Matthew 24: Past or Present- Israel & Hamas Pt. 1

Welcome back everybody. Thanks for hanging around. Now we're going to get into the discussion of Hamas, Israel, and the

Great Tribulation. Are the events that have occurred over the last two weeks related to the

Great Tribulation that the Lord Jesus described in his Olivet Discourse? His discourse in the

Mount of Olives. The Great Tribulation passage, Matthew 24, Mark 13,

Luke 21. That's what I want to talk about. And so before we do, a big thank you to everybody who has been here and giving the superchats.

It says, Trudle says, God bless the Dispy premills and guard them against hypertension in the coming weeks.

Thanks for tackling this, gentlemen. You're right. Baptists702 says, would you say as a post mill that all the world will be converted or just that the vast majority of the world will be converted?

I think it's a good question. I would say 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul gives a bit of a timeline of human history.

He says that Jesus is reigning now. So, this whole discussion of Jesus, you know, coming to reign later physically from Jerusalem, the

Apostle Paul puts his reign as current in the first century. He's reigning now, where? On the

Davidic throne, the Messianic throne. He's reigning now, currently. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, he must reign until every enemy is put under his feet as a footstool for his feet.

He quotes the most famous verse from the Old Testament in the New Testament. It's the most quoted, most alluded to. We call it

God's favorite Bible verse, Psalm 110 1. And the Apostle Paul says, well, he's reigning now, and what history is gonna look like is all enemies are going under his feet as a footstool for his feet, and then the last one is death.

So that's just how it's described. It's described as all enemies under Jesus feet, and then finally physical death.

So every enemy first, and then physical death is defeated at the very, very end. So all enemies, and then physical death.

Jesus is reigning now. We're not waiting for him to reign. We're not looking for this, his being seated on the

Davidic throne. He already is there, and he's in the process of putting all of his enemies under his feet. So, I mean,

I look at, because there's more prophecy than that about Jesus and his rule and reign as Messianic King.

It's prophecy like you're gonna have offspring as numerous as the stars. It'll be like the sand on the seashore.

And I think about that, and I think about, well, that's a lot of stars and a lot of sand. You know, the goal of Messiah in Daniel 7, 13 through 14 is that all people's tribes, tongues, they're all coming to serve him, and his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

I believe that's the ascension. He comes up to the Ancient of Days. Well, Jesus came up, and when he came up, he said in Matthew 28, 18 through 20, he said, and now all authority is mine in heaven and on earth, so go get the nations, teach them to obey me, and baptize them.

And so, you know, what does that exactly look like? Is it to the last man standing? Yeah, I don't have a percentage, but I think that we could say the number of the saved will vastly outnumber that of the lost.

I do believe that. I think sand looks like that on the seashore. I do, and I think it's important for us to take all of the messianic prophecy of his kingdom into consideration.

But to be honest, I don't know if I have a real opinion on this in terms of is it to the last man standing. I don't know exactly.

I wouldn't want to say with certainty. All I know is it's all enemies under his feet and then death.

So take that for what it is. Daughter of the King of Kings, thank you. You said, thank you for taking this controversial stance.

As a Christian, I am a true Jew. Yes, you are. Greg Shirk, how do

I give more? I don't know what you mean by that. More money? If you want to be a partner with our ministry, go to apologiastudios .com

and sign up for all access and be a part of what we have going on here with a lot of Christians from around the world supporting this work and helping us to get the gospel around the world.

Tiffany, love you guys. Keep up the great work. Thank you, Tiffany, for that amazing blessing. Thank you so much.

Daughter of the King of Kings says Jews equals divorce from God. The church equals the bride. I would put it in a different way.

I'd say the covenant -breaking Jews certainly in the first century experienced a divorce. And God divorced his bride in the

Old Testament as well. But I think he calls Israel his bride. He talks about it in those terms of a relationship of husband to wife.

And I think in Revelation, Revelation is the tale of two cities. And I think Revelation could be described as the official divorce decree of God toward the covenant -breaking

Jews. The harlot wife, the harlot bride wearing the priest's colors, who's drunk with the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus in Revelation 17.

