside the ark.
21:36The people who lived around that period of time knew there was going to be a judgment.
21:42That is, the righteous people knew of a coming judgment.
21:47For example, Enoch, who was the seventh from Adam, wrote about the tribulation period,
21:54which is still future to us.
21:55Enoch didn't write about the flood.
21:57It's amazing to me.
21:59Enoch knew that man was going to be judged at some point in the future.
22:06The controversy, to boil it down, is that among those who believe in the pre-tribulational
22:14rapture of the church, most believe that Matthew 24 is talking to Israel and not the church.
22:21I think the debate is ongoing because there are a few alternate views being published
22:26now.
22:28The flood was a judgment.
22:32Therefore the flood to me equals or is analogous to before the tribulation.
22:39Noah in the days before the flood is analogous to our living today before the tribulation.
22:48Now with that in mind, turn to Luke 17 and we're going to look at another little view
22:54of the second coming.
22:57In Luke 17, starting in verse 20, most people will tell you that Christ is teaching on the
23:05second coming.
23:07But let's look at it.
23:09He's talking of the Pharisees.
23:12He's addressing the Pharisees.
23:15Luke 17, 20, when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, he answered
23:20them and said, the kingdom of God cometh not with observation.
23:25Boy, there's a mouthful.
23:28You know, Jesus could say more in fewer words than any man who ever lived.
23:34I wish I could condense language like he does.
23:38The Pharisees are asking the same question here as the disciples asked him on the Mount
23:44of Olives.
23:45When are you coming and what's going to be the sign of your coming?
23:50Well, the Pharisees don't say what's going to be the sign, they just said, when?
23:55When will the kingdom of God come?
23:58You notice it doesn't say the kingdom of Israel and it doesn't say the kingdom of the Messiah.
24:08It's the kingdom of God.
24:10That's a very specific question.
24:12It's a different question than saying, when's the Messiah going to come and set up his kingdom?
24:17Because when you're talking about the kingdom of God, you're talking about a situation in
24:22which the spiritual quality in question is not external, but it's internal.
24:30It's not external, but it's internal.
24:33The second coming of Christ is an external event.
24:37It's going to be the biggest event in the history of the world.
24:40You stop and think about it.
24:41Right after the tribulation, second coming of Christ, his feet touch down on the Mount
24:46of Olives, there's an immediate commencement of affairs that culminates in the rebuilding
24:52of the temple.
24:53Jesus is going to accept the throne and he'll rule and reign from Jerusalem for a thousand
24:59years.
25:01That's not the kingdom of God.
25:03That's the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Messiah.
25:08Kingdom of God is usually attached to the idea of the work of the Spirit of God, either
25:17in an individual or in a group of individuals or a nation.
25:21In other words, it is God's Spirit at work.
25:26And the question here is, when is this world going to yield itself to righteousness and
25:34become a righteous world?
25:36Jesus answers and he says, the kingdom of God comes not with observation.
25:43The Greek word for observation is paratoresis, which means attentive watching.
25:51In other words, active observation.
25:56Looking with binoculars, looking to see if you can catch the first sign of something
26:00on the horizon.
26:01It is attentive watching.
26:04The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.
26:06In other words, you can't see the kingdom of God is the way he answers this question.
26:12Which is basically what he told Nicodemus that night when he had that conversation with
26:17Nicodemus.
26:18You remember that?
26:19He said, you know, the kingdom of God is just about like the wind.
26:24It blows, you can feel it, and then it goes away.
26:27You don't know where it came from or where it's going, but that's the kingdom of God.
26:33It's an independent kind of thing that you can't see, but you can sense.
26:40That's what he's talking about here.
26:42Neither shall they say, lo, here, lo, look over there.
26:46For behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
26:51Entos, come on.
26:55Kingdom of God is in the midst of you.
27:00He's telling the Pharisees, the kingdom of God is within the midst of you, and you don't
27:04even know it.
27:05That's what he's saying.
27:10Can't see it.
