30. The Rise of False Messiahs (End-Times Series Part 11)

Welcome to the broadcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 30, the rise of false messiahs.

Suppose I told you that my great grandfather was a proud and noble German. He survived the first world war and began raising children before the second.

Now I want you to imagine in this fanciful story that I'm telling that sometime around the year 1920, my great grandfather received a message from God that he was commanded to write down and share with his children, which would detail the events that were soon to take place in the lifetime of their country.

In those letters, my great grandfather, fictionally, describes a rising German tyrant, a man who will reinvigorate the

German economy, win an improbable election, and convert many of the people into party loyalists.

He would build the greatest spy network in history to surveil his own people, and he would kick off the bloodiest war ever fought to that time by invading neighboring

Poland. At the letter's end, imagine my great grandfather warns his oldest teenage son, when you see these things happening, do not speak about them with anyone.

Don't tell your own countrymen. They will betray you instead, son. What I want you to do is I want you to run for your life.

Take your sisters, take your brothers, take your mother, and escape from the fatherland. Do not speak to anyone, and don't tell them what you are doing.

Just go. If I were a wise man, then

I would see that my great grandfather perfectly predicted the rise of Nazi Germany, and he gave my grandfather a perfect roadmap to follow so that he and my family members would live.

But if I were a great fool, maybe I would begin reading that letter as if everything in it applied to me or some future distant generation.

And sadly, this is exactly what's happened in the study of eschatology in the modern day.

Many sit down and they read the conversation notes between Jesus and his disciples that are found in Matthew 24, where he's warning them with very specific signs and evidence for the

Roman invasion of Judah that happens in AD 70 that's going to happen in their lifetime, and they ignorantly conclude, yeah, this must be talking about me.

To correct such an egregious error, we've been studying the biblical context of Matthew 24, and we've been seeing how

Malachi, Jesus, John the Baptist, and the immediate context of Matthew 21 through 23 are all painting the exact same picture.

Matthew 24 is not describing events that are going to happen in the far -off distant future.

Jesus is not describing John Heggy's blood moons or left -behinds

Antichrist or late great planet Earth -level tribulation or Locust doubling his Apache helicopters.

Matthew 24 is describing the downfall of Jerusalem by the invading

Roman armies. And today, we will look at the very first lines of evidence that Jesus gives in this prophecy so that his disciples will know when these things happen.

Part one, the appearance of false messiahs. After Jesus' shocking prophecy of a destroyed

Jewish temple, Matthew 23, 37 through 24, 2, his disciples come to him asking questions such as, when will these things happen?

In Matthew 24, 4 through 5, Jesus begins answering that question by saying this, See to it that no one mislead you, for many will come in my name saying,

I am the Christ and will mislead many, Matthew 24, 4 through 5.

Now before we look in the history books to see if an emergence of false messiahs occurred between the giving of this prophecy and the downfall of the

Jerusalem temple, we need to examine a couple of phrases first. We need to look at them in order to confirm our suspicions.

The first phrase that we need to look at is, See to it. It's what Jesus says to his disciples, See to it.

When he looks at his disciples and he says, See to it, he is communicating an expectation that applies to them.

He's not telling them to be on the lookout for events that will happen in our future.

How could they see to that? He's using a word that means to watch out for, to be prepared for, or to direct your attention carefully to what is in front of you, because these events are going to happen in their lifetime.

And they will need to be fully awake and on guard if they are going to see them. That's the first phrase.

The second phrase, Jesus says, See to it that no one misleads you, you.

Jesus instructs his disciples on why they need to be on constant high alert during their lifetime about events that are going to happen to them, because liars and deceivers are going to arise in the days ahead, attempting to lead many of them away from Jesus.

He's telling them as the temple and as Jerusalem are nearing their imminent demise, false messiahs are going to grow up in the land of Judah among the people and will attempt to lead many of them astray from God.

Jesus warns them because he wants them to avoid the calamities that these people are going to bring and to be spared from their destruction.

He does not mention this because he wants them to be worried about future messiahs in our time.

He's saying be on the lookout because they're going to rise up in your time, which brings us now to part two, a bit about messiahs.

Before I prove such a period of false messiahs actually occurred, I would like to give just a little bit of history on why it happened.

To do that, I want to talk about what the word messiah means. I want to talk about what expectations that the word brings and the historical events that created the messianic vacuum between the years 8030 and 8070.

