Signs of the Times
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A BRIEF RECAP IF YOU’VE JUST JOINED US
As Jesus leaves the temple mount for the final time in Matthew, he gives a dramatic prophecy about the coming downfall and destruction of Jerusalem. He told the Pharisees that the city would be brought under the entire weight of God’s covenantal fury that had been stored up since the murder of Abel (Matthew 23:35). He announced to them that the temple would be left in desolation (Matthew 23:38) and would be torn apart brick by brick on the day of His wrath (Matthew 24:1-2). And, all of these things He told His disciples, would occur in a single generation (Matthew 24:34), which is about forty years.
Because the disciples were horrified by this assertion, they came to Him on the Mount of Olives asking three specific questions. First, they wanted to know: When would these things occur? Second, they wanted to understand: What would be the sign of Jesus’ coming in judgment against the city? And finally, they needed to know if this would be the eschatological event that brought the Jewish age to a close (Matthew 24:3). Thus far, we have been looking at the question of when these things would occur.
Jesus told them, that as the days of Jerusalem’s destruction drew near, false messiahs would begin to appear all over Judah and would mislead many into following their violent revolutions. He also warned them that the Roman world, which had been categorized by a total cessation of war at that time, would be thrown into temporary chaos as wars and rumors of wars would break out during that forty-year period. He predicted that the earth itself, throughout the Roman world, would be thrown into chaos as earthquakes and famines would increase during that terrible generation. And, if those things were not bad enough, in the lead-up to AD 70, Christians would experience tremendous tribulations as they would be persecuted violently for their faith.
Today we continue our look at the signs of the times by looking at several additional pieces of evidence that Jesus gave that would mark this tumultuous period immediately before Jerusalem’s fall. He tells us in Matthew 24:10
10 At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. 11 Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. 12 Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. 14 This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. - Matthew 24:10-14
MANY WILL FALL AWAY
Before Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman armies, a period of increased apostasy would plague the first-century church. Jesus predicted that the combination of persecutions, false messiahs, false doctrine, and other calamities brought about in this unique period would be so severe that many would fall away from their faith and would stop walking with Him. This would be especially tempting for those who converted from Judaism since they could likely end their suffering by denying Christ. Scripture attests to the veracity of all of this.
For instance, Paul expresses shock in one of his earliest letters that so many Christians were abandoning Christ (Galatians 1:6) and going after a false Gospel (Galatians 5:4). He warned the Thessalonian church not to be deceived by any of the liars or false teachers that were busily fomenting perverted teachings in their midst because a great apostasy had to occur before the Lord would return in judgment (2 Thessalonians 2:3). He told Timothy that the Spirit expressly revealed this period of apostasy was coming (1 Timothy 4:1), where men would become spiritually shipwrecked and stray away from their Christian faith (1 Timothy 1:19-20; 6:20-21). He warned that abandoning Christ and apostolic teaching, to return back unto Judaism, would cause them to become re-enslaved to the powerless law (2 Timothy 4:10; Galatians 4:8-10) which tickled many apostates itching ears (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
Paul is not the only one who acknowledges this reality and affirms Jesus’ prophecy. Peter warns the saints not to follow the false prophets (2 Peter 2:1-3), who behave like unreasoning animals (2 Peter 2:10-15), who return to their own vomit (2 Peter 2:20-22). If they follow such men, Peter warns them that they will be carried away (2 Peter 3:17) and driven into the same eternal darkness those who are polluting them are destined for (2 Peter 2:17).
Jude, likewise, calls the apostates within the community hidden reefs that will bring tremendous ruin upon the church (Jude 12) who are called to contend for the Gospel and build themselves up on the most holy Gospel (Jude 4, 20). The author of Hebrews says that some, who had tasted the goodness of that Gospel, unforgivably decided to return back to the damnable troughs of the Jewish religion (Hebrews 6:4-8; 10:26-31). They did this instead of waiting on the judgment coming of the Lord (Hebrews 10:35-39).
