THE END OF THE AGE

Anyone who studies the Bible knows that there is a large gap between the last book of the Old Testament and the appearance of the gospels in the New Testament. The last prophet of the Hebrew scriptures was Malachi, who completed his writings in about 425 BC, while the New Testament gospels of Mark and Matthew were first circulated around 60 AD. So there is a space of nearly 500 years when the prophetic word of god fell silent.

Since those Old Testament prophecies never even touched upon the events stretching from the time when Israel went into exile some 400 years before Christ and the total restoration of Israel that had been promised to take place at the beginning of the Messianic Age, it was Jesus Himself who came to fill us in on this most important conclusion to human history.

Please take out your Bible and let's reason this out together. if we Turn together to the Book of Matthew chapter 13, verses 24-30 describes the parable of the wheat and the tares. Most of you, I'm sure are familiar with that allegory and just in case there should be any questions, in verses 36-50, Jesus goes on to interpret these verses.

Jesus explains to his disciples that god will allow the world to be populated by both good and evil people (represented by the good wheat and the wicked tares). These corrupt human beings have been planted there by Satan, while the good people have been sown by God. At the end of the age, Jesus explains, He, the LORD, will send out his angels, who are "the reapers." their job is to "gather out of His kingdom all the stumbling blocks," i.e. everyone who is perverse and without principles, "and god will then cast them into the furnace of fire. In that place," he says, "there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. But the righteous will (at that time) shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."

Jesus repeats this analogy in verses 47-50, in which he compares wicked people to bad fish and righteous people to good fish. As he says in verse 49, just as he said before, "So it will be at the end of the age; the angels shall come forth, and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will cast them into the furnace of fire--" Again, there will be a lot of anguished weeping and gnashing of angry teeth.

To make sure his students got the point, He asks them in verse 51 whether they understood this prophecy concerning the end of the age. "Yes," they assured Him, they did understand. But did they really understand? Frankly, I don't think so. Because Jesus was speaking to them about a large time gap never previously mentioned by the earlier prophets, a span of time that will conclude with an angelic harvest of both the good and the bad souls, set to take place at "the end of the age."

But which age was Jesus referring to? Matthew never mentions it again until Chapter 24. Let me set the stage for what historians call the "olivet discourse." the disciples were obviously bothered and worried about this "end of the age" business. While they rested in the shade of the Mount of Olives outside the Jerusalem Temple, They were astonished at this architectural wonder when Jesus pricked their bubble of reverence.

Jesus told them that this great temple they so admired would be torn down to the very ground, block by block until not one stone would rest upon another. Now that really impressed his disciples, because some of those "stones" Jesus was pointing at were actually massive boulders, some of them 65 feet long, 12 feet high, and 18 feet wide.

The Lord's tragic judgment concerning the fate of the great Temple prompted some of the disciples to ask Him about this future "End Times." So Jesus sat down in that cool, private setting and with the crowds now left behind, he gathered four of His disciples around Him--Peter, James, John and Andrew. And it was then that they asked Him a key question--"Tell us," they said, "when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?"

By the sense of their questions, they clearly understood that Jesus would at some point be leaving them. But since He also promised that he would return to judge the wicked and set up His kingdom where he would rule the earth, they wanted to know exactly when it would be when he came back to "reward the righteous"--which would obviously include them, they thought. After all, He himself had chosen them, hadn't He?

That's why, as we read before in Matt.24: 2, He begins to educate them by foretelling the total destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. "Truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be upon another, which will not be torn down." and When did that happen? History tells us that occurred In 70 A.D. the Jerusalem temple was destroyed by the Roman army under General Titus, the son of the Emperor Vespatian.

Following that, in verses 3 through 10, Jesus goes on to describe a series of events that He calls "the beginning of birth pangs." These signs include wars, rumors of impending battles, ethnic strife (ethnos rising against ethnos), conflicts between countries and confederacies and national alliances. Then he speaks of famines, fatal diseases and earthquakes.

At this point, Jesus says a curious thing. He says "they will deliver you up to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations on account of My name. And at that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another."

Who is Jesus talking about here? Is He speaking just to His followers in that day? Is He speaking to the disciples as representative of their people Israel? Is He speaking about Jewish Christians only? Or is Jesus here foretelling a great falling away among all believers, affecting the entire believing body of the church, composed of both Christian Jews and Gentiles, who are destined to be living during this time of great tribulation?

