On a Clear Day You Can See Forever — J. Vernon McGee

Matthew as the Gospel of the King

Now, tonight I come to the 24th of Matthew, but I'd like to put a little background and foundation under this message. The gospel of Matthew has become suddenly interesting to a new group of preachers that have taken on a new cult.

I think it will turn out to be that, although the Presbyterian Publishing Company in Pittsburgh has been publishing the books of a group called the Theonomists. Theonomy, theos, God, omnia, is law, and it means the law of God, and their idea is to put the world back under the Mosaic system, God's law, and for the individual that we are to live by the law, and especially the Sermon on the Mount.

Of course, they draw heavily from the Sermon on the Mount. Personally, the gospel of Matthew has a movement in it, and if you miss that movement, I think you miss its message. The gospel of Matthew is the gospel of the King.

The word kingdom is mentioned over fifty times in the gospel, and you can't have a kingdom without a king. The gospel of Matthew has three of the four major discourses that the Lord Jesus Christ gave.

They are major discourses because of their extent, their content, and the intent of them. We have the Sermon on the Mount, so called, however, Dr. Luke says he gave it down on the plain also. I have a notion that the Lord Jesus gave it many times.

And then what is called the mystery parable discourse in Matthew 13, that which happens to the kingdom while the king is gone. And then the Olivet discourse that we'll be looking at this evening in Matthew 24 and 25.

The King’s Genealogy, Birth, and Public Presentation

Let me just give a few words concerning this gospel. It opens with the genealogy of a king, one who is in the line of David, one who has the right to sit on the throne of David. And there came out of the east wise men, and they were not looking for a savior, and there were not just three of them.

Three wise men would never have elicited the attention of Herod. Three hundred might have, and evidently there must have been several hundred of them that came. Just because they brought three gifts doesn't mean they're just three wise men.

They came not looking for a savior. They said, where is he that's born king of the Jews? They were looking for a king. And we find that John the Baptist moves out on the stage and introduces the kingdom.

He says, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And in their midst, he told them there was the king. He marked him out later on, though. In Jerusalem, in the temple, he says, behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.

When he was born king and he was presented as a king, he was tested as a king, and he began his ministry as a king. He began by saying, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, merely repeating what John the Baptist had said.

The Sermon on the Mount and the Present Mystery Form of the Kingdom

In the Sermon on the Mount, he did not give any law for the day. He gave the law for the kingdom. And since the kingdom is not in existence right now, except in a mystery form, and the king is not here, I do not think we are under it.

At least, I don't live under it. He said, resist not evil. I live in a home up here at the edge of Altadena, on the edge of Pasadena, right on the line, and I have bars at my windows and iron doors at every exit.

I live, well, it's crazy. At night, my wife and I lock ourselves in jail and the thieves run up and down the street. It's crazy, but that's life in Pasadena in 1986 now. May I say to you, I put all that up to resist evil, and the reason I did that is because the king is not here.

When the king is here, all of that is coming off. You won't need it. You won't need to resist evil in that day. But that day hasn't arrived yet. He sent out his disciples with a message, not to the world.

He says, go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and say to them, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. They came back and reported. They performed miracles as he did, but he was rejected. They did not receive him.

When he was rejected, he's the king. He rejected them. Woe unto you, Bethsaida! Woe unto you, Capernaum! He pronounced a judgment upon those cities, and he begins now as a rejected king. The question is going to be, what happens to the kingdom if the king is rejected?

Matthew 13, the mystery parables, give us that picture. We're living in that day, as I said last Sunday night, when we're sowing the seed, the sower. The king has gone back, and he's a farmer now, sowing the seed.

The Son of Man is the sower, and our business today is to sow the seed, the word of God. I take it that that's the business of the Church, and that's the reason we're on radio, is because we believe our business is to sow seed.

We're now broadcasting in 26 different languages, and we're seeing more results where the foreign languages go than in this country. I believe that the Lord Jesus will not take his Church out of this world until more people hear the gospel, and they can hear it today.

