25. The End Of The World According To Jesus (End-Times Series Part 6)

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Welcome to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 25, the end of the world according to Jesus part one.

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As we begin, I want to reinforce two tremendous truths that have revolutionized my study of eschatology.

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Most of the end time events, this is the first one, have already happened and have already occurred in the past.

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They truly were future oriented events to the men who described them and wrote them down, but for us today, from our position, most of these events have already occurred in the past.

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That's the first thing. The second truth that has revolutionized my thinking on eschatology is that Jesus came to the earth twice in the first century.

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The first coming was a physical and incarnational coming where he came to save the people of God. That is where he rescued his people and delivered them from their sins on the cross of Calvary and in his resurrection and ascension into heaven.

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The second coming was spiritual and covenantal.

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This is where he came in judgment, raining down the wrath of God upon apostate

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Judah for her crimes and rebellion. As you know, we've been walking through both of those themes, showing how both of them are the case.

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Now we know this most clearly from the book of Malachi, where Malachi prophesied that there will be two specific first century comings of the

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Lord. His first coming will be a physical coming, this is what Matthew tells us, where he rescues those who feared the

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Lord and esteemed his holy name, Malachi 3 .16, and this includes all of those who repented and followed

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Jesus under the guidance of John, those who repented under the ministry of Jesus, and those who believed in his name in the earliest days of the church.

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God saves those men and women by allowing his one and only son to undergo the punishment that they deserve, which is an allusion to Malachi 3 .17,

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so that he can declare them righteous and distinguish them forevermore from the wicked,

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Malachi 3 .18. This certainly already occurred and is the very story of the gospel in our salvation today.

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Now the second first century coming of Christ, described by Malachi, is a spiritual act of judgment against the covenant rebels of Judah.

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While Jesus' physical body remained in heaven, seated upon his throne, he did not come again physically to earth, at least not yet.

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That'll happen in our future. But Malachi tells us that Jesus will bring a fiery judgment that none of that generation will be able to endure.

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Of that coming, Malachi tells us several things. Here's some examples. But who can endure the day of his coming and who can stand when he appears,

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Malachi 3 .2? Malachi 3 .5 says, then I will draw near to you for judgment.

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It's a prophecy that he gave to the people of Judah. Finally, the most clear passage, Malachi 4, 1 through 3.

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For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, and all of the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff.

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And the day that is coming will set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

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But for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings, and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.

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You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which

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I am preparing, says the Lord of hosts. These final verses from chapter four bring the entire theological spectrum together.

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Jesus is coming two different ways to deal with two very different kinds of people.

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For the repentant, he will rise from the dead, bringing healing to the broken, and he will endow the joyless with never -ending delight.

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He will welcome his people into the garden of his presence. He will graft them into the covenantal and life -giving vine, even while cutting off the apostate

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Jews, so that neither root nor branch will remain. And to that wicked and adulterous generation, the

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Lord would not come in peace, but with a flaming sword, he would turn them back into the dust from which he made them, and he would put them, like the serpent of old, under his feet and even under his people's feet.

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You can check out Romans 16 .20 to see an example of that. That is the two -fold picture that Malachi is painting, judgment for the wicked, salvation for the righteous.

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This is also the eschatological picture of the entire Bible. For instance, let me give you an example from the

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Garden of Eden. Adam was created to live with God. He was made to have legacy and dominion. He was made to feast upon this life -giving tree, and he was to put the enemies of God under his feet, so when the serpent slithered his way into the garden, it was

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Adam's role to crush the serpent's head. But instead of that, Adam chose sin, which meant that he lost his relationship with God.

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He was chased out of the garden with a fiery sword. He was banned from the tree of life, and his progeny was put under a horrific curse.

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His dominion was turned into slavery. His body was subjected to sweat, blood, and toil until it returned to the dust.

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Every blessing was being wiped out by the fall and by sin.