The Gospels appear to present two sets of similar prophecies. One is long-term, looking to the future for fulfillment; the other is short-term and was already fulfilled in the 1st Century. Please turn to LUKE 21 and read verses 5 through 24. At first glance, this seems to repeat what we have just read in Matthew 24--but hold on a moment! Notice that in verse 12, there is a break from what we read before.

Here Jesus says, "But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for My name's sake. But it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony. Therefore settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist.

"You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. And you will be hated by all for My name's sake. But not a hair of your head shall be lost. By your patience possess your souls. But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those who are in the midst of her depart, and let not those who are in the country enter her.

"For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! For there will be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people. And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled."

This scenario clearly shows that this prophecy was intended for the Jewish-Christian believers of the First Century, describing a series of historical events that includes the destruction of the holy city Jerusalem and its glorious Temple, and culminates in the defeat and captivity and scattering of the Jewish People among all the nations--until when? Verse 24 gives us the answer. This national misery by the Jewish nation will end when "Jerusalem is no longer trampled underfoot (or ruled over) by Gentiles, and so the times of the Gentiles will be fulfilled."

Until Jerusalem is no longer ruled over by Gentiles--as we sit here today, who rules Jerusalem? History tells us that on June 11, 1967, during the 6-Day War, Israel regained control of Jerusalem for the first time in 1,893 years! Not only did the Israeli army re-unite the city, they also legally annexed it as the eternal capital of the Jewish nation. That happened on July 28, 1967. So for the past 34 years, the Jews have ruled over Jerusalem--which tells us that we are very close to the terrible events that will signify "the End of the Age."

Going back to Matthew's version now, we find that it contains a double-prophesy--the first is a long-term view, describing false Christs and deceiving spirits. Then Jesus launches what seems to be a short-term set of events that resemble the version we've just read in Luke's Gospel. But let's note that there is a dramatic difference between the two. In Matthew, the context demands that we interpret it as a long-term prophecy that has not yet been fulfilled. For example, verse 21 in Matthew 24 reads, "for then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall."

That description surely does not describe what happened in 70 A.D. Though the Roman historian Josephus writes that almost a million Jews were slaughtered in those years, and four millions others were dispersed into other countries, those numbers don't come close to what happened at the time of the Great Flood when all flesh was destroyed except for Noah and his family. Even in our own era, in the middle of the 20th Century, six million Jews were murdered, a third of all Jews in the world, and a hundred million gentiles were killed by Hitler, Stalin and other mass murderers of the last century.

That makes what happened in Israel back in 70 A.D. a mere shadow compared to these world tribulations and tragedies. So we are forced to conclude either (1) Jesus was a false prophet, or (2) his words in Matthew 24 foretold far future events, even as Luke 21 looked to the near future.

In Matthew 24, verse 5 reads "For many will come in my name, saying 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many." And at verse 10, we read, "And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another." Again, we find two different warnings about the same danger. Verse 5 applies to the disciples in the 1st Century, verse 10 to the years after the fall of Jerusalem, when both Christian Jews and non-Christian Jews were scattered among the nations.

In both instances, Christ warns everyone: "Let no man deceive you." In other words, he instructs all believers to check every person's words against the revealed Word of God, the Bible. Believers need to be constantly on guard against false teachings and lying deceivers. During times of great upheaval and turmoil, such as happened during the 1st Century and will surely happen again, people become desperate and yearn for comforting words, reassurance and security. This is as true in our own personal lives during hard times as it is in the affairs of nations and history.

In verse 5, Jesus cautions the disciples that many false teachers and messiahs will come in His name--"For many will come in My name, saying 'I am the Christ (or Messiah)' and will mislead many." Later, in verse 11, he states a similar thought differently--"And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many." What does He mean by false Messiahs coming in His name?

They won't necessarily say they are Jesus who has returned, or even declare they are the Jewish Messiah. Down through the centuries, many pretending Messiahs have done exactly that. One example is Judas Maccabeus in the 2nd Century B.C. who led a revolt against Assyria and rededicated the Temple, which today is celebrated by the Jewish festival of Chanukah.

