This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to day two of our look through Matthew chapter 24.
Remember, we're looking at this Olivette Discourse, this two-chapter look by
Jesus at His return and His basic truth that you need to make sure not to
misplace your hope. You need to make sure not to be deceived by false claims,
and you need to be awake, be aware to His coming again.

Yesterday we talked about not misplacing your hope. Today I want to focus on not
being deceived, not being deceived. And Jesus, specifically, remember yesterday
we talked about don't be deceived by people, false Christ, don't be deceived by
the signs and think that something's going to happen that I haven't said is
going to happen.

When it comes to looking forward to the return of Jesus, there are three things
that are going to cause you, every time, to get the wrong answer to the question
of His return. False messiahs, wars and natural disasters, and persecution.
Jesus talks about all of them here.

He says if you listen to false messiahs, obviously you're going to get the wrong
answer. In verse 5, "Many will come in my name, claiming I am the Christ, and
they will deceive many. " Jesus says here it's going to work.

There are some false messiahs that will deceive many, because you can't see when
He's going to come again, and you can see the false messiah, and many people
will choose what they can see over what they can't see. It will fool you many,
many times. Jesus says be patient, be waiting for me.

Trust in the fact that I'm coming again. Don't buy the lie of these false
messiahs. He also says you can be fooled by world events, by wars and natural
disasters.

Verses 6 to 8, "You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that
you're not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.
Nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom.

There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the
beginning of birth pains. " Sometimes you'll hear people say, "Well, there are a
lot of wars in the world today.

Jesus has to come again, like next month. " Or, "Look at all the earthquakes
that just happened. Jesus must be coming again in just the next year.

" But listen to Jesus. He says these things are going to happen from now until
they come again. It's been happening for 2,000 years.

And he says don't be fooled. It's just the beginning. Now we do need these signs
of the fact that this world is not something you can trust in.

Sometimes things start to go well in this world. There's not a war for a while.
There hasn't been an earthquake for a while.

And we think, "Well, this world's great. Let's just go on with this world as it
is. " But then come the wars.

Then come the natural disasters. And we realize, no, this world is not meant to
last. This world one day is going to be replaced by a new heaven and a new earth
where there are no wars.

There's no earthquakes because it is not stained by sin. It's not stained by
sin. When you see these things happening, Jesus says, "It means that something
someday will happen, but not necessarily now.

Don't be fooled," he says. And he also says, "Don't be fooled by persecution. "
In verses 9 to 14.

"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you'll be
hated by all nations because of me. At that time, many will turn away from the
faith and betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and
deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most
will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached to the whole world as a
testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. " Jesus here says that
persecution is going to be happening to believers all down through the ages.
Don't let the fact that Christians are being persecuted cause you to lose hope.

It doesn't mean that Jesus isn't coming again. The truth is, whatever
persecutions we face, he is still coming again. Now, there is a phrase that he
uses here that causes some to scratch their heads.

He says, "He who stands firm to the end will be saved. " Does that mean if I
don't have perfect faith to the end, if I struggle with temptation, that somehow
I'm not going to be saved? Does this invalidate everything that Jesus taught us
about him holding us in his hand as a sheep and that nothing could snatch us out
of his hand?

No, it does not. Now, this either means that you can't be saved unless you stand
firm until the end, or, and this is what I believe it means, it means those who
are truly his will stand firm until the end. There are those, though, he says
here, and we're going to look at this a little bit later this week, who fall
away, and they fall away because they never really were his.

Now, as Jesus talks about these signs that are coming at the end of time, now he
goes into a discussion of when will this happen, that question the disciples
had? When will the fall of this temple happen? Jesus said, "Not one stone on
another," and these verses that we're going to look at now, verses 15 to 28,
there's the most disagreement about these verses and what they mean of all the
verses and what Jesus taught in this sermon on his second coming.

Some see these verses as being all about, totally about the fall of Jerusalem
and the fall of the temple in 70 AD. Some people see them as being totally about
the tribulation time that comes before Jesus returns, and the truth is, there
are strong arguments for and against both of those views, and it's possible that
Jesus is talking back and forth about both, even in the midst of these verses.
Let me read these verses for you, and then we'll take a look at them, verses 15
to 22.

So, when you see standing in the holy place, the abomination that causes
desolation, spoken out through the prophet Daniel, let the reader understand.
Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the roof of
his house go down to take anything out of the house.

Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in
those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers. Pray that your flight will
not take place in winter or on the Sabbath, for then there will be great
distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now, and never to be
equaled again.

