Trouble, Even More Trouble, and Then...

“Beyond Trouble”

(Matthew 24:9-14, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, June 15, 2008)

Matthew 24:9-14 ⁹ "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. ¹⁰ And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. ¹¹ And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. ¹² And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. ¹³ But the one who endures to the end will be saved. ¹⁴ And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Introduction – Two ages

Matthew 24 is one of a handful of chapters in the Bible that people tend to associate with something called “end-times.” The expression “end-times” does not precisely appear in the Bible. One phrase that is used is “the end of the ages.” Hebrews 9:26 says that Christ “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” What this means is that there were several ages prior to the coming of Christ, but His death two thousand years ago signals the end of the ages. The author of Hebrews continues: “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” There is a turning point coming, and it is marked by the return of Christ. What follows from that turning point is the time of resurrection life which is called in several Bible passages the “age to come.”

The Bible system concerning the future is very simple. From here to eternity we have two ages: this age with all of its challenging opportunities, confusion, and death; and then the age to come, the age of eternal life. When does that coming age get here? That resurrection age, which we taste even now by the Spirit of God, comes fully when Christ returns. This is a very easy matter to establish biblically. Look at all the Bible passages that use the word “age” and this is what you will find: There is something that is called “this age” and there is something that can be referred to simply as “that age.” “That age” will come at the return of Christ. In this age we suffer and proclaim Christ’s death for sinners; in that age we live in the fullness of resurrection life. (Look at Mark 10:29-30 as an example of this.)

It will help you, as we go through this chapter to keep on thinking about “temple.” How does the idea of temple connect to the idea of these two ages? In the beginning of this age the temple in Jerusalem was soon destroyed by the Romans. By the time that this event happened a new temple was being gathered consisting of Jews and Gentiles. That new temple was a body temple, rather than a building temple. In this age the building temple had to go away, since it was part of an earlier time of shadows (the Old Testament). Now the body temple is being built up. If you see that, then you can easily understand that we are not going back to a building temple again. That would be a step back. When the body temple is fully gathered, then Christ will come. At that point the body temple will be given resurrection bodies because the age to come is a bodily and spiritual existence beyond the mortality of this present age.

“Then” – Beyond the birth pains (9)

The current age that we live in is an age of birth pains, as we saw last week. There are famines, wars, fears, and all kinds of troubles now, even for God’s loved ones. It is through suffering that the temple is being gathered. One day the gathering will be over. There is life beyond our troubles. There is birth beyond the early labor pains. There are also the final more intense pains just as the baby is about to be born. That day is referred to by one word in verse nine. It is simply called “then.” Now is the time of the gathering of the temple. That will reach a final culmination just as Christ is about to return. Jesus has spoken of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. That was at the beginning years of the gathering of His body temple. At the ending years of the gathering of that body temple will come certain events that will tell us that the “coming age” is coming very fast. What will be those signs? It is not earthquakes, famines, wars, false saviors, and persecutions. Those things are just the early birth pains for the new temple gathering time that has continued for these two thousand years. Those are worth thinking about as a reminder that a better day is coming, but they are not the final heaviest labor pains. What are those final pains?

Tribulation and apostasy (9-10)

It appears that there will be more troubles as we reach the time of the coming of the resurrection temple. Part of what we can expect is an increase of intensity and numbers in the very things that have been seen all along. Throughout these two thousand years the church has faced persecution. It will be much worse then. There have been martyrs since the beginning of the Christian church, sometimes more and sometimes less. It will be much worse then. How much worse? Verse 9 says, “You will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.” Verse 10 tells us that “many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another.” You may think that times are very bad for the body temple of the Lord, and it certainly is true in some places. Nonetheless, we are not there yet. We are not hated by all nations yet. In some of the nations where Christianity has been hated in recent years, there is a move toward greater openness to the Christian faith as millions of people are still being converted.

