Therefore Encourage One Another With These Words - [2 Thessalonians 1:5 - 2:12]

Encouragement From Paul’s Letters to the Thessalonians and the Day of the Lord

Heavenly Father, we pray that as we come to Your Word this morning, that You would encourage our hearts, even as Paul tried to encourage the Thessalonians and the persecution they were under, as he talked about things to come.

And so we pray that as we look at things to come, that You would encourage our hearts this morning, and that we would see the Lord Jesus in the Scriptures, that He would be glorified. It's in His name we pray.

Amen. Now whether or not you can tell it by the places that we are, we are looking at the situation of the Thessalonian church in the New Testament through the letters that Paul wrote to them. And that has taken us to several places.

Last week, we ended up in the 24th chapter of Matthew, because Paul has answered two questions of the Thessalonians. One, what about people that died? We thought nobody was going to die. And his answer to that question, which is to encourage them, is that one day there's going to be a great meeting in the air of the church, including you Thessalonians, and including we New Englanders that know the Lord.

And so don't worry about that. The dead in Christ will rise first. Then those of us who are alive will meet them in the air, and meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall ever be with the Lord. That's the answer to question number one.

Then question number two was, some people have come along telling us, writing letters, and teaching that the day of the Lord has come. And then as Paul starts 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, he says, now concerning the day of the Lord.

The now concerning is a little phrase of emphasis, which means, and now we're going to talk about something else. And so last week I read to you various passages from the Old Testament and the New, concerning what is called the day of the Lord, a technical term used in the Scriptures to describe the second coming of Christ.

And we compared and contrasted that, do you remember? And in the comparison, in the day of the Lord, Jesus comes from heaven, but the two things are not the same. And the contrast is that the day of the Lord is a day of sorrow, it's a day of judgment, it's a day that finds people in the world mourning.

But the rapture of the church, the snatching out of the church, which is described in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, is a time of joy. And so Paul says about the rapture, you Thessalonians need to encourage each other and be comforted by the fact that there will be a great meeting in the air.

Now about the day of the Lord, these people that have come along to you Thessalonians and have told you that the day of the Lord, a day of great trouble and a day of great sorrow, that that has already come, you need to know, that hasn't happened.

The Disciples’ Questions in Matthew 24 and the Beginning of Birth Pains

Well, at that point we said, well, what does Jesus have to say about the day of the Lord? And that's what took us to Matthew chapter 24. In the beginning of Matthew 24, we see the answer to their question 1, when will these things be?

Now, what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age? That's question 2, on the part of the disciples. Now, let's get this straight. The disciples were Jews. They were not Gentiles. They were not from West Boylston or Holden or Berry or any place like that, or even Thessalonica or Corinth or Athens, or any places like that in the New Testament.

They were Jews. And so as Jesus talks to them, we're looking at Israel, all right? And He said to them, be sure no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and so on and so forth.

And then He talks about famine, and He talks about nation rising against nation. But mostly He talks about deception. And He talks about lawlessness increasing. The love of many being cold. But at the same time, He talks about the gospel of the kingdom being preached in the whole world.

But it will be preached with great persecution and great trouble. And He says to them, all of those things are the beginning of birth pains. The beginning of something that is to occur. Now, when He gets down to verse 15 of chapter 24, we turn a corner.

The Abomination of Desolation and Daniel’s Prophecy of Seventy Weeks

And here Jesus connects what we call the New Testament. Jesus connects His words to the Old Testament. And it tells us something about His estimate of Old Testament prophecy. And His estimate of Old Testament prophecy is far more important than my estimate of Old Testament prophecy, or anybody else's estimate of Old Testament prophecy.

So we're going to look and see what He has to say here. So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel. Oh, Jesus is referring back to Daniel now. Daniel, written probably six centuries before the occasion of this conversation with His disciples.

Daniel said something about an abomination of desolation. An abomination, a more literal way to put it, would be an abomination which causes desolation. Standing in the holy place, this abomination of desolation.

Standing in the holy place, let the reader understand. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take place, to take what is in his house.

Those who are in where? In Judea. When the abomination of desolation takes place, this is going to have something to do with the land of Israel. This has nothing to do with West Boylston, for which you can be thankful.

Let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas for women who are pregnant, and for those who are nursing infants in these days. Pray that your flight may not be in winter, or on a Sabbath.

