We’ll be spending most of our time there. There are a lot of points to cover in your bulletin, but if you’re like the first service, they listened really slow, and we didn’t get through everything today. Okay, but I know we have Sunday school teachers that are always more than happy to see your kids come, and they’re always happy to see them go. So they don’t like me to linger too long. But we’ll get through as much as we possibly can today.
Talking about the Day of the Lord, I just want to read one verse from the book of Joel where we are focusing today: “Woe because of that day! For the day of the Lord is near and will come as devastation from the Almighty.” Once again, may we ask God’s Spirit to guide us in understanding.
Father, we thank you for your word. We ask that your Spirit would illuminate it to us, that we would understand its meaning, that you would give us hope through it, and that we would see your sovereignty in this world and understand better your plan—how you are bringing a new creation someday to make all things right. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
There should be a chart up there. Now, the theme of the book of Joel, just to catch you up to speed, is the Day of the Lord. It’s mentioned five times in three chapters. And it’s all about how God one day is going to step in and intervene in this world, especially in the nation of Israel, to bring about his eternal plan, which is a reestablishment of the good creation that he initially gave to the world.
But in the process of that, there’s going to be destruction that’s followed by deliverance; there’s going to be devastation that’s followed by restoration. We see that in the book of Joel that there are these invading locusts. But then God promises that he will restore the years that the locusts ate up. There was an invading army, but then God promised that there would be deliverance.
So it is when we talk about the Day of the Lord: God always intervenes. There is destruction and there is devastation, but the ultimate end is that all things would be made good and they would be made right. The first half of Joel has come to pass; it has been fulfilled. This is evidence that God will certainly fulfill the final three promises in the book: the promise of the Spirit, the promise of deliverance, and the promise of restoration.
I want to look at the definition for the Day of the Lord. I’ve been reading it to you each week, but I want us to just look at each of the individual words, so we understand it a little more fully today. First, I’ll read the entire definition:
“The phrase ‘Day of the Lord’ is used in the Bible to emphasize special interventions of God in human history. His victory over his enemies and his sovereignty over the universe are emphasized. The phrase is used in a non-eschatological sense when, in past times, the Lord’s authority over the world was demonstrated by his executing of judgment on Gentile nations and on Israel. The phrase is used of the future as well. The Lord will intervene in human history to judge the nations, discipline Israel, and establish his rule in the Messianic kingdom.”
First, I want you to think about special interventions. When God intervenes, it’s very evident. There are miracles, there are signs, there are wonders, there is healing, there is the casting out of demons. Things happen that are beyond the ordinary circumstances of this world.
When we talk about victory over his enemies, we know for certain that God will prevail one day. We’re not waiting to see if Satan wins or God wins. We know that God will because he promises victory over his enemies. It’s also about God’s sovereignty. And that means that God rules over everything that he has created, everything seen and everything unseen. He is able to command all those things, and he uses them however he wants.
He’s established all the laws of nature that we can’t break, but because he came up with them, he can change them and break them. We talk about non-eschatological and eschatological. Non-eschatological means that it’s in past times that God intervened in special ways, as in a Day of the Lord. But eschatological means that the future is coming when God is going to intervene in an even greater and mightier way in the end days to make things right.
Executing judgment on Gentiles and Israel. In all that he does, he is the righteous judge, and he will correct all things that are wrong. He will punish all that is evil in this world, both on his people Israel and on the Gentile nations and the Gentiles that are also part of his flock. Why does he do this?
Well, part of it is just out of discipline. It isn’t God’s intent to destroy the world and not have anything left. It’s just like a parent disciplines children. It’s because we love them, and we want to see them do better. We want to see them succeed, and we want to make things right in their life. So God uses all of the devastation and destruction and the judgment that people might come to him.
Lastly, the term “the Messianic kingdom.” Jesus will reign one day over the world from his land in Israel and from his city, Jerusalem. Now, last week we looked at how this happened in past times, the Day of the Lord. But today we’re going to be looking more at a future Day of the Lord—what is coming ahead of us.