I think she's put away, and there's a way made now for the bride of Christ coming down out of heaven from God.

And it's the heavenly Jerusalem. The bride is called the New Jerusalem. And I think that that bride is comprised of Jews and Gentiles.

So I'd be a little different how I said it in terms of saying, well, the bride of Christ is

Jews and Gentiles together as the New Jerusalem, the people of God. And we are true

Israel. And so I think that's all of our Super Chats. Thank you guys so much. Now, the discussion, it's a hot topic, obviously, and it's an important one because we're dealing with prophecy.

We're dealing with the words of Jesus. And as we get into this discussion, I think it's important to start this discussion in this way.

In Deuteronomy chapter 18, verses 20 through 22, there's a test given by God to the people of Israel.

And he tells them how to know if somebody is truly a prophet of God, and they're speaking for him or from him.

And he says, Behold, if you say in your heart, how should we know the word which the

Lord hath not spoken? How do we know if this is not from God? He says, when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and the thing follow not, nor comes to pass, that is the word which the

Lord hath not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him.

That's Deuteronomy chapter 18. Now, why is this important? It's important because that is a magnificent testimony to the fact that the words here are the words of the living

God, who is the sovereign over history, who declares the end from the beginning. And it's an amazing distinction of the

Christian scriptures from all other man -made religion and scriptures, a distinction of God saying,

I control history. I declare the end from the beginning. And if you want to know if somebody's truly a prophet from me, if they fail even one time, they say, this is gonna happen.

Thus sayeth the Lord. These are the words of God. They say that this is gonna happen and it doesn't happen. He says, that's how you know he's a false prophet.

So according to God's own standard for his prophets, and therefore also his apostles, you have to have perfect prophetic fulfillment.

So when we go to say to evangelism with Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons, you've heard us.

Many of you guys know the videos we have around the street. We're opening up doctrine and covenants from the

Mormon scriptures or their canon. We're opening up things like history of the church. We're looking at the sermons of Joseph Smith and the sermons of Brigham Young and we're pointing to the fact that these men had not just one false prophecy, but multiple false prophecies and they're demonstrated according to a biblical standard to not be from God.

Now, we love to do that as Christians, to say perfect prophetic fulfillment. Find one false prophecy in this entire

Bible and according to its own standard, it's false. That's an amazing gift to have, to say that God has perfect prophetic fulfillment in the

Christian scriptures. But here's what's important for us to recognize. You've got atheists like Bertrand Russell and popular atheists today that will actually go to the

Great Tribulation passage and they'll say, look, this is pretty explicit. Jesus says here that this generation will not pass away until all these things be fulfilled.

And they're right. Jesus did explicitly teach that and he was talking to that generation.

It's such clarity that Jesus has here in the Olivet Discourse about this generation will not pass away till all these things take place.

It's such clarity that you even see well -known Christians like C .S. Lewis in his essay called,

I'm sorry, forgive me here if I get this wrong. I think it's called The World's Last Night. He talks about the fact that what

Jesus has here in the Olivet Discourse, he says is certainly one of the most embarrassing verses in the

Bible. That Jesus clearly knew no more about the timing of his coming than anybody else and in terms of this is clearly someplace that Jesus got it wrong.

You know who said that? C .S. Lewis. Ouch. Yeah, C .S. Lewis said that.

That, look, this is clear. Jesus clearly, he made a mistake here. I wonder if he put together the implications of that given what you just said about Deuteronomy 18.

Well, then that's the key. That's the key issue. So why is this important? It's important because, look,

Jesus is the Messiah. He's a prophet from God. Jesus can't give false prophecy.

Jesus does give prophecy in the Olivet Discourse concerning their generation.

He uses the near demonstrative, the near demonstrative when he uses it, this generation, the generation he is there speaking to.

And all throughout the Gospels, Jesus uses the terminology this generation numerous times.

And who is he talking about when he uses that terminology? The generation to whom he's speaking, the people who are in front of him, this generation.