It's estimated that 65 million people in Russia are Christians, and Christianity today said they are being fed and nurtured by Christian radio today. We're not the only program that's broadcasting in Russia.

There are many of them, many that are reaching languages, and I do believe God will reach this generation with the gospel. That's my desire, my prayer, that we can continue to take the word of God to the world today.

The Rejected King Denounces Jerusalem’s Religious Rulers

Well, anyway, the king now begins to move toward the cross, and on the way to the cross he denounces the religious rulers. In the 23rd chapter of Matthew, there is a minister in Southern California that was interviewed on TV the other day, and he was asked why he never mentions anything negative.

He says, I only mention that which is positive. It's too bad because he misses preaching from half of the Bible, because half of the Bible is negative. All the Ten Commandments are, and the 23rd of Matthew is the most negative passage of scripture I've ever read in my life.

The king being rejected, he rejects them, and now he denounces the religious rulers in the most unscathing terms. He literally castigates them with withering condemnation. He speaks to them. Let me give you just one verse.

In Matthew 23, verse 33, Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Ooh, that's hard. The gentle Jesus said that, and I want to tell you, you can't say anything worse about a man than that.

He said, you're a generation of vipers, you're a son of a snake. What an awful thing to say. That's fighting terms, let me tell you. I want to tell you that he used that terminology. But he's still the gentle Jesus.

He's on the way to the cross to die for those very men, and he weeps over Jerusalem, and he says in verse 37, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, stonest them that are sent unto thee.

How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not. The Savior, now on the way to the cross, weeps over Jerusalem. And he makes this alarming statement.

He says, behold, your house is left unto you desolate. Notice he didn't say God's house, your house. The temple was no longer God's house, because the Shekinah glory had been in that temple. The Shekinah glory was in it, veiled in human flesh, when Jesus walked through the temple.

May I say to you, they had rejected him, and he says, your house is left unto you desolate. Now you and I tonight cannot conceive the effect that that would have upon a godly Jew in that day. That would have a tremendous effect.

And he says, for I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Now, I say, he makes it clear he's coming back to that temple, a temple on that same spot, of course.

Jesus Announces the Temple’s Destruction

And now, having made that statement, the disciples with him are alarmed, they are disturbed. And when he went out, his going out is a rejection of it, of course. Jesus went out and departed from the temple.

His disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. They are so alarmed, they say to him, now look, you say the house is going to be left desolate? That was Herod's temple. It had already been 40 years in building.

It was built of white marble. The gate had been forged in grease, floated across the helispont. It was a bronze gate with a golden vine, grapevine woven into it. That grapevine was the badge of the nation Israel.

And that was at the entrance to the temple. The Lord Jesus, I think that night when he walked out to the Mount of Olives, to the Garden of Gethsemane, that he gave, I am the true vine, the genuine vine.

I think he was standing at that gate when he gave that. Now I say to you, it was a beautiful temple. And they say to him, look at the temple. And there were, of course, other buildings that adjoined the temple and they were calling his attention to it.

And Jesus said unto them, see ye not all these things? He says to them, do you see this temple? You think I don't see it, do you see it? I wonder tonight, do you see Pasadena as God sees Pasadena? May I say to you, Pasadena is passing away.

I came here in 1940. This was the loveliest place I'd ever been. It's not that anymore. In 1940, Dr. Thorndike, I heard him lecture at the Ola Roya Vista Hotel. I went down to hear him purposely. He said Pasadena was the most ideal place to live in of any place in the world, and he compared it to places along the Riviera and places in South Africa and many other places and showed why he thought Pasadena.

But the things that Pasadena had then, Pasadena does not have now. Pasadena is passing away. The Pasadena I came to, it's gone, friends. And the one you're living in, it's going. May I say to you, the world passes away.

And it's too bad when Christians get in love with the world, the flesh, and the devil, isn't it? It's tragic, indeed. He says, love not the world, the things that are in the world, they are passing away.

And so he says to them, do you see it? And then, if you think the first statement was alarming, he makes one now that gives them a coronary. Listen to this. Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.

