The Beginning of Birth Pains

Published by Stanley Pouw in 2015 · 11 January 2015

Now we come to Matthew 24 and 25 that is known as “The Olivet Discourse.” It is a sermon by our Lord Jesus Christ, delivered on the Mount of Olives. Its subject is the second coming of Christ. This is His own message about His own second coming. Jesus came to Israel to be their Redeemer, their Savior and their King. But John 1:11 says, “He came to His own and His own received Him not.”

Thirty years after He entered this world, He began His ministry by offering Himself to the people of Israel and He ended it by them rejecting Him. It’s only a couple of days now before He will be executed on a cross by the very people He came to save. He pronounced judgment on the nation Israel, judgment on the false leaders and judgment on the people who followed their deceptions.

But that pronouncement of judgment, is followed in verse 39 by these words: For I say to you, you shall not see Me till I come as Messiah and King. So on the one hand, Jesus pronounces judgment; but on the other hand He says I will be back. On the one hand, He says your house is left to you desolate, wasted; and on the other hand, He says I will return, as it were, to restore it again.

They had no idea that Christ would come and then He would go back and it would be a long period of thousands of years before He returned. That’s why the New Testament calls that a mystery which was hidden in time past. The whole church age as we know it is an unrevealed thing in the Old Testament. There’s a big gap which they did not understand.

Now go to Luke 4:16-20, “So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. 17 And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: 18 “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; 19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.” 20 Then He closed the book. (Isaiah 61:1-2)

The first time the Savior came, He came to preach. The second time He comes, He comes to judge. And so it wasn’t until the gospel unfold that we begin to see the distinction between the first and second coming. They think it’s imminent. And so Jesus has to explain to them that it isn’t, that it is yet in the future. They want to know the signs of the coming of Christ, the signs of the end of the age, and the signs that say this is coming now. And so Jesus takes them all the way to the end time.

Now, in verses 4 to 14, He describes many of the signs of the coming of Christ. People coming and saying, “I am the Christ,” and deceiving, wars and rumors of wars, nation rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom, famine, earthquake in verse 7. Verse 9, persecution and killing and hating. And then there is defection from the faith and false prophets in verse 11. And the love of many grows cold in verse 12. The gospel of the kingdom is preached in verse 14. He’s describing all kinds of signs that are going to come at the end of the age. They are signs of the coming of the Messiah.

Now notice verse 8, “All these signs are the beginning of birth pains.” It’s the Greek word for birth pains, the actual pain a woman has in bringing forth a child. Now when does birth pain occur? At conception? No. During pregnancy? No. Birth pain occurs just prior to giving birth, that’s the last thing that happens. We start monitoring the frequency of birth pains until they come in a rapid succession and then it’s time.

Now, to illustrate that look at 1 Thessalonians 5:1-2 where Paul says, “But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. 2 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.” He says you have the Olivet Discourse, you have the teaching of our Lord. Now, how does a thief in the night come? Very quietly, unexpectedly and suddenly.

And in 1 Thessalonians 5:3 he says, “For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them.” The coming of Christ and the destruction with it is sudden. Then he says, “As labor pains on a pregnant woman,” same illustration. So this is consistent with the use that Jesus has. And the way the illustration is used in 1 Thessalo-nians 5 is the way the illustration is used in Matthew 24. So when it says these are the beginning of birth pains, this has to put us at the end of time.

Now, a second indicator, is found in verse 13, “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” What is the end? He’s talking about the end of the age. Now, it has to do with people who are still alive at the end of the age, right? The troubles that come upon people who are alive at a time when they could endure to the end of the age.

Notice verse 14, another indicator, “And the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world, for a witness to all nations and then shall the end come.” So prior to the end of the age, there is going to be worldwide preaching of the gospel. There are many places in the world where the gospel is not being preached at all and has never been preached. But before the end, it will be preached in all the world.

There is another indicator in verse 15-16, “Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand), 16 “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” In other words, it’s all going to break loose when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet.

Now, what is that? Look at Daniel 9:27, “And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate.” The antichrist goes into the temple in the future Tribulation time, he desecrates the temple, he commits sacrilege in the temple where the Jews have set up their worship, and it says he does it until the final end – and that which is determined by God to be done is poured out on the desolate.

In other words, in Daniel 9:24-27, the prophet says the abomination of desolation takes place right before Christ sets up everlasting righteousness, right before final judgment and vengeance. So it has to be at the end time. So Matthew 24:15 says, “When you see the abomination of desolation, then you know you are seeing the signs of the end.”

Now notice verse 21, here is another indicator that we are looking at a future time. It says, “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” It will be the worst time in the history of the world. This has to be the end time when God’s vengeance breaks out.

Another indicator is in verse 29-30, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven.” So Christ comes immediately after the Tribulation. The Tribulation of which He speaks is the Great Tribulation of verse 21.

Finally, look at verses 32 to 34 as the last indicator, “Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. 33 So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near—at the doors! 34 Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.”

The Lord says, there’s a parable, a branch puts forth its leaves, you know summer is near. You have a fig tree, you see leaves, and you know fruit comes in the summer. In other words, it’s just a sign. So likewise, when you see all these things that He’s been talking about, a time of Tribulation like no other time in the history of the world, and all these other signs, when you see those, know that the end of the age is near.

“The sign of the Son of Man coming” in verse 30 and “this generation” in verse 34 that is alive when the signs happen, the generation that sees them all coming to pass, “will not ever pass away till all of this is fulfilled.” In other words, the fulfillment of all the time of the end is going to be seen by the people who see the signs. So the signs are reserved for the people who are going to be alive at the end time.