For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been seen from the beginning of the world until now. No, and never will be seen another time. So something is coming on the world, Jesus says, that has never come before that time, and will never come again.

It's a time He calls great tribulation. Now I want to turn back to Daniel chapter 9, which Jesus refers to here. And I want to look at it as quickly as we can. We were just listening to Dr. Johnson this morning.

Oh, thank you. I just got some water. We want to save that for the millions that will be listening to this tape. Okay. Listening to Dr. S. Lewis Johnson talking about this particular passage, and he says, it has been said that this is the backbone of prophecy.

And so his encouragement and what he had to say this morning, which he actually said back about 1964, his encouragement was that his hearers would read this prophecy. And he said, for the first 20 times, you probably won't understand it.

And so I don't give us much hope this morning, since we're only going to go through it one time. But he says, it's the backbone of prophecy, for it outlines the chronology of all that will happen from Daniel onward, and clear until the end of the age, which is what his disciples had asked him about at this time, that he's talking to them here in Matthew chapter 24.

So I'm going to be at Daniel chapter 9, verses 24 through 27. If you want to go there, you can. Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, that's where it is. And you can go there and you can follow along if you like.

Otherwise, you can just listen and see what you can get out of this. We cannot do this in great detail, but we'll do it as quickly as we can, because we do want to get back to Thessalonica before we get out of here this morning also.

Seventy weeks, and I'm going to add what the Revised Standard Version, don't tell any of the elders that I said Revised Standard Version, says, 70 weeks of years. That will give us some clarity about what's going on here, since our time is limited, and I can get into all of the reasons why that is the accepted understanding.

But understand this, the guys that translated the Revised Standard Version, and Dr. Johnson noted this too, they were not exactly students of prophecy. But when they translate this, they say, 70 weeks of years have been decreed for your people.

Which people would that be? That would not be us. That would be the people of Israel and your holy city. That would certainly not be West Boylston. But it would be Jerusalem. Seventy weeks of years. Now, 70 weeks of years, I'll just do the math quickly, is 490 years.

So, from the time that Daniel is writing, or from the time he gives here, until certain things happen, there's a total span of 490 years decreed. And in that 490 years that Daniel is talking about here, six things are to happen.

And here's the thing we want to ask ourselves as we look at these six things. Have they happened? Answer yes, no, or yes and no. Okay, if they have not happened, then they're to happen in the future. If the answer is yes and no, which it is for some prophecies.

If the answer is yes and no, then it's as good as no because it's not complete. And the prophecies have to be completed. All right? Now, that is a characteristic, by the way, of many Old Testament prophecies.

There is a near fulfillment and a far fulfillment. For example, you're familiar with this prophecy in Isaiah. Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, etc., etc., etc. We say, oh, that's about the Lord Jesus Christ.

His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, and so on and so forth. All right? That's about Christ. That's about the Messiah coming. That's about the nature of His birth. Okay? But it also was about a young woman who would give birth in the next year, within the next year.

And it was an assurance to the people of Israel and the king of Israel at that time that they would not be overcome, and that child would be the sign. That was the near fulfillment of that prophecy. The far fulfillment of that prophecy is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to the manger in Bethlehem.

So you have that with prophecies. When Peter quotes from Joel chapter 2 in Acts, as he preaches his first sermon on the day of Pentecost, he quotes Joel chapter 2, but all of it was not fulfilled. And so he didn't quote it all.

There is much to be fulfilled about that. All right. So we have six things here. Question to ask as we look at them is, have they been fulfilled? Has this happened? Has it not happened? Or has some of it happened, and some of it has yet to happen?

That's what we're to ask. Well, these 70 weeks of years, these 490 years have been decreed for your people in your holy city, for Israel and Jerusalem, to finish the transgression. Has that happened? Yes, it's happened.

The transgression was the idolatry that sent them into exile, and the failure to give the land a Sabbath every seven years. And that's why the length of the exile of the people of Israel in Babylon was 70 years, which was prophesied by the prophet Jeremiah, and which is in view here as Daniel gets this prophecy, because as chapter 9 begins, he is looking at the book of Jeremiah, and he is noting the 70 years that the exile would be, one of the reasons that it is interpreted that this is 70 weeks of years.

So the transgression is idolatry. When they got back from exile, idolatry was purged out of the people of Israel. Can't go into the details of that, but some of them even committed suicide rather than look at an image of Caesar when the Romans came into Jerusalem.