He uses it about them. He uses the near demonstrative, this generation. He's talking about things that they were expecting.

And Jesus clearly bookends that prophecy in Matthew 24 with this generation will not pass away till all this takes place.

And then he finishes the discussion and this generation will not pass away till all these things take place. My point is, is look, you get this wrong and you give unnecessary ammunition to the unbelievers, the skeptics, the atheists who just want to trash the

Bible. When you put the Great Tribulation future to us and out of Jesus context, you are giving unnecessary ammunition to the unbeliever.

And the reason why I bring that point up is because actually there are early

Christians that use the Olivet Discourse as something that occurred in their past and they used it as an apologetic and vindication of the fact that Jesus is the

Messiah. So when you read like the church historian Eusebius, and I think it's a book six, chapter three, or sorry, book three, chapter six.

I forget which one. What line? What sentence? Forgive me guys, I've had a long last two weeks.

Not everything's working on the uptick right now. Eusebius, church historian, brings up the fact that the early

Christians escaped the destruction of Jerusalem and the war between the Romans and the Jews.

They escaped it because they were given a prophecy from Jesus as to how to escape, when to escape.

And what Eusebius was referring to was the Great Tribulation passage, the Olivet Discourse. So isn't it interesting, my point is this, isn't it interesting that today

Christians will use the Olivet Discourse as something that is about to happen, it's happening in our day, or it's gonna happen in our future, and you've got like testimony of like an early

Christian like Eusebius saying actually, this proves that Jesus is the Messiah because it actually happened.

And the Christians, knowing Jesus' prophecy in the Olivet Discourse, knew when it was time to flee

Jerusalem, and they did escape the war between the Romans and the Jews. And the Christians fled from Jerusalem to a town called

Pella to escape the the war between the Romans and the Jews, the destruction of Jerusalem, which was a horrifying event in human history.

Josephus, Flavius Josephus was given the task to write this history of the

Jews, and actually, it's interesting, Josephus' work is one of the best preserved works we have of antiquity, almost preserved as good as some of the

Bible, which is interesting because he has firsthand eyewitness knowledge of the war between the

Romans and the Jews, and we have just great testimony in there even about Jesus. We have testimony there about James, the

Lord's brother, but actually we have eyewitness testimony of what happened between the the Romans and the Jews. So at any rate, my argument here is that we have to be so, so cautious with our newspaper exegesis.

I just want to say this, that you know, I'm not pretending to know everything about eschatology.

I have questions. I do. There are certain things that I am very certain about because it's just a consistent testimony in Scripture.

It's just amazing. It vindicates Christ as Messiah. There's things I'm very certain about, and there are questions

I have about certain details of particular eschatological passages. I'm not pretending to be the know -all of eschatology here.

There are things I'm very, very certain about because the text is clear, but I have questions myself.

This is something that I have personally walked through where I was such a fiend about Israel, Jerusalem, the

Jerusalem Post, the Heifer, the New Temple, and I was dispensational pre -mill, and I love my dispensational pre -mill in our brothers and sisters.

I came from that, and I can tell you, newspaper exegesis is something that's very convicting to me because I engaged in it.

I would go to Borders Books and Music on a regular basis just to go get a copy of the Jerusalem Post to just read through to see if I could find anything in that newspaper that I could find a

Bible verse to support. So when you say newspaper exegesis, you just mean reading the

Scriptures through the lens of current events. Exactly, and the reason why I think we need to pay very close attention to this is because it's something that Christians have been doing for a very, very, very long time.

There is a strong tendency to associate whatever global conflict or political election to associate any kind of you know potentially world -changing event as this passage.

Right. Like we need to tie Christ's final coming, supposedly, to what we're seeing in the world.

Right. You know, a good example of that, we don't have time to do it today in this show, but a good example of that would be today how many guys like Greg Laurie and prophecy experts on CBN over the last two weeks have been talking about Gog and Magog, Iran and Russia and Rosh and all these different things, and they're going

Ezekiel 38 and 39, and you look at that and you go, what happens to the literal interpretation of Scripture?

