Sunday, March 6, 2022 PM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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We're going to be looking at Matthew 24, verses 37 through 42.

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And we will also be turning in our Bibles to Luke chapter 17.

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So we'll be looking at both passages tonight.

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Continuing our study of the Olivet Discourse. We have come past the second repetition of the time indicator that Jesus says in verse 34,

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Assuredly I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.

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This heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away.

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And so he's got some more things to say about this, and we're going to do our best to pay attention.

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So let's go ahead and pray and ask God to bless our time together tonight. Father, I thank you for, again,

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I thank you for gathering us together. We thank you for your provision. We thank you that our Savior Jesus Christ, that he is true in all that he says, and that he is good in all that he does.

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And we thank you that we have such a shepherd as he, a good shepherd. And we pray that you would help us to listen carefully to his voice, and that we would follow him wherever he goes.

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We pray these things in his name. Amen. So, we discussed the curiosity of verse 36, where Jesus says,

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But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my

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Father only. And we saw that Jesus said that in response to one of the original questions that the disciples asked him at the beginning of chapter 24, where they asked him in verse 3,

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Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

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They wanted to know the timing of the end of the age. Why would they think that the age was coming to a close?

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Because Jesus said that the temple would be destroyed. That Jerusalem would be destroyed and the temple with it.

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And they wanted to know when. Jesus does give them a time frame, this generation, but he does not give them a particular day.

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He does not give them a particular month. In this case, it is not like the book of Esther, where the dice was rolled to land on what we now call

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Purim. In this case, Jesus says this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.

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But he does not give them a day and an hour. Some inventive prophecy writers have gone ahead and interpreted this not according to Jesus' plain meaning of being within that generation.

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And they've said, well, at some point, all of these things are going to take place in the future.

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And they will even give a year and a month. And one especially innovative prophecy writer said it will occur in the evening of this particular day.

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Why? Because Jesus says nobody would know the day or the hour.

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So Jesus is coming at night. And I can tell you what night it is. Well, there's no need for those kinds of gymnastics.

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Jesus is counseling his disciples. He is pastoring his followers. He is saying to them, be ready when you see

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Jerusalem surrounded by armies, when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not to be.

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Get yourself out of the city. Don't hide in there. Get yourself out of Judea.

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Don't stick around. Head for the hills and you will be safe. You will escape the great tribulation.

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He's got more to say about it because his followers need to hear more about it.

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Now what we're going to read in verses 37 through 42, I encourage you to reserve assumption about the events to which this refers until we recall the context that we're reading it in and read the very same descriptions in Luke 17.

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And that'll be helpful to us all. So Matthew 24 verses 37 through 42.

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But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the son of man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and did not know until the flood came and took them all away.

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So also will the coming of the son of man be. Then two men will be in the field.

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One will be taken in the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken in the other left.

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Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your

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Lord is coming. But know this, well, here

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I am eager to go on, but we're going to stop at 42. Come back next week. Okay. Luke 17.

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I wanted to stop there in Matthew 24 because of the connections in Luke 17. Luke 17 verses 26 through 37.

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And as it was in the days of Noah, sound familiar? So it will be in the days of the son of man.

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They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all.

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So that's all very familiar, right? So we already heard from Matthew 24. And then

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Jesus obviously taught on these themes more than once. And here he includes some more detail.

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Likewise, as it was also in the days of Lot, they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built.

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But on the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.

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Even so, it will be in the day when the son of man is revealed. In that day, he was on the housetop and his goods are in his house.

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Let him not come down to take them away. Sound familiar? That's in Matthew 24.

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It's the exact same instructions. And likewise, the one who was in the field, let him not turn back.

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Same instructions from Matthew 24. And then this three -word verse, remember

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Lot's wife, whoever seeks to save his life will lose it.

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And whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, in that night, there will be two men in one bed.

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One will be taken and the other will be left. Two women will be grinding together. The one will be taken and the other left.

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Two men will be in the field. The one will be taken and the other left. And they answered and said to him, where,

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Lord? So he said to them, wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.