Then, in conclusion, I want us to look to see how Jesus's prophecy in Matthew 24 came true with startling accuracy.

So let's begin with the meaning of the word messiah. The word messiah originally comes from Christos in the

Greek and Mashiach in the Hebrew. Instead of those words meaning a single person who is called the messiah, both words actually meant a person who was anointed for service.

Now in the Old Testament, there were three kinds of people who would have been anointed in Israel. There are three kinds of people who would have been mashiached.

There was the anointed high priest. The word for messiah was used in the anointing ceremony where they were anointed to be high priest.

They're the ones who oversaw the worship of the temple of God. Then there was the anointed king who was anointed for service and made sure that the enemies of God would not triumph over God's people in the land.

And then there was the anointed prophet who called the people to repentance whenever they broke their covenant.

In each of these scenarios, they were anointed. They were messiahed. They were mashiached.

They were Christosed. They were anointed with oil to serve the people. Now, even though we view the word messiah as a single person with a single office, we learn here that the word is actually much older, has a much wider use case, and it was applied to the high priest.

It was applied to the monarchs. It was applied to the prophets of Old Testament Israel. But what we can understand by that is that the fullest expression of messianic identity was not just one office.

It was actually all three offices brought together in one person. And since no Old Testament man ever held more than one of these offices, and not perfectly at that, the

Old Testament anticipates a coming messianic figure who would be anointed for all three as perfect prophet, priest, and king.

Now, there's also sociopolitical expectations for the messiah. These people were waiting for a prophet, priest, and king, so that by the time that Jesus burst upon the scene, there was a fever pitch of excitement on trying to find out the identity and the role of the coming messiah.

By the first century, when Jesus shows up, everyone seems to be asking the question, where is the messiah?

They were asking things like, would he be the final anointed king who's going to throw off the tyranny of Rome, or would he be the final prophet that leads the nation into covenant renewal and fellowship with God, or would he be the final end -time priest that cleanses the people and ushers in an era of resurrection?

Now if you're interested in this, the first century Jews have so much to say about their messianic expectations within the

Second Temple Jewish literature, within the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls, within other various first century writings of the

Jews. They are talking about the messiah left and right, and you can look those up on your own. My point is, is that after a thousand years of Old Testament history, the people now are looking for the final mashiach, the final messiah, to be anointed prophet, priest, and king to serve

God's people and lead them into freedom. Now it's not clear at the time if they were thinking that the messiah would be the perfect embodiment of all three offices as we see

Jesus. We learn that in hindsight, but they were anticipating an end -time priest, king, or prophet who would free them from their slavery to Rome, just like Moses freed them from their slavery to Egypt, and would exalt them high above the nations, put them back in charge of their own land, and that they would be the dominant force in the world.

This is what they believed. They believed that they would be an empire that conquered the entire world.

So it should not surprise us when the Pharisees come to John the

Baptist and ask him if he's the messianic prophet that they're looking for, John 1, 19 -23. It shouldn't surprise us at all that they challenge

Jesus if he has the authority to be the messianic high priest to cleanse their temple in John 2, 18.

We also should not be surprised when the people try to take Jesus by force and make him king in John 6, 15, because the people were looking for a messiah figure who was going to lead a rebellion against Rome.

And sadly, they missed the true mission of Christ, the true prophet, priest, and king standing right in front of them, because they wanted a zealot who was going to lead them to war.

And this plays into the prophecy that Jesus is giving to his disciples. He's saying, beware of false prophets, beware of false messiahs, because they're going to tell you that you can go to battle, that you can defeat

Rome, that you can gain your independence back, and they're going to lead you to certain death.

And that is exactly what happened in the messianic vacuum that occurred after the death of Jesus.

The people just killed Jesus, no hope that he's going to be the messiah that they were looking for.

At least that's what they were thinking. So now they move on. After the death and the resurrection of the true messiah

Jesus, the expectation for a messianic figure did not wane. It actually wildly increased.

According to the prophecies of Daniel, the general sentiment at the time of the first century was that the messiah was going to show up in that era, in that time frame, and he was going to lead people to freedom against Rome.

That is what they believed. So that is why Jesus so firmly warned his disciples not to follow them.

Again, he warned them saying multiple things. We've already read verses four through five where it says, See to it that no one misleads you, for many will come in my name saying,

I am the Christ and will mislead many. But he also said in verse 11, many false prophets will arise and they will mislead many.