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That subtle, Edenic picture is one of the things that is undergirding

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Malachi 4 here. This picture of Eden, this picture of paradise before it was broken, and this picture of paradise after it was broken.

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I think Malachi is using that image to describe what Christ is going to do to the rebels and to the ones that he will call righteous.

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For instance, like Adam, the Jews of Jesus' day were going to lose their favored status as God's firstborn son.

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You can reference Exodus 4, 22 through 23. The nation would be removed from the garden land of Judah, just like Adam was removed from the garden.

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They would be set ablaze by the fiery sword of God's wrath, just like Adam was chased out with the sword of the cherubim.

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From that point on, they would be incapable of consuming the life -giving vine. Their legacy would be finished.

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Their national sovereignty would be turned to full -on slavery, just like Adam. And just like that original couple, their bodies would be turned to ash so that God's true people, according to Malachi 4, would tread their ashes under foot.

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What Malachi is alluding to here is that fallen Jerusalem will fail no better than fallen

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Adam. The Jews who were appointed God's new firstborn son, because you remember

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Adam was the firstborn son of God according to Luke's genealogy, so this people of Israel, now the new firstborn son of God, they failed but redeemed

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Jerusalem. The Israel of God that Galatians 3 tells us about, who is the church who is in relationship with Jesus, they would be brought back into relationship with their creator by the working of their true and better Adam, 1

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Corinthians 15. Because of Jesus, the church will have a lasting legacy that will bless all the families of the world,

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Genesis 12, 1 -3, and she will have a never -ending dominion that extends Jesus' kingdom to the ends of the earth,

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Daniel 2, 44 -45. Because of Jesus, the kingdom, the church, will be like a tree planted beside the fount of living water,

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Psalm 1, John 7. She will be grafted into the life -giving vine of his love,

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John 15, to produce all kinds of fruit for his glory, Galatians 5,

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Revelation 22, 1 -2. That will also provide healing to the nations.

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Instead of returning to the dust in the curse, just like Adam and Eve, eventually these people will be given new heavenly bodies, 1

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Corinthians 15. Not like Adam and Eve who were given the skins of an animal, they will be given new skins to live forever with the true

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Adam, the true king, forever in a garden city called New Jerusalem, that's Revelation 22.

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You see, when Malachi speaks of these two specific outcomes happening to two very different kinds of people, judgment for one and salvation for the other, when he does that, he's picking up on two very important biblical themes.

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First, he is simply picking up on the massive biblical themes that are woven throughout

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God's amazing story. The children of the serpent, everyone who rejects God's messenger, will receive the curses of the covenant,

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Matthew 23, 33, 1 John 3, 8 -10, and the children of God will be made alive by the rising sun, will receive every single one of the covenantal blessings that have been promised to her in Ephesians 1, 3.

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That theme, children of the serpent versus the children of God, those who receive God's wrath and those who receive

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God's mercy, that theme, that bifurcated people, that polarized people, kingdom of God, kingdom of man, that theme plays itself across every single book of the

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Bible. And Malachi is sort of the Old Testament crescendo and climax of that theme.

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The second thing that Malachi is doing, though, is he is rooting the fulfillment and the inauguration of all of the

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Old Testament's eschatological promises to the two first century comings of Jesus.

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Now, not all of the eschatological promises will be fulfilled in the New Testament comings of Christ, but all of them will, at a minimum, be inaugurated by the

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New Testament comings of Christ. Knowing that, that there's two comings of Jesus and that there's two kinds of people that Jesus will be related to, the ones who deserve wrath and the ones who, by God's grace, will get mercy, knowing those truths that we've just mentioned will help us understand the

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Bible and will help us transition from the last book of the Old Testament to the very first book of the New Testament, which is the book of Matthew.

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In this book, the book of Matthew, we will examine what Jesus himself says about the topic of eschatology.