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So as we look at these two passages, I think it's important for us to observe that these practical instructions that Jesus has given in Matthew 24 also show up in Luke 17, where Jesus has said to them, in the context of the coming tribulation, to flee

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Jerusalem, to flee Judea. And he has told them this is all going to happen in their generation, and that they are going to see the abomination of desolation, which

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Luke 21 interprets as Jerusalem surrounded by armies. He says, when you see that, you leave.

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Don't even go down into your house and grab your stuff. You just run. You go. Don't even leave the field and go back to your house to get supplies.

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Just go. Get out as fast as you can. The very same instructions are given here in Luke 17, and we see that those instructions are given in connection with the same themes of Matthew 24, 37 -42, which tells us what?

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Which tells us we are still considering this event that Jesus forewarned, that all these things would happen within this generation.

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We're still looking at Christ's description of his judgment coming.

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Remember our study of the word coming throughout the Old Testament was a description of a judgment of God.

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And so Jesus wants to give some lively illustrations, some word pictures, some things for his disciples to consider and apply in the coming days to think about the coming, the judgment coming of Christ in judgment upon Jerusalem and the temple.

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And so he talks about Noah. He talks about Noah. In that context, as he talks about Noah, what would be a good connection that we see in the text in either

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Luke 17 or Matthew 24, and you can see it there for yourself, what would be a good connection between the coming of the

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Son of Man and the days of Noah? Any words that stand out? Something that happened in the days of Noah and also happened in the days of this judgment in and around the year

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AD 70. Any candidate words? Eating and drinking?

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Alright. Fun and games, right? So, let's think about seven themes or six themes that are the same between the days of Noah and the days that Jesus is talking about.

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The first one is this idea of coming or taking. The same word for the flood, the flood came and took them all away.

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Came and took. The flood came and took. These are the exact same words, exact same words used of Christ's coming in verse 49 and verse 42.

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So the coming of the Son of Man will be. And then we have the expression of, in verse 40, one will be taken.

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So in Noah, the flood came and took, right? Jesus says just like that, the judgment of the

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Son of Man will come and take. So Jesus is saying, do you see the parallel between Noah's, the flood of Noah and the judgment of the

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Son of Man? The flood came and took. The Son of Man's judgment will come and take. So he makes that connection.

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And in what, the flood came and took away who?

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Took away who? Swept across the face of the earth and swept away who?

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Those who were just going about their normal business and, you know, that loony

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Noah building this monstrosity, you know, you talk about a nutcase, whatever.

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And the flood came and took them away. So also, the judgment of the Son of Man will come,

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Jesus says to his disciples, and will take away those who do not understand.

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The ones who were just going about their normal business and didn't understand what was about to happen to them.

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So he said that's going to be the exact same thing. Jesus has already said in Matthew 24, verse 15,

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I'll let the reader understand, right? He quotes Daniel and then says, let the reader understand.

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Well, if they didn't read, if they didn't understand, if they were not wise, then they would be caught off guard.

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So, also in verse 22, Jesus makes the distinction between those who were the saved and unsaved, the believers and the non -believers.

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So the coming and taking is the same parallel. Also the theme of judgment. The worldwide flood was a judgment.

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What about Sodom and Gomorrah? Judgment, okay. And Christ's coming against Jerusalem was a judgment.

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So that's what they all have in common. But did the flood destroy everybody?

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Now there were some who were protected by the instructions of God. They were protected and preserved, and they survived that judgment.

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What about Sodom and Gomorrah? Did everybody die? No, the mercies of God were at work, and they drug out, now this is very important, they drug out

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Lot, his wife, and his two daughters. But then Jesus in Luke 17 takes a moment to say a three -word verse that we need to take account of.

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What did he say? Why did Lot's wife not survive?

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She turned back. What does Jesus not want his followers to do? Go back to that city, go back to their livelihoods, go back, because then they're going to be destroyed.

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So he says, remember Lot's wife. He's pastoring, you see. He doesn't want them to be caught up in the destruction that's to come.