And even as far down as verse 23 and 26 of this prophecy, he says, If anyone says to you, behold, here is the

Christ, or there he is, do not believe him. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders to mislead, if possible, even the elect.

Behold, I have told you in advance so that if they say to you, behold, he is in the wilderness, do not go out or behold, he is in the inner rooms, do not believe them.

Jesus is not telling you and I to be on the lookout for miracle working prophets who maybe are the

Antichrist or support the Antichrist or that is not what Jesus is telling us. He's telling his disciples to beware of people who trick you and draw you out into the wilderness so that you will perish.

He's saying you, Peter, you, James, you, John, you, Andrew, you,

Simon, all of you be on the lookout because this is going to happen in your lifetime and it did.

This advice would have proved helpful to these men at that time because many false Christ promising freedom for Israel did rise up in those days and they did carry raucous crowds of rabble rousers out into the wilderness where they were slaughtered.

This happened. For instance, I'll share a few examples. A few years after Jesus ascended into heaven, a revolt broke out in Samaria that was led by a self -proclaimed messianic figure.

This man called many people to follow him out into the wilderness and then he ascended

Mount Gerizim with ambitions for war. We learn about this because of a first century priest, historian, and eyewitness to the downfall of Jerusalem named

Josephus who tells us that when this man did this, Pilate, the same one who oversaw the crucifixion of Jesus, squashed the rebellion and killed many thousands of people who participated in it.

You can see Josephus, Jewish antiquities, 1885 through 87. Now a few years later in 44

AD, so now we're just a little more than 10 years past the resurrection and ascension of Christ, there was a

Jewish fraud that convinced a crowd of people that he was the Messiah and he led them through the wilderness to the

River Jordan where they all met their untimely demise. The same Jewish historian named Josephus tells about it.

This man who wrote in the first century, who saw the downfall of Jerusalem, tells us that this false messiah was raised up and he led many people to the slaughter.

This is what he says. It came to pass while Thaddeus was procurator of Judah, so Pilate eventually has moved on at this point, that a certain charlatan, whose name was

Thudas, persuaded a great part of the people to take their effects with them and follow him to the

River Jordan, it's out in the wilderness area, for he told them he was a prophet and that he would by his own command divide the river and afford them an easy passage over it.

Many were deluded by his words, however. Thaddeus did not permit them to make any advantage of his wild attempt, but he sent a troop of horsemen out against them.

After falling upon them unexpectedly, they slew many of them and took many of them alive and they took

Thudas alive, cut off his head and carried him to Jerusalem, that's Jewish antiquities 20, 97 through 98.

Here you have a man who's proclaiming to be a prophet, carrying people out into the wilderness and many of them die, it's the exact same, it's the second time that it's happened now, it's fulfilling

Jesus' prophecy. Now, I think it's important also to note that Josephus was not only an eyewitness to these events but he was also a

Pharisee and a priest, he was not a sympathizer of Christ, he was not a lover of Christians, he had no motivation whatsoever to describe events that so clearly substantiated

Jesus' prophecy unless they were true. This man is a man who's hoping for the true

Messiah while watching the proliferation of many false ones. Now I think this is especially sad and ironic,

Josephus, this Pharisee, is recording the rise of false prophets and false messiahs which contributed to the downfall of Jerusalem.

I would say it's a main feature in why Jerusalem fell, it's one of the main reasons

Jesus tells his disciples to be on the lookout for false messiahs because the downfall is coming.

I think it's so sad and ironic that this is the end that Josephus, a priest who's looking for the true

Messiah, has to preside over. He watches the downfall of his nation at the hands of false messiahs.

He was waiting for a Messiah who was going to bring freedom and life to the people of God and he witnessed all of these false messiahs bringing nothing but slavery, death, and destruction.

As the days grew closer to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, Josephus tells us again, there were many who deceived and deluded the people.

There were many and they were doing so under the pretense of divine inspiration, but were in fact for the procuring of innovations and the changes of government.

He's basically saying they wanted to be in charge so that they could take over the government government.

These men prevailed with the multitude to act like madmen and went before them into the wilderness, pretending that God would be there to show them signs of liberty.

Josephus, Jewish War II, 259. Jesus warned them to be on the lookout for false messiahs who would carry them out into the wilderness and who would do signs and wonders.