27:11And he said unto the disciples, if days will come when you shall desire to see one of the
27:16days of the Son of Man, and ye shall not see it, well, has that prophecy been fulfilled?
27:24Certainly it has.
27:26Because these disciples went on after Jesus was crucified and resurrected, went to Heaven.
27:32These disciples went on to become the leaders of the church, and they all wrote in their
27:36epistles that Jesus could come at any moment.
27:40Paul said in 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, he said in Ephesians, in all of his epistles
27:47he hinted that Jesus could come.
27:49So keep on looking.
27:51Comfort one another with these words.
27:54And Jesus is saying the days will come when you shall desire to see one of the days of
27:58the Son of Man, and ye shall not see it.
28:01They shall say to you, see here, or see there.
28:04Go not after them or follow them.
28:05For as the lightning that lighteneth out of one part of Heaven shineth the other part
28:09of Heaven, so shall also the Son of Man be in his day.
28:16But first he must suffer many things and be rejected of this generation.
28:22So we're talking about, I think, a blend of the church age and the second coming.
28:31Because there in verse 22, certainly that was fulfilled in the early church.
28:36You shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, ye shall not see it.
28:41That was fulfilled already in the first century.
28:44But then you go to 23, and they shall say to you, see here, or see there.
28:47Go not after them or follow them.
28:50That was fulfilled in the days of the false disciples at the end of the first and the
28:55beginning of the second century, the days of Simeon Bar Kokhba.
28:59There were a lot of false messiahs in the days of the early church.
29:04But then 24, for as the lightning that lighteneth out of the one part of Heaven shineth the
29:09other part of Heaven, that sounds like the second coming.
29:13So we're seeing a blend of two different time periods here.
29:17And by the way, it is the second coming, because if you go back to Matthew 24, it says
29:22immediately after the tribulation of those days concerning Jesus' second coming.
29:30Matthew 24, 27, lightning cometh out of the east, shineth even to the west.
29:34So we have a blend here of verses that refer to the church age and also to the day of the
29:41Lord.
29:42And it even says, in his day, in Luke 17, 24, so shall also the Son of Man be in his
29:51day.
29:52Well, that's the day of the Lord, which is essentially synonymous with the tribulation
29:57period.
29:5825, but first, he must suffer many things, be rejected of this generation.
30:04That came and went.
30:07Now we come to verse 26, and it looks like we're back in the pre-tribulational period
30:13once again.
30:15As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it also be in the days of the Son of Man.
30:19What was the days of Noah?
30:21Days of Noah was a society, an unrighteous society, ignorant of the coming judgment.
30:28What are we living in today?
30:30A society that is spiraling ever downward, totally ignorant of the coming judgment, the
30:35tribulations.
30:36It's a terrible situation.
30:37It's what Jesus says, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it also be in the days of
30:43the Son of Man.
30:44And they did eat, they drank, they married, given in marriage.
30:47In other words, they were totally preoccupied with what they thought would be an ever-blossoming
30:53paradise.
30:54They really had a wonderful world.
30:57They thought they could carve out a utopia for themselves, but up until the day that
31:02Noah entered the ark, they were ignorant.
31:05Remember, Noah was not an evangelist.
31:09He was not saving souls.
31:10Noah was a kyroux in the Greek, kyrouso.
31:14He was a herald of God's judgment, just as Jesus, after He was crucified, went down to
31:24Hades and preached to the spirits in prison.
31:27He didn't go down there to evangelize.
31:31Same Greek word used of Jesus, kyroux, preach, declare, herald.
31:37Jesus went down to Hades and told the spirits in prison, it's been done.
31:43You people don't have a prayer.
31:46Judgment has been fixed.
31:49Price has been paid.
31:50And then He went to heaven, where He took up the office of high priest, which He still
31:54holds today.
31:57That's what we read, as it was in the days of Noah.
32:00So shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man.
32:04They did eat, they drank, they married wives, in other words, everything is just normal.
32:08This is before the flood, which is analogous to before the tribulation.