Ezekiel 38 describes a battle with swords and shields and chariots and horses. Is that an ancient battle or a modern battle?

What happened to our literal exegesis? What kind of weapons are they using? Yeah. And you read that and those guys are saying like we should be looking at what's going on now because of Hamas and how

Iran can get involved and Russia can get involved because we're waiting for this war that's prophesied in Ezekiel 38 and 39, and you go, wait a tick, guys.

Wait. That's describing an ancient battle that actually we have proof that it occurred in the words of the

Old Testament itself. Like you look at Esther and you realize, well, here's the fulfillment. Why are you taking this passage and moving it towards us?

You're trying to look at the moves of Russia today, and you're even like making a weird play on words with like Rosh, and that sounds like Russia.

It's like it means head or, you know, it doesn't, what are you doing? Why are we trying to squeeze every current event into like the

Bible and not just interpreting the Bible with the Bible and saying like, no, look, here's the fulfillment. You got a proof of the fulfillment of the prophecy.

It's an amazing thing. And when I say, you know, you mentioned like Christians have a tendency to do this, like it's true.

Like there's some fantastic stuff on, you know, in the 19th century, the 1800s, you know,

Christians doing exactly the same thing. They acted like the Great Tribulation was going to occur in their day, and they were taking stuff that was happening around them, and they were squeezing it into Bible prophecy, and then their generation came and gone, and they were wrong.

And, you know, you have, of course, the example in the 19th century of like all these major movements that popped up who were all arguing that the

Great Tribulation was going to happen in their generation. Even aberrant Christian ones, Mormonism and Seventh -day

Adventists, like, I mean, all of these. I'm not pitting dispensationalism with it necessarily, but it was breathing the same air.

Very, that's a very good way to say that, and it's like you look at like Charles Taze Russell and the Bible Watchtower Track Society, the

Dawn Bible Society, I think it was originally called, and you look at like Mormonism. I mean, think about the official name of the church is the

Church of Jesus Christ of Last Days Saints, because they believed that the Great Tribulation was going to occur in their day.

Another key phrase, last days. Last Days Saints. And so today, look, I had a profession of faith in Christ like late in the 90s, and I walked through all this stuff before of like, we're on, we're nanoseconds away kind of stuff.

Like, we're only minutes away, and at any moment we're getting raptured, and you know,

Hal Lindsey, and Y2K, and Tim LaHaye, and Blood Moons, and all that stuff.

I walked through that, and it's always just like, like, here's this event. Let's see if we can fit that into the

Bible, and that's a dangerous way to handle the Bible. We need to let the Bible be the Bible, and it tell us what's true, and what the future holds, and not try to read every current event into the text.

And along those same lines, it's exactly what you said in the description, responsibly handling the

Word, and understanding that while all Scripture might be for us, not all

Scripture is written to us. There was an audience to which these things were written.

Yeah. There's, look at the text and read Matthew 24, Matthew 23, and the surrounding context.

Note all the you, your, you. You will see. Notice the audience to which this is being spoken, because I think we just have a tendency to jump from the pages of Scripture to us.

Right. This is about me. And I think it's a larger problem with evangelicalism in general, is to put yourself at the center of the story.

Yeah. And to put your nation at the center of the story, when we have to understand to whom it was written, and then attempt to make the application from there.

Yeah, and look, like, I even see a discussion here.

Johnny, he says, Infinity Stone says about Satan, if he's bound, who keeps letting him off the leash?

And we're not going to do a big discussion about the book of Revelation today, but it's a good discussion in terms of like, okay, no, let's go to that text.

The text says that he is bound so that he can no longer deceive the nations.

What was the goal of the Messiah's kingdom? To bring the nations to God. And they were all under the sway and the rule of the evil one, and then

Jesus comes in, binds the strong man. He binds the strong man, and now Jesus has a gospel that goes out to all the nations.

So Satan is no longer allowed to deceive the nations. Now the nations can come to Christ. And so that's what the language is there.