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So we also have a connection of wickedness. The wickedness of Noah's day, pretty famous.

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So wicked that God flooded the whole earth. How about the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah? That was an incredibly wicked place, wasn't it?

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And how does Jesus feel about his generation? How many times does he call them a wicked and perverse generation?

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That's another theme that is connected. Also the theme of surprise, as we've already mentioned.

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The normal human routines are interrupted. All is going along as it always has been. It's just the standard get up, work, go to bed, live your life, people getting married, having children.

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Everything is just the same. And there is a surprise to those who lived in Noah's day.

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There was no understanding until it was too late. Also, there was surprise.

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You could connect surprise even with the situation in Sodom and Gomorrah. But also, in this case,

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Jesus is particularly saying, you need to stop doing the normal routines.

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When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, when you see the abomination of desolation, stop your normal routines and flee.

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But the reader would understand, the wise would understand, but those who did not would be surprised.

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Also, it was sudden. How long did it rain?

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Right, but how long was Noah and the family cooped up in the ark before the rain started falling?

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Yeah, now you think that Noah is already pretty kooky for building the thing.

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But then, he and his family and a whole bunch of stinking animals cooped themselves up in this huge boat and nothing happens the first day, nothing happens the next day, nothing happens the next day, right?

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Man, now we're just taking bets on how long they stay in there, right? Until all of a sudden, then it begins to rain, and rain and rain and rain, 40 days and 40 nights until it's just too late.

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Similarly, we have the situation that Jesus has laid out for his followers.

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When you see this particular sign, get out. In other words, get in the ark or leave, get to safety.

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And then people would be like, why are you leaving? Why are you running? That doesn't make any sense. It certainly wouldn't make any sense in the historical context where the

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Jews had run off Cestius and his Roman legion and defeated them in the valley between Beth -char and Beth -choron, because then it would look like, hey, the

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Jews have won. Why are you running away? We should be rallying in Jerusalem. But Jesus had instructed his followers otherwise.

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And the destruction would come very suddenly. It wasn't simply that the Roman legions came and brought destruction.

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It was the sudden outbreak of the sectarianism within the Jewish camps where they began to kill one another and fight one another, even as the

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Romans were pressing in until it was too late for anybody to get away. Also, it was inescapable that there would be no way out for anyone, there was no way for those outside of the ark to survive.

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And also, Jesus says, you can't stay here. Otherwise, you're going to be subject to the destruction.

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So those are the themes that are obviously connected between the days of Noah and the judgment of the

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Son of Man. And of course, Sodom, Gomorrah and Lot are a great example. Now, what do these tragic scenes in the field and at the mill have to do with Christ's instructions concerning haste?

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Now, let's list the things that were going on. The things that were going on in the days right before the flood, the things that were going on in Sodom and Gomorrah before the fire in Brimstone.

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What were the things that were going on before the Roman siege? What were going on? Feasting, drinking, partying, marrying, giving in marriage, buying, selling, planting, building, sleeping, grinding grain, working in the fields.

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Are these sinful things? This is human things, it's just the normal way of life.

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It's just the normal way of life. That's what was going on all around.

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Now, Jesus says, all this is going on, but you need to leave. Now, that requires a great deal of faith.

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Remember, Abraham left his family's lands and places in Ur and left and went to a land that was promised to him that he had not yet seen.

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How difficult that would be to go by faith according to the word of God, to pack up and leave.

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How difficult it would be to leave friends, to leave family, to leave your routine, to leave your wedding plans.

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Think about Lot's wife, his daughters were promised to two men, right? You had to leave that behind.

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How hard would it be to leave a transaction on the table? How hard would it be to leave seedlings in the ground, a vineyard half built, barley unthreshed, fields unworked.

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Natural attachment to a life well developed would make an incredibly difficult inertia to overcome.

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And the idea was, oh, everything just keeps on going on like it always has until it's too late.

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And then what happens, what is the tragedy that Jesus envisions here? One will be taken from the other.