Have you ever been to the Wailing Wall and looked at it carefully? It has stones in it that weigh several tons, then has smaller stones. It has all kinds of stones in it, if you'll examine it. It's not made of just one kind of stone, all kinds of them.

You know where those stones came from? That they gathered them up after Jerusalem was destroyed. Because we'll see in a moment that there was a man that hated Jews and Christians so that he plowed up Jerusalem, and one stone was not left on another.

So when they built what's called today the Wailing Wall, they just got stones from everywhere because there wasn't one on top of another that was just like it. So there are all kinds of stones there today as a witness.

The Olivet Discourse and the Disciples’ Three Questions

Now they're on the way now to the top of the Mount of Olives, and on the way up I think they had a huddle. I think probably Simon Peter called a huddle. He said, fellows, what in the world is he saying?

He's talking, he's never talked before. And he says, this lovely city of Jerusalem, our city, the city of God, he says not one stone's going to be left upon another here. What does he mean? And I think Thomas says, let's ask him.

So when they got to the top of the Mount of Olives, will you notice what they did? And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately. And remember that the Olivet discourse was given privately to the disciples.

It was not a public discourse at all, although he did give, I think, it publicly in other places. Now here, just to them. Now they bring to him three questions. Will you notice them? Tell us, when shall these things be?

When shall not one stone be left upon another? Well, he told them that, but he doesn't answer it in the discourse that Matthew records. And the reason is obvious. Matthew is the gospel of the kingdom.

He's now looking to the future kingdom, go to the last chapter. The kingdom is coming. And so he's not concerned with that which is going to happen now in the immediate future. But Dr. Luke records that part of the discourse.

And he said to them, it's in the 21st chapter, I'm not taking time tonight to turn to a lot of scriptures because I've got a lot of ground to cover, and I want to try to knock a home run if I can here tonight.

And so the Lord Jesus answered him, when you shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then you'll know the time has come. Well, when was Jerusalem compassed with armies? In 70 A .D., Titus the Roman, he hated Jews, he hated Christians, and both were in that city.

And he laid siege to it. Several of the disciples were there. I think that probably, maybe it was Philip and Thomas that climbed up and looked over the battlements. And when they looked out there, they saw those eagles.

Moses had even predicted that. And there they were. And I think that Philip nudged Thomas and said, say, this is what he's talking about, isn't it? Not one stone will be left upon another. Well, when Titus took that city, he destroyed it.

And I mean he destroyed it. Not one stone was left upon another. He put up an image of Apollo to be worshipped, and he put the broth of a sow on all the holy places, and then he destroyed it. He destroyed that temple.

He destroyed everything there. And absolutely, he just took off the top of a hill there. May I say to you, one third of the prophecy he gave in the Olivet Discourse has been fulfilled and has been fulfilled literally.

Now, the other two questions that they ask are these. What shall be the sign of thy coming, and what is the sign of the end of the world? Now, the word world is really an unfortunate translation. It's the word ion, not cosmos.

And ion means age. It has to do with actually a period of time. It's an economy, really, a type of economy. We are in this country today in a different economy than we were a few years ago. It's all different.

And an age is a different—it's a period of time. What is the sign of the end of the age? The world doesn't come to an end. You say the Bible does say that. It doesn't say it anywhere. We're going to trade this world in on a new one, going to get a brand new one.

That will be a new heavens and a new earth. And we're just trading it in. We're going to get a better one than we got today. I like this one, but he's going to give us a better one. But may I say to you, it's the end of the age.

False Christs, Wars, and the Sign of the End of the Age

What is the sign of the end of the age, and what is the sign of its coming? That's why they ask it the other way. Now he answers this logically and chronologically, and he takes their first question, our last question, and answers it first.

What is the sign of the end of the age? Now he's up on top of the Mount of Olives, and he looks down through the ages to the end of this age, and he covers the period we're in briefly. The period of the Church is not mentioned in the Olivet Discourse.