So now, do you understand that the whole of the Olivet Discourse is going to happen in the future? Now, that is not to say that some of the things that will happen then don’t happen now, but they will happen then at a scale and on a level and on proportions that are far beyond anything we have ever known now. We have wars now, we have earthquakes now, we have famine now, we have trouble in our world now, but nothing compared what is going to take place at the end time.

Please notice something else in these following verses; verse 6, “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars, see that you be not troubled.” Verse 9, “Then shall they afflict you and shall kill you and you shall be hated.” Verse 15, “When you therefore see the abomination of desolation.” Verse 20, “But pray that your flight be not in winter,” and so on. Somebody might say, “Well, how can this be future when He is talking to the disciples and He says you, you, you? Isn’t Jesus talking to them?”

When God picks up a prophet and transports him into a future time to speak on a future theme, he speaks directly to the people of that time. And so the use of “you” doesn’t mean that this has to be fulfilled by the people who hear Him. “You”, means whoever you are, alive in that time. This is the prophetic freedom to speak directly to the society in the future to which God has transported the prophet in the process of revelation.

And if you want to see Old Testament use of that, it’s all over the place. The prophets of the Old Testament frequently spoke directly to people who were yet to be born in the future saying to them you, you, you, though they had not even been born. For example, Isaiah 33:17-24; Isaiah 66:10-14; Zechariah 9:9; Zechariah 3:17-20, and on and on. In all of those passages the prophets speak in a direct way to people yet unborn to whom the prophecy will directly apply.

Now, having put us into the future, understanding that we’re looking at the time known as the Great Tribulation, a time in the future just before Christ comes, what are the signs of His coming? What are the signs to indicate the establishment of His kingdom? What are the signs to indicate the end of man’s age and the beginning of God’s eternal, glorious kingdom?

Well, first we need to look at verse 8. Jesus gives us the beginning of those signs, the beginning of those birth pains. Remember they start out rather slowly. If you study the book of Revelation, you see the unfolding of the seals. And six seals are unfolded and then the seventh. And bursting out of the seventh seal comes seven trumpets. And bursting out of the seventh trumpet comes seven bowls of wrath poured on the earth. We can see an increasing speed. The seals seem to go over a period of years. The trumpets, over a period perhaps of weeks, and the bowls, maybe over a period of hours or days as the birth pains are coming faster at the end.

So let us start with the Lord in the sermon looking at the beginning. And in the beginning, there will be six birth pains. Let me give you one this evening and the other five next time. The first is deception. Now, this does not mean there’s no deception today. There has always been deceiving and deception. There always have been people who come in the name of Christ, or in the name of God, to lead people astray. But not like there will be at the

end. Everything is heightened, intensified, and escalated.

So we are looking at a time when deception is at its apex. “And Jesus answered,” in verse 4, “and said to them, ‘Beware that no man lead you astray.” Don’t be deceived. There are going to be people in that period of time who are looking for answers, the world is going to begin to disintegrate, evil is going to run wild. In fact, it even tells us in verse 12, “because lawlessness shall abound.” You think it’s bad now? It will be much worse when the church is gone and the Holy Spirit, the restrainer, is not here.

And the world will fall apart. Here is a world where natural affection is gone, where social relationships are disrupted, a world that is in economic chaos. A world that is living in full sin and everything begins to collapse. And that is a world looking for leaders. And that is a world looking for saviors and deliverers, and as soon as they start crying out for those kinds of leaders, there are going to be false Messiahs. And it says in verse 5, “Many shall come in My name saying ‘I am Christ’ and shall deceive many.”

And this myriad of false Christ’s ultimately will culminate in one false Christ known as the Antichrist. He will be the ultimate demonized individual, Satan indwelt. And Daniel calls him the little horn, the willful king. And John calls him the beast. And Paul calls him son of perdition and man of sin. And he is so convincing that Daniel 9:27 says even Israel as a nation makes a covenant with him, believing him to be their deliverer. And all the nations of the world fall into his deceptions and come under his power.

In Daniel 8:23 it says, “In the latter times, the time of the kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full.” Do you know why human history waits? Do you know why God doesn’t intervene now? He’s waiting for transgression to come to its fullness. And so in that day “when the transgressors are come to the full, a king with a fierce face and understanding dark sentences shall stand up.”

What does, “understanding dark sentences” mean? He has communion with the demons and the devils of hell. He is a medium who contacts the spirits beneath. Verse 24, “And his power shall be mighty, not by his own power, and he shall destroy willfully.” It’s not his own power; it’s the power of hell. “And he shall prosper and continue and destroy the mighty and the holy people.” He will be a very effective deceiver. He uses peace, he uses negotiation to consume the world and bring them into his power.

So the beginning of the birth pains is deceit, false Christ, that’s Matthew 24. And the beginning of the Tribulation, Revelation 6, is false peace, a false rider on a white horse who is imitating the true rider on the white horse of Revelation 19 who is Christ Jesus. And so Daniel sees the same thing. In the latter time, when the transgression comes to the full, here comes this king. He brings power to himself through peace and he stands up against Christ, the true king.

This is how the end starts. It starts with this antichrist and he goes for 42 months or three and a half years, the second half of the 70th week of Daniel, that seven-year period, spoken of in Daniel 9:27. Daniel said there’s one week of tribulation, one week – it is a week of years, seven years. In the middle, this antichrist sits in great power, and for the last three and a half years.

So Jesus says, “keep your eyes open in the end that you be not deceived because there are coming false Christ’s in My name saying, ‘I am Christ,’ who will deceive many.” And it says in 2 Thessalonians 2:8, “Then shall that wicked one be revealed.” Verse 9-10, “Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders 10 and with all deceivableness in unrighteousness in them that perish.” He comes and deceives the whole world. Let’s pray.