The End Times: Unpacking the Signs and Prophecy

Show Notes

Episode 363:
Join us in this episode of The Bible Guys as we delve into the complex and often misunderstood topic of the end times. Jeff and Chris offer a practical and heartfelt discussion on what Jesus said about the signs of His return, the destruction of the temple, and the trials humanity will face before the world's end.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Here we are, we are here, I'm here. I'm also right you ready and rare in to go? Did you? Oh? Yeah, I'm ready? All right, this is gonna be amazing. So we record three, We record five podcasts in one sitting. So this is our third podcast. So we always say hey, yesterday, but in reality, when we say yesterday, it was like five minutes. We're so, I should say more accurately, We're still here. We're still here. Yes, yes, so hey, good morning, We're good evening. Whenever you're listening. My name is Chris, He's Jeff. We're the Bible Guys. We're going to start off today with a social media minute. So getting to interact with our listeners, right is so much fun, and so let's just take this minute and give some shout outs. Here's what we have from John Ellis as I really enjoy your podcast series and it helps me with my daily confrontations and hurdles. I got a jump, oh and hurdles, I got a jump? Yes, yes, I see. Good job and very unique, very unique, very unique, I'm gonna take that as a super big compliment. That's that's on the same level as Very Special, right right special. Yeah, it feels like a Comma day and the Carvey in that. Yeah, oh my goodness, that's that's a throwback. I was gonna say, very unique sounds like and you still got your health. Yes, at least you get your health. At least you have your health. That's you know, I'm kidding, Thank you. Really super great. Okay, So number two it says, really enjoy listening each morning. So many good points that I've tried to remember and put to use during my day. Keep up the great work, says Scott w. Hey, Scott w And by the way, that's really you know, I just mentioned a moment ago. We come in, we record five in a row. Uh, sometimes we do it twice a week. I mean, it's a lot of hours. But honestly, it's it's feedback like this that really encouraged me to continue to go on, because again, we're always surprised anybody listens. Yeah, right right, But at the same time, when somebody says, hey, I really do appreciate it, it starts me off with the Bible. I try to apply, you know, for that day. That's really cool. Yeah, And I mean lately this is eating up you know, like eight hours of our week or whatever. You do. Wonder it doesn't matter, so you do it, but I think it does. So here's one from Elizabeth l It says, thank you guys so much for your podcast. It brings me so much peace, smiles, and such a humble feeling into a good day. I pray for you both so much, and thank God for you both. Heritage rocks. Heritage is the church we passor by the way, yeh, by the way, my coffee ingredients now includes cream sugar in the Bible Guy's sandwich haha, consumption of knowledge. So there you go. Oh she's referring to the to the podcast as the sandwich. Yes, that's right. That's awesome. At first I thought I was honored because I thought, does she go to a shop that as a sandwich named after us, the Bible Guy sandwich? Yeah, it'd be great. We should. We should just solicted all the shops in the are Yeah. Remember that scene and uh and Infinity Wars where they said there's there's an ice cream named after you and the Hulk says there is and he says yeah, and he goes, I prefer the Tony Stark ice cream or whatever. So anyway, so yeah, that'd be cool. The Bibble guys sandwich, we had another one. Let me let me read this one. This one's really nice too. This was posted on Apple by the way, so the Apple podcasts. I sent this to you the other day. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, says life Changing five stars. Those are the only kind of reviews we want, by the way, right right, just send us five start four star reviews. Don't go halfway three stars, right, so it's five star review says I'm just an okie who has been a faithful listener for a couple of years now. Scripture can one hundred percent change your life. Jeff and Chris do an outstanding job communicating God's word in a fun and informative way. I cannot begin to describe the impact of these guys have had on me, which has trickled down to my family, my friends, and my co workers. Chris and Jeff, if you're reading this, thank you from the bottom of my reborn heart. Thank you, right, and that amazing almost made me cry. Yeah, that's fantastic. So it's just it makes it worth it. Keep going and uh so, thank you guys so much amazing. All right, well enough of that, huh yeah, so let's go ahead and jump into none of that. Oh it's almost like when we had to compliment each other, right when we It is weird that we read compliments. Yeah, okay, so let me take a minute and say about all the people who think I'm so wonderful. Yeah, let me let me read this out loud. Chris is awesome, Chris is good looking, he's a stud. Yeah, there you go. So I haven't seen that one yet, no, no, no, so yeah, let me that one only just inside my home. My wife would say it. In fact, Liz, why don't you write in