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We'll look at how this applies to the people that he loves, the ones who will receive mercy, and how this will apply to those who will experience

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God's wrath, namely, Jerusalem. That will take us several weeks to cover, so buckle up.

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We're going to be in Matthew for a couple of weeks at a minimum. But today, all I want us to do is to begin with some introductory observations so that you will see that the theme of Malachi has continued into the book of Matthew.

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And when we see that, it will open up a world to us where we will see all these eschatological truths in a brand new, glorious light.

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So let's begin. From eschatological Malachi to Jesus as the true and perfect Israel.

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Now, the first portion of Matthew's gospel details how the coming of Christ will bring healing to his people, just as Malachi predicted.

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What Matthew uniquely contributes to this epic meta -story is that the Christ would do that work by replacing

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Israel. He's going to reject Old Testament Israel so that he can become New Testament Israel. And by doing that, he is going to author a new creation.

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He's going to bring blessing to his people, but he's also going to uniquely bring judgment to those who reject him.

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For instance, in Matthew 1, Jesus will come from the prototypical line of David and Abraham, which not only makes him true

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Israel, it not only makes him a candidate for the Jewish throne, but it also roots him into the

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Abrahamic blessings that he will be the seed of Abraham that blesses the nations.

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There's covenantal underpinnings already in the very first verses of the book of Matthew.

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See Galatians 3 .16. This makes him true Israel, but let us keep going because the theme continues to develop throughout the book.

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We're going to go chapter by chapter through Malachi really quickly. Matthew 2, after his

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Abrahamic birth and his flight to Egypt, just like the Old Testament people in Genesis, God is going to call him out of Egypt just like he did his firstborn son.

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And since national Israel was the one who got that title in the book of Exodus, Matthew is not so subtly telling us that Jesus is redoing their national story and their national identity.

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He's replacing them. Matthew 2 .14 -15. He's the true Israel who was truly called out of Egypt.

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Matthew is using this as a theological point to show that Jesus is going through the chronology of Israel.

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He was born like Abraham. He goes down to Egypt like Jacob and the 12 tribes.

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He comes out of Egypt like the Israelites. These are not accidental inclusions by Matthew because he's telling the story of Jesus as a new and true and better Israel.

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Look at Matthew 3. The connection with Jesus and Israel continues here. Just as Israel was baptized in the

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Red Sea, 1 Corinthians 10 .2, Jesus would be baptized in the Jordan River, Matthew 3 .13

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-17. And just like that Old Testament baptism in the Red Sea happened where the father was speaking to the sons of Israel, Exodus 14 .2

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-15, and the spirit is hovering over the waters and the Christophanic angel of God is charging into the water.

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We know that that is a prefiguring of Christ in Exodus 14 .18. So too, the father speaks in Jesus' baptism.

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The spirit is hovering in Jesus' baptism. The true heaven -sent angel of God, the true angel of the

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Lord, the true Christ comes and charges into the water to be baptized by the Baptist. The obvious point is that Jesus is redoing the story of failed

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Israel so that all of his elect people could find their true identity and citizenship in him.

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Do you see how he's retracing the story? The story of Jesus being true Israel doesn't just stop there, though.

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It continues in chapter 4 where he enters the wilderness. You know, it was Israel of old who went through the waters of the

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Red Sea and came out on the other side of the wilderness to wander and to be tempted. Well, Jesus in Matthew 4, after he's baptized in the

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Jordan River, goes into the wilderness to be tempted, just like Israel. But unlike Israel, he succeeds and he crushes the head of the serpent.

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By the end of chapter 4, Jesus has replaced the 12 tribes of Israel, which was appointed in that wilderness generation, and he has replaced them with 12 apostles who was ready to march to the mountain of God, Matthew 5 through 7.

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It's at that mountain, not Sinai, but the mountain where he gave his Beatitudes and the mountain where he gave his

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Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus is acting as the true and better Moses, giving them a new law, a new code of conduct, a new covenant.