32:13Likewise, verse 28, also as it was in the days of Lot, they did eat, they drank, they
32:22bought, they sold, they planted, they built.
32:25That same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven,
32:29and destroyed them all.
32:31Lot lived before brimstone fell out of the heavens.
32:38And he, thanks to the grace of God, was escorted out of town before the brimstone fell.
32:44That's a perfect analog to the pre-tribulation rapture of the church.
32:49It's a perfect analog.
32:51The society of Lot didn't have a clue that judgment was coming.
32:56And even if somebody had told them, they would have said, forget it, don't want to
32:59hear about it, we're happy the way we are.
33:02This place is a paradise, and by the way it was down there in Sodom and Gomorrah was the
33:07choicest part of the land.
33:09Today you go there and it's like the backside of the moon.
33:12That's because God has judged it.
33:14Back in those days it was the fairest portion of the land, and the people of Sodom were
33:19just living their own happy way, their alternative lifestyle, diversity, you know.
33:25It says they were eating and drinking, buying and selling and planting and building, but
33:33the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, destroyed
33:38them all.
33:39What are we talking about here?
33:41Are we talking about events within the tribulation?
33:44No, we're talking about something that happens before the tribulation, both the case of Noah
33:49and of Lot.
33:52Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.
33:57Now Joel, the first of the writing prophets, wrote all about the great and terrible day
34:02of the Lord.
34:03Any time you see that day or that day in the Old Testament it's referring to the tribulation.
34:09And here it is again, verse 30, even thus shall it be in that day when the Son of Man
34:17is revealed, in the day.
34:24Does that mean in the middle of the day?
34:28No, it does not.
34:30It means periphrastic construction, grammar says in the context of the day in which the
34:38Lord is revealed, not in the middle of.
34:44So what can we say?
34:49Second Thessalonians 1, verse 5.
34:57Second Thessalonians 1, 5.
35:00Keep your place and go over there.
35:01We're going to read this and look at this contextually.
35:07Paul's writing to the Thessalonians in the first and second Thessalonians are letters
35:11written to people who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
35:17He wrote to this particular group of people because he thought that they were spiritual
35:21enough to understand the deep things concerning the coming of the Lord.
35:26Second Thessalonians 1, 5 says, your tribulations, parenthetically, manifest token of the righteous
35:34judgment of God that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which also you suffer.
35:39So Paul's trying to encourage them under persecution.
35:44Thessalonica was a Roman garrison.
35:48It was also a heavily populated Jewish center.
35:52New Christians were not popular or welcome there.
35:56And as their church grew, they experienced a lot of persecution.
36:01And Paul says this is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God that you may
36:04be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which he also suffers, seeing it's a righteous
36:09thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you.
36:15In other words, you're being given trouble now, but God's going to give them a whole
36:19lot more trouble than they're giving you.
36:21That's what he's saying.
36:23And then verse seven says, and to you who are troubled, rest with us when the Lord Jesus
36:29shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels.
36:34So that sounds like the rapture.
36:38Next sentence, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, sounds like the
36:44tribulation.
36:46So here you have two verses back to back talking about the rapture and the tribulation.
36:50So you have to be really careful in the way you understand Scripture.
36:56So I'll read seven and eight again.
36:58And to you who are troubled, rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from
37:02heaven with his mighty angels.
37:03In flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel
37:08of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence
37:14of the Lord and from the glory of his power.
37:18Now I believe that, and I thank God for extending his grace to me, a sinner, with the promise
37:24that I would be able to escape the judgments coming upon all the world.
37:28And I live in thanks from one day to the next that I have that promise.
37:34Boy, think about it.
37:36But the rest of the world out here, they're like the people of Noah's day.
37:41They knew not until the flood came and took them all away.
37:47You can preach to them, you can pass out tracts, you can give them little notes and say, listen
37:52to this radio station because they preach the gospel.
37:55You can do all kinds of things.
37:58But they won't listen unless they want to listen.
38:01They don't know.
38:02It's a beautifully developed picture that we see here.