He's bound for that purpose. But that's where everyone wants to jump, is like, well, I have this question about this passage, this question about this passage.

Hold on. Today, we're doing the Great Tribulation, right? Like, each text in its context, and then we see how does that now connect to the other texts in their context, and how do we find this unified story?

But we do everything in order, and we do it in terms of actual faithful exegesis, not trying to pull together puzzle pieces of proof texts into a system, but to say, no, no, let the

Bible speak. Do it in context. Draw out the meaning of the text. And you do that to every text, and then you put them side by side, but only after you've done that faithful exegesis, not just a hodgepodge of proof texts.

That's a dangerous way to do prophecy. So just, now listen, if you want a more detailed discussion,

I only spent about two years, probably, on this section that we're in now.

I think, no, I think officially we did a little over one year in just halfway through Matthew 24.

So if you want hours and hours of discussion and a deeper exegesis, go into our history, and you'll see

I did a long time in Matthew 24. But just some bullet point stuff in terms of discussion of the

Great Tribulation today. We would argue the Great Tribulation that Jesus was speaking about is something that happened to the generation that he was then speaking to because he promised it to them.

I would actually argue if the Great Tribulation Jesus described in Matthew 24, Mark 13,

Luke 21, didn't happen in that generation, then Jesus is a false Messiah. I would argue that. Now, I don't believe that's true at all.

I believe this passage actually vindicates Christ as a Messiah. I think the early Christians actually said the same thing, that Jesus was coming back in judgment upon that generation, upon those covenant breakers.

They were about to be destroyed, and that temple was going to be destroyed, taken apart, and that stone on top of stone, exactly as Jesus promised.

But here's what's important. Exegesis is drawing out of the text its meaning.

Eisegesis is reading something into the text. We want to go to the text and say, what does it actually say?

So just dealing with Matthew 24 today, you can't just jump into Matthew 24. No, I was just gonna say that.

I'm sure you're gonna run up to Matthew 24. All I mean by that is, what about Matthew 23?

What about Matthew 22? What about Matthew 21? What about Matthew 20? What about Matthew? What about starting with what

Matthew lays down, understanding that he's telling a story, and it's building to a climax. By the time you get to Matthew 24, you have to have an entire foundation underneath what you're reading.

Yeah, Matthew did that for you. Hey, Jesus has the royal right to the throne, right? Right. Jesus is a true and perfect Israel.

Copious quotations from the Old Testament. He's recapitulating the story of Israel in the life of Jesus.

Jesus goes into the wilderness, and then of course Satan offers to Jesus as his final temptation in the wilderness, he offers him what?

All the kingdoms of the world. Why do you think that Satan offered Jesus that? Because that's precisely what the Messiah came for, was the world.

And Satan says, you can have it now. No death. No sacrifice. None of that stuff. I'll give it to you now if you just worship me.

And Jesus, of course, is the true and perfect Israel and the perfect Adam, the perfect image of God. He says, you shall worship the

Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. And Jesus comes out of the wilderness after being ministered to by angels, and it says that he goes about proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of the rule of God in the world.

And then the story starts to go, it moves, of course, you also, I can't leave this out, John the Baptist in Matthew chapter 3, he tells them, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and he says to the

Jewish leaders of his day, you brood of vipers, he calls them a brood of vipers, and he says that the axe is already laid at the root of the trees, the winnowing fork is in his hand, he says, bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

They're about to be judged. So John the Baptist doesn't just come in saying, repent, he comes in saying, repent, because you are about to be judged, the axe is already swung, the teeth are right there, it's at the root of the tree, you're about to get cut down.

Yeah. So John the Baptist isn't just coming with this nice message about repentance and baptism, he's saying, you're about to be judged.

Yeah, he is the forerunner, which the book of Malachi tells us, will come, and then the Lord whom you seek will come, and he will be like a refiner's fire and a fuller soap, he'll purify the sons of Levi, he's gonna bring cleansing, salvation, and judgment.

Very good. And that's fulfillment of prophecy. Yeah, you're referring to... Right at the end of Malachi.