I get rather amused that so many of our prophetic preachers here in Southern California, they get carried away with the Olivet Discourse, especially if something tragic happens in the world. When the Titanic went down, that was a sign of something, of course, and everything that happens is a sign that's in here.

May I say to you, there are two signs he gives of this period we're living in here. One's false Christ. I don't have time to go into that tonight, but believe me, they're around today. This new theology of theonomy is going to become very popular, I can assure you that.

You see, the reason this minister said he did not deal with the negative, he says people don't like to hear negative things, so I just take the positive things. I think it's time God's people are looking at the negatives in the scripture.

There are a lot of negatives in the word of God, and it's time we take note of them. We're living in our day in a crucial period in the history of the world, I'm sure of that, but to say it's fulfillment of prophecy, it is not.

Now he said there'd be false Christ, and then he made this interesting statement. He said, Now, someone has worked out historically the fact that more wars have taken place in the past 1900 years than the rest of the history of the world put together, and I don't think there's any question about that.

Now, notice this very carefully. He said wars are not a sign of the end of the age. He said you're going to hear wars and rumors of wars. Don't be disturbed. The end's not yet. That's not a sign of the end of the age.

I was a little tag at the end of World War II, World War I. Oh, my gracious. I wish I had been, because I think today is the greatest day to live and to give out the word of God. There's never been a period like this today, never.

And I tell you, I tell the Lord I want to keep going, and I'll be 82 this year, and I hope he doesn't find out about it, because I don't want him to know. I don't want him to know. Well, at the end of World War I, there was a wheelbarrow load of books that came out saying that World War I was a sign that we were at the end of the age.

That's when millennial dawnism that now is Jehovah's Witnesses. They missed it then, so they changed the name of the organization. Every time they missed it, they changed the name of the organization.

But they said this is a sign that we're at the end. But World War I wasn't a sign. There was book after book written. And I was pastor right here in Pasadena during World War II, and I said to our people, I said, at the end of this war, there will be a wheelbarrow load of books written saying that this is a sign that we're at the end of the age.

And I was wrong. It wasn't a wheelbarrow load. It was two wheelbarrow loads of books. I tell you, they came from everywhere. That's World War II. And today, you hear that again and again. Now, the Lord Jesus made it explicit.

This is not a sign of the end of the age. Now, as far as I'm concerned, I'm not concerned about the signs of the end of the age. But he gave them here. And tonight, I'm going to lift out the one sign that is the sign of the end of the age.

And it's in verse 15. And you will notice the time words he uses all through here. Then. And here it's when. When ye, therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, whoso read it, let him understand.

This is it. This is the fulfillment. This is it. Well, I don't know what. If you'll promise not to let this get out. But I really do not know what the abomination of desolation is. Now, there's some people think I know, but I don't.

I don't know what the abomination. I'm going to make a suggestion, but I really don't know. And I'm not disturbed about that. You know why? Because I'm not looking for that. I'm told. Paul told me. He says, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Jesus Christ.

I've got a hope of less. I'm not looking for an abomination of desolation. When when the women a few years ago, some of you older women will remember when the bouffant was the style women's hair. Well, it looked like a every woman looked like a balloon on the poop deck ready to take off, you know?

Well, well, my my daughter was having her first year at Westmont and we like to go up to encourage her. And so we drove up to the girl's dormitory and a girl came out and I said to her, can you tell me where Linda McGee is?

And she began to laugh, walked over to the car and she said, Dad, don't you know me? She had a bouffant. And I said, honey, I've often heard about the domination of desolation. And this is the closest thing I've seen so far.

But really, I don't know what the abomination of desolation is. Now, I do know this, that Daniel mentions two abominations. One took place during the time of Titus Epiphanes, the Syrian. He also took Jerusalem, took the temple.

He put up an image of Apollo, the Roman god, and he also killed a sow and sprinkled her blood all over the place. And that was called an abomination. Now, the abomination of desolation, I read in Revelation that the false prophet is going to make an image of Antichrist and put it in the temple.