38:08So now back to where we were in Luke 17.
38:13Noah, 600 years he lived.
38:17And I don't know how many of those years he spent building his boat.
38:21Maybe the last 300 or so, I don't know.
38:23I mean, you got to live 300 years to build a 500 foot long boat with hand tools.
38:31But he built it and the people around him didn't know.
38:36That's analogous to the body of Christ today, doing what it's doing.
38:42We pray for various concerns.
38:44We send money for evangelism, like we support the little radio station in Nepal, which is
38:50broadcast in the gospel in Nepalese.
38:54Supposedly it has 5 million people who listen to it.
38:58And so we have a part in giving the gospel to 5 million Nepalese people.
39:04I wonder how many of those 5 million actually hear and receive Christ.
39:09Probably the minority.
39:12Maybe 25 people, maybe 100 people.
39:17Let's get optimistic and say 20,000 Nepalese.
39:22But still, that's a very small minority.
39:27And that's the way it is in the world.
39:28It's the way it was in the days of Noah.
39:31The world is ignorant and it's a very sad thing.
39:33And if you stop and think about it, it makes you want to cry almost, that there's so many
39:38people out there who just will not receive the grace of God, the way it was in the days
39:45of Lot.
39:46In the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from Heaven,
39:51destroyed them all.
39:53Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.
40:00Back to Matthew 25, and we're going to take our last look at the parable of the virgins.
40:09We've looked at it once before.
40:13Matthew 25, then shall the kingdom of Heaven be likened unto ten virgins.
40:22This is the kingdom of Heaven.
40:24This is not the Messianic kingdom.
40:26It's not the kingdom of Israel, not the kingdom of God.
40:31It's the kingdom of Heaven.
40:36What's the kingdom of Heaven?
40:39I've seen whole books written on this subject, the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of Heaven.
40:44I guess maybe the easiest way to put it for me is the kingdom of Heaven is the place of
40:50the redeemed, that's us, who go to dwell in the house of the Lord as members of the family
40:58of God through adoption.
41:02That's our home, Heaven.
41:05Then shall the kingdom of Heaven be likened to ten virgins which took their lamps, went
41:10forth to meet the bridegroom.
41:12And we've said many times the ten here is called minyan in Scripture.
41:17It is an ordinal majority.
41:20The Jews regard that as a sufficient number gathered to do business.
41:25It represents, I think, Israel.
41:28Five of them wise, five foolish.
41:30They that were foolish took their lamps, took no oil with them.
41:33But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
41:38While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
41:42By the way, Israel's waiting for the bridegroom, did you know that?
41:46Moshiach is coming soon, they say.
41:50The Hasidic Jews really believe that their Messiah is coming soon, and they call Him
41:55the bridegroom.
41:57And they do, because they consider themselves to be married to Messiah.
42:03They were married at the mount, Mount Horeb, at the giving of the law.
42:10They consider national Israel to be the wife of Jehovah, and they consider regathered Israel
42:17to be a regathered remnant of the wife of Jehovah, and they consider Messiah to be the
42:22bridegroom.
42:23They're waiting.
42:26While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
42:28At midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him.
42:35Then all those virgins arose, trimmed their lamps.
42:37The foolish said to the wise, Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out.
42:41But the wise answered, saying, Not so, lest there be not enough for us and you.
42:46But go ye rather to them that sell, buy for yourselves.
42:48And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came.
42:52They that were ready went in with him.
42:54After the marriage, the door was shut.
42:57Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
43:01But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, in other words, I'm telling you the truth,
43:06I know you not.
43:07Boy, those are horrific words.
43:12Talk about a living nightmare.
43:13If the Lord says to you, I know you not, that's just about the worst thing that can happen
43:17to you.
43:20Watch therefore.
43:22Be spiritually alert, for you know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man
43:27cometh.
43:29And you've all heard this, I'm sure, but I'll repeat it.
43:32In the Jewish system of marriage, when the marriage is about to be consummated, the bridegroom
43:38would go to the home of the bride to fetch her and bring her to his home.