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By the end of Matthew 7, Jesus is already warning the people in general terms that every bad tree will be cut down and cast into the fire, just like Moses warned the wilderness generation before they tried to enter the promised land.

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By Matthew 21 and 24, that imagery turns sharply in the direction of Jerusalem, which will be cut down like a barren fig tree, thrown into the flames, like all the dead bodies who were left out in the wilderness in the book of Numbers.

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All of Matthew is preparing us for Malachi's dual prophetic outcome.

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Jesus is going to be true Israel who will save his people from their sins, and fake Israel, apostate

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Israel, will be left dead on the plains outside the city. The theme is repeating itself again here in the

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New Testament, and Jesus is coming to warn the nation who won't listen and who won't turn.

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From Matthew 8 through 10, the parallels between Jesus and the story of Israel continue. In Matthew 8 through 9,

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Jesus takes up the mantle of Moses, doing all kinds of ministry to heal and serve the people while they're in the wilderness.

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In Matthew 10, like Joshua, he commissions his 12 disciples to go into the land and to conquer it for the kingdom of God.

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Matthew 10 .17 is a good example. But instead of conquering the devil -worshiping

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Canaanites like the Old Testament Israelites were commanded and failed to do in the Old Testament, his disciples were going to go to the serpent -like people of Judah, who were going to scourge them, beat them, and hand them over to be murdered,

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Matthew 10 .16 through 22. In fact, if you think about it this way,

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Matthew 10 is alluding to a new conquest narrative.

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The book of Acts, under the leading of the Holy Spirit, is Jesus bringing the conquest not to Canaan but to Judah.

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Now, that was a shocking statement for his disciples. That was a shocking statement that this new

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Joshua, Yeshua figure is going to lead the conquest against his own people.

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Jesus gives some words of comfort to his disciples to help them rationalize and understand what all is going on.

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He promises them that they're not going to finish going through all the towns of Israel before he comes back again to vindicate them from their suffering,

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Matthew 10 .23. I want you to understand the significance of this passage. Jesus is saying, when

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I rise from the dead, when I ascend into heaven, you're going to begin your mission of going to every single town in Israel.

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And before you finish the job, then

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I am going to return as judge against this wicked people. Do you see the continuity of Scripture?

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You've got Jesus coming out of the Red Sea, Jesus going into the wilderness, Jesus going to conquer the land, and then

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Jesus as the true and faithful judge to judge the people. It is exactly step by step by step with the

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Hebrew Bible. This understanding places

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Jesus' second coming not as a far off future event but as a first century vengeance that was poured out on those who did not fear the one who could throw their body and soul into the fires of hell,

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Matthew 10 .28. Perhaps this is why Jesus told them that he came not to bring peace but to bring the sword,

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Matthew 10 .34, like the righteous judge of old, that his purpose was to divide first century families into warring factions,

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Matthew 10 .35. We tend to view that, that father against son, mother against daughter, we tend to view that passage in Matthew 10 as a sort of truism that's just always going to be true, that if you follow

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Jesus, it'll always end up where your families are going to disown you. But I think in light of all of what we've discovered here, when we see that many of the new disciples and converts in the book of Acts would be disowned by their families, many of them would be turned over to be stoned to death by their mothers and fathers.

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The enemy of the Christian was not found in the new family that Jesus was calling them to become,

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Matthew 12 .46 -50, but in their former Jewish family who, like Israel of old, hated

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God and rejected him as king, Matthew 10 .36 -39. Now, thus far, we have seen the startling point -by -point story unfolding.

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Jesus, in the gospel of Matthew, has retraced all of Old Testament Israel's footsteps.

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He's marched through all their failure, and he is redoing their covenantal failure with perfect obedience, which means that he's claiming his status and his right to be

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God's true and faithful servant of God, the true Israel. He is the one who did what

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Israel was supposed to do, and now he's the one who's going to bring the twofold outcome of judgment and salvation upon these first -century people.