Yes, Malachi chapter 3, and this is really important, guys, because Malachi is right before Matthew, so it's nice, conveniently put there for us.

Malachi chapter 3 talks about this forerunner before Messiah himself, then he comes to his temple, and here's what's really important that Malachi brings up here, and I'm really glad you brought that up.

Malachi brings up the point that when the forerunner comes, then Mashiach comes, and then it says that he's going to come for purification and judgment.

Judgment upon who? The covenant breakers. Yes, those who swear falsely, blasphemers, those who pervert the worship of the true

God. That's right, and Jesus uses some of that same language in Matthew 23, right before Matthew 24, which, of course, it's one unified revelation.

It's one story God's telling, and so Jesus, of course, is just picking up where Malachi leaves off, exactly as expected, but here's the point.

Listen, the Old Testament clearly taught that Mashiach's coming, the Messiah's coming, came with salvation and judgment.

They were to expect atonement, salvation, and judgment. Judgment upon whom?

It's very clear. Judgment upon the covenant breakers, those who had God's law and refused to obey him, and so you see that in Isaiah 65, you see it in Malachi chapters 3 and 4.

We could go for a while on this, but the point is, is that when Jesus comes in, he comes proclaiming the kingdom.

He promised judgment upon that generation, and then what's interesting in Matthew's story is

Matthew chapter 20 is Jesus now turns his face towards Jerusalem, right?

So like Matthew is, by the way, it's building. Yeah. Matthew 10, by the way, there's no getting around it.

When Jesus is sending people out, he says to his disciples, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the

Son of Man comes. That's a challenge. How did you make sense of that one? Yeah, that's a challenge for people who don't believe that Christ came in judgment on the first century.

Came in judgment. We're not talking about the resurrection of the dead, the final coming of Christ, the summing up of all things, but there's many comings of God, Yahweh, in the

Old Testament. And like Isaiah 19, one, he comes on a swift cloud against Egypt, and the hearts of the

Egyptians melt within them. He comes on a cloud, like literally, Yahweh was riding on a cloud, literally, where their hearts literally melted, melting like wax within them.

No, that's judgment language. And God, Yahweh, came in judgment upon pagan nations and the nation of Israel in the

Old Testament. And so, but Jesus says in Matthew 10, to his generation, he says to his people, he says, you won't finish going through the cities of Israel before the

Son of Man comes. Okay. They're all dead now, and so did the

Son of Man come, in judgment, like he promised. But Matthew 20, Jesus now turns his face towards Jerusalem.

It's now his time, and he says in Matthew 20, verse 17, Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. He took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way, he said to them, see, we are going to Jerusalem, and the

Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him over to the

Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day. So now Jesus goes, from ministry that is directed sort of over here, towards the people, it's not his time yet.

They did try to kill him in his ministry, like, several times. He slips through the crowd, he escapes their grasp, and now he's going, okay, now it's time.

I'm going, and so we have the famous scene in Matthew 21 now of the triumphal entry, and Jesus comes in now, and it's a fulfillment of prophecy, comes riding lowly on a donkey.

They're saying, Hosanna, Hosanna, and then Jesus does what? He comes for the second cleansing of the temple.

So there's a first cleansing of the temple, you read that early in John's Gospel, and then there's a second temple cleansing happening in Matthew's Gospel, a second one later in the ministry.

Now, this is really important. I did a whole sermon on it. I'm not gonna belabor it here, but it is amazing. It's really cool.

It is amazing that in the Old Testament, the priest had the duty to come to a house that was diseased or sick, he had to come the first time, and if he came back the second time to that house and saw that there was still disease, it was the duty of the priest to actually destroy the house, to make it desolate.

So isn't it interesting that Jesus comes the first time, and then he comes at the second time to the temple, and now he actually says to them, behold, your house is left to you, desolate.

And that is cool. Yes, I mean, you actually have to see this too through the understanding of the fig tree also, of which

Israel represents. He comes looking for fruit, and all he finds is leaves, and so he curses the fig tree.