And In the 1st Century A.D., Rabbi Hillel's grandson Gamaliel was touted as the likely Messiah. In the 2nd century, Shimon bar Kochbah was proclaimed the Messiah by Rabbi Akiba and many Jews believed him. They launched a revolt against Rome that killed a half million Israelites and resulted in the final scattering of the Jewish remnant, the roman renaming of Israel as "Palestine" after their hated enemies the Philistines.

In the 11th century A.D. David El Roy, a Ukrainian false Messiah, had a run for the title. Then came Shabbatai ben Zvi, a Turkish Messiah of the 17th Century who was arrested and given a choice between converting to Islam or being beheaded. Ben Zvi quickly faced Mecca, fell to his knees and became a Moslem.

Closer to our own times, disciples of the Korean Messiah Rev. Sun Yun Moon claimed the Christ/Messiah title for him. Then there's a Pakistani Messiah who is said to be hiding out in London waiting for the right moment to declare his Messianic reign. And in Brooklyn, New York, followers of Lubitscher Rabbi, Menachem Mendel Schneerson believed he was the Messiah. When Schneerson died, they waited for him to resurrect--and after four years, they’re still waiting.

For true Bible believers, however, the real threat does not come from false pretenders to the Messianic throne but from world leaders in positions of great power. These are popular charming personalities who use the political process in an effort to gain Messianic results. They promise people peace, prosperity, One-World unity and spiritual enlightenment, painting a vision of a thousand years of paradise on earth--but without the need for Jesus Christ himself to bring it in. They echo the boasts of Adolph Hitler who guaranteed a 1000-year Reich--which lasted less than ten years.

Back to Matthew 24, In Verse 6, Jesus tells us--"And you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end." Wars and rumors of wars abounded in the 1st Century, as indeed they do in our very own time. You can't read the daily newspapers without coming across the latest military clashes in Africa, Asia, the Balkans and the Middle East.

The 20th century alone saw two devastating World Wars, as well as hundreds of local conflicts, including America's dozen wars in Korea, Lebanon, Vietnam, Granada and elsewhere. Even eliminating World Wars 1 and 2, since 1945 there have been more wars fought than ever before in all recorded history. In 1991, Operation Desert Storm focused its military wrath on Modern Babylon (Iraq) and the Middle East, and even now Saddam Hussein of Iraq is spoiling for another round in this war.

But Jesus tells us in verse 6 "see that you are not troubled." Taken by themselves, these wars do not signal the time of His imminent return to planet Earth. During World War 1, many Christian ministers preached that the end had come and the Messiah would surely be here soon. The same thing happened in the great depression of the 1930S, and when Hitler took over Germany, many named Hitler as the final antichrist. But what did Jesus tell us? He told us not to be troubled by these wars; the end was not yet in sight.

In the first part of Verse 7, JESUS TELLS us that this warfare will INVOLVE not only among kingdoms--WHICH ARE blocks of nations allied together--but also among "nations," the Greek word ethnos--IN OTHER WORDS, among rival ethnic groups. Back in the 1st Century, tribal warfare was widespread--AND SO IT is IN OUR day.

CONSIDER EVENTS IN Yugoslavia, THE BALKANS, Croatia, Ethiopia, the Sudan and the OLD Soviet Union for proof that ethnic warfare is in full swing. AND MORE ethnic unrest IS sprouting in North America, Canadian Quebec, Mexico, in the African-American neighborhoods of the United States like the Bronx in New York and downtown Detroit, in the SPANISH Barrios of the Southwest United States like East Los Angeles and Filipino Harlem, New York, AMONG the Asian gangs of San Francisco and Los Angeles--and I'm sure you ALL have your own examples you could cite. But all this, Jesus tells us, does not yet signal the end of the age.

HE THEN goes on to describe three kinds of disasters in verse 7--famines, earthquakes, and pestilence or plagues. Let's look at those. In Africa alone, some six million people have starved to death in the past few years. In the Middle East, the Kurds of Iraq and Iraqi Sunni tribes have horrendous starvation rates, and today, ONCE MIGHTY Russia is begging western nations for wheat and barley to stave off mass starvation in Siberia and the old Soviet republics.

