Matthew 24

The temple was an amazing building, easily the most impressive structure in Jerusalem. Yet in the day when our Lord was preparing to die for our sins, the time for this impressive structure was coming to a close. The reason was that the entire age of the Law, the age of Old Testament Israel, was about to be fulfilled in the death of the Messiah. Here was the only Law-Keeper, but He would be cut down by God's justice that stood against us, paying our great debt to God. Though this great edifice would exist for a few more years, the entire age of the Law was essentially over in the events that took place between Passover and Pentecost that year. In that short period one age was gone forever, and a new age, an age of gathering the people of God into a new temple, a temple of people connected to the Messiah, was coming into being.

The disciples did not entirely understand about the age of the gospel. This age, in which we now live, is a time when people are being given new life in Christ through the proclamation of the cross and the resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Though souls are being made alive, bodies are still dying. This is necessary in order for the Lord's plan for the proclamation of the gospel to have time to take place. Eventually, when Christ returns, the gospel age will be over, and the fullness of the eternal resurrection age will have come. The disciples do not seem to understand that gospel age. They seem to expect that the close of the age of the Law will mean that the reign of Jesus as a resurrection King over a resurrected Jerusalem will immediately begin. They simply want to know when will be the destruction of the temple, and when will be the close of this time of mortality. They do not seem to imagine that these are two questions that have a complex answer. The temple will be destroyed in AD 70 by the Romans, but even today, Christ has not yet returned with the fullness of the resurrection age.

The Lord begins to patiently prepare them for a long period that He calls the "birth pains." The new baby that is being born is the resurrection temple, made up of Jews and Gentiles who are filled with the Spirit of God. But during this very long period of troubling labor pains, there will be time for kingdoms to come and go, and all kinds of natural disasters to occur, none of which are a sure sign that the return of Christ will be immediate.

During this entire period there will be trouble for the church, trouble inside from false prophets, and trouble outside from religious and political persecution. Many will fall away during these birth pains, but many others will be gathered into this new temple of people, the church. One thing is certain about this gospel age, this gospel of a coming resurrection kingdom where the Messiah reigns, must be preached as a testimony to all nations. Then, and only then, will our Lord return, and the gospel age will be over. Then the fullness of the resurrection will be here as heaven comes to earth and brings us the great delight of a renewed earth, a world of love, without any sin, but a true physical world with great beauty, order, goodness, and truth.

Before that time, something referred to in Daniel as the abomination that brings desolation, must take place. This refers to the defiling of the temple by some gross offense within her. Naturally we are not talking about something that might defile the Old Testament temple on Mount Zion. That has already happened many times. We are talking about the New Testament temple of the people of God. The coming of those who pretend to love God and His worship, but who reject Messiah and His mercy, this is an abomination in any time and place when it happens. It happened prior to the coming of Christ, and Daniel spoke of it. It happened in the first century church when those who should have embraced the Messiah, such as the Pharisees that Jesus has spoken of in the prior chapter, reject the King of Israel. It will happen again, according to the Apostle Paul in a more worldwide manifestation throughout the Lord's church, as there is a great apostasy connected to a central figure who is seductive and persuasive to many, one who looks to be worshipped in the Lord's church. One manifestation of this abomination prophesy came in the years after the ascension of Christ in the conflicts recorded in the New Testament when Jewish authorities that hated Christ and the gospel persistently persecuted the church. There will be a more global appearance of this same antichrist spirit before our Lord's return. Here we learn that our God, who knows our weakness, will cut any period of testing short, that we might have strength to continue in the faith, lest all testimony of Christ be removed from the earth.

The final coming again of our Lord will be sudden, and, for many, unexpected. The Lord is not telling us when this will happen, but He is telling us that it will not be missed. There will be no secret arrival of the Messiah again. The elect will be gathered and together with the resurrected saints who come with the angels of heaven, we will be a part of the great victory that Christ died to win. This age (a better translation choice than "generation" in verse 34), this gospel age will not pass away until all these things take place: the preaching of Christ to all nations, a long period of birth pains, a dramatic worldwide apostasy in the church centered around a particular figure, and finally the coming again of the Lord with all the host of heaven.

It is not ours to figure out exactly when Christ will return, or to suppose that we know things about the end of this age that God has not revealed. The key is to be ready for our Lord's coming at a time of His choosing. We must see the love of our King who was willing to die for our salvation. We must remember that His death was successful, and that the coming resurrection age is sure. We must live with the reality of the present heaven filling our hearts as we serve God fruitfully on the present earth, and we must not be part of any abomination in the church that rejects our only Savior, bringing death and destruction in its wake, rather than healing and life.