Why? Because it was idolatrous, and Israel was done with idolatry. So that has been done. These weeks of years have been decreed to make an end of sin. Well, has the end of sin been made? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And then it is finished. The end of sin has been made. Satan still wiggles, but the end is done. In fact, while we were listening to Dr. Johnson about something else, he talks about watching some old guys play chess on the street, and you guys that play chess well, I can't remember who is who half the time, but you guys that play chess well, a move was made, and then a move was made, and one of the guys says, that's it.

Okay? And then several more moves were made, but when that one move was made, the guy knew that that was the end of the road, that the other guy was beat. And when Jesus cried out from the cross, it is finished, that was the that's it.

Everything is done. The other guy kept moving his chess pieces around. Satan keeps trying to influence people on earth, and he did all he could when Jesus was here, to keep him from going to the cross.

But when he went to the cross, and said, it is finished, that was the that's it, on human history. And so an end of sin has been made. Now you say, well, I think we still see sin, and that relates to the next thing, or the next couple of things, to make atonement for iniquity.

Has atonement for iniquity been made? Yes, it has been made. It was made at the cross, to bring in everlasting righteousness. During this 490 years, everlasting righteousness is to be brought in. I would say that's a yes and no.

If you are trusting in Christ, everlasting righteousness is yours. It is not because you and I have entered into everlasting righteousness. I know that we have some brethren and sisters, who believe, having accepted Christ, that they now live in sinless perfection.

I asked one of them about that once, and I asked him, what is it when you get angry and kick the dog? What do you call that? That's a mistake. Okay, see, that's not sin anymore. And so there's a little problem there.

But anyway, we do not live in sinless perfection. We live in credited perfection. The righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us, because our sin has been imputed to Him, credited to Him. And His righteousness is credited to us.

So for those of us that believe, everlasting righteousness has been brought in. But, as we look around the world, and as we look even at our own behavior, behavior-wise and action-wise, everlasting righteousness has not been brought in.

But you need to understand that the Bible says, the day comes when everlasting righteousness will be brought in, when the everlasting King, the Lord Jesus Christ, rules the earth. We have time this morning, we're going to have a look at that.

Okay, and then, everlasting righteousness is to be brought in during this 490 years. Vision and prophecy is to be sealed up. You say, what? Sealed up? That means vision and prophecy. The need for vision and prophecy is to come to an end.

When will that happen? That will come, and that will happen, when the Lord Jesus Christ comes, and He rules the world. And He will rule the world. This is not just about go to heaven. This is, He will rule the world.

You and I will return from heaven with Him. We will have glorified bodies, and His kingdom will take place on earth. The Jewish people, the Jewish people always look forward, particularly in the prophecies, to the kingdom of Messiah on earth.

And we ought not to abandon that, and just say, well, we're all going to heaven. You know, it's clouds and harps. That's what it's all about, and that's what eternity is going to be all about. That's not what the Bible teaches.

That's what somebody in, I don't know who teaches that, but that's not what the Bible teaches. And that's not what the Old Testament people thought. The Old Testament people thought, Messiah is going to come on the scene.

He's going to rule. Everything is going to be set right. And you get passages like Isaiah chapter 2, Zechariah chapter 14, which describe that period of time. So, my question would be then, is vision and prophecy sealed up?

No more need for Scripture? No more need for telling the truth of Scripture? No more need for even the prophecies of the Old Testament, which foretell the coming of Jesus? And the answer to that is no.

Vision and prophecy is not sealed up. We still need the Scriptures. We still look to the Scriptures for instruction. You know, in Jeremiah 31, when it talks about the new covenant, it says the day comes when people will not say to each other, know the Lord.

In other words, the day will not come when there will be teaching from the Scriptures. Why? Because I'm going to give them a new heart, and put a new spirit within them, and they will all know the Lord.

That speaks of a day when vision and prophecy can be sealed up. Why? Because Jesus is on the throne, and we live under His rule. The world lives under His rule, including us. And, now here's what gives us a key to what's going on here.

And, to anoint the most holy place. To anoint the most holy is what it literally says, but every interpreter and commentator and translator translates the most holy place. You say, what's that? Well, we know what the most holy place is, do we not?

The most holy place, think tabernacle. The most holy place is what we would call holy of holies. Think first temple. The most holy place would be what we think holy of holies, with the cherubim, with their wings stuck out there about 15 feet, in the temple that Solomon built, in the holy of holies.