How about pestilences? Medical experts TELL US that more Iraqis and Bangladeshis perished from the disease aftermath of Operation Desert Storm and the Bangladesh typhoon than died as a direct result of the original disaster. In Costa Rica and Peru, a disease which has been thought conquered for centuries has been killing off tens of thousands--I SPEAK NOW OF Cholera, the black death of the Middle Ages. And in America, with all its medical technology and advanced health care, a HALF million young homosexual men have already died from THE INCURABLE DISEASE CALLED AIDS.

Finally, we come to earthquakes. While major earthquakes have occurred throughout history, NEVER BEFORE have there been so many as WE have experienced in our time. I don't need to tell you about that, since you recently WERE hit by a monster quake in the northwest that killed tens of thousands of Indian people. Of the 13 most destructive earthquakes in recorded history, ten have occurred in the 20th century and now at the start of the 21st century.

When we LOOK AT "major" quakes, SHAKERS that register six points or more on the Richter scale, between 1800 to 1896 only six such major quakes occurred. During every decade since the year 1900, there were 2 or 3 major quakes per year, and these have been growing in POWER and destructive force. From 1947 to 1956, there were 7 major quakes EACH year. From 1957 to 1966, THERE WERE 17! From 1971 to 1980, an average of 18! From 1981 to 1990, a new record of 28 per year! And as we closed out the last decade of the 20th century, more than 100 of these major quakes shook the world in the SINGLE year 2000!

To underline the point, during the final decade of the 20th century, there were thirty monster quakes including shakers in Costa Rica, Panama, Soviet Georgia, Alaska, Iran, India, and a half dozen in Russia. A horrendous natural disaster hit Bangladesh in 1992, typhoons and flooding that killed over a quarter million people! All this, the Lord says in verse 8, is just the "beginning of birth pangs."

What does JESUS mean by "birth pangs?" And what is being born? WELL, Just as a newborn baby is delivered in pain and suffering, so the Lord informs us that the millennial Kingdom will ARRIVE WITH much pain and suffering. Just as a woman about to give birth SUFFERS STRONGER and more painful contractions as the time NEARS, so the world ITSELF will experience more and more turmoil, destruction and suffering as the End of the Age draws to a close.

Now in Verse 9 Jesus says--"Then they will deliver you up to tribulation. They will kill you" and "hate you because of My Name." What name is He talking about? His own name, of course, the name of Jesus. Has this happened yet? Historically, we know it has happened to some degree. From the start, the Church was persecuted horribly by Rome, with Christian martyrs--most of them Jewish believers--shedding their blood to irrigate the growth of the faith.

Christians were painted with tar, hung on poles and used to light Rome's Appian Way by soldiers under Emperor Nero. And who has not read of the "Roman circuses" where Christians were herded into arenas WHERE THEY WERE torn apart by hungry lions and bears. Though these "tribulations" did take place back then, the context requires that we also see this suffering as a foretaste of what WILL happen again during the GREAT Tribulation.

Jesus tells us that "Many will fall away.. and betray one another and hate one another." Many such betrayals took place LAST Century in lands ruled by Nazi Germany and the old Soviet Union. More recently we find fierce pro-life and pro-abortion battlefields, where zealots in the name of Christ shoot abortion doctors and bomb abortion clinics, and gay rights activists from homosexual churches throw excrement at pastors and invade churches to disrupt their worship services.

In Verse 11, Jesus says "Many false prophets will arise and deceive many.." Where in verse 6, he warned of false Christs, here he speaks of something quite different, I.E. "false prophets." What is a false prophet? In Deut. 18:22, we read-- "When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him. in Jer.5:30-31 it says-- "An astonishing and horrible thing has been committed in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so.."

Is this happening today? INDEED it is! 1 Timothy 4:1 tells us very clearly--"Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons." When? In the latter times. THE APOSTLE Paul also WRITES ABOUT this departure from true faith on the part of PRETENDED believers in the DAYS JUST before the antichrist is revealed.

A most recent example from my own country involves "The Jesus Seminar," a group of seminary professors and so-called "Biblical scholars," who meet PERIODICALLY and publish their "findings" about the Bible. One of those findings STATES that certain Bible verses were never really written by the Apostles, by the Gospel writers or even ever SPOKEN by Jesus Himself:

Which verses do they choose to trash? Start with John 3:16, which many of us know by heart--"For God so loved the world--etc." How about John 14:6, WHERE JESUS SAYS--"I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through Me." Or Matthew 5:11--"Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake." THESE SELF-CLAIMED "SCHOLARS" PROCLAIM THAT Jesus never MADE ANY OF THESE STATEMENTS.