The disciples are like, what was that all about? And he tells the tree, may no fruit ever come from you again.

Yeah. This idea that Matthew has already been expounding on throughout the book, trees, fruit, root, seed, all of this is building up to this crescendo in his gospel.

So it's really important that he's... we already have Matthew starting with judgments coming, and then there's all these other texts that are timing texts, like you won't finish going through the cities of Israel before the

Son of Man comes. Right. And there's more, but it builds and builds and builds. Now he comes to Jerusalem, and now he comes in, and now he comes, and he turns the tables, and he now inspects the temple, and what does he say when he leaves there?

It's exactly the point you landed on, is where he talks about the fig tree, and he says, may no fruit ever come from you again.

That's really interesting, because you read like past like Isaiah 65. Mm -hmm. Isaiah 65, where God's talking to his covenant people, and he's like, my people will eat, and you're gonna starve.

My people will drink, and you're gonna be thirsty. He says, I'll give my people a new name. He's gonna judge the covenant -breaking people.

That's like all right here, you expect. That's exactly what I thought was gonna happen. Yeah. But what's interesting here is you move through Matthew 21, getting to the

Olivet Discourse. Just keep thinking about that aspect right there, the tree, and then we have the parable of the vineyard.

That's, yeah. The vine. Yeah, exactly. So now, Jesus, as you move through Matthew 21, now goes into the parable of the two sons, and and then he moves into the parable of the tenants.

And this one, I think we should hang on this one, because it's an important one. Yeah. The parable of the tenants, because it really does go into what we talked about today, in terms of like true

Israel, and those sorts of things. Jesus in Matthew 21, verse 33, says, Here another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard, and put a fence around it, and dug a winepress in it, and built a tower, and leased it to tenants, and went into another country.

When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit, and the tenants took his servants, and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.

And he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did the same to them. Finally, he sent his son to them, saying,

They'll respect my son. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, This is the heir! Come, let us kill him, and have his inheritance.

And they took him, and threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Therefore the owner of the vineyard comes. What will he do to those tenants?

And they said to him, He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him the fruit in their seasons.

Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the Scriptures? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the

Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore I tell you..." Who are these people?

They're the covenant people of God, the Jews. "...I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and given to a people producing its fruits.

And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces. But when it falls on anyone, it will crush him."

Now, that's Matthew 21. He's already coming. No fruit will come from you again. Judgment is coming. He's now cleansed the temple, and now

Jesus is telling his parables, and the parables are clearly, clearly, clearly directed towards these covenant people of God.

You can read where Jesus is clearly saying that. What's he gonna do when he finds out they've killed his son? They'll destroy those miserable wretches, and it's like, yeah, you.

It's gonna happen to you. And let's not forget, and this is important to bring up here, the trial of Jesus is so interesting to me, because here you have a pagan governor who actually says,

Shall I crucify your king? And the Jewish people of Jesus' day say, We have no king but Caesar.

We have no king but Caesar. But it goes further. Shall I crucify your king? We have no king but Caesar. And then he actually washes his hands and says,

Look, he's an innocent man, and I am not guilty of his blood. If you want him dead, you have to do this.

I find no fault in him. So, by the way, I love that about the historical record of Jesus. When it came to his trial, no witnesses were found connecting in their stories.

All false witness. They all lied. None of their stories worked. And the person who's presiding over the judgment said,

Yeah, he's innocent. No fault in him. Whoo, I just love how God just puts on record in history.

It's like even the pagan goes, Yeah, he's innocent. Completely blameless. He's the righteous one. I just love that. But when he washes his hands at the trial of Jesus, he says to those covenant -breaking

Jews, those who rejected him, he says, His blood's on you. And they say,

His blood be upon us and our children. They asked for it.

And guess what? They got it. In that generation, before they all passed away, exactly as Jesus had prophesied.

And I don't know how many people notice this, but the quotation there in Matthew 21 in the parable has come from Psalm 118, which is the very thing that they were singing when he made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And he takes that very psalm and he applies it to them and says,

The stone that the builders have rejected has become the cornerstone. And it's amazing. You just talked about we have no king but Caesar.

