The Signs of the Second Coming
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2015 · 18 January 2015
We are looking at Matthew 24, the great Olivet Discourse, the sermon of our Lord given to teach about His own second coming. The disciples have asked Him the questions in verse 3 that trigger this great sermon. They want to know when it is that the Messiah judge His enemies, purge Jerusalem, gather the scattered Jews and establish His kingdom.
Jesus gives the longest answer to this compared to any question asked in the New Testament. He tells them that His coming is in the future. But beginning in verse 4, Jesus says, there are some things that are going to happen before My coming. When these things begin to happen, get ready. In fact, in verse 8, He calls them the beginning of birth pains. The birth being the coming of the Messiah into His kingdom.
And so the Lord is describing what will happen in the very end, the Great Tribulation. Now, remember that the Old Testament prophets never separated out a first and second coming. And so it seemed to them that the first time the Messiah came would be the only time and He would do it all then. What they didn’t see was that there would be a first coming, then a long period of time before the second coming.
And before He comes, Jesus says, there will be these birth pains that will tell us the establishment of His kingdom is near. And there are six of them, beginning in verse 4. Number one was deception, and we looked at that this last week. There will always be people claiming to be Jesus Christ. But He’s not referring to those that are here now, He is referring to when there will be an abundance of false Messiahs who try to deliver a world in total chaos.
Now, let’s go on to the second of the signs. The second is not deception but controversy. Matthew 24:6-7, “And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, see that you be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” Global warfare, nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom. The point is that nations globally will be engaged in wars and rumors of wars.
Daniel 11 takes us all the way to the time when the Messiah is coming to set up His kingdom. And just prior to that, Daniel 11:40 says, “At the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him.” “Him” is the antichrist. In Daniel’s prophecy, the antichrist rules a great kingdom basically made up of the territory that once belonged to the old Roman Empire. He will be the king of a revived Roman Empire engulfing Europe.
And so the antichrist is a threat to the whole world. And Israel is always threatened by its Middle Eastern neighbors, so they want protection and so they make an agreement as written about in Daniel 9:27 with the antichrist. And at the time of the end, with the antichrist ruling this great confederacy with great power over the rest of the world, the king of the south starts to attack the antichrist. This is probably some kind of African coalition that pushes north. And then it says the king of the north, probably Russia is attacking towards the south as well.
So the king of the south and the king of the north all converging on the holy land, Israel. Daniel 11: 41-43 says, “And many countries shall be overthrown, but these shall escape out of his hand,” that is the hand of antichrist, “even Edom and Moab and the chief of the children of Ammon. 42 And he shall stretch forth his hand and also upon the countries and the land of Egypt shall not escape, 43 but he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver and over all the precious things of Egypt and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.”
So here the antichrist defeats all of these great powers. And then verse 44 says, “Immediate- ly tidings out of the east and again out of the north shall trouble him and he goes forth with great fury to destroy and utterly to sweep away many.” Here the antichrist after this big victory, plants the tabernacle of his palace between the seas and the holy mountain. What he does is he establishes himself as God.
But then it says in Zechariah 14:2-3, “For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. 3 Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle.” That’s exactly the way Daniel ended his prophecy. So this is all consistent from the prophets as well as from our Lord.
Now, Revelation 6 gives us even more detail as we look at wars and rumors of wars. Here you have seven seals unfolding. It’s symbolic of a will left to someone that was sealed seven times. And as God opens one seal after another, He takes back the world for Himself. The second seal opens in verse 4, “There went out another horse that was red and power was given to him that sat on it to take peace from the earth.” The false peace by the antichrist is taken from the earth so “they begin to kill one another and there was given to him a great sword.” So here you have the world beginning to kill itself.
Revelation 6:5-6, “When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see.” So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. 6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius.” He is balancing out grain under famine conditions. There is not enough food for everyone and that is the result of war.
And then we come to the fourth seal in verse 7 and verse 8 describes it, “I looked and behold, a pale horse and his name that sat on him was Death and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth.” And here is the massacre of one fourth of the population of the world. Approximately one and a half billion people are massacred in the slaughter that takes place worldwide.
Now go to Revelation 9:13-15, “Then the sixth angel sounded: And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, 14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15 So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind.” And here comes another host of demonic forces to massacre a third of the population that’s left after the original one-fourth have been slaughtered.
Verse 16, “And the number of this army of horsemen is 200 million, and I heard the number of them. And they came and they had tremendous power to kill.” Verse 18. “By these three was the third part of men killed and by fire and smoke and brimstone,” and so forth. Verse 20-21, “And the rest of the men who were not killed by these plagues repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood which neither can see nor walk, neither repented they of their murders nor their sorceries nor their fornication nor their thefts.” After all that, people still did not repent.
In Revelation 16:13, John sees “three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.” These three demonic spirits, no doubt high ranking demons are spirits of demons working miracles. Verse 16 says they are gathered to a place called Armageddon. And they come there ready to fight and there’s a holocaust of war as they battle each other. And in the midst of that battle, Christ comes and destroys them all. So Revelation, as well as the prophets of the Old Testament, support the words of our Lord.