Confusion and lawlessness (11-12)

There is one other thing that will happen during the heaviest labor. There will be a tremendous increase in false prophets, lawlessness, and lovelessness within the church. I must admit that we do have some people that stand out in our day as sad examples of false shepherds. There is also plenty of lawlessness in the church, and the love of many seems very cold, since it does not seem to lead to action. This is a disgrace, but things were even worse in the Middle Ages, and then came the Reformation. We have only to read the New Testament to see that this is not a new problem. At times in church history there was such lawlessness in the church and such a loss of the meaning of the death of Christ as our only hope that it appeared to the faithful that the whole gospel was barely known. Yet even The Middle Ages were obviously not the most intense labor pains, since the end did not come at that time.

The time we are in today is full of the problems mentioned in verses 11-12, particularly in Europe and to some degree in North America. Yet it is not as bad as it has been in other days, even here. Do you know when we had our lowest percentages of church attendance in the United States? That happened around the time of the American Revolution. I know that we have very significant challenges now, but it used to be much worse, and in some places in the world things are much, much better than they ever have been. The point is that this age was never supposed to be easy. It is bad, but we are not at the very end yet. You should not think that God cannot use our little efforts in New England. If the Roman Catholic Church is running Bible studies in English when they used to burn Wycliffes, then I am not sure that we are at the very end yet. When are we going to switch from normal birth pains to the heaviest labor? Don’t be too eager for heavier labor! Of course, it could happen soon, but we are not supposed to know when that will be. We should be able to tell that it has not happened yet. We are still in an earlier stage of pain. Here’s what we need to avoid: We don’t want to be the first-time mother in early labor who is absolutely sure that it could never hurt more than this. It has been worse. It could get worse. One day it will be much worse.

Endurance and proclamation (13-14)

There is more information concerning the coming pains later in this chapter and in 2 Thessalonians 2, but we will deal with that on another day. The question for us now is, “What do we do?” Verses 13 and 14 tell us. First, you must endure. This is a time to keep on going, not to give up with a lot of negative thinking about how America is a post-Christian culture. It is very possible that America was never the New Jerusalem, and that we always needed to think more about the progress of the world-wide church than we did about the progress of the United States. By the way, from what little I have seen in this day of early labor pains, this is one of the best fallen places to live in the world. It just is not our home, and the best President in the world is not going to make this nation the New Temple.

We need to endure. What if a woman wants to run a marathon, and she can only walk a mile at present? She may need to do some endurance training, since a marathon is decidedly more trouble than walking a mile. How is your spiritual endurance training going? Some quick guilt trips for you: If you have never read the whole Bible all the way through, start reading. If you have read the Bible all the way through many times, start reading, and while you are at it, start thinking, start believing, start hoping, start praying, because the most difficult challenges for the church are still ahead of us, and the worst trial in your life could happen any day. You are the temple of the Lord in Christ, and your death will probably come before the Day of the Lord comes. You really do need to be ready.

One more duty: There is another thing that we must do as a church. We must preach the gospel of the kingdom everywhere. Many people argue that the gospel already has been preached throughout the whole world. Really? When did that happen? When did the apostles first reach New Hampshire? Why is Wycliffe Bible Translators still working? There are so many places where we need to start churches. We need to keep on going, and not lose heart.

The end will come (14)

Now, beyond the guilt trip, we need to remember the gospel that the church must proclaim. There is a Savior who died for sinners. He is gathering and perfecting His chosen people. He did this, not because we are good, but because we are not. One day the end will come. If you have a sense of the difference between this age and the coming age, you know that the end of this age is very good news for those who are in Christ. Whatever our theology of the end may be, we still have some more gathering of the Temple of the Lord to do now. The end will come, but that end is not today. The labor pains are still ten minutes apart. By the grace of God, one day the new resurrection temple will be fully born. Let us endure, and let us proclaim the death of Christ for unworthy sinners.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What kind of tribulation is Jesus referring to in these verses? What do we know about the “when” of tribulation?

2. What does Christ mean that the love of many will grow cold?

3. What can we explicitly say about those who endure to the end and those who do not from these verses?

4. Has the gospel been preached to all the nations yet?