a compliment like that? That'd be great. That way, Desra can choose it, and then I could make a joke and say I could read it and then say, oh, by the way, that's from my wife. From my wife, that'd be funny. Actually, right then, Bonnie, Bonnie, if you're listening, go ahead and right went in for Jeff. I'd be pretty fun Bonnie would just say, you guys need to behave that's what bonnieould Oh hey, you know'd be really fun segment. I'll say this, and I know we got to go. I read one that says Chris is so good, look at and he's so great whatever, and I'll say it's from my wife for everydy giggles. And then you read one and it says, oh, Jeff's so graty, so awesome, and it says that's from Chad or from my mom, from your mom. Yeah, yeah, right, right, so we pulled the wool. Everybody's eyes they're expecting Bonnie, but it's somebody else, somebody else. Okay, So Matthew chapter twenty four, we're going to read these passages. Now, some of you are going to be so excited. Yeah right, Well we should all be excited, Jeff, well the way, yeah yeah yeah. But I mean there's some people that are particularly excited of all the things, of all the things that Jesus said. There's some people that are really really excited about these things. Yeah. There are a group of people who are fascinated with end times things. That's right. So what we're reading is Matthew chapter twenty four one through fifty one, Mark thirteen one through thirty seven, and Luke twenty one five through thirty eight. But not all today, not all today. So what we're gonna do is we're going to divide them into pieces. Because Jesus is ting or teaching us about being watchful for his return, right, so we're supposed to be paying attention that he's going to return, and he's telling us, now, this is what the world's going to be like when I come back. And because he takes so many verses to say it, we're just going to divide each of these passages in half and then we'll spend the next several days unpacking them. And he says many of the same things, but in a lot of the passages he says different things. So, yeah, it's interesting. Here we go. So we'll read the first twenty five verses. Is that correct? Yep? Of Matthew chapter twenty four yep. As Jesus was leaving the temple grounds, his disciples pointed out to him the various temp buildings. But he responded, you see all these buildings, I tell you the truth, they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another. Later, Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives, and his disciples came to him privately and said tell us when will all this happen? What sign will signal your return and the end of the world. Jesus told them, don't let anyone mislead you, for many will come in my name claiming I am the Messiah. They will deceive many, and you will hear of wars and threats of wars. But don't panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won't follow immediately. Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come. Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You'll be hated all over the world because you are my followers, and many will turn away from me and betray and hate each other. And many false prophets will appear and will deceive many people. Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold. But one who endures to the end will be saved. And the good news about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it, And then the end will come. The day is coming when you will see what Daniel the Prophet spoke about the sacrilegious object that causes decoration desecration standing in the holy place. Reader, pay attention. Then those in Judea must flee to the hills. A person out on the deck of a roof must not go down into the house to pack. A person out in the field must not return even to get a coat. How terrible it'll be for pregnant women and for nursing mothers in those days. And pray that your flight will not be in winter or on the sabbath, for there will be greater anguish than at any time since the world began, and it will never be so great again. In fact, unless that time a calamity is shortened. Not a single person will survive, but it'll be shortened for the sake of God's chosen ones. Then, if anyone tells you look, here is the Messiah or there he is, don't believe it. For false message, false messiahs, and false prophets will rise up, perform great signs and wonders so as to deceive, if possible, even God's ones. See I've warned you about this ahead of time. Oh yeah, see, none of this really sounds like good news. No, it's not good news. I mean I'm gonna find something else. Yeah, I'll look for something else. Yeah, let's let's uh, let's pop in a Disney movie or something good born. That's funny. Yeah me, uh, you know, it's it's it is fascinating, of course, just as every other part of the scripture and everything that Jesus says is. But you know, if somebody were to tell me, uh, you know, hey, you're gonna have children and grandchildren and you're gonna watch and see them grow and it's gonna be great, I would say, Man, I'm looking so much forward to that. But when somebody says, Okay, let let's go ahead and uh talk about all the horrible things that are in store for humanity before humanity ends, I'm not the type of personality. And again I'm not