The apostle John, in much the same manner, reminds his audience that everyone departing from the community of faith was not truly in the faith, to begin with (1 John 2:19), but even so, the faithful should attempt to call those who left to repentance before destruction overtakes them (1 John 5:16-17; See also James 5:19-20; Jude 22-23).
The plain and simple truth is that we are not waiting on a future apostasy to fulfill the words of Jesus in Matthew 24. That period has already occurred within the early church where countless believers made shipwreck of their faith and ran back to the manure of religion. Sadly, they would find the sacrifices and trappings of Mosaic Judaism ill-equipped to stop the judgment Christ was bringing.
MANY WILL BETRAY AND HATE ONE ANOTHER
Another sign Jesus gave was that Jewish people would hate and betray one another, which went beyond the persecutions they would inflict upon the Christians. Jesus told them elsewhere that a “brother would betray his own brother” and that family members would turn in violence upon one another in those darkest of days (Matthew 10:21-22). This fact is illustrated powerfully in the writings of many ancient historians, which we will not have time to cover extensively but will sample for just a moment.
After Jesus ascended into heaven, the nation of Judah underwent rapid political instability that drove them towards madness. From emperors like Caligula demanding that his statue be erected in the temple to Roman procurators like Gessius Florus who killed thousands of Jews in the city, simply for mocking his greed, it seemed like the Jews were being provoked toward all-out war and they were taking the bait “hook, line, and sinker”. Yet, instead of unifying together against their common enemy, factions splintered and they began attacking each other.
Josephus tells us that the land became filled with despicable tyrants, murderers, and robbers who murdered their own countrymen for more than two decades (Wars 2.12.5). After that original band of murderers was put down by Governor Felix, a new group of Jewish assassins, called the Sicarii, began slaying their own people in broad daylight for obeying the Romans (Wars 2.13.3). Another group soon began polluting the city with talks of insurrection and like the former was put down by Governor Felix (Wars 12.13.4). Still another faction began murdering anyone in the city who refused to revolt from Rome, even setting houses on fire with women and children in them (Wars 2.13.6) and plundering the corpses for sport.
Josephus reports:
“It was then common to see cities filled with dead bodies, still lying unburied, and those of old men, mixed with infants, all dead, and scattered about together; women also lay amongst them, without any covering for their nakedness: you might then see the whole province full of inexpressible calamities.” - (Wars 2.18.2)
One of the men who was famous for murdering and sedition describes that season in Judah with grisly macabre and clarity.
"I deservedly suffer for what I have done with relation to you… by slaying so many of those that were related to me… while we acted in a most wicked manner against our own nation. I will therefore die, polluted wretch as I am, by mine own hands; for it is not fit I should die by the hand of our enemies”
When he finished speaking, Josephus records his last horrid moments:
“Now when he had said this, he looked round about him upon his family with eyes of commiseration and of rage… he caught his father by his grey hairs and ran his sword through him, and after him, he did the same to his mother, who willingly received it; and after them, he did the like to his wife and children, everyone almost offering themselves to his sword… so when he had gone over all his family, he stood upon their bodies to be seen by all, and stretching out his right hand… he sheathed his entire sword into his own bowels. (Wars 2.18.4).
As the nation of Judah descended into a kind of demonic lawlessness, Nero eventually had no choice but to declare war upon the ever-devolving nation. At this point they were striking Roman soldiers openly, refusing to pay their taxes, fighting one another inside of the city, and all but inviting Rome to come and stop them. When the legions of troops showed up to Jerusalem, led by the famed general Titus Flavius Vespasianus, soon to be called emperor Vespasian, the city was so violently attacking each other that the Roman general ordered his troops to do nothing but watch the carnage. He is recorded as saying:
God is a much better general than I am and, by the way, he is handing over the Jews to the Romans without any effort on our part, he is giving our army a bloodless victory. Since our enemies are busy dying by their own hands and suffering from the worst handicap imaginable - civil war - the best thing that we can do in the circumstances is to stay as spectators instead of taking on fanatics who welcome death and are already busy murdering each other.