I think that's it. But I don't know. And I don't expect to be here to see it. And just tell the truth. It's not bothering me at all that I do not know what the abomination of desolation is. I suspect that's what it is, but I'm not looking for it.

The Holy Place, the Great Tribulation, and Deliverance from Judgment

But he told those at the end of the age, when you see the abomination of desolation, stand in a holy place. Does the church have a holy place? Paul over at Rome thinks so, but the church does not have a holy place.

When I was pastor of the Church of the Open Door, we used to have Dr. Charles Fuller on his birthday, after he'd be on the radio, we'd have him for the night service. And one Sunday night that we had him, he said, I sat back of that pillow, way back down in the back, one Sunday night, when Paul Rader preached here, and I put my head in my arms and I accepted Christ as my Savior back there.

And he made this statement. He says, that's my holy place. And then I heard the founder of the Navigators, he was a member of the Church of the Open Door, I heard him say that I sat down front here when there's nobody in the auditorium, and he gave the number row in the seat he sat in, and he said, I accepted Christ right there, reading the Bible.

And he says, that's my holy place. He told me that. He said, that's my holy place. It was a little confusing. I'm pastor of the Church of the Open Door, and we've got a holy place here and one back there, which is the holy place.

Well, to tell the truth, for these men, these were holy places. I can understand that, and I'm sure you could. Maybe you've got a holy place like that. Hope you have. May I say to you that the holy place is something the Church doesn't have, and evidently it's the people that are going to have a holy place.

And who was given a holy place? God gave to the children of Israel a temple, first a tabernacle, then a temple, and in it was a holy place. And he says, when you see it in the holy place, and you know, I really don't think he's talking to the Church at all, because we don't have a holy place.

If he's talking to me, he's got me confused, because I do not know where to look for the holy place. May I say to you, it's the people that will have a holy place in that day, and the Church will be long gone, as we'll see next Sunday night, by the way.

And so this is the sign of the end of the age. And he says, when you see that, you better get going. It's time to start moving. Let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains. I was in Judea this summer, but I really didn't think anything about fleeing the mountains at all.

Didn't make any arrangement for it, in case something happened, and there were a lot of things happening. May I say to you that he goes on to say, woe to those that are with child in that day, and it's going to be a terrible time.

Now listen to him, what he says about it. For then shall be great tribulation. Now, don't blame the great tribulation on some of us premillennialists. We didn't think of it. He thought of it. He called it the great tribulation, and since he called it the great tribulation, if you don't mind, I'm going to call it the great tribulation.

He says, then will be great tribulation, and he describes it to be nothing like it. For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time known I ever shall be.

There's been nothing like it before. There'll be nothing like it after. It just stands up like Mount Rainier. It's different. There's a time of trouble, the like of which the world hasn't seen. And anyone today that believes the Church is going through the great tribulation must not really understand what the great tribulation is.

It's a time of the greatest judgment that God will bring upon this earth. Now, the flood was a pretty good judgment, let me tell you. It cleaned off the face of this earth. But this next judgment during the great tribulation, it's going to be a judgment, friends, and the Church is just not going to be here.

We have been delivered from judgment. That's what happened when you accepted Christ. He bore all our judgment. Then he says, except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved. I read a Jewish scientist in Austria.

He had figured out that the number of people that had died in plagues and earthquakes and other great tragedies, added them all up, and he said, boy, I tell you, he sure exaggerated. He said that nobody would be saved during that period.

It would be a time that the whole world would be exterminated, except those days were shortened. He said that's ridiculous to make a statement like that. We know tonight that that Austrian scientist, he is ridiculous.

We know tonight that there are two nations that could probably blot out the population of the world tonight. It's an awful, frightful thing to think of. But I thank God, and I comfort myself with this.

He said, except those days were shortened, no flesh would survive. He's saying here, I won't let man commit suicide. He's not going to commit suicide. He'll not be able to do that, so I'm very comfortable.

If the Russians are going to start throwing them, we're going to start throwing them, and it's going to be bad. But the population of the world will not be destroyed. He said, except those days should be shortened.

