Matthew 24

After having pronounced judgement on the Pharisees, and lamented over Jerusalem, Jesus finishes by prophesying that the Temple will be completely destroyed. Basically everything that God tried to build with Israel will be laid waste. And to take it one step further Jesus warned His disciples that many false teachers would arise, and that basically mankind will destroy itself - and even the earth will be in on the destruction.

Jesus went on to describe a world where, rather than having a nation and kingdom of their own, true believers will face persecution, hate, and death. Wickedness will multiply across the world, but we who have been given the gift of faith must perservere to the end. And our mission is to share the message of the gospel across the world.

Jesus then told the disciples that the things that Daniel fortold (Daniel 9-12) will come to pass. There will be great deception across the world - so that even some of those who know Jesus (the Truth) will be deceived. And we live in a world where deception is rampant. With the advent of social media the world has never been more easily decived.

People will claim to have "the inside scoop" saying that they have special knowledge and revelation about where Jesus is or when He is coming. But there will be no mistaking the true coming of Jesus because "all the tribes of the earth will mourn."

There are many terrible signs that the end is near, and every generation since Jesus ascended to heaven thought that they were living in the end times. The fact that the end has not yet come only means that things can and will get worse. But we are not to worry about it. We are to trust God, persevere to the end, and preach the gospel to the world - giving up everything that will be destroyed.

We are not told to know what is going to happen and when. We are told that nobody knows except the Father. Our concern is only to obey. We are to do the will of our Master in heaven; for His pleasure and glory. Jesus told us the things that will happen before the end so that we will not lose faith by thinking that life should be easy, convenient, and comfortable. I think Jesus's point was that we are to expect things to be hard, and be prepared to live through hard things. If anyone wants to know what is going to happen and when, the correct answer is always, "I don't know."