This is exactly what Josephus reported happened. He was an eyewitness.

Just as Jesus predicted, the pied piping false messiahs would lead many of the

Jews away like rats to the slaughter. Now Josephus continues this story with a very specific example of something that happened in the year 58

AD. Now we're getting closer to the destruction of the downfall of Jerusalem and this is what he says.

There was an Egyptian false prophet that did the Jews more mischief than the former, for he was a cheat and pretended to be a prophet also, and got together 30 ,000 men that were deluded by him.

These he led them round about from the wilderness to the mount, which is called the Mount of Olives, and he was ready to break into Jerusalem by force from that place.

And if he could but once conquer the Roman garrison and the people, he intended to rule them by the assistance of those guards of his that were to break into the city with him.

Josephus, Jewish War 261 -262. Same thing, led them into the wilderness, promised freedom, liberty over the oppression and tyranny of Rome, led them to the slaughter.

In a separate work, in the Book of Antiquities, Josephus tells us the awful downfall of this

Egyptian false prophet who led these 30 ,000 people underneath him.

This is what he says. Now, when Felix was informed of these things, he ordered his soldiers to take their weapons and came against them with a great number of horsemen and footmen from Jerusalem and attacked the

Egyptian, that's the false prophet, and the people that were with him. He slew 400 of them and took 200 alive.

The Egyptian himself escaped out of the fight but did not appear anymore. And again, the robbers stirred up the people to make war with the

Romans and said they ought not to obey them at all. And when any persons would not comply with them, they set fire to their villages and plundered them.

Jewish Antiquities 20, 170 -171. Here you have the

Jewish people ready to follow anyone who's going to promise them that they will be free of Roman rule.

And you also have the Jews who are threatening the people saying, if you obey the Romans, we will set fire to your homes.

Can you imagine? The Roman government at this time had to respond.

Jerusalem and Israel would have been the most rebellious province in their entire empire.

And if they did not respond, then the Jews actually would lead a rebellion that maybe would overthrow Rome.

It was a phenomenal season of time in the people of Israel's life. They were led almost by madness.

Josephus tells that in another section of his book, that they were fueled by demons. During this period of 40 years, the

Jewish people grew in their insanity, in their madness, in their anger, in their fury, in their rebelliousness.

Instead of turning from their sins and learning their lessons and submitting to Rome and keeping their nation, the people kept on producing false messiahs that they could follow to their deaths.

For instance, about a year later, in the year 59 AD, another would -be messiah figure arose in the land, leading the people into the wilderness, promising freedom to the

Jews so that the Roman governor Festus had to violently put them down. Josephus tells us again,

Festus sent forces, both horsemen and footmen, to fall upon those that had been seduced by a certain imposter, who promised them deliverance and freedom from their miseries that they were under, if they would follow him as far as the wilderness.

Accordingly, those forces that were sent destroyed both him that had deluded them and those that were his followers also.

Jewish Antiquities 20, 128. There can be absolutely no doubt, based on what we've already seen, that Jesus' prophecy concerning the rise of false messiahs that would lead the people against Rome from the wilderness and would do signs and wonders, but all of them would end up dead, that that prophecy was dramatically and perfectly fulfilled in the events of the first century.

We're not waiting on a fulfillment of that. That has been so clearly demonstrated from these quotes from the time period that it's beyond dispute.

There can be no doubt, based on what we've already seen, that Jesus' prophecy concerning the rise of false messiahs was dramatically and perfectly fulfilled in the events of the first century.

False Christ had arised, they had led the people out into the wilderness, they had promised signs and wonders, and they had led the people against Rome and ended up dead.

There is no way Jesus could have been more accurate and more clear than what he said.

And there's no way that we can look at Matthew 24, 4 -5, 11, and 23 -26 and say that that has not already been fulfilled.

We are not waiting on a future fulfillment of an era of false messiahs who are doing signs and wonders.

That is over. That clearly happened in the first century.

And you can imagine just how grateful the disciples would have been that Jesus told them in advance to avoid these things so that they did not get caught up in the history of the

Jews. It was the Jews that died in Jerusalem. It was the

Jews that died when they followed these false messiahs, not the Christians. As the

Roman armies came, the Christians left before it was too late, and the

Christians' lives were spared. Why do you think that happened? It wasn't because the Christians saw the writing on the wall more clearly than the

Jews did. It was because Jesus had already told them. Jesus had already warned them.