It is where the priest went in once a year on the day of atonement to confess the inadvertent sins of the people, for the Lord to forgive them, and there sprinkled blood on the top of the ark, on the mercy seat of the ark, on the place of atonement.

So, we know about that. And, in the second temple, which existed in Jesus' day, the temple that was built in Ezra, in Nehemiah and Ezra, and then expanded and enlarged under Herod, that temple had a holy place, the holy of holies, where the priest went in once a year, and on the day of atonement offered sacrifice for the people.

Now, vision and prophecy has not been sealed up, everlasting righteousness has not fully come in, and the holy place, most assuredly, is not anointed. We all know what happened in 70 A .D., don't we? I've heard that spoken about in this church.

It's when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed. There's been no temple in Jerusalem since 70 A .D. The Romans came in and destroyed the place. I think I talked about that last week. So, here we are looking into the future, and in the future there's going to be no more need for vision and prophecy, and a holy place is going to be anointed, and that gives us a clue to what's going on here.

Messiah the Prince, the Roman Destruction of Jerusalem, and the Final Seven Years

So you are to know, verse 25 of chapter 9, so you, Daniel, are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, that would be Ezra and Nehemiah, Nehemiah particularly, and it would be A .D. 445 or 444, depending on who's counting, all right?

But that decree was made to go rebuild Jerusalem. From the issuing of that decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, now watch it, until Messiah the Prince, I want you to notice the language that is used there.

It is Messiah the Prince. It's not Messiah the priest. It's not Messiah the Savior. It is Messiah the Prince. Prince speaks of what? A royal king that would come. When Jesus came, He was preceded by John the Baptist who said what?

The kingdom is coming. And when Jesus appeared to be baptized, the king has come. So, Daniel is told from that decree, 445, to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince. There will be seven weeks of years.

Now we can do the math quick, right? Seven weeks of years, seven times seven, would be 49 years, okay? In the 49th year, after the decree to rebuild Jerusalem, Nehemiah ceased work on the walls, and the thing was pretty much built, okay?

It, Jerusalem, will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. So, for seven weeks, 49 years, Jerusalem will be built again with plaza and wall, really, in other words, fortified, even in times of distress.

You read in the book of Nehemiah, don't you, that they had to lay bricks with a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other. Okay, why? Because that was all done in times of distress. So, until Messiah the Prince comes, there will be seven weeks and 62 weeks.

Quickly, in our computer-like minds, we do the math, seven weeks and 62 weeks is 69 weeks. And immediately, we think, 69 weeks? I thought he said 70 weeks, 69 weeks. So, then, after the 62 weeks, the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing.

62 weeks and 40, I don't know what that is, 62 times 7, you don't have to do that. 7 times 6 is 42. Well, anyway, it's 483 years. It's what it is. So, what he's saying here is, after 483 years, the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing.

Guess what? That brings us right into the 30 A .D .s. Guess who's here in the 30 A .D .s? The Lord Jesus Christ. Now, different students of prophecy have counted all of this and calculated all this. A guy named Robert Anderson, who was a former head of Scotland Yard, did a quite complete chronology about all of this.

And he places the end of the 483 years from 445 B .C., the end of that, he estimates would be on the day that Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey and is hailed as king by those that followed him. That would fit with Daniel's prophecy.

The Messiah will be cut off. Cut off is an Old Testament term to mean killed. And have nothing. He had nothing. They cast lots for his clothing and gave away his robe. And he had nothing. And he was placed in the grave of a rich man.

Now, watch this. And the people of the prince who is to come. Now, that's not Messiah the prince. That's another prince who is to come. Will destroy the city and the sanctuary. So, that's not Messiah the prince.

Jesus had nothing to do with destroying the city and the sanctuary, did he? So, who is this prince to come? Well, we don't have time to do this. But if you were to turn to the second chapter of Daniel and look at the great vision there of a great image that Daniel interpreted to the king, you would see that what is given there is the basic history of the world from Babylon through Rome.

And one of the things that we learn there is that there will be a Roman Empire. That's the so-called legs of iron on the great image in Daniel chapter 2. But the toes, the feet and the toes of that are iron.

That signifies Rome. But they're mixed with clay. Now, what do you know about mixing iron with clay? Molding iron with clay. Here's what you know about it. It doesn't work. And it comes apart. And so, at the end of that vision in chapter 2, we see that a great stone, the stone rejected by the workman, comes and destroys it all.