If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of
the elect, those days will be shortened. Now, the "this" that those disciples
asked about was the fall of the temple, and there was no doubt about it, a fall
of the temple and the destruction of Jerusalem. So, this chapter, I believe, as
you read through these verses, intersperses talk of Jerusalem in 70 AD with the
return of Jesus.

This can't be only about Jerusalem, because Jesus here says that there will be
distress in those days, unequaled from now and unequaled again. Well, the
distress of the final days is going to be the greatest distress of all. So,
there is an application in 70 AD, but there's also an application here to the
end of time.

Now, these verses also can't only be about the end of time. Luke, actually, as
he talks about these verses, these statements of Jesus, reveals for us that
Jesus is talking about Jerusalem. He's talking about the Roman armies coming in.

When Jesus talks about those who flee, taking flight from the city, it wouldn't
make sense in the time of tribulation. There's nowhere to flee in the
tribulation, and Christians aren't going to need to flee. God's going to rescue
us from that time, in his way, in his timing.

In these verses, Jesus talks about something called the abomination of
desolation. What's he talking about? Well, it's from the book of Daniel.

The book of Daniel, chapter 11, verse 31, says, "His armed forces will rise up
to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. They will
set up the abomination that causes desolation. " Now, there is this little
parenthesis here that says, "Let the reader understand.

" So, we understand by this, that this letter that was written to the Christians
under the Roman persecution, "Let the reader understand," there's an idea here
that this is talking about the Roman armies. Luke says that it is the Roman
armies. Some feel that that doesn't mean just the armies, but the idols that
they carried.

But behind all of this is the fact that Jesus is talking about signs and not to
be fooled. Don't get so caught up in understanding whether this is Jerusalem or
the tribulation that you miss the main point of Jesus. Because the main point of
Jesus is not to figure out the signs.

The main point of Jesus is, don't be deceived by the signs into putting your
hope into someone else, something else. Put your hope in me. Now, we know this
is true because Jesus goes back immediately to re-emphasize that we should not
be deceived.

Beginning in verse 23, down through verse 28, "At that time, if anyone says to
you, 'Look, here is the Christ,' or 'There he is,' don't believe it. For false
Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to
deceive even the elect, if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of
time.

So, if anyone tells you, 'There he is out in the desert,' do not go out. Or,
'Here he is in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. For as lightning that comes
from the east is visible even to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of
Man.

Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather. " Now, what does
that last phrase mean? Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will
gather.

Well, the world is dying. And Jesus says as things die, there are people who
will try to take advantage of that. There are false teachers, there are liars
who will try to take advantage of that and get you to trust in them so that they
can take advantage of you.

And that's going to be their hope at the end. Jesus says, "When I return, it's
going to be obvious to everyone, like a flash of lightning. You can't miss what
it was.

So, don't be fooled by those who offer you false hope through a false teaching
about a false return of a false Christ. Don't be deceived. " That's the focus of
today.

Back in verse six, Jesus says, "See to it that you are not alarmed. Don't be
deceived by the events in the world today and the signs that you see today. And
when you're deceived, you become alarmed.

Don't be alarmed. " Now, I know in one sense there's a lot to be alarmed about
in this world today. But Jesus says, "Not for his followers.

" There are things that happen in this sinful world, wars, rumors of wars. And
we hear about them now. We hear about them real time, moment to moment, because
our world through the internet is moment to moment now.

And if you were a person who wanted to put anxiety into your life, it wouldn't
take two seconds to do it. But as a follower of Jesus Christ, you're not putting
your hope in this world. Your hope is in eternity.

Your hope is in Christ. Your hope is in this moment of his return. Your hope is
in what he's going to do for all eternity.

So, Jesus says, "As a follower, you don't have to be alarmed. You can live alert
to his return instead of being alarmed by this world. You can live with a sense
of joy and peace even in a world that's falling apart, because you're not
trusting in this world that's falling apart.

" So, as we pray today, let's ask Jesus to give us hope and peace and faith,
because the world around us needs it. They need to see it. They need to see it
in you, because they need that hope.

They need that peace. They need that faith. Our Fathers, we pray today, we pray
that even in a world where there are troubles and things are falling apart all
around us, that through your Spirit, you would cause us to live not with anxiety
and worry and alarm, but you cause us to live with faith, with hope, with trust
in you.

Help us to live that way for ourselves, for our own hearts, but also help us to
live that way so that people that are around us can see you don't have to trust
in this world. There is a God who is above and beyond this world, who's come
into this world, and we can trust in you. We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well, join us tomorrow. We're going to take a look at what Jesus had to
say about the order of events at the second coming of Jesus.

Amen.