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To those who were weary and heavy -laden looking for a savior, he would come raising them up with healing in his wings,

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Matthew 11 .28 -30. But for those who persist in their rebellion like Sodom and Gomorrah, severe woe and curse would overtake them, just as Malachi predicted,

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Matthew 11 .20 -24. Next section.

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From rejecting Jews to the Malachi -like judgment.

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Now, these themes of judgment do nothing but intensify as we turn the page over to Matthew 12.

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As we see the Pharisees' murderous rage and biblical insanity coming to a boil,

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Matthew 12 .1 -21, we also see that among their legioness offenses, the most disgusting and unforgivable action that they perpetrate, the one that sealed their fate of doom, was when they declared

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God's miraculous activity in Israel through his Christ to be nothing more than the work of unclean demons.

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They looked at Jesus and they accused him of doing his work by the power of Satan, Matthew 12 .22

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-24. That sin was unpardonable,

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Matthew 12 .30 -32. That is what was going to bring about God's wrath and judgment upon this nation of Satan -like vipers and serpents,

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Matthew 12 .33 -37. The very first judgment that was going to take hold of them was pure spiritual blindness.

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We see that in Matthew 11 .25. And as Matthew 12 is drawing to a close, these blind

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Pharisees had not only missed the point, but were looking for a sign to validate

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Jesus' claim because they had no capacity for authentic faith. In response,

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Jesus condemns that entire generation claiming that even Nineveh and the Queen of the South, who were

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Old Testament pagans who faithfully repented at the preaching of the They, as wicked as they were, they would stand in judgment against the first -century sordid lot of faithless

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Jews, Matthew 12 .38 -42. The ones who had become just like the man who was possessed by seven demons,

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Matthew 12 .43 -45. Is it any wonder that Jesus transitions away from his clear speaking and preaching to communication via confusing and esoteric parables in Matthew 13?

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He even tells his own disciples that the very reason that he's doing this is to prevent the Jews from understanding the spiritual truths that he wanted to share with his disciples,

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Matthew 13 .11 -12. By doing this, Jesus is securing their fate.

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He is ensuring that none of them will be able to come to repentance, just as Isaiah prophesied of Matthew 13 .14

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-15. To the disciples, much about the kingdom of Christ would be learned through these secretive parables,

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Matthew 11 .34 -35. They understood that for a time, imposters were going to exist along the true followers of Christ, just like a field of wheat and tares,

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Matthew 13 .24 -31. But by the end, they knew that the kingdom of Christ was going to tower over all the kingdoms of earth, like a mustard seed in the master's garden,

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Matthew 13 .31 -32. And by the end of the age, as Malachi predicted, all who are in Christ would be separated from the wicked, just like good and bad fish are separated that are caught in a dragnet,

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Matthew 13 .47 -52. Now to the conclusion. In all of this,

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Malachi foresaw the bifurcated response that the messenger of God would evoke when visiting Yahweh's rebellious people.

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In this sense, Malachi provides the hermeneutical key to understanding the

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New Testament, that Yahweh would come and visit His rebellious people and offer to some salvation and to others judgment.

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And it's Matthew that tells the story most clearly, the story of judgment and salvation, but he does so in the most unique and interesting of ways.

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Matthew tells us the story of the new kingdom brought about by the new king, who in perfect one -for -one parallel with the

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Old Testament story, relives the people of Israel's journey so that he can become the true and better Israel.

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For instance, let us recap really quickly and I'll actually include some things that I didn't mention before. In Matthew 1, the

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Abrahamic seed was born as the firstborn of a new Israel. Matthew 2, he was taken down to Egypt, just like the sons of Jacob and Genesis.

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In Matthew 3, he was led to the divided waters of the Jordan, just like the people of Israel and Exodus. In Matthew 4, he was led into the wilderness to be tempted and succeeded where Old Testament Israel failed.