He had warned them beforehand so that they could avoid these calamities. How grateful do you think they must have been that Jesus loved them so much to give them such a clear and accurate prophecy?

Again, nothing additional is needed to validate Matthew 24. But if you allow me, since the topic is so interesting, and since Jesus' prophecy was so profoundly fulfilled,

I just want to take a moment to brag on Jesus by sharing one more final example. This example happens during the

War of the Jews. So now we're going to fast forward to 66 A .D. The war has began, and there's one more example of a false messianic type of person who leads the people into ruin.

The war Jesus predicted, the war with Rome and the Jews, began in the year 66 A .D.

After years of Jewish uprisings, rebellions, false messiahs leading the people against Rome, Nero Caesar finally declared war on the

Jewish people. He sent four legions of Roman armies, that's 60 ,000 soldiers, to lay siege to Jerusalem and to ruin it, to destroy it, under the command of his best general

Vespasian. While the Roman legions were laying siege to the city, a well -connected man in the city named

Menahem decided to gather a crowd of people together around him, and he led them more than 60 miles north into the wilderness.

And he traveled from the wilderness to an old abandoned fortress of King Herod that was in Masada, where they would raid it for equipment.

The men who were there with him ascended the hill of Masada, they broke into the armory of Masada, these were mostly thieves and criminals by the way, and they donned all of these pieces of equipment for battle.

And then from there they traveled back to the city of Jerusalem to take the city by force and to install

Menahem as their king. This happened in 66 A .D., right as the war was beginning.

And Josephus recounts this messianic upstart event just like this, this is what he says. In the meantime, one

Menahem, the son of Judas, who was called the Galilean, took some of the men of note with him and retired to Masada, where he broke open

King Herod's armory and he gave arms not only to his own people, but to robbers also.

Then he made Yusuf for a guard and returned in the state of a king to Jerusalem. He became the leader of the sedition.

Jewish Wars 2, 433 -434. Upon return to the city,

Menahem and his violent mob of criminals took over the city briefly. They came into the city secretively, they besieged a few

Roman fortifications, he in fact killed the high priest at the time who was Ananias so that he would be the sole king, sole priest and lone messianic figure in the city.

And the plan totally backfired on him. When the entire city discovered what he had done, chaos erupted.

Warring factions emerged in the city. People were angry that he killed the high priest and then other people were excited that he killed the high priest.

So you had these warring factions that emerged inside the city of Jerusalem, which left Rome fighting

Jerusalem from the outside of the city and eventually you have the Israelites killing each other inside of the city.

And Josephus goes on in his Jewish Wars, especially chapter two, to describe these things, but eventually what happens is that they end up killing each other.

By the time Rome breaks into the city, you have a few thousand, tens of thousands of people who are struggling to survive, they're starving to death because one group of people burned all the food supply, one group of people poisoned the water supply, they were fighting each other on the inside, murdering each other to the death, leaving their rotting bodies laying there in the streets.

So when Rome came in, most of the damage had already been done. The Jews killed themselves because they were being led by these false, satanically inspired messianic figures.

Just four years later, the year AD 70, the chief and holy city and its most beautiful temple would be nothing more than smoke and ash seen rising from a distant

Judean hill. John the Baptist had warned the people to repent before it was too late,

Matthew 3 .2. Jesus also came calling the rebels to repent, to lay down their lives and to follow him instead of following themselves to destruction,

Matthew 4 .17. But when they refused him, he pronounced dreaded woes upon their city,

Matthew 11 .20 -21 and 12 .41. He pronounced woes upon their nation, Matthew 23 .13

-36. He told them parables that vividly portrayed the downfall of their kingdom,

Matthew 22 .1 -14 and in Matthew 24 .4 -5,

Jesus began answering his disciples' question about when these things were going to happen by giving them the first sign to be on the lookout for.

He told them many false messiahs would arise in Judah and that they were to be on the lookout for them so that they could avoid them.

The nation had rejected its true messiah and it was only fitting now that their demise would come at the hands of false ones.

Jesus told them they saw it happen. These things are not future for us.

That's all we have time for today. As you can see, this passage has nothing to do with the future, but it's already been accomplished in the past.

I want you to join us next week as we look at the second sign that Jesus tells his disciples, which is that there will be wars and rumors of wars.

But until then, may the Lord bless you as you follow the true messiah and you build his kingdom here on earth.