We’re going to go to Matthew chapter 24, where Jesus talks about the coming Day of the Lord and the signs that will be there leading up to it. The Day of the Lord is spread all throughout the New Testament, just as it is in the Old Testament. We’re just going to focus on this one passage today, and then again in a couple of weeks we will look at it more.
The first thing in Matthew 24 we see is the destruction of Herod’s temple. Are we working up there? Good. Early service, we didn’t have everything up there. It reads in Matthew 24: “As Jesus left and was going out of the temple, his disciples came up and called his attention to its buildings.” This is the temple in Jesus’ day. This is the Temple Mount. It’s the temple that Herod had built.
Jesus replied to them, “Do you see all these things, all these structures, these stones and these buildings? Truly, I tell you, not one stone will be left here on another that will not be thrown down.” Well, Jesus obviously is getting the attention of the disciples here because this was the crown jewel of Jerusalem, the temple that Herod had built.
You can see in the picture that we have up above here what the structure looked like. It was this huge, flat area with the temple right in the middle. Katrina Hamel, who is a writer, did some research, and this is how she describes what that temple looked like:
“The Jewish temple of the first century was considered a sight to see. The historian Josephus described it as a mountain of snow as it glittered in the sunlight. It had gold details and huge, enormous bronze gates, celebrated for their beauty. Near the temple courts, there were large baths for purification for men and for women before they came up into the temple. Ironically, though, right next to the courts was a Roman garrison. You can see it with the towers up in the corner. This was called the Antonia with its towers. The soldiers were able to oversee everything that was going on in the courts. A Jew could not even worship the Lord that day without the overshadowing, inescapable presence of Rome.”
Many stairs would take you up a platform, also often called the Temple Mount. It was enormous—it was 1,590 ft by 1,030 ft. Inside of that, there were different walls until you got to the Holy of Holies.
Now, just for reference, if you have ever seen a United States football field that’s 160 ft wide by 360 ft long, you know what a football field looks like. You could put almost 29 of those football fields inside of this entire structure. And all of this gold, all of this glitter. The floors were all covered with colorful tiles. The temple itself was 15 stories tall, 150 ft. And here Jesus is just telling them, “This is all going to be completely torn apart.” You think he had their attention? He certainly did.
Well, what Jesus prophesied came about in 70 A.D. Josephus recorded that when Rome came to destroy the Jews, they pushed every single stone off of that platform and just left it completely flat. 1.1 million Jews were killed in that battle, and 97,000 of them were enslaved by Rome. The horrific and complete destruction of that temple, just as Jesus said, is evidence that Jesus knew what is to come. Therefore, we can be certain about his three promises that we will talk about later in Joel. The final Day of the Lord is likewise going to come about.
He goes on in verse three to say that while he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples approached him privately and said, “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what is the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” You can see the Dome of the Rock in the picture that is now where the temple was once.
We’re looking from the Mount of Olives where Jesus and his disciples would have walked. After he told them, “This is going to be destroyed,” they probably had quite a discussion on the way: “When is this going to happen? How could this happen? This is too large of a thing.” So when they came to sit down with Jesus, they asked him this question: “When will these things happen? What is the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” They realized that Jesus coming into the world was the beginning of the Messianic kingdom that God had promised in the Old Testament.
But they weren’t seeing him on the throne. They weren’t seeing him with an army. They were still grappling with, “How are these prophecies going to be fulfilled?” But they knew that they had begun, and Jesus is telling them that it will be completed. But he’s going to tell them some things that have to happen before then.
We’re going to look at those now, as many as we can today in our time. The first thing is that Jesus tells them that there are going to be deceivers and there is going to be deception.
Deceivers and deception. Jesus replied to them, “First, watch out that no one deceives you. For not a few, but many will come in my name saying, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and they will deceive many.” There’s going to be a multiplicity of people showing up saying, “That wasn’t the Christ; I’m the Messiah; I’m the one that God sent.” Jesus said that there would be many of those.
