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The Lord wants every generation to live in expectancy will know what generation is going to come up, but when it comes it's gonna come in a Holocaust is going come rapidfire and we don't know what generation that will be at even the generation that comes on is to know the exact moment. Some Christians ever since the New Testament have always lived in the eagerness of the coming of Christ talk about the end of the world and life after death. And yet, with all the talk. It's clear that the vast number of voices have only caused more confusion will today on grace to you. John MacArthur continues a series that will help clear up confusion you may have about the afterlife Bible prophecy end times events.
It's a look at Matthew 24 and what Jesus wants his followers to know about his glorious return, John has titled the series, Jesus is coming to the lesson. Now here's John. I don't know about your childhood, but my childhood was filled with lots of genies when I look back and think of myself as a child, I don't think of myself in a house I think of myself outdoors.
Maybe that's because I lived much of my life in Southern California and we used to play all kinds of outdoor games in one of the ones that we often played and you did to his hide and seek and somebody was it and everybody ran and hid in the game was sort of triggered when the person that was it said here I come with the rest ready or not you played it too wasn't a very sophisticated game, but that's the way it went. Here I come ready or not.
What that statement if referred to the Lord Jesus Christ has great and profound eschatological implication in the text in Matthew 24 that will be looking at this morning really could be titled here I come ready or not, because that's exactly what it teaches is a text that deals with the suddenness and the unexpectedness of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ were going to be looking at verses 36 through 42 of Matthew 24 now wants to remember the settings so that you understand where we are in this tremendous gospel and in the life of our Lord.
He is only a few hours now from betrayal and execution on the cross he sits on the Mount of olives sent his disciples approaching with a very important question that's on their minds and it's given us in verse three. They say tell us, when shall these things be and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the age. They have this feeling inside that the end of the age of man is very near that the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ is coming very soon. They have been led to believe that because he is, after all, the king, and he is there he has done signs and wonders to prove his kingdom, power, he has recently denounced the false religious leaders of Israel, he is cleansed out of the temple of all of the godless enterprises that were being done in that place. He has also announced that there will come soon.
A desolation of the whole temple complex, and even has pronounced the truth that he would come in glory and all of these things have led them to believe that it must be very, very soon. Look at verse 36 here's the key to the rest of that section, but on that day and hour know if no one no, not the angels of heaven, nor the son, but my father only, and with that statement, he directs their thinking to the issue of when and tells them the win is an unknown. The signs that precede the second coming have been clearly given. They are unmistakably detailed here in Matthew 24 and also in Revelation chapters 6 through 18. You can't miss those in the generation that is alive during that period will see those signs.
They will be observable signs. They will be worldwide signs.
There will be unmistakable indications of the collapse of the world and its systems as well as the universe, but the specific moment that is notice in verse 36 the day and hour are not known and we must remind ourselves that he is speaking of a day and in our Devon verse 42 watch therefore, for you know not what our what our verse 44 therefore be also ready for in such an hour as you think, not verse 50 the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looks not for him, and in an hour. He is not aware of verse 13 of chapter 25 watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man come. So he's talking about the specific moment Millicent the time period of the second coming will be known it has to be known it has to be known because of all the sequence of events, the abomination of desolation will be an historical event that tremendous worldwide conflicts, the wars, the rumors of wars, the nation rise against nation kingdom against kingdom. The famines the pestilences the descriptions of Revelation 6 to 18 where the freshwater is devastated and the saltwater is devastated and the sea is turned to blood and where the day is is set off its normal cycle and daylight is shortened and is a greater amount of darkness and all of those events that are very observable will indicate that it is the general. And the general time of the second coming, but the day and the hour will not be known that will come with suddenness in an unexpected way. The period of the tribulation very clearly indicated and we know that the coming of the Son of Man.
Verse 29 says is immediately after the tribulation. But how immediately we don't know. So we don't know exactly the day and the hour the time.
Yes, the general. Yes, now we only know that once that period has begun.
Right we don't know it now because we don't know what generation that's going to come upon it will be initiated with the rapture of the church. That hasn't happened.
And then 3 1/2 years of peace as Antichrist comes to the political rescue of the Middle Eastern country of Israel and brings them safety and starts to build his revived Roman Empire in Europe and everything's going along fine and that it's in the middle that seven year period that all this begins when he sets up the worship of himself. So, the rapture, the rise of antichrist. The birth pains.