There’s a third sign of the birth pains and it is devastation. Deception, controversy and now devastation. The middle of Matthew 24:7, “And there shall be famines and earthquakes in various places.” In addition to the false Christ’s, in addition to the worldwide massacres and the wars, there will be disasters of staggering proportions over all the whole earth. And in Luke 21:11, is added the word “pestilences.” Then he adds “fearful sights and great signs from heaven.” That’s all going to mark the end time.
See, the Lord has restrained sin. He is restraining sin for the preservation of His people, for the preservation of His earth. But when He takes that restraining back, and I believe that is concurrent with the Rapture of the true believers in church, everything begins to disintegrate. And the universe begins to fall apart. At that point, Revelation 9 says hell opens up and Satan lets loose demons that have been there through the centuries. And God allows them to do signs and wonders to deceive the world as sin runs rampant.
Now, look at Revelation 6:12, “And I beheld when He had opened the sixth seal and lo, there was a great earthquake.” Revelation 16:18, “And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth.” And verse 20-21, “Then every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. 21 And great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. And men blasphemed God.”
Now, Jesus also said it will be a time of famine. Again, look at Revelation 6:6 and here is the third seal that opens in the time of Tribulation, “And a measure of wheat for a denarius, and three measures of barley for a denarius, and see you do not hurt the oil and the wine.” A denarius is one day’s wage. A measure of wheat is a pint and a half. Famine conditions.
And the other thing that Luke 21:11 said, “And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven.” Then Matthew 24:29 says, “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.” That was also prophesied in Joel 2, repeated by Peter in his sermon in Acts 2.
So our Lord says the end time will be marked by deception, by controversy, and by devastation. Let me give you a fourth: desecration. And here we focus on believers. Now look at Matthew 24:9, “Then they shall deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you and you shall be hated of all nations for My name’s sake.” To desecrate means to treat a holy thing in an unholy way. The holy people of God will be treated unholy. There will be widespread persecution of the redeemed that exceeds all other persecutions.
So Jesus says believers in that day will be delivered up. That is a technical word often used for being arrested. In Matthew 4:12, when Jesus had heard that John the Baptist was cast into prison, it there uses a word that means to be arrested. So He says in that time, true believers are going to be arrested, afflicted and murdered. And because they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, they will be hated by the world.
Well, where do the believers come from if the church has been raptured? In Revelation 7: 9- 10 it says, “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Who are they? Verse 14: He says, “These are they who came out of the Great Tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” How did they get out of that Tribulation? They were killed for the sake of their commitment to Jesus.
Now go back to Matthew 24 and because of that desecration of the redeemed, the fifth sign is defection. Jesus turns to talk about the believing people, and He says first, there will be persecution. Look at Matthew 24:10, “And then shall many be offended and shall betray one another and shall hate one another.” They start betraying the true believers, turning them in, telling where they can be found, to be killed.
Are they real believers? Of course not. If they were real believers, they would continue in the truth. Real believers would give their life, if need be. Jesus said it in John 8:31, “If you continue in My Word, then you are My real disciple.” The true disciple is willing to suffer like his Master suffered. The Lord says in Matthew 10:32-33, “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.”
If Satan is running all over the world disguised as an angel of light, that age is going to be filled with all kinds of false religion. In Revelation 17 we see this evil, vile world religious system called the harlot, the great prostitute. It is a prostitution of religion. If the church is a bride, this is a harlot. And so there will be all kinds of religious deception flourishing as Satan does everything he can to call people away from the Lord.
Now, look at Matthew 24:12, “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many will grow cold.” Some defect because they won’t pay the price and die. Some defect because they are deceived. And some defect because they choose iniquity or “lawlessness.” It is the word that means they violate God’s law. It’s just sin so abundant that it will draw people who are moving toward the truth to back right out of it.
And then verse 13: “But he that shall endure to the end, same shall be saved.” How can you tell the saved? Because the saved don’t defect, right? They’re not going to go away because the price is too high. They’re not going to go away because they are deceived. They are not going to go away because they love evil. Endurance is always the mark of the mark of the saved. They endure to the end.
The final sign of the coming, the final beginning birth pain, is declaration. Before the Lord comes back, this has to happen. Matthew 24:14, “The gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations and then shall the end come.” In spite of persecution, defectors, false prophets, false Christ’s, demons all over the earth, in spite of all of that, the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations. And then it’s going to come, the kingdom.
How is that Gospel going to be preached? Look at Revelation 14:6, just before the bowls are poured out, just before the final birth pains issue in the kingdom, just before the final holocaust begins, “I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven,” says John. “And he had the everlasting Gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people.”
That is the fulfillment of Matthew 24:14 and it happens right before judgment. And that’s why the angel says in Revelation 14:7-8, “Fear God and give glory to Him. For the hour of His judgment is come and worship Him that made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of waters.” 8 And another angel comes behind that angel and says, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen,” man’s days are over. And then shall the end come – but not before that, says our Lord. Let us pray.