This deception that they are bringing into the world, first of all, is going to be something that is constant. There would be continually people coming into the world to say that they were the Messiah. Not only was it going to be a constant thing, but Jesus is warning them. It’s going to be a very convincing thing because there will be many people that, instead of following Jesus, will follow other leaders in this world that claim to be the Messiah and such.
It is today that we have many world religions that have a different set that have a different Messiah than the Christ. Deceivers and deception would come next. Jesus tells them that wars will come. It says, “You are going to hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see that you are not alarmed because these things must take place. But the end is not yet. For nation will rise up against nation and kingdom against kingdom.”
Have any of y’all heard of any wars? I mean, every war is supposed to be the last war, is it not? But they keep continuing on. But Jesus says, “Don’t let these things worry you.” All these events instead should stir up great anticipation in our hearts that, yes, these things are being fulfilled, as Jesus said, because his return is getting closer and closer to us.
All the wars, all the devastation, all the personal wars that we have, whether it’s with cancer or family problems, financial problems—God allows all these things because they’re supposed to bring us to him. Because it’s when things are most devastating, when things are most dire, that people do turn to the Lord as individuals and also as nations.
Some wars of men are called just wars. Other wars of men, they’re just pure evil. But none of them have ever been able to solve the problems of the world. Only God can. On that day when he returns, he will resolve all these things and bring in the new creation.
Deceivers and deception; wars. The next thing that Jesus tells us is that there are going to be famines and earthquakes. “There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these events are the beginning of labor pains.”
Jesus did not repeat himself twice; that is my fault there, so just letting you know. Are we having earthquakes today? We’re not really aware. We hear about famine in other places, but it’s severe in many whole countries in the world where people are starving. But Jesus gives this encouraging thought here, and maybe you ladies won’t think it’s so encouraging: labor pains.
When you remember that, does that sound encouraging? Were they terrible? Were they bad? I don’t know; you tell me. I didn’t go through that. But as soon as those labor pains started, no matter how bad they were, there was hope and there was joy because you knew you were about to have what? You were about to have a baby.
The nine months that you had gone through of sickness and whatever and tiredness—now these labor pains, they’re a good thing for you. Jesus is saying that’s how all these things that seem so awful should make us feel this way? Yes, Lord. These things are painful, but it should excite us because we know that you are coming soon as all these things are being fulfilled.
Famines and earthquakes. The next thing is there will be persecution and hatred from outside those that follow Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “Then they will hand you over to be persecuted, and they will kill you.” That must have been very encouraging to the disciples there on the mountain. “And then they will be hated by all nations because of my name.”
People outside the followers—people outside the Jews that followed him, people outside the Gentiles that turned to the Lord—would be against them. So it was Stephen was the first martyr. He was not only persecuted for his faith, but he was killed. It had a wonderful result, though, because as soon as Stephen was killed in Jerusalem, it was like going into a dark room at night and you turn on the light. If you have roaches, what do they do? They just all run.
The Jews that were following Jesus were fearful for their lives. When Stephen was stoned, it says in a mass exodus, they left Jerusalem, going out to the outlying areas and further away because they were afraid of being killed. But the blessed thing is that instead of hunkering down there in Jerusalem and just enjoying the fellowship with one another, they now spread the gospel as they went out into the world.
So it is even in this that persecution and hatred from outside the church is what often makes the church the most strong. It’s what makes people go out and share the gospel. Because God is the only hope for us.
Not only did he tell us that there would be persecution and hatred from outside, but he says there’s going to be betrayal and hatred from inside the church itself. Verse 10: “Many will fall away, betray one another, and hate one another.” So within the body of believers, Jesus was warning, there’s going to be a danger inside—that there are going to be people there that may not be true believers, and they’re going to end up falling away and they’re going to betray you; they’re going to hate you.
But there have also, for thousands of years, been divisions in the church where people are upset with one another; they’re angry with one another for a variety of reasons. It’s led to splits, it’s led to wars, it’s led to persecution, it’s led to reformations, divisions, and new denominations. All of these things Jesus warned would happen inside of his body of believers that were following him.