The sign of the Son of Man does have not happened yet. We don't know what generation they will come upon it could be this generation it could happen any moment the church removed and the tribulation begins. So we don't know what generation it is but the generation that it comes upon even with all those science even with all that goes on still won't know the exact day and the exact hour when Christ is coming. That is a secret. This is not talking about the rapture. This is talking about the second coming where at the end of the tribulation here as is very obvious from verse 29.
We have passed through the time of the tribulation and the thinking of Matthew and the teaching of our Lord.
So it is a time that no one knows about. Nonetheless, verse 36 will look at some specifics. It is a day and an hour looking at, not an era, we don't know what generation will come upon what we do know this, that whatever generation it starts with.
It'll end with right that's verse 32 to 35.
The generation that sees the beginning, is go to see the end because God come so fast 3 1/2 years tribulation will be over and then a sort of an indeterminate period of time somewhere in there, the Lord will come and set up his kingdom. Immediately after the tribulation, but it will come fast but no one knows the day or the hour. The specific moment and he starts by saying no one knows and is referring there to the humans mankind natural men. They don't know they don't know it's not revealed to them.
It's also pointed up in Matthew 2513 as I read a moment ago he know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man comes, God has chosen not to reveal that specific moment and to give no specific sign of that specific moment and there's reason in his great wisdom for that if men knew the exact moment when the Lord would come. They might be godless until just short of that moment. Or even the people who were prepared might be living in panic or might be giving up thinking the time was too short life would become hopeless if you knew exactly when the Lord is going to come there could be no plans there could be no ongoing relationships. Everything would be affected dramatically by that knowledge of the Lord is chosen not to give us that knowledge, but to live every moment, expecting his coming every moment, expecting his intervention so that there is preparedness all the time. If the world knew the very moment of the coming of Christ. It would dawdle itself away thinking that in that last and final moment. It might take the steps to make things right.
Just in time and so God has not told us that so no man knows that it is hidden from men. And then he says no, not the Angels about even the Angels don't know it. The natural world does not know it and neither does the supernatural world. Now Angels are the intimates of God in Isaiah 6.
They are hovering around the throne of God, doing his bidding. In Matthew 1810 they are seen face-to-face with God in intimate communion with him.
They are very close to God. They are around the throne, they commune with him regularly to do his bidding. Furthermore, if you remember in Matthew 13. It tells us that the angels are the agents of judgment in the second coming when God reaches out to judge the world and gather men into that judgment. He senses Angels, who are the reapers, remember to gather the wheat and the tears in so angels are very involved in the judgment activity in verse 31 of our chapter were looking at now the angels are the one sent out to gather the elect as well. So though angels are the intimates of God and though they are face-to-face with God in a spiritual sense, doing his bidding, and though they are the agents of judgment and the gathering in of the godly and the ungodly.
In that time of Christ's coming. They in spite of all that do not know the exact moment God has chosen not to reveal it to them and he has his reasons I'm not privy to those reasons because Scripture doesn't reveal them, but they do not know either another better manuscripts of Matthew indicate to us that it also should be included in the text, nor the son nor the son, in Mark 1332, which is the parallel passage. It is definitely included by Mark of that day and that our North no man, no, not the Angels who are in heaven, neither the son but the father. It would be best to included here in Matthew, I think a new American Standard in the new international version.
They correctly do included Jesus as even the son of man doesn't know even I don't know. And of course this is this is created all kinds of interesting discussion. How is it that Jesus Christ who is God cannot know something. How is it that Jesus Christ was God who is omniscient, which means he knows everything. Can't know something or doesn't know something while that's I believe rather easily explained if we understand the meaning of his incarnation Jesus Christ is fully God, very God of very God's theologians used to say, very God of very God, he is God fully and totally because you can't be part God is all God.
But when he became a man, he voluntarily restricted the use of his godhood of his divine attributes. It wasn't that he laid the attributes aside. It wasn't that he set his deity aside, it was that he restricted the use of those thing he had them as instruments but chose not to pick them up and use them. So he lived as it were, with out using his omniscience. Unless the father told him to use it. We know he was omniscient on some occasions John to he says he needed not that anybody should tell them what was in the heart of a man because he knew what was in the heart of a man. There are many indications of his great knowledge of his divine knowledge, but he restricted the use of his omniscience to those things which the father desired him to know that is the design of the incarnation. When the Bible says he became a son he took upon him the form of a servant. It means that he submitted himself to that which the father wanted him to do that which the father wanted him to say and that was the father wanted him to know.
