Sermon Tone Analysis

This morning we started the “Olivet Discourse”, which is Jesus’ sermon about His Second Coming and what is going to happen in the meantime.

We heard about a prophecy that was fulfilled with the Temple and its stones being thrown down in AD70.

Then we found out the disciples were mistaken about how things were going to turn out.

It was understandable for the Old Testament prophecies of which there are 1200 concerning the Messiah and His coming conflates His first and second advents, that is, when reading the prophecies you would not know that there are two advents as it describes them together with no separation of time.

A good example of this is found in Isaiah 61 and was quoted by Jesus in Luke 4:

Jesus stops mid way through verse 2 because that was all that related to His present ministry, His first advent.

But the second part of verse 2 relates to Jesus second advent when He returns with great might and power and judgement.

Imagine reading that before Jesus turns up the first time - you would think it is one event not two.

It is only after the resurrection and ascension that the disciples realise that there is going to be an indeterminable time difference which only God knows.

Let me repeat the one consensus among Christians: Jesus is coming back and He wins!

Before then there is going to be great troubles in what is called the ‘Tribulation’ also known in Jeremiah as ‘Jacob’s Trouble’ for it is a time of purifying the Jews for the return of Jesus but will also be a time of judgement upon the whole world in the hope that people will repent.

This is Jesus’ teaching on it but we will look at other passages of Scripture to help us along the way.

Whilst the first and second advent was prophesied 1200 times in the Old Testament there are a further 300 or so prophesies in the New relating to the second return of Jesus.

Scripture thinks that this is an important subject for it should challenge us to reach the lost and to lead holy and godly lives whilst looking forward to the time Jesus will take us to be with Him.

1. Deceptions -

So, let us turn to verse 4-5.

There will arise false Christs.

First let us look at what it says in verse 8.

Here it says that these are the beginning of birth pains.

When the waters break then there is a gradual increase in contractions and an increase is pain and and the time in between gets faster and faster and more and more painful until the actual birth takes place.

This is what we need to understand.

How do we apply this, then?

Well up until verse 14 things are slow but gradually increasing but afterwards it is one thing after another in quick succession.

Here in verses four and five we see false Christs and we know that there are a number about.

From history we know that there were a couple in the first century, one in the tenth, ten in the nineteenth, twenty in the twentieth, and there are presently fifteen popular ones alive right now.

However, over 1100 people in the last 50 years have claimed to be the Christ.

Jesus says take heed you do not get deceived.

Don’t even be curious about these people for they are deceivers.

This whole passage, though, is about the tribulation which will last for 7 years and when this starts all sorts of people are going to come out of the woodwork and say: “Hey, I’m the Saviour!” and lots of people will follow them.

And in this time it will start of slow but then there will be a flood of these people.

Why?

Before all this starts the Church will be raptured to be with Christ and celebrate the wedding feast of the lamb.

When this happens all hell will break lose on the earth for there will be nothing to hold them back.

We will not deal with this subject specifically today but it is God’s way to remove His people out of the way of judgement, look at Noah and the Ark, look at Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah.

Before judgement was meted out God made a way of escape for those who are His people.

It is because this tribulation is a time of judgement that the Church will be protected and removed from the scene.

And as soon as this happens everything will go to pot.

There will be economic collapse, social disintegration, people out of control, things happening in the world they cannot fathom and it is no wonder, then, that false messiahs will arise and claim to have answers for the world’s ills.

But there will be one who will rise to the head of the pack.

2 .

Divisions

Then in verses six and seven we find division breaks out, continual wars and rumours of wars, and kingdoms will rising against each other.

We think it has been bad here in the past with the world wars but the tribulation will set the scene for war on an unimaginable scale.

Then there is this little state of Israel.

We already know of the hatred of the Palestinians and Iran who speak openly about the destruction of Israel by pushing it into the sea.

They are in for a rude awakening for it will not happen.

And other nations are continually against Israel.

The UN, the representatives of the world, condemn Israel more often than all the other nations put together despite massacres and human rights abuses in other nations.

Israel is a hated nation and Jews are a hated race.

And antisemitism is on the rise in our own nation and helped along, dare I say, with certain politicians giving platforms to and standing alongside out and out antisemites with no condemnation of their behaviour or their words.

They would rather talk to terrorists than to other politicians who they disagree with.

No wonder people condemn pop stars or other celebrities for holding events in Israel, the only truly democratic nation in the Middle East.

Why the hatred?

Is it because God still has a plan for these people?

And I will return to this study another time by looking especially at Romans 9-11.

Now, I am not like others, who say Israel should not be criticised or governments should not be held to account.

That’s ridiculous.

These are far from perfect people for most still reject Christ, they still have the largest pride marches in the world and so on but they are truly zealous for God in many ways.

Let’s be fair in our judgements and not too quick to jump to conclusions or condemnation.

We have to remember Satan hates the Jews and that is evidential in the way he inspired Hitler and others to decimate them.

And history is going to repeat itself only it will be even worse than anything before.

All nations will hate Israel and, in time, will come to fight against Israel including present allies like America who said yesterday “we will always support Israel” this is a lie according to:

And it seems that Israel are looking for someone to lead them, they will believe a man to have been sent from God but, in fact, he will have been sent by Satan, who will make a seven year peace deal with Israel.

Unfortunately, he is the Antichrist.

They will think he is their Messiah.

He will be the leader of a unified European Empire based on the old Roman Empire.

Daniel and Revelation speak of this man who comes in underhandedly as a man of peace and so it will seem for 3 and a half years.

We read of his betrayal in

He will be a Christ imitator.

Notice he does not have any arrows just a bow yet he conquers.

He conquers the kingdoms of Europe, conquers Israel and because of it conquers the world through peace for 3.5 years.

Then through sheer brutality the next 3.5 years.

This man, this antichrist, will be Satan incarnate, filled with him, he is called the man of sin, the man of perdition, the beast, the little horn and he will be skilled in deceit.

We know, of course, that he will not be ultimate winner in all this.

He shall receive his punishment in full in due time.

But the day of the Lord will not come until Antichrist has reigned:

3. Disasters

What follows all this are a series of disasters.

The first one mentioned is famine.

Revelation chapter 6 is the parallel passage to the things Jesus says.

So in verses

We have seen famine and there has always been famine but not like what is to come.

The food supply will be 1/8th of what it was.

A loaf of bread will cost £60 in today’s money.

The so-called luxury items of oil and wine only the rich can afford to have.

Who will be able to afford to run a car, then?

The word pestilence here is disease.

There will be a pandemic.

We already know that antibiotics are being resisted by certain strains of disease so this is not a far stretch of the imagination.

In 1918 there was something called the ‘Spanish flu’ that killed up to 50m people - 1 in 3 people on the planet were infected.

What is coming is going to be a whole lot worse:

The pale horse has always been denoted as disease.

Indeed, if we say you look pale today we are saying someone doesn’t look well.

Well, this time it will not be 1 in 10 who die but 1 in 4. Today, that would make nearly 2 billion people dying as a result.

Lastly, we have earthquakes mentioned and need I remind you of 2004 and the tsunami that result from a 9.1 magnitude or the 2011 9.0 magnitude one off the coast of Japan with a 133ft (12 stories - 4 times higher than a house) high tsunami or the one in 2009 in Nepal that moved Mount Everest 3cm .

But there are worse ones to come:

Some think that this will get the earth off its rotation from the description.

But note again what it says here.

This is just the beginning.

These things are not the end but the beginning of the end.

This will cause real cataclysmic climate change.