Not only did Jesus say that there would be many false messiahs that would come on the scene, but he also said there are going to be false prophets and there is going to be more and more deception. Verse 11: “Many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.” The messiahs were claiming to be the Lord; they were claiming to be the Savior. But now we have those that are speakers for these false messiahs—people that claim to be pastors, people that are Christian speakers, people that are writers, people that are evangelists—that are inside the church and outside the church that are trying to lead people astray from following the Lord.
Jesus says that you need to pay attention because they will be very convincing. That’s why it’s so important that we all understand God’s Word better and better, so that when someone comes along and deceives us, we’re able to say, “No. God’s Word says this, and what you are saying is wrong.”
When you have people that don’t know their Bible and they don’t work on developing their relationship with God, someone comes along with a bright shiny suit or good words that make you feel good, and people are deceived by them because they’re not truly preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. When that happens, the lost are kept from the true message of salvation, and even believers get involved in these movements that are not presenting the gospel correctly.
More false prophets, more deception. Verse 12: “Lawlessness will multiply.” I ask you the question today: Is our world becoming more civilized or less civilized? Just less. Lawlessness isn’t just going to grow; it’s going to multiply exponentially at every level.
We see corruption and we see sin in individuals and families, institutions, towns, businesses, even governments—the ones that we’re supposed to trust. I mean, just this past week, we have a major bank in America, and they’ve been laundering money for the drug cartels, and they knew what they were doing. Now they’re having to pay back the government billions of dollars in fines.
The whole thing is, we should be trusting these people, but we can’t because lawlessness is multiplying in our world. Drugs, abortions, murder, antisemitism, racism, human trafficking, identity theft, destruction of property, genocide—if you watch the news, there isn’t much good there. It’s about all of the terrible things that are coming from people that are lawless and not following the Lord.
But again, these are all just birth pangs. They’re painful, but they’re giving us hope that Jesus is returning soon. In verse 12, it tells us that love will diminish. “The love of many will grow cold.”
But Jesus gives this encouraging word here. He says, “But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” In other words, some people are going to give up their hope in the end. They’re going to love the Lord less because they’re going to be so discouraged by all these things. Instead of being anticipative of what is ahead, it talks about in Revelation that many are going to become lukewarm.
They’re just so-so in their relationship. If I were so-so in my relationship with my wife, she would not appreciate that very much. In the same way, God wants us to love him wholeheartedly, to be heated in our love for Him. When people become cold in their faith, they quit sharing the gospel and they neglect their love and their relationship with Jesus Christ.
Here, Jesus has given us a series of bad things, but he also gives us these promises that yes, the one who endures to the end will be saved. Even if everybody else falls away and you’re the only person left hanging on, you have the faith that Jesus will return and take you to Himself.
Verse 14: “The gospel will spread.” Jesus said that the good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Not all of the future is bleak. Missions are going out into the world.
I just want to say here that missions are extremely important. That’s why our church is involved in missions. But there is a great work that still needs to be done. If you check out the Joshua Project online, it keeps up with these statistics. It’s estimated that there are 8 billion people alive in the world today, and 3.4 billion of them live in unreached people groups that have either little or no access to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
There are 17,446 unique people groups in the world. That means they have a common culture, a common tradition, common education, common language—they’re related to one another. But 7,391 of them have not been reached with the gospel at all. That’s 42% of the world’s population has not heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We talk about the 10/40 window if you study missions. That kind of goes right through the center of the world through most of the eastern countries. All of the stands within that stripe between the— I guess it would be longitude that goes this way—is that right? Between 10 and 40, 85% of these lost people live.
Here’s your test for today. If 85% of the lost people live in this area and 15% live outside, guess what percentage of our missionaries go to where 85% of lost people are? You can show me with two or one hand. Show me with your fingers. How many? What percentage? 3.
97% of our missionaries are ministering to 15% of the world’s lost, and only 3% are ministering to 85% of the world’s lost. I’m not putting down our missionaries; that’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying there’s a great need that we need to be praying for, that we need to be supporting, and figuring out how we can get more missionaries into this part of the world.