That's why in John 1515. You have a very very important verse in understanding Christ. It says this, Jesus speaking to the disciples. Henceforth I call you not servants for the servant knows not what his Lord does, but I have called you friends notice to this for all things that I have heard of my father I have made known unto you. In other words, Jesus knowledge in his incarnation was qualified by what the father had revealed to him and the father revealed things to him through Scripture. That is the Old Testament as he studied the Scripture through experience. As he walked in the world and saw the moving of the power of God and through direct revelation, but Jesus limited his knowledge to what the father chose to reveal when we didn't have to do that but he chose to do that to play the role of a servant to accomplish the redemption of mankind is a very important concept so that what it says, he humbled himself and took upon the form of a servant was made in fashion as a man, and so forth. It means that he limited the use of those attributes and if you studied for example in the passage is a deal with his early life, you will remember that it says Jesus grew in wisdom and stature. Remember in favor with God and man. He grew in wisdom you say.
How could he grow in wisdom if he was God because he grew in wisdom, in the sense that he limited his knowledge to what the father revealed to him soul as long as he lived.
The father was constantly revealing things to him so he was growing in wisdom and understand that was a self-imposed if you will, humiliation of the divine nature to accomplish your redemption in my and so as you look at them here in a sense, he is still growing in wisdom. He is still increasing in knowledge because the father has yet not revealed this to him. Now it is my own personal feeling that after the resurrection. This was revealed to that when he came out of the grave and the glory of his resurrection life.
It says in Matthew 2818 he said to his disciples of all authority is given on the me in heaven and earth and I think what that saying is nothing is missing. I have authority over all things, and then acts 17. He said this, but unto you it is not given to know the times and the seasons which my father has put in his own power and he doesn't include himself anymore. He says unto you it isn't. So it may well be that after the resurrection. His knowledge was complete. It's as if the father only revealed to him the next great event and he never revealed to him the full moment of his second coming until he had already come out of the grave and accomplish the resurrection and then the father open to him. The next event in his marvelous, marvelous work and so he says people don't know, and angels don't know and for now even I don't know to show the tremendous unexpectedness suddenness in the mystery of the moment of the coming of Jesus Christ and then at the end of verse 36, but my father only and remember he always called them father, except for one occasion when he said, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me because he was dying on the cross and separated from God.
Every other time he spoke to God he spoke to him as father. That was his favorite term for God and only is emphasized.
He's the only one who knows and of course that's why I believe that when Jesus entered into his glory. If not, immediately after his resurrection, certainly after his ascension.
He then was entered back into the fullness of that which he had before the incarnation, and this moment right now. He knows fully when that second coming moment will be, but in the midst of that incarnation that had been abandoned in favor of learning what the father would tell him, and nothing more. So we don't know that moment we don't know and that's there's a reason for that because the Lord wants every generation to live in expectancy, every generation to live. Are you ready for this word in preparedness. We don't know what generation is going to come up, but when it comes it's going to come in a holocaust that is going come rapidfire and we don't know what generation that will be in even the generation that comes on is a go to know the exact moment, so Christians ever since the New Testament have always lived in the eagerness of the coming of Christ. The Corinthians.
For example, Paul writes to them in first Corinthians 1 and says so that you come behind in no gift waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, there's a first generation church in Corinth, waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ there waiting as if he were to come in their own generation and then in Hebrews. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. The writer says in chapter 10 verse 24, 25, in much the more as you see the day approaching. As if those people who were getting that letter to the Hebrews were going to live to see the day approaching. And then in Philippians the apostle Paul writes in chapter 3 verse 20. Our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Pulses were looking up there to see if he isn't coming. Any moment in James you find the very same thing in James chapter 5 verse eight. Be patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draws near and in first Peter chapter 4 verse seven the end of all things is at hand. In first John 218. It is the last days. In Revelation 2220 behold, I come quickly. Even so, Lord Jesus is John so you see the writers even in the New Testament time were looking for the second coming of Jesus Christ.
They didn't fully understand the time that would go by. They lived in expectancy, and every generation should because every generation should live in preparedness zones that you understand what I'm driving at. That's the point if we expected any time were prepared for it anytime. God only knows when it will be God only knows when that specific moment will take place so you asked the question why is he waiting and I think I can give you an answer. The first part of that answer comes out of Revelation chapter 14 verse 15 I believe he is waiting for this reason, another angel came out of the temple.
Revelation 1415, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud that's a picture indicated to us in verse 14 of the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ sitting in heaven and the angel comes and cries of the loud voice thrust in the sickle and reap, for the time is come for the two reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe and he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth and the earth was reaped. The imagery here is very very important you plant and you take care of the planting and the grain grows to its full rightness and then you harvest and the picture here is this the Lord has waited for the ripening of evil.