But during the Great Tribulation, one-third of the population goes out at one time. Another time, one-fourth of the population goes out. It's going to be a time of great trouble, a great time of trouble on this earth.

I thank God the Church is not going through that. We are not promised that at all. This is written to a people who have a holy place, who are evidently in the land of Judea. Israel returned back to the land, and the Gentile nations then in existence.

It will come upon the whole world at that time. Now, I want to move hurriedly over here. I got a little late start tonight, so I'll go a little late if you don't mind. It may cause you to miss one of your favorite programs tonight, but I hope not.

I'll get through. Now, what is the sign of his coming? And notice how he gives that. It's quite interesting. For as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.

The Public Return of the Son of Man

And he warned them. He said, I won't come like I did at Bethlehem. I won't come like I was in Nazareth and in Jerusalem. I won't come like that at all. It'll be like the lightning coming out of the east and shineth even unto the west.

Now, can you think of anything that's more public than lightning? Many years ago, there was an advertising man here in Southern California. He's the man that started putting these gadgets that just put a beam of light.

They go right up through Southern California, sending out beams of light. He started that. And he said to me one time, he used to come to the church open door. He said to me, he says, you know, McGee, what we'd like to do.

And I was teaching this. He came up. He said, we have worked on how we can somehow another tie on to lightning for advertising purposes. He, right. And he said that we've made several experiments. None of them have worked so far.

And he said that we'd like to tie on to lightning. He says, that's so public. Everybody sees it. If we had lightning last, we used to didn't have lightning in California. Some of you people from Texas brought it out here, I think.

Well, I was with my, I was back at Madison Lake years ago, speaking at a Christian endeavor conference. And I noticed speaking in the evening that the clouds were gathering. I could see in the distance and there was lightning in the distance.

By the time I got through, I could hear thunder. I beat it back to my room, got all my pajamas, got in bed so I could watch it. That storm come up and it came across Madison Lake. And during that storm, the lightning, I never saw lightning like it.

It wasn't by flashes. There never was a moment I could not see the other side of the lake. It was just continuous. Never saw lightning like that. You talk about public, that was public. And my brother-in-law met me down in Texas when I got back.

My wife was down there. I told him, I said, you think you got lightning and thunder here in Texas, boy, but you haven't seen anything. And I told him about it up there. Well, he said, we'll work on ours then.

We thought we had the biggest and the best. Well, may I say to you, lightning is very public. The Lord Jesus said his coming will be like lightning. Everybody's going to know about it. Everybody will know about it.

And there's always been the question of how people will come to Jerusalem. That's where you'll touch down. But how in the world will people on this side of the earth see him? And I think Dr. Walward is the only one that's got the right explanation.

Some have come up with the idea, well, we've got TV, you'll be able to see it on TV. I think everybody's going to see him. And, my friend, that's going to be the most spectacular thing in the world. I think we'll be coming in that procession.

That procession will take 24 hours to come. The earth will make a complete circuit. You'll see him coming out yonder in the distance at the edge of our planetary system. And he's moving in. And in 24 hours, he's going to touch down.

The entire earth will make a revolution and everybody will see him coming. But he'll touch down in Jerusalem. What a glorious thing that's going to be when he comes to this earth. And, friends, this earth is going to be a glorious place when he comes.

And there's a new heavens and a new earth. What a glorious, wonderful anticipation that is. And that's the hope of the future. It's not just a great tribulation, but someday that he's going to come to this earth and set up his kingdom.

The Days of Noah and the Meaning of “Taken”

Now, I must come to a conclusion. But I'd have to deal with this, because there are those that always refer to this. They say, well, this is the rapture. And they try to prove it. Verse 37 says, But as the days of Noah were, so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be.

For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark. Have you noticed that what they were doing is not wrong?

What's wrong with eating and drinking? What's wrong with marrying and giving in marriage? There's nothing wrong with that. Well, what is wrong? He says something's wrong about it. They are doing these things and leaving God out of it.