God deserves worship from every tribe and tongue. John writes in Revelation 7:9, “After this I looked, and behold, there was a great multitude that no one could number—people from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands.”
The apostle gives us a glimpse of what worship is going to look like in heaven. The Bible clearly states that God will not be satisfied until people from every people group are represented by him in heaven. That’s why Jesus said, “Go into all the world and make disciples not of some nations, but of all nations.” Part of Jesus’ return is for us to fulfill this mandate.
Now you might say, “Well, what’s going to happen? Jesus can’t come until all of these 85% of the people are reached.” Well, his return can be imminent. He can come at any time. Because the book of Revelation says that before he finally comes, there will be 144,000 Jews that will go throughout all of the world preaching the gospel, and that there will be two prophets in Jerusalem that they can’t harm, and they will also preach the gospel.
So eventually, God will make certain that all tribes and tongues and nations hear. Before Jesus returns, the gospel will spread.
The last thing that we’re going to look at today is that the Antichrist will turn against Israel. There’s a lot of information in God’s Word about this. Let’s read what Jesus said, and I’ll try to briefly explain what we’re talking about here.
“When you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the Daniel prophet standing in the holy place, let the reader understand, then those in Judea must flee to the mountains. A man on the housetop must not come down to get things out of his house. A man in the field must not go back to his coat. Woe to pregnant women and nursing mothers in those days. Pray that your escape may not be in winter or on a Sabbath.”
He’s not talking about Lodi, Wisconsin here. He’s talking about what country? Israel. He’s talking about Jerusalem. He’s talking about a temple that is yet to be built there—a new temple for the Jews.
What he’s saying is that when it comes to the day that there is a temple there again on the mount, and there is this man that has come onto the scene—and Daniel explains that he’s going to have 10 nations under him, represented by the 10 toes, if you remember the story back then about what God is going to do—that man is going to be a world leader.
He’s going to tell Israel, “I’m going to bring peace to you,” and Israel would love to have what right now? Complete peace. This man, as a world leader, is going to promise that to them, and they’re going to love him. The world is going to follow this man at the beginning of the tribulation period.
But three and a half years in, Daniel tells us he’s going to go into the temple and he’s going to become an abomination because he’s going to say, “I’m not just a world leader, but I’m God.” At that point, three and a half years in, Jesus is telling the Jews, “You need to get out of town as fast as you can. Hopefully, you’re not pregnant.”
Because at that point, instead of the Antichrist loving the Jews, he’s going to turn against them to destroy God’s people. But again, all this is going to happen to draw people back to the Lord. When the Antichrist does this and the Jews leave, it’s going to be at that point that they finally realize that Jesus was the true Messiah.
So even in the destruction, in the devastation, and the evil in this world, God is always working to bring people back to Him. He is patient; he’s waiting for people to come to him in faith, and he’s willing to put up with all the evil in the world that more people might come to know Him.
As we end today with that, we’ll pick up again in a few weeks. We need to remember that the Day of the Lord is near, meaning it could happen at any time; it’s imminent. We need to remember that the Day of the Lord is devastating. It’s going to be terrible, worse than anything that we’ve ever seen, and it’s divine because God is involved.
But his purpose is to draw people to Him. Instead of being worried about all these things, we have faith in Jesus Christ, that He is our Lord and Savior. Then we can be like the mother that’s looking forward to the baby being born. We know that our eternity is certain with Jesus Christ, and we do that by coming to him and professing him as our Lord and Savior to others and believing that he died on the cross for our sins, that we might have eternal salvation.
As the worship team comes up to lead us today, I just ask—you can remain seated, you can stand up and sing—but this just might be a time for you to pray and examine your heart. Maybe you have fear about the end times that you need to confess to the Lord and say, “God, I’m fearful. Help me to get over this fear instead to be in anticipation of what you’re bringing.”
Or maybe you need to make your life right with the Lord today by telling him that you want to place your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Feel free to sit, feel free to stand and sing. This is a time for God to work in your heart.