He has waited for the ripening of sin and God is not going to move in in judgment on this world until the harvest is ripe until sin has run its course until it has spent its self. If you will, until all the ungodliness of the mystery of iniquity that is the evil of evil yet unrevealed.
It's hard to imagine that there could be some evil yet unrevealed is hard to imagine that in our world, but the unrevealed evil of that future time when sin runs its full rapid course will reach its apex and then the sickle will be putting on the harvest will be accomplished. So the reason God has waited for these 2000 years is first of all because he is allowing sin to run its reckless course to spend itself to ripen to the point where it will be fully, finally and forever harvest is another reason and that reason is indicated to us in Romans chapter 11 verse 25 and it says I would not brother, and that you should be ignorant of this mystery, this unrevealed truth, lest you should be wise in your own conceit, but blindness that blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles become in the fullness of the Gentiles speaks of the gathering into the church in this age and I believe another reason the Lord waits is for the gathering of the church. I believe he is waiting to gather all the saints whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life is waiting to collect the Gentiles who will forever and ever and ever. Throughout eternity, giving glory, giving praise. Give him honor give them adoration and serve him.
He is gathering together occupants for his eternal heaven to praise and glorify his name and also after the fullness of the Gentiles become in verse 26 is so all Israel will be saved. There has to be also in the future. The salvation of Israel, the Jew and Gentile together through all eternity may praise God so there's been a time going on since the first coming. We waited all this 2000 years and he is not yet come in. The reasons are twofold. One, that sin may ripen to that the that the redeemed who have been planned for his glory eternally may be brought to that eternal glory.
So it is for sin and for salvation you're listening to John MacArthur as he continues his series titled Jesus is coming. John teaches daily here on grace to you is also pastor of Grace Community Church and Chancellor of the Masters University in seminary located in the Los Angeles area.
John today you stressed that no one knows the exact timing when the second coming would happen.
Jesus said that even said during his earthly ministry that he didn't know the timing and yet that hasn't stopped people from speculating about the date effect history is strewn with examples of date setting. No Bible prophecy gurus who so far have all been wrong. What's the danger with that kind of speculation.
Well I don't I don't hear as much of that now because it hasn't gone well for the people who did it.
They had lots of folks who bought into their idea that Jesus was coming at a certain time, cults have done that even evangelical people have done that, even prophecy buffs have done that and it it has worked out really very well so they were all wrong and they always continue to be wrong and you you nailed it when you said Jesus said, no man knows the day or the hour. It's not for us to know. He said that to his disciples.
They said is this the kingdom is this it, you know, when in the first chapter of acts that he'd risen from the dead, is it now the time for the kingdom.
He said it's not for you to know what the father has in his own power in his own plan so we we can't know the specific dates we can't know the specific moment of Christ's return to set up his kingdom. But we can certainly know the details that our Lord has laid out in the book of Revelation, and those details are powerful. III believe we can know that we are approaching the end times by what we learn about the second coming from the book of Revelation we can feel ourselves getting closer and closer to the rapture of the church because we can see things that fit what is coming in the time of tribulation, the book that I've written is called the second coming, and it will help you to see those coming events preparations for which seem to be being put in place second coming book will take you through the book of Revelation and give you an understanding of what is yet to come in the world before Christ returns. It's very affordable.
It's the couple hundred pages. It's not heavy reading and it is the truth that God has revealed about his son's return. You need to know it.
You need to be prepared for it so you can order that book. The second coming through Grace to you. Yes, do order it.
This book provides straightforward in-depth explanations of what Scripture says about the Lord's return, including what Jesus himself said about it to get your copy of the book titled the second coming. Contact us today. You can call our toll-free number 855 grace or go to our website TTY.org. This book, the second coming costs $15 and shipping is free.
Order yours today. Our number again is 855 grace and our website TTY.org and while you're online. I would encourage you to get a copy of our flagship resource.
The MacArthur study Bible for years now. The study Bible has strengthened the lives of countless men and women across the world. This all in one spiritual library includes John's personal study notes below the biblical text 25,000 notes in total MacArthur study Bible is available in the new King James new American Standard and English standard versions of Scripture and to get a copy for yourself or for a loved one. You can call us today at 855 grace or go to TTY.org now for John MacArthur and the entire grace to you staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Keep in mind you can watch grace to you television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378. That's an R BTV or check your local listings for channel and times and also be here tomorrow for another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on grace to you