Whether Vespasian said this astounding quotation or not, the love of the Jews had grown so cold that murdering, pillaging, and torturing their own countrymen were not only participated in by warring factions within the city but was seen as good sport. Could there be a generation of people that more perfectly pictured the words of Jesus:
“At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold” (Matthew 24:10-12).
MANY WILL NEED TO HEAR
The final sign that we will examine is one of the most misunderstood signs that Jesus gave. He said in verse 14:
This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. - Matthew 24:14
According to Jesus, the end (for Jerusalem and its temple) will not occur until the Gospel has been declared in all the world. Since most would argue this has not happened, you may be wondering if the entire supposition I have been advancing has now been invalidated. But, before the curtain closes on my theological demise, let me say with the departed Steve Jobs: “But wait! There is just one more thing”...
While our translators have mistakenly made this text appear overly clear in the wrong direction, there is a point of language we must appreciate if we are to understand what this passage is actually saying. When Jesus says: “the whole world” He is not using the customary word (Cosmos) which means the entire planet that sits in third place from the sun. Instead, He is employing a word (Oikoumene) commonly used to describe the inhabitants of the known world, which would have been the Roman empire. He is not saying that the Gospel will be preached in every nation on planet earth before the end will come, but that it will be preached throughout the Roman world.
We know this is the way this word should have been translated because that is the way it is used elsewhere. For instance, the Roman Caesar Augustus did not call for the entire earth (Cosmos) to be registered for a tax. He was likely the most powerful man on earth, but even that would have been outside his scope to accomplish. Instead, he called upon all the people living within the boundaries of Rome (Oikoumene), who were under his jurisdiction, to submit to the registry (Luke 2:1).
Other examples of how this word was poorly translated abound. First, the early church prophet Agabus foretold that a coming famine would plague the entire Roman world (Oikoumene). He did not predict a worldwide famine (Acts 11:28). Second, the Thessaolian Jews in Acts 17:6 or the Pharisees in Acts 24 were not accusing Paul of disturbing every continent on earth (Cosmos), but they were enraged that he was disturbing people in all the towns scattered throughout the Roman world (Oikoumene).
Understanding this, it would make good sense that Jesus’ prophecy wasn’t concerning the entire planetary world. Had the Gospel needed to enter every square inch of the planet before Jerusalem would be destroyed then Jesus would be doomed as a false prophet, since Jerusalem was leveled long before the Gospel went to South Africa, Russia, Argentina, and Sri Lanka. Yet, if Jesus was referring to the inhabited Roman world, we have good evidence that this actually was accomplished before Jerusalem fell. How so?
Well, the book of Acts details the missionary journeys of Paul, who went about planting churches from town to town all throughout the Roman world before he died in AD 64. We also have Paul admitting that he and his companions accomplished this, saying:
“if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in ALL CREATION UNDER HEAVEN, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.” - Colossians 1:23
He clarifies this statement a few lines before saying:
“because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you, just as in all the WORLD also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth” - Colossians 1:5-6
In a similar fashion, Paul declares that the faith of the Roman church “is being proclaimed throughout the WHOLE WORLD (Romans 1:8), “EVERYWHERE” (2 Corinthians 2:14), “IN ALL THE NATIONS” (Romans 16:26), and “in EVERY PLACE” (1 Thessalonians 1:8). Paul is not claiming that the Gospel had penetrated the ear of everyone in the cosmos or even in the whole world. He is saying that in his lifetime, the Gospel effectively was declared throughout the Roman world, in perfect fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy.
CONCLUSION
As Jesus declared, false messiahs would arise in Judah. Wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, and persecutions would likewise break out within the empire. According to His Olivet prophecy, many confessing Christians would be tortured into apostasy, the nation of Judah would be plunged into murderous insanity, and the Gospel would be declared boldly throughout the Roman world by evangelists like Paul and his companions. All of these things happened before the legions of Rome surrounded the city of Jerusalem, which means we are not waiting on a future fulfillment, but we may rightly extol the glory of Christ for this magnificent prophecy that was perfectly fulfilled in a single generation just like He said.
I hope you have been blessed by this series on eschatology and have been challenged to give this topic a fresh look. Join us next week as we dive into the Abomination that causes desolation!