And what happens to the feet of iron and clay is that they are scattered about, but not destroyed. And so, here's the interpretation, and we can have a lengthy dinner over why we get here. What's happened is, Europe is the remnant of the old Roman Empire that was scattered all over the place when it finally fell.

That is prophesied in Daniel chapter 2. And the prince who is to come, he is to come, will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Okay, that would be the Romans of 70 A .D. And its end, the end of the city and the end of the temple, will come with a flood.

Even to the end, there will be war. Desolations are determined. And, here's another little clue, what about this 70th year? See, that's the question here. And he will make a firm, he, the prince of the people to come.

He, the, I'll say it this way, the descendant of the Romans that destroyed Jerusalem. He will come and he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week. One week is seven years. Alright, now here's a little thing that you've got to understand.

In order for this one who is to come to make a covenant with the many, to make a covenant with the people of Israel, there have to be a people of Israel. Well, that didn't happen in 70 A .D. In fact, in 70 A .D. they killed a lot of people in Israel.

And then the people of Israel were scattered throughout the world. And the nation of Israel, Israel as a nation, ceased to be, ceased to be, until May of 1948, when after the Holocaust people were sent back to Israel.

And people of that time said you can go back even to look at newspaper articles and so on about the return of people to Israel. In fact, Judy and I just watched this last week, Fiddler on the Roof. You all know Fiddler on the Roof, you know that movie?

They're all cast out of the village at the end of the movie. And the old lady says to Tevye's wife, she says, maybe next year in Jerusalem. Maybe next year in Jerusalem. That is in the hearts and the minds of people, of Jewish people, from 70 A .D. until May of 1948.

Now, they are not all back in the land by any stretch. But they have been placed in the land, and there is a nation. If there was someone who came and wanted to make a treaty with Israel, now it wouldn't be Jimmy Carter, it wouldn't be Bill Clinton, it wouldn't be Barack Obama, it won't be Donald Trump.

Somebody's going to come to make a treaty with Israel. But do you get the other end of that treaty? The other end of the treaty is, there has to be an Israel to make the treaty with. And that's a clue that says to us, this last week, this seven years that we were missing, because we had 69 years when Messiah was cut off, we have seven years that somewhere, that seven years could not take place until Israel was back in the land.

In 1948, people said it will never last. And of course, the Arabs in 1948 were convinced that they ought to destroy Israel as people came back to the land after the declaration was made that they could be a people.

And you know some of the stories about their Piper Cub Air Force that defeated the Egyptians and all that kind of stuff. Believe me, God is in this deal. People said it will never work. Well, you have to go back to newspapers 50 years to find the articles that said it will never work.

And today, Israel is in the land. And they are surrounded by people that are their enemies that want to destroy them and put them in the sea. You hear that once a week, don't you? Yes, you do. If you're listening to any... never mind, I'm not going there.

All right. In the middle of the week, three and a half years into the seven years, this one, this prince that shall come, who has not come yet, because no treaty has been made with Israel of peace and go ahead.

Guess what else there has to be now for what I'm to read next. In the middle of the week, he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offerings. Sacrifices and grain offerings? Where did they do that? First, in the tabernacle.

Then, in Solomon's temple. Then, in the second temple, in Jesus' day. And then, blooey, 70 A .D., it's all gone. But Daniel says the day is coming when this prince is to come, is going to put an end to sacrifice and grain offering.

What does that say to us? If we take this... I know the term literally has fallen on hard times. But if we take this at face value, what does it say? It says this one who is to come is going to put an end to that.

All right? And on the wing of abominations, and this is what Jesus is referring to in Matthew chapter 24. And on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate. He will break the treaty. He will put a stop to the sacrifice.

And someplace along the line, a temple is built again in Jerusalem. If you take this at face value, which I've already told you, I do. All right? 40th chapter of Ezekiel. Beginning in the 40th chapter of Ezekiel, we hear all of the talk about the temple that's going to be built before the day of the Lord, that the Lord Jesus returns.

Okay? That temple is not going to last too long. About seven years, plus construction time. All right? And on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate even until a complete destruction.

One that is decreed is poured out on the one who makes desolate. Now, I don't have time to comment on that any further, except to say that the day comes when someone arises. We have come to know him and call him, in theology, the Antichrist.

