The Great Signs of The End Part VIII Matthew 24:1-51

Yeah, thank you, Cassie. That was wonderful. And thank you, Caroline, as well.

And Heather and Molly and Mandy and Brianna, thank you for your musical gifting.

There's no holiday quite like Christmas. Many holidays are celebrated throughout the year, but none in their popularity and magnitude matches

Christmas. Everywhere you go on planet Earth, people celebrate Christmas.

This is so because of Christianity's influence on every corner of the planet.

Unlike many holidays, Christmas is a global holiday, and there's no holiday that is quite like it.

When we talk about Christmas, we're not talking about one day. We're talking about a season. Really, for an entire month, we call it the

Christmas season. All the decorations go up, the Christmas music plays, people watch their favorite

Christmas movies, and we eat the same kinds of delicious foods every time this season rolls around.

Even the most secular people have a faint understanding of what this season is all about.

Even though most of the focus is on Santa Claus and purchasing gifts, people are still aware that this is a

Christian holiday, and it's appropriate that it's Christmas Day and it's Sunday.

But this is how Christians should explain the significant day. The Christmas season and Christmas Day is the season every year to recognize that God came to this

Earth and became a man, and that man is Jesus Christ. When most people think about Christmas, they think it is a time to look back.

And in one sense, this is true. We do look back at the time God in the flesh was born.

But if we only look back, we are missing how the whole biblical story connects.

What people often miss is how Christmas relates to the end of the story. What is interesting to understand is that when the

Jews read the Old Testament, they did not see that there would be two comings of the

Messiah. I've explained this before. The Jews believed the Messiah would come, drive out his enemies, and then the people would reign with him.

They had no concept that there would be two comings of the Messiah, but God planned all along that there would be two comings.

When the Messiah came the first time, he came on a mission to save sinners. When the

Jews conceived what the Messiah would be, they were perplexed by passages from the

Old Testament, like Isaiah 53, that describes the suffering servant.

That passage describes that the Messiah, when he came, would suffer. It says that he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

Some Jews believe that this passage was describing the suffering of their nation and not the

Messiah. That's how they tried to explain it away. Other Jews believed that there were two

Messiahs. One Messiah would be a suffering Messiah, and the other Messiah would be a conquering one.

The Jews in the first century, during the time of Jesus, did not like the idea of a suffering

Messiah. They wanted a conqueror. This is why so many Jews rejected the

Messiah when he came. He wasn't the Messiah they wanted. Now, every

Jew understood that the coming of the Messiah to the earth was an end times event. It marked the eschaton, as theologians called it.

There were many predictions of his coming in the Old Testament, and his coming ushered in a phase of the end.

This is fascinating to think about. When we celebrate Christmas, we are remembering an end times event, and this event happened 2 ,000 years ago.

Jesus coming to the earth is a fulfillment from prophecies made long before he finally came.

Jesus coming to the earth is a fulfillment from prophecies made even at the very beginning.

When Adam and Eve fell into sin and God pronounced judgment upon the serpents, that text says that he would crush the head of the serpent.

And he did that 2 ,000 years ago when he went to the cross. That text says that his heel would be bruised and he would crush the head.

But that was his first coming. The celebration of Christmas is known as the first advent.

He came, he died, he rose again, he ascended to heaven, and he's in heaven right now.

That's the first advent. The second advent is the arrival of him when he comes to the earth.

Now, the word advent is not a word you hear every day, but this is the time of year you hear about it, the advent season.

A dictionary definition of advent is this, the arrival of a notable person, thing, or event.

The first advent happened 2 ,000 years ago when the Messiah arrived to the earth from heaven, and the second advent will happen at some unknown time in the future when the

Messiah arrives to the earth from heaven. So understand this about Christmas.

Christmas has an intricate connection with the end times. It is the first phase of the

Messiah's work and the second phase will happen when he returns. This morning as we continue our sermon series through Matthew and our journey through Matthew 24, we are going to see the end of Matthew 24 where Jesus tells his disciples and all of us that he's coming back.

And it is of utmost importance that everyone is ready for his return.

This is what we are going to see this morning in our final two points of Matthew 24.