That's a psalm that begins with the admonition to not trust in princes. Which is a powerful thought.

Don't trust in princes. You know, this stone has come and whoever falls on this stone will be broken.

But the one that this stone falls on will be crushed. That's powerful. I just saw that, by the way.

It's a really neat connection. So you guys may be wondering, like, everyone's chomping at the bit and they're salivating going, yes, but great tribulation, great tribulation.

I hope you respect the fact that we're not abusing you or the Bible by just leaping into the text.

We're saying, let's carefully work through this text to see what's the story Matthew is telling.

I don't want to know what Tim LaHaye believes. I don't care. Or Hal Lindsey or Mark Hitchcock or Tommy Ice, ultimately.

Ultimately, I want to know what does the inspired revelation of God say? That's what

I want to know. And so let's move through the text. So you have now Jesus moves from the parable of the vineyard, then he moves into the parable of the wedding feast.

Now this one is actually interesting, because in the parable of the wedding feast, now the word goes out to invite people just who will come.

Right, just come. It's like, you were supposed to come. You're not going to come? Fine. I gotta fill my party with guests, baby.

Let's go. So what's interesting is as you read the parable of the wedding feast, when everybody is now invited, it says the king sends his troops, verse 7 of 22.

It says the king was angry and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

If you read Matthew 22, the king there is God. That's the story in the parable that represented there as the king is

God himself. He sends his troops and he destroys those murderers and burned their city.

Now, by the way, Matt, look, Matthew 22 is a parable that actually goes with Matthew 24.

The temple's destruction, your house is left to you desolate, all this stuff is going to happen, but it's an explication of the parable of the king sending his armies to destroy their city, which is exactly what you read so much of in the

Old Testament and moving through Matthew to get to this very point. So then you get into the questions that are now being asked of Jesus, where they're trying to trip

Jesus up. So now you've got Jesus now openly declaring you're about to be judged.

God's going to destroy you. And then they move into their questions where they're antagonizing.

They're trying to actually catch Jesus and how can we get him in trouble with Caesar? How can we get Jesus in trouble with this particular religious group, the

Pharisees and the Sadducees conflict about the resurrection? How can we get this man in trouble?

So watch this. He's already come into the city. He's already cleansed the temple.

That means he's going to destroy it. He's the priest. He's come for the second time. He's going to make the house desolate. That's what the text is teaching you.

If you know the Old Testament law about the priest, that's what it's saying there. He tells them parables. They're about to be destroyed.

And now these wicked leaders in Israel of Jesus' day, they start trying to catch

Jesus in a trap. And then you can read about those all through Matthew 22 and get into 23.

But here's Jesus' response in 23. After they try to trap him, then

Jesus goes into the spiritual smackdown. In 23,

Jesus says, The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat. So do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do.

For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.

And so Jesus then goes to indict the scribes and the Pharisees. But listen to what he says here.

In verse 13, he says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.

For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land and make a single proselyte.

And when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much the child of hell as yourselves. Woe to you, blind guides, who say,

If anyone swears by the temple, it's nothing. But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he's bound by his oath. You blind fools!

For which is the greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? And if you say, if anyone swears by the altar, it's nothing.

But if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he's bound by his oath. You blind men! Which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?

So then Jesus goes into the 23rd verse. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

For you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness.

These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.

Can we stop right there? Yeah. Just say one thing. Yeah. That condemnation right there that he just invoked upon them is not novel.

No. Amongst the covenant people of God. It's the same exact thing that Yahweh indicts his people for in Isaiah chapter one.

When it says that they draw near to him with an outward show of religion. Oh yeah. And inwardly, they neglect the weightier matters of justice and the law, which demonstrate the fruit of righteousness in their community.

Right. Which they are completely devoid of. Yeah. Completely devoid of. Yeah. Which is why throughout Matthew's story, what is

Jesus condemning his Jewish audience of? You draw near to me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me.