When one comes who will come against Israel. And Jesus says, and Daniel says, and Zechariah says, and Isaiah says, that when that happens, when Israel is surrounded by its enemies, then look carefully for the Lord is at the door.

The Great Tribulation, the Elect, and the Coming of the Son of Man

Now, I'm not going to quote to you guys that I was going to read because we're running out of time. Let's go back to Daniel, or Daniel, Matthew, chapter 24. There are going to be great tribulations, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now.

When? What did Jesus say? When the abomination of desolation appears as it is stated in the book of Daniel, which we've just talked about. All right? Then, oh, let me read the next, I was going to skip the next verse, but I'm not going to.

Okay? If those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. No human being would survive. Now, we've just gone through a great thing down in North and South Carolina. Bad, bad, bad, bad.

Okay? But what's being described here by Jesus in Matthew, chapter 24, is worse, worse, worse, worse. And if the days had not been cut short, they will be cut short because they're only going to be seven years long.

But if they were longer, no human being would be saved. No one would survive that. Now, watch this. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short. Now, let's think back to 1 and 2 Thessalonians.

Don't have time to think much about 2 Thessalonians today. But let's think back of what we know from 1 Thessalonians. Who is the elect here? Now, if you say to yourself, oh, the elect, that's us. We all know about election, man.

We do election here at Bethlehem Bible Church. Yes, we do. And we ought to. But this is not us. Why is this not us, 1 Thessalonians? Why is this not us? Because there has been a great meeting in the air.

And all who believe have been snatched out of here. Now, for those of you that are saying, well, yeah, but see, I'm a mid-tribber, or I'm an end-tribber, or whatever you might be, prophetically, I'll just refer you to this article.

You can get it online. 50 Reasons for a Pre-Tribulational Rapture by Dr. John Walvoord, who is about the last word on some of this. You can look at that. You can Google it, or duck-duck-go it, or whatever you do.

All right. To find out about that. The church is going to be snatched out of here. Therefore, Thessalonians, encourage one another with the fact that you're not going to be here for the time when, if it was not cut short to just seven years, actually three and a half, because the guy doesn't break the treaty until three and a half years into some real trouble called the Great Tribulation.

If it wasn't cut short for three and a half years, not a human being would survive this, Jesus says. Guess what? You're not here. So the elect here are the people of Israel. If it were not for my people, no human being would be saved, would survive.

But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short. Then he gives some warnings. If anybody says here's the Christ, there's the Christ, and so on, don't believe it. Okay? As the lightning comes, verse 27 to 24, for as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. So when Jesus comes, the second time, not the first time to get us, the second time, you say, well, wait a minute. What's been going on for the last 2 ,000 years?

For the last 2 ,000 years, Israel has been under judgment, scattered all over the world. We Gentiles, in the words of Paul and Romans, have been grafted in to become God's people by His sheer grace and by His sheer mercy.

That's why we sit here this morning saved. But that's going to come to an end. And it's going to come to an end at the great meeting in the air. And when the great meeting in the air happens, then the disaster described by Jesus here happens.

All right? Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light. I get it. We've been to a few eclipses, but nothing like this. Okay? And the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man. And then all the tribes of the earth, perhaps ought to be translated all the tribes of the land, same as in Revelation 1, verse 7, all the tribes of the land will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Now the Old Testament prophets tell us by the time this happens, all the nations have been gathered around Israel seeking to destroy her. Does that ring any kind of a bell with you? Well, it ought to.

Unless you're just reading comic books. Well, nobody reads comic books anymore. But it ought to. Now you say, well, does that mean? Does that mean that the Iranians are really going to do Israel? No, people have been saying this about Israel for a long, long time.

For the last 50 years. First the Egyptians, then the Jordanians, now the Iranians. The Saudis, they're kind of quiet about it all at the moment at any rate. But they have been seeking to destroy Israel.

Now what does Jesus have to say about this? The Son of Man will come on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call. And they will gather the elect from the four winds.

There are a lot of people in Israel this morning. But most people that are Jews are not in Israel. They're all over the world. Still under judgment from the scattering that took place in 70 A .D. Prophesied by Daniel.

Alright? And they will gather His elect from the four winds and from one end of heaven to the other. In other words, at the end, the people are going to be gathered back to Israel in unbelief. But in order that we get out of here in the short three hours allotted to me, let me just say that the Apostle Paul says there will not always be an unbelief.