I'm not busting anybody who who gravitates towards this at all, But like there are people who are literally would spend hours a week trying to dissect current events on the news and attaching it to this, trying to figure out what bad parts of the news are attached to these predictions, which are for the most part pretty vague, right, I mean some are specific, but but you know, not what has been happening for two thousand years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, earthquakes, false messiahs for decades and decades and probably even so. Gene Mayhew was one of the elders a hair To church he's founded, helped found a couple of different Bible cologists, yeah, PhD. And he wrote a book about there were twenty something messiahs, thirty something messiahs just in Jesus' day, all claiming to be the Messiah in and around the time of Jesus. Right, I was just going to say, there's been dozens just in our lifetime. Yeah, yeah, yeah, people claiming to be the son of God. We had a guy come to hair De church who told us he's the second Son of God. Nice say. He came in to let us know just in case we were interested, in case we're just so, I'm not looking for another one. We got one, right, right, right, we got the Messiah. But yeah, yeah, it happens sometimes that people set it up. They begin to believe that they're a Messiah, or they're going to leverage their power in order to Yeah, you know, anyway, I'm not trying to be a party pooper. I'm just saying, like, uh, to try to figure out current events which are catastrophe, you know, filled or whatever, and and to just spend all your time trying to attach those things. I get it. I get the I get the motivation. The motivation is to looking forward to Jesus return, looking forward to Jesus return, and more importantly, to warn people right right, That's that's the motivation. So I get it. I get it. I'm just saying like, for me, I'm just like, ugh, it's heavy, it's heavy. Man. Well let's jump right at the beginning. Because he's at the temple right and he tells them so they say, hey, are you you see all these buildings and you said, well, let me tell you. None of these stones will be still here. So if you know Jerusalem, if you've been there before, the only thing that's still left of the temple area is what's called the Temple Mountain. It was a hill and then they flattened off. Herod had flattened it off, filled it in, and he built like a retaining wall around the hill so that the platform where the temple would be built was sturdy and stable. Yeah, So we see this today right retention walls when you have to chop into a hill. And so there's a note in here. It says next to the inner Temple, where the sacred objects were kept and sacrifices offered, there was a large area called the Court of the Gentiles, where the money changers and merchants had their booths. Outside these courts were long porches. Solomon's colonnade was one thousand, five hundred and sixty two feet long. Wow, so that's longer the football field, just as one piece. So when you get in your mind, just this one colonnade, this one walking area was one thousand, five hundred sixty two feet long, decorated with one hundred and sixty columns stretching along its nine hundred and twenty foot length. Glazing at this glory, or gazing at this glorious and massive structure that the Cyples found Jesus words about its destruction difficult to believe. But the temple was indeed destroyed only forty years later when the Roman sacked Jerusalem in eighty seventy, and Josephus describes it so, jeeves, have you ever read any of Josephus's stuff. Yeah. Yeah, So Josephus was one of the historians that tell of this time. There were others, Tacitus, Herodotus, others that wrote during these times, but Josephus describes it. And he said, talking about when Titus sacked Jerusalem and tore down the temple, he said, as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and temple. So when there's nobody else to kill, they tore it all down, right, That's what happened. You want to talk about destruction. Yeah, it was horrific. And they were so glorious. These buildings were so dominating and massively beautiful. They were beyond comprehension for you and me. Right, it's not just some nice little church building. This is a massive complex. And when the Romans were so angry at the Jews at this point in eighty seventy that when they there wasn't anybody else to kill, then they just started knocking everything down, right, It's pretty crazy. Yeah, and Jesus predicted it, And you said what happened? Yeah, And so they couldn't have fathomed it. So now today that that section of the wall that still stands is known as the whaling wall, right, and it's another term too, whaling wall, and then what else they call it something else, there's another term for it. Yeah, anyway, but the Whaling Wall is the last wall there, and you can see the different stones right, part of that retaining wall. Yes, I was there. So it's not part of the temple walls that Jesus had to be torn down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's part of the return. I'm just saying right now, it's the most sacred part. It's the only thing that it's even attached or even close to what was ancient temple. Yeah yeah, yeah, and so and so right now, if