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One will be taken, one will be left. And then these natural, look at the natural good relationships that are severed.

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A husband separated from a wife, a sister from a sister, a brother from a brother, a parent from a child.

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What is this? Now, Thessalonians says that when Jesus returns in his final day, we're going to be caught up with him in the air and we're going to be in victory formation, okay?

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That's not what this passage is about. This passage is about the horrors of war and devastation.

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Consider, read this again. Matthew 24, two men in the field, one taken, the other left.

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Two women grinding at the mill, one taken and the other left, okay? And then verse 42 says, watch.

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What are they watching for? The thing he already told them to watch for, the abomination of desolation when

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Jerusalem is surrounded by armies. He's already told them what to watch for. They know what to watch for. But in Luke, consider how it goes in Luke.

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One will be taken, the other left. One will be taken, the other left. What did the flood do? Took away.

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What does the son of man's judgment do? It takes away. And notice, the critical question is asked in the text.

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Verse 37, the disciples answered and said to him, where, Lord, where will they be taken?

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Two brothers in the field, one taken, the other left. Where was that one who was taken?

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Where was he taken? Where was the sister taken? Where was the mother taken? Tell us, Lord. So he said to them, wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.

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Now, we've already encountered the eagles, the carrion, the vultures feeding upon the dead.

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You see what Jesus is saying? This is not a passage about the rapture.

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This is a passage about the devastation and destruction of war. When the disciples ask, those taken, where do they go?

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Jesus answered, well, if you spot the eagles, you know they're gathering around the dead bodies.

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That's his answer. So, let's take his word for it. Now, Jesus' exhortation is that we ought to be on the alert.

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Jesus says to his disciples that they must not turn back to their former lives like Lot's wife.

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They must remain on the alert. They must be wakeful watchmen. Now, part of the question comes as we study here in Matthew 24.

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You know, when are we going to make the transition from looking at the destruction of Jerusalem to talking about the return of Christ, which all believers anticipate and must live in watchful readiness for?

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When are we going to make that transition? I think the transition is between chapters 24 and 25, and we'll talk about the reasons for that.

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But I want to also talk about this. The Bible continually connects the days of judgment to the final day.

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The language that the Bible uses for the end of the world for Egypt, when the lights all went out on Egypt, and God came in great, mighty power and defeated the enemies and judged them.

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When he did that upon other nations, the language that we read involves clouds, involves the sky, frightening images in the sky.

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Sometimes we hear about trumpets. And many of the same themes that we read from one judgment coming to the next judgment coming to the next judgment coming, those themes are developed.

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And we even hear them about the destruction of Jerusalem in 8070. And we also find some of those very same themes when we read in the

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Bible about the glorious return of Christ, which, of course, as we read, is a judgment where the sheep are on the right and the goats are on the left, and judgment is had.

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It is judgment. So we should not be surprised to find that the biblical images associated with judgment pop up again and again and again and are still used of the final day, the return of Christ.

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Every day of the Lord that we read about in the Old Testament, and there were several, every day of the

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Lord throughout history testifies to that day, telling us that God is just, that God is true, that God keeps his promises, that God will bring things into righteousness.

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It tells us that God has a consistency of character, that he's long -suffering and he's patient, but he's also holy and his wrath will come.

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It reminds us of God's position that he is the creator and thus the owner and the judge of all.

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It reminds us that God, the way of his manner of judgment, whether we're thinking of the images of clouds, the images of lights out, the image of fire.

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And when we read in Matthew 24 and 25, there is a concerted connection between the judgment which brought about the end of the old covenant, chapter 24 of Matthew, and where the new covenant is heading, chapter 25, when

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Christ himself will return in glory and sit upon his throne. We also have the very same connection in 1

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Thessalonians 4, 13 through 5, verse 10. Both are connected again thematically.

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It's important to remember that the apocalyptic imagery of previous days of the Lord are employed for the final day of the

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Lord, because it's all a matter of judgment. And we see a pattern that God is long -suffering and that some men will be arrogant and say, it will never happen.