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In Matthew 5, he comes to the mountain of God and he stands upon that new covenant mountain and gives the people a new covenant law, just like Moses did in Exodus and Leviticus.

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In Matthew 8 through 9, Jesus leads and cares for the people in the wilderness, just like Moses did in the book of Numbers.

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In Matthew 10, Jesus sends out his disciples to conquer the land, like Joshua did in the conquest of Canaan, which is in the

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Old Testament book of Joshua. In Matthew 11 through 20, the people of the land reveal themselves to be as wicked and as deplorable and as odious as the

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Old Testament people in the book of Judges, who did not know right from wrong, but did what was right in their own eyes.

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In the weeks ahead, we're going to see salvation and judgment, just like Malachi says, all over the book of Matthew.

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For the elect, Christ will become a true kinsman redeemer, dying to purify a Gentile bride, which is an allusion back to the book of Ruth and is foretold and is sort of alluded to in Matthew 27.

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But for the reprobate Jew who rejected his rule as king, just as they did in the Old Testament book of Samuel, he will bring sudden, imminent, terrifying judgment, just like they reject him in Matthew 27.

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When we remember that Matthew, as a gospel, begins with an Abrahamic king and ends with the true line of the true

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David, is it any wonder that he perfectly crafts his narrative to track point by point through the entire

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Old Testament story of Israel? Is it any wonder that he begins with an Abrahamic new seed birth and he ends with a people who are rejecting

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God's rule in favor of the kings of men, Matthew 27, 11 through 14?

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Is it any wonder that they, like Saul, mocked the Lord's anointed? Is it any wonder that they, like the people of Israel, crowned him

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Davidic king? Is it any wonder that they enthroned him in a royal cross that bore witness to his royal reign,

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Matthew 27, 27 through 37? Is it any wonder that when this Davidic king died and went down into the grave that he didn't stay there, but he rose as new king, the true and better Solomon, the one who established himself as the true everlasting temple of God and declared that all of the nations on earth would now come to him to receive salvation instead of Jerusalem, Matthew 28, 18 through 20?

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Is it any wonder that the call to worldwide dominion is no longer given to Israelite warriors but to soldiers in the kingdom of God, Acts 1, 8?

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Is it any wonder that the epistles function as the New Testament prophets that call the church to repent before the coming destruction?

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Is it any wonder that after the canon is closed and after the book of Acts, the new kings and chronicles that history finally records the final downfall for apostate

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Jerusalem, just as the people of old who were destroyed and deported by Babylon after all of the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, the

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Jewish Old Testament history will end with their final destruction and deportation by the people of Rome.

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That happens in 80, 70 after 40 years after Jesus gives this Isaiah -like prophecy in Matthew 24.

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That old covenant kingdom will come to a close with the downfall of Jerusalem and its temple, but the new covenant kingdom, a kingdom that will never end,

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Daniel 2, 44 through 45, will be inaugurated with Christ as their forever king.

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See, the New Testament is the entire Old Testament kingdom of God fulfilled and retold through the lens of a victorious

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Christ. And when you see that, then you understand that you and I get to be a part of this kingdom because of our union with him.

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Until next time, I hope you enjoy the fact that you are living in Jesus's end -time kingdom. From apostate

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Jerusalem until the very present day, he has been putting his enemies under his feet and he will continue to do so until he presents to God his father a completed kingdom, 1

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Corinthians 15. I want you to enjoy this time that you're living in. What a beautiful opportunity it is that you and I get to live in the kingdom of our

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Messiah and our God. I want you to courageously stand up and join him in the building of this kingdom while today is still called today.

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I want you not to fear the topic of eschatology because it really is the story of all victory for all the people of God, Old Testament and New Testament, through the one

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Jesus Christ. Until next time, we're going to zoom into Matthew 21 through 23 and see how this imminent judgment is going to come upon the apostate nation of Israel.