you were to go see that wall today, they take they take prayers and they write them, yeah, and they roll them up and they stick them in the cracks between the between the bricks of the of the wall of the stones. I did that, yeah, yeah, when we were there. I got a piece of paper and uh prayed for the nations and rolled it up stuck it in there. It's it's kind of a it's a meaningful thing, but you have so many they have a men's section in a women's section, and so many people just grieving over the fact that, you know, the temple is not built yet, grieving over the fact that you know, they still don't have the freedom that they're looking for and the prosperity that they're praying for, looking forward to the Messiah because they don't know that Jesus has come, you know, those kinds of things. And yeah, it's a very moving place to be. Yeah. The Western Wall, Western Wall, Yeah, that's that's what I was thinking of in my mind. Yeah, the Jewish people do not call it the whaling Wall, right, correct, So they call it the Western Wall. So then, hey, Jesez, this is sitting there in the Mount of Olives, and he's sitting exactly where Zachariah said the Messiah would sit right when he came to establish his kingdom. And this is when they begin to go So, what's going to happen at the end, Because I think they're aware that the end is coming for Jesus. He's told him several times I'm going to die. I think they're starting to wrap their heads around it. And of course, yesterday he's going off, or two days ago, he's going off telling off the Pharisees, so clearly he's about to die, right, But they also kind of have an understanding, Hey, what's it going to be like when you come back? So it's interesting they didn't believe in the resurrection entirely. They didn't understand that he rose from the dead, remember, and yet they had an idea that he would come back someday. And so I think we all tend to be a little confused with our theology. We become a little confused with we know individual details, and we have a hard time putting them all together, right. Maybe our listeners are that way. I feel that way sometimes I know all these things Bible, sometimes they have a hard time putting them together. And it feels like to me, the fact that they're asking what's going to be like when you come back? Right, means they believe he's coming back. But then they're surprised by the resurrection, which is a weird thing, right, right, because it says they didn't even remember his words, right, Like, it literally tells us that nobody understood, right, right, he predicted his own death, Beryl and resurrection, and nobody understood it until after the resurrection. Right, so we know that, right. So yeah, it's but I think maybe in these moments, maybe they were bypassing the death part of it, because because he's you know, he's speaking about things in the future as if he's you know, you know, as he's seeing the future, right, So maybe they're thinking, like, hey, you'll be there at the end of the world. You know you'll be there. Obviously you're you're going to be there because you're talking about it, right, So maybe they just sort of took the death barrel and resurrection and just put it out of their mind. Maybe. And so then he says, hey, there's going to be wars. There's going to be rumors of wars and threats of wars, and there's going to be nationalll go to war against nation, kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes, there'll be famines and earthquakes, and a lot of people who spend a lot of time reading these things are like, look how wicked America has got. Look at these wars America keeps getting themselves into. And just to be clear, God is not measuring his return by what's happening in America. Yeah, right, America didn't even exist when Jesus is talking about it. So he's not looking at how bad America is and deciding, okay, all right, they crossed the line, I'm coming back. So he's taking in the entire world globally, the whole thing becoming more and more evil, more and more devastating. And then he talks about there'll be persecution during that time, and I think we're seeing more persecution now. The twentieth century had more martyrs than any other time maybe in all of history combined up to that point, and then now here we are in the twenty first century, and it's getting rough. For I just told you a moment ago. I just received a message about one of my dear friends who is a key church plant, responsible thousands of church plants in a country where it's against the law to share the gospel, and he just got arrested today today, just just before we started this podcast. You literally read the notification and they raided his office. And I don't even know what the news is right now. But here's a young man, maybe thirty five, brilliant PhD leading thousands and thousands and thousands of people to married the f married brand new family and just recently married and he's laying it on the line and risking everything all day, every day for the sake of God's kingdom. While I'm trying to figure out ge I wonder I'm gonna have time to stop at McDonald's on the way home, right, And he's just laying it on the line all the time. And they just kicked down his doors and arrested him. I don't know anything else. I just