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Consider also that in the Old Testament, no matter if Egypt or Israel or Babylon or Edom or Judah lived through some horrible tribulation, that they suffered power failure, the stars refused to shine, the moon turned to blood, the sun was darkened, and so on, whether that happened in Egypt or Israel or so on.

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Do you notice that the authors, the believers, did not then say, well, there's no more day of the

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Lord, that was it, we're done. They kept on talking about the day of the Lord.

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They kept anticipating coming judgment. They kept anticipating that God would act in the future.

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Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi all prophesied post day of the Lord on Judah, where the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.

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But they were all still talking about the day of the Lord to come. So, hope is not removed after AD 70.

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There's still the day of the Lord to come. And in our future studies, we're going to look at the image of the thief in the night.

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And that's a classic image that many people have thought of and considered. And we're going to see how it is used here, as Jesus continues to give images to his followers to consider that they would be watchful and ready and obedient to his instructions.

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And so, that'll be our look next time. All right, do we have any questions or thoughts before we close our time together tonight?

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All right, so the normal human activity is not bad.

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But if we're doing the normal human activity without the fear of the Lord, not only does

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Solomon say in Ecclesiastes it's meaningless, but it also brings judgment. So, we see in Jesus' instructions to his disciples that when push comes to shove, and there's normal human activity, the comforts of our routine, and then there's the word of the

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Lord. If we fear God, we'll follow the word of the Lord. And we must be willing to interrupt our normal human routine to do what

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God has called us to do. Because if we fear God, not at all.

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Those are the ones who survived. Because Jesus just said, if you're in your field, leave.

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If you're in your house, leave. And then he starts talking about those who stayed in their fields. And those who stayed in their homes.

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And he said, coin flip, whether you live or die. And if you read the history of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, well over a million

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Jews died in the proper assault upon the city, doesn't count the hundreds of thousands of Jews who died in the assault upon the region.

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You have the rest of them being captured and sold into slavery. And just as Deuteronomy 28 said, they were put on ships and brought down to Egypt and then sold into slavery.

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But nobody would buy them because it had glutted the market. So Jesus wasn't saying, one will be taken, one will be left.

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The ones who are left are the righteous. He just said, if you believe me, you won't even be in the field.

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If you believe me, you won't even be in your home. That's what he just said. Right, yeah, exactly.

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Exactly, yeah. Yes, yeah.

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Right, that's why he said, remember Lot's wife. Because Lot's wife, she wanted to go back.

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But he said, don't go back. Yeah, so the

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Bible does give us scriptural, it gives us language to be able to analyze what goes on today.

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So when we see a state acting in tyranny and consuming, we think of a beast.

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Why would we think of a beast? Because we're given that kind of imagery in the scripture.

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There was a leopard, there was a lion, there was a bear. And when we see an overturn in powers and authorities and authority structures and so on, we have the biblical language of talking about the lights going out, of the governing authorities being shifted out.

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And we see again and again, in all of these descriptions, these are very strong images.

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But a beast is far less than a man. And so it's a humbling kind of language.

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Right? And the fact that God can make stars fall out of the sky and the sun to not shine, again,

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God, that's a humbling language. If the

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Bible teaches us anything about pride and arrogance, about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is that this is what lies at the heart of conflict and disaster and warfare.

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And God humbles men. He humbles men in the overturning of one empire to the next, of one disaster to the next.

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And very often, when we're in the middle of things, we have no idea what's going on. And we have the tendency to try to immediately diagnose.

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Proverbs tells us that we ought to wait till we hear both sides and then make a proper judgment.

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So I would say that Jesus Christ, we're told in the scriptures, is reigning from the right hand.

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And the Bible shows Christ being very active in the world.

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And I don't think he's asleep or on the bench today, waiting around for his turn to get into the game.

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But that he is still active and ruling and reigning. And that he's bringing down some and raising up others.

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And he is tearing down some things and raising up other things. And always, always humbling man.