Want some other verses they dismiss? How about Mark 10:32-34-..?"Then He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them the things that would happen to Him: 'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him to the Gentiles; and they will mock Him, and scourge Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.'"

OR Mark 13:24-27-"But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars of heaven will fall, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then He will send His angels, and gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest part of earth to the farthest part of heaven" The Jesus seminar CROWD concludes that all these sayings and prophesies attributed to Jesus were never spoken by Him. THEY GIVE NO REAL EVIDENCE FOR THEIR JUDGMENTS, SIMPLY THEIR SO-CALLED "EXPERT OPINIONS."

BUT THE SCRIPTURES THEMSELVES CONFIRM JESUS' WORDS. Isaiah 13:9-10 SAYS--"Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, To lay the land desolate; And He will destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, And the moon will not cause its light to shine".

In Mark 13, Jesus was simply restating Isaiah's prophecy regarding the END of the Tribulation, the terrible time called the "Day of the Lord." Why shouldn't any rabbi of the FIRST CENTURY, including Rabbi Jesus, have logically been able to quote a well-known prophetic verse? Let alone Jesus, THE MIRACLE WORKING Son of God? Yet these so-called "Biblical scholars" reject these verses as "inauthentic!" Were they there as eye-and-ear witnesses? Of course not! But the Apostles were there, THEY THEMSELVES heard HIM SPEAK THESE words and THEY WROTE them down EXACTLY as they recalled them by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Today, there are many examples of churches falling away from sound doctrine. The Metropolitan Churches of Christ, along with Methodists and other denominations, teach that homosexuality is a perfectly acceptable "Christian" life style and God honors homosexual and lesbian love partners. There are LITERALLY HUNDREDS of liberal and renegade CHURCHES who believe we should not TAKE the Bible literally. WE SHOULD read the Bible as a simple guidebook of ethics and philosophy. Others may give lip service to honoring the word of god but reveal their hypocrisy by constantly shaving the truth, disobeying Christ's commands and de-valuing the cross and his redemptive shed blood.

Many denominations, seminaries and ministers totally reject the miracles of the Bible; they deny the divinity and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, and THEY MOCK the Biblical promise of Christ's physical return to earth. Peter describes these very unredeemed souls in

2 peter 3: 3-4: "… knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation."

Just recently the Presbyterian Church USA agreed to adopt rules allowing practicing homosexuals to be ordained Presbyterian ministers. They cancelled the 7th Commandment condemning adultery, and THEY rejected all restrictions against sex outside of marriage. They invented a "justice-love" test to replace God's clear statements on these matters. This "justice-love" doctrine was subsequently adopted and thereby homosexual love became clearly acceptable within another main-line church. But our omniscient God FOREKNEW all this, as we READ in 1 Timothy 4:1--"Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons"."

What other signs did Jesus give us? In Matthew 24:12, we read, "Lawlessness will increase, and the love of many will grow cold." Can you relate to that? In our modern world, crime rates are at record levels and the Courts fail to render justice. Murderers walk the street, the death penalty is deemed immoral throughout Europe and even in some American states, guilty men are constantly set free, and defying the NATION'S laws is not judged according to the scales of right and wrong but simply what quality lawyer you can afford to hire which will determine what you can get away with.

Those who HAVE COMPASSION for others and fight for the rights and welfare of people outside one's own family circle are considered fools. Even among people linked by blood, we encounter lots of selfishness and greed, and find true affection a scarce commodity.

Verse 13 of Matthew 24 tells us, "But the one who endures to the end, it is he who shall be saved." Do those who must endure during these days of tribulation believe Christians? Some teachers have interpreted this verse as warning that believers in those days need to show bravery and steadfastness during these times of trial, or their salvation will be taken away. Can that be true? Not so in the context of this chapter. Three times Peter denied he even knew Jesus, but that did not disqualify him from being used mightily in the EARLY LIFE of the Christian Church.

KEEP IN MIND HERE that JESUS was speaking NOT ONLY to His disciples but also through them, as the King of the Jews, to His own Jewish people. Seen that way, it must LIKEWISE apply to the still unbelieving remnant at the time of the end. THE Jews who HAVE RETURNED TO Israel today are still in a state of unbelief. The majority is worldly and secular, and they even view their own Jewish Bible believers as lunatics and fanatics. Yet this, too, is exactly as it had been prophesied.