got it. So those that kind of persecution, it's going to become more and more and more, right, so you want to see Jesus come back. That's also what you're looking forward to, is more persecution, more struggle. It's going to be really, really difficult. And then he says it would, in fact, unless that time of calamity is shortened and not a single person will survive. It's going to get that bad, yeah, right, but it will be shortened for the sake of God's chosen ones. So God's going to hold back. It won't get as bad as you think it's going to be, right, He's God will hold it back a little bit. But he tells us those things, these things not to scare us. So when we look at these things, you just read them on the surface and you don't get to the end of this chapter, and you don't get to the end of the Book of Revelation. It's scary stuff. But God doesn't tell us these things to scare us. God tells us these things to let us know he's in control. Right that God wins, and so we have to lean in, going, Hey, God's already got this worked out. He already knows, and he's coming back to rescue us from the fact that nations are going to war, from the fact that famine's happening, from the fact that all these bad things. It's not that God's making these things happen, it's the fact that they are happening. That the world is literally coming apart of it, it seems. And unless God intervenes, which he says he will. Unless God intervenes, everybody's gonna die. But instead God steps in and he's going to stop this thing. And so you wonder, why why is he waiting so long? Peter says, God's not willing that any would perish, but that all would come depends. He's not being slow in his promises, is what Peter says. He just wants everybody to have their chance. And then what as I say, we'll talk about this in one of the other ones, but here in Matthew it literally says that this isn't going to happen until everyone has had had the opportunity to hear right from every nation and every language group. I find it interesting that he says he describes famines and earthquakes, and then he says, but this is only the first part of the birth pains, with more to come, and it's hard to measure, you know, you know, decades right from our perspective, we think it's our lifetime. From where God sits, it's been two thousand years or more, and it's hard to you know, feel like maybe this is the time, this is the decade, or it could be five thousand years, who knows, right, So I told you I've been watching The Chosen, I just get done with it. And The Chosen again is it's just there's a lot of things on there where they just take liberty of trying to unpack what it could have been like, right, So it's not straight gospel, but I enjoy it very much. But in that in that episode, Jesus talks about the word soon, and so he says, soon my time will soon come. And then and then when other people use it, Jesus himself looked at his disciples and he shook his head and he laughed, and he goes, soon, he goes, there's that word again. He goes, it could mean so many things. He said, an hour a day, a week, a year, ten years. He goes, what could it mean? And I thought that's interesting, right, because even when you know, when they were talking about Jesus coming back, the disciples were convinced that it was during their lifetime. So they thought, this thing coming goes happening during their lifetime. And so here it is thousands of years later. And then those of us who are looking at the times, you know, every decade that goes by, it gets seems to get a little worse and a little worse. It's closer to the end than it's to the beginning, that's correct. So people are like, well, then you can round up right direct. So people were like, it's my lifetime, right, yeah. And then so so yesterday I went and I visited, uh somebody at the hospital, and uh it was a family that I love, and uh it was actually the granddaughter of this family that I'm friends with, and obviously I'm friends with the daughter as well and her husband. So we go to pray over this of this baby, just this infant baby, fourteen months and uh. And as I'm praying, I pray for healing and all these things, and I use the word soon, and I said, and I said, we pray that you'll heal her sooner rather than later. And I get done with my prayer, and as I'm walking out the door, I say, you know, I said, we're gonna, we're gonna hope and pray that this ceiling comes sooner rather than later. And then I thought about the chosen I thought about Jesus describing this this word soon. And I said, and I said, you know, soon, I said soon, not as in like years, And I said, not as in months. I said, I said, not even not even weeks. I said, we're gonna, we're gonna pray sooner than that. And then and she said, and the mom said, I'm in agreement with that. Yeah. Good, Yeah, Well that's it, man. So we're going to keep unpacking this. And so if we didn't talk about your favorite thing in this one, we have two more chances to do it, because we're going to read it through over the next five days or so, we're going to cover all the rest of these passages that talk about it. In the second half of this passage in Matthew, then we'll go on to a couple in Mark, and then in Luke. There you go, so we'll see you next time. I'm the Bible guys,