43:44As he approached his own home, he would be met by a procession of virgins who would conduct
43:49the bride and groom for the marriage ceremony to be followed by a marriage feast.
43:57When the bridegroom, that is when the Messiah returns to earth with his bride, the church,
44:06for the marriage feast, the virgins will be responsible for both watching for his return
44:12and being ready to light the lamps when he returns.
44:16In other words, they don't know when, under what circumstances, he's just coming.
44:23And they're kind of ignorant of the circumstances of his coming, but they are to be ready.
44:28Five are ready, five are not.
44:30Five have oil, that is they are led of the Spirit.
44:34Five do not, they are lost.
44:37The five virgins who were wise would be believing Jews.
44:42I mean, they're going to be believing Jews?
44:45Because there are, in fact, 144,000 of them.
44:51But the tribulation is going to have an amazing revival led by national Israel, the wise of
44:59national Israel, ready and watching.
45:03They have oil, they have the Spirit.
45:06Only the wise ones enter the wedding feast, which is the Messianic kingdom.
45:13The Messiah here in this illustration is shown as already with his bride.
45:20Notice that?
45:21Behold, the bridegroom cometh.
45:24The virgins got up, trimmed their lamps, so forth and so on.
45:29Bridegroom came, they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, the door was
45:33shut.
45:34The bride was already there, representing, I believe, the church, which was already raptured
45:41before the tribulation period.
45:44These who have the oil became believers during the tribulation period, and they are ready
45:51to go in with the bridegroom.
45:54Again, the five foolish who had no oil and are hence not saved are unbelievers.
46:02As we close today, I want to point to something about this parable.
46:08Verse 6, chapter 25, says,
46:12"...and at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh."
46:18Well, I want to tell you something.
46:22We are not of the night.
46:26Go back over to 1 Thessalonians, it talks about the rapture.
46:32And I think it uses language that specifically applies to Matthew 25.
46:39When Paul writes this,
46:40"...but of the times and seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write to you.
46:44For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night."
46:51In the night.
46:52Remember?
46:53When the bridegroom comes, there's a cry made, behold, the bridegroom.
46:59That happens at midnight.
47:02What Paul says, verse 2 of 1 Thessalonians 5,
47:07"...for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in that
47:11night.
47:13For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as
47:18travail upon a woman with child, they shall not escape.
47:21But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief."
47:27We are not of the dark or of the night.
47:29The midnight cry that went out is in the tribulation period.
47:35And we, the bride of Christ, the body of Christ, at that time have already been taken to be
47:41with Him during the day, before the night.
47:45"...but ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
47:50Ye are all children of light, children of the day.
47:53We are not of the night nor of darkness.
47:58Therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober."
48:04And that's what we do.
48:05We are watching.
48:07And I hope that as we study this, we're encouraged to be watchful and to be living as though
48:13the Lord could return at any moment.
48:17I wouldn't want to be caught doing something or one of those somethings that would embarrass
48:23me when the Lord came.
48:26Now just to put it perfectly, frankly, I might get caught, well, I'm not going to say.
48:33But you know, you could get caught doing something you wouldn't want to be caught at.
48:39Be ready.
48:41Be ready.
48:43For He could come in a moment when you think not.
48:46But that's the truth.
48:48"...therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober.
48:53For they that sleep, sleep in the night.
48:56And they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
49:00But let us who are of the day be sober.
49:04Putting on the breastplate of faith and love, for in Helmet the hope of salvation, that
49:09is the hope of the blessed salvation, the coming of Christ for the church.
49:14For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation, that is the coming for
49:19the church by our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep we should
49:24live together with Him.
49:26Wherefore, comfort yourselves together and edify one another even as also you do."
49:33That midnight in Matthew 25 is not for us at all.
49:37That midnight occurs long after we have been taken.
49:41We are creatures of the day, not of the night.
49:46I've run out of time once again, so we'll just stop right there and continue on in this
49:51study next week.