MOST OF US ARE familiar with Micah 5:2, the prophesy that NAMES The very small town WHERE the Messiah would be born. Less well known in this prophesy is verse 3--"Therefore He (the Messiah) shall give them up, until the time that she who is in labor has given birth; Then the remnant of His brethren shall return to the children of Israel." The child to be born is, in this metaphor, the birth of the millennial kingdom.

This same childbirth imagery is used BY Jesus in Matthew 24:8, and by Paul in 1 THESS.5: 3 to refer to the Tribulation TIMES BEFORE His Second Coming. The Micah 5:3-5 prophesy says that at that time the remnant of Israel will return to the land, and the Lord Himself will shepherd His flock and safeguard them from that time FORWARD. When IS THAT time? THE TIME OF His Millennial reign!

The turning point for Israel will come at the end of the Great Tribulation when all the nations of the world will surround Jerusalem and the Lord Himself intervenes on their behalf. Now hear what happens in Zech. 12:10-11--"It shall be in that day that I (the Lord) will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem.."

The result of that great repentance will be national salvation for Israel, as we read in Rom. 11:26--"And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

"The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob." What the Lord promises here is that all Israelites who have been kept alive during the terrible destruction of the Tribulation period, that every one of those survivors will see Christ when He sets foot on the Mount of Olives.

They will all recognize Him by the nail-holes in his palms, and they will all mourn, they will repent and they will all become believers in the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ! What a day of rejoicing that will be, my friends! And the good news is that we will all be there to see it! Every believer who is now a part of the Body of Christ, all those who belong to Him and will be caught up to be with him when He comes for us, WE will ALL return with Him from Heaven to witness this spectacular event.

What needs to happen before that great moment? Jesus tells us in Matthew 24:14--"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come." Has this happened yet? HAS THIS KINGDOM GOSPEL BEEN PREACHED IN ALL THE WORLD? Wycliffe Associates, A ministry that translates the Bible into all conceivable languages, is now working on translations that can be read by as few as A FEW HUNDRED people speaking obscure dialects in the middle of the Amazon, African and Asian backwaters.

One of my good friends, Martha Jakway, is a Wycliffe missionary in Peru. Martha reported just a year ago that there was not one headhunter village in the remotest part of South America that does not have transistor radios broadcasting the Gospel of Jesus Christ on a daily basis. This also holds true on the continents of Africa, Asia and Arabia. Why is this important?

Because once the good news of Jesus, His atoning sacrifice on the cross and His universal redemption is offered to all the world as a witness, then there is no nation, no ethnic group and no person who can come before the throne of God and complain that they never heard the Gospel or had the chance to accept God's free gift of eternal life IN His Son.

Once the VERY last people group has been reached with the Good News of Jesus, GOD promises He will bring in HIS Kingdom on EARTH. And then as it is written, the lion will lie down with the lamb, men will beat their swords into plowshares, and no one will hurt anyone else throughout God's world. Though we're not quite there, MY FRIENDS LET ME ASSURE YOU, we are very close!

In Matthew 24, Jesus focused on Jerusalem as the centerpiece of prophetic action. In verse 15 and following, we read: "Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (whoever reads this, let him understand), then let those who are in Judea flee into the mountains.. For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor shall ever be. And unless those days had been shortened, no life will have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short."

Some expositors claim that this has already taken place in the year 70 A.D. when Titus destroyed the Temple, slaughtered a million Jews, and drove the rest out of the land. There's a big problem with that analysis, though. We've just read in Verse 14 that, "--this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached to the whole world for a witness to all nations, and then the end shall come." YET we know that even today there are still SEVERAL tribal dialects that need Bible translations.

Back in 70 A.D. when the Temple was destroyed, only a relatively few Gentiles had heard the Good News of Jesus, and there were even many Jews outside Palestine who hadn't heard it. Paul's travels took him no further away than the Grecian isles and Rome--hardly "the whole world" and "all nations." So the destruction of Jerusalem that Jesus refers to must happen at A time much later than 70 A.D. T

There has been no Jewish Temple since the year 70 A.D. nor has a Jewish nation called "Israel" existed in all those years from 135 A.D. until May 14, 1948, when Israel was miraculously resurrected by God. SO clearly the destruction Jesus describes is still ahead of us. How far ahead? Let's look at some other "signs" He gave us.

First He mentions an "abomination of desolation" that He says will trigger the outbreak of the great devastation. What in heaven's name is an "abomination of desolation?" In Daniel 11:31 we read how forces led by the antichrist--".. He shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate." That doesn't shed much light on this "abomination of desolation" business.

So again I ask, What exactly is this abomination? In Deut.17:1 God says, "You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God a bull or sheep which has any blemish or defect, for that is an abomination to the LORD your God." And in Deut18: 3, we read "And this shall be the priest's due from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether it is bull or sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder, the cheeks, and the stomach."

We see by these verses that only a few specific animals were acceptable to the Lord as sacrifices. Most other animals were merely "unacceptable." but there was a special group of animals that God had named as being ritually unclean--and these were named as "detestable" abominations by his word.

In the 2nd century B.C., the Assyrian ruler Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem by offering up a female pig on the sacrificial altar, which not only was ritually unclean but also the wrong gender. Then he compounded the Godly insult by placing a statue of the pagan god Jupiter Olympus in the holiest place. As a result of this sacrilege, God's wrath was poured out. First He punished Israel for their rebelliousness, as He sent in Syrian soldiers to slaughter Jews, rape their wives and carry their children off into captivity as slaves and concubines.

But God also punished Antiochus Epiphanes for his role in the desecration. He raised up the Maccabean clan who revolted and ultimately defeated the Syrians. The very day Antiochus received the news of the Jewish VICTORY, he was struck down by some malady and died a few days later. This "abomination of desolation" also proved to be the EVENT that FINALLY destroyed the entire Assyrian Empire.

This is the model Jesus referred to in Matthew 24:15 as the "abomination that causes desolation." It symbolized the just outpouring of God's wrath, heaped up on both the Israelites who ignored and despised His Sabbaths, festivals and Torah laws--and equally punished the heathen who arrogantly dishonored and mocked His Temple altar.

Though the Roman general Titus totally destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in 70 A.D., he never did desecrate the altar in the Holy of Holies nor did he sacrifice an unclean animal on it. So Jesus' prophesy in Matthew 24:15 CONCERNING the "abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet," must still be a future event waiting to happen.

Today, my friends, even as we reason together here, the prophetic stage has been set in place and the signs of the times revealed. The bad news of Matthew 24:21 is THAT Jesus HAS TOLD US "For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be." Two of every three persons alive during this time of tribulation will be killed--in short, of the six billion present-day inhabitants of planet earth, four billion will die.

But there is very good news that cancels out the bad--the Scriptures promise that every believing Christian will be spared, will be rescued, from the worst of these horrors. He or she will be called to safety OFF of this planet by the Lord Himself in the Rapture. TRUE BELIEVERS WILL escape this hour of terrible testing that's coming on the entire world and instead of horrors, will reap the joys of Heaven in places the Lord has already prepared for us.

So today there is just one question you and I must answer. Just as righteous Noah and his family found their salvation in the ark that lifted them safely away from the flood that destroyed everyone else, so this last generation has been given our own special Ark in the Lord Jesus Himself who will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God (1 Thessalonians 4: 16-17)--and all believers will be TAKEN UP to join Jesus in the CLOUDS OF HEAVEN.

Everyone reading this article today is doing so by DIVINE APPOINTMENT. To ANY AMONG YOU who has not yet trusted IN Jesus Christ as your OWN Lord and Savior, then LET THIS VERY MOMENT be the time of your salvation. Please close your eyes and in the quietness of your heart as you sit there, pray a little prayer.

Pray that God will reveal himself to you, confess that you are an imperfect person with flaws and that you accept the free gift of cleansing and forgiveness that Jesus paid on the cross with his blood, dying so you and I can be found acceptable before god by trusting in him.

If you prayed that little prayer with me, and did so with a sincere heart, God has already honored that appeal. Let's rejoice together that your name has been written down IN the Lamb's eternal Book of Life. And please write and tell us about your having trusted Christ, because the Bible says that if you "confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."

And we'll be glad to send you free of charge a booklet for new Christians titled "Finding Your Way." May god richly bless you.

# # # # # # #