During this long, eight -part sermon through Matthew 24, our big idea has been to anticipate the soon return of Christ.

Every sermon calls you to do something. The last eight weeks it's been calling you to anticipate the soon return of Christ.

And if you haven't already, at this time I encourage you to turn the Bible with me to Matthew 24. And if you're using one of those red

Bibles, it's on page 986. Thus far we've seen 13 practices how you are to anticipate the soon return of Christ.

And this morning we're going to see numbers 14 and 15. And this sermon is once again titled,

The Great Signs of the End. And this is the final part, part 8.

And I realize when you're going through a sermon series, some of you have missed these parts. Some of you, this is the first sermon you've heard from Matthew 24.

But it all ties together. And you can always go listen to the old ones as well that are on our website.

But here's the 14th practice how you are to anticipate the soon return of Christ. And that is through realizing that most of the world is unprepared for his return.

Most of the world is unprepared for his return. We're going to see this in verses 37 through 41.

Last week, I explained the connection that Scripture makes between Noah's flood, this ancient flood thousands of years ago, and the return of Christ.

There I quoted from 2 Peter 3. In 2 Peter 3, the Apostle Peter writes that people deny the reality that Jesus is coming back to the earth.

He says in 2 Peter 3, verses 3 and 4, scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.

They will say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.

The same ones who deny this reality of Christ's return are the same ones who have forgotten that this earth was once destroyed by a flood.

The Apostle Peter says the fact of the global flood shows the fact that he's coming back.

In our passage in Matthew 24, Jesus also talks about the flood. Interesting.

The flood and the end times. Let's see what he says in verses 37 through 49.

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when

Noah entered the ark. And they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away.

So will be the coming of the Son of Man. What Jesus is explaining is that the time right before the flood, life was going on as normal.

People are shopping. Okay, that's modern days. But what the examples he gives here, people are eating and drinking, they're getting married, they're excited, they're thinking about their future.

We're going to have kids. And the flood came. A rude interruption into people's lives.

We might think that we control this world. Man might think that we control this world.

But a day is coming, a day of reckoning is coming when God is going to interrupt this world.

And all those people's plans are going to be thrown into flux. Think of all the things that people think about, the things that people are excited about, the things that people are planning.

One day, it's all going to come to an end. Jesus says in the second half of verse 39, that this is how it will be when he comes, the world will be going on with life as normal.

But then the unbelieving world will be in for this rude awakening. Over 4000 years ago,

God's judgment came on this earth through a flood. And at some unknown time in the future,

Jesus will come from heaven to bring an end to world history as we know it.

We see how godless our world is right now. The world we live in now is more godless than even the flood generation.

Having a drag queen at children's reading hour is seen as virtuous in our day.

Think about that. That would make the people in the flood era blush. Sodom and Gomorrah wouldn't even do that.

But our world does it. And it's promoted. What the second

Peter three passage is communicating to us is do not think the delay of God's judgment means that no judgment is happening.

People can often think that we've been talking about the end times for years, it hasn't come. What we must remember is that God is storing up wrath for this godless world.

And at some unknown time in the future, he will release his wrath. At some point, the clock is up.

In verses 40 through 42, Jesus describes the suddenness of what his return will be like. He says, then two men will be in the field, one will be taken and one left.

Two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake for you to not know on what day your

Lord is coming. These verses are often mistaken for a rapture passage.

In fact, the left behind series with Kirk Cameron mistakenly quotes this verse in connection with the rapture.

But it is not. And we know this because in this context, Jesus is talking about the world experiencing judgment.

Remember, he's talking about the flood. He's comparing this to the flood, and the flood is judgment. In these verses, to be left is a good thing, and to be taken is a bad thing, because to be taken is to be taken in judgment.

Now, the sudden judgment here is probably not just describing Christ coming to the earth at the very end of the final seven year tribulation when he destroys the

Antichrist and his armies. The sudden judgment is also describing the judgment that is going to take place during the whole final seven years.

When we talk about the day of the Lord, the day of the Lord is not describing one event, it's describing a series of judgments that God is pouring out.

So the suddenness is going to be, the people are going to be raptured, the church is going to be raptured, and then the floodgates are going